Текст книги "Hostile Shores"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was almost Christmas Eve before Reliant’s little convoy finally caught sight of tops’ls and t’gallants on the Southern horizon, a wide smear of weathered tan or ecru canvas that spread from three points off the larboard bows to three points off the starboard. When the cry of “Sail Ho!” came, Lewrie was in the middle of shaving, and he dashed to the quarterdeck with a towel still round his neck and the thin foam of shaving soap still on his face.
“It would appear that there are at least seventy ships, sir,” Lt. Spendlove, the officer of the Forenoon Watch, eagerly reported. “I believe I can make out their fores’ls … fore topmast stays’ls … lying to the right, so they must be making the long board Sou’-Sou’west, the same as us, sir!”
“Hmm, that’ll make for a long stern-chase, then,” Lewrie speculated aloud. “As we close with them, we’ll fall into their wind shadow and be blanketed. They’re hull-down under the horizon, so we’re about twelve or more miles alee of ’em, but it may be dusk before we come to hailing distance. Mast-head!” he shouted aloft. “Any signals yet?”
“Just now, sir!” Midshipman Munsell cried down. “It is ‘Query’!”
“Very well. Mister Spendlove, have our number hoisted, and in this month’s private signals book, add ‘Come To Join’.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Spendlove said, turning aft to relay the order to Midshipman Rossyngton at the taffrails, flag lockers, and signals halliards.
“Caught them up at last, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked as he mounted to the quarterdeck, with Lt. Merriman right behind him, and both of them as hastily half-dressed as Lewrie.
“It appears so, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie told him with a grin.
“Do we know which ships Commodore Popham commands, sir?” Lt. Merriman asked, with his own telescope glued to one eye.
“I think I recall that he has the Diadem, sixty-four,” Lewrie said, off-handedly stroking a raspy cheek in thought and finding that his fingers came away soapy. “He’s the Raisonnable and Belliqueux as well, also sixty-fours. There’s sure t’be frigates and such, but at the moment the names escape me. Oh, there’s the Diomede, one of the old two-decker fifty-gunners. Diadem, Diomede? Easy to get them confused.”
“As a trooper, sir?” Lt. Merriman further asked.
“As far as I know, Diomede’s still rated as a warship,” Lewrie said with a shrug. Fifty-gunned two-deckers had been a failed experiment, much cheaper to build, crew, and maintain than 64s or 74s, but unable to match weight of metal with larger ships even in their brief hey-day. There weren’t more than a dozen 50s left, and most of them had been converted to troop transports, and the few remaining in the Navy as ships of war were found only in the farthest corners and backwaters of the world, where the stoutest opposition they might meet would be frigates, sloops of war, or brigs and light privateer vessels.
“Pity the poor fellow who has charge of her!” Lt. Merriman said with a snicker of derision.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lewrie, laughed. “One could be worse off. One could be appointed an Agent Afloat with the Transport Board!” After the others had had a slight laugh, Lewrie ordered, “Carry on, Mister Spendlove. I will be below, finishing my shave.”
“A close, Sunday Divisions shave, sir,” Westcott teased. “You will be reporting aboard Commodore Popham’s flagship by supper time.”
“And, after this long on-passage, sir,” Lt. Merriman, their wag, posed, “you might have to fetch them rabbits and quail for the entrée, else the Commodore serves you salt-meat junk!”
“Like a housewarming supper?” Lewrie laughed. “Signal my host t’see if I can bring anything before I boat over? Hah! Carry on, gentlemen.”
* * *
By five of the afternoon, in the middle of the First Dog Watch, Reliant gladly shedded her three charges, and Ascot, Marigold, and the Sweet Susan swanned off into the larger convoy’s gaggle in search of the ships bearing the rest of the 34th Light Dragoons. Lewrie had the frigate steered over to join the rest of the escorting warships, and hoisted the very welcome signal “Have Mail”, which elicited an invitation from HMS Diadem to send a boat at once, followed shortly after by a second invitation for Reliant’s captain to dine aboard Commodore Popham’s flagship at half-past 6 P.M.
Lewrie found that almost bearable. For many long weeks, he had dressed any-old-how in his oldest, plainest coat, loosely tied neck-stock, and roomy slop trousers. Now, he would have to dress in snug breeches, silk shirt and ironed stock, snow-white waist-coat, and his finest uniform coat with the sash and star of the Order of The Bath. At least the supper would be held after sundown, so the present latitude’s oppressive heat would not be as bad as a mid-day dinner, and on the long board on larboard tack which the fleet held, the humidity of the African coast was far away, and there was a fresh-enough breeze off the sea.
Once the salutations had been rendered, one of Diadem’s officers showed Lewrie aft to the Commodore’s great-cabins, where he was announced.
“Lewrie! My Lord, you’re a sight for sore eyes!” Commodore Sir Home Riggs Popham happily exclaimed as a cabin servant took his hat and sword. “You didn’t bring along any of those damned torpedoes, did you? Good riddance to bad rubbish, hah hah! Those infernal engines, I mean, not Lewrie! Come, sir! Have a glass of Rhenish, and allow me to name to you the others.”
Sir Home Riggs Popham was ebullience itself, but of course, in Lewrie’s brief experience with him, he always was the epitome of good cheer even in adversity. Popham was considered dashingly handsome by many, with a high, intelligent brow, pleasant eyes, good cheekbones, and a firm, clefted chin, and was possessed of a slim but solid build. In the latest mode, Popham wore his thick blond hair without even a sprig of an old-time sailors’ queue, and long sideburns below the lobes of his ears. Perhaps his only mar was a long and pointed nose with an up-tilt. Popham was garbed in his best, and costly, uniform coat which also bore the star of the Order of The Bath.
The others of whom Popham spoke were senior Army officers in command of the five thousand or so soldiers sent to take the Cape of Good Hope, a General Sir David Baird, and his second-in-command, Brigadier-General Sir William Beresford. Baird seemed a gruff and capable sort to Lewrie, though Beresford struck him as overly mild. Beresford had thick hair brushed back over his ears on the sides of his head, but was as bald as an egg above, and the fellow almost had pop-eyes.
There were some aides-de-camp with them, to whom Lewrie was named but they made little impression; he was sure that he would not have much to do with them once the army was set ashore.
“Besides the most welcome mail from home, what else did you bring us, Lewrie?” Commodore Popham asked.
“Two troops of the Thirty-fourth Light Dragoons, sir,” Lewrie told him, dreading the coming announcement. He brought the newspaper he had gotten at Madeira from a side pocket of his coat.
“Oh Lord, Colonel Laird!” General Baird said with a sniff. “One does hope he’s pleased, at long last.”
“I obtained these papers at Funchal, sir,” Lewrie said, holding them out for Popham to take. “I don’t know if you’ve had word of the battle off Cádiz, and Cape Trafalgar, yet. Nelson—”
“Caught up with Villeneuve at last, did he?” Popham exclaimed, beaming with pleasure and anticipation.
“He did, sir, the combined French and Spanish fleets,” Lewrie went on. “The foe were utterly defeated, and upwards of twenty ships were taken as prize, but … Admiral Lord Nelson was slain, sir. So soon after, and by word of mouth to Lisbon and Oporto, I expect the details are half rumour, half wild speculation, but—”
“Good God! Nelson, dead?” Popham yelped, taken all aback and suddenly “in-irons” at the news. “That is simply impossible to imagine! Why, even credible London papers had Nelson meeting Villeneuve half a dozen times, and all of the accounts pure fantasy. How much faith may be put in Portuguese scribblers?” he scoffed.
“The English language paper from Oporto tells the same story, sir,” Lewrie pointed out, “as did our Consul at Funchal, Gilbao? At any rate, it appears there was a battle, and a victory.”
“If true, such a victory would be England’s salvation from the fear of French invasion, at last,” General Beresford hesitantly said, “though at much too high a cost. What joyous celebrations our nation will hold would be tempered by the sense of loss, and grief.”
“Doubt there will ever be another quite like him,” General Baird gruffly said.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Sir David,” Popham said with a brief smile, almost a sly look. “Nelson was a product of our Navy, and our Fleet will produce a worthy replacement, eventually. The nation may grieve for a time, but … when they hear of our success at Cape Town? And a success it will be, hey? New heroes will arise.”
“I thought it best to inform you at once, sir,” Lewrie said, “and allow you to decide whether the news should be passed on to our sailors right off, or you wish to wait ’til there is solid confirmation.”
“Quite right, Lewrie, aye,” Popham said, nodding. “It might be best to pass the word that Nelson smashed the Frogs and Dons, but hold off on the details ’til we truly do have confirmation. That’ll put a fire in their bellies, and make them eager to succeed. Well, sirs, shall we dine?”
At least I didn’t have t’fetch him a chicken, Lewrie wryly told himself; I don’t think admirals live this well at sea!
Sir Home Riggs Popham’s great-cabins fair-screamed money, and extreme good taste, worlds beyond the bare-bones spartan quarters the Navy approved of from its officers, no matter how senior, or wealthy. Lewrie’s own tastes, and comforts, had been sniffed at by dis-approving seniors in the past, deemed almost sybaritic, but his could not hold a candle to Popham’s. Atop the usual black-and-white chequered canvas deck cloth which emulated tilework, the figured carpets were thick enough to trip over, or sink into at each step. Polished brass or coin-silver lanthorns hung from the painted or polished overhead deck beams in profusion, the chairs, settees, wine-cabinets, the wash-hand stand, and Popham’s desk gleamed, and the aroma of bees’ wax polish was everywhere. Popham’s sleeping space, chart cubby, and the dining coach were partitioned off with half-louvred panels made from polished oak, not the usual deal-and-canvas temporary walls. In the dining coach there was a table which could seat twelve, covered with a glaringly clean and white tablecloth, with pitchers, bowls and candelabras down the centre all in shining coin-silver, with even more pieces resting atop the magnificent sideboard. Once inside and seated, the partitions were chair-railed and wainscotted below, the upper parts painted light canary yellow, picked out with white trim.
I’d heard he’d deliberately married for money, Lewrie scoffed to himself; and it appears he gained a barge-load of “tin” from the bargain! There’s enough candles lit t’light a bloody ballroom!
The soup course was “portable”, the usual boiled dry and pressed into cakes vegetable soup so beloved of the Navy Victualling Board, though made more palatable with shredded bacon bits and tangy spices, served with white-bread baked rolls, globs of “fresh-ish” butter, and a sprightly German Riesling.
“Do you believe the accounts, Captain Lewrie?” General Beresford gloomily enquired after a slurp or two.
“I fear that I do, sir,” Lewrie admitted. “Lord Nelson pursued Villeneuve so hotly, there is no way that he would not bring him to battle, once Villeneuve returned to Europe from his jaunt to the West Indies. If the French put into Cádiz, as is reported, and sailed out with his Spanish ally, Nelson would have been there, right off shore, and thirsting for a fight. My main fear is for my youngest son, Hugh, who is aboard the Pegasus seventy-four, under an old friend of mine, Captain Thomas Charlton.”
“Charlton!” Popham cried in delight. “A damned good man, is Thom Charlton, and a fine sailor. Straight as a die, and as smart as paint. You chose well for your son’s first captain. Where did you serve with him?”
“He commanded a small squadron in the Adriatic, sir, about the time of Napoleon’s first invasion of Italy, and I had Jester, a French corvette that we took just after the evacuation of Toulon,” Lewrie gladly told him. “Aye, salt of the earth is Charlton, though never the life of the party.”
General Sir David Baird then spoke highly of the soup, sharing an account of how Napoleon fed his armies fresh soup and gravies, put up in magnum-sized champagne bottles and carefully sealed to remain fresh and edible for months on end. “Naturally, Horse Guards will not follow suit,” Baird grumbled. “The French thought of it first.”
“If our Army won’t, then I most certainly shall!” Commodore Popham declared. “If only for my own use. How dearly a consommé or a broth, or a good, thick gravy, is desired at sea!”
The soup was followed by individual bantam chickens, and Lewrie could boast of his fast-growing quail and rabbits kept in his frigate’s forecastle manger, and Popham swore that when dined aboard Reliant off Calais, before their failed expedition with torpedoes and fireships at the tail-end of 1804, Lewrie had been his own inspiration for the keeping of bantams.
“I found a whole new flock of bantams when we put into San Salvador,” Popham told them. “Pigeons and doves are also toothsome, and reproduce in sufficient abundance. When I dined with the Prime Minister in London before receiving this appointment, the high point of our supper, beyond the excellence of the beef roast, was a pigeon pie, hah hah! A pity, though, that, one good omelet is the destruction of one’s pigeon flock for the next six months!”
Just how well-connected is he? I wonder, Lewrie asked himself, noticing the faintest pauses and disguised sniffs from the Army officers. It appeared that Baird and Beresford had heard Popham’s casual mentions of his ties to the high-placed and powerful men in the government once too often. Then, during the next course, a roast pork loin gone “shares” with Diadem’s captain and officers’ wardroom, when Popham spoke of his connexions to the former First Lord of the Admiralty, Henry, Lord Melville, even Lewrie had to hide a snort, for Lord Melville had been turfed out in disgrace for being so corrupt that even the other crooks had noticed.
The rest of the repast passed pleasantly, right through to the nuts, cheese, and port, with sweet bisquits, and innocuous topics of conversation.
“Well now, Captain Lewrie,” Popham said, peering down the table at him rather sharply, “what brings you to become part of our little expedition?”
“When up to London, sir, I mentioned to the First Secretary that I had spent some time round Cape Town several years ago,” Lewrie told him. “I had no choice, really … a French frigate sneaked up on me in the dark and shot my rudder to bits, had to be towed in, and spent some weeks scrounging up a replacement and getting it fitted. During that time, I hired a local hunter as guide and rode or hunted all over the countryside. Mister Marsden deemed that experience might prove of use to you, sir.”
“And well it might,” General Baird pronounced, thumping a fist on the table top. “Just where, exactly, Captain Lewrie?”
“Aye, let’s bring out the chart one more time,” Popham called out. “Supper is officially over, so there’s no harm discussing ‘shop’. And I’ll request the port decanter, if you will, General Beresford.”
A large chart, more a land map than a sea-chart, was fetched and spread out atop the dining table, the corners weighted down with the cheese plate, the bisquit barge, the nut bowl, and the port decanter.
“We anchored here, sirs, under the guns of the seaward fort, near the town quays,” Lewrie sketched out, pointing his movements during his forced stay. “Our sick and wounded, we placed in a rented cottage a little way up the Lion’s Rump, South of town, where there was a fresh-water well and cool and fresh sea breezes. When it came to the rudder, we put together a train of bullock carts, with native drivers, and trekked down to Simon’s Bay, where an Indiaman had mistaken False Cape for the proper one, and ripped her hull open on the rocks. Fortunately, she was able to beach herself, and there was little loss of life. The locals at Simonstown were scavenging her for her timbers and metal fittings, but they hadn’t gotten round to her rudder, yet. We camped there several days, living off game meat we shot, sleeping rough under canvas, and playing ball in the late afternoons. After we got the rudder replaced, I did ride out as far as the Salt River, to the Nor’east, and North round the shore of Table Bay.”
“As far as Blaauwberg or Saldanha Bays, sir?” General Baird enquired.
“Not quite that far, no, sir,” Lewrie replied. “Once my ship was sea-worthy, a small home-bound ‘John Company’ convoy had come in, and its Commodore requested additional escorts, what with so many Frog raiders working out of the Indian Ocean as far North up the Western coasts of Africa as the Equator. I might’ve gone as far as the South end of the beaches of Blaauwberg Bay, but it was only a day ride, and we didn’t find the type of antelope or whatever that my guide, Piet Retief, promised. Some of my sailors, four or five of my Black hands, had run off with a circus’s hunting party, and some had come back badly mauled, so I also had that on my plate to deal—”
“A circus!” General Baird gawped.
“Mister Daniel Wigmore’s Peripatetic Extravaganza, sir. They were after strange, new beasts for their menagerie,” Lewrie explained. “They hired the biggest fool in all of Africa for their guide, and it was a total disaster. Does a Jan van der Merwe offer you his services, sir, shoot him and run like Hell. He thought that the Cape buffalo would be a good replacement for domestic oxen, and that hyenas could be tamed as guard dogs, and God only knows what other foolishness. Baboons as nannies, I expect!”
“Yes, your famous Black sailors,” Popham said with a simpering drawl. “Lewrie was tried and acquitted, don’t you know, sirs, for liberating a round dozen Black slaves on Jamaica, and signing them aboard his ship as free volunteers. ‘Black Alan’ Lewrie? Or, ‘Saint Alan, the Liberator’?”
“Oh yes, I recall hearing of that,” General Beresford said, nodding. “That must have made William Wilberforce and his Abolitionist crowd perfectly giddy.”
“They were, for a time, my patrons, sir,” Lewrie had to admit. “Once I was acquitted, though, they found a new’un.”
“That must have been miserable,” General Baird grumbled. “All that tea-slurping and hymn-singing, and deadly-dull earnestness. The lesser races may be taught to make good servants, perhaps even sailors in your case, Captain Lewrie, but, without the firm, guiding hand from a civilised race, they will never amount to much. Pray God that after we take the Cape from the Dutch, we keep it and make it part of our empire forever. Then, you’ll see how much more we English may make of the place than ever the complacent Dutch could.”
“Hear hear!” Commodore Popham enthused.
“Now, with these two forts commanding Table Bay, there is no way to land our force directly upon Cape Town,” General Baird went on, returning his attention to the map. “Commodore Popham, Beresford, and I have thought it best to go ashore in either Saldanha or Blaauwberg Bay, which, or so Commodore Popham and his officers assure me, are open to the sea, and relatively free of any rocky shoals or reefs. Behind either, there is a chain of hills which must be surmounted, but there are passes through which we must march, before descending the Eastern slopes to what is reputed to be a decent road which leads all the way down round the shore of Table Bay to Cape Town.
“It is our intention to flank wide round Fort Knocke, here, at the East end of Cape Town,” Baird went on, “and, should it prove necessary to assault the town proper, it should be done from the South and East, out of the range of Fort Knocke’s heavy artillery, up through the outskirts and street-to-street. I would much prefer, though, for the Dutch to meet us in the open long before, so we may bloody their noses and reduce their numbers before we fall upon the town, eliminating the risk of laying siege.”
“I don’t remember either fort mounting all that many pieces of artillery facing landward, sir,” Lewrie offered, “though I suppose they could shift some guns from the seaward side. There were openings in the ramparts for such. But, once your troops get into the houses on the South side of town, would the Dutch really fire at their own town? They don’t strike me as ruthless enough to risk killing their own people.”
“It’s all profit and loss for the Dutch, yes, Lewrie,” Popham said with a laugh. “They are ever a mercantile lot!”
“What is there, Lewrie … on the Southern outskirts?” Baird asked him directly.
“As I recall, sir, it’s all truck gardens and vineyards, cottagers with some livestock, and some native African workers’ housing,” Lewrie said, tilting his head to one side to summon the images from his memory of the time he’d ridden the area, back when he and Eudoxia Durschenko had flirted with each other … before she’d discovered he was married. “Cape Town’s not all that large a city, sirs. The farms and such just get larger the further one goes outside the commercial centre, warehouses, and docks. Larger pastures, more livestock, more space between dwellings ’til one’s in open country, where the native people still have a few kraals. They lost their own pasturage to the Dutch a long time ago. And the Dutch brought in slaves from the East Indies t’make up the numbers of farm workers. It just straggles off. There aren’t many free natives or East Indians, and those who are are gathered together in little, separate quarters. Unless they tear down the rich, White part of town for fortifications and dig trenches, the town’s wide open, as is the countryside.”
“No impediments,” Brigadier General Beresford said, sounding like a man with his fingers crossed.
“Not unless one calls wood fences impediments, sir,” Lewrie assured them all.
“At any rate, our sudden appearance just out of range of their heavy guns will give them no time to prepare against us,” Commodore Popham idly dismissed. “We bring the fleet to anchor … well, here,” he said, tapping a finger just West of Robben Island at the Nor’west end of Table Bay, “sort ourselves out, and begin landing the cavalry and the regiments of the Light Brigade of Foot in either Saldanha or Blaauwberg Bay a day or two later, the winds and surf allowing, we’ll be at their throats before they know it! Forewarned even a week, the Dutch would still have too little time to prepare fortifications for a siege of Cape Town.”
“Their key defences are the two fortresses, though, Commodore Popham,” Beresford hesitantly pointed out. “Is the officer in command of their forces the cautious sort, he may not wish to stray too far from their reach.”
“Then he will be lost,” Baird countered, scoffing. “Where we face the worst peril is upon the beaches, or just behind them in the hills. Counter us there, and he could delay our advance to a crawl, and a series of head-on assaults from one advantageous point of terrain to the next, especially did he deny us a crossing of the Salt River. No, Beresford, I still say their general, whoever he is, will and must meet us in the open. The Cape Colony is too large an area to be defended by infantry alone. I expect that the Dutch will have more horse than we may field, so he will possess the advantages of rapid mobility, and only a pluperfect fool would throw that edge away.”
Christ, a soldier with a brain in his head! Lewrie thought with admiration for Baird; Now there’s a rare bird!
“And, what part will Reliant and I play, sir?” Lewrie asked of Popham.
“Admiral Villeneuve and his huge fleet may be destroyed, do we believe your news, Captain Lewrie,” Popham quickly told him, with a grin, “but the French still have more than enough ships in the Indian Ocean, prowling this side of the Cape of Good Hope. ’Til we have established a firm lodgement ashore, we must keep one eye peeled seaward against their interference. Your Reliant, Leda, and Narcissus, I will keep mobile, cruising close ashore, perhaps to provide some fire support against any Dutch batteries, but still able to sortie should any French warships turn up … to protect the transports.”
“’Til we may shift them deeper into Table Bay, sir? But, what should I be doing after that?” Lewrie pressed. “If I was sent along to share my experiences ashore—”
“There is that, Commodore Popham,” General Baird said. “If there is a threat from the French, your larger ships would be more than a match to any of their frigates, hmm? Captain Lewrie here might prove to be useful and informative ashore.”
“It’ll be Navy boats that get your troops to the beaches, sir, and to sort out the cavalry, artillery, and supplies,” Lewrie quickly suggested. “I could bring along my Marines, and an equal number of armed sailors, say … eighty or so, in all. If the French show up, my First Officer is more than capable of fighting my ship for me.”
“And, your own Flag-Captain, Captain Downman, you have already assigned the role of supervising naval co-ordination of the landing, sir,” Baird added. “Indeed, let’s bring Lewrie ashore with us.”
“It will be as you say, Sir David,” Popham consented. “Well, gentlemen. Now that’s settled, let us have a ‘stirrup cup’, as it were, to bid Captain Lewrie a safe return to his ship!”
