Hostile Shores

There were some aides-de-camp with them, to whom Lewrie was named but they made little impression; he was sure that he would not have much to do with them once the army was set ashore.

“Besides the most welcome mail from home, what else did you bring us, Lewrie?” Commodore Popham asked.

“Two troops of the Thirty-fourth Light Dragoons, sir,” Lewrie told him, dreading the coming a

“Oh Lord, Colonel Laird!” General Baird said with a sniff. “One does hope he’s pleased, at long last.”

“I obtained these papers at Funchal, sir,” Lewrie said, holding them out for Popham to take. “I don’t know if you’ve had word of the battle off Cádiz, and Cape Trafalgar, yet. Nelson—”

“Caught up with Villeneuve at last, did he?” Popham exclaimed, beaming with pleasure and anticipation.

“He did, sir, the combined French and Spanish fleets,” Lewrie went on. “The foe were utterly defeated, and upwards of twenty ships were taken as prize, but … Admiral Lord Nelson was slain, sir. So soon after, and by word of mouth to Lisbon and Oporto, I expect the details are half rumour, half wild speculation, but—”

“Good God! Nelson, dead?” Popham yelped, taken all aback and suddenly “in-irons” at the news. “That is simply impossible to imagine! Why, even credible London papers had Nelson meeting Villeneuve half a dozen times, and all of the accounts pure fantasy. How much faith may be put in Portuguese scribblers?” he scoffed.

“The English language paper from Oporto tells the same story, sir,” Lewrie pointed out, “as did our Consul at Funchal, Gilbao? At any rate, it appears there was a battle, and a victory.”

“If true, such a victory would be England’s salvation from the fear of French invasion, at last,” General Beresford hesitantly said, “though at much too high a cost. What joyous celebrations our nation will hold would be tempered by the sense of loss, and grief.”

“Doubt there will ever be another quite like him,” General Baird gruffly said.

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Sir David,” Popham said with a brief smile, almost a sly look. “Nelson was a product of our Navy, and our Fleet will produce a worthy replacement, eventually. The nation may grieve for a time, but … when they hear of our success at Cape Town? And a success it will be, hey? New heroes will arise.”

“I thought it best to inform you at once, sir,” Lewrie said, “and allow you to decide whether the news should be passed on to our sailors right off, or you wish to wait ’til there is solid confirmation.”

“Quite right, Lewrie, aye,” Popham said, nodding. “It might be best to pass the word that Nelson smashed the Frogs and Dons, but hold off on the details ’til we truly do have confirmation. That’ll put a fire in their bellies, and make them eager to succeed. Well, sirs, shall we dine?”

At least I didn’t have t’fetch him a chicken, Lewrie wryly told himself; I don’t think admirals live this well at sea!

Sir Home Riggs Popham’s great-cabins fair-screamed money, and extreme good taste, worlds beyond the bare-bones spartan quarters the Navy approved of from its officers, no matter how senior, or wealthy. Lewrie’s own tastes, and comforts, had been sniffed at by dis-approving seniors in the past, deemed almost sybaritic, but his could not hold a candle to Popham’s. Atop the usual black-and-white chequered canvas deck cloth which emulated tilework, the figured carpets were thick enough to trip over, or sink into at each step. Polished brass or coin-silver lanthorns hung from the painted or polished overhead deck beams in profusion, the chairs, settees, wine-cabinets, the wash-hand stand, and Popham’s desk gleamed, and the aroma of bees’ wax polish was everywhere. Popham’s sleeping space, chart cubby, and the dining coach were partitioned off with half-louvred panels made from polished oak, not the usual deal-and-canvas temporary walls. In the dining coach there was a table which could seat twelve, covered with a glaringly clean and white tablecloth, with pitchers, bowls and candelabras down the centre all in shining coin-silver, with even more pieces resting atop the magnificent sideboard. Once inside and seated, the partitions were chair-railed and wainscotted below, the upper parts painted light canary yellow, picked out with white trim.

I’d heard he’d deliberately married for money, Lewrie scoffed to himself; and it appears he gained a barge-load of “tin” from the bargain! There’s enough candles lit t’light a bloody ballroom!

The soup course was “portable”, the usual boiled dry and pressed into cakes vegetable soup so beloved of the Navy Victualling Board, though made more palatable with shredded bacon bits and tangy spices, served with white-bread baked rolls, globs of “fresh-ish” butter, and a sprightly German Riesling.

“Do you believe the accounts, Captain Lewrie?” General Beresford gloomily enquired after a slurp or two.

“I fear that I do, sir,” Lewrie admitted. “Lord Nelson pursued Villeneuve so hotly, there is no way that he would not bring him to battle, once Villeneuve returned to Europe from his jaunt to the West Indies. If the French put into Cádiz, as is reported, and sailed out with his Spanish ally, Nelson would have been there, right off shore, and thirsting for a fight. My main fear is for my youngest son, Hugh, who is aboard the Pegasus seventy-four, under an old friend of mine, Captain Thomas Charlton.”

“Charlton!” Popham cried in delight. “A damned good man, is Thom Charlton, and a fine sailor. Straight as a die, and as smart as paint. You chose well for your son’s first captain. Where did you serve with him?”

“He commanded a small squadron in the Adriatic, sir, about the time of Napoleon’s first invasion of Italy, and I had Jester, a French corvette that we took just after the evacuation of Toulon,” Lewrie gladly told him. “Aye, salt of the earth is Charlton, though never the life of the party.”

General Sir David Baird then spoke highly of the soup, sharing an account of how Napoleon fed his armies fresh soup and gravies, put up in magnum-sized champagne bottles and carefully sealed to remain fresh and edible for months on end. “Naturally, Horse Guards will not follow suit,” Baird grumbled. “The French thought of it first.”

“If our Army won’t, then I most certainly shall!” Commodore Popham declared. “If only for my own use. How dearly a consommé or a broth, or a good, thick gravy, is desired at sea!”

The soup was followed by individual bantam chickens, and Lewrie could boast of his fast-growing quail and rabbits kept in his frigate’s forecastle manger, and Popham swore that when dined aboard Reliant off Calais, before their failed expedition with torpedoes and fireships at the tail-end of 1804, Lewrie had been his own inspiration for the keeping of bantams.

“I found a whole new flock of bantams when we put into San Salvador,” Popham told them. “Pigeons and doves are also toothsome, and reproduce in sufficient abundance. When I dined with the Prime Minister in London before receiving this appointment, the high point of our supper, beyond the excellence of the beef roast, was a pigeon pie, hah hah! A pity, though, that, one good omelet is the destruction of one’s pigeon flock for the next six months!”

Just how well-co