“You’re thinking more like a Commdore, again, sir, not just another subordinate Captain,” Westcott dared to comment, “serving at another man’s whims.”
“Well, I will allow that my brief time in that position was … habit-forming,” Lewrie said with a self-mocking shrug. “All that vast power and authority was intoxicatin’!”
Westcott laughed along with him.
“How to suggest such to Commodore Popham, though, sir,” Westcott said in a lower voice, “and express your suspicions of a Dutch and French combined riposte, hmm?”
“That is the rub, aye,” Lewrie replied, scowling, “without him thinkin’ me an old lady, or unwilling t’hear anything from anyone that goes against his set thinkin’. Or, takin’ any suggestion from the likes of me, at all! I think he’s a ‘down’ on me, ever since we went off on our own with the Army. Oh, well.”
“Commodore Popham is a very active sort, though, sir, just full of schemes and ideas,” Westcott noted. “With the Navy’s part in the conquest done, and the Cape Colony in General Baird’s total control, might he be looking for other fish to fry, by now? Who knows, sir. The tiniest flea planted in his ear, and we could all be out to sea and having a go at raiding Fort-de-France!”
“Hmm, now that sounds … interesting,” Lewrie mused. “Just bung-full o’ prospects for fresh laurels. Once back at Table Bay, we will see.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Even before the Reliant frigate could complete her gun salute to the Commodore, put down her bower anchors, or take in all sail, a signal appeared on HMS Diadem’s halliards: Reliant’s number and “Captain Repair On Board”.
“Well, damme,” Lewrie muttered. “Impatient about something … ain’t he?”
“Away, the Captain’s boat crew!” Lt. Westcott took time to yell, amid all the other necessary commands which would bring their ship to safe and secure anchorage. Table Bay was not the snuggest harbour in the world, and when the winds came Westerly, they blew directly onto shore and raised choppy surges that put all anchored ships on a lee shore. “Afterguard! Haul the first cutter up from towing and lay it abeam the starboard entry-port!”
“Look presentable, do I, Mister Spendlove?” Lewrie asked their Second Officer in jest, tugging at his shirt cuffs and his neck-stock. He was in slop-trousers, scuffed boots, and his oldest and shabbiest uniform coat and hat.
“Oh, fit for the King, sir,” Spendlove replied with un-characteristic puckish humour.
“We will see to making the ship all tiddly, sir,” Westcott promised. “No worries. And, no need to keep the Commodore waiting.”
“Very well, sirs,” Lewrie said, bound for the entry-port for his rushed departure.
“Once aboard the flagship, sir,” Lt. Spendlove called after him, “might you ask where yonder French frigate came from?”
“Indeed, I shall,” Lewrie told him, for he was as curious as the rest as to the why and the how that a large French frigate sat at anchor with a large Union Jack flying over the enemy Tricolour from her stern staff.
What lucky bastard made her prize, and when? Lewrie pondered as he took the hastily-gathered side-party’s salute, doffed his hat, and scrambled down to the waiting cutter; We spent a month prowlin’ and saw nothing, and one of the others had a good, brisk fight? Damn!
* * *
“Ah, Captain Lewrie!” Commodore Popham cried in apparent good humour as he entered the flag officer’s great-cabins. “Have a pleasant cruise, did you … all fair winds and claret?”
“Good weather for the most part, sir,” Lewrie replied, warily. He was waiting for the criticism to come. “Nought t’show for it, unfortunately. Quite unlike the fortunate fellow who nabbed that Frog frigate.”
“Come, have a glass of wine with us, and the tale will be told, sir!” Popham hooted with delight, waving Lewrie to take a seat with the others at his long, gleaming dining table.
Captain Josiah Rowley of Raisonnable was there, Commander Joseph Edmonds of Diomede, her Acting-Captain; beside him was Captain Robert Honyman of the Leda frigate and Captain Ross Donnelly of the 32-gun Narcissus frigate. At the foot of the table, “below the salt”, sat Lieutenant James Talbot of the 14-gun Encounter.
“It is everyone’s prize, and it is no one’s prize,” Popham said with a playful air of mystery, as if telling ghost stories to a pack of children, “for she came into Table Bay, the fourth of March, just a few days after you sailed, Lewrie, with no idea that we had taken the place.”
“There were enough Dutch flags flying on the shipping in the harbour to mis-lead her,” Captain Rowley said with a snicker.
“Aye, and I quickly ordered all our warships to hoist false colours ’til she had let go her best bower and taken in most of her sails,” Popham said, beaming with glee, “then hoisted our true colours and ordered her to strike. She’s the Volontaire, of fourty guns, and was part of their Admiral Willaumez’s squadron, bound for Mauritius and Fort-de-France. The sweetest part is that she and other ships of her squadron had captured two of our troop transports somewhere in the Bay of Biscay, and had over two hundred soldiers from the Queens’ Regiment and the Fifty-fourth Foot aboard, whom we liberated, ha ha!”
“Who may prove useful to General Baird’s garrison force, once re-armed and re-equipped,” Captain Donnelly suggested. “What does the Army call such a rag-tag and motley gathering, sir?”
“A Battalion of Detachments,” Popham quickly supplied, He had a reputation of getting on with the Army better than most Royal Navy officers. “They might make four companies … hardly a full battalion, really, but, as you say, Donnelly, they may be useful to Sir David … or at other endeavours.” And there was the enigmatic smile, again.
He’s goin’ cryptic, again, Lewrie thought with a silent groan; At least his wine’s good, even if it is local.
“You said you saw nothing of enemy activity on your cruise, Lewrie?” Popham asked him. “How far did you go?”
“As far as the longitude of Madagascar’s Southern tip, sir, makin’ long boards to either tack, then zig-zagged North to sight of Madagascar and the Mozambique Channel,” Lewrie summarised. “We saw a ‘John Company’ trade, some Yankee Doodle whalers, and some neutral merchantmen, but no French or Dutch warships. I was wondering why the Dutch didn’t have more than one warship here at the Cape when we arrived, sir, and, given how important the Cape Colony is to both the French and the Dutch—”
“So, except for one or two French frigates and several large French privateers working out of Réunion and Mauritius, our new possession is in no danger from that quarter. Good!” the Commodore said energetically, all but clapping his hands together in delight. “Now, before we sailed here, the last time I was up to London and had the honour of dining with the Prime Minister, we did discuss this operation, and other … possibilities for future action once the Cape was successfully carried.”
No one rolled their eyes exactly, but all had heard, perhaps once too often, of Captain Sir Home Riggs Popham being all but cater-cousins and a close confidant to William Pitt, the Younger. He did trot out his excellent connexions, the way some wealthy wives would tell one just how expensive was everything in their parlours, at the drop of a hat!
“Whilst I was in London, I was introduced to a Spanish gentleman, one Colonel Miranda,” Popham continued, “most un-officially, of course … all back-channel and sub rosa, do you see, so no firm promises could be made to the man by anyone in the Prime Minister’s administration, nor by anyone in His Majesty’s Government. This Colonel Miranda declared himself to be a representative of a nationalist movement in Spanish South America, from Buenos Aires in the Argentine, in point of fact. He came seeking aid to bolster his cause, which would be a local, popular rising to throw off Spanish rule and gain the Argentine total autonomy and independence!”
“God, another bloody revolution,” Captain Rowley said with a grim little laugh. “But, will it be like the Americans’, or more like the one in France?”
“Aye
, out come the guillotines, and chop chop!” Captain Honyman sneered. “The Americans, now … at least they were of British stock, and British common sense. Once they won, they didn’t go to massacres and reprisals like the French. They spent their bile writing their Constitution. Rule of law, what? But, what may one expect of fiery-hot Spaniards, I ask you? Hey-ho, and huzzah the Inquisition for anyone on the losing side!”
“The possibilities, though, gentlemen!” Popham interrupted in some heat. “Great Britain, by her very position, commands the approaches to the Baltic trade, and the Channel. Our presence at Gibraltar controls access to the Mediterranean, as will our holding the isle of Malta. Now, we have taken the Cape of Good Hope, and may deny any other world power the India and China trade.
“Just think what the taking of Buenos Aires and Montevideo and the Plate Estuary would mean, sirs! There would in time of war be no trade round Cape Horn but for neutrals and our, and allied, shipping! Port Stanley and the Falkland Islands could never support a squadron of ships sufficient to dominate the Cape Horn passages, but the Plate could,” Popham insisted, half-cajoling, half-battering down any argument to the contrary; smiling wide but talking loud and quickly as he bestowed beaming good will.
“Aye, but how would we go about that, sir?” Diomede’s captain asked, frowning. “Other than that Colonel Miranda you met, what are the odds that he represented a real rebel movement, and not just some pack of malcontents meeting in some coffee house? Is there really a sizable portion of the population all that eager to throw off Spanish rule, and welcome us?”
“We are godless Protestant heretics, don’t ye know,” Lewrie had to say, with a snicker. “Good Papists, rebel or no, would rather cut our throats. Hated us for ages!”
“When in London, Colonel Miranda gave firm and believable assurances that his nationalist movement is widespread, and popular with all classes in the Argentine,” Commodore Popham countered. “He came to Protestant England to ask for our aid, and was authorised to grant us basing rights, in exchange for local rule, and civil autonomy, sirs.” Popham paused and brought out a stack of newspapers from a drawer in his sideboard. “I obtained these quite recently from a Captain Waine, of the American merchantman Elizabeth, just come to anchor in Table Bay. They are in Spanish, of course, but my clerks and some of Captain Downman’s officers read and speak Spanish, and they are in full consensus that these papers speak of civil unrest, complaints about Spain taking hands with godless, heretical Jacobin France, the rules by which the Argentine trade is crippled by far-off decrees limiting shipping to Spanish ships only, with no inter-colonial trade allowed, and et cetera and et cetera. No local merchantmen may trade with America, with Portuguese Brazil, for one instance.
“And, there is rich potential in the Argentine, sirs,” Popham enthusiastically drilled on. “Cattle, hides, tallows, and lards, and mineral wealth, along with vast seas of grain crops, and the bark of the cinchona tree, which is a specific against Malaria. And, Buenos Aires is one terminus of the Spanish Philippines trade, with all the spices, gold, and silver that that means, annually. Our Drake, in his time, would have given his right arm for the chance to take one of the ‘golden galleons’. Who knows what untold wealth now lies in the warehouses and counting houses of Buenos Aires, gentlemen? Do we appear in the Río de la Plata to augment and light the match to the nationalist uprising, we will outnumber, and over-awe, those Spaniards who still cling to the old regime in Madrid, and they are a distinct minority, all our intelligence, and Captain Waine’s personal observations, assure me!”
He’s mad as a hatter! Lewrie gawped to himself; As daft as a March hare!
“Won’t this require an army at least as large as the one that we brought to the Cape, though, sir?” Captain Rowley hesitantly asked, sounding tempted, but wary. “And, do we sail for Buenos Aires, and leave Cape Town un-defended, might we run the risk of losing it to an expeditionary force from the French bases in the Indian Ocean, once they learn of its loss?”
“The French have barely enough troops to garrison Réunion and Mauritius,” Popham was quick to dismiss, “so General Baird will be as safe as houses so long as he holds both fortresses, and can field one brigade of his present strength. A naval presence to defend the Cape is of secondary importance, leaving us free to undertake the invasion of the Argentine.
“I have already spoken with Sir David, and he assures me that he may spare us the Seventy-first Foot, and some dis-mounted dragoons, along with field artillery.… Perhaps we may arm and equip these rescued soldiers from the Queens’ and Fifty-fourth Regiments with surrendered Dutch arms and accoutrements, or trade them for a half-battalion more of Sir David’s troops. General Beresford will command our landing force. And,” Popham paused to give them an reassuring smile, “since the passage to South America requires us to take a great circle route Nor’west with the Sou’east Trades and currents, then over towards neutral Portuguese Brazil, I intend to break our passage at Saint Helena for more water and firewood, and prevail upon the island’s governor to lend me some more troops. A force of two thousand, all told, should be more than sufficient for the initial landings, after which the nationalists come to us. Both Colonel Miranda, and Captain Waine, assure me that there are no more than two thousand Spaniards under arms round Buenos Aires.”
“And here I thought we’d be goin’ East, not West,” Lewrie gaped to fill the uneasy, thoughtful silence. “Have a shot at Réunion, and clean out one privateers’ nest. Have a chance to engage a French squadron, broadside-to-broadside? We’ll be back at convoyin’.”
“Well, in this instance, Lewrie,” Popham said with a pleased simper, “we will most assuredly muster all our Marines and as many sailors as may be spared for shore duty. You may have a chance for even more action ashore … and more mud and dirt on your boots!”
“It could be … glorious,” Lieutenant Talbot of the little Encounter brig spoke up for the first time.
“As glorious as Lord Clive of India, sirs!” Popham exclaimed, seizing upon that word. “One man, with a laughably small force of sturdy British for the backbone, leading native armies in rebellion against the great Moghuls and their tyranny, won not just a province, but the entire Indian sub-continent, and came home with honour, and the untold wealth of emperors! And, might I add, un-dying renown, hey?
“I fully intend,” Popham said, turning more business-like, as if his case was won, “to depart round the middle of April, if not earlier, so see to your victualling and readiness, gentlemen. We shall be having future conferences anent our preparations, and meetings with General Beresford and his staff officers. It would be good for all our Sailing Masters to meet, as well, to share what knowledge they possess of the Plate Estuary, their pertinent charts, along with what charts may be available from the chandlers here in Cape Town.…”
Lewrie looked round the table at his fellow captains, wondering if he should say something along the lines of Have ye lost yer bloody mind? or This is all a load of moonshine! and would speaking up make a groat’s worth of difference. There were several hooded expressions of worry, but in the main, his compatriots looked as if they would go along with Popham’s orders, “muddle through”, and hope to make the best of it. Deference to the authority of one’s commanding officer was sacrosanct in the Royal Navy; men had been court-martialled for mute insubordination for obeying but doing so in a surly manner, or for questioning a superior’s order too strongly.
He ain’t askin’ for our suggestions, Lewrie thought; His mind’s made up and he’s Hell-bent on his little … crusade, and nothing anyone can say’d dissuade him! This ain’t goin’ t’end well!
“… may appear wide, but it is rather shallow, so we may have to put off the selection of our landing beaches until we enter the estuary,” Popham had been going on, just bubbling over with enthusiasm, and waving his cabin stewards to come forward with newly-opened wine bottles. “A glass with you all, sirs!” Popham cried as their glasses were filled. “To victory and glory in the Ar
gentine!” he proposed, and they had no choice but to echo that toast and toss back their wines.
* * *
“Well, that was … breath-taking,” Captain Donnelly of the Narcissus frigate muttered to Lewrie as they stood near HMS Diadem’s entry-port to make their departures in order of seniority.
“Aye, breath-takin’s a mild way t’put it,” Lewrie agreed in a low voice. “Never been there, mind, but it does strike me that there is a lot more to the Argentine than Buenos Aires. God only knows how many people there are, in a long-settled country nigh the size of all Southern Africa. And we’re t’take it with only one infantry regiment? Sounds daft t’me!”
“We might get a second regiment, or a battalion at the least, at Saint Helena,” Donnelly speculated. “With three hundred and fifty of our Marines and sailors … strip our ships to the bare bones … we might succeed. If we find allies in the rebels, and the Spanish garrison is weak.” Donnelly didn’t sound hopeful.
“If there’s no opposition from the Spanish navy,” Lewrie had to point out, scowling. “If that Colonel Miranda is to be believed. It is just too … iffy.”
“The Dons don’t have much of their navy overseas, and we will have two sixty-fours, a fifty-gunner, and three frigates, so we have little to fear on that head,” Donnelly said.
“Only two sixty-fours?” Lewrie asked.
“Belliqueux is to escort the East India Company ships to Madras, now their part in the invasion’s done,” Donnelly told him.
Captain Honyman of the Leda frigate emerged from Popham’s cabins, looking as if he was in a pet, his fingers drumming on his sword hilt.
“I am to stay here at Cape Town,” Honyman announced, growling. “Don’t know whether to feel cheated, or mightily relieved.”
“Protect it all by yourself, sir?” Lewrie asked, amazed.
“I will have the Protector gunboat,” Honyman sneered, “and the sight of that French fourty-gunner, Volontaire, anchored between the shore fortresses. She hasn’t a full Harbour Watch aboard, but anyone who sails in for a look should take her at face value for a ship in full commission.”
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