Sea of Grey - Dewey Lambdin

"Zey do not believe us, Capitaine. He say, we are all blancs, French or British, it is no matter. Zey die before zey surrender."

"Do they have powder aboard, like the others, sir…" Langlie cautioned.

"Mister Wyman? You may open upon the lugger," Lewrie ordered. "One broadside only… from the main battery guns. Damn the fools!"

"As you bear… on the up-roll… fire!"

Proteus roared and shook, flinging defiance for defiance, and a new chorus of screams erupted as the lugger was shredded at such short range. As the smoke of the broadside drifted down alee and past that lugger, she was revealed as a total wreck. Her mast was gone, and the jury-rig up forrud was wiped away, along with the men who had tended it. The lugger's starboard side was shot through like a colander and she heeled with her rails awash to the sea. Of her crew…

There might have been fifty or sixty men crammed aboard, before that broadside. Now her decks were piled with offal, with the dying and dead wallowing in their own life's blood, in a coiling mass of entrails and body parts! There were some in the water, splashing about and trying to swim or grab some flotsam on which to gasp and keen.

"Now we'll close-her," Lewrie snapped, "before she goes under. Mister Wyman, a boarding party to search her for papers, anything. Mister Langlie, lower a boat for Mister Wyman's party."

"Aye, sir," Langlie parroted, though not sounding happy.

"Fetch to, sir. Stand down the larboard battery, but keep the swivels and six-pounders manned. About a cable's distance, hmmm?"

Lieutenant Wyman's boat had barely reached the stricken lugger, he'd barely had time for a very quick snatch-and-grab from her decks, before she slipped under in a welter of bubbles and foam, and sank, forcing those few members of the boarding party who'd gained her rivened deck to scramble for their lives. As she rolled over and sank stern-first, Lewrie could see that the lugger had been big enough for a coach-top and some accommodations below her main deck, with a canvas spread over a cargo hatch between the stumps of her masts. Lieutenant Wyman waved, then smiled, showing that everyone in his boat was uninjured and returning safely. Wyman steered well clear of the Blacks swimming near his boat, though, with some of his hands levelling their muskets or pistols at the bobbing heads.

"Ho, here's one, sir!" Able Seaman Inman cried from the entry-port, pointing down over the starboard side, which was now alee of the winds. Lewrie peered over to see the muscular, mahoghany-skinned man in the water below the boarding-battens and man-ropes, treading water and bleeding from the mouth, and a scalp wound upon his shaven pate. In the water, his skin was as shiny as a seal pelt.

"Don't got a fuse and powder keg wif 'im, does 'e?" Yeoman of the Powder Foster cracked.

"Mister Devereux, have your Marines fetch him here. He might talk to us," Lewrie decided. "I'll have more need of your services, Mister Durant. Now we've gotten this'un into a more amenable mood." From Lewrie's vantage point high above, the man did seem shattered, a pathetic, pleading half-grin on his features. He even raised his hands upwards in supplication.

Inman waved him up, leaning out the entry-port. "Come on, you son of a whore. Up ye get. Come on, we won't eat ye! Safe, see?"

The man nodded, querying, as if he could not believe his luck, pointing to his chest as if to say "Who, me?" before thrusting upward from the water and grabbing the lowermost wooden batten in one hand, then a man-rope in the other, slithering and scraping along the barnacles at the waterline, wincing with the pain, but scaling the side as Proteus rolled and wallowed, the boarding-battens first vertical, then easier to climb.

"That's th' way, mate, up ye get. There'll be a cup o' grog in yer gullet in no time, laddy," Inman encouraged, reaching down as the man got near the lip of the entry-port.

' 'Ware! 'Ware!" Lt. Wyman shouted from the boat as it neared, a pistol in his hand, awkwardly dragged from his waist belt. "Knife!"

"Canga! Heu!" the survivor screamed, whipping out a long cane knife secreted in the back of his ragged trousers, and slicing Inman's throat almost to the spine with a single backward slash!

Wyman's pistol barked and the Black stiffened, back arched and blood spouting from his mouth as he was lung-shot, before letting go and falling back into the sea with a large splash… followed not a moment later by Inman's body, that fell into the same target of roiled water! Fresh-killed, their lungs still full of air, after a deep, dead plunge they both wafted to the surface, almost arm-in-arm.

"God Almighty damn!" Lewrie breathed, shuddery and faint from surprise and shock. "Get him aboard, get Inman back aboard, now!"

"No use, Capitaine," Mr. Durant sadly said. "What ze noir did to him…" Durant sucked his teeth and shook his head.

"I don't give a damn, I won't have him in the water with that treacherous, murderin' bastard!" Lewrie raved.

Sheets and halliards and braces were flung overside, safely belayed about the pin-rails, and a dozen hands sprang down to the chain platforms with quickly fashioned loops of line to snag Inman and bring him alongside, then coil them about his body and haul him back up to where others could take hold of his arms and lay him out on the gangway.

Lewrie went forward, his head like to burst with rage, but his feet as benumbed as if he were walking on pillows, until he stood over the body, removing his hat in reverence, as the people parted and made way. My fault, my fault, my bloody goddamned fault! he thought, full of hate for himself. Inman leaked a great puddle of water from soggy slop-clothing, leaked from that huge, ghastly rent in his throat…

"My fault," he croaked, having to swallow hard and cough before he could talk further. "Wanted prisoners… information! Damn 'em! Should've known… my fault."

"Nossir, couldn't a known!" Bosun Pendarves countered, raising an agreeing chorus from the hands nearby.

"Savages!" someone else spat. "Ya can't show mercy, 'coz they don't know what it is!"

"Ain't Christians, like us'uns," another growled.

"They sunk us wif 'at powder, they'da slit our throats, quick enough," Mr. Neale, the Master-At-Arms supposed aloud. "Let's kill 'em all, all that still tread water!"

"No!" Lewrie shouted. "We'll leave 'em. Let 'em sink, swim, or be taken by sharks, as God wills. 'Twas my fault that Inman died, our only casualty. We'll give him a proper shipmate's burial tonight, at sunset. And I'll not have his welcome to Heaven ruined by more murder."

"Amen, sor," Landsman Furfy said, teary-eyed and sniffling, hat in hand and leaning on his mate, the leaner and shorter Liam Desmond.

"We know the rules, now," Lewrie announced, close to tears himself, irritably dashing at his eyes with a coat sleeve. "We know how they mean to fight… and how much they hate us. We… I'll not be mistaken the next time. Next time, we'll stand off and shoot 'em to kindling. Survivors, bedamned!"

That elicited a guttural growl of agreement.

"Mister Durant, sir… would you and Mister Shirley be so good as to prepare Able Seaman Inman for burial?"

"But of course, Capitaine. We will see to him," Durant vowed. "Wiz as much tender care as his own mother. Men? Assist me, please?"

Lewrie turned and stalked aft to the quarterdeck, cramming his hat back on any-old-how, and slamming his fists together, his rage no longer quite so aflame, but still scouring himself for a fool.

"Er, Captain Lewrie, sir?" Lieutenant Wyman called, scampering after him. "Excuse me, sir, but… thought you should see this. Sorry if I shot too late, sir. Never killed a man before, not… up close? Artillery, aye, but never with a pistol. Tried to warn him, I…"

"I know, Mister Wyman," Lewrie said. "Don't blame yourself. I was at fault for letting him aboard, when I should've known better."

"Uhm… this musket, sir," Wyman said, getting back to point. "And this cutlass, and this sword? Look at the proof-mark, and these maker's marks stamped into the blades, sir."

"Bloody hell… American?" Lewrie barked, utterly nonplussed by this evidence. "They'd sell arms to rebellious slaves? Surely, if they succeed, their own plantations'll go up in flames… their slave owners'll be massacred."

"Musket's a copy of a French Charleville Arsenal. Poor made, sir. Perhaps surplus from their own army's armories? The blades… who knows about those, sir," Wyman said, shaking his head in disgust.

"Northern foundries," Lewrie noted.

"Not so many slave-owners in their northeastern states, sir," Wyman spat. "So perhaps what happens after they're sold don't signify to them. As long as a… profit's made!"

"Most of their ironworks are in the northeastern states, but…" Lewrie trailed off with a sigh. "God, this is hellish business Mister Wyman! I know it hurts the French in Saint Domingue, for rebel slaves to obtain arms. And later, our enemy the Dons in Santo Domingo, but the massacres that follow…!"

"We could tell someone, sir?" Wyman suggested in a soft voice. "An American consul, a senior officer? Let them lay an official protest, perhaps?"

"We could, Mister Wyman. Rather, we should and we will, just as soon as dammit!" Lewrie vowed. "Someone will pay for this!"

CHAPTER TWENTY

Morning found HMS Proteus ten miles Nor'west of Cape St.

Nicholas, with her crew in a sombre mood following Seaman Inman's funeral two days before. Even a run close inshore of Cape Francois, the port still held by the surviving Whites of North Province on Saint Domingue, and a lively exchange with a harbour fort, had not lightened the mens' gloom. Inman had been popular, a cheerful and hearty worker, and one of the best voices in the foc'sle's off-duty chorus, a dab-hand at the hornpipe competitions between larboard and starboard watch, and a wag of no mean skill when imitating ship's officers, midshipmen, and mates behind their back, or below in the privacy of the mess-deck.

Lewrie was up early, before dawn, to watch the hands at their labours at the change of watch at 4 A.M. Today was the day that the "bears" were broken out and dragged across the weather decks; the heavy and rough-surfaced weighted sledges that sanded the planks harder than the small "bibles" men on hands and knees normally used to keep them new-wood pale.

Especially round the larboard entry-port, where Inman's blood had fountained, and the rebel slave's blood had erupted. Some vinegar poured on the stains before using the "bear" might even completely erase them… someday.

It was predawn, with only the palest streak of lighter sky to the East, astern, and everything else buried in a hazy blue-grey, just enough light to see from bow to stern, with a gibbous moon still low on the horizon, a few bright stars still aglow, aloft. The galley chimney fumed lazily, as the men's oatmeal gruel was boiled up, and coffee for the officers was kept warm, and shore bread was toasted for them.

Lewrie sipped at his mug of coffee, savouring the stoutness of Saint Domingue beans; savouring the blessed, windy coolness before the tropic sun burst over the edge of the sea to fry and roast them for another day. Hat off, clad only in breeches and shirt, he could almost feel a faint chill as the Trades whisked up the frigate's stern to waft her Westward towards Cuba once more.

Good pickings round Cienfuego in the last war, he thought; why not just stand on, both sheets aft? Old Captain Lilycrop and 1 took more than one prize there, in '82. On West… round-about Jamaica 's west cape and into Kingston to wood and water. The people need a joyful diversion, God knows, and…

"Deck, there!" a lookout shouted down. "Lights ashore, on the larboard quarter! Looks like signals!"

Lewrie set his mug down on the binnacle and returned to the aft rails with a telescope, hearing the scrubba-dub and hiss of the bibles and bears cease as he spied out the mysterious light.

Proteus was enough West of Cape St. Nicholas to see into a long inlet that led to the British-held harbour of Mole St. Nicholas. High hills on either side of the inlet, the island that formed the northern shore, were blue-black and forbidding at predawn; only a tiny lighter shade were the waters leading inward. There were the usual wee winks of lanthorns ashore in windows, but there was also a brighter light… no, a pair! Wheeling about each other, first in one position, then another.

"Mister Wyman," Lewrie called, his glass still to his eye; "I think you said you were familiar with those new semaphore towers back home, did you not?"

"Aye, sir," the Second Officer replied, sounding unsure.

"Know how to read them?"

"Well, just a bit, sir," Wyman admitted. "But I've a book below in my cabins," he more-hopefully concluded.

"Do you please have it fetched, then, sir. In the meantime, lay us on larboard tack, abeam the wind."

"Aye aye, sir!"

"Ahem… excuse me, Captain," Marine Lt. Devereux said, clearing his throat.

"Ah, Mister Devereux!" Lewrie brightened, turning to face him. "Didn't know you were on deck, sir. An early rising, for one who gets 'all night in' and doesn't stand watch."

"The freshest coffee, and the coolest part of the day, sir," the Marine said with a modest shrug, and a wave of his own mug of steaming coffee. He, too, was dressed in only breeches, shirt, and waistcoat at that early hour. " 'Twas originally an Army signal system, Captain, to alert the coastal garrisons, should the French invade cross Channel."

"One that our local Army leaders didn't deem fit to share with us, I gather?" Lewrie posed, a touch sarcastically. "What a surprise."

"I know a bit of it, though, sir. If I may?"

Lewrie gave Devereux the telescope, and ambled back over to the double-wheel and binnacle to retrieve his coffee before it got cold. A moment later, up came Midshipman Elwes with Lieutenant Wyman's book, and both officers began to confer; with a deal of "What the Devil?" and "Goodness gracious" commentary, a deal more page-turning, and some scribbling on a slate.

"They're not signalling to us, sir," Lt. Wyman reported at last. "Can't even see us way out here, I expect. From what I, and Lieutenant Devereux, may construe, all that waving is meant for vessels still in port. The nubbin, Captain, is an order for all ships to begin loading supplies, and prepare to extricate our garrison."

"To pull out?" Lewrie puzzled.

"They seem to be hard-pressed by a slave army, sir, and things are going against them. The signals say that the troops ashore are at the outskirts of the town, that they've been driven back from the outer entrenchments. And Mole Saint Nicholas ain't that big, sir. More like a hamlet than a thriving seaport."

Lewrie nodded and pursed his lips, turned away and took another sip of coffee, pondering his options. He turned back to them at last.