Hostile Shores

*   *   *

About an hour into the march, which was begi

“Column … Halt!” Lt. Simcock called out.

“Thank th’ saints!” Seaman Furfy could be heard saying at the rear of the sailors’ party, raising a weary laugh.

“The foe?” Lewrie asked aloud, pulling a shorter telescope from a coat pocket and looking up to the top of the Blaauwberg.

“A five-minutes’ rest, most likely, sir,” Lt. Simcock speculated. “Though it’s very likely that the Dutch have had time to entrench above the beaches, and are ready for us … somewhere up there. Time for some water. If you do not mind, sir, I think it a caution did we send some pickets out to our right, about fifty yards or so, just in case, whilst the rest get off their feet for a bit.”

“Good idea,” Lewrie said, turning to walk back behind their waggon to see Lt. Westcott and have him send out some scouts.

“Five minutes’ rest, and water, Mister Westcott, and I’d be much obliged did you send about ten hands out to the right, about fifty or sixty yards, to be lookouts once they’ve had a ‘wet’.”

“Aye, sir,” Westcott replied as he mopped his face with a handkerchief, then passed the chore to Midshipman Warburton. “Bless me, but I doubt I’ve walked this far since our ship was commissioned. Even in Spanish Florida we did not venture so far inland.”

“That’s the trouble with seeking after adventure, sir,” Lewrie said with a snicker. “But, we’ll be all the fitter for it, when we do run into it.”

“I’d more expect dead-tired, sir,” Westcott drolly replied. He pulled the sling of his improvised canteen up, un-corked the wine bottle, and took a long pull of water.

Lewrie looked all about the landscape, then went to the waggon to clamber up the spokes of the rear wheel and into the bed, sitting down on a keg and pulling out his telescope once more for a closer inspection of the land to their right.

I could see more if I stood up, but damned if I’m goin’ to, he thought. The muscles in his thighs and calves were complaining about the long, and rare, expenditure of effort. Three or four turns from the taffrails to the forecastle, or hours spent on his feet pacing the quarterdeck, had not prepared him for this trek. To make things worse, his well-made Hessian boots, fashionable and snug-fitting, now felt two sizes too small, and his thick cotton stockings had turned two sizes too loose, clumping in the worst possible places!

It felt rather pleasant, sitting on a keg of small beer, but, he stood with a stifled groan, raised his pocket telescope once more, and gave the terrain a very close look-over.

Damme, are those springboks? he wondered, noting some white-and-tawny-coated things deep in a thorn tree thicket; Thought the clatter from the army would’ve scared them off!

They were nigh a cable’s distance off, he estimated, but there might be a chance to stalk them, pot one, field-dress it for supper …

“No,” he muttered. “It’d rot before we camp for the night, and the rest period’s too damned short, anyway.”

He sat back down, raised his magnum champagne bottle canteen, and took a deep drink.

“You, there! What detachment is this, and how do you come to be here?” someone was calling at them in one of those arrogant, and plummy, voices that simply got up Lewrie’s nose.

He stood and looked left, to see an elegantly uniformed young officer on a fine blooded horse pacing up to them. The officer wore a fore-and-aft bicorne trimmed with gold lace, and plumed with white egret feathers. It was tipped so low on his forehead that he had to look down his nose at them—or was that his usual demeanour when dealing with common soldiers and social inferiors?

“Good morning,” Lewrie called to him. “We are part of the Naval Brigade, sent ashore to land the siege artillery, and guard your baggage train. Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of the Reliant frigate.”

The bloody knighthood looks like it’ll prove useful, again, he thought.

“Good God above, sir!” the officer yelped in indignation, after taking a quick and dismissive look at Lewrie’s men. “You are drinking, sir? You allow your men spirits? Scandalous!”

“It’s water, sir,” Lewrie told him, feeling the urge to raise his bottle to his mouth for another guzzle. “My Marines are the only ones with proper canteens, so we had to improvise.”

At least he hoped that his men had only water! He had learned long ago how devious sailors could be when it came to getting and hiding stashes of rum or brandy, in the most unlikely places. His party might not be able to pass a close inspection, no matter how carefully their bottles had been checked before being filled. In point of fact, he had two pint flasks of spirits in his own bed-roll!

The officer, a Captain of Foot who had yet to introduce himself, un-buttoned his elegant tunic and clawed out a sheaf of papers from an inside breast pocket. “Look here, Captain … Lewis, was it? I find no mention of any naval parties serving ashore, and certainly no mention of your party in our order of march.”

“It’s Lewrie, not Lewis, and my orders come from Commodore Popham and General Sir David Baird,” Lewrie countered, producing his own papers. “And, strictly speakin’, we are not listed in the order of march, but are out on the flank of the baggage train, doin’ what we are ordered t’do … guarding it.”

“Humph! I see here that the so-called Naval Brigade’s first duty is to land the siege artillery, and guard the stores still piled above the beaches,” the Army officer said, looking up from the offered papers with a raised, dubious brow and handing them back. “I very much doubt that even the broadest interpretation of your orders may justify your presence anywhere near here, sir! Besides,” he huffed, and made a snide little grin, “the baggage train is already guarded by a battalion of Foot, as one may clearly see from here.”

“Your battalion’s spaced out in company lots, on both flanks, and at the rear, sir, right next to the waggons and pack animals, and eatin’ so much dust, they can’t see their hands in front of their faces. Have they any idea there’re impalas in the thorn trees? Or warthogs rootin’ round out in the open, not a quarter-mile off?” Lewrie pointed out, becoming irked at the man’s high-handedness. “Now, do those impalas spook, it’s good odds that it could be Dutch cavalry, sneakin’ up on the waggons. Do they break cover East or West, it’s something t’be concerned about. Do they run off South, then it’s our noises that does it. That’s why we’re out here, sir, where we can see any threat, and why I’ve pickets out beyond us.”

Which is what yer battalion should be doin’, Lewrie left to the soldier’s imagination—if he had one; And yes, I am teachin’ your gra