Kings and Emperors (34 page)

They had rotated the hands who manned the boats right through the start of the First Dog and into the Second Dog, and these last few sailors had been deprived, away from the ship when the evening rum issue was doled out, and the evening meal was served up from the cauldrons.

“I'll see to it, sir,” Westcott offered.

“Thankee, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said with an incline of his head. He pulled out his pocket watch and studied it in the light from the taffrail lanthorns. “It's almost time for your supper, and mine. Sure ye aren't deprivin' yourself?”

“The wardroom mess can start without me,” Westcott said with a shrug.

“Then I will leave it to you, sir, and go below,” Lewrie said, closing the tubes of his telescope and trotting down the ladderway to the quarterdeck, and the door to his great-cabins.

He barely had time to hang his hat on a peg before his cook, Yeovill, came breezing in with his heavy covered brass barge, and a cheery “Good evening, sir!” and a description of what he had prepared: beef broth with peas, carrots, and onions; a small roast quail done in herbs; salt-pork well-soaked in fresh water to remove the crusted preservative and fried; with a roasted potato, split and drizzled with a cheese and bacon sauce; and green beans.

Of course, there were some shreds of everything for Chalky, along with his usual wee sausages, and Yeovill assured him that the ship's dog, Bisquit, had already gotten a bowl of broth, rice, and cut-up sausages, too, which he was devouring in his cubby beneath the starboard poop deck ladderway on the quarterdeck … after a foraging journey along both gun decks among his friends in the crew.

There was a very nice Portuguese white wine with the quail, and Lewrie took a whole glass before his first bite, asking for a re-fill.

“Ehm, before ye turn in tonight, Pettus,” Lewrie said after a few spoonfuls of broth, “I'm still of a mind t'go ashore round dawn, t'see what the army's up to. I wish my over-under pistols and the brace of single-barrel Mantons cleaned and oiled, and my Ferguson rifled musket seen to.”

“Ehm, if there is to be a battle, sir, you'll be wishing for a silk shirt and silk stockings?” Pettus replied, pausing in the act of pouring that re-fill. “Just in case?”

“Aye,” Lewrie said, ravenously working his way to the bottom of the soup bowl. “And I'll need some bisquit and cheese, and some of the sausages, too, t'take with me.”

“Fearsome, wot boots'll do t'yer stockin's, though, sir,” his cabin servant, Jessop, grumbled. “Darnin' silk's impossible.”

“Rouse me at the end of the Middle Watch,” Lewrie instructed, beginning on the quail and the potato and green beans.

“A bowl of porridge before you go, then, sir?” Yeovill asked.

“Aye, that'd do nicely, Yeovill,” Lewrie agreed.

“I'll send your hanger to the Armourer for a fresh edge, too, sir,” Pettus suggested.

“Oh! See Mister Keane!” Lewrie added. “I'll have need of one of the Marines' canteens, for water.”

“I'll see to it, sir,” Pettus said, though his face wore a wary look, and Lewrie missed the worried expression that Pettus shared with Jessop and Yeovill. Their Captain was off in search of adventure and excitement … again … and was sure to find it, the risk be-damned, and no one with better sense could talk him out of it.

*   *   *

“Ye have a care, now, sor,” Cox'n Liam Desmond muttered as the cutter grounded on the banks of the Maceira a little past 5
A.M.

“An' may th' Good Lord keep ye in His hand, sor,” Pat Furfy added in a solemn voice, crossing himself. “Though, if ya need some stout lads at yer back—”

“I've the army, at my
front,
Furfy, don't ye worry,” Lewrie said as he waded the last few feet to dry land. “Back to the ship, you lot, and I'll see you later.”

“Aye, sor,” Desmond said, sounding doubtful.

It was still dark, before pre-dawn, and the warmth of a Portuguese August had evaporated overnight, leaving a dank, clammy, coolness. There was a faint breath of wind off the sea.

Lewrie trudged along the path he had followed the day before, stumbling over rocks in the dark, headed for a series of torches and the faint glows of campfires beyond the gap between the headlands and the banks of the river. He could not see the remount station; it had been moved somewhere further along.

“Damn!” he spat to the dawn. “I'll be on ‘Shank's Ponies' like the poor, bloody infantry! All the way to … where?”

I'm already regrettin' this,
he thought;
Maybe I should just find a unit in the rear, and scrounge a mug o' tea.

He hiked on, tripping and stumbling over tussocks of long grass and nigh-invisible irregularities in the ground, through the gap and out onto the plains, and stopped in shock. Half-seen in the first wee greyness of pre-dawn, the encampment he'd ridden through the morning before was just gone! The long, orderly lines of tents had been struck, the campfires extinguished, and the army had marched off South. What few fires still lit the night were those of the baggage train, and they looked to be ready to trundle off in the army's wake, with mules and oxen harnessed or yoked, and the waggoners and carters standing round the few fires to gulp down their last morsels of breakfasts, and their lasts swallows of water or tea.

“Hoy, there! Who are ye, an' what're ye doin' here?” A challenge was called out. He heard the clank of a musket cocking.

“Captain Alan Lewrie, HMS
Sapphire
!” Lewrie shouted back, half-alarmed out of his skin. “Royal Navy?” he added.

“Corp'ral o' th' Guard?” that voice bellowed. “Post Two, we've got a visitor!”

A lean, fox-faced fellow shambled over from one of the fires with a lanthorn held aloft, had himself a good look, and deliberately spat tobacco juice. “Lor', 'e
is
Navy! Wot're ya doin' wand'rin' about this time o' night, sir?”

“Looking for the remount station, for a horse,” Lewrie said in calmer takings, for though the sentry had lowered his musket, it was still fully-cocked, and the bayonet tip flashed in the light from the lanthorn, and they both peered at him as if they'd caught themselves a French spy. “I wish to ride up to the main body of the army.”

“A'ready gone, sir,” the Corporal informed him, “an' remounts is up with 'em. Fear ya haveta walk all th' way, or, ya might hitch a ride with th' baggage train, if yer that eager.”

“A ride'll do me quite well, Corporal,” Lewrie quickly agreed.

“Pass, then, sir,” the Corporal allowed, waving his lanthorn in invitation to approach the mass of waggons. “Christ! Beggin' yer pardon, sir, but ya come armed for it,” he said, noting all the weaponry that Lewrie carried stuffed into his coat side pockets, hung from his waist-band, at his hip, and upon his shoulder.

Once Lewrie was far enough off, the Corporal turned to the Private and spat another dollop of tobacco juice. “Bloody, damned officers. Ain't got a lick o' sense in their heads. You an' me, we'll stick with th' waggons, an' stay safe as houses.”

*   *   *

He'd picked up
some
Portuguese from Maddalena, but he doubted his ability to converse with any of the hired waggoners, so he went to the Irishmen hired on by General Wellesley, moments before they began to creak and rumble off.

“Could I get a ride?” he called to a burly, beet-faced fellow with a shock of red hair. “I wish to go up to the army.”

“Iff'n ye do, yer outta yer fackin' mind,” the waggoner shot back with a dis-believing scowl, “but so was I when I signed on fer dis mess. Aye, climb aboard, an' hang on.”

That took some doing, for the box was high off the ground and hand- and foot-holds took some figuring out before he was seated alongside the waggoner, who pulled a pipe from a coat pocket and lit it off the candle lanthorn hung ahead of him. Satisfied that his pipe was drawing well, he lifted his reins and gave them a shake, calling out to his four-horse team. At once, there came an appalling screeching from un-greased axles and several sideways lurches as the waggon got a way on.

“Told ye t'hang on, sor,” the waggoner grumbled. “It ain't no coach-an'-four. Iff'n ye wish t'say somethin', ye'll haveta shout, for it's a noisy bashtit, t'boot, har har!”

The whole column of waggons and carts was extremely noisy, loud enough to be heard coming for miles. Oxen bellowed in protest, mules brayed now and then, long whips cracked so often that they sounded like sporadic musket fire, and the carters and waggoners continually cursed their beasts, loud, foul, and inventively.

“Royal Artillery, air ye?” the waggoner asked after the first mile, mistaking Lewrie's blue coat. “Late t'th' party if ye air.”

“Navy,” Lewrie told him.

“Den yer daft as bats,” the man said with a sniff, leaning over to larboard to hawk up a load of phlegm, then took time to re-light his pipe. “Ye won't git me on a ship, again. Sailin' here was th' worst time o' me life. Mind yer fingers,” he cautioned as the waggon gave some more, alarming lurches which made the whole assembly groan as if it would come apart, turning hand-holds into mousetraps as boards worked against each other.

“Rough road,” Lewrie commented.

“What ye say? Rough, de man says! Dey ain't no roads in dis bloody country, at all. Half de time, we been in dry creek beds when we couldn't even
find
th' roads, e'en when de maps say they're there!”

“What are you carrying?” Lewrie asked.

“Half a ton o' bisquit, wot passes fer bread fer the bloody fools who went for soldiers,” the man griped, “an' dey're welcome to it. Me an' me mates, we bake
real
bread fer ourselves each night. Breast to, ye fackin' four-legged hoors!” he howled of a sudden and cracked his long whip at his team.

So passed the second mile.

The sun slowly rose, and the landscape round the column became visible, as did the dust stirred up by thousands of hooves and wheels. The broad valley of the Maceira narrowed as the waggons neared hills, the hills that Lt. Beauchamp had pointed out to Lewrie the day before. The shallow river turned into a creek off to the right where it issued from between the hills, and just ahead sat a lop-angled wood signpost announcing that the village of Vimeiro was ahead on their right.

“Caught up with de bloody army,” the waggoner said, spitting.

Atop the nearest hill, and strung along the others that rose to the East and Northeast, there were soldiers in black shakoes, red coats, and grey trousers, some assembled in formal rank and file near their Regimental and King's Colours, but most of them on the back slopes of the hills were sprawled or seated at their ease, doing what any soldiers did since Roman times; waiting.

There were more troops in the village of Vimeiro, and what little cavalry was with the army was posted round the village, and Lewrie could spot several dozen horses watering along the northern bank of the Maceira.

“Think I'll get down here,” Lewrie told the waggoner, “and get a horse from them,” he said, pointing at the remounts.

“Man, ye iver
see
a battle?” the waggoner gawped, leaning back in astonishment. “Man on a horse, he's the finest target in de world! Ah, on yer head be it,” he said, drawing rein.

Lewrie clumsily clambered down from the box and headed for the town. He spotted a face he recognised from the remount station, and cajoled the soldier to give him a mount, another of those non-descript locally commandeered Portuguese horses, a dull brown one with black mane and tail, equipped with what looked to be cast-off reins and saddlery, and stirrup straps that looked as if they'd come apart if too much pressure was put upon them.

Leery and cautious, Lewrie swung himself aboard, reined the horse around, and clucked his tongue to get it moving, but no; it took the heels of his boots to encourage it to move, and that only at a sedate walk into the village proper and past a plain two-storey house that, by the presence of so many officers, he took for Wellesley's headquarters.

Mounted messengers, that the army termed gallopers, were coming and going, young fellows of spirit who could not resist the urge to make a great show of their duties and their temporary importance.

Lewrie drew rein a bit beyond the headquarters house to watch, and turned in the saddle to look astern as bugles and whistles blew, and some troops to the West left their positions and began to march through the village to the East.

“What's happening?” he asked of a passing mounted officer.

“Change of position,” the officer replied, giving Lewrie a dis-believing look. “French columns have been spotted more to the Southeast, so we're going up to the next ridge over. What the Devil are
you
doing here, sir? The ocean's back that way, hah hah!”

“Curiosity,” Lewrie replied with a grin.

“That killed the cat, don't ye know,” the fellow cast over his shoulder as he paced along beside his troops.

Lewrie decided to follow the regiment that was passing through Vimeiro. He let his horse have a drink from the Maceira, then forded it and went up the Eastern hills above Vimeiro. Once atop, he found a good view of the countryside, and began to get a grasp of the ground.

Stretching out towards the East and Northeast, there was a long ridge, nearly two miles long, he estimated. The Maceira, now a creek, ran along the ridge's South foot, below an irregular slope which was rather steep in places, but approachable at most, though he thought anyone climbing up would be out of breath by the time he got to the top. To the South and Southeast there lay a rolling set of hillocks that made a second plain, well-timbered in places, and beyond there, what he took for another drop-off to lower ground, a narrow valley in between yet another row of hills.