Drumfire to the south. The Frogs had erected five new batteries in front of Fort Mulgrave on the Hauteur de Grasse, digging and trenching forward, moving nearer each day. If Mulgrave fell, there went Balaguer and L'Eguillette. And with them, any approach to Toulon 's basin, or any hope of sheltering ships in the Great Road, too.
That little coxcomb Buonaparte's work, Alan suspected with a sour groan; aye, take joy of it, ya arrogant little bastard! They were quartered once again in the guardhouse by the dockyard gate. De Crillart spent his nights at home with his family, high up in the town, but his twenty or so surviving Royal Corps of Gunners bunked with Alan's fourteen. Not enough to make crews for two cutters or barges. He'd been assigned a dozen more, men cut adrift from ships off on God knew what missions, more survivors of brave but doomed adventures, those plucked from the sunken ruins of other gunboats that the French had wrecked. No more gun-boats for them, though. Floating batteries were a tad thin on the ground these days, as were the huge sea mortars. As were hollow explosive shells from the arsenals. And fuses and powder. The Poudriere and Fort Millaud had shut down their production after they'd run out of charcoal, saltpetre and sulphur… and Republican bursting-shell had begun to drum around them, threatening a tremendous explosion which would shave the hills level. They'd also run out of Royalist workmen who dared set foot in the places.
No, Lewrie and his men were boatmen now, ferrymen equipped with cutters which shuffled supplies and such about under lugsail or oars to keep the coastline posts fed and armed, to bear wounded from Hauteur de Grasse to hospital, or scuttle between the line-of-battle ships and shore with replacements, rum, biscuit and salt rations for their hands detached ashore.
The wind was picking up, ruffling his cloak and hat, but Alan stood his ground near the guardhouse gate, unwilling to go inside to another night of frowsty air and loneliness, cooped up alone in his miserable little room, with the stink of all those men below wafting up to him. There wasn't coal enough or wood enough to keep a warm fire going long enough to take off the chill, nor enough candles or oil to read by, what was the point; he'd lost all his books when Zele had gone down, and didn't have the patience to ruin his eyes trying to puzzle his way through something written in French anyway. No, he would spend another night, mittened and cloaked, abed with his eyes wide open, staring at the low ceiling 'til sleep came. Or pace the wharves along the basin until he was too tired to care.
Something was moving on the esplanade besides himself. A woman, also cloaked and mittened, hobbling under the burden of a hard-leather portmanteau and a large cloth sack. Her face was concealed by her hood, and the sad straw brims of her bonnet, which the hood forced down either side of her face like horse blinkers, hunched against the cold winds.
"Bonsoir, m'sieur," she drawled. "Etes-vous seul, ce soir?"
Oh, a whore, he sighed to himself. For a moment he'd thought it might be a refugee, looking for shelter, or some girl moving to cheaper lodgings.
"Seul, oui, mais…" he replied sourly, already dismissing her. "Alone, yes."
"Ah, m'sieur Luray!" she cried suddenly, dropping her luggage to come to his side. "M'sieur lieutenant? C'est moi, Phoebe!" she exclaimed, folding back the hood of her cloak. "Vous… remember? Bonsoir!"
Oh, poor Mister Scott's whore, he corrected himself.
"Bonsoir, Phoebe," he grinned. "Haven't seen you around, not… not since Mister Scott passed over." He shrugged in sympathy. She and Scott had become regulars with each other. He might have become all of her trade, the few weeks before his death.
"C'est tragique, pauvre Barnaby," she pouted. " 'E waz ze bon… good man. Tres gentil avec moi, beaucoup de bonte, ver' kin'. Et genereux. Generous? C'est dommage." She shrugged. She did not say that Barnaby Scott had been gentle, just… kindly. In fact, Lewrie thought he'd dealt rather brusquely with her; too dead-set against all French people, even the one he'd been topping, to be civil or gentlemanly.
"Now?" Alan inquired. "Comment allez-vous, maintenant, mademoiselle Phoebe?"
"Ah, je suis tres seule, m'sieur," she replied, snuffling from the cold, though with a game little smile. "Am ver' 'lone. Avant Barnaby nous a quitte… 'e lef us, j'arretez mes affaires… ze beeznees I stop? Encore, je suis la pauvre jeune fille de joie mais… mes affaires ver'… bad. Pour tous les courtesans, all. Gentilhommes 'ave no time, no monnaie, phfft! Too beezy… too pauvre. Too effrayant. Frighten?"
That was another ominous portent to Lewrie's mind-that men in the enclave no longer had coin or time enough to waste on the whores of Toulon -too wrapped up in fears for their safety, too concerned about plotting their escapes with their whole skins to rattle? He'd expected the opposite would be true, that they'd be kicking her door down. Rantipoling always seemed to increase in the face of impending disaster, took men's minds off doom for a while. Like that old adage, "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die"?
"I waz 'ope you be 'ere, encore, m'sieur Luray," Phoebe told him quickly, taking his arm and sounding insistent.
"Me? Whatever for?" he scoffed, albeit gently, though he thought he knew already. Phoebe needed money, and a new gentleman-protector.
"Apres votre navire a coulee… you' ship sink?" she explained. "An' you tell me, si chretien… so gently, concer-nant Barnaby, zen j'sais… I know vous 6tes l'homme, si prevenant et bienviellant. You 'ave ze kin'… considerate 'eart? D'avance, you waz toujours bonte avec moi, m'sieur Luray, ver' gentle an' kin'. Non speak severe to me, as putain. Toujours as la jeune dame, ze young lady! Si charmant et amu-sant!" She brightened, sounding almost wistful, but sobered quickly as she sped on with what Alan was certain was a tale of woe.
"Now I am… in ze trouble?" the girl coaxed. "Oh, merde alors, ze trouble terrible, m'sieur! D'abord, I s'ink of you, seulement… on'y? I come 'ere, 'ope you are 'ere, you le plus, of all ze Anglais Navy? You, mos' of all." Phoebe fought a flood of tears, snuffling again, wiping her nose on her mitten. "Eef you do not help me, m'sieur, I am los'! Mais… I know, you 'ave pity vers moi! I know you 'elp me!"
"Phoebe, uhm…" Lewrie sighed. "Look, it's so cold out here. Si froid? Let's go over there, through the dockyard gate, out of the wind." He picked up her traps, already beginning to regret it. Once in the lee of a stout stone wall, in more privacy, he turned to her. "Now, what sort of trouble are you in, petite Phoebe?"
"I am so effrayant, m'sieur Luray," she began, shivering with more than cold, stepping closer to him. "I mus' 'ave votre protection! Plais, mon Dieu, you weel protec' moi, plais?" the tiny mort entreated, her soft brown eyes huge in a pinched little gamine face. "Les Republicans, les sans culottes…" she sneered for a moment, almost spit upon the pavement despite her fear, "les paysans connardes, wan zey reprendront… zey tak' Toulon, I die. Mais oui, I know zis! Merde alors, zey keel me! On mes murs et ma porte… walls an' door? Les sales patriotes, zey write: 'ere reside une peau de vache degueu-lasse, la sale putain des ennemies Britanniques cracra'! Zat I am ze traitresse?" She weakened and began to wail helplessly, though still with an undercurrent of anger and resentment. "La sale putain des aristos, hein?"
"Whoa, slowly," Alan said, trying to translate her rushed words. Cow's hide? Bitch of a hide, disgusting… with puke, or merely filthy?