Kings and Emperors

“Mon Dieu, merde alors, mort de ma vie—” Lewrie tittered with mockery of imagined French expressions of sudden alarm.

“Lower deck, by broadside … fire!” Westcott roared.

The discharge of all eleven 24-pounders shoved Sapphire a foot or two to larboard, and made her feel as if she squatted in the sea. A massive cloud of spent powder smoke jutted shoreward, spiked with reddish-amber jets of flame and swirling wee embers of serge cartridge bag remnants.

“Let the smoke clear a little!” Lewrie called out.

“Now, sir? I can see the shore again,” Westcott urged.

“Now, sir. Serve ’em another,” Lewrie agreed.

“Upper deck, by broadside … fire!”

Mr. Deacon had a short pocket telescope of his own to one eye and was gloating. “I can see horses and riders down, the head of the first battalion’s colour party down … Damn the smoke!”

“A glass, somebody!” Hughes demanded. “The bloody Dons stole mine!”

“Smoke’s clearing, sir!” Westcott pointed out.

“Fire away, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie told him.

“Weather deck guns, by broadside … fire!” and the 6-pounders crashed out, their discharges lighter and shriller than the others. Fewer in number, and their smoke dispersed quicker, giving everyone on deck a good view of what they had wrought, and it was devastation.

“Goddamned good shooting!” Lewrie cried. “Have we the best gu

The leading regiment in the long, snaking column had sported a few flags, the Tricolour national emblem topped by a large silver bird of some kind, and company flags used as rally points. There was no sign of them, now, except for a few of the lesser ensigns being rushed back West. French soldiers were simply mown down in windrows and heaps of dead and broken wounded, and the rest were fleeing.

“Hah!” Lewrie laughed, turning to Deacon. “How many miles per hour can French regiments run, Mister Deacon?”

“Lower gun-deck, by broadside … fire!”

The massive 24-pounders belched smoke and fire, flinging solid shot and clouds of plum-sized grapeshot right into the heart of the fleeing mass of soldiers, scything down dozens more. The second regiment in line was engulfed by the frantic stampede, bringing it to a panicky halt.

“Upper-deck guns, by broadside … fire!”

That avalanche of iron struck all along the length of that seething mass of soldiery, and, when the smoke cleared, all three of the French regiments were in flight back to Almuñécar, over-ru

“Six-pounders, by broadside … fire!” Lt. Westcott screeched, and dozens of Frenchmen were tossed aside like lead toys. There were some cleverer soldiers who abandoned their packs, hangers, cartridge pouches, and muskets and were scrambling frantically up the hills that forced the coast road so close to the sea, sure that shipboard guns could not elevate that high. The rest were ru

“Do my eyes deceive me?” Major Hughes shouted, pointing with one arm as he held a borrowed telescope to his eye. “They’re un-limbering their artillery, the damned fools!”

“Brave fellows,” Lt. Westcott commented, his voice raspy from shouting orders.

“Damned idiots!” Mr. Deacon spat.

“What might they have, Mister Deacon?” Lewrie asked. “You’re my expert on military matters.”

“I’d think that they have six or eight twelve-pounders, Napoleon’s favourites,” Deacon surmised, “and at least a pair of howitzers.”

“No bursting shot? No shrapnel ‘specials’?” Lewrie pressed.

“The latest intelligence in our possession says not,” Deacon assured him.

“Lower-deck guns, by broadside … fire!” Westcott yelled, and the horrid scene was blotted out by a thick fog of powder smoke. As it cleared, Lewrie could see fresh heaps of bodies, round which the lucky survivors fled on.

“Pass word below to target the French artillery, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered. “We can’t allow them a single point of pride.”

“Aye, sir. Mister Fywell, pass word to the gu

“God, it’s wondrous, sir!” Midshipman Carey, who had taken the dog to the orlop, marvelled. “Horrible, but wondrous all at the same time.”

“Soldiers just can’t fathom a ship’s firepower,” Lewrie took time to tell him. “Our twenty-four-pounders are the equivalent of an army’s entire siege train, only used to knock down fortress walls. They can’t imagine them turned on them! Why, one of Napoleon’s armies fields only half our number of barrels.”

“Ooh, look at the pretty ship,” Deacon quipped, “so harmless, and—ack!”

“How’s Bisquit?” Lewrie asked.

“Curled up and shivering in Pettus’s lap, sir,” Carey replied. “And Mister Ta

Ta

“Shivering?” Lewrie scoffed.

“It’s hard to say which whines louder, sir,” Carey said with an impish grin.

“Upper gun-deck, by broadside … fire!”

The French guns had been detached from their limbers and caissons, the horse teams had been led behind, and men were hastily ramming bagged powder and shot down the muzzles. Officers and gun-captains were bending over their crude sights, adjusting the elevation screws, and gu

“Six-pounders, by broadside … fire!”

That finished the horrid work, slaying dazed gu

“Take on the supply train, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered. “Let’s make it a clean sweep. Let ’em starve.”

“Aye, sir,” Lt. Westcott happily agreed. He and Lewrie shared a look, and both men’s faces were wolfish with success and feverish delight; “gun-drunk.”

“Five fathom! Five fathom t’this line!” a leadsman intoned.

“Alter course a mite to starboard,” Lewrie said. “I recall that this five-fathom line takes a turn seaward, and a four-fathom line lies ahead. Do you concur, Mister Yelland?”

“That should be about two cables afore the bows, sir,” Yelland told him. “Aye, it’s a good time to edge seaward.”

“See to it, if ye please,” Lewrie bade. “I will tend to the smashing. Shift aim to the waggons, Mister Westcott.”

“Pass word below to take on the waggons, Mister Fywell,” the First Officer ordered, and Midshipman Fywell, who had barely returned from his last task, knuckled the brim of his hat and dashed off, with nary a chance to witness or savour their destruction. Carey, who was still on the quarterdeck, shot him a smug look.