A Fine Retribution

by Dewey Lambdin

  He lowered his telescope and let out a long breath, satisfied in a way that things seemed to be going well, so far, but frustrated that he had no hand in it, and must stand by, pace, grumble, and watch the hours go by with no word of what was happening ashore.

  He turned his gaze back up the coast to Siderno, searching for Caruthers’s brigade. He could make out the anchored ships, some thinly manned boats rowing back and forth, and Lewrie thought that he might have seen one regiment’s set of colours on the beach West of the town, but the smoke made that speculative.

  Bloody man, Lewrie thought, reaching into a side pocket of his uniform to pull out a sausage and take a bite; He doesn’t have enough boats to get all his troops ashore in one go, and the transports that hold his third regiment don’t look as if they’ve even entered harbour yet!

  He chewed, swallowed, then roared aloft. “Mastheads! What can you see at Siderno?”

  “Deck, there!” a lookout in the mainmast cross-trees shouted back. “Soldiers ashore … two sets o’ colours! Boats workin’ in-an’-out!”

  “Can you make out our signal party?” Lewrie demanded.

  To make Sub-Lieutenant Severance’s improvised signal yard more visible, he had taken a red broad pendant ashore and affixed it to the tip of the yard to mark its position prior to hoisting any messages.

  “No, sir, can’t make it out, yet!” the lookout bawled back. “Too much smoke!”

  “They’re not brewing tea, are they, sir?” Lieutenant Greenleaf japed.

  “They’re what, no more than three miles away?” Lieutenant Farley fretted. “We should be able to see something!”

  “Different operation than ours,” Greenleaf opined, “perhaps they have nothing to say to us.”

  Lewrie had been about to snap at Greenleaf, to tell him to stop his gob, but his second observation gave Lewrie pause to consider it.

  He and Caruthers were supposed to co-operate, act in tandem as part of a single attack, but, minor though the separation was, they were on different pages. Vigilance and the 94th Foot were junior partners to Caruthers’s larger assaults, a street show to the drama playing in a proper theatre! Caruthers would only send a message if his force had to be bailed out of trouble. The man was on a different errand, and doing it slowly, too slowly, no matter how aggresively he had talked at the meetings about quickly clearing Siderno and marching on those depots. Perhaps the troops already ashore, not yet ready to march off, really were using their idleness to brew tea!

  To Hell with ’em, Lewrie sourly thought; we’ll take care of our objective, and bugger what he’s doing with his!

  “Deck, there!” a lookout called down. “Gunfire! There’s enemy in Locri, and lots o’ shootin’!”

  Lewrie raised his telescope and saw yellow-white spurts of powder smoke in the town, and behind it, followed a second or two later by the crackle of musketry. His Marines and armed sailors were firing at the outskirts of Locri, and there was powder smoke forming in the windows of some houses either side of the road.

  Seventy, eighty men in town? Lewrie scoffed; What in the Devil have we walked into?

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Marines and sailors rushed forward, first the sailors in one large mob, then Whitehead and his Marines, bayonets quickly fixed, by tens, pressing their attack on the houses ’til they were right up to the walls, jabbing muskets in the windows where the enemy troops were firing, jabbing with their bayonets. Lieutenants Rutland and Grace were sending their sailors down the fronts and backs of the houses they were attacking, finding other windows, then doors which were kicked in, so men with cutlasses and musket butts could rush in. In a furious minute, it was over, and men in French uniforms were being herded out of the houses, hands raised in surrender, being prodded by bayonet points. Lewrie let out a breath in relief after he scanned the ground, and could not see any of his men down. As if to reassure the ship that all was well, Captain Whitehead stuck a white tablecloth on his sword and waved it high in the air, wigwagging back and forth, and Lewrie could almost make out the sound of a “Huzzah!”

  There had been several larger volleys beyond the houses, back of the town, the crackly crash of at least one hundred muskets going off in the same second, then silence as a pale pall of spent powder rose and drifted away on the breeze. A party from the 94th came into sight, shoving and prodding about a dozen French soldiers out to the road to join the other prisoners, and the officer in charge of them also performed a great, victorious wave to the ship, On the tip of his sword, he lifted up an enemy shako.

  “Think Locri’s ours,” Lewrie said with a smile as he saw his Marines and sailors going into the town, warily, with muskets held low and aimed at every doorway and window, to search every building for more enemy soldiers, on their way to the quays to complete the destruction that the warships had wrought. A small party stayed behind on the road to guard the prisoners, no more than twenty in all, who were forced to sit in the dust with their hands behind their heads.

  “There will be a grand trade in souvenirs tonight,” Greenleaf prophecied with a laugh, “once our lads’ve picked the prisoners clean. I’m hoping for an officer’s sword to send home, myself, though it’ll cost me a pretty penny.”

  “It’ll cost your family a pretty penny, too, Charles, when the postage comes due,” Lieutenant Farley reminded him.

  Lewrie pulled out his sausage again, picked some pocket lint off it, and took several satisfying bites to make up for the breakfast he’d missed. He could hear no more firing, not even a single gunshot from the town, so he felt safe in assuming that all the French … Genoese, really … were eliminated, and almost empty of panicked citizens.

  “Deck, there!” a lookout called out. “They’s big fires breakin’ out back o’ th’ town! Acres an’ acres o’ tents are burnin’! An’ our sodjers is a’comin’ back!”

  Lewrie pulled out his pocket watch, and had to smile once more, for the 94th had torched the arms and supply depot they’d been assigned to destroy, and it had all been done in a little over an hour since the barges had grounded on the beach. In another hour, they would all be back aboard their transports, and his little squadron would be ready to hoist anchors and put back to sea; and if God was just he could boast in his report of the action that not a man had been wounded or lost!

  Feeling smug, he went up to the poop deck for a better view down towards Siderno, to see how Caruthers was faring, and he could not help feeling superior. The gunsmoke from the warships’ broadsides had long ago dispersed, and the smoke from the many burning ships had subsided to thin wisps, so he could finally make out details.

  The rowing boats were still shuttling back and forth from the transports to the beaches and back. The ships carrying the third regiment were still pacing up and down the coast, unable to enter the harbour for one reason or another, and he could see the colours of Caruthers’s other two regiments further inland, but the arms and supply depot they were assigned to destroy had yet to be set ablaze; he could almost see faded rows of tents stretched out in long lines, almost a square form, protecting crates, kegs, and loaded waggons from the elements, with tiny red-coated figures among them as if they were taking an inventory before they did their duty, so the totals would impress when their report was submitted to Army superiors!

  “Oh, come on, you cunny-thumbed bastards!” Lewrie groused. “Do get on with it! Are ye shoppin’?”

  “It would appear that Army work is much like church work, sir,” Lieutenant Greenleaf sniggered. “It does go slow!”

  “Damn my eyes, are the brigade’s troops inland of the depot?” Lewrie fumed. “What is he playin’ at? And where’d they get horses?”

  Wee, dark brown forms could be seen, mounted men in uniforms of senior officers Lewrie guessed from the hints of gold lace and bright gimp. Other wee mounted figures were dashing about between the depot and the nearest ridge, putting Lewrie in mind of an impromptu steeple-chase on captured mounts, though Don Julio’s spies had not reported any cavalry anywh
ere along the coast.

  “Aha, sir!” Lieutenant Farley exclaimed after a long squint with his telescope. “I think I’ve discovered our signalmen, at last.”

  “Where away?” Lewrie snapped.

  “Atop a tall house, sir,” Farley said, “just to the left of the town church. See it?”

  After a moment, Lewrie spotted it, too. “Aye, I do.”

  “Damn my eyes, is he showing Number Ten?” Lieutenant Farley cried in surprise. “Mister Ingham, your signals code book, if you please. Is that Number Ten?”

  “Ehm, aye, sir,” the Midshipman said after fumbling through his book. “Enemy in Sight, sir.”

  “Enemy in Sight?” Lewrie gawped aloud. “What enemy? There was no reports of more than a company in Siderno, and they’ve surely done for them, by now—”

  “Another signal, sir!” Midshipman Ingham interrupted. “Need G … N … R … S. That’s down, and … Gunners? Numeral Two … B … A … T … Repeater. Batt, batteries? H … O … W. God knows what that means, sir.”

  “Howitzers,” Lewrie spat. “Show them Understand, then haul it down, and make Unable, and Evacuate. D’ye have t’spell that out?”

  “Ehm, how about Unable, then Recall, sir,” Ingham suggested.

  “Add Immediate to Recall,” Lewrie ordered, then shouted as if Caruthers could hear him several miles away, “Set the God-damned depot afire and get the Hell out, you shit for brains!”

  Ingham hoisted the signal, reported that the shore signal yard had struck theirs, then, a minute later, read out their new hoist as “Enemy in Sight … Need G … N … gunners, sir!”

  “What in the world?” Lieutenant Greenleaf puzzled as he directed his telescope back to the beaches and transports for a second. “They are still fetching troops from the ships, sir, as if they have no intention to withdraw. Spoiling for a battle, if you ask me.”

  “What do we do, sir?” Lieutenant Farley asked, perturbed. “We can’t just watch them get knackered.”

  “No, we can’t, dammit,” Lewrie seethed through gritted teeth. “Repeat our signal, Mister Ingham, and add Advise to it. Do we have a strongly advise?”

  “Don’t think so, sir, unless we spell it out,” Ingham replied.

  “Advise, Burn, Immediate Recall,” Lewrie fumed.

  “Aye, sir,” the Mid said, hustling aft to the flag lockers and halliards. Long minutes later, the shore signal yard replied, and Lewrie could read it from the deck. Unable … Need … G … N … R … S.

  “Just God-damn it,” he raged, “and God-damn him!”

  He took a deep breath, held it, then let it out in a whoosh, thinking hard. He looked shoreward, and was relieved to see the troops of the 94th formed up on the beach by companies once again, marching by twos down to the barges, ready to re-embark. He could see Colonel Tarrant with the Colours, which were being furled round their poles and re-inserted into their leather cundums. Round the houses where the enemy soldiers had engaged his men, a shambling mob of sailors and a smarter column of Marines were just leaving Locri, and there were new fires in the town. One Marine by the drummer and fifers paraded with a broom held aloft, an old sign of a victorious clean sweep.

  “Mister Farley,” Lewrie said, striving for a calmer voice, “I’d admire did you signal the transports to hurry loading their troops, so they can get out to sea at once. Send Recall to our people. But, as soon as the Marines are back aboard, you will take command of the ship, while I will take charge of the armed sailors and our boats.”

  “Sir?” Farley asked, puzzled.

  “We’ve gunners among our landing party, enough to manage those howitzers Caruthers reported,” Lewrie went on, “a few of the guns, anyway, and … unfortunately, I’m the only person here who knows the first bloody thing about howitzers, and fused explosive shells, so … if I can’t order, or bludgeon that miserable, cack-handed moron to get his people off the beaches, and set fire to that bloody depot, I’ll have to support him … damn his blood!”

  At that moment, Locri’s depot, which by then was burning furiously, began to explode when the fires reached the tons of stored powder. Pre-made artillery cartridges lit off, thousands of them together, and cartridges with roundshot attached, those which would propel canister or grapeshot, went flying into the air like a royal fireworks trailing smoke like errant Congreve rockets. Hundreds of thousands of paper musket cartridges flared up yellow-white, crackling like millions of burning twigs or whole cauldrons full of bursting maize kernels, and the ground shook as if God was stomping his feet!

  Flaming powder kegs that did not blow up in sympathetic blasts whirled skyward, staves crushed inwards, and tumbling over and over to whirl trails of fire before they exploded high in the air or fell all about, coming down on the seaport of Locri like a bombardment to crash through roof tiles and set the entire town alight.

  The crews of the ship and the transports, the sailors on the beach, and the soldiers filing into the boats, stopped to give great cheers, mixed with “Oohs and Ahhs,” though some yelped when kegs and flaming debris fell near the filled boats on their way out.

  “Deavers!” Lewrie shouted through the open door to his cabins. “Round up my Ferguson musket, the pair of Mantons, and see if you can find that wood canteen, and fill it with cool tea!”

  “Tea, sir?” Deavers called back from within.

  “I have to go ashore!” Lewrie took time to explain, “Hurry!”

  Vigilance’s boats were coming alongside, and the ship’s Marines were tentatively standing in half-crouches amidships of them, ready and eager to get back aboard. Lewrie went to the bulwarks to shout down.

  “Mister Rutland, Mister Grace, keep the sailors and boat crews aboard,” he ordered. “We will be rowing up the coast to the nearest beach where the brigade landed. We’ve more work to do!”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Lieutenant Rutland replied, calmly, as if surprises did not faze him; Lieutenant Grace just looked slack-jawed.

  Deavers, Dasher, and Turnbow all came boiling out of the cabins with his weapons and accoutrements, and Lewrie hurriedly hung cartridge pouches, priming flasks, and the full canteen over his shoulders.

  “The Ferguson and the pistols are loaded, but not primed, sir,” Deavers said, standing back after helping him. “Fourty rounds for the musket are in the black pouch, fourty paper cartridges for your pistols are in the brown one, and both priming powder flasks are full. I put the tea in the canteen, but there wasn’t all that much left, so I topped it up with some ginger beer, sir.”

  “Capital, Deavers,” Lewrie said with a forced smile, “I thank you. You lads always do your best for me. Keep Chalky and the bunny happy whilst I’m away. I should be back aboard in a few hours.”

  “Thought our job was done, sir,” Dasher said, pointing to the massive cloud of smoke rising above Locri, and the tongues of flame that licked upwards almost as high as the ship’s main top.

  “Down the coast, to help the Army,” Lewrie said, going to the nearest boarding nets, waiting for the Marines to finish their scrambles up. “Mister Farley?” he shouted to the quarterdeck. “Once the transports are ready to up-anchor, take Vigilance to sea with them, but fetch-to or re-anchor off the closest beach this side of Siderno, and await our return.”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Lieutenant Farley replied, “Ehm … side party?” he called out, unsure if there was a Navy ceremony for a Captain’s departure in such an odd way.

  The Bosun, Mister Gore, stepped to the bulwarks on the larboard sail-tending gangway and raised his silver call to his mouth as Lewrie swung a leg over.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Mister Gore,” Lewrie admonished him. “Do save it for when I come back aboard the proper way.”

  “Er … aye aye, Cap’m sir,” Gore said, with a nervous cough.

  Now, how do I get down this bloody thing? Lewrie wondered as he straddled the bulwark, looking down into the waiting barge below that contained Lieutenant Grace and Midshipman Chenery, armed sailors from the landing party, and oarsmen,
all of them looking up expectantly. The starboard rowers held the bottom of the net to tension and steady it, and to keep the barge alongside.

  Lewrie’s booted foot sought a square in the net, for a starter, put his weight on the horizontal cross-rope, and he swung the other leg over, fingers groping for hand-holds. The net lay so close to the bulwark that he had to fumble lower before getting firm grips. Then, he found that boot soles would slip right off if he didn’t cock his feet toes-down and catch his boot heels on the supporting rope.

  This is harder than it looks, he told himself as he lowered himself a foot or so: It looked good, on paper. Oh, God, please don’t let me fall in the boat and break my damned neck, fall in the water and drown … or look as stupid and clumsy as I think I do!

  He couldn’t swim a stroke, he’d never learned, but then most of his crew couldn’t swim, either, and he suspected that his Marines and the men of the 94th were in the same situation.

  We haven’t drowned any of them, yet, so … maybe I won’t, he tried to cheer himself; Oh, shit!

  It was harder than it looked, for every time he lowered himself his sword hilt or the drag of his scabbard caught on something. So did the butts of the pistols shoved into his coat’s side pockets. So did the cartridge pouches strapped cross his chest, and every time he let go with his left hand to find another rope to grasp, the sling of his musket threatened to slide off his shoulder, and the faint rolling of the ship, the scend of the sea that lifted and dropped the boat, and the tension of the net, that canteen full of tea and ginger beer swung wildly about, spanking him on his buttocks.

  He looked down, once, and gave that up as a bad go, for the boat didn’t seem any closer for all his efforts, but the sea did, and if he fell, his weapons and accoutrements would drag him right down.

  How long, Oh, Lord! he thought, scrabbling for new hand-holds as he found new places to put his feet, cursing the naval architects who designed ships with so much tumblehome above the gunwales, for the net lay almost flat against the ship’s sides, and the sides of his boot soles were of more avail.