Dewey Lambdin - Sea of Grey

"Zere is another entry, quite recent, Capitaine," Durant said, after wetting a finger to turn the pages. "Before he sails north, to rendezvous with ze brig we capture, uhm… many privateer capitaines meet with an officer sent from Paris on the frigate zat delivers ze arms we take, a Capitaine de Vaisseau … a Post-Captain. He is under the Governor-General Hugues, to coordinate. He writes, 'If United States have turned belli gиrent, prey upon their merchantmen, those of useful burthen, and capture sufficient transport for future expeditionary use. Then, as re-enforcements arrive, under escort by ships from the Atlantic squadrons, both French and noir forces will combine for a descent upon islands now occupied by Albion,'… that is to say, us, gentlemen. The capitaine of Incendiare describes the new arrival as a most energetic and inspiring man… zough he expresses a troubling fear of him, due to his monstrous appearance, and his reputation as an ardent and ruthless chasseur of Royalists and seditionists during Ze Terror. He names him Le Hideux," Durant said, turning the book about so they could see the entry for themselves.

"Huh? Beg pardon?" Lewrie stammered, wishing that his senses were not quite so foxed, or his eyes so mutinous at focusing. "Le Hideux, did he call him?" He felt a cold, fey dread invade his body.

No, can't be! he quailed inside; I killed the dog! Didn't I?

"Oui, Le Hideux, Capitaine." Durant blithely continued reading from the journal. "Apparently, zis officer is deformed by many cruel wounds. He wears a black mask over ze right half of his face and his eye, to cover a blinding and a livid scar, it is rumoured. He has a bad limp, and must wear an iron brace over his boot to stand and uses a cane… which must be awkward for him, since his right arm is gone at ze shoulder. His name, he notes…" Durant paused. "Mon Dieu!"

"Guillaume Choundas!" Lewrie spat. "Mine arse on a band-box!"

"You know of him, aussi, Capitaine?" Durant asked, shivering.

"I killed him," Lewrie whispered. "Swear t'Christ, I thought I did, back in '96." He stared blank and pale at the far partitions.

"Sir?" Langlie gawped, eldritch-struck by such a reaction from his captain, by such an ominous, rabbit-across-one's-grave dread. "Did you say you… killed him, sir? Then…?"

"Who is the bastard, then, sir?" Catterall asked, impervious to superstition; nigh impervious to anything, by then.

"A fiend from Hell's deepest pits, Mister Catterall," Lewrie at last managed to say, after mastering himself. "A fiend who just won't die, no matter I've had my whacks at him two or three times. An evil, clever, murderin', bastardly gullion of a Malouin corsair, who thinks he has some Breton, ancient Celtic destiny, since Julius Caesar conquered the Veneti. Mad as a March Hare, but clever… oh, so clever!" Lewrie told them, shaking his head in queasy wonder, and pouring himself more port, a brimming bumper, with hands that barely shook despite his shock.

" Paris couldn't have picked a better foe to send us. Dangerous as a crate o' cobras, and not a jot o' mercy in his thrice-damned soul. He puts a squadron together in these waters, and he'll raise mayhem as sure as I'm born. Sew your arses shut, and keep yer backs to a wall."

He felt another sinking feeling in his innards, and knew that it was not the result of indigestion or a tropical fever. "You gentlemen will, I pray, excuse me for a moment," he bade, tossing off his glass of port at one go, then shoving his chair back so hard that it nearly tipped over, its feet catching at the painted canvas deck cover. They rose in kind as he headed aft for his quarter-gallery again.

"Whew!" Lt. Catterall softly marvelled, clawing for the bottle to charge his glass. "Never heard the like! If this… what was he, this Choundas, is that bad, and his presence in the West Indies upsets the captain so, well… he must be Satan incarnate."

"You asked if Captain Lewrie had heard of him, too, did you not, Mister Durant?" Langlie enquired more sombrely, but also in a mutter that would not carry far aft. "What do you know of him?"

"Rumours of him before my family and I escape Toulon in '93, Mister Langlie," Durant fretfully informed them, frowning hard. "And what he did to zose who could not flee ze Rйpublicains when Toulon fell. Six thousand guillotined, shot, or bayoneted in ze surf, wading out and pleading for just one more boat. Guillaume Choundas was one of those who purged ze Toulon fleet and ze city. He loves ze guillotine, ze torture… poor helpless women, and especially little girls in terror of him. He slaughter his way south from Paris, to every naval port, an enthusiastic agent of Ze Terror. I had not thought of him in years, Grace б Dieu! But now… pardons, gentlemen, but I fear it will be a very bad zing for him to appear."

"But, surely…!" Langlie protested in a splutter that sounded half bemused, now. "He's but one man, in charge of a pack of tag-rag-and-bobtail privateers… that's like herding cats!"

"No insult meant, Toulon," Catterall grumped, winking at Lewrie's pet, who was hunkered on all fours with his tail tucked about his front paws on the sideboard, his eyes half slit in the dim lanthorn light as eerily as a witch's familiar. He'd meant to jape, but the atmosphere had gotten to him, too.

"Charge oн nothing," Langlie persisted, sterner now. "He might get the use of a frigate or two, that's all, and we've what… seventy or more ships out here? And we've Captain Lewrie, as brave and smart a scrapper as ever trod a quarterdeck! And we've Proteus, surely the finest frigate in the whole Royal Navy! We'll settle this Choundas."

"Got old Lir," Catterall whispered. "Don't forget the tales of seals and selkies, the old sea-god's favour and all, and the uncanny good fortune that follows the Captain from ship to ship. What did for our first commanding officer at Chatham? What did for that mutineer, Rolston, the night we transferred him after we escaped the Nore? No, lads, don't forget we've luck on our side. Why, the Captain's taken the man half apart, already! Shot off his arm, by the sound of it… probably did the carvin' on his phyz, too, I shouldn't wonder, maybe was the one who lamed the bastard, as well!

"One more encounter with Captain Lewrie, and this Choundas'll have t'sign his name with his prick like that Buckinger feller, does all the stunts at the raree shows 'thout arms or legs, hey? And keeps Mistress Buckinger a happy woman, 'tis said!" Catterall chortled, more loudly than necessary. "He don't scare me, this Guillaume Choundas or howsomever ya say it! Bring him on, I say!"

"Hear, hear!" Langlie cheered, drumming the tabletop.

"And, m sieurs,'" Durant slyly commented, tapping the side of his head, "after so many disasters to his person… who is to say that he, Choundas, just may be in dread of rencontre with ze capitaine, n'est-ce past

"Hear, hear!" Langlie chirped, merry once again, hastening to top their glasses. "The Captain gets one more shot at him, and it will be finis for Choundas. After this morning, I doubt that there's anything on Earth that'd daunt our captain for more'n a second!"

"Toast, toast!" Catterall cried, staggering to his feet.

In the sudden silence, though, as foxed wits tried to dredge up the proper sentiments, there came a sound from the quarter-gallery in the stern, not quite unlike a prolonged, stentorian belch; nor, being in a hero-worshiping and charitable humour, could the assembly term it as resembling a day-long, fluttery fart.

Either way, though, it didn't sound particularly heroic.

M ind th' paint, yer honour, sor," Landman Furfy cautioned, as Lewrie's gig bumped against their frigate's hull below the entry-port.

"You do the same, Furfy," Lewrie cheerfully called back, taking in how much ended up on Furfy rather than the gunwale, "else the only thing t'clean you would be neat rum, or turpentine."

"Prefer th' rum, sor… bathin' in it, ah th' wonder!" Furfy replied, pausing on the half-awash work catamaran platform on which he stood, standing back to salute with his paintbrush as Lewrie ascended the battens to the starboard gangway. Pipes trilled, boots clomped in unison, hands slapped shiny, linseeded musket stocks, and sailors took pause in their labours to doff their hats.

"The high-jump, was it, sir?" Bosun Pendarves asked once Lewrie had turned aft to the quarterdeck.

"Guilty on all counts, and to be hung at dawn tomorrow," Lewrie told the hawk-nosed older man with a satisfied nod. "A foregone conclusion, really. Chained, tarred, and caged 'til his bones fall away, then buried off the Palisades at low tide, God knows when."

"We can see it from here, sir?" Bosun Pendarves chuckled, glad for a bit of amusement. Public hangings did that to people, even the primmest. "I'd admire t'see Hennidge get scragged, I would."

"All ships in harbour to send witness parties, Mister Pendarves. And all crews to muster facing Execution Dock," Lewrie said. "You get first thwart in the boat, then choose the rest for me. Best turn-out, mind."

"Oh, aye, sir!" Pendarves beamed, rubbing his calloused hands with gleeful anticipation. "I'll see to it."

Lewrie didn't tell him that he'd send a midshipman with him in nominal charge of the shore party; he thought that Mr. Elwes was tough enough, and "blooded" by longer service, not to shame Proteus by casting up his accounts to Neptune at the sight.

He took another look about the ship before going below, and it was amazing what Martin Hennidge's appearance at Kingston had done for his frigate's repute. Canvas, cordage, tar, and oils-paint!-so spitefully and stingily denied before, had appeared in liberal, squanderous amounts, since. Admiral Sir Hyde Parker had been effusive with praise, and had done him the honour of supplying him a copy of a flatteringly fulsome report he would send to Admiralty anent the capture of a Hermione mutineer; which report lavishly, nigh luridly, recounted his personal seizure and disarming of Martin Hennidge, with but a hanger against a loaded and cocked musket. Even the staff-captain, Sir Edward Charles, had simpered with outwardly sincere congratulations.

Sycamore s capture, with proof of Yankee Doodle collusion with the French, admittedly had caused a problem with the American consul, and could still result in a chilly rift with their frigates in future, but the burning of a French privateer, the scotching of an arms delivery, and most especially the intelligences he had gained had offset that-as far as Lewrie and Proteus were concerned, at any rate. The matter of his pressing three men from Sycamore, and one of them a mutineer-as if the United States had deliberately sheltered him-was not a matter for discussion from the local American representative! Too bloody embarassing, all round!

So, perhaps for the moment, he could afford to feel smug. But for the Admiral's parting comment as he'd left the court-martial, that he'd count on Proteus to put paid to that ogre Choundas! As if it was to be his quest, and no one else's!

Lewrie allowed himself a disbelieving shiver as he gained his great-cabins and divested himself of his best uniform, and donned one of his older shirts, without neck-stock, and slop trousers. He went to the desk to give Toulon an affectionate stroking of his belly. In the heat of a Caribbean summer, the ram-cat had taken to sleeping on his back, with all four paws limply stuck in the air. His best response to a petting was a sleepy " Urrmph" and a thump and swish of his stout tail on the desktop. Toulon was down for the day, most-like to contemplate shedding.