Kings and Emperors

“Ehm, if there is to be a battle, sir, you’ll be wishing for a silk shirt and silk stockings?” Pettus replied, pausing in the act of pouring that re-fill. “Just in case?”

“Aye,” Lewrie said, ravenously working his way to the bottom of the soup bowl. “And I’ll need some bisquit and cheese, and some of the sausages, too, t’take with me.”

“Fearsome, wot boots’ll do t’yer stockin’s, though, sir,” his cabin servant, Jessop, grumbled. “Darnin’ silk’s impossible.”

“Rouse me at the end of the Middle Watch,” Lewrie instructed, begi

“A bowl of porridge before you go, then, sir?” Yeovill asked.

“Aye, that’d do nicely, Yeovill,” Lewrie agreed.

“I’ll send your hanger to the Armourer for a fresh edge, too, sir,” Pettus suggested.

“Oh! See Mister Keane!” Lewrie added. “I’ll have need of one of the Marines’ canteens, for water.”

“I’ll see to it, sir,” Pettus said, though his face wore a wary look, and Lewrie missed the worried expression that Pettus shared with Jessop and Yeovill. Their Captain was off in search of adventure and excitement … again … and was sure to find it, the risk be-damned, and no one with better sense could talk him out of it.

*   *   *

“Ye have a care, now, sor,” Cox’n Liam Desmond muttered as the cutter grounded on the banks of the Maceira a little past 5 A.M.

“An’ may th’ Good Lord keep ye in His hand, sor,” Pat Furfy added in a solemn voice, crossing himself. “Though, if ya need some stout lads at yer back—”

“I’ve the army, at my front, Furfy, don’t ye worry,” Lewrie said as he waded the last few feet to dry land. “Back to the ship, you lot, and I’ll see you later.”

“Aye, sor,” Desmond said, sounding doubtful.

It was still dark, before pre-dawn, and the warmth of a Portuguese August had evaporated overnight, leaving a dank, clammy, coolness. There was a faint breath of wind off the sea.

Lewrie trudged along the path he had followed the day before, stumbling over rocks in the dark, headed for a series of torches and the faint glows of campfires beyond the gap between the headlands and the banks of the river. He could not see the remount station; it had been moved somewhere further along.

“Damn!” he spat to the dawn. “I’ll be on ‘Shank’s Ponies’ like the poor, bloody infantry! All the way to … where?”

I’m already regrettin’ this, he thought; Maybe I should just find a unit in the rear, and scrounge a mug o’ tea.

He hiked on, tripping and stumbling over tussocks of long grass and nigh-invisible irregularities in the ground, through the gap and out onto the plains, and stopped in shock. Half-seen in the first wee greyness of pre-dawn, the encampment he’d ridden through the morning before was just gone! The long, orderly lines of tents had been struck, the campfires extinguished, and the army had marched off South. What few fires still lit the night were those of the baggage train, and they looked to be ready to trundle off in the army’s wake, with mules and oxen harnessed or yoked, and the waggoners and carters standing round the few fires to gulp down their last morsels of breakfasts, and their lasts swallows of water or tea.

“Hoy, there! Who are ye, an’ what’re ye doin’ here?” A challenge was called out. He heard the clank of a musket cocking.

“Captain Alan Lewrie, HMS Sapphire!” Lewrie shouted back, half-alarmed out of his skin. “Royal Navy?” he added.

“Corp’ral o’ th’ Guard?” that voice bellowed. “Post Two, we’ve got a visitor!”

A lean, fox-faced fellow shambled over from one of the fires with a lanthorn held aloft, had himself a good look, and deliberately spat tobacco juice. “Lor’, ’e is Navy! Wot’re ya doin’ wand’rin’ about this time o’ night, sir?”

“Looking for the remount station, for a horse,” Lewrie said in calmer takings, for though the sentry had lowered his musket, it was still fully-cocked, and the bayonet tip flashed in the light from the lanthorn, and they both peered at him as if they’d caught themselves a French spy. “I wish to ride up to the main body of the army.”

“A’ready gone, sir,” the Corporal informed him, “an’ remounts is up with ’em. Fear ya haveta walk all th’ way, or, ya might hitch a ride with th’ baggage train, if yer that eager.”

“A ride’ll do me quite well, Corporal,” Lewrie quickly agreed.

“Pass, then, sir,” the Corporal allowed, waving his lanthorn in invitation to approach the mass of waggons. “Christ! Beggin’ yer pardon, sir, but ya come armed for it,” he said, noting all the weaponry that Lewrie carried stuffed into his coat side pockets, hung from his waist-band, at his hip, and upon his shoulder.

Once Lewrie was far enough off, the Corporal turned to the Private and spat another dollop of tobacco juice. “Bloody, damned officers. Ain’t got a lick o’ sense in their heads. You an’ me, we’ll stick with th’ waggons, an’ stay safe as houses.”

*   *   *

He’d picked up some Portuguese from Maddalena, but he doubted his ability to converse with any of the hired waggoners, so he went to the Irishmen hired on by General Wellesley, moments before they began to creak and rumble off.

“Could I get a ride?” he called to a burly, beet-faced fellow with a shock of red hair. “I wish to go up to the army.”

“Iff’n ye do, yer outta yer fackin’ mind,” the waggoner shot back with a dis-believing scowl, “but so was I when I signed on fer dis mess. Aye, climb aboard, an’ hang on.”

That took some doing, for the box was high off the ground and hand- and foot-holds took some figuring out before he was seated alongside the waggoner, who pulled a pipe from a coat pocket and lit it off the candle lanthorn hung ahead of him. Satisfied that his pipe was drawing well, he lifted his reins and gave them a shake, calling out to his four-horse team. At once, there came an appalling screeching from un-greased axles and several sideways lurches as the waggon got a way on.

“Told ye t’hang on, sor,” the waggoner grumbled. “It ain’t no coach-an’-four. Iff’n ye wish t’say somethin’, ye’ll haveta shout, for it’s a noisy bashtit, t’boot, har har!”

The whole column of waggons and carts was extremely noisy, loud enough to be heard coming for miles. Oxen bellowed in protest, mules brayed now and then, long whips cracked so often that they sounded like sporadic musket fire, and the carters and waggoners continually cursed their beasts, loud, foul, and inventively.

“Royal Artillery, air ye?” the waggoner asked after the first mile, mistaking Lewrie’s blue coat. “Late t’th’ party if ye air.”

“Navy,” Lewrie told him.

“Den yer daft as bats,” the man said with a sniff, leaning over to larboard to hawk up a load of phlegm, then took time to re-light his pipe. “Ye won’t git me on a ship, again. Sailin’ here was th’ worst time o’ me life. Mind yer fingers,” he cautioned as the waggon gave some more, alarming lurches which made the whole assembly groan as if it would come apart, turning hand-holds into mousetraps as boards worked against each other.

“Rough road,” Lewrie commented.

“What ye say? Rough, de man says! Dey ain’t no roads in dis bloody country, at all. Half de time, we been in dry creek beds when we couldn’t even find th’ roads, e’en when de maps say they’re there!”

“What are you carrying?” Lewrie asked.

“Half a ton o’ bisquit, wot passes fer bread fer the bloody fools who went for soldiers,” the man griped, “an’ dey’re welcome to it. Me an’ me mates, we bake real bread fer ourselves each night. Breast to, ye fackin’ four-legged hoors!” he howled of a sudden and cracked his long whip at his team.

So passed the second mile.

The sun slowly rose, and the landscape round the column became visible, as did the dust stirred up by thousands of hooves and wheels. The broad valley of the Maceira narrowed as the waggons neared hills, the hills that Lt. Beauchamp had pointed out to Lewrie the day before. The shallow river turned into a creek off to the right where it issued from between the hills, and just ahead sat a lop-angled wood signpost a