Hostile Shores (18 page)

“Enter,” Lewrie bade.

An older Midshipman from the Port Admiral’s office entered, with a canvas despatch bag hung over one shoulder. “Orders from the Port Admiral, Captain Lewrie, sir. And, Captain Niles also thought that your latest mail should be delivered aboard, as well,” the Mid said.

“Most welcome, and thank you,” Lewrie said with a happy smile as he accepted the packet of letters, and his orders. “Do I need to sign for them?” he asked, waving the slim envelope.

“No, sir,” the Midshipman said with a grin, and bowed himself out. As soon as he was gone, Lewrie broke the wax seal and opened the brief order. He already had orders from Admiralty to sail as part of Commodore Popham’s expedition, “with all despatch” and “making the best of his way”, and was just waiting for a favourable slant of wind for departure so he could fulfil Admiralty’s parlance for cracking on all sail to the royals and blowing out half his heavy-weather canvas for maximum speed. What could Lord Gardner have to say about it?

“Oh Christ,” Lewrie groaned. “Play escort?”

There were, several hired-in merchant vessels also waiting for a change in wind direction which carried a part of Popham’s expeditionary force, a troop transport, and a pair of horse transports bound for Madeira, the assembly point in the neutral Portuguese Azores Islands, and carrying two troops of the 34th Light Dragoons.

So much for “with all despatch”,
Lewrie desponded;
If they can make eight knots in a ragin’ gale, I’m a Turk in a turban!

He cast a longing look at the thick packet of personal mail, but got to his feet and went aft to the windows in the transom. As Lord Gardner had written, those transports were anchored near Southsea Castle … but then, so were many other vessels. Through the misty haze and sullen rain he could make out one ship which flew a large, plain blue broad pendant, the sign of the naval officer appointed by the Transport Board to be the Agent Afloat.

Bugger it,
Lewrie thought;
I’m goin’ t’get wet … wetter.

He asked Pettus for his grogram cloak and worst hat, turned the personal mail over to his clerk, Faulkes, for distribution, and sent Jessop out on deck to pass word for his boat crew to assemble.

“I’ll be back later, before Seven Bells, I hope,” Lewrie said to Pettus. “Have Yeovill keep my dinner warm. I have to see a man about a horse.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Though he was irked at Lord Gardner’s meddling, and the necessity of rowing over in the rain to meet with the masters of the vessels he was to escort, Lewrie was a tad curious. He had dealt with civilian convoys in the past, but had never seen troop ships or the specialised “cavalry” ships.

Before 1794, the Navy Board had done the hiring of ships to bear soldiers, artillery, ammunition, and supplies overseas. In 1794, a six-man Transport Board had been established to handle the task. The Navy Board had been, and most-likely still was, rife with corruption, so it was good odds that the new Transport Board would be no more honest, but somehow the job had to be done on those so-far rare occasions when the small British Army went overseas, mostly to the East or West Indies, or to garrisons in Canada, Gibraltar, and the Mediterranean.

“Arrah, now there’s a homey smell,” Cox’n Liam Desmond said in appreciation after a deep sniff of the wind. “Horses, barns filled with hay an’ straw … all that’s needin’ is a warm peat fire on such a day as this. Ahh!”

“That, an’ a pint of stout right under yer nose whilst yer warmin’ at that fire, Liam,” Patrick Furfy, the stroke-oar, said with a wistful sigh of missed pleasures.

“Make for the one flying the blue pendant,” Lewrie bade them.

There were three ships in all, according to Lord Gardner’s set of orders: the
Ascot,
the
Marigold,
and the
Sweet Susan.
The one with the blue pendant turned out to be the
Ascot,
the only one named in any connexion with horses or horse races, and she was the troop transport.

Lewrie was
welcomed
aboard her, not piped, by an Navy officer, a much older Lieutenant with a slight limp who named himself as Thatcher.

“You are the Agent Afloat?” Lewrie asked.

“I am, sir,” Thatcher glumly told him, “and the only naval officer aboard any of the ships. You are to be our escort, the one named in Lord Gardner’s orders? Happy to meet, you, Captain Lewrie. This may take a while, so why don’t you call your boat crew up so they can take shelter from the rain, and we can go aft. Look out!”

“What?” Lewrie gawped, just before Thatcher snatched him by the arm, clear of a charge by an angry ram.

“What the bloody Hell’s that?” Lewrie snapped.

“The mascot of the Thirty-fourth Light Dragoons, sir,” Thatcher spat in a weary tone. “Cornet Allison? Come fetch your bloody … beast!”

A lad of sixteen or so, resplendent in the silver-trimmed, blue-cuffed short red coat, dark blue breeches, and high, knee-flapped boots of a cavalry regiment, and with a leather-visored helmet bristling fore and aft with black fur plumes, came to stumble after the ram, take him by the collar and one large curved horn, to lead him away.

“Sorry, Leftenant Thatcher, sir,” Cornet Allison added and shifted his grip on the ram so he could raise his right hand and press it palm outward to the visor of his helmet in salute to Lewrie. “I was sure he was tethered, but—”

“Make
sure
he’s tethered,” Lt. Thatcher insisted. “Else, we’ll find what fresh mutton tastes like.”

“Yes, sir,” Cornet Allison assured him, then pulled a face. “I so wish that we’d voted for a mastiff, or a greyhound, but the Colonel insisted, and so … Come on, you,” he said to the ram, trotting it to the far side of the deck.

“It has no name, d’ye see, Captain Lewrie,” Lt. Thatcher said. “The Colonel of the Thirty-fourth, Colonel Laird, also insists that it is always referred to as the Regimental Ram. Though most of the troopers call it ‘that vicious bastard’. ‘Cantankerous’ is a mild word to describe its temperament, and there’s not a soldier aboard that hasn’t been rammed when he wasn’t expecting it. Will you join me for a coffee, sir?”

“Gladly,” Lewrie heartily agreed.

Aft and in the shelter of the ship’s master’s great-cabins, now divvied up into small cabins with deal-and-canvas partitions, there was a long mess table down the middle.
Ascot
’s master, a gruff older man by name of Settles, stuck his head out of what was left of his formerly spacious quarters just long enough to grunt a gloomy greeting to Lewrie, then shut his door on the lot of them.

The “lot” who shared the approximation of a wardroom aboard a proper warship were the
Ascot
’s First and Second Mates, and officers of the 34th. Lt. Thatcher did the introductions. A Captain Veasey was the senior officer of the regiment, and another Army officer, Captain Chadfield.

“Rarin’ t’go and have at the Dutchies, I say!” Captain Veasey hoorawed as Lewrie shed his hat and cloak and took a seat at the table. “All this idlin’ in the holds are bad for our mounts, and rough on our troopers, too, d’ye see. It’s taken two years t’make proper mounts and it’d be a cryin’ shame do we lose some on the voyage. Your trained cavalry horse is worth half a dozen regular prads, even blooded hunters. Horridly dear investment.”

Captain Veasey was more than happy to prose on, relating that there were two troops of cavalry aboard
Ascot,
one of the four squadrons that made up the regiment, with eighty troopers and horses for each troop, plus Lieutenants, Cornets, non-commissioned Sergeants and Corporals, farriers, blacksmiths, and trumpeters. Naturally, there were more horses aboard
Marigold
and
Sweet Susan,
for no officer of the British Army could go to war without his string of extra mounts; even the junior-most Cornets’ parents had bought them at least three. Each transport carried around ninety horses, altogether.

Belowdecks on
Ascot,
Lt. Thatcher stuck in when Veasey ran out of air, there were fewer than 160 troopers, for someone had to feed and tend to the horses and muck out the narrow stalls daily. Detachments of ten troopers under Lieutenants and a Sergeant had been sent to the other ships … damned if the merchant sailors would do it!

“A large risk of fire, though, sir,” Thatcher cautioned. “The horses are grain-fed, but the bales of hay, and the straw put down in the stalls … brr!”

Lewrie got a brief tour of the troopers’ quarters belowdecks, a series of cabins where bored and irritable soldiers tried to find ways to amuse themselves. They were issued hammocks to sleep sailor-style, but had to store them in the stanchions and nettings during the day, leaving them little comfort before dark. Many napped under and atop the rough wood mess tables, or on the hard decks.

“They’ll tear the partitions down for more room, you wait and see, Captain Lewrie,” Lt. Thatcher gloomed once they were back on deck and in much fresher air; un-washed bodies, wet wool, farts, and other un-identifiable reeks had almost made Lewrie gag. Without access to their horses, the troopers would face weeks at sea with nothing to do except dis-mounted weapons drill and “square-bashing” foot drill, and perhaps some five firing at floating targets with their short Paget carbines. Rather neat weapons, Lewrie thought, with their ramrods permanently attached on a chain and swivel so they could not be lost when one tried to re-load on horseback … if such was even possible.

Ascot
was about 250 tons’ burthen, the other two about 200 tons, all of them coppered below the waterline, so all were hired on for nineteen shillings per ton; un-coppered ships were paid from fifteen to seventeen shillings per ton, and contracted for six months’ service, though that could be extended. If that became necessary, Lt. Thatcher could issue Transport Board chits to extend the contracts, on his own authority, and risk.

“A rum business, this, Captain Lewrie,” Lt. Thatcher sourly said as he pointed up at his blue pendant. “The Board names me Agent Afloat, and gives me the
semblance
of a Commodore, but I’m little more than a baulk of ‘live lumber’, a mere passenger! I can gather them in, order them when to sail, and to where, but beyond that, I have no say in how any of the ships are run, or handled, and civilian merchant masters are a tetchy lot, and damn the Navy, they’ll do things their way and ignore any suggestions from me! God forbid I try to give them
orders
!

“You’d not have a sickly officer, would you, Captain Lewrie?” Lt. Thatcher asked, only partly in jest. “But for this bad leg of mine I’d still be aboard a warship. I was Third Officer into a frigate when a gun burst and put a hunk of iron into me. Three months in Haslar Hospital, then a year on half-pay, well … wasn’t even in action, but at
drill
!”

“All my Lieutenants are very healthy, sorry, Mister Thatcher,” Lewrie had to tell him, with genuine sympathy.

“Ah, well then,” Thatcher said with a sigh. “Do you still wish to see one of the horse transports?”

“Aye, I do, if it’s no imposition,” Lewrie said.

*   *   *

True to his promise, Lewrie was back aboard
Reliant
before Noon, just as “Clear Decks And Up Spirits” was being piped and the rum keg was being carried to the forecastle. The welcome ritual was halted for a moment to salute Lewrie back aboard. He lifted his sodden hat from his streaming-wet hair, and made a quick way down the ladderway to the waist, and the door to his great-cabins, shooing off the ship’s dog, Bisquit, whose fur was just as wet, and shaking showers of rain from his hair every now and then.

“Good luck with those,” Lewrie told Pettus as his cabin-steward took his hat and cloak. “You could get a bowl o’ wash water from ’em, do ye let ’em drip long enough. So long as ye don’t mind blue water.”

“I expect they have bled as much dye as they ever will, sir,” Pettus speculated as he hung them up on pegs. “Might you relish a cup of hot tea, sir? I’ve some on the warming stand.”

“Aye, with milk, sugar, and a dollop o’ rum,” Lewrie decided. “A large dollop.”

“Coming right up, sir,” Pettus said, pausing to fetch Lewrie a dry towel for his hair and face.

His cats, Toulon and Chalky, had been napping at either end of the starboard-side settee, but came dashing with their tails vertical to greet him. They found his boots intriguing, and sniffed about them, posing their mouths open to savour the aromas like little lions.

“I hate t’ask it of ye, Pettus, but I seem t’ve trod in horse droppings. Got the most of it off, but…,” Lewrie said with a hapless shrug.

“I’ll see to them, sir. Jessop? The Captain’s boots need a cleaning,” Pettus promised, then shared a secret smile with Lewrie as he passed that onus to the cabin boy.

After changing to an older pair of buckled shoes, Lewrie sat at his desk and scribbled out a set of orders for Lt. Thatcher and the masters of the transports, outlining the signal flags he would be hoisting during the day, and the blue-fire rockets he would launch at night when it was necessary to alert them, or keep them in close order. He tried to keep it simple, given his last chaotic experience of escorting a huge “sugar trade” convoy from the West Indies in 1804. Even if Admiralty was
paying
them to sail together and trust their escort, merchant masters were indeed an un-cooperative and tetchy lot.

It was hard going, for Toulon and Chalky always found delight in interfering with people that ignored them when at a chore. First it was his oldest cat, Toulon, who would hop into his lap then atop the desk, there to sniff, swat at the steel-nib pen, and squat on the paper. Just after he was shooed off, it was Chalky’s turn to leap up and flop onto one side, then wriggle with his paws in the air for his belly to be tickled.

“Oh, for God’s sake, why’d I ever think that cats make good companions,” Lewrie growled. “There. Satisfied?” he asked as he rubbed Chalky’s belly for a second or two. No, he was not, for he flipped on his side once more and began to snatch at the pen with both paws. Then it was time for Toulon to return and flop and wave for “wubbies”. The requested tea showed up, and that required inspection and more sniffs.