"He does, Mister Durant," Lewrie admitted, tight-lipped, hands clasped behind his back. "None good, really."
"And he says he is from one of the seaside villages, yes?"
"From Le Verdon, down yonder, aye," Lewrie said, his attention fixed more on the neatness of the flemished piles of running rigging, how lines were coiled over the pins in the rails, and giving the taut stays a thump with his fist.
"Then that is very odd, Captain," Durant said with a frown on his face, "for in conversing with him, I do not hear the accent of the Medoc, nor the Sain-tonge or Aquitaine, either."
"Hmm?" Lewrie gawped, coming to a full stop to face Mr. Durant. "He's not a local, d'ye say, sir?"
"When I study in Paris to be physician, sir, I meet many young men from many provinces," Durant worriedly explained. "If one cannot speak perfect Parisian, well… one is teased, yes? My own accent of Picardy resulted in… no matter. Yet, because of this, I may swear that this M'sieur Brasseur has the accent I recall of fellows who come from Provence. This is very odd, n'est-cepas, Captain?"
"Yet he claims his family's lived by the Gironde since the time of Queen Eleanor and one of our King Henrys!" Lewrie exclaimed. "His multiple granther's s'posed to've been an English archer! Damn my eyes, if he's…!" Said he'd been in the French Navy during the American Revolution."
And what was in Provence? Lewrie furiously recalled; Marseilles , Toulon, Nice,… all of 'em French naval bases! Christ, I've been led round like a prize sheep! He's been lyin' from the start.
"You couldn't be in error, could ye, Mister Durant? All these years since…?" Lewrie pressed.
"At medical college, sir, I was known as quite the witty mimic," Durant told him, smiling in reverie for a moment, almost preening over his old skill. "We all made poor provincials the butt of our japes… for I received my share, as well, you see?" It is not an idle boast on my part to aver that I still possess my… ear for accents. He is surely from Provence, sir. Perhaps long-removed, but this Brasseur fellow sprang from there… grew up there… spent a good part of his life on the Mediterranean coast.
"Another niggle, sir, which just now strikes me," Durant posed before Lewrie could begin to splutter. "Pardons, Captain, but yours is a name which you have surely noted that people you have met, overseas, is difficult for them to pronounce. The closest a Frenchman may come would be something like 'Lu-ray,' yes?"
"Lah… Lur… Luh, I've heard a slew, aye. Go on, sir."
"Yet, this Capitaine Brasseur says 'Lew-ree' as easily as, what is the English phrase? As easily as 'kiss my hand,' yes? As if this fellow knows about you d'avance, uhm… beforehand, sir?"
"Mine arse on a band-boxl" Lewrie spluttered; now that he, had something worth spluttering about. "Damn my eyes, but that foreign son of a bitch's diddled me! Thinks he has, damn 'is blood. But o' course the French sicced Navy officers out here, posing as fishermen, to spy out our doings. Our intentions too, by God!
"Well, Jean 'Crapaud' Brasseur's got another think comin', sir," Lewrie vowed, in some heat. "And, thankee, Mister Durant. I'd not've tumbled to him, were it not for your keen ear, and keener wit."
"It was nothing, sir," Durant preened in false modesty. "Just an odd… niggle in my 'noodle,' hawn hawn!"
"Keep nigglin', sir," Lewrie told him, "niggle away! Now we're warned, though… we're onl" he crowed, to Mr. Durant's mystification. "Now I know which of 'em to believe, and who'd imagine Jules Papin an honest man? Well, mostly so, no matter. As a friend, no-an acquaintance, for I'll not call him 'friend' this side of Hell-says, 'The game's afoot'!"
BOOK IV
…wherefore with thee,
Came not all Hell broke loose?
John Milton (1608-1674),
Paradise Lost, Book IV, 917-918
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A spate of rough weather had forced several days' delay, after an anxious week more before Rear-Admiral Iredell, Lord Boxham, had made up his mind, and had summoned Lewrie from the close blockade, fetching Commodore – Ayscough in Chesterfield, as well, to thrash the minutiae of the plan to a dubious hash, and a mere semblance of Lewrie's original scheme, then re-assemble its various pieces into a cogent whole. That process had required two councils of war, a fortnight's worth of dithering, carping, and fault-finding, along with some flushed and angry faces, a great deal of swallowed pride, and here and there some gnawing of finger nails, before Lord Boxham had given his grudging approval… depending upon the weather, of course, and the veracity of the information, which Lewrie had to vouch for.
Then had come another full day far offshore for the Marines and landing parties of armed sailors to be transferred from their own ships to HMS Chesterfield, HMS Lyme, a brace of Third Rate 74s, to HMS Savage… from which they would be parcelled out to the brigs and cutters.
Another council of war had to be held aboard Savage to brief the new-comes' officers, Midshipmen, and petty officers, to assign duties to Bartoe, Shalcross, and Umphries, to Kenyon and Hogue. That one was conducted on a day of curling iron grey seas and greenish white spume, and a sullen, cold rain that lashed down from low, grey clouds, making them all think the idea half-daft, with winter gales expected by the end of the month, and a bootless endeavour best left for the Spring of 1801.
The sash windows in the transom of Lewrie's great-cabins had to be left half-open at the tops, the hinged glass-paned windows along the coach-top were propped partially open, yet the air in the cabins was a frowsty, warm, and almost-airless fug, despite the coolness of the day, and stank of foul bilge water unwashed bodies and hair, of hot candles and lamp oil, and damp wool uniforms. So many officers puffed away on clay pipes that a pall of smoke clung to the overhead like the greasy cloud spewed from a Muskogee Indian firepit in a clan's winter hud, and no amount of wind cross the decks could suck it out, as if Lewrie's entire quarters had turned into a badly drawing chimney.
"… fetch-to here, just off the tip of Pointe de Grave, as the brig-sloops round the point, and come-to on the up-river side," Lewrie said, using tiny slivers of wood to represent ships, atop the chart he had spread on his dining table. "Savage will land Lieutenant Ford and his Marine complement here… whilst Commanders Kenyon and Hogue will put Lieutenant Noble's Marines there, simultaneously, it is t'be hoped," he added with a brief, rueful smile. "All our boats, along with those borrowed from those officers' respective ships of the line, are to be towed astern, ready to go, and speed of landing will be crucial.
"At the same time as we all sail in together, in line-ahead with the brig-sloops leading and my frigate astern of all, and with all the cutters in a short column a bit North of us, Penguin, Banshee, and Argosy shall proceed beyond Point Grave, as we call it," Lewrie further explained, looking round to continue eye contact with all the officers crammed elbow to elbow about the dining table, "look into the shallow bay East of the point, to see what shipping may be anchored there. We have conflicting reports of barge traffick, so there may be some, or there may not be.