Kings and Emperors (24 page)

“Good Lord, Mister Deacon!” Lewrie exclaimed.

“Just saying, sir,” Deacon replied, sporting another evil grin. “I might just do it to spare his troops, if his regiment ever takes the field against the French. I can't
abide
his sort of officer.”

“No, Mister Deacon, does it come to a duel, I'd rather do him in, myself,” Lewrie told him. “It won't get that far, though. You're right. His sort doesn't cherish women proper, and most-like doesn't give a fig for 'em beyond havin' one handy. He'll sulk, then search out another.”

“Either way, the offer stands, sir,” Deacon said with a shrug, and turned to go to the lee bulwarks.

“A moment more, Mister Deacon, if ye please,” Lewrie bade with sudden inspiration. “Major Azcárte said that a French demi-brigade was on the road from Málaga. How big is a demi-brigade? I've never heard of one.”

“I believe it would be about two thousand men, sir,” Deacon said with his head cocked over in study. “Three regiments of six hundred men each, with some artillery and gun crews. That's right, he said they had no cavalry, which is odd, sir. I'd think they'd have at least one squadron of horse for scouting, at the least. Azcárte may be in big trouble if the report was wrong. The French could be all over him before he gets his slow waggons into the hills.”

Lewrie looked round the quarterdeck for the Sailing Master, but could not spot him. A few steps aft and he was in the captain's clerk's office, which had been converted into a chart room, and waving Deacon to join him. The coastal chart from Málaga to Cabo de Gata was laid out on the angled desk-top, much marked from previous raids, up-dated for their own use with information that Mountjoy's informers had given them the year before.

“The road from Almuñécar to Salobreña is right along the coast,” Lewrie said, tapping the chart with a pencil, “and there's a section where the road goes round this steep hill, just a mile or so beyond Almuñécar. Hmm. I wonder.”

“Are you thinking of slowing them down, and giving Major Azcárte some breathing room, sir?” Deacon asked, looking evil and expectant again.

“The shoals, though, hmm,” Lewrie speculated. “If I can get within less than a mile without runnin' aground, maybe. The chart says six fathoms, some five-fathom stretches.”

“Thirty feet, and you draw about twenty, sir?” Deacon asked.

“You've been swotting up on salty stuff,” Lewrie japed. “Best not let Mountjoy know, he'd fear we'd steal you away.”

“I prefer skulking round city taverns, sir, thankee,” Deacon said with a rare laugh.

“The five-fathom line is…,” Lewrie said, picking up brass dividers, then aligning them on the distance scale, “… half a mile offshore.
Well
within gun-range! Ah hah! Let's try it.”

He went back out into the fresher air of the quarterdeck, had a squint aloft at the set of the sails and the wind direction which streamed the commissioning pendant.

“We will alter course, Mister Elmes,” he said to the Third Lieutenant, who stood the watch. “We will close the coast, reducing sail as we do so, to within half a mile.” To Lt. Elmes's puzzlement he added, “There's a French brigade on the coast road, and I intend t'give 'em a big, noisy greetin'.”

“Aye aye, sir!” Elmes perked up with glee. “Bosun Terrell, pipe hands to stations to alter course, and reduce sail!”

“Pass word for the Sailing Master,” Lewrie ordered.

This'll give Mister Yelland the “squirts,”
Lewrie thought.

The door to the Sailing Master's sea cabin on the larboard side of the quarterdeck squeaked open and Mr. Yelland stepped out, rumpled and sleepy-eyed from a nap. “Something up, sir?”

“I'll send for strong coffee for you, Mister Yelland,” Lewrie offered. “We're goin'
very
close ashore, and we've need of all your expertise.”

“Ehm … aye, sir!” Yelland said with a grunt of surprise, then winced with dread, scrubbing sleep from his eyes.

*   *   *

High Summer had drummed upon Southern Spain, browning it and drying it out. The forests looked dusted, and only the growing crops were still green. If there had been a paved Roman road along the coast, it had long ago been ripped up for houses, so the road was dry, packed earth. As HMS
Sapphire
slowly ghosted shoreward under tops'ls, jibs, and spanker, with her courses brailed up, the dust plume created by the demi-brigade on the march was visible even from the bulwarks. From the poop deck, Lewrie could begin to make out details with his telescope. There were a few mounted riders, which he took for officers and aides. At the rear, making higher and longer-lasting clouds of dust, he could espy several pieces of artillery, and behind them were many supply waggons, some canvas-covered, and some odd two-wheeled carts with wheels taller than a man. He assumed those had been taken from the Spanish and put to use to supplement French equipment. They were painted in gay, bold colours compared to the French waggons.

“Six fathom! Six fathom t'this line!” a leadsman shouted.

“We should be coming onto the five-fathom line soon, sir,” Mr. Yelland said, taking off his hat and mopping his face with a calico handkerchief. “Warm today.”

“And soon t'get warmer,” Lewrie promised. “Assumin' we don't touch the bottom.”

“Starboard guns are at Quarters, sir,” Lt. Westcott reported. “Think there's a need to rig anti-boarding nets?” he joshed.

“Only when pigs, and Frenchmen, can fly, sir,” Lewrie hooted back. He raised his telescope again. He could make out the infantry, not marching but shambling along and scuffing the road, raising more dust. Blue uniforms on the bulk of them, with white, gold, green, or red sleeve markings and epaulets. Their muskets were slung any-old-how, by the hip, over the shoulder, or laid upon the back of their necks with their arms up-raised to hold them like a farmer's rake.

He'd seen that before, recalling an ambush he made on the Côte Sauvage when blockading the Gironde River, and how the poor French soldiers about to die had shambled along, joshing and sharing tobacco, before his watering party opened fire. It had been a complete surprise for them then, and he hoped that
Sapphire
's guns would be an even greater one today.

“Five fathom! Five fathom t'this line!” the leadsman called.

“Alter course to parallel the coast,” Lewrie ordered. “Stay in five fathoms.” The head of the long French column lay about one point off the starboard bows. “Mister Deacon? Enlighten me. How fast can infantry march?”

Deacon had been on the quarterdeck under the overhang of the poop deck, near the doors to Lewrie's cabins. He poked out in sight and ascended the starboard ladderway to join him.

“March, sir?” Deacon said. “If those people yonder were really marching, they
might
do two or three miles an hour. Allowed to route-step as they are, maybe only two miles an hour, or a bit less. Hmm, that makes me wonder if they even
know
about the arms delivery. Did they know, they'd be going a lot faster. Major Azcárte may be safe as houses, after all. Is that smoke yonder, from Almuñécar? What
have
the French been up to?”

“Same as Bayazit the Thunderer,” Lewrie speculated. “A Turk general. The Turks marched all round Greece and the Balkans on a regular basis, massacring and burning, just t'keep the Greeks and Serbs fearful. Maybe yon Frogs've been up to some bad mischief, and deserve what they're about to get.”

He raised his telescope again, taking in how steep and close to the coast road the foothills were along this stretch. Once he'd opened fire, there would be nowhere to run but back to Almuñécar, or on East for Salobreña. He looked aloft, pleased with the wind's direction, and estimated that the head of the column was now two points off the starboard bows. “Cast of the log!” he called aft, and a minute later, Midshipman Carey reported that the ship was making a slow, sedate five knots.

“Five fathom! Five fathom t'this line!”

“Mister Westcott, the gun crews may load,” Lewrie snapped in rising excitement. “Double-shot with grape. The lower deck will open, first, followed by the upper deck, then the weather deck six-pounders. Keep the ports shut 'til we're ready t'run out.”

“Aye, sir,” Westcott replied. “By God, this will be fun!”

Lewrie looked down at the quarterdeck to see Major Hughes come out of his cabins, yawning and stretching his arms.

“Sorry 'bout that, Captain Lewrie,” he said, looking up. “Had another glass of wine, and nodded off for a bit. What's acting?”

“We're about to kiss a bunch of Frogs, Major Hughes,” Lewrie told him, jerking an arm to point shoreward. He liked what he saw; the head of the French column and the mounted officers were just at the bend of the road where the foothills shouldered it out closer to the sea, and they now lay five points off the starboard bows, coming slowly abeam, where the ship's guns in their narrow ports could aim in broadside. Another minute or two more and the column would be only half a mile away.

“Someone see Bisquit below,” Lewrie asked. “Mister Carey?”

“Aye, sir,” the lad replied, sounding disappointed to miss the opening broadside.

“Hurry back,” Lewrie bade him as the Midshipman took hold of the dog's collar and led him down to the orlop.

“Half a mile's range, I make it, sir,” Mr. Yelland said after taking a sight with his sextant and some scribbling on a slate with a stub of chalk.

“And just about beam-on,” Lewrie agreed. “Mister Westcott, open the gun-ports and run out! Pass word for them to aim well.”

“Aye, sir!” Lt. Westcott said, then bellowed orders and sent Midshipmen scampering down to pass the word. Word came back, shouts of “Ready!”

In Lewrie's ocular, he could see French soldiers looking back at
Sapphire,
mostly curious and unaware, so far; sweaty, dusty faces, mustachios and beards, heads turning to look seaward, then back, to speculate with their mates, as
Sapphire
rumbled and screeched as the guns were run out.

“Mon Dieu, merde alors, mort de ma vie—”
Lewrie tittered with mockery of imagined French expressions of sudden alarm.

“Lower deck, by broadside …
fire
!” Westcott roared.

The discharge of all eleven 24-pounders shoved
Sapphire
a foot or two to larboard, and made her feel as if she squatted in the sea. A massive cloud of spent powder smoke jutted shoreward, spiked with reddish-amber jets of flame and swirling wee embers of serge cartridge bag remnants.

“Let the smoke clear a little!” Lewrie called out.

“Now, sir? I can see the shore again,” Westcott urged.

“Now, sir. Serve 'em another,” Lewrie agreed.

“Upper deck, by broadside …
fire
!”

Mr. Deacon had a short pocket telescope of his own to one eye and was gloating. “I can see horses and riders down, the head of the first battalion's colour party down … Damn the smoke!”

“A glass, somebody!” Hughes demanded. “The bloody Dons stole mine!”

“Smoke's clearing, sir!” Westcott pointed out.

“Fire away, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie told him.

“Weather deck guns, by broadside …
fire
!” and the 6-pounders crashed out, their discharges lighter and shriller than the others. Fewer in number, and their smoke dispersed quicker, giving everyone on deck a good view of what they had wrought, and it was devastation.

“
Goddamned
good shooting!” Lewrie cried. “Have we the best gunners in the Fleet, or not? Pour it on, Mister Westcott,
skin
the bastards!”

The leading regiment in the long, snaking column had sported a few flags, the Tricolour national emblem topped by a large silver bird of some kind, and company flags used as rally points. There was no sign of them, now, except for a few of the lesser ensigns being rushed back West. French soldiers were simply mown down in windrows and heaps of dead and broken wounded, and the rest were fleeing.

“Hah!” Lewrie laughed, turning to Deacon. “How many miles per hour can French regiments
run,
Mister Deacon?”

“Lower gun-deck, by broadside …
fire
!”

The massive 24-pounders belched smoke and fire, flinging solid shot and clouds of plum-sized grapeshot right into the heart of the fleeing mass of soldiers, scything down dozens more. The second regiment in line was engulfed by the frantic stampede, bringing it to a panicky halt.

“Upper-deck guns, by broadside … fire!”

That avalanche of iron struck all along the length of that seething mass of soldiery, and, when the smoke cleared, all three of the French regiments were in flight back to Almuñécar, over-running the artillery pieces and ammunition caissons, the panic making the horse teams rear and scream.

“Six-pounders, by broadside … fire!” Lt. Westcott screeched, and dozens of Frenchmen were tossed aside like lead toys. There were some cleverer soldiers who abandoned their packs, hangers, cartridge pouches, and muskets and were scrambling frantically up the hills that forced the coast road so close to the sea, sure that shipboard guns could not elevate that high. The rest were running, stumbling, shoving slower compatriots out of their way, trampling over the fallen in their haste to find some safety, and leaving wounded friends to their own devices.

“Do my eyes deceive me?” Major Hughes shouted, pointing with one arm as he held a borrowed telescope to his eye. “They're un-limbering their artillery, the damned fools!”

“Brave fellows,” Lt. Westcott commented, his voice raspy from shouting orders.

“Damned idiots!” Mr. Deacon spat.

“What might they have, Mister Deacon?” Lewrie asked. “You're my expert on military matters.”