Hostile Shores

This Lt. Strickland was a tall and well-knit fellow with a swarthy complexion, and a scar on one cheek, and gave the general impression of someone who had soldiered before.

“Where’d ye get that, sir?” Lewrie genially asked, sketching a slash at his own cheek.

“India, Captain Lewrie, with Gordon’s Light Bengali Horse,” Strickland replied, squaring his shoulders as if expecting a slur. Soldiering with “John Company”, or with the few British units shipped out there, was not considered “proper” soldiering in most Army messes.

“I was out there, ’tween the wars in the ’80s,” Lewrie told him with a smile. “And my father was, too, in Calcutta, when he had the Nineteenth Native Infantry. Were you there for the campaigns against the Tippoo Sultan?”

“Yes, sir!” Strickland said, perking up. “Your father, you say?”

“Then Colonel Sir Hugo Willoughby,” Lewrie replied, pulling a face. “I expect you heard of him, at least.”

“I did indeed, sir,” Strickland replied, shifting in his saddle and gri

“Aye,” Lewrie said with a knowing nod. “Hamare gali ana, acha din, hey?”

“Let us say, his reputation preceded him, sir,” Strickland replied, laughing, for Lewrie had quoted the traditional greetings of Calcutta’s whores; “Hello, won’t you come into our street.”

“Oh God!” Veasey groaned. “Two who can sling Hindoo! Much of a piece with Dog-Latin, or crow squawks, t’my ears! Why can’t the whole bloody world learn English, and have done?”

“I was noticing some movement out yonder, sirs,” Lewrie said, returning to his inspection of the crest with his telescope, “on that knob. But, I don’t think it’s the Dutch. Can’t quite make out—”

“Irregulars?” Veasey wondered aloud, his own attention drawn. “Brown or grey uniforms? There’s someone there, as you say, Lewrie.”

“Not like any soldiers I’ve seen,” Lt. Strickland agreed.

“Baboons!” Lewrie exclaimed. “They’re baboons, a whole troop of ’em! Ugly red-arsed beasts. They wouldn’t be there if the Dutch had men near them. The last Dutch unit on their left would be over … there,” Lewrie guessed, pointing to a spot closer to the centre of the crest. “So, what happens now? Will you charge ’em?”

“Not very likely!” Captain Veasey said with a barking laugh. “Not into the teeth of an entrenched foe, with no clue as to what’s on the back slope, waitin’ for us. No, the artillery may have first go, before the infantry is ordered forward.”

“Guns’d be wasted,” Lewrie told him. “Firin’ uphill at a thin target is useless. The shot’d strike short, clip the crest, and ricochet off, or sail right over and land half a mile beyond. It’d be like shootin’ at a ribbon. Howitzers at high angle might do some good, but mortars would be best. Might you happen t’know if the Army brought any along, Captain Veasey? Perhaps some of the infantry regiments still have some old Coehorn mortars.” They both looked puzzled; evidently, cavalry didn’t bother with such in-elegant things. “Coehorn mortars are light, short, and fat, fixed to wood blocks and man-carried instead of carriage-mounted,” he had to explain, “like a prouviette that tests the strength of gunpowder?” He was still speaking Greek to them.

“I s’pose that you, sir, bein’ in the Navy and all, must know miles more about artillery and such,” Veasey said with a guffaw as he shook his head. “Cavalry has no need of howitzers or mortars, or any knowledge of ’em. We stick to our last, hey?”

“Perhaps if our gu

“Now, that I’d like t’see!” Veasey enthused, oblivious.

“Might General Baird be delaying his assault because he has no idea what’s on the back side of the crest, sir?” Strickland continued. “Perhaps a reco

“There’s only baboons up there, now,” Lewrie stuck in. “Else, the Dutch would’ve run ’em off. Small party, my eye, sirs! One could put a whole dis-mounted troop up yonder, along with my sailors and my Marines, and threaten the Dutch left flank!”

“Yes, what say you to that, sir?” Strickland eagerly asked.

“Our Colonel’d never allow it,” Veasey countered, shaking his head again. “He’d wish t’keep the regiment intact, ready to exploit any breakthrough by the infantry … t’harass and ride down the Dutch when they flee. No, no, we’ll let the Heavy Brigade go in.”

“Half a troop, sir,” Strickland pressed. “Fourty men.”

“Along with mine,” Lewrie insisted.

“And how far off might the closest Dutch soldiers be, once ye get up there, Strickland?” Veasey snapped. “An hundred yards or more? Our short-barrelled Paget carbines couldn’t hit the side of a palace at that range, much less a man-sized target! I pressed the Colonel for the Elliot-pattern carbines, you will recall, but no!”

“The Dutch don’t know you have Paget carbines, sir,” Lewrie said quickly. “If we do open upon them, all they’ll hear is lots of gunfire, see a lot of powder smoke, and have shot throwin’ up dirt round their feet … and all my men have Tower muskets. Good ‘Brown Bess’! Along with one Pe

“Half a troop, sir, and I will bear all the responsibility for it!” Strickland swore.

“And, do remember two old military adages, Captain Veasey,” Lewrie said with a quick laugh. “One, it’s easier t’beg forgiveness than ask permission, and Two, success will always trump anything else!”

“Colonel Laird won’t miss half a troop, sir,” Strickland added. “Even if the regiment’s loosed to hack through the whole Dutch Army! Let me go!”

Veasey’s reddish-complexioned face looked even ruddier, and he twisted his features and groaned as if in great physical pain to make such a rash decision.

“Oh, very well, Strickland,” he gruffed a long moment later, “but on your head be it, hear me?”

“Thank you, sir!” Strickland cried, wheeling his mount about to trot back down the line of their troop. “The two right files … prepare to dis-mount! Dis-mount! Horse holders, Sarn’t Strode! Bring sabres and carbines, and follow me!”

“Up, Mister Westcott! Up, Mister Simcock!” Lewrie was yelling to his men at the same time as he sprinted back to them. “We’ve work t’do, up yonder on that knob t’the right.”

“We’re to get into a fight, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked, springing up from lolling on the grass.

“We are. The Dragoons’re sendin’ fourty men up to see what’s waitin’ for the infantry, and we’re t’back ’em up,” Lewrie cheerfully told him, as eager as a teen-ager at the prospect of action. “Choose two relatively sober hands … along with Pettus and Yeovill, to stay with the waggon and keep the cavalry troopers out of our goods whilst we’re gone. Drop bed-rolls and packs in the waggon, bring nothing but water, weapons, and ammunition!”

Lt. Strickland and his fourty troopers were already moving past Lewrie’s party before Lt. Simcock got his Marines sorted out into two files, and Lt. Westcott got the sailors into a somewhat organised herd. Strickland and his troopers looked oddly comical afoot, with sabres in one hand and their carbines in the other, and their tall knee-boots looked wholly un-suitable for dis-mounted work, especially so as they moved at the trot, half bent over as if that might hide them from the Dutch above.