“Soon, sir,” Pettus assured him with a grin.
“No … how long have I been like this?” Lewrie insisted.
“Why, nigh on a week, sir,” Pettus told him.
Boots stamped and a musket butt slammed the deck outside of the cabin doors as the Marine sentry announced, “First Off’cer an’ th’ Captain’s cook, SAH!”
“Enter,” Pettus granted for Lewrie, and Lt. Westcott and Yeovill came breezing in, peering aft at the bed-cot, looking anxious.
“Ah, you’re awake at last, sir!” Westcott exclaimed, breaking out in a broad grin of relief as he came to the bed-cot. “We’ve been quite worried about you.”
“We won, didn’t we, Mister Westcott? We’ve a prize?” Lewrie demanded, suddenly noting that Reliant was at sea and under way, with the hull gently groaning and the overhead lanthorns gently swaying.
“Well, of course we won, sir,” Westcott said with a surprised laugh. “She struck her colours not five minutes after you were borne below to the Surgeon. A prize? Well, not exactly.”
“What?” Lewrie managed to ask.
“Recall, she was flying her main course, instead of brailing it up against the risk of fire?” Westcott explained with a grimace. “Our stern-rake must have dis-mounted a loaded gun or two, or there were some powder cartridges lying loose; something sparked off and flashed her main course alight, all that mess of her torn main tops’l and the tangle of her mizen top-masts that had fallen forward on her main top? Damned near the blink of your eye, and she’s ablaze, with no hope of saving her.
“Her captain ordered her abandoned, and her colours struck, but they couldn’t haul their boats up from towing astern quickly enough, so there were few survivors,” Westcott went on. “We picked up some who could swim to us, and a few more when we got our boats over to her.
“Her captain…,” Westcott mused for a moment before continuing. “The poor bastard stayed on his quarterdeck to the end, then he put a pistol to his head and blew his brains out, can you imagine?”
“Mad as a March Hare,” Lewrie said with a grunt.
“She was the San Fermin … one of their minor saints … and had been over on the Pacific side for about three years,” Lt. Westcott said. “She finally was recalled to Spain, put into Bahía Blanca after rounding the Horn, for supplies, and heard of our invasion, one of her surviving officers told me. She really needed a major re-fit, but her captain, Don Francisco Montoya-Uribe, felt his highest duty would be to stay and attack any transports that came in, or engage one of our warships, to whittle down the odds before a relieving squadron turned up, after he learned how few we were.
“The poor sods didn’t even know about Trafalgar ’til we told them, sir,” Westcott marvelled, “and they still can’t quite believe it!”
“Honourable … for a Don,” Lewrie commented. “Very proud lot.”
“It’s a wonder they put up as good a fight as they did, sir,” Westcott said, shaking his head in awe. “Half her original crew had taken ‘leg-bail’ to seek their fortunes, looking for silver and copper, and got replaced with local criollos or starving Indios. Her captain had hardly any funds for her up-keep, or his crew’s pay half the time, and their Ministry of Marine sent money out only when they remembered to, so she wasn’t much of a happy ship. I gather that her Captain Montoya kept them together with kindness.”
“That’s a new’un,” Lewrie said with a scowl.
“The survivors gave the impression that they liked him, sir, even if he was dull, scholarly, a tad shy, and soft-spoken,” Westcott told him. “An hidalgo from an ancient family, but poor as church-mice. Honourable to the end, they said. They pitied him, I think.”
“All this way,” Lewrie sadly bemoaned, “all this time, and not a groat t’show for it. Our own losses, our damage?”
“Dis-mounted guns back on their carriages, the shot holes along the waterline plugged, scantlings re-planked, painted, and tarred over,” Westcott ticked off, more business-like. “We’ve still rope and canvas fotherings over them, but there is a slow seepage the Carpenter still can’t find, but an hour on the pumps twice a day keeps around six or seven inches of water in the bilges. We’ve used up all our stores of lumber, and had to borrow from Diadem. Left the prisoners with them, too, so Captain Downman is less than pleased with us.”
“Casualties?” Lewrie asked.
“Seven dead, right off, and two more who died of wounds, sir,” Westcott told him. “I’ll bring you the muster book when you’re up to it. Eighteen wounded, counting yourself, but there are only two who are really bad off, Surgeon Mainwaring says. Your stroke-oar, Furfy, got quilled with wood splinters, and a knock on the head, so he’s laid up in the foc’s’le sick-berth for a week, with another week on light duties.”
“He’ll relish that, I’d wager,” Lewrie said, chuckling. “Bed-rest, no chores, and he still gets his rum and beer rations. God, my manners, Mister Westcott! Drag up a chair and sit!”
Pettus had already fetched one from the dining coach. “Thank you, sir. That close to the galley heat, Furfy and the others will be as snug as bugs as we drop down to pick up the cold, hard Westerlies round the Fourties.”
“Good morning, Captain, sir!” Lewrie’s cook, Yeovill, cheerily intruded, “You will be taking breakfast today, some solid food?”
“God, yes!” Lewrie enthused.
“Thick, sweet cocoa to start, sir,” Yeovill said, handing him a large china mug, “scrambled eggs, a rice pudding for later, and I whipped up a batch of hot water-drop cornmeal fritters. The Surgeon is of a mind that your victuals had best be soft and bland for a few days, sorry.”
“Damn his eyes,” Lewrie groused. “Aye, bring it on, even if it is pap. We’re fallin’ down to the Fourties, Mister Westcott?”
“Already about two hundred miles Sou’east of the Plate Estuary, sir, and I expect Noon Sights will place us near the Fourty-third Latitude. We’re bounding along quite nicely, bound for Cape Town. Then England,” Westcott added, looking pleased.
“God, at last!” Lewrie said with a gladsome sigh. “Commodore Popham released us?”
“With urgent despatches to General Baird at the Cape, requesting immediate re-enforcements, and his latest reports to Admiralty,” Westcott said, still grinning almost impishly as he added, “I might have given the Commodore the impression in my report that we had taken more damage than was the case, along with how long Reliant has been in commission, and was overdue paying off?”
“Happens even in the best of families,” Lewrie said, grinning in turn. “Even Nelson was prone to exaggeration.”
Pettus was fussing about, tucking a napkin into Lewrie’s shirt collar, and fluffing the pillows again. Lewrie tried to use his hands and elbows to scoot up higher in the bed to a half-way sitting position, but he could manage only an inch or so, and the leg wound awoke in fresh pain, making him suck air and wince.
“God, I’m weak as a kitten,” Lewrie said through gritted teeth, freezing in place to let the pain subside. Westcott, Pettus, and young Jessop took him by the armpits and dragged him up, making things even worse, bad enough for Lewrie to growl at them.
“Your cocoa, sir,” Yeovill announced, “a refill?”
“Aye,” Lewrie agreed, once his leg quit screaming and merely ached. “Whew! The Commodore wants more troops, instanter, does he? Any idea what’s happening up at Buenos Aires?”
“Only what Captain Downman told me, sir, and it doesn’t sound all that good,” Westcott said, frowning as he sat back down. “Troops from the Montevideo garrison and local volunteers are getting over to Buenos Aires at night in fishing boats, in the shallows where Popham can’t get at them. He’s only Encounter and her boats and crew, and she can’t swim that high up the estuary. They’re joining up with volunteers under Sobremonte, the Viceroy of La Plata, and a man by name of Pueyrredón. There’s a Frenchman, Liniers, commanding them, too, and the Commodore’s sure that it’s all a nasty Napoleonic plot. General Beresford beat about fifteen hundred of them, but that was on the defensive, and he’s unable to chase them down and drive them off.