A Fine Retribution

by Dewey Lambdin

  Stifling his longing to be an actual part of that squadron, Lewrie went down from the poop to the quarterdeck, just in time to hear the Sailing Master, Mr. Wickersham, express his own feelings.

  “Here we are, poor relations,” Wickersham said with a cackle, “only had in at Christmas for scraps, like a cack-handed, red-headed bastard step-child, haw haw!”

  “Most apt, sir,” the First Officer, Lieutenant Farley, seconded. “Just going to say. Dear as I wish to be part of that, it could be worse. We could end up on blockade duty. Plod, plod, plod!”

  “We’ll be the only ship close ashore of Locri, or Siderno, and we might be called upon to fire at shore targets, Mister Farley,” Lewrie told him, with his face stern in “proper Captain’s gloom” and a bit of ice in his tone. “Should the time call for it, I trust you’ll see that we shoot accurately, and take joy of it.”

  “Of course, sir,” a chastened Farley replied.

  “Duty well and gladly done,” Lewrie said as he went to his place at the windward bulwarks, “any duty, is satisfaction enough.”

  Even if I don’t believe a word of it, either, he told himself.

  Seven Bells of the Forenoon was struck, and a cheer went up as the gilt-trimmed red rum keg came up from below, accompanied by the Marine drummer and fifer.

  “Your chronometer and sextant, sir,” Deavers announced as he came from the great-cabins with a mahoghany box in each hand.

  “Ah, thankee, Deavers,” Lewrie said, opening the felt-lined chronometer box to test once more that the timepiece was ticking away, and tautly wound. Eight Bells would mark the beginning of any ship’s official day, and time to take Noon Sights. He compared the time on the chronometer to what his pocket watch said, and uttered a faint grunt as he reset his pocket watch. He’d spent several more pounds than he’d wished on it, but it still ran almost five minutes fast in a full day.

  The ship’s clerk’s office on the larboard side of the quarterdeck had become the chart space, and Lewrie went in there to pore over the chart of the Ionian Sea, following the trace of X’s along their course done by Dead Reckoning and the casts of the log since the last sun sight the day before. Near 38 degrees North and 17 degrees East already, out of sight of land or any coast watchers, he noted, within easy striking distance for when Admiral Charlton hoisted the Execute, which would order the packets of warships and transports off to their assigned targets, though that might not come ’til dusk, and all ships would have to stand off-and-on their assignments ’til dawn of the next day.

  Tapping an estimated position when all officers had taken their sights, Lewrie put the pencil away and went back to the quarterdeck to scan the skies, looking for bad omens in the weather. The chosen day could turn foul, another thing that soldiers never seemed to take into consideration. So far, so good, he decided. He rocked on the soles of his boots, impatiently, reviewing night signals in his mind, and the few he could expect the merchantmen to read, despite the notes he’d sent round to them. And would they obey his order to douse all taffrail lanthorns during the night as they closed the coast? Could they, without colliding, or straying too far afield as they stood off-and-on off Locri and Siderno?

  He determined that he would take a good, long nap after Noon Sights, before the order to disperse was hoisted, and before sundown, for he doubted if he’d get an un-troubled wink of sleep after.

  “Ready, gentlemen? Ready, you Mids?” the Sailing Master called out, and Lewrie got out his sextant.

  Eight Bells chimed. “Time, sirs! Time!”

  *   *   *

  Pre-dawn, and all was grey gloom, three-quarters of an hour to the first paler hints of sunup. Dark specters ghosted all round HMS Vigilance, what looked to be a frigate and two brig-sloops ghosting past to starboard, and three brig-sloops only guessed at to larboard, imagined by the white foam-froth of their bows’ mustachios, and wakes creaming down their flanks.

  “Can anyone make out the brigade’s transports?” Lieutenant Rutland demanded in frustration. “Are they still with us? Lord, trusting slack-wit civilians to do the Navy’s job is impossible!”

  “I think I can make out bow waves, sir,” Midshipman Randolph hesitantly said. “Well clear aft of us?”

  “Hard to tell,” the Sailing Master commented. “The sea’s got up since the end of the Middle Watch. Could be white-caps and white horses breaking.”

  “Take a good sniff, Mister Wickersham,” Lewrie suggested. “Does it smell fishier?” He inhaled deeply, himself, fearful that there was bad weather offshore, rolling down on them, which would abort the landings, if not the attacks on the enemy transport gatherings. Fish-rack smell came with a heavy storm, strong enough to stir the bottom, and a smell of fresh water meant rain and winds.

  “No, nought fishy, sir,” Wickersham slowly decided, “though I do get a whiff of rain in the offing.”

  “Christ!” Lewrie spat, under his breath.

  If the surf was up too high, sending boats ashore with soldiers in them could cost lives, and cancel the landings altogether. The frigates and sloops could do their jobs, and send armed parties into calmer harbour waters to cut out ships, or set fire to others, but there was no way that the troop transports could stand offshore waiting for better weather. Surprise would be lost, and God only knew how many French troops would swarm to the area during the delay, leaving them nothing to do but sail back to Messina and Milazzo.

  “Proper sunrise is when, Mister Wickersham?” Lewrie asked.

  “Half an hour from now, sir,” the Sailing Master said, checking his pocket watch in the light of the compass binnacle, then looking up to see if the skies were any lighter. Lewrie caught his eye and led him into the chart space for another peek at the Dead Reckoning marks since Midnight. A single stub candle burned, its weak glow barely illuminating the trail of X’s pencilled in after each cast of the log.

  “Twelve miles off the coast, perhaps a bit less,” Lewrie said after stepping it off with a brass divider. “A bit quicker than I like, even if we’ve been under reduced sail all night. If we didn’t have to wait and let the warships clear the harbours first, we could almost put the troops ashore round Seven in the morning, a proper dawn raid.”

  “No real chance of surprise, even so, sir,” Wickersham said as he scratched at his unshaven chin. “We’d have to go in after Midnight for that, the ships totally darkened, so no one ashore sees a thing ’til the barges are in the surf line, and with an ungainly mob like ours, I doubt it could ever be done.”

  “We did it in Spain, a time or two,” Lewrie told him as they left the chart space, “but that was with only one transport. I wish we could manage that, someday.”

  “If wishes were horses, sir, we’d all be riding thoroughbreds,” Wickersham replied with a brief chuckle. “It is getting lighter.”

  “Aye,” Lewrie agreed, heading up to the poop deck for a better view, scanning about fretfully at the sky, the sea state, the faint hint of the long commissioning pendant high aloft that would show the strength and direction of the wind as it streamed, and the long paler streak on the Eastern horizon that presaged the dawn.

  In the few minutes spent in the chart space, the skies had become lighter, indeed. Lewrie could make out the frigates and sloops ahead of his ship as they made more sail and began to stride away for their bombardments, and once again he felt a pang of envy that those ships and their crews would be having a lot more destructive fun than he would. He looked aft and could espy his transports hobby-horsing over long-set waves, bows high for a long moment, then bows dipping into grey-white foam. It still smelled like fresh water on the wind, but the wind was still steady, not gusting, and the long, rolling waves did not clash in confusion. There were white-caps and white horses, but the sea didn’t look threatening, yet.

  Yet! He crossed fingers against the worst.

  Even further astern and off the starboard quarter, he could make out the lead ships in that gaggle of transports carrying the brigade. Looking closer with his tel
escope, they even appeared in somewhat good order.

  Perhaps this’ll work, after all, he thought, looking forwards down Vigilance’s length, able to make out details that could only be guessed at a half-hour before. And to the East, the long pale streak low to the horizon had taken on an odd, pale lemony colour, revealing a greyish overcast above it. There was no hint of the ominous red that the old adage warned against.

  A grey, gloomy, cloudy day, he surmised: it may rain, but there isn’t a real storm in the offing. Please God, no storm!

  Four Bells of the Morning Watch were struck, and the Bosun and his Mates piped hands to their breakfast, a Banyan Day meal of oatmeal, cheese, bisquit, and small beer, and people who had been idling on deck in the fresh air trooped below to join their eight-man messes, some of them appointed as messman for the day, the ones who would go to the galley to fetch everything back to their mates.

  Was he hungry? Not at the moment, but Lewrie doubted if he’d eat; by the time he usually took his breakfast, the transports would be coming to anchor, and the troops would be going over the side into their barges, and there would be no time for it, later. Perhaps he’d stow some of those spicy Sicilian sausages in his coat pockets, and munch on them on the sly.

  “Dawn, sir!” the Sailing Master shouted up at him.

  And anyone awake, or on guard, ashore can see us plain, Lewrie grimly thought.

  *   *   *

  “Did you ever see the like, ha ha!” Lieutenant Farley cried, in awe of the sight. “It’s like the entire coast is burning!”

  Indeed it seemed so, and not just at Locri and Siderno. Their intended targets were being pounded with roundshot, broadside after broadside. Frail fishing boats in the harbours were being shot right through, and the coastal trading ships anchored in the ports were being boarded, sailed out as prizes, or set afire by armed cutting-out parties from the frigates and brig-sloops. Stray shot was slamming into houses, taverns, and shops along the waterfronts, and the stone quays. Great, greyish-white cloudbanks of gunsmoke rose into the sky, joined by the swirling, rising darker grey and black smoke from the burning boats, towering high above Locri and Siderno.

  Further up the coast to the East, as far as Monasterace Marina, and down the coast almost to Cape Spartivento, huge palls of fire and smoke rose from every small, sleepy seaport town where the French had gathered boats and small ships. Admiral Charlton’s warships ranged as close as they dared risk their bottoms, methodically eliminating the threat of a future invasion of Sicly, coming to anchor and concentrating their broadsides on anything afloat, then loosing their sailors and Marines to row into the harbours and cut out or torch them. And if there had been any artillery ashore that had traded fire with them, it had not lasted long, or had not been there in the first place, for no one aboard Vigilance could spot a single gun in or near Locri.

  Hell on Earth was what it looked like, and the stink of burning ships and flaming wood mingled with the rotten-egg reek of gunpowder even half a mile offshore where Vigilance and the transports were anchored.

  “Damned near Biblical,” Lieutenant Greenleaf commented. “Like a forest fire I saw once on Nova Scotia. Hellish-satisfying, and confusion to the French, hah! Good show, hey, Rutland?”

  “Mmm,” was the dour, taciturn Second Officer’s reply.

  “A hard man to please,” Greenleaf said to the rest who stood on the quarterdeck.

  “Springs rigged on the cables, Mister Farley?” Lewrie asked.

  “Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Farley answered, drawn from his own enjoyment of the scene. “Though I see nothing to shoot at, so far. If something turns up, we’ll be ready. We can range the top of the nearest ridge quite easily, which Mister Wickersham says is about one mile off.”

  “Very good, then,” Lewrie said, looking at his watch, and then at the beach ashore. What was going on in Locri proper lay well to the East, and would not hinder the landings, except for the haze of smoke that would limit visibility. The orders had been to give the warships an hour to do their work, and that hour was almost up.

  He raised his telescope for a better view ashore, wondering how people scrabbled out a living in such an arid-looking environ. Large rocks, dry and dusty soil, and very little green to be seen but for olive groves, low wind-stunted and wind-sculpted bushes, and small trees that put Lewrie in mind of the maqui woods he’d seen on Corsica.

  There were people above the beach! Two-wheeled carts, hand-carts, donkeys and mules, and a rare horse or two, sprinkled like raisins in a duff of people streaming out of Locri. He looked closer but could not spot any of those small figures in French blue uniforms.

  “The Devil with it!” he growled. “Mister Farley? Signal to the transports to man their boats, we’ve waited long enough. Bosun, pipe our shore parties to stand to and man their boats.”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Lieutenant Farley said, yelling for the Midshipman in charge of signals to hoist the prepared signal away.

  “Away you go, Whitehead,” Lewrie cried down to the waist where Vigilance’s Marines stood under arms. “Good luck, and good hunting.”

  “Aye, sir!” Captain Whitehead roared back.

  Lieutenant Rutland and the Fourth Officer, Lieutenant Grace, shook hands with their compatriots, then trotted down the ladderway to the waist to take command of the boats and the armed sailors who would augment the landing, one with a grave expression, and one with a boyish glee, accompanied by the Midshipmen they had selected to assist them. The ones who would remain aboard jeered them enviously.

  “The transports acknowledge the hoist, sir,” Lieutenant Farley said.

  “Very well, strike it,” Lewrie snapped.

  Down it came briskly, the signal to Execute, and all three transports burst into a flurry of action, bow men, armed oarsmen, Mids, and Cox’ns scrambling down the boarding nets first, followed by a flood of red-coated men of the 94th. As soon as the barges had been filled, they were rowed clear in loose gaggles, shuffling themselves into a ragged line-abreast, rocking and tossing on the scend of the sea and the rushing of the waves beneath them. An officer from the largest transport, Spaniel, stood and waved a red pendant, and all eighteen barges began to stroke for the beach half a mile away.

  As soon as the fleeing townspeople saw that, they goaded their livestock and draught animals into a panicked rush, and people broke into full-out runs or fast trots.

  “Go, granny, go!” a Midshipman hooted at the sight of the older women in their monotonous black gowns and head scarves trying to run with sacks of their most precious belongings on their backs, or balanced on their heads, surrounded by sheep and goats flooding past them with bleats and the tinkle of bellwethers’ bells.

  Lewrie was peering shoreward, as well, though his gaze was on the surf that was breaking on the beach, trying to discern if it was too high for the boats to breast, and make safe landings. On the way to their anchorages, in shallower waters, there had been more white-caps and white horses as offshore waves had met the sea bottom, and a slight increase in the wind that had sprung up, driving those waves to break in white-crested rollers. As the barges merged with the shore he held his breath, expecting the worst, transfixed by the sight of the troop-laden boats stroking hard over a disturbed strip of white foam, riding the breakers, soaring atop them, and…!

  “Aha!” he cried as the barges drove ashore at last, oars held aloft like spears at the last moment as they grounded, bow men leaping into foam that surged shin-high or knee-high to steady the boats, and oarsmen going overside to steady them at right angles to the beach. A moment later and it was soldiers who stood and tottered to the bows to jump over and slosh through the surf to the hard-packed sand, scattering shoals of sea birds who took wing and complained of it in mews and squawks. Up the beach the soldiers went, onto the looser deep dry sand, to the overwash barrows and low sea grasses, congealing from a loose pack into two-deep ranks by companies. The King’s Colour and the Regimental Colour were freed from their leather cundums and fluttered to
the breeze. There was a young drummer and two fifers dressed in the green facing colours of the others’ uniforms, and Lewrie could not hear them, but the drummer raised his sticks and began to beat as the battalion began to march up to the coast road, with the Light Company out as skirmishers ahead of the colours, which sight made the villagers begin to gallop even further and faster away.

  “There’s our part of it done, sir,” Lieutenant Greenleaf announced with a whoosh of relief, “and it seems good, so far. Now all we can do is twiddle our thumbs ’til they return.”

  The road into Locri was now empty of villagers and townspeople, who were well on their way to Bovalino in search of haven, though the pall of smoke rising down there offered scant promise. The 94th was making their way towards the town, and the arms and supply depot behind it, and in Lewrie’s ocular, it appeared that Colonel Tarrant was setting his men into two columns abreast of each other, three companies in one further into the scrub and cactus, two closer to the road, but all angling out inland, with the Light Company far out in front in pairs, at least an hundred yards in advance of the columns. He scanned to the right and found his Marines and sailors right on the road, Marines in loose order, and the armed sailors shuffling along behind them like so many farmers headed to the fields for a day of reaping, muskets held on the backs of their necks like scythes or rakes.

  The fires in Locri’s harbour were still raging, though the warships had mostly ceased fire. A few more of the most seaworthy enemy transports, worth more at the Prize Court, were sailing out of port in British possession, short-tacking in gross confusion and barely avoiding collisions, and Lewrie smiled as he imagined the curses being shouted by the officers or Mids in charge of them.