Hostile Shores (42 page)

“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.