Dewey Lambdin: The Invasion Year

All the gun-ports on each beam of the 74 were hinged open for desperately needed ventilation, any wisp of a breeze that could sweep through both her over-crowded gun-decks to relieve the panting of the hundreds of pale faces pressed close to the openings. Those people had no other place to go, for the weather decks, gangways, poops and forecastles, and quarterdecks of all the French vessels were already teeming with refugees, almost arseholes-to-elbows.

“ Lovely pair of frigates, there,” Captain Bligh said with an avid note in his voice as they passed the two-decker. “ Chlorinde … and Surv… Surveillante, ” he read off their name-boards on the transoms. “As big as our frigates of the Fifth Rate… thirty-eights or better.”

The frigate closest to them had her single row of gun-ports open, too, with children and teenagers sitting on the barrels of her guns to be close to the fresher air, and haloes of faces round every edge.

“Might be nigh a thousand people aboard this’un, alone, sirs,” Lewrie said with a grim shake of his head. Were I a Frog, I’d be on-board one of ’em, too, Lewrie thought; Beats bein’ murdered all hollow!

“Be a shame, does Dessalines set them ablaze,” Captain Bligh told them, sounding sad. “Yon brace of frigates would fetch us fifteen or twenty thousand pounds each, perhaps thirty thousand for that Third Rate, and about the same for the Indiamen, each.”

“Head and Gun Money for all the sailors and soldiers captured, to boot,” Captain Barre pointed out.

“Well, perhaps but half that much, sir,” Lewrie told Bligh. “I think our Prize Courts would most-like steal half for themselves.”

“Oh, tosh!” Barre said with a chuckle. “They ain’t cut up from a drubbin’, and won’t need serious refits, like most French warships we’ve made prize. Even so… aye, it would be a pity, do those apes ashore burn them up.”

“Dessalines might just do it for spite,” Bligh suggested. “To show us how little he cares for us, or the French, or any Whites.”

“Beg pardon, sirs, but there’s a breeze coming up,” their Midshipman hesitantly interjected, pointing an arm to the wind-rippled patch of water off their barge’s larboard bows. “Are your observations done, sirs, I’d care to steer for it, and hoist the lugs’l.”

“Might be enough wind to carry us beyond the harbour mole, and out to a decent sea-breeze, aye,” Captain Bligh, senior-most of their party, agreed. “Spare your oarsmen three or four miles of rowing, hey?”

“You left your gig at the flagship, Captain Lewrie?” Captain Barre casually enquired.

“Sent her back to Reliant, not knowing how long we’d be away, sir,” Lewrie told him.

“She’s closer inshore than the flag? Well, now our duty has been done, there’s no reason to detain you any longer,” Barre said as the barge crossed the mill-pond flat water for that disturbed patch, now as big as a lake and growing larger as the breeze picked up. Two of their oarsmen stowed away their oars and began to fetch up the lug-sail which, with its simple running, rigging, was wrapped about its upper gaff boom.

“Make for the Reliant frigate, once under sail,” Captain Barre directed the Midshipman. “We’ll spare Captain Lewrie, here, the long time it’d take him to send for his gig, twiddle his thumbs aboard the flag, and another hour or two to return to his ship.”

“That’s most kind of ye, sir, thankee,” Lewrie told Barre as he pulled out his pocket-watch to note the time. It was already almost a quarter to one P.M.; aboard Reliant they’d soon be sounding Two Bells of the Day Watch, and her Commission Officers, Sailing Master, Lieutenant of Marines, and Surgeon would be sitting down to take their mid-day dinner, now that the ship’s people had had their own mess. If Barre had not made the offer, even with a decent wind, it would have been at least 2 P.M. before they would have fetched the flagship, and perhaps two more hours before he could expect to sit down to a meal of his own; there might have been some leftovers from Commodore Loring’s table, if he begged properly, but… even this quick return to his ship would result in whatever cold collation that his personal cook, Yeovill, had at-hand. The ship’s cook would be just beginning to boil up victuals for the crew’s supper, with nothing to offer him.

It’ll be wormy cheese and ship’s bisquit, Lewrie bemoaned; some jam, or a slice’r two off last night’s roast. The cats’ sausages?

And, Lewrie was feeling most peckish, by then!

The appointed morning dawned cooler than the day before, though the sea-breezes that had blown light but steadily throughout the night began to fade and clock round the compass by the start of the Forenoon Watch at 8 A.M. If anything, it was replaced by a faint land-breeze as the island of Hispaniola was heated by the risen sun. The waters about HMS Reliant dropped to a slight two-foot chop, and long, rolling wave sets that slatted the remaining wind from her fore-and-aft sails and spanker, and fluttered her square sails, to the accompaniment of slapping rigging and the loose squeal of blocks, to the basso of the hull as it rocked, heaved, and scended, her timbers groaning.

“The tide ebbs from the harbour… when, Mister Caldwell?” her captain enquired a tad impatiently, pacing about the freshly cleaned quarterdeck, from the starboard bulwarks facing Cap Francois to the binnacle cabinet and double-wheel helm, and back.

“By my ephemeris, sir, it should have turned half an hour ago,” Reliant ’s Sailing Master informed him, after another quick peek at his book of tide tables, and a sidelong glance at the gathered officers.

“Mean they ain’t coming out?” Marine Lt. Simcock complained.

“The land-breeze seems to be strengthening… a bit,” Lieutenant Spendlove, the Second Officer, noted. “That, and the ebbing tide, should carry them out nicely. If they’re of a mind.”

The Reliant ’s people, from her captain to her Commission Sea Officers to her Midshipmen, Warrants, petty officers, Able and Ordinary Seamen, her Landsmen, “Idlers and Waisters,” her Marines and ship’s boys and servants, were all on deck, Half were on watch, of course, but the rest were there to satisfy their curiosity… and to see if their prize-money would actually sail out and surrender; or if they did not, their burning would be a “raree.” Wagers slyly made during the night rode on the results.

Even Lewrie’s cats, Toulon, the older, stockier black-and-white, and Chalky, the grey-splotched white’un, were on deck this morning, and when not perched atop the canvas coverings of the quarterdeck hammock nettings, were scampering about in pursuit of a champagne cork with a length of ribbon tied round it, footballing it from one end of the quarterdeck to the other, hopping up on their hind legs in mock battle to play tail-chase when the champagne cork toy palled.

“Ye’d think someone slipped ’em some fresh catnip last night,” Lewrie grumbled, forced to halt his pacing as Chalky chased Toulon aft right through his booted legs. “Damn my eyes, ye little…!”

“They do seem very spry, today, sir,” Lt. Westcott, the First Officer, agreed, watching them go, flashing his teeth in a brief grin as Toulon fluffed up, turned sideways, and hopped in warning at his playmate, one paw lifted and his bottled-up tail lashing.

“Deck, there!” Midshipman Rossyngton called down from his wee seat on the main mast cross-trees. “The French… are… making… sail !” the youngster pealed out, each word distinct.