Текст книги "Kings and Emperors"

Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

There had been four “troopers” in port at Gibraltar when Lewrie had gotten his initial orders from General Drummond, and over the next week, a dozen more had come in in answer to Drummond’s urgent summons, all of which needed victualling, for Lewrie was certain that the army would be desperately short of rations when, or if, it managed to make its way to Corunna or Vigo to be evacuated.

For once, Captain Middleton, the Dockyard Commissioner, was all open co-operation, throwing open his warehouses and fulfilling every request, though his insistence on strict accounting for each jot and tittle could almost drive everyone involved mad. Captain Middleton also fretted over whether the one-thousand-bed naval hospital would be called upon to tend to God only knew how many injured and sick soldiers, sure that his small medical staff would be swamped.

Drummond did receive assurances from London that the Government was at last aware of the pending disaster, and was also assembling a large fleet of transports in British ports to take off the army, but no one could say just when that fleet would sail, or arrive, making the departure of Lewrie’s small contingent even more vital, no matter how few soldiers could be rescued by a mere sixteen ships. He would be lucky to take off a little more than 2,100, if the usual loading of 150 soldiers to each transport was followed, the equivalent of a three-regiment brigade!

Escorts, though, were another matter. There was a brig-sloop from Admiral Cotton’s squadron that had come in with sprung masts in need of repair, the Blaze, under a Commander Teague who was working his crew day-and-night to set her to rights. There was another brig-sloop belonging to the Mediterranean Fleet that had come to Gibraltar from the Toulon blockade; unfortunately, the Peregrine had not come in response to Drummond’s requests, but to repair storm damage she’d suffered off Cape Sepet, and had been looking forward to a spell of shore liberty after making her own repairs. Commander Blamey had been stunned by the news, and his new duties, but had also pitched in to ready his ship for departure.

Lewrie was sure that he needed more, for the Nor’west coast of Spain was uncomfortably close to the French ports of Bayonne and Bordeaux, the safe anchorages up the Gironde River, where privateers and French warships were based. If word got out that Sir John Moore’s army was counting on a transport fleet for their salvation, it would draw them out like a disturbed swarm of bees. The weather would be abysmal, the Winter Westerlies might be “dead muzzlers” to pen them in port, but, if they did get out somehow…?

On top of all his frets, there was Maddalena, too.

*   *   *

He had been ashore to deal with the Dockyards for extra blankets and hammocks, just in case Sapphire, Blaze, and Peregrine had to take soldiers aboard and quarter them any-old-how, arseholes to elbows. He had reported to Drummond at the Convent to fill that worthy in on his progress, and how soon his escorts could be ready to sail. And, he had gone to Maddalena’s lodgings to speak with her, perhaps for the very last time.

“If I don’t return for some time, dear girl, or … don’t return at all…,” he had said as calmly and logically as he could.

“Don’t say that, Alan!” she had countered, tears already coursing her cheeks, and laying a finger on his mouth to shush him. “You will come back, you always come back!”

“I’ll do everything in my power to do so, querida, but, if the sea goes against me…,” he had cautioned, shrugging off the possibilities, “it’s a foul Winter, full of storms, and a lee shore all the way there and back. If something does happen, the branch of Coutts’ Bank here has a tidy sum for you, and if you need any help in the matter, go see Thomas Mountjoy and Daniel Deacon. I’ve spoken with them, and they’ll see you right. Your lodgings are paid for through next year, and—”

“I do not care for lodgings, or sums, or…!” Maddalena had rejoined with a visible shudder. “I only care about you, meu querido! Meu amor! You are so good … you have been so good to me, I cannot think of life without you.”

“I’ve been my happiest with you, too, Maddalena,” he assured her, embracing her more snugly and burying his face in her sweet-smelling hair. “We both know, though, that I wouldn’t be at Gibraltar forever. My Navy has a way of callin’ people away, just when they feel happy, or comfortable, or … snug, I s’pose. We both knew it, goin’ in … didn’t we?” he had tried to tease. “That we could make the best of it ’til that happened, or…”

I don’t much care for thinkin’ of my own death, either, he had thought, pressing even closer to her body, as if the physical act of moving was proof against that.

“How many days do we have, Alan?” she had whispered against his bare shoulder. “You will be busy? Too busy for me?” she had said, making it sound like a plea, not an accusation.

“A day or two, at most,” he had to confess. “Once the other escorts are repaired, I’ll have t’sail with what little I have got. I can’t wait for late arrivals. Duty’s a demandin’ bitch, but there it is.”

“This may be our last time?” Maddalena had whimpered, and he had to nod yes, and she had peered him right in the eyes, so gravely, and had whispered “Then, make love to me, one last time, meu amor.”

And that had been frantic, thrashing, panting, and searingly passionate. There was no bed, no tangled sheets, nothing in this world but the sensation that they floated on a supportive and ephemeral cloud, all of Lewrie’s senses tunnelled down to his member, her sweet, hot wetness and her tightening, ’til he had exploded in her, so pleasurably that it almost hurt, and seemed to last forever, each after-thrust a re-awakening. Maddalena had cried out and had clawed at him at that same moment, wrapping her legs about him, seizing his buttocks to drive him deeper and keep him there to savour every last wave, rolling her head from side to side and gasping for air.

That’s one for the memoirs, he told himself as he lay spent, at last, slowly going flaccid and hating the moment to come when he would have to withdraw.

“My Lord, girl!” he croaked, “Foi extraordinário!”

“Sim, selvagem,” she agreed as he slid to her side to hold her, and rained slow, lazy, lingering kisses on him.

Boom! from the harbour, beyond the balcony, then Boom! again, as steady as a metronome.

“What the Devil?” he had groused, sitting upright and grabbing his discarded shirt to hold before his groin to go see what the noise was all about. He flung one of the double doors open. “Hell, yes!”

There was a frigate standing into port, firing her salute to the garrison commander, announcing her presence, wreathing herself in powder smoke.

“If she isn’t comin’ in on purpose, then I’ll have her, no matter!” Lewrie had exclaimed, going back inside to hunt up his clothing. “I’m sorry, Maddalena, but I have t’speak with her Captain. I need her for my escort force, just perishin’ bad!”

“I go with you, Alan,” she had replied, though looking so very sad and disappointed. “I walk you to the landing.”

“I’d love it if you would,” he had told her.

*   *   *

By the time they were both properly dressed and presentable in public, the arriving frigate had come to anchor and had handed all of her sails up in harbour gaskets. Lewrie could see that she had two of her boats down, a small jolly boat for her Bosun to row about the ship to assure himself that all her yards were squared, and a gig that was headed for the main landing stage, and by the look of her passengers, bearing that frigate’s captain ashore to report to General Drummond.

“She may have come under orders t’join me,” Lewrie eagerly said, increasing their pace, “and if Middleton has the other two set to rights, I could be out to sea and on my way by dawn tomorrow!”

He spared a bit of his attention to glance at Maddalena, who was practically trotting to keep up with him, and noted her stricken expression.

“Sorry, my dear,” he told her, “but events are bigger than we are. I have to—”

“I understand, Alan,” she replied, “but I do not have to like it.” She flashed him a brave smile that both knew was a sham.

Lewrie made it to the top of the quay and the head of the landing stage ramp just as the newly-arrived frigate’s gig came alongside the lower stage. He felt a sudden qualm as he clapped eyes on the Post-Captain in the boat, and suddenly wished that he had left Maddalena at her lodgings.

This could be awkward, he thought; I wonder what he thinks of mistresses?

The officer in the boat was getting to his feet and about to step ashore. He was a striking fellow, slim, tall, broad-shouldered, and rather handsome, nigh-dashing it could be said. He paused to exchange words with a Midshipman in the boat’s sternsheets, who pointed at Lewrie as if to make his superior aware of Lewrie’s presence.…

What the Devil? Lewrie thought; Is that…? Can’t be!

The Midshipman dared wave to him, beaming fit to bust.

Awkward, mine arse! Lewrie quailed; It is Hugh! How’s he vote on kept women? This’ll be embarrassin’!

His youngest son, Mr. Midshipman Hugh Lewrie, exited the boat first, following naval protocol; senior officers were first in to boats, but last out. But Hugh didn’t wait for his Captain to step ashore, but came dashing up the ramp from the landing stage shouting “Father, at last!” bubbling over with joy of their rencontre.

“Well, hallo, son, where did you spring from?” Lewrie cried, glad to see him, of course, but caught in a cleft stick. He flung his arms wide in welcome, anyway. “Damn my eyes, but you’ve grown! I almost didn’t recognise ye!”

And that was certainly true, for when he’d seen Hugh off into his first ship in 1803, the lad had been a thirteen-year-old stripling, and here he was five years later, eighteen now, and damned near a man grown, taller and filled out, sun-bronzed and tarry-handed. Hugh had inherited his mother’s hair colour, but years of ocean sun had turned his light brown hair almost blond. He’d gotten his father’s eyes, though, stark grey-blue against a seaman’s tan.

Hugh didn’t come to his embrace, though, but doffed his hat in salute first, to which Lewrie responded in kind, then they met close, heartily shaking hands. If he could not hug him, then at least Lewrie could thump him on the shoulder.

“It’s been too damned long, Hugh, a dog’s age and more,” Lewrie told him, smiling widely, even as he dreaded the consequences to come.

“Aye, it has, sir,” Hugh eagerly agreed, then turned serious as he sensed his Captain behind him. “Ahem, my pardons, Father, but, do you allow me to name to you my Captain … Captain Richard Chalmers of the Undaunted frigate. Captain Chalmers, sir, allow me to name to you my father, Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of HMS Sapphire.”

At least he sounded proud to do so.

“Honoured to make your acquaintance, Captain Lewrie, and the very man I was ordered to seek out,” Chalmers said in a forceful baritone, chin up, and doffing his hat in salute.

“Honoured t’make yours, Captain Chalmers,” Lewrie said back, “and from what I’ve read of your exploits in my son’s letters, a man after my own heart.”

Hugh called him a high-minded sort, too, Lewrie recalled; whatever that means. Here comes the embarrassin’ part.

He turned to include Maddalena, plastering a grin on his phyz and striving to make a bold showing.

“Captain Chalmers, son, allow me to name to you Miss Maddalena Covilhā,” he began. “Miss Covilhā, allow me to name to you Captain Richard Chalmers, of the Undaunted frigate, and my son, Midshipman Hugh Lewrie, also of the Undaunted.”

That’s enough, no explanations, he thought, waiting for the reaction.

Before they had attended the supper ball to welcome General Sir John Moore to Gibraltar the year before, Maddalena had fretted over her social graces, and had sought out a tutor. Her curtsies, and her address to them were perfectly refined. “Captain Chalmers, Midshipman Lewrie, I am pleased to make your acquaintances, gentlemen, though I fear it will be of a brief nature, given the urgent matter which brings you to Gibraltar.”

Captain Chalmers tried to hide a scandalised frown, looking as if he knew for certain what Maddalena was, and did not appreciate being introduced to a doxy. Hugh stood and nodded with his mouth open, an uncertain smile on his face.

What, she’s a cundum stuck to her hair? Lewrie groused to himself; Are my breeches buttons undone? Aye, he’s high-minded for sure!

“Miss Covilhā,” Hugh hesitantly responded, doffing his hat to her in involuntary courtesy. “You … ehm … are…?”

“Portuguese, young sir,” Maddalena said with a sweet and disarming smile. “There are many of us here at Gibraltar, who fled the French invasion.”

“Ah, Portuguese, aye,” Hugh flummoxed, casting a startled look at his father.

“But, I delay you gentlemen,” Maddalena went on, bestowing one more smile on one and all. “You must prepare to sail to rescue brave General Sir John Moore and his gallant army, and there is no time for the social niceties. With your permission, I will take my leave of you, sim?”

By God, an English girl presented at Court couldn’t do that better! Lewrie thought with pride, and surprise of her diplomatic skills.

“Miss Covilhā,” Lewrie said, sweeping off his hat and laying it upon his chest as he made a leg to her. “Meu amor,” he silently mouthed to her, though, with a brief, impish smile. His bow prompted the others to follow suit, no matter what they thought of her.

“Gentlemen, Captain Lewrie,” Maddalena said, dipping them all a departure curtsy, low, long, and with a graceful incline of her head. As she looked up at last, she mouthed “Fofa” to Lewrie in a shared jest; “Sweetie!”

“Well, what’s first on the menu, sir?” Lewrie asked Chalmers in a sudden, business-like tone. “Firewood and water, provisions from the dockyards, or will you wish to speak with General Drummond to be apprised of the latest information regarding the mess the Army’s got itself into?”

“Saving the Army, is it?” Chalmers gruffly asked with a confused look on his face. “I was only told that a convoy forming here was in need of additional escorts, and my Commodore offered my ship for the task. Frankly, I’d hoped I’d be bound for England, but…”

“You heard that we have two armies in Spain, sir?” Lewrie asked him. “Good. Well, so do the Frogs, and Napoleon himself is over the border with nigh a quarter-million troops. We’ve less than thirty thousand, somewhere round Salamanca, we think, smack in the middle of the Spanish mountains in Midwinter, runnin’ for Vigo or Corunna, we hope, t’get taken off before ‘Boney’ catches up with ’em. We’ve sixteen troop ships, and have t’get ’em North as soon as dammit, or we lose the whole army. London’s sendin’ more, but how soon they arrive is anyone’s guess. And, welcome to Gibraltar, by the way,” he concluded with a cynical grin.

“Egad!” was Chalmers’s drawn-out, stunned comment. “Then, it appears that we must be about it, what?”

“Amen!” Hugh Lewrie whispered, though still looking off to follow Maddalena’s receding figure. To Lewrie’s eyes, the lad didn’t look disappointed in his sire, but … appreciative.

“Let’s get on to the Convent, then,” Lewrie suggested, “and let General Drummond fill you in. There’s little he can do to help, from here, and explainin’ it to you will make him feel better, I’m sure.” He led off but Chalmers paused long enough to send Hugh back to the boat, and back to the ship.

“I hope to dine you and the Commanders off our two other ships aboard this evening, Captain Chalmers,” Lewrie bade, “and I wonder if you might allow my son to come, too. Catch up on old times, and see some of my retinue he knows.”

“It would be grand to see Desmond and Furfy, again,” Hugh said, casting a pleading look at Captain Chalmers.

“Well, somebody has to sit at the bottom of the table and pose the King’s Toast, I suppose,” Chalmers relented.

“Chalky’ll be glad t’see ye, too, Hugh, him and Bisquit. He was a good companion when I was laid up healin’ at Anglesgreen last year,” Lewrie said. “And, you can fill me in on what you’ve heard from Sewallis, and what he means by claimin’ he’s become a champion dancer, hah!”

“I look forward to it, sir,” Hugh said, beaming as he doffed his hat to his Captain and his father, and dashed back to the boat.

*   *   *

A whole two minutes passed in silence as Lewrie and Chalmers ascended the cobbled street uphill towards army headquarters.

“I am given to understand that your eldest son is also in the Navy, sir?” Chalmers at last enquired. He didn’t sound too pleased.

“He is,” Lewrie had to admit. “He’s spent the last five years aboard two-decker seventy-fours. He’s twenty-one, now, but lacks the last two years before he can stand for his Lieutenancy. His present ship pays off next year, and I hope he’s appointed into a brig-sloop or something below the Rates. I’ve always thought that smaller ships are the best schools for seamanship.”

“How did he…?” Chalmers asked, curious. In proper British families, it was the younger sons who went off to the Army, Navy, or the Church, sparing the heir and guarantor of the continuance of the family line.

“Sewallis found a way round me and his grandfather, and wrote an old friend of mine, gaining his own berth,” Lewrie sketchily explained, leaving out the lad’s forgeries. “He saw us sendin’ Hugh off and wanted his own chance to get vengeance against the French for the murder of his mother during the Peace of Amiens. They were shooting at me, but hit her, instead, the bastards.”

“Ah?” Captain Chalmers commented, sounding as if he found the account a bit too outré. “I do recall a comment your son, Hugh, said once. Tried to murder you? Who, and why?”

“Napoleon’s orders,” Lewrie told him. “Though I still don’t know why or how I rowed him at a levee at the Tuileries Palace in Paris. He fussed about our keepin’ Malta, interferin’ in how he was runnin’ Switzerland, why we hadn’t sent him a proper ambassador yet, and I suspect it was the sword exchange that pissed him in the eye,” Lewrie supposed, explaining how he had swapped half a dozen swords of dead French Captains and officers for the one he’d surrendered to Napoleon the first time he’d met him at Toulon in ’94, when he could not give Napoleon his parole and abandon his surviving crew, some of whom were French Royalists, sure to be executed on the spot.

Captain Chalmers followed all that with many a sniff or gasp, as if the tale was just too fabulous to be believed.

“That night, Caroline and I were warned t’flee Paris if we valued our lives, and made it to Calais before they caught up with us,” Lewrie related, leaving out the juicier parts concerning wigs, and costumes, play-acting, and the aid they’d gotten from a man who’d whetted his skills during the Terror of ’93, and styled himself the Yellow Tansy; Chalmers already sounded dubious enough.

“Whatever it was I did to set him off,” Lewrie concluded with a grin, “I pissed him in the eye once. With any luck at all, do we pluck our army from his clutches and get ’em clean away, we’ll piss him in the eye, again!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

When Lewrie’s little convoy had at last sailed from Gibraltar, its pace was heart-breakingly slow. It took a few days to breast the in-rushing current through the Strait, short-tacking into the stiff Winter winds, then bashing Westward many leagues to round Cape Finisterre and gain enough sea-room to avoid being blown onto a lee shore.

Once safely far out at sea, the struggling ships should have been able to turn North on a beam wind and rush on to Vigo, where information had it that part of the army was being evacuated, but the prevailing Westerlies turned into one howling gale after another, and the seas were steep, forcing all ships, transports and escorts alike, to reduce sail, brailing up to second or third reef lines, striking top-masts, and slowing them even more, and scattering them wide over many miles of sea. Even stout and slow HMS Sapphire, at over 1,100 tons burthen, rolled, pitched, and hobby-horsed like the merest wee gig, pricking every hand’s ears in dread to the great groans and moans of her hull timbers and masts, to the thundrous slamming and jerking each time the bows ploughed into the tall, disturbed waves, flinging icy water high over her beakhead rails and forecastle, and anyone in need of the “seats of ease” for their bowel movements risked being flung right off the ship!

No matter how tautly the deck seams had been tarred, the upper gun-deck berthing dripped cold water on hammocks, blankets, and wildly swaying men who tried to snatch a few hours’ rest from it all. Wood buckets were used for toilets, but no matter how often they were taken to the weather deck, dragged overside to clean them, then hauled back in, the stench became almost unbearable. The sailors who berthed on the lower gun deck might be drier, but their air was even closer, and foetid, to the point that serving watches in the open air, rain and cold and spray, was reckoned refreshing.

Despite tarred tarpaulin over-clothing, everyone’s shirts and trousers got soaked when on deck or aloft tending sail, and there was no way to dry anything out below, or in the great-cabins or the officers’ wardroom, either, and every morning’s sick call featured people with salt-water boils where their salt-crystal laden clothes chafed them raw. Even boiling rations in the swaying, rolling, pitching galley proved extremely risky. Christmas supper was a Banyan Day, with only oatmeal, cheese, hard ship’s bisquit, small beer, and a raisin duff for each mess to liven it.

Lewrie was amazed each raw dawn to see that all sixteen of his transports were still with him, and that Undaunted, Peregrine, and Blaze were still with him, dutifully chivvying stragglers back into their columns and urging the more widely scattered ships to rejoin.

They weren’t wanted at Vigo, though; Blaze had dashed inshore and had returned with word that Admiral de Courcy had been replaced by Admiral Hood, and that Moore would be making for Corunna, where there were yet only about thirty transports awaiting him, and that Hood would be sailing to there with nigh a hundred ships. It had taken Blaze a very long and frightful day to beat her way off a lee shore to bear word, and Lewrie had to order his convoy to come into the wind and claw out even more sea-room off the coast of Galicia to get above Cape Fisterra before he’d dare to risk the Costa da Morte, and a run Due East into Corunna.

*   *   *

“It’s clearing a bit, sir,” Sailing Master George Yelland said as he sniffed the winds and rubbed his chilled hands. “The wind and sea are almost moderate, thank God.”

“Is that a lighthouse I see on yon headland?” Lewrie asked, his telescope to his eye. “To the left of that inlet?”

“Ah, hmm,” Yelland pondered, employing his own telescope for a long moment. “Aye, it is, sir, the lighthouse at Corunna. The port will be round the other side of the heights. This inlet, Orsan Bay, is a dead-end, don’t be fooled by it. We’re almost there.”

“At last!” Lewrie breathed with relief that the ship could be brought to anchor, and blessed stillness, after too many days of risk. He had spent so much time on deck that he still felt chilled to the bone, and so in need of missed sleep that he could nod off on his feet and jerk back to wakefulness.

“Hawse bucklers removed, cables seized to the anchors and free to run, sir,” a weary and storm-ravaged First Officer, Lieutenant Westcott, came aft to report. Shaving had been such a deadly endeavour that everyone had given it up, so he looked as if he could have been a bearded courtier to Henry VIII.

“We’ll stand off a bit, and let the transports have the best anchorages nearest the town,” Lewrie told him. “Mister Kibworth?” he shouted aft to the Midshipman at the signal halliards. “Bend on a signal hoist for the transports to go in first, and for the escorts to stand in trail of us.”

“Aye aye, sir!” Kibworth shouted back.

Slowly, slowly, the little convoy, with Sapphire in the lead, rounded the tall headland and wore away South, standing into the harbour bay, with the escorts swinging wider out into the sheltered bay while the transports angled in round the fortified San Antonio Castle on a small island off the tip of the town.

Corunna was laid out in an L, with another fortress, the Citadel, dominating the short leg of the L to the North, and the civilian part of town angling off along the seashore behind tall sea walls to the Southwest. Even further along near the bottom of the harbour, near San Diego Point, was a commercial port of piers and warehouses close to a village of Santa Lucía; and all of it swarming with soldiers, ship’s boats beetling back and forth under oars, and anchored troop ships.

“Christ, what a pot-mess,” Lewrie wondered aloud. “Who’s in charge, and who do I report to?” He could see several ships of the line anchored, mostly Third Rate 74s, but only one larger Second Rate, so far. Admiral Hood’s armada of troop ships must still be working their way out of Vigo, or thrashing North through the same strong gales as Sapphire had.

“You’ll take time to shave and freshen yourself, first, sir?” Westcott asked.

“No time for the niceties,” Lewrie said with a shake of his head. “I may have to go ashore t’find where they want our ships to anchor … off the town here, or close to the piers down yonder.”

“Taking your Ferguson along, too?” Westcott teased.

“I’ll leave soldierin’ to the people in red, this time, no, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said with a chuckle. “Though I would wish to see the ground. Why? Ye wish t’borrow it and shoot a few Frogs, yourself, sir?”

“Signal from the Second Rate, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth called out. “The Interrogative.”

“Make our number to her, Mister Kibworth, and add that we’ve sixteen transports with us.”

“Aye, sir!” followed moments later by the news that the Second Rate had a Rear-Admiral aboard, and was showing the summons of Captain Repair On Board.

“Damme, we’ll have t’fire him a salute suitable to his rank,” Lewrie groaned. “Pipe hands to the twelve-pounders, Mister Westcott, and fetch up salutin’ charges from the magazines. And have a cutter brought round to the entry-port.”

Have to follow the traditions, Lewrie groused to himself; even if we were comin’ in half-sunk or on fire!

*   *   *

Matters were out of his hands, he learned after a brief talk aboard the Second Rate flagship. The captains of the anchored Third Rates and other escorts were already assigned roles to organise the boats from their own ships, and the transports, into flotillas to ferry soldiers and their gear out to the chosen troop ships, sick and wounded first, and those the regimental surgeons had determined to be utterly exhausted and useless for further fighting later. It was only then that fit troops would be sent out to other converted merchantmen for evacuation.

General Sir John Moore was in a cleft stick, really, for though he must rescue his army quickly, a French army under Marshal Soult was pressing close, and if he reduced his strength too quickly, he faced the risk that those still ashore might be overcome and taken, or massacred! Lewrie was told that there might be at least fifteen thousand British troops left from the thirty-two thousand that he, General Sir David Baird, and General Sir Henry Paget’s cavalry, had led into Spain. Some thirty-five hundred had been gotten off from Vigo. He also learned that during the long retreat, many artillery pieces had been abandoned, guns, caissons, limbers, and all as they broke down or the horse teams died. What was left to Moore had to be deployed in defensive positions to counter the French when they arrived, but must be evacuated as a point of honour, finally; the loss of one’s artillery was too shameful to be borne!

Even worse, Moore’s remaining army was in terrible shape, low in morale, dis-spirited and nigh-un-disciplined, the bright uniforms ragged, torn, and filthy, and their footwear (for those who still had them) worn through. Until the lead units had met a large supply convoy of waggons meant for the Spanish armies on the road from Corunna, they had also been starving, and badly in need of greatcoats and blankets, to boot.

General Sir David Baird had set up a large supply depot when he had landed his smaller army at Corunna, and Moore was drawing on that, stretching what was left out to feed and re-equip his own men as liberally as he could for as long as it lasted; what his troops ate, wore, and carried would not be left to the French, not one loaf of bread or side of bacon. Lewrie was also told that he’d missed all the fun from a few days before; there were four thousand kegs of powder that had been landed to be given to the Spanish, and General Moore had ordered it blown up in one spectacular blast. Every glazed miradore, the glass-enclosed balconies, in Corunna had been shattered! Not that there were many complaints from the Spanish owners, for the very good reason that most of them had packed up their valuables as soon as the first ragged regiments of the British army had shambled into town and fled into the bleak Winter countryside with as much food and drink as they could carry!

Once back aboard Sapphire, Lewrie had gathered his officers and Midshipmen together in his great-cabins and had given them the orders he’d received from the flagship. They would have to be rowed over to a specific set of troop ships that had come into port with them, get all their ship’s boats and the transports’ boats arranged into one group, and row ashore to the quays by Santa Lucía, and pick up soldiers from one certain regiment, then see them aboard those transports and keep it up ’til every last man of that regiment was accounted for and safely aboard. Lewrie volunteered himself to go ashore with the first boats; he was just too curious to sit idle and let events occur round him with nothing to do about them!

*   *   *

“A damned imposin’ place,” Lewrie said to his Cox’n, Liam Desmond, as the cutter was stroked towards the quays.