“And is the baker’s daughter as pretty as they said, Grace?” Lt. Farley teased as Grace gained the deck.
“Ravishing, sir,” Grace said with a wide smile, “though her father has an eagle eye over her, and her virtue. Much like all his pastries … look, but don’t touch!”
“Unless you’re buying, hey?” Greenleaf said, smirking.
“The girl is so fetching, one is mightily tempted to court and marry, sir,” Grace told him.
“The Navy’s not fond of marriage,” Lt. Dickson ventured to say, “especially for junior officers. I was surprised to hear that Mister Rutland is married.”
“Aye, married with children, and nought beyond his Navy pay,” Greenleaf told him, “poor Devil. It’s no wonder he’s so glum.”
“Anyone caught your fancy back home, Dickson?” Farley asked him, and they all perked up their ears to learn something personal about their taciturn newcomer.
“Oh no, no one special yet,” Dickson replied with a shake of his head. “Young ladies of good family in my neighbourhood have eyes on ‘salt free’ beaus,” he attempted to jape, sounding almost wistful and open for a moment, then caught himself and turned his attention to a sling load of fruit rising over the bulwarks.
“That’ll be the last lot,” Grace said, looking over the side at his barge below the larboard main chains. “You lads secure, and come up, once the boat’s ready for towing in the morning.”
“You’ve a working-party to stow it all, Mister Blundell?” the First Officer asked the Purser.
“Aye, I have,” the Purser replied, still grumbling over what it had cost him.
“Then we’re free to go below and tap our keg of ale,” Farley suggested. “Liquor our boots for sailing in the morning, what?”
“Aye, to start with,” Greenleaf laughed, “followed by wine and a bowl of punch, if I’ve a say in it. Come on, Dickson. Let us see what contribution to the punch you will make.”
“Would a pint of gin do?” Dickson said with the first grin he had essayed since coming aboard.
“It’d do just topping!” Greenleaf hooted.
* * *
Mid-afternoon the following day found HMS Vigilance out at sea under all plain sail, a few miles offshore of the site of their first raid, the small port of Tropea, and bound for Pizzo and beyond, for the bridge they had shot to pieces.
The ship had not yet been called to Quarters, but Dickson, trying to appear diligent, was already below on the lower gun-deck among the heavy 24-pounders, where he would direct their firing as Fourth Officer. An elder Quarter-Gunner in charge of several guns together was strolling along his charges, tugging at run-out and recoil tackle ropes, checking the bowsings that held the barrels snug to the hull.
“There’s enough swab-water in the tubs?” Dickson asked him.
“Cummins, sir,” the fellow replied, “Quarter-Gunner,” he added, touching his brow by way of a salute. “You’re new to th’ ship, so’s I expect you’ll be wantin’ t’learn people’s names an’ all. Aye, Mister Dickson, ev’ry tub’s full, th’ slow-match fuse is laid by handy, an’ th’ ready shot for my guns is rolled for proper roundness. I checked ’em meself.”
“What are these notches in the breeching rings?” Dickson asked, intrigued, and wondering if they were intentional.
“Rough sights, sir, same as on the muzzles,” Cummins said with a cackle. “Capum Lewrie’s high on accurate gunnery, an’ had us cut th’ notches soon’s he come aboard. We knocked down an old stone fort at one place, blew down a stone bridge up where we’re goin’, once, an’ back in th’ Spring, shot th’ Bejeesus out of a French infantry regiment nigh a whole mile away! I hear tell in his last ship, him an’ his squadron took on four big frigates, an’ his gunners were puttin’ shot right into French gun-ports, at half a full cable, not close aboard! Chaw or pipe tobacco for the best crews, out o’ his own pocket, too. Put us to it e’en afore we got t’Malta.”
“Surely, you exaggerate, uh Cummins,” Dickson said.
“Just you wait ’til these brutes light off, sir,” Cummins said in boast. “We might be a trifle rusty, laid up in port so long ’tween raids an’ all, but, once we get our eyes in, you’ll be seein’ a thing t’see, sir!”
“Right ye are, an’ amen t’that,” a gun-captain chimed in from a mess table on the larboard side.
Dickson looked round and took note that sailors were gathered at the mess tables, which were still lowered, not strapped to the overhead out of the way of gun crews when Quarters was announced. He reckoned that not all the off-watch hands idling below were members of the gun crews, but all down the ship’s starboard side, younger hands were listening to slightly older men, near the massive 24-pounders they likely served, talking low but boastful, rubbing horny hands in anticipation of action, and grinning evilly over what they’d do to the French.
“These men to starboard…” Dickson asked the Quarter-Gunner.
“Ready an’ willin’, sir,” Cummins told him with a gap-toothed grin. “They knows we’re goin’ t’shoot up that bridge we knocked down last time, that the Frogs have batteries there, now, and we’ll be closin’ th’ coast starb’d side to, an’ they wanna be th’ first t’run out and engage.”
“Lord, sir,” a young gunner piped up, “ain’t no way t’keep anythin’ secret ’board ship. It’s clear as day wot we’re goin’ t’do.”
“I see,” Dickson said, disguising his amazement. His sailors hadn’t been eager about anything, or had the wits to anticipate and make preparations beforehand. He put it down to the difference between a warship and an un-armed transport, but … there was something surprisingly different about Vigilance.
Dickson also felt hundreds of eyes boring into the nape of his neck, of being assessed. No one who mattered was watching him being diligent, and he felt like an interloper, so he strolled back aft to the ladderway to the upper gun-deck, and fresh air, conducting only a cursory inspection of guns, gun tools, and tackle.
Once there, he noted that each of the starboard 18-pounders on the upper gun-deck was halfway manned, as well, and men were tinkering with their charges, lounging with their elbows resting on the sun-warm barrels, or sprawled on the oak decks close by, just waiting for the first rattles of the Long Roll from the Marine drummer, the urgent trill of Bosun’s calls.
He mounted to the quarterdeck for a look-see at the Calabrian coast which was about eight miles off, nodding greetings to Lt. Grace, who had the watch.
“Been below?” Grace asked as Dickson stood by the bulwarks for a better view outboard.
“All’s well, and everyone’s eager,” Dickson told him. “Just had a look-round to see if everything’s in order.”
“It will be,” Grace assured him. “Captain Lewrie’s a stickler for good gunnery. Powder smoke is like a fine cigarro to him! He’s a real fighter, and our people know it by now. Do we come to anchor and let the crews fire one at a time, there’ll be free tobacco and a full measure of rum for those who shoot best, too.”
“Where did he get the idea for cutting sights on the guns?” Lt. Dickson asked. “I never heard the like.”
“Oh, he heard of another Captain who…” Grace began to say, but was interrupted by Lewrie’s arrival on the quarterdeck from his cabins. “Captain’s on deck!” Grace announced, then crossed over to the lee side of the deck, yielding the windward.
“No no, Mister Grace,” Lewrie said. “Stay where you are whilst I have myself a look-see from the starboard side.”
Lewrie stood there for a long time with his telescope to one eye, studying the shore as it glided by. When done with that, he peered aloft to the commissioning pendant and its streaming, judging direction and strength of the winds, and the proper set of the sails.
“We’re almost level with Pizzo,” Lewrie announced at last, “and the bridge isn’t far beyond. Haul our wind three points and close the coast, sir. And I’ll have the courses brailed up.”
“Aye, sir!” Grace snapped, then turned to baw
l forward to send hands to sheets and braces, and for topmen to man the course yards.
“About that time, sir?” the Sailing Master, Mr. Wickersham asked jovially as he bestirred himself from a cat-nap in his sea cabin and came onto the quarterdeck.
“Indeed, Mister Wickersham,” Lewrie told him. “Hands to the fore chains to toss the leads if you please.”
Vigilance’s jib-boom and bow-sprit swept round to the right as the yards aloft were re-angled to take the winds more abeam, slowing as the courses were hauled up. Minutes later, the ship was squared away, now ghosting at about five knots and bound inshore.
“Mister Grace,” Lewrie finally said. “Sound Beat to Quarters.”
Vigilance, which had been gliding along in relative silence, as if hushed and waiting, erupted with sudden noise as the Marine drummer and flautist rattled out the Long Roll and struck up an urgent tune. Bare feet and shod feet thundered on the ladderways leading below, as men ran to their stations for battle. Already, bowsings were being cast loose to allow truck carriages to be hauled to the centreline with the roar and rumble of a cattle stampede, and the hog-like squeal of un-greased wooden wheels and axles. Hundreds of door-slams sounded as deal and canvas partitions were struck down, furniture was carried below out of harm’s way, and the gun decks were turned into long alleys bare of any human comforts. Just guns, carriages, and men.
Dickson disappeared below to his station, as did Lt. Grace and Lt. Greenleaf. Lt. Farley came to the quarterdeck to second the Captain and Sailing Master. And bare minutes later, Midshipmen scampered up from below, from both bow and stern, to make their reports to the officers remaining.
“Sir, the ship is at Quarters and ready for action,” Lt. Farley solemnly announced.
“Very well,” Lewrie said, just as gravely. “Have the guns loaded, open the ports, and run out. Mister Wickersham, your recollection of the coast is still fresh? You can conn us within a quarter-mile like we lay last time?”
“Aye, Captain,” Wickersham replied, peering shoreward with his telescope. “You’ll wish to anchor?”
“Hah! Not this time, sir, no,” Lewrie replied, “I don’t wish to give the French gunners a stationary target. We’ll cruise by slowly, then turn out to sea, circle round, and do it again ’til we’ve done as much damage as we can.”
“Guns run out, ports open, and ready to open, sir,” Lt. Farley reported. “I think I can almost make out the bridge from here, damned if I can’t,” he added, extending his own glass. “Just round that high point, and it’ll be in full view. About two miles away?”
“Hmm, about that, aye, Mister Farley,” Wickersham agreed.
“It looks different,” Lewrie commented as the high point of land that partially blocked the view slowly inched half a point farther to the right of the ship’s bows.
They’ve been lumbering, Lewrie thought, taking in the sight of steep hills that had been thickly forested when they had come here before. There had been trees on the seaward side of the coast road that almost hid it, either side of the bridge, but now there was a field of stumps and bare earth and rock, and the steep slopes that had forced the road out to the edge of the precipices were just as bare.
“Aha! They’ve been as busy as a whole tribe of beavers!” Farley joshed as the bridge came fully in sight.
Lewrie spotted crane hoists, either end of what was left of the bridge, with teams of oxen yoked and harnessed to do the heavy hauling. On the north end, just off the stub of stone span that still stood, a large timber dangled from the hoist as if they had caught the French in the process of lowering it down into the ravine. Farther out on the road there was a large timber waggon, also drawn by oxen, loaded with rough-milled wood baulks. And, there was a half-battery of artillery sited on the road, protected by a redan of logs, with two openings for firing. Lewrie imagined that he would see the same arrangement on the south end when it came into view.
“Busy running,” the Sailing Master said with a snort of humour.
Indeed, the road from the bridge teemed with workers in their shirt sleeves, tools in their hands and over their shoulders, fleeing in scurrying packs, some shrugging into their uniform jackets, with their shakoes set on their heads at any old angle.
“I see smoke,” Lt. Farley warned. “Furnaces for heated shot?”
“We’ve been in sight long enough for them to do so,” Lewrie said, his stomach muscles tensing in dread of red-hot cannon balls smashing into Vigilance’s sides, sticking in the dents they would make, and the tarred, painted timbers igniting. His ship could be burned to the waterline, and no amount of stroking on the wash-deck pumps would be of any use.
“I don’t think the smoke’s coming from the batteries,” Lewrie said, half in hope. “No, it’s from down in the ravine, under the old bridge.” He recalled that Commander Gamble had told him that damage from various bombardments had left piles of broken timber down there, but Lewrie was at a loss as to why the French would set fire to it, except to create a smoke screen too thick for any ship to fire at the bridge. And that didn’t make any sense to him, either. That dense a smoke pall would blind the gunners who were there to protect it.
Vigilance swam slowly on, within a mile of the shore by then, and a mile or so short of the bridge and the re-construction work, and the south end of the bridge came into view, a duplicate of the activity on the north end; a log redan for a half-battery of artillery, a crane hoist, various waggons, yoked oxen, and un-harnessed mules and draught horses. Another horde of fleeing workers and French engineers could be seen almost galloping towards the village of Pizzo.
“Pass word below, if you please,” Lewrie said, studying the half-battery closest to them, “we will engage the enemy batteries, first.”
As he watched, there came a sudden burst of yellow-white powder smoke ashore, followed a second later by the thunder clap of a cannon firing, then the rustling keen of a roundshot approaching the ship.
Lewrie clenched his jaws and compressed his lips as the cannon ball’s wail rose in pitch as it neared. Splash! went the roundshot as it struck the sea a quarter-mile short of Vigilance, throwing up a tall and feathery plume of spray as it plunged into the water.
“Howitzer,” he commented. “Plunged straight down, and didn’t skip from First Graze.”
Boom! as the smouldering fuse in the shot reached the interior powder charge, and the explosive shot blew up deep under water, making a white foam mound of disturbance for a second before a thicker, even taller plume of spray shot through with smoke erupted.
“Aye, howitzer,” Lewrie said again. “The fuse was cut too long.”
They won’t make that mistake again, he grimly thought, wondering if he had bitten off more than his ship could chew.
“A mile to the closest battery, I make it, sir,” Mr. Wickersham said with his sextant to his eye, “A long-ish shot.”
“We’ll wait,” Lewrie told the people on the quarterdeck. “Half a mile’s better.”
The French battery opened fire once more, this time with a pair of 12-pounder field guns, their shot flying in much flatter ballistic arcs, striking the sea far short of Vigilance, then bounding up from First Graze to dap closer like skipped stones, losing momentum each time, finally succumbing to gravity and their own weight and sinking from sight at least a full cable short. Then came another burst of gunsmoke, the slamming sound of the howitzer firing, and the Skree! of its shot on the way. Lewrie tensed again.
Crack! went the shell as it exploded just above the sea, about two hundred yards short, leaving a dark grey and black blotch above the water, and flinging shattered iron bits all about, foaming a wide patch of water beneath it.
One o’ those square in the waist, and I won’t have an upper gun-deck left! Lewrie thought.
“Half a mile, sir,” the Sailing Master said, after some quick scribblings on a chalk slate.
“Mister Farley, pass word below,” Lewrie snapped, eager to reply to the French artillery at last. “All guns to fire as they b
ear.”
“Aye, sir!” Lt. Farley said, sounding a tad relieved himself, and shooing Midshipmen to run below with the order.
“Seems unfair, sir,” Wickersham commented.
“What, sir? Howitzers?” Lewrie asked him.
“No, sir. What they’re about to receive!” Wickersham tittered. “Three guns against twenty-six much bigger ones!”
“On the up-roll!” Lt. Greenleaf on the upper gun-deck could be heard to bellow. “As you bear … fire!”
Up forward, a 24-pounder on the lower gun-deck roared, followed by the sharper sound from an upper deck 18-pounder, and the firing stuttered down the ship to the stern-most gun-ports. Before a bank of powder smoke masked everything between Vigilance and the shore, Lewrie saw roundshot striking all round the log redan, the waggons and beasts on the road, and the slopes both before and behind where the French guns were emplaced. He slammed a fist on the bulwark’s cap-rails in impatience, wishing for a stronger wind to blow all the smoke away so he and his gunners could see the results of their first shots.
There came a muffled roar in the relative silence after the last guns had fired, then a keen of an explosive shell approaching. Where it went Lewrie had no idea, nor did the French, for the shell burst somewhere between ship and shore in the midst of the smoke pall that drifted downwind.
“Stop yer vents! Swab out!” Lt. Greenleaf was shouting. “Charge your guns!” forcing Lewrie to look down into the waist to watch the gun crews leaping over their duties, ship’s boys scampering up from the magazines with fresh powder cartridges in wood or leather containers, and gun-captains choosing the roundest shot for reloading.
“Shot your guns!” Greenleaf bawled. “Ready? Run out, and prick cartridge! Prime! Take aim!”
The smoke was thinning as it was blown closer to shore, giving hints of what damage they had done with their first shots. Lewrie got a tantalising glimpse, forcing him to raise his telescope for a closer look, just as the forward-most guns on both gun-decks began to roar once more. Smashed and overturned waggons, stampeding horses and mules, some splotched with blood, dis-embowelled, the triangular crane hoist smashed and blown onto the upper slope above the road, and the two-gun redan … “Oh, dammit!” he muttered for the fresh gunsmoke blotted out his view! Even scrambling up to his usual post on the poop deck would not avail. The guns below the quarterdeck went off, making an even thicker pea soup fog, and he took a deep breath and held it as he was wreathed in the rotten egg stink of it.
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