Toulon had been "refugeed" from the port of Toulon; Chalky had been found by his bastard son, Desmond, the American Midshipman, aboard a French prize brig in the West Indies, and presented to him as a gift.
They were both, therefore, French}. Perhaps they knew the smell of their homeland off to loo'rd, and wanted Lewrie to rise and take 'em on deck to share their furry rencontrel
And, damned if they weren't poised atop the quarterdeck hammock nettings that very moment, peering forward towards the shore, sniffing the air, tails curling and jittering like they did when they saw a sea bird glide cross the decks, and sharing looks with each other, now and again.
"Not thinkin' o' jumpin' ship, are ye, catlings?" Lewrie teased as he came to the forward end of the quarterdeck to give them a stroke or two. He was rewarded with head butts on his hand, some wee, trillish mews by way of greeting. "I'll brook no desertion, hear me plain?"
"Deck, there!" a lookout atop the main-mast cross-trees called. "Fishin' boat t'larboard! Three points off th' larboard bows!"
Lewrie wandered over to the top of the larboard gangway ladder as Lt. Urquhart and Mr. Winwood raised their telescopes to peer at the fishing boat, which was just beginning to emerge from the haze, and the low-lying skim of fog atop the estuary waters.
"She appears to be un-armed, sir," Urquhart reported. "Only a few men on deck, with nets ready for streaming. Rather good-sized, I do allow, though, sir. 'Bout the length of a Port-Admiral's barge?"
"Your glass, sir," Lewrie bade, and took a squint for himself. He saw a two-masted lugger, both her broad gaff-rigged sails and her single jib streaming slackly astern as she came into the wind, probably to lower her fishing nets before coming about to wallow inshore for the first of her morning's trawls. Four, no, only five sailors in sight, and none of them showing any evident signs of alarm at the appearance of a "Bloody's" frigate cruising up to Range of Random Shot.
"Hands to Quarters, Mister Urquhart," Lewrie ordered, lowering the borrowed glass and handing it back over. "Carronades, quarterdeck nine-pounders, chase guns, and swivels only. No point in manning the eighteen-pounders for such a feeble target. Spare hands, and Mister Devereux's Marines, for a boarding party."
"Aye, sir! Bosun! Pipe 'All Hands' and 'Quarters'!"
"S'pose I must pass the word for the Surgeon," Lewrie chuckled. "I'm told my French is a horror, and Mister Durant was born speakin' Frog."
"Uhm, I am considered quite fluent in French, sir," Urquhart almost timidly put forward, with a throat-clearing harrumph.
"Excellent, Mister Urquhart!" Lewrie cheered. "When closer to, call for them to fetch-to, and prepare t'be boarded. Have her captain come aboard so you can… interrogate him."
"Aye aye, sir."
A quarter-hour later, and both Savage and the French lugger were fetched-to into the light winds, no more than one hundred yards apart. Though Lewrie's French was horrid, he could make out a few phrases of invective… "Damn you 'Bloodies,' we're working here!"… "Death of my life, you put us in povertyl"… "Go and fuck yourself, you arrogant 'beefsteak' turds!"
They quieted though, and lapsed into surly silence, when cowed by the size of the boarding party, and the Marines with their bayonets and muskets. A brief inspection above and below decks, into the reek of the lugger's hold, half-filled with sea water to preserve any catch 'til they could be landed ashore, then Lt. Urquhart's launch was coming alongside Savage with a lone Frenchman amidships, a wiry older man in loose pantaloons, bare feet, a filthy canvas fisherman's smock, and a tasseled "Liberty" stocking cap upon his grizzled head.
"Captain, may I name to you Captain Jules Papin," Lt. Urquhart gravely and punctiliously announced. "Capitaine Papin, permettei-moi de vous presenter notre Capitaine de Vaisseau, Alan Lewrie, de le fregate Sauvage."
"Capitaine Papin," Lewrie said, doffing his hat. "Bon matin, m'sieur." "Hawh!" the Frenchman growled back, scratching at his unshaven grey week's worth of stubble. "Bon, mon cul! Ou est le rum? Have rum?"
"Ah, hum" was Urquhart's stricken comment, his face reddening.
"Aspinall," Lewrie called over his shoulder. "A bottle o' rum and glasses for our guest. "You speak a little Anglais, Capitaine?"
" Un peu, mais oui," the grizzled, fish-scale-speckled old man gravelled back. "Mus' parler tongue of thief an' invader, if I cannot bataille… fight, hein} 'Ow you t'ink ze pauvre homme make living if keep from ze fish, hein} Firs', cutter nous arrete… stop us, jus' in river, zat damn' Argosy. Zen, mort de ma view, is Erato brig, zen, et voild, maintenant you' damn fregatel Zut alors, I he full ze fish by now!"
"Rum's up, sir," Aspinall said, appearing with a new bottle of Jamaica 's best, and a pair of glasses. He poured for Papin first, and began to pour for Lewrie, but the Frenchman eagerly tossed the contents of his glass back like the experienced toper he looked to be, and gulped it all down his gullet in one swallow, making Papin wheeze, wince, then grin and shake his head in appreciation of raw, un-watered rum. And he thrust his glass out for a refill!
"I am delighted to hear that my… our other ships are alert and doing their proper duty, Capitaine," Lewrie told the Frenchman as he took a cautious sip of his own rum, stifling a wince and a belch as the fiery spirit slid down his throat and hit his already-unsettled innards. Hair o' the dog mine arse! Lewrie thought.
"What you wish?" Papin impatiently snapped, after his glass was replenished. "Fish? Quel dommage, M'sieur Capitaine, I have none, for you'pirates do not give me peace to fish! Langoustes et crevettes? A lobster or… shrimp? Small boats close inshore have zose, not moil Champagne, wine, eau-de-vie, ze brandy? Argosy an' Erato. Zey buy all I had, avant vous. Damn you' language! Before you, I say! You wish? Take you' damn' big frigate to shoal waters, run agroun', an' break you' backl"
"Wouldn't dream of it, mon vieux," Lewrie casually shrugged off. "Mister Urquhart, his boat clean of arms and contraband?"
"Completely, sir," Urquhart gravely replied. "Nothing but clasp knives. for sailors' work aboard, and no goods beyond their dinners and such, either, sir."
"Very well, then," Lewrie said, turning back to Papin. "Sir, I will trouble you no longer. You are free to go about your fishing."
"No good zat do, now, zis late in morning, pawh!" Papin growled, looking at Aspinall and the rum bottle, and his newly emptied glass in expectation of a "stirrup cup," and licking his lips.