STO'B 21

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He picked up the box, trying to determine how hard it would be to pick or force the lock, and to his surprise he found that the box was unlocked - the lid pulled open easily and there, in his hand, lay the French codebook and the French captain's orders. He flipped through the codebook - his knowledge of French was not great, but it was good enough to understand words relating to sailing, and in any event there were illustrations to go with the descriptions. How long were the signals good for? He flipped to the front of the book - "valid until the 3rd," he slowly read. "Well, that gives me almost a month to make use of it."

Next he turned to the orders. These were more difficult to decipher, and after several minutes he gave up, placing them on the desk's work surface and leaning back to rub his eyes. "Coffee," he said. "Coffee may be just the thing for it. Simpkin!" he raised his voice for his steward, "light along a pot of coffee, there."

A muffled reply came from the coach, and while the coffee prepared Philip turned to the two drawers that lay beneath the work surface and its retractable leaf. The upper drawer held several ledgers, one of which appeared to be the Chasseur's muster book, another seemed to reflect the brig's stores - Philip could make out the French words for beef, water, and spars, among other things. The lower drawer was evidently the storage for the late French captain's prize collection. Philip found three swords (one broken off several inches above the hilt), a collection of flags from various ships and other vessels, and a collection of perhaps a dozen silver spoons, each from a different port. Philip had a similar collection in his sea chest, back at the Crown; he sorted through the set in the drawer, separating out the spoons he had from those he didn't, and moving the doubles to the drawer with the French phrase book just as Simpkin appeared with his coffee.

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