“Perhaps we should take this inside, Mister Quill,” Col. Tarrant suggested, “to my office table.”
“Oh, of course, Colonel,” Quill replied, tossing his head back and laughing at his mistake; his own brand of laughter that sounded as if he was half-drowned or hiccuping. “Secrecy is the thing, what?”
Thank God he wasn’t really amused, Lewrie thought, for that form of noise quite put him off.
“Here, sirs,” Quill said a minute later after they had shifted inside, and the orderly had topped up all their glasses. “Near a wee coastal town called Pizzo,” he said, pointing a long, thin finger at the place, then moving his finger a tad north up the coast. “There is no garrison at Pizzo, though there is a sizable one at Vibo Valentia … here, to the south, and there may be a small garrison at Filadelfia, but that’s about an hour or two inland. Cavalry. Perhaps one squadron.”
“So, what’s at Pizzo?” Tarrant asked.
“It’s what’s north of Pizzo that matters, Colonel,” Quill said with a sly look. “See the road along the coast? Up by Saint Eufemia Lamezia, the land is open, and the road goes inland for a spell. But then it is shouldered out right along the coast by these hills. It is the only road, poor as it is, that supplies the French in Calabria, from Naples. And right there, there is a bridge,” he said with a grim smile of anticipated triumph.
“Wood, stone?” Major Gittings asked, with some excitement.
“Is stone,” Don Julio supplied, “very old, since Roman times. But only one cart or waggon wide,” he said, digging into a trouser pocket to produce a pencil sketch of it.
“Damn,” Col. Tarrant grimaced, “the Romans built to last, over-built really. It might take half the gunpowder you have aboard your ship, Sir Alan.”
“Where to place the charges, though,” Major Gittings, added, “I see one pillar in the centre of the span. Perhaps if we laid kegs both sides of that. This defile it spans, is it dry, Signore?”
“Most of the time, Signore Maggiore,” Don Julio replied with a shrug, and a lift of his hands. “Sometime in the heavy rains, there is a creek. In winter, mostly.”
“How did you get this sketch?” Lewrie had to ask.
“I have capo in Reggio di Calabria, Signore Capitano,” Caesare said with a conspiratorial wink. “He have son who is studying to be … how you say, builder of fine buildings?”
“An architect?” Col. Tarrant supplied.
“Sì sì, the … what you say,” Don Julio said with a shake of his head, “soft-headed boy is hopeless at the family business, too sweet, with his head in books all the time. He go sketch the churches, old castelli and palazzi, and i Francesi see picture of the bridge when they stop and question him, but do not notice. He brings back, and his father give to one of my Capitanos.”
“Don Julio’s, ah, associate,” Quill further explained, “saw the bridge and realised that its destruction would hurt the French, so I asked Don Julio to sail over and take a look at it.”
“Ah, sì,” Don Julio said with a crafty grin. “Do some fishing, go into Pizzo to drink and sell some things … fishing is very good off that coast. For the fish, and the informazioni, sì, heh heh? Right here is beach, coarse sand, and the gravel. Is word, gravel, sì? Good. Ten fathom water the three-quarter the miglio … mile?… off the beach, five, four and a half fathom a half a mile offshore. And what the bridge crosses comes right down to the sea, with molto bigger rocks above the beach.”
Caesare had drawn a pencil sketch of his scouting of all that, too, and laid it atop the rest of the papers with a laugh at his own boldness.
“How steep are the slopes, either side of the bridge?” Tarrant asked, frowning and humming over the sketch. “How do we get up there?”
“On north end, very steep, and the dry creek bed, not so bad,” Don Julio said with a dismissive shrug. “On south end, is easier to climb up. Molto boulders, can go up like goat, like step stones to the road, and the end of the bridge.”
“Hmm, one company in the gorge to lay the charges, and two or three companies to scale the boulders on the south end to cover the bridge ’til it’s blown,” Col. Tarrant decided. “Any French who come along would be coming from Filadelfia’s garrison, and the road that connects to the coast road leads into the north end.
“Our troops near the bridge, and in the rocks uphill from it could keep them busy. You say the bridge is only one waggon wide, sir? They can’t charge across it, then, unless they’re suicidal, so they’d have to dismount and skirmish with us in what cover they can find … with musketoons, not long-barrelled weapons.”
“Only three or four companies, this time, sir?” Lewrie asked.
“Yayss, I believe so, Sir Alan,” Col. Tarrant said after a long pause. “Do you concur, Gittings? It’s a quick in-and-out, land, get up the slope, lay the charges, light the fuses, and get out.”
“There’s no room to manoeuvre, no room to deploy the whole battalion,” Major Gittings agreed. “Getting all our troops ashore would take too long, to no good purpose.”
“So, who knows how to plant charges and blow a bridge?” Tarrant asked with a perky chuckle.
“Oh, don’t look at me, sirs,” Lewrie said, for damned if they didn’t turn to look at him. “I know naval guns and howitzers, and that exhausts my knowledge. I love big explosions as well as the next fellow, but…” he said with a shrug. “Though…” he added after a longer look at the sketch of the bridge.
“Yes? An idea, Sir Alan?” Tarrant prompted.
“The pillars of the bridge are quite substantial, well, the ends that seem to merge into the ground,” Lewrie speculated. “The central pillar, hmm. Don Julio, did you get a good look at that pillar?”
“Ah, sì,” Caesare said, “It is thick, and about ten feet long, but about eight feet thick, and it makes the two arches.”
“And the road bed atop it,” Lewrie pressed. “How thick is that?”
“Oh, that is only four feet thick,” Don Julio said, shrugging.
“Kegs of gunpowder at either side of the central pillar, slung up in cargo nets, and fused to go off together, could take down the road bed, and damage the centre support,” Tarrant suggested.
“Ehm, too easily replaced with wood, though,” Gittings said. “And, the Romans built thick, to take the weight of traffic on the bridge downward. A ton or two of gunpowder might not move it.”
“Downward force, sirs?” Quill stuck in after listening for a long time. “Is there a way to explode the charges upwards? Either side of the central pillar? I dare say the Romans never thought to build for that.”
“Well, two cargo nets full of powder kegs, fuses linked to one long one that can be lit down in the gorge,” Lewrie suggested. “One under each end of the central pillar, and another set of kegs lashed round the base of the pillar. We could hoist the cargo nets up snug under the road bed, with ropes dropped down from the bridge, either side. One of your companies could do the pulley-hauley whilst the other two cover their doings, and … I could land my Marines ashore, right up the gorge to the foot of the bridge with the powder and the nets, and an armed shore party of sailors could cover them and hold the beach.”
“Your Marines, and say, two companies of the battalion, then,” Tarrant said with some enthusiasm. “An hour’s work, ashore, fifteen minutes to land everyone, another fifteen to get everyone off, if the French don’t interfere, and … bang!”
“I like it,” Major Gittings said.
“Don’t get too excited, yet, though, sirs,” Lewrie cautioned. “I’d have to consult my Master Gunner and Captain Whitehead, and see if anyone of them has a better idea on how to bring down a bridge that sturdy. A working supper this evening, I expect. Unless we could lay hands on an officer, or a party, from the Engineers here on Sicily. Surely, the Commanding General should see the sense of it, and might co-operate with us.”
“They haven’t yet,” Gittings said with a sour grunt.
“Good God, do we speak with the Army staff at the Castello
, and Brigadier Caruthers might hear of it, and the next thing you know he will want to be a part of it,” Tarrant said with a dry laugh. “Look here, sirs. The former battlefield of Maida is not too far away from the bridge, and General Stuart landed his troops in Saint Eufemia Bay to fight the French!”
“No room for his three regiments to deploy, thank God,” Major Gittings chimed in. “If your sailors and Marines can do the dirty work in the gorge, Sir Alan, we could do with two companies of the battalion, and only use one transport, this time. As the Colonel says, in, boom, and out, quick as one could say ‘knife’!”
“Guards, though,” Mr. Quill said in a soft, speculative drawl. “You saw none, Don Julio? Nor did your, ah … capo’s son? Whyever not, I wonder? Surely, if we recognise it as vital, so must they. I would imagine that the French would post guards to protect it, or to charge fees, and inspect cargoes, for civilian users.”
“Aha, good point, sir,” Col. Tarrant said, frowning. “Whyever not? You looked the bridge over during the day, Don Julio, on a weekday? And what did the locals in Pizzo tell you about sentries?”
“I saw small parties of cavalleria cross the bridge,” Don Julio said in a low voice, arms crossed over his deep chest in defence, “a convoy of waggons, with soldiers on foot. Local waggons, pack mules, and carts,” he added with a dismissive shrug, “but no guards who sat close by, except for some who stopped to eat, then moved on. Guards? I see none,” he concluded, as if to say “so there!”
“Before we launch this, I fear we must find a way to place some watchers over the bridge,” Col. Tarrant decided, pulling at his nose in frustration. “If there are sentries, they may not be in strength, but there might be enough to see us land, and scale the boulders.”
“Hah!” Lewrie added, “If the French do have sentries, the sight of our ships closing the coast off the gorge would be warning enough. If they’re mounted, a rider could summon their cavalry from Filadelfia, or infantry from Vibo Valentia. Too bad we can’t send off a landing party in the wee hours from far offshore, who could creep up on them and cut a few throats.”
“What a ghoulish idea!” Major Gittings exclaimed, though with a laugh. “More Mister Quill’s line of work, what? Pity. Going ashore round two A.M. would be far too noisy, troops stumbling over themselves, getting lost in the dark, trying to carry powder kegs and fuses, picks and shovels? I fear even the lads in our Light Company are not that stealthy.”
“Picks and shovels?” Quill asked.
“We might have to dig round the foot of that central pillar to lay charges,” Gittings told him. “Though, it’s surely firmly bedded ’gainst solid rock. Another matter, sirs … we don’t have any, at present. Not nearly enough, anyway.”
Christ! Lewrie thought with an inaudible groan; It started out sounding like an easy operation. A total waste of time and effort, so far. Blather, blather, blather! At least the wine’s good!
“More observation is called for before we sail off, all eager and un-informed,” Col. Tarrant summed up. “We must knew if there are sentries guarding the bridge, how many, and what their hours are. And I think that we’ll need to scrounge up picks and shovels to add to the ones we have. Whilst you, or some of your men, Don Julio, go back to Pizzo, and fish within sight of the bridge and the gorge, I will ask the Army staff at the Castello in Messina if they might lend us an officer of Engineers. Failing that, at least a brief tutorial on how to blow up a bridge from someone who knows how.”
“Sì, I go back,” Don Julio agreed, though sounding weary of the necessity, “but Signore Quill must advance me some funds, first.”
“Oh, of course, Don Julio,” Quill responded, though Lewrie got the impression that Caesare did not come cheap, and had already asked too often.
“Hmm, I wonder…” Lewrie said as the conference drew to its own closure, all of them rising as if nothing more need be said at the moment, “when you go back to scout, Don Julio, it might be a good idea for one of my officers, or an officer from the Ninety-Fourth, go with you. A naval, or military eye might speed the scheme along.”
Julio Caesare uttered a dry, sarcastic laugh at that.
“This ufficiale speaks Italian like a Calabrian, Capitano Inglese?” Don Julio smirked. “Wear uniform, hah? He smell of fish and have hard hands? He know how to act like a local? I tell you no!”
“That might be a tad too dangerous,” Mr. Quill seemed to agree. “Give the game away. Unless you’re thinking of going, yourself, Sir Alan?”
“God, no!” Lewrie was quick to say. “Not me! Bull in the old china shop, hey? I can barely get by in English. I just thought a professional appraisal of the lay of the land would be useful.”
“I have man who was soldato before i Francesi defeat the Neapolitan Army,” Don Julio assured them. “He can do what you ask. You met him in Messina, Capitano. ’Tonio?”
The first time that Don Julio and his henchmen came to Quill’s waterfront lodgings to meet Lewrie, he had introduced them, and more than half of them had borne the cover name of “’Tonio” … except for the odd Julio and one “Antonio”; his mother insisted on using the full name!
“If you say so, Signore,” Col. Tarrant grudgingly allowed, after a long thought. “Take you some time to sail there, scout, and report back? Good. I’ll ask about at the Castello in the meantime. Obtain sufficient powder and fuses, tools, and advice from an Engineer.”
And I’ll still have that working supper, Lewrie assured himself; and pick my officers’ minds. And finish a letter to Jessica!
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lewrie’s officers, Navy or Marine alike, had been enthused by the challenge, though none had the first clue on how to blow up the bridge; nets full of powder kegs hauled up taut against the bottom of the spans either side of the pillar sounded like a good idea, but there was no way of knowing. Lewrie had made a quick, slap-dash copy of the drawing to refer to, and they had all pored over the coastal charts of Saint Eufemia Bay, which did not avail them much, for any sea chart depicted no details beyond what could be seen from a ship as so much blank terra incognita beyond the last and tallest line of hills or mountains. Pizzo was there, the coast road was indicated, but the bridge was not, though the gorge was shown. Land maps were sent for in Messina, and Col. Tarrant produced the only one available, which they had to share. Not trusting a short trip by sea, Tarrant and a subaltern hired a farm cart for his trip there and back.
Of course, rumour and speculation about the pending operation were rife among Vigilance’s crew mere hours after that working supper in the great-cabins; there was no secrecy aboard a warship, and never could be, so wagers as to what day the squadron might sally forth were made, in money that most had to promise from future pay or in sippers or gulpers from the rum issues after Vigilance returned to its anchorage off Milazzo. British tars would bet on anything!
Lt. Creswell commanding the Lady Merton transport was sent off to Malta with mail in reply to what they had recently received, along with requests for the ships, and items the 94th thought necessary to fulfilling the raid, along with their usual supply requests. He returned, and still there was no word from Julio Caesare.
The Lady Merton also brought fresh batches of mail, into which Lewrie dove with eagerness. The official stuff, though, didn’t please. Admiralty sounded as if they might find him two more armed transports, naval crews in the numbers requested, and pay for twelve new barges to be constructed, but … before they could order Captain Middleton off to repeat his previous searches and purchases, the First Secretarty, Mr. Croker, had to hear specifics from the Army’s headquarters at Horse Guards, as to exactly how many recruits had been obtained for the 94th Regiment of Foot, and Horse Guards had yet to receive any confirmation from Peterborough, on the numbers, or when the new volunteers would be considered well-trained enough to be sent overseas. For the nonce, Lewrie and the 94th would have to make do with what they had!
In the meantime, Vigilance and the 94th continued to drill, to practice boarding ship, row
ing ashore, staging mock attacks, and rowing back to re-board. The Marine complement spent long hours at the shore firing range, or skirmishing in the woods, fruit and olive groves. With the new additions to the boarding nets, the time that it took for them to scramble down into the boats greatly improved. Cutlass drill, pike drill, boat crew sailors, and others honed their musketry, from the rails, or in trips ashore to use the Army’s range. And artillery drill! Lewrie had always found great satisfaction in the roar and stink of the great guns, and had enthusiastically adopted the concept of aimed fire at practical ranges, with crude sights notched into the muzzles and breeching rings of his ship’s guns, to useful effect in HMS Sapphire off the north coast of Spain, and now in Vigilance. When dry firing drill palled, he took the ship out to sea for a few miles, and let his crews fire at towed targets behind one of the barges under sail, spending his own money on tobacco and full rum issues to reward accurate gun crews.
Seemingly a fortnight later, a signal was broken out on the flag tower on the beach, a Navy order/request hoisted by the Army; Captain Repair On Board, followed by Q Here.
About bloody time, too! Lewrie thought as he scrambled to get presentable for a call ashore.
* * *
“Our pirate didn’t come, this time?” Lewrie asked once he had been welcomed into Col. Tarrant’s hut, and a bottle of cooled wine had been shared round.
“Pressing business concerns, he said,” Mr. Quill explained to him. “We’re not his only iron in the fire, as it were. But, he gave me everything he’d gleaned before sailing off to do God knows what.”
“It’s looking better and better,” Major Gittings declared the new information, pointing to a map and a sketch already spread out on a table top.
“That signal we sent, Sir Alan,” Tarrant enquired, “was it nautical enough, hah hah?”
An Onshore Storm Page 5