A Hard, Cruel Shore

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Respondin’ t’helm, sir,” the lead Quartermaster, Marlowe, sang out, heaving away on the spokes in a blur as Sapphire got a way on at last.

  “Hands to the braces, hands to the sheets!” Lt. Westcott bellowed, “harden up full and by!”

  Up forward, the bower anchor was being hoisted up right to the out-jutting larboard cat-head beam, a line snatched round one fluke to ring it up so it could be “fished” and secured. The wood-and-leather hawse buckler stood ready to be inserted in the larboard hawse hole as soon as the thigh-thick cable was detached from the anchor stock.

  “And what’s the rank of the senior officer present?” Lewrie asked to be reminded.

  “Rear-Admiral of the Red, sir,” Midshipman Fywell crisply replied.

  “Pass word to the Master Gunner,” Lewrie ordered, “prepare to fire honours for a Rear-Admiral of the Red. Watch your luff, Quartermaster. Nothing to larboard.”

  “Aye, sir! Nought to larboard!” Marlowe said, cranking down a spoke or two.

  “Four knots, sir!” came a cry from the taffrails.

  “Very well!” Lewrie shouted back. He heaved a deep breath and let it out slowly. His ship was under full control and under way, and making her way to sea, and nothing had gone smash … yet. He went up to the poop deck to watch the progress of the other ships of the squadron. There they were, Undaunted a bit over a cable astern, hoisting a bit more canvas to close the distance; Sterling close under Captain Chalmers’s stern and backing a fore tops’l to avoid running her bow into Chalmers’s great-cabin windows, and Peregrine and Blaze a bit off to Sapphire’s starboard quarter, shaking themselves out into a separate pair, in-line-ahead. They would establish the pearls-on-a-string one cable’s separation once far enough offshore.

  Guns roared in a muted fashion, steady as a metronome, reduced saluting charges barely driving the guns back to the full extent of the breeching ropes, and rotten-egg-reeking clouds of yellow-white powder smoke swirled round Sapphire as the honours were rendered.

  Ashore, there were stevedores and military waggoners, and men from the Commissary and Quartermaster units that dealt with the vast piles of supplies come from England; there were ragged Portuguese volunteer militias, still armed and garbed any-old-how, and children by the hundreds. All stopped their play, their labours, the volunteers halted their caricatures of proper drill, and idle Lisboêtas turned to watch the warships standing out to sea, Union Flags and commissioning pendants streaming, and they cheered. Faint, thin cries of “Viva l’Inglaterra!” were more imagined that clearly heard, but arms and hats were waved about, and women closest to the quays blew kisses.

  “Think they want us to just go away, sir?” Lt. Westcott said with a snigger.

  “They’ll cheer just as loud when we return, fetchin’ in a flotilla of prizes,” Lewrie quipped, “and all our randy, thirsty sailors.”

  “Anchor’s rung up and secured, sir,” Lt. Harcourt reported as he came to the quarterdeck, “cable stored below, hawse buckler in place, and all halliards, sheets, and braces belayed.”

  “Very good, Mister Harcourt,” Lewrie said with a nod. “Feels damned good, don’t it … gettin’ back t’sea? Once clear of the mouth of the Tagus, and well clear of the North shore, let’s ease her a point free and let fall courses. I’d admire did we stand out at least fifty miles to seaward before we alter course to the North.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Harcourt said with a tap of his fingers on the brim of his hat to Lewrie, and kept his hand in place as he turned to Lt. Westcott. “Sir, I believe I have the Forenoon Watch. I relieve you.”

  “I stand relieved, Mister Harcourt,” Westcott formally replied, returning the salute in the same casual manner.

  As the Second Officer took over his duties, roaring for courses to be bared to the wind, Lewrie went to the windward bulwarks to look at Lisbon as it began to fall astern. He had no trouble spotting the green-awninged lodging house a third of the way up the city, even without a telescope. The morning sun turned the glazed double doors along the balcony to sheets of glare, reflecting enigmatically.

  Knock, knock, nobody’s home, Lewrie told himself; and won’t be again. Go with God yourself, girl. Adeus.

  He looked further astern to his ships, now sorting themselves out into a line-ahead, with the proper one-cable spacing between them.

  He strolled aft to the flag lockers and the taffrails, where Midshipman Kibworth was now in charge of casting the chip-log, and he watched as the lad let it fly, let the light line run between his fingers ’til Midshipman Chenery, with the minute glass, called time when the last grains had run out.

  “Six and a quarter knots,” Kibworth said, unaware that he was being watched by his Captain. “God, this old cow,” he said to Chenery, sticking his tongue out as Chenery jerked his head to warn him.

  “Six and a quarter knots!” Lewrie took delight in yelling to the quarterdeck for him. “D’ye hear, there?”

  Kibworth spun about, his mouth agape.

  “You’ll catch flies d’ye keep your mouth open like that, Mister Kibworth,” Lewrie told him. “Only spiders think them nourishing.”

  “Ehm, aye, sir.”

  “Carry on,” Lewrie said, directing his “august” gaze to the sea and the ship’s wake. Even a paltry six and a quarter knots’ speed made a broad bridal train wake, no longer muddy tan from the waters of the Tagus, but a foaming, churned white wake as HMS Sapphire met the open sea. Seabirds swirled in their hundreds, gliding and diving into the disturbed water for small fish brought near the surface and confused and vulnerable in the foaming water, or for sloughed-off bits of sea-growth accumulated on the ship’s underwater hull. Gulls mewed and cried almost within reach of the taffrails, with beady eyes alert for something edible above water, and Lewrie heard Bisquit scrambling the length of the poop deck, barking at things he could never catch, tail whisking madly, ’til he sat on the flag lockers, whining frustration.

  “You’re a silly beast, sometimes, d’ye know that, Bisquit?” Lewrie told the dog, ruffling the fur on the back of his head, scratching the spot that made all dogs happy. “Don’t you go overboard, now. Hear me? Let’s go find one of your nice, slobbery toys. Come on.”

  There was a rabbit pelt taken from one of the hares kept in the forecastle manger, stuffed with shakings and batt and sewn up, abandoned by the top of the starboard ladderway from the quarterdeck, and though it was damp, Lewrie picked it up and flung it aft, and Bisquit went racing after it.

  Lewrie looked forward, down the length of his ship. The main course and fore course were fully deployed, by then, blanketing off half the view, and the jibs right forward almost hid the forecastle. The windward bulwark was his by right, though, whether on the quarterdeck or the poop, so Lewrie leaned on the bulwarks, peering out and forward, down to see the bow wave and quarter wave roughly amidships as it creamed by.

  Ahead, out to sea, the Atlantic was a glittering, sun-bright bed of tumbling gems right to the ruler-straight horizon under an azure sky, almost painful to look at for very long. For at least one day, they would have splendid weather, and, despite his recent disappointment ashore, Lewrie felt a sense on contentedness. He always got in trouble ashore, but out at sea, ah …

  Woof! Bisquit was back with his toy, demanding another toss.

  “Here ye go, boy! Get it!” Lewrie said as he threw it again. “Whatever makes you and me happy.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  When the squadron got level with Oporto, Lewrie was tempted to send one of the brig-sloops in to make a port call whilst the others idled off-and-on waiting for a report on the availability of chandleries and shipyard repair facilities, but he decided that they had been too long away from the North coast of Spain, and they sailed on.

  It appeared, though, that word of Wellesley’s victory had gotten to England, for on their way North they met several British-flagged merchantmen on their way to Oporto, eager to be the first there, and first back to the English markets with ports, sherries, espuma
ntes and the very drinkable red or white wines of the ancient Douro region. Admiralty must have had a hole in their wines stores, for they even saw one six-ship convoy escorted by a Royal Navy frigate!

  Lewrie did despatch Blaze a little further North as they came up to the latitude of the Spanish port of Vigo, to see if the French had begun to use that port for military traffic, the rest of the ships pacing back and forth under reduced sail for the rest of the day and night, then into mid-morning of the next day. Lewrie was sure that Capt. Chalmers chafed under the delay, but aboard Sapphire, Lewrie ordered a full day of Make and Mend, with rich duffs served along with supper that evening, and a free night of music and dancing in the waist.

  At last, Blaze hove into sight from the East, showing no sign of urgency, and when she was in plain signalling distance, Lewrie had a hoist made for all Captains to come aboard Sapphire to discuss the information Commander Teague had gathered.

  * * *

  Teague had brought a chart aboard with him, and Lewrie told him to spread it out on his dining table so they could all gather round it, anchoring the corners from curling back up with wine glasses.

  “Took a bit longer than I expected, sir,” Lewrie said, making sure that he had a smile on his face so Teague would not take it as a chiding.

  “I wished to be thorough, sir,” Teague replied, not abashed in the least. “It’s not just Vigo that I took a squint at. See here,” he went on, bending over the chart with a pencil for a pointer, “there’s an host of other little ports. Vigo is the largest, but, on the other side of the peninsula North of Vigo, there’s another deep bay, and a harbour called Marin halfway along the North side, then Pontevedra at the back end of the bay. Round the North of that, there is yet another wide and deep place to shelter, with several small fishing ports, and a middling harbour halfway along that shore called Vilagarcía. In the end, I could have spent a week or more probing into every bay along the coast, but I broke off after Vilagarcia.”

  “Any French traffic?” Chalmers said with a grunt, still chafed by the delay.

  “None that I could discover, no sir,” Teague said. “There are lots of small fishing boats, none larger than fourty feet overall, a few old coasters rotting away at Vigo, Pontevedra, and Vilagarcia, but there’s nothing moving,” Commander Teague reported. “There are enemy garrisons at those ports, with gun batteries erected, and I did see some sizable parties of cavalry or infantry on the coast roads, now and then. I trailed my colours close enough to tempt those batteries and counted their guns, but it doesn’t seem as if they have much over twelve-pounders.”

  “Same calibre as their typical field artillery,” Capt. Yearwood rumbled, “those Gribeauval-patterned guns of theirs.”

  “They thank him, or did he get his head lopped off like all the others in the Revolution?” Chalmers drawled, faintly amused that Capt. Yearwood, a gruff tarpaulin man, would know such a detail.

  “So, we can safely leave Vigo astern and not fret about it?” Lewrie asked. “Good. Good work, Commander Teague. We may get back to our hunting grounds, and our necessary delay may even encourage the French to put a toe in the water, a finger to the wind, and get back to sailing. More joy for us.”

  “More prizes!” Commander Blamey cheered, relishing the prospects.

  “Well, speak for yourself, Blamey,” Yearwood countered, scowling and tossing off his glass of vinho verde in hopes of a prompt refill. “You and Captain Chalmers get the prime area, closest to the ports of origin, whilst pickings off Corunna and Ferrol are damned thin by the time you’ve taken them, and frightened the rest to hide in ports East of us ’til we quit the coast, again.”

  “We are the stronger pair,” Chalmers said with a sniff, “more suitable should French warships dare come out as escorts.”

  “Not by all that much, you ain’t, sir,” Yearwood groused.

  Uh oh, trouble in Paradise, Lewrie thought; that’ll never do.

  “I had a thought that we’d not split up into hunting pairs this time,” Lewrie quickly said to head off squabbles, “but cruise as one together, you, Teague, and you, Blamey, out ahead and inshore to do the hunting, and Sterling, Undaunted, and Sapphire in column a bit to seaward. Let the Frogs see something new … something that might force them to sortie warships to challenge us, at last.”

  He’d had no plan for that in mind, but spun it up on the spot, if only to placate his subordinates’ touchy senses of honour and fair sharing. He looked from face to face round his table, and found that the novelty of the scheme, and its chance to offer a real battle, had mollified them considerably, making some of them smile.

  “We would still be allowed to separate from the offshore column should the brig-sloops encounter more enemy merchantmen than they could handle, would we not, Captain Lewrie?” Chalmers asked, sounding as if he would be deprived if he had to cling close to the slow flagship.

  “In that event, I’ll hoist the General Chase and gladly shout ‘Yoicks, tally ho’,” Lewrie assured him with a laugh, “though I may have to substitute my penny-whistle for a hunter’s horn.”

  “Well, that’s alright, then,” Chalmers said, much relieved.

  “For now, let’s sort ourselves out, with our sloops out ahead and landward,” Lewrie went on, “and your Sterling in the lead, Captain Yearwood, and your Undaunted ahead of me, Captain Chalmers. That way, it’s easier for the both of you to make more sail and break off should we spot anything. My slow old ‘cow’ would not be in your way.”

  “Might work out nicely, then, sir,” Commander Teague ventured to say. “The French are used to seeing us by pairs, or your Sapphire by herself. They might have been forced by their losses in bottoms to sortie, expecting to see only two of us. Now, if they send out three, or four, thinking that they might overwhelm us…?” he slyly posed.

  “And in aid of that, Teague, we’ll make it a point to sail all the way up the French coast to Arcachon together,” Lewrie promised, “and if that don’t sting ’em to some response, then I’m a half-naked snake charmer in a turban!”

  “And if they don’t,” Blamey said, “then we’ll know that those snail-eating bastards have no ‘nutmegs’ at all, hah hah!”

  “Well said, sir, well said!” Lewrie exclaimed in praise. “Now, once we’re in our new order of sailing, let’s continue on Northward on larboard tack, keepin’ at least fifty miles offshore. It’ll be dusk by the time we strike the latitude of Cape Fisterre, and I’d not wish to be too close to there should we get a blow during the night. At dawn, we’ll haul our wind and get within ten miles of Corunna and Ferrol … let ’em get a good, long look at us, and see what they do in response. Pettus, refills all round, if you please.”

  “Coming up, sir,” Pettus said as he and Jessop passed among them and their empty glasses.

  A toast sprang to Lewrie’s mind, one that one of his subordinates had proposed when last he’d been a Commodore in the Bahamas and along the coast of Spanish Florida.

  “To us, gentlemen,” Lewrie said, raising his glass, “Here’s to us, none like us all across the salt seas!”

  “To us!” they echoed before draining their glasses and looking for another quick top-up. “Band of Brothers,” Captain Yearwood gruffly intoned, evoking the spirit of Trafalgar.

  “Indeed,” Chalmers agreed with a solemn nod.

  * * *

  Lewrie did not dine them in, allowing them to return to their ships to conduct what drills and exercises they wished for the rest of the daylight. It was gunnery practise for most ships, it turned out, and great clouds of expended gunpowder billowed aloft and wafted to leeward as the squadron did live-firing to ready their crews for any eventuality.

  Sapphire’s people, once done with gun drill, tried their eyes on musketry and pistol-shooting, using cast-off kegs and barricadoes as targets, then spent a final hour in the afternoon at cutlass practise, and thrusting and blocking with boarding pikes, taking instruction from the Marine officers at how to get in close with a hatchet and kill the foe
most efficiently. The ship’s crew had not been called upon for any man-on-man fighting for some time, but the practise at such savage skills put them in a prideful mood, sure that they could come to grips and win against any “cack-handed, seasick, lubberly bastard Frenchman.”

  Lewrie did dine his own officers in, along with Midshipman Chenery, the youngest and newest, to pose the King’s Toast from the foot of the table, explaining, as the port bottle made its rounds after supper, how they would cruise, this time, and show the French something new, something that might draw the French out, at last.

  “We’ll alter course and close the coast just after dawn tomorrow, sirs,” Lewrie concluded, “and pray God there’s to be good hunting for us all.”

  “Amen, sir!” Midshipman Chenery, a tad worse for all the wine he had taken aboard in emulation of his seniors; he would not have dared else.

  “Think he speaks for all of us,” Lt. Westcott said, beaming at the lad.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  “Frankly, Mister Westcott, I don’t think this is workin’.”

  “Sir?” Westcott asked, lowering his telescope from his intense study of the Spanish coast, ten miles alee.

  “This cruisin’ together,” Lewrie groused, “it seems a complete bust. A whole week, Corunna to Arcachon and back, and we’ve only taken four prizes, and the rest’ve gone to ground.”

  “It’s the chain of semaphore towers, sir,” Westcott commented. “They know where we are, and can warn of our presence, now.”