“Once back with the squadron, I’ll ask, sir,” Gamble promised. “By the by, I ran into one of your ships on my way here.”
“Coromandel,” Lewrie stated.
“Aye, sir,” Gamble said with a laugh. “Rather an embarrassment, that. We espied her at about fifteen miles, and once we were in signalling distance, we made our number to her, she put up hers, but she’s not listed in my latest book, so we thought we were up against a French two-decker seventy-four, hah hah! I was ready to haul wind and flee, even after she hoisted a Union Jack. But then, she turns away, as if my little sloop is a danger! But, after we hoisted our National Colours, she came back on course, and I closed her to speak her.”
“And how’d that go?” Lewrie asked.
“Her commanding officer is a little terror, sir,” Gamble said. “Imagine, he was angry with me for giving him such a fright! Well, I put him in his place, right smartly, and told him if he was a part of your squadron, he was sailing the wrong way about. He said that he was searching for a missing boat?”
That made Lewrie smile, and relate the details of that latest incident. “And had he found it, yet?” Lewrie asked.
“No, he was still casting about for it, sir,” Gamble laughed, “and I’d not seen hide or hair of it, either. Lord, how does one lose a whole barge?”
“Through a wee, sly bit of a prank played on him by his crew,” Lewrie told him, explaining the mood he’d seen aboard. “And, upon that head, I’ve about made my mind up to exchanging him for one of my officers, before a real mutiny breaks out. I’ve a letter to Admiral Charlton, and I’d much admire did you bear it to him when you join the squadron.”
“Is he really that bad, sir?” Gamble had to ask, a brow up in wonder. “I’ve seen that sort of attitude towards our sailors before, but only among new-come Midshipmen still wet behind their ears. After a time aboard any decently run ship, most discover the real value of our men, no matter how they entered the Navy. This Dickson fellow sounds like the haughtiest sort of aristocrat. From a noble family, or a rich one, is he?”
“I don’t know much about his background,” Lewrie told him, surprised some by Gamble’s statement, for when they had served together in the Proteus frigate, D’arcy Gamble’s background, and family, was of the best of well-to-do landed gentry, though by the time that Lewrie got him as a Midshipman, Gamble had been in the Navy for several years, and had had that top-lofty air knocked out of him, if indeed he had ever felt that way about the lower classes.
“If you do intend to exchange him, sir,” Gamble said, after requesting a refill of his tea and ginger beer, “one hopes that an exposure to your way of commanding a ship, and its men, will make an improvement in his nature. Oh, well hallo, puss!”
Chalky, bored by the lack of seabirds alighting on the stern gallery railings, had come to the settee and hopped up to greet the new arrival.
“That’s Chalky, do you recall him?” Lewrie asked.
“Oh aye, sir, him and your other, the black and white one. What was his name?” Gamble said, essaying a pet on Chalky’s head, to which the cat submitted.
“Toulon, where I got him,” Lewrie said.
“What I remember most, sir, was the Marines’ pet mongoose, Private Cocky,” Gamble reminisced happily. “He was better than a terrier or any cat when it came to ratting. It damned near emptied the bread room of ‘millers,’ and left the Midshipman cockpit with none to eat on the sly. We learned to never wager against Private Cocky!”
“Speaking of victuals, sir,” Lewrie offered, “would you care to dine aboard? My cook is a marvel.”
“I fear not, sir, but thank you for the invitation,” Commander Gamble said. “I just popped in to give you the latest information on your bridge, and must get back with the squadron. Oh, I quite forgot. North of the bridge, round Eufemia Lamezia, there’s quite a backlog of supply convoys, so much so that they’re running some of them as far as Catanzaro, on the south coast. It’s a much longer route, but the road’s better. An attack there might prove productive, if I may suggest, sir.”
“How’d you learn that, sir?” Lewrie asked, enthusing.
“All rather ‘under the rose,’ sir,” Gamble told him, leaning forward and sounding conspiratorial. “We overhauled a fishing boat ’tween there and Pizzo, a boat that seemed as if they wished to be caught and made prize. There was a fellow aboard who had a little English, and he told us of it, via some fellow named Silvestri, to pass on to someone named Quill? All very mysterious.”
“I know both of them,” Lewrie told him, filling Gamble in on the local espionage and information arrangement. “I shall pass that news on to Mister Quill in Messina, instanter.”
“Well then, I’m glad it did not completely slip my mind, sir,” Gamble said with a wee laugh as he shifted about to rise. “I must be off, sir, but I hope to accept your invitation to dine some time in the future. And I must say, I have had your cool tea before, on a rare occasion, but somehow it tastes even better this time.”
“A fortunate accident, that,” Lewrie told him as he got to his feet to escort Gamble to the deck. “There wasn’t enough tea when I had to go ashore at Locri and Siderno, so Deavers topped it off with some ginger beer in my wood canteen.”
“Aha!” Gamble said as he clapped his hat on his head, “I’ve had my stewards brew cool tea for me, but I haven’t seen ginger beer in ages, more’s the pity.
“Remember this, sir?” Gamble said, lifting his sword off his hip. It was a rather plain smallsword with a brass hand guard over a wire-wrapped hilt and a lion’s head pommel, in a black leather scabbard with worn brass throat and drag. “The night of the fight we had with the l’Uranie frigate off Cape Town? You came to me with several dead French officers’ swords and said, ‘Choose,’ when you made me an Acting-Lieutenant after Mister Catterall was killed.”
“My word, you still wear it?” Lewrie marvelled. “I’d have thought that your family would have bought a better one once you were confirmed.”
“Oh, they did, sir, damned near as grand as a presentation blade, rather embarrassing, really, for it’s much too fancy. But, I have always preferred this one, sir. Cherished it, in point of fact. For the moment that made me.”
“Then, may you wear it for a long time, Commander Gamble, and let it carry you to your Captaincy and beyond,” Lewrie told him in all sincerity.
“Thank you for that, sir,” Gamble said in return, then cleared his throat, as did Lewrie, for it was perhaps too sentimental a moment for English gentlemen to discuss, or even admit to. “I suppose that I should be going.”
“Bide long enough to allow my people to gather up their letters ready to go, along with mine here, Commander Gamble,” Lewrie said. “Dasher, go pass word a mail sack’s departing ship, then round up an empty bisquit bag for them to put their letters in.”
“Aye, sir!” Dasher said, running out to the quarterdeck like a bolt of lightning.
“Ehm … you keep rabbits in your cabins, sir?” Gamble asked, spotting the wood cage, and Harriet.
“The lad’s pet,” Lewrie explained, grinning shyly, “Better it’s kept in here than in the manger, where it’d be mistaken for an eatin’ rabbit. And it gives Chalky something live to pester.”
* * *
Once all outgoing mail had been gathered up, the side-party and the Bosun re-formed. To the trills of the silver calls, Commander Gamble left the ship as all hands on deck doffed their hats to him. Lewrie stood in the open entry-port, leaning out and looking down to bid Gamble a fond farewell.
“Vaya con Dios!” he called to the departing boat. “Arrividerci, and fare thee well! Bonne chance, and Dosvidanya for good measure!”
“’Ere, whas ’e goin’ on h’about, den?” a sailor from the side-party asked his mate.
“Ya got me, Tom,” the other whispered back. “Off’cers, ’ey allus gotta show orf d’eir eddy-cation.”
* * *
After Gamble had left the ship, even as that worthy was climbing the bo
arding battens of his own ship, Lewrie was penning a note to Mr. Quill, summoning a Midshipman, and when one arrived, bade him take one of the boats and deliver it to the Army camp for relaying to Messina.
Then, he went to the chart space on the larboard side of the quarterdeck to delve into the many sea charts and land maps stored there, looking for ones that depicted Saint Eufemia Bay, hoping that a landing near Eufemia Lamezia might prove fruitful, before the French finally got the bridge repaired sturdy enough to use again.
When last Lewrie had talked with Quill, mention had been made about an attack on Monasterace Marina, where supply convoys converged after crossing the mountains, down to the easier coastal plain and a decent road near the shore. But, even Quill had never thought to gather detailed information about Monasterace, as Lewrie had told Gamble. That had been someone else’s pigeon, and not a landing, but a bombardment from the sea. Either place, Monasterace or Eufemia Lamezia, might suit, but, with Don Julio off on some of his own dastardly doings, and in a pet that Lewrie and Quill had done something without him, even put an agent in Calabria that he didn’t have total control over, no amount of golden guineas would convince one of Don Julio’s under-bosses to go scout either place for them. Julio Caesare’s wrath might be more of a risk than being nabbed by the French!
Lewrie used a magnifying glass, poring closely along the shoreline on the pertinent sea chart, noting the estimated water depths near the town of Eufemia Lamezia, but the chart didn’t tell him much, for it was a copy of an Italian-made chart done only God knew how long before, copied and re-copied. There was ocean in white, the land and beaches rendered in tan, with the coast road drawn in black, the town and the hills roundabout rather sketchy as to topography and heights, indicated by a series of lines, followed by a great blank space leading inland, with another set of prominent hills and peaks beyond. In that great blank gap there might as well have been a caution that “here be dragons,” for what could not be plainly seen from sea level and the deck of a ship simply didn’t matter to mariners.
The landsman’s map of the area—also a copy of an Italian map—was drawn with north at the bottom, for God’s sake! Topography was indicated by inverted Vees, the more closely clustered the steeper the land, he imagined, and the town and its port was rendered more like a gridded rectangle, with churches and wayside shrines marked by little crosses. If he wanted to read the labels attached to anything on the map, he had to spin it round 180 degrees! There seemed to be beaches either side of the harbour entrance, but, above one of them was a steep hill of some kind, and above the other was an enigmatic square done in heavy black ink; a fort, he wondered?
Damn it to Hell! Lewrie groaned to himself, tossing the magnifying glass atop the slanted chart table, and standing up from a too-long crouch; This place needs scoutin’, too, else we’ll be sittin’ on our numb arses ’til next Epiphany!
And, Alan Lewrie, it must here be noted, was not a man to sit idle for too long!
He stepped out of the chart space to the quarterdeck, placing his hands in the small of his back and arching, wondering if a long life at sea was getting to his bones, at last, as it seemed to do in officers he’d known who were near his present age.
“Oh Lord, will you look at that!” Midshipman Gadsden who was reluctantly standing Harbour Watch instead of one of the younkers who’d refused to be bullied into doing it, said in amusement. “Boat ahoy, hah hah!”
Lewrie leaned over the larboard bulwarks to see what the Mid was guffawing about. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “Our prodigal’s come home!”
Coming down the coast from Milazzo was one of that small port’s typically scruffy, paint-peeled, un-lacquered fishing boats, with three locals aboard, looking as if it was altering course to approach HMS Vigilance. Astern of her, though, was a 29-foot Admiralty barge, on a short tow line; Coromandel’s missing boat had been found. She was unmistakable, for unlike the barges of the first three troop transports, Coromandel’s barges had been painted with matte-black hulls and grey gunn’ls to lessen the chance that they might be spotted as they rowed inshore laden with troops at night.
“Have you any Italian, Mister Gadsden?” Lewrie asked.
“Un poco, sir,” Gadsden replied. “Very little at all. I could send for Mister Bingley. He’s caught on to it rather well.”
“Aye, do so, sir,” Lewrie bade, “and wave them alongside, if you have to. I think a reward’s in order.”
Lewrie went to his cabins, unlocked one of his desk drawers, and got out his wash-leather coin purse. There were a few gold guineas in it, silver shillings, and his usual fall-back specie for interaction with the locals, silver six-pence, along with wadded up paper money, which everyone suspected was a governmental sham, and stuff that foreigners would have nothing to do with. He sorted out ten shillings, stuck them in a slop-trouser pocket, and put the coin purse back in the drawer, locking it again.
“Signore, ehm … andiamo!” Gadsden was shouting overside when Lewrie came back to the deck. “Entrare, rather? Ah, Bingley! Tell ’em to come alongside, there’s a good fellow.”
Midshipman Bingley was one of Vigilance’s older Mids, over twenty years in age, a rather stout and full-faced fellow who so far had not done much to distinguish himself with Lewrie and the other officers. He could sling the lingo, though, with a beguiling smile.
“Andiamo lato, signores! Congratulazione! Meraviglioso! Andiamo and ricevere mancia competente!” Bingley shouted to the boatmen, then turned to Lewrie. “Gadsden said I should tell them there would be a reward, is that alright, sir?”
“Aye,” Lewrie agreed. “Silver shillings for all.”
“Signores! Inglese d’argento … uh, scellinos!” he shouted.
The scruffy local fishing boat came alongside the larboard mainmast chains, bows on to the platform, and one of the fishermen hauled the barge’s tow line up ’til the barge was nuzzling their boat’s transom.
“Here, Mister Gadsden,” Lewrie said, handing over a stack of coins, “three shillings apiece for them, and tell ’em the other’s for their wine. And secure that line to the shroud dead eyes. We do not want t’lose that barge, again!”
“Aye, sir!” Gadsden said, pocketing the coins for safekeeping as he went down the battens and man-ropes.
“Grazie!” Lewrie shouted down. “Molto grazie, signores!”
Once Midshipman Gadsden distributed the coins, they all pulled off their hats or head coverings and bobbed their thanks, trying to hug Gadsden in joy. Once he got free of their clutches, they began to shove off, rowing off a few yards to set a much-patched lateen sail still, looking over their shoulders and waving and babbling gratitude.
“I couldn’t understand much of what they were saying, sir, but I did get the impression that the barge was a gift from someone named Don Julio? They thought it a fine boat, but they would not dream of keeping her for themselves, I take it.”
“Aye, Don Julio Caesare has that effect on people,” Lewrie told Gadsden with a wry expression.
And I can’t wait t’see the look on Lieutenant Dickson’s phyz when he returns to port, Lewrie thought, looking over the side and gloating to note that there were ten oars in the barge, not eight, as he had expected; If he returns to port, that is!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Oh, God,” Lt. Dickson said with a groan, “Just damn it to Hell,” as Coromandel stood into Milazzo’s anchorage two days later and espied their missing barge tied up alongside the Army’s beachfront pier.
They had quartered the seas from the extreme eastern tip of Sicily almost within sight of Milazzo, and as far north as the Aeolian Isles, half of each watch division aloft in the tops or the cross-trees with their eyes peeled for anything afloat, and Coromandel’s crew had taken almost fiendish delight, it seemed to Dickson, to cry “ho!” over every breaching pod of dolphins, the rare basking whale, or shark fin that cut the water in chase of balling, swirling small fish that made churning eddies on the surface.
His crew! They were go
ing about their duties as well as could be expected, brailing up courses, lowering stays’ls, and reducing the size of the top’ls so Coromandel could round up into the wind before letting go the bower anchor. But, to Dickson, they were performing those duties in a cheeky manner, glancing forward over the bows, and pointing out the missing barge to their mates, taking cruel amusement in their commander’s dismay, the churlish bastards! Dickson wished that he could charge the lot of them with mute insubordination and have them bound to upright hatch gratings and given two dozen lashes each! By God he’d make them howl like gut-shot dogs!
The next’un who looks aft at me and grins, and I’ll…! he furiously thought, if only to stave off his dread of what awaited him from Captain Sir bloody Alan Lewrie, bloody Baronet after his fruitless, nigh frantic search.
“Well, there’s nigh two hundred fifty pounds we won’t be dunned for!” Sub-Lt. Clough had the nerve to say aloud, with a titter.
“You’ll stop your gob and attend to your duties, sir!” Dickson snapped. “And Kinsey. Stand by with the kedge anchor. We will come to anchor neatly, or I’ll know why not!”
“Aye, sir,” Midshipman Kinsey replied.
Dickson continued his quiet fuming, back stiff, hands clasped in the small of his back, rocking on the balls of his feet, feeling a tad of relief that the lost barge had been found. The Counsellor of The Cheque was remorseless when it came to retrieving Admiralty funds. He himself knew of a fellow appointed Commander into a prize shortly before the Peace of Amiens in 1802. He’d been a promising officer, had a doting Captain and a Vice-Admiral of the Blue, both relatives, who’d plucked him from the flagship’s wardroom and given him a plum command. It had lasted six months before the Peace, and then Admiralty had not confirmed his advancement, and it had damned near been the ruin of him, for the Counsellor of The Cheque ordered him to return the difference in pay, casting him upon the mercy of his creditors, who’d had none, and ended with a spell in debtors’ prison before one of his aunts had paid the difference and cleared his arrears.
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