Kings and Emperors

General Spencer guffawed in answer, for Lewrie’s rented horse was a shaggy, un-curried shambler, more like a plough-horse than one bred to the saddle.

“I’d ship him home and enter him in the Derby, if the voyage didn’t kill him,” Lewrie japed. “His hire is closer to the price of an outright purchase … damned Spanish ‘sharps.’ This is your camp, sir? And your defences lie beyond?”

“We’ve settled in quite nicely,” Spencer grumpily allowed after a quick look round to see that all was in order. “My troop lines are there, the Spanish volunteers, there,” he said, pointing beyond the orderly lines of canvas tents to a shambolic encampment off to the North. “There were several hundred of their soldiers that the French had dis-armed and imprisoned, down South of here. When Cádiz arose, their gaolers were called back to Avril’s brigade, and they were left to fend for themselves. I’ve distributed all the arms I had to spare, with accoutrements and ammunition, but that leaves half of them armed with scythes, swords, or boar spears. As for boots, clothing, tents, and camp gear, they’ll have to get by as best they can. The officials in Ayamonte think that I should feed them, but the rations I brought won’t stretch that far, and the Spanish won’t see to their own, damn them.”

“Are they worth anything?” Lewrie asked.

“They claim that they were trained troops, once, but now they are a shabby joke,” Spencer gravelled. “Shoeless armed bands of Gypsies would be more dangerous. So … bored, are you, sir?”

“To tears, sir,” Lewrie eagerly confessed. “I almost wish the French would come down from Lisbon to the border, so I could shoot them t’Hell.”

“I’d admire did the French try me on, too,” Spencer admitted, with a wistful note to his voice. “The horse I was forced to buy off the Dons is much of a match to yours, Captain Lewrie, but, if you wish a tour of my lines, I’ll have it fetched.”

“Thankee, sir,” Lewrie told him.

He was indeed bored to distraction. Remaining anchored far up a river with little room to manoeuvre if trouble came, idle and feeling useless and cut off from imagined grand doings elsewhere gnawed at his patience. He had moved Sapphire closer to the town quays so his guns could cover the ferry landings and the road on the Portuguese side of the Guadiana, and closer to communications with the signalling party in the church tower. He had worked himself to a daily sweat at sword-play, with his pails filled with shot; he’d paced the length of the ship for a full hour each morning, and had gone ashore for long, vigourous strolls. He had hoped that a brisk canter out to the army encampment would be distracting, but his poor hired mount would not go beyond a bone-setting, jouncing trot.

The line of hills that Spencer had thought to entrench turned out to be a series of pimples, with long slopes from the encampment to the tops, and long, gradual slopes down to the plain beyond. Spencer showed him where he had emplaced his few pieces of artillery, set up in redans made of wicker baskets filled with earth, and disguised with shrubs taken from the hedges that bordered individual farm plots or pastures. Lewrie thought that the disguising might have made sense a few days before, when the shrubs had been green, but they were now going sere and brown.

“Do the French come, I intend to mask the bulk of my infantry at the back of the slopes, and have had the men dig a line of chest-high entrenchments,” Spencer explained as they rode along the crests of the hills, looking down to the open plains. “Were I a Frenchman, and wished to attack this position, I’d set up my gun batteries out there, round that farmhouse, barns, and such, and pound away, hoping to kill as many men as possible before sending in my columns. That’s what they’ve done since Ninety-Three. Napoleon was an artilleryman, and he loves to mass his guns in big batteries.”

“That will tear up a lot of hillside, but your men’ll be safe,” Lewrie grasped, “unless they have howitzers. But, they don’t possess bursting shot, Colonel Shrapnel’s shells.”

“Exactly so, Captain Lewrie,” Spencer beamed, sounding somewhat surprised that a sailor would understand. “And, in the earliest days after their revolution, when they launched the levée en masse, they’ve stuck with the column for the attack, not the advancing line. Think of it … a whole battalion formed up two hundred men deep and thirty across. It’s a wondrous target for direct roundshot and bursting shell, and when it gets into musketry range, my men, in ranks two-deep, can direct their fire right in their teeth. Rolling platoon fire in continual volleys, hah! The Frogs haven’t run into that, yet, and when they do, they are going to be in for the bloodiest surprise of their lives! I fully expect a great slaughter.”

“Ehm, they’ll have cavalry, and you don’t, sir,” Lewrie had to point out. “What keeps them from riding round both your flanks? And, these slopes are so gentle, what’s to stop them from galloping right up to where we sit?”

“I’ve also had my men dig patterns of rabbit holes beyond the farthest extents of the hills, and along the back slope,” Spencer boasted. “About eight inches across and a foot deep. There are more round the bounds of the encampment to prevent them sweeping through it. Won’t stop them, but it will slow them up long enough to shift my men to face the threat, and besides, Avril’s the closest threat, and he’s in brigade strength, with probably no more than eight or ten guns and few cavalry. What, one squadron? I think I can hold, and bloody his nose.”

“If things go badly for you, my guns can cover your retreat to the quays, sir,” Lewrie offered. “At full elevation, my six-pounders and upper-deck twelve-pounders can throw shot about a mile.”

“Good God, don’t!” Spencer exclaimed, aghast. “You would do me more damage than the French! Firing blind? Pah!”

“Did it once before, when our army was in Haiti,” Lewrie said. “Of course, the range demanded was much shorter, not over five hundred yards, but with proper flag signals established to tell me where the shot falls, up-down, left-right, it can be done.”

“Well, if I am falling back, there won’t be flag-signalling, and my own guns will be setting up in the streets of Ayamonte,” General Spencer strongly objected. “You can maul the French in the town with direct fire, but I never heard the like, and don’t wish for you to experiment, not with my troops. Bang away all you like does Junot send troops down from Lisbon to take me from the rear.”

“Very good, sir,” Lewrie replied, crest-fallen. He had thought it a good idea!

Lewrie got to clamber down into the entrenchments, crawl over the artillery sites, and get a good look at Spencer’s defences, but it was a bust of a day’s outing, and he wasn’t even offered a glass of something before dismissing himself and going back to town. And the horse, no matter how kicked in the ribs, would not go at a pace beyond its shambling trot!

*   *   *

After another week of idle uselessness, the crew began to go restless. Ayamonte did not want them ashore, so there was no shore liberty. The demands of Spencer’s brigade, and the power of his pay chests full of silver to buy up most of the cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs, kept Sapphire’s people on salt-meat rations, and even the wardroom’s, and the captain’s, tables were reduced to what beasts could be spared from the forecastle manger for their meals.

Weapons drills, make-work, scrubbing and painting, and many Make and Mend half-days, could distract them only so long. Watch-against-watch competitions at how fast they could ascend and descend all three masts, who could sing the best, who could dance the best, and boxing, palled after a time.

Lieutenant Westcott got his chance to go ashore, but came back aboard looking glum. He had fresh-laundered clothing, but little else, and certainly without tales of conquest of any fetching señorita, and that with his coin purse much reduced by the prices the Spanish were charging. For the other officers and Mids, it was much the same.