H. M. S. Cockerel (44 page)

“You're not the first person to point that out,” Lewrie chuckled, thinking of his past in English society. “French
or
English.”

“Now, ze Chesapeake,” de Crillart went on wistfully. “Ships an' boatyards, some sea trade for us,
n'est-ce pas?
Maryland . . . ver'
intéressant
people, ze Américains, Alain. Ev'ryz'ing zer, new. Zey accept better? Maryland, she eez found'on freedom. You' Church of England . . . Catholique, dissenters, Moravians, ze Hughenots, even ze . . . Queevers?”

“Quakers,” Alan offered.

“
Oui,
Quakers.
Tous egal,
all equal. Zere, no one say ze poor stay poor, illiterate stay dumb, 'ere are peasant, zere are nobles.”

“Damme, Charles, but you sound like the very
worst
died-in-the-wool Revolutionary!”

“Ah, mon ami, remembre . . .”
de Crillart laughed out loud, tapping his nose once more. “I waz een
le États-Général,
I
waz
ze
revolutionnaire!
Not
zere
radical kin', on'y. An', someday, ve grow
riche, peut-être?
Monnaie
eez
title en America. Become success,
et voilà . . . nous sommes l'aristocracie, encore! Peut-être,
not riche?
Zen, we be on'y
bourgeois
. . . a leetle land, a leetle trade. 'Ave
been bourgeois, en Normandie
. . . even wan ve
'ave
titles. All ze same,
aussi.
Build new, geef
maman
peace for 'er las' years. Fin' Sophie a fine 'usband, vis land, an'
monnaie.
Marry,
moi-même, peut-être,
once we 'ave
securité.
”

“About Sophie, Charles, surely you must know she . . .”

“Ah, oui, j'sai, moi, elle adore, mais
. . . eez child.
Cousine, trop,
too . . . close?
Mon coeur
waz tak'
il y a longtemps
. . . long ago? A neighbour en Normandie.
Elle nous a quittes
. . . she go away from us. Ze guillotine. I . . .” de Crillart hunched into his watch-coat collar and hat. “I no weesh to speak of 'er,
s'il vous plaît, mon ami.
”

“Well . . .” Lewrie shrugged, into his own. So much for that, he thought. There was a story Charles wasn't telling, perhaps might never tell another living soul. But it was a closed subject.
“Oui.”

“Touchant petite Sophie, Alain . . .”
de Crillart said, after some minutes of uneasy silence between them. “
Une plus de emmerdement.
You an' Phoebe?”

“Shit.”

“Oui, mon ami,”
de Crillart snickered, sounding as if he enjoyed bringing the matter up. “
C'est très drôle.
Louis, 'e eez furious vis you, zat you lodge Phoebe in ze great-cabins vis people of ze aristocracy . . . ze Quality, you say
en
Angleterre? Louis eez insult zat for ze voyage, ees
cher cousine
Sophie 'ave to associate vis
any personnes à bas naissance
. . . low-born,
hein? D'abord,
'e warr-un Sophie, an'
order
'er to 'ave nozzing to do vis Phoebe, tell 'er
elle est sale courtesan. Zut alors, en suite,
'e tell Maman.
Et
Maman . . .”

“Christ, her, too?”

“Oui, aussi,”
de Crillart all but hooted with droll mirth, taking time to get his breath back, snickering and wheezing. “Maman she say eez no more zan she s'ought ze anglais man do, zey
all
'ave no morals. Zen, Maman eez furious vis me! Zat I associate vis
you!
Like eet eez catching? Ooh, la . . . zen Sophie eez ze
furious. Sophie eez
affectueuse
vis Phoebe. S'ink she eez
très amusant et charmant? Merde alors,
she eez
scandalise, naturellement,
but still
like
'er. Not know what to do . . .
An',
Sophie eez furious vis Louis, zat 'e
dare
order 'er 'oo she be vis. Louis say 'e weel not 'ave eez intended . . . besmirch? . . . and Sophie eez
more
furious . . . she say she eez
nevair
eez
intended! Sophie eez furious vis you.”

“Well, why not?” Lewrie chuckled. “Everybody else seems to be.”

“
Merde alors, mon ami . . .
you 'ave ze wife an'
enfants,
but you
couchez
vis
pauvre
Phoebe,” Charles further related, hugely amused by it all. “She eez
egal
furious . . . w'eech eez worse, zat you 'ave
l'affaire adultère
. . .
or
zat you are ze
lapin-chaud
. . . ze rabbit-'ot . . . but ze uncaring beast 'oo weel
traiter quelqu'un comme
. . . treat 'er like dirt?
Promesse l'affaire de grand amour, mais . . .
”

“J'suis dans la merde,”
Lewrie said of himself. “In English we call that ‘to be up shit's creek.'
Sans les
oars,” he added ruefully.

“Ah, oui, enfin . . .”
de Crillart sobered a bit. “
Enfin,
Sophie eez furious vis me,
aussi.
Zat I am you'
ami,
zat
I
am not
scandalisé.
Merveilleux,
now we are
bo'z les sales bêtes
. . . feelthy beasts!”

“Well, aren't you?” Lewrie asked. “Scandalised, I mean.”

“
Mon ami,
you forget . . .” Charles confided chummily, tapping the side of his nose once more. “I am
le homme français. Les Français,
ve understan' zese s'ings.
Moi,
I weesh you
bonne chance.
So ver' far from 'ome, so long . . . any man 'oo refuse to aid
la jeune fille
as
beau
as
petite jeune
Phoebe, 'e 'ave no 'eart. An' any man 'oo refuse 'er
amour, c'est un
zero
. . . il as du sang de navet
. . . 'ave ze blood of ze turnip!
En outre . . . homme
go too long
sans
'e
couche avec la femme
. . . 'ave ze
plaisir
wiz girl . . . eez bad for you' liver. Ah,
regardez!
”

As four bells chimed forward at the belfry—ten o'clock in the evening watch—a matchlike tongue of flame appeared in the basin, at last. They were three miles or better away, with the northern headland of the Gullet between them and a clear view, but it soared up over even that, and the waters of the Little Road began to glitter like reflected candle flames. Through their telescopes they could espy tiny buglike rowing boats as black roaches scuttling over the Road, beyond the booms which guarded the entrance channel. Some, hung up on the booms, rowing furiously, yet going nowhere. More flames arose, from the arsenals and warehouses. Sparks arose, borne on black-bellied columns of smoke from the slip-ways and graving docks where ships under construction were lit off like autumn bonfires.

As if awakened from slumber, the Republicans doubled, then redoubled their fire. The nearest hillsides, the basin itself, the headlands of the Gullet sparkled with tiny flashes from firelocks and gun barrels. Light artillery began an unsteady drumbeat. Near misses by the rowing boats frothed feathers of spray, and musket fire pattered a rainstorm about them. Now the fires were lit, the French had an open field of fire, and targets illuminated so well, so close within range . . .

BUH-WHOOM!

They felt that one in their bones;
Radical
shuddered seconds after to a shock wave so stupendous, as a massive fireball, a swelling and expanding miniature sun flashed into life inside the basin. The arsenal and all its powder, the powder removed from the forts, went off, sending debris and flaming embers soaring as high as the Heights of Pharon! And stupefying people close to it, friends or foes, into awed silence.

Guns fell silent, musketry winked out. All that could be heard for a time was the whooshing, crackling distant roar of a monumental fire that threatened to devour the entire city of Toulon, the rush of wind as it was drawn in to feed the flames. The fire-ship
Vulcan
was a torch put to the closely packed French ships of the line, laid across their sterns to set them alight. From the aftermost corner of the starboard quarterdeck, they could see rigging and yards aflame.

They should have been preparing to get underway, but the sight of an entire Navy being burned was too besotting. Gradually, the blazing fireball subsided, and smoke occulted their view, lit only with sullen smoulderings at the base of the smoke clouds. Yet as the light faded, the French guns opened fire once more.

“Well, then,” Lewrie said, uselessly. “Mister Porter? Do you pipe ‘All-Hands.' Soldiers to the capstans, topmen prepare to lay aloft, trice up, and lay out to make sail.”

“Aye aye, sir!”

Soldiers and civilians breasted to the bars, began to trudge in circles—pawls began to chunk and clack in the well-greased capstans as the lighter messenger lines wound in, dragging the heavy hawsers to which they'd been nippered.

BARR-ROOOOMMMMM!

Another huge explosion, perhaps even larger than the first, hot wind coming from astern suddenly, shock waves rushing across the Great Road!
Radical
not only shivered this time, she heeled to starboard to the force of the explosion, rocked and dipped her bows!

Lewrie didn't think that'un had been planned, exactly. What in the world, once the arsenals were gone, contained that much powder? A pair of prizes,
Iris
and
Montreal,
had been filled with the gunpowder garnered from the French fleet and the Poudriere, the mills. But they were to have been sunk. Surely, no one in their right minds would
fire
them . . . would they? Thousands of barrels—not pounds of powder—
barrels
of gunpowder! It was the largest blast he could ever imagine.

“Short stays, sir!” Cony howled from the foc's'le, by the bower catheads. “Heave, you lubbers!” Gracey goaded the refugee lands-men.

Up and down, the bower cable bow-taut. A last heavy-heave and the anchor broke free of the holding ground. Pawls clattered like the rapid clopping of a trotting horse.

“Aloft! Let fall! Foc's'le! Haul away the inner jib!”

A land breeze, one of man's devising, the outrush of the fires, found her canvas; fore and main course, fore-tops'l, spanker and inner jib, enough to give her steerageway. Ebony waters scintillating with flame points chattered and gurgled about her cutwater, under her forefoot. Two knots at best she made, ghosting past Batterie la Croix and the headland bluffs, her shadow flickering like an errant moth's on the bare, crumbly land face. Out due east'rd to the Bay of Toulon, aiming at Cape de la Garonne, which could almost be seen as clear as daylight, ruddy-hued as twilight sunshine ahead. And an amber and rose-red glow astern, spreading and growing, an illuminated, tinted woodcut from some Germanic artist's medieval Hell. Or a glimpse down a volcano's seething throat.

Round Cape Sepet, sheering close as she dared to the shoals, clear of the ordered files of warships farther out in the channel as they made their southing, turning each in succession, in line-ahead, hulls gleaming with ruddy, linseeded sheens, buff gunwales bright as ivory, sails umber with the colours of a false sunset.

A sea breeze, then. A puff on the cheek, a luffing aloft, canvas drumming and fluttering. Squeals from blocks and parrels, as yards were braced about, pivoting on the masts, as sails filled on the opposite tack.

“'Vast heaving, and . . . Belay! Well, the braces, well, the sheets! Do you hear, there! Larboard, tail onto the lift lines!”

Radical
lifted her bows to the first scent of the proper sea, did a slow and regal roll to the first rollers that kissed her hull, a little forward of abeam on her larboard side. Creaking and groaning, timbers in adjustment, masts and stays taking a new strain as a second nightfall of 18 December 1793, found her. Stars appeared overhead, to windward and the south, thin rags of cloud far off simmered pale and indistinct and blue white. To the north, astern, they were red. Above Cape Sepet and the peninsula, there was red and amber, a pall which cut off starlight. And the Signals Cross stood on the highest hill, silhouetted on what appeared to be a tropical sunset, as stark as His on Golgotha.