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“It’d take some crafty ship-handlin’, aye,” Lewrie said, standing erect from leaning over the inclined chart table, and tossing the pencil into a low shelf on the back edge. “But, if the army runs into trouble, I’ll not have it said that the Navy let ’em down. That’s what they pay us for … crafty ship-handlin’, right?”
“Right, sir,” Mr. Yelland said, looking as if he had been ordered to thread ’twixt Scylla and Charybdis, hunt up the fabled Northwest Passage through Midwinter icebergs, or sell his first-born son; that glint in his eyes, and the way he licked his lips, told Lewrie that Mr. Yelland was badly in need of a stiff “Norwester” glass of grog.
Lewrie stepped back out onto the quarterdeck, took a deep and refreshing breath of clean air, then trotted up the ladderway to the poop deck for a better vantage point. The ca
Can’t be Napoleon himself, then, Lewrie thought; that bastard would be sneaky enough t’feint an attack where Moore’s strongest, and hit him where he’s weakest.
* * *
Lewrie returned to the quarterdeck after a break to warm up in his great-cabins, and have Yeovill fetch a pot of hot tea from the galley, and, admittedly, to visit his quarter-gallery toilet. He saw his crew gathered all down the bulwarks facing the shore, half-way up the shrouds, in the fighting tops to watch what was happening ashore. Some men of the off-watch division had eschewed four hours of sleep below, and were on deck in their warmest clothing, with their blankets wrapped round them.
“Any change?” Lewrie asked the First Officer, who was sipping a cup of tea himself, with his own boat cloak wrapped round him for warmth.
“It gets louder, now and then, sir, then fades out a bit,” Lt. Westcott said with a bored expression on his face. “Every now and then I think I can hear musketry, but, who knows?” he said with a shrug. “We seem to be holding them in check.”
Lewrie pulled out his pocket watch to note that it was a little past 10 in the morning of the 16th of January, and the fighting had begun just round 9 A.M. He looked shoreward with his telescope for a long minute, then lowered it and looked round his own decks. Hands were looking aft at the quarterdeck, now that he was back.
Lewrie made up his mind with a firm nod, then went to the edge of the quarterdeck to lean on the cross-deck hammock stanchions.
“Lads!” he called out loudly, drawing everyone’s attention to him. “The Army’s holding the damned Frogs, so far! I’ll tell you what I know from when I was ashore at Vimeiro!”
He described the French column formations, and how they marched shoulder to shoulder like a massive blue carpet, how the British Army kept their men safe behind the ridges yonder ’til it was time to come up and shoot those columns to a bloody standstill; how the exploding Shrapnel shells would burst over them and scatter bodies about; how a reef of dead and wounded would pile up knee or thigh high, when the French would stall, unable to step over those reefs, even though the drums and the officers would still urge them forward; and he told them how the French had broken and run, at last, and how vain those shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” would be.
“Long live the Emperor,” he said in a comically shaky voice, “and let me live t’get outa this place! Mon Dieu, Mort de ma vie! I am ru
That had them roaring with laughter.
“I was told that those ridges yonder, the Monte Mero, are steep, and so full of boulders, it might as well be a stone fort,” he went on. “The Frogs’ll be out of breath by the time they’re halfway up, and dyin’ by the dozens at every step. All the gun-smoke is over on the other side, so far, so…’til we see red coats fallin’ back, and blue carpets on this side of the ridges, all’s well. If we do see that, then we’ll sail over to that inlet, yonder,” he said with one arm pointing towards the foot of Santa Lucía Hill, “and use our ca
“Our first year in the Med,” he exhorted, “you shot the Devil out of forts and batteries … this Summer, we took on that column of Frogs marchin’ along the coast road from Málaga, you shot the guts out of two Spanish frigates. You’re the best set of gu
Eager cries of agreement and cheering greeted his exortations, and he waited ’til it died down before continuing. “For now, we will wait t’see what happens. You off-watch men, you really should go below and get some sleep, but I can’t order ye to. So…’til the rum issue and di
They cheered that, too. The keenly curious could stay by the bulwarks and up the masts, while others could read, write letters, or mend their clothing, fiddle with their craftwork and carvings, whilst a fair number would indeed nap on deck wrapped in their blankets, or go below to turn into their hammocks.
* * *
The rum issue at Seven Bells of the Forenoon came and went, as did the hands’ mid-day meal, the change of watch from Noon to four, the change of watch at the start of the First Dog, and even the approach of the Second Dog at 6 P.M. The army was holding, it seemed, as the sun sank low and dusk began to dull the view of the shore. Lewrie had been aft in his cabins, catching up on the never-ending paperwork associated with a ship in active commission, when he took note that Pettus and Jessop were lighting more lanthorns.
And the sudden silence.
“What the Devil?” he asked himself as he rose from his desk, cocking his head to listen more closely.
“Think it stopped, sir,” Jessop commented. “Quiet-like.”
Wonder if that’s good, or bad, Lewrie asked himself as he went for his hat and boat cloak, and hastened out to the quarterdeck, where he found his officers gathered in puzzlement, up from the wardroom in curiosity, instead of preparing for their own suppers.
“There are boats coming off from the quays, sir,” Lt. Westcott pointed out. “More wounded men, it looks like.”
“Any summons from the flag for us to send in boats?” Lewrie demanded.
“Not yet, sir, no,” Westcott answered, totally mystified.
“I can’t see any French infantry on the ridges, sir,” Harcourt, the Second Officer, reported. “Ours, mostly, some hand lanthorns, and litter parties, I think. The light’s going.”
Boom-Boom! There were two guns fired aboard Admiral Hood’s flagship, the General Signal to all naval ships present to watch for a hoist of signal flags, which would be hard to make out in the gloom of dusk.
“I can make out … Send Boats,” Midshipman Hillhouse slowly read off with a telescope, “and Wounded, spelled out, sir.”
“Let’s be at it, then, gentlemen,” Lewrie snapped, “man all boats and get them on their way. See which transport shows a night signal that she’s to receive wounded. Bosun Terrell? Muster all boat crews!”
“What of the hands’ supper, sir?” Westcott asked. “What should Mister Ta
“Damn,” Lewrie spat. “He’s to serve those men still aboard, and let the meat simmer awhile longer for the rest.”
He dearly wished that he could hop into the pi
“Mister Hillhouse, still here?” he called out.
“Aye, sir?” the Midshipman replied.