Kings and Emperors

“The shoals, though, hmm,” Lewrie speculated. “If I can get within less than a mile without ru

“Thirty feet, and you draw about twenty, sir?” Deacon asked.

“You’ve been swotting up on salty stuff,” Lewrie japed. “Best not let Mountjoy know, he’d fear we’d steal you away.”

“I prefer skulking round city taverns, sir, thankee,” Deacon said with a rare laugh.

“The five-fathom line is…,” Lewrie said, picking up brass dividers, then aligning them on the distance scale, “… half a mile offshore. Well within gun-range! Ah hah! Let’s try it.”

He went back out into the fresher air of the quarterdeck, had a squint aloft at the set of the sails and the wind direction which streamed the commissioning pendant.

“We will alter course, Mister Elmes,” he said to the Third Lieutenant, who stood the watch. “We will close the coast, reducing sail as we do so, to within half a mile.” To Lt. Elmes’s puzzlement he added, “There’s a French brigade on the coast road, and I intend t’give ’em a big, noisy greetin’.”

“Aye aye, sir!” Elmes perked up with glee. “Bosun Terrell, pipe hands to stations to alter course, and reduce sail!”

“Pass word for the Sailing Master,” Lewrie ordered.

This’ll give Mister Yelland the “squirts,” Lewrie thought.

The door to the Sailing Master’s sea cabin on the larboard side of the quarterdeck squeaked open and Mr. Yelland stepped out, rumpled and sleepy-eyed from a nap. “Something up, sir?”

“I’ll send for strong coffee for you, Mister Yelland,” Lewrie offered. “We’re goin’ very close ashore, and we’ve need of all your expertise.”

“Ehm … aye, sir!” Yelland said with a grunt of surprise, then winced with dread, scrubbing sleep from his eyes.

*   *   *

High Summer had drummed upon Southern Spain, browning it and drying it out. The forests looked dusted, and only the growing crops were still green. If there had been a paved Roman road along the coast, it had long ago been ripped up for houses, so the road was dry, packed earth. As HMS Sapphire slowly ghosted shoreward under tops’ls, jibs, and spanker, with her courses brailed up, the dust plume created by the demi-brigade on the march was visible even from the bulwarks. From the poop deck, Lewrie could begin to make out details with his telescope. There were a few mounted riders, which he took for officers and aides. At the rear, making higher and longer-lasting clouds of dust, he could espy several pieces of artillery, and behind them were many supply waggons, some canvas-covered, and some odd two-wheeled carts with wheels taller than a man. He assumed those had been taken from the Spanish and put to use to supplement French equipment. They were painted in gay, bold colours compared to the French waggons.

“Six fathom! Six fathom t’this line!” a leadsman shouted.

“We should be coming onto the five-fathom line soon, sir,” Mr. Yelland said, taking off his hat and mopping his face with a calico handkerchief. “Warm today.”

“And soon t’get warmer,” Lewrie promised. “Assumin’ we don’t touch the bottom.”

“Starboard guns are at Quarters, sir,” Lt. Westcott reported. “Think there’s a need to rig anti-boarding nets?” he joshed.

“Only when pigs, and Frenchmen, can fly, sir,” Lewrie hooted back. He raised his telescope again. He could make out the infantry, not marching but shambling along and scuffing the road, raising more dust. Blue uniforms on the bulk of them, with white, gold, green, or red sleeve markings and epaulets. Their muskets were slung any-old-how, by the hip, over the shoulder, or laid upon the back of their necks with their arms up-raised to hold them like a farmer’s rake.

He’d seen that before, recalling an ambush he made on the Côte Sauvage when blockading the Gironde River, and how the poor French soldiers about to die had shambled along, joshing and sharing tobacco, before his watering party opened fire. It had been a complete surprise for them then, and he hoped that Sapphire’s guns would be an even greater one today.

“Five fathom! Five fathom t’this line!” the leadsman called.

“Alter course to parallel the coast,” Lewrie ordered. “Stay in five fathoms.” The head of the long French column lay about one point off the starboard bows. “Mister Deacon? Enlighten me. How fast can infantry march?”

Deacon had been on the quarterdeck under the overhang of the poop deck, near the doors to Lewrie’s cabins. He poked out in sight and ascended the starboard ladderway to join him.

“March, sir?” Deacon said. “If those people yonder were really marching, they might do two or three miles an hour. Allowed to route-step as they are, maybe only two miles an hour, or a bit less. Hmm, that makes me wonder if they even know about the arms delivery. Did they know, they’d be going a lot faster. Major Azcárte may be safe as houses, after all. Is that smoke yonder, from Almuñécar? What have the French been up to?”

“Same as Bayazit the Thunderer,” Lewrie speculated. “A Turk general. The Turks marched all round Greece and the Balkans on a regular basis, massacring and burning, just t’keep the Greeks and Serbs fearful. Maybe yon Frogs’ve been up to some bad mischief, and deserve what they’re about to get.”

He raised his telescope again, taking in how steep and close to the coast road the foothills were along this stretch. Once he’d opened fire, there would be nowhere to run but back to Almuñécar, or on East for Salobreña. He looked aloft, pleased with the wind’s direction, and estimated that the head of the column was now two points off the starboard bows. “Cast of the log!” he called aft, and a minute later, Midshipman Carey reported that the ship was making a slow, sedate five knots.

“Five fathom! Five fathom t’this line!”

“Mister Westcott, the gun crews may load,” Lewrie snapped in rising excitement. “Double-shot with grape. The lower deck will open, first, followed by the upper deck, then the weather deck six-pounders. Keep the ports shut ’til we’re ready t’run out.”

“Aye, sir,” Westcott replied. “By God, this will be fun!”

Lewrie looked down at the quarterdeck to see Major Hughes come out of his cabins, yawning and stretching his arms.

“Sorry ’bout that, Captain Lewrie,” he said, looking up. “Had another glass of wine, and nodded off for a bit. What’s acting?”

“We’re about to kiss a bunch of Frogs, Major Hughes,” Lewrie told him, jerking an arm to point shoreward. He liked what he saw; the head of the French column and the mounted officers were just at the bend of the road where the foothills shouldered it out closer to the sea, and they now lay five points off the starboard bows, coming slowly abeam, where the ship’s guns in their narrow ports could aim in broadside. Another minute or two more and the column would be only half a mile away.

“Someone see Bisquit below,” Lewrie asked. “Mister Carey?”

“Aye, sir,” the lad replied, sounding disappointed to miss the opening broadside.

“Hurry back,” Lewrie bade him as the Midshipman took hold of the dog’s collar and led him down to the orlop.

“Half a mile’s range, I make it, sir,” Mr. Yelland said after taking a sight with his sextant and some scribbling on a slate with a stub of chalk.

“And just about beam-on,” Lewrie agreed. “Mister Westcott, open the gun-ports and run out! Pass word for them to aim well.”

“Aye, sir!” Lt. Westcott said, then bellowed orders and sent Midshipmen scampering down to pass the word. Word came back, shouts of “Ready!”

In Lewrie’s ocular, he could see French soldiers looking back at Sapphire, mostly curious and unaware, so far; sweaty, dusty faces, mustachios and beards, heads turning to look seaward, then back, to speculate with their mates, as Sapphire rumbled and screeched as the guns were run out.