Swords From the Sea (42 page)

They did not look up, but Pierre thought she spoke to them and they answered, before she went to sit by the Jew, as far from the glow of the candles as possible. One by one the Bashkirs got up and went out, leaving their goods. Only urgent need would take such men into a storm, and only the risk of life itself or greater plunder would induce them to leave their belongings unguarded.

Pierre shrugged and drained his glass, and being by then in high good humor, lifted his voice in song-

Neither the song nor the bottle was ended when the sergeant of grenadiers appeared in the Fleur-de-Luys and came to the counter, ordering rum laced with brandy.

"Come, my likely lad, empty a noggin with Sergeant Kehl of the Guards," the grenadier proclaimed huskily.

With a cupful of Pierre's brandy inside him, he confessed to being a veteran of the Seven Years' War, Bulow's regiment. The Russian service was a smooth thing, he said, after the pipe-clay and button-shining discipline of old Frederick. The Russian officers were easygoing-didn't know a bayonet from a ramrod-and left everything to the sergeants. And it was no hard matter to pick up money, one way or another.

"Aye," assented Pierre, "enlistment bounties."

Kehl drew the back of his hand across his lips and glanced up at the big sailor.

"No harm in saying regimentals would look well on a strong-set lad like you."

"Fifteen years," laughed the Provencal, "I've been with the colors of France. Aye, ropeman, topman, and sergeant of marines. I was with D'Estaing off Algiers."

"Gerechter Herr Gott! That is different." Kehl lowered his voice confidentially. "I'll tell you something. These Russians are cattle-they've only one general officer who is worth his snuff. That's old Prince Suvarof, and he rose from the ranks. They must have foreign gentry to command their ships for them. Join up, and you'll wear a sword in a year-a lively lad with a hard head like yours."

"Do they keep you for seed?" Pierre shook his head. "I've served my time."

Kehl was a man of firm convictions. He believed that any peasant could be won over with a drink and a promise. Already he had the others of Ruggewein's crew locked up in the guardhouse. To bring in a French sergeant of marines as a volunteer would mean a double bounty, whereas if the man should put up a fight and taste a musket butt, Kehl might not get anything.

He was doubly mistaken in thinking that Pierre was a peasant and would not fight a crimp's squad.

"The frontier is closed," he snarled. "The master of your bark has paid you off. Your mates have all entered the ranks-"

"Crimped, eh?" Pierre frowned and then laughed. "Name of a name! That pinch-beck Ruggewein has saved his rix-dollars. Nay, Master Kehl, I'm for the south, where a chap can set his teeth in white bread and olives."

"What then?"

"Who knows? I'll hear the bells of Avignon again, I'll drink white wine again, and sleep on the deck of a fishing tartan when the breeze comes up soft-like off the land."

Kehl had no imagination, and cared nothing for Provence or the men of that coast. But a thought struck him and he put it into words crisply.

"The empress's fleet in the Black Sea, down in the south, is at war with the Sultan of the Moslems. The Russians have sent a foreign admiral to take command. Ach, yes. One is coming from that of country of sea traders and rebels, over the ocean."

"The United States?" Pierre glanced down interested.

"So. I see you know your way around the world. At the arsenal it is said that this man who is coming was once a pirate-his excellency, lean Paul Jean, or some such name."

"Never heard of him. But, wait-bon sang! Is it John Paul Jones?"

So

Pierre set down his glass untasted and leaned his elbows on the counter.

"Tell me of this Black Sea and this fleet."

The brandy warmed his vitals, and he threw off impatiently the hand of the woman from Brittany, who was making efforts to warn him not to listen to Kehl. He was trying to decide how much of his companion's gossip was a lie.

The Black Sea, Kehl explained with an air, was the sea of the Mohammedans in back of Constantinople. They had proclaimed a holy war against the Russians, who had built and equipped a fine fleet of some twenty large ships-two being sail of the line-in the rivers that emptied into this sea.

Prince Potemkin, the reigning favorite-now in Petersburg-was to take command in person of the greatest army ever gathered under the eagles. Kehl, because he understood French and was on duty at headquarters, had his ear to the ground. Most of the Russian officers spoke French to one another by choice, and the foreigners by necessity.)

"A fine, upstanding chap like you," he added, "could pick up more than a dram's worth of loot. Aye, and a fat share of prize money. And why, you ask me? Because, my dear fellow, the sultan has mustered in the bashaws and such-like from the Barbary Coast."

"The corsairs? From Tripoli-Algiers?"

"So! 'Tis said they have the cabins of their ships plated with gold. They walk on silk, nothing less; aye, the very knives and spoons they eat with are full of jewels."

Pierre, who had seen well-born Berbers and Osmanlis supping off mutton stew with the aid of their fingers and a water basin, did not smile.

"Every mosque down there is chuck full of treasure-more than Potsdam palace itself, I swear. And their women- wunderschon-better than these here dishwater drabs." He pointed his pipestem at the owner of the Fleur-de-Luys.

But Pierre was no longer listening. Over by the wall, in the shadows, the woman of the foxskins was looking at him, without flinching. He could see the whites of her full eyes, emotionless as an animal's-cold as a basilisk. And his memory harked back fifteen years to Africa.

To a tartan, a fishing craft of Toulon blown offshore and dismasted and drifting until the three lads in it sighted the lateen sail of an Algerian felucca, and were picked up.

For the two others, his companions, who turned renegade and became Mohammedans, he had no blame. They disappeared into the white-walled alleys of a rich city; they had weapons at their belts, and the chance to use them-free men in the brotherhood of the coast.

Because he was massive of shoulder and heavily thewed, no choice had been offered Pierre. For two years he had lived on the rowers' benches of the Algerian galleys.

And because he lived-which few did-in the stench and the filth of those chained to the oar, with the bench for his bed, his muscles had hardened to iron. The glare of the sun and the toil of the oar had tempered him as metal is tempered by heating and thrusting into cold water.

He had been lashed by the boatswain's whip. His back, from the nape of the neck to the loins, still bore purple scars.

At the end of the two years, when he escaped from the Algerians during a lucky fight off Cape Bona with a Portuguese sloop-of-war, he made a vow to the Holy Mary of the Seas. This vow was that he would never submit to the lash again. Let a man flog him and he-Pierre Pillon-would kill that one with his hands.

That was why he had winced at the spectacle of the flogging of the deserters a while ago. It reminded him of the galley's waist and the bloodied backs of the slaves.

A rush of cold air put an end to his reverie. The tavern door had been kicked open and a pair of strapping figures swung into the room. They were men as large as Pierre, resplendent in white silk khalats, bound with red sashes. Both wore turbans and red morocco boots.

Yet they were not Mohammedans, and Pierre wondered if they were boyars-noblemen-'til he scanned their broad red faces and saw the cudgels that they carried instead of swords. One, who was puffing at a large meerschaum pipe, spoke to Kehl, and then they began to search the room, running about and jostling the drinkers, kicking benches out of their way and poking into the straw.

"Heydukes in the livery of a high official," explained Kehl. "They are looking for some Gypsy or other-a girl who was to sing at their master's house. She ran away."

Out of the corners of his eyes Pierre glanced at the Jew in the shadows. The woman who had come with him was no longer to be seen, but the Provencal fancied that the packs by the wall had changed position and that the girl was among them, crouching down with the fur cloak pulled over her.

He said nothing, because he did not relish the behavior of the heydukes.

"She came in," added Kehl. "And she did not go out. Na-they will run her down. Look, now, the lads are having a little fun."

The sergeant chuckled, but Pierre stood up swearing under his breath. One of the servants had halted to survey the refugees of the straw. He aimed a kick at a protruding foot, missed, and, with a foolish grin, poured the hot coals from his pipe into the broken tip of the peasant girl's shoe.

She screamed and whipped around in the straw, and the other heyduke caught a handful of her tresses, trying clumsily to thrust them into the blaze that was springing up where some of the coals had fallen.

Pierre Pillon usually acted on impulse, without bothering to think things out. Walking over to the newcomers, he kicked out the fire in the straw and stamped on the fingers of the second heyduke. He had taken the half-empty wine bottle from the counter. This he upended and thrust down the neck of the man with the pipe.

For several seconds the heyduke gaped at him over the butt of the bottle, until the white front of the uniform turned plum color. So did the man's face. He began to breathe heavily and finally found his voice.

"Put him down! Crack his skull!"

Pierre stepped back, eyes alert. But those nearest him gave way, hastening to the walls. His heel struck a stool, and as the two Russians ran at him he reached back and gripped it. A twist of his shoulders hurled it into the first man's chest, knocking the big heyduke flat on his shoulder blades.

The other struck at Pierre's head, and the sailor ducked under the cudgel, taking a kick in the stomach as he did so. His assailant, bellowing with rage, ran at him again. Pierre, standing his ground, moved his head aside as the cudgel came down on his shoulder. His knotted fist went out, catching the heyduke full in the throat.

The man spun back against a table and reeled, dropping his stick and coughing. For a moment he gasped, his hands fastened on his throat, then ran out of the door unsteadily. His companion followed as best he could.

At once with a scamper and rush the vagrants of the straw fled from the tavern, crowding to be first out of the door. Those at the tables followed, and Pierre saw the Jew and his girl slip out with them.

"Ventre an diable!" he swore. "Is the tavern a lazar-house? What's amiss with all these chaps?"

Kehl was studying him with professional interest, astonished at the latent power of the man, and the ease with which he had put down two formidable antagonists with cudgels.

"Those two ninepins you bowled over were servants of his Highness, the Prince-Marshal Potemkin. He's the reigning favorite, you knowemperor in all but name-and your goose is cooked, my lad. When the Prince-Marshal hears that you've helped a wench get clear of his heydukes, you'll swallow a bullet the wrong way."

"Hark'ee," said Pierre suddenly, more than a little disappointed at the tame end to what had promised to be a pleasant brawl. "I've had enough of Petersburg. The folk here can't sing; their liquor makes 'em doleful; and they can't fight! I'll join the service, but-" he poked a knotted finger into the Russian's midriff-"but only with the rating of sergeant of marines, and service in the Black Sea fleet. A bargain's a bargain. Is it agreed?"

"Agreed! Quick's the word, my tall buck. When you're in regimentals all Potemkin's heydukes can't smell you out."

Pierre nodded. He had thought of that, but he had changed his mind for another reason. To walk the deck of a king's ship again, to take a crack at his old enemies the Turks, and to serve Paul Jones, the American. All this tempted him greatly-Pierre knew more than a little about Paul Jones, who was a Chevalier of France.

"Remember old Schnapps and Snuff," he said dryly, when Kehl turned back to the counter for a last glass and a leer at the woman behind the counter by way of payment. "I'm for the south and the marine guard. You're for the bounty."