Текст книги "Kings and Emperors"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 26 страниц)
“Same as Bayazit the Thunderer,” Lewrie speculated. “A Turk general. The Turks marched all round Greece and the Balkans on a regular basis, massacring and burning, just t’keep the Greeks and Serbs fearful. Maybe yon Frogs’ve been up to some bad mischief, and deserve what they’re about to get.”
He raised his telescope again, taking in how steep and close to the coast road the foothills were along this stretch. Once he’d opened fire, there would be nowhere to run but back to Almuñécar, or on East for Salobreña. He looked aloft, pleased with the wind’s direction, and estimated that the head of the column was now two points off the starboard bows. “Cast of the log!” he called aft, and a minute later, Midshipman Carey reported that the ship was making a slow, sedate five knots.
“Five fathom! Five fathom t’this line!”
“Mister Westcott, the gun crews may load,” Lewrie snapped in rising excitement. “Double-shot with grape. The lower deck will open, first, followed by the upper deck, then the weather deck six-pounders. Keep the ports shut ’til we’re ready t’run out.”
“Aye, sir,” Westcott replied. “By God, this will be fun!”
Lewrie looked down at the quarterdeck to see Major Hughes come out of his cabins, yawning and stretching his arms.
“Sorry ’bout that, Captain Lewrie,” he said, looking up. “Had another glass of wine, and nodded off for a bit. What’s acting?”
“We’re about to kiss a bunch of Frogs, Major Hughes,” Lewrie told him, jerking an arm to point shoreward. He liked what he saw; the head of the French column and the mounted officers were just at the bend of the road where the foothills shouldered it out closer to the sea, and they now lay five points off the starboard bows, coming slowly abeam, where the ship’s guns in their narrow ports could aim in broadside. Another minute or two more and the column would be only half a mile away.
“Someone see Bisquit below,” Lewrie asked. “Mister Carey?”
“Aye, sir,” the lad replied, sounding disappointed to miss the opening broadside.
“Hurry back,” Lewrie bade him as the Midshipman took hold of the dog’s collar and led him down to the orlop.
“Half a mile’s range, I make it, sir,” Mr. Yelland said after taking a sight with his sextant and some scribbling on a slate with a stub of chalk.
“And just about beam-on,” Lewrie agreed. “Mister Westcott, open the gun-ports and run out! Pass word for them to aim well.”
“Aye, sir!” Lt. Westcott said, then bellowed orders and sent Midshipmen scampering down to pass the word. Word came back, shouts of “Ready!”
In Lewrie’s ocular, he could see French soldiers looking back at Sapphire, mostly curious and unaware, so far; sweaty, dusty faces, mustachios and beards, heads turning to look seaward, then back, to speculate with their mates, as Sapphire rumbled and screeched as the guns were run out.
“Mon Dieu, merde alors, mort de ma vie—” Lewrie tittered with mockery of imagined French expressions of sudden alarm.
“Lower deck, by broadside … fire!” Westcott roared.
The discharge of all eleven 24-pounders shoved Sapphire a foot or two to larboard, and made her feel as if she squatted in the sea. A massive cloud of spent powder smoke jutted shoreward, spiked with reddish-amber jets of flame and swirling wee embers of serge cartridge bag remnants.
“Let the smoke clear a little!” Lewrie called out.
“Now, sir? I can see the shore again,” Westcott urged.
“Now, sir. Serve ’em another,” Lewrie agreed.
“Upper deck, by broadside … fire!”
Mr. Deacon had a short pocket telescope of his own to one eye and was gloating. “I can see horses and riders down, the head of the first battalion’s colour party down … Damn the smoke!”
“A glass, somebody!” Hughes demanded. “The bloody Dons stole mine!”
“Smoke’s clearing, sir!” Westcott pointed out.
“Fire away, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie told him.
“Weather deck guns, by broadside … fire!” and the 6-pounders crashed out, their discharges lighter and shriller than the others. Fewer in number, and their smoke dispersed quicker, giving everyone on deck a good view of what they had wrought, and it was devastation.
“Goddamned good shooting!” Lewrie cried. “Have we the best gunners in the Fleet, or not? Pour it on, Mister Westcott, skin the bastards!”
The leading regiment in the long, snaking column had sported a few flags, the Tricolour national emblem topped by a large silver bird of some kind, and company flags used as rally points. There was no sign of them, now, except for a few of the lesser ensigns being rushed back West. French soldiers were simply mown down in windrows and heaps of dead and broken wounded, and the rest were fleeing.
“Hah!” Lewrie laughed, turning to Deacon. “How many miles per hour can French regiments run, Mister Deacon?”
“Lower gun-deck, by broadside … fire!”
The massive 24-pounders belched smoke and fire, flinging solid shot and clouds of plum-sized grapeshot right into the heart of the fleeing mass of soldiers, scything down dozens more. The second regiment in line was engulfed by the frantic stampede, bringing it to a panicky halt.
“Upper-deck guns, by broadside … fire!”
That avalanche of iron struck all along the length of that seething mass of soldiery, and, when the smoke cleared, all three of the French regiments were in flight back to Almuñécar, over-running the artillery pieces and ammunition caissons, the panic making the horse teams rear and scream.
“Six-pounders, by broadside … fire!” Lt. Westcott screeched, and dozens of Frenchmen were tossed aside like lead toys. There were some cleverer soldiers who abandoned their packs, hangers, cartridge pouches, and muskets and were scrambling frantically up the hills that forced the coast road so close to the sea, sure that shipboard guns could not elevate that high. The rest were running, stumbling, shoving slower compatriots out of their way, trampling over the fallen in their haste to find some safety, and leaving wounded friends to their own devices.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” Major Hughes shouted, pointing with one arm as he held a borrowed telescope to his eye. “They’re un-limbering their artillery, the damned fools!”
“Brave fellows,” Lt. Westcott commented, his voice raspy from shouting orders.
“Damned idiots!” Mr. Deacon spat.
“What might they have, Mister Deacon?” Lewrie asked. “You’re my expert on military matters.”
“I’d think that they have six or eight twelve-pounders, Napoleon’s favourites,” Deacon surmised, “and at least a pair of howitzers.”
“No bursting shot? No shrapnel ‘specials’?” Lewrie pressed.
“The latest intelligence in our possession says not,” Deacon assured him.
“Lower-deck guns, by broadside … fire!” Westcott yelled, and the horrid scene was blotted out by a thick fog of powder smoke. As it cleared, Lewrie could see fresh heaps of bodies, round which the lucky survivors fled on.
“Pass word below to target the French artillery, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered. “We can’t allow them a single point of pride.”
“Aye, sir. Mister Fywell, pass word to the gunners to target the French guns,” Westcott said, sending the Midshipman dashing off.
“God, it’s wondrous, sir!” Midshipman Carey, who had taken the dog to the orlop, marvelled. “Horrible, but wondrous all at the same time.”
“Soldiers just can’t fathom a ship’s firepower,” Lewrie took time to tell him. “Our twenty-four-pounders are the equivalent of an army’s entire siege train, only used to knock down fortress walls. They can’t imagine them turned on them! Why, one of Napoleon’s armies fields only half our number of barrels.”
“Ooh, look at the pretty ship,” Deacon quipped, “so harmless, and—ack!”
“How’s Bisquit?” Lewrie asked.
“Curled up and shivering in Pettus’s lap, sir,” Carey replied. “And Mister Tanner’s much the same, between three kegs of salt-meat.”
Tanner, the Ship’s Cook, a veteran Greenwich Pensioner with a leg missing, had no role at Quarters, and was allowed to hide below.
“Shivering?” Lewrie scoffed.
“It’s hard to say which whines louder, sir,” Carey said with an impish grin.
“Upper gun-deck, by broadside … fire!”
The French guns had been detached from their limbers and caissons, the horse teams had been led behind, and men were hastily ramming bagged powder and shot down the muzzles. Officers and gun-captains were bending over their crude sights, adjusting the elevation screws, and gunners were lifting the trails of the carriages to adjust their traverses. They were just about to step back and apply their burning linstocks to the touch holes when Sapphire’s eleven 12-pounders lit off at the top of the up-roll, when the ship poised steadiest. When the smoke thinned and wafted alee, half the battery was wrecked, the barrels knocked off their carriages, wheels smashed and carriages lying at odd angles. Several team horses were down, and many of the others were screaming, kicking, and dashing off among the panicked French soldiers who had been streaming West behind the guns.
“Six-pounders, by broadside … fire!”
That finished the horrid work, slaying dazed gunners, dis-mounting or disabling the rest. A lucky hit on a powder caisson caused a great explosion and a massive yellow-white blossom of powder smoke. Burning embers of the waggon landed on the others, setting them on fire, and the gun battery’s powder supply and all its limbers and caissons were destroyed. Even if the gun barrels could be salvaged and carted away later, the French would have to force some Spanish arsenal and its unwilling artificers to build new ones before those guns could be used again.
“Take on the supply train, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered. “Let’s make it a clean sweep. Let ’em starve.”
“Aye, sir,” Lt. Westcott happily agreed. He and Lewrie shared a look, and both men’s faces were wolfish with success and feverish delight; “gun-drunk.”
“Five fathom! Five fathom t’this line!” a leadsman intoned.
“Alter course a mite to starboard,” Lewrie said. “I recall that this five-fathom line takes a turn seaward, and a four-fathom line lies ahead. Do you concur, Mister Yelland?”
“That should be about two cables afore the bows, sir,” Yelland told him. “Aye, it’s a good time to edge seaward.”
“See to it, if ye please,” Lewrie bade. “I will tend to the smashing. Shift aim to the waggons, Mister Westcott.”
“Pass word below to take on the waggons, Mister Fywell,” the First Officer ordered, and Midshipman Fywell, who had barely returned from his last task, knuckled the brim of his hat and dashed off, with nary a chance to witness or savour their destruction. Carey, who was still on the quarterdeck, shot him a smug look.
“Lower gun-deck, by broadside … fire!”
The carters and waggoners had long fled their charges as the three shattered regiments swarmed round them in their haste, some of the fleeing soldiers cut reins and harnesses to try to ride to safety, but most of the draught horses were also panicked, and not broken to the saddle, or the weight of a rider, and would have none of it. The colourful, high-wheeled Spanish carts sat cocked down on their tongues, and the French army waggons sat at all angles as their waggoners had tried to turn round or force a way through the fleeing throngs before joining the rout.
“Hah! Ah hah!” Major Hughes was shouting at the sight of the waggons or carts being smashed to kindling, of tents, blankets, spare boots, and cook pots being hurled into the air. Subsequent broadsides caused ammunition waggons to explode and burn, scattering burning bits among the whole close-packed train. “That’s the way! Oh, capital, look at that! Whoo! Burn, you devils!”
“Damn my eyes,” Lewrie groaned. “I’ve made him happy!”
“Well, that won’t last, will it, sir?” Deacon cagily said.
At last, Sapphire sailed closer to the seaport town of Almuñécar and ran out of targets. The French were surely taking refuge in the houses furthest from the shore, huddling in the town square, but the risk of killing Spaniards precluded.
“Cease fire, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie called down to the quarterdeck. “Alter course three points to larboard, and secure from Quarters. Fun’s over.”
“Look there, sir!” Midshipman Carey yelped, leaping and pointing shoreward.
The citizens of little Almuñécar had gathered along the quays and docks, and even with angry French soldiers a street or two behind them, were daring to wave caps, hats, bonnets, dish towels, and one Spanish flag in celebration! The daring demonstration didn’t last long, and most of them dashed or slunk away feigning innocence as a few French soldiers appeared in the side streets.
“Unfortunately, they’ll pay for that, in lives and torture,” Mr. Deacon sadly concluded. “The French will lash out, and there will be Hell to pay.”
“Aye,” Lewrie agreed with a grim nod.
“Well, sir!” Lt. Westcott said, beaming his harsh smile. “We might emulate that Dutch Admiral, De Ruyter, and sail into Gibraltar with a broom lashed to the main mast truck. A clean sweep, indeed.”
“That’s a damned good idea, Mister Westcott, and I thank you for it,” Lewrie said with a laugh. “Inform the Purser, Mister Cadrick, that the second rum issue of the day will be ‘Splice the Mainbrace.’”
“Aye, sir!”
* * *
There had been no need to clear the ship for action, so the great-cabins were as Lewrie had left them. Pettus and Jessop were back from sheltering on the orlop, and so were Chalky and Bisquit. The dog was still shivering and whining his terror of loud noises, eager for stroking and petting from anyone who’d pay him attention. Chalky ran to Lewrie as soon as he sat down on the settee, leapt into his lap and clung to his coat, making fussing noises and butting his head on Lewrie’s chin. Bisquit quit his rapid circling of the cabins and came to the settee, too, hopping up on it and laying his paws and head in Lewrie’s lap, whining for assurance.
“Sometimes I wonder if it would have been kinder t’leave him on my father’s farm,” Lewrie said, stroking both creatures ’til their distresses had ceased. Chalky began to purr, rattling away, and the dog closed his eyes and slunk the front half of his body onto Lewrie’s lap and thighs. His bushy tail began to flit, lazily.
“Cap’m’s Cook, SAH!” a Marine sentry announced in the usual loud fashion.
“Enter,” Lewrie responded, remaining seated.
Yeovill came in, and Bisquit hopped down and went to him for pets, and a lot of snuffling; Yeovill smelled like good food and was liberal with treats.
“Scrounger,” Lewrie accused the dog.
“I was wondering, sir, if you had plans to dine your officers in tonight, in celebration,” Yeovill posed.
“Aye, I thought I might,” Lewrie told him. “Major Hughes will also be dining here. He’s a roast beef and potatoes sort, but … I wonder. What can you serve that ain’t, Yeovill? Something exotic or foreign.”
“Oh, well, sir,” Yeovill pondered. “Let me think on it for a bit. I found a receipt at Gibraltar for a French dish, Chicken Marengo…”
“Had that in Paris,” Lewrie commented. “Good!”
“Onions, tomatoes, eggs … though I don’t know what to replace the crayfish with,” Yeovill maundered on. “Salt-fish? Hmm. A berry trifle for sweets, and we’ve lashings of fresh green beans. Potatoes with cheese and bacon…”
“Couscous, with cheese sauce,” Lewrie suggested, instead.
“With some chicken gravy to moisten it, yes, sir,” Yeovill said with a nod. “Chick peas, turned to hummus, with stale bread for dipping. And, we’ve more rabbits than God.”
Long ago, Lewrie had served under a Commodore who’d insisted that rabbits and quail made a topping-fine alternative to salt-meat, and he had emulated him. They bred quick, too.
“Sounds good, Yeovill,” Lewrie praised. “I’m certain you will produce a triumph, you always do.”
“Thank you for saying so, sir,” Yeovill replied, smiling with delight. “Exotic and foreign, hey? Then that’s what it will be.”
“Good man,” Lewrie said.
“Cool tea, sir?” Pettus offered, and Lewrie was more than amenable to that, too.
I can’t wait t’see Hughes’s ruddy face when he gets served that! Lewrie thought. He’d seen how much Hughes disliked any foreign “kick-shaws,” and he fully intended to make him as uncomfortable as he could.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The days on passage back to Gibraltar were a trial for Lewrie, since Major Daniel Hughes was aboard, and most of the time as chatty as a linnet or parrot, underfoot of the crew’s work on deck, and an outright pest in the wardroom, where he was lodged in the spare cabin to starboard, right aft. Certainly, he was out of touch with world affairs and eager to hear of Ceuta being evacuated, of Cádiz’s fall, of how widespread the Spanish rising had become, but he was full of so many questions that the officers when off watch got to entering their flimsily-built cabins to sham sleep just to avoid him. Hughes lurked the quarterdeck and the poop, taking the air, pestering the Midshipmen with his tales of recent battles—in which they’d been active participants and saw them differently—his capture, which became a fierce fight before being overcome the more it was related, and his treatment at Órgiva and Málaga, his release by Spanish patriots who’d taken pity on him—now a story of derring-do and brave escape—and his long ride to Salobreña just chock-full of close pursuit and narrow escapes.
Worst of all, Hughes had the idea that if he’d been allowed Lewrie’s great-cabins once, and was dined in several times out of teeth-grinding hospitality, then he could breeze in and plunk down on the settee and order up a glass of something every time he felt a thirst. “The Rhenish, Pettus, there’s a good fellow. I’m dry as dust, what?”
The last straw was when Hughes seated himself in Lewrie’s wood-and-canvas collapsible deck chair, propped his feet up, and began reading one of Lewrie’s racier novels! That had resulted in an altercation with Mr. Deacon that went roughly thus.
“I wouldn’t do that, sir,” Deacon cautioned. “Like the windward side of the quarterdeck is only for the Captain, so’s his chair.”
“What?” Hughes had grumped back. “He ain’t usin’ it at the moment.”
“He’ll be dis-pleased does he discover you in it, sir,” Deacon remonstrated.
“Who are you to tell me, Deacon?” the Major barked. “I’ll not be ordered about by a jumped-up ex-Sergeant, or a spy’s ‘catch-fart’ minion! Bugger off!” He returned to his novel, fussily.
“I don’t know whether to challenge you to a duel … sir … or simply kill you where you sit … sir!” Deacon replied, bristling up and exuding a palpable air of menace.
“Captain’s chair, Major Hughes,” Lt. Harcourt, the officer of the watch, snapped, coming to the top of the larboard ladderway to the poop deck. “If you would be so good.”
“You hear what this … common enlisted man just told me?” Hughes gravelled.
“Didn’t hear a thing that passed between you, Major Hughes,” Harcourt told him. “This gentleman was doing you a service before Captain Lewrie caught you in his chair, right, Mister Deacon?” Harcourt asked, stressing “Mister” as Deacon’s due honourific.
Hughes scowled his dis-pleasure, went red in the face, but got to his feet and slunk off to the wardroom, leaving Deacon seething and Lieutenant Harcourt shaking his head.
“Do not kill him while he’s still aboard, Mister Deacon, hey?” Harcourt bade him. “If you need a second, I’m offering, however. I’m of a mind to be first in line, myself. God, what a pain he is!”
* * *
At last, HMS Sapphire dropped anchor and came to rest off the Old Mole of Gibraltar, and with that broom lashed to the main mast truck as Lieutenant Westcott had suggested.
“Might I offer you a lift ashore, Major Hughes?” Lewrie asked, once all the topmen had descended from the yards, after all sail had been brailed up in harbour gaskets.
“Thank you, Captain Lewrie,” Hughes replied, stiffly formal. “I would much appreciate it.”
“I’d also suppose we’re both bound to the Convent to report to General Dalrymple,” Lewrie went on, searching for something pleasant to say with the man while Desmond and his boat crew went down the man-ropes and battens to man one of the cutters. “He’ll be astounded t’see you, I’d imagine. Back from the dead, all that?”
“I would imagine so as well, sir,” Hughes said, “though he’s likely filled my old position as his aide, by now.”
“Yet, you sounded delighted to return to your regiment and its mess, your fellow officers,” Lewrie said.
“Oh, yes, that’ll be topping,” Hughes agreed.
“Though, you may give up your brevet promotion,” Lewrie simply had to say, to get a sly dig in.
“Yes, unfortunately,” Hughes said, scowling.
“Met a fellow once, a Lieutenant promoted to Commander and sent home with a prize,” Lewrie related, “but, Admiralty didn’t confirm his status, and he was stuck ashore, without a ship, and in a year’s worth of arrears t’pay Admiralty back the difference in pay.”
Hope the Army does the same, ye beef-to-the-heel lummox, he happily thought.
“Your boat is manned and ready, sir,” Lt. Elmes announced.
“Very well, Mister Elmes,” Lewrie said, going to the lip of the entry-port to take the ritual of departure, doffing his hat to his crew, and the flag. Hughes carefully made his way down the side of the ship and thumped himself down on a thwart in the sternsheets nearby to Lewrie. A leather satchel was lowered down on a line, and a moment later, Mr. Deacon descended, right spryly, to take a seat between Pat Furfy, the larboard stroke-oar, and the starboard oarsman, facing the pair of them.
“Enjoy the voyage, did ye, Mister Deacon?” Lewrie asked him.
“Delightful, Captain Lewrie, thank you,” Deacon said, beaming his pleasure, and pointedly ignoring Major Hughes.
“Shove off, bow man,” Cox’n Desmond ordered. “Back-water, starboard.” He put his tiller hard over. “Poise … out oars, larboard. Now, stroke, all together now.”
“All in all, the results were most pleasing,” Lewrie said to Deacon. “Success for your business, and for mine.”
“Mister Mountjoy will be over the moon, sir,” Deacon agreed. “He’ll pass the news of the destruction of a French demi-brigade to London, and all the newspapers will pick it up. One might say that British arms won their first victory over France in Spain. A sign of things to come.”
“Hope they spell my name right,” Lewrie joshed.
“I’m of a mind to write Horse Guards of my adventures as well,” Major Hughes piped up, intrigued by the possibility of his account being published, of being “mentioned in despatches” and “Gazetted.”
“Your observations on the state of the Spanish army, sir?” Lewrie asked.
“A churlish lot,” Hughes barked in sour amusement. “The senior officers are clueless peacocks in grand uniforms, the junior officers are so loutish and lower class that the fine ladies of Málaga despise them, and their soldiers, rank and file, even in barracks, are slovenly sheep. Badly shod, if shod at all, most in sandals, I ask you! I believe if they have arms, they’re short of powder, if well-armed, they’re short of rations. Their army is a sad joke. They’ll stand no chance against the French, none at all. It’ll take a British army in Spain to beat the French.”
“Headed for the Convent, first, sir?” Deacon asked Lewrie.
“Aye, for a while, if Dalrymple has time for me. If not, I’ll go have dinner and leave my written reports,” Lewrie replied.
“Dalrymple, then my quarters,” Hughes stated, though no one had really asked him. “Un-pack my stored chests, settle back in, and dine decent, for once.”
“Ye don’t think your fellow officers might’ve auctioned your goods off, do ye?” Lewrie teased. “I’ve heard it done.”
“They would not dare,” Hughes growled. “It’s not as if I’m dead!”
“In your long absence, sir,” Deacon said, addressing Hughes for the first time since their contretemps aboard ship, “might your Colonel have requested your replacement from England?” Deacon said it with a sobre face, but Lewrie had to bite his lip to keep from guffawing. “Can’t let a company be led by a subaltern, not for long.”
“Well, if one’s promoted to Brevet Captain…,” Lewrie mused, “but, I s’pose he can always revert back to bein’ a subaltern.”
“If they have promoted an officer to my old place, he’ll have to give it back, as soon as dammit,” Hughes asserted, growing testy with the trend the conversation was taking.
I’d wager they shoved you at Dalrymple as an aide ’cause they couldn’t bloody stand ye, Lewrie thought with evil delight.
“Slow stroke,” Cox’n Desmond ordered as the cutter approached the landing stage below the stone quays. “Ready with yer gaff, Deavers. Toss oars, all. Ehm, yair sittin’ on th’ aft dock loine, sor,” he said to Hughes. “Ya moind passin’ th’ coil t’me, Yer Honour, sor?”
Oh God, now Desmond’s mocking him, layin’ the “brogue” on as thick as treacle, Lewrie thought, feeling like sniggering.
Emulating naval protocol, Mr. Deacon was first out of the boat with his satchel, followed by Hughes, after Lewrie waved him to start. Lewrie exited last, and they all strolled up the wooden ramp to the top of the quays.
Oh, Christ! Lewrie thought; The cat’s outa the bag!
For not only was an eager Thomas Mountjoy on the quay to greet them, but so was Maddalena Covilhā, dressed in a summery pale blue sheath dress, with a gay bonnet on her head, and a parasol twirling in her hands.
“Why, Maddalena!” Hughes exclaimed, holding out his arms as if she’d come for him. “M’dear! I’m back!”
Maddalena coyly danced right past him with barely a glance in his direction, went straight to Lewrie to plant a kiss on his cheek, and put her arms round him!
“You!” Hughes accused. “You?”
“Sim, him,” Maddalena said to Hughes with an impish expression.
“But…!” Hughes gargled.
“Me,” Lewrie told him.
“You are back, at last, meu querido,” she cooed to Lewrie.
“It’s grand t’see you, minha doce,” Lewrie cooed right back.
“Well, just goddammit,” Hughes growled, astounded, then stomped his way off.
Poor bastard, Lewrie gleefully thought; There’s no good news for him, or welcome, either! About what he deserves!
