Dewey Lambdin - The Invasion Year

“Cat hair an’ all, sor?” Desmond whispered from the corner of his mouth. “I’ve a damp scrap o’ rag that’d do.”

He’d not waited for Pettus to fetch up his hand-whisk to remove Chalky’s fur. With Toulon, a white-trimmed black cat, it wasn’t quite as bad a chore, but with the littl’un…! Even hanging his coat in the quarter-gallery toilet overnight did not save his uniforms from appearing “spotty” in broad daylight. He took off his cocked hat to inspect it as Desmond put the tiller over and called the stroke; expecting a parley with General Noailles, Lewrie had had his best-dress laid out for the morning, his best hat left in the japanned wood box ’til the very last moment, yet…! “Aye, give me your rag, Desmond,” he said with a sigh as he began to sponge down his hat and coat.

“Uhm… flag o’ truce, sor?” Desmond asked in a soft voice.

“We don’t have one aboard? Well, damme…,” Lewrie snapped.

S’pose this rag ain’t big enough… or white enough, either! Lewrie thought. He dug out his own clean, somewhat larger white handkerchief and handed it forward. “Sykes… stick this on your gaff, if ye please.”

“Aye, sir,” the bow-man replied.

“Ugly-lookin’ brutes, they is, sor,” Desmond commented as they neared the stone breakwaters, and the oncoming cutter.

“Saint Domingue… Hayti… breeds ’em like mosquitoes, Desmond,” Lewrie told him with a faint grin. “Haven’t seen any other sort on this island… not in six years since I first clapped eyes on the bloody place!”

The oarsmen in the rebel cutter, lolling at ease as long as its lug-sail was up, were the usual ferocious-looking bully-bucks, garbed in loose tan shirts worn un-buttoned for the breeze, most with sleeves cut off at the armpits so their muscular bare arms could show, and the most of them sported ragged-brimmed, nigh-shapeless plaited straw hats on their heads against the sun. Most also wore cartridge-box straps or cutlass bandoliers crossed over their chests.

Astern, at the tiller, sat a younger, frailer-looking fellow of much lighter complexion; a Mulatto, in shirt, waist-coat, and knee-top breeches, with some dead French officer’s sword, and a fore-and-aft bicorne. Beside him sat an even larger, darker man who scowled at them as if willing this party of strange blancs to drop down and die, that instant. He, too, wore gilt-laced cavalry officer’s breeches, sword, a captured officer’s coat, and little else, but for a small cocked hat crammed down on his head so hard that the corners drooped towards his shoulders.

“Arret!” the man snapped, his voice a deep, menacing basso; it was unclear whether he referred to his own boat or Lewrie’s.

“Close enough, I think,” Lewrie muttered to his Cox’n.

“Easy all, lads!” Desmond ordered. “Toss yer oars!”

The cutter’s sail was quickly lowered, its tiller put over, and it swung as if to lay its beam open for a ramming amidships. Desmond heaved on his own tiller to parallel the rebel boat.

“Bon matin, m’sieur!” Lewrie called out, smiling. “Comment allez-vous?” He introduced himself, then waited for a response. “Ehm… any of you speak English? Parle l’Anglais ?”

“Va te faire foutre, vous blanc fumier!” the big man snarled.

“A physical impossibility, m’sieur… quel appellez-vous ?”

“I speak, en peu, Capitaine, ” the young fellow at the tiller hesitantly, almost fearfully, said, his gaze flitting ’twixt Lewrie and his superior, as if expecting a blow for making the offer. There was a quick, rumbling palaver between them before the bigger man shoved the other, as if prodding him to speak for him.

“Colonel Coup-Jarret, ’e ask… what ees you’ business ’ere,”

Colonel… “Cut-Throat”? Damme! Lewrie thought, appalled.

“We have come to see if all the French have fled your country, sir,” Lewrie replied, as calmly as he could. “Or, if there are still some French we can kill. They are our enemies, as well, don’t ye know.”

The young fellow relayed that to Colonel “Cut-Throat,” who gave Lewrie a most distrustful glower, and spat overside before replying in a growl, more slave patois than French. Garble-garble-garble, as far as Lewrie could make out.

“Ze Rochambeau, ’e flee Le Cap… uhm… yesterday?” the young fellow informed them. “Noailles, ’e ’ave, uhm… demi-douzaine ? Demi-douzaine …” The fellow looked terrified that he didn’t know what that was in English, as if his superior would beat him for not knowing.

“A half-dozen, oui ?” Lewrie offered.

“Mais oui, demi-douzaine petit navires… ships! Small ships! Noailles, ’e go to Havana. ’As depart-ed!” the scared young man said in a rush.

“Port de Paix?” Lewrie prompted.

“No Francaise, aucun … none. Umph!” as the bigger man gave him a thump on the shoulder. “Colonel, ’e say you go away, now! No more blanc diables mus’ come to Haiti, ever ! You go, now!” he said, taking on his superior’s urgency and ferocity. “Ze whe… white devils ’oo come, z’ey will all die ’ere! Colonel Coup-Jarret, ’e swears z’is!” To punctuate the last, the Colonel pulled out a long poignard, or dagger, pointedly licked down the length of its blade, and grinned so evilly that Lewrie felt his blood chill.

“Well, ehm… thankee for the information, m’sieur, and we’ll be going back to our ship,” Lewrie replied, performing a slight bow from the waist and doffing his cocked hat. “Enjoy your new country. Ta ta!’ Au voir, rather.”

Desmond got the gig under way and pointed out seaward, the oarsmen bending the ash looms perhaps a touch more strenuously than usual, which suited Lewrie right down to his toes.

“Noailles had already fled? Well, dash it, I say,” Blanding said with a sigh as Lewrie and Stroud delivered their reports to him aboard Modeste, now the squadron was re-united and striding Sou’-Sou’west for Cape Dame Marie, and Jeremie.

“From what I gathered, sir,” Stroud contributed, not wanting to stand about like a useless fart-in-a-trance, “Port de Paix’s garrison were forced into Cap Francois long ago… and the rebels indeed have invested the Isle of Tortuga, as well. To keep the French from taking shelter there, where their small boats could not get at them with any hope of… well, vengeance, I’d suppose.”

“Noailles didn’t sail away all that long ago, sir,” Lewrie pointed out, with a brow up. “It would seem that Commodore Loring did not maintain a constant blockade over any port but Cap Francois… where all the valuable prizes were.” If ye get my meanin’, he thought, and waited for the shoe to drop with Blanding. “Noailles, so I gather, had half a dozen vessels, all schooners, luggers, or such, with barely the capacity t’take off what little was left of his troops. God knows if he had room for women and children, too. I did not get ashore to see if the rebels had white prisoners… they met me by the breakwaters, and most like would’ve cut all our throats had we tried. Sorry.”

“They say ‘discretion’s the better part of valour,’ Captain Lewrie. No fault of yours,” Blanding said, harumphing a bit, even so, at the disappointment of missing the French. “Havana, did they tell you?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Well, da… blast my eyes,” Blanding said. “And Kerverseau and Ferrand were allowed to sail away, as well… for want of watching? Can’t put that in my report to Admiralty… dear as I wish to. Wasn’t our fault the work was but half-done… and poorly, at that, by Jove!”