Hostile Shores (36 page)

Sure enough, the two attacking regiments had rushed on past the Dutch trenches and were moving down the East side of the Blaauwberg in skirmish order, their light companies firing at the fleeing Dutch survivors now and then. The other regiments of the Heavy Brigade were coming up towards the crest in columns-of-fours with their drums rattling the pace. Bandsmen and surgeons from the 38th and 93rd were busy picking among the few British casualties, or pilfering from the Dutch dead and wounded, on the sly.

“Canteens, sir.” Lt. Westcott pointed downhill to their prisoners. “We should go take possession of some, whilst we see to our own wounded.”

“Get them down so the Army surgeons can see to ’em, aye,” Lewrie agreed. “How many, Mister Westcott?”

“One hand dead, sir, two wounded,” Lt. Westcott told him as he took a deep drink from his wine bottle canteen. “Those two not badly, thank God. We’ve lost one Marine dead, and one wounded, as well. Durbin is tending them, but he will need assistance from the Army.”

Lewrie looked down-slope for a way to leave their knob. Horses and dead Dutch cavalrymen blocked the easiest way, many of the horses still screaming and thrashing.

“First off, Mister Westcott, have the lads shoot those poor horses, and see that all our muskets are empty,” Lewrie ordered. “If the Dragoons will … Ah, Mister Strickland!” he gladly said, spotting him. “If you’d be so good as to take charge of our prisoners, whilst we clear the way for our wounded? Good. Were any of your men hurt or killed?”

“No dead, sir, and only two lightly wounded. We came off rather easily, altogether,” Strickland reported, “though it seems that your men took the brunt of it, holding the centre of our line.”

“Once down with the nearest regiment, please direct their surgeon in our direction, sir, and we’ll try to move our wounded to them,” Lewrie requested. Strickland saluted and set off.

“Mister Rossyngton?” Lewrie called over his shoulder.

“Aye, sir?” the Midshipman replied.

“You’ve young and sturdy legs,” Lewrie said. “Do you run down to our waggon and order it up.”

“At once, sir!” Rossyngton said, doffing his hat and setting off at trots and bounds.

I just hope no one takes him for Dutch in his blue coat, and shoots him!
Lewrie thought.

He went to where their Surgeon’s Mate, Durbin, was binding up his men’s wounds, and knelt and spoke words of assurance and thanks to them.

“Beg pardon, sir,” Durbin said, “but, do we take the blankets from the dead Dutchies’ bed-rolls, we can fashion ways to bear our men down the hill.”

“Aye, see to it,” Lewrie agreed.

That scavenging, and the slow procession of bearing both dead and wounded off the knob, was a gruesome ordeal. There were nearly fifteen or so dead horses which had to be bridged, and dead Dutchmen to be stepped and stumbled over, with here and there some few cruelly wounded, some still pinned under their dead mounts, who reached out with weak, bloodied hands, crying
“Hilfe!”
and
“Wasser!”
Sailors who were not carrying their mates bent down to give them a drink, a pat on the shoulder, but there was little they could do for them, not ’til all the British wounded had been seen to. That was the necessary triage following combat. Lewrie looked up to the morning sky and grimaced at the sight of hideous vultures already circling, and daring to swoop near the corpses round the Dutch trenches. The warm, coppery reek of spilled blood was almost as strong as the stink of voided men’s bowels and un-ravelled horse intestines.

At last, they got past the last of the Dutch casualties, and reached the South end of the Dutch trenches, where Army bandsmen were already carrying dead soldiers, British to one trench and Dutch to another, for a quick burial.

Lewrie stood and watched as Durbin had his two dead borne to the appropriate trench, and began to compose some final words in his head to see them off. He had left his Book of Common Prayer aboard ship, and would have to depend on an Army chaplain for the bulk of it. He was interrupted, though, by loud shouts, and turned about.

“You, there! You, sir!” a senior officer of cavalry shouted, coming on astride a glossy horse with a long riding crop in a gauntletted hand. “Come here at once, do you hear me? I’ve a
bone
t’pick with you!”

Damned if I ain’t gettin’ tired o’ bein’ shouted at!
Lewrie fumed inside;
From the Thirty-fourth? Their Colonel? Serve him sweetness and light, old son … sweetness and light.
He put a faint smile on his face and raised a brow as if hailed by an old school chum.

“Good morning, sir!” Lewrie perkily said, doffing his hat. “I take it that you are Colonel Laird of the Thirty-fourth Light Dragoons? Sorry we have not yet made acquaintance. I am Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of the
Reliant
frigate, which escorted part of your regiment.”

“I
know
who you are, sir, and I am indeed Colonel of the Thirty-fourth Dragoons!” the livid fellow barked. “Those fools, Veasey and Strickland, have already informed me of your high-handed actions which instigated this idiocy!” he roared, sweeping a hand towards the carnage on the knob. “How dare you! Who gave you the right to order my officers about, deprive me of half a troop, and lead them into un-necessary peril, sir? Damme, had we gotten orders to charge this position, I would have been under-strength!”

“Captain Veasey, Leftenant Strickland, and I considered it a reconnaisance in force, since the knob was un-occupied, sir, so we came up to discover the enemy’s forces,” Lewrie replied as congenial and casually conversational as he could and still smile. “It worked, as you see.”

“Damn your
eyes,
sir!” Colonel Laird exploded, frightening his horse into shivers, circles, and flat-eared, eye-blared dread. “I’ll not have a bloody
sailor,
who knows nothing of proper military tactics, play ‘tin soldiers’ with
my
regiment! And, just what the Hell are you doing up
here
in the first place?”

“We’re part of the Naval Brigade that Commodore Popham offered to General Baird, sir, under the command of Captain Byng of the
Belliqueux,
” Lewrie sweetly answered, shifting the sling of his rifled musket on his shoulder. “We were landed to get the siege guns ashore, and re-enforce the guard on the baggage train. We came up alongside the train, sir.”

“The bloody baggage train is still far down bloody
there
!” Colonel Laird howled, pointing downhill to the West, where the regiments of the Light Brigade were now tramping up the slope to the crest of the Blaauwberg. “Damme if I do not settle you, this instant, Lewrie, for here comes General Sir David Baird. I will see you brought before a
court
! I will see you
sacked
!”

Colonel Laird snatched the reins of his horse and sped away at a brisk gait towards a clutch of senior officers at the head of the first regiment of the Light Brigade.

“Ehm … our waggon is coming up, sir,” a cautious Midshipman Warburton announced, daring a grimace of worry. “Should I see our wounded into it when it arrives, sir?”

“Do so, Mister Warburton,” Lewrie told him, “and break out the spare scuttle-butt. Our people will have need of replenishing their water bottles when the waggon’s up.”

“Warm work, indeed, sir,” Warburton commented, then went to his work.

“Mister Westcott, let’s see to collecting those canteens from the Dutch prisoners,” Lewrie ordered.

“Aye, sir,” his First Officer replied.

Minutes later, and Westcott was back, to whisper, “Trouble’s coming, sir,” as General Baird, Brigadier Beresford, and their staff came over. Lewrie tried not to wince, for that supercilious officer they’d met by the baggage train was with them, as was Colonel Laird.

He set his shoulders, un-slung his champagne bottle canteen, and took a sip to moisten his suddenly dry mouth, wondering if he really
was
“in the quag” up to his neck, this time.

“He’s
drunk,
by God!” Colonel Laird exclaimed. “
That
explains his actions, Sir David! Just as Mortimer here saw earlier. They
all
are! See those wine bottles, sir?”

“Good morning, sir,” Lewrie said, ignoring that rant, doffing his hat to the senior officers with more deference. “I would offer you some of our water, General Baird, but I fear it comes from our butts aboard
Reliant,
and is rather stale, by now,” and went to explain again how they had had to improvise before coming ashore.

General Baird took the offered bottle just long enough for a quick sniff, wrinkling his nose. “Well, I do remember how foul water becomes, after a few months in cask, Captain Lewrie,” he said in a rather kindly way. “What happened up here? Colonel Laird seems to think that you have acted rashly with some of his troops.”

“In point of fact, sir, it was a co-operative endeavour that could not have succeeded without the participation of the Thirty-fourth, and the skill and experience of Leftenant Strickland and his half-troop,” Lewrie replied.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lewrie saw disaster looming, of a sudden, and he tried not to quail. His sailors had approached the Dutch prisoners and had gotten their wood canteens, here and there in exchange, but mostly by appropriation by the victors. Patrick Furfy and a few others were looking just
too
damned sly-boots as they took sips, sniffed with sudden delight, and tipped the canteens back for deeper quaffs. It wasn’t just British soldiers and sailors who were mad for drink, any sort of alcoholic guzzle; the Dutch soldiers were just as guilty, and had filled their canteens with rum, brandy, or the national “treasure”, gin!

Trust Furfy t’find it, and get howlin’ drunk!
Lewrie winced.

Ignoring that, while twitching the fingers of his left hand to Westcott to see to the problem, he genially laid out the situation, the possibilities, and what actions they had taken.

“Just as the shrapnel shells began to burst over ’em, sir,” he related, “we opened upon ’em. They had about five or six hundred men in all, and they pulled one infantry company out of line, and a troop of dis-mounted cavalry, t’deal with us, weakening the line. You can see the results, sir.”

“So, you did not play too high a hand, Captain Lewrie?” Baird asked, nodding his head in appreciation.

“Captain Veasey let Leftenant Strickland take half a troop, sir, and it was he who led the way and set us in our defensive positions, and instructed us both in how to receive cavalry and in how to deliver rolling volley fire, sir. In point of fact, it was more my lending him my men to his command than t’other way round.”

“Well, he is to be commended, then,” General Baird decided, “as is your regiment, Colonel Laird.”

“But, Sir David—!” Laird spluttered, red in the face, nigh
puce
with indignation.

General Baird grimaced at Laird’s overly-familiar use of his Christian name. “Sir Alan is to be commended, as well, Laird,” he said, stiffening his back, and making it quite clear that Laird was over-reaching. “Rest assured that your regiment, your junior officers, and Sir Alan will be mentioned favourably in my reports to Horse Guards, and Admiralty,” he added, with a brief grin and nod in Lewrie’s direction. “Will that be all, Laird?”

“Uhm, well…,” the deflated, frustrated Colonel managed to gravel out.

“Then do you take your regiment forward of the Heavy Brigade and scout by troops for the main Dutch force, sir,” General Baird ordered. “Find them, and report back, leaving a screen.”

“Yes, sir, at once,” Laird said, his chin tucked hard into his stiff collars, and spurred away.

“Just what
are
you doing so far forward, Captain Lewrie?” the General enquired once Laird was gone.

“Guarding the baggage train, sir, and getting shoved out of the line of march,” Lewrie explained with a shrug, “and made our own way.”

“Then do you wait ’til the baggage train is over the Blaauwberg and fall in with it,” Baird directed. “It may be best did you remain with it, the rest of the way, you know. I expect a hard battle with the Dutch before the day is out, and your wee lot would be of little help. You were lucky once,” Baird said, with a brow up.

“Once is quite enough, thankee, sir,” Lewrie replied, feeling sheepish.

Baird and his party wheeled away and clopped off, over the crest and downhill to the East, leaving Lewrie to finally let out a long-pent whoosh of relief.

Hah! Cheated Death, and Ruin, again!
he told himself.

“Furfy!” he called out. “You men with him? The First Officer will be smellin’ those canteens ye pilfered. If there’s spirits in ’em, best pour it out, now. The Bosun’s Mate brought a ‘cat’ ashore with him, don’t ye know.”

“Breakin’ me heart, arrah,” Furfy muttered, sorrowfully turning his new Dutch canteen bung-down and spilling its contents on the dust of Africa.

“When the waggon’s up, we’ll re-fill with water,” Lewrie told them all, “but, we’ll also break open the cask of small beer.”

“Huzzah!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“Hoy, the boat!” Midshipman Munsell hailed the barge as it approached.

“
Reliant
!” Cox’n Liam Desmond shouted back from the bows and showed four fingers to indicate the size of the side-party required to receive the frigate’s commanding officer back aboard. Sailors scrambled to toe the line of deck planks, and Bosun Sprague piped a long call as the barge came alongside and Captain Lewrie ascended the boarding battens to the entry-port, still laden with weapons. Once at the top and in-board on the starboard gangway, Lewrie doffed his hat to one and all, beaming fit to bust. Lt. Spendlove was his usual rather serious self, but could not hide a grin. Lt. Merriman, of a more cheerful nature, was almost chortling.

“Welcome back aboard, sir,” Spendlove intoned. “And, might I enquire how things went ashore, sir?”

“Just topping bloody
capital,
Mister Spendlove!” Lewrie said in high spirits. “Mister Merriman? Did things go well aboard? I see the French didn’t turn up. Well, hallo, Bisquit!” he cried, kneeling down as the ship’s dog pranced about in tail-wagging glee. “Here, I brought ye a
fine
new bone, and some
biltong,
to boot! It’s a stout impala bone, and the
biltong
’s hartebeest. Ain’t that tasty? Aye! No fear, there’s two hundredweight comin’ aboard.”