“The city isn’t safe at night, so all Beresford can do is to patrol,” Westcott growled, “maybe dig some entrenchments, and wait for the shoe to drop. It sounds rather grim, in all.”
“Popham still has five transports,” Lewrie said, frowning at that news. “If it’s that bad, he should pull Beresford’s men out, fall down to Point Quilmes, take ’em off the Cuello’s banks, and sail back to Montevideo, before he loses the whole lot.”
“And admit defeat, sir?” Westcott snickered. “Fail, and admit rashness and bad judgement, more to the point? After his glowing reports, and that open letter to the London merchants, I can’t see him withdrawing.”
“Here’s breakfast, sir!” Yeovill sang out, placing a plank over Lewrie’s lap to span the bed-cot, upon which was a plate of eggs and a basket of fritters. “You’ll be happy to know, sir, that Mister Mainwaring said you could take as much red wine as you wished, as it’s grand for building up the blood and your strength.”
“Whisky?” Lewrie hopefully asked.
“With sugar and raw eggs, and medicine, only at bed-time, he said, sir,” Yeovill informed him.
“Damn his eyes a second time,” Lewrie grumbled, taking a first, delicious bite of eggs and a fritter that dripped fairly fresh butter.
“He saved the bullet for you, sir. Interested?” Yeovill asked.
“Christ, no!” Lewrie barked. “That’s … ghoulish!”
“Nothing to be done for your breeches. sir,” Pettus told him, “but, if you don’t mind that the tail of your silk shirt is shorter, it’s quite serviceable.”
“It’ll be a while before I’ll need either, but thankee kindly, Pettus,” Lewrie said with a smile.
“We’ve still some of those fresh-casked Argentine beef steaks, sir,” Yeovill happily babbled on. “You’ll be ready for some of them in a week or so.”
“And, once we anchor at Cape Town, there’ll be all manner of fresh wild game meat,” Westcott added, sounding wistful.
“I hope I’m able t’totter, by then,” Lewrie said, “and not end up a gimp.”
“Well, time heals all wounds, sir,” Westcott teased, “both the physical and the wounds of the heart. Mister Mainwaring is sure that you’ll recover fully. He took great care, he said, to extract every thread of cloth, and a few wee slivers that the bullet nicked off your thigh bone. You just rest easy and take your time, sir, and we’ll have you dancing by the time we get to Table Bay!”
“Well, if Mister Mainwaring insists on bed-rest!” Lewrie said with another wide grin. “After all, the ship is in the best of hands.”
“Thank you for saying that, sir,” Westcott said, bowing his head for a moment. “Long naps, catch up on your reading, amuse your cat, and enjoy a sea voyage, sir, with nought to do but plan what you will do when we get back to England. At any rate, our part in Commodore Popham’s fiasco is over and done, and we’re well shot of all that.”
Lewrie’s jaw dropped as he peered owlishly at Westcott.
“Geoffrey … did you have t’say ‘well shot’?” he asked.
“Oh Lord, my pardons, sir, I—!”
Lewrie could keep his stern expression for only so long, then began to laugh out loud. “Well shot, mine arse! Hah!” which set Westcott to relieved nervous laughter, and amused the others, too.
Damme, but it hurts t’laugh so hard! Lewrie thought, wincing and yet unable to stop or calm his cackling.
“Yeovill, ye say I’m allowed red wine?” he asked. “Well, pour me a mug. I have it on the best authority that I’m well-shot, and prescribed it! I might even have earned it. Well-shot, my God!”
AFTERWORD
If there had been shrinks around in 1805–1806, they could have diagnosed the British people as schizophrenic, swinging from elation to despair in mere months, with nary a bottle of Valium in sight.
Since the end of the brief Peace of Amiens in the spring of 1803, they had lived in dread of a gigantic army which Napoleon Bonaparte, now the self-crowned Emperor of France, had assembled along the Channel coast, and the thousands of landing craft and gunboats he had ordered built to carry it the seemingly short distance across the “Narrow Sea” and invade England, bringing down Napoleon’s principal opposition to his ruling of all Europe, and perhaps a goodly chunk of the world. He did dream big!
When Lewrie is still in the Bahamas, he had no way of knowing that the presence of Admiral Villeneuve’s massive fleet was not there to conquer anything in the Caribbean, but to lure off the Royal Navy so that that massive army and invasion fleet would meet little opposition during that “six hours of mastery of the English Channel, and I will be master of the world” boast. Nelson, of the “Immortal Memory”, of course, put paid to that scheme by defeating the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar, dying in the process.
There was great elation at first, followed by woe that Nelson was gone, and there were no other senior naval officers of his fame and stature in the wings to take his place.
Since that climactic defeat, Napoleon Bonaparte might have been in need of some Xanax or Valium, too, after spending so much money on his invasion forces, and seeing his grand scheme dashed to pieces. It was rumoured that Bonaparte groused that Villeneuve had lost because “I cannot be expected to be everywhere”, as if had he been at Trafalgar, the result would have been a different kettle of fish! At one time, before he had attended a military academy in France and had become an artillery officer, Bonaparte had expressed a notion to go into the French Navy; it may be an apocryphal tale, something that he dreamed up in his less-than-truthful, self-serving memoirs.
At any rate, what is a tyrant and conqueror to do after such a setback? Why, go bash his enemies in Europe, on the ground!
Austria was still a threat, itching to avenge itself upon the French for earlier embarrassments in the field since 1792, and could not abide that Napoleon had gone down to Italy and crowned himself the king of that patchwork land, where the Austrians thought that they ruled the roost. The young Alexander, Tsar of All the Russias, despised Napoleon, feared his ambitions, and personally wished Napoleon punished for the murder of the Duc de Angoulême, and when the British offered lashings of silver for every hundred thousand troops, he took the deal eagerly. Along with Austria and Russia, the Prussians—well, they were Prussians, of the same sort that brought the delights of World Wars One and Two, almost as militaristic and despotic as the French had become, and the money sounded sweet to them, too.
When it appeared that a fresh grand coalition of European powers had arisen against poor little much-put-upon “Boney”, encouraged by Nelson’s victory, and Prime Minister William Pitt’s cash stash, he had to act, and was surely more than happy to go bash the stuffings out of somebody to make up for it, and make him feel better.
The Austrians had improved their army and its tactics since the last time they’d been slobber-knockered by the French, but they still weren’t quite up to snuff, and they just got reamed at the battles of Ulm, then the joint battle with their new Russian allies which happened at Austerlitz, Napoleon’s most complete and crushing victories of his long career. To add insult to injury, he later went on to rip the Prussians a new one at Jena and Auerstädt, and add Prussia as part of Metropolitan France!
It’s possible that the news of all those defeats were the cause of William Pitt’s demise, which so stunned Commodore Popham when he learned of it. The people of Great Britain took all that bad news, and Pitt’s death, pretty hard, too, and a great war-weariness set in once more. (“Doc, I just feel so depressed!”)