A Fine Retribution

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Better now than half an hour ago,” Lewrie told him. “Nobody could prime a musket, much less these guns. We’ll have to destroy them, spike them, of course. I’ll be damned if we roll them back into the depot.”

  “Can’t be spiked, sir,” Rutland informed him. “The vents and touch holes are tubes that screw in. The depot’s probably full of the things. Damn all French cleverness. We’ll have to burn them.”

  “We’ve lots of flannel cartridge bags left, sir,” Lieutenant Grace said, “Pile them up under the guns, with the leftover fuses, set that afire, and the wood carriages will burn up.”

  “Pull the wood plugs from some shells, ram them down, and when they explode in the barrels, they’ll burst, too, sir,” Rutland added.

  “Right, let’s get to it, then,” Lewrie decided. “And perhaps the Brigadier will make the connexion. Fire, depot, burn?”

  “Ehm, we wouldn’t have to wait around ’til then, would we, sir?” Midshipman Chenery asked.

  “No, once we’ve got good fires going under these guns, we can stroll back to the beach and get rowed out to the ship,” Lewrie told him. “Unless you’d like to see a second depot blow up?”

  “No, one’s enough for one day, sir,” Chenery said, laughing.

  “Here comes the Brigadier now,” Rutland warned.

  Oh, God’s Balls, Lewrie thought; Now I’ll have t’hear him crow!

  “Lewrie!” Caruthers shouted as he rode up on a fresh horse, but where he obtained it was anyone’s guess. “I’ve had a horse shot from under me! Isn’t that grand?”

  “Well, not for the horse, sir,” Lewrie drawled.

  “But it will go down well in my despatches,” Caruthers replied, sounding positively chipper. “This ’un, now, belonged to one of their Hussars who has no future need of it. Be a shame to put a bullet in its skull when we leave, but it’ll probably end up back in French service when I let it loose. See the white flags? My Brigade Major’s having a parley with their senior surviving officer. They officially yield the field to us, take no more martial action, and all prisoners we’ve taken, whole or wounded, will swear on their parole not to serve in the field against British forces ’til they’re exchanged.”

  “They’ll lie like blazes,” Lewrie told him, “they’ll only honour that ’til your last soldier is off the beach.”

  “Well, of course they will,” Caruthers hooted. “Gad, who’d trust the word of a Frenchman, haw! Magnificent, sir! What you did with the guns, and your ship’s guns, was truly magnificent, and I shall say so, fulsomely, in my report of the battle. Had you not come ashore, had you not brought gunners, it might have neen a close-run thing, and I would have lost a lot more than the hundred or so we have in killed and wounded. I daresay you saved my bacon, and I will be forever in your debt, sir!”

  Wouldn’t have lost any if you’d done what you were supposed to do in the first place, Lewrie thought; Still, give a dog a good name.

  “You do me a great honour, sir,” Lewrie replied, doffing his hat in salute, and putting a “sweet” face on. “Thank you for the compliment, which I shall pass on to my crew.”

  “Well, sir,” Caruthers said, doffing his own for a moment, “I’ve things to see to, wounded to care for, that depot to set alight as soon as the negotiations are done. A hospital set up on the beach?”

  Lewrie noted that one of his regiments was plodding back from the ridge, some of its rankers quickly bandaged and limping, supported by their mates, and some worse off being carried on stretchers.

  “I will not keep you, sir,” Lewrie said. “Oh, if your troops come back by here, or when they prepare the depot for destruction, you might warn them to keep clear of these guns. They might get hurt when they go bang for the last time.”

  “Hey? Oh, leave the French nothing, right!” Caruthers agreed. “Once again, my undying thanks for your timely aid, sir, and when we’re all back at Messina, I’d admire to dine you and your officers in at my officers’ mess.”

  “I’d be delighted to accept, sir,” Lewrie told him, and after a last doffing of hats, Caruthers rode off.

  “Praised highly in his reports, sir?” Lieutenant Grace asked. “My, that will be wonderful. We really did save their bacon.”

  “He’ll spend more time praising himself,” Lewrie said with his usual cynical outlook. “His sort do. And I won’t hold my breath waiting to see any mention of our assistance. Ah, well. Let’s get going on destroying these guns, then we can get back to the ship where things make sense.”

  “And we can scramble up the boarding nets one more time, sir?” Midshipman Chenery asked, tongue-in-cheek.

  “Damn all Midshipmen’s wit,” Lewrie groused. “You can scramble up the boarding nets, if you’ve a mind, young sir. I mean to use the battens and man-ropes, like the weary man that I am.”

  As the flannel powder cartridges were piled under the carriages, Lewrie sat on an empty shell box, pulled his canteen round, and drank off at least a quarter of his cool tea, finding that the inadvertent admixture of ginger beer made an even more delightful beverage that he would insist upon in future.

  The rain was still coming down and his hat and coat were getting soaked, so he reached into a side pocket for a handkerchief, but found a stub of his morning’s sausage. And that tasted wonderful, too.

  EPILOGUE

  “I say, Sir Alan, have you seen these?” Colonel Tarrant asked him as Lewrie made a courtesy call at the 94th Foot’s encampment a few weeks later. He’d dropped by for tea, or something spiritous. “We’ve just gotten the latest London papers, and by the look of it, we, you and I, and the regiment, are suddenly rather famous!”

  “What?” Lewrie said with a surprised start. “Famous?”

  “Brigadier Caruthers’s report of the landings at Locri and Siderno,” Tarrant went on, handing him an untidy stack of newspapers.

  “My word,” Lewrie commented as he found the pages that Tarrant had folded over and circled with a pen. “He mentioned us?”

  “Quite prominently,” Tarrant assured him. “Well, only a short account of the 94th’s skirmishing. He said we faced French troops, not Genoese, but as he said, we carried out our duties briskly and efficiently, and set the depot at Locri afire and got away without a man wounded.

  “Now, his account of his own fight, well…,” Tarrant chuckled, pulling at his nose, “one could get the impression that the French had more troops, guns, and cavalry than what you told me they had when we sailed over to Messina for that mess supper, but, with none of his own artillery ashore, the lack of his third regiment with Siderno’s harbour clogged, he gave you and your work with the captured howitzers a grand account. Your knowledge of fuses and explosive shells? The accuracy of your gunners, and the utter ruin of the French your ship’s guns made? Yes, we are quite famous, For a time, at least.”

  “I wasn’t sure he’d even mention us,” Lewrie said, shaking his head in mild wonder as he read the newspaper accounts cribbed from the official report, and written in the best “By Jingo” bravado. “If the papers could get any more fawning, I’d begin t’think I’m part of the Second Coming, hah! What high-flown moonshine!”

  “You haven’t gotten your latest letters from home?” Tarrant asked as he poured them both a top-up of white wine.

  “Nothing since last week,” Lewrie said as he read on, thinking that his next batch of letters from home would be full of their perceptions of the news, delighted that Jessica would be over the moon to see her husband’s name in print.

  “Oh, by the by,” Tarrant continued. “I’ve heard from the city fathers of Peterborough. They, and the gentry who paid to raise the regiment, are suddenly bursting with pride in our accomplishments … after years of benign neglect, as I complained to you. Everyone seems to love us, of a sudden. You may have to find us another couple of transports.”

  “Transports?” Lewrie said, coming up from his reading.

  “The city, and the county, have decided to hold a whole round of subscription balls,
patriotic assemblies, and recruiting celebrations,” Tarrant boasted. “They’ve promised to raise at least two new companies, and enough volunteers to flesh out the six I have. Give it three or four months and I might be able to field a Grenadier Company, again, and a second Light Company, for a total of eight. I’ve found that soldiers best suited as skirmishers are more useful in our line of work than Line Companies. We will most definitely not try to fight Caruthers’s style of battle. Not as long as I’m in command!”

  “Well, that’s grand, good for you, sir!” Lewrie said, truly glad for him, though where he would obtain two more troop transports, deemed armed transports, with large Navy crews, and the necessary number of sailors to man them, was beyond him at the moment.

  And where’s Captain Middleton when I need him, this time? Lewrie wondered; Ships, crews, barges … boarding nets? So long as I never have t’use ’em again!

  “There’s even a vague promise of finding us a proper barracks and establishment for a home station, with a training and recruiting cadre,” Tarrant said with a shrug, as if he didn’t quite believe it. “It will most-like turn out to be an abandoned brick works that I know of, way out in the country. If they do put a roof on it, I’d be damned surprised. Been crumbling to dust for years.

  “Oh!” Tarrant exclaimed. “I’ve also heard from Horse Guards. I have been made substantive Leftenant-Colonel, and Gittings is now a substantive Major, not a Brevet.”

  “Now we’ll have to celebrate that!” Lewrie declared. “My treat! We’ll wet the two of you down, Navy fashion.”

  “It doesn’t involve a sail in a boat, does it?” Tarrant asked, with a wary look.

  “No no, nothing like that,” Lewrie promised with a hearty laugh. “Though it does involve a lot of wine and brandy.”

  “So, how does it feel to be celebrated” Tarrant asked him.

  “It feels … damned good,” Lewrie decided. “It makes me feel … justified. Will you have a glass with me, sir?” he posed, lifting his wine to be tossed back in a toast.

  Justified, indeed, Lewrie thought; And all my detractors can buss my blind cheeks, leap to their feet, and kick furniture, ’cause they can’t blight me, or destroy me.

  He began to chuckle, then laugh out loud, and a rather evil and satisfying laugh it was, too. But retribution must be savoured with mirthful delight.

  Also by Dewey Lambdin

  The King’s Coat

  The French Admiral

  The King’s Commission

  The King’s Privateer

  The Gun Ketch

  H.M.S. Cockerel

  A King’s Commander

  Jester’s Fortune

  King’s Captain

  Sea of Grey

  Havoc’s Sword

  The Captain’s Vengeance

  A King’s Trade

  Troubled Waters

  The Baltic Gambit

  King, Ship, and Sword

  The Invasion Year

  Reefs and Shoals

  Hostile Shores

  The King’s Marauder

  Kings and Emperors

  A Hard, Cruel Shore

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DEWEY LAMBDIN is the author of twenty-two previous Alan Lewrie novels. A member of the U.S. Naval Institute and a Friend of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, he spends his free time working and sailing. He makes his home in Nashville, Tennessee, but would much prefer Margaritaville or Murrells Inlet. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Full-Rigged Ship Diagram

  Points of Sail Diagram

  Map

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Book One

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Book Two

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Book Three

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Book Four

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Epilogue

  Also by Dewey Lambdin

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

  An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

  A FINE RETRIBUTION. Copyright © 2017 by Dewey Lambdin. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.thomasdunnebooks.com

  www.stmartins.com

  Cover design by Rowen Davis

  Cover art: Glorious First of June, or Third Battle of Ushant between English and French, 1794, oil on canvas painting by Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740–1812). French Revolutionary Wars, France, eighteen century © DEA / G. Nimatallah / Getty Images

  Cover photographs: parchment © Tischenko Irina / Shutterstock.com; compass © rangizzz / Shutterstock.com

  Maps by Cameron MacLeod Jones

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-250-10362-8 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-250-10363-5 (e-book)

  e-ISBN 9781250103635

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  First Edition: May 2017