Hostile Shores

Lewrie suddenly realised that he was ravenously hungry, as if his body had gone out like an un-tended fireplace, and was coming to life again in fits and starts. While taking a second glass of cool tea, Pettus babbled on about the broths he’d been given, the eggs in wine, the heavily sugared brandy laced with laudanum for the worst of the pain, and the hot teas with powdered willow tree bark for when he didn’t sound as if he was suffering too badly.

“That’s one of Mister Mainwaring’s grandmother’s folk remedies, sir, but it certainly eased you,” Pettus said. “You don’t remember any of that?”

“Not a bit,” Lewrie replied, shaking his head.

“Good for breaking fevers, Mister Mainwaring said, and you had a bad’un … it only broke last night, and you slept deep, at last,” Pettus said. “He’ll look in on you, soon as he finishes the morning sick call, and tends to the other wounded lads.”

“How long?” Lewrie managed to ask.

“Soon, sir,” Pettus assured him with a grin.

“No … how long have I been like this?” Lewrie insisted.

“Why, nigh on a week, sir,” Pettus told him.

Boots stamped and a musket butt slammed the deck outside of the cabin doors as the Marine sentry a

“Enter,” Pettus granted for Lewrie, and Lt. Westcott and Yeovill came breezing in, peering aft at the bed-cot, looking anxious.

“Ah, you’re awake at last, sir!” Westcott exclaimed, breaking out in a broad grin of relief as he came to the bed-cot. “We’ve been quite worried about you.”

“We won, didn’t we, Mister Westcott? We’ve a prize?” Lewrie demanded, suddenly noting that Reliant was at sea and under way, with the hull gently groaning and the overhead lanthorns gently swaying.

“Well, of course we won, sir,” Westcott said with a surprised laugh. “She struck her colours not five minutes after you were borne below to the Surgeon. A prize? Well, not exactly.”

“What?” Lewrie managed to ask.

“Recall, she was flying her main course, instead of brailing it up against the risk of fire?” Westcott explained with a grimace. “Our stern-rake must have dis-mounted a loaded gun or two, or there were some powder cartridges lying loose; something sparked off and flashed her main course alight, all that mess of her torn main tops’l and the tangle of her mizen top-masts that had fallen forward on her main top? Damned near the blink of your eye, and she’s ablaze, with no hope of saving her.

“Her captain ordered her abandoned, and her colours struck, but they couldn’t haul their boats up from towing astern quickly enough, so there were few survivors,” Westcott went on. “We picked up some who could swim to us, and a few more when we got our boats over to her.

“Her captain…,” Westcott mused for a moment before continuing. “The poor bastard stayed on his quarterdeck to the end, then he put a pistol to his head and blew his brains out, can you imagine?”

“Mad as a March Hare,” Lewrie said with a grunt.

“She was the San Fermin … one of their minor saints … and had been over on the Pacific side for about three years,” Lt. Westcott said. “She finally was recalled to Spain, put into Bahía Blanca after rounding the Horn, for supplies, and heard of our invasion, one of her surviving officers told me. She really needed a major re-fit, but her captain, Don Francisco Montoya-Uribe, felt his highest duty would be to stay and attack any transports that came in, or engage one of our warships, to whittle down the odds before a relieving squadron turned up, after he learned how few we were.

“The poor sods didn’t even know about Trafalgar ’til we told them, sir,” Westcott marvelled, “and they still can’t quite believe it!”

“Honourable … for a Don,” Lewrie commented. “Very proud lot.”

“It’s a wonder they put up as good a fight as they did, sir,” Westcott said, shaking his head in awe. “Half her original crew had taken ‘leg-bail’ to seek their fortunes, looking for silver and copper, and got replaced with local criollos or starving Indios. Her captain had hardly any funds for her up-keep, or his crew’s pay half the time, and their Ministry of Marine sent money out only when they remembered to, so she wasn’t much of a happy ship. I gather that her Captain Montoya kept them together with kindness.”

“That’s a new’un,” Lewrie said with a scowl.

“The survivors gave the impression that they liked him, sir, even if he was dull, scholarly, a tad shy, and soft-spoken,” Westcott told him. “An hidalgo from an ancient family, but poor as church-mice. Honourable to the end, they said. They pitied him, I think.”

“All this way,” Lewrie sadly bemoaned, “all this time, and not a groat t’show for it. Our own losses, our damage?”

“Dis-mounted guns back on their carriages, the shot holes along the waterline plugged, scantlings re-planked, painted, and tarred over,” Westcott ticked off, more business-like. “We’ve still rope and canvas fotherings over them, but there is a slow seepage the Carpenter still can’t find, but an hour on the pumps twice a day keeps around six or seven inches of water in the bilges. We’ve used up all our stores of lumber, and had to borrow from Diadem. Left the prisoners with them, too, so Captain Downman is less than pleased with us.”

“Casualties?” Lewrie asked.

“Seven dead, right off, and two more who died of wounds, sir,” Westcott told him. “I’ll bring you the muster book when you’re up to it. Eighteen wounded, counting yourself, but there are only two who are really bad off, Surgeon Mainwaring says. Your stroke-oar, Furfy, got quilled with wood splinters, and a knock on the head, so he’s laid up in the foc’s’le sick-berth for a week, with another week on light duties.”

“He’ll relish that, I’d wager,” Lewrie said, chuckling. “Bed-rest, no chores, and he still gets his rum and beer rations. God, my ma

Pettus had already fetched one from the dining coach. “Thank you, sir. That close to the galley heat, Furfy and the others will be as snug as bugs as we drop down to pick up the cold, hard Westerlies round the Fourties.”

“Good morning, Captain, sir!” Lewrie’s cook, Yeovill, cheerily intruded, “You will be taking breakfast today, some solid food?”

“God, yes!” Lewrie enthused.

“Thick, sweet cocoa to start, sir,” Yeovill said, handing him a large china mug, “scrambled eggs, a rice pudding for later, and I whipped up a batch of hot water-drop cornmeal fritters. The Surgeon is of a mind that your victuals had best be soft and bland for a few days, sorry.”

“Damn his eyes,” Lewrie groused. “Aye, bring it on, even if it is pap. We’re fallin’ down to the Fourties, Mister Westcott?”

“Already about two hundred miles Sou’east of the Plate Estuary, sir, and I expect Noon Sights will place us near the Fourty-third Latitude. We’re bounding along quite nicely, bound for Cape Town. Then England,” Westcott added, looking pleased.

“God, at last!” Lewrie said with a gladsome sigh. “Commodore Popham released us?”

“With urgent despatches to General Baird at the Cape, requesting immediate re-enforcements, and his latest reports to Admiralty,” Westcott said, still gri

“Happens even in the best of families,” Lewrie said, gri

Pettus was fussing about, tucking a napkin into Lewrie’s shirt collar, and fluffing the pillows again. Lewrie tried to use his hands and elbows to scoot up higher in the bed to a half-way sitting position, but he could manage only an inch or so, and the leg wound awoke in fresh pain, making him suck air and wince.