“Knew it!” Lt. Rutland cried in rare glee, “Whitehead and I were right. The Romans did fill the core with rubble!”
“Will you look at the damned fools!” Mr. Wickersham, the Sailing Master exclaimed as he called everyone’s attention to the French officers on horseback who had forced their mounts out to the very end of the stub of the north span to look down into the gorge.
“They won’t stay there long, Mister Wickersham!” Lt. Grace chortled, just before another 24-pounder roared.
The bridge pillar which had held up traffic cross the span for untold centuries, slowly began to lose the battle, chunks falling at every shot, now, undermining the upper part which still stood. The pillar, as Don Julio and the sketches had described it, was eight feet across on the face that presented itself to Vigilance’s guns, and ten feet or more wide, so it was still slow going, but, at last, a roundshot hit in the right place, and the entire upper portion, and both stubs left after the charges had gone off beneath the spans, gave way in a spew of rubble and dirt, and came tumbling down in an avalanche of stone, shortening the pillar by twelve feet or more, Wickersham estimated after fiddling with a sextant and a chalk slate. Further hits weakened the remaining portion, creating yet another slumping, tumbling collapse that cut its width almost in half.
“Hah!” the Sailing Master hooted. “That’ll take the bastards years to re-build. There’s no timbers long enough to span that!”
“Perhaps, Mister Wickersham,” Lewrie allowed, grinning widely, “but, as long as we’re here, we might as well be thorough. It’s only shot and powder, after all. I’d admire we reduce it to a stub before we sail away.”
He looked round for Marine Captain Whitehead, thinking to ask his opinion, since he was the only man aboard who claimed to possess even a smattering of engineering. “What say you, sir?” he asked.
“Oh, well, sir … the shorter we make it, the harder it will be, the more timber it will take to build upon that base that remains, and I doubt if a timber bridge would bear a quarter of the weight that the old stone bridge did. Might be damned shaky, too,” Whitehead slowly judged as roundshot bowled into what was left, one aimed hit at a time. Whitehead had gone below for a wash-up, and still had a towel in his hands, with which he daubed at his face now and again. “Oh, I say!” he exclaimed as the narrower portion facing the sea peeled open like an onion, spilling tons of rubble and earth from its innards, taking another five feet of outer and inner stone courses down with it. “I do believe we’re almost done, sir!”
About time, too, Lewrie thought, looking at his pocket watch, again; it’s almost time for the first rum issue!
“Huzzah!” rose from hundreds of throats, and hats were swung about in the air as a couple of roundshot finally brought at least six more feet of the near pillar down, then the far portion, leaving a stump of ragged-topped stone barely two men’s height above the rocks in the gorge.
“Cease fire!” Lewrie yelled down to the deck. “Cease fire! Drop it, lads … dead ’un!” he called out, using the terminology of the rat pit to urge a game terrier to move on to a fresh kill, and that made Vigilance’s people laugh out loud and jeer the hapless French who stood on the shore road.
“Secure your guns!” Lt. Greenleaf ordered, his voice loud in the sudden relative silence after hours of gunfire. “Swab out well, there, and thumb-stall your vents!” Flintlock strikers were carefully taken off and returned to storage, fall-back linstocks were extinguished in the swab-water tubs, the burned ends of the slow-match coiled round them snipped off and tossed out the gun-ports, the tompions were inserted into the guns’ muzzles, the ports closed, and the guns hauled up to thump against the port sills to be bowsed securely from rolling about in a heavy sea.
Seven Bells chimed up forward at the forecastle belfry, and one of the Bosun’s Mates looked aft at the quarterdeck, his silver call poised near his lips.
“Aye, carry on, Mister Hopper,” Lewrie shouted to him.
“D’ye hear, there!” Hopper roared. “Clear Decks an’ Up Spirits!” and the drummer and flautist set up a lively tune to celebrate the arrival of the red-painted and gilt-trimmed rum keg.
The jaunty notes of “One Misty, Moisty Morning” filled the ship as the crew queued up to receive their grog, and Lewrie smiled as he wondered if the French ashore could hear it, and wonder what to make of it.
“Lo, sir,” Lt. Rutland commented, “this puts me in mind of the Twenty-Third Psalm. The French, and all, watching us?”
“What, all of it, Mister Rutland?” Lewrie japed.
“‘Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies,’” Rutland quoted, “‘thou anointest my head with oil.’”
“And, at the moment, our cups runneth over,” Lewrie said with a grin, sweeping an arm to encompass the hands waiting for their rum. “Don’t know if goodness and mercy shall follow us all our days, sir, but … one hopes it mortifies the bloody French!”
BOOK TWO
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
—KING HENRY THE FIFTH,
ACT IV, SCENE 3, LINE 60
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“What an utter pile o’ rot,” Lewrie gloomed after he had read the last of his official despatches from London. He glared at the untidy pile, their blue, black, and red ribbons and wax seals mingling like a dead octopus atop his day-cabin desk, even emitting an imaginary reek of dead, washed-ashore sea beasts. He took a long sip of cool, lemoned and sugared tea, with an admixture of ginger beer, but what relief that pleasant beverage usually provided might as well have been the cup of bitter gall offered Christ on the cross!
One must realise, Captain Lewrie, that landing Operations similar to yours are being adopted by several Commands in Foreign Waters, which places a greater Demand upon the Transport Board for ships suitable for the aforesuch; barges, Naval personnel, taken from King’s Ships already short of men …
Lewrie thought it grossly unfair to blame his successes for the lack of troop transports, a back-handed way of blaming him for others emulating his methods all of a sudden. The letter from Admiralty took note of Rear-Admiral Sir Home Riggs Popham’s many raids off the north coast of Spain, for one instance, his taking shore batteries, forts, and massive cutting-out expeditions into French-held harbours to sail out prize merchantmen full of goods that deprived the French.
To read Popham’s reports to Admiralty, it sounded as if he had invented the idea, and Lewrie’s innovations were mere aping!
Starve me, glut them! Lewrie thought with a silent groan.
He also strongly suspected that his enemies in the Navy, and their powerful patrons, begrudged him any success after all of their efforts to scotch the formation of his scheme had failed to slow him down, or render his efforts futile. Now, it seemed that they had discovered a new way to frustrate him.
Admiralty admitted that they knew how many re-enforcements had been recruited and sketchily trained for the 94th Regiment of Foot, and those soldiers would be sent on as soon as possible, but for the lack of available transports of any kind, much less ships “bought in” as so-called “armed transports” under direct Navy command, and manned by large naval crews. ’Til then, those re-enforcements might as well be twiddling their thumbs and standing “sentry-go” on the ramparts of Hell! Lewrie had even gotten a letter from Captain Middleton, the poor fellow who had been so helpful in purchasing, discovering and obtaining everything needful the first time round, was about to throw up his hands, get drunk, and sulk over the delays!
Lewrie threw himself back into his chair, and raised his eyes to Mme Berenice Pellatan’s flattering portrait of his wife, Jessica, on a forward bulkhead.
Not that she needed flatterin’, he thought with a brief, fond smile; Good God, Jessica, if I’d known this’d be so much hand-to-mouth beggin’, I’d of stayed home with you, and damn my pride!
He half-shut his eyes to imagine what life would have been like if he had. High Summer, and we
eks at his father’s country estate in Surrey, at Anglesgreen; his old mount, Anson, and the tractable mare he would have bought her, and pleasant rides round the parish; ales at the Olde Ploughman tavern; lovemaking and sleeping late into the mornings; London and its in-exhaustible host of amusements, and the comfort of their house in Dover Street?
And his damned former in-laws underfoot for the Season, and his ungrateful, spiteful daughter and her eternal sneering at him and at Jessica (thought more than happy to take his money!) and …
“Oh, bugger,” he muttered under his breath.
“Midshipman Dunn t’see the Cap’m, SAH!” the Marine sentry outside the doors to his great-cabin barked.
“Enter,” Lewrie growled, cautioning himself to not bite the calf-head’s ears off in frustration.
“M-mm-Midshipman Langdon’s duty, sir, and I am to inform you that a note has come aboard from the Army camp ashore, sir,” the wee young fifteen-year-old chirped. “Ah, ehm … a note for you, that is, sir!” he quickly added with a nervous gulp.
“Very well, Mister Dunn, hand it over, and my compliments to Mister Langdon,” Lewrie allowed, though still frowning stern enough to curdle the Mid’s saliva. “Does he owe someone so much that he has to stand Harbour Watch?”
It was a given that Commission Officers did not stand Harbour Watches; it was also a given that the older Mids would bully their younger messmates to stand watch for them.
“C-c-cards, sir,” Dunn stuttered. “B-bad hands, worth one and seven pence.”
“That’s what you get for layin’ wagers, Mister Dunn,” Lewrie chid him. “A caution for both of you. You may go.”
“Aye aye, sir!” the lad replied, dipping a brief bow from the waist, then dashing out.
“The note, you cod’s-head!” Lewrie shouted.
“S-s-sorry, sir, sorry!” Dunn yelped, frozen in mid-dash, then scuttling back to the desk to lay it down. More bowing and scraping, and he escaped, face red to his ears.
“Where the Devil did they dredge that fool up?” Lewrie asked the aether as he un-sealed the note, to the amusement of his cabin servants.
“Oh, bugger,” Lewrie said aloud once more, louder this time.
Lt. Col. Tarrant of the 94th wrote to inform him that the Army staff at Messina had been most impressed by the destruction of that bridge near Pizzo, had not considered how vital it was to the support of the French in Calabria, and how much it would cost them now that it lay in ruins, what with the difficulty the Royal Navy presented if any supplies were sent by sea, and how only two companies of the 94th had pulled it off … with the Navy’s help, of course.
A deputation from the Commanding General in Sicily will come to inspect our humble encampment, visit with my battalion, and witness how you and I stage seaborne landings. Hah, the whole dog and pony show, I fear, sir! Might those exalted Worthies now Admit that the 94th amounts to anything other than a Boil on their Bums? I shall provide the Supper. Mr. Quill will join us.
Yr. Obdt. Servant,
Lt. Col. Nicholas Tarrant
“Just so long as Brigadier Caruthers ain’t a part of it,” Lewrie muttered. “That man’s too ambitious, even more so than, well, me! And Quill? That’ll put a damper on the day, poor bastard.”
The Army staff in the Castello at Messina had made it abundantly clear that Foreign Office spies were not welcome at-table with proper gentlemen, and if allowed to dine at all, were seated below the salt; far below, if not at a one-man table out in the hall! Quill was a “spook” in more ways than one, a clumsy, black-clad apparition with no ton, gawkingly awkward and off-putting to boot.
Damme, this just might prove t’be entertainin’! Lewrie thought with wicked glee; And if Don Julio shows up, even more so!
* * *
When Lewrie went ashore two mornings later, he witnessed a wee cavalcade coming up the road from Messina; a troop of Light Dragoon cavalry, a General officer on horseback with an aide-de-camp riding alongside him, and an open-topped coach-and-four in which another General sat with his own aides.
“Morning, Sir Alan,” Tarrant said as he strode to join him.
“Buongiorno to you, Colonel Tarrant,” Lewrie responded with a wry grin. “I don’t see Mister Quill in the party.”
“He and his assistant slunk into camp last night, ahead of all this,” Tarrant informed him.
“He’s an assistant?” Lewrie asked. “About time, I suppose.”
“A fellow name of Silvestri,” Tarrant said. “Raised in England, but Italian by birth, from some high-ranking Neapolitan exile family. Bankers, I think they were, to the court of King Ferdinand the Fourth, he says.”
“Met him once,” Lewrie informed Tarrant. “Ugliest old fart ever I did see, but he knew how to cook seafood.”
“Hmm?” Tarrant posed.
“The King of Naples and The Two Sicilies had a seafront fried fish shop. I ate there with Sir William Hamilton, our Ambassador at the time, and his wife … Emma Hamilton. Very tasty.”
“The fried fish, or Emma Hamilton?” Tarrant sniggered.
“Both, sir,” Lewrie slyly boasted. “Both.”
I’ll never know what it is ’bout me … and sailors! Lewrie recalled her panting amid the throes of passion; A spongy ride, she was, though, half tripes and trullibubs even then!
“So, who’s arriving?” Lewrie asked.
“Leftenant-General Sir Robert Malcomb and his catch-farts,” Tarrant wryly told him, “Brigadier Caruthers on horseback, and his aide…”
“Oh, damn,” Lewrie spat.
“You’re bringing your Captain Whitehead ashore, Sir Alan?” Tarrant asked.
“Aye, to give him his due,” Lewrie answered, “but not ’til later, and Lieutenant Fletcher from Bristol Lass, to explain how your men are berthed, victualled, and debarked into their boats. I s’pose a demonstration’s in order this afternoon?”
“Count on it, Sir Alan,” Tarrant grimly chuckled. “We must put my ‘Tadpoles’ through their paces for the staff’s amusements.”
“Even you are calling them by that name, now?” Lewrie asked.
“It seems to have stuck,” Col. Tarrant admitted with a grimace of distaste, “though I wish we could invent something more … dangerous-sounding. What predator swims ashore, wreaks havoc, then returns to the sea?”
“Selkies,” Lewrie told him, “half people, then seals, by times, though it’s an Irish, coastal Scot, and Welsh myth. Hah! Turtles swim ashore, but only to bury their eggs!”
“Gad, that’d make a damned poor regimental badge!” Tarrant said with a roll of his shoulders.
“Hmm, perhaps only a sea-god’s trident, then,” Lewrie suggested.
“No matter,” Tarrant said, drawing himself more erect, shooting his cuffs and tugging at his waist-length coat. “Let us go greet our esteemed arrivals.”
It was not an overly impressive entourage that alit from the carriage; Lt.-Gen. Malcomb was a stout fellow in his late fifties or early sixties, putting Lewrie in mind of that dithering Gen. Dalrymple at Gibraltar years before, called the Dowager by many for his years of military service since he was thirteen, who’d never been in battle or commanded troops in action. Malcomb’s aides-de-camp were nigh as old as he was; a clutch of Majors and Colonels who sported more than their share of grey hair.
“Ah de do, Sir Alan,” Malcomb said by way of greeting, “Begad, sir, you’re West Country, by the sound o’ yer name, what, heh heh? A hardy Cornishman of the old-salt school, hey?”
“My mother’s family are from Devon, sir,” Lewrie answered, thinking Malcomb a garrulous fool, at once, “though I spent all my youth in London.”
“Well, that’s no matter, sir,” Malcomb tittered, waving a hand as if to shoo flies, “You and Colonel Tarrant, here, have created a piratical band of great worth, sir, a most intriguin’ crowd o’ ‘Mer-Men,’ what? Confusion to the French, hey?”
“We do what we can, Sir Robert,” Lewrie said, hiding his wince, and taking a second to glance at Tarrant to see
his expression.
“Ah, and here’s Brigadier Caruthers,” General Malcomb brayed in good cheer, “Brought him along, d’ye see, since he’s experience with landin’ troops and gigging Frogs, too. Begad, ’tween the three of you, sirs, it’s beginnin’ t’sound all salt-watery, hey? Mer-Men, Frog giggin’, and tarry sailors together, haw haw!”
“Sir Alan, Colonel Tarrant,” Brigadier Caruthers said, bowing slightly and touching the tip of his ornately feathered bicorne hat, “a pleasure to re-make your acquaintance.”
“Dare I wonder if your interest in our operations, sir, bodes more, and larger, landings, which the Commanding General envisages?” Col. Tarrant enquired.
“Tut tut, my boy,” Malcomb waved off with a laugh, “there’s many a gap ’twixt the crouch and the leap, what? Time enough for us to see just how you operate, and report back to our superiors, hey? Might you have anything cool laid by, Colonel? The day’s growing warm, and I’m as dry as coal dust.”
“We’ve some nice local wine chilled, sir,” Tarrant promised, “packed in ice and snow from Mount Etna.”
The Commanding General sent you to report on us? Lewrie gawped; And will ye be sobre enough to remember anything ye saw? God help us!
They went to the shaded gallery of Col. Tarrant’s quarters, and Gen. Malcomb sniffed deep of his offered wine, stuck a little finger in the glass for a tentative taste, and frowned.
“Hmm, sweetish, fruity…” he grumbled.
“A Sicilian Pinot Grigio, sir,” Tarrant told him. “They grow nicely in the volcanic soil near Mount Etna.”
“Quite nice,” Malcomb commented after a deep sip, “and the ice and such sets it off. Brings out the ah … flowery, whatyecall it.” He fanned himself with his bicorne hat, drained his glass in one more gulp, and held it out for a refill. “Took out that blasted bridge with only two companies, Colonel Tarrant?”
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