Текст книги "Hostile Shores"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
BOOK THREE
Therefore, great king,
We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.
Enter our gates, dispose of us and ours,
For we no longer are defensible.
–WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
T HE L IFE OF K ING
HENRYTHEFIFTH,
ACT III, SCENE III, 47–50
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The 7th was a let-down. Reliant’s larger-than-normal cutters and barges were assigned the task of ferrying the remaining troops of the infantry regiments, and the dis-assembled artillery pieces, their carriages, caissons, and limbers, ashore as the army slowly gathered on the beaches amid piles of stores, and the Leda frigate, along with the Encounter brig and the newly-arrived gunboat Protector, were sent near the shore to engage Dutch batteries on Blaauwberg Mountain with fire.
Other than those few Dutch guns on the heights, there was little sign of enemy resistance, so far. Some thought it odd, and ominous; others considered their absence providential. The bulk of the British field force might be onshore, but looked to be very vulnerable to any spoiling attack. The cavalry mounts and artillery team horses would be weak after weeks at sea, and getting over sea-sickness and barely getting their shore legs back, and every trooper or infantryman would be in much the same condition. With little of the artillery landed, and that portion still being re-assembled, an attack by the Dutch in force could be disastrous, with their backs to the sea already.
“Lucky bastards,” Lt. Westcott groused as the last of their cutters came alongside the larboard entry-port, and its weary crew began to clamber up to the deck, their onerous task completed at last.
“Who, the oarsmen?” Lewrie asked.
“The Leda and the others, I meant, sir,” Westcott explained. “At least they got to fire at something.”
“We earned our day’s pay, even so, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie told him. “Princely as that is, hey? And, there’s still hope for an order to form the Naval Brigade.”
“Pray God, sir,” Westcott said with little enthusiasm.
“Now our army’s all ashore, I expect General Baird will march them off inland, tomorrow morning,” Lewrie told him, rising from his sinfully idle wood-and-canvas deck chair. He went to the bulwarks to peer shorewards with a telescope. “Hmm … perhaps by noon tomorrow. Christ, what a mob they make. Several mobs, in point of fact. About as organised as a horde o’ cockroaches.”
What he beheld were groupings of soldiery by regiment and by squadron or battery. Tents were pitched in seemingly well-ordered lines, horses were tethered in groups of teams or cavalry troops, and field guns were parked wheel-to-wheel. Soldiers, though, milled about in their shirtsleeves, sat under canvas and smoked or chewed out of the heat of the sun, or snored in their tents. Only a few were posted as pickets under arms and in full kit. Officers and messengers were the only ones mounted and riding about, and none with any sense of urgency.
“It appears the landing was so strenuous that our soldiers are in need of a ‘Make And Mend’ day, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said with a sneer. “I swear, I doubt there’s an ounce o’ ‘quick’ in the whole lot. Napoleon, now … he may be a whole clan o’ bastards, but when he puts an army in the field, they tramp along at the ‘double-quick’!”
“Our army is better going backward, sir,” Westcott said with a sour laugh. “Like they did in the Dutch expedition in ’98?”
Before Napoleon Bonaparte had wooed, or bewitched, the insane Tsar Paul of Russia in 1801, Russia and Great Britain had briefly been allies, and had launched an invasion of the Lowlands, which had turned into a shameful embarrassment. The first time that the British Army had met the terrifying and seemingly invincible French Army in battle, it had been British redcoats that had been routed.
“Mister Munsell? Is the chore done at last?” Lewrie called down to the ship’s waist.
“It is, sir!” Munsell replied, doffing his hat. “The army now has the last of their stores ashore.”
“Went well, did it?” Lewrie asked.
“Very well, sir, The wind and surf are very calm today,” the Midshipman reported. “It is too bad that we did not begin the landings today, instead of yesterday.”
“Very well. Carry on, Mister Munsell, and well done,” Lewrie said in dismissal. “There’s a fresh-water butt on deck. Drink your fill, you and your men.”
“Aye, sir.”
Two muffled gunshots broke the day.
“Diadem, sir,” Midshipman Rossyngton announced. “The signal is … ‘Send Boats’, and … ‘Have Mail’!”
“Pick a fresh boat crew, Mister Westcott, and you might as well let Rossyngton command it … he’s fresh,” Lewrie directed, beaming in expectant pleasure that he would soon have letters from home and his sons, and Lydia, after months without. And, was he allowed to share copies of the London papers, he could find out what the rest of the world had been up to, to boot!
I could pace and fret ’til it arrives, or…, Lewrie thought.
“I will be below, Mister Westcott,” he decided, instead. “Do inform me when the mail arrives.”
* * *
Half an hour later, and he had a tidy stack of correspondence on his desk in the day-cabin. He quickly sorted out the lot, fresh newspapers on the bottom, personal letters atop them, and the official bumf the first to be opened. Long before, he had been bent over a gun and caned, “kissing the gunner’s daughter”, for ignoring that rule.
Paramount to all the letters from Admiralty was a folded note from Commodore Popham. With a tall glass of his trademark cool tea near to hand—though it was January, it was summer in the Southern Hemisphere—he broke the wax seal and spread it out. It could be an invitation to supper aboard the flagship, congratulations for the efficient landing of the army, or an order sending Reliant far away on a new duty, but—
“Aha!” he read with satisfaction. “Pettus, open two bottles of Rhenish, set out glasses for five, then pass word for the officers to attend me.”
“Yes, sir,” Pettus said, headed for the wine cabinet.
“The Commodore will be forming the Naval Brigade,” Lewrie told Pettus and Jessop with some glee. “All those preparations we talked about … see that all’s ready t’go by dawn.”
“Very good, sir,” Pettus replied, pausing before pulling the first cork. “And … might you need my services ashore, sir?”
“Hmm … I thought I’d take my boat crew, Furfy, and my Cox’n as part of the naval party, so they could do for me … unless you’re volunteering?” Lewrie replied.
“Be nice to go ashore and see Africa, sir,” Pettus told him. with a wistful grin. “Do something … active, for a change?”
“Well … see you have a stout pair o’ shoes, then,” Lewrie said. “Draw a musket, cutlass, and a pistol when we unlock the arms chests in the morning.”
“Careful ye don’t stab yerself, Mister Pettus,” Jessop teased.
“Fetch out the glasses, you, and make sure they’re clean!” the cabin steward snapped, pulling a cork with a loud thock!
Lewrie had time to go through the rest of his correspondence from Admiralty, most of it of little import. There were changes to be made to charts, where one of His Majesty’s vessels had discovered an unknown rock or shoal, or fresh soundings; quarterly promotions lists; directives Fleetwide about excessive purchases and the need to conserve, etc. That left the personal letters, and the very first one atop the pile was from Lydia Stangbourne. The next one beside it was from Hugh, who had surely been at the battle of Trafalgar, as part of Nelson’s fleet, and sure sign that he was still alive, but—
The Marine sentry was pounding, his musket butt on the deck and bawling the arrival of his officers.
“Enter!” Lewrie bade them, getting to his feet to stand before the desk.
“Reporting as ordered, sir,” Lt. Westcott said for all.
There was one extra; the Purser, Mr. Cadbury, had come along. Pettus took quick note, and slunk over to the sideboard to put out an extra glass.
“It’s on, gentlemen!” Lewrie crowed. “First light, tomorrow, and we’ll be off!”
“Huzzah, sir! Huzzah, I say!” Marine Lieutenant Simcock cried.
“You’ve your lists of all the items our people will need ashore, I take it?” Lewrie asked. “Good! Commodore Popham assures me that the army will provide us with at least one four-wheeled waggon, and two horses, and one waggoner from the Quartermaster’s. He cautions that the waggon will have only limited space, since the horse team’s needs for water and feed will be aboard, in addition to all of our gear, so we will have to carry as much as our men can on their backs, and all hands will be on ‘shank’s ponies’. There will be no mounts or saddlery to spare for officers or Mids. As I told Pettus, be sure ye have your best shoes or boots on.”
“Who will go, sir?” Lt. Merriman eagerly enquired as the wine was poured for them.
“I promised Mister Westcott that he would go,” Lewrie said with a grin. “Does he not, there’d be a one-man mutiny! Since I’ve been at the Cape before, I will go ashore, myself. Sorry, sirs. But, someone more than capable must remain aboard to command the ship in my absence, and you and Mister Spendlove are more than able to fight the ship, do the French, or a Dutch squadron, turn up. The Bosun’s Mate, Mister Wheeler, and two Mids … I’m thinking Mister Warburton, and Mister Rossyngton, to keep the men in the naval half in good discipline.
“Now, how are we doing with the water bottles, their slings, and the canvas haversacks?” he asked, taking a sip of wine.
“The Sailmaker, Master Gunner, and their mates have all but a few to finish, sir, and every man will be equipped with them by the end of the First Dog, tonight,” Lt. Westcott reported.
“Good! Ammunition, Mister Simcock?” Lewrie continued.
“Thirty paper cartridges per man and musket, initially, sir,” Simcock happily informed him, “and sixty more rounds on hand, to be carted in the waggon for each man after. Do we begin now, sir, the Armourer can put fresh edges on cutlasses, hangers, and bayonets, if you will open the arms chests.”
“I will give you the keys once we’re done here,” Lewrie promised. “Rations, Mister Cadbury?”
“Four kegs of salt-meat, sir, two each of beef, two of pork, and a whole box of portable soup portions,” Cadbury piped up. “Three bags of bisquit, and two five-gallon barricoes of rum. I may spare you my assistant to keep track of issuing victuals. The Ship’s Cook has set aside spare utensils and pots, but, he and his helpers must stay with the ship to do for the rest of the crew, so I don’t know—”
“I’ve spoken to my cook, Yeovill, and he thinks he can cook for us whilst we’re away,” Lewrie said, “though he’s none too keen on the task. Nothing t’do but boil stuff, he said, with no real call for his culinary skills!”
“Unless we shoot some game meat, sir,” Westcott said in hope.
“Let’s hope that our army, or the Dutch army, haven’t driven all the tasty beasts away,” Lewrie said. “The overall command of the brigade is given to Captain Byng of the Belliqueux, assisted by Captain Hardinge and his officers. He was sent out with us to take command of a ship in India, and is available.
“They, I am informed, will be busy with landing the heavy artillery, the presence of which I just learned. And here I thought we were done with ferryin’.”
“Our transports must be like the Horn of Capricorn, sir,” Lt. Merriman said with a snicker, “filled with infinite plenty! What’ll they trot out next? Hindoo war elephants?”
“You will be taking your Ferguson along, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked, after he’d gotten a re-fill of his wine glass from Pettus.
“And my Girandoni air-rifle, should there be any game,” Lewrie said with an agreeing nod. “Assumin’ the bloody thing still holds a charge of air. Damn all leather washers and seals in this weather.”
“Then I wonder if I might borrow your fusil musket, sir,” Lt. Westcott requested. “A fusil’s longer barrel makes it more accurate than a Brown Bess musket, even if it is a smooth-bore.”
“Of course ye can, sir!” Lewrie gladly told him. “And, does it come to a fight, I pray you make good practice with it!”
“Mister Spendlove, sir,” Lt. Simcock spoke up. “I’ve a man, Private Radley, who is a keen shot. I wonder if I might borrow your splendid Pennsylvania rifle for him to use. I promise to bring it back in good condition, and he’s the very man I’d trust for any long-range shooting … a sight better than me, in truth.”
“I would be more than happy to oblige you, sir,” Lt. Spendlove replied. He sounded gracious, but a tad glum that his rifle would go and he would not.
“Mister Westcott and I have come up with a list of our sailors we deem suitable for the duty ashore,” Lewrie told the gathering. “If there are any objections or substitutions you gentlemen wish to make, look it over.”
Lewrie got the list from his desk, and handed it to the First Officer, who gathered the rest round the dining table to put their heads together. A few names were substituted, but in all, the list was found acceptable.
“Most of these lads gained experience ashore last year in Spanish Florida,” Lt. Merriman took note. “They’ll do handsomely.”
“Though they never had to march far inland under a soldier’s heavy kit, or did much skirmishing with the Dons or the Indians,” Lt. Spendlove said with a hopeful shrug.
“And that encounter with the Seminoli up near Amelia Island put the wind up ’em,” Lewrie said with a laugh.
“Or with the rattlesnakes, coral snakes, and alligator,” Lt. Simcock hooted. “That was a draw, at best!”
“I thought the alligator won,” Lewrie added. “Good trainin’, that was, for all the beasties that Africa has t’offer. Can anyone think of anything else we haven’t considered? Medical care? Clean spare stockings? Very well, then. Inform the Mids and hands chosen for the expedition, Mister Westcott, and allow them to make their preparations.” He went to his desk and fetched out the precious, closely guarded keys to the locks on the arms chests. “Take these, Mister Simcock, and see to the sharpening, then lock everything back up ’til we issue weapons at dawn. It will take at least three round-trips to land all our men and supplies, so let’s be sure that all’s in hand to start before dawn, at Two Bells of the Middle Watch. Re-fills, please, Pettus,” he ordered. “And, allow me to propose a toast.”
Denied the choice opportunity of serving ashore or not, with a precious shot at making their names known and “gazetted” or not, all expectantly stood with their full glasses ready.
“To us, sirs,” Lewrie intoned with due solemnity, “and to our success, and victory!”
“Us, success, and victory!” they roared, tossing their wine back to “heel-taps”.
* * *
Once the last of his supper guests had bowed their way out, Lewrie wheeled about and almost dashed to his day-cabin desk, fetching along a short candelabra from the sideboard for more light, so he might read his personal letters, at last. Lydia’s, or Hugh’s? That decision took but an instant, and he broke the wax seal of the one from his younger son.
It is Victory, complete and Glorious, and our good ship Pegasus, your old friend Capt. Charlton, and, dare I say my own humble Efforts in our perilous Endeavour, contributed to the Triumph of Arms!
Hugh had been posted on the upper gun-deck, he wrote, and had a better view than some of his fellow Midshipmen below on the lower gun-deck. He described how grey, gloomy, and overcast was the day, and how scant the wind, and how slowly the action had been joined, with some ships in the two long columns of warships, sailing bows-on at right angles to the horizon-spread combined French and Spanish fleet, struggling to maintain steerage way.
HMS Pegasus had been near the rear of the right-hand column led by the massive Royal Sovereign, close to Swiftsure, Dreadnought, and Defiance, spared the drubbing that the lead vessels suffered as the miles-long French and Spanish line had opened fire, unable to reply for what seemed hours of punishment, sure to be shot to pieces long before the British Navy could come to grips, but…!
Hugh described his awe and joy as the two columns speared through the enemy line and let loose with both batteries, sailing into that massive, impenetrable fogbank of powder smoke! The enemy’s ships had been isolated, lost in their own fogs, in singletons, pairs, and trios upon which Nelson’s fleet had fallen, “doubling” two-on-one to either beam to pound them and shatter them at “close pistol shot,” and it had been the Frogs and Dons who had been shot to pieces!
We came upon a lone French 74, crossed her stern to deliver a devastating Rake which brought down her mizen, came along her stabd. side at close range, & traded shot for nigh an hour before lashing to her & boarding. We’d never seen our gallant Capt. Charlton, usually the most phlegmatic of men, get so lively & excited! Despite the volume of musketry, which took my hat, and the Capt.’s hat and one of his epaulets, we boarded her, my brave gunners among the first to gain her gangway, cheering & shouting like Billy-Oh, which spurred my courage to be ever in front. Thank you and Grandfather for the pair of Pistols you gave me, which, along with a cutlass and my dirk, I put to good Practice. The carnage aboard was unbelievable. We cut our way to the quarterdeck before her Capt. called for Quarter, lowered her Colours, and she was ours!
“Good God, I’ve raised a real scraper!” Lewrie whooped with delight.
Hugh had gotten a scratch or two, though his ship had paid a steep price in killed and wounded. And, by dark that evening, the weather had gotten up, so fiercely that they had had to cut the tow, and had lost their prize. Theirs, and many of the already-damaged prizes, had been cast ashore on the Spanish rocks, reefs, and shoals.
And, there was the death of Admiral Lord Nelson, which Hugh had learned of hours later. The rumour was that the Nelson had been dressed in his finest, with all his foreign decorations, and some French Marines in one of the fighting tops had shot him down.
Hugh closed by reckoning that he had acquitted himself main-well in his first true action, if he did say so himself, and that Pegasus was off to Gibraltar to make repairs and re-victual, and that he would write more, later.
“Thank God,” Lewrie whispered, faintly smiling as he laid the letter aside. “He’s safe, he’s blooded, and he did do damned well … but Lord, what a way t’learn t’fight!”
Lewrie wondered if he’d even recognise Hugh the next time they met, whenever that might be. He’d seen him off by the King’s Stairs in Portsmouth as an active, lark-happy thirteen year old in 1803. Though only sixteen now, he sounded as adult as any “scaly fish” in his twenties! He’d crossed swords with men out to kill him, fired his pistols, stabbed with his dirk, and had slain men in furious, face-to-face battle! Sixteen or not, he was a man, now.
Lewrie turned to Lydia’s letter, and it was certainly not the plaintive expressions of longing that he had expected! It had been written and sent before news of Trafalgar had reached England, for she made no mention of it. No, her news was of her brother Percy’s wedding to Eudoxia Durschenko, at long last!
They’d planned to marry last summer, when Lewrie was still in the Bahamas, and he’d doubted they’d ever go through with it, but here it was, daft as it sounded.
Lydia had been enjoying late summer in the country at their estates near Reading and Henley-On-Thames, riding daily over their acreage (which consisted of miles and bloody miles of land), dining al fresco with childhood friends, relatives, and neighbours, when she’d gotten an invitation from Hawkinge in Kent, where Percy’s self-raised cavalry regiment was posted to guard against the threat of invasion by the French. Just before the annual London Season, when Parliament re-convened, she and several others had coached down in a gay train of equipages, lodging together each night at the same posting houses, and having a quick round of shopping in London to look their best, when the time came, and the trips each way had been the jolliest.
The church at Hawkinge, near Folkstone, had not been all that grand, but the officers of the regimental mess had decorated it and turned the “happy occasion” into a grand military affair. A troop of horse had escorted Eudoxia’s carriage to the churchyard, another troop had brought the groom. Trumpets had blown fanfares, the band had been boisterous, accompanied by some new-fangled tinkly bell-draped thing called a “Jingling Johnny”, and they had made an arch of swords as the newlyweds left the church, and the wedding breakfast had been held close by under canvas pavilions, all to the delight of the locals.
Eudoxia’s father, Arslan Artimovich, that vicious, sneering, eye-patched old bird, had turned out in new suitings, rather grandly, Lydia wrote, with no muttered curses in Russian, and no sign of his wicked daggers.
The old fart saved his curses for me, whenever he saw me and Eudoxia together, Lewrie told himself; He likes Percy’s horses too much t’curse him! Arslan Artimovich might still despise aristocracy, but Percy comes with too much “tin” attached.
Lydia wrote that the affair had become “soggier” and more exuberant than most weddings, and that Arslan Artimovich had gotten as drunk as only a Russian can, and had tried to teach the subalterns how to do a wild dance, which involved whirling about, turning Saint Catherine’s Wheels, and squatting with arms crossed and kicking legs straight out in turn, to the further delight of local witnesses, before the “happy couple” had coached off.
Despite her initial reservations, Lydia expressed that she had come to like Eudoxia, her outré past aside. Eudoxia had become a good influence on Percy and his penchant for gambling deep, finding her a level-headed, sensible, and clever young woman, and, with her sunny and amiably amusing disposition, she kept Percy distracted enough to submit to her wishes.
After that, Lydia had returned to London to stay at their house in Grosvenor Street for a few days, eschewing most of the public events where she would feel uncomfortable, but had attended some symphonies and new plays, done some shopping to see the new fashions, but expressed how relieved she would be to return to the country and take joy in the Autumn and the holidays to come. Percy, Eudoxia, and the regiment would march back to Reading and their permanent station once the winter weather precluded any attempt by Napoleon to cross the Channel, and be home for the harvest festivals and Christmas.
The rest of her letter expressed fondness, longing for his return, and concern for his safety so far away, at whatever it was that required him to be months away and thousands of miles off. Perhaps it might transpire, she wrote, that they could pick up where they had left off, and see what their relationship could be, in future?
“What a scandalous set we’d be!” Lewrie muttered to himself in wry humour. “Lydia and her un-warranted bad repute as a divorcé … Percy and his mad-cap ways, married to a foreigner who’d been a trick shooter, bareback rider, and actress with Dan Wigmore’s Peripatetic Extravaganza, her lion-tamer papa t’boot! Christ, scandalous little me would fit right in!”
There was a discreet rapping on the great-cabin door. Pettus went to see to it. “Master-At-Arms, sir,” he announced.
“Right, then,” Lewrie said with a groan. “Tell Mister Appleby I’m just retiring, and all the lights will be extinguished in five minutes … if he’ll give me that long, that is.”
“Aye, sir,” Pettus replied with a grin.
Lewrie put the letters away in his desk drawer, and rose to begin undressing, reminding himself to write replies, soonest, and one to Thom Charlton to congratulate him, too, once he was back aboard.
Once in his hanging bed-cot and under the covers, in the dark, Lewrie did feel a faint prickle of worry. As grand and adventurous as he and his officers anticipated their jaunt ashore would be, there was always the risk that he’d never get to write those letters.
He could drown if his boat was overset in the surf upon landing, for he, like many British tars, could not swim a stroke. He could put a foot wrong and meet up with all manner of venomous puff adders and mambas and cobras, rest under the wrong tree and be bitten by the slim green boomslang, be swarmed by scorpions in his sleep, and God only knew what-all. If the Dutch put up a fierce resistance, he could get his fool head shot off!
They don’t pay me half enough t’do what I do, he told himself; They really don’t.
