“That’s the First Lieutenant’s job, is it not, sir?” Hayman joshed. “To present his Captain a going concern, no matter what his own preferences might be?”
“And allow his Captain his runs ashore among the pleasures, hmm?” Lewrie posed, with a glance at Fillebrowne.
“’Til he’s made ‘Post’ and has his turn, hah!” Shirke laughed.
“What a city is Venice,” Lewrie slyly prompted, “and so full of valuable things goin’ for a song at the time, with everyone fearful of the French marchin’ in and pillagin’ the place. I recall you did well there, Captain Fillebrowne.”
“Oh, well, I suppose I did,” Fillebrowne agreed, perking up. “I obtained some paintings, furniture, and a marvellous pair of Greco-Roman bronzes that had just turned up on the antiquities market, found in shoal water off the Balkan coast.”
“Captain Fillebrowne is a collector, with an eye for values,” Lewrie told the others. “Runs in the family, don’t it?”
“Yes, it does,” Fillebrowne said, breaking a smile, at last. “Father, uncles, aunts, and my elder brothers all did their Grand Tours, and I was exposed to such things early-on. Could not help developing a discerning eye, what?”
“I thought t’give it a flutter,” Lewrie went on in a casual way, “but an old school friend of mine, Clotworthy Chute, warned me off. He and Peter Rushton were in Venice, lookin’ for a way out when we were there, and he told me that the bulk o’ such were shams, moulded over forms, then put in salt water for a month or two, so even he couldn’t tell whether the things were made in Julius Caesar’s time, or last week. He’s an eye, too, and runs a reputable antiquities shop in London, now.”
In point of fact, Lewrie knew that Fillebrowne’s treasured old bronzes were shams, ’cause Clotworthy Chute had had them made, then sold them to Fillebrowne for hundreds of pounds, laughing all the way to help Lewrie get his own back!
“Indeed,” Fillebrowne archly replied, looking worried. “As I recall, this Chute fellow was the one who authenticated them for me, and brokered their sale.”
“Well, there you are, then!” Lewrie jovially said. “Nothing t’worry about. As for me, Chute found me some dress-makin’ fabrics and some drapery material, toys, and a brass lion-head doorknocker.”
Fillebrowne peered closely at Lewrie as if wondering if he was being twitted, but the cabin servants cleared the soup course and set out the grilled fish, and the bustle of activity seized Fillebrowne’s attention.
Over port, cheese, and sweet bisquits, Shirke briefly outlined his plans for convoying, assigning Lewrie and Sapphire to a flanking position, with Captain Hayman’s Tiger to be the “bulldog” or the whipper-in at the rear of the convoy to chivvy slow sailing transports to speed up and keep proper order. Lewrie made it plain that his ship was not fast enough for that role, and that Hayman might have to give Sapphire a reminder to keep up. “I plod, sirs, even on the best days!” he said with a deprecating laugh.
* * *
“If you will not stand on the order of your going, sir, I wish a word,” Shirke said as they went out to the quarterdeck once supper was done.
“Well, of course,” Lewrie agreed, wondering what Shirke had in mind. Tradition demanded that Lewrie debark first, but …
He and Shirke doffed their hats to salute Fillebrowne’s departure, then Hayman’s. Shirke pulled a slim cigarro from a pocket and leaned over the compass binnacle’s lit lamp, opened it, and got his cigarro afire, and took a few puffs.
“May I offer you one, sir?” Shirke asked.
“Never developed the habit,” Lewrie told him. “Thankee, no.”
“Hayman seems a nice-enough young fellow, don’t you agree?”
“Nice? Aye, I s’pose so,” Lewrie said, canting his head over to one side. “Eager t’win his spurs, with his first frigate, and his promotion. He didn’t even look disappointed t’be the ‘bulldog.’”
“Were I in his shoes, I would have pouted,” Shirke confessed with a chuckle. “Ad hoc squadrons, thrown together at the last minute … perhaps we’ll learn to rub together on passage to Cádiz, before we pick up the troop convoy. Fillebrowne, though. You worked with him before. What the Devil is he, a naval officer, or an art collector?”
“A bit of both, really,” Lewrie said with a shrug. “He did as good as one could expect in the Adriatic, but with little to write home about. His storerooms and part of the orlop stowage were full of valuable acquisitions, so he may have been touchy about taking too much damage. I can’t recall him being engaged on his own, and when we were sailing as a four-ship squadron, we took prizes without more than challenge shots bein’ fired.”
“Is there bad blood between you two?” Shirke asked.
“The arrogant prick took up with two women close to me, and boasted of it, slyly,” Lewrie admitted. “One a former mistress, the other the wife of a patron, a ‘cream-pot’ love of mine during the American Revolution, and neither such a loss, or a wrench, to make me kick furniture. I don’t know what his problem is, but for my part, I just don’t like him for bein’ an idle grasper. That’s not t’say that I can’t work with him. I’m senior to him on the Captain’s List by at least a year, and seniority’s a wondrous thing if one’s feelin’ spiteful,” he concluded with a wry laugh.
“Yes, and I’m senior to you,” Shirke pointed out with a sly twinkle.
“Feelin’ spiteful?” Lewrie teased.
“Not a bit of it,” Shirke told him. “What passed between us in the old days was youthful skylarking, and nothing personal.”
“The molasses in my hammock?” Lewrie asked. “Sendin’ me aloft t’pick dilberries? The paintbrush full o’ shit when I was the figurehead when we played ‘buildin’ ’a galley? Good God, but I was so naive! ‘Gild the figurehead’s face!’.”
“Aye, you were the most clueless sort of ‘new-come,’” Shirke said, and they both laughed over long-gone Midshipmen’s pranks. “I simply wished to see if you still held a grudge against me.”
“You were never a Rolston, just a prankster,” Lewrie replied. “Like you say, it was all youthful skylarking, and no harm done, to my body or my mind.”
“Good!” Shirke said, offering his hand. They shook; then Shirke drew on his cigarro for a minute. “Whatever did happen with Rolston, after old Captain Bales broke him to a common seaman?”
“He made Able, grew a beard, and was one of the mutineers in my crew at the Nore, under a false name,” Lewrie said. “I saw him drowned in chains, as we transferred prisoners once we made our escape. Very … eerie, it was.”
“Didn’t help him along, did you?” Shirke asked, wide-eyed.
“Let’s just say that a lot of eerie things happened with the Proteus frigate, her odd launch, the drowning of her Chaplain, how her first Captain went mad, and swore the ship was out to kill him?”
“Good Lord, a spook ship?” Shirke exclaimed.
“She was t’be Merlin, but she stuck fast on the ways when they called out ‘success to the Proteus,’” Lewrie told him, feeling a bit of a chill run up his spine, even long years after. “An Irish sawyer and his son laid hands on her forefoot, whispered something, and off she went. Her first Captain and Chaplain were Anglo-Irish cater-cousins, and when they boarded one night, the Captain said the man-ropes stung him like wasps, makin’ them both fall into the water. Never found the Chaplain’s body, then the Captain went ravin’ mad a day or two after. I never had a speck of bother from her, but, maybe that’s because some say I’m touched with a lucky cess.”
“And, maybe Proteus killed Rolston,” Shirke slowly said, with his brows knitted in awe. “He was a murderer, and dis-loyal to her! Gives me the shivers to even think about that!”
“There were some, me included, who thought her touched by the old pre-Christian gods,” Lewrie told him. “A better name might’ve been HMS Druid, or Wizard. Ye ever cross hawses with her, doff yer hat to her and speak respectful,” he suggested with a wink.
“Rather stand well aloof to windwa
rd,” Shirke confessed. “Well, it’s good to see an old companion from the old days, and know that he ain’t out to gut me. I hope to get under way by tomorrow’s dawn, weather permitting. I’ll dine you in when we drop anchor at Cádiz.”
“Hope ye like Spanish cuisine, Jemmy,” Lewrie said, offering his hand one more time. “It ain’t all bad.”
“On your way, Alan, and good luck,” Shirke said in parting.
* * *
Once back aboard Sapphire, and padding round his great-cabins in stockinged feet as he prepared for bed, Lewrie felt a strong urge to reminisce. Yes, he’d been the worst sort of fool when he first went aboard old Ariadne in 1780, sulky, feeling wronged that his father had shoved him into the Navy, just to lay his hands on an inheritance from his late mother’s side to clear his many debts, with him all far away and un-knowing how he’d been cheated. He’d been a right pain, and not for his nautical ignorance, but for his arrogant, cynical, and selfish attitude, feeling surrounded by slack-wit fools or un-feeling brutes.
Fond memories of my Midshipman days? he thought; Not hardly! I can laugh about it, now, but it wasn’t all that much fun. Jemmy Shirke, well. Hadn’t given him a thought in ages! I’ve no hard feelings. His pranks were cruel fun, but he meant nothing by them.
He had released Pettus and Jessop from duty and had the cabins to himself; just him and Chalky. He poured himself a wee dollop of brandy at the wine-cabinet, took the lone lit candle into his sleeping space, and found Chalky waiting for him with his front paws tucked under his chest, slit-eyed with drowsiness. That didn’t last for long. The cat rose and arched his back, going on tip-toes to stretch.
Lewrie finished his brandy, set the glass atop one of his sea-chests, snuffed the candle, and rolled into bed, with Chalky crawling up one leg to his chest to demand pets.
Fillebrowne, now … what t’make of him? Lewrie wondered.
It struck him as odd that Fillebrowne showed no curiosity at the mention of Thom Charlton, Benjamin Rodgers, or his First Officer in Myrmidon, Stroud. The man had tolerated Shirke, Hayman, and himself, and their tales of past experiences, offering none of his own, almost seeming impatient with their supper conversation.
We aren’t good enough for his sort, Lewrie decided, yawning; He thinks himself so far above the bulk o’ Mankind, I wonder if he has a single friend he thinks worthy.
“I just don’t like the bastard, puss,” Lewrie whispered to the cat, stroking its chops and under its neck as Chalky sprawled even closer and began to rumble. “And he doesn’t like anybody. He’s an amateur at this business, and I doubt the Navy was his decision. What’s a second or third son t’do, if your family says ‘go find your career, or else’? Good God, he might’ve been pressed, the same as me! I still don’t like him, though. Don’t trust him, either.”
Chalky belly-crawled up nearer his chin and began to lick and head swipe.
“G’night, Chalky. I love you, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mondego Bay was aswarm with troop transports and supply ships when the convoy bearing General Spencer’s five thousand men arrived, and the few piers in Figueira da Foz had been claimed by the first arrivals, the army under General Sir Arthur Wellesley. Most of his troops and supplies were ashore and encamped, so their convoy vessels could go close to the shore and ferry everything to a broad, deep hard-packed beach. All of Sapphire’s boats, and the larger cutters or launches from Newcastle, Assurance, and Tiger were put to the task.
“Hmpfh!” Lieutenant Geoffrey Westcott said with a snort after looking the scene over with his telescope. “Are we landing an army, or a parcel of visitors to Brighton? Look there, sir, at those soldiers skylarking.”
Lewrie raised his own glass to one eye and beheld what looked to be utter chaos. Dozens of ship’s boats were stroking shoreward to the beaches, soaring as they met the moderate waves of surf, and all crammed with piles of crates, kegs and barrels of rations, and infantrymen sitting upright between the oarsmen with their muskets held vertically ’twixt their tight-squeezed knees. But in the surf, pale and naked men were splashing, swimming, floating, or standing in thigh-deep water to let the incoming waves break over them. Further up the beach, barely dressed and bare-chested men were basking or footballing as if the entire army was having a Make and Mend day of idleness.
“One can only hope that French soldiers are as thin and spindly as ours,” Lewrie said with a sigh. “They look as pale as spooks.”
“They’re in the boats’ way!” Westcott groused.
“Uhm, no, I don’t think so,” Lewrie disagreed after a longer look. “Someone’s planted posts and flags along the beaches to clear a long stretch where the boats can land. The swimming areas are outside of that. Damme! Someone in our army half knows what he’s doing, for a change! The whole affair looks … organised.”
“Oh, now that you point it out, I see it,” Westcott said in a much milder voice, sounding as if he was disappointed that he could not have himself a good rant.
“Ye know, I’ve never been to Brighton,” Lewrie admitted. “I’ve taken the waters at Bath, but they say that saltwater bathing is good for you. Half-freezin’ your arse in the Channel, well. The seas here surely are warmer. I’m tempted t’take a dip, myself.”
“As I recall, though, sir, you cannot swim,” Westcott reminded him.
“I said ‘dip,’” Lewrie replied, “not ‘plunge.’ Wade, perhaps, and let the surf have its way with me, with my feet firmly planted in the sand. On such a warm day, well, it looks refreshin’.”
He swung his telescope back to the boats as they hobby-horsed the last fifty yards or so to ground their bows in the sand, rising on the incoming wave, surging onward as it broke and foamed round them. Sailors leapt out to walk the boats over the last incoming surge and steady them as the soldiers began to debark over the bows. Soldiers from other units came down from the low dunes and barrow overwashes to help the boat crews unload and stack crates, bundles, and kegs ashore.
Beyond them, lines of four-wheeled waggons and carts with two man-tall solid wooden wheels stood waiting. The half-battalion that had just set foot on shore stacked their arms up by the waggons, and began to carry all those goods to the waggons, where civilian Portuguese drivers and carters began the loading, under the supervision of British officers in shakoes or elegant bicorne hats.
It struck Lewrie that this landing was better organised than any he’d seen before, at Toulon, at Blaauberg Bay two years before at the invasion of the Dutch Cape Colony, certainly that shoddy mess at Buenos Aires. He suspected that the initial landing of General Wellesley’s army a day or two before had been just as efficient. Someone had given a long thought upon how to get troops, guns, waggons, and horses ashore quickly and smoothly, ready for battle the day after if necessary.
And all those waggons and carts … They were definitely not British Army issue, for upon a longer look, he could not discern more than four that looked similar, as if local towns in Portugal built their own styles. They were all the colours of the rainbow, as well, much like the lot that Sapphire had shot to smouldering kindling on the coast road from Málaga to Salobreña.
That must’ve cost Wellesley a pretty penny, Lewrie thought.
When they had landed General Spencer’s small army at Ayamonte, or Puerto de Santa María, the cost of hiring or leasing Spanish carts and waggons was as dear as purchasing them outright, and Spencer was as tight as the worst penny-pinching miser when it came to dipping into his army chest, practically weeping over every spent shilling. This General Wellesley, it seemed, had a much fatter purse, and was not averse to spending freely to keep all his supplies close by the heels of his soldiers, ready for issue or use.
“They’ll have their supplies in the waggons and be ready to march off in the next hour,” Lewrie predicted, lowering his telescope. “That regiment’s other half-battalion will be ashore with ’em by then, tents, cookpots, and all. We may have all of Spencer’s force off the ships by the start of the First
Dog this afternoon.”
“Who knew our army had it in them, sir?” Westcott said in sour wonder. “Is this one of Sir John Moore’s famous reforms?”
“Could be,” Lewrie whimsically replied. He turned away from the starboard quarterdeck bulwarks, put his hands in the small of his back, and peered upward at the long, streaming commissioning pendant for a hint of the wind direction, had a look seaward for signs of a change in the weather, then turned to look back at the beaches. The sea seemed a bit more boisterous further North of the bay, at Cape Mondego, but the bay itself, rather open to the prevailing Westerlies, looked safe, so far, for boat-work, and the surf that growled on the beaches was not too high.
Sea-bathing; it was tempting even if he could not swim a lick. The day was hot, and it wasn’t even close to Noon. He had already shed his uniform coat and hat, but still felt sweltering in waist-coat, shirt, neck-stock, breeches, and boots. The King, “Farmer George,” had begun the fad and made Brighton what it was today, with thousands of people of all classes who thought it fashionable to dunk themselves in perishing-cold water. He’d liked the springs at Bath; they were heated.
George the Third’s as batty as yer old maiden aunt, Lewrie told himself; Perhaps he was daft back then when he took his first dip!
“Signal from Admiral Cotton’s flagship, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth piped up. “Oh! Sorry, sir. It’s Newcastle’s number, and Captain Repair On Board, not Captains.”
“Dinin’ Jemmy Shirke in, is he?” Lewrie quipped. “Well, I’ve seen Jemmy eat with a knife and fork before, and he does it elegant. Oh, this’ll be embarrassin’. All our boats are away helpin’ with the landings, and Newcastle doesn’t have a raft available.”
Lewrie went to the larboard side of the quarterdeck to watch the show. Newcastle’s signal halliards sprouted a series of flags that repeated the flagship’s hoist. They remained aloft for a moment, then were struck down to be replaced with a single flag; the Unable.
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