“Aye, we’ve become good friends since we got Reliant in Oh-Three,” Lewrie agreed, “and I trust we will always be, no matter where the Navy sends us. If I can, I’ll even dance at your wedding.”
“My wedding!” Westcott suddenly hooted with mirth. “That’ll be a cold day in Hell. Ain’t in my nature, no. I’d put that off ’til I make ‘Post,’ and find a sweet little ‘batter pudding’ half my age like Hyde Parker did. Or less than half my age. Yum yum.”
“You’re incorrigible,” Lewrie chuckled.
“Said the pot to the kettle,” Westcott happily rejoined.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your ‘Devil’s Weed,’ and go prepare for supper,” Lewrie said. “Don’t go settin’ the bloody ship on fire.”
“Good night, then, Alan sir,” Westcott bade him, his harsh, brief smile baring his teeth which showed stark white in the glow of the taffrail lanthorns.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Lewrie had a change of heart and told Lieutenant Westcott to arm himself and go ashore with him, at the last moment. But when the cutter landed them on the North bank of the Maceira River, they had to wander about for a time to find the means to go further. At last, a young infantry officer on a nondescript horse accosted them with a shout and a laugh.
“Halt, who goes there, sirs!” he hoorawed. “What do we have here? Two French officers in blue, and under arms? Never do, sirs!”
“And who might you be, young sir?” Lewrie replied in a like manner, with a grin on his face. “We’ve come ashore from our ship to see what’s happening. Are there any mounts available?”
“Allow me to name myself to you, sirs, Leftenant John Beauchamp, of the First Battalion of the Ninth Foot,” the young officer gaily said, and doffing his bicorne with a bow from the saddle.
“Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, and my First Officer, Lieutenant Geoffrey Westcott,” Lewrie replied, doffing his cocked hat in kind.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintances, sirs,” Beauchamp said. “Horses? Only if you will settle for poor local ‘bone-setters’ like mine, sirs, but I can round a couple up. We’re damned short on cavalry remounts. Follow me, if you will.”
Lewrie and Westcott took station to Beauchamp’s larboard side and strolled along up the river-bank into the draw between the headlands. “We saw wounded coming off last night, sir.” Lewrie asked, “Has there been a fight?”
“Indeed there was, sir, and we sent the French packing in short order!” Beauchamp boasted. “We marched down to a fortified town by name of Óbidos, the French general, Delaborde, didn’t like the odds, and retreated to a line of steep hills South of the town. You’ll see them in a bit, once we’re further inland. Here’s our remount service, such as it is,” he said, making a face and leading them to where some locally commandeered Portuguese saddle horses waited, their forelegs hobbled to keep them from grazing or running off. Several were already saddled, and Beauchamp breezily ordered the grooms to lead out a pair.
“I assume that sailors know how to ride, sirs?” he teased.
“It’ll come back to me,” Lewrie replied as he took the reins of a plain brown horse, hiked a booted leg, and swung up into the saddle.
Beauchamp led them on into the plain and the army encampment.
“Up yonder, sirs,” the Army officer said, pointing to the North. “There were steep hills, with deep gullies between, and a rough stone wall laid all along the tops of the hills, an incredibly strong position, yet…!” he enthused, “we went at them like lions, steep as it was, and threw them off and sent them swarming down into the plain, here. Three guns were captured, and an host of prisoners taken. But for a lack of cavalry, we could have pursued their broken ranks out onto the plain. The French had swarms of cavalry.”
“So, the French were beaten,” Lewrie stated with delight.
“Decisively, sir,” Beauchamp hooted. “Decisively! Now, they’re South of us, and to the East of us. There’s perhaps nine thousand under a chap named Loisin, coming West from Abrantes, and Delaborde still lurks down that way. The General fully expects that there will be a bigger battle to come, and soon. We’re told that we’re to be re-enforced with another four thousand men, when General Sir Harry Burrard and his convoy show up in the bay.”
“He’s senior to Wellesley,” Lewrie said. “He’ll take over?”
“God, I hope not, sir!” Beauchamp said, grimacing. “We’re doing just fine with Sir Arthur. General Burrard has not seen action since the Dutch expedition in Ninety-Eight, and made no grand show of his abilities, then. He’s over seventy years old!”
“Those are Portuguese carts and waggons yonder?” Westcott asked as they drew near a rather large conglomeration.
“Army Commissariat, Portuguese we’ve hired,” Beauchamp told him, “with solid silver shillings, not chits, too. The rest are Irish, if you can believe it. The General hired them before we sailed here. He told my Colonel that he’d learned in India that arrangements for a big commissary train are absolutely necessary. Not that Horse Guards will believe that, though.”
“Those casualties we saw last night,” Lewrie pressed. “Was it dearly won?”
“Oh no, sir!” Beauchamp said; he was irrepressibly cheerful. “We lost about four hundred and eighty, and the French lost nigh five hundred, plus the prisoners we took. Not bad at all, really. Aha! We’re coming to the Portuguese lines. Do keep a hand on your purses, sirs. They’re nowhere near so bad as Irish regiments, yet…! They are light infantry, called Caçadores. Quite good, really, under one of ours, Colonel Trant.”
“Their Portuguese officers ain’t up to snuff?” Lewrie asked as he took in the foreign troops, mostly uniformed in brown coats.
“From what I’ve heard, they’re miles better at their trade than the Spanish,” Beauchamp told him with a deprecating laugh, “but, over our long, good relations with Portugal, many British officers served in their army. Trant, now, sirs. He’s most capable and aggressive, but the General was heard to say that he’s a very good officer, but as drunken a dog as ever lived, hah hah! Uh-oh!” Beauchamp sobred quickly and put on a stern face as they rode deeper into the encampment, making a great display of pointing things out to Lewrie and Westcott.
There was a rider approaching with a pack of hounds scouting at his mount’s flanks and rear, a grim-visaged fellow wearing an un-adorned bicorne hat and a long-skirted dark grey coat, with only a gilt-edged belt at his waist, and a sword upon his left hip, to denote him as an officer of some kind.
Lt. Beauchamp doffed his hat to the fellow, and Lewrie thought it a good idea to do the same, and throw in a “Good morning to you, sir” for good measure, which earned him a scowl and a brisk nod of his head, which, admittedly, gave Lewrie a faint chill. The man was thin-lipped, haughty, his eyes cold and contempuous beneath a set of full brows, and that nose! It was a prominent hawk’s beak.
“Who was that?” Lewrie asked, turning to look astern from his saddle once they had passed.
“That was Sir Arthur Wellesley, sir,” Lt. Beauchamp said with a sigh of relief that he had escaped the Presence without a tongue-lashing for idling about, far from his battalion lines, and playing tour guide to a pair of idle sailors.
“A stern damned fellow,” Lt. Westcott commented in a low voice.
“Oh, indeed, sirs,” Beauchamp agreed with a shiver.
“He didn’t look particularly happy to see us,” Lewrie said.
“Well, we are taking a tour, sir,” Westcott said.
“It may be that he expected that General Burrard had come into the bay, and that you were part of the convoy escort, sir,” Beauchamp dared speculate. “That’s where he was riding, to the river mouth, to see if Burrard had arrived.”