“S’truth?” Lewrie gawped. “There’s another good reason t’hate the French like the Devil hates Holy Water.”
“At least they leave their tails long,” Westcott agreed. “My word, on the riverbank yonder. Where all the torches are lit? Isn’t that Wellesley getting into that boat?”
Lewrie lifted his glass once more and peered intently at the shore. “Aye, I think it is, by God. ‘Captain Repair On Board,’ and all that, hey? The poor bastard’s on his way t’get his marchin’ orders from Burrard, most-like, gettin’ replaced before he’s fought his battle. I wonder if he’s thinkin’ that he’d’ve done better to march off South without waitin’ for extra troops.”
“Sir?” Midshipman Harvey reported from the bottom of the quarterdeck ladderway. “Our boats are returning from their ferry-work.”
“Very well, Mister Harvey,” Lewrie absently took note. “My compliments to the Purser, Mister Cadrick, and he’s to see that the boat crews get their evening rum issue … them only, mind … and that they are fed their proper rations right after.”
They had rotated the hands who manned the boats right through the start of the First Dog and into the Second Dog, and these last few sailors had been deprived, away from the ship when the evening rum issue was doled out, and the evening meal was served up from the cauldrons.
“I’ll see to it, sir,” Westcott offered.
“Thankee, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said with an incline of his head. He pulled out his pocket watch and studied it in the light from the taffrail lanthorns. “It’s almost time for your supper, and mine. Sure ye aren’t deprivin’ yourself?”
“The wardroom mess can start without me,” Westcott said with a shrug.
“Then I will leave it to you, sir, and go below,” Lewrie said, closing the tubes of his telescope and trotting down the ladderway to the quarterdeck, and the door to his great-cabins.
He barely had time to hang his hat on a peg before his cook, Yeovill, came breezing in with his heavy covered brass barge, and a cheery “Good evening, sir!” and a description of what he had prepared: beef broth with peas, carrots, and onions; a small roast quail done in herbs; salt-pork well-soaked in fresh water to remove the crusted preservative and fried; with a roasted potato, split and drizzled with a cheese and bacon sauce; and green beans.
Of course, there were some shreds of everything for Chalky, along with his usual wee sausages, and Yeovill assured him that the ship’s dog, Bisquit, had already gotten a bowl of broth, rice, and cut-up sausages, too, which he was devouring in his cubby beneath the starboard poop deck ladderway on the quarterdeck … after a foraging journey along both gun decks among his friends in the crew.
There was a very nice Portuguese white wine with the quail, and Lewrie took a whole glass before his first bite, asking for a re-fill.
“Ehm, before ye turn in tonight, Pettus,” Lewrie said after a few spoonfuls of broth, “I’m still of a mind t’go ashore round dawn, t’see what the army’s up to. I wish my over-under pistols and the brace of single-barrel Mantons cleaned and oiled, and my Ferguson rifled musket seen to.”
“Ehm, if there is to be a battle, sir, you’ll be wishing for a silk shirt and silk stockings?” Pettus replied, pausing in the act of pouring that re-fill. “Just in case?”
“Aye,” Lewrie said, ravenously working his way to the bottom of the soup bowl. “And I’ll need some bisquit and cheese, and some of the sausages, too, t’take with me.”
“Fearsome, wot boots’ll do t’yer stockin’s, though, sir,” his cabin servant, Jessop, grumbled. “Darnin’ silk’s impossible.”
“Rouse me at the end of the Middle Watch,” Lewrie instructed, beginning on the quail and the potato and green beans.
“A bowl of porridge before you go, then, sir?” Yeovill asked.
“Aye, that’d do nicely, Yeovill,” Lewrie agreed.
“I’ll send your hanger to the Armourer for a fresh edge, too, sir,” Pettus suggested.
“Oh! See Mister Keane!” Lewrie added. “I’ll have need of one of the Marines’ canteens, for water.”
“I’ll see to it, sir,” Pettus said, though his face wore a wary look, and Lewrie missed the worried expression that Pettus shared with Jessop and Yeovill. Their Captain was off in search of adventure and excitement … again … and was sure to find it, the risk be-damned, and no one with better sense could talk him out of it.
* * *
“Ye have a care, now, sor,” Cox’n Liam Desmond muttered as the cutter grounded on the banks of the Maceira a little past 5 A.M.
“An’ may th’ Good Lord keep ye in His hand, sor,” Pat Furfy added in a solemn voice, crossing himself. “Though, if ya need some stout lads at yer back—”
“I’ve the army, at my front, Furfy, don’t ye worry,” Lewrie said as he waded the last few feet to dry land. “Back to the ship, you lot, and I’ll see you later.”
“Aye, sor,” Desmond said, sounding doubtful.
It was still dark, before pre-dawn, and the warmth of a Portuguese August had evaporated overnight, leaving a dank, clammy, coolness. There was a faint breath of wind off the sea.
Lewrie trudged along the path he had followed the day before, stumbling over rocks in the dark, headed for a series of torches and the faint glows of campfires beyond the gap between the headlands and the banks of the river. He could not see the remount station; it had been moved somewhere further along.
“Damn!” he spat to the dawn. “I’ll be on ‘Shank’s Ponies’ like the poor, bloody infantry! All the way to … where?”
I’m already regrettin’ this, he thought; Maybe I should just find a unit in the rear, and scrounge a mug o’ tea.
He hiked on, tripping and stumbling over tussocks of long grass and nigh-invisible irregularities in the ground, through the gap and out onto the plains, and stopped in shock. Half-seen in the first wee greyness of pre-dawn, the encampment he’d ridden through the morning before was just gone! The long, orderly lines of tents had been struck, the campfires extinguished, and the army had marched off South. What few fires still lit the night were those of the baggage train, and they looked to be ready to trundle off in the army’s wake, with mules and oxen harnessed or yoked, and the waggoners and carters standing round the few fires to gulp down their last morsels of breakfasts, and their lasts swallows of water or tea.
“Hoy, there! Who are ye, an’ what’re ye doin’ here?” A challenge was called out. He heard the clank of a musket cocking.
“Captain Alan Lewrie, HMS Sapphire!” Lewrie shouted back, half-alarmed out of his skin. “Royal Navy?” he added.
“Corp’ral o’ th’ Guard?” that voice bellowed. “Post Two, we’ve got a visitor!”
A lean, fox-faced fellow shambled over from one of the fires with a lanthorn held aloft, had himself a good look, and deliberately spat tobacco juice. “Lor’, ’e is Navy! Wot’re ya doin’ wand’rin’ about this time o’ night, sir?”
“Looking for the remount station, for a horse,” Lewrie said in calmer takings, for though the sentry had lowered his musket, it was still fully-cocked, and the bayonet tip flashed in the light from the lanthorn, and they both peered at him as if they’d caught themselves a French spy. “I wish to ride up to the main body of the army.”
“A’ready gone, sir,” the Corporal informed him, “an’ remounts is up with ’em. Fear ya haveta walk all th’ way, or, ya might hitch a ride with th’ baggage train, if yer that eager.”
“A ride’ll do me quite well, Corporal,” Lewrie quickly agreed.
“Pass, then, sir,” the Corporal allowed, waving his lanthorn in invitation to approach the mass of waggons. “Christ! Beggin’ yer pardon, sir, but ya come armed for it,” he said, noting all the weaponry that Lewrie carried stuffed into his coat side pockets, hung from his waist-band, at his hip, and upon his shoulder.
Once Lewrie was far enough off, the Corporal turned to the Private and spat another dollop of tobacco juice. “Bloody, damned officers. Ain’t got a lick o’ sense in their heads. You an’ me, we’ll stick with th’ waggons, an’ stay safe as houses.”