Hostile Shores (30 page)

“That might be
one
problem solved, sir!” Lt. Westcott was quick to agree, eager to forward the plan, and get his idle arse ashore and in some sort of action.

“Where would we get nigh fifty empty bottles, though?” Merriman said with a sigh.

“That might depend on how many you can drink ’twixt now and then, Mister Merriman,” Lewrie said, laughing.

“Lord, sir!” Merriman gawped. “We consume nothing
near
a civilian gentleman’s usual half-dozen. Why, the wardroom’s practically
abstemious
! I doubt we down a half-dozen a day between all of us!”

“Drink up, then, sailors,” Lewrie merrily urged.

“Ehm … it’s the
better
wines that come in bottles, sir,” Lt. Simcock objected. “The poorer ones come in stone crocks, barricoes, and pipes. Our entire mess stores would have to be—”

“We need four-dozen,” Lewrie said. “Two cases from the officers’ wardroom, and two cases from my personal stock.”

Merriman and Simcock looked as if they might whimper or moan.

“Aye, Mister Westcott, that
is
one problem solved. Though one of many,” Lewrie declared. “Hopefully, Commodore Popham will be able to prevail upon our redcoat compatriots for at least
one
cart for all we’ll need to take ashore. He’s a way of getting what he wants, and getting his way, no matter.”

One bell was struck at the forecastle belfry; the first after the change of watch at 8
P.M.
; it was half-past, and almost time for all glims and lights to be doused at 9
P.M.

“Heel-taps, gentlemen,” Lewrie announced, “a last glass of port before we retire … before the Master-At-Arms comes round and glares at me, hey? I apologise for the poor meal, but the company at-table this evening is always delightful. Allow me to propose a toast … to success on the morrow, and confusion to the foe!”

“Success and confusion!” they all shouted once the glasses had been poured full, then tossed their ports back to the last drop.

*   *   *

Once his dinner company was gone, Lewrie requested a glass of American bourbon whisky from Pettus. Yeovill gathered up the scraps and leftovers—damned few of those!—into his brass barge, and slipped a few shreds of duck to Chalky, who had hopped atop the table in eager search for more tucker, as if he hadn’t eaten his food bowl empty, and was simply famished.

Jessop helped Pettus clear the sideboard and the last plates; Pettus had paid attention during their after-supper discussions, and put the corks back into the empties, setting them aside for rinsing out later.

“Anything else, sir?” Yeovill asked, ready to depart.

“Don’t think so, Yeovill,” Lewrie told him. “You can turn in, and thank you for a toothsome meal on such short notice.”

“Evening, sir,” Yeovill replied, always happy to prepare a big spread for guests, and pleased with his handiwork.

Lewrie went to sprawl on the starboard-side settee, feet up on the low brass Hindoo tray table, and sipped on his whisky. With no more treats in the offing, Chalky jumped down from the table and ambled over to hop onto the settee, pad onto Lewrie’s lap, and nuzzle him, nose-to-nose for strokes and pets. After a few minutes of that, Chalky turned about, made a circle, and slung himself against Lewrie’s hip, making faint purring rumbles.

Now, how the Devil do we get all we need ashore?
Lewrie wondered to himself; If
we’re ordered ashore. Put wheels under a cutter and
drag
the damned thing with
ropes
?

No matter how daunting the whole thing seemed, though, Lewrie more than half-way hoped that Popham
would
get his way. It would have to be fourty-
six
empty wine bottles, for he would need one, himself!

BOOK THREE

    Therefore, great king,

We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.

Enter our gates, dispose of us and ours,

For we no longer are defensible.

—W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE
,
T
HE
L
IFE
OF
K
ING
H
ENRY
THE
F
IFTH
,
A
CT
III, S
CENE
III, 47–50

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The 7th was a let-down.
Reliant
’s larger-than-normal cutters and barges were assigned the task of ferrying the remaining troops of the infantry regiments, and the dis-assembled artillery pieces, their carriages, caissons, and limbers, ashore as the army slowly gathered on the beaches amid piles of stores, and the
Leda
frigate, along with the
Encounter
brig and the newly-arrived gunboat
Protector
, were sent near the shore to engage Dutch batteries on Blaauwberg Mountain with fire.

Other than those few Dutch guns on the heights, there was little sign of enemy resistance, so far. Some thought it odd, and ominous; others considered their absence providential. The bulk of the British field force might be onshore, but looked to be very vulnerable to any spoiling attack. The cavalry mounts and artillery team horses would be weak after weeks at sea, and getting over sea-sickness and barely getting their shore legs back, and every trooper or infantryman would be in much the same condition. With little of the artillery landed, and that portion still being re-assembled, an attack by the Dutch in force could be disastrous, with their backs to the sea already.

“Lucky bastards,” Lt. Westcott groused as the last of their cutters came alongside the larboard entry-port, and its weary crew began to clamber up to the deck, their onerous task completed at last.

“Who, the oarsmen?” Lewrie asked.

“The
Leda
and the others, I meant, sir,” Westcott explained. “At least they got to fire at
something.
”

“We earned our day’s pay, even so, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie told him. “Princely as
that
is, hey? And, there’s still hope for an order to form the Naval Brigade.”

“Pray God, sir,” Westcott said with little enthusiasm.

“Now our army’s all ashore, I expect General Baird will march them off inland, tomorrow morning,” Lewrie told him, rising from his sinfully idle wood-and-canvas deck chair. He went to the bulwarks to peer shorewards with a telescope. “Hmm … perhaps by noon tomorrow. Christ, what a mob they make.
Several
mobs, in point of fact. About as organised as a horde o’ cockroaches.”

What he beheld were groupings of soldiery by regiment and by squadron or battery. Tents were pitched in seemingly well-ordered lines, horses were tethered in groups of teams or cavalry troops, and field guns were parked wheel-to-wheel. Soldiers, though, milled about in their shirtsleeves, sat under canvas and smoked or chewed out of the heat of the sun, or snored in their tents. Only a few were posted as pickets under arms and in full kit. Officers and messengers were the only ones mounted and riding about, and none with any sense of urgency.

“It appears the landing was so strenuous that our soldiers are in need of a ‘Make And Mend’ day, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said with a sneer. “I swear, I doubt there’s an ounce o’ ‘quick’ in the whole lot. Napoleon, now … he may be a whole
clan
o’ bastards, but when he puts an army in the field, they tramp along at the ‘double-quick’!”

“Our army is better going backward, sir,” Westcott said with a sour laugh. “Like they did in the Dutch expedition in ’98?”

Before Napoleon Bonaparte had wooed, or bewitched, the insane Tsar Paul of Russia in 1801, Russia and Great Britain had briefly been allies, and had launched an invasion of the Lowlands, which had turned into a shameful embarrassment. The first time that the British Army had met the terrifying and seemingly invincible French Army in battle, it had been British redcoats that had been routed.

“Mister Munsell? Is the chore done at last?” Lewrie called down to the ship’s waist.

“It is, sir!” Munsell replied, doffing his hat. “The army now has the last of their stores ashore.”

“Went well, did it?” Lewrie asked.

“Very well, sir, The wind and surf are very calm today,” the Midshipman reported. “It is too bad that we did not begin the landings today, instead of yesterday.”

“Very well. Carry on, Mister Munsell, and well done,” Lewrie said in dismissal. “There’s a fresh-water butt on deck. Drink your fill, you and your men.”

“Aye, sir.”

Two muffled gunshots broke the day.

“
Diadem,
sir,” Midshipman Rossyngton announced. “The signal is … ‘Send Boats’, and … ‘Have Mail’!”

“Pick a fresh boat crew, Mister Westcott, and you might as well let Rossyngton command it … he’s fresh,” Lewrie directed, beaming in expectant pleasure that he would soon have letters from home and his sons, and Lydia, after months without. And, was he allowed to share copies of the London papers, he could find out what the rest of the world had been up to, to boot!

I could pace and fret ’til it arrives, or…,
Lewrie thought.

“I will be below, Mister Westcott,” he decided, instead. “Do inform me when the mail arrives.”

*   *   *

Half an hour later, and he had a tidy stack of correspondence on his desk in the day-cabin. He quickly sorted out the lot, fresh newspapers on the bottom, personal letters atop them, and the official bumf the first to be opened. Long before, he had been bent over a gun and caned, “kissing the gunner’s daughter”, for ignoring that rule.

Paramount to all the letters from Admiralty was a folded note from Commodore Popham. With a tall glass of his trademark cool tea near to hand—though it was January, it was summer in the Southern Hemisphere—he broke the wax seal and spread it out. It could be an invitation to supper aboard the flagship, congratulations for the efficient landing of the army, or an order sending
Reliant
far away on a new duty, but—

“Aha!” he read with satisfaction. “Pettus, open two bottles of Rhenish, set out glasses for five, then pass word for the officers to attend me.”

“Yes, sir,” Pettus said, headed for the wine cabinet.

“The Commodore
will
be forming the Naval Brigade,” Lewrie told Pettus and Jessop with some glee. “All those preparations we talked about … see that all’s ready t’go by dawn.”

“Very good, sir,” Pettus replied, pausing before pulling the first cork. “And … might you need my services ashore, sir?”

“Hmm … I thought I’d take my boat crew, Furfy, and my Cox’n as part of the naval party, so they could do for me … unless you’re volunteering?” Lewrie replied.

“Be nice to go ashore and see Africa, sir,” Pettus told him. with a wistful grin. “Do something … active, for a change?”

“Well … see you have a stout pair o’ shoes, then,” Lewrie said. “Draw a musket, cutlass, and a pistol when we unlock the arms chests in the morning.”

“Careful ye don’t stab yerself, Mister Pettus,” Jessop teased.

“Fetch out the glasses, you, and make sure they’re clean!” the cabin steward snapped, pulling a cork with a loud
thock!

Lewrie had time to go through the rest of his correspondence from Admiralty, most of it of little import. There were changes to be made to charts, where one of His Majesty’s vessels had discovered an unknown rock or shoal, or fresh soundings; quarterly promotions lists; directives Fleetwide about excessive purchases and the need to conserve, etc. That left the personal letters, and the very first one atop the pile was from Lydia Stangbourne. The next one beside it was from Hugh, who had surely been at the battle of Trafalgar, as part of Nelson’s fleet, and sure sign that he was still
alive,
but—

The Marine sentry was pounding, his musket butt on the deck and bawling the arrival of his officers.

“Enter!” Lewrie bade them, getting to his feet to stand before the desk.

“Reporting as ordered, sir,” Lt. Westcott said for all.

There was one extra; the Purser, Mr. Cadbury, had come along. Pettus took quick note, and slunk over to the sideboard to put out an extra glass.

“It’s on, gentlemen!” Lewrie crowed. “First light, tomorrow, and we’ll be off!”

“Huzzah, sir! Huzzah, I say!” Marine Lieutenant Simcock cried.

“You’ve your lists of all the items our people will need ashore, I take it?” Lewrie asked. “Good! Commodore Popham assures me that the army will provide us with at least one four-wheeled waggon, and two horses, and one waggoner from the Quartermaster’s. He cautions that the waggon will have only limited space, since the horse team’s needs for water and feed will be aboard, in addition to all of our gear, so we will have to carry as much as our men can on their backs, and all hands will be on ‘shank’s ponies’. There will be no mounts or saddlery to spare for officers or Mids. As I told Pettus, be sure ye have your best shoes or boots on.”

“Who will go, sir?” Lt. Merriman eagerly enquired as the wine was poured for them.

“I promised Mister Westcott that he would go,” Lewrie said with a grin. “Does he not, there’d be a one-man mutiny! Since I’ve been at the Cape before, I will go ashore, myself. Sorry, sirs. But, someone more than capable must remain aboard to command the ship in my absence, and you and Mister Spendlove are more than able to fight the ship, do the French, or a Dutch squadron, turn up. The Bosun’s Mate, Mister Wheeler, and two Mids … I’m thinking Mister Warburton, and Mister Rossyngton, to keep the men in the naval half in good discipline.

“Now, how are we doing with the water bottles, their slings, and the canvas haversacks?” he asked, taking a sip of wine.

“The Sailmaker, Master Gunner, and their mates have all but a few to finish, sir, and every man will be equipped with them by the end of the First Dog, tonight,” Lt. Westcott reported.

“Good! Ammunition, Mister Simcock?” Lewrie continued.

“Thirty paper cartridges per man and musket, initially, sir,” Simcock happily informed him, “and sixty more rounds on hand, to be carted in the waggon for each man after. Do we begin now, sir, the Armourer can put fresh edges on cutlasses, hangers, and bayonets, if you will open the arms chests.”