The next morning, HMS Vigilance did hold the delayed cutlass drill, whilst her officers and Midshipmen practiced with the heavy blades or their personal swords on the poop deck. Older Mids who had been exposed to a fencing master’s salle showed off, instructing the younger lads to the double threat of cutlass in one hand, and their dirks, which were normally worn as a sign of their dignity and their status as officers-to-be, in the other. The ship rang with the sounds of steel clanging and slithering on opposing steel, though the drill steps stressed footwork and balance on the thrust, return, slash, and counter, slowed down from the furious melee of the real thing. Lewrie long before had been trained well in the two-handed work of smallsword and dagger, or the cloak draped over his left hand as a shield and a trap for a too-confident thrust.
Lewrie delighted in sword practice, for it was one of the few ways for an officer to keep somewhat fit in the confines of a ship at sea; they were not required to manhandle guns and carriages, tail on to hoist in cargo, lift boats off the cross-deck beams, or clamber aloft to handle sail or strike topmasts. There were only so many laps of the ship one could walk! He considered himself hale and fit, even at the advanced age of fourty-seven years, but was secretly glad when Lt. Farley called for a water break at the scuttlebutts, and a chance to regain his breath.
“Pointless, really, sir,” Lt. Rutland commented as they stood at the forward edge of the poop deck, looking down into the waist, where sailors and Marines still practiced in facing rows. “As soon as they swarm and board an enemy ship, half their learning goes by the board, and they fight like they were in a tavern brawl.”
“But, better skilled than the French, who’ve not been out of port two weeks, and half of ’em still green round the gills,” Lewrie joshed.
“Deck, there!” someone in the main mast cross-trees shouted. “Sail on th’ horizon! Two points off th’ larb’d bows!”
Lt. Farley was quick to dash down to the quarterdeck to seize a brass speaking trumpet and shout back. “Can you make her out?”
“Hull down, sir!” was the reply. “Only showin’ tops’ls!”
“From the East, Nor’east,” Lt. Rutland speculated as he took his turn with the long dipper. “Coromandel must have found her barge, at last.”
“Took him long enough,” Lewrie said, uncharitably.
“Ehm, you’ve given my offer some thought, sir?” Rutland asked, pretending that it did not matter which way Lewrie decided.
“I may give Mister Dickson one last chance to prove himself, Mister Rutland,” Lewrie told him. “But, if he messes up once more, I may place you in command of her. May be temporary, mind. Admiral Charlton may over-rule me.”
“Depending on Dickson’s, and Grace’s, dates of commission, it may delight Mister Grace to be made Third Officer,” Rutland sniggered, showing a faintest bit of rare humour.
“Deck, there!” came another hail from aloft. “I kin only see two tops’s! Looks t’be a brig!”
“So he hasn’t found his boat, yet,” Lewrie chuckled. “Perhaps Don Julio scooped it up and is holdin’ it for ransom?”
“Who, the smuggler, sir?” Rutland asked. “The one who scouts our missions for us? Never met him.”
“Consider yourself fortunate, then, Mister Rutland,” Lewrie told him. “He’s an oily, cut-throat who’d kill his children if the price was high enough.”
They returned to their sword practice after everyone had had a dipper or two of freshwater. This time, Lewrie squared off against Midshipman Charles Chenery, his young brother-in-law.
“Put your dirk away, Mister Chenery,” Lewrie told him, “and we will simplify things.”
“Light hanger against a heavy cutlass, sir,” Chenery said with an impish air. “I’d hate to break your sword, sir.”
“It’s a Gills’, and stouter than you think. Guard yourself!” Lewrie shot back, and for the next ten minutes, ’til Six Bells of the Forenoon rang out, and the drill was ended for the day, Lewrie found himself all but overwhelmed by Chenery’s quickness and supple wrist, though he did manage to dance him backwards and get inside his guard with low-held thrusts or half-slashes, even able to step up chest-to-chest and shove his hanger’s hilt and guard upwards against the lad’s chin. If it had been for real, he would have knocked him sprawling, open to a killing stroke.
“Desperate men never fight fair, Mister Chenery,” Lewrie crowed, panting. “Elegance against a garlic-breathed Frenchmen’ll get you killed.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” Chenery said, still smiling.
“Go sponge yourself off, and get ready for the rum issue,” Lewrie told him, sheathing his hanger at last, and going below for a full mug of cool tea and ginger beer, and a sponge-off of his own.
“Deck there,” he heard as he re-donned his damp shirt. “Th’ sail on th’ horizon’s almost hull-up! She’s makin’ her number!”
A moment later, one of the Midshipmen of the Harbour Watch was at Lewrie’s door to inform him that the strange sail was a warship, one of their own, the HMS Coquette.
“Huzzah!” Lewrie exclaimed. “D’arcy Gamble’s coming! Now we can find out what’s acting up the coast!”
He looked at his desk, where his amended letter to Admiral Sir Thomas Charlton sat atop a pile of personal letters that he’d hoped to post to England.
You’re goin’ anywhere near the squadron, Malta or Gibraltar, you’re a Godsend, Commander Gamble! he happily thought.
* * *
Hours later, HMS Coquette came to anchor a quarter-mile off, and in fine style, taking in all her sail by the time she coasted to a stop with her bows in the wind, and letting go her bower at the same time, an impressive feat of seamanship.
Within moments, Coquette’s wee gig was under way, bearing her captain to Vigilance’s starboard side and entry-port. Lewrie stood by the beginning of the sail-tending gangway near the entry-port, eager to see Gamble aboard, impatient with the ritual of hailing the supposedly “strange” boat, the shouted reply, and the permission to close the ship yelled back.
The gig thumped against the hull by the main chains, and a long moment later, the hint of a hat above the lip of the entry-port brought the side-party to attention as Bosun’s calls trilled. Once inboard, Commander Gamble doffed his hat to the flag and his welcomers, with a slight bow from his waist.
“Commander Gamble, very welcome aboard!” Lewrie said, stepping forward to offer his hand.
“Captain Lewrie!” Gamble said, smiling broadly as he shook with him. “I trust you keep well?”
“Quite well, sir,” Lewrie replied. “Come aft, take a pew, and a glass of something, and tell me all your latest news.”
“Delighted to do so, sir,” Gamble said.
Once seated round the low, brass Hindoo tray table, and Dasher fetching glasses of cool tea mixed with ginger beer, Gamble slung his sword out of the way to settle into the settee cushions. “I did not compliment you on the fineness of your cabin furnishings last time I was aboard, sir. It’s all quite homey.”
“God, don’t tell Admiralty, then,” Lewrie japed, “else they’ll think me a luxury-loving Corinthian, and I’ll get ‘beached’ forever! A fair amount of it’s my wife’s taste, truth t’tell. Dame Lewrie is an artist, and has an eye for such things.”
Gamble turned his head briefly to glance at Jessica’s portrait on the forward bulkhead. “You are a most fortunate man, sir. Now! Your bridge!”
“Aha, have the French repaired it?” Lewrie asked, shifting forward in his chair.
“Every time I’ve passed it, sir, I’ve lingered to pound at it, as have the other brig-sloops which patrol the coast north of Reggio di Calabria,” Gamble reported with some glee. “They’ve tried to make a start at replacing the central pillar with wood timber frames, and when that got shot away, a weird triangular bracing tower, but that got shattered as well. There’s quite a pile of broken timbers in the gully, by now. And, as soon as they spot a sail coming close, all their civilian workers scatter, whether we fire on them or not. The last time Rainbow, another of our sloops, fired on it, all her captain could see was uniformed French engineers, and they ran off just like the local Italians, hah hah!
“A few days ago, though, sir,” Commander Gamble said, turning, graver, “when I closed the coast to have another go at it, there were artillery batteries either end of the bridge, or a single, mixed battery … four twelve-pounder guns, and a brace of howitzers with explosive shells. I had to haul off once they got the range of me, sorry to say.”
“Well, we knew the situation wouldn’t last,” Lewrie said, saddened to hear that. “They score any hits on you, were any of your men hurt?”
“Some splashes a long musket shot off, one explosive shell off my starboard, another far over on my larboard, and I determined that discretion might be the best course. No one hurt at all, though we got the wind up when those shells burst.”
“Good,” Lewrie replied. “If only there was a way to fire explosive shells aboard ship, though the storage might prove a problem.”
“The French have tried to move supplies south from Naples by sea, sir,” Gamble went on, “small coasters and commandeered fishing boats, mostly, but our continued presence forces them to skulk along the coast, in sight of land, and duck into any fishing port or inlet that’s handy when they see any strange sail to seaward. I doubt if some of them make sixty miles a day.”
“Just as they did off northern Spain,” Lewrie agreed.
“And, just as you did off that coast, sir, we’ve been reaping a rich harvest of them,” Gamble boasted, with a nod of his head to honour Lewrie’s past accomplishments. “Most of the crews have turned out to be Neapolitans, people from that kingdom’s navy, out of work now, and in need of some income. The ones we’ve captured seem quite happy to be imprisoned on Malta, out of French clutches. Some of the prisoners are French sailors, rounded up from idled warships, and they’re none too happy. What part of their fleet that was sent to Naples is still in harbour, too fearful to sortie. Frigates mostly.”
“Hmm, if they haven’t yet re-built that bridge, their supplies must still come by road, the long way round,” Lewrie said, glad to hear of it, and gave Gamble an account of the attack at Bova Marina, and the destruction of the road convoys. “All the rough dirt tracks cross the mountains to shorten their journeys strike the main coast road at Monasterace, still. I assume you’re rejoining Charlton?”
“Aye, sir,” Gamble agreed.
“Then I wonder if anyone assigned to bombarding Monasterace back in the Spring kept their notes on the place,” Lewrie said, “for that seems the best place to hit. Our spies and informants were not asked to smoak the place out, since I, and the Army, weren’t going to land troops there. Hell, I just may take all my ships to sea and cruise off the place, just t’put the fear o’ God in ’em!”
“Once back with the squadron, I’ll ask, sir,” Gamble promised. “By the by, I ran into one of your ships on my way here.”
“Coromandel,” Lewrie stated.
“Aye, sir,” Gamble said with a laugh. “Rather an embarrassment, that. We espied her at about fifteen miles, and once we were in signalling distance, we made our number to her, she put up hers, but she’s not listed in my latest book, so we thought we were up against a French two-decker seventy-four, hah hah! I was ready to haul wind and flee, even after she hoisted a Union Jack. But then, she turns away, as if my little sloop is a danger! But, after we hoisted our National Colours, she came back on course, and I closed her to speak her.”
“And how’d that go?” Lewrie asked.
“Her commanding officer is a little terror, sir,” Gamble said. “Imagine, he was angry with me for giving him such a fright! Well, I put him in his place, right smartly, and told him if he was a part of your squadron, he was sailing the wrong way about. He said that he was searching for a missing boat?”
That made Lewrie smile, and relate the details of that latest incident. “And had he found it, yet?” Lewrie asked.
“No, he was still casting about for it, sir,” Gamble laughed, “and I’d not seen hide or hair of it, either. Lord, how does one lose a whole barge?”
“Through a wee, sly bit of a prank played on him by his crew,” Lewrie told him, explaining the mood he’d seen aboard. “And, upon that head, I’ve about made my mind up to exchanging him for one of my officers, before a real mutiny breaks out. I’ve a letter to Admiral Charlton, and I’d much admire did you bear it to him when you join the squadron.”
“Is he really that bad, sir?” Gamble had to ask, a brow up in wonder. “I’ve seen that sort of attitude towards our sailors before, but only among new-come Midshipmen still wet behind their ears. After a time aboard any decently run ship, most discover the real value of our men, no matter how they entered the Navy. This Dickson fellow sounds like the haughtiest sort of aristocrat. From a noble family, or a rich one, is he?”
“I don’t know much about his background,” Lewrie told him, surprised some by Gamble’s statement, for when they had served together in the Proteus frigate, D’arcy Gamble’s background, and family, was of the best of well-to-do landed gentry, though by the time that Lewrie got him as a Midshipman, Gamble had been in the Navy for several years, and had had that top-lofty air knocked out of him, if indeed he had ever felt that way about the lower classes.
“If you do intend to exchange him, sir,” Gamble said, after requesting a refill of his tea and ginger beer, “one hopes that an exposure to your way of commanding a ship, and its men, will make an improvement in his nature. Oh, well hallo, puss!”
Chalky, bored by the lack of seabirds alighting on the stern gallery railings, had come to the settee and hopped up to greet the new arrival.
“That’s Chalky, do you recall him?” Lewrie asked.
“Oh aye, sir, him and your other, the black and white one. What was his name?” Gamble said, essaying a pet on Chalky’s head, to which the cat submitted.
“Toulon, where I got him,” Lewrie said.
“What I remember most, sir, was the Marines’ pet mongoose, Private Cocky,” Gamble reminisced happily. “He was better than a terrier or any cat when it came to ratting. It damned near emptied the bread room of ‘millers,’ and left the Midshipman cockpit with none to eat on the sly. We learned to never wager against Private Cocky!”
“Speaking of victuals, sir,” Lewrie offered, “would you care to dine aboard? My cook is a marvel.”
“I fear not, sir, but thank you for the invitation,” Commander Gamble said. “I just popped in to give you the latest information on your bridge, and must get back with the squadron. Oh, I quite forgot. North of the bridge, round Eufemia Lamezia, there’s quite a backlog of supply convoys, so much so that they’re running some of them as far as Catanzaro, on the south coast. It’s a much longer route, but the road’s better. An attack there might prove productive, if I may suggest, sir.”
“How’d you learn that, sir?” Lewrie asked, enthusing.
“All rather ‘under the rose,’ sir,” Gamble told him, leaning forward and sounding conspiratorial. “We overhauled a fishing boat ’tween there and Pizzo, a boat that seemed as if they wished to be caught and made prize. There was a fellow aboard who had a little English, and he told us of it, via some fellow named Silvestri, to pass on to someone named Quill? All very mysterious.”
“I know both of them,” Lewrie told him, filling Gamble in on the local espionage and information arrangement. “I shall pass that news on to Mister Quill in Messina, instanter.”
“Well then, I’m glad it did not completely slip my mind, sir,” Gamble said with a wee laugh as he shifted about to rise. “I must be off, sir, but I hope to accept your invitation to dine some time in the future. And I must say, I have had your cool tea before, on a rare occasion, but somehow it tastes even better this time.”
“A fortunate accident, that,” Lewrie told him as he got to his feet to escort Gamble to the deck. “There wasn’t enough tea when I had to go ashore at Locri and Siderno, so Deavers topped it off with some ginger beer in my wood canteen.”
“Aha!” Gamble said as he clapped his hat on his head, “I’ve had my stewards brew cool tea for me, but I haven’t seen ginger beer in ages, more’s the pity.
“Remember this, sir?” Gamble said, lifting his sword off his hip. It was a rather plain smallsword with a brass hand guard over a wire-wrapped hilt and a lion’s head pommel, in a black leather scabbard with worn brass throat and drag. “The night of the fight we had with the l’Uranie frigate off Cape Town? You came to me with several dead French officers’ swords and said, ‘Choose,’ when you made me an Acting-Lieutenant after Mister Catterall was killed.”
“My word, you still wear it?” Lewrie marvelled. “I’d have thought that your family would have bought a better one once you were confirmed.”
“Oh, they did, sir, damned near as grand as a presentation blade, rather embarrassing, really, for it’s much too fancy. But, I have always preferred this one, sir. Cherished it, in point of fact. For the moment that made me.”
“Then, may you wear it for a long time, Commander Gamble, and let it carry you to your Captaincy and beyond,” Lewrie told him in all sincerity.
“Thank you for that, sir,” Gamble said in return, then cleared his throat, as did Lewrie, for it was perhaps too sentimental a moment for English gentlemen to discuss, or even admit to. “I suppose that I should be going.”
“Bide long enough to allow my people to gather up their letters ready to go, along with mine here, Commander Gamble,” Lewrie said. “Dasher, go pass word a mail sack’s departing ship, then round up an empty bisquit bag for them to put their letters in.”
“Aye, sir!” Dasher said, running out to the quarterdeck like a bolt of lightning.
“Ehm … you keep rabbits in your cabins, sir?” Gamble asked, spotting the wood cage, and Harriet.
“The lad’s pet,” Lewrie explained, grinning shyly, “Better it’s kept in here than in the manger, where it’d be mistaken for an eatin’ rabbit. And it gives Chalky something live to pester.”
* * *
Once all outgoing mail had been gathered up, the side-party and the Bosun re-formed. To the trills of the silver calls, Commander Gamble left the ship as all hands on deck doffed their hats to him. Lewrie stood in the open entry-port, leaning out and looking down to bid Gamble a fond farewell.
“Vaya con Dios!” he called to the departing boat. “Arrividerci, and fare thee well! Bonne chance, and Dosvidanya for good measure!”
“’Ere, whas ’e goin’ on h’about, den?” a sailor from the side-party asked his mate.
“Ya got me, Tom,” the other whispered back. “Off’cers, ’ey allus gotta show orf d’eir eddy-cation.”
* * *
After Gamble had left the ship, even as that worthy was climbing the boarding battens of his own ship, Lewrie was penning a note to Mr. Quill, summoning a Midshipman, and when one arrived, bade him take one of the boats and deliver it to the Army camp for relaying to Messina.
Then, he went to the chart space on the larboard side of the quarterdeck to delve into the many sea charts and land maps stored there, looking for ones that depicted Saint Eufemia Bay, hoping that a landing near Eufemia Lamezia might prove fruitful, before the French finally got the bridge repaired sturdy enough to use again.
When last Lewrie had talked with Quill, mention had been made about an attack on Monasterace Marina, where supply convoys converged after crossing the mountains, down to the easier coastal plain and a decent road near the shore. But, even Quill had never thought to gather detailed information about Monasterace, as Lewrie had told Gamble. That had been someone else’s pigeon, and not a landing, but a bombardment from the sea. Either place, Monasterace or Eufemia Lamezia, might suit, but, with Don Julio off on some of his own dastardly doings, and in a pet that Lewrie and Quill had done something without him, even put an agent in Calabria that he didn’t have total control over, no amount of golden guineas would convince one of Don Julio’s under-bosses to go scout either place for them. Julio Caesare’s wrath might be more of a risk than being nabbed by the French!
Lewrie used a magnifying glass, poring closely along the shoreline on the pertinent sea chart, noting the estimated water depths near the town of Eufemia Lamezia, but the chart didn’t tell him much, for it was a copy of an Italian-made chart done only God knew how long before, copied and re-copied. There was ocean in white, the land and beaches rendered in tan, with the coast road drawn in black, the town and the hills roundabout rather sketchy as to topography and heights, indicated by a series of lines, followed by a great blank space leading inland, with another set of prominent hills and peaks beyond. In that great blank gap there might as well have been a caution that “here be dragons,” for what could not be plainly seen from sea level and the deck of a ship simply didn’t matter to mariners.
The landsman’s map of the area—also a copy of an Italian map—was drawn with north at the bottom, for God’s sake! Topography was indicated by inverted Vees, the more closely clustered the steeper the land, he imagined, and the town and its port was rendered more like a gridded rectangle, with churches and wayside shrines marked by little crosses. If he wanted to read the labels attached to anything on the map, he had to spin it round 180 degrees! There seemed to be beaches either side of the harbour entrance, but, above one of them was a steep hill of some kind, and above the other was an enigmatic square done in heavy black ink; a fort, he wondered?
Damn it to Hell! Lewrie groaned to himself, tossing the magnifying glass atop the slanted chart table, and standing up from a too-long crouch; This place needs scoutin’, too, else we’ll be sittin’ on our numb arses ’til next Epiphany!
And, Alan Lewrie, it must here be noted, was not a man to sit idle for too long!
He stepped out of the chart space to the quarterdeck, placing his hands in the small of his back and arching, wondering if a long life at sea was getting to his bones, at last, as it seemed to do in officers he’d known who were near his present age.
“Oh Lord, will you look at that!” Midshipman Gadsden who was reluctantly standing Harbour Watch instead of one of the younkers who’d refused to be bullied into doing it, said in amusement. “Boat ahoy, hah hah!”
Lewrie leaned over the larboard bulwarks to see what the Mid was guffawing about. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “Our prodigal’s come home!”
Coming down the coast from Milazzo was one of that small port’s typically scruffy, paint-peeled, un-lacquered fishing boats, with three locals aboard, looking as if it was altering course to approach HMS Vigilance. Astern of her, though, was a 29-foot Admiralty barge, on a short tow line; Coromandel’s missing boat had been found. She was unmistakable, for unlike the barges of the first three troop transports, Coromandel’s barges had been painted with matte-black hulls and grey gunn’ls to lessen the chance that they might be spotted as they rowed inshore laden with troops at night.
“Have you any Italian, Mister Gadsden?” Lewrie asked.
“Un poco, sir,” Gadsden replied. “Very little at all. I could send for Mister Bingley. He’s caught on to it rather well.”
“Aye, do so, sir,” Lewrie bade, “and wave them alongside, if you have to. I think a reward’s in order.”
Lewrie went to his cabins, unlocked one of his desk drawers, and got out his wash-leather coin purse. There were a few gold guineas in it, silver shillings, and his usual fall-back specie for interaction with the locals, silver six-pence, along with wadded up paper money, which everyone suspected was a governmental sham, and stuff that foreigners would have nothing to do with. He sorted out ten shillings, stuck them in a slop-trouser pocket, and put the coin purse back in the drawer, locking it again.
“Signore, ehm … andiamo!” Gadsden was shouting overside when Lewrie came back to the deck. “Entrare, rather? Ah, Bingley! Tell ’em to come alongside, there’s a good fellow.”
Midshipman Bingley was one of Vigilance’s older Mids, over twenty years in age, a rather stout and full-faced fellow who so far had not done much to distinguish himself with Lewrie and the other officers. He could sling the lingo, though, with a beguiling smile.
“Andiamo lato, signores! Congratulazione! Meraviglioso! Andiamo and ricevere mancia competente!” Bingley shouted to the boatmen, then turned to Lewrie. “Gadsden said I should tell them there would be a reward, is that alright, sir?”
“Aye,” Lewrie agreed. “Silver shillings for all.”
“Signores! Inglese d’argento … uh, scellinos!” he shouted.
The scruffy local fishing boat came alongside the larboard mainmast chains, bows on to the platform, and one of the fishermen hauled the barge’s tow line up ’til the barge was nuzzling their boat’s transom.
“Here, Mister Gadsden,” Lewrie said, handing over a stack of coins, “three shillings apiece for them, and tell ’em the other’s for their wine. And secure that line to the shroud dead eyes. We do not want t’lose that barge, again!”
“Aye, sir!” Gadsden said, pocketing the coins for safekeeping as he went down the battens and man-ropes.
“Grazie!” Lewrie shouted down. “Molto grazie, signores!”
Once Midshipman Gadsden distributed the coins, they all pulled off their hats or head coverings and bobbed their thanks, trying to hug Gadsden in joy. Once he got free of their clutches, they began to shove off, rowing off a few yards to set a much-patched lateen sail still, looking over their shoulders and waving and babbling gratitude.
“I couldn’t understand much of what they were saying, sir, but I did get the impression that the barge was a gift from someone named Don Julio? They thought it a fine boat, but they would not dream of keeping her for themselves, I take it.”
“Aye, Don Julio Caesare has that effect on people,” Lewrie told Gadsden with a wry expression.
And I can’t wait t’see the look on Lieutenant Dickson’s phyz when he returns to port, Lewrie thought, looking over the side and gloating to note that there were ten oars in the barge, not eight, as he had expected; If he returns to port, that is!