“Makes no matter,” Lewrie shrugged off, beaming fit to bust, himself, and nodding pleasantly. He made out “Capitano” and “Caballero,” “la Marina Real Británica,” but the rest was higgledy-piggledy. When Deacon drew breath, Lewrie doffed his hat and bowed from the waist; there was no way to make a formal “leg” while still standing in the pinnace.
“Honoured to make your acquaintance, Commandante Azcárte,” Lewrie replied. “Uhm, Deacon, ask him if the locals can help get the arms ashore with their boats. It’d take hours, else.”
“I will, sir,” Deacon said, and launched into more gibberish. Major Azcárte nodded vigourously, replied with more smiles, and turned to the citizens of Salobreña to ask them to help, which launched a rush of fishermen to their boats along the quay, to break out oars, and begin to stroke out towards Sapphire.
Lewrie and Deacon scrambled up atop the quay, and Deacon began to ask many questions anent the local situation, the nearness of the French, and the latest news from Granada. Before he could get any answers, Major Azcárte stepped up to Lewrie, threw his arms round him in a bear hug, and bussed him on both cheeks, babbling away.
He got “muchas gracias,” but the rest was nonsense sounds.
“He expresses his thanks, sir,” Deacon translated.
“Got that part,” Lewrie said, wishing the oaf would let go.
“How grateful all Spain will be … how grand it is to be allies … how despicable the French … their cruelties and depredations,” Deacon said, hitting only the high points. At least Major Azcárte had let him go, and was now stamping a booted foot, gesticulating wildly with his hands, and even going so far as to spit dramatically, fortunately far away. “If you make some agreeing noises, I’ll lay it on as thick as he likes, sir,” Deacon said, sounding as if he found this most amusing.
I’m a Punch and Judy puppet, by God! Lewrie told himself, but he expressed how much he had always hated and distrusted the filthy French, that English people called them Frogs, that the invasion of Spain was outright thievery, and he was more than glad to help the “brave people” of Spain fight them and throw them back across the Pyrenees, killing as many as they could in the process. All of that was just “the nuts” to Azcárte, who was practically cooing by then.
“He invites us to a tavern, sir, for wine and something to eat,” Deacon said at last.
“Hell, yes, let’s go,” Lewrie was more than happy to say.
That, however, involved meeting more of Major Azcárte’s junior officers, all of whom looked to be idling and cooling their heels at the tavern, and may have been for some time, given the sleepy, drunk looks on their faces. Slurred Castilian Spanish with its lisping was hard enough to decypher, and drunk Castilian gave Deacon a trial.
“Boasting of what they’ll do to the French, now they have weapons,” Deacon idly translated as some rough, raw local red wine showed up, and toasts were given. “Major Azcárte suggests that the next time your ship comes, you could bring blankets, boots or shoes, and food. I gather they’re short of everything.”
“Tell him that Great Britain will do what we can, but that all depends on how quickly our Government can gather up the goods and get ’em here,” Lewrie responded. “Don’t promise him the moon.”
“Yes, sir. He apologises for the wine, which even he deems as swill, and suggests we switch to brandy,” Deacon said.
“Tell him I think I’ll go see how the un-loading is going,” Lewrie replied, “and if he has his waggons and such handy. Bad as the wine is, I can’t imagine the local brandy bein’ a whit better.”
He rose, clapped on his hat, and went outside. Between the local boatmen and his sailors, quite a lot of the weapons had gotten ashore already, crate after crate of muskets, of bayonets, of cartridges, and leather accoutrements in bundles were already piled high on the quays. Yellow-jacketed Spanish cavalry were coming down the road from Órgiva, alongside slow, creaking, and squealing ox-drawn waggons.
Another party of cavalry in different-coloured uniforms were clattering into Salobreña from the West on tired-looking horses wet with ammoniac white-foam sweat, shouting something in alert, or joy to find a tavern, it was hard for Lewrie to tell which.
“What’re they sayin’, Mister Deacon?” he asked.
“Ehm, they say the French are coming, sir!” Deacon said with gravel in his throat. “Fifteen miles back, near Almuñécar, at least a demi-brigade. That’d be about two thousand men. Infantry, thank the Lord, so they won’t be here anytime soon. Uhm … they saw no cavalry, and that’s a blessing.”
That news stirred Major Azcárte into a frenzy of shouting and windmilling his arms, sending his junior officers scurrying to leave the tavern, retrieve their shakoes or cocked hats, arm themselves, and disperse to their waiting, drowzing soldiers. Locals began to dart about, some helping to load the waggons, and some to begin hitching up their own waggons so they could flee.
“Major Azcárte says the French garrison at Málaga has been re-enforced, and is sending troops out along the coast roads,” Deacon managed to pick up from Azcárte’s ravings. “He apologises for haste, but he must get the waggons loaded and up into the mountains before they arrive, and God help the people of Salobreña for what the French will do to them when they get here. Tell him Vaya con Dios, sir, and bid him goodbye,” Deacon added in a harsh whisper.
Lewrie did as Deacon bade, doffing his hat and bowing again, then turned to see to his men in the pinnace. The 29-foot launch and both 25-foot cutters were alongside the quays, un-loading the last of the boxed cartridges, under Midshipman Hillhouse.
“That the last of it, Mister Hillhouse?” Lewrie demanded.
“Aye, sir, the very last scrap. What’s the trouble?” the senior Mid asked, looking round at the seeming panic.
“French troops coming from Málaga, in strength,” Lewrie told him, on his way to the waiting pinnace. “Let’s get our people back to the ship.”
“Aye aye, sir!”
“You, there!” someone was bellowing in English. “British officer! Don’t leave without me, for Christ’s sake!”
Lewrie turned about to see a party of armed civilian men, some of the guerrilleros, come clopping into Salobreña. With them on a weary-looking poor prad of a horse was a British Army officer, red in the face, and his elegantly tailored uniform much the worse for wear.
“Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie spat in shock.
“Escaped before the French slung me in prison,” the man babbled as he almost fell off the horse in his haste. “Was on my parole at Málaga, got helped out of the city … Captain Lewrie?”
“Aye, Major Hughes,” Lewrie replied. “Get your arse in the boat.”
It would have been a toss-up, in point of fact, which of the men was more shocked by the other’s appearance, Brevet-Major Hughes, or Alan Lewrie.
Thought we’d seen the last o’ that bastard fool when the Dons captured him last Summer! Lewrie thought in disgust; Right here up by the semaphore tower!
Hughes had been appointed to command the landing force for the raids along the coast, and a fine muddle he’d made of it once ashore.
Oh God, what’ll Maddalena make of his resurrection? Lewrie had to wonder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Need a Bosun’s chair?” Lewrie asked Hughes as the pinnace came alongside the starboard boarding battens.
“Not a bit of it, Lewrie,” Major Hughes said with a harumph of dis-pleasure. “I’ve been up the side of your ship before. After you, sir.”
“Senior officers are first in, last out, sir,” Lewrie corrected. “Up ye get, then.”
Hughes looked as if he would argue the point, going squinty-eyed, but stood, teetered on the gunn’l, made his leap and grab, and began to scale the battens. Lewrie looked up and smiled a bit at the sight of Hughes’s breeches; elegant white had turned a pale shit-brown round the rump, most-like from a saddle’s badly cured leather. Hughes was not aware of it, but Lewrie thought it a good excuse for a ribbing, for later.