"I don't, sir," Lewrie confessed. "I want the French shiftin' men and artillery to the Savage Coast. It's sixteen miles o' march from there to Royan, and Fort Saint Georges de Didonne, so… should the French think we're planning a large assault here," he said with a stab at the lonely, almost uninhabited forest, with its road that led to La Tremblade and Marennes, threatening the naval base of Rochefort, "then that's fewer guns and soldiers to defend the completed fort here, and the one they're buildin' here," he said, shifting his finger to St. Georges, then Pointe de Grave, which guarded the Gironde narrows.
"Ye don't wish…?" a deflated Commodore Ayscough all but babbled. "The Pointe de Grave battery is still unfinished, and, of late, we've seen fewer workers, not more, as I'd expect," Lewrie continued. "We can't see far up the Gironde, but what little we've been able to spy out reveals more barge traf-fick comin' down from Bordeaux. Were the French intent upon finishin' the Pointe de Grave battery quicker, it'd make sense for them t'hug the south bank of the river and put in at Le Verdon sur Mer, here," he said, indicating the bay, harbour, and cove, "and some have, sirs, but the bulk of what we've seen with our own eyes is barges huggin' the north bank, runnin' close ashore 'tween Meschers sur Gironde and Saint Georges. Frog-built roads," he scoffed, and the other two senior officers shrugged and rolled their eyes. And, it was a given that a brace, a dozen, sailing barges could carry more cargo than an hundred supply waggons, even if they had to employ sweeps to make headway into the wind and tides, at times, and bear everything an army needed much faster than heavy guns and waggons could trundle along bad roads.
"What we've been able to see of the French emplacements on the Savage Coast, sirs, what artillery they're entrenchin', seem heavier than the six-pounder regimental pieces we encountered. It's possible that the twelve- and eighteen-pounders meant for Pointe de Grave have been commandeered to prevent the feared landing on the Savage Coast.
"Lots of French warships incomplete at Bordeaux," he speculated. "Lots of artillery sittin' idle, as well. They will finish the Pointe de Grave battery eventually, sirs, but not any time too soon, and…," Lewrie tantalised with a sly bright-eyed smile, "for the nonce, Fort Saint Georges's twelve- and eighteen-pounders cannot close the narrows. They haven't the range, and there's a mile or better of deep, navigable river on the south bank, by Pointe de Grave and Le Verdon sur Mer, sirs. That's where I really mean to strike.
"Oh," he quibbled, "I have Erato and Argosy maintainin' a presence off the Savage Coast, sirs, with my frigate further out to sea to provide support cruisin' slow, and as close ashore as they dare go… taking soundings, sirs?"
"As if preparing the ground for ships of the line, and deeper-draught transports, aha!" Capt. Cheatham exclaimed, "twigging" to his scheme.
"I trust you've included us in this plan o' yours, Lewrie," the Commodore demanded with a pout.
"Oh, indeed, sir!" Lewrie told him. "Savage, and all the rest of the innermost blockaders, land on Pointe de Grave to demolish the unfinished battery, with as many Marines and armed sailors available from the ships of the line. It was my intention that you, sir, with Chesterfield, now with the welcome addition of Jersey, perhaps with Captain Chaxltons Lyme to re-enforce you, sail in and engage the Saint Georges fort… with additional re-enforcements of more Marines and armed sailors from the line-of-battle ships, which, I hope, will make a grand diversion, a… demonstration, on the new French batteries near the spring, and the base of the 'hook' of Point Coubre… so the French will be distracted long enough for us to destroy both emplacements on the narrows, sirs."
Capt. Cheatham was all ears to hear the nature of the various fortifications, nodding eagerly as an old cavalry mount might when the bugle notes of "Form Ranks by Squadrons" sounded.
"Just as well Lord Boxham's seventy-four gunners will only make a noisy demonstration, Captain Lewrie," Cheatham finally said. "Sand, earth, and log ramparts, built low, with gun embrasures protected with gabions, 'til ready to be run out, are almost impossible to defeat. As the palmetto log and sand fortification at Charleston, South Carolina, defeated us… Fort Moultrie, aye. When I was a lad, a lowly Lieutenant 'board a Third Rate, in the first year of the American Revolution, we sailed in, expecting to sweep all aside and take the city, one of the richest ports in America, but Fort Moultrie, constructed as it was, simply swallowed everything we fired at it for most of a day, and was mostly undamaged when we'd run out of shot and powder, and had to sail away with our tails 'tween our legs. When may we begin, sir?"
"Well…," Lewrie hedged. "That'd be up to Rear-Admiral Lord Boxham, sir, for he's not seen a bit of this yet, Captain Cheatham."
"I'll see to that, no fear," Ayscough assured them, eager for a chance to do something other than cruise and plod.
"He'll surely ask what gems of intelligence lead me to assume it'll work, Commodore Ayscough," Lewrie had to impart. "And… I still don't possess solid information. As I said in the beginning of our meeting, what I've been told is contradictory, sir."
"Ahem," Ayscough soured. "Indeed," he added, frowning; giving Lewrie the sort of look a drunken, blank-minded student who'd flubbed his walking-out recitations might get from the aforesaid hopeful tutor.
"I'm told encouraging things by one of my principal informants, sir, bleaker tidings by the other, and frankly, I'm not sure which of 'em to believe," Lewrie had to admit. "After the wooding, watering, and massacre, most of the fishermen have turned surly on us. After the second incident, surly turned to hatred, and even our ships longest on-station… Commanders Kenyon and Hogue, and our Lieutenants' commands, can't get a kind word from the Frogs who seemed the friendliest, and most informative.
"They've become uncooperative, even when it comes to selling us victuals and wines, sirs," Lewrie bemoaned. "Nothing is available, of a sudden, or if it is, the price has climbed higher than that fellow's, Montgolfier's, hot-air balloon. Best make the best of your sheep, sir, for I fear we'll not see its like anytime soon."
"And, 'til you discover which of them is truthful, your planned operation cannot be advanced, Captain Lewrie?" Capt. Cheatham asked.
"No sir, it can't," Lewrie confessed. Going even further, he also said, "Now, were one of our Foreign Office agents here, one experienced at sifting truth from fiction, and able to see through the duplicity of the French, well… frankly, I feel a tad out of my depth, Captain Cheatham."
"Well, damme," Ayscough gravelled, slumping in his chair, and profoundly disappointed by the situation; looking askance at his "star pupil," too, as if profoundly let down by him, as well.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Mine arse on a band-box, Lewrie grimly thought, all but wringing his hands in frustration; who 'd trust me t 'scheme this out?
After dining aboard HMS Chesterfield, Commodore Ayscough said in parting that he should go ahead and sketch out his plans for presentation to Rear-Admiral Lord Boxham, on the off chance that he could find a way to discern which of the fishermen was telling the truth, which to trust. For the moment, though, he didn't even know where to begin!
Lewrie sat at his desk in his day-cabin as HMS Savage groaned, creaked, and gently shuffled along under reduced sail for the night. Before him on his desk lay tide tables, ephemeris, and personal charts, now much doodled-upon, which agreed with the Sailing Master's. A pair of metal lanthorns, hung from an overhead deck beam, slowly swept back and forth, as regular as metronomes, throwing meagre pools of light on the problem before him.