An Onshore Storm

by Dewey Lambdin

  “It had crossed our minds that your invitation precedes a fresh operation, sir,” Lt. Fletcher said for all of them.

  “It does, indeed,” Lewrie said, “though Mister Quill and his sources of information haven’t gathered enough to make solid plans, as yet. No, I thought we’d just go on a cruise to keep the French on their toes. We will not even be carrying troops, this time.”

  That made them sit up straighter and share glances with each other. It was Lt. Rutland who was the first to evince a sly look.

  “Demonstrations, sir,” Rutland said. “A whole series of them? Those will keep the French up nights, worrying where we may strike.”

  “Indeed, Mister Rutland,” Lewrie congratulated, “you got it in one. Right down the Strait of Messina in full sight, then out to sea ’til we stand in and make our appearances. As circumstances allow, I may even come to anchor and fire on something, here and there.”

  “And we could form lines of boats and pretend to row ashore!” Lt. Creswell enthused. “Even with none but our armed sailors aboard them, we’ll sow bags of panic.”

  “Entirely the point,” Lt. Farley chimed in. “Just gonna say.”

  “Ehm, how far afield, sir?” Lt. Hoar of Spaniel asked.

  “I was thinking as far east as Catanzaro,” Lewrie told him.

  “If we are to stir things up, sir,” Lt. Fletcher suggested, “I would think Crotone needs a visit. We’ve been told that Crotone is a garrison town, with a fort or two, and enemy shipping in its port. Perhaps Admiral Charlton’s squadron has ‘smoaked’ it in the past, but never made a real threatening move against it. Might the French there need waking up, sir?”

  “That would freeze the garrison in place, aye,” Lewrie agreed, “and keep them from dispersing to protect other port towns closer to us down the coast. From there, we could close Catanzaro, where some of the roads meet the coastal supply route. Five or six miles off from the rest of the small towns ’til we get to Melito di Porto Salvo, and come to anchor to give them a scare.”

  “We could see what you did to the bridge above Pizzo, sir,” Lt. Hoar said with a snigger.

  “Your salads, gentlemen,” Deavers said as he and the other cabin servants fetched out plates, and Lewrie wondered if Yeovill could read his mind, for yes, there were crumbles of feta cheese atop his salad!

  “Even farther afield up north,” Lewrie hinted with a brow up.

  “Oh, this won’t be the first time I’ve wished that our so-called ‘armed transports’ really had some guns!” Lt. Creswell bemoaned.

  “I imagine we’re going to have a hellish lot of fun!” Fletcher hooted.

  * * *

  Yeovill had even thrown in a humble bread pudding in lieu of a duff, but one made with orange slices and lots of fruit juice. Nuts, sweet bisquits, and a soft cheese came with the Port bottle.

  As the meal at last came to a convivial end, Lewrie bade Rutland stay awhile longer, to ask how Coromandel was shaping up. They went to the starboard side settee and chairs to sip cool tea.

  “So, finding your feet over there, are you, Mister Rutland?” Lewrie asked him once they got settled and comfortable.

  “I believe so, sir,” Rutland said, nodding and looking thoughtful. “I feel that my ways suit her people better than Dickson’s ever did. For all his complaints, I find them a decent lot, no better or worse than one could expect. I’ve allowed no easing of proper discipline…”

  “But you haven’t played ‘Popularity Dick’ either,” Lewrie interjected, grinning. “That’s certainly not your way.”

  “Ah, no sir,” Rutland replied, knowing that people took him for a gloomer, “but so far I’ve found very few reasons to have hands up at ‘mast’ for discipline problems, and certainly none of them worthy of the ‘cat.’ Rum or tobacco stoppage, mostly. Bless me, sir, they’ve even begun to skylark and sing in the Dog Watches, and when at boat and net drill, the hands have become quite efficient.”

  “Your officers, whom Dickson despised?” Lewrie asked.

  “Hah, sir!” Rutland exclaimed with humour. “I get the impression that Clough and Kinsey enjoyed twitting Dickson with their ways. Oh, Clough will still jibber-jabber, but he saves it for meals aft, now, and Kinsey may be more of a tarpaulin sailor than any man I’ve met in the Navy. Under a jumped-up patrician, he couldn’t help but to be surly and put on his dumb-show, but he’ll do, now. Do right well. Ehm … may I ask how Dickson is doing aboard Vigilance, sir?”

  “Getting a well-needed education, Mister Rutland,” Lewrie told him. “Pray God, it’ll stick with him when he goes aboard his next ship, or gets another command. He’s playin’ turtle … half-drawn up in his shell, and says little. I must admit that when he’s on duty, he seems as good as anyone else aboard, but … it may be just a sham.”

  “I simply can’t imagine where a young fellow learned to despise common folk, sir,” Lt. Rutland said with a shake of his head. “It’s not as if he’s ‘The Honourable’ son of someone titled, from what I could gather, and Sub-Lieutenant Clough told me that Dickson didn’t attend a public school, but was home-tutored for a spell, then went to a local grammar school before he joined the Navy. Even if his family is well-to-do, they’re only country Gentry, not Peers of the Realm.”

  “Maybe his grammar school was full of farmers’ sons and coal-heavers’ lads,” Lewrie said with a chuckle, “and they saw him as one of the Quality to be teased and get away with it.”

  “You may have a point, sir,” Rutland said, nodding sagely. “I fear, if we are to sail in two days, sir, I must get back aboard my ship and see that all is in readiness. I thank you for the dinner, sir,” he added as he finished his tea and got to his feet. “Your man Yeovill is a marvel, though I must confess that Italian spices set my heartburn off. Delicious, but…?”

  “I’ll not keep you, sir,” Lewrie said, seeing him to the door. “And, one hopes that your ship’s people will take as much amusement from our prank against the French as our officers do, hah hah!”

  “I am certain that they will see the fun of it, sir,” Rutland promised.

  * * *

  Crotone was a lovely harbour, wide and open to the sea, ringed with beaches perfect for landings. It had been, according to the Ship’s Surgeon, Mr. Woodbury, one of the principal settlements of the ancient Greeks, dating to five centuries before Christ, and a cultural center with a large temple dedicated to Hera.

  “You, ah … won’t shoot it up too badly, will you, sir?” Mr. Woodbury timidly asked as Vigilance crept to within a mile of the town, with the transports astern of her even further reducing sails and speed as if they would come to anchor.

  “Well, I don’t know about temples, sir,” Lewrie answered him with his telescope to one eye, “but that seafront castle looks more of a good target. It doesn’t look that old.”

  “Sixteenth century, my guidebook said, sir,” Woodbury told him, appalled that the castle made too good a target.

  “Guidebook?” Lewrie snapped, lowering his telescope. “You have a guidebook? With street plans and such?”

  “Just descriptions of things worth seeing, sir,” Woodbury answered, “suitable inns and such, that some travellers on their Grand Tour of the Continent compiled.”

  “Deck, there!” a mainmast lookout shouted down. “Enemy soldiers marchin’ outa th’ town! With artillery!”

  “There, sir!” Lt. Farley pointed out, stabbing an arm outwards. “Deploying on the beaches west of the main part of town! I see … at least six horse-drawn guns.”

  “I see ’em, Mister Farley, thankee,” Lewrie said after a long look. “Mister Wickersham, can we get within three quarters of a mile?”

  “If these Italian charts are to be trusted, sir, we can get within half a mile,” the Sailing Master said.

  “Conn us in if you please, Mister Wickersham,” Lewrie ordered. “Hands to the fore chains t’sling the leads. It seems the French are offering up something better than castles and temples, Mister Woodbury. Ye don’t mind if we kill a f
ew, do you?”

  “Death to the French, sir,” the Surgeon said, relieved.

  Lewrie took another look at the French troops flooding out of the town and forming just above the overwash barrows of the beaches, counting the number of company banners as they formed ranks three or four deep as if to repel a landing with massed musketry, and 12-pounder guns to use against the barges as they neared the shore. It looked as if an entire French regiment was there; the entire garrison of Crotone, he wondered?

  “Lord, here comes cavalry, too!” Farley hooted as several troops of horsemen cantered along the coastal road above the beaches, behind the infantry, then wheeled into four ranks above their left flank. A flash of light along their front, and hundreds of sabres were drawn, ready for the killing charge once the French infantry had done their own preliminary slaughter.

  “There’s a Goddamned fool over there,” Lewrie said, lowering his telescope, “who’s about t’learn a very painful lesson. Mister Farley, we will open at half-mile range. Double-shot the guns and have both decks stand ready.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Soldiers!” Lewrie spat. “They never learn what ships can do!”

  The Sailing Master was standing close to the Quartermasters at the double-wheel helm, his attentions torn ’twixt the compass bowl, the commissioning pendant high aloft that indicated the direction and strength of the wind, and the shouts from the leadsmen up forward who were sounding the depths. One of his Master’s Mates had his sextant to his eye, scribbling observations on a chalk slate to measure their distance from the shore.

  “Half a mile from shore, sir, and in five fathoms of water,” Wickersham reported at last, with a wee Whew! of relief.

  “Open the ports, Mister Farley,” Lewrie snapped. “Run out and take aim. We will fire in broadside.”

  The First Officer relayed those orders below and Vigilance rumbled loudly as 18-pounders and 24-pounders were run out. More thuds and thumps as crow-levers raised heavy barrels so the elevating wood blocks, the quoins under the breeches, were adjusted, and whole gun carriages were shifted a bit to angle ahead in the narrow gun-ports.

  “Ready, sir!” Farley reported, sounding excited.

  “You may open, Mister Farley,” Lewrie said, enthusiasm in his voice, too, for he had always loved the roar and stink of the guns.

  “By broadside … fire!” from Farley, and the titanic thunder began, accompanied by a huge pall of gunsmoke that a quartering wind rapidly blew away towards the bows.

  Vigilance was only making about five knots, a leisurely cruise along the coast, but it was fast enough to force gun-captains to shift the aim of the gun carriages more abeam once they were loaded and run back up to the ports. “By broadside … fire!”

  Impatient to see what damage his guns were doing, Lewrie rushed up to the poop deck and pressed himself most unseamanlike up against the starboard bulwarks to steady his telescope. The smoke pall was thicker after the second broadside, wafting away ahead of the ship, but leaving a dense haze. Just as he thought he could see, hog stampede rumbles sounded from below as the guns were run out for a third broadside, and he had to lower his glass.

  “By broadside … fire!”

  Lewrie looked down the side of the ship, up on tiptoes to lean far out to watch the guns erupt in smoke and stabbing jets of flame as the guns recoiled inboard out of sight.

  “Beg pardon, sir!” Lt. Farley shouted up to him from the deck below, “The next broadside may have to be angled too far aft in the ports for safe firing!”

  “Cease fire, then, Mister Farley,” Lewrie ordered. “Let’s see what there is left to shoot at, first.”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Farley replied, then bawled the cease fire order below to the gun-decks.

  Come on, come on! Lewrie thought, willing the smoke pall to disappear. He pulled out his pocket watch and took note that they had gotten off three broadsides in two minutes and a bit, even from the massive 24-pounders, which fact made him grunt with satisfaction.

  At last!

  The smoke was being blown clear, and the haze was thinning, just enough to reveal what they had wrought.

  “Just bloody beautiful!” Lewrie hooted in wicked glee.

  There were still six field pieces standing where they had been positioned before the infantry lines, but the caissons and limbers at their rears were smashed, and there was not a single gunner in sight. Panicked horse teams which had been led far behind the infantry were galloping hither and yon, and the surviving French infantry were not that far behind them, scattering in small packs. Lewrie caught a wee glint of gold atop a pole in the centre of one pack that was running back into town; the gilded eagle that Napoleon gave to each regiment that was supposed to be as sacred and inspiring as any that the ancient Romans had bestowed upon their legions. Unfortunately for this French regiment, it looked as if a third of its soldiers lay strewn dead or dying on the sand. Off to the left flank where the infantry had formed, there were dead horses and cavalrymen, though it looked as if the cavalry had had the good sense to wheel about and gallop away from the slaughter. Lewrie could see a crowd of dazed horses and riders milling about a quarter-mile farther west down the coast road, sabres still glinting as if they slashed air in frustration and hot anger.

  “I do believe that Crotone is in need of an entire new garrison, Mister Farley!” Lewrie called down to the quarterdeck, whooping with delight. “Secure the guns, and stand down from Quarters. Let’s not press our luck, Mister Wickersham. Helm down and bring her up to windward, and signal the transports to alter course in succession and make sail conformable to the weather!”

  And, as the gun-ports were shut and sealed, HMS Vigilance rang to a new noise, the cheers and jeers of hundreds of men.

  * * *

  Catanzaro was a different story, the town itself not a suitable target for bombardment, for the town proper lay inland from the coastal road, and its subsidiary outlet to the sea was a much smaller fishing port of Catanzaro Lido, where the roads over the mountains came down to the relatively flat plains and met the main route, and there was nothing much there to take under fire.

  The squadron’s approach from the sea could be seen for hours before they got within range, giving what enemy garrison might be present with bags of warning. And surely word of the disaster those ships had wrought at Crotone had had time to travel down the coast, so there was no sign of resistance this time, no troops, no guns in waiting, no galloping cavalry.

  Vigilance and the transports came to anchor within a mile of the shore, anyway, Vigilance with her ports open and her guns run out in show, whilst the transports hauled their barges alongside from being towed astern, with boarding nets hung overside. Armed sailors scrambled down the nets and manned their boats, then stroked into a rough line and slowly made their way towards the beaches.

  There had been several escorted convoys visible on the coastal road when they first approached, but by the time the barges got close to a landing, they were long gone, dashing hastily back into the dubious safety of Catanzaro itself, back up the road towards the hills, or east or west away from the dread sight of the ships and the barges, at a speed that raised great clouds of dust from the arid soils of Calabria. Even ox teams seemed to be goaded into lumbering trots, which everyone aboard delighted to see, sure that all the draught animals would be so exhausted before they reached what they deemed safety, and useless for days after. From the upper decks, Lewrie and his officers could see escorting cavalry keeping up with their convoys, positioned behind the last waggons as if they could guard their charges from there, eating pounds of dust at the trot or the canter, now and again wheeling about to form ranks as if they might charge right down to the beaches and futilely make a show of defiance to salve their honour.

  The barges ground their bows onto the sands, and armed sailors from the transports leaped out to draw them more firmly ashore, then deployed in skirmish lines, tactics they had learned from the 94th at the Army encampment, even daring to cross the now-e
mpty road and do some foraging, and there was not a French or allied soldier within two miles of them, and not a single waggon in sight by then!

  After half an hour of that demonstration, Lewrie had two guns fired for the General Signal to all ships, and hoisted Recall. And Lewrie was most satisfied with it all, for he could use the strongest telescope aboard and look deep up the main road down from the hills, and grin at the sight of fleeing convoys of waggons facing one way, and the ones coming down jammed up in general confusion. The landing parties rowed away from the beaches and the coast road, where not one vehicle or draught animal stirred, and the road stretched vacant and quiet for as far as the eye could see.

  * * *

  “I still don’t like the look of this place,” Lewrie told Farley as they peered long and hard at Melito di Porto Salvo as the squadron closed the coast under reduced sail, and slowly angling shoreward for a close pass at about a mile’s distance. “The beaches are right under their guns, and the slopes look too steep to assault.”

  “Rather a boisterous surf today, too, sir,” Lt. Farley pointed out, “especially to the west of the town. Perhaps not too rough to the east.”

  “But, those beaches east of the town and the harbour entrance are too far,” Lewrie gloomed, leaning both elbows on the bulwarks. “Even if we tried landing there in the middle of the night, the French would have enough warning to march down there and offer a stiff fight, defeating our whole purpose. The road convoys’d be safe and snug in town for the night…”

  “Just going to say, sir,” Lt. Farley interjected.

  “… We couldn’t get at ’em, and there’d be nothing moving on the roads for us to burn,” Lewrie continued. “And forewarned, we’d never manage t’get into the town to do any damage. Damn Don Julio.”

  “Our favourite criminal, sir?” Farley said with a snigger.

  “He’s insistent that this place gets savaged,” Lewrie told him, “only God knows why. A competitor’s lair, or a treasure trove to be looted? If the French weren’t there, he might even gather up all of his men and boats, and have a go at it, himself.”