“Damned good shooting, Whitehead,” Lewrie told him as the Marine strolled over to join him. “I trust our lads’ll show as well when it comes to skirmishing.”
“Thank you, sir, and they will if I have anything to say about it,” Whitehead replied with a grin, taking a swig of water from his wooden canteen.
“Do we have enough ammunition?” Lewrie asked.
“We came ashore with eighty rounds per man, and there’s plenty more aboard ship, sir,” Whitehead told him, “and I’ll send for some, if we run short. I say, sir, that fellow on the two-wheeled cart over yonder … is that not that ‘gallows bird’ ghost from Messina?”
Lewrie turned and spotted the cart, drawn by a light-coloured mule, and Mr. Quill holding the reins, as it came over the make-shift bridge over the freshwater stream.
“Aye, it is,” Lewrie said, “Mister Quill, our resident Foreign Office spook. Damn, and I wished t’get some shooting in. I suppose he’s fresh news for us. I’ll have t’go speak with him. Carry on, Whitehead.”
He’d be a lot more anonymous if he didn’t wear black all of the time, Lewrie thought as he turned from the firing range to go to the dirt track that ran to the encampment; The man must only have the one suit, and that like “dominee ditto.”
“Hoy, Mister Quill,” he called out as the cart drew level with him, and Quill pulled on the reins. “What’s brought you from the joys of Messina?”
“Aha, Captain Lewrie!” Quill gladly replied. “The very man that I wished to see … without taking a boat out to your ship, that is. How convenient that I catch you ashore. Care for a short ride? Just to Colonel Tarrant’s quarters.”
“It ain’t that far, I’ll walk,” Lewrie told him.
“Congratulations on your most recent raid, sir,” Quill said as he shook the reins to get the mule moving again. “And, do I see that you’ve received re-enforcements since I was here last?”
“The battalion, too,” Lewrie said as he trudged alongside the cart. “Only the one ship, but, once Tarrant’s got his new men up to snuff, he’ll have about six hundred men t’work with, almost the full strength of a battalion that’s been in the field in Spain for a few years, less casualties, sickness, and desertion.” Lewrie filled him in on Coromandel’s origin, tonnage, and much greater berthing space for troops and crew.
Quill drew rein, again, by the trees round Col. Tarrant’s offices and lodgings, and tied the reins round the wooden brake lever as one of Tarrant’s orderlies came over to tend to the mule. Quill then got down, most awkwardly, his long spindly limbs putting Lewrie in mind of a black spider spinning his web.
“Ah, that’s better,” Quill said, tugging his clothing back in proper set, sounding relieved. “Hope we’re not interrupting him.”
“Well, that’d depend on the nature of your news, Quill,” Lewrie drolly joshed. “For good or ill.”
“Oh, it’s good … mostly,” Quill tried to assure him.
“Well, let’s announce ourselves,” Lewrie said.
They were offered seats in Tarrant’s campaign furniture, which had arrived with his new draught of soldiers, on the raised wooden patio under the long, wide canvas fly, and a pot of tea was brought out from indoors, along with sugar, sliced lemons, or the choice of fresh milk. Just as they got settled, up bounded Dante, Col. Tarrant’s dog, all exuberance, tail whisking, rump wiggling, and whining with glee. The dog, now groomed, clipped, and bathed, was head, legs, and paws in Quill’s lap in an instant, sniffing him all over.
“I say now, down dog, down I say!” Quill pleaded, both hands high in the air holding cup and saucer out of harm’s way. “And where the Devil did this beast come from?”
“Hallo, Dante, here boy,” Lewrie, enticing the dog with clacks of his tongue and hands patting his thighs. “He’s Tarrant’s dog, who just showed up one morning, a farm stray he thinks. Yes! Good morning to you, Dante! What a big, fine puppy!” he coaxed as the dog left Quill and went for Lewrie’s lap. “It appears they dote on each other.”
“Ah, there you are!” Col. Tarrant exclaimed as he came out to the shaded gallery. “Down, Dante. Don’t mess up our guests’ clothes. Yes, you adore company, don’t you, you silly hound! Stick, Dante?” Tarrant offered after a moment or two of embracing his dog who stood on its back legs against his chest, licking his face. The dog would like to play fetch with his stick, dashing fifty yards off in chase.
“Milk and sugar for me, Carson,” Tarrant told his orderly. “Ah! So, what news from the Castello, Mister Quill?”
“No one at Army headquarters tells me a blessed thing, Colonel Tarrant,” Quill sulkily told him, drawing his feet under his chair and pulling his elbows in to protect his chest and tea as Dante came galloping back with his stick in his mouth. “But I have heard from our Mister Silvestri, and another new source of information.” If his hands had been free, Quill would have tapped the side of his nose in a sly promise. “By the way, congratulations on destroying those road convoys at Bova Marina, sir.”
“Hit our stride with that one,” Col. Tarrant boasted, tugging at Dante’s stick ’til he let it go for another long toss.
“The arms which Sir Alan was good enough to land for me have proven useful, as well, with supply convoys, sirs,” Quill told them. “Oh, some are still stashed and well-hidden, but at least half have been distributed to that ‘Spada’ fellow and his band, and some other partisan bands. The dirt track … can’t call it a proper road … through the hills roughly ’twixt Filadelfia and Serra San Bruno, on the way to the coast at Monasterace Marina, is the shortest route for supplies, now the bridge at Pizzo is gone, and at least two convoys have been attacked and burned. It’s very twisty, with many narrow defiles, simply perfect for ambuscades. And, if the escorts are too strong, the partisans still manage to delay things with fallen trees or rock falls. The French have to use infantry as escorts since the country’s just too steep and wooded for cavalry.”
“Hmm, that ought to work to the partisans’ advantage,” Tarrant said. “Should we send them some gunpowder and slow-match fuses for their roadblock work?”
“It appears they have all they need from captured French goods, sir,” Quill informed him with a satisfied air; until the dog came back near him, and he tensed up, again. It appeared that Mr. Quill did not much care for dogs and their antics—odd in an English gentleman.
“You mentioned a new source of information?” Lewrie prompted.
“Ah, yes,” Quill said, perking up again. “Recall the night that you met with Don Caesare and all his ‘’Tonios,’ in my lodgings in Messina? His … under-bosses I suppose one could call them, his capos and some of his smuggler captains. Well, the one who didn’t say much at all that night, the burly one with the scar on his forehead, and the darker complexion … a real brutta faccia, that ’un, hah hah … turns out to be a tad more patriotic than Don Caesare. A sly one, too. Well, he has kin, and business relations, over in Calabria, and he can manage to get news from them now and then. He approached me, on his own, and offered to use them to gather information on troop movements, when supply convoys set out from Reggio di Calabria on the return journey, and what the French are up to generally over there.”
“And how much does he charge you?” Lewrie sarcastically asked, glad to know that they had a new source of news, but skeptical.
“Less than Don Caesare,” Quill said, surprising Lewrie. “As I said, he’s more patriotic than that criminal. I still don’t know his real name, so he still goes as ’Tonio, but … I suspect that ’Tonio has his eyes on supplanting Don Julio sometime down the road. ‘Uneasy lies the crowned head,’ what? For all the kisses on the cheeks, the hugs and vows of loyalty, Sicilian criminal gang life is a cut-throat business, with all of them from the capos to the lowly sailors on the smuggling boats scheming for advantage over someone else.”
“Hah! Like watching the doings in Parliament!” Tarrant hooted.
“Or the Navy,” Lewrie chimed in, considering his own opponents.
; “Now, ’Tonio is doing this for us all on his own, sub rosa, and I must conjure you both to never let slip this new arrangement to Don Julio,” Quill sternly told them. “We must all guard our tongues when speaking of the source of any information that came from ’Tonio when Don Julio is around. We must say that Mister Silvestri has discovered it, by building up a network of informants all his own. I fear that if Don Julio gets wind of it, ’Tonio might just be found floating in the harbour at Messina. Working for us without Don Julio’s approval might make the Don imagine that there’s a plot against his leadership … and his fortune, and very life, and the man can be vicious when threatened.”
“Hmm, then before we hold another meeting with Caesare, we must have one of our own,” Col. Tarrant decided after a long moment to mull that caution over. “To almost rehearse what we say, and what we can’t, in his presence.”
“In essence, yes, Colonel,” Quill sombrely agreed.
“Speaking of,” Lewrie piped up, “how is the scamp, and have you seen him lately?”
“Oh, yes!” Quill said, rolling his eyes in sorry recollection. “He’s quite wroth with us, do you see. First off, we didn’t use his boats, or people, to deliver the arms to the partisans. He made his rant that amateurs would give the game away by our clumsiness, can you imagine? He said if I wished to maintain a working network, I’d best leave such to the ones who know how to go about it!”
“What gall he has!” Col. Tarrant sniffed.
“He’s also still in a pet about Mister Silvestri representing us over on the mainland,” Quill went on. “He’s sure that he will be caught by the French, sooner or later, or some paisano will turn him in in hopes of a cash reward. And, lastly,” Mr. Quill told them, “he was very dis-appointed that we hit Bova Marina, not Melito di Porto Salvo. It makes me think that Melito is much like Tropea, a place where one of his competitors stores his loot and smuggled goods. He has some hidden agenda for us to attack the place. Went all angry that we didn’t use the intelligence he’d gathered for us, and that he’d have to send his people to survey it all over again, at a great risk.”
“And that’d cost you even more, naturally,” Lewrie smirked.
“Oh, but of course, sir!” Quill exclaimed. “He’s made a pretty penny off Foreign Office funds so far, and I imagine he’d not like to lose the income, which is most-like going straight into his personal accounts, not into his syndicate’s.”
“Carson,” Col. Tarrant called over his shoulder. “I think we’ve had enough tea. Fetch out some white wine, instead. Given the news,” Tarrant said to his guests, “I’d break out the brandy, were it later in the morning. This seems serious. Ah, Mister Quill, what have you heard anent Brigadier Caruthers?”
“Well, not much, sir,” Mr. Quill told him, cocking his head in puzzlement. “As I said, I’ve little doings at the Castello. My sort isn’t welcome there, and I’ve no real source of news there. Why the Brigadier, Colonel?”
Colonel Tarrant explained Caruthers’s new enthusiasm for getting into the amphibious landing work, of converting at least one of his regiments into ship-borne soldiers, and obtaining ships of his own with which to do so, mentioning the letter that Caruthers had written asking for more particulars as to how to go about it.
“He wants to get in the game with us, one way or another,” Lewrie said. “Duplicate what we’re doing, which’ll end up costing us what we need.”
“Equip and train at least one of his regiments, and obtain five or six transports,” Col. Tarrant added. “That might just be for starters, ’til he commands an amphibious brigade.”
Quill got an odd look on his long, narrow face, a squinty frown at first, then a smile, almost a gawping one as he mulled that over.
“Mean t’say, sirs,” Quill said, almost tittering, “you wish me to spy on our own Army, on Brigadier Caruthers?”
“Well, yes,” Tarrant shyly replied, cocking his gaze skyward as if to distance his words. “If you put it that way. Not spy, really, but … keep an ear to the ground. No skulking, or … whatever it is you do when actually, ehm … sort of spying?”
“Keep track of his doings in that regard,” Lewrie translated.
“Bless my soul,” Mr. Quill said, shaking his head, and drawing himself up with feet neatly tucked, elbows in, and balancing his wine glass as primly as a drawing room guest. “Colour me dumb-struck, sirs. And, at the moment, I haven’t the first clue as to how to go about it. There’s no one on his staff I could bribe, or blackmail, for the very good reason that I don’t know any of them from Adam. I can’t sneak into his offices and copy his correspondence.”
“No throats to cut?” Lewrie helpfully offered, winking.
“Oh, not in my line of work, at all, Captain Lewrie!” Quill replied, in all seriousness as if he didn’t, or couldn’t realise that Lewrie was japing. “I suppose, though, that if I manage to draw him out … did he give me the briefest time of day … and mention that my branch of government was desirous of expanding the reach of our raids, and could put in a good word with both Admiralty and Horse Guards, he might just start babbling about his plans, enthusiastically.”
“Hmm, that sounds a bit risky,” Lewrie told him. “If it’s not done cleverly, you might just put him on guard, and make Caruthers suspicious. He knows that you deal with us almost exclusively.”
“Well, there is that,” Mr. Quill admitted. “Organising is more my forté, after all, and spending money to get other people to carry out what I plan, not … actual, ehm … spy work. Ferreting things from people, midnight assignations?” Quill seemed as stand-offish of bloody-handed espionage and intrigue as Tarrant had in making his request.
“So, it’s not on the cards?” Col. Tarrant said, blowing out his breath in dis-appointment.
“Well, I didn’t say that, Colonel,” Quill replied. “I may find a way. I just can’t think of how to go about it quite yet. Subtlety is required, and that must be planned.”
“I just want to know what the ambitious bastard’s up to,” Col. Tarrant grumbled, waving at his orderly for glasses to be re-filled.
“Haw! Sic Don Julio on him!” Lewrie hooted. “I’d wager he’d get the truth out of him! Or, would that cost too damned much?”
“Hmm, tempting!” Tarrant said, laughing out loud. “Pulling his fingernails, hot pokers and tongs, and many sharp knives?”
“Good Lord, Colonel,” Mr. Quill exclaimed, “you sound as if you should be in my trade!”
Unfortunately, Quill found the idea so amusing that he began to bray, gargle, and break out his horrid donkey-like laugh. Tarrant’s dog, which had been sitting close to his master’s boots, and quiet for a change, leaped to his feet and started to bark madly, unsure if what he was hearing was a threat or not.
“Hush, now, Dante,” Tarrant cooed to soothe him. “Good puppy. Come here and get some pets. Good, brave fellow, yes!”
“Keen on emulating your successes, is Caruthers?” Quill asked, once he got his breath back. “There’s an easier, cheaper way to go about it, sirs. It’s obvious, really. He only has to trade one of his regiments and have yours transferred to his brigade.”
“Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie barked, astonished.
“Oh … my … sweet … Christ!” Col. Tarrant breathed out in shock. “Pray God, no! Not that!”
“Havin’ him breathin’ down our necks on every raid? Usin’ us t’have himself another grand battle?” Lewrie almost raged. “He can’t help but turn a raid into a lodgement, darin’ the French t’come and give him another hot fight! Oh, Jesus weep!”
“Carson, fetch out the brandy, will you?” Col. Tarrant bade his orderly. “I fear I’ve a good sulk coming on.”
“Did I say something wrong, sirs?” Quill asked, all asea by the reaction.
“Oh, Hell yes!” Lewrie spat.
* * *
The firing range was at last empty, and Lewrie and Tarrant went down there to get some practice in, Col. Tarrant bringing his orderly, Corporal Carson, along to se
rve as gun-bearer and re-loader. To ease Mr. Quill’s unease after his unfortunate statement, they invited him along as well, even though he had no weapons of his own but a short-barrelled pocket “barker.” And the idea of Brigadier Caruthers’s seizure of the 94th was most definitely not spoken of again, though the possibility hung in the air like sour powder smoke on a windless day.
Lewrie went through all his pre-made paper cartridges for his pair of Manton pistols from the ten-yard posts, then reverted to his powder horn and pouch of loose ball: eighty, an hundred shots at the silhouette of a French soldier, quite riddling it and turning his hands numb by the time he expended all of it.
Col. Tarrant was a good shot with his own pair of pistols, then turned out to be amazingly accurate with a smooth-bore Tower musket, even from the sixty-yard mark. Mr. Quill, however, barely knew how to load his one wee piece, expertly aided by Cpl. Carson, and hopelessly inept at shooting.
When Lewrie wished to try his eye with his rifled Ferguson musket, Tarrant all but danced in place for a chance to fire it as well, first from sixty yards, then paced off eighty, then one hundred yards, crowing with delight over the accuracy of the Ferguson, and how it was loaded from the breech. Which enthusiasm left Quill with nothing to do but sulk and watch them rave and congratulate themselves. He at last wandered off to see what the black-clad old women were cooking and selling to those soldiers who were idle.
“Poor fellow,” Lewrie commented as they began to run out of the paper cartridges Lewrie had brought ashore for the Ferguson.
“Who? Quill? Is he gone?” Col. Tarrant asked, looking round. “Good.”
“Always the odd man out, I’d expect,” Lewrie said, borrowing a dry rag with which to mop his face which felt gritty, blackened from the priming powder in the rifle musket’s pan. “Gawky, awkward, and bookish. Public school and university must have been a trial for him. He might be good at criquet, but…”
“Well, he’s odd man out with me!” Col. Tarrant snapped, taking a drink from his wood canteen. “Steal my regiment, be damned. Christ, I tell you, Sir Alan, I’ll not have it. I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep them out of Caruthers’s clutches. And God rot Quill for even saying anything about it!”
An Onshore Storm Page 21
