Much Ado About Lewrie

by Dewey Lambdin

  Lewrie re-loaded the single-barrel pistol that he’d fired, and primed the pan as the torches came to life, and then they all went back through the house to gather at the Western corner.

  “Venables, take your platoon out, form ranks square to the barn, and leave room on your right for Kellett’s lads,” Whitehead ordered.

  “Right, sir,” Lt. Venables snapped, “Let’s go, men.”

  Off Venables’s half of the Marines went at the double-quick, to form two ranks. Once in place, Kellett’s Marines followed him, and almost in parade ground order. Two musket shots were fired at them from the one loft window, and both missed completely.

  “Venables, give that window fire!” Whitehead yelled. “Kellett to advance. Twenty paces forward!”

  Venables’s Marines raised their muskets to their shoulders, took rough aim, and discharged their pieces most leisurely, fire rippling down the first rank as steady as a metronome, blasting glass panes from the loft window, ringing off the stone wall round it raising wee spurts of rock dust and flakes, and a few shots right through the opening, daunting the French inside. And, when Kellett’s men were in place, Whitehead ordered them to open fire, and for Venables’s men to advance twenty paces beyond Kellett, and reload.

  Meanwhile the armed sailors under Fletcher and Rutland peppered the ends of the barn, shivering the wood doors and loft openings. At an idle pace, Whitehead and Lewrie walked towards the barn between the Marines, swords in their right hands and a loaded pistol in the left.

  “Do you think the French are beginning to see that their shelter might be a death-trap, sir?” Whitehead asked, almost strutting, a wide grin on his face.

  “Too late for ’em now,” Lewrie agreed with a firm nod. “If they try t’dash out, Fletcher and Rutland and their men will cut ’em down, and outside the barn, there’s nowhere for them to run!”

  Several alternate advances later, all of Whitehead’s Marines were against the barn’s wall, several of them aiming upwards to cover that small window. If the French inside wanted to shoot at them, they would have to lean far out to expose themselves at very short range.

  “Oil and torches here,” Capt. Whitehead ordered, leading them to the Eastern end that Rutland’s sailors were shooting at. A quick peek round the corner, and Whitehead was back. “One door is closed, the other on the far side is open, and I saw several Frogs in there, round the first stall on the fight, and behind the closed door. Ten men, Sar’n Wager, ready to rush in, smash one of the oil jars against something, and heave in a torch. Mister Kellett, be ready to join in with your men.”

  “Right, sir,” Lt. Kellett agreed.

  “Time for Rutland t’cease fire,” Lewrie decided, taking off his hat and stepping clear of the barn to wave it in wide arcs, wishing that someone … anyone … had thought to fetch a signal flag along. But, he saw Lt. Rutland stand, wave his own hat in reply, and musket fire ceased.

  “Go!” Whitehead snapped, clapping Sgt. Wager on his shoulder.

  Ten men ran round the corner of the barn, bayonetted muskets at the ready, firing past the open door. There were three Frenchmen there, backs against the planks of the stall, using a stone door pillar for a firing post, and they were blasted away with stunned shrieks. Sgt. Wager threw the oil jar inside with a wild swing behind the closed door, heard a welcome shattering against the opposite stall planking, then tossed in the torch. Someone inside began howling and screaming.

  “Go!” Whitehead ordered, and Kellett’s men rushed round the corner, swung the closed wooden door open, and dashed inside with feral howls. They were checked for a moment as a French soldier tottered out, whirling round in an insane dance as every stitch of clothing from his waist down crackled with flames. Whitehead shot him in the head to put him out of his misery.

  “Let’s take them!” Whitehead yelled, waving his sword to lead the rest of his men into the barn, and the melee was on.

  Lewrie joined the rush, sword ready, but pummeled by the armed men either side of him. The first party of Marines were rushing down the long aisle of the dim barn, bayonetting panicked French soldiers, butt-stroking them in the face, making bloody teeth fly like a sleet. Muskets banged from both sides.

  Christ, there must be dozens of the bastards! Lewrie thought as he wriggled free of the press of bodies, found a Frenchman in front of him with a cavalry sabre, and shot him in the chest. Another came at him with a bayonetted musket, jabbing, but Lewrie hacked with his hanger into the forestock wood to push it aside, smashed the metal hilt of his sword into the man’s mouth, then back-slashed and ripped the side of his neck open, deep enough to sever an artery, and the man fell to his knees, dropping his musket to put his hands to his throat as blood sheeted his brightly laced coat plaquet.

  “Fight fair, mine arse!” Lewrie roared.

  The French in the barn who still could dashed for the far end, flung the double doors open, and poured out into the open. At least six of them got shot at once by Lt. Fletcher’s sailors, and the will to fight left them. Muskets and musketoons were hoisted butt-high, and swords were tossed aside as they knelt to surrender.

  “Take their boots and shoes!” Whitehead was yelling as his men prodded the French to their feet to herd them out the far end of the barn. “Rip them off! There’s a good fire by the entrance! Burn them all! Gather them up, Sar’n Daykin!”

  “An’ pat ’em down proper for hidden weapons,” Sgt. Daykin roared to his men, a chore taken up enthusiastically, resulting in an excuse to turn out pockets and rucksacks for tobacco, brandy, coins, watches, and souvenirs.

  “Went well,” Whitehead said, joining Lewrie at the far end of the barn. “I have four men down with light wounds, nothing serious, it seems.”

  “You speak good French, do you, sir?” Lewrie asked, looking at the second barn that stood at right angles to the one they’d cleared.

  “Passably, aye, sir,” Whitehead replied. “Why?”

  “I want you to shout over to that second barn,” Lewrie chuckled, “and warn them that if they don’t come out with their hands in the air, and those hands empty, we’ll set them on fire, too, and burn ’em all up. No escape possible, just death.”

  “You ah, don’t speak French, Captain sir?” Whitehead asked, as if such a skill was the possession of every English gentleman.

  “My French, sir, is so poor that they’d just laugh and not take us seriously,” Lewrie said with a moue and a shrug.

  “Hallo!” Whitehead roared, then began to deliver that threat.

  Lewrie stood by him, idly waving a burning torch.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The French in the second barn saw sense, and came out with their hands up; Commissariat artificers for the most part, with those tasseled red fore-and-aft caps on their heads.

  “You gotta see what’s in ’at barn, sir,” Sgt. Wager reported to Captain Whitehead. “Biggest blacksmith shop ever I did see.”

  Whitehead and Lewrie went inside, and both uttered a surprised sound together. There were two portable iron forges mounted in the backs of waggons, which could be stood up on iron legs. There were bag upon bag of coal and charcoal, several anvils of various sizes, hammers and tongs, iron-working tools, pre-made waggon wheel rims by the hundreds, and blank horse and mule shoes by the thousands.

  “All this has to go, sir,” Whitehead said.

  “Well, it won’t burn,” Lewrie japed, “and I don’t see it movin’, even if we put the whole Ninety-Fourth to the task.”

  “Keg after keg of screws, nuts, and bolts, by size, too,” Capt. Whitehead pointed out, running a hand into a keg and letting the handful trickle to the floor. “The other barn, sir, that’s full of lumber to repair the carts and waggons. And there’s nigh an acre of sheets of leather for reins and harnesses.”

  “That’ll burn,” Lewrie decided, glad that they could accomplish some harm to the French. “This lot, though … hmm. The forges and anvils. They can’t do much with the rest of the goods in here if we roll the forge waggons and anvils
down to the harbour and dump them in the sea. Can you arrange some men t’do that, Whitehead? Have ’em tell Mister Grace that he’s t’use his men to row the stuff out far enough.”

  “They’ll find the forges, sir,” Whitehead grumped, thinking it pointless. “There’s no way to load them in a boat and take them out to deep water. The anvils and such, aye, but…” he ended with a shrug.

  “Then let’s find some gunpowder and blow them open in place,” Lewrie extemporised. “God knows there’s tons of powder out in those waggon camps. Let’s go find some.”

  They went out through the rear doors of the second barn, then stood in awe for a long moment, nigh stupefied by the sights and the sounds. They had been too busy to take much notice, and the crackle of musketry and fireworks popping of pre-made paper cartridges by the bundle had become a background noise.

  They faced a sea of flame, and great, towering, rolling clouds of dark smoke blown by the morning’s sea breeze East down the coast, and inland towards the low ridge a mile away. Hay and grain sacks had mostly burned out, the grain still smouldering, and producing lighter grey smoke. The tents were gone, the individual encampments of waggons seethed with fire, and crackled with tiny explosions of cartridges, and larger bursts of powder kegs. They could feel the heat, hear the roar, and were buffeted by the wind as the fires drew air to feed themselves.

  “I don’t think we’ll find kegs of powder left in all that, sir,” Whitehead said, licking his dry lips and coughing as tendrils of hot smoke swirled past. “This must be what the Great Fire of London was like.”

  “Well, let’s load the anvils into the forge waggons and roll ’em down to the quays,” Lewrie decided. “We’ll think of something. We’ll set fire to both barns before we go.”

  “I’ll see to it, sir,” Whitehead promised, turning to find his Lieutenants and set people to work.

  Lewrie paused a moment longer, taking it all in, dis-appointed that he could not contribute more mayhem, but delighted with the destruction that the 94th had wrought. Raiding Monasterace again was the right idea.

  All that damned cavalry, though, he worried; Where the Devil did they get to? If they managed t’ride off and organise themselves, is Tarrant’s regiment in trouble? And, with all this bloody smoke, the ship can’t see anything t’shoot at!

  Far off, barely noticed above the roar of the fires, he thought he heard a bugle, but couldn’t be sure. Seconds later there might have been a long rattle of musketry; it might have been yet another waggon full of French cartridge ammunition, detonating, but he couldn’t tell. Once more he felt as if he was in overall command, but had no control over anything that happened beyond his sight, and the delight he had felt vanished, replaced by a general dread.

  * * *

  “Don’t know what to do with the forges, sir,” Lt. Grace told him once the Marines had rolled the waggons to the quays, and the anvils had been dumped into the water. “Without gunpowder? Perhaps we could send to the ship for some?”

  “Might take too long,” Lewrie gloomed.

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, sor,” his Cox’n, Liam Desmond, spoke up. “The fire boxes can’t heat up proper if we took axes to the iron. I expect we can find some axes here in town. Same goes for the flues from the bellows. And they’d need fresh leather for the bellows.”

  “Desmond, you’ve hit the nail square on the head!” Lewrie congratulated. “Aye, scrounge up some axes and let’s see what some strong arms can do!”

  Minutes later, sailors were clanging away with a variety of axes, some blows bouncing off, wickedly sharp blades turning on contact and ricocheting dangerously close to feet and legs. Some blows left dents in the thin wrought iron fire boxes, but some hacked into the metal and had to be jerked free, making slits through which air would flow if the French tried to use them. Some metal-headed mauls bonged off the forges, making even deeper dents that constricted the volume of the fire boxes.

  “Sir! Sir!” The much older Midshipman Kinsey off Coromandel came rushing from the town square to the waterfront.

  “Yes, Mister Kinsey? What is it?” Lewrie asked.

  “Mister Rutland sent me to find you, Captain Lewrie sir,” Midshipman Kinsey said, a little out of breath. “He and Mister Fletcher are returning to the landing beaches, and getting the barges ready for the Ninety-Fourth to re-embark.”

  “Very good,” Lewrie said, then asked, “What have they heard from Colonel Tarrant? Has he been in action?”

  “The last runner from the Ninety-Fourth that reached us said that they were inland of the waggon camps, would try to slaughter all the draught animals, but that they were short of ammunition, sir, and may not have enough for that.”

  “No mention of French cavalry? A relief column?” Lewrie pressed.

  “Nary a word upon that head, sir,” Kinsey said, shaking his head.

  “Well, if they’re back near the horse pens, they must have come back this side of the French camps,” Lewrie speculated aloud, hoping that Tarrant was headed for the beaches and the boats, if he thought he could not shoot all the horses, mules, and oxen.

  We’ve been ashore, what … three hours or more? he thought; Time to get in the boats and scamper!

  “Your men having fun, sir?” Kinsey asked.

  “Oh, the axes and such?” Lewrie said. “We couldn’t find any gun powder t’blow ’em up. Care to try your arm, Mister Kinsey?”

  “I should be getting back to the beach down yonder, sir,” the older Mid replied, after giving the clanging and banging a look. “I do wish you luck with those, though, sir,” he said, doffing his hat in a parting salute, as some of the burlier Marines took over from the sailors, attacking the flues that were made of thinner iron to render them useless. Desmond and Kitch had found some coals and firewood, and were setting the leather bellows on fire. The Italians that had fled the British at their first appearance were now gathered round and celebrating, cheering each axe blow or maul strike. Music was struck up, and some young men began dancing, and large straw-covered demijohns of wine were passed round to fill hastily gathered glasses.

  “Aha!” Capt. Whitehead cried, “The Army’s here at last!”

  A young infantry Ensign came trotting onto the quays from the town, waving and calling Halloo. “I’ve a message from Colonel Tarrant for Captain Lewrie, sir!”

  “Here, lad,” Lewrie said, walking to meet him.

  “Sir!” the Ensign said with a doff of his shako and a short bow. “The Colonel says to tell you that he is withdrawing to the beaches for evacuation!”

  “Thank God,” Lewrie said, “It’s about time. Has your regiment been in action? What of all the escort cavalry, where did they go?”

  “About a third of them ran off without their mounts, sir, and the rest rode off beyond the last waggon camp. They did charge us, but we had the waggons for shelter, and saw them off right smartly. Then, we burned that encampment, and they couldn’t ride through it, and with all the smoke, we retired quite easily without any further bother, sir. My Colonel apologises that we expended most of our ammunition and could not deal with the draught animals. We took down the oxens’ rails, and stampeded them.”

  “Casualties?” Lewrie asked with a wince, fearing what the young fellow might report.

  “Very few, sir,” the Ensign proudly said, his chin up.

  “Very, very good, then,” Lewrie said, letting out a pent breath. “You’ll be wanting to rejoin your company. My best regards to your Colonel, and tell him he and his men have done damned well.”

  “Yes, sir, and I will,” the lad said, saluting and bowing once more, then trotting out to the West.

  “Think we’ve done real damage to these forges, sir,” Whitehead commented. “They won’t be using these again. All that’s left is to set the waggons on fire, and go back to our ship.”

  “Aye, Captain Whitehead,” Lewrie said, relieved. “Light them up, and let’s be going. Mister Grace? Man your boats!” he shouted. “We are going home!”

  CHAPTER E
IGHT

  Overall, casualties among the troops of the 94th Regiment, and Lewrie’s crew had been light, even though the Marine complement had been reduced to 67 total, including the three officers. Those who had perished ashore had been fetched off, this time, and interred at sea, out of sight and, hopefully, out of mind.

  And nothing buoys the morale of a military unit, or a ship’s crew, more than a victory, along with the idea that they had extracted their revenge for the earlier debacle.

  Perhaps that explained the festive air at the 94th encampment, a mood that spread to the sutlers, vendors, and Sicilian visitors to the place. The 94th had musicians organised into a small band, though no one could call them talented, or well equipped; fifers, drummers, a few brass instruments, but they tried. No, it was the local civilians with their violins and stringed instruments playing Sicilian airs that provided the background to the general exuberance.

  Even anchored out the furthest from the beach as HMS Vigilance was, the music wafted out to reach her, if the wind was right, and the ship’s few musicians, official or amateur, felt free to strike up their own tunes, and belt out cheering songs.

  Lewrie wished that he could go ashore and partake in the revels, as half his crew had done, but there was his official report to Admiralty to write, and boast about the results, with the proper modesty, of course, whilst still making mention of his personal participation.

  He had been ashore, briefly, to attend a conference with Col. Tarrant and Major Gittings shortly after all ships had dropped anchor, to tote up the results, and congratulate themselves. By rough count, Tarrant thought that over 360 waggons full of vital supplies had been burned, over 100 French troops had been killed, two cavalry charges had been fended off, with many horses galloping off riderless, and all the repair facilities and feed stocks destroyed. All the French they had captured had lost their weapons, and their footwear, to the bonfires, and two officers had been brought back to be turned over to the Commanding General’s staff in Messina and interrogated before being released on their parole.