“One can only hope that French soldiers are as thin and spindly as ours,” Lewrie said with a sigh. “They look as pale as spooks.”
“They’re in the boats’ way!” Westcott groused.
“Uhm, no, I don’t think so,” Lewrie disagreed after a longer look. “Someone’s planted posts and flags along the beaches to clear a long stretch where the boats can land. The swimming areas are outside of that. Damme! Someone in our army half knows what he’s doing, for a change! The whole affair looks … organised.”
“Oh, now that you point it out, I see it,” Westcott said in a much milder voice, sounding as if he was disappointed that he could not have himself a good rant.
“Ye know, I’ve never been to Brighton,” Lewrie admitted. “I’ve taken the waters at Bath, but they say that saltwater bathing is good for you. Half-freezin’ your arse in the Channel, well. The seas here surely are warmer. I’m tempted t’take a dip, myself.”
“As I recall, though, sir, you cannot swim,” Westcott reminded him.
“I said ‘dip,’” Lewrie replied, “not ‘plunge.’ Wade, perhaps, and let the surf have its way with me, with my feet firmly planted in the sand. On such a warm day, well, it looks refreshin’.”
He swung his telescope back to the boats as they hobby-horsed the last fifty yards or so to ground their bows in the sand, rising on the incoming wave, surging onward as it broke and foamed round them. Sailors leapt out to walk the boats over the last incoming surge and steady them as the soldiers began to debark over the bows. Soldiers from other units came down from the low dunes and barrow overwashes to help the boat crews unload and stack crates, bundles, and kegs ashore.
Beyond them, lines of four-wheeled waggons and carts with two man-tall solid wooden wheels stood waiting. The half-battalion that had just set foot on shore stacked their arms up by the waggons, and began to carry all those goods to the waggons, where civilian Portuguese drivers and carters began the loading, under the supervision of British officers in shakoes or elegant bicorne hats.
It struck Lewrie that this landing was better organised than any he’d seen before, at Toulon, at Blaauberg Bay two years before at the invasion of the Dutch Cape Colony, certainly that shoddy mess at Buenos Aires. He suspected that the initial landing of General Wellesley’s army a day or two before had been just as efficient. Someone had given a long thought upon how to get troops, guns, waggons, and horses ashore quickly and smoothly, ready for battle the day after if necessary.
And all those waggons and carts … They were definitely not British Army issue, for upon a longer look, he could not discern more than four that looked similar, as if local towns in Portugal built their own styles. They were all the colours of the rainbow, as well, much like the lot that Sapphire had shot to smouldering kindling on the coast road from Málaga to Salobreña.
That must’ve cost Wellesley a pretty penny, Lewrie thought.
When they had landed General Spencer’s small army at Ayamonte, or Puerto de Santa María, the cost of hiring or leasing Spanish carts and waggons was as dear as purchasing them outright, and Spencer was as tight as the worst penny-pinching miser when it came to dipping into his army chest, practically weeping over every spent shilling. This General Wellesley, it seemed, had a much fatter purse, and was not averse to spending freely to keep all his supplies close by the heels of his soldiers, ready for issue or use.
“They’ll have their supplies in the waggons and be ready to march off in the next hour,” Lewrie predicted, lowering his telescope. “That regiment’s other half-battalion will be ashore with ’em by then, tents, cookpots, and all. We may have all of Spencer’s force off the ships by the start of the First Dog this afternoon.”
“Who knew our army had it in them, sir?” Westcott said in sour wonder. “Is this one of Sir John Moore’s famous reforms?”
“Could be,” Lewrie whimsically replied. He turned away from the starboard quarterdeck bulwarks, put his hands in the small of his back, and peered upward at the long, streaming commissioning pendant for a hint of the wind direction, had a look seaward for signs of a change in the weather, then turned to look back at the beaches. The sea seemed a bit more boisterous further North of the bay, at Cape Mondego, but the bay itself, rather open to the prevailing Westerlies, looked safe, so far, for boat-work, and the surf that growled on the beaches was not too high.
Sea-bathing; it was tempting even if he could not swim a lick. The day was hot, and it wasn’t even close to Noon. He had already shed his uniform coat and hat, but still felt sweltering in waist-coat, shirt, neck-stock, breeches, and boots. The King, “Farmer George,” had begun the fad and made Brighton what it was today, with thousands of people of all classes who thought it fashionable to dunk themselves in perishing-cold water. He’d liked the springs at Bath; they were heated.
George the Third’s as batty as yer old maiden aunt, Lewrie told himself; Perhaps he was daft back then when he took his first dip!
“Signal from Admiral Cotton’s flagship, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth piped up. “Oh! Sorry, sir. It’s Newcastle’s number, and Captain Repair On Board, not Captains.”
“Dinin’ Jemmy Shirke in, is he?” Lewrie quipped. “Well, I’ve seen Jemmy eat with a knife and fork before, and he does it elegant. Oh, this’ll be embarrassin’. All our boats are away helpin’ with the landings, and Newcastle doesn’t have a raft available.”
Lewrie went to the larboard side of the quarterdeck to watch the show. Newcastle’s signal halliards sprouted a series of flags that repeated the flagship’s hoist. They remained aloft for a moment, then were struck down to be replaced with a single flag; the Unable.
“Oh, poor bastard!” Westcott whispered under his breath.
Cotton’s flagship sent a new hoist aloft, jerking swiftly to be two-blocked. It was Explain, spelled out.
“No … Boat … Available,” Midshipman Kibworth slowly spelled out, referring to his code book. “Request … Send … Boat.”
Explain was lowered so quickly that it appeared as if Admiral Sir Charles Cotton had tailed on the halliards himself, and in a fit of dire pique.
“Handy bloody word, ‘Request,’” Lewrie smirked. “Oh, do, pretty please?”
“With sugar on it,” Lt. Westcott added, chuckling.
“Send … ing … Boat,” Kibworth read off, at last.
“Whatever was planned for dinner, Shirke’ll be dinin’ on cold crow, or his own hot tripes, after Cotton rips ’em out for him. Well, things seem t’be goin’ well, and I’ve a book to read,” he added, with a longing look up to the poop deck and his collapsible wood-and-canvas deck chair.
“Then, with you on deck, and the Mids in charge of the Anchor Watch, I think I’ll go below and have a nap, sir,” Westcott said. He tapped two fingers on the brim of his cocked hat by way of salute and departed for the wardroom.
* * *
He read ’til time for his own mid-day dinner, came back to the deck and read some more, and drifted off round three in the afternoon, for the warmth was a soporific, not entirely dispelled by a breeze from offshore. Lewrie was roused by the tinging of Eight Bells being struck at the change of watch at 4 P.M.
There was something heavy and warm on his right thigh, and when he opened one gritty eye, he found Bisquit sitting close by his chair with his head and forelegs draped over him, smelling distinctly doggish, and panting with his tongue lolled out. Lewrie gave Bisquit a pat on the head, and ruffled the fur on his throat and ears. That was a mistake, for Bisquit took it as an invitation to hop up onto his chest and stomach like a hot, hairy blanket, and a heavy one, too.