“Well, if he wishes to move the camp, that’s fine with me. But, what sort of anchorage would we have, Mister Greenleaf?” Lewrie asked. “Sufficient depth? Decent holding ground?”
“Four to five fathoms within a cable of the beach, sir, and the bottom is eight to ten fathoms deep two cables off,” Greenleaf said, running a finger along his line of soundings. “The ‘dipsy’ lead on a shorter line brought up coarse sand and thick grey mud everywhere we let it run, sir, so the anchors should hold well enough except in a stiff blow from the North.”
“And we’d stand out to sea and stand off-and-on if that should happen, aye,” Lewrie agreed. The waxed bottom of the “dipsy” lead had brought up samples that were not all that different from the bottom of Portsmouth harbour, so he thought that the ships would be safe, in most instances.
“Those two villages, sir,” Greenleaf suggested, “we could let the men have a poor sort of shore liberty. And, there’s room ashore for football and criquet, and sea bathing, or just beach idling.”
“I could consider it, once we’ve…,” Lewrie began to say but there came a shout from the deck of “Sail Ho!”, followed by a yell from the Marine sentry that a Midshipman Langdon wished to see the Captain.
“Enter!” Lewrie called out.
“Beg pardon, sir,” Langdon, a gawky twenty-five-year-old Mid said, “but there is a boat entering the anchorage, sir. It appears to be a fishing boat.”
“Headed into Milazzo, or here, sir?” Lewrie asked.
“She looks to be bows-on to us, sir,” Langdon reported.
“Good ho! Fresh fish for supper, sir!” Lieutenant Greenleaf said with eagerness, rubbing his stomach. “A nice snapper, I hope.”
“We’ll see,” Lewrie said, picking up his telescope to go on deck to spy out the strange boat in his shirtsleeves. “Thankee, Mister Langdon. Well done, Mister Greenleaf. Let’s go ‘smoak’ our visitor.”
“I say, sir,” Greenleaf said as they bustled to the door. “Is that rabbit chasing your cat, sir?”
* * *
The strange fishing boat, about fourty feet long, was scabrous and filthy at first glance, its once colourful paint fading and peeling, and her sails much patched, but her rigging, and her crew’s handling of her coming to anchor and handing her sails were first rate. An equally shabby rowboat was led out from towing astern and several men went down into her. Lewrie recognised the largest fellow as their spy-chief he’d met at Mr. Quill’s lodgings in Messina, Julio Caesare.
Lewrie thought the man would come aboard Vigilance, but his boat only came alongside so Caesare could shout up, inviting Lewrie to come ashore, where Caesare could speak with both him and Colonel Tarrant. Reluctantly, Lewrie called for his boat crew, donned coat and waist-coat, and followed in Caesare’s wake, to land on the beach and wade ashore.
“Ah, Capitano Inglese, buon giorno!” Caesare cried, arms out as he came to embrace Lewrie, slapping him on the back and bestowing a hairy kiss or two on his cheeks, “Buon giorno! Miracoloso! Una vittoria, ha! You cut the Piedmontese balls off! Bello, bello! Everything smashed, and many enemy dead. So many ships and boats burned, but I see you take some away, si? Everything I tell you is true, si? Julio Caesare is man of his word, knowing everything on the coasts.”
“Indeed you are, sir,” Lewrie replied, freed from the garlicky kisses and the bear-hug, at last, and stepping back a half-step so the man couldn’t grab him a second time. “Your information guaranteed our success. You did damned well.”
Damned excitable … foreigners! he thought: Try that in London and they’d lock you in the stocks!
“And now you wish to strike again, not so?” Caesare asked with a shrewd look, and a rub at his unshaven chin. “I come to have the progetto, the … plan? Oh, these are your soldati? Head of soldati is here? A colonnello, is he? Good! We put the heads together, ha ha!”
Colonel Tarrant, Major Gittings, and many of the company officers had come down near the beach to see what the commotion was, and Lewrie did the introductions. Either Caesare could not pronounce Tarrant and Gittings, or he did not care; they became Colonnello Inglese and Maggiore Inglese. Tarrant invited them all into his pavillion, the largest tent in the U-shaped encampment with the open end facing the sea and the beach. Even in late morning, the interior was stifling, though two sides had been rolled up and the fly was open. Glasses were produced, and some white wine chilled in a bucket of seawater was poured.
“Might I ask, Signore Caesare,” Colonel Tarrant began, “just how much damage did we do? We took to our boats before the fires really took hold.”
“Oh, Colonnello!” Caesare hooted. “Fort and tower is gone, when gunpowder blows up. Cannon buried in ruins, carriages burned. All of wood warehouses burned up, and Tropea people set fire to goods inside the others, so all is lost, and the damned Francesi left with nothing! Piedmontese Colonnello and half his ufficiali, great brutes and thieves, dead. I tell you half his soldati will be out in country? Was true, si? Three hundred in town, I learn after. Maybe a hundred run off to cathedral, beg the santuario, eh, sanctuary? Rest dead or wounded and some who throw guns away get killed by townspeople. They set the many fires, in revenge.
“But,” Caesare sobred, looking pained, “Piedmontese who come to town from looting in country take great revenge. Many firing squads, half-dozen at a time shot, bayonetted for having guns or swords. Much pity, uhm … great pity.”
“Damme, I knew we should have thrown those muskets into a fire!” Colonel Tarrant exclaimed, angered by the enemy response. “Put them in the boats you burned, Lewrie, or tossed them into the harbour. But, the locals were snatching them up as quickly as we piled them up.”
“Take away, next time, Colonnello,” Caesare suggested. “Corsican Rangers, Sicilian Volunteer reggimento need guns, even made by Francesi … and ammunition to fit them. My men and I need guns. To spy along coast is dangerous business without guns. You bring me guns, next time, I pay well. Signore Quill, he wishes guns to give to … partisans?”
“And is there a partisan movement over on the mainland?” Lewrie asked.
“Ah, not so much, yet, signores,” Caesare had to confess. “One time, Signore Quill get four dozen muskets, molti cartridge, pouches, say he gets letter from man in Maratea, up coast, who say he have hundred fighters eager, but no guns. I go meet him on beach with muskets, but there is only one old man in Neapolitan army coat, a priest, ten men, and one donkey. They take away two dozen, could not carry more, then we never hear from him again. I think the Francesi and their Maresciallo Murat, a great Devil, scare the people too much. Not like my Siciliani! Francesi try to come here, every man, woman, child cut their throats in their sleep! Never make a Sicilian angry, no no! The Corsican vendetta is nothing to ours!”
“One thing that struck me as odd, Signore Caesare,” Colonel Tarrant said as he made free with the semi-chilled bottle of wine, “was so much wealth, so many remarkable things stored in those warehouses, silver, silks, fine art, grains, and foodstuffs. What was it doing there in an out-of-the-way place like Tropea?”
“Ah, Colonnello,” Caesare said with a wordly-wise smile, “I tell you Piedmontese Colonnello and his ufficiali are great thieves? Send loot to their homes, their banks. Take away food and wine and pasta, then sell it back to locals at great profit, and people pay or starve. Their soldati feast like old Roman emperors, the pigs.
“You will see the same everywhere you strike,” Caesare went on, “I hope you keep some for yourselves, si? Heh heh heh. Now, there is a place I will scout where molti boats can be burned, no fort or guns, but warehouses, rich warehouses, si? Garrison is Tedesci. Germans.”
“Might put up a stouter defence than Piedmontese,” Gittings said.
“Is it urgent?” Lewrie asked. “As you see, Signore Caesare, one of our transports is off to Malta for fresh provisions, mail, and the regiment’s dependents.”
“Dependents?” Caesare repeated, one syllable at a time, with a quizzical look on hi
s face.
“Their families,” Lewrie said. “Wives, sweethearts, and children.”
“Ah, the famiglia!” Caesare brightened. “You Inglesie,” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “Go to war with wives and babies? Straordinario!”
“Well, not so many,” Tarrant said, describing the lot drawing, and army limitations on the numbers allowed. “In the meantime, we mean to shift our encampment closer to Milazzo, where there is a stream for fresh water, timber for sale, and slightly better shelter for Lewrie’s ships. Show him, Gittings.”
“Ah, si,” Caesare said after poring over a copy of the Major’s hand-drawn map. “Bello! Is very good anchoring there, and I can help. I am knowing molti people in Milazzo and Barcellona, ones who sell the fresh fish, goats, and sheep, milk for bambini, fruit and vegetables. Timber? Wood to build with?”
“We thought that with our dependents arriving, we’d lay floors and risers to get the tents a bit off the ground,” Tarrant told him, “raise some walls for semi-permanent huts, roof trusses, and use our tents for the roof coverings.”
“I get you all the wood you want, signores!” Caesare boasted. “Nails and tools, and workers, too, if you wish! I know everybody!”
“Well, that would be wonderful if you could, Signore Caesare,” Tarrant cautiously allowed, not willing to leap into an agreement at once. “We could break camp and march down there tomorrow morning, and allow you time to speak with your friends and associates to make the arrangements for supplying us. Ehm, how much might they ask for their goods, though?” he asked, worried about his regimental chest funds.
There goes his new mess silver, Lewrie cynically thought; Arm and a leg sound about right?
“Milazzo and Barcellona are poor towns, signores,” Caesare explained with his hands out as if pleading. “A little amount of coin is going a long way, comprendere? New customers, soldati, the famiglia, and Capitano Inglese’s sailors make a big market they not have before. You be very welcome, great friends! Allies!”
“Just so long as they don’t rob us blind,” Major Gittings complained. “We’re already surrounded by thieves.”
“The ignorant, greedy paisani?” Caesare spat, then laughed. “You have no trouble in new place, signores, I guarantee it. Caesare say no stealing, then there is none. Mention my name anywhere in the East of Sicily, say you are friend of Don Julio Caesare, and all the doors open to you! Your camp will be safe, and your famiglia will be safe when you go to make the great raid! I cut the balls off anyone who steals, or bothers you, and make them eat them! Hah hah hah! We drink to bargain, si? Drink to promise!”
And drink they did, though they had to open a second bottle of white wine, one not cooled in the tub of salt water.
Who is this bugger? Is he that powerful? Lewrie wondered.
“Ah, is good,” Caesare said after tossing every drop down his throat and holding out his glass for more. “Capitano, I wonder, though. As I say, Milazzo is poor, and they have no way to build big boats,” he said to Lewrie. “Little rowing boats, only, si? And, I have very few boats that I can use to seek places to strike for you, and go ashore to get the information you need.”
“Yayss?” Lewrie drawled in wariness, sure that his goat would be got.
“If you give Milazzo two of the big fishing boats so they can go far out to sea and catch more fish, they, and all your people eat better,” Caesare wheedled with a wide smile, and some humble shrugs. “And I could use just one more boat that comes from Basilicata region to spy for you all. You give me all three, and I can assure you that the timber, the nails, and all you and Colonnello Inglese need or want will cost you nothing, and the food and wine, the fruits and the vegetables will be very inexpensive. A bargain?” he said, holding out a hand to be shaken.
“Oh, well I say, Lewrie!” Colonel Tarrant marvelled with delight at the offer. “What d’ye say to that, sir? It’s not as if they would be worth much at the Prize Court on Malta. What use would you have made of them, anyway?”
I think I’m bein’ fucked, Lewrie thought; but I don’t see how, yet. There’s something about this bugger that’s … shifty.
“Oh, why not,” Lewrie said, surrendering to the greedy looks of the others. “Aye, all three fishing boats are yours, Don Julio.”
“Bello, bello!” Caesare cried in joy, shaking Lewrie’s hand.
Their meeting broke up soon after that, Caesare vowing that he would sail instanter to Milazzo and lay the groundwork, whilst some of his spare hands aboard his own boat would make sail and take away the former prizes. Lewrie sourly took note of the fact that Caesare’s crew suddenly tripled in size, as if many of them had been down below, out of sight ’til he’d struck his lop-sided bargain.
Colonel Tarrant offered to dine Lewrie in, and he accepted, telling his boat crew to return to Vigilance ’til he wig-wagged a signal for them to return for him, so they would not miss out on their own mid-day meal, and the first rum issue of the day.
Just before a dessert of berries and sweet bisquits, a rider approached the camp, was challenged, and asked to see the Inglese Capitano “Luey”. With a sigh, and a quick explanation to his fellow diners that foreigners never got his name right, Lewrie rose and went out to see Quill’s lad, Fiorello, on a saddled mule.
“From Signore Quill, signore,” Fiorello said, pulling a sealed letter from a bag on his hip, where he also kept a long sausage which he also produced, and bit into.
“Thankee, lad, ehm … grazie, Fiorello,” Lewrie said, delighting the lad that his name was remembered.
Under the pole-stretched fly of Tarrant’s pavillion, he opened the letter to read it.
Sir Alan,
I am in receipt of the results of your initial raid, and I must say it appears to have been a smashing success, which I shall praise to the skies far and wide, though not drawing too much attention to the choice of Tropea as your first landing, should anyone in London look too closely into the town’s use as an entrepot for smuggled goods in addition to the loot amassed by the Piedmontese commandant and his officers.
Tropea, you see, the choice of which I was unaware, is, or rather was, controlled by one of Julio Caesare’s principal competitors in bed with the Piedmontese commandant, and given protection for a share of the profits on both sides of the bargain in smuggling to Sicily and the province of Basilicata, and the luxury items stolen from the wealthiest families of said province.
Do watch Caesare like a hawk, for he is one of the greatest scoundrels, but alas, a most useful one! Now that he has ascendancy over the trade in smuggled goods, he may be satisfied, but I fear that, given the situation as it exists, he will use us as much as we will make use of him!
I knew it, I bloody knew it! I felt he wasn’t straight! Lewrie fumed in silence. This revelation was nothing to share with Tarrant, his officers, or Admiral Charlton in his written report of the action.
He’s made me … us!… his partners in crime! Lewrie goggled.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Lieutenant Fletcher had returned from Malta with fresh provisions, more war matériel that Tarrant had added to his “absolutely essential” list, the 94th’s dependents, and mail. Lewrie could look shoreward from his stern gallery or the poop deck at almost any hour of the day and see smoke from laundry cauldrons, feminine clothing drying on lines between trees, and children shrieking round the tent lines at play, or running along the beach, and splashing into the surf.
“And how was Mister Fletcher’s voyage, Mister Upchurch?” Lewrie asked the Midshipman who had gone over to Bristol Lass to collect their mail.
“I gathered that he’d rather have carried cattle, or soldiers, sir,” Upchurch said with a sniff of humour, “both are less noisy, or disorderly than the regiment’s wives and children. Less messy, too.”
Mail, now! News from home; at last!
After leaving Portsmouth for Malta, weeks before, Vigilance had sailed into a figurative black cavern, and the ship, and her consorts, had departed Valletta Harbour bef
ore a mail packet could arrive with anything for them. Whilst still at Portsmouth, Lewrie had received at least two letters a week from Jessica, his father, family, or long-time friends, but, after departing there had been nothing. Likewise, Lewrie was sure that Jessica must have thought that he had sailed off the edge of the world, for the long “sea letters” he’d written her had been delayed ’til arrival at Malta, and might take weeks more to reach her. He’d sent off another flurry of letters when Bristol Lass went to Malta, in hopes that those made amends, hoping Jessica could inure herself to a naval wife’s lot, so unlike the same-day deliverance of letters sent cross town by footmen, maids, or neighbourhood lads.
Now, he had such a high-piled feast of letters that he didn’t know where to begin, looking for the dates on which they had been dispatched. Was Jessica that orderly? Unfortunately, no, so he just dove in, tearing open the first that came to hand.
“Bisquit sings?” he muttered aloud. “He likes music?”
… the drollest thing, dearest Alan! Do recall that I learned to play a harpsichord which we used at St. Anselm’s, and, quite by chance I was able to obtain one, used of course, but in fine condition for only £60 from your friend Clotworthy Chute’s emporium. Harpsichords are rapidly going out of Fashion, piano fortes are all the rage, but I cannot abide how loud and clangy they strike my ears. It looks grand in the drawing room, and, when I and my lady friends had a tea, we gathered round it to play some songs. Wonder of wonders, Bisquit, Rembrandt, and the kitchen terrier, Bully, came running to sit and marvel. Bisquit, though, began to croon whilst the other dogs shewed less interest. When I stopped, he whimpered and yipped for me to continue! Perhaps it is only your penny whistle that irritates his ears, but he seems quite enamoured of Music, especially the slower Ballads.
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