“Ah, Captain Lewrie, welcome, sir,” Commodore Loring said, with all evident delight as Lewrie entered the great-cabins. “A glass, will you, sir?”

“Aye, that’d be fine, sir,” Lewrie replied, looking about at the gathering of officers. A steward came with a glass of cool Rhenish for him, and Lewrie took a tentative sip.

“Captain John Bligh, of Theseus,” Loring went on, doing the introductions, “Captain Barre… Captain Lewrie of Reliant. Pardons, for my brevity, but, French pride, and their touchy sense of honour, force me to be brief. I am sending a delegation to General Rochambeau once more, his last warning. Does he not sail out and strike his colours, I will leave him to the doubtful mercies of the rebel Blacks. At the same time, I am despatching another delegation ashore to speak with this so-called General Dessalines, and his cohorts. Bligh and Barre are to speak for me, Lewrie, but, given your long experience with the colony of Saint Domingue, I thought it useful to send you along with them, Lewrie… to supply these gentlemen with your insights.”

What? Lewrie thought, gawping. His mouth dropped agape at the idea, his eyes went wide. What bloody experience? What insights?

“Beg pardon, sir?” Lewrie said, once he’d got his breath back. “In a previous commission, I came t’know the coasts main-well, but as for what passes ashore…”

“Did you not enter Mole Saint Nicholas?” Loring snapped, peering at him owlishly. “Spend some time ashore at Port-Au-Prince, when our army was here?”

One night… in a whore-house, Lewrie recalled.

“We were close ashore at Mole Saint Nicholas, sir, providing indirect fire for our troops,” Lewrie explained. “I did go ashore for a day, to visit a friend at his regiment, and dined ashore that night, in Port-Au-Prince… the night the city was invested by L’Ouverture and his army, and we began the evacuation, sir.”