Hostile Shores (33 page)

“Column Half-Right!” Simcock bellowed, turning to march backwards and pointing in the right direction.
“Tah!”

“‘Tah’?” Lewrie whispered to him as the Marines altered course.

“That is what my drill-masters shouted when I was learning, and what they used as a word of execution,” Simcock explained in a lower voice, baring a sly smile. “Some prefer ‘Har!’ Makes no bloody sense at all, really. Battalion, Attention, comes out as ‘’Talion, ’Shun!’ for example; Arms in any movement of muskets is said ‘Hahms!’; and so on. It’s all up to the Sergeants’ preference, really. Isn’t that right, Sarn’t Trickett?”

“Whatever the Leftenant says, sir!” Sgt. Trickett barked back.

Their swaying little column angled out from the baggage train, and its cloud of dust, about one hundred yards before Simcock ordered Column Half-Left, with a requisite
Tah!
to bring them back on their original course, parallel with the waggon train.

The march, or the shambling, continued up the slightly rising slope from the sea towards the Blaauwberg, through a dusty brown haze raised by the regiments ahead of them. The land was deceptively green, at least in the middle distance, though the ground they marched over seemed half-parched by a Southern Hemisphere summer, with most of the grasses only ankle high and sere, and rare patches of taller clumps of reeds and greyish-green bushes here and there. What thickets of trees they encountered were thin and spaced far apart from each other, most of them spiked with long thorns. The denser, greener, and more succulent groves lay ahead near the foot of the Blaauwberg, but even those were widely scattered, and formed no impediment to the skirmishers of regimental light companies or cavalry videttes that rode through them. As they got closer, the Blaauwberg did not look as steep as it had at first, but it was treeless and stony, thinly furred with short green grasses between scattered outcrops of bare rock, appearing at that distance as if the green was a thin covering of moss, or a green mould on a stale loaf of bread.

*   *   *

About an hour into the march, which was beginning to be sweaty and arduous, the drums ceased to beat and bugles blew. Loud and deep voices ahead shouted a chorus of “’Talion … Halt!”

“Column … Halt!” Lt. Simcock called out.

“Thank th’ saints!” Seaman Furfy could be heard saying at the rear of the sailors’ party, raising a weary laugh.

“The foe?” Lewrie asked aloud, pulling a shorter telescope from a coat pocket and looking up to the top of the Blaauwberg.

“A five-minutes’ rest, most likely, sir,” Lt. Simcock speculated. “Though it’s very likely that the Dutch have had time to entrench above the beaches, and are ready for us … somewhere up there. Time for some water. If you do not mind, sir, I think it a caution did we send some pickets out to our right, about fifty yards or so, just in case, whilst the rest get off their feet for a bit.”

“Good idea,” Lewrie said, turning to walk back behind their waggon to see Lt. Westcott and have him send out some scouts.

“Five minutes’ rest, and water, Mister Westcott, and I’d be much obliged did you send about ten hands out to the right, about fifty or sixty yards, to be lookouts once they’ve had a ‘wet’.”

“Aye, sir,” Westcott replied as he mopped his face with a handkerchief, then passed the chore to Midshipman Warburton. “Bless me, but I doubt I’ve walked this far since our ship was commissioned. Even in Spanish Florida we did not venture so far inland.”

“That’s the trouble with seeking after adventure, sir,” Lewrie said with a snicker. “But, we’ll be all the fitter for it, when we do run into it.”

“I’d more expect dead-tired, sir,” Westcott drolly replied. He pulled the sling of his improvised canteen up, un-corked the wine bottle, and took a long pull of water.

Lewrie looked all about the landscape, then went to the waggon to clamber up the spokes of the rear wheel and into the bed, sitting down on a keg and pulling out his telescope once more for a closer inspection of the land to their right.

I could see more if I stood up, but damned if I’m goin’ to,
he thought. The muscles in his thighs and calves were complaining about the long, and rare, expenditure of effort. Three or four turns from the taffrails to the forecastle, or hours spent on his feet pacing the quarterdeck, had not prepared him for this trek. To make things worse, his well-made Hessian boots, fashionable and snug-fitting, now felt two sizes too small, and his thick cotton stockings had turned two sizes too loose, clumping in the worst possible places!

It felt rather pleasant, sitting on a keg of small beer, but, he stood with a stifled groan, raised his pocket telescope once more, and gave the terrain a very close look-over.

Damme, are those springboks?
he wondered, noting some white-and-tawny-coated things deep in a thorn tree thicket;
Thought the clatter from the army would’ve scared them off!

They were nigh a cable’s distance off, he estimated, but there might be a chance to stalk them, pot one, field-dress it for supper …

“No,” he muttered. “It’d rot before we camp for the night, and the rest period’s too damned short, anyway.”

He sat back down, raised his magnum champagne bottle canteen, and took a deep drink.

“You, there! What detachment is this, and how do you come to be here?” someone was calling at them in one of those arrogant, and plummy, voices that simply got up Lewrie’s nose.

He stood and looked left, to see an elegantly uniformed young officer on a fine blooded horse pacing up to them. The officer wore a fore-and-aft bicorne trimmed with gold lace, and plumed with white egret feathers. It was tipped so low on his forehead that he had to look down his nose at them—or was that his usual demeanour when dealing with common soldiers and social inferiors?

“Good morning,” Lewrie called to him. “We are part of the Naval Brigade, sent ashore to land the siege artillery, and guard your baggage train. Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of the
Reliant
frigate.”

The bloody knighthood looks like it’ll prove useful, again,
he thought.

“Good God above, sir!” the officer yelped in indignation, after taking a quick and dismissive look at Lewrie’s men. “You are
drinking,
sir? You allow your men
spirits
? Scandalous!”

“It’s water, sir,” Lewrie told him, feeling the urge to raise his bottle to his mouth for another guzzle. “My Marines are the only ones with proper canteens, so we had to improvise.”

At least he
hoped
that his men had only water! He had learned long ago how devious sailors could be when it came to getting and hiding stashes of rum or brandy, in the most unlikely places. His party might not be able to pass a close inspection, no matter how carefully their bottles had been checked before being filled. In point of fact, he had two pint flasks of spirits in his own bed-roll!

The officer, a Captain of Foot who had yet to introduce himself, un-buttoned his elegant tunic and clawed out a sheaf of papers from an inside breast pocket. “Look here, Captain … Lewis, was it? I find no mention of
any
naval parties serving ashore, and certainly no mention of your party in our order of march.”

“It’s Lewrie, not Lewis, and my orders come from Commodore Popham
and
General Sir David Baird,” Lewrie countered, producing his own papers. “And, strictly speakin’, we are not listed in the order of march, but are out on the
flank
of the baggage train, doin’ what we are ordered t’do … guarding it.”

“Humph! I see here that the so-called Naval Brigade’s
first
duty is to land the siege artillery, and guard the stores still piled above the beaches,” the Army officer said, looking up from the offered papers with a raised, dubious brow and handing them back. “I very much doubt that even the broadest interpretation of your orders may justify your presence anywhere near
here,
sir! Besides,” he huffed, and made a snide little grin, “the baggage train is already guarded by a battalion of Foot, as one may clearly see from here.”

“Your battalion’s spaced out in company lots, on both flanks, and at the rear, sir, right next to the waggons and pack animals, and eatin’ so much dust, they can’t see their hands in front of their faces. Have they any idea there’re impalas in the thorn trees? Or warthogs rootin’ round out in the open, not a quarter-mile off?” Lewrie pointed out, becoming irked at the man’s high-handedness. “Now, do those impalas spook, it’s good odds that it could be Dutch cavalry, sneakin’ up on the waggons. Do they break cover East or West, it’s
something
t’be concerned about. Do they run off South, then it’s our noises that does it. That’s why we’re out here, sir, where we can see any threat, and why I’ve pickets out beyond us.”

Which is what yer battalion
should
be doin’,
Lewrie left to the soldier’s imagination—if he had one;
And yes, I
am
teachin’ your granny how to suck eggs!

“I would strongly advise that you and your party return to the beach, Captain Lewrie,” the Army officer said, stiffening in umbrage to be told his trade. “Your men are not trained soldiers, and are an impediment to the Army’s movements. Too weak a force, more in
need
of protection than anything else!”

“I think I’ll obey my orders as written, sir,” Lewrie objected, “and we stand warned.”

“I will report this to General Baird,” the Army Captain threatened, glowering.

“When you do, sir, please extend my warmest regards to Sir David,” Lewrie replied with a perky version of his best “shit-eating” grin, and doffed his hat. “Good day to you. Hoy, Mister Simcock! Hoy, Mister Westcott! Call in the pickets, and form ranks!”

Lewrie hopped down from the bed of the waggon and went to join the Marines at the head of the column, leaving the Army officer to fume, jerk reins, and canter off in search of someone to complain to.

“You have been making friends with our compatriots in the Army, sir?” Lt. Simcock said from the corner of his mouth.

“Makin’ friends
wherever
I go, Mister Simcock,” Lewrie beamed back. “Will you just look at that, sir!”

That mounted officer had ridden to the infantry companies down the right flank of the baggage train, and was chivvying them to take positions further out.

“He may come back and tell us to bugger off for good and all,” Lewrie speculated to the Marine officer, “now that those soldiers are out far enough t’do a proper job.”

“Back to the beach, then, sir?” Simcock asked.

“No, sir,” Lewrie countered. “We’ll just amble on up with the regiments and see what we can see. Carry on, Mister Simcock.”

“Detachment, ’Shun! Shoulder, Hahms! For-ward, March!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Adrift and un-wanted, their little column shuffled its way out further to the right, beyond the head of the baggage train and up to the rear of an infantry battalion, taking their own half-hour break for water as the heads of the Army columns began their ascents up towards the Blaauwberg. Up close, the Blaauwberg looked to be merely a pimple compared to the rocky heights beyond, and its slope looked to be even easier, even for field artillery or supply waggons.

“Simply lovely,” Lt. Westcott commented. “The Cape Colony has the grand landscape of Scotland beat all hollow. As impressive as any painting I’ve ever seen of the Alps!”

“Aye, it is dramatic. Starkly so,” Lewrie agreed as he took a slug of stale ship’s water from his magnum bottle. “Once we’re at the top of this hill, I expect one could see for fifty miles on a clear day.”

“As soon as we clear the Dutch off it,” Westcott said with a chuckle. “If they’re there, that is. They might have decided to fort up nearer Cape Town and make their stand there.”

“They had batteries at the head of the bay when the other ships took them under fire, yesterday,” Lewrie cautioned. “No reason for them t’be run off by a few broadsides. Oh, look, Mister Westcott! Here comes the Thirty-fourth Dragoons!”

The infantry columns had halted for a rest and water break, but the Light Dragoons had been ordered forward to screen. By fours, the squadrons and troops cantered past, raising more dust. Lewrie waved to Captains Veasey and Chadfield, whom he had met, and to the youngster, Cornet Allison, when he rode past. Cornet Allison heaved off a great, rueful shrug, for he seemed to be saddled with the care of the Regimental Ram, which he was leading by a long rope. The Regimental Ram looked as if someone had washed it recently, combed it, and picked “dilberry” shit balls from its arse. To make the Regimental Ram even surlier than normal, it wore a gilt-trimmed royal blue saddle blanket with the 34th’s crest bravely embroidered on it.

“Bleatin’, buckin’, and sure t’attack somebody,” Lewrie joked. “You’d not catch Bisquit puttin’ up with such.”

“The Dragoons appear to be going ahead of the infantry columns, sir,” Lt. Westcott said, flashing one of his brief, savage grins. “We could get up even closer, with them. At least out to the flank of the lead battalions. See, sir? The soldiers are taking off their packs. Preparing to advance!”

“Aye, they are, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie took note, exchanging his water bottle for his pocket telescope. “And changing from columns of fours to line! Yes, let’s go up there, out to the right. It will be a good spot t’watch the show! Mister Simcock? Let’s get ’em up and moving!”

“When they go in, sir, could we go in with them?” Lt. Westcott asked, sounding as if he was begging.

“Don’t know if
that’s
in our brief, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie mused aloud, considering the risks. “If the leading regiments
are
to go in, that snotty Army Captain was right. We’d just be in the way of their attack. But, nobody’s tellin’ us we can’t be spectators!”

Up ahead, the regiments were forming two ranks deep, arrayed across a wide front with their grenadier companies on the right, the traditional point of honour, the eight battalion companies to the left of them, and the light companies on the extreme left. Their Colours and commanding officers were in the centre, and their bands, who would also serve as aides to the surgeons, were in the rear. Behind each leading regiment, another thin line of a second regiment was forming. Field pieces were being ordered up to place artillery between, and cavalry took position to either flank.