Much Ado About Lewrie

by Dewey Lambdin

  They had suffered what felt like a defeat, had escaped the trap by the skin of their teeth, and this time the delay seemed to sap the spirit from them, despite their officers’ assurances that they would strike again, as soon as a good target was found. Lewrie feared that his people no longer felt as if it was a grand game, and had come to dread the idea of sailing into a similar debacle.

  In truth, Alan Lewrie felt a niggling worry that a follow-up raid would turn out as badly as the last one, too. Perhaps that was why he could not sit still.

  In the times when he felt that he was making a perfect pest of himself, Lewrie forced himself to go over the charts they had used since the first raids in early Spring, reviewing all the details of land, beaches, depth of water, and how difficult was the terrain back of the beaches for his Marines and Tarrant’s soldiers. There were piles of hand-drawn maps and sketches to pore over, rough layouts of coastal towns and villages to study—and frets arising over what a forewarned French general or colonel could do to improve defences, or fortify what had been open ground months before.

  French Marshal Murat already had sent a new and more industrious officer to command his forces on the coast, someone determined to not repeat his recently demoted predecessor’s mistakes. Would he garrison every fishing village? Form mobile brigades that shuttled from Crotone to Melito di Porto Salvo along the vital coast road along with the supply waggon trains? Could they move fast enough to interfere as soon as they learned that the hated British were attacking a place close by?

  Lewrie did not know, Tarrant did not know, and most especially, no intelligence from Calabria made Lewrie shift in his chair with an idea that his skin actually crawled with well-hidden anxiety.

  One more muck-up like the last’un, and we’re done for, Lewrie thought. He craved news from Calabria or Don Lucca’s henchman as fiercely as he wished to be re-united with his wife!

  * * *

  His barge came alongside the pier that jutted seaward from the beach, bow and stern lines were tied off, and Lewrie at last rose from his seat on a thwart right-aft by his Cox’n, Liam Desmond, and one of the Midshipmen, who in this case was his much younger brother-in-law, Charles Chenery. Using an oarsman’s shoulder for support, he stepped on the gunwale then onto the pier, swinging round a piling for a grip.

  “Right, lads,” he said, “An hour or so to skylark among the local traders, then back to the ship … in good time for your rum issue, hey? Mister Chenery, you and Desmond keep a sharp eye on ’em. No excess drink. I’ll be ashore ’til mid-afternoon, and will hoist a signal for you to come fetch me.”

  “Aye, sir,” Chenery said, tapping the brim of his hat in salute.

  “Mostly sobre, aye sor,” Desmond japed. “Me an’ Kitch’ll see t’that.”

  “Like a fox in the hen coop?” Lewrie rejoined. “Carry on.”

  He followed the well-worn path from the beach to Col. Tarrant’s quarters, quickly greeted by a loping, bounding Dante. Lewrie knelt and gave the big, shaggy hound some “wubbies,” then rose and walked on with the dog trotting at his side.

  Col. Tarrant and Major Gittings were seated at the outdoor dining table under the canvas fly, having their breakfast, and rose as Lewrie neared.

  “Sorry to be late to your kind invitation, sir,” Lewrie said as he pulled out a chair to join them. “A last minute detail aboard, and thank you for having me.”

  “No problem, Sir Alan, none at all,” Col. Tarrant told him as Carson the orderly poured Lewrie a cup of tea. “And how do you take your eggs?”

  “Scrambled,” Lewrie replied as he tucked a cloth napkin under his chin. To Carson’s query as to how many, Lewrie told him three.

  “A little surprise under your plate cover, Sir Alan,” Tarrant said with a grin.

  “A grapefruit?” Lewrie exclaimed as he lifted the tin dome.

  “Better yet, sir … a shaddock,” Tarrant said, proudly.

  “Oh, wonderful!” Lewrie said in delight. “I haven’t had one since last I was in the West Indies!”

  “The locals call them pomelos,” Major Gittings said, “God only knows why.”

  “We call them shaddocks after the name of the merchant captain who brought them to Jamaica, was the way I heard it,” Lewrie told them, digging a serrated spoon to lift out a sweet, succulent bite. “Ah! Marvelous! If I’d known they grow them on Sicily, I’d have bought up a half-dozen at a time!”

  And, after a few minutes, Corporal Carson brought out a fresh plate with his scrambled eggs, three strips of crispy bacon, thick-sliced toast, and a dollop of tattie hash, and Lewrie made free with the fresh butter and a pot of local berry jam. There was hot breath at his elbow as Dante whined for a bite of something.

  “Don’t encourage him, sir,” Tarrant chuckled, “Dante gets his share, and more. When we’ve bacon, he gets three rashers.”

  Done at last, and well sated, Lewrie accepted another cup of tea and leaned back. “I may have to take a stroll round the groves, emulating the French and their notion of digestif, before we start whacking away at each other.”

  “Our sporting sword-work can wait,” Tarrant said with a wave of a hand as he leaned over a wee candle that had been burning in the middle of the table, set there so he could light a cigarro.

  “Has anyone heard anything yet from Mister Quill, or from Don Lucca?” Lewrie asked.

  “No, not a word so far,” Tarrant said with a scowl and a squint as the smoke from his cigarro wreathed his face. “If we had, you’d be the first we told. This idleness is driving me to distraction.”

  “And, it ain’t good for our soldiers, either,” Gittings added. “We can only drill them ashore, and practice boat work so much. It begins to feel pointless, and tedious.”

  “I know what you mean, sir,” Lewrie agreed with a faint growl. “My ship’s people know what real preparation, and make-work are, and after a while, scrubbin’, polishin’, and drills just make ’em surly.”

  “Well, I do believe that Sir Alan made a good suggestion. We could all use a long stroll, or hike, to work off our breakfasts. Do bring along your swords, and we’ll try our skills against each other somewhere out in the woods.”

  “Well, there are some places best avoided,” Major Gittings said with a humourous bark. “Some groves are reserved for the local doxies and their doings, haw!”

  “Yays,” Colonel Tarrant drawled, amused, “We can’t embarrass our troops in mid-rut.”

  “Sir, it would take a great effort to embarrass our soldiers,” Gittings hooted. “They dance out there in the buff!”

  * * *

  After Tarrant finished his cigarro, they rose from the table and began their walk, more a leisurely stroll than anything strenuous, with Tarrant’s dog loping off ahead of them to explore or sniff at anything that took his fancy, then romping back like a scout sent ahead to report something new and aromatic.

  “About here should do,” Tarrant said at last in the shade of an olive grove, with branches only a foot or two above their heads. He stripped off his coat and hat, hung them on a limb, and unsheathed his curve-bladed sword. “Care to try, Sir Alan?”

  “Right with you, Colonel,” Lewrie heartily agreed, shedding his coat and drawing his hanger.

  They were, all three of them, long from their formal training in a swordmaster’s salle, and their styles of combat had been honed in a rowdier school since. Colonel Tarrant could be judged the most elegant, holding his left hand in the small of his back, and balancing as gracefully as a man doing a minuet. Major Gittings, when it was his turn, was shorter and bluffer, and more of a slasher, whilst Lewrie used his straighter hanger to thrust and jab to fend him off, countering slashes with their blades ringing.

  “Should have invited a fourth,” Tarrant said after a few more minutes, panting a little, “Someone’s being ganged up upon.”

  “I fear we are using you horribly, Sir Alan,” Gittings said, his ruddy complexion flushed and beaded with perspiration.

  “I get too little exercise
aboard ship,” Lewrie told him, fully in agreement. “This is no bother, really.”

  Christ, I’m about t’drop! he told himself, breathing deeply and resisting the urge to dash sweat from his brow; I may be gettin’ too damned old for such vigourous work.

  “Let us find some water,” Tarrant suggested, sheathing his sword in the scabbard, and retrieving his hat and coat, though he did not put them back on.

  “Or some white wine, what?” Gittings seconded, “For I’m fair parched!”

  Back towards the drill field and company hut lines they went, ’til they came across a low civilian tent with a rough table in front, upon which sat an odd assortment of mis-matched glasses and mugs, and opened bottles of wine, mostly of the red and rough variety.

  “Vino blanco?” Tarrant asked. “Pinot grigio?”

  A silver six-pence coin paid for three glasses, and Col. Tarrant leaned a hand on the table after a first, welcome sip, making it shake and threaten to collapse. Lewrie had a thought to rest his bottom on it, before that, for he felt in need of a sit-down, but was forced to stand and pace about.

  “Well, that was a welcome bit of exertion,” Tarrant said as he dug into a breeches pocket for another six pence for a second round.

  “Oh, aye!” Lewrie said, all but rolling his eyes. “Welcome.”

  “Something to do to seem as if we’re doing something, instead of dithering and waiting,” Tarrant sourly mused. “We simply must find a way to get back into action.”

  “Show the French that we’re not done, not by a long chalk,” Major Gittings gruffly said.

  “Make the Frogs eat a large crow pie, hah!” Tarrant chuckled.

  “Monasterace,” Lewrie said of a sudden.

  “Monasterace?” Tarrant asked.

  “Go right back and burn it to the ground,” Lewrie fantasised aloud, with a sly grin on his face. “Take them on and whip them where they imagine they won? It’s tempting, if there was a way. It’d give them a huge black eye.”

  “Hmm, I wonder,” Col. Tarrant mused. “They lost a fair part of the two regiments that ambushed us. Surely, they would have to go to their original bases and recover. Why keep troops needed elsewhere sitting round a poor place like that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, sir,” Major Gittings cautioned, though it was a tempting proposition, “So many supplies camping there for the night, sufficient water … Monasterace just might be the best place for them. Set up hospitals and rest their men?”

  “But if they have moved on,” Lewrie said with more enthusiasm, “the only garrison there would be the fifty or sixty Commissariat men who repair the waggons, and issue the hay and oat rations.”

  “I’ve still my notes and plans,” Tarrant said. “Care to remain ashore for lunch. So we can look them over? Just in case, what?”

  “What are we having?” Lewrie asked with another sly grin.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Later that afternoon, back aboard his ship, Lewrie dug out the plans for the failed raid on Monasterace, and spent a few speculative hours reviewing them.

  His mention of the place had almost been a jape, off the top of his head, but, after discussing the possibilities of re-visiting the town with Col. Tarrant and Major Gittings, a tenuous hope sprang anew. It was a tempting proposition, a most alluring one, to go right back and strike a blow like a boot to French testicles, and one that would go a long way towards restoring the squadron’s lustre, the repute of the 94th, and, admittedly, Lewrie’s own credit as a successful warrior.

  Of course, a potential raid on Monasterace could not happen in the same fashion as the first one. He had placed Vigilance a bit to the West of the town and its piers, and had landed his Marines further West to sweep up the outskirts, going for the waggon trains camped on the inland side of the coast road. Tarrant’s regiment had gone ashore East of the town, and was supposed to have swept the Eastern outskirts, with one of its Light Companies probing into the streets and houses on that side to root out any stray Frenchmen. They had been landed there for the good reason that the beaches on that side were gently sloped, and broad enough for all eight of the companies to ground their barges together. Unfortunately, they had gotten no further than a low stone wall enclosing a large pasture.

  The late Don Julio Caesare’s amateur spies had fished off the coast, sounding the depths, had gone ashore to drink and eat in the taverns, and chat up the locals, had done some trade in rare goods unavailable under French occupation, and had done some sketching of how Monasterace was laid out, so Lewrie had a good idea of the place.

  There was a long stone quay cross the front of the town, about five or six feet above seawater, backed by three short blocks of houses, taverns, a travellers’ inn, and some houses. Two main roads or streets led inland to the usual town square which featured the usual church, more houses (some grander than others), and shops where people bought their bread, meats, pasta, and household goods. There were two more roads that ran inland down the peripheries, where there were more houses, more like farm cottages, with styes, coops, and a few barns for goats, sheep, and a few dairy cattle.

  Lewrie didn’t imagine that there was much left of the seafront left corner of Monasterace, or those smallholding farms, for when the French had sprung their ambush, a few companies of their soldiers had rushed out from that part of town, and to save his Marines from being over-run, Lewrie had turned Vigilance’s guns on it, telling his hands, rather loudly and angrily, to turn the place to brick dust!

  Which they had, most efficiently.

  Beyond where those streets through Monasterace intersected the main coast supply road, Lewrie could see a larger farmstead with two stone barns, a substantial place that probably belonged to some rich family. The Commissariat troops that the French had assigned there were said to live in the house, after turning out the owners, and were using the barns for their woodworking and iron forging to keep damaged or worn-out supply waggons in decent shape.

  To either side in the broad pastures of that farmstead were the encampments for the waggon trains, enclosed on the sketch with a set of dashed-line circles. There was a long, low ridge beyond, almost a mile off from the town proper, and Don Julio’s scouts had not been allowed to wander that far without arousing suspicion and arrest, but they had seen large tents set up to shelter the immense piles of hay the size of hillocks, and the sack upon sack of oats for the draught animals.

  “Burn those and it’d make a glow like Mount Etna,” he muttered under his breath, drawing the attention of his cabin servants for a moment.

  How long would it take the French to gather enough replacement grains and feed, he wondered? How many convoys would have to be diverted from human and military supplies just to nourish the horses, mules, and oxen? Weeks, Lewrie imagined! And wouldn’t that put the Frogs’ noses out of joint?

  And if a successful raid could be pulled off, God only knew how many supply convoys would be encamped for the night, draught animals turned out to graze in pens un-harnessed, the usual troop of cavalry escorts to each un-saddled, the troopers asleep in their bed-rolls, with their knee-boots off, and their mounts bound by their reins to ropes stretched between trees. They had found the same conditions at Bova Marina, had set fire to the waggons, panicked the cavalry horses, routed their riders, and had even faced down a weak charge, infantry counter-charging cavalry, a rare wonder. Hundreds of beasts had been slaughtered, over an hundred and fifty waggons torched, and hay and grain had been turned to a bonfire. All that would have to be replaced, too, at great cost to the French, and the supply convoy schedule set back so far that Marshal Murat in Naples would have to request aid and replacement from the far corners of Napoleon Bonaparte’s empire!

  Lewrie shut his eyes to picture that in his mind, a small grin tweaking the corners of his mouth. If only, he fervently wished!

  Lewrie shook his head, though, and returned to the crude sketches atop his desk, Hmm, though …

  If the town didn’t have a garrison, if that brigade was no longer
there, the idea was to block the waggon trains from escaping, and burning and slaughtering everything, so … how were they to go about that?

  The town don’t matter, Lewrie thought; It’s what lies beyond.

  He reached into a desk drawer to fetch out a lead pencil, paused as he held it over the sketch, then doodled a brace of transports West of the town, and another pair to the East, with two broad arrows jutting ashore, across the coast road to the camp sites, and driving into the heart of Monasterace to entrap the convoys’ waggons, blocking the escape by holding the road.

  His Marines and the armed sailors who would row them ashore, he thought to land directly on the town quays, over one hundred and ten men in all, right through the town and out the other side to attack the farmstead house and barns where the French artificers slept and kept their forge waggon, woodworking, and harness repair shops.

  Now, where could he place HMS Vigilance and all her 24-pounders and 18-pounders to the best effect? There were many two-storey homes in Monasterace’s centre, along with the church and its spire, and the substantial home and offices of the town’s government. His guns could not shoot through them or over them; the roundshot would land somewhere a mile or two far out in the countryside, shattering the odd tree, perhaps. Besides, if, on the off chance that there was no fresh French garrison placed there, there was no reason to bombard the town, bringing fresh woe and ruin to long-suffering Calabrians, who lived a hard-enough life already.

  Mr. Quill’s informant network had visited Monasterce, too, and had gathered that the town’s inhabitants were praying that the heretical French, who brought no priests with them and rarely entered the local church except to gawk, who swilled in their taverns and the seaside inn, elbowing good Italians out of the way, who took over the one wee brothel as theirs, and made rude approaches to young wives and the un-married daughters, would just go away, die, or burn in the fires of Hades.