“Who got her?” Captain Donnelly asked.
“Commander Josceline Percy,” Honyman said with a snort. “Left England too late with orders to have Espoir, and had to beg a passage in Protector. Lucky fellow.”
“Lucky, indeed!” Lewrie said, chuckling. “Lose a brig, get a frigate, and be sure t’be made ‘Post’! Ehm … even with your ship here, sir, isn’t the Commodore takin’ a huge risk? Admiralty might have a very dim view of it, success at Buenos Aires be-damned.”
“Ah, but he has so many friends in high places, Lewrie!” Captain Honyman said more loudly, his sneers more pronounced. “He’s the ear of the Prime Minister, a doting patron at Admiralty in Lord Melville, an host of ‘petti-coat’ allies in every salon through his wife’s excellent connexions … perhaps cater-cousins in the Privy Council, I shouldn’t wonder! As he had told us … so very, very often, what? ‘When last I played at bowls with the Prince of Wales’ … ‘When Noah and I compared notes on tides and currents’? God, spare us!” Honyman gravelled. “But, in the end, I expect he’ll be excused for abandoning his post … it’s the way of things.”
“But, only if we’re successful,” Lewrie cautioned.
By God, we’d better, or it’s the ruin of us all, he thought.
“Well, there is that!” Captain Honyman hooted with a snicker, as if failure was no skin off his own nose. “Gentlemen, I wish you both the very best of good fortune over there in South America. Just so long as I’m not part of it, no matter which way it goes. Take joy of the Commodore’s success. Are you lucky, he might even share a bit of the gloss with you, haw!”
BOOK FOUR
Where is Montjoy the herald? Speed him hence;
Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.
Up, princes! and with spirit of honour edged,
More sharper than your swords, hie to the field.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
T HE L IFE OF K ING
HENRYTHEFIFTH,
ACT III, SCENE V, 36–39
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Signal from Diadem, sir,” Midshipman Rossyngton called out from the taffrails. “It is … ‘Report … Provisions’.”
“Lovely way t’start the day,” Lewrie said, scoffing. “What’s the tally today, Mister Westcott?”
“The Purser’s inventory says we still have seven days’ water and five days’ of bisquit remaining, at full issue, sir,” Lt. Westcott replied, referring to the morning’s tally which Mr. Cadbury had given him after breakfast.
“Pass those to Rossyngton, then,” Lewrie told him, “and pray that this voyage doesn’t last much longer. We’re almost to the Plate Estuary, but how we’re to victual from a hostile shore is anyone’s guess.”
When Commodore Popham had announced that they would break their passage at St. Helena, lengthening the duration of the voyage, Lewrie and his officers had determined to buy or have built extra water butts to stow below. Cape Town had the facilities to bake bisquit in great quantities to service the needs of the merchant trade which put in to victual, so HMS Reliant had left the Cape with a goodly extra supply as well.
The problem had arisen after leaving St. Helena, for the expedition had had to sail further North, riding the Sou’east African Trade winds and the Agulhas Current, to the latitude of the Cape Verde Isles to catch the Nor’east Trades that would carry them across the Atlantic to South America, and the ships of the squadron had wallowed in the variable zone between those two great wind and current routes, some days barely making steerage way, before resuming adequate progress. The requests for reports on how much basic provisions remained lately had become a daily fret.
“We could have put in somewhere in the Vice-Royalty of Brazil, sir,” Westcott commented after returning forward from relaying their figures to Midshipman Rossyngton. “Portugal is neutral, after all. It would not have had to be Rio de Janeiro, or another major port. Any fishing port would have served.”
“Hah!” was Lewrie’s sour reply. “After the blow Popham got from Governor Patten at Saint Helena, I don’t think he wants anyone in authority t’know where we are!”
News had come from London that the Prime Minister, and Popham’s “dear friend” and supporter, William Pitt, had died on the 22nd of January. The new Prime Minister, Lord Grenville, had quickly assembled his new administration, “The Ministry of All Talents” due to the many new and younger men who, on paper at least, possessed such great potential and brilliance. William, Lord Grenville, was not a fan of Popham’s.
And, to make things even worse for the Commodore, the Right Honourable Charles Grey, M.P., was the new First Lord of the Admiralty, and no one knew what he might think of any expedition to South America, especially one dreamt up on the fly, without official leave. Lewrie strongly suspected that their little squadron was now slinking to Buenos Aires, hoping to achieve victory before anyone could recall them, staying a days’ sail ahead of any orders from London, and out for a very quick fait accompli!
How that would be achieved was worrying, too. General Baird had given Popham and Brigadier Beresford only seven hundred men of the 71st Highlanders, along with six pieces of field artillery and two troops of dis-mounted Light Dragoons from the 20th. Popham’s hope for enthusiastic support from Governor-General Patten at St. Helena had been dashed; he had contributed only two companies of infantry, all that he might spare from the defence of such a vital mid-ocean post.
To make up the lack of soldiers, Popham had invented the “Royal Blues”, stripping all his warships of most of their Marines and as many sailors as could be spared, to add another 340 men who would be landed ashore when the time came. After witnessing the size and power of General Baird’s army of five thousand in combat at Cape Town, though, Lewrie had his doubts what a force of around sixteen hundred could accomplish. It was seeming dafter and dafter!
“How much longer, Mister Caldwell?” Lewrie asked the Sailing Master, who had been scribbling on a chalk slate and humming happily to himself, with a now-and-again reference to one of his charts pinned to the traverse board by the compass binnacle cabinet.
“Hey, sir?” Caldwell responded, as if roused from a nap. “Oh, well I dare say that, should this wind continue in its present slant, and at its current strength, we should be entering the Río de la Plata Estuary around tomorrow’s dawn … with the sun astern of us once we alter course Westward, which will make any reefs or shoals easier to espy ahead of us, sir. Of which the Plate Estuary has an ominous plenty, that is.”
“You would feel much better did we reduce sail and post leadsmen in the fore chains, and lookouts at the fore top, sir?” Lewrie asked.
“Oh, very much better, sir!” Mr. Caldwell agreed quickly, with a broad, relieved smile plastered on his phyz.
“Well, so would I, frankly,” Lewrie told him, grinning. “I’ve not run aground in ages, and may be more than due. Though from what I gather from my charts, the Plate’s shoals are more sand and silt than rocks?” He knocked wood for luck on the starboard bulwark’s cap-rails.
“That is true, sir … in the main,” Caldwell replied, doing the same on the top of the binnacle cabinet.
Lewrie turned away and rocked on the balls of his feet, hands clasped in the small of his back and his head tilted up to savour the morning. It was a beautiful day, bright, glittering, and fresh-washed by light rain the evening before. They had left the oppressive heat of the Equator behind after falling South of Recife in Brazil, and the days had cooled to the low eighties since. In promise of their landfall, sea birds and shore birds seen close to shore swirled overhead in small flocks, some flitting or gliding between the masts and sails to delight the ship’s dog, Bisquit, and make Chalky, who was perched atop the cross-deck hammock racks, sit up and swivel his head skywards, with his whiskers standing out and his mouth making eager chitterings and longing trills.