Текст книги "Hostile Shores"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
They entered the outer-most reaches of the Plate Estuary on the 27th of May, arriving in a thick and dense fog that took half the day to burn off, groping their way slowly West under greatly reduced sail and sounding with the short leads, already in shoal water. It was, to Lewrie’s lights, an ignominious beginning to the invasion of an enemy country. If the lookouts aboard Commodore Popham’s flagship, Diadem, had been able to see a signal, Lewrie would have hoisted the suggestion that they come to anchor for a time before they all took the ground far short of the actual mouth of the Plate. They sailed on nothing but Dead Reckoning, already encountering shoal waters, with the leadsmen in the fore chains calling out soundings that ranged from ten fathoms to a mere six, at times. The deck lookouts in the eyes of the bow could barely see their hands in front of their faces, much less a disturbance in the waters ahead, or a change of colour that might indicate peril. The lookouts high aloft at the cross-trees could only now and then make out the top-most trucks and commissioning pendants of the other ships, either.
It ain’t as if the Spanish know we’re comin’, or can even see us if they knew t’look out for us, Lewrie groused to himself, pacing the deck and wincing at each leadsman’s call; so what’s his bloody urgency? It’s like Popham’s runnin’ from his creditors!
Poor Mr. Caldwell, the Sailing Master, looked as if he would fret himself to an early grave, breaking out in a fine sweat despite the coolness of early morning as he was reduced to tracing his index finger round his much-pawed charts each time a new sounding was called out, as if to divine their exact position by the procession of indicated fathom markers. Lewrie noted that that index finger shook at times, and that Caldwell was actually mouthing silent words; curses or prayers, no one could say.
* * *
The fogs did burn off by mid-morning, relieving one and all. As soon as it did, though, the flagship was hoisting a flurry of signals. The first was a “General” to all ships, announcing that the Commodore would shift his flag to the Narcissus frigate and proceed up the Plate Estuary to gather the latest local information. In his absence, his Flag-Captain, Downman, would command the squadron and the troop transports. They should look for him off Flores Island on the North shore of the estuary, near Montevideo. The second hoist summoned Narcissus alongside Diadem, so the Commodore and his entourage could be barged over to her to arrive in state, break out his broad pendant, and scamper away at a rate of knots, leaving the rest of the ships to wallow along as best they could.
“Wants t’beat us to the loot, does he?” Lewrie speculated to Lt. Westcott in a low voice. “Ah, Mister Caldwell! My congratulations on seein’ us through. I am sending down for a pot of cold tea. Might I offer you a glass?”
“Thankee, but no, sir,” Caldwell said, mopping his face with a red calico handkerchief after he had gathered up his personal navigation aids and rolled up the large scale chart. “If I may have your leave to go below for a bit, I had something stronger in mind. This morning has taken its toll upon me, I do confess.”
“Nice enough, now, though,” Lewrie made note, pausing for a moment to hear one of the leadsmen call out, “Eighteen fathom! Eighteen fathom t’this line!”
“A pretty morning, aye, sir,” Caldwell agreed, looking out and up at the skies and clouds and the state of the glittering seas as if seeing them for the first time in his life, blinking in amazement.
“Do you reckon that the ship is in no danger for the moment, sir, you have leave to go below,” Lewrie allowed.
“Thank you, sir, and I shall return shortly,” Caldwell vowed.
“After all this fog and uncertainty, I feel in need of a stiff ‘Nor’wester’ myself, sir,” Lt. Westcott stated.
“Should I send down for rum, instead?” Lewrie teased.
“Cold tea’s fine, sir,” Westcott said with a twinkle.
Lewrie left the windward bulwarks and went to the binnacle cabinet to look over the other chart that Caldwell had left behind for their use, the one which showed the Plate Estuary all the way beyond Buenos Aires to the mangrove swamps and jungles on the North bank of the estuary, where the great river spilled out from the interior. He found Flores Island, still hundreds of miles away, and heaved a sigh.
“Pass word for the Purser if you will, Mister Westcott,” he reluctantly said. “It’ll be days ’til we come to anchor off Flores, and we’ll have to wait for the Commodore’s return. In the meantime, it will be necessary to reduce the bread and water rations to three in four, unless God grants us a deluge. Perhaps we can make up the lack with small beer, or try to bake fresh bread, if the wind and sea state allows.”
“Just slipped his mind, did it, sir?” Westcott whispered with a savage, knowing look on his face.
“Perhaps he’ll find a fresh-water stream far out of the way of any watchers,” Lewrie sneered. “Or, meet up with some Spanish bum-boat traders.”
“Lashings of water, wine, and charming señoritas,” Westcott wistfully said. “Ah, the possibilities!”
“You quite forgot the chance they’d have fresh fruit,” Lewrie reminded him.
“Hmm … mangoes … coconuts … or even … melons!” Westcott japed, raising cupped hands to his chest as if weighing the mentioned delights, widening his palms at each in lustful anticipation for the young women of the Argentine.
“You’re bloody hopeless, ye know that,” Lewrie told him.
* * *
It was the 13th of June before all ships were together, again, off Flores, where they did find fresh water, and dead-calm waters which allowed them to bake bread. Commodore Popham was off again almost at once, shifting his flag to the Encounter brig, which drew even less water than Narcissus. Before departing, though, he took the time to hold a quick conference aboard Diadem.
“My initial reconnaissance went well, sirs,” Popham energetically told them with a smile. “In Encounter, I intend to scout as far as Buenos Aires. Colonel Miranda, when I met him in London, told me that Buenos Aires has never felt the need for defensive walls, or any fortifications beyond some harbourside batteries. The fortified town is Montevideo, much closer to the open ocean, and is garrisoned more strongly to protect Buenos Aires from invasion … hah! We shall deal with Montevideo last.
“In the meantime, Captain Downman, and Acting-Captain King, I wish you place Diadem so as to keep a close eye upon Montevideo,” Popham continued, “and prevent any of its garrison from crossing over to the South bank of the estuary to re-enforce Buenos Aires before we may pluck it, ha ha!”
“Very good, sir,” Captain Downman agreed.
“Now, someone must keep watch on the back door whilst we make our preparations and choose a good landing spot,” Popham said with a cheerful clap of his hands. “To that end, Captain Lewrie, Captain Rowley, and Commander Edmonds, I wish for your ships to fall back down to the mouth of the estuary and cruise to keep a lookout for any impudent intruders who might turn up and interfere … as well as taking any Spanish merchantmen bound into the Plate.”
Ye brought us all this way, Lewrie thought, fuming up at once; and we’re not t’take part? Christ!
He could only nod in obedience.
“Now, upon my return, and the determination is made as to where the army is to be landed,” Popham went on with a merry grin, “we shall transfer our ‘Royal Blues’ aboard Encounter and Narcissus. That will give us the equivalent of a half-battalion of infantry. Each ship will give up around twenty armed seamen, making one hundred, and all of our Marines—that would be three hundred fourty all told, is my reckoning right, and no one falls overboard and drowns whilst I’m away, what?—together that gives us four hundred fourty extra men to assist Brigadier Beresford. With the army troops, we may field one thousand six hundred and thirty.”
“About that, yes, Sir Home,” Beresford said, nodding.
“As we saw at Blaauwberg Bay, gentlemen,” Popham went on and drawing them to gather round his dining table where a copy of a very old Spanish chart was laid out, “it is vital that we land everyone as close to Buenos Aires as possible, giving the Dons little time to react … assuming they can, ha! I will be taking a rowboat inshore after dark to look at Point Quilmes, which is only twelve miles from our goal. Above Point Quilmes, the depths are too shallow for any of our ships to swim. Do you concur, sir?” he asked General Beresford,
Beresford blinked his eyes and peered nigh myopically at the chart for a long moment before responding. “If we can get our ships no higher up the coast, then Point Quilmes has much to recommend it, Sir Home … though there is this river, the Chuelo or the Cuello … three miles from Buenos Aires, where the Spanish could make a stand. How dearly I feel myself in need of a squadron of cavalry.”
“General Baird had none to spare,” Popham said with a dismissive wave of a hand, “and the horse transports had to be released for return to England immediately following the landing at Blaauwberg Bay. We do have those dis-mounted troopers of the Twentieth Light Dragoons … perhaps they could dash ahead on ‘shank’s ponies’, what?”
He got his expected laugh.
“With a swift landing, I have complete trust in your ability to brush aside what meagre opposition we may face, General. Now!” Popham declared, then clapped his hands once more and began to sketch out details of the landings.
Lewrie had a look at Beresford, and gathered that that worthy was not quite as sanguine as Popham was. For his part, he wasn’t as confident in Brigadier Beresford, either.
He’s a pleasant old stick, but what’s he done in the past, and against whom? Lewrie wondered; Our Army officers buy their ranks, buy their way up, and make Colonel or General by seniority, not experience! Belong to the right clubs, patrons an’ friends at Horse Guards, in Parliament? And, Beresford looks so mild a fellow, God help us.
General Baird had done a fine job at Cape Town, but he had had equal numbers against the Dutch, all the time in the world to get his troops ashore with no opposition, and had had to fight only one brisk skirmish to clear the Blaauwberg, and one sharp set-piece battle, with everything all “tiddly”, and superiority in artillery and infantry. Baird even looked like a soldier who knew what he was about!
A quick landing, a quick march to Buenos Aires, against how many? Lewrie speculated; Un-opposed? That might be askin’ a lot this time! From what I’ve seen of our Army, they don’t have “quick” in their field manuals!
He had been rapt in his own thoughts, with only half an ear for Popham, who had been carrying on with zest and enthusiasm, most-like formulating ideas for crossing the Andes to seize Chile, next, set up cattle ranches the size of France for every participant, or have a city named for himself, for all he knew.
Don’t matter, really, Lewrie sourly thought; Popham’s his own best audience.
“… once the mid-day meal is piped, we shall begin transferring Marines and sailors to Encounter and Narcissus,” Popham said, as if he was summing up, at last. “Captain Lewrie, not only shall we need your fourty-odd Marines and twenty armed sailors, I fear that I must requisition your barges and cutters, to speed the landings when they begin. You’ll get them all back, once the landings are done.”
“Of course, sir,” Lewrie answered.
“Can’t let you have all the fun ashore, this time, hey? This time, Acting-Captain King of Diadem will command the ‘Royal Blues’,” Popham said. “Your Reliant draws too much water, in any event, to accompany us further up the estuary.”
“I understand, sir,” Lewrie said by rote, reminding himself to plaster a wee smile on his phyz.
“That should be all for now, gentlemen,” Popham concluded. “On the morrow, we shall set off for Point Quilmes, land the Army and our naval contribution, and win ourselves a splendid victory!”
“Hear hear!” the others shouted, pounding and drumming their fists on the table top. “Toast, toast! To victory!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Reliant’s sailors and Marines returned back aboard to a hearty welcome, loud cheers, and good-natured teasing, boasting of their experiences alongside the army, and crowing over their easy victory. A soon as Marine Lieutenant Simcock, and the Second and Third Officers, Lts. Spendlove and Merriman, gained the deck, Lewrie and Lt. Westcott were all over them, demanding news.
“It came off as easy as ‘kiss my hand’, sir!” Lt. Merriman crowed. “We waded ashore on the twenty-fifth and the morning of the twenty-sixth, set off up the coast road, met the Dons, and had a battle—”
“Not much of one, sir,” Lt. Simcock interrupted, bubbling over with good cheer. “They were all cavalry, about fifteen hundred or so, and we saw them off after a few volleys and some sharp practice with our artillery. They scampered, and we marched again to catch them up, but they melted away.”
“They did cut the bridge over the Cuello, but they didn’t stay to deny us crossing, sir,” Lt. Spendlove boasted. “Captain King had all the landing boats come up the river, we used bridge timbers to make rafts, and were in the city’s outskirts by the twenty-eighth. After that, the Spanish had no choice but to surrender the place to us.”
“God, the loot, sir!” Simcock hooted. “We took nigh a million silver Spanish dollars from the treasury, and a company of Highlanders caught up with their viceroy’s coaches on his way to the back country, and took over six hundred thousand more! What we seized by way of goods in the warehouses might be worth double of all that!”
“A rather peaceful and un-eventful occupation after that, sir,” Lt. Spendlove said with a shrug. “A lot of angry looks were all that we got. The Commodore ordered that private property was respected.”
“That, and some harsh wines, and high prices in the taverns and eateries,” Lt. Merriman stuck in. “Beef steaks the size of serving platters with almost every meal, though. The Argentines are simply awash in cattle. They roast steaks over hot coals on almost every streetcorner.”
“So the independence movement is now in charge?” Lewrie asked.
“Pshaw, sir!” Lt. Simcock spat. “As far as any of us could determine, there is no independence movement, save for a few top-lofty scribblers and rich intellectuals. The whole idea seems more an idle salon exercise than a real revolutionary movement.”
“Not one?” Lt. Westcott asked with an amazed brow up.
“Let us just say that no one we encountered came up to congratulate us, or thank us, sir,” Lt. Spendlove told him in his usual serious mien.
“Were the ladies at least pretty?” Westcott pressed.
“Oh, sir,” Lt. Merriman said in mock sympathy, “had you been with us, you would have been mightily dashed. Anyone with a fetching young miss, and a tad of common sense, would keep them locked behind iron-barred windows and doors from los heréticos ingleses such as us.”
“Our sailors and private Marines might have seen one or two somewhat fetching doxies in the brothels,” Lt. Simcock teased, “but surely, one cannot expect gentlemen officers to stoop to entering establishments like that. Right, sir?”
Westcott delivered Simcock a very bleak expression. Westcott had proved himself such an ardent chaser of quim that he might’ve!
“Any of our people killed or wounded, Mister Spendlove? Any ‘run’?” Lewrie asked.
“Not a one, sir, and all are now safely back aboard,” the Second Officer reported in a brisker tone.
“Good,” Lewrie said, “for we may have need of them.”
“Sir?” Spendlove asked.
“Since you all set off on the sixteenth, there’s been hints of something on the horizon, out seawards,” Lewrie explained. “I spoke Diomede and Raisonnable now and again on our patrols off the mouth of the estuary, and we’ve all spotted a single set o’ t’gallants or royals lurkin’ out t’sea. Round dawn, round sunset, and whatever sorta ship it is, it scuttles off soon as we stand out to ‘smoak’ her. She may be a Spanish merchantman, fearful of enterin’, some neutral afraid of what we are … an American worried we might press some of her hands off her? Or, it could be a warship. She stands aloof, either way, and if she is a warship, there might be a fight in the offing.”
“Hmm, I see, sir,” Lt. Spendlove commented, turning even more sober. “It may be deemed unlikely that she is French. This side of the South Atlantic is too far from their usual haunts. Spanish? We saw none at Buenos Aires, and there was only one little four-gunned cutter in the port of Ensenada, further up the coast.”
“One can only hope,” Lewrie told him. “Very well, gentlemen. Congratulations on the victory, and I trust you enjoyed yourselves on detached duties. Welcome back aboard, and see to getting the hands settled back in. I will be below. Mister Westcott? See that those boats are led aft for towing, then get us under way, course Nor’east.”
“Aye, sir,” a dispirited Westcott glumly replied.
* * *
“We will not be getting any steers on the hoof, sir?” Yeovill asked Lewrie as he laid the mid-day meal an hour or so later. “From what I heard from the shore party, grilled beef steaks are available for a song at Buenos Aires. Mister Cooke and I were hoping.”
“No one’s offered us any, Yeovill, sorry t’say,” Lewrie told him as a roasted quail was put before him, accompanied with potato hash and boiled beans. Quail and rabbit appeared so often that he was growing heartily sick of them, and the very mention of those huge steaks almost made his stomach sit up and beg. “Perhaps Commodore Popham will take pity on the rest of us, his flagship at the least, and send a few down to us.”
“Your Cox’n and your boat crew told me they had quite a spree, sir,” Yeovill revealed.
“Aye, they were first to volunteer, weren’t they?” Lewrie recalled.
“Even returned with some money in their pockets, sir,” Lewrie’s cook commented as he presented the bread barge which held a few weevily and hard portions of ship’s bisquit.
“Loot, d’ye mean, Yeovill?” Lewrie snapped.
“Oh no, sir!” Yeovill said, snickering. “They said that they’d crammed their haversacks with some of those Papal Dispensations, and sold them to a couple of the churches near where they were barracked, temporarily … traded them in the taverns for wine and their meals.” With a wink and a leer, he further imparted, “They found them to be very useful with the Spanish doxies, too. Pleasures exchanged for written proof of salvation from past sins, sir? What poor whore wouldn’t be eager to make such a trade. A Spanish silver dollar apiece, I think was the going rate.”
“Why, the clever buggers!” Lewrie exclaimed.
“Desmond and Furfy said that even our Church of England sailors and Marines claimed to be good Catholics, so they could sign the names of the recipients, and make their, ah … exchanges, sir,” Yeovill said.
“Who would’ve thought they were that enterprising,” Lewrie marvelled with a shake of his head, and a brief chuckle.
O’ course, I’ll have t’take ’em down a peg, he told himself.
Filching those dispensations was a court-martial offence, worthy of at least a dozen lashes; profiting off the proceeds of their illegal sale might earn every sailor involved another dozen. He would have to take Desmond and Furfy aside and give them a good talking-to, warning them that they had best not try to work that sort of “fiddle” in the future, or they would stand before him at Captain’s Mast at the least, or be given over to a proper court at the worst.
Warn ’em t’pass word to their fellow profiteers, too, he thought; Before all hands turn so corrupted, they’ll be sellin’ whatever they can lay hands on, or treat ship’s stores, and spirits, like their own to take whenever they like!
After a bite or two of his dinner, though, Lewrie came to the sad realisation that discipline would demand a more public response, and a harsh warning to the ship’s crew … perhaps even some few of them flogged as examples? Reliant had become a fairly happy ship in the three years of her active commission, and it was a rare thing for Bosun Sprague and his Mate to “take the cat out of the bag” to administer a flogging on a malefactor. The sentence of a week’s reduction to bread and water, denied the twice-daily rum rations and tobacco, in most instances was thought more of a punishment belowdecks.
He took a sip of wine and looked down at his plate, the conundrum of how to maintain discipline making his meagre meal seem even more disappointing.
“A celebratory supper tonight, Yeovill,” Lewrie decided. “All officers, and the Mids who went ashore with the Army, Eldridge and Grainger, and I will ask the Sailing Master to take the watch during the meal. Any ideas? Besides quail or rabbit, that is?”
“We’ve a promising piglet, sir, and a sea-pie always goes down well,” Yeovill said after a long pause with his head laid over. “And, if I’m fortunate enough to catch a decent-sized fish, so long as we don’t go dashing at any great speed, I could bread and grill one … no promises on that head, though, sir. A good fish is ‘catch as catch can’.”
“I know that you will do your best,” Lewrie said, to cheer him up. “You always rise to the occasion.”
I’ll lay the problem of discipline, and punishment, if any, on them, and see what the best solution’ll be, he thought.
