Текст книги "Hostile Shores"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Reliant’s Marines in the barges, and all the supplies in one of the slightly smaller cutters, were landed first. By the time the Navy complement had been put ashore on the crowded beach, it was half-past six in the morning. Blaauwberg Mountain cast the beach, the towering and widespread piles of supplies, and the army encampment in shadow from the rising sun, and it was still pleasantly cool. The air was sour with the smells of burning wood in the many campfires, manure in the horse lines, and un-washed soldiery and their sweated wool coats.
Lewrie strode over the sand and shingle of the beach to higher ground, and the stubbly wild grasses and rock; careful where his boots landed, for there was a fair amount of manure right down to the back of the beach. He took a deep sniff, but it didn’t smell like the Africa he remembered!
“What a pot-mess our army’s made,” he commented to Lt. Simcock, who was amusing himself with his sheathed sword to flip a crab over and over, and herding it to prevent its escape.
“The horses and draught animals aren’t the worst of it, sir,” Simcock said with a faint smile. “They should’ve dug sinks for their own wastes, but it doesn’t smell like it. I have yet to see the waggon they promised us.”
“Well, keep a good guard over our stores ’til we do,” Lewrie told him. “Do soldiers think there’s un-guarded rum about, they’ll fight us for it. Ah, good morning, Mister Westcott! Have you ever seen the like?”
“Perhaps only at a Wapping hiring fair, sir,” Westcott replied. “It appears we’ve landed far South of the main beach, and the rest of the brigade.” He pointed North up the beach to where some large oared barges were struggling to fetch long and heavy siege guns ashore with one piece amidships of each. “Shouldn’t we be up there, sir?”
“Hmm … do you really wish to spend all day helpin’ ’em do that? Looks t’be warm work, to me,” Lewrie said, chuckling. “No, I’m more of a mind t’find ourselves a waggon, load up, and march inland with the regiments, or just a bit astern of ’em. Commodore Popham offered us as guards to the baggage train, and there’s sure t’be lots of ammunition and such close behind the leading regiments … more valuable than casks o’ salt-meat. Does that sound more palatable, sir?”
The army encampment’s sleepy breakfast came to an end with the blaring of bugle calls, the rumble of drummers playing the Long Roll, and the reedy shrieks of Highland bagpipes. In a twinkling, what had been somnolent dis-order turned to roaring chaos!
All of a sudden, the hundreds of tents were being struck and rolled up, mounts were being bridled and saddled, mules and horse teams were being harnessed, and thousands of soldiers rose to gather up their bedding, wash out their mess kits, stow bundles on the pack mules, and load waggons. Mules brayed in resistance, horses neighed and snorted, and got led to their places at the trot, raising great clouds of dry African dust that mingled with the steam and smoke as campfires and cookfires were doused.
Officers shouted orders to Sergeants, and those Sergeants bellowed sharp orders to Corporals and Privates, who raised their own voices to spur themselves along as they packed up. The bands of the various regiments began tuning up and were starting to play competing martial airs. The pipers and drummers of the Highland regiments seemed likely to win that contest. As to who could curse and scream invective the loudest, that was still un-decided!
“Here comes a waggon, sir!” Lt. Simcock pointed up the beach.
“Mister Rossyngton, see that’un? Go see if it’s empty, and seize it for us,” Lewrie ordered, and the Midshipman sprinted away. He back-pedalled near the right-side front wheel and got the waggoner to draw his team to a halt, conversed a bit, then dashed back.
“He says he doesn’t know what we’re talking about, sir, and he has orders to go forward and load up the officers’ personal goods from one of the infantry regiments, but he doesn’t yet know which. He was told to hitch up and wait for orders,” Rossyngton reported.
“Isn’t that just bloody typical,” Lewrie said, sneering and shaking his head. “It’s empty, then.”
“So far, sir, aye,” Rossyngton replied.
“Then it’s ours,” Lewrie snapped, and strode over to the waggon with his orders from Popham in his hand. “You, there! Yes, I mean you, Private! Stand fast!”
“Sir?” the soldier said with a gulp at the sight of some kind of officer tramping up at speed and bellowing at him.
Lewrie got to the right-hand wheel and laid hold of the box.
“I am Captain Sir Alan Lewrie of His Majesty’s Frigate Reliant. Part of the Naval Brigade?” Lewrie said with his stern face on.
Comes in handy, my damned knighthood! he told himself; If I can impress somebody with it when I need something!
“General Baird promised Commodore Popham that the parties off the various ships would each be supplied with a waggon and team, and I must get my stores loaded so we may go forward,” Lewrie spun on in a more conversational tone; he could save threats and roaring for a later time, if conversational did not suit! “Your waggon is empty … Private whom?”
“P-Private Dodd, sir,” the waggoner hesitantly said.
“Very good, Private Dodd, if you’ll be so good as to wheel over to yon pile of stores, my sailors and Marines can begin loading,” Lewrie said with a brief smile.
“But, Ah cain’t, sir!” the soldier wheedled. “Me Sergeant’ll have me back lashed open do Ah not wait here for orders, an’ he comes an’ tells me which regiment Ah’m t’go to! Ah cain’t let ye have it, sir.”
“So the brandy and wine, the silk sheets and silver tableware, of an officers’ mess is more important than ammunition, food, and rum? Tosh, Private Dodd!” Lewrie snapped. “The Dutch’re waitin’ up there, entrenched most-like, and there’s sure t’be a fight before the day’s out.” He jabbed his arm to point at the summit of the Blaauwberg. “I ask ye, will the officers of whichever regiment your sergeant had in mind need any of their luxuries before dark?”
“Ah jus’ cain’t, sir,” Dodd wavered, looking up to the summit then back down, miserably torn. “The lashin’d half kill me.”
“If General Baird promised us a waggon, then he must’ve had one to spare, Private Dodd,” Lewrie went on, trying reason. “If he does, then he surely has one extra for that regimental mess. Just a matter of whistling up the spare for them! Besides,” Lewrie cajoled, turning mellow and friendly—it might work!—“if your officers or your Sergeant try t’give ye any grief, they’ll have me t’contend with, and a Post-Captain in the Royal Navy outranks ’em by a long chalk! And, they’ll have t’find ye first, and you’ll be with my sailors and Marines, sharin’ our rations, and our rum. The Navy issues twice a day, ye know … half past eleven of the morning and another in the evening.”
“Eh, ya do, sir?” Dodd perked up at that prospect, but then as quickly slumped in dread and indecision. “Ah don’t know, sir. I’ve me orders, an’ all. Yet—!”
“Just wheel over yonder and we’ll begin loading,” Lewrie prompted. “There’s a good lad.”
“Well, sir … iff’n they’s waggons enough for your lot, and that regiment’s mess, Ah s’pose they’s no harm,” Dodd surrendered, at last. “You’ve a heavy load, sir?”
“Salt-meat casks, large cooking pots…,” Lewrie began to tick off.
“Best they go ’tween the axles, then, sir,” Dodd said. “That’d be easier on the team, with the road up the mountain steep-lookin’.”
He clucked to his horses, shook the reins, and got the waggon turning round to clatter and rattle over to the shore party.
“Huzzah!” Lt. Westcott shouted. “Heave it up, lads, and hoist it in!”
“You can really protect him from his officers’ wrath, sir?” Midshipman Rossyngton asked in a soft voice once the waggoner was out of ear shot.
“If I have t’convince the poor fellow t’volunteer as a sailor or Marine, sir!” Lewrie told him with a happy bark of laughter.
* * *
More bugle calls sounded as the waggon was loaded and the load roped down against shifting, then covered with a large scrap of spare canvas. The army encampment was packed up, and the soldiers were now donning coats, shakoes, hangers and cartridge boxes, bayonets and the cumbersome and heavy chest-strapped packs. At another series of calls, and more shouts and curses, thousands of men in the infantry took their muskets from stands and scurried into ranks and files, forming columns four-abreast. Cavalrymen swung up into their saddles and chivvied their mounts into similar order. Artillerymen with the light field pieces assembled atop the limbers and caissons, or astride the lead horses in their teams. King’s Colours and regimental Colours were un-cased and allowed to stream in the light wind, just as the sun rose high enough to banish the dawn’s shadows and spread warm light over the now-assembled army, and polished cross-belt plates, regimental shako plates, and weapons glistened brightly.
“I had lead soldiers when I was a boy,” Lt. Westcott mused at the sight, “but the real thing is grander by far.”
“Mister Simcock,” Lewrie said, turning to the Marine officer. “You and your men somewhat resemble redcoats, so it might be best if you march ahead of the waggon, and Mister Westcott and our sailors bring up the rear. I’ll come with you, at the head of our column.”
“Pity we don’t have Colours of our own, sir,” Simcock said. “If we’d thought to bring a Harbour Jack or boat Jack? Ah, well.”
“Perhaps we can steal one from another ship’s shore party,” Lewrie suggested, laughing. “The same way we stole our waggon. Let’s get our little company movin’ forward, Mister Simcock. Up close to the head of the baggage train, like we really are guardin’ it.”
He looked down the short length of his column.
We haven’t got bugles, so—? he thought; Might we need to pilfer one o’ those, too? Well, there’s Mister Wheeler.
“Mister Wheeler?” Lewrie called to the Bosun’s Mate. “Do you have a call t’get this shambles movin’?”
“Ehm…,” Wheeler replied, scratching his head for a moment. “How about ‘Stations To Weigh’, sir?” he said, lifting his silver bosun’s call.
“Aye, that’ll do. Tootle away!” Lewrie agreed, laughing.
Christ, what does the Army say? Lewrie asked himself, stumped.
“Forward … march!” he extemporised, waving his arm as the bosun’s call fweeped.
“For’d march!” Lt. Simcock shouted, calling the step for a bit to his Marines, since they had left their fifer and drummer aboard the ship. Lewrie stood beside to admire them, thinking that his Marines were as smart as any of the Army soldiers. The waggon came up level with him, and Private Dodd gave him a shy smile and nod. Then came his sailors, and they were a different proposition. Westcott, the Midshipmen, the Bosun’s Mate … they looked “martial” enough.
Their Purser, Mr. Cadbury, had long ago kitted the men out in red-and-white chequered gingham shirts from the same baled lot, and blue neckerchiefs for all. All hands wore the waist-length, opened jackets with bright brass buttons and white-taped seams of the nautical trade, and white slop-trousers. All had been issued stiff and flat-brimmed, low-crowned tarred hats, and every hand had opted for a bright blue ribbon band to trail off the backs of their hats, with HMS RELIANT block-painted in white.
It was just that no one had ever taught them how to march in step! The captain who tried might have created a mutiny, for “square-bashing” drill was the stuff of “soldiers”, a much inferior lot!
They shambled in four ragged lines, swaying out of order like a weaving worm, their muskets not held at Trail or Shoulder Arms, but over their shoulders any-old-how, like oars or gaffs. There was his cabin-steward, Pettus, without a single clue how to handle a weapon; his personal cook, Yeovill, sporting a red waist-coat and a longer blue coat, with a black civilian hat on his head, and his attempt at a sailor’s queue as bristly as a fox tail, and about as gingerish. His Cox’n, Liam Desmond, and his long-time mate, Patrick Furfy, were near the tail of the column, peering all about wide-eyed, with their hats on the backs of their heads.
No one’ll ever believe we’re supposed t’be here! Lewrie told himself; We look more like a parcel o’ drunken revellers!
With a long sigh, he hitched the sling of his Ferguson higher up on his shoulder and stomped back to rejoin Lt. Simcock.
There was a sudden fanfare of bugle calls, more shouts, and the army lurched into motion, five thousand men in all in both the Heavy Brigade and the Light Brigade of Foot, and the drums began to thunder out the pace for smartly-drilled soldiers to advance at the one hundred steps a minute. Cavalry moved out at the Walk, and the dust clouds rose again as thousands of boots and hooves struck the ground. Artillery batteries clattered and lumbered, and the waggons of the baggage train began their slow groaning forward movement.
“We can’t wedge ourselves into the baggage train, sir,” Lt. Simcock observed as they reached the head of the first waggons. “It might be better did we swing out to the right flank of it, and try to stay level with the leading columns.”
“Sounds right, Mister Simcock,” Lewrie agreed. “Uhm … how does one order that, in Army parlance? You’re the closest thing we have to a proper soldier.”
“Column Half-Right!” Simcock bellowed, turning to march backwards and pointing in the right direction. “Tah!”
“‘Tah’?” Lewrie whispered to him as the Marines altered course.
“That is what my drill-masters shouted when I was learning, and what they used as a word of execution,” Simcock explained in a lower voice, baring a sly smile. “Some prefer ‘Har!’ Makes no bloody sense at all, really. Battalion, Attention, comes out as ‘’Talion, ’Shun!’ for example; Arms in any movement of muskets is said ‘Hahms!’; and so on. It’s all up to the Sergeants’ preference, really. Isn’t that right, Sarn’t Trickett?”
“Whatever the Leftenant says, sir!” Sgt. Trickett barked back.
Their swaying little column angled out from the baggage train, and its cloud of dust, about one hundred yards before Simcock ordered Column Half-Left, with a requisite Tah! to bring them back on their original course, parallel with the waggon train.
The march, or the shambling, continued up the slightly rising slope from the sea towards the Blaauwberg, through a dusty brown haze raised by the regiments ahead of them. The land was deceptively green, at least in the middle distance, though the ground they marched over seemed half-parched by a Southern Hemisphere summer, with most of the grasses only ankle high and sere, and rare patches of taller clumps of reeds and greyish-green bushes here and there. What thickets of trees they encountered were thin and spaced far apart from each other, most of them spiked with long thorns. The denser, greener, and more succulent groves lay ahead near the foot of the Blaauwberg, but even those were widely scattered, and formed no impediment to the skirmishers of regimental light companies or cavalry videttes that rode through them. As they got closer, the Blaauwberg did not look as steep as it had at first, but it was treeless and stony, thinly furred with short green grasses between scattered outcrops of bare rock, appearing at that distance as if the green was a thin covering of moss, or a green mould on a stale loaf of bread.
* * *
About an hour into the march, which was beginning to be sweaty and arduous, the drums ceased to beat and bugles blew. Loud and deep voices ahead shouted a chorus of “’Talion … Halt!”
“Column … Halt!” Lt. Simcock called out.
“Thank th’ saints!” Seaman Furfy could be heard saying at the rear of the sailors’ party, raising a weary laugh.
“The foe?” Lewrie asked aloud, pulling a shorter telescope from a coat pocket and looking up to the top of the Blaauwberg.
“A five-minutes’ rest, most likely, sir,” Lt. Simcock speculated. “Though it’s very likely that the Dutch have had time to entrench above the beaches, and are ready for us … somewhere up there. Time for some water. If you do not mind, sir, I think it a caution did we send some pickets out to our right, about fifty yards or so, just in case, whilst the rest get off their feet for a bit.”
“Good idea,” Lewrie said, turning to walk back behind their waggon to see Lt. Westcott and have him send out some scouts.
“Five minutes’ rest, and water, Mister Westcott, and I’d be much obliged did you send about ten hands out to the right, about fifty or sixty yards, to be lookouts once they’ve had a ‘wet’.”
“Aye, sir,” Westcott replied as he mopped his face with a handkerchief, then passed the chore to Midshipman Warburton. “Bless me, but I doubt I’ve walked this far since our ship was commissioned. Even in Spanish Florida we did not venture so far inland.”
“That’s the trouble with seeking after adventure, sir,” Lewrie said with a snicker. “But, we’ll be all the fitter for it, when we do run into it.”
“I’d more expect dead-tired, sir,” Westcott drolly replied. He pulled the sling of his improvised canteen up, un-corked the wine bottle, and took a long pull of water.
Lewrie looked all about the landscape, then went to the waggon to clamber up the spokes of the rear wheel and into the bed, sitting down on a keg and pulling out his telescope once more for a closer inspection of the land to their right.
I could see more if I stood up, but damned if I’m goin’ to, he thought. The muscles in his thighs and calves were complaining about the long, and rare, expenditure of effort. Three or four turns from the taffrails to the forecastle, or hours spent on his feet pacing the quarterdeck, had not prepared him for this trek. To make things worse, his well-made Hessian boots, fashionable and snug-fitting, now felt two sizes too small, and his thick cotton stockings had turned two sizes too loose, clumping in the worst possible places!
It felt rather pleasant, sitting on a keg of small beer, but, he stood with a stifled groan, raised his pocket telescope once more, and gave the terrain a very close look-over.
Damme, are those springboks? he wondered, noting some white-and-tawny-coated things deep in a thorn tree thicket; Thought the clatter from the army would’ve scared them off!
They were nigh a cable’s distance off, he estimated, but there might be a chance to stalk them, pot one, field-dress it for supper …
“No,” he muttered. “It’d rot before we camp for the night, and the rest period’s too damned short, anyway.”
He sat back down, raised his magnum champagne bottle canteen, and took a deep drink.
“You, there! What detachment is this, and how do you come to be here?” someone was calling at them in one of those arrogant, and plummy, voices that simply got up Lewrie’s nose.
He stood and looked left, to see an elegantly uniformed young officer on a fine blooded horse pacing up to them. The officer wore a fore-and-aft bicorne trimmed with gold lace, and plumed with white egret feathers. It was tipped so low on his forehead that he had to look down his nose at them—or was that his usual demeanour when dealing with common soldiers and social inferiors?
“Good morning,” Lewrie called to him. “We are part of the Naval Brigade, sent ashore to land the siege artillery, and guard your baggage train. Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of the Reliant frigate.”
The bloody knighthood looks like it’ll prove useful, again, he thought.
“Good God above, sir!” the officer yelped in indignation, after taking a quick and dismissive look at Lewrie’s men. “You are drinking, sir? You allow your men spirits? Scandalous!”
“It’s water, sir,” Lewrie told him, feeling the urge to raise his bottle to his mouth for another guzzle. “My Marines are the only ones with proper canteens, so we had to improvise.”
At least he hoped that his men had only water! He had learned long ago how devious sailors could be when it came to getting and hiding stashes of rum or brandy, in the most unlikely places. His party might not be able to pass a close inspection, no matter how carefully their bottles had been checked before being filled. In point of fact, he had two pint flasks of spirits in his own bed-roll!
The officer, a Captain of Foot who had yet to introduce himself, un-buttoned his elegant tunic and clawed out a sheaf of papers from an inside breast pocket. “Look here, Captain … Lewis, was it? I find no mention of any naval parties serving ashore, and certainly no mention of your party in our order of march.”
“It’s Lewrie, not Lewis, and my orders come from Commodore Popham and General Sir David Baird,” Lewrie countered, producing his own papers. “And, strictly speakin’, we are not listed in the order of march, but are out on the flank of the baggage train, doin’ what we are ordered t’do … guarding it.”
“Humph! I see here that the so-called Naval Brigade’s first duty is to land the siege artillery, and guard the stores still piled above the beaches,” the Army officer said, looking up from the offered papers with a raised, dubious brow and handing them back. “I very much doubt that even the broadest interpretation of your orders may justify your presence anywhere near here, sir! Besides,” he huffed, and made a snide little grin, “the baggage train is already guarded by a battalion of Foot, as one may clearly see from here.”
“Your battalion’s spaced out in company lots, on both flanks, and at the rear, sir, right next to the waggons and pack animals, and eatin’ so much dust, they can’t see their hands in front of their faces. Have they any idea there’re impalas in the thorn trees? Or warthogs rootin’ round out in the open, not a quarter-mile off?” Lewrie pointed out, becoming irked at the man’s high-handedness. “Now, do those impalas spook, it’s good odds that it could be Dutch cavalry, sneakin’ up on the waggons. Do they break cover East or West, it’s something t’be concerned about. Do they run off South, then it’s our noises that does it. That’s why we’re out here, sir, where we can see any threat, and why I’ve pickets out beyond us.”
Which is what yer battalion should be doin’, Lewrie left to the soldier’s imagination—if he had one; And yes, I am teachin’ your granny how to suck eggs!
“I would strongly advise that you and your party return to the beach, Captain Lewrie,” the Army officer said, stiffening in umbrage to be told his trade. “Your men are not trained soldiers, and are an impediment to the Army’s movements. Too weak a force, more in need of protection than anything else!”
“I think I’ll obey my orders as written, sir,” Lewrie objected, “and we stand warned.”
“I will report this to General Baird,” the Army Captain threatened, glowering.
“When you do, sir, please extend my warmest regards to Sir David,” Lewrie replied with a perky version of his best “shit-eating” grin, and doffed his hat. “Good day to you. Hoy, Mister Simcock! Hoy, Mister Westcott! Call in the pickets, and form ranks!”
Lewrie hopped down from the bed of the waggon and went to join the Marines at the head of the column, leaving the Army officer to fume, jerk reins, and canter off in search of someone to complain to.
“You have been making friends with our compatriots in the Army, sir?” Lt. Simcock said from the corner of his mouth.
“Makin’ friends wherever I go, Mister Simcock,” Lewrie beamed back. “Will you just look at that, sir!”
That mounted officer had ridden to the infantry companies down the right flank of the baggage train, and was chivvying them to take positions further out.
“He may come back and tell us to bugger off for good and all,” Lewrie speculated to the Marine officer, “now that those soldiers are out far enough t’do a proper job.”
“Back to the beach, then, sir?” Simcock asked.
“No, sir,” Lewrie countered. “We’ll just amble on up with the regiments and see what we can see. Carry on, Mister Simcock.”
“Detachment, ’Shun! Shoulder, Hahms! For-ward, March!”
