Текст книги "The King's Marauder"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Lewrie had ordered his collapsible wood-and-canvas deck chair fetched up to the poop deck, and had taken himself a long, restoring nap, oblivious for the better part of an hour to the thuds, bangs, and screechings of saws as Sapphire’s damage was seen to sufficient for a safe return to Gibraltar. He was wakened by a wet nose, then a wet tongue, and some wee, tentative “wakey-wakey” woofs from Bisquit, who had gotten over his terror of loud gunfire and was seeking comfort and attention to acknowledge him, and give him pets.
He cossetted the dog for a few minutes, then got to his feet, a bit stiff and sore, but well-rested, had several dips of water from the nearest scuttle-butt, and returned to duty.
“Mister Snelling and the Spanish Surgeon and their Mates have had their hands full, sir,” Lt. Westcott reported, shuffling through a sheaf of notes he’d made. “There were nigh three hundred men in San Pedro’s crew, and we’ve found nearly ninety of them dead, with over an hundred men wounded.” That drew an amazed whistle from Lewrie. “Her captain and two of her other officers are among the slain. Half her larboard guns are dis-mounted, carriages shattered, and one burst. That explains the flash and smoke we saw, sir. We’ve rigged a spare spanker to the stump of her mizen, and cut away and jettisoned everything that got shot off … they had plenty of spare spars, so we can get tops’ls up, and we can replace her fore course and main course. All in all, she can be got under way by dusk. Her jib boom’s dicey-looking, but it’ll take a foresail or two, for balance on the helm, which we’ve re-roved, so she’ll steer … after a fashion.”
“Want her, Geoffrey?” Lewrie asked. “If only for a time?”
“They don’t award Fifth Rates to Lieutenants, or Commanders,” Westcott laughed off. “Better you assign Harcourt the chore, again. If the Gibraltar dockyards can set her right, and she’s off for home, let him take the chance of re-assignment.”
“But, if Admiralty makes him a Commander, not you … sooner or later, you must be promoted,” Lewrie protested. “You’ve more than earned it.”
“Still trying to get rid of me?” Westcott scoffed. “That hurts!”
“You’d rather stay and be amused by my foolishness?” Lewrie asked with a brow up.
“Oh, something like that,” Westcott replied, with a grin and a shrug. “By the by, the other frigate is the San Pablo, and they were sister ships, and have always worked together since they were put in commission two years ago, sir. Saints Peter and Paul? She’s still in sight, off to the Nor’east, about six or seven miles away, barely making steerage way.”
“Hmm, let’s go after her, and make it a clean sweep,” Lewrie decided of a sudden. “God knows we could use the prize money, whenever that comes due. Our prisoners aboard the San Pedro are well in hand?”
“All Spanish arms, even personal knives, are secured, and the spirits stores are well-guarded,” Westcott told him. “Those still on their feet we’ve herded round the mainmast, now the heavy work’s done, so I should assume so. We’ve three files of Marines aboard her, to boot, under Lieutenant Roe.”
“We’ll gamble, then, and go after the other,” Lewrie ordered. “Get us under way to the Nor’east, Mister Westcott.”
“Aye aye, sir!” was the eager, hungry reply.
* * *
HMS Sapphire had hardly begun to sail after the San Pablo when urgent cries came from the lookouts aloft. “Th’ Chase is rollin’ on her beam ends! Deck, there! Th’ Chase looks t’be sinkin’!”
“Clap on sail, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie snapped.
Lewrie went up to the poop deck and raised his telescope. It was a much better vantage point than his old practice of scaling the mainmast shrouds almost to the cat-harpings, and even suited his lazy nature!
“Damme, she’s goin’!” he muttered.
The frigate’s masts were canted far over to larboard, and she looked very low in the water, with the sea breaking mildly just under her line of gun-ports though he could see the coppering tacked to her stern, as if she was also down by the head with her stern cocked up. Looking closer, he could make out weak streams of water gushing from her, as if her sailors were flailing away madly at her pumps, but it seemed a losing fight.
“Cast of the log!” he demanded.
“Seven and a half knots, sir!” Midshipman Griffin shouted back after a long minute to let the log-line run and be pinched after the sand ran out of a minute glass.
We’ll be too late, Lewrie thought; Those poor buggers.
Time out of mind, since Tudor days, England and Spain had detested each other, and it was natural to loathe the Dons. When engaged at war with them, in the heat of battle at close broadsides or teeth-to-teeth with crossed blades, killing them any way possible without a thought and exulting in their slaughter bothered good Englishmen no more than piling up dead rabbits, or a terrier’s kills in a rat pit.
Helpless sailors of any nation, though … men who risked the sea and its perils, and who were suffering a fate that could befall any British sailor, if his luck ran out, that was another matter.
It would take Sapphire the better part of an hour to reach the stricken frigate, and she would slip beneath the waves long before, no matter what frantic efforts the Spanish could do to prolong the inevitable.
Six miles off, and Lewrie could see what was left of her upperworks falling free over her larboard side as her sailors chopped, cut, and axed away everything standing above her fighting tops to ease the weight that was dragging her over. For a short, hopeful moment, she did come a bit more upright, but those shot holes that had been blown into her a little below the waterline continued to flood her innards.
Four miles off, and quarterdeck and forecastle guns were cast overside, but that made little difference. The San Pablo had borne her ship’s boats on the boat-tier beams that spanned the waist, and they had been turned to scrap wood, but they were freed and shoved by human force to the larboard side, where great sections of the bulwarks that remained were hacked down, and the boats put over, though not a one of them floated.
Three miles off, and Lewrie could see the tangle of ropes that bound spare sails that had been fothered over the shot holes, and the fothering patches seeming to breathe as air compressed in her orlop and bilges pressed out, and the sea dimpled them inward.
Two miles off, and the San Pablo’s bows were submerged up to the forecastle, and she suddenly roiled onto her larboard side and began to go down in a foaming welter of great air bubbles and flying spray shot out of her hull.
“Damme, damme, damme!” Lewrie muttered, closing the tubes of his telescope, thinking that he could hear the mortal groaning noises of a proud ship beginning to drown, and the faint screams and prayers for salvation from her crew!
Her masts slid under, ’til only the mizen stood above the sea, and a hint of her taffrails and her captain’s cabin windows, the red-gold-red flag of Spain still flying, and then even that was gone in a boiling froth of foam as she gave up her last exhale and headed for the bottom.
“Fetch-to, close as you can, Mister Westcott, and man all the boats,” Lewrie ordered, chiding himself for not going after her sooner. Even with aid so close, the long minutes required to bring up to the winds and bring the boats up from astern, then man them and get them off, was too long for many of the Spanish sailors. Some survivors clung to broken yards or the shattered ship’s boats, some hung on to floating hatch gratings, and some of the frigate’s walking wounded lay atop them. But Lewrie could see many bodies floating face-down and drowned, and what had become of her badly wounded who could not be moved from her belowdecks surgery did not bear thinking about. Many men who’d managed to escape her had gotten entangled in the confused masses of standing and running rigging and had drowned, unable to claw their way to the surface, and … it appeared that it was not only the majority of British sailors that could not swim, but it was the same case with the Spanish. Spanish sailors were thrashing in panic, flailing the water and slipping under even as he watched!
All he could do was pace the poop deck, head down so he didn’t have to watch any longer, with his hands clasped in the small of his back, trying to shut out the terrified shouts, screams, and prayers and play stern and stoic, and wait for the final report.
“Ah, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said at last as his First Officer came to the poop deck after the last boat had been recovered. “What’s the count?”
“We only managed to save fifty-nine of them, sir,” Westcott said, lifting his hat in formal salute. “None of her officers or her Mids. Her captain … he was determined to go down with his ship, and those in command who’d survived the fight swore they’d do the same. Damned if they didn’t gather in his cabins for a last drink before she went. I’ve never heard the like!”
“Perhaps the Spanish treasury is so empty, he thought it likely they’d ask him t’pay t’replace her,” Lewrie said with a brief snort of the blackest of gallows humour. “Poor devils. Rig out boats for towing, and get us under way to rejoin our prize, Mister Westcott.”
“Aye, sir,” Westcott said, looking grim and disappointed with his best efforts to save more. “Shape course for Gibraltar?”
“Aye, Gibraltar,” Lewrie said, nodding gravely. He lingered on the poop deck for several minutes to savour the airs. It was getting on for November, and even the Mediterranean was turning brisk. The sun was lowering in the West, getting on towards dusk, and the skies in that direction were almost glowing amber, yellow, and red.
Red skies at night, sailor’s delight, he glumly thought, though far from delighted by then. At last, he descended to the quarterdeck, hoping that his cabins, which he had not seen since the ship had gone to Quarters that morning, might have been put back in some semblance of decent order, though he dreaded the idea that he would have to dine in his officers who remained aboard, along with Captain Pomfret and a few Mids; they’d be cock-a-whoop boisterous, too ready to celebrate, and he would have much preferred to dine alone, just him and Chalky.
“Too bad about the other Spanish frigate, ain’t it, sir?” Captain Pomfret commented. “All those poor, drowned men! Still, defeating two enemy ships in one day is quite a rare feat, I should think. Make all the papers and cheer folks back home something wondrous! My congratulations, Captain Lewrie … even if, as I understand the process of ‘to the victor go the spoils’, your ship will only reap prize money on the one, what?”
“You shall share in it, too, Captain Pomfret,” Lewrie assured him with a faint grin. “You were present upon our decks. Take joy o’ that. Dine with me tonight. With any luck, my cook, Yeovill, will prepare us something special.”
“Delighted to hear that I should prosper, even in a small way, and I would also be delighted to dine, and celebrate your victory,” Pomfret eagerly said.
“Yes, it was a victory, wasn’t it?” Lewrie mused, wanting no more than to go aft and get off his feet. “Not completely mine, though. If a grand victory it was, it’s Sapphire’s victory, their victory,” he said, pointing forward to the many sailors on deck. “It’s always theirs.”
EPILOGUE
I begin by taking. I shall find scholars afterwards to demonstrate my perfect right.
FREDERICK II, THE GREAT
KING OF PRUSSIA (1712–1786)
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Bart., was having one of the worst mornings of his life. To say that he felt rowed beyond all temperance, to describe his mood of being betrayed, and as ill-used as if assailed by so many bears, would be an understatement.
He could not return aboard HMS Sapphire and indulge in a roaring, satisfying rage in the privacy of his great-cabins; that would result in a terrorised cat, a howling ship’s dog, and cringing cabin-servants, and possibly the abuse of his furniture, and stubbed toes. Quite possibly his officers, Mids, and sailors who could not help over-hearing a long, curse-laden tirade, and the gay tinkle of flung glassware, might imagine that he’d taken complete leave of his senses.
Lewrie could relate the wrenching circumstances to Lieutenant Geoffrey Westcott later, after he had drained off all his bile, but it was not yet time for that; he had to see straight, first, and, at the moment, he felt that if he looked in a mirror, his eyes would be red, like a Viking Berserker warrior of old!
I may laugh about this in future … but I rather doubt it, he fumed to himself.
Naturally, he would not go to his mistress’s, Maddalena Covilhā’s lodgings and burden her with it. She’d think him demented, and fear that she’d made a bad bargain with a raving lunatick, one she’d never know when he might go off, again, perhaps on her. Maddalena seemed intelligent enough a woman to understand, but it might be more than an hour, and three bottles of wine, before he completely vented.
No, the only person upon whom he could empty his spleen was Mr. Thomas Mountjoy, for part of his bad news affected that worthy’s operations, and if he hadn’t heard about it yet, Mountjoy would surely be as shocked as he was, and just as angry.
“Deacon,” Lewrie growled at the dangerous fellow as he entered Mountjoy’s lodgings, not caring how he took the curtness. “Is he in?”
“Yes, Captain Lewrie, I’ll announce…” Deacon offered, but Lewrie brushed past him and thundered up the stairs to the top-floor set of rooms, burst through the door into the sitting room, and bawled, “Damn ’em, Mountjoy, those two bloody fools, Dalrymple and Middleton, have taken away my boats! How the Devil am I t’land troops? They’re going t’be turned into harbour gunboats!”
He caught Mountjoy at his small dining table in his shirtsleeves, with a napkin tucked into his collar, carefully picking away the shell of a cupped, boiled egg, the perfect picture of domestic bliss.
“I know,” Mountjoy said, so calmly that Lewrie felt the sudden urge to leap over the table, take him by the throat, and throttle him.
“You know? Bloody Hell!” Lewrie roared. “What the…?”
“Given the sudden change in circumstances, ‘the Dowager’ don’t think we should be antagonising the Spanish any longer,” Mountjoy said as he dug into his soft-boiled egg with a tiny spoon and took a dainty bite. “As London has long wished, Dalrymple now wishes that the Dons direct their outrage ’gainst the French, not us. He made a strong request … well, call it an order sugared with a veiled threat … that we, you and I, suspend offensive operations ’til the situation sorts itself out.”
“Shut down?” Lewrie gawped, feeling as if his head would pop. “When were you goin’ t’tell me? And, what bloody circumstances?”
“Marshal Junot’s Army of Observation has crossed the Pyrenees, and is marching on Portugal,” Mountjoy matter-of-factly told him, as if it was no more vital a matter than the morning’s temperature. “We got word of it last evening, so it’s days late, and Junot is probably already near Salamanca, and making good time, so our ambassador in Lisbon, Lord Strangford, relates. Oddest damned thing…”
Mountjoy paused to smear butter and jam on a slice of toast, take a bite, and chew.
“Odd? Yayss?” Lewrie prompted, his sarcasm dripping.
“Just round midnight last night, I received a covert despatch from Romney Marsh, from Madrid, announcing the very same news,” Mountjoy said. “A poulterer came to the door with two chickens I did not order, with Marsh’s note. ‘Contract signed, goods on way to Lisbon, Madrid merchants out-bid and upset’, it said. Meaning, I take it, that there was some formal, written pact or treaty arranged by Godoy and his arse-licking Francophiles, and that news of a French Army on Spanish soil has outraged your common Spaniard to no end. Better for Godoy had he not put it down on paper, and let it happen with little notice, but, that’s his problem.”
“Marsh? That fool?” Lewrie spat.
“Oh, as mad as a hatter, is Romney Marsh,” Mountjoy heartily agreed, laughing, “but if he’s a fool, he’s a most useful one.”
“Mine arse on a band-box,” Lewrie said, all his pent-up, eager to be spilled rage quite flown his head, leaving him feeling deflated and weak in the knees. He pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Tea?” Mountjoy offered. “And, there’s a basket of toast.”
“We’re t’make nice with the Spanish now, are we?” Lewrie asked. “Just let bygones be bygones, and hope they come t’love us?”
“That may take some doing on their part, since you’ve done such a grand job of making their lives miserable, of late,” Mountjoy told him with a snicker. “I’ve word that that battery you bombarded has been abandoned, the one you blew up won’t be re-built, and even the semaphore towers you burned have been left in ruins. I told you that Spain is completely broke. With so much of Spain’s treasury going to the French, there’s little left to spend on their own needs. Spain’s less a French ally than one of her impoverished colonies.
“To add insult to injury, here you just up and bested two of the best frigates left to the Spanish Navy,” Mountjoy went on, imparting Lewrie with a cheery wink. “Congratulations on that. ‘The Dowager’ is of the same mind, and thought it a fine feat, but … Dalrymple also believes that, now the French have violated Spanish sovereignty, we’ve done more than enough to rub their proud noses in the muck, and shame them. Do have a cup of tea while it’s still hot.”
“Have some brandy t’go with it?” Lewrie grumpily demanded.
“But of course I do, good fellow!” Mountjoy said, springing to his feet to fetch a bottle.
Good fellow? Lewrie thought, scowling; Please, mine arse! I’ll not be cossetted like a dog who does tricks!
“The troops, the transport?” Lewrie asked as Mountjoy returned with the brandy. “What happens to them?”
“Surplus to requirements, I’m afraid,” Mountjoy said, sighing as if in sympathy. “Captain Pomfret, and the detachment of the 77th, will be off to Sicily to re-join their regiments in the field, with an host of good stories to tell, I should imagine. Captain Hedgepeth is most likely taking the transport to Lisbon.”
Halfway through stirring sugar and lemon into his brandy-laced cup of tea, Lewrie raised a questioning brow. “Lisbon?”
“Our ambassador, Lord Strangford, and his retinue, must be evacuated, along with all British subjects,” Mountjoy replied. “So many engaged in the wine, port, and sherry trade, so many merchants, and so many debtors hiding out in Portugal from their creditors in England? Hedgepeth and his Harmony might even be hired on to evacuate the royal family. A fellow in my line of work at the embassy sent me a letter in the same packet with the ambassador’s, stating that he has it on good assurance that the Regent, Prince João, is determined to leave nothing to the French, and he’ll not leave a single member of his courtiers or ministers behind to head a puppet government, so dozens and dozens of ships will be necessary. Prince João intends to move everything to the Vice-Royalty of Brazil.”
“Hope the courtiers enjoy all the mosquitos,” Lewrie gloomed.
As he poured himself another cup of tea, admittedly one more a tea-flavoured brandy, Mountjoy went on to praise the sagacity of the Regent of Portugal, who had seen the handwriting on the wall when Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte had initiated his Continental System to deny Britain any European trade, certain that he’d be threatened to join or else face invasion and conquest. Prince João had pretended to agree, but had strung out the negotiations so long that Bonaparte had lost patience, realising that he had been played the fool.
“My counterpart wrote that João is also determined to ship the crown jewels, the treasury, the royal libraries, and even the gilded coaches to Brazil,” Mountjoy said with another wink, leaning closer and lowering his voice as if French grenadiers had their ears pressed to the doors. “He’s been packing up and preparing for months, can you imagine?”
“What’s in the jam pot?” Lewrie asked. “Orange marmalade?”
“Hmm?” Mountjoy replied, looking dis-appointed that Lewrie was not gushingly impressed. “Lemon marmalade.”
“Give it a shove in my direction, if ye please,” Lewrie asked. As long as he had to listen to Mountjoy jawing on, he decided that he could have a wee bite, as well. With nothing more for Sapphire to do and offensive operations scotched, he thought that he might even take up whist, or chess! Or try to learn Spanish.
“D’ye think I might be useful at Lisbon?” Lewrie wondered.
“I believe we’ve a squadron there already, under Sir Sydney Smith,” Mountjoy told him, furrowing his brow to recall correctly. “For now, I’m sure that Dalrymple and Captain Middleton would prefer that there’s a naval presence at Gibraltar … some sailors to man the new gunboats? For now, there’s no more call for any further chaos or mayhem along the Spanish coast. I’ve Cummings and his boat to keep me in touch with agents and their informers, so I can get a sense of how the Spanish are taking their government’s surrender to Bonparte’s whim. Who knows, sir? That one request we got for British arms for a rebellion ’gainst Madrid might be repeated, and become widespread! Imagine your ship sailing into some major port in Andalusia, with arms to land, and being cheered in the streets!”
“That’d take some fanciful imagining,” Lewrie groused.
“Well, think on this,” Mountjoy posed, leaning closer, again, lest he’d be overheard by French pigeons on the gallery outside. “We know that Dalrymple has good relations with his opposite number, General Castaños. If he and his officers are disgusted enough that they rebel against Madrid, that could ignite the whole country, and open a door for a British army to land, then, in hand with the Spanish, head for Cádiz and take it from behind!
“Then, there’s an earlier despatch that Marsh sent me, anent internal divisions in Madrid which may bubble over to our advantage,” Mountjoy went on in that insufferable “I know something you don’t” way that had always irked Lewrie, “King Carlos of Spain’s been reduced to a figurehead, under Godoy and his set of French-lovers, and the Spanish people blame him for all their troubles. They’d rather have Ferdinand, his heir, on the throne, even if he is a dim-witted, lantern-jawed fool. King Carlos distrusts Ferdinand, Ferdinand’s plotting to take the throne and get rid of Godoy, and Godoy is plotting against Ferdinand, so some sort of coup is bound to happen which could turn all Spain topsy-turvy, and against the French, at last.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it happen,” Lewrie grumped, going for another slice of toast, the butter plate, and the jam pot.
“It means nothing to you?” Mountjoy exclaimed, unable to grasp that Lewrie was not as enthusiastic over the prospects as he. “But of course, the suspension of operations, losing the troops, transport, and those boats has been an appalling wrench, just when you were getting so good at these new-fangled ‘amphibious’ landings.”
“It ain’t just that,” Lewrie grumbled. “It’s the Prize-Court.”
