Lewrie took note that their horses' hooves left fairly shallow prints and didn't throw up much mud, except for the lower places… but they'd crossed a fair number of rivulets and seeps.
"Not much quicksand out here, either, sir," Pollock mused.
"Nor much market for it, either, I'd expect," Lewrie quipped. "Bad for egg timers and watch-glasses, hey?"
"The bulk of the grasses here, Mister Willoughby," Mr. Pollock irritatedly explained, "are not marsh grasses, like those round rills and along the bayou channel. They're dry-land grasses. If the soil along Lake Pontchartrain won't support troops, artillery, or waggons, do you not think that this terrain might be more practicable? Please leave off your japing and take a good look, I conjure you!"
"Well, aye, I s'pose the land here is higher and dryer," Lewrie allowed, dismounting and squatting to dig up a handful to crumble in his hands, wondering again why anyone in his right mind would send a sailor on a chore like this, instead of a soldier… or a farmer! He was, at best, a "gentleman-farmer" on his rented acres in Surrey, one who might "raise his hat" but little else. That was his wife's bailiwick, what her experience and knowledge from an agricultural childhood in North Carolina had taught her; what their hired estate manager and day labourers tended to without Lewrie having to do much beyond shout encouragement, heartily agree like the Vicar of Bray, then toddle down to the Olde Ploughman tavern for an ale.
"Firm enough to support… things, perhaps?" Pollock hinted.
"Aye, I think it might be," Lewrie dumbly agreed.
"Mount up, then, and we'll ride on to the end of the road and have our meal," Pollock suggested, pleased with Lewrie's opinion.
"Bring any liniment?" Lewrie asked with a grin, taking time to massage his buttocks, with the reins in his hands.
"Sorry, no… Said you were a horseman." Pollock snickered.
They dismounted and spread a groundcloth at the end of the Chef Menteur road, on a sandy, beach-dune hillock on the western shore of Lake Borgne. A vast expanse of open water-seawater-stretched out before them to the south and southeast, the lake's horizon mostly limitless, except for due east, where, cross a fairly narrow channel or river, the swamps began again and made a vast, reedy, and marshy island that blocked the view; here and speckled with a few straggling groves of scrub trees.
Once the horses had been hobbled and let to graze, once they'd been led to fresh water to drink, Pollock did provide a decent spread, Lewrie had to allow. There were crusty, fresh baguettes, mustard and butter in small stone jars, and pickles in another. A choice of roast beef or ham was wrapped in one cloth, and several pieces of crispily breaded and fried chicken were wrapped in another. A glass apothecary jar contained cold, cooked beans in oil and vinegar, and there were two bottles of imported hock. Pewter plates and utensils, spare chequered napkins, and proper wineglasses… Pollock had seen to everything.
Another thing Lewrie had to admit to himself as he concocted a thick, meaty sandwich (or was it, as his cabin-servant, Aspinall, had cheekily termed it, a "Shrewsbury," for the real lord who'd first built one at an all-night gaming table?) and took a bite: risky though this expedition might be, he was actually beginning to enjoy it!
A night or two in a comfy shore bed, with fine coffee or hot chocolate delivered to his bedside by one of his pension's servants; of sleeping lubberly, civilian "All-Night-Ins" with no emergencies to summon him on deck; and a myriad of coffeehouses, cabarets, wine bars, or eating places from which to choose had seduced him utterly. And the victuals, the viands, the delicious variety, all but a few low dives preparing piquant, unforgettable dishes, ah!
And Charite Bonsecours and her enthusiastic amour to savour… to contemplate another bout after the first and second, well! He was, but for a troop of nubile and nude nymphs feeding him ambrosia… or grapes… in the fabled Lotus Eater's Paradise!
"Out to the Nor'east, yonder, is Cat Island," Mr. Pollock intruded, rattling out the folds of his inevitable chart to lay between them as they dined. "Between Cat Island and the mainland is the inlet they call Pass Maria, ah… here, ahem." Pollock indicated with a forefinger, which left a dab of mustard on Lake Borgne. "There is deep water on the seaward side, you see. Near to Ship Island, as well. This swampy island before us, t'other side of this channel, has a fort at the north end, Fort Coquilles, to control the pass into Lake Pontchartrain, but… there's nothing to guard against ships entering Lake Borgne… coming right to the shore on which we sit, Willoughby! In your valued opinion, could Fort Coquilles prevent a landing here?"
"What calibre are their guns?" Lewrie asked, measuring distance 'twixt thumb and forefinger, and laying them on the chart's scale. It was a full five miles from the fort to the channel mouth.
"I've heard boasts that they're twenty-four-pounders," Pollock supplied. "Ships' guns, on naval carriages."
"They'd not have a hope in Hell," Lewrie told him, sure enough of artillery, one of his chiefest delights since his first experience of a broadside on the old Ariadne. "No mortars? No big'uns?"
"Only light Coehorn mortars on the landward walls, I have discovered, over the years," Pollock guardedly declared. "Our Spaniards are a boastful lot when shopping. Do you use my telescope, you can almost make out the fort to the north and east of us. It's placed on firm ground, so I'm told, at this island's tip. The Pass, the lakes, are too shallow for deep-draught ships, so I suppose the fort was set in place to counter small vessels and gunboats from getting past it."
"Could I get some bomb-ketches in here, within three miles of the place… shallow, improvised bombs up this channel a little way, with ten-inch sea mortars, I could pound it into ruin," Lewrie stated, standing and peering through the borrowed telescope. "Buoyed up with 'camels' to either beam, to get 'em up this slough. Wood-based light Coehorn mortars in launches and pinnaces to sail right up the island's west side, that 'd keep their heads down and their buttocks clenched!" he hooted in anticipatory mirth. "Two… three combined companies of Marines from off a few ships of the line could go with the small boats and assault it from the rear. Landward walls of a sea fort aren't designed against a strong assault." He lowered the glass and looked down at the channel.
"Though I don't much care for the current. Looks fast to me," he said, frowning at the eddies, swirls, and bent-over reeds. "Take a slack tide, and how long that'd last… else the mortar boats could not breast the tides under sail, and rowing'd be sheer buggery. Make less than a mile an hour, slower than a man could walk it."
"Or Fort Coquilles could be ignored, if it can't reach to this shore with its guns," Mr. Pollock mused as Lewrie sat back down, handing him the glass to stow away. "Then… in your professional opinion, could a large force be landed here? Where we now sit? It's not over thirteen miles from here to New Orleans, over a fairly good road, too. Mister Peel, being a cavalryman at one time, suggested that this might prove the best route, when we talked before leaving Kingston."
"Beats sailing an hundred miles up the Mississippi River from the Gulf," Lewrie cautiously allowed, "or God knows how far down from from Canada, aye. How large a force could be landed here, though…" Lewrie mused, shrugging. He fixed Pollock with a sharp, leery eye and grinned. "And did Mister Peel drop a few hints, hey, Mister Pollock, as to what he thought the size of the force required could be?"