Much Ado About Lewrie

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Passably good brandy,” Gittings said, after a tasting sip.

  “Portuguese, I believe,” Tarrant told them. “You will wish to sail roundabout Sicily, again, Sir Alan, for secrecy’s sake?”

  “Aye, I would, sir,” Lewrie told him. “We’d give the game away even did we sail down the Strait of Messina at midnight, with all the ships’ lights doused.”

  “Then I shall stash a bottle of this brandy to comfort me and my dread of the open sea on the journey,” Tarrant told them.

  * * *

  It was mid-afternoon when Lewrie summoned his boat to come and fetch him, with a fresh sheaf of notes and orders in a side-pocket of his uniform coat. On the way out to where HMS Vigilance lay, Lewrie regarded his command with a fresh and appreciative eye, and, admittedly, with some pride.

  The up-thrust of her jib boom and bowsprit looked aggressive, guarded by the crowned and seated gilded lion figurehead with one paw raised to shade its bright blue eyes to scan the horizons. All three masts towered high overhead, stout and solid, sails harbour gasketed to yardarms laid square amid a myriad of halliards, braces, clews and jeers, running stays and standing stays and shrouds in a display of geometric perfection. Her black-painted hull was still fresh enough and shiny enough to mirror sun dapples from the harbour waters like a darting cloud of fireflies, and the deep horizontal gun stripe had been washed free of gunpowder smut, chequered with gun-ports opened for a cooling breeze on the lower deck, and a hint of hard, black iron guns bowsed securely to the port sills.

  Her coppering that showed along her waterline, well … it was not pristine and new-penny bright any longer, and as his barge came alongside the starboard boarding battens, Lewrie could frown at the sight of green weed waving at him in nigh foot long strands, hinting at the foulness that had accumulated on her quickwork below the waterline, and the many barnacles that lurked there could only be guessed at.

  How long was she in commission when I took her over from that Captain Nunnelly? Lewrie asked himself as he prepared to rise and take hold of the main channel and battens and man-ropes; The poor old girl is in need of a haul-out, and a hull cleanin’. Pray God it ain’t too soon. We’ve still things t’do with her!

  “Toss oars!” his Cox’n, Liam Desmond, ordered as the barge butted against Vigilance’s hull. Lewrie stood, put a foot on the gunn’l, steadied himself on an oarsman’s shoulder, and laid a hand on one of the man-ropes to stretch a booted foot out for the lowest batten.

  Up he went, clambering the battens ’til the “dog’s vane” plume of his cocked hat showed above the lip of the entry-port, signalling the side-party to doff hats, present arms, and for the Bosun’s silver call to tweetle him a salute. Once safely inboard again, Lewrie doffed his hat in salute to the flag aft and the officer of the deck, after Lewrie’s characteristic shove from the bulwark and a hop-skip stamp of his boots on the deck.

  “Ah, Mister Farley,” Lewrie said to the First Officer, who was sheathing his sword after his salute, “I’d be pleased did you hoist Captain(s) Repair On Board. Two-gun General Alert if you have to. Once the transport commanders are aboard, do join us.”

  “We’re going somewhere, sir?” Lt. Farley asked, perking up.

  “Ssh,” Lewrie sniggered, laying a finger on his lips, “You didn’t hear it from me. Yet.”

  * * *

  The quarter moon had set almost two hours before, and false dawn was yet to show itself as one lone chime of the bell at the forecastle belfry rang out, a hushed and timid Ding! quickly muffled with a hand laid on the metal. One Bell of the Morning Watch, and half past Four in the morning.

  Off the larboard bows, two guarded flashes from hooded lanthorns winked to life, just as quickly shuttered; Bristol Lass and Spaniel furtively announcing that they had come to anchor off their designated beaches, and were ready to embark their troops. Two more flashes off the starboard bows told Vigilance that Lady Merton and Coromandel were anchored East of Monasterace.

  The night round Vigilance, out to sea, and up and down the shore was still as black as a boot, but, surprisingly, everyone aboard and on deck could see their objective remarkably well, for the seaport town, showed quay-side lanthorns, and the richer houses, warehouses, taverns, and inns had lanthorns by their doors, and some windows showed light from candles, almost delineating the total span from West to East. And behind the town, there appeared to be a sea of red or amber campfires, smouldering low and only now and then tended, as if an entire park had suffered a brushfire that had burned itself out.

  Is this going t’work, please Jesus? Lewrie thought, fretting.

  Mr. Quill’s information about the lack of French troops could be days out of date since they had sailed from Milazzo four days past. If there were no troops beyond the small cavalry escorts. If there was no field artillery batteries camped for the night!

  “Three flashes from all four transports, sir,” Lt. Farley said in a loud whisper. “They’re going in.”

  “Thankee, Mister Farley,” Lewrie replied, feeling a lump in his stomach, a distinct sinking feeling that it could still all go smash. He looked for the transports, but could not make out their hulls, or the eldritch, ghost-like sails being reduced. He looked aloft for his own, and only imagined that he could discern them. Vigilance loafed along, barely making way, under greatly reduced sail, and even the usual rush of the sea down the ship’s flanks, and the thrashing of her forefoot and cutwater was dim and distant.

  Colonel Tarrant and Major Gittings had decided that Vigilance’s Marines and armed boat parties would land on the town’s quays later than their own landings, using five men from each of their two-dozen barges as a light flank company to cut the town off as they carried out their assaults down the coast road into the waggon camps, with Lewrie’s portion coming ashore when it was a little lighter, to avoid confusion and mistaking each other, resulting in needless casualties. Vigilance’s sailors and Marines were to clear the town after, in case French soldiers and waggoneers were there, wenching or drinking.

  In point of fact, in the full darkness, Vigilance would not come to anchor ’til they could see if there were any targets upon which the guns could safely fire!

  Lewrie felt himself all over for the twentieth time, groping at his pockets and waistband for his two pairs of pistols, loaded but not yet primed, for the reassuring hilt of his hanger, the pre-made cartridge pouches for his pistols, the priming flask, spare flints in his breeches pockets, and the sailcloth sack and wooden canteen that held all the things he thought necessary.

  For this time, he would be going ashore with his men. It could go so badly that he could do nothing else. And, truth to tell, the qualms of doubt and lack of information that he had felt on their previous landings, the feeling that he commanded all but was in charge of absolutely nothing drove him to go ashore!

  Perhaps it was the faint light from the many guttering campfires ashore, but even with a night-glass, Lewrie could make nothing out on the flanks of Monasterace, where the 94th was now landing; nor could he make out the barges stroking ashore. Even the dim phosphorescence of boat wakes and oar splashes failed him this time, so he could but guess how close they were to their beaches. Lewrie would have to wait for more quick flashes from handheld shuttered lanthorns. He cursed under his breath, feeling as if he could jump out of his skin!

  “Captain sir?” came a whisper by his right elbow, and Lewrie did have to stifle an alarmed “eep!”

  “Yayss?” he drawled back to cover his small scare.

  “The barges are drawn up to either beam, sir, and the Marines are standing by on the sail-tending gangways,” Lt. Grace reported with a hissing note to his lowered voice.

  “Very well, Mister Grace,” Lewrie answered, “Are you ready to go as well?”

  “Aye, sir,” Grace told him, “even though I’m to only guard the quays, and the barges. Mister Greenleaf loaned me a second pair of pistols, just in case.”

  “Let us pray you won’t need them, Mister Grace,” Lewrie sai
d.

  “I was hoping that I would, sir,” Grace said, with a chuckle, and Lewrie could picture the young fellow’s sly grin. Every officer in the Navy, every Midshipman, craved action, glory, and honour, for that was the lifeblood of advancement, and fame.

  “Light up in the East, sir,” Lt. Farley pointed out in a louder voice. “Three … four flashes. Major Gittings’s half of the regiment is ashore.”

  A minute or so later, and there came four flashes from West of Monasterace to tell them that Colonel Tarrant and his four companies were ashore, and feeling their way inland to the coast road and the sleeping convoy camps. The night, the sky, was still black, though, with not a hint of the greyness of false dawn. HMS Vigilance and her landing party would have to idle off shore, and wait.

  “Come on, come on, come on!” Lewrie muttered, impatiently.

  Lewrie tried pacing the quarterdeck, hands in the small of his back, head down in search of his boots, play-acting a stern and stoic senior Post-Captain of the Royal Navy, and trying not to trip over the odd ring-bolt.

  Stoic, mine arse, he chid himself; I’ve been play-acting this role half my born days! Oh, I’m such a fraud sometimes!

  “Firing, sir!” Lt. Farley yelped. “By volley, it looks like!”

  Lewrie jerked his head up and rushed to the landward bulwarks to see. Yes! There were yellow-amber tongues of flame from the muzzles of muskets, smaller bursts from priming pans as flints rasped on the serrated frissons, and fire flashed down touch-holes to ignite the powder charges of Brown Bess muskets, rough lines of them under the command of Major Gittings on the East. The men on Vigilance’s decks strained and cocked their ears, but the crackling sound of burning twigs that musket fire made could not reach them.

  A second volley of quick, bright flashes erupted, this time it was closer to the outskirts of the waggon camps on the East, but was still silent. Four companies of the 94th could be fixing bayonets, rushing forward with savage battle cries, spreading death and panic as they went, but that was happening in silence, too.

  “Firing on the West, sir,” Lt. Farley reported, pointing over the starboard bows as Colonel Tarrant’s troops got into musket range.

  Lewrie looked aloft, hoping for greyness in the skies, looked East towards a sunrise that was just not coming fast enough, muttered “Mine arse on a band-box!” and slammed his fists on the bulwarks. “Come on, sunrise!”

  His ship was now West of the town quays and sailing even further West. They might have to wear about in the darkness to stay close to their objective, and that would take long minutes on such a scant wind.

  “Fetch-to, Mister Farley, fetch her to!” Lewrie snapped, straining to look down the sail-tending gangways, imagining the chaos as men sprang to tend braces, shoving armed Marines aside in disorder. Damn it, it had to be done!

  Lewrie could feel Lt. Farley’s stupefied look on the back of his neck. “Pass word for Captain Whitehead and his Marines to get on the boarding nets and go over the side, to make room.”

  “Aye, sir!” Farley said, raising a brass speaking-trumpet to yell “Boat crews and Marines … man your boats! Hands to the sheets and braces, tail on, and prepare to fetch-to! Helmsmen, hard up to windward,” Farley ordered in a lower voice to the men on the wheel.

  “Mister Grace, do you board a barge to larboard, whilst I board one to starboard. Mister Farley, I leave you in command,” Lewrie said as he groped for the ladderway down to the ship’s waist.

  “Very good, sir,” Farley said more formally, probably doffing his hat in the dark, if Lewrie knew him at all.

  Lewrie swung a leg over the starboard bulwarks along the sail-tending gangway, bumping into sailors, found a secure foothold on the thick boarding nets, belly against the bulwarks, and began a clumsy, slow descent.

  “Is there a barge under me?” he called down.

  “Best ya shift three foot t’your left, sir,” a sailor warned.

  “You are almost to the gunn’l Captain sir,” Marine Lieutenant Venables cautioned. “Another foot or so to your left, and we’ll catch you if you slip.”

  Lewrie completed his spidery move to his left, lowered himself to another foothold, and felt his bum slapped by the loom of an oar that one of the boat crew held aloft, waiting for a Cox’n’s order to lower it into the thole pins.

  “Make room with those musket barrels,” Venables told his men.

  “Aye, don’t goose me up my fundament,” Lewrie japed, even as he lowered himself one more tier of horizontal ropes, and swung a booted foot, seeking the barge’s gunn’l.

  “Not quite yet, sir,” Venables told him. “Two more down.”

  This time there was wood under his boot sole, and helpful hands reaching up to steady him as he lowered his left foot to find a solid wood thwart, shoulders to steady himself upon, and a seat far aft by the sailor who would handle the tiller.

  “Bit of wot whalermen call a sleigh-ride, sir,” the Cox’n said. “With th’ ship still under way.”

  The barge was still bound to the ship with bow and stern lines, and one bank of oarsmen gripping the bottom of the boarding nets, so the barge was bumping and being sucked hard up to the hull by the wake that rushed down her side.

  “Do we go now, sir?” Lt. Venables asked, eager to do something.

  “No, not ’til it’s lighter, as Colonel Tarrant planned,” Lewrie had to tell him. He looked shoreward, up and down each side of Monasterace. At water level, the view was not as good as it had been from the quarterdeck, many feet higher up. There were continual musket flashes from both ends of the town, now much closer to the outskirts, and it seemed a bit lighter yonder, as if some waggons had already been set alight. Along the town’s quays and in upper-storey windows, lanthorns were now lit, windows were flung open.

  “Fetched-to, sir!” Lt. Farley shouted down from above.

  “Hell’s Bells, Mister Venables,” Lewrie decided of a sudden. “We are here, ready to go. The town’s wakin’ up. Why the Devil not? Hoy, Mister Farley!” Lewrie shouted, cupping his mouth.

  “Sir?”

  “Order away boats!” Lewrie yelled.

  “Aye aye, sir!” Farley replied, “All boats, cast off! Away all boats!” he roared, his voice tinny from the speaking-trumpet.

  “Shove off and free lines,” the Cox’n ordered. “Out oars, starb’d. Fend off, larb’d. Out oars, there, and give me way!”

  “Your men loaded, sir?” Lewrie asked the young Marine officer.

  “Loaded, but not primed, sir,” Venables told him, his right hand flexing on the hilt of his sword. Lewrie looked at him, actually seeing Venables as the first inkling of dark blue greyness lifted the curtain of the night.

  Guess I got my timin’ right, after all, Lewrie told himself with glee.

  * * *

  “Toss oars,” the barge’s Cox’n ordered in a low voice as all four barges ghosted forward on the strength of the oarsmen’s last strokes. “Boat yer oars, Ready the gaff, bow man, an’ we’ll tie up larb’d side to.”

  There was a motley assortment of small rowing boats and fishing boats along Monasterace’s quays, bound to bollards, ring-bolts, and pilings by single bow lines. Bow men in all four barges used their gaffs to shove them aside, or hook on and drag their boat forward the last few yards.

  “Jus’ cut their bow lines t’make room,” Lewrie’s Cox’n urged.

  Lewrie, his armed sailors, and Marines could now hear the commotion that the 94th had created; steady musket fire crackling up and down their ranks, feral shouts, now and then a loud explosion as one of the burning waggon’s cargo of gunpowder or premade paper cartridges exploded. They could smell the stench of burning wood and canvas, and the bellows, terrified brays, and neighing from frightened oxen, mules, and draught horses could be heard from the stock pens.

  Lewrie half-stood, to see above the level of the stone quays, and found the waterfront streets astir with milling, gabbling, gesticulating Italians, barely dressed in the first clothing that came to hand, dashing abou
t as if Attila and his Huns had come with rape and loot on their minds.

  “Lash alongside, there,” the Cox’n snapped.

  “After you, sir,” Lewrie told Lt. Venables.

  “Marines! Up on the quay and form ranks!” Venables ordered.

  “Marines!” Capt. Whitehead, his senior, was also shouting, “Prime your firelocks! Form, form, form!”

  The streets, crowded with panicky Italians but a moment before, emptied as they stampeded up the side streets deeper into town, wailing in terror, women screaming, children yowling and weeping as long as their parents were yelling, taking the arrival of Vigilance’s shore party as demons and monsters risen from the sea!

  Lewrie stood on the barge’s gunn’1, reached out to take hold of a bollard, and swung himself to a sitting position on the quay, turning and rising, dusting off the tail of his coat and the seat of his breeches.

  “What’s that foul stench?” Capt. Whitehead wondered aloud.

  “An host of Italians with the shite scared out of them?” Lewrie japed.

  “Garbage, I think, sir,” Whitehead said with a shrug and wrinkling his nose. “Should I advance the ranks, sir?”

  “Aye,” Lewrie agreed. “Search all the houses and such as you come to them, in case there are Frenchmen lurkin’. I’ll be along, shortly, soon as I prime my pistols. Mister Grace?” he called over his shoulder.

  “Here, sir,” Grace piped up.

  “Post your men either end of the quay, and at the mouths of the streets leading into town,” Lewrie said, his hands busy with pistol pans and a priming powder flask. “Stay out of the taverns, mind.”

  “As we did before at Bova Marina, sir,” Grace replied. “Should I post Desmond and Kitch to that duty, again, sir?” he added, grinning at the memory.

  “Oh, God save us,” Lewrie said with a mock shiver. “They’ll swear they’ll keep sobre, but return aboard with wine kegs under their arms!”

  “They were sort of reliable,” Grace smirked.