Kings and Emperors (29 page)

“Hope ye like Spanish cuisine, Jemmy,” Lewrie said, offering his hand one more time. “It ain't all bad.”

“On your way, Alan, and good luck,” Shirke said in parting.

*   *   *

Once back aboard
Sapphire,
and padding round his great-cabins in stockinged feet as he prepared for bed, Lewrie felt a strong urge to reminisce. Yes, he'd been the worst sort of fool when he first went aboard old
Ariadne
in 1780, sulky, feeling wronged that his father had shoved him into the Navy, just to lay his hands on an inheritance from his late mother's side to clear his many debts, with him all far away and un-knowing how he'd been cheated. He'd been a right pain, and not for his nautical ignorance, but for his arrogant, cynical, and selfish attitude, feeling surrounded by slack-wit fools or un-feeling brutes.

Fond memories of my Midshipman days?
he thought;
Not hardly! I can laugh about it, now, but it wasn't all that much fun. Jemmy Shirke, well. Hadn't given him a thought in
ages
! I've no hard feelings. His pranks were
cruel
fun, but he meant nothing by them.

He had released Pettus and Jessop from duty and had the cabins to himself; just him and Chalky. He poured himself a wee dollop of brandy at the wine-cabinet, took the lone lit candle into his sleeping space, and found Chalky waiting for him with his front paws tucked under his chest, slit-eyed with drowsiness. That didn't last for long. The cat rose and arched his back, going on tip-toes to stretch.

Lewrie finished his brandy, set the glass atop one of his sea-chests, snuffed the candle, and rolled into bed, with Chalky crawling up one leg to his chest to demand pets.

Fillebrowne, now … what t'make of him?
Lewrie wondered.

It struck him as odd that Fillebrowne showed no curiosity at the mention of Thom Charlton, Benjamin Rodgers, or his First Officer in
Myrmidon,
Stroud. The man had
tolerated
Shirke, Hayman, and himself, and their tales of past experiences, offering none of his own, almost seeming impatient with their supper conversation.

We aren't good enough for
his
sort,
Lewrie decided, yawning;
He thinks himself so far above the bulk o' Mankind, I wonder if he has a
single
friend he thinks worthy.

“I just don't like the bastard, puss,” Lewrie whispered to the cat, stroking its chops and under its neck as Chalky sprawled even closer and began to rumble. “And he doesn't like
anybody
. He's an amateur at this business, and I doubt the Navy was his decision. What's a second or third son t'do, if your family says ‘go find your career, or else'? Good God, he might've been
pressed,
the same as
me
! I still don't like him, though. Don't trust him, either.”

Chalky belly-crawled up nearer his chin and began to lick and head swipe.

“G'night, Chalky. I love you, too.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Mondego Bay was aswarm with troop transports and supply ships when the convoy bearing General Spencer's five thousand men arrived, and the few piers in Figueira da Foz had been claimed by the first arrivals, the army under General Sir Arthur Wellesley. Most of his troops and supplies were ashore and encamped, so their convoy vessels could go close to the shore and ferry everything to a broad, deep hard-packed beach. All of
Sapphire
's boats, and the larger cutters or launches from
Newcastle, Assurance,
and
Tiger
were put to the task.

“Hmpfh!” Lieutenant Geoffrey Westcott said with a snort after looking the scene over with his telescope. “Are we landing an army, or a parcel of visitors to Brighton? Look there, sir, at those soldiers skylarking.”

Lewrie raised his own glass to one eye and beheld what looked to be utter chaos. Dozens of ship's boats were stroking shoreward to the beaches, soaring as they met the moderate waves of surf, and all crammed with piles of crates, kegs and barrels of rations, and infantrymen sitting upright between the oarsmen with their muskets held vertically 'twixt their tight-squeezed knees. But in the surf, pale and naked men were splashing, swimming, floating, or standing in thigh-deep water to let the incoming waves break over them. Further up the beach, barely dressed and bare-chested men were basking or footballing as if the entire army was having a Make and Mend day of idleness.

“One can only hope that French soldiers are as thin and spindly as ours,” Lewrie said with a sigh. “They look as pale as spooks.”

“They're in the boats' way!” Westcott groused.

“Uhm, no, I don't think so,” Lewrie disagreed after a longer look. “Someone's planted posts and flags along the beaches to clear a long stretch where the boats can land. The swimming areas are outside of that. Damme! Someone in
our
army half knows what he's doing, for a change! The whole affair looks … organised.”

“Oh, now that you point it out, I see it,” Westcott said in a much milder voice, sounding as if he was disappointed that he could not have himself a good rant.

“Ye know, I've never been to Brighton,” Lewrie admitted. “I've taken the waters at Bath, but they say that saltwater bathing is good for you. Half-freezin' your arse in the Channel, well. The seas here surely are warmer. I'm tempted t'take a dip, myself.”

“As I recall, though, sir, you cannot swim,” Westcott reminded him.

“I said ‘dip,'” Lewrie replied, “not ‘plunge.' Wade, perhaps, and let the surf have its way with me, with my feet firmly planted in the sand. On such a warm day, well, it looks refreshin'.”

He swung his telescope back to the boats as they hobby-horsed the last fifty yards or so to ground their bows in the sand, rising on the incoming wave, surging onward as it broke and foamed round them. Sailors leapt out to walk the boats over the last incoming surge and steady them as the soldiers began to debark over the bows. Soldiers from other units came down from the low dunes and barrow overwashes to help the boat crews unload and stack crates, bundles, and kegs ashore.

Beyond them, lines of four-wheeled waggons and carts with two man-tall solid wooden wheels stood waiting. The half-battalion that had just set foot on shore stacked their arms up by the waggons, and began to carry all those goods to the waggons, where civilian Portuguese drivers and carters began the loading, under the supervision of British officers in shakoes or elegant bicorne hats.

It struck Lewrie that this landing was better organised than any he'd seen before, at Toulon, at Blaauberg Bay two years before at the invasion of the Dutch Cape Colony, certainly that shoddy mess at Buenos Aires. He suspected that the initial landing of General Wellesley's army a day or two before had been just as efficient. Someone had given a long thought upon how to get troops, guns, waggons, and horses ashore quickly and smoothly, ready for battle the day after if necessary.

And all those waggons and carts … They were definitely
not
British Army issue, for upon a longer look, he could not discern more than four that looked similar, as if local towns in Portugal built their own styles. They were all the colours of the rainbow, as well, much like the lot that
Sapphire
had shot to smouldering kindling on the coast road from Málaga to Salobreña.

That must've cost Wellesley a pretty penny,
Lewrie thought.

When they had landed General Spencer's small army at Ayamonte, or Puerto de Santa María, the cost of hiring or leasing Spanish carts and waggons was as dear as
purchasing
them outright, and Spencer was as tight as the worst penny-pinching miser when it came to dipping into his army chest, practically weeping over every spent shilling. This General Wellesley, it seemed, had a much fatter purse, and was not averse to spending freely to keep all his supplies close by the heels of his soldiers, ready for issue or use.

“They'll have their supplies in the waggons and be ready to march off in the next hour,” Lewrie predicted, lowering his telescope. “That regiment's other half-battalion will be ashore with 'em by then, tents, cookpots, and all. We may have all of Spencer's force off the ships by the start of the First Dog this afternoon.”

“Who knew our army had it in them, sir?” Westcott said in sour wonder. “Is this one of Sir John Moore's famous reforms?”

“Could be,” Lewrie whimsically replied. He turned away from the starboard quarterdeck bulwarks, put his hands in the small of his back, and peered upward at the long, streaming commissioning pendant for a hint of the wind direction, had a look seaward for signs of a change in the weather, then turned to look back at the beaches. The sea seemed a bit more boisterous further North of the bay, at Cape Mondego, but the bay itself, rather open to the prevailing Westerlies, looked safe, so far, for boat-work, and the surf that growled on the beaches was not too high.

Sea-bathing; it
was
tempting even if he could not swim a lick. The day was hot, and it wasn't even close to Noon. He had already shed his uniform coat and hat, but still felt sweltering in waist-coat, shirt, neck-stock, breeches, and boots. The King, “Farmer George,” had begun the fad and made Brighton what it was today, with thousands of people of all classes who thought it fashionable to dunk themselves in perishing-cold water. He'd liked the springs at Bath; they were heated.

George the Third's as batty as yer old maiden aunt,
Lewrie told himself;
Perhaps he was daft back then when he took his first dip!

“Signal from Admiral Cotton's flagship, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth piped up. “Oh! Sorry, sir. It's
Newcastle
's number, and Captain Repair On Board, not Captains.”

“Dinin' Jemmy Shirke in, is he?” Lewrie quipped. “Well, I've seen Jemmy eat with a knife and fork before, and he does it elegant. Oh,
this'll
be embarrassin'. All our boats are away helpin' with the landings, and
Newcastle
doesn't have a
raft
available.”

Lewrie went to the larboard side of the quarterdeck to watch the show.
Newcastle
's signal halliards sprouted a series of flags that repeated the flagship's hoist. They remained aloft for a moment, then were struck down to be replaced with a single flag; the Unable.

“Oh, poor bastard!” Westcott whispered under his breath.

Cotton's flagship sent a new hoist aloft, jerking swiftly to be two-blocked. It was Explain, spelled out.

“No … Boat … Available,” Midshipman Kibworth slowly spelled out, referring to his code book. “Request … Send … Boat.”

Explain was lowered so quickly that it appeared as if Admiral Sir Charles Cotton had tailed on the halliards himself, and in a fit of dire pique.

“Handy bloody word, ‘Request,'” Lewrie smirked. “Oh, do, pretty please?”

“With sugar on it,” Lt. Westcott added, chuckling.

“Send … ing … Boat,” Kibworth read off, at last.

“Whatever
was
planned for dinner, Shirke'll be dinin' on cold crow, or his own hot tripes, after Cotton rips 'em out for him. Well, things seem t'be goin' well, and I've a book to read,” he added, with a longing look up to the poop deck and his collapsible wood-and-canvas deck chair.

“Then, with you on deck, and the Mids in charge of the Anchor Watch, I think I'll go below and have a nap, sir,” Westcott said. He tapped two fingers on the brim of his cocked hat by way of salute and departed for the wardroom.

*   *   *

He read 'til time for his own mid-day dinner, came back to the deck and read some more, and drifted off round three in the afternoon, for the warmth was a soporific, not entirely dispelled by a breeze from offshore. Lewrie was roused by the tinging of Eight Bells being struck at the change of watch at 4
P.M.

There was something heavy and warm on his right thigh, and when he opened one gritty eye, he found Bisquit sitting close by his chair with his head and forelegs draped over him, smelling distinctly doggish, and panting with his tongue lolled out. Lewrie gave Bisquit a pat on the head, and ruffled the fur on his throat and ears. That was a mistake, for Bisquit took it as an invitation to hop up onto his chest and stomach like a hot, hairy blanket, and a heavy one, too.

“Oh no, no, me lad!” Lewrie chid him. “That'll never do. Get off me.” He struggled to rise, to shove the dog off, but Bisquit was having none of it, whining to stay.

“Here, Bisquit, here, boy!” Midshipman Fywell coaxed, snapping his fingers and whistling. “Want a bite of bisquit?” he asked, producing a corner of a half-consumed ship's bread from a pocket. That freed Lewrie, though the dog's quick leap and shove with his rear legs made Lewrie let out an “Oomph!”

“Thankee, Mister Fywell,” Lewrie said, getting to his feet, at last. Bisquit flopped down by the forward railings and crunched away.

“Mister Midshipman Hillhouse's respects, sir, and he sent me to report that our boats are returning.”

“What, the landings are done?” Lewrie asked, scrubbing sleep from his face with both hands.

“Aye, sir, it appears so,” Fywell went on. “The last boat-loads of soldiers and their supplies went in an hour ago, and the General's transport … the Agent Afloat aboard her, that is … hoisted a Discontinue about a quarter-hour ago.”

“My respects to Mister Hillhouse, and he's to make sure that all the scuttlebutts are topped off, Mister Fywell,” Lewrie ordered. “The hands'll be hellish-thirsty when they return. I'll be in my cabins. Carry on.”

“Aye, sir,” Fywell replied.

Once in the relative coolness of the great-cabins, Lewrie called for a glass of cool tea, and a pint of wash water. He stripped off to the skin, soaked his washcloth, and swiped his body down from head to his toes to freshen and cool himself. He thought of dressing, but the idea of clothing, especially a wool broadcloth uniform coat, just palled. He padded into his bed-space and donned a light linen dressing robe, then went to fling himself onto the settee with his bare feet up on the brass Hindoo tray table to savour his sweetened and lemoned cool tea, gulping it down and calling for a re-fill.