“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.