Dewey Lambdin - King, Ship, and Sword

"Tant de pauvres orphelins" the Major added with a huge sigh and a sniffle. His captains and lieutenants standing behind him were just as morose as their commanding officer, and even the French sailors were hangdog miserable. "So many orphans, m'sieur" the interpreter said. "Zey 'ave nozzing left, mos' of zem. What zey 'ave to wear, everyone."

Lewrie glowered as he paced about the quarterdeck of the ship as it wallowed and rolled, fetched-to and with the way off her. There were simply too many frightened, utterly miserable faces to avoid, too many pathetic pleas in their eyes.

Damn 'em! Lewrie thought; I should take 'em all back to Jamaica, intern 'em 'til their evacuation's arranged back to France, but…

His men were busy gathering gun-tools, muskets, and short hangers and bayonets by the boat-load, disarming the soldiers and emptying the ship's arms chests to leave them nothing with which to resist or rise up in the Middle Watch once back out at sea for Kingston, and a Prize Court.

He owed these pathetic Frogs nothing, not after what they had done to him… to Caroline, yet…

"You send zem to ze hulks, m'sieur?" the interpreter wheedled as he dogged Lewrie's steps. "Turn zis ship to ze prison? Zey perish, m'sieur! You mak retourner au… send them back, back, n'est-ce pas? Back to Le Cap, ze Noirs sauvages will mak ze massacre!"

"Oh, stop yer bloody gob!" Lewrie snapped at him, going back to the entry-port to look down at his empty boats. He pursed his lips, thinking hard. He looked round, and everywhere there were French men, children, and women, all looking at him in dread, some softly weeping into their handkerchiefs; children wailed and clung to their parents' legs or skirts…

Lewrie went back to the interpreter, pointing him towards the two-decker's captain. "Ask him how many boats he has. Four, that all? And how many refugees per boat does he judge would be safe, given the weather and sea state? Only sixty at a time? Damn! How many of 'em are there? Over three hundred? Hell and damn!"

It would be impossible, even if the French seamen cooperated to the utmost. With his three ship's boats, and the Frenchman's, he might be able to land ninety or so per trip ashore, four trips in all, but he would have to close the coast to within half a mile or more, violating Spanish territory and raising one hell of a diplomatic stink. Louisiana was still Spanish; the hand-over to France had not yet happened as far as he knew. Better for him if it had reverted to France; then he could barge into enemy waters with impunity.

If the French sailors manning the oars refused to return for a second load, preferring to scamper and escape imprisonment, it would be over before it began.

And land them where? Lewrie paced to the shoreward bulwarks, hands in the small of his back, recalling how bleak and barren were the alluvial Mississippi Delta shoals either side of the Passes, both banks of the main river.

Might as well maroon 'em on the Chandeleurs! he scoffed; an hundred miles down-river from New Orleans? Close to Fort Balise? Damn!

That would do the refugees no good; Fort Balise was but lightly garrisoned, a joke on the term fort, and most-like the few Dons there lived hand-to-mouth already and would have no victuals to share. And there was the problem of a British warship in a Spanish river again.

Even if he could land them there, in the name of Christian charity, how long would it be before the Spanish got word upriver and sent a boat back to Fort Balise with extra food?

He turned to look North.

The squadron's got boats! he realised; do we take this ship and our other prizes into the Mississippi Sound, anchor up near Old Biloxi, we could barge ' em into Lake Borgne and land 'em on that little beach I found. From there, it's only fifteen miles up the Chef Menteur road t'New Orleans! Send a letter along with 'em… What's the bloody name o' that Panton, Leslie trade agent I worked with? Pollock. Gideon Pollock, aye!

And if the squadron used all thirteen of their own ship's boats, commandeered all the undamaged French ship's boats, manned by British tars, there would be no risk of losing prisoners who could not be trusted to honour their temporary parole!

He went back to midships of the quarterdeck, to the interpreter once more. "Tell them that I mean t'get the civilians ashore, but not here. Tell the Major I must order him, his officers, and soldiers to go below. M'sieur capitaine, he and his officers will go aft, under guard, as well, along with his sailors. Warn them that any attempt at revolt will result in great bloodshed.

"I will not take them back to Saint Domingue, tell them!" Lewrie snapped, cutting off the quick objections. "The civilian refugees will be allowed to go to New Orleans… the short way, up yonder," he said, pointing an arm to the North. "Any resistance on the part of the crew of this ship, or the soldiers aboard, and they will not. Comprendre?"

"M'sieur, you swear? Zat zey will…?" the interpreter pled.

"Upon my sacred honour and the honour of my country," he told him. "And I will require the same oath from every officer here. Upon their sacred, personal honour and… the sacred honour of France."

And pray God I don't have t'say that more'n once a century! he thought, keeping his phyz stern and immobile, though the idea of "the sacred honour of France" almost made him gag.

They swore, some reluctantly, but they swore, then dispersed to be herded below and locked away under Marine guard.

"Desmond? Row back to Reliant and deliver my compliments to Lieutenant Westcott, and bid him ferry over a prize-crew… armed to the teeth, mind. We will sail back to re-join the squadron."

"Aye, sor! Come on, Pat," his Cox'n replied.

"That Frog shit doesn't sup with us this evening, sir?" Lewrie asked as Captain Blanding hosted his captains in his poop cabins, ten days after the action, and almost to Kingston, Jamaica.

"Captain Julien Decean… our worthy French opponent, is under the weather, Captain Lewrie," Blanding replied with a wink as his steward indicated that supper was ready to be served. "A dyspeptic distress to his touchy digestion. Don't much care for English cooking, it would appear," Blanding added as he thumped his chair close to the table, so the napkin he tucked into his neck-stock could cover his girth. "There is also the matter that he feels we didn't quite fight fair."

"Man's an idiot, sir," Blanding's First Lieutenant, Gilbraith, commented. "The very idea that he expected to penetrate a line and separate us into defeatable pieces, ha! Ah, portable soup!"

"Well, Admiral Duncan did at Camperdown, Mister Gilbraith, and doubled on the Dutch," Lewrie pointed out as a bowl of soup was placed before him. "If he'd had equal numbers, well… or, was it tried in a fleet action, with two or three columns."

"Let us pray that their Navy is full of such dubious tacticians and lofty fools." Captain Parham chuckled. "Perhaps we should send him back to them, to let him try it on again?"

"As few of our Post-Captains are in French custody, it may be a long while before Decean is exchanged," Captain Blanding drawled as he tested how hot his soup was, blew on a spoonful, then tasted it. "We may only hope that men of his stripe are entrusted with the command of their ships. And that Napoleon Bonaparte continues to be as ignorant of the sea as he seems, and continues to appoint men like Decean."

"Hear, hear!" Captain Stroud of Cockerel heartily agreed.