The Invasion Year (7 page)

“We’ll get right to it. Desmond, summon all our boats under her transom, and tell Mister Houghton to be ready to take aboard a kedge.”

“Right away, sor!”

A chorus of axes rang out as a gun carriage, too heavy to bear up in one piece, was being hacked to bits below on her gun-deck, with the resulting chunks heaved out open gun-ports.

“I’ve cut away her second bower, sir, and jettisoned its cable, and was just
about
to jettison the kedge and
its
cable, before your arrival,” Willoughby related, taking a second to mop his streaming face with a handkerchief and allow himself a rueful grin. “Don’t
quite
know if we can get her afloat before the forts set us all afire.”

For a fellow in his straits, Lt. Willoughby was in a damnably good mood, as if danger and difficulties were his meat and drink.

“If you can’t, I s’pose we could ferry her people out to my ship,” Lewrie offered. “Women and children first, though I don’t know how the rest would feel about standin’ passive and takin’ heated shot as we do so.”

“It’s a wonder the rebels haven’t already, sir,” Willoughby said with another of those beaming grins. “The deadline’s long past.”

“Well, you keep on doin’ what you’re doin’, Mister Willoughby, and I’ll see to her kedge,” Lewrie told him, tapping the brim of his hat as Lt. Willoughby knuckled his own brow in shared salutes.

Once back in his gig, Lewrie had himself rowed aft to the tuck-under of
Chlorinde
’s squared-off stern, where Midshipman Houghton and his cutter were waiting. A leather hawse-buckler was torn free, then a kedge cable was passed through the hawse-hole, then taken back onto the deck to be seized to the upper ring of the so-far-unseen anchor.

Long minutes later, and the kedge appeared, suspended from its cable, with handling lines bound to its upper cross-arms to ease the thing down. Midshipman Houghton, an excellent boat-handler, chivvied the cutter forward a foot or so, aft a foot or so, then starboard for a few feet ’til the kedge—nowhere as monstrous-heavy as a bower, but still a weight to be reckoned with—could be lowered into the midships of his boat.

“No after capstan, sorry, Captain Lewrie, but, they’ve a fair-heavy windlass, for purchase!” Lt. Willoughby called down, sticking his head and shoulders over the taffrails for a second; now coat-less, to boot.

“Pass me two more lighter lines, Mister Willoughby, and we’ll see what we can do towards haulin’ her stern off,” Lewrie said back.

“Done, and done, sir!” Willoughby right-cheerfully shouted.

Ye’d think he relishes this!
Lewrie sarcastically thought, as two more four-inch lines were heaved over, through after gun-ports as if by magic. “One for you, Mister Entwhistle, and one for you, Mister Warburton,” Lewrie ordered. “Lash down, and haul away!”

Eight oarsmen in the launch, only six oarsmen in the smaller jolly-boat, could not generate much effort with those lighter lines; once extended to their full length, the boats remained in one place, no matter how hard
Reliant
’s people strained. It was the kedge cable that bore the bulk of the draw, once Midshipman Houghton let it go over the side at mid-channel, at right-angles to
Chlorinde
’s hull. The cable went bar-taut, rising from the water, dripping water, then spraying droplets and groaning as it was wrung like a wash-rag by the strain put on it by the lower-deck windlass aboard the French frigate.

“I could take one of those light lines, sir,” Houghton offered once he’d returned from deploying the anchor. “I’ve more hands aboard than the jolly-boat.”

“Aye, go close aboard her, and call for Lieutenant Will…,” Lewrie began to say, before he spotted what he took for an abandoned admiral’s barge being rowed out to them from shore by a crew of shirtless, dark brown oarsmen. “Willoughby!” he bellowed aloft, instead. “
Trouble
coming!”

“I’ve seen them, sir!” Willoughby shouted down to him. “What should we do? Begin evacuation?”

“I’ll try to stall them,” Lewrie replied, wondering just how he’d pull
that
off. “Hold on a bit … I
know
that bugger!”

In the stern-sheets of that gaudy barge was Colonel Mirabois, their interpreter of the day before.

“Row us out to the barge, Desmond, meet her as far from the Frog ship as you can,” Lewrie urged, standing up in his own stern-sheets, a hand on Midshipman Munsell’s shoulder. He waved his hat and dug a white handkerchief from his breeches’ pocket to wave, too, in
lieu
of a proper flag of truce.

“Hallo, Colonel Mirabois!
Comment allez-vous, ce après-midi?
”

“Ah,
bonjour, Capitaine Le
 …
Capitaine
!” Colonel Mirabois said back as his barge slowed. The barge was commanded by a young fellow in the uniform of an
Aspirant
of the French Navy, its Cox’n a
cigaro
-chomping brute in a sleeveless shirt, two bandoliers for cartridge boxes, and a cutlass, his phyz as a’squint as a pissed-off pirate.

“Let us talk, Colonel,” Lewrie offered with a false grin on his face, once he’d determined that they could confer at least an hundred yards short of the frigate. “Easy all on yer oars, hey?”

“
Capitaine Le
 … Luray …
pardon, soulement,
z’ere ees
une difficile, n’est-ce pas
?” Mirabois said, seated amidships of his padded thwart, booted feet planted primly together, and his hands gripping the edge of the thwart in a death-grip. Even his dark complexion looked ashen, as if he was terrified to be out in a boat on the water.

“A difficulty, Colonel?” Lewrie genially asked as the oarsmen of the barge, and his gig, tossed their oars so the two boats could come gunn’l-to-gunn’l. “What sort?”

“Z’is ship ees still in ze ’arbour,
Capitaine, et
eet ees long pas’ ze deadline for departure,” Colonel Mirabois said, his smile the sort of rictus seen on a corpse who’d died terrified. “
Mon
generals, Dessalines, Christophe, Petion, z’ey send me to deman’ eet’s surrender,
et
ze surrender of all
Blancs
in ’er. If z’ey do
not
ze surrender, ze forts are prepar-ed w’iz ze ’eated shot,
comprendre
? If z’ey do not ze surrender
immédiatement,
I weel signal for such to be done.
Z’at
ees ze
difficile, M’sieur Capitaine
.”

“She’s aground, Colonel … we’re tryin’ t’ warp her free,” Lewrie told him. “It’s not
their
fault they haven’t left harbour.”

“Z’at ees of no matter,
Capitaine,
” Mirabois told him, somewhat firmer than before.

“There are British sailors aboard her, rendering assistance,” Lewrie rejoined, stiffening his back and turning grimmer, himself. “I must protest.
Royal Navy
sailors of His Britannic Majesty aboard her,
comprendre,
Colonel? His Majesty, King George the Third, would deem such an action on your part as an act of war against Great Britain. We’ve been here, before, Colonel … do you want
another
ten years of foreigners in Hayti?”

“
Vous
v’ould perish as ze French ’ave perish-ed!” Mirabois shot back, getting his own back up.

“We get her warped off and under way, this little
emmerdement
is solved, Colonel,” Lewrie suggested. “Give us ’til sundown. If we can’t save the ship, then we are determined to rescue the Frenchmen aboard her.”

“Défendu!”
Colonel Mirabois barked of a sudden; it was a word that Lewrie had never encountered. “Z’at ees … forbidden! Ve mus’ ’ave z’em all, eef z’ey weel not sail away!
Non, non!
”

Got the stew-pots lit, already, have ye?
Lewrie sourly told himself, sure that everyone ashore was looking forward to one, last hearty massacre of White people.

“For the moment, Colonel Mirabois, I intend to return aboard her, and see what progress is being made,” Lewrie temporised. “Now, if you wish to open fire upon her whilst
I’m
there, well … one might consider the consequences of any rash action. Once I’ve ascertained our progress, I’ll come back to speak with you, if you’ll wait here?”

Killing British sailors, killing gentlemen-officers, and one of them a Post-Captain, evidently seemed to check Mirabois’s ardour for blood; there most-like
could
be a very long war with Great Britain if he waved his signal; a war his masters surely would wish to avoid. He agreed to the delay, ill-mannered and as petulant as any Frenchman.

“Hoy, Mister Willoughby!” Lewrie shouted up to the
Chlorinde
’s quarterdeck once his gig was back alongside. “What-ho?”

“She’s coming, sir, inch by inch, but she’s coming free!” that energetic worthy called back down, still sporting that joyous, beamish grin of his. “Might I enquire what the rebels said to you, sir?”

“Surrender her and all her people for massacre, perhaps as the
entrée
for the celebration supper, instanter, or they’ll fire heated shot into her, sir! I’ve warned him that there are
British
sailors aboard, and that he’d best give it a
long
think, if he don’t wish a new war with
us
!” Lewrie called back, grinning in spite of things, himself. “Let us work her off, cut their losses, call it a bad—”

“That gives me a
marvellous
idea, sir, if you will indulge me for a moment?” Lt. Willoughby interrupted. “Be back in a trice!”

He’ll inflate the hot-air balloons the women’ve made from their silk gowns, and he’s ready
t’fly
her off?
Lewrie thought.

Several hundred voices, male and female, began to sing, of all the daft things! It was the French national anthem, that boisterous, blood-thirsty, martial tune. There came the sharp, crack of a swivel-gun, a light 2-pounder, then the Tricolour was fluttering down from the after staff, and cut free to drape the entire stern.

Up went a British Union Jack in its place.

Willoughby came back to the bulwarks, with a French officer in a fore-and-aft bicorne hat and gilt epaulets.

“Captain Lewrie, sir! Instead of waiting ’til she’s made her offing to strike her colours, her captain, here, has agreed to strike now … making
Chlorinde
a British prize, and, un-officially, a ship now to be reckoned a warship in the Royal Navy!” Lt. Willoughby cried down to Lewrie. “Do they open on her, it surely
will
be a war!”

“Oh,
very
good, Lieutenant Willoughby! Mine arse on a
band-box,
but that’s good!” Lewrie congratulated him. “I will relate the news to Colonel Mirabois … and hope he chokes on it!”

*   *   *

It was late afternoon before
Chlorinde,
many tons lighter, finally hauled her hull off the rocks. Despite the loss of her rudder and some stove-in underwater planking, resulting in several leaks that could be patched with fothering and spare canvas, she floated; she’d not sink!

“Once you’ve made your offing, signal me if you need towing,” Lewrie offered, ready to depart for
Reliant,
and a celebratory glass of something cool and alcoholic. “One
hellish-fine
piece of work ye did, Mister Willoughby. Should your captain need a seconding to your report of the day, he’s but to ask.”

“Thank you for saying so, Captain Lewrie, and I expect we
will
need a tow,” Lt. Willoughby replied, looking exhausted but immensely pleased with an arduous job well done.

“Ehm … I wonder if we’re related or not, Mister Willoughby,” Lewrie hesitantly asked, making the younger officer cock his head in expectation of a pleasing coincidence. “My father is Sir Hugo Saint George Willoughby. His family’s estate
was
in Kent … was once with the Fourth Regiment of Foot, ‘The King’s Own’… then with the ‘John Company’ army in India, commanding the Nineteenth Native Infantry?”

“Uhm,” Lt. Willoughby replied, looking as if he fought a grimace, or a beetle had just pinched his testicles. “Sir Hugo, you say? And … might
his
father have been one
Stanhope
Willoughby, who once resided near Linton?”