"Aye aye, sir, and g'night," Aspinall replied, and departed… after a last, reassuring set of "wubbies" for the cats.
"Start of the flood-tide," Lewrie muttered to the empty cabins, once Aspinall was gone. "Dawn's always the best time, but…"
No, according to the local tide tables, the flood-tide would be strongly making after the time of dawn shown in the ephemeris, and the top of high tide, and the slack, would not come 'til 9:55 a.m., or thereabouts, depending on Lord Boxham's iffy approval, the weather, and the state of the moon's tug. A week from then, the slack would not arrive 'til 10:03 off the Cote Sauvage, and probably ten or twelve minutes later off Royan!
Worse yet, line-of-battle ships, on a decent Westerly wind, had fifteen sea-miles to sail from the tip of Pointe de la Coubre to Royan; three hours or better before they could take up bombardment positions facing Fort St. Georges, and even if the French came down with a serious case of la chiasse-"the runs"- and scurried to the Cote Sauvage like a whole flock of beheaded chickens, they'd still have three hours to see right through the ruse.
"Unless…," Lewrie grumbled, "we turn it round on 'em. Like a 'Three-handed Jenny,' yes! Watch this hand!"
He set all his sources aside, fetched a blank sheet of paper from a drawer, opened his inkwell, and wetted a captured French steel-nib pen. "To Rear-Admiral Lord Boxham, aboard HMS Chatham (he wrote)… My Lord, allow me to lay before you a plan for an operation against the French in the Gironde the object of which will be to reduce both Fort St. Georges, and the presently unfinished battery on-"
Slam! went the Marine sentry's musket butt on the main deck oak.
"Master-at-Arms… SAH!"
"What?" Lewrie barked impatiently.
"Yer lights, sir?" Mr. Neale ventured through the closed door. "'Tis just been struck Two Bells, sir, and…"
"Workin' late, Mister Neale. I'll be careful," Lewrie promised.
"Aye aye, sir," Neale replied, sounding daunted but dubious, and Lewrie could imagine him shrugging and rolling his eyes at Burton and Ragster, and the Marine private.
"Now, bugger off," Lewrie whispered as he began to lay out his scheme. He laid the start of the letter aside for a moment, to sketch out a drawing of the plan, and begin a rough draft, on separate pages from his desk drawer. It would be a long night, so he rose and poured himself a cup of that sour and bitter, too-long-on-the-heat coffee to prompt his wits, and wishing that there was any sweet goat's milk, or that he'd kept Aspinall a bit longer. There wasn't even time to unlock his sugar, tea, and coffee caddy, so he drank it black.
Hours later, he leaned back, eyes burning and his buttocks numb. He flexed the fingers of his writing hand. Lewrie yawned widely, just as Seven Bells of the watch chimed, spaced in three quick pairs, with a short pause between each set, then a final ding that echoed on and on.
Half-past eleven? he marvelled; bugger it, I'm too tired t 'read it now. Do the final draft in the mornin', and let Padgett's fingers cramp for a change. What captains ' clerks are good for, damn 'em.
The coffee pot had simmered itself dry long ago, and he feared that Aspinall would have a real chore to scour it fresh, come morning. Lewrie fetched a cheap pewter candle holder from the pantry and lit a taper off the warming candle, then snuffed it. The swaying lanthorns over his desk were snuffed, as well, then he lit his stumbling way to the sleeping space as Savage gently rolled and bowled along.
Might not even make a lick o'sense in the mornin', he thought as he tugged off his Hessian boots, breeches, and shirt, flinging all atop his sea-chest. He pinched the candle at last, and rolled naked into the cool, damp hanging-cot's box, setting it swaying wildly for a minute or two. The upper halves of the sash windows in the transom were open, and the night was almost nippish. To get under the sheet and coverlet, though, involved displacing the cats, who had snuggled up into a ball with each other. Awakened, Toulon and Chalky assumed that it was time for a hit more adoration from a human, and even after he had rolled over on one side and punched his pillow into shape, they were damned persistent. Whose bed was it, after all?
Sleep on it, Lewrie thought, once they had settled down in the lee of his knees, and the nape of his neck, and Eight Bells, signal for the change of watch, and the start of the Middle, peacefully chimed.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Zut alors, Capitaine La… m sieur, but you mak ze grand emmerdement" Jules Papin chortled over his first tall glass of rum, "mon cul eef you do, hawn hawn! Officiers de I'Armee, you give la chiasse, 'ow you say, ze 'runs'? All Medoc, all Saintonge, is be like ze 'eadless chicken, an' soldats be march de long en large, uhm… ze backward an' forwards?"
Papin gleefully related that a demi-brigade, perhaps two thousand men, was rumoured to be on the way to re-enforce Rochefort, Marennes, and La Trem-blade. More troops, about three or four companies, had come up from Bordeaux by barge, at least as far as Meschers sur Gironde, and heavy guns with them, at least six pieces that he'd seen himself, and judged to be 12-pounders. They had all gone down the coast, afoot or upon extemporised gun-carriages, though, for he'd seen them on the coast road, a bit west of St. Palais sur Mer when he'd run a trawl near the shore; perhaps, Papin speculated idly, to set up their guns by the site of his murderous ambush, and his humiliatingly sprung trap.
There was some anger and sadness among the locals over the death of so many soldiers, no matter they weren't local boys themselves, he related; too much a reminder of what had happened, could happen to their own husbands, fathers, sons, and kinsfolk conscripted into the Army, and now very far away.
"More barges, Capitaine? Mais oui," Papin went on, eying that fresh rum bottle jealously. "Nord bank of river, to Pointe de Grave not so much, hein? Some say guns for zere are… detourner. Diverted? An' beaucoup de travailleurs… many workers ze Arme'e hire to make fort on ze point, I see go in boats do Le Verdon to Royan. I do wot go to Le Verdon, moi, for people 'oo live zere are tous les fumiers, an' ze regime des hautains salauds degueulasses!"
All of them were shits, and a bunch of stuck-up, disgusting bastards, Papin meant; Lewrie's time off the Gironde was doing wonders for his command of colloquial French, if not the drawing-room variety!
"And, what about Fort Saint Georges, M'sieur Papin?" Lewrie said as he poured the man's glass full with his own hand.
"Is open at rear, as I say before," Papin said with a sly look. "Wiz I'arsenal hid-ed in woods, an' zere is a furnace for heat ze shot in centre. T'ree wall, t'ree eighteen-pounder. Two each ze twelves on each wall, aussi… make six twelve-pounder. Six of ze six-pounder down in beach battery at foot, n 'est-cepas?"
Seven… let's say nine gunners per 12-pounder, Lewrie hurriedly speculated to himself, all but counting on his fingers for a bit; eleven for each 18-pounder, and eighteen French equivalents for powder-monkeys runnin' cartridge from their magazine. Five men on each 6-pounder, another dozen boys… say, four Lieutenants, two Captains, and a Major, and that's, uh… 'bout 150, all told.