A Fine Retribution

by Dewey Lambdin

  “It sounds perfect,” Lewrie said, curbing any enthusiasm that he felt. “Far enough away from other French garrisons?”

  “Two hours or more, by foot,” Caesar informed him with a shrug. “Alfonso knows the place, too, and does not remember cavalry.”

  “Where is it?” Lewrie asked. “What’s it called?”

  “Tropea,” Caesar said with a grin. “Signore Quill, have map?”

  A much-folded map was produced, and Caesar traced a grimy finger over it, then stabbed at the map, “There, signore. Tropea.”

  Lewrie leaned over and laid a finger on it, himself. Tropea was about thirty miles North of the narrowest point of the Straits of Messina, just North of a West-trending bulge of land, and seeming isolated from other towns by at least ten miles.

  Damme, do we hoist anchors from our current location round Four am, we could be off Tropea by Eight or Nine in the morning, Lewrie speculated; Leave by Two in the morning, and we could be there by dawn! If the bloody weather lets us, of course.

  “I and my ships are anchored East of Milazzo, about halfway between there and Messina,” Lewrie told Caesar. “Once one of your boats has a chance to scout the town, the beach, and the depth of water off the fort, can you report to me there, sir?”

  “Hmm, give me three, four days to go there, do what you ask, and come to your ship, Signore Luigi,” Caesar promised. “I get all you need to know.”

  “It’s Lewrie, actually,” Lewrie corrected again.

  “Signore Quill,” Caesar said, turning to the weedy Foreign Office man. “For this, I think we need one hundred pounds, in gold guineas. For the expenses.”

  “You shall have it, signore,” Quill vowed, “though guineas are rare these days. Would one hundred and five pounds in silver do?”

  “Same value? Si, non importa.” Caesar agreed, explaining the sum to his swarthy compatriots, who bared stained teeth in cheerful grins. Well, one of the ’Tonios had few left, and they were green.

  To seal the bargain, one of Caesar’s men produced a stone crock of what he said was grappa, and Quill managed to turn up some suspect and grimy glasses so they could all toast.

  Ain’t brandy, or grape-based, Lewrie thought, taking a cautious sniff of the spirit; looks like gin, or water. Might be harmless.

  A second later and he changed his opinion. He’d drunk a raw, clear back-country whisky when he’d played spy in Spanish New Orleans—once!—but that harsh brew had nothing on grappa. Lewrie’s lips, tongue, and gums were on fire, his throat was searing, and what grappa would do when it reached an indifferent supper was best not contemplated!

  “Whew, my … mine arse on a band-box!” he wheezed, which gave Caesar and his compatriots a good, back-slapping laugh.

  It took all Lewrie had to very slowly finish that first glass, and he almost groaned aloud when one of the ’Tonios splashed a convivial finger or two more of grappa atop the remaining swallow. Liquid fire or not, Caesar and his smugglers sloshed down a fair amount of it before they decided at last to take their departure, by which time even Mr. Quill, more familiar with grappa, surely, was looking pained but too proud to show it. Hands were shaken all round before they left, slipping out into the hallway and stairwell as furtive as house-breakers to slink back to their lodgings, boats, or another tavern.

  “Well, that was … different,” Lewrie said as he got his wind back. “Thank you, Mister Quill, for the introduction…”

  “I’ve found that a white wine helps,” Quill suggested, going to one of his storage chests for a bottle, and poured them all liberally.

  “What the Devil was that stuff?” Deavers muttered after tossing back the wine and swizzling it round his mouth to cool it. “Satan piss? Ah, thank you, sir. The wine does help.”

  “Just doing my part for King and Country, Captain Lewrie,” the fellow replied, letting out a long “Aah!” of relief, then yawned. “It is late. We should turn in, do you not think? I have but the one bed-stead, but your man Deavers can doss down on the settee. If you do not mind sharing a bed for the night, sir.”

  I’ll keep my boots and breeches on, Lewrie swore to himself; and I hope this fellow don’t snore as queer as he laughs.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  They woke to cocks-crows, and the lad Fiorello rapping on the door, dressed and packed by the light of one candle, and had a quick breakfast at the nearby tavern, cinnamon-and-raisin rolls washed down with incredibly strong black coffee. Their horses were led out by the giant with the fowling piece, who got another silver six pence in reward, and Lewrie and Deavers were ready to set off and return to the ships’ anchorage, and the shore camp of the 94th.

  They rode in silenee for some time, savouring the coolness and and relative quiet of pre-dawn. Away from the quays and harbour, and the town of Messina, the air was a lot fresher, too, and the odd reeks they encountered were from farms, and livestock manure, which was down-right homey.

  “Why’d a gentleman live so poor, sir?” Deavers asked, breaking the silence at last. “That Mister Quill?”

  “The gentlemen at Army headquarters don’t think anyone in his line o’ work is a gentleman, Deavers,” Lewrie replied. “And, he can’t have his sources and his spies like Caesar and his men droppin’ in to tell their tales, either. They probably don’t want their connexions to us known, Might be bad for business, in their circles, too.”

  “Lord, sir,” Deavers said with a little laugh, “but we do meet the oddest sorts in the Navy. Might be mermaids and Amazon women, next.”

  “As Mister Quill said, the things we do for King and Country!” Lewrie hooted.

  *   *   *

  They reached the Army camp a little after Noon to find the 94th at their mid-day meals. Not too much cooking was being done by the men of the regiment, though, for the camp had been invaded by local Sicilian women and children who had set up pots and skillets over fires to cook ration salt-meats with local victuals on the side. Lewrie noted that several soldiers, a fair number, stood guard under arms to protect the olive and fruit groves, and patrolled the tent lines.

  “Ah, Sir Alan,” Colonel Tarrant called out, alerted to their arrival as he came from his pavillion in his shirt sleeves. “Welcome back. It’s good news, is it, sir?”

  “We have our first place to strike, Colonel,” Lewrie told him as he dismounted and turned the reins over to an orderly. “Full details are coming within three or four days, then we’ll be ready to go.”

  “Thank the Heavens for that, sir!” Tarrant exclaimed, sounding relieved. “This camping ashore may just be the ruin of my troops!”

  “Ruin, sir?” Lewrie asked, taking off his hat to fan himself, and mop his brow with a handkerchief.

  “It’s the bloody locals,” Tarrant carped. “Soon as the tents were aligned, they swarmed us, with lashings of fresh bread, pasta and wines, vegetables, fruit, rice, all welcome, mind, but they’re like the flies … they’re everywhere! It’s not that their prices are high, but my men only have so much money in small coin, and they’ll run out soon. Then, there’s the whores, the old hags who’ve damned near taken over the cooking, in place of the regiment’s own wives and camp followers, the children … my God, sir! Sicily must train their thieves well, from the cradle. I swear they could steal the band instruments, which they’ve tried several times, and leave the music playing! Then, there is the grappa. A plague worse than gin in Hogarth prints!”

  “Heard of it,” Lewrie cryptically said. “Rough stuff.”

  “Now, I have to place guards over the men’s possessions to keep them safe,” Tarrant continued to gripe, “pat down every trader to keep grappa out of camp, and on top of all that, keep my own men out of the groves so they don’t chop down olive trees and fruit trees for firewood, and the regimental chest has had to pay out for the ones they did chop down. I do believe we’d have been better off staying aboard those awful bloody ships!”

  “I assure you we’ll be shot of this place by the end of the week, Colonel,” Lewrie
promised him. “Though, we may have to return here to await information, and plan future raids.”

  “A day or two of respite, sir?” Tarrant demanded, “then right back here? Good God. I’d have thought we’d sail back to Malta and replenish, first. I’ve sent Major Gittings to Army headquarters in Messina, to find out if we could draw from the local garrison stores ’til then, but they’ve been most un-cooperative. Do we want pay for the troops, rations, or ammunition, they said we’re still officially part of the brigade on Malta, detatched to the Navy temporarily or not, d’ye see. Does the 94th wish to transfer to the Army on Sicily, they would supply us, but the paperwork back and forth to London, Malta, and Messina would take weeks. We’re told that even barracks accommodations would be un-available.”

  “Well, damme,” Lewrie spat, seeing what fragile plans he’d made tumble like a house of cards. “We can’t! My … our sources of information are here on Sicily, the man from the Foreign Office they work for is in Messina. Without his money, we’d get nothing, and it would take weeks to go back to Malta, wait to hear from him, then sail back here, camp, get the final details, stage the raid, and…! Back and forth from Malta? Good Christ!”

  “At least my soldiers could be sure to see their wives and children,” Colonel Tarrant said with a gloomy expression.

  “Hey? What?” Lewrie gawped. “Who?”

  “The regiment’s wives and children,” Tarrant explained as if it was self-evident. “When we sailed for Malta, when we were close to our full ration strength, we held the lot-drawing for the sixty wives allowed, and they sailed with us. They’re still on Malta, the most of them, about fifty or so by now. My men are growing anxious to see them.”

  “Oh, my sweet Christ!” Lewrie groaned aloud. “Dependents didn’t even cross my mind, I just assumed…! Didn’t see ’em at the fortress, so…!”

  He’d seen it during the American Revolution, at the failed incursion at Toulon, at Gibraltar’s garrison, and the landings of British troops in Spain, and it had completely slipped his mind, didn’t even factor in his plans as far back as the paper study he’d written in London!

  The British Army allowed wives, children, and camp followers at their home stations to live in barracks with their men. When deployed overseas, only sixty lucky wives won the drawing of lots to go with them, and the rest were left to their own devices, perhaps never to see their husbands alive, again. As disease and desertion depleted the ranks of the 94th, surviving widows had no choice but to take new husbands to support them and their children. They did the sewing, the tending to the sick and wounded, the cooking, the carrying of packs (and tots) on the march, and helped pitch camp each evening, then break it down each morning.

  Wives aboard ship were so rare that Lewrie hadn’t even thought to account for their accommodations, and when calling upon Tarrant and his officers, he had seen women and children round the fortress drill grounds, but hadn’t thought that some of them might be from the 94th!

  I’m a God-damned, witless, blind fool! Lewrie chid himself; No one should trust me with organising a drinking party! I could foul up a two-horse race! Christ, what’ll I tell Charlton, if we ever cross his hawse, and he asks what my plans are?

  “It’s possible that some of the younger lads might take up with the Sicilian girls,” Tarrant speculated, looking round his encampment with his hands on his hips. “Beyond the whores, there are some pretty. I’ll still have to hold them to the allotted sixty, but…”

  “They’ve no English, your men have no Italian,” Lewrie pointed out, hoping in vain that that would keep the numbers low.

  “Oh, love will find a way, Captain Lewrie,” Tarrant mirthlessly replied. “That, or plain lust, haw haw.”

  How well I know! Lewrie bleakly thought; Dammit! More mouths to feed, at Admiralty expense! We stay here on Sicily, I have t’shuttle their womenfolk and brats here for a rut? Or carry ’em all back to Malta for it? Can things get more hopeless?

  “Care to join our mess for dinner, sir?” Tarrant offered.

  “Ehm, what? No, thankee for the offer, but I really should go aboard my ship,” Lewrie decided. “It’s a Banyan Day, and I can manage on cheese, oatmeal, and bisquit from the general issue.”

  With my luck, the crew’s found grappa, too, and they’re ready for a drunken mutiny! Lewrie gloomily thought as he ambled down to the beach and waved his hat to summon a boat to come fetch him.

  *   *   *

  He doffed his hat at the top lip of the starboard entry-port as he got back aboard, lost in a worried stew, and only somewhat re-assured by the ceremony of bosuns’ calls and the side-party’s salutes.

  “Nothing’s gone smash in my brief absence, Mister Farley?” he asked the First Officer once the salute was done.

  “Nothing to report, sir,” Farley replied, “and the purser has established dealings with the locals, so we’ve ample firewood, fresh water, bread, and vegetables coming aboard daily.”

  “My compliments to Mister Blundell for it,” Lewrie said.

  “Ehm … there is one problem, sir,” Farley admitted. “There are four hands due Captain’s Mast. A fist fight, sir.”

  “Who are the miscreants, then?” Lewrie asked, frowning.

  “Ehm, sir,” Lieutenant Farley confessed, “Able Seaman Kitch, Ordinary Seaman Beckford, Landsman Stubble, and … your cabin servant, Dasher.”

  “Dasher!” Lewrie exclaimed in shock. “And my stroke oar? What the Devil was it about?”

  “Dasher’s bunny, sir,” Farley reported. “Beckford and Stubble cruelly teased Dasher, I gather, saying they’d skin it and cook it, taking it away from him and passing it back and forth, out of Dasher’s reach. Treated it rather roughly. Kitch stepped in to make them stop and things went bad from there. Kitch laid into them, Dasher got his bunny back into the manger, then he tried to fight them as best that he could, before the Master at Arms, Mister Stabler, and his Corporals broke it up, frog-marched them to me, and I ordered them put in irons ’til you returned aboard, sir.”

  “What? All of ’em in irons? Dasher, too?” Lewrie gawped.

  “Aye, sir,” Farley said. “Seemed fair at the moment, sir.”

  “Well, just damn my eyes,” Lewrie allowed. “Aye, your action was fair. Poor tyke, though. How long have they been in irons?”

  “Since half past Noon yesterday, sir,” Farley told him.

  “Very well,” Lewrie said with a sigh. He pulled out his pocket watch to note the time, which was near one in the afternoon. “I’ll eat first, then we’ll summon all hands to hold Mast at Six Bells. Let ’em stew ’til then. I’ll be aft.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Farley said, doffing his hat.

  Deavers was already back at his duties in the great-cabins, and the new lad, George Turnbow, was there to take his hat and sword belt.

  “You’ve heard, Deavers?” Lewrie asked.

  “Aye, sir,” Deavers replied. “He dotes on that bunny, but I didn’t know he had that much spirit in him.”

  “A game’un, is Dasher, sir,” Turnbow said. “What those bastards did was just evil-cruel. I’d’ve laid into ’em myself, were it me they were teasin’. Hope you don’t go too hard on him, sir.”

  “I’ll hear them out, but I think I know who I’ll go hard on,” Lewrie promised. “Anything for dinner, Deavers?”

  “Yeovill brought round some cheese, bread, and something the Sicilians call a salami, sir,” Deavers announced, “and there’s fresh grapes just come off shore, too.”

  “No grappa?” Lewrie teased as he headed for his dining coach.

  “Thank the good Lord no, sir!” Deavers declared.

  “What’s grappa, then?” Turnbow asked, puzzled.

  “Pray God ye never know, lad,” Lewrie said with a laugh.

  *   *   *

  Six Bells of the Day Watch, three in the afternoon, and bosuns’ calls and shouts for All Hands roared through the ship as Lewrie appeared at the forward edge of the quarterdeck, his punishment book res
ting atop the hammocks in the racks, as the prisoners were led up from the orlop deck far below, their wrist chains and irons clanking. Crewmen lined the boat-tier beams, the sail-tending gangways, and crowded in the waist, eager to see justice done, or merely curious to see what their new Captain deemed as justice.

  “Mister Farley,” Lewrie snapped at his First Officer sternly, “pray do name the defaulters, and enumerate the charges against them.”

  Lieutenant Farley stated the defaulters’ names, accusing them all of violating the 23rd Article of War. “If any person in the Fleet shall quarrel or fight with any other person in the Fleet,” Farley recited, “or use reproachful or provoking speeches or gestures tending to make quarrel or disturbance, he shall upon being convicted thereof, suffer such punishment as the offence shall deserve, and a Court-Martial shall impose.”

  “The particulars, sir?” Lewrie growled, and both Farley and the Master at Arms described the offence. Some of the crew grinned, or laughed behind their hands about the bunny which had been the source of the dis-agreement.

  “Landsman Dasher,” Lewrie said, turning to his cabin servant. “What do you have to say for yourself in your defence?”

  “You were away ashore, sir, and I didn’t have no duties, so I thought to visit the manger an’ feed my bunny, Harriet, some lettuce an’ such what come aboard,” Dasher began with many gulps. “Beckford an’ Stubble come up an’ snatched her away from me, wavin’ her around, like they were goin’ t’wring her neck, skin her, and get the cook to fry her on th’ sly. I pleaded with ’em t’give her back an’ not hurt her, sir, but they thought that was funny, an’ took t’tossin’ her about like a shoe, swingin’ her by her ears or her legs, an’ I yelled for anyone t’come help me get her back. That’s when Kitch come up and told ’em to leave the bunny be, and give her back t’me, They thought that was funny, too, an’ dared him t’try takin’ her. So Kitch says, if ya two cowards an’ bullies don’t, he’ll box their ears an’ make their bungs spout claret, they said come ahead an’ try, and Kitch lit into ’em, knockin’ Stubble clean off his feet, That’s when I got my bunny from him, then Beckford an’ Stubble both started swingin’ at him. I got my bunny back in the manger, an’ it looked like Kitch needed some help, so I started kickin’ an’ hittin’ them, too. An’ that’s when Mister Stabler, Geary, and Kirby came an’ stopped us fightin’, Cap’m sir.”