CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The planning session for the raids on the semaphore towers went well, with the junior officers of the 77th asking sensible questions, and showing some eagerness that they had lacked before, after having a taste of their strange, new tasks, and coming through them with success, which filled them with a certain elan.
Major Hughes was his usual brisk and efficient self, showing no sign that he and Lewrie had almost come to loggerheads. For the landing at Almerimar, he decided that the two companies of the 77th would form on the right and advance up to guard facing the village, whilst Keane, Roe, and their Marines would have the honour of assailing the tower, driving off the few Spaniards reported there, and burning the tower and small troop quarters.
Lewrie would place Sapphire directly opposite the tower, and the troop transport would fetch-to to starboard of her, allowing the 77th to land on the right, though within arm’s reach of the boats from his ship. Both ships, he told them, would have to fetch-to about two thirds of a mile from shore, making for a longer row this time, but the tide would be ebbing and the beach would be broad, with what the reports said was good cover in the vegetation behind the deep sand and the overwash barrows for the boat crews to guard their boats.
Salobreña took longer to plan for, but Major Hughes saw little difficulty, showing that hoped-for flexibility as he gestured over the enlarged hand-drawn map of the area round the town, and the objective. They would all go for the wood lot, first, three companies abreast of each other, with the Marines on the right flank, this time, then advance by companies, Kimbrough’s company from the left flank, first, to cover the town, as far as one of the farmhouses’ buildings, then the company under Captain Bowden would get into the olive orchard, followed by the Marines advancing as far as the pastures on the other side.
“There is a garrison of infantry inland at Órjiva … see the printed map,” Hughes gruffly instructed, “but we hope to be in and out before they can get word of our presence. If our raid at Almerimar does draw Spanish troops to the coast to guard their precious towers, I cannot imagine that there would be much more than a detachment of several files, possibly an entire company, but I expect that we can deal with them easily. Even with our diversion offshore to the East following Almerimar, we should be back on the coast off Salobreña in such a short time that the Dons’ initial response would be more deliberate than hasty. We’ve done nothing to make them panic, yet! As we do depart Almerimar going East, it’s more than likely that the Dons feel that re-enforcing their coast defences from Almeria up to Cartagena is more prudent. Questions, gentlemen?”
There were a few, some notes made on their copies of the maps, arrangements for gunpowder kegs, flints and tinder made, and after a few hours, everyone seemed wolfish to get going.
“Think that covers everything, Captain Lewrie?” Hughes asked.
“I do believe it does, Major Hughes,” Lewrie replied, satisfied that even the most minor matters had been dealt with.
“Then let’s board the transport tomorrow morning, gentlemen,” Hughes confidently concluded. “Bright-eyed, and relatively sobre, at least, and be about it! Let’s show the Spanish how real soldiers go about their business … let’s show the world!”
* * *
Imbued with confidence from their first relatively successful raid at Puerto Banús, the landing at Almerimar went off like clockwork, the officers and men of the 77th’s detachment boarding their boats with alacrity, the boat crews forming up in line-abreast formation as if they’d been doing it for years, and, once the boats grounded the soldiers and Marines advanced on the semaphore tower, and created a screen ’twixt the tower and the town, in a twinkling, going in at the double-quick and raising great, feral cheers.
As soon as it was evident that two “Inglese” ships were coming to the town, church bells in Almerimar had begun to peal madly, audible even two-thirds of a mile offshore. Spaniards could be seen dashing about the streets, loading carts, hitching up mules, horses, or donkeys, saddling up, and piling their most treasured possessions in the carts or waggons, even snatching the town’s clotheslines bare to salvage any scrap of clothing or bedding. The townspeople fled East up the coast towards Roquetas de Mar, or inland towards El Ejido, raising clouds of dust from the roads or fields.
There was no opposition, and the landing could have been done by only one company of men. The few Spanish soldiers who manned the semaphore tower stayed at their posts ’til British troops began to swarm ashore from the boats, and the arms of the tower with the black balls at the ends finally stopped wig-wagging, sagging in a downward vee as the positioning ropes were left slack, at last. Seven or eight Spaniards dashed off-inland, their officer and sergeant flailing away with whips to spur their donkeys to a full run, leaving those on foot in their dusty wake.
A few minutes after Sapphire’s Marines surrounded the tower, it and the Spanish signalmen’s tents began to smoke, then break out into a roaring fire, helped along with lanthorn oil and scattered gunpowder, sending dense, rising, spreading clouds of dark grey smoke rising high in the morning sky, letting the towers up and down the coast know that the one at Almerimar was silenced for a good, long time, and if they weren’t watchful, the same thing might soon happen to them.
The Marines marched back to the beach in a column-of-twos, and as soon as they were under way, the two companies of the 77th retired from their guard upon the town and fell in behind them, the trailing company still spread out in pairs of skirmishers to form a rearguard. The boats were soon filled, and gotten off the beach, and, in looser, more casual order, returned to the ships to muzzle by the masts’ channel platforms and the scrambling nets. They boarded both ships with laughs, cheers, and impromptu songs, at least an hour before the first rum issue was piped.
No one had been injured, and the worst complaint was that some had gotten their boots and trousers wet to the knees, and had to go change their stockings once weapons and accoutrements had been stored away.
As planned, Sapphire led Harmony up the coast to the East, in plain sight and only a mile or two offshore of Roquetas de Mar, and Aguadulce, and a Midshipman in Sapphire’s mainmast cross-trees could gleefully report that he could see semaphore towers as far off as the city of Almeria whirling away like so many dervishes. Satisfied with the morning’s work, Lewrie then ordered the course to be altered, out to sea and out of sight, gradually fading hull-down from watchers on the tip of Cabo de Gata, as if further raids might take place East of Almeria, threatening Mojacar, Garrucha, Palomares, or Aguilas. Once completely out of sight, though, about both ships went once more, to shape course for their second objective.
* * *
One lone stroke upon the forecastle bell rang out most eerily as the ship’s boy who tended it opened a small hooded lanthorn just long enough to see the last of the sand in his half-hour glass run out.
“Boats are in place and manned, sir,” Lt. Westcott reported to Lewrie on the blackened quarterdeck.
“Very well, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie replied, shivering a bit to the cool night breeze. “Load the boats. Pass word to Lieutenant Keane, and send the Execute lanthorn flash to Harmony.”
“Aye, sir.”
HMS Sapphire was fetched-to just a little over half a mile off the shore, slowly rolling to the faint scend of the sea, hull timbers and mast steps making faint creaking noises. The breeze was light, and the sea, though black as a boot, barely rippled, reflecting tiny lights from Salobreña’s waterfront, the lights which burned that late in the town of Amuñécar off a bit to the West, and from Motril, higher up and inland from Salobreña, casting amber winkings from the tops of what waves there were, as if the warship lay on the edge of a lawn aswarm with fireflys that flashed in their hundreds as they hummed about.