An Onshore Storm

by Dewey Lambdin

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  I’m a bloody cod’s-head! Lewrie chid himself as Vigilance slowly stood shoreward; My timing’s off, and there’s no help for it!

  Leadsmen in the foremast chains chanted the depths they found as his ship got within two miles of the coast, and Lewrie bent over the compass binnacle cabinet to hold his pocket watch in the light inside. He was off by at least half an hour or better, and to make things worse, the skies had cleared so completely that a setting moon still faintly illuminated all of his ships, turning their reduced sails into pale grey spectres. Damn! he thought; twenty minutes to six!

  He put away his pocket watch and raised his telescope to peer beyond the foresails at the shore. There were lanthorns glowing along the waterfront in Monasterace, some additional lights among the houses and taverns. On either end of the town, and behind it, he could see scattered campfires where teamsters and waggoners slept, where French escort troops drowsed, and by the glow of those fires he could espy a veritable sea of canvas-covered waggons.

  No alert, please God, he prayed to himself; Let ’em be asleep or dead drunk, just a little longer!

  “Steer half a point to larboard, Quartermasters,” Lt. Farley directed the helmsmen, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper, as if a louder voice would carry shoreward. “We’ll come to anchor just west of the town, in five fathoms,” he explained to them.

  Lewrie looked down into the ship’s waist and was appalled to see the white of sailors’ slop-trousers and the white pipe-clayed belts and cross-belts of the Marines. Everyone’s slung rucksacks made from sailcloth were as plain as day, too. It was the time of false dawn, and it was just too bright! For a fearful moment, he considered a hasty recall of the whole affair, but…! He raised his telescope one more time to look the town over, and there were so many waggons ashore, seemingly hundreds of them, enough to make up four typical convoys, and if he let the landing proceed, their loss, along with the livestock that drew them, and the replacement beasts, was just too tempting. It might cost the French supply system half its strength, take months for them to replace, and starve their forces in Calabria of everything!

  Lewrie looked aloft at the sails that still drew wind, and at the commissioning pendant, which was curling lazily on the slight breeze, grumbling to himself the night-time lack of wind that had delayed the approach to the coast; something that could not be planned for. He peered again at the land, which was slowly coming closer and closer, and looked to the Sailing Master for an estimate of how far off it still was, but Mr. Wickersham and one of his Master’s Mates were intent on their sextants and slates, in mid-determination.

  “Eight fathom!” a leadsman called out, much too loud for Lewrie’s taste. “Eight fathom t’this line!”

  Two miles? Lewrie asked himself. He had pored over the charts so long that they were etched on his memory. The next soundings would be six fathoms, an irregular line of shoaling that paralleled the coast; he could close his eyes and see it plain as day.

  “About two miles off yet, sir,” Mr. Wickersham whispered.

  “Thankee, Mister Wickersham,” Lewrie said with a nod, heaving a deep sigh to calm himself. It was so damned light, already, and people ashore would be up and stirring, and one startled glance was all it took for the alarm to be raised; just one yawning fisherman on his way to the town docks, one French sentry shaking himself to keep his eyes open out beyond the warming fires at the edge of a clutch of waggons…!

  “Seems quiet yonder, sir,” Mr. Wickersham said.

  “Let’s pray it stays that way,” Lewrie replied.

  There was little talking or joshing from the sailors and the Marines gathered in the ship’s waist. The loudest sounds were sprung from oak timbers and planking that worked against each other, the wee creaks and squeals of the sheaves in the myriad of pulley blocks, and the rustle of canvas overhead. The ship was moving so slowly that the waterfall rush of the sea down her flanks and under her bows was now a mere whisper.

  “Six fathom deep!” the leadsman called out. “Six fathom t’this line!”

  “Have them pass word,” Lewrie snapped. “No damned shouting!”

  “Aye, sir,” Lt. Farley replied, and turned to speak to a Midshipman on the quarterdeck, who rushed forward to the forecastle.

  The light wind, Lewrie thought, raising his telescope once more, peering at the beaches, which now seemed to loom close enough for the ships to run aground on them; Light surf, no foaming rollers. Good!

  He lowered his telescope to grasp in both hands, fingers taut on the tubes, and closed his eyes to summon up the chart in his mind, wishing that he could dash into the chart space for one last, reassuring look. The coast shoaled gradually hereabouts, with no rocky outcrops marked, and no significant shipwrecks to stumble over. In Italian, the bottom was described as sand, mud, and large gravel, a decent holding ground. Vigilance drew seventeen and a half feet right aft, so five fathoms, thirty feet of water, was sufficient to her needs, but she could go into the four-fathom area with no risk to her bottom.

  “Five fathoms, sir!” a Midshipman reported from the base of the ladderway in the waist. “The lead line shows five fathoms.”

  “Come about, sir?” Lt. Farley asked.

  “No, hang on another minute,” Lewrie suddenly decided, opening his eyes again, and stifling a gasp of alarm at how close the beaches looked.

  “Four and a half fathoms, sir!” the Mid announced once word was passed aft.

  “Round her up into the wind and be ready t’let go the bower!” Lewrie snapped. “Let go the kedge!”

  Hands aloft, draped over the yards with their feet on the swaying foot ropes began taking in the tops’ls, and jibs and stays’ls began to slither down to the deck as the helm was put hard over to swing the ship’s bows into the wind. Far aft, the kedge anchor splashed into the sea, its hawser rapidly paying out the hawse hole with a loud rumble. As the winds came more down the centreline of the ship, and what little way she still had fell away, the larboard bow anchor was let go, too.

  “Haul the barges up and prepare to dis-embark!” Lewrie ordered, eager to get the boats away and clear of the gun-ports if the guns were needed at once. He looked to his right, down the coast, to see all four transports rounding up, too, bows to the wind with their fore tops’ls flat aback to the masts.

  The kedge anchor bit into the bottom, snubbing the ship almost to a stop, and hands sprung to the capstan to begin tightening it so there would be roughly equal scope paid out to both anchors, at which point springlines would be set on the hawsers so the ship could be swung a few degrees about to create a greater arc of fire to take on targets ashore.

  “Boats are alongside, sir!” a Midshipman reported after leaning far over the bulwarks.

  “Away you go, Mister Greenleaf, Mister Whitehead!” Lewrie told the officers waiting in the waist, and, with a great eager shout, the armed sailors and Marines swung over the bulwarks and hammock stanchions onto the boarding nets to lower themselves into the waiting barges. It was light enough for Lewrie to see ant-like figures scrambling on the nets on the transports, too, a flood of red coats and blue jackets.

  “Come on, get clear!” he muttered impatiently.

  “I’d estimate that we are roughly a third of a mile from shore, sir,” the Sailing Master announced. “A little closer than we had planned, but…” He gave a satisfied shrug.

  “Good enough, Mister Wickersham,” Lewrie said, distractedly, for the smoke from the convoy encampment’s campfires was now joined by an host of smoke skeins rising from almost every chimney. Monasterace and its citizens were waking up and starting their breakfasts!

  Two of Vigilance’s barges were clear of the ship, oars out but idling to be joined by the other pair, and Lewrie leaned out on the bulwarks, waiting to see the first barge crossing close under the up-thrust bow-sprit and jib-boom. There it was, at last, hands stroking hard at their oars! Half a minute later and the second rowed clear. Once a rough line-abreast was formed, Lt. Greenle
af swept an arm and pointed at the beach, and all four barges began to dash for the sands of the beach.

  “Mister Farley, we can now open the ports and run out,” Lewrie ordered with a great sigh of relief. “Pass word to Mister Grace that he is free to open upon anything threatening.”

  “Aye, sir,” Farley replied, snapping fingers to summon that Mid to run below once more.

  Lewrie turned to watch the twenty-four barges off the transports as they formed their own line-abreast on their way shoreward, a snaky and varying line depending on the speed and strength of the individual boat’s oarsmen. Lewrie had been in Spanish Florida during the American Revolution, and had gotten a healthy distrust, and dislike, of snakes, fearful of the nights when they had camped rough. He’d seen more than his share of deadly rattlesnakes, too, and as he watched the transport barges go in, the word “sidewinder” sprang to mind, for that seemed to be the way the line-abreast weaved.

  Two hundred yards … one hundred yards to go, and he tried to be stoic as the barges breasted the last glistening waves as they broke upon the beach, then oars were tossed vertically from the thole pins as the barges’ bows slithered onto the sands, bow men springing out into shin-deep water to drag them onto firmer purchases. Lewrie could at last let his pent breath out. They were ashore!

  He raised his telescope to watch Marine Captain Whitehead and his Lieutenants waving to form the ship’s Marines into two ranks and smaller four-man sections to scout ahead as they left the beach and crossed the overwash barrows. Down the coast to the east of the town the 94th was advancing in skirmish order with the King’s Colour and the Regimental Colour in the centre, gaily and brightly streaming.

  “All they need is a brass band, sir,” Lt. Farley commented, “or at least some fifers.”

  “Too noisy,” Lewrie countered. “We don’t wish to wake the French too early. Springs rigged on the cables?”

  “Aye, sir,” Farley told him.

  “Deck, there!” a mainmast lookout shouted down. “Enemy sodjers in th’ town! Comin’ outta th’ houses!”

  “Oh, Christ!” Lewrie gawped, quickly raising his telescope to see for himself. “Pass word to Mister Grace. He is to take the town under fire, by broadside, and I don’t care if he blows the bloody place to brick dust!”

  There were dozens of men in blue coats and shakoes, white cross-belts stark in the pre-dawn light. They came rushing out of waterfront houses, stores, and warehouses by files, already dressed and booted, and under arms. More of them were emerging from the houses on the eastern edge of town, wee triangular company pennants flying in their haste to lead the soldiers onward.

  “Mister Farley, have two nine-pounders fired to alert our shore parties, and hoist Number Ten … Enemy In Sight!” Lewrie snapped.

  They were prepared for us, waitin’ for us to get ashore, he thought; By God, we’ve been betrayed!

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “What the Devil?” Lt. Greenleaf exclaimed as two loud cannon shots erupted. He had just gotten his armed sailors settled in decent cover beyond the overwash barrows above the beach, where wind-sculpted and salt-stunted shrubbery stood chest high, and had taken a welcome sip of water from his canteen, and almost dropped it in alarm, turning to gawp at the ship. “Enemy In Sight?” he barked as the signal flag soared up the halliard.

  Greenleaf stood fully erect to peer over the tangled shrubs at Captain Whitehead, who had turned to look behind him when the alert roared out. Whitehead heaved a great, exaggerated shrug to Greenleaf, then turned back to his Marines, ordering them to load and prime, then kneel to await whatever was coming. Pairs of scouts dashed out from either flank, suddenly moving warily and hunched over as if in dread of sharpshooters.

  * * *

  “Scouts are showing two shakoes, sir,” the Regimental Sergeant-Major crisply reported to Colonel Tarrant, near the Colour party.

  Two shakoes held aloft on the muzzles of the scouts’ muskets meant that a large party of enemy had been spotted to their front.

  “Which scout parties, Sar’n-Major?” Tarrant asked, pulling out a pocket telescope for his own look-see.

  “Left flank and centre parties, sir,” was the crisp reply.

  “Both Light Companies to deploy to the left and front in chain order,” Tarrant decided. “Scouts to retire, and the Line and Grenadier Companies to form line, there, in two ranks.” He pointed with his telescope at a line of low old stone wall half-hidden in low shrubs.

  Tarrant and the Sergeant-Major turned when they heard the two cannon shots from Vigilance, and saw the lone signal flag, wondering what it meant, for Enemy In Sight had not been displayed to them in the past, and it was not a part of the slim signals book that the Navy had shared with them.

  “Enemy to our front, sir!” a runner shouted as he came dashing back from one of the Light Companies. “Enemy is infantry! Comin’ from the waggon camps!”

  He was quickly followed by a second runner, who shouted that the French were pouring out of buildings in the town, too, and Col. Tarrant could turn his head to see those, what looked to be at least half of a regiment, forming up in three-deep ranks from the town centre and the eastern edges.

  “Some bastard’s sold us out, Sar’n-Major,” Tarrant spat as he trotted forward to stay in front of his rapidly advancing companies. “Take position along the wall, and be ready to hold fast, lads! We’ve a proper fight ahead! And we’re going to skin the bastards!”

  He hoped, anyway, though knowing that this morning would be a grim business. What else he might have said was swallowed by a stupendous roar as HMS Vigilance lit up in a full broadside, wreathing herself in a fogbank of powder smoke shot through with defiant jets of muzzle flashes. Down range of that titanic noise was nigh-deafening as upper deck 9-pounders, 18-pounders, and lower deck 24-pounders hurled iron roundshot at Monasterace and the French soldiers, that roundshot humming and skreeing through the air, rising in tone as it neared, followed by more crashes as the walls of houses, shops, and stores, and the trading warehouses facing the sea were blown apart, whole walls collapsing in vast clouds of plaster, wood laths, laid stone, and old mortar, smothering and crushing enemy soldiers too late off the mark to get outside and form up, and scything through French infantry.

  “My word, sir!” the Sergeant-Major gasped.

  “Indeed, Sar’n-Major,” Tarrant said, feeling that not all was lost with Lewrie’s guns backing him up. “Most impressive!”

  * * *

  “Shot, sir!” Lt. Farley exclaimed as he heard several cannon balls zoom past, high above the rigging. “They’ve artillery somewhere!”

  “Well, of course they do, sir,” Lewrie gravelled, “what’s a good ambush without ’em? Up on that low ridge behind the town’s my guess, among the orchards and olive groves, most-like. A well-laid plan they put together. ’Til we’ve fended off the enemy troops, though, we’ll just have to take it.”

  “Deck there!” a lookout high above shouted down. “Enemy troops a’comin’ from th’ waggon camps left o’ th’ town!”

  “An experienced Midshipman to the cross-trees, Mister Farley,” Lewrie ordered, “someone who can make educated guesses as to their strength, and knows the difference ’tween infantry and cavalry. And do pass word to Mister Grace that he’s to shift aim a bit to the left, for now, to keep ’em off the Marines and our landing party.”

  As Lewrie went up to the poop deck for a better view, Vigilance thundered and shuddered as gun crews used crow-levers to raise the aft ends of the truck carriages to train their guns a bit to the left, as powder monkeys scampered up and down the ladderways to and from the powder magazines with fresh cartridge or to fetch more. Sailors tugged and grunted on the run-out tackles to sweat their heavy charges back to the port-sills for the next broadside.

  “Prime!” Lt. Grace could be heard yelling through a brass speaking trumpet. “Cock you locks!” and older Midshipmen, standing in for officers, echoed his orders, ’til …

  “By broadside … fire!”<
br />
  * * *

  Marine Captain Whitehead could now see the French infantry that inclined towards his position in the rough shrubbery, what looked to him to be at least two entire companies already in three-deep ranks, and taking mincing steps to their right to extend and form a front directly meant for his small party of Marines.

  Whitehead heaved a grim sigh, pondering when he would order his men to fix bayonets, which would make reloading their Short India Pattern Tower muskets more awkward. He looked over his shoulder at the beach and the waiting boats, which suddenly looked so welcoming. The ship … so solid, so safe, and a grand shelter. Black iron muzzles were jerking into the gun-ports once more, and Whitehead drew a mental line from those muzzles to … where he stood?

  “Everyone face down on the ground!” Whitehead roared suddenly. “Lie prone!” and he flung himself belly-down, wriggling frantically to get his canvas rucksack out from under his chest where it had swung on his way to the ground, hoping to get an inch or two lower.

  God, so loud! A broadside experienced aboard ship was loud, but this was ear-splitting as the guns of all calibre went off as one, but to be on the receiving end, within a quarter-mile of it, featured the whiz, whoosh, keening of brutal iron passing mere yards above his head! He thought that the stiff stems of wild grass bent from the dragon’s breath of disturbed air!

  There were no explosive shells, just solid roundshot, but the earth under his chest heaved and shuddered, thrusting upwards, raising him an inch or so as the shot struck the ground and caromed upwards in great bounds. There were stone crashes as shot shattered the houses from which the French had come, and the fluttery whines of roundshot shards as balls struck something solid and broke into pieces, spraying mutilating bits of themselves in all directions.

  And screams! Most welcome screams and death cries in French as roundshot went through those three-deep ranks like a game of bowls!