A Hard, Cruel Shore

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Enjoy your nap, sir,” Elmes bade Westcott as that worthy left the quarterdeck for the wardroom below. Elmes settled himself on the larboard, windward side of the quarterdeck and raised his telescope to scan the horizon to satisfy himself that there were no sails in sight to windward. After a moment, he crossed to the lee bulwarks to make an even closer search of the Spanish coast.

  There was a playful bark behind him, followed, by the stamp of boots on the deck, and hands on a musket stock. “Cap’um on deck!” the Marine sentry announced.

  “Good morning, Mister Elmes,” Lewrie genially said.

  “Good morning, sir,” Elmes replied, trying to doff his hat, but Bisquit was greeting him with paws on his chest.

  “Any trade this morning?” Lewrie asked, coming to the leeward side to raise his own glass.

  “Nothing yet, sir,” Lt. Elmes had to tell him, spieling off all that the First Officer had imparted just before going below.

  “Hmm,” Lewrie commented, making a face, “I wonder, if we’ve been too successful, we and the other ships. It seems as if we’ve scared the Frogs and run ’em into port. I expected that we might, but I did not think that would happen so quickly. No one’s spotted any semaphore towers, have they?”

  “No, sir,” Elmes replied, “though one would imagine that the French would have built a string of them, by now.”

  “Well, word of our presence got passed down the coast somehow,” Lewrie groused.

  “Despatch riders, I’d think, sir,” the Third Officer speculated with a shrug. “Heavily escorted, if the rumours about the doings of the Spanish partisans are true. Either way, sir, if the convoys are frightened into port, their supplies aren’t getting where they’re wanted.”

  “They’ve got them into Spain,” Lewrie said, “maybe not where they intended them to be, but the French can round up waggons and draught animals … horses, mules, oxen … and carry them on from there. Puts no silver in our bank accounts, though.”

  “If word of our presence reaches Bayonne as quickly as it seems to have spread along the coast, sir,” Lt. Elmes suggested, “no fresh supplies get sent by sea, not ’til we’ve left, and that’s all to the good, surely. And if the Pyrenees mountains are as bad as what our army suffered on the retreat to Corunna, keeping the French army in Spain supplied by that route would put them on very short commons.”

  “Not ’til the French’ve looted the countryside of the very last turnip,” Lewrie countered with a shake of his head and a wee laugh. “Carry on, Mister Elmes. It seems I’ve a dog to amuse. Come on, boy!”

  Bisquit’s new rope toy, a foot-long length of three-inch cable with a monkey’s fist worked into each end, was not as filthy and continually damp with dog slaver as the old one, though that wouldn’t last for long. He growled over it as Lewrie tugged one end, then went flying all over the poop deck to chase it down and fetch it back. After a time, Lt. Elmes and the watchstanders on the quarterdeck below had to duck whenever it sailed over, and the dog came bustling down after it. A very good throw even sent Bisquit to the ship’s waist and back, before he finally tired of it and came to lay the toy at Lewrie’s feet, and join him on the taffrail flag lockers, head and fore paws in his lap for a lazy petting.

  Lewrie eyed the windward corner of the poop deck where he would have his collapsible wood-and-canvas deck chair lashed. The weather was almost warm enough, the last few days, to fetch it out from storage. Oh, other captains might think it idle, lazy, and lubbery, but Lewrie didn’t give a fig what people made of his indulgence.

  Not quite time, yet, he told himself; give it a month or more. And where are the bloody French, anyway?

  He swivelled about to peer up to windward, off Sapphire’s larboard quarter, where his clutch of four prizes idled along under reduced sail, about five miles more to seaward. He wondered if their presence was a lure, or a hindrance. If French watchers ashore saw what appeared to be a convoy, would the ones in port feel confident enough to hoist sail and continue their passages?

  Not as long as Sapphire’s in sight, they won’t, he thought; Now, if I armed the damned things and used ’em as Trojan horses …

  He shook his head, rejecting that idea at once as he returned his gaze in-board. He already had far too many hands, and Marines as guards aboard the cartel ship, handling the prizes, and to send them close inshore flying false flags would require even more of Sapphire’s people, reducing his ship’s efficiency even more. None of the French convoys they’d met so far had been under escort, but that might change, and if it came to a proper fight, he’d have trouble manning all of Sapphire’s guns, or have enough hands to repel boarders.

  Well, maybe just one of ’em, he further mused, a small grin spreading on his face; if there’s need for a cutting-out. Ah, well.

  Bisquit’s eyes were closed, having himself a wee nap after his exertions, looking so content that Lewrie regretted having to rouse him.

  “Come on, Bisquit. Nap’s over,” he said, getting to his feet. “Wakey-wakey, lash up and stow. Don’t forget your toy. It’s almost time for cutlass drill … won’t that be fun, hey?”

  Lewrie and the dog went down to the quarterdeck, where he took another long look shoreward with his glass. “Last cast of the log, Mister Elmes?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Six and three-quarter knots, sir,” Elmes informed him.

  “Halfway ’twixt Llanes and Comillas,” Lewrie speculated, “and at this rate, we’ll be off Santander a little after Noon Sights. Take a long look in, perhaps fetch to … taunt ’em, see if anyone’d come out t’face us?”

  “Get into a fight, sir?” Elmes said with a hopeful grin.

  “Never can tell, sir,” Lewrie told him, collapsing the tubes of his telescope. “The shore shoulders out, ahead. Call me when you feel it necessary to alter course to stay twelve miles off.”

  “Of course, sir,” Elmes promised.

  “Ehm, here, Mister Fywell,” Lewrie said, holding out Bisquit’s rope toy to him. “Keep him amused, if he’s still of a mind.”

  “Uh, aye, sir!” Fywell exclaimed, though he took the toy with only one finger and thumb, suspecting that it had gotten very slobbered.

  “I’ll be aft,” Lewrie announced, then went to his cabins.

  Midshipman Fywell shared a look with the Third Lieutenant, one of silent amusement.

  “Some Captains are quirkier than others, Mister Fywell,” Lt. Elmes told him. “Carry on with the, ah … amusing.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Good Lord, it’s an armada, sir! Just look at that!” Lt. Elmes cried with glee as Sapphire and her prizes hove in sight of the other ships of the squadron at the “rondy” far out to sea from the coasts of Spain. “The others have made a fine reaping.”

  “Well, we haven’t done so bad, ourselves,” Lewrie agreed as he counted masts on the horizon. He could just make out his warships by the commissioning pendants that streamed from their mainmast trucks, but the rest…! “Sixteen, seventeen … nineteen!” he marvelled half to himself. ’Til they fetched them hull-up and determined their types, they appeared, for the most part, to be two-masted brigs, their sizes a match, he imagined, to the ones that Sapphire had taken. He looked astern to the six that now trailed his ship, suddenly feeling like a piker to have not taken as many prizes as Undaunted, Sterling, Blaze, and Peregrine had done.

  That’s what I get for having such a slow ship, he thought; We couldn’t catch half of what we chased.

  He lowered his telescope and drew out his pocket watch, then did a quick estimation in his head. Stowing it back away, he called to the nearest Midshipman. “Mister Chenery, go forrud and pass word for my cook. I’ll be dining our Captains aboard, round one in the afternoon, I’d imagine.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Chenery replied, tapping the brim of his hat and dashing off for the galley to hunt up Yeovill.

  “Shaping well, sir,” Lt. Elmes commented. “He and Holbrooke take to the life like ducks to water.”

  “Aye, they h
ave,” Lewrie agreed, “though what they think they know, and what’s still to learn, is dumbfounding. I count nineteen prizes yonder. What count do your younger eyes make of it?”

  After a long minute or two of scanning the horizon, Elmes lowered his own glass and rubbed at his eyes. “Close to that, sir, but they’re all in a jumble, sailing close to each other under reduced sail, just idling along, and they overlap each other,” he cautiously declared. “We’ll know more when the other Captains come aboard, and crow about their ‘bags’.”

  “I’ll have t’trot out the good wine, then,” Lewrie said with a laugh, “and by the third bottle, the numbers might even increase!”

  “So much for in vino veritas, sir,” Lt. Elmes sniggered.

  “Leapt from the main top t’their quarterdeck, dagger in my teeth, sword in each hand, and slew a dozen in one blow,” Lewrie pretended to boast. “Grabbed the nearest nine-pounder, fired it from the hip, and dis-masted ’em. And then…!”

  “Tales do grow in the telling, aye sir,” Elmes agreed, “especially when well lubricated with drink.”

  “Aye, don’t they just,” Lewrie said, looking forward down the length of the weather decks and the waist. Sapphire’s crewmen were crowded along the sail-tending gangways, on the forecastle, and halfway up the shrouds for a good look at the impending “rondy” with the other ships of the squadron. Someone had struck up a fiddle tune, and a fife joined in, and sailors laughed in glee to marvel over what a success the squadron had won. Everyone would soon be flush with prize-money, even if Sapphire had not been “in sight” at the moment that those French supply ships had struck their colours, and would have no share in those prizes. To match the festive mood, the weather had cleared, the days-on-end gloomy overcast had dissolved, revealing clear blue skies and vast expanses of white cloud banks, and the sea had calmed to only five- or six-foot waves of a steely blue colour, with cheerful, non-threatening white caps.

  At the moment, Sapphire did not quite appear as a dreadful man o’ war, either, for sailors’ clothing, soaked by rain and spray, was now hung out to dry, at least everywhere one looked.

  Truth be told, Lewrie’s stern gallery was strung with a clothes line on which several shirts and pairs of slop-trousers flapped in the wind. It would all have to come down by Noon Sights, and be well out of sight by the time the other Captains were welcomed aboard. Lewrie only hoped that the long soakings in fresh rain water would have gotten the salt crystals out, so he, and the rest of Sapphire’s people, would not develop salt-water boils from the constant chafing irritation. That would cut into the Ship’s Surgeon’s, Mr. Snelling’s, fees for lancing and salving them, but that was his lookout.

  Lewrie glanced upward and aft to the poop deck. If the weather improved, he would have his deck chair rigged, but not quite yet.

  “I’ll be aft ’til Noon Sights,” Lewrie announced, then went to enter his cabins.

  * * *

  “The pickings were so good off Ferrol and Corunna that I had to end up burning more than I cared to,” Capt. Yearwood of Sterling boasted after his third glass of a pleasant Spanish tempranillo.

  “Aye, eight we took, all told,” Commander Teague of HMS Blaze stuck in, “and we could have fetched out even more, but after a time, we just ran out of hands to man the prizes, and work our ships in the proper numbers.”

  “Oh, Blamey and I found a way to man ours,” Capt. Chalmers of Undaunted said with a satisfied smirk. “Much easier when we allowed the French to row or sail ashore. No need for guards.”

  “The big one we took,” Lewrie said at the head of the table, “we turned into a cartel ship. She was bound back to Bayonne, empty and on her own. Your prisoners, Captain Yearwood, can be transferred to her, if you’ve a mind.”

  “Glad to see the back of them, thank you, sir,” Yearwood said with amusement. “Even if she evaded us, more’s the pity.”

  “By the by, Captain Chalmers,” Lewrie went on, “we snapped up the next biggest near Santander, one that got away from you.”

  “Oh, aye?” Chalmers replied, frowning a little as if suspecting that he would be twitted, or chastised for not taking her.

  “Her master was just spluttering indignation,” Lewrie told them, “that he’d been the sole survivor, got away by the skin of his teeth, and still got caught. He thought it most unfair.”

  “Well, a clean sweep was made of that little convoy, after all, for which I thank you, sir,” Chalmers replied after a blink or two to decide how to take that news.

  “Aye, she must have been the one that got into a thick squall whilst we were fetched-to taking possession of the others,” Commander Blamey boomed out in good cheer. “Good to know that she didn’t get far, haw haw.”

  “That ship’s cargo of pickled vegetables liven our dinner,” Lewrie boasted. “Damned clever, the French.”

  “Hear, hear!” Capt. Yearwood roared, lifting his glass.

  “I wonder, though…,” Lewrie said after everyone had drained their glasses, and refills were being poured. “The next time we close this coast, it may not be rich pickings. Surely, the French will provide escorts, in future. As a matter of fact, I’m surprised that they haven’t, yet.”

  “I hope they do, sir,” Chalmers declared, “so we can have a proper fight.” That sentiment was heartily seconded by one and all.

  “More prize-money, taking a national ship, than a merchantman,” Commander Teague agreed.

  “Speaking of prize-money,” Lewrie told them, “it’s about time we shape course for Lisbon, and turn our prizes over to the Admiralty Court that’s been established there. I think we’ve all more than earned a little run ashore … some welcome liberty for our sailors, and ourselves?”

  That decision was cheered with another glass-draining toast.

  “You don’t know if we have a prison hulk at Lisbon, do you, sir?” Capt. Yearwood asked. “Or, will our prisoners be turned over to an army prison?”

  “I don’t know,” Lewrie had to confess. “There was no mention in my orders, or my last letters from London, when I requested that a store ship be placed there. Admiralty confirmed that, at least. Hmm … the cartel ship’s empty of anything of value to the French. We could set ’em free to sail her into Vigo, on our way to Lisbon. Or, transfer them all to one of the least value, and let ’em sail her into Vigo … as far from France, and a quick return as possible.”

  “With nought but their sea-chests, and pocket money, aye, and let them be a drain on the Vigo garrison,” Commander Blamey laughed.

  “And, the main course, sirs,” Yeovill announced as he lifted the lid of a large serving tray, “a suckling pig, gentlemen, done to a turn, with apple sauce, cheesy potato halves, and pickled carrots,” he boasted as Pettus and Jessop set out the various bowls.

  “Commander Blamey, might I prevail upon you to carve?” Lewrie asked.

  “My pleasure, sir!” Blamey replied, getting to his feet and taking up the large knife and fork. “Now, who shall have this particularly fine slice? Captain Chalmers, if you will pass me your plate? Plenty to go around, sirs, a gracious plenty, hah hah!”

  “D’ye think this tempranillo will serve, or should we break out a claret?” Lewrie asked them.

  The tempranillo would go down quite well, the others assured him as their plates were passed down, filled with slices of pork and passed back.

  Lewrie awaited his own plate’s return with a pleased grin on his face, thinking that his ad hoc little squadron had gelled together quite nicely, so far, and had been so successful that there was not a one of those officers that he could find even a wee fault with. Their first cruise together had worked most wondrously.

  And soon, they would be in Lisbon. And he could send for Maddalena.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  There were no anchorages anywhere close to the Praça do Comercio or the fashionable centre district of Baixa, for the Tagus River was jam-packed with shipping to support the British army that still held the city and its environs. The closest
to the city that Lewrie’s squadron and impressive clutch of prizes could find room to anchor was near the South bank of the river, near Almada and Barreiro, making for a long row to thread through busy harbour traffic to the North shore, and the piers.

  Sapphire had fired off a gun salute as she led the squadron into port, though to whom Lewrie had no way of knowing, for no one had a clue to the ranks of the officers of the warships they could see; there were a couple of Commodores’ broad pendants visible on two 74-gun two-deckers, solid red pendants declaring that those Commodores were of the senior variety, with their own Flag Captains, but no one could discover an Admiral’s flag. Lewrie had ordered fifteen to be fired, and hoped for the best, sure that someone’s superior nose was going to be out of joint, and he’d hear about it, sooner or later.

  Their latest copy of Steel’s list was several weeks out of date, anyway, and though he had hoisted the numeral flags to declare which ship he commanded, not one of the Navy vessels present thought to make their own numbers back in reply.

  “My, but you’re turned out smart,” Lt. Westcott teased as Lewrie came to the quarterdeck in his best-dress uniform, with the star and sash of his knighthood, his presentation sword on his hip, and his new bicorne hat on his head.

  “Ye never can tell, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie japed in tune to his First Lieutenant, “I might impress somebody. I’ll try the Prize-Court, first, then the Post Office. Someone at either must know who I should report to. My boat alongside?”

  “Aye, sir, and the crew scrubbed up in their finest, too,” Westcott told him.

  “Very well, then, sir,” Lewrie said, “you have the ship. And if anyone sends a complaint aboard, or comes t’curse us out, himself, my apologies for you havin’ t’be the goat.”

  It was quite a bundle that Lewrie had to bear ashore with him, all the pertinent documents off the French prizes, their registries, their bills of lading, manifests, and muster books of masters, mates, and sailors captured, then released at Vigo. In addition, he carried another packet of personal letters and his comprehensive reports of their cruise from Portsmouth to the Spanish coast, the doings of all the ships under his command, and a separate list of the prizes they had taken; tonnage, cargoes, lengths, and estimates of their material conditions.