H. M. S. Cockerel, page 33
“Now?” Alan inquired. “Comment allez-vous, maintenant, Mademoiselle Phoebe?”
“Ah, je suis très seule, m’sieur,” she replied, snuffling from the cold, though with a game little smile. “Am ver’ ’lone. Avant Barnaby nous a quittez. . . ’e lef’ us, j’arrêtez m’affaires. . . ze beeznees I stop? Encore, je suis la pauvre jeune fille de joie mais . . . m’affaires ver’ . . . bad. Pour toute les courtesans, all. Gentilhommes ’ave non time, non 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 awhile. 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.
“ Après votre navire a coulée. . . you’ ship sink?” she explained. “An’ you tell me, si chrétien. . . so gently, concernant Barnaby , zen j’sai. . . I know vous est le homme, si prévenant et bienviellant. You ’ave ze kin’ . . . considerate ’eart? D’avance, you waz toujours bonté avec moi, M’sieur Luray, ver’ gentle an’ kin’. Non speak sévère to me, as putain. Toujours as la jeune dame, ze young lady! Si charmant et amusant! ” She brightened, sounding almost wisftul, 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 non 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 Républicains, 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 ma mures et ma porte. . . walls an’ door? Les sales patriotes, zey write: ’ere reside une peau de vache degueulasse, la sale putain des les ennemies Brittaniques cracrà! Zat I am ze traitresse?” She weakened and began to wail helplessly, though still with an undercurrent of anger and resentment. “La sale putain de l’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?
She reached for his hands and took them in hers, drawing him near for safety, imploring, jerking at them as a petulant child might in punctuation. “Zey regardant, zey watch me? Leave me lettres, oh, les lettres ça pue la fauve! Avec tableaux. . . peekt’r of ze guillotine, m’sieur! Oh, plais! Je ne comprend pas. . . I ’urt no one, I am pauvre petite fille de joie seulement, I geeve no offence. Concierge, she t’row me out, ce soir she fin’ ’er . . . patriotisme! I ’ave nulle autre part . . . now’ere else to be safe. An’ I am si effrayant, m’sieur! J’suis dans la merde! ”
“You need a place to stay,” he replied, “to hide? Cacher? ”
“Ah, oui!” Phoebe insisted, brightening at once, almost bouncing on her toes. “Et aussi . . .” she posed, taking on a shy but coy mien, all but biting her lip as she continued to gaze upward trustfully.
Here it comes, he sighed to himself, the hand on my purse.
“Wan you partez, you leave Toulon . . . ?” she dared to whisper up at him, head cocked most fetchingly. “You weel take pauvre Phoebe?”
That wasn’t quite the request he’d expected from her.
She stepped closer, insinuating her arms inside his cloak round his waist, claiming shelter and warmth, with her thin young face turned up to his. “You tak’ me aller de Toulon? Away? Aides-moi to . . . flee? You are in Navy, you ’ave les ships! Wan ze time come, ze Royalistes. . . zey run? But zey will ’ave no room for me. ‘Elle est la putain cracra seulement,’ zey will say.” She began to weep at the injustice of it all. “On’y ze dirty little whore? An’ ze Républicains . . . zey accusants, aussi, an’ chop off ma tête! I beg you, m’sieur, let me stay viz you? You protec’ me? An’ tu mettes-moi. . . put me on ship?”
“Uhm,” he softened, slipping his arms around her instinctively, though dubious of “adopting” her. “Keep you, and all?”
“Ah, oui, s’il vous plait, M’sieur Alain!” she pleaded, looking up at him, her chin resting on his breastbone, her waif’s eyes pleading as beguilingly as an orphaned kitten’s.
“Je regrette, ma petite Phoebe . . .” he muttered, thinking of his few coins, and how far yet they might have to stretch. “ Je suis pauvre, aussi. Un peu monnai? Après our ship . . . sank? Went down? I have so little money, now.”
“Je m’en fiche,” she declared, her little face solemn. “Do not care? You ’ave la salle chaud, ze warr-um room? Un peu vin, et pain? A little monnai, c’est beau. Non monnai, c’est beau, aussi. You are ze homme seul, et moi, I am ze jeune fille, ’lone, aussi. Be kin’ an’ généreux to me, on’y un peu, et moi. . . I am généreux à vous, hein? Quand, je serai votre jeune fille. Zan, I am your. . .”
Damme, the price sounds right, he thought; and she is a pretty little thing. Cundums! Well, my new’uns ain’t Mother Green’s Finest—they’re Frog. But I s’pose they know what they’re about when it comes to amour. The others, though, Cony and all . . . they’ll see her go up with me, and what’ll they think . . . and just who gives a bloody damn any longer?
He looked down into her face searchingly. Though her belly was pressed against his in promise, her gaze was so forlorn, yet hopeful, her eyes aswim with tears. For fear of his rejection, and her Fate if he did turn her away. He felt his resolves slipping. Again.
“God save me,” he whispered in surrender. “Know what your name means, Pheobe?”
“Je ne sais pas, m’sieur,” she replied softly, putting all her kitteny fondness into her voice, sensing his agreement at last.
“It means ‘sunshine’ in Latin,” he chuckled, giving in to her neediness. And his own. “Like a happy sun? Comme le soleil heureux. ”
She tittered, smiled at last, and took a moment to wipe her nose and eyes on her mittens, then threw her arms around his neck. “ D’accord, m’sieur Alain? You protec’ me? Vous demeuront. . . reside, ensemble? ”
“Oui,” he nodded, with a sheepish grin. “We demeuront, ensemble. ”
“Ooh!” she cried suddenly, bouncing on her toes to hug him and giggle with relief. “You are le homme très sympathetique, so good, so gentil, si magnifique! Je suis si heureux. . . so ’appy! An’ I mak’ you so ’appy, aussi, quand. . . wan ve . . . coucherons, ensemble, ” Phoebe vowed suggestively. “Aimes-tu la coucher, Alain?”
“Oui,” he chuckled. “Mais oui, beaucoup!”
“An’ wan you leave Toulon,” she paused, inquiring of him more closely for an instant, leaning back warily to see if all particulars of their bargain were sure, like any level-headed woman of business. “ Et. . . ve sail way, ensemble, aussi, Alain?”
“ Oui, I swear. I’ll get you on a ship, when the time comes, ma petite jolie Phoebe. Swear? Promise? Uh, croyez-vous. Believe me.”
He gathered up her bags, those two items bearing all her worldly goods. He led her into the courtyard of the guardhouse, past a sentry who first gaped, then averted his eyes. Up the stairs past the few men idling and yarning in the guardroom, daring them to gawp at him. Into his room, where he shut the door on all outside distraction and curiosity.
He lit a candle as she doffed her cloak and mittens and thawed herself at the small fireplace’s grate. There was a bottle of cognac on the scarred, rickety night stand by the bed. Only one glass, which he filled for her, which she accepted eagerly. He drank from the neck, listening to the rising winds as they rattled the shutters. Someone—Cony perhaps—had been thoughtful enough to obtain a warming pan for the bed, and had set out a covered dish; a quarter-loaf of bread with a hank of sausage. She devoured it ravenously, child-cheerful, as he put the warming pan back on the grate and removed coat and waistcoat.
They hung their clothing on wall pegs, suddenly sombre and shy with each other, after she was done eating. She smiled at him as she pinched out the candle, and shooed him to turn around so she could undress completely.
“M . . . maintenant, mon cheri,” she said at last, faint and shaky.
“Bloody . . .” he gasped as he turned about to look at her.
She stood nude on her knees in the middle of the bed, whore-bold. Yet as shy, as nervous and giggly as a virgin might on her first night of marriage, totally feckless and artless at that moment, without a jot of a whore’s weariness, pouting boredom or experience.
Her light olive skin was dark against the pale sheets, caressed by flickers of firelight, her hair a long, curling, dark-brown cascade down her back to her waist, over her shoulders, half-concealing breasts small but well formed, almost perky. So slim and neat, so girlish and tiny she looked, almost thin . . .
“Je suis si froid, mon cheri,” she shuddered in a wee voice as she hugged herself for a moment, her eyes huge with want. “Tu vas à moi. . . come to me? Dépêches, vite?” she implored, stretching out her arms for him.
He rushed to the bed to embrace her, to kneel close to her, run his hands hungrily over her velvety firm young flesh, feeling her goosepimple at his touch. “Si belle, tu es si belle, si petite, si . . . !” he praised. “Such a beautiful little pretty!”
“You mak’ me warr-um, Alain?” she shivered, somewhere between a nervous laugh and a helpless plea. “You keep me safe an’ warr-um, mon gentilhomme fantastique? ” She leaned back from his kisses to take his face in her little hands to regard him, to force him to regard her, for a serious instant. “Alors, à tu, je donne ma tout, mon coeur. Zen my all. . . I give to you? Mon corps . . . mon coeur, moi-même!” she whispered in touching tears that scalded as they splashed on his cheeks as they kissed again.
They fell into the warmed bed, hurling the covers up to their chins, burrowing eagerly into the welcome warmth of press-hot sheets, grasping to clasp their warming flesh together, beginning to chuckle and sigh, to simper and giggle like goosegirl and stableboy.
When did she learn my given name, he idly wondered, too busy for much real thought as they rolled and interlaced, limbs twining as sinuous as snakes, mouths pressed together, stroking and exploring . . . Scott? Must have told her. She was always friendly enough . . . amusing and anxious to please. To fit in. Hang everything, he decided. Just all of it—hands, the war, the siege, all of it! Just a few nights, for the love of Heaven.
“Ma belle,” he sighed in her ear, lost once more, humours ablaze as he nuzzled and savoured, afire for her and nothing else but a few precious moments of sweet, tumbling oblivion. “ Ma petite. Oui, I’ll keep you warm. Je fais tu chaud. . . and safe.”
“Oh, mon cheri,” she swore, going breathless. “Mon coeur . . . mon amour! Aime moi!”
To seal her bargain, to coax him or cajole him, to winnow her way into his sympathy and affection to hold him to it, she repaid him in the only coin she had left, or perhaps understood. But with passion so intense, so open and eager, so far beyond a coquette’s artful practice, that he could not believe her giving of herself so completely was totally feigned, toward the end especially. Panting on his shoulder, tears in her eyes, kisses deep and searing, softly lingering and full of gentleness and seeming affection. As if, for a time at least, the girl could shut the door on her own very real fears for her future. Phoebe had as much need as anyone to abandon herself, deny the terrifying world outside, and sink mindlessly and carefree into a sweet oblivion of her own, surrender time and time again to pleasures so imperative that life beyond her body’s sensations had no terrors which could even compare.
And sleep, at last, draped half over him, her head resting on his chest, clinging in her sleep as doggedly as he had to his raft, so light and sweet, so soft and toasty warm, with her hair spilled like a quilt over them. Sleeping peacefully, purring gentle and slow, twined about him. Completely spent yet happy.
Dreaming perhaps? he wondered as he drowzed alongside, his arms cocooning her. What did whores dream about, anyway? Her world was so narrow, so limited, and she such a willow branch to any wind that blew . . . did she dream of safety, new gowns, a little place to call her own? Of surviving long enough to continue her same narrow life?
He glanced at his new watch on the night stand by the firelight. Another cheap piece o’ work. Just gone eleven, he yawned, completely, utterly spent himself. Yet happy as well, in his own way.
Whatever it’d been—a young whore’s practiced arts to earn her passage, or a frightened girl’s exquisite gratitude, some small measure of true affection and desire at last awakened—who knew, he asked the ceiling. It had been bestial, magnificent . . . tender. And grand.
He slept himself, then. As the skies opened and a cold sullen rain began to fall, slashing at the besieged port, driven by a half- gale of wind. Pattering and rattling on the shutters, drumming on the roof slates, making him glad he wasn’t at sea on such a fearsome night.
He slept at last as real, natural thunder growled and rumbled, forcing him to nestle closer to Phoebe, to clasp her tighter and feel her reply with a snugger hug of her own as he rolled nearer. As a far-off storm voice marched closer and mingled itself with the dolorous drumming of the guns.
C H A P T E R 2
Very far off, someone was shouting something incomprehensible, which sort of sounded like “Allez, allez, vite . . .” mumble-mumble “le blah-blah-blah . . . perdu.” Dull thuds somewhere. Something Froggish, Lewrie half-decided, and snuggled closer to the warmth of his girl.
“ . . . les Républicains sont arrivant!”
Bad dream; bugger it. Sweet, soft, warm, smooth shoulder . . .
More thunderings; up the stairs this time? Or the storm still rumbling . . . guns still rumbling? What else was new?
“Merde alors,” Phoebe muttered crossly in his ear, waking first, leaning across him to listen. Her long tresses tickled his nose, half smothering him, but drew him most unwillingly nearer the surface of his pleasant stupor. He opened one eye, beheld a perky young breast, dark aureola and pinkish nipple staring back, an inch from his lips. Alan gave it a little flick with his tongue, thinking that a marvelous way to be awakened.
“Oohn,” she groaned, in spite of herself, with a chuckle deep in her throat.
More bloody bangings on the door, hard and insistent.
“Alain, someone eez . . .” Phoebe prompted sleepily.
“Hmmphff?” he grumbled, rolling on his back. “What?”
“Alain!” a voice shouted as the door burst open with a bang.
At the sight of a man in uniform, a French naval uniform, with a brace of pistols in his belt, Phoebe gave out with a loud scream of pure Royalist terror as she sat bolt upright!
Lewrie felt his hair go on end for a second, until the dim light filtering through the shutters revealed the man to be Charles de Crillart.
“Sacre . . .” Charles gawped, his face suffusing.
“Christ, Charles, can’t you knock, or something?” Alan carped.
“Alain, I . . . uhh . . .” Lieutenant de Crillart stuttered, his eyes swiveling from Lewrie’s puffy face to Phoebe’s bare charms, then back. “Mon Dieu, pardonnez moi, mon ami . . .”
Lewrie sat up, claiming the top sheet to shroud his groin as he put his torso between Phoebe and de Crillart. She dragged the coverlet to her chin, huddling tiny in a corner of the bed by the headboard.
“Alain, ze Républicains,” Charles explained, stepping out onto the small landing and half-closing the door. “Fort Mulgrave . . . c’est perdu. Lost!”
“What?” he barked, leaping from the bed for stockings and slop trousers. “Lost! How?”
“Ze storm? Early zis morn, zey avant vis ze bayonet, wan most of notre powder waz wet, hein? Zey rout ze Espagnoles, an’ ze British could not ’old out. Une heure ago, zey at las’ retreat, into Balaguer. Ze Républicains now ’ave Mulgrave, all ze canon. . . ze heights overlook L’Eguillette an’ Balaguer.”
“Christ, that’s the end, isn’t it?” he fumed, stomping into his boots, tearing his shirt from a wall peg to slip over his head.
“Zat ees non all ze worse, mon ami, ” Lieutenant de Crillart said in a funereal tone. “Ze sam’ time zey . . . coordinate? Général Lapoype, ’is soldiers . . . zey march up s’rough Argeliers, an’ zey tak’ all ze posts on ze mountain of Pharon. Zey ’ave ze canon zere, too.”
“Bloody hell.” Lewrie paused, rubbing his face. He turned to share a look with Phoebe, who was white and blanched with fear. “Ah . . . any orders for us yet, Charles?” He hurried to button up his waistcoat and don his stock.
