Kings and Emperors

“Lord, what a shambles, Captain Lewrie,” Chalmers said as they exchanged salutes.

“’Deed it is, sir,” Lewrie agreed, wishing he could stuff a handkerchief to his nose to stifle the stench of gangrenous wounds. “I’m going to find someone in authority. Care to join me?”

“Delighted, sir,” Captain Chalmers eagerly said back.

They made their way through the pallets and litters bearing wounded men, and worked their way into the village of Santa Lucía, in a seemingly aimless mob of ragged soldiers. Abandoned mansions and storehouses had been requisitioned for barracks, with cryptic chalk marks on the doors, like 20/Ist Co./1/29, which meant that twenty men of the Number One company of the First Battalion of the 29th Regiment of Foot would be billeted there. The doors stood open and men lounged about on the steps or stoops, wrapped in new blankets, smoking pipes or chewing tobacco quids. Smoke plumed from chimneys, giving the first real warmth to soldiers who had nigh-frozen to death in the Spanish mountains. Looted tubs and cauldrons steamed outside over large fires made of smashed furniture and ripped-down wall panelling, some of it quite fine. Even whole paintings were being ripped apart so the gilt frames could be used for firewood, and the paintings, rolled up like logs, burned well, too. Shirts and under-drawers, stockings and small-clothes were being washed for the first time in weeks, and over some fires, wool uniform coats and trousers were being given a smoking to drive out the lice, fleas, and other pests. Some of the soldiers waiting for their cleaned clothes looked so riddled with wee red bite marks that Lewrie at first suspected them stricken with the measles!

“Seems there is some order about, after all, Captain Lewrie,” Chalmers pointed out, extending an arm to several companies of Highlanders practicing close-order drill, with their Sergeants and Corporals scurrying about them and barking orders like so many terriers. Further on, several companies of green-jacketed Rifles were marching and counter-marching under arms.

“Like the Admiral told us,” Lewrie commented, “discipline fell apart on the retreat. If the French arrive before we get ’em all off, they’ll have t’fight. Is that a Colonel, yonder?”

“A Major, I think,” Chalmers said with a shrug. “Think we can question him?”

“Aye, let’s try,” Lewrie agreed, increasing his pace. “Sir!” he called out. “Major? Could you talk to us?”

“Hmpf? What?” the stout fellow asked with a snort as he turned about to see who was calling him. “Ah, the Navy’s here, is it? At last … even if it is in mere dribs and drabs, so far.”

Lewrie was quick to assure him that Admiral Hood and nigh one hundred transports were coming from Vigo, and asked if he knew the dispositions of the army, and the location of the French. He took time to introduce himself as Major Phillpot, of General Sir David Baird’s staff, before explaining things to the naval officers.

“The last of our troops crossed the Mero River, and we demolished the only bridge, so that will slow the damned French down,” he said. “It’s beyond the second range of hills, the Peñasquedos, yonder. We don’t have enough troops to hold those hills, but we do have cavalry vedettes out to keep watch. The nearest range of hills, there, is the Monte Mero, rocky as anything, with so many large standing boulders that it might as well be fortified. General Hope’s Division is on the left, Sir David Baird’s Division holds the centre, near a village called Elvina, and the Guards hold their right flank. General Edward Paget is near Santa Lucía in reserve, and Frasier’s Division is posted on the road to Vigo and Santiago de Compostela on the far right.”

“The French?” Lewrie asked.

“No idea yet, sir,” Phillpot replied with a toothy leer. “As bad as we had it, the French must have had a worse time, for once we left any town through which we marched, there wasn’t a crumb, or a flagon of wine, left, hah hah! Shameful looting and in-discipline, our men got to, burning anything to keep warm, no matter how grand. Pianos, harps, bed-steads, God knows what all. The weather, and the roads, my word! One-lane bridges slick with thick ice, and hardly any kerbings. Why, it’s a wonder any of our carts and waggons survived. And, you ought to see some of the mountain villages we went through … lanes so narrow, and winding at odd angles, bound in by stone walls that hand-carts had to be un-loaded and stood on their sides to get them through!

“The French will have it just as bad,” Phillpot prophesied, “and struggle, as we did, along the same routes, through the snow, ice, and mud, perhaps all three conditions in the same day in those mountains, their own supplies far behind and starving, and every hamlet plucked as clean as a chicken. Damn them all, they are welcome to it!”

“So, you believe the army can hold for a while?” Captain Chalmers asked him.

“Frankly, sir?” Phillpot posed with a scowl, thinking that over. “For one day, perhaps, after the French catch us up. After that? Well, the Navy will just have to get us off or the entire army’s lost, what’s left of it.”

Major Phillpot offered them a tour of the defences up on the Monte Mero, though the retreat had cost so many horses that they would have to accompany him on foot while he rode his own worn-out prad; he was seeing a column of hand-carts up with fresh ammunition from the depot. They both decided not to.

“Save a place for me in one of your boats, will you, sirs?” Phillpot asked, and it was not in a parting jest. “Good day.”

“And good luck,” Lewrie bade him. Under his breath to Chalmers, he added, “I think they’re going to need all the luck in the world.”

As he and Captain Chalmers made their way back to the quays it began to drizzle an icy rain, quickly turning to sleet, then just as quickly to another bout of snow that began to blanket the ground, which had already been whitened, then churned to a slushy, muddy, muck by the thousands of soldiers. They passed a narrow church, where soldiers were quartered, and paused as they heard a flute and fiddle playing a tune inside.

“What’s that?” Lewrie asked.

“I think it’s ‘Over the Hills and Far Away,’” Chalmers said as he cocked an ear. “It’s from The Beggar’s Opera, as I recall.” As the tune continued, Chalmers “um-tiddlied”’til he got to a part he recalled. “‘And I would love you all the day, all the night we’d laugh and play, if to me you would fondly say, over the hills and far away.’”

“I wager that’s their fondest wish, right now,” Lewrie wryly said, “for them to be ‘over the hills and far away’ from here!”

He recalled that he had heard it long before, when he had had the Proteus frigate, escorting a convoy of “John Company” ships, and the ship that carried Daniel Wigmore’s Circus/Menagerie/Theatrical troupe that had attached itself as far as Cape Town. They had staged a performance of The Beggar’s Opera when they broke their passage at St. Helena Island, and Eudoxia Durschkeno had sung it as part of the chorus, back when she’d been enamoured of him, and long before she’d discovered that he was married.

The quays were empty when they arrived, and a gaggle of rowing boats were scuttling out into the harbour bearing the last of that surgeon’s regimental wounded.

“Mister Hillhouse,” Lewrie said, tapping the finger of his right hand on his hat by way of casual salute. “Last of ’em off, I see?”

“Aye, sir,” Midshipman Hillhouse replied, doffing his hat in reply. “I was told by an army officer that there are more wounded men coming to be got off. The Prosperity and the Blue Bo