Much Ado About Lewrie

by Dewey Lambdin

  Lewrie recalled a report from that visit that stated that the Commissariat troops were regarded as less-evil than most, kept in firm check by their officers, and actually paid full value for what they bought. No, it was the escort cavalry troopers and waggoneers who were the worst, who would swarm the town after dark with all the swagger of a conquering horde of Goths.

  God let us kill a bunch of them, then, Lewrie prayed.

  Vigilance, though; she’d have to anchor close off one of the landing beaches to support that half of the 94th Regiment with gunfire, leaving the other half un-covered. He needed another warship, though he doubted if that ship’s gunners would have the experience and skill to fire roughly aimed shots at any threat that arose.

  He could write to Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Charlton and ask for re-enforcement, but, could Charlton spare a frigate or a brig-sloop that could get close ashore in shallow waters? And, could that ship shoot accurately enough?

  Lewrie heaved a petulant sigh and gathered up all of his charts and sketches, stuck them in a side drawer of his desk, and leaned back in his chair, running his hands through his hair in frustration.

  He had no idea if a return raid could be pulled off, no clue as to whether there was a new French garrison there, and, so far, no information from anyone.

  “Bugger it,” he muttered, rising from his desk to go to the starboard side settee grouping and plop down on the settee with a whoosh.

  Eight Bells chimed in pairs from the forecastle belfry; Four in the afternoon, and the end of the Day Watch, the beginning of the First Dog.

  “Sun’s below the main yardarm, Deavers?” Lewrie called out.

  “Ehm, just about, I reckon, sir,” the cabin steward replied.

  “Have we any ale left?” Lewrie asked.

  “Some Eye-talian beer, sir,” Deavers told him with a moue of distaste. “Not too bad a batch, really.”

  “Tap me a mug, then,” Lewrie told him, putting his booted feet up on the low brass tray-table in front of him. “I’ll follow the sage advice of a Greek poet, Aristophines.”

  “What advice was that, sir?” Deavers asked as he fetched a mug.

  “‘Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine so that I may wet my mind, and think of something clever,’ hah!” Lewrie quipped.

  * * *

  A sponge-down, a close shave, and a decent breakfast started Lewrie’s day. There was toast, oatmeal with fresh butter and honey, and a small pot of coffee with sugar and a flask of cream bought off a passing bum-boat from Milazzo, cow-cream, not the milk from the on-board nanny goat. Chalky’s bowl was at the foot of the long table, where he broke his fast on oatmeal with butter, a crumbled slice of toast, some wee chunks of cheese, and sliced and quartered sausage. To keep the cat fed, Lewrie always made sure that he went to sea with no less than an hundredweight of sausages, and Italy, and Sicily, were awash in a myriad of sausage varieties. Lewrie even awarded himself a short link sausage with his breakfast, something spicy, garlicky, and tasting heavily of fennel that made him burp a time or two.

  “Midshipman Malin t’see the Cap’um, SAH!” the Marine sentry on his door bawled.

  “Enter,” Lewrie called back as he sugared and creamed a third cup of coffee.

  “Sorry, sir, but there’s a signal hoisted ashore,” the Mid said. “It’s Request Presence.”

  “Oh, very well,” Lewrie groused, frowning. “Pass word for my boat crew to muster, and I’ll be on deck, directly.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Malin replied, backing up towards the door.

  “Keep the cat amused, do, Deavers,” Lewrie said, removing his napkin and taking a last, large sip of his coffee. “Warn Yeovill that I may be ashore past dinner, so he’s not to prepare me anything.”

  “Aye, sir,” the cabin steward said.

  Here we go, again, Lewrie thought as he shrugged into his coat and snatched his older cocked hat from a peg in an overhead beam; Pray God it’s good news for a change, or intelligence about what the French are doin’ over yonder.

  * * *

  For late Autumn in the Mediterranean, it was a rather cool day, with a low-lying fog that clung to the anchorage waters, the beaches, the Army encampment, and filtered through the fruit and olive graves. Lewrie could see about 100 yards through the mists as he trudged up the path to Col. Tarrant’s quarters. As he got nearer, he could see that a two-wheeled farm cart stood by the small grove of trees near Tarrant’s quarters, drawn by a single mule that was resting with one hind-hoof cocked, munching from a feed bag. And there was the young imp, Fiorello, who was Mr. Quill’s lad-of-all-work, sitting on the edge of the raised wooden gallery, munching on a bunch of grapes.

  So Quill’s here, Lewrie thought; Let’s see what he’s brought us.

  “Buon giorno, Signore Looie,” Fiorello called out.

  “Buon giorno, Fiorello,” Lewrie replied. “Don’t let the dog eat you,” he added as the door opened and Dante came dashing out, to have himself a good shake, before bowling the lad over, raising a squeal of delight.

  “Ah, Sir Alan, one hopes we did not interrupt your breakfast,” Col. Tarrant said as he welcomed his guest in. “Coffee, sir?”

  “Please,” Lewrie told him, taking off his hat and sitting down at the dining table. Major Gittings was there to one side, and at the foot of the table sat dour and dark Mr. Quill, with a packet of papers before him.

  “Mister Quill, how d’ye keep?” Lewrie asked as Corporal Carson fetched a cup and saucer, and poured him some coffee.

  “Main well, sir,” Quill said with a rictus of a sociable grin, “And you, sir?”

  “Impatient, but tolerable,” Lewrie told him.

  “We thought it best to wait for you to arrive, Sir Alan, so that Mister Quill would not have to repeat himself,” Tarrant said, stirring up a fresh coffee of his own. “So, sir … what’s acting over on the mainland? You have news of what the French are doing?”

  “I do, sirs,” Quill told them as he opened his packet. “As we learned earlier, the French General of Brigade who sprang his trap on you, and mucked it up so badly, has been replaced by a General of Division by name of Paul Ducote, a fellow with somewhat of an aggressive reputation. He’s one of Murat’s favourites, and was promoted in person by Bonaparte himself, after distinguished service at Austerlitz.

  “He’s gotten re-enforcements down from Northern Italy, mostly allied troops. It is rumoured that he favours Germans and Poles, not Italians, if he can’t have Frenchmen.”

  “What sort of Italians?” Major Gittings asked.

  “My aide over there, Silvestri, has gathered that Ducote is to be re-enforced with Genoese and Milanese troops, sir,” Quill said.

  “All fine for him, but … what’s he plan to do with them?” Col. Tarrant asked. “Do we have any idea what he’ll be doing differently?”

  “A waiter at his temporary lodgings in Reggio di Calabria did overhear a discussion, Colonel,” Quill went on. “He is aware that we only have four transports, so he roughly knows that the Ninety-Fourth is not a full, ten company regiment. Yet, he berated one of his officers who suggested creating large garrisons in every coastal village or fishing port. There was some talk of mobile forces, in strength, to roam the coast. Brigades, permanently on the move?”

  “That would close the window on opportunities,” Gittings said with a growl.

  “He’d need a regular relay of supply convoys to do that, would he not?” Lewrie asked. “Christ, how many re-enforcements is he going t’get?”

  “French troops have been seen leaving Reggio di Calabria, Melito di Porto Salvo, Catazaro, and Crotone,” Quill told them. “Infantry and cavalry, Cavalry makes sense, does it not? They could be very mobile, and have been wasted in garrisoning the larger towns. Silvestri says that in the last few days, there have been more of them prowling round the mountains, putting pressure on the partisan bands.

  “Then, there are the semaphore towers they’re building,” Quill stuck on almost as an afterthought.

  “Oh, bugg
er!” Col. Tarrant spluttered. “Alerts could spread the whole length of the coast in minutes!”

  “And what could they do about it if they were alerted?” Lewrie scoffed. “We’d be long gone by the time they could respond. Besides, semaphore towers did the Spanish no good on their Southern coast back three years ago, before they changed sides. I burned my share of them, and eliminated the trained people who operated them. In Spain, there were usually no more than twelve or fifteen people at each tower, and that included cooks, bakers, and servants. They’re nigh-defenceless.”

  “And, if this Ducote means to defend them against us,” Major Gittings pointed out, “he’d need a full company of infantry at each one. How far apart, ten miles or so, and still be readable by day or night? Every eighty miles would take an average French regiment! He wouldn’t have any infantry left to protect anything else!”

  “And we wouldn’t have to do anything to them, Colonel,” Lewrie added with a chuckle. “A pair of brig-sloops or small frigates could be given that chore, and would relish it. Our smaller ships have been at that sort o’ work all along the French and Dutch coast for years! I’ll write Charlton, and he can have ships off the coast within a week, smoaking them out and burning ’em down. He’s offered any assistance I could ask for. So far, I haven’t needed to.”

  “Well, if that’s so…” Tarrant said with a shrug, turning to Quill. “Has your man, or his informants, told you anything about our last target, Monasterace?”

  “Monasterace, sir?” Quill replied, going owl-eyed in surprise. “He did mention something, I do believe, but it didn’t signify with me at the time. A moment, sirs,” he said, flipping through a stack of loose papers he had brought along. “Ah.” Here it is.

  “According to our partisan informants, sirs, Monasterace is back in business. Waggon convoys coming and going, camping for the night, with small cavalry escorts, the same as usual.”

  “The French brigade we met?” Tarrant pressed.

  “They went into camp in the fields below the ridge for a few days, burying their dead, and setting up hospital pavillions,” Quill said, with a jerk of his head towards the one that still stood at the 94th’s camp, “They commandeered waggons to carry most of their wounded away to better facilities, then marched off towards Catanzaro, leaving the worst wounded behind, with a medical detachment of twenty or thirty surgeons and orderlies. That’s still there … or it was at least a week ago.”

  “And they didn’t leave even a small garrison behind?” Gittings asked.

  “Well, no, Major,” Quill told him, perplexed. “Monasterace is the same place it was before. Why? Are you thinking of going back to finish the job?”

  “We are, indeed, Mister Quill,” Tarrant told him with a stern nod. “If the town is as un-protected as your informants say, going back will finish the job we intended, and give this new French general a real blow to begin his command.”

  “Hmm,” Mr. Quill said, fingers steepled beneath his nose for a long moment, before his long, lean face broke out a boyish grin, and he began to titter. “I quite like it, hah hah!”

  Fortunately for all, and the dog, Quill did not break out into a full donkey bray/gasping man laugh, this time. Lewrie un-crossed the fingers of his right hand in relief.

  “We may do it differently, this time, but if we can get ashore quickly, we can scoop everything up,” Col. Tarrant said.

  “Might you require an additional scout, sir?” Quill asked him, “More information anent the beaches, or something? I could contact Silvestri, or Don Lucca’s men…”

  “I think we have enough from the initial studies to make do,” Tarrant said, “along with our impressions gathered from what we experienced whilst we were there.”

  “If we sail within a day or two, things should remain as your people reported, Mister Quill,” Major Gittings added.

  “The long way, roundabout Sicily, though,” Lewrie cautioned.

  “Even so, we’ve run the same risk of surprise each time we have done so, and surprising the French is the main thing,” Tarrant said. “I just dislike extending my time aboard a ship, on an un-certain sea, at the mercy of foul weather. Brr!”

  “One would never suspect, sir,” Lewrie told him. “You bear your misery main-well. Like General Wellington on his way to Portugal … the Captain of his ship warned him that they were in for a stormy night, and he was reputed to say that he would not take off his boots if that was the case, hah hah!”

  “On the contrary, Sir Alan,” Tarrant replied with a shy smile, “I do not remove mine ’til we’re safely back here!”

  “Fog’s burning off at last,” Major Gittings commented, rising from his chair to stretch, pace to the edge of the raised gallery, and clap his hands in the small of his back, deeply inhaling the moist, rich morning smells. Over his shoulder he asked “Should we stage a last boarding drill before we go, sir? Shake the cobwebs off our men?”

  “That might be a good idea, Gittings,” Tarrant said, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. “After we tell them that we’re going back into action, at last.”

  “I would suppose you’ll not have room for Brigadier Caruthers’s men, yet,” Quill tossed off, “Not ’til you get more ships.”

  “Caruthers’s men? Certainly not!” Tarrant said with a sniff. “They’re not trained for our sort of work, and I’ll be damned if that man gets a hand in our line!”

  “Then what is he training them for, sir?” Mr. Quill asked, all at sea once more.

  “Training them? Training them, sir?” Col. Tarrant erupted with fire in his voice, chin-up as if challenged.

  “Well…?” Quill stumbled, “the last time I rode past his camp, just this morning, really, I noted that he had erected a wooden wall, Colonel. About twenty feet high, about fifty feet long?”

  Under Tarrant’s fierce glower, Quill seemed to be melting into his clothes, wincing as if pummeled.

  “There are stairways on one side that lead up to a platform. Once Fiorello and I got close enough,” Quill went on, “we could see that there are rope nets hanging down the other side, just like yours, Captain Lewrie, and there were soldiers … oh, about two hundred of them, on the platform, and clambering down the nets.”

  “God damn him!” Tarrant roared, frightening his dog to its feet, barking in alarm. “God rot and damn his eyes and blood! If he’s got his hands on boarding nets, I’d wager he’s laid hands on some transports! The sneaking, conniving, ambitious … usurping bastard!”

  “If more transports are coming, sir,” Lewrie had to point out, “no one’s told me. I haven’t gotten anything from Admiral Charlton, Commissioner Middleton, or Admiralty. And, I strongly suspect that if Brigadier Caruthers has been authorised to use one of his regiments as amphibious troops, Horse Guards would have written you of it.”

  “Nonsense, Lewrie!” Tarrant countered, forgetting his usual “Sir Alan” in his wrath, “that drunkard General Malcomb over at Messina probably told him to go ahead, and that’s all the authorisation that that ruthless grasper needs! Transports are coming, you mark my words. London simply hasn’t told us, yet!”

  “Or, he could just take our transports for his own use,” Major Gittings gloomed.

  “Oh, for God’s … damn, damn damn!” Tarrant spluttered.

  “This could be very bad,” Gittings prophecied.

  “Sorry I mentioned it,” Mr. Quill all but whispered, completely cowed.

  Lewrie could almost feel sorry for the Foreign Office agent. Quill, he thought, was an ill-omened bird, and a most strange one, with a penchant for bringing useful information, sauced with a dollop of bad news, and too socially inept and awkward to keep the two separate.

  Well, almost sorry.

  CHAPTER SIX

  In the grim silence that followed, Quill, like the “spook” that he was, seemed to dissolve into thin air; one moment he was there and the next moment he wasn’t, out under the trees next to the cart that he’d ridden from Messina. Major Gittings plumped himself into one of
the chairs to scowl, whilst Colonel Tarrant paced with his hands in the small of his back, grumbling under his breath.

  “Brandy!” Tarrant commanded of a sudden, halting and looking up. “Hear me, Corporal Carson?”

  “Brandy right away, sir!” the orderly barked from the pantry, almost stomping his booted feet, followed by the thock! of a cork being pulled, the clink of glasses, and some welcome gurgling noised.

  “Well, at least Caruthers doesn’t have his own transports, yet,” Col. Tarrant said, relaxing a bit after letting out a whooshing breath, “he hasn’t gotten his soldiers trained to the work, either, and, God be praised, he hasn’t ridden into camp waving orders that let him lay claim to ours. Could be worse.”

  “If he does have orders from God knows who,” Gittings grumbled, “it would be nice to not be here when he does.”

  “Monasterace?” Lewrie suggested. “If your troops are back in fighting form, my ships are more than ready.”

  “Hmm, Monasterace, yes,” Tarrant agreed, sitting down as the brandy arrived. “You have your sketches, Sir Alan?”

  “I do, sir,” Lewrie said with a grin, “I’d thought we might land either side of the town, with my Marines and armed boat crews to land on the town docks and march straight through.”

  “Half the regiment to either end of the town, and block the roads to pen all the wagon convoys in their night camps,” Gittings posed, leaning over the rough map. “Full dark, long before sunrise, I take it?”

  “Worth the risk, I think,” Lewrie agreed.

  “The Frogs’d never suspect us to be that brazen,” Gittings said with a wee chuckle.

  “Brazen, indeed,” Tarrant commented, leaning in over the map, too. “Simple, direct … un-expected. I like it. Let’s do it, soon as we can. Now, as to the detailed planning. Let’s do it, now. You will dine with us, Sir Alan?”

  “Of course, Colonel,” Lewrie quickly accepted the offer.