Kings and Emperors

by Dewey Lambdin

  “I started with a string of five in Portugal,” Percy went on, fondling his mount’s forehead and muzzle, “and now I’ve two left, and my mare is lame, and without shoes, so I suppose it’s be kindest to shoot her, too, but…” He broke off and buried his face against his horse’s neck.

  “The depot, surely…,” Lewrie tried to encourage.

  “They’ve no grain,” Percy told him, leaning back. “We were told the Spanish would provide, and I doubt they could shoe no more than a single squadron before running out, and most of the farriers marched with the army, anyway … dead back in those damned mountains,” he said as he waved towards the far, forbidding heights.

  “The big convoy’s due any hour,” Lewrie promised, hoping that there were horse transports; he was an Englishman, a horse-lover from birth, and despised the thought of Percy’s magnificent horse being shot to keep it from the French, or to keep it from starving.

  “I must get back to my post,” Percy announced, after a grim look-over the so-far-empty harbour. “We’re brigaded with Fraser’s Division, to defend the open country and the road from Vigo. That’s about the only place where French cavalry could attack. I’d offer you a supper in our regimental mess, but I doubt you’d care for oat meal and hard bisquit.”

  “I get enough o’ that aboard ship,” Lewrie said with a little stab at humour, then offered his hand. “You take care, now, Percy. We’ll do what we can to save you and your men.”

  “I count on it, Alan,” Percy replied, shaking hands strongly. “I wonder … if anything does happen to me, would you see to…?” He reached inside his ornately trimmed tunic and withdrew a packet of wax-sealed letters, bound in a short stack with ominously black ribbon.

  “Christ, Percy, how would I know when t’mail ’em, not knowin’ whether you’re alive, or fallen?” Lewrie exclaimed. “I might frighten Eudoxia and Lydia to death with false news!”

  “Nothing that grim, no, Alan!” Percy told him with his first sign of good humour. “Merely last expressions of love, just in case. I didn’t write me will, for God’s sake, no ‘by the time you get this’ nonsense!”

  “Alright, then,” Lewrie promised, taking the packet and putting the letters in a side pocket of his coat. “Though, you’ll be on some transport, and I don’t know where I’m goin’ from here, but I’ll post ’em for you.”

  “That’s true, but mail them anyway,” Percy told him, stepping back near his horse’s saddle and gathering up the reins. “I suppose this will be the last chance to see each other, as you say, so … do you take care, yourself, Alan.”

  “If the French come, give ’em Hell,” Lewrie replied.

  “We’ve already done a good job of that, and I intend to if they dare. Goodbye, old son,” Percy said as he mounted. “And, I think my sister a damned fool for her choices.”

  There was no reply that Lewrie could make to that statement; all he could do was doff his hat as Colonel Percy, Viscount Stangbourne, wheeled his mount about and cantered off.

  “Boats are coming back, sir,” Midshipman Hillhouse reported as Lewrie paced to the seaward end of the stone quays. “Fresh oarsmen, it looks like.”

  “Excellent,” Lewrie told him, looking over the harbour waters. The snow had stopped, and the scudding clouds appeared higher, and lighter in colour, as if the Winter gloom might abate.

  “There, sir!” Captain Chalmers shouted, pointing seaward. “See there, sir! Damme, why did I not bring my glass with me?”

  Lewrie went to his side and cupped his hands either side of his eyes. “Yes, by God! Yes, thankee Jesus!”

  Admiral Hood’s vast armada of over an hundred transport ships was sailing into sight, sail after sail, mast after mast, stacked up against each other from one end of the vista to the other, and stretching far out to sea as if the on-coming columns of ships would never end. The nearest would come to anchor within two hours, whilst the farthest out to sea might take ’til dusk to get into Corunna.

  “Gad, what a magnificent sight!” Chalmers crowed.

  “About bloody time,” Lewrie added with less enthusiasm after his initial outburst.

  “Oh, surely, Captain Lewrie,” Chalmers countered, “one simply must be awed by such a sight.”

  “Oh, I’m awed, no error, Captain Chalmers,” Lewrie said, “but, if the French get here before the army can begin to evacuate, they’ll have to stand under arms, where they are, and perform a fighting withdrawal before we can get ’em into boats and safely aboard all those transports. This ain’t over, not by a long shot.”

  “One might think you a pessimist, sir,” Captain Chalmers said rather stiffly.

  “Just a simple sailor, me,” Lewrie rejoined with a grin.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  All the sick, wounded, and exhausted soldiers were aboard the transports, as much of the depot’s supplies were either removed to the ships, and the rest scandalised. The Spanish artillery in the Citadel, the little island castle of San Antonio off the town’s defences, and along the long sea walls were either spiked, levered over into the harbour waters, or turned about to face landward.

  Yet, as Lewrie suspected, General Sir John Moore’s army still stood in their positions along the Monte Mero, on Santa Lucía Hill, and upon the Vigo Road approaches. The transports were waiting, the twelve sail of the line were anchored to provide fire should the French swarm over the defences and gain the town, but … everyone waited, and no one would, or could, tell anyone why.

  Moore had brought the remnants of his army to Corunna on the 11th of January, Lewrie’s convoy had come in on the 13th, and defencive positions had been taken up on the 12th, but …

  * * *

  “Good morning, sir,” Sailing Master Yelland said, tipping his hat as Lewrie left his great-cabins for the quarterdeck on the morning of the 16th. “It looks to be a brighter day.”

  “Hmmph,” was Lewrie’s comment. The skies were clearer, and a weak Winter sun now and then peeked through the grey clouds slowly scudding inland. The harbour waters were chopped with short, steep waves, strewn with white-caps and white-horses, and were a tad more green than the steel grey of the day before, a sure sign that out to sea there had been heavy weather. Lewrie went to the bulwarks for a look seaward, then to the Second Rate flagship for any signals that might tell him anything, but finally turned his telescope shoreward to see if he could make out what the army was doing, or if the enemy had arrived in the night.

  He finally lowered his telescope and collapsed the tubes so he could stow it in a coat pocket, shaking his head in weariness, and disappointment. He heard a hopeful whine by his right knee, and felt a muzzle touch his leg. Bisquit had come for a snack, and a touch of human comfort.

  “Yeovill already cooked you a warm breakfast,” Lewrie said to the dog, “and you’re still hungry? Oh, here, then.” For just such an eventuality, he’d put a spare sausage in his pocket, and held it out for Bisquit to whine and jump at, balanced on his hind legs. “Might be too spicy for ye.”

  No, it wasn’t, for Bisquit chewed up the token morsel and went puppy-eyed for more, licking his chops and sweeping the deck clean with a rapidly wagging tail.

  “Good morning, sir,” Lieutenant Harcourt greeted him, doffing his hat. Greetings also came from Marine Lieutenants Keane and Roe.

  “On deck for the chilly air, sirs?” Lewrie asked them. “Or, to satisfy your curiosity?”

  “Curiosity, sir,” Lt. Keane allowed, followed a second later by his subordinate, Lt. Roe, who confessed, “Bored, sir.”

  “I know it’s not our proper place,” Lt. Keane went on, “and I know that our meagre Marine contingent would make no difference if a battle is to be fought … sometime … but I do wish that we were ashore with the army.”

  “If only to see what’s happening, sir,” the younger Lt. Roe added. “If all the warships present mustered their Marines, we might amount to a battalion.”

  “They’d only put you in reserve, sirs,” Lewrie had to tell them, “guardin’ what’s l
eft of the depot, or mannin’ the sea walls. You have just as good a view from here of … whatever.”

  “Ah, good morning, sir,” Lt. Westcott said as he, too, came to the quarterdeck from the wardroom below. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

  “Good morning, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said. “Bored, or just curious? There seems to be a lot of both, this morning.”

  “Both, sir,” Westcott said with one of his fierce, brief grins. “Though I could use a long nap after cutlass drill. That still on?”

  “Aye, if only t’keep the hands awake,” Lewrie said. “Have ’em work up a mild sweat, keep warm…”

  “Hark, sir!” Mr. Yelland interrupted, going to the bulwark facing the shore, and cupping a hand to his ear. “I could swear that I hear cannon fire.”

  That made them all peer round the vast anchorage to see if one of the ships of the line was holding live-firing practise, or if a storm might be coming, one with thunder and lightning; but there was no sign of either.

  “Aye, I thought so!” Yelland said, pointing ashore. “There’s gun-smoke rising along yon line of hills.”

  That prompted everyone to fetch out their telescopes, or grab a spare from the compass binnacle racks, and crowd the bulwarks for a good look. Slowly, the sound of cannon rose in volume, and spent powder smoke spread along the whole length of the Monte Mero, sickly yellow-white and lingering, merging together into a long pall that hardly seemed to move despite the breeze off the sea, with taller thunderheads of smoke rising to mark the positions of enemy batteries and British batteries as they duelled with each other for supremacy.

  “Well, the French have come at last,” Lewrie summed up. “We can only hope they arrived in as poor condition as our army when it got here. Hah! Maybe they’re so hungry they’re fightin’ to seize what’s left of the food in the depot!”

  “I simply don’t understand this, sir,” said Midshipman Leverett, who was standing nearby without even a pocket telescope to watch events unfold. “The army’s had bags of time to evacuate, long before the French showed up. Why are we still here, why’s the army still here?”

  “Well, the depot had to be emptied to supply, feed, and re-equip the troops, first,” Marine Lieutenant Keane said, “and there were the sick and wounded to be seen to. That took time. General Moore had to set out defences should the French arrive in the middle of that. If he had begun the evacuation, yesterday say, his defence line would now be a lot closer to the town and the docks, and the French would capture half the army … just roll over the few regiments still on shore.”

  “And, perhaps it’s because the French are starving, frozen solid, their own cavalry and artillery lost in those mountains in pursuit,” Marine Lieutenant Roe, Keane’s second-in-command, added, “and Moore now has the upper hand. If he holds, and bloodies them, the French can’t interfere when he does begin to evacuate.”

  “Or, maybe General Moore is tired of being chased all round Spain, and wants to get in a hard lick at them to show the French, and Napoleon, who’s the better soldier,” Lt. Westcott commented with one brow up. “What? Just saying,” he had to add, after almost all officers on the quarterdeck turned to look at him, amazed by such a suggestion. “In his shoes, wouldn’t you want to get in the last blow?”

  We do insane things for our pride, Lewrie thought, peering intently shoreward; for God, King, and Country … and ourselves.

  The sound of the bombardment, and counter-bombardment was louder, now, the concussions spreading out from the Monte Mero ridges to make the bare limbs of trees ashore tremble, to create wee ripples of harbour water that spread outward from the docks at Santa Lucía. He cocked an ear and imagined that he could almost hear the twigs-in-a-fire crackling of musketry, but he shook his head, thinking that it was much too soon for the French to advance their infantry columns and come down from the further ridges of the Peñasquedo to attempt to march up the slopes of the Monte Mero. He hoped that Moore was husbanding his soldiers on the reverse slopes, as Wellesley had done at Vimeiro, even as Sir Brent Spencer had planned at Ayamonte.

  They’ll keep bangin’ away with artillery for a time yet, he told himself; unless they really are starvin’! If the French do get atop the ridge … hmm.

  “Mister Yelland,” he called out over his shoulder, his view intent upon the near shores, “those transports East of the quays at Santa Lucía … they’re anchored rather close to shore. How deep are the waters there, d’ye think? Do your charts show?”

  “Close to shore, sir?” Yelland asked, rubbing his chin.

  Always was slow on the up-take, Lewrie thought.

  “Should it be necessary to close the shore and fire our guns to support the army should it be driven back, how close could we get, I’m asking,” Lewrie patiently told him.

  “I’ll go look, sir,” the Sailing Master said, taking off his hat and scratching his scalp for a second; “Close” and “Shore” together in one sentence put the wind up every officer responsible for the safe navigation of a King’s Ship.

  “I will join you,” Lewrie said, closing the tubes of his telescope and steeling his nostrils for an assault as he went to the improvised chart space.

  As Lewrie expected, the shore was steep-to, sloping off sharply, and littered with large boulders, but the old Spanish charts did show at least five fathoms of depth within a quarter-mile of the coast. East of the commercial piers of Santa Lucía there was a deep notch, a cove or inlet that resembled a large, circular bite out of a sandwich, just beneath the heights of Santa Lucía Hill, which was the end of the Monte Mero ridge. With the use of a long brass ruler, Lewrie could determine that if they entered that cove, they would have a direct line-of-sight to the Monte Mero, and could take any French mass of troops, advancing triumphantly on Corunna, in enfilade, and if they came on in their massed columns, Sapphire’s guns could rake their flanks with all her weight of metal.

  “There’s this little stream that runs down from the hills, from Elvina to spill out into the bay below Santa Lucía,” Lewrie pointed out with a pencil stub. “If Moore is dis-lodged from the ridge, that’d be a good line t’try and hold, and we could smash the French columns right on their right flank. It’s what … hmm, five fathoms, or the Spanish equivalent … a quarter-mile from the rocky shore…”

  “At mean low tide,” Yelland dubiously agreed, “though there’re these two rocky outcrops, wee islands, and the depths between…”

  “We get between ’em, right here,” Lewrie said, making an X to mark the place on the chart. “If we have to, Mister Yelland.”

  “If we can thread our way through the transports crammed about the quays, sir,” Yelland cautioned. “They are anchored close to ease the rowing distance from shore to ship. Corunna’s as crowded as the Pool of London, or worse, even with the loaded ships moved seawards.”

  “It’d take some crafty ship-handlin’, aye,” Lewrie said, standing erect from leaning over the inclined chart table, and tossing the pencil into a low shelf on the back edge. “But, if the army runs into trouble, I’ll not have it said that the Navy let ’em down. That’s what they pay us for … crafty ship-handlin’, right?”

  “Right, sir,” Mr. Yelland said, looking as if he had been ordered to thread ’twixt Scylla and Charybdis, hunt up the fabled Northwest Passage through Midwinter icebergs, or sell his first-born son; that glint in his eyes, and the way he licked his lips, told Lewrie that Mr. Yelland was badly in need of a stiff “Norwester” glass of grog.

  Lewrie stepped back out onto the quarterdeck, took a deep and refreshing breath of clean air, then trotted up the ladderway to the poop deck for a better vantage point. The cannonading was continuing, with no sign of a French breakthrough … yet. When he swivelled to look to the West, where Percy Stangbourne’s cavalry guarded the road from Vigo, he could not spot any sign of a French attack. Whoever was in command of the French troops looked as if he was throwing all he had at the Monte Mero, so far.

  Can’t be Napoleon himself, then, Lewrie thought; t
hat bastard would be sneaky enough t’feint an attack where Moore’s strongest, and hit him where he’s weakest.

  * * *

  Lewrie returned to the quarterdeck after a break to warm up in his great-cabins, and have Yeovill fetch a pot of hot tea from the galley, and, admittedly, to visit his quarter-gallery toilet. He saw his crew gathered all down the bulwarks facing the shore, half-way up the shrouds, in the fighting tops to watch what was happening ashore. Some men of the off-watch division had eschewed four hours of sleep below, and were on deck in their warmest clothing, with their blankets wrapped round them.

  “Any change?” Lewrie asked the First Officer, who was sipping a cup of tea himself, with his own boat cloak wrapped round him for warmth.

  “It gets louder, now and then, sir, then fades out a bit,” Lt. Westcott said with a bored expression on his face. “Every now and then I think I can hear musketry, but, who knows?” he said with a shrug. “We seem to be holding them in check.”

  Lewrie pulled out his pocket watch to note that it was a little past 10 in the morning of the 16th of January, and the fighting had begun just round 9 A.M. He looked shoreward with his telescope for a long minute, then lowered it and looked round his own decks. Hands were looking aft at the quarterdeck, now that he was back.

  Lewrie made up his mind with a firm nod, then went to the edge of the quarterdeck to lean on the cross-deck hammock stanchions.

  “Lads!” he called out loudly, drawing everyone’s attention to him. “The Army’s holding the damned Frogs, so far! I’ll tell you what I know from when I was ashore at Vimeiro!”

  He described the French column formations, and how they marched shoulder to shoulder like a massive blue carpet, how the British Army kept their men safe behind the ridges yonder ’til it was time to come up and shoot those columns to a bloody standstill; how the exploding Shrapnel shells would burst over them and scatter bodies about; how a reef of dead and wounded would pile up knee or thigh high, when the French would stall, unable to step over those reefs, even though the drums and the officers would still urge them forward; and he told them how the French had broken and run, at last, and how vain those shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” would be.