Hostile Shores

Lewrie fetched a longer, more powerful telescope from the bi

“Christ on a crutch,” he muttered in dour appreciation.

The bay was chopped with white-caps and white horses right to the shallows, and streaked with long, white curling waves mostly parallel to the shore where they began to break, rank upon rank of them marching onwards to crash and expend themselves upon the shingle and sand, each a little more than one hundred yards apart. Were heavily loaded boats sent in under oars, they would be hobby-horsing up and over each wave, bows-high first, then stern-high as they passed over the steep crests, and burrowing their bows in. Their final dashes to the beach would be nigh un-manageable, riding the crests if they were lucky, but it was good odds that many would broach beam-on to those waves, and be rolled over and under!

“Still no signal from Diadem?” Lewrie asked over his shoulder.

“None yet, sir,” Lt. Westcott told him.

“It might be best were the landings put off ’til tomorrow,” Lewrie said as he lowered the long day-glass, collapsed the tubes, and turned away from the rails, with a frown on his face.

“Perhaps conditions may be better in Saldanha Bay, sir,” Lieutenant Merriman hopefully suggested. “It is a bit more sheltered.”

“But, only the slightest bit, Mister Merriman,” Lewrie pointed out as he pulled out his pocket-watch to see how much of the morning had been wasted. “From Saldanha Bay, it’s more than a day’s march to Cape Town. That’d give the Dutch bags of time to mount a counter move. Daylight’s wasting. If we don’t move soon, we might as—”

The blustery morning was broken by the report of two guns, the a

“It is … ‘To Weigh … In Order of Sailing’,” Lt. Westcott slowly interpreted. “The last is spelled out letter-by-letter, sir. It is … ‘Saldanha’!”

“Very well, Saldanha Bay it is,” Lewrie said with a quick nod of his head, puffing out his cheeks in a disappointed sigh. “And God help poor soldiers. Hands to ‘Stations To Weigh’, Mister Westcott.”

“Aye aye, sir!”

Once every warship and transport had hoisted their own ‘Affirmative’ signals to acknowledge receipt and understanding of the orders, Diadem struck her string of signals, which was the ‘Execute’. On each vessel, messenger lines were fleeted to capstans, the messengers nippered to the much stouter anchor cables, capstan bars fitted to the tops of the drums, and sailors breasted to the bars and began the heaves to reel in the hawsers. Most ships were anchored fore-and-aft by best bowers and kedges, so bow hawsers had to be eased and the aft hawsers taken in to break the kedges free; then, the process had to be repeated to bring the bow hawsers to “Up And Down”, just shy of breaking the bowers from the bottom. Sail began to appear on every ship, mostly jibs, stays’ls, and spankers to begin with, to gain some control and keep them from sagging alee onto the shoals round Robben Island, and to put a bit of forward drive on.

Altogether, all those evolutions took the better part of an hour, before the first transports bearing the 38th Regiment of Foot, the bulk of the cavalry, and the artillery led out ahead of the rest on course for Saldanha Bay, up the coast.

“Hmm,” Lt. Westcott said, looking aloft. “We may need to let the tops’ls fall to the next reef point, sir. I think the winds are moderating.”

Lewrie, who had been standing by the windward side of the quarterdeck, on the larboard side, first looked seaward to determine if another column of ships was stealing their wind, then turned to face his First Officer. “Damned if it ain’t, Mister Westcott. Do you bare more canvas, aye.” He took another long moment to judge how his ship moved underneath his feet, then exclaimed, “And, damned if the sea’s not as lively, either. Think I’ll take another peek ashore.”

Back to the compass bi

The confused chop had ebbed in a single hour with the dropping of the offshore wind, and the clashing large white horses seemed to have dissolved, leaving only scattered white-caps and cat’s paws on the sea. The strong sets of rollers and breaking waves no longer crashed on the beaches, but merely gushed ashore in sheets of foam, and were much reduced in height.

“Signal from Diadem, sir!” Midshipman Eldridge sang out. “Two guns, general to all ships, and it is … ‘Columns Wear South In Order Of Succession’ … and ‘Leading Columns First’! ‘Land … Army’ … she’s spelling out B … L … ‘Blaauwberg’!”

“Now this is goin’ t’be a rat-scramble!” Lewrie hooted in sour amusement. “Recall our bloody ‘sugar trade’ two years ago, Mister Westcott? And what a cock-up that was when America-bound ships tried t’leave the convoy?”

“Sadly I do, sir,” Lt. Westcott agreed, snickering.

There had been over an hundred merchantmen to herd and guard from the “rondy” at Jamaica to England, but no one had given a thought to the ships bound for Sava

“Well, here it comes again!” Lewrie said, laughing out loud. “I expect the Commodore will wear out two sets of signal flags before he’s done … and he’s the one who invented the code system!”

The fleet was sorted out in order of importance, with the merchantmen and transports bearing the intial landing force in the lead, and the secondary waves astern of them. Now, the lead group must go about, one at a time, to reverse their order of sailing, and steer for Blaauwberg Bay, whilst the rest would have to stand out to sea to give them room, then wear about to reverse their order and fall astern of those ships carrying the first regiments.

Hmm, I don’t recall the Popham Code includin’ stock curses, Lewrie told himself; I s’pose we’ll have t’spell ’em out. Takes all the spontaneity, and the fun, from ’em!

*   *   *

And, indeed it was far past mid-day by the time all ships had managed to come about and sail into Blaauwberg Bay in their proper order, close the shore, and come to anchor in ragged, dis-ordered ranks parallel to the beaches, about one mile to seaward. It helped that the winds were still from offshore, instead of the typical Sou’east Trade winds, so they could wear about from one beam-reach to another, not butt their way in a series of short tacks into the Trades!

“Signal, sir!” Midshipman Grainger, who had taken Eldridge’s place at the change of watch, crisply reported. “It is … ‘Send Boats’, and … ‘Commence’!”

“Very well,” Lewrie said. “Hoist the ‘Affirmative’, then take your place in charge of the second cutter, Mister Grainger. Mister Westcott? See to haulin’ our boats from towin’ astern to the entry-ports, and muster the boat crews.”

“Aye, sir!”

The sailors told off to man the boats left their watch-standing duties and gathered round the four most-experienced Midshipmen assigned to lead them, along with the tarry coxswains specially selected to the tricky and risky work of co