"Goodbye, little boy-captain." Blaylock sniffed. Again, for the benefit of General Lamb, he raised his voice for a proper parting sentiment. "Have a safe and quick voyage to Port-Au-Prince."
"Thankee, sir," Lewrie said, conversationally loud as well, but dropped his voice to a whisper again as he stuck out his hand, forcing Blaylock to take it to make a decent show. "Before I go, though, you should know, sir… without grape or cannister, Proteus cannot guard the harbour tonight."
"Against what?" Blaylock asked, with a snort of derision.
"Cutting-out expeditions by L'Ouverture's men, sir. An attempt to blow you sky-high, sir."
"Oh, tosh!" Blaylock actually giggled at the very idea.
"You did not read my report about the four boats we intercepted, sir? When they saw that they could not escape us, they turned and lit their cargoes of powder, tryin' to take us with 'em. They've dozens of small boats up and down the coast, I'm bound… out of reach of the Army's trenchworks. Who knows what they'll be up to, now they have been stung so bad by naval gunfire… hmmm, sir?"
Blaylock looked as if he'd sneer for a moment, dismissing such a threat, but then went blank as he realized that it was possible, and that his precious ship was now at the point of danger.
"By God, you…!"
"Do you have your report aboard by Six Bells, sir, to accompany Sir Harold's, I b'lieve I can breast the slack of the tide and work my way out on the land-breeze. If you please, sir."
Didn't think o ' that, didya? Lewrie gloated some more; the first ship out of here's mine, carry in' your damned despatches.
"By God, I'll have your arse for this, Lewrie!"
"If you say so, sir," Lewrie rejoined, his voice dead-level and his eyes going from calm blue to steely grey. "If you say so."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Port-Au-Prince was a much more crowded harbour than when Proteus had last lain there, and this time, when sailing down the north channel past Ile de Gonaves, instead of the exotic and otherwordly cries of a myriad of brightly coloured island birds, the overlying sounds were of distant field-pieces, thumping flat and hollow, the faint crackle from musket volleys, and the brooding, menacing thud of voudoun drums.
An ancient stores ship, HMS Grampus, lay at anchor. Once a tall and proud 2nd Rate of 90 guns, she was now a tar-smeared and filthy old barge, little better than a mastless receiving ship or prison hulk, so bereft of upper masts that Proteus's people could conjure that the only way the old warrior could have gotten over from Kingston was under tow.
"Cain't see dot L'Oi-dot Songbird we took, sah," Cox'n Andrews pointed out, shading his eyes to scan the crowded harbour.
"Well, damme, I'd hoped…" Lewrie said, having counted on the prize being there, so he could get Lieutenant Catterall and Midshipman Adair back aboard to re-enforce his depleted petty officers and leaders. "Mister Coote?" he called, shrugging it off. "You'll take the cutter under Mister Elwes to Grampus, once we're anchored. Grape shot, cannister makings, and powder first, mind. We're naked without them."
Their last night at Mole Saint Nicholas, without grape or cannister, he'd paced and fretted a move by L'Ouverture's men with an armed double watch on deck, armed Marines in the fighting tops, and both eyes skinned for any suspicious shadow or drifting log in the water, worried
that his malicious warning to Captain Blaylock had been borrowing trouble for himself.
"Mister Langlie, once Mister Coote returns, begin loading. I'll be ashore, to find out what aid we may render. Or what we're to do."
"Aye, sir. Though I don't suppose they'll ask for indirect fire here," Langlie commented, taking off his hat to mop his forehead with his coat sleeve. "Our Army's too far inland for that."
"And I doubt General Maitland's staff runs to lunatics, such as our friends Wandsworth and Scaiff," Lewrie replied, softly japing him.
"That, too, sir," Langlie chuckled, turning his attention to the draw of the sails and their course. "Half a point a'weather, helmsman."
Two hours of mopping his face, swatting flies and pesky mosquitoes, dipping up water now and then from the communal bucket at General Maitland's headquarters, and Lewrie had even less of a clue as to what Proteus should do once she was re-armed.
At last, coming from a tall set of double louvred doors leading to a parlour converted to offices, he spotted a blue-and-white uniform not worn by the Royal Artillery but by a Post-Captain of his own service, and Lewrie practically pounced on him, naming himself.
"Captain Lewrie, is it?" the officer asked, once he'd spoken.
"Aye, sir."
"Nicely… of Obdurate," the officer replied, and his name fit him most appropriately. Nicely was a square older fellow with pepper-and-salt hair, still thick and wiry, a man possessed of the merriest blue eyes and a permanent tan, his countenance fixed in perpetuity in a benign half smile, as if pleased as punch with his place in the world, his lot, and the progress of all that he surveyed.
"You're senior officer present, sir, I take it. Any orders for me?" Lewrie asked. "Askin' of the Army, well…"
"You were off to patrol the north shore," Nicely mused^ fingers to his lips to recall him, before snapping his fingers as he got it.
"Aye, sir, but we put into Mole Saint Nicholas a few days ago, and shot away all our grape and cannister. Now that Grampus is here, and we may re-arm-"
"Shot it all away? Tell me," Nicely said, leading him by dint of personality down the hall towards the front doors. After he'd related the whole tale, Nicely let out a loud "Whew!" of amazement.
"Damme, but you've been a busy lad, Captain Lewrie. You have a written account? O' course you do. Give it me. That laving bowl and the bucket's fairly fresh. Avail yourself whilst I look this over."
Lewrie swabbed his face and neck once more, and ladled up a dipper of water, sipping off half and using the rest to swirl the dipper's ladle clean before slinging it on the stone steps of the commandeered mansion, where the water steamed on the hot, sun-heated stones.
"Damn! Are they trying to shift supplies east to invade Santo Domingo, the best use for your ship would be right back on the station you left!" Nicely grumbled, fanning himself with the sheaf of paper in their airless oven of a hallway. "No love for the Dons, understand, but I wouldn't wish L'Ouverture on the demons of Hell. Soon as they're in charge here, they'll be over the border quick as you can say 'knife,' and God help the Spanish, then. This… indirect fire may prove useful here in a few days. I'm afraid I must order you to stay, Lewrie."
"I understand, sir," Lewrie answered, nodding and smiling as he contemplated another visit ashore, and a rencontre with that Henriette. With a qualm, too, for this time, should he have to fire over the head of British troops, he wouldn't have Wandsworth or Scaiff to "carry the can" should things go wrong. Perhaps Captain Blaylock would get his wish after all, and he'd end up slaughtering British soldiers by error! His error! Quickly followed by a court-martial, Blaylock testifying that he'd "told him so," and…
"Excuse me, sir, but you said…" Lewrie plumbed at last. "If L'Ouverture is in charge? Of Port-Au-Prince?"
"Should have said 'when,' rather," Nicely told him, turning sombre. "Mole Saint Nicholas re-enforced with troops from Saint Marc and Gonaives… thereby ceding those little ports to L'Ouverture, do you see. Us here in their South Province and West Province concentrating forces at Port-Au-Prince and Jacmel, on the south coast. We've given up Little and Grand Goave, Arcahele just north of here…'twas that or get their garrisons massacred. L'Ouverture's unleashed his armies on us in an all-out effort, and frankly the swarthy little bugger is beating our poor Army like a cheap drum, Lewrie. Your coming here is much like 'out of the frying pan, into the fire.' "