“One could say, sir, that it was not our men who committed the first violation, but the Narcissus, for taking chests of dispensations out of her prize and sharing them round the squadron,” Lt. Spendlove speculated in a grave manner, “thus abusing Article the Eighth.”
“I don’t think that’d cover it, though,” Lewrie said, shaking his head. “They have no value to us, so I doubt they’d be counted as goods worth a groat to a Prize-Court. No, it’s the principle of the thing.”
“Article Thirty-six, sir,” Westcott offered, “the ‘Captain’s Cloak’ … ‘all other crimes not capital, committed by any Person or Persons in the Fleet, which are not mentioned in this act’ and all that?”
“Article Seven, sir,” their waggish Lt. Merriman said with a snicker, “about not sending in all papers found aboard prize ships? The dispensations were paper, after all.”
“Now, that’s just silly,” Lewrie gravelled.
“Oh, even worse, sir!” Marine Lieutenant Simcock added, in an even more jovial manner. “Since the dispensations relieved enemy civilians of their sins, might we have violated Article the Sixth … ‘no person in the Fleet shall relieve an enemy or Rebel with Money, Victuals, Powder, Shot, Ammunition, or any other supplies whatsoever’? Do we ease their minds, would that count against us?”
“I wonder if officers could be flogged for quarrelling, under the Twenty-third Article?” Lewrie mused aloud with an evil grin. “I don’t want t’flog anyone. I start that, I might as well have half the sailors and Marines on detached duty at the gratings. Starting with Desmond, Furfy, and half my own boat crew.”
“Well, sir,” Midshipman Eldridge piped up from the far end of the dining table, “it’s not as if any of our people profited from it. What they made, they spent. I doubt if any man came back aboard with a single pence … or Spanish centavo … to show for it.”
“Poxed to their eyebrows by the Spanish whores, I expect,” Lt. Merriman said. “That’s what they have to show for it, and they’ll be out fifteen shillings each for Mister Mainwaring’s Mercury Cure. That may be punishment enough … the loss from their pay, and the agonies of the Cure, both.”
“Summon ‘All Hands’ at this Sunday Divisions, sir, and lay the law upon them,” Lt. Westcott sensibly suggested, pausing to pour himself a glass as the port bottle was passed to him. “Just come out and say that you know what they did, after reading them only the Seventh and the Eighth Articles of War, throw in the ‘Captain’s Cloak’, and warn them that they’d best not be doing anything like that, again, or there will be some bloody backs among them.”
“Pretty much a harmless lark, sir,” Lt. Spendlove said with a rare grin, “nothing that would undermine the ship’s discipline in the long run. You would not appear to be a ‘Popularity Dick’. They know you, by now, sir. They also know that they got away with a very rare prank, and know that it is best a one-time thing. A show of your dis-approval, without punishment, would more than suit.”
“Then that is what I’ll do,” Lewrie agreed after a moment to mull that over. “With your able assistance, of course, gentlemen. It would aid in that direction did you, in the course of your duties and interactions with the men, caution them that my sense of humour, and my toleration, is not boundless, hey?”
Captaining by committee? Lewrie scoffed to himself; Damme, just how bone-idle lazy do I appear? But, there’s no helping it, this time.
“Your cook, sir, did us very well this evening,” Lt. Westcott said, “but I still envy the tales I’ve heard of those massive steaks to be had at Buenos Aires. And these greedy gentlemen made no effort to fetch a few back aboard, in a spirit of companionship!”
“Oh, but we would have, sir!” Merriman laughed, “had we any way to preserve them that long.”
“Stuff them in a crock of lard?” Spendlove wondered aloud. “In a cask of local brandy? Roll them in salt and brine them, as our salt-meats are preserved? I doubt any method would avail, and by the time we fetched them aboard, they would be no better than the casked meats on the orlop.”
“Now, the submersion in the local brandy sounds divine!” Lt. Westcott shot back, laughing. “How marvellous that would be, and the brandy could make up for any loss of freshness.
“But,” he grumbled, “I suppose our Army, and all their prisoners, grabbed most of the beef for themselves.”
“What prisoners?” Merriman sneered, his eyes drawn to the last slice of cake on the sideboard. “The Spanish sloped off inland.”
“Mean t’say, General Beresford didn’t capture any of them?” Lewrie asked, a tad uneasy at the news.
“Well, once we repulsed their cavalry a few miles above where we landed at Quilmes Point, we saw very little of them, sir. No one did,” Lt. Spendlove answered. “They’d departed before we got to the bridge over the Cuello, and then we sat on our hands from the twenty-fifth of June ’til the formal surrender of the city was signed on the second of July, and we could march in and take the town.”
“Well then, how many of them got away?” Lewrie pressed.
“I heard an Army officer say that we’d been up against about fifteen hundred at the skirmish, sir,” Spendlove told him.
“Aye, and I heard later that General Beresford thought that he had fought two thousand,” Merriman gravelled, looking round the table to see if anyone else had a wish for cake, before summoning Pettus to fetch him that last slice. “Mind now, the Commodore boasted that we’d engaged four thousand!”
That would sound better in the London papers, aye! Lewrie told himself, recalling a time or two that he had inflated the odds, too.
“They were allowed to just ride off inland?” Lewrie asked.
“Well, we had no cavalry of our own, and with such a small force, I suppose that General Beresford and the Commodore thought that securing the town, and gathering up the treasure and all, was more important, sir,” Lt. Spendlove told them all.
“Like Henry Morgan sacking Panama, sir?” Midshipman Grainger said with a snicker, very tongue-in-cheek.
“No more port for the youngsters,” Westcott teased.
“Oh, sir!” Grainger pretended to cringe.
“Then it sounds as if Beresford has no idea where they’ve gone, or how far they retreated,” Lewrie surmised, “nor how many Spanish troops are still in the field! That don’t sound healthy. How many has Beresford left? Less the four hundred and fourty the Navy lended him, that from sixteen hundred thirty is … less than twelve hundred men! That few, to patrol the town, scout the environs for the return of the enemy, and mount defences? Very un-healthy!”
“More patrolling and policing of the town than anything else, really, sir,” Lt. Spendlove said with a worry-furrowed brow. “None of the local watchmen were co-operating with us when we were there, and if the Spanish had any police force in the city before, we didn’t see a one of them.”
“Nothing but dirty looks from the locals, too, those that took note we were present,” Lt. Merriman commented between bites of cake. “There was a lot of shunning and ‘cuts sublime’, casting their noses high and sniffing … mumbled curses and such. None of our lads went out after dark unless they were in groups, and well-armed, to boot.”
“Or snug for the night in a tavern or brothel,” Lt. Spendlove added. “In their temporary quarters, rather, for those were what was chosen for their lodgings.”
“How entertainin’,” Lewrie drawled. “And, no sign of any who’d rise up and cheer for their independence from Spain, I take it.”
“The Commodore’s Colonel Miranda was spinning moonbeams, sir,” Merriman groused. “I don’t think any of his nationalist rebels even exist! Not among the Argentines we saw.”
“They’d cut our throats as soon as look at us, sir,” Midshipman Eldridge spoke up.
“And that’s not the port talking, sir,” Grainger joshed, and shared a grin with Eldridge, who was much older, risen from Quartermaster’s Mate, and not possessed of the usual Midshipman’s cheek.
“God help
our soldiers, then, if the Argentines decide to rise up against us,” Lewrie gloomily said, slowly turning his port glass by the stem. “Hard as it was t’get ’em ashore in the first place, does it prove necessary to evacuate ’em, it could turn into a real mess. I think the charts show less than three fathoms of depth right along the town piers, is that right? Beresford might have t’retreat down to the Cuello River, again, set himself up on the South bank, make sure that the bridge is completely destroyed, and hope that all our boats can get them off.”
“And, except for Encounter, sir, none of our ships could get within gun-range to support them during the evacuation,” Westcott pointed out.
“How long would it take for orders to that effect to reach us to send the boats inshore, too, sir?” Merriman said, sucking the last few crumbs which adhered to his fork. “At short notice, there would be only Encounter’s, Narcissus’s, and the five transports’ boats to do the work, and it would take too long to get them all off before the Spanish find a way across the river up-stream, where it might be a tad shallower and narrower.”
“Even worse, if there’s another bridge up-stream, or a ferry,” Lewrie fretted. “We’ve no maps of inland Argentina, so we just don’t know! Christ, I hope that Popham … the Commodore, mean t’say … wrote Admiralty for re-enforcements before we left Cape Town, or Saint Helena.”
Slim chance o’ that, Lewrie thought; He wanted his marvellous coup t’be a grand surprise! Maybe Governor Patten sent a report home, after giving us those extra men and guns.
“Then, we must hope that General Beresford can hold out ’til we do get re-enforcements, sir,” Westcott said, grimacing, and his savage face looking even harsher. “Assuming the government even knows where we are, and how long it would take to get word to London that we are even here, and in need! Good Lord above.”
“Unless that Army officer’s estimate of enemy forces was right, sir,” Lt. Merriman said with a hopeful expression. “If they only had fifteen hundred or so to begin with, suffered some casualties when we skirmished with them, they may have run so far that they are no threat any longer, and our twelve hundred or so can stand on the defensive in the town. We may be borrowing trouble.”
“Then let us pray that that is so, Mister Merriman,” Lewrie intoned. “Else, we have a debacle on our hands.”
Well … Popham’ll have a debacle on his hands, Lewrie thought; And we’re safely out of it!
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
A day later, manna figuratively fell from Heaven. A dowdy brig-rigged vessel, captured in the small port of Ensenada, came down from Buenos Aires laden with beef, pork, and bread, some of the meat fresh-slaughtered and newly salted and casked in brine, and some of it still on the hoof. As if in answer to Lt. Westcott’s prayer, some smaller kegs contained choicer slabs of steaks and roasts, not a week off the cow, and, when the salt was rinsed off in the steep-tubs, were as fresh and juicy as any that could be ordered in a London chop house.
Reliant received two live bullocks and four hefty pigs, guaranteeing fresh meat for all hands for several days, and at least a week’s worth of much fresher salt-meat in casks. All of it was welcomed aboard as enthusiastically as chests of prize-money.
Equally welcome were the fresh vegetables and fruit. The Argentine had been settled for centuries, time enough for orchards and market gardens to provide a year-round cornucopia of European staples and the more exotic crops native to the Indios. Yeovill scrambled from one case or keg to the next, gathering all manner of peppers and raw spices or herbs, snagging hands of green bananas, mangoes, guavas, and Spanish fruits for Lewrie’s table, trailed by the Purser, Mister Cadbury, and his Jack-in-the-Breadroom who were trying to inventory the lot before it could be pilfered.
Cadbury was pleased, as well, for with all the victuals, there were sacks of coffee beans, bundles of leaf tobacco, and many kegs of local red wine suitable for issue in lieu of the Navy’s “Blackstrap”, and for once it would not cost him a single pence, for it was all for free, taken as booty from a conquered foe!
“A steak for your supper tonight, sir!” Yeovill promised with glee. “Along with these wee white potatoes, broad beans, and baked rolls. Medium rare, as you like it, the potatoes roasted in wedges with garlic, onion, and rosemary, the beans in oil … as good as any shore supper you ever tasted! Will you be having guests in, sir?”
“Not tonight, Yeovill,” Lewrie told him, “for I fully intend t’be a pig and feast upon this bounty all by myself. I will even try the local red wine.”
And so will Pettus, Jessop, and yourself, Lewrie assured himself, for a captain’s servants in essence ate from the same dishes as the man they served, even if it was only the left-overs. But, it was the wise captain who did not question how much was prepared for him alone! Even his clerk, Faulkes, usually shared in the bounty, at least the tastier bits, though he was officially fed alongside the sailors.
“Hoy, there!” Lewrie called over to the older Midshipman from the Narcissus frigate, who was in charge of the victualling vessel as another net-sling load of goods was swayed up from her holds by the main course yardarm. “Any orders for us?”
“None, sir!” the Mid called back.
“How do things go in town?” Lewrie asked.
“Mostly quiet, sir, in the main,” the Midshipman answered, “though there have been some … scuffles with the locals. They are not happy with our being there, and some trouble-makers have become bold enough to shake their fists and shout, but the Army patrols daunt them … so far. That is the last due you, sir,” he said, pointing to the sling-load. “I will be off to victual Diadem. Is she still anchored off Montevideo, or does she cruise?”
“No matter, sir, she’s the only vessel swimming off there,” Lewrie assured him, “and thankee kindly for all the goodies!”
“As the French say, sir, bon appétit!” the Midshipman cried as he began to get his little ship back under way.
Lewrie turned his attention back to Reliant’s forward weather decks, where their burly Black Ship’s Cook, idle sailors, and ship’s boys were herding the hogs into the forecastle manger and barring them in, and hobbling the two bullocks, preparatory to one of them being slaughtered.
“Thank God today is not a Banyan Day, sir,” the Sailing Master, Mr. Caldwell, jovially said from nearby on the quarterdeck. “It’d be hard on the people to see all that juicy meat on the hoof, and still be fed on porridge, bisquit, and cheese!”
“And the officers’ mess is so looking forward to a hefty beef roast, hey?” Lewrie teased.
“Individual steaks, sir, at least a pound apiece I was told,” Caldwell chortled. “Grilled, not boiled, praise the Lord! It appears that if there will be no prize-money doled out for taking the Argentine, there are at least some compensations.”
“Even if there were prize-money awarded, we weren’t ‘In Sight’ at the moment of capture, and are unable to share,” Lewrie said with a sigh. “Come to think on it, neither were Encounter and Narcissus … where they lay at anchor off Point Quilmes was twelve miles or more from the city.”
“It was all seized by the Army, sir,” Mr. Caldwell countered as he patted his belly. “Mark my words, it will all be deemed to be Droits of The Crown, not Droits of The Admiralty, and be whisked to England, soon as dammit.”
“One may only hope, then, t’be the ship that whisks it,” Lewrie said with a snicker. “There’s a wee percentage allowed the ‘whiskee’, at least.”
“Then it is just too bad that we draw too much water to be able to go and fetch it, sir,” Caldwell said with a disappointed grimace.
“Captain Donnelly, and Narcissus,” Lewrie supposed, grimacing along with the Sailing Master. “The lucky … fellow!”
“Sure to be, sir,” Caldwell gloomily agreed. “Sure to be.”
Up forward, a wash-deck pump was being rigged and manned before Mr. Cooke, who had so aptly named himself after fleeing slavery on Jamaica, began the killing. He had a middle maul with which to stun the beast, his
sharpest and longest knife with which to cut its throat and bleed it—helpers stood by with buckets to catch as much blood as they could for other uses—and then a boarding axe and stouter, shorter knives with which to skin it and butcher it into eight-pound chunks. Bisquit was prancing about in anticipation, and in mock hunting growls and barks; it was quite possible he’d never seen a bullock, certainly not aboard ship, and didn’t know what it was. Idle crewmen stood about on gangways and the foredeck hatch cover, cheering, jeering, and ready to whoop in glee over the bullock’s impending demise.
“Shall we get under way, again, after the steer’s been dealt with, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked after he’d joined them.
“Hmm, no,” Lewrie decided. “We’ll stay at anchor the rest of the day and night. We’ve ten fathoms of depth, and a decent holding ground, for a change. Small arms practice, and an hour of cutlass drill after the hands have eat their fresh victuals.”
“Aye, sir,” Westcott said. “Your cook has lent ours a bottle of Worcestershire sauce for this evening’s steaks. Might you express our thanks to him, sir?”
“Of course, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie allowed, grinning. “Anything else that would please the wardroom?”
“Shore liberty, sir,” Westcott puckishly said, “a noon-to-noon, with ‘All Night In’.”
“All night in what?” Mr. Caldwell whispered with glee.
“Huzzah! Whoo! Done ’im wif one blow!” sailors were cheering and hooting as the bullock’s thick skull was crushed and it sprawled dead on the deck. Its compatriot bellowed and thrashed in terror of the deed, and ship’s boys leapt and capered over the carcass in glee.
“You might also ask Yeovill for some of his vinegary pepper sauce, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie suggested as he made his way to the ladderway. “If I can spare it, that is.”
* * *
The next evening, as Reliant cruised along under reduced sail in deep waters South of Maldonado and Lobos Island, the Narcissus frigate came calling, free of the banks and shoals of the Plate Estuary at long last, and laden with gold and silver. Her captain, Ross Donnelly, sounded jubilant as he brought his ship within easy hailing distance.
Hostile Shores Page 33
