The Invasion Year (8 page)

Heard
of us!
Lewrie sadly realised.

“I believe he is, though he didn’t talk of him, much,” Lewrie told him.
And, with damned good reason,
he told himself;
Father can’t hold a candle
t’that
old scoundrel’s sins! The
both
of us are pikers, in comparison … eligible t’take Holy Orders!

“Oh, that would be the, ehm … that
would
make us kin, sir. Of a
sort,
though…,” Lt. Willoughby hemmed and hawed, nigh to blushing.

“Well, I won’t mention the connexion, if you won’t. No sense lettin’ on you’re related t’that old rogue … or us. Bein’ the son and grand-son to ’em is bad enough.”

“Quite understood, sir, thank you,” Willoughby said with a very relieved smile. “The French wish to give you departing honours, sir. After the assistance you rendered them, and me, they appear grateful … for Frenchmen. An admiral’s side-party … minus the muskets.”

“And I’ll accept, gladly,” Lewrie said, grinning.

CHAPTER SIX

Commodore Loring took his prizes, his prisoners, and his waif-like refugees back to Kingston, Jamaica, as quick as he could quit the coast, escorting, or guarding, the French and their vessels with his entire squadron. Well, almost all of his squadron.

The much smaller four-ship squadron, of which HMS
Reliant
was a part, which had been despatched under “Independent Orders” to pursue the French ships that had sailed from Holland back in May, had never been Loring’s favourites, from the time they had entered the Gulf of Mexico and Loring’s bailiwick, his “patch,” without the usual courtesy call at Kingston to announce their presence. It hadn’t helped to form good relations with the senior officer on the Jamaica Station that they had hunted down their quarry off the Chandeleur Islands of Louisiana and had brought them to action and beaten them, taking four prizes in honourable battle, either; the Royal Navy in the West Indies had been successful at taking
islands,
but that sort of knock-down-drag-out sea fight had so far eluded them … most pointedly, Commodore Loring.

Their assigned duty done, Captain Stephen Blanding’s four ships—the 64-gun
Modeste, Reliant,
and a brace of older 32-gun frigates,
Cockerel
and
Pylades
—had been sent to loiter off the other harbours of Hispaniola, both the bloody Saint Domingue and the Spanish Santo Domingo (even though the Spanish showed no signs of becoming belligerents and French allies, again); the almost total elimination of their over-seas trade and hundreds of merchant ships, the drubbing they had gotten at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797, and the general ineffectiveness of their Navy in European waters might have made the Dons leery of taking another shot at war.

And so it was, again. Commodore Loring’s last orders, before he danced over the horizon with a fine following wind, was for Blanding’s little clutch of ships to make a final reconnoiter of Saint Domingue’s, or Hayti’s, lesser seaports, and report back to Kingston …
after
the welcomes and celebration balls!

“Ah well, such is Navy politics,” Captain Blanding told them all with a dramatic heave of his broad shoulders, punctuating those words with so loud and trailing a sigh that he sounded much like a “Montague” skewered by a “Capulet” sword in
Romeo and Juliet,
and “eating all the scenery” as he over-dramatically “expired.”

Lewrie hid his smirk at Captain Blanding’s antics; the man was one of the most eccentric officers ever he’d met in his whole naval career. It was uncanny how boisterous, loud, and excitable Blanding could be.

“A glass with you all, gentlemen,” Blanding proposed, as both of his cabin stewards bustled about to top up their wine. There were only six of them dining this evening as the squadron stood “off and on” the coast, out into deeper, open water, then back. Captain Blanding liked to dine his captains in, quite often, and, over the months since they’d first gotten orders to serve together, had, for the most part, formed a “chummy” association.

In addition to Lewrie there was Captain Parham, a younger fellow with a single gilt epaulet on his right shoulder, denoting that he was a Post-Captain of less than three years’ seniority. Parham had served in HMS
Jester,
Lewrie’s first major command, as a Midshipman, and now had HMS
Pylades
. Parham was a very likable and pleasant fellow. HMS
Cockerel
’s captain, Stroud, was also new to his “Post” rank, once the First Officer of
Myrmidon
, a Sloop of War that Lewrie’s
Jester
had been teamed with in the Mediterranean and Adriatic in 1796. Stroud was the odd-man-out; he was workman-like, immensely competent, but immensely dull in social situations. Yet, at the same time, if he
wasn’t
included in off-duty things, he took it as a slight, and was ever pressing for his
Cockerel
to be given the lead, to prove what he, and she, could accomplish. They all walked small, round Stroud!

And, with their host came Captain Blanding’s First Lieutenant, James Gilbraith, “Jemmy the One,” as Blanding sometimes teasingly called him. In point of fact, he and Blanding were both much alike: big, bluff, hearty, and stout, extremely fond of their “tucker,” and it did not do to get between them and the sideboard or dining table. Jemmy Gilbraith was also one of those poor fellows whose hide did not agree with harsh tropic sunlight; he was forever red and peeling.

Lastly, there was Blanding’s Chaplain, and a rarity aboard most Royal Navy ships, the Reverend Stanley Brundish, for the very good reason that most “padres”
willing
to ship aboard were the equivalent of the Church of England’s ne’er-do-wells, its drunks and failures with so few of the vitally necessary connexions and “interest” that could not land a rectory or curacy even in the poorest London “stew.”

Brundish, however, was from Captain Blanding’s own parish, and was a distant “cater-cousin,” an erudite and well-read fellow in his mid-thirties who could actually put together a sensible, logical homily, instead of droning through bought sheafs of sermons written by others, and could cite
correct
chapter and verse off the top of his head, quite unlike the “Mar-Text” reverends Lewrie had come across. Brundish also had a voice like a Bosun’s that could reach the beak-heads from the quarterdeck nettings, could stir up a crew with the enthusiasm of leaping Methodists, tailored his homilies with nautical references, and encouraged all with loud, lustily-sung hymns of the muscular sort. Chaplain Brundish was a constant presence by Captain Blanding’s side … if only to keep him from cursing and blaspheming.

“I give you a duty most honourably done, at long last!” their senior officer intoned, seconded by a hearty, “Hear him!” from Lieutenant Gilbraith, and they all emulated Captain Blanding by tossing back goodly gulps; though they skipped licking their lips and smacking, as he did.

“Well, sirs … supper is laid, and a toothsome repast I assure you it will be,” Blanding promised. “Let us take seats, what?”

A fine meal it was, too, and a most jovial one. When close on the Haitian shore the day before, one of
Modeste
’s Midshipmen had come across a sea turtle, and it made for a thick and meaty soup. “I saved some turtle meat for your blasted cats, Captain Lewrie, haw haw!” the squadron commander joshed.

Both Blanding and Brundish fancied themselves talented anglers, and, whilst
Modeste
had sat fetched-to off Cap François, or cruised at bare steerageway, they had hauled in a large red snapper and a small grouper. Captain Blanding’s personal cook had turned the grouper into breaded tarts, using dust from the bottom of the bread bags and flour, a puree of “portable” pea soup, paprika, and fresh lemon juice. Those tarts came as a second appetiser on a large platter for all to share, whilst the red snapper made their first
entrée
.

Following those dishes came a roast quail for each guest. Captain Blanding insisted on quail and squabs, along with ducklings and chicks, to be stocked in
Modeste
’s forecastle manger, along with the usual piglets and goat kids, since they are so little and matured so quickly. Captain Blanding was right high on rabbits, too, for like reasons. Their removes were boiled potatoes, somewhat fresh from the chandleries at Kingston, and mixed beans in sweet oil and vinegar, with fine-diced onion. Captain Blanding was
very
fond of beans of all sorts!

Next came a pork roast with cracklings; a
bordeaux
replaced the
sauvignon blanc
to accompany it. Last, before the nuts, cheese, and port bottle, came an approximation of an apple pie split six ways; the apples were from England, shrivelled and old, but stretched out with soaked ship’s bisquit, with extra sugar and goat’s milk’s sweetness to disguise the lack of actual fruit.

Through the meal there had been a great deal of relieved japing and chit-chat, now the French had surrendered and struck their flags without casualties, with Lewrie’s tale of going ashore to beard those devils, Dessalines, Christophe, and Clairveaux, in their own den one of the highpoints, then the rescue of
Chlorinde
for yet another source of amusement.

“I must say, Captain Lewrie, you have developed quite a talent for rescuing French people in their most desperate moments,” Brundish said, leaning forward on the table with a glint of glee in his eyes; a tad canted by drink, and the glint might have been a bit un-focussed.

“Confusion to the French!” Parham proposed, which prompted all to up-end their glasses and wait for refills.

“Man of many parts, is Captain Lewrie,” Gilbraith said loudly.

“Just as the Good Lord has bestowed upon you, sir, the talent for making war,” Brundish went on, “perhaps He also blessed you with an innate skill which only now emerges. War, implacable, then mercy in war’s aftermath, perhaps? As befits a Christian gentleman.”

“An
English
gentleman!” young Parham stuck in. “Hear, hear!”

“I’d rather not make a habit of it, though, Reverend,” Lewrie replied, trying to shrug a serious moment off with humour. “God also gifted mankind with the joy of music, an ear for its enjoyment, and a talent for makin’ it, but … look what I’ve made o’
that’un
!”

His tootling on his humble penny-whistle was legendarily
bad
.

“Saving the dashed French from the results of the folly they get into is one thing, Brundish,” Captain Blanding told him. “Saving the French from overweening pride … Popery, or that heretical Napoleon Bonaparte and his global ambitions, is quite another.”

“Successful war cures
some
of those problems, sir,” Lieutenant Gilbraith pointed out. “Pride … ambitions. We can handle that.”

“And
you
may convert them from Popery, sir,” Lewrie suggested to Chaplain Brundish. “Or,
are
they outright atheists,
lead
them to salvation.”

“Now,
that’d
be as hard as making them
humble,
haw!” Captain Blanding hooted.

“Just so, sir! Well said!” Lt. Gilbraith seconded.

Toady!
Lewrie thought him. Still, it worked for Gilbraith, and for Blanding, too, who laid back his head and bellowed laughter to the overhead. A glass later, and the tablecloth was whisked away, and the cheese, nuts, sweet bisquits, and the port, with fresh glasses, were laid for them. As the bottle circulated larboardly round the table, Captain Blanding got a speculative look on his phyz.

“I wonder, gentlemen, do we discuss our orders for a moment in … well, I cannot term it
sobriety,
haw haw! But, could any of you tell me the value of making yet another circumnavigation of the island of Hispaniola, and peeking into every little dam … blasted harbour?”

That thought didn’t sober them up, but it did shut them up, for a bit; ’til Captain Stroud, who’d been mostly quiet during supper, silently appreciating the camaraderie, hesitantly spoke up.

“Well, sir, I expect we could forgo Port-Au-Prince. The French lost it long ago,” he said.

“Anything in the Gulf of Gonaïves,” Parham seconded, looking a tad squiffy, himself; pie-eyed in point of fact, and sure to need the bosun’s sling to get back aboard his own ship, later. Perhaps into his gig from
Modeste
!

“Gonaïves, Saint Marc, Leogane,” Lewrie recalled off the top of his head. “The Isle Gonâve, too? I b’lieve we can safely determine the rebels hold all those. After we peek into Port de Paix and Mole Saint Nicholas tomorrow, the last place a French detatchment could yet be holding out would be at Jérémie, on the Sou’west peninsula’s tip, and that would just about do it, as far as the French half of Hispaniola goes.”