“Who got her?” Captain Donnelly asked.
“Commander Josceline Percy,” Honyman said with a snort. “Left England too late with orders to have Espoir, and had to beg a passage in Protector. Lucky fellow.”
“Lucky, indeed!” Lewrie said, chuckling. “Lose a brig, get a frigate, and be sure t’be made ‘Post’! Ehm … even with your ship here, sir, isn’t the Commodore takin’ a huge risk? Admiralty might have a very dim view of it, success at Buenos Aires be-damned.”
“Ah, but he has so many friends in high places, Lewrie!” Captain Honyman said more loudly, his sneers more pronounced. “He’s the ear of the Prime Minister, a doting patron at Admiralty in Lord Melville, an host of ‘petti-coat’ allies in every salon through his wife’s excellent connexions … perhaps cater-cousins in the Privy Council, I shouldn’t wonder! As he had told us … so very, very often, what? ‘When last I played at bowls with the Prince of Wales’ … ‘When Noah and I compared notes on tides and currents’? God, spare us!” Honyman gravelled. “But, in the end, I expect he’ll be excused for abandoning his post … it’s the way of things.”
“But, only if we’re successful,” Lewrie cautioned.
By God, we’d better, or it’s the ruin of us all, he thought.
“Well, there is that!” Captain Honyman hooted with a snicker, as if failure was no skin off his own nose. “Gentlemen, I wish you both the very best of good fortune over there in South America. Just so long as I’m not part of it, no matter which way it goes. Take joy of the Commodore’s success. Are you lucky, he might even share a bit of the gloss with you, haw!”
BOOK FOUR
Where is Montjoy the herald? Speed him hence;
Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.
Up, princes! and with spirit of honour edged,
More sharper than your swords, hie to the field.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
THE LIFE OF KING
HENRY THE FIFTH,
ACT III, SCENE V, 36–39
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Signal from Diadem, sir,” Midshipman Rossyngton called out from the taffrails. “It is … ‘Report … Provisions’.”
“Lovely way t’start the day,” Lewrie said, scoffing. “What’s the tally today, Mister Westcott?”
“The Purser’s inventory says we still have seven days’ water and five days’ of bisquit remaining, at full issue, sir,” Lt. Westcott replied, referring to the morning’s tally which Mr. Cadbury had given him after breakfast.
“Pass those to Rossyngton, then,” Lewrie told him, “and pray that this voyage doesn’t last much longer. We’re almost to the Plate Estuary, but how we’re to victual from a hostile shore is anyone’s guess.”
When Commodore Popham had announced that they would break their passage at St. Helena, lengthening the duration of the voyage, Lewrie and his officers had determined to buy or have built extra water butts to stow below. Cape Town had the facilities to bake bisquit in great quantities to service the needs of the merchant trade which put in to victual, so HMS Reliant had left the Cape with a goodly extra supply as well.
The problem had arisen after leaving St. Helena, for the expedition had had to sail further North, riding the Sou’east African Trade winds and the Agulhas Current, to the latitude of the Cape Verde Isles to catch the Nor’east Trades that would carry them across the Atlantic to South America, and the ships of the squadron had wallowed in the variable zone between those two great wind and current routes, some days barely making steerage way, before resuming adequate progress. The requests for reports on how much basic provisions remained lately had become a daily fret.
“We could have put in somewhere in the Vice-Royalty of Brazil, sir,” Westcott commented after returning forward from relaying their figures to Midshipman Rossyngton. “Portugal is neutral, after all. It would not have had to be Rio de Janeiro, or another major port. Any fishing port would have served.”
“Hah!” was Lewrie’s sour reply. “After the blow Popham got from Governor Patten at Saint Helena, I don’t think he wants anyone in authority t’know where we are!”
News had come from London that the Prime Minister, and Popham’s “dear friend” and supporter, William Pitt, had died on the 22nd of January. The new Prime Minister, Lord Grenville, had quickly assembled his new administration, “The Ministry of All Talents” due to the many new and younger men who, on paper at least, possessed such great potential and brilliance. William, Lord Grenville, was not a fan of Popham’s.
And, to make things even worse for the Commodore, the Right Honourable Charles Grey, M.P., was the new First Lord of the Admiralty, and no one knew what he might think of any expedition to South America, especially one dreamt up on the fly, without official leave. Lewrie strongly suspected that their little squadron was now slinking to Buenos Aires, hoping to achieve victory before anyone could recall them, staying a days’ sail ahead of any orders from London, and out for a very quick fait accompli!
How that would be achieved was worrying, too. General Baird had given Popham and Brigadier Beresford only seven hundred men of the 71st Highlanders, along with six pieces of field artillery and two troops of dis-mounted Light Dragoons from the 20th. Popham’s hope for enthusiastic support from Governor-General Patten at St. Helena had been dashed; he had contributed only two companies of infantry, all that he might spare from the defence of such a vital mid-ocean post.
To make up the lack of soldiers, Popham had invented the “Royal Blues”, stripping all his warships of most of their Marines and as many sailors as could be spared, to add another 340 men who would be landed ashore when the time came. After witnessing the size and power of General Baird’s army of five thousand in combat at Cape Town, though, Lewrie had his doubts what a force of around sixteen hundred could accomplish. It was seeming dafter and dafter!
“How much longer, Mister Caldwell?” Lewrie asked the Sailing Master, who had been scribbling on a chalk slate and humming happily to himself, with a now-and-again reference to one of his charts pinned to the traverse board by the compass binnacle cabinet.
“Hey, sir?” Caldwell responded, as if roused from a nap. “Oh, well I dare say that, should this wind continue in its present slant, and at its current strength, we should be entering the Río de la Plata Estuary around tomorrow’s dawn … with the sun astern of us once we alter course Westward, which will make any reefs or shoals easier to espy ahead of us, sir. Of which the Plate Estuary has an ominous plenty, that is.”
“You would feel much better did we reduce sail and post leadsmen in the fore chains, and lookouts at the fore top, sir?” Lewrie asked.
“Oh, very much better, sir!” Mr. Caldwell agreed quickly, with a broad, relieved smile plastered on his phyz.
“Well, so would I, frankly,” Lewrie told him, grinning. “I’ve not run aground in ages, and may be more than due. Though from what I gather from my charts, the Plate’s shoals are more sand and silt than rocks?” He knocked wood for luck on the starboard bulwark’s cap-rails.
“That is true, sir … in the main,” Caldwell replied, doing the same on the top of the binnacle cabinet.
Lewrie turned away and rocked on the balls of his feet, hands clasped in the small of his back and his head tilted up to savour the morning. It was a beautiful day, bright, glittering, and fresh-washed by light rain the evening before. They had left the oppressive heat of the Equator behind after falling South of Recife in Brazil, and the days had cooled to the low eighties since. In promise of their landfall, sea birds and shore birds seen close to shore swirled overhead in small flocks, some flitting or gliding between the masts and sails to delight the ship’s dog, Bisquit, and make Chalky, who was perched atop the cross-deck hammock racks, sit up and swivel his head skywards, with his whiskers standing out and his mouth making eager chitterings and longing trills.
Lewrie petted his cat, then paced forward up the starboard sail-tending gangway to the forecastle, idly thumping and tugging at the stays to det
ermine their tautness. He made several circuits of the gangways, stepping up his pace on the later laps. Once back aboard from their African adventure, he made it a point to exercise as much as shipboard life allowed, cramped and constrained as that was. None of them had really been fit for long marches, or all the trotting and running that fighting alongside the Army had demanded. Sometime during the hands’ spell of cutlass drill, he would pair off against one or more of his officers on the quarterdeck with his hanger and practice swordplay ’til his tongue lolled out and his shirt turned damp. That was the most demanding exercise he could think of, and a fine precaution against getting too rusty to defend himself should they board an enemy and have to fight for their lives.
Bisquit came trotting up with his tail wagging as Lewrie made a last circuit, hopping and whining playfully. Lewrie allowed the dog to rise and place his paws on his chest to give him a good rubbing, before reaching into his coat pocket for what Lewrie suspected was Bisquit’s real purpose … he gave the dog a strip of biltong, a good, long, and thick-ish piece of salted, spiced eland.
“Permission to come to the quarterdeck, sir?” the Purser, Mr. Cadbury, requested at the foot of the larboard ladderway as Bisquit went off to chew his way to bliss.
“Aye, come up, sir,” Lewrie agreed as he went back to his proper post at the windward bulwarks.
“I was wondering what to do with these, sir?” Cadbury began as he drew an ornate rolled-up document from his coat.
“I thought we’d share ’em ’twixt my cabins and the officers’ quarter-galleries, Mister Cadbury,” Lewrie said. “That’s what we decided.”
“Aye, sir, but they’re not exactly suitable for such uses, are they, sir?” Cadbury told him, rolling the document out to its full length. “Too stiff a paper stock, and one would have to peel all the seals off, first. Even quartered, they are too stiff.”
“Aye, nothing like a good, used newspaper for wipin’ one’s bum,” Lewrie said with a laugh. “They might even scratch one’s arse.”
HMS Narcissus had spotted a strange sail and had dashed off in pursuit several days before, returning with a small Spanish merchant brig as prize, and the envy of every bored officer and sailor in the expedition. She had been bound from Cartagena to Buenos Aires with a cargo of general goods from the Vice-Royalty of New Granada, in defiance of Spanish absolutism which forbade inter-colonial trade. Among her cargo were several dozen large chests sent out from Spain containing Papal Dispensations, hundreds upon hundreds of them, bearing the seals and signatures of various Romish cardinals and the Pope himself in far-off Rome. Captain Donnelly had sent several chests aboard each ship in the expedition, as a jape, with notes explaining that the florid documents were “Get Out of Hell Passes for The South American Sin Trade”, which local archbishops and bishops would sell, and parcel out to the many rural churches, were there any left, to forgive the mortal sins of wealthy country people. What sins they committed later would be their own lookout.
“It’s not just their stiffness, sir,” Mr. Cadbury suggested in a softer voice. “It’s our Irish lads, and our Catholic hands. Some of them came to me … your Cox’n Desmond among them … on the sly like, to wonder if they would be … put to a use that was dis-respectful. Mean to say, sir, with their Pope’s seal and signature upon them?”
“They ain’t Hindoos forced t’eat pork, Mister Cadbury, or one o’ their sacred cows,” Lewrie said, scowling.
So much for decent bum-fodder, he thought; And the Mids are runnin’ out o’ foolscap for their paperwork, too.
“Might any use upset them, though, sir,” Cadbury muttered on. “We can’t use them to light the galley fires, make up fresh cartridge for muskets and pistols … even tossing them overside might be deemed insulting.”
“Mean t’say we’re stuck with ’em?” Lewrie frowned.
“Very possibly, sir,” the Purser said with a grimace. “Though … some of the hands did express the desire to be issued one.”
“And very well they might,” Lewrie replied, chuckling. Tars of any religion, or no religion, were always in need of forgiveness for something. “Think we could sell ’em off? No, most of our lads don’t have two pence t’rub together. And we don’t have a chaplain aboard with the authority to sign ’em.”
“Well, perhaps a Protestant Church of England official doing the signing might not go down all that well, either, sir,” Cadbury said with a snicker of his own. “But, a Post-Captain could.”
“One without sin, sir?” Lewrie scoffed. “That’s a rare commodity hereabouts. Like the Devil baptisin’ new-borns!”
“I gather they would appreciate it, sir,” Cadbury prompted.
“Oh, very well,” Lewrie relented. “They’re useless to our purposes, and not worth a groat in prize-money, so I suppose no one’d miss a few. Get me a list of those desirin’ one and I’ll write down his name on ’em, no more. No sense in temptin’ Fate, tryin’ to act like a prelate.”
“Aye, sir,” Cadbury said, smiling to have the matter settled. “Though, once ashore in Buenos Aires, they might prove valuable. The local bishop would be glad to obtain them and sell to support him and his church. We might gain six pence to a shilling each, and God only knows how much they go for when he sells them.”
“Really? Hmm,” Lewrie exclaimed in surprise, beginning to scheme. “They’d go dear in the local market, hey? Hmm,” he pondered.
Admiralty’d have my hide, he thought; Breakin’ bulk, stealin’ from a prize’s value for private gain ’fore submission to the Prize Court? How many of the Articles of War does that violate?
So far, this year of 1806, Reliant had had no opportunity to earn a single penny in prize-money, and what captures they had made in the Bahamas and off the coast of Spanish Florida in the previous year were still in the hands of the Admiralty Court in Nassau. When their judgements would be announced, and in what amounts, might not come ’til 1810! And, as was the case with the takings of enemy privateers, the net sums after all those deliberations might not cover the Proctor’s fees, once all was said and done.
I s’pose I’ll just have t’hope that the Argentine produces a few decent wines, Lewrie consoled himself; A ten-gallon anker for instant salvation for the vintner and his family, perhaps? Maybe the dispensations’d serve for paper money!
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
They entered the outer-most reaches of the Plate Estuary on the 27th of May, arriving in a thick and dense fog that took half the day to burn off, groping their way slowly West under greatly reduced sail and sounding with the short leads, already in shoal water. It was, to Lewrie’s lights, an ignominious beginning to the invasion of an enemy country. If the lookouts aboard Commodore Popham’s flagship, Diadem, had been able to see a signal, Lewrie would have hoisted the suggestion that they come to anchor for a time before they all took the ground far short of the actual mouth of the Plate. They sailed on nothing but Dead Reckoning, already encountering shoal waters, with the leadsmen in the fore chains calling out soundings that ranged from ten fathoms to a mere six, at times. The deck lookouts in the eyes of the bow could barely see their hands in front of their faces, much less a disturbance in the waters ahead, or a change of colour that might indicate peril. The lookouts high aloft at the cross-trees could only now and then make out the top-most trucks and commissioning pendants of the other ships, either.
It ain’t as if the Spanish know we’re comin’, or can even see us if they knew t’look out for us, Lewrie groused to himself, pacing the deck and wincing at each leadsman’s call; so what’s his bloody urgency? It’s like Popham’s runnin’ from his creditors!
Poor Mr. Caldwell, the Sailing Master, looked as if he would fret himself to an early grave, breaking out in a fine sweat despite the coolness of early morning as he was reduced to tracing his index finger round his much-pawed charts each time a new sounding was called out, as if to divine their exact position by the procession of indicated fathom markers. Lewrie noted that that index finger shook at times, and
that Caldwell was actually mouthing silent words; curses or prayers, no one could say.
* * *
The fogs did burn off by mid-morning, relieving one and all. As soon as it did, though, the flagship was hoisting a flurry of signals. The first was a “General” to all ships, announcing that the Commodore would shift his flag to the Narcissus frigate and proceed up the Plate Estuary to gather the latest local information. In his absence, his Flag-Captain, Downman, would command the squadron and the troop transports. They should look for him off Flores Island on the North shore of the estuary, near Montevideo. The second hoist summoned Narcissus alongside Diadem, so the Commodore and his entourage could be barged over to her to arrive in state, break out his broad pendant, and scamper away at a rate of knots, leaving the rest of the ships to wallow along as best they could.
“Wants t’beat us to the loot, does he?” Lewrie speculated to Lt. Westcott in a low voice. “Ah, Mister Caldwell! My congratulations on seein’ us through. I am sending down for a pot of cold tea. Might I offer you a glass?”
“Thankee, but no, sir,” Caldwell said, mopping his face with a red calico handkerchief after he had gathered up his personal navigation aids and rolled up the large scale chart. “If I may have your leave to go below for a bit, I had something stronger in mind. This morning has taken its toll upon me, I do confess.”
“Nice enough, now, though,” Lewrie made note, pausing for a moment to hear one of the leadsmen call out, “Eighteen fathom! Eighteen fathom t’this line!”
“A pretty morning, aye, sir,” Caldwell agreed, looking out and up at the skies and clouds and the state of the glittering seas as if seeing them for the first time in his life, blinking in amazement.
“Do you reckon that the ship is in no danger for the moment, sir, you have leave to go below,” Lewrie allowed.
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