“Well, no wonder he gave us the cold-eye,” Lewrie said. “In his place, I’d’ve stuck my tongue out at us, too.”
That tongue-in-cheek statement gave the young Army officer such a pause that he burst out laughing, amazed that a senior officer of a high rank could be so droll.
“What about Marshal Junot and the rest of his hundred thousand Frogs, though, Mister Beauchamp?” Lewrie asked, using the naval parlance. “When and if General Burrard arrives, you’ll have how many men against all of Junot’s?”
“Oh, about sixteen thousand British, two thousand Portuguese, altogether, sir,” Beauchamp told him, looking off to the far distance to do his sums in his head, “but, we’ve information that the bulk of Marshal Junot’s forces are still far South, round Lisbon and Torres Vedras … just miles away! We would have been much nearer to Torres Vedras ourselves, but for the word of General Burrard’s arrival here in Maceira Bay. The General marched us over to the coast to cover the landings, pick up the re-enforcements and more guns and cavalry, before resuming our march on Lisbon.”
“General Sir Hew Dalrymple’s coming, too,” Lewrie said with a scowl of dis-approval. “He’s to take supreme command over Wellesley and Burrard, God help you. He’s known as the Dowager.”
“That’s not good, either, I may take it, sir?” Beauchamp said with a visible wince.
“Not good at all, sir,” Lewrie gloomily told him.
They were in the middle of the British lines by then, surrounded by tents, and soldiers in all manner of un-dress, and the aromas of unwashed bodies; horse, mule, and oxen manure; the sour reek of campfires burning green wood; salt-beef or salt-pork cooking; and a tang of illicit rum or locally-procured wine. Soldiers’ wives sat and sewed or idled, some with pipes or cigarros in their mouths. The few children allowed along with each regiment were whooping, running, and playing round between the tents and along the lanes between the tent lines, as ragged a bunch as their fathers, and just as rough.
Lewrie looked South to scan the prospects, taking in the plain that stretched from Óbidos and Roliça, and the line of hills that lay beyond, to the Sou’east.
“What’s beyond those hills?” he asked, pulling his telescope from a side pocket of his coat for a better look.
“Some scattered villages and hamlets, sir,” Lt. Beauchamp told him, squinting to recall them all. “There’s a Toledo, a Porto Novo on the coast, a wee place called Fentanell, and the village of Vimeiro. Some cavalry videttes have scouted down yonder, and I heard that it’s pretty broken country, and that the road’s horrid. But then, every road we’ve seen so far has been horrid. It’s getting on for tea time. Might you gentlemen care to partake at my regimental mess?”
“Thankee, no, Mister Beauchamp,” Lewrie said, shaking his head as he lowered his telescope, “but I think that Mister Westcott and I will return to our ship. We might have to shift Sapphire out of the way of the arriving convoy and its escort. I’m grateful for your taking the time to show us round.”
“Very well, sirs,” Beauchamp said with a grin, doffing his hat to them in parting salute. “Leave the horses at the remount station. Don’t know if they’ll be available, later, but, if you wish to come ashore and witness the battle to come, the best of luck to you.”
Lt. Beauchamp put his mount to a stride and headed off for his mess, and his tea, whilst Lewrie and Westcott turned theirs round and ambled back to the beach at a slow walk.
“At least he seems confident, sir,” Westcott commented after a long, quiet moment. “But, he is a younker. All flags and bands, and glory.”
“Aye, we know better by now, don’t we,” Lewrie cynically agreed. “But, ye know … I think I would like to see how this army does when the time comes.”
“I would, too, sir,” Westcott strongly hinted. “If only to relieve the boredom. We’ve spent too long at escort-work, with nary one sight of an enemy sail, or the prospect of a fight. I fear that you have spoiled me, and our crew, you know.”
“We have had a good run at it, haven’t we, Geoffrey?” Lewrie mused. “Until the French went missish, and lurk in port, scared to risk themselves at sea any longer.”
“Five whole years of excitement,” Westcott summed up with a longing sigh. “God, it’s so dull, we might as well be at peace!”
After half an hour, they reached the remount station and surrendered their tired mounts, then continued on foot to the banks of the shallow Maceira River.
“There he is, again,” Westcott pointed out as he espied the mounted man they now knew for Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Wellesley. He was peering out to sea with his own pocket telescope, looking both intent and angry. His horse had its head up, too, looking seaward, as were the hounds that accompanied him, who sat on their hindquarters with their tongues lolling, panting in perfect patience as if awed by their master’s mood, and barely bothering to scratch at their fleas.
“What’s he looking at?” Westcott wondered aloud, but in a soft voice, as if he was daunted, too.
Lewrie pulled out his glass and had a long look, then handed it to Westcott. “There are dozens of ships out there, Mister Westcott, tops’ls and t’gallants above the horizon. They might be hull-up by mid-afternoon. If it ain’t the French, it’s Burrard and his brigades, come at last.”
“No wonder he looks so black, then,” Westcott said with a wee laugh.
Wellesley heard that, and snapped his head about to glare at them both for a second, his face all “thunder and lightning.” Those thin lips half opened for a hurled curse, then clapped shut just as quickly before he returned his steely gaze to the incoming ships.
“Let’s get back aboard,” Lewrie said, “before he has us flogged at a waggon wheel.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
The troop transports, “cavalry ships,” and supply vessels came to anchor off Maceira Bay in droves, with the convoy escorts anchoring further out. HMS Sapphire’s four boats were manned and sent off to aid the dis-embarkation that proceeded throughout the afternoon and long into the night. Lewrie stayed on the poop deck no matter the heat of the day, swivelling his telescope about to take it all in, finding that General Wellesley’s efficiency applied to the new arrivals, too, for the whole bay hummed with activity, and battalions, batteries, and horse troops went ashore with an alacrity rarely seen, making those landings at Blaauberg Bay at the Dutch Cape Colony in 1806 look like a perfect shambles by comparison.
General Burrard’s re-enforcement did not extend to many pieces of artillery, though, and Lewrie could count only about 240 cavalry horses to add to the 180 or so that Wellesley had had at the Battle of Roliça. And those poor horses, both the cavalry mounts and the gun-team horses! They had been at sea so long that they seemingly had lost the ability to walk. Once they’d been swum ashore and led to assembly points, it was almost comical to see horses saddled up, cavalry troopers swung up astride, and see the horses just fold their legs up and squat to the ground under the weight!
“Hmm,” Lt. Westcott said, his face contorted by a wince as he witnessed that. “That don’t look promising. That Beauchamp fellow told us this morning that the French had scads more cavalry than we do. What use are those poor prads, if they can’t even stand up? If you do go ashore to see the battle, sir, pray Jesus you don’t get offered one of them!”
“A good clue t’that, Geoffrey,” Lewrie said, shaking his head as he watched, “is that the new-come horses all have docked tails, but the local Portuguese horses we got didn’t.”
“Don’t see the sense of that, sir,” Westcott said. “How else do they keep the flies off them, if they don’t have long tails. Poor beasts. A Hell of a thing our Army does with their horseflesh. Not as bad as the French, I’m told, though. They ride them to death, with open saddle sores so bad that you can smell them coming.”