“I think we should go to sea,” Lewrie told his assembled officers over a rare breakfast in his cabins, which raised some hearty cheers in agreement.
“We’ve a new place to raid, sir?” Lt. Grace asked.
“No, but Mister Quill is gathering intelligence for us on two promising places,” Lewrie told him. “Monasterace, where all of the convoys converge after crossing the mountains, and Eufemia Lamezia, up above our bridge, where the road convoys diverge from the main coast road, and there’s a jam-up. Commander Gamble in Coquette brought news about how far along the French repairs on our bridge are going, and I wish to go get some much-needed live gunnery practice. There will be opposition, this time,” Lewrie promised.
“Enemy ships, sir?” Lt. Greenleaf hopefully brayed. “Huzzah!”
“Enemy artillery, actually, Mister Greenleaf,” Lewrie said with a shrug. “A mixed battery of field pieces and howitzers firing explosive shells. Those guns, the French engineers, and their latest efforts should be swatted away t’keep the bastards honest.”
“Except for three or four water kegs that need re-filling, the ship is ready in all respects, sir,” Lt. Farley announced. “If we can forgo dry-fire drill on the guns this morning, I can have us bung full before Noon, sir.”
“Fruit, sir,” Grace was quick to suggest. “If we’re out several days, or a fortnight, oranges and grapes would be welcome with our people.”
“Then speak with the Purser as soon as you can today, sir, and let’s think about enough fresh loaf bread for at least two days. That ciabatta doesn’t spoil as quickly as most,” Lewrie added to the list. “Aye, weather and wind permittin’, let’s stand ready to make sail by Noon tomorrow.”
“I will volunteer to sail to Milazzo, sir,” Lt. Grace quickly offered. “Take the Purser along to the town market, and the bakers? The sutlers round the Army camp won’t have enough ready made.”
“And might that involve seeing the baker’s fetching young daughter, Grace?” Lt. Greenleaf teased. “She is a rare beauty.”
“Well,” was all that Grace could say, blushing and ducking.
“Dickson, I’ll thank you to see to the watering party,” Farley said, looking down the table at their newest.
“And when you do go ashore, Mister Dickson, I’d thank you to go see Colonel Tarrant,” Lewrie added to Dickson’s duties. “We’ll be having a look into Eufemia Lamezia as a possible place to raid, and I’d think that an officer from the Ninety-Fourth should come along. You’ll extend the invitation, and inform the Colonel that we will be putting to sea by Noon tomorrow.
“And, before you do that,” Lewrie went on, “I must get a letter off to Mister Quill in Messina, telling him that we’ll be away for a time, so he doesn’t waste a ride out here expecting a conference to relate anything he’s learned so far. You can hand Colonel Tarrant my note, and he’ll see it gets off.”
“Aye, sir,” Dickson replied, practically the first thing that he had said since sitting down to his pork chop and eggs.
Seven Bells chimed far up forward at the forecastle belfry to mark half past seven of the morning, presaging the start of the Forenoon Watch, and its chores.
“If anyone’s still hungry, too damned bad,” Lewrie jested as he pulled off his napkin and tossed it aside, “there’s some toast left in the bread barge, but let’s be about the day’s duties, what, sirs?”
With a scraping of chair legs, they rose from the table as Lewrie rose, gathered their hats from the sideboard, and made their way to the cabin doors.
“Ah, Mister Farley, bide a moment,” Lewrie said.
“Aye, sir?” the First Officer said, a brow up in fret that some detail had been missed.
“How’s our newest fitting in?” Lewrie asked once the others had left.
“Hmm, that’s rather hard to say, sir,” Farley answered, after a long moment. “Half the time, one hardly knows he’s here. He keeps to himself, doesn’t say much, and with no watches to stand whilst we’re in harbour, there’s no way for me to assess his seamanship. He plays a recorder, sir, a rather nice one. Quite talented at it, if I am any judge. Our sing-alongs in our mess already had Greenleaf’s violin, and my poor strummings on my mandolin, so Dickson’s a welcome addition, in that regard.”
“What of his interactions with our people?” Lewrie asked, more to the meat of it.
“Hmm, subdued, I’d say, sir,” Lt. Farley told him. “He doesn’t waste time with useless orders and such, but he doesn’t slouch about or neglect anything, either. Puts me more in mind of Mister Rutland and all his eternal gloom, sir!” Farley added with a laugh.
“Well, I s’pose that’s the best we can expect straightaway,” Lewrie said with a shrug. “He’ll either fit in or he won’t. Once we get to sea, we’ll learn more about him. Thank you, Mister Farley, you may go about your duties.”
“Aye, sir, and thank you for a tasty breakfast,” Farley said, bowing his way out.
“Chalky, get off the table,” Lewrie snapped, clapping his hands to deter the cat from licking every plate for meat scraps, egg, and hashed potato bits. “You’ve had your share and more!”
And when Dasher and Turnbow tried to gather up the plates, the cat stood in the middle of one plate, licking like mad to get all that he could before being picked up and set aside, or shooed off.
“You’re such a glutton,” Lewrie sighed, exasperated, as Chalky made off with a pork chop bone and dashed beneath the starboard side settee with it.
* * *
When Lt. Dickson brought the last full water butt alongside to be hoisted aboard in slings, he also fetched Captain Bromhead of the 94th, one of the Line Company officers who had been with the regiment the longest, and had taken part in all their landings. Space was made for him in the officers’ wardroom, in the slightly larger dog-box cabin right aft on the starboard side, which would be a Captain’s when Vigilance carried a First Rate Commodore or Rear-Admiral. He would dine with Lewrie, though, for suppers, but would take the bulk of his meals with the ship’s officers.
Late in the afternoon, round the start of the First Dog Watch, Lt. Grace returned from Milazzo with a heaping boatload of bread and fat sacks of fruit, including lemons that some of the ship’s sailors used to liven their grog. The Purser, Mr. Blundell, was aggrieved by the extra expense for everything, especially so since he could not resell the bread to the hands, but had to issue it in lieu of dry, hard ship’s bisquit. At least he could sell the oranges and lemons for tuppence apiece, but he’d barely break even. Ever since the Army had built their encampment, and the squadron had made the bay their anchorage, their joint demands upon local produce and livestock had driven prices higher, despite what warnings Don Julio Caesare had given them about price-gouging.
“And is the baker’s daughter as pretty as they said, Grace?” Lt. Farley teased as Grace gained the deck.
“Ravishing, sir,” Grace said with a wide smile, “though her father has an eagle eye over her, and her virtue. Much like all his pastries … look, but don’t touch!”
“Unless you’re buying, hey?” Greenleaf said, smirking.
“The girl is so fetching, one is mightily tempted to court and marry, sir,” Grace told him.
“The Navy’s not fond of marriage,” Lt. Dickson ventured to say, “especially for junior officers. I was surprised to hear that Mister Rutland is married.”
“Aye, married with children, and nought beyond his Navy pay,” Greenleaf told him, “poor Devil. It’s no wonder he’s so glum.”
“Anyone caught your fancy back home, Dickson?” Farley asked him, and they all perked up their ears to learn something personal about their taciturn newcomer.
“Oh no, no one special yet,” Dickson replied with a shake of his head. “Young ladies of good family in my neighbourhood have eyes on ‘salt free’ beaus,” he attempted to jape, sounding almost wistful and open for a moment, then caught himself and turned his attention to a sling load of fruit rising over the bulwarks.
“That’ll be the last lot,” Grace said, looking over the side at his barge below the larboard main chains. “You lads secure, and come up, once the boat’s ready for towing in the morning.”
“You’ve a working-party to stow it all, Mister Blundell?” the First Officer asked the Purser.
“Aye, I have,” the Purser replied, still grumbling over what it had cost him.
“Then we’re free to go below and tap our keg of ale,” Farley suggested. “Liquor our boots for sailing in the morning, what?”
“Aye, to start with,” Greenleaf laughed, “followed by wine and a bowl of punch, if I’ve a say in it. Come on, Dickson. Let us see what contribution to the punch you will make.”
“Would a pint of gin do?” Dickson said with the first grin he had essayed since coming aboard.
“It’d do just topping!” Greenleaf hooted.
* * *
Mid-afternoon the following day found HMS Vigilance out at sea under all plain sail, a few miles offshore of the site of their first raid, the small port of Tropea, and bound for Pizzo and beyond, for the bridge they had shot to pieces.
The ship had not yet been called to Quarters, but Dickson, trying to appear diligent, was already below on the lower gun-deck among the heavy 24-pounders, where he would direct their firing as Fourth Officer. An elder Quarter-Gunner in charge of several guns together was strolling along his charges, tugging at run-out and recoil tackle ropes, checking the bowsings that held the barrels snug to the hull.
“There’s enough swab-water in the tubs?” Dickson asked him.
“Cummins, sir,” the fellow replied, “Quarter-Gunner,” he added, touching his brow by way of a salute. “You’re new to th’ ship, so’s I expect you’ll be wantin’ t’learn people’s names an’ all. Aye, Mister Dickson, ev’ry tub’s full, th’ slow-match fuse is laid by handy, an’ th’ ready shot for my guns is rolled for proper roundness. I checked ’em meself.”
“What are these notches in the breeching rings?” Dickson asked, intrigued, and wondering if they were intentional.
“Rough sights, sir, same as on the muzzles,” Cummins said with a cackle. “Capum Lewrie’s high on accurate gunnery, an’ had us cut th’ notches soon’s he come aboard. We knocked down an old stone fort at one place, blew down a stone bridge up where we’re goin’, once, an’ back in th’ Spring, shot th’ Bejeesus out of a French infantry regiment nigh a whole mile away! I hear tell in his last ship, him an’ his squadron took on four big frigates, an’ his gunners were puttin’ shot right into French gun-ports, at half a full cable, not close aboard! Chaw or pipe tobacco for the best crews, out o’ his own pocket, too. Put us to it e’en afore we got t’Malta.”
“Surely, you exaggerate, uh Cummins,” Dickson said.
“Just you wait ’til these brutes light off, sir,” Cummins said in boast. “We might be a trifle rusty, laid up in port so long ’tween raids an’ all, but, once we get our eyes in, you’ll be seein’ a thing t’see, sir!”
“Right ye are, an’ amen t’that,” a gun-captain chimed in from a mess table on the larboard side.
Dickson looked round and took note that sailors were gathered at the mess tables, which were still lowered, not strapped to the overhead out of the way of gun crews when Quarters was announced. He reckoned that not all the off-watch hands idling below were members of the gun crews, but all down the ship’s starboard side, younger hands were listening to slightly older men, near the massive 24-pounders they likely served, talking low but boastful, rubbing horny hands in anticipation of action, and grinning evilly over what they’d do to the French.
“These men to starboard…” Dickson asked the Quarter-Gunner.
“Ready an’ willin’, sir,” Cummins told him with a gap-toothed grin. “They knows we’re goin’ t’shoot up that bridge we knocked down last time, that the Frogs have batteries there, now, and we’ll be closin’ th’ coast starb’d side to, an’ they wanna be th’ first t’run out and engage.”
“Lord, sir,” a young gunner piped up, “ain’t no way t’keep anythin’ secret ’board ship. It’s clear as day wot we’re goin’ t’do.”
“I see,” Dickson said, disguising his amazement. His sailors hadn’t been eager about anything, or had the wits to anticipate and make preparations beforehand. He put it down to the difference between a warship and an un-armed transport, but … there was something surprisingly different about Vigilance.
Dickson also felt hundreds of eyes boring into the nape of his neck, of being assessed. No one who mattered was watching him being diligent, and he felt like an interloper, so he strolled back aft to the ladderway to the upper gun-deck, and fresh air, conducting only a cursory inspection of guns, gun tools, and tackle.
Once there, he noted that each of the starboard 18-pounders on the upper gun-deck was halfway manned, as well, and men were tinkering with their charges, lounging with their elbows resting on the sun-warm barrels, or sprawled on the oak decks close by, just waiting for the first rattles of the Long Roll from the Marine drummer, the urgent trill of Bosun’s calls.
He mounted to the quarterdeck for a look-see at the Calabrian coast which was about eight miles off, nodding greetings to Lt. Grace, who had the watch.
“Been below?” Grace asked as Dickson stood by the bulwarks for a better view outboard.
“All’s well, and everyone’s eager,” Dickson told him. “Just had a look-round to see if everything’s in order.”
“It will be,” Grace assured him. “Captain Lewrie’s a stickler for good gunnery. Powder smoke is like a fine cigarro to him! He’s a real fighter, and our people know it by now. Do we come to anchor and let the crews fire one at a time, there’ll be free tobacco and a full measure of rum for those who shoot best, too.”
“Where did he get the idea for cutting sights on the guns?” Lt. Dickson asked. “I never heard the like.”
“Oh, he heard of another Captain who…” Grace began to say, but was interrupted by Lewrie’s arrival on the quarterdeck from his cabins. “Captain’s on deck!” Grace announced, then crossed over to the lee side of the deck, yielding the windward.
“No no, Mister Grace,” Lewrie said. “Stay where you are whilst I have myself a look-see from the starboard side.”
Lewrie stood there for a long time with his telescope to one eye, studying the shore as it glided by. When done with that, he peered aloft to the commissioning pendant and its streaming, judging direction and strength of the winds, and the proper set of the sails.
“We’re almost level with Pizzo,” Lewrie announced at last, “and the bridge isn’t far beyond. Haul our wind three points and close the coast, sir. And I’ll have the courses brailed up.”
“Aye, sir!” Grace snapped, then turned to bawl forward to send hands to sheets and braces, and for topmen to man the course yards.
“About that time, sir?” the Sailing Master, Mr. Wickersham asked jovially as he bestirred himself from a cat-nap in his sea cabin and came onto the quarterdeck.
“Indeed, Mister Wickersham,” Lewrie told him. “Hands to the fore chains to toss the leads if you please.”
Vigilance’s jib-boom and bow-sprit swept round to the right as the yards aloft were re-angled to take the winds more abeam, slowing as the courses were hauled up. Minutes later, the ship was squared away, now ghosting at about five knots and bound inshore.
“Mister Grace,” Lewrie finally said. “Sound Beat to Quarters.”
Vigilance, which had been gliding along in relative silence, as if hushed and waiting, erupted with sudden noise as the Marine drummer and flautist rattled out the Long Roll and struck up an urgent tune. Bare feet and shod feet thundered on the ladderways leading below, as men ran to their stations for battle. Already, bowsings were being cast loose to allow truck carriages to be hauled to the centreline with the roar and rumble of a cattle stampede, and the hog-like squeal of un-greased wooden wheels and axles. Hundreds of door-slams sounded as deal and canvas partitions were struck down, furniture was carried below out of harm’s way, and the gun decks were turned into long alleys bare of any human comforts. Just guns, carriages, and men.
Dickson disappeared below to his station, as did Lt. Grace and Lt. Greenleaf. Lt. Farley came to the quarterdeck to second the Captain and Sailing Master. And bare minutes later, Midshipmen scampered up from below, from both bow and stern, to make their reports to the officers remaining.
“Sir, the ship is at Quarters and ready for action,” Lt. Farley solemnly announced.
“Very well,” Lewrie said, just as gravely. “Have the guns loaded, open the ports, and run out. Mister Wickersham, your recollection of the coast is still fresh? You can conn us within a quarter-mile like we lay last time?”
“Aye, Captain,” Wickersham replied, peering shoreward with his telescope. “You’ll wish to anchor?”
“Hah! Not this time, sir, no,” Lewrie replied, “I don’t wish to give the French gunners a stationary target. We’ll cruise by slowly, then turn out to sea, circle round, and do it again ’til we’ve done as much damage as we can.”
“Guns run out, ports open, and ready to open, sir,” Lt. Farley reported. “I think I can almost make out the bridge from here, damned if I can’t,” he added, extending his own glass. “Just round that high point, and it’ll be in full view. About two miles away?”
“Hmm, about that, aye, Mister Farley,” Wickersham agreed.
“It looks different,” Lewrie commented as the high point of land that partially blocked the view slowly inched half a point farther to the right of the ship’s bows.
They’ve been lumbering, Lewrie thought, taking in the sight of steep hills that had been thickly forested when they had come here before. There had been trees on the seaward side of the coast road that almost hid it, either side of the bridge, but now there was a field of stumps and bare earth and rock, and the steep slopes that had forced the road out to the edge of the precipices were just as bare.
“Aha! They’ve been as busy as a whole tribe of beavers!” Farley joshed as the bridge came fully in sight.
Lewrie spotted crane hoists, either end of what was left of the bridge, with teams of oxen yoked and harnessed to do the heavy hauling. On the north end, just off the stub of stone span that still stood, a large timber dangled from the hoist as if they had caught the French in the process of lowering it down into the ravine. Farther out on the road there was a large timber waggon, also drawn by oxen, loaded with rough-milled wood baulks. And, there was a half-battery of artillery sited on the road, protected by a redan of logs, with two openings for firing. Lewrie imagined that he would see the same arrangement on the south end when it came into view.
“Busy running,” the Sailing Master said with a snort of humour.
Indeed, the road from the bridge teemed with workers in their shirt sleeves, tools in their hands and over their shoulders, fleeing in scurrying packs, some shrugging into their uniform jackets, with their shakoes set on their heads at any old angle.
“I see smoke,” Lt. Farley warned. “Furnaces for heated shot?”
“We’ve been in sight long enough for them to do so,” Lewrie said, his stomach muscles tensing in dread of red-hot cannon balls smashing into Vigilance’s sides, sticking in the dents they would make, and the tarred, painted timbers igniting. His ship could be burned to the waterline, and no amount of stroking on the wash-deck pumps would be of any use.
“I don’t think the smoke’s coming from the batteries,” Lewrie said, half in hope. “No, it’s from down in the ravine, under the old bridge.” He recalled that Commander Gamble had told him that damage from various bombardments had left piles of broken timber down there, but Lewrie was at a loss as to why the French would set fire to it, except to create a smoke screen too thick for any ship to fire at the bridge. And that didn’t make any sense to him, either. That dense a smoke pall would blind the gunners who were there to protect it.
Vigilance swam slowly on, within a mile of the shore by then, and a mile or so short of the bridge and the re-construction work, and the south end of the bridge came into view, a duplicate of the activity on the north end; a log redan for a half-battery of artillery, a crane hoist, various waggons, yoked oxen, and un-harnessed mules and draught horses. Another horde of fleeing workers and French engineers could be seen almost galloping towards the village of Pizzo.
“Pass word below, if you please,” Lewrie said, studying the half-battery closest to them, “we will engage the enemy batteries, first.”
As he watched, there came a sudden burst of yellow-white powder smoke ashore, followed a second later by the thunder clap of a cannon firing, then the rustling keen of a roundshot approaching the ship.
Lewrie clenched his jaws and compressed his lips as the cannon ball’s wail rose in pitch as it neared. Splash! went the roundshot as it struck the sea a quarter-mile short of Vigilance, throwing up a tall and feathery plume of spray as it plunged into the water.
“Howitzer,” he commented. “Plunged straight down, and didn’t skip from First Graze.”
Boom! as the smouldering fuse in the shot reached the interior powder charge, and the explosive shot blew up deep under water, making a white foam mound of disturbance for a second before a thicker, even taller plume of spray shot through with smoke erupted.
“Aye, howitzer,” Lewrie said again. “The fuse was cut too long.”
They won’t make that mistake again, he grimly thought, wondering if he had bitten off more than his ship could chew.
“A mile to the closest battery, I make it, sir,” Mr. Wickersham said with his sextant to his eye, “A long-ish shot.”
“We’ll wait,” Lewrie told the people on the quarterdeck. “Half a mile’s better.”
The French battery opened fire once more, this time with a pair of 12-pounder field guns, their shot flying in much flatter ballistic arcs, striking the sea far short of Vigilance, then bounding up from First Graze to dap closer like skipped stones, losing momentum each time, finally succumbing to gravity and their own weight and sinking from sight at least a full cable short. Then came another burst of gunsmoke, the slamming sound of the howitzer firing, and the Skree! of its shot on the way. Lewrie tensed again.
Crack! went the shell as it exploded just above the sea, about two hundred yards short, leaving a dark grey and black blotch above the water, and flinging shattered iron bits all about, foaming a wide patch of water beneath it.
One o’ those square in the waist, and I won’t have an upper gun-deck left! Lewrie thought.
“Half a mile, sir,” the Sailing Master said, after some quick scribblings on a chalk slate.
“Mister Farley, pass word below,” Lewrie snapped, eager to reply to the French artillery at last. “All guns to fire as they bear.”
“Aye, sir!” Lt. Farley said, sounding a tad relieved himself, and shooing Midshipmen to run below with the order.
“Seems unfair, sir,” Wickersham commented.
“What, sir? Howitzers?” Lewrie asked him.
“No, sir. What they’re about to receive!” Wickersham tittered. “Three guns against twenty-six much bigger ones!”
“On the up-roll!” Lt. Greenleaf on the upper gun-deck could be heard to bellow. “As you bear … fire!”
Up forward, a 24-pounder on the lower gun-deck roared, followed by the sharper sound from an upper deck 18-pounder, and the firing stuttered down the ship to the stern-most gun-ports. Before a bank of powder smoke masked everything between Vigilance and the shore, Lewrie saw roundshot striking all round the log redan, the waggons and beasts on the road, and the slopes both before and behind where the French guns were emplaced. He slammed a fist on the bulwark’s cap-rails in impatience, wishing for a stronger wind to blow all the smoke away so he and his gunners could see the results of their first shots.
There came a muffled roar in the relative silence after the last guns had fired, then a keen of an explosive shell approaching. Where it went Lewrie had no idea, nor did the French, for the shell burst somewhere between ship and shore in the midst of the smoke pall that drifted downwind.
“Stop yer vents! Swab out!” Lt. Greenleaf was shouting. “Charge your guns!” forcing Lewrie to look down into the waist to watch the gun crews leaping over their duties, ship’s boys scampering up from the magazines with fresh powder cartridges in wood or leather containers, and gun-captains choosing the roundest shot for reloading.
“Shot your guns!” Greenleaf bawled. “Ready? Run out, and prick cartridge! Prime! Take aim!”
The smoke was thinning as it was blown closer to shore, giving hints of what damage they had done with their first shots. Lewrie got a tantalising glimpse, forcing him to raise his telescope for a closer look, just as the forward-most guns on both gun-decks began to roar once more. Smashed and overturned waggons, stampeding horses and mules, some splotched with blood, dis-embowelled, the triangular crane hoist smashed and blown onto the upper slope above the road, and the two-gun redan … “Oh, dammit!” he muttered for the fresh gunsmoke blotted out his view! Even scrambling up to his usual post on the poop deck would not avail. The guns below the quarterdeck went off, making an even thicker pea soup fog, and he took a deep breath and held it as he was wreathed in the rotten egg stink of it.
He looked round the quarterdeck, and made out the Sailing Master and he had to laugh, for the man was fanning his arms to blow the gunsmoke away as if assailed by a plague of flies!
Lt. Greenleaf was crying his un-ending litany; Stop vents, Swab, Charge your guns, Overhaul recoil tackle, Shot your guns, Prick cartridge, all smothered and anonymous like a town crier in a street near the Thames, lost in the night and fogs.
“I think I can see…” Lt. Farley hesitantly said. “Yes, I can. The log redan looks shattered, sir. Strewn about like a handful of twigs, and one of their field pieces looks to be dis-mounted!”
It was like peering through a haze, but Lewrie could make out the emplacement at last, and smiled at the sight. The logs had been little protection to the men serving those guns, and one of them had been dis-mounted, a wheel of the carriage shattered and the gun now canted over to one side and out of action. He looked for artillerymen to be serving the intact piece, but there was little movement or sign of the crews; a hint of a shako above the log piles where someone was sheltering, perhaps.
What a horrid position! Lewrie thought, before his guns fired once more. The steep slope behind the road, the narrowness of that road, and the steep slope in front had forced the officer in charge of that battery to site his guns right on the road, and place all of his caissons and limbers practically steps away! His howitzers had been set up almost atop the trails of the field guns’ carriages!
“We’re in range of the guns at the north end of the bridge,” Lt. Farley directed their attention as far-off explosions sounded. Through the smoke, Lewrie could see quick flashes of red and amber as that half-battery opened fire. There was a shell splash so close to the ship that a pillar of spray rose and pelted the quarterdeck like a brief summer shower. Through his boots, Lewrie could feel the shot thud into the hull with a faint sound.
“Steer a point to larboard,” Lewrie ordered to expand the gun arcs to reach that half-battery, for the angle his guns could reach was limited by the narrowness of the gun-ports. “Pass word for the guns to aim for the new battery, once the smoke clears.”
Vigilance’s guns crashed and boomed, and truck carriages lurched back from the ports in recoil, creating a rumble as loud as an avalanche of stones, some guns leaping inches off the deck as the barrels heated up.
There was a sudden blast of fire leaping high into the sky amid the nigh impenetrable smoke pall, a livid flash of yellow that turned red in an eye blink as something substantial ashore blew up, forcing Lewrie to curse again that he couldn’t see what it was that instant, yet crewmen on the upper decks cheered and swirled their hats in the air, even if they couldn’t see what they’d accomplished.
There was a sharp crack of an explosive shell going off, far beyond Vigilance’s un-engaged side, out to sea.
“Check fire for a moment, Mister Farley!” Lewrie snapped, eager to see what was happening. “Let the smoke clear!”
“Six fathoms!” a leadsman in the fore chains yelled aft, in a wail like a ghost. “Six fathoms t’this line!”
“About as close as we should get, sir,” the Sailing Master cautioned, “with this total lack of visibility.”
“Fine with me, Mister Wickersham,” Lewrie agreed.
“Thus, Quartermasters, and nothing to loo’ard,” Wickersham told the helmsmen.
“Nothin’ t’loo’ard aye,” was the response, and some firmer grips on the wheel spokes.
“Look at that!” Lt. Farley crowed as the smoke finally began to thin. “I do believe we hit their powder supply!”
Indeed, the whole south end of the bridge where the half-battery had sat was now a sea of billowing, boiling black smoke, shot through with red flames, the caisson waggons exploded, limbers turned to kindling and well alight, the log redan a game of pick-up-sticks strewn down the steep slope and both field pieces and the howitzer were dis-mounted, their wooden wheels and carriages burning. Of their crews there was no sign. The fire had even spread to the crane hoist which was also afire, and what progress the French had made to shore up the approach from the south end over the stump of the old stone span was burning.
“You may open upon the other battery, Mister Farley!” Lewrie ordered with a note of triumph in his voice. He raised his glass to gloat over the ruin they had caused, noting how many deep divots had been blown from both the lower and the upper slopes round the guns.
“May we have another half a point free, sir?” Farley suggested.
“Aye, do so. Helmsmen, half a point to windward,” Lewrie said.
Gun-captains serving the upper deck 18-pounders bent to peer down their guns’ barrels, knelt to wiggle the quoin blocks an inch or so to shift elevation, to place the sight notches in line with their targets, finally stepping back and aside from recoil, with flintlock strikers cocked and the trigger lines drawn taut in their hands.
“As you bear … fire!”
The French had already fired, and Lewrie heard a roundshot soar over the deck, and felt the air disturbed by its passage. There was a second roundshot that struck the ship somewhere up forward, and the keen of a falling howitzer shell, which made Lewrie shrug into his coat in dread. Boom! as a pillar of seawater shot skyward about one hundred yards short, the shell laid and fused almost perfectly. One more like that, and Vigilance might take real damage! But, she was serving out much worse upon the French, and before her gunsmoke laid a curtain cross the scene, Lewrie could see roundshot striking close to the half-battery, flinging clouds of dirt, rock, and gravel high in the air, causing part of the lower slope to slide down to the beach.
The ship sailed on, slower now that the massive concussions of her guns had shot the wind to zephyrs, as the guns always seemed to do, and the smoke pall took even longer to waft shoreward and dissipate.
“One more broadside, and we’ll be past the battery,” Lt. Farley opined, coughing a bit on the thick smoke. “It’s a bit aft of abeam, now, sir, the last I could see of it.”
“I know, Mister Farley,” Lewrie agreed. “We’ll have to stand out to sea and come back to finish the work.”
And that’ll be no fun, he told himself; with our starboard guns unable to engage, and havin’ t’take what the French serve us in the meantime.
“Now what the Devil?” Mr. Wickersham exclaimed as the smoke began to thin enough for him to raise his telescope and examine what they had accomplished. “I do believe they’re running away, sir!”
Lewrie eagerly put his own telescope to his eye and began to chuckle under his breath, for the ground and the stone verge of the road round the enemy battery was chewed up as if a myriad of rabbits had been digging, the log redan in front of the guns knocked aside and no taller than the bottom log. The field pieces and the howitzer lay fully exposed, still upright on their carriages, wheels intact, and surrounded by their ancillary waggons full of shot, powder, and explosive shells and un-set fuses. But the surviving gunners were pelting up the road away from their charges as fast as their legs could carry them, sure that they would suffer the same fate as their compatriots in the other half-battery.
“Cease fire, Mister Farley!” Lewrie cried in delight. “Let the gunners take a rest, and a turn at the scuttlebutts. It appears as if the French have chosen discretion over valour.”
“Might not even be French, sir,” Mr. Wickersham hooted. “Sure to be some of their Italian allies. Poor, unwilling conscripts.”
“Let’s get a way on the ship, gentlemen, and stand out to come round and finish the job,” Lewrie said.
And, as HMS Vigilance swung up onto the wind to gain speed for a tack which would carry her back to the bridge for another run, Lewrie went up to the poop deck for a better look at the structure that the French engineers had cobbled together to support road traffic along that stretch of coastal road.
“What in the Devil’s that?” Lewrie said aloud.
“Damned loud, but most entertaining, I must say!” someone on the quarterdeck below him was crowing.
Lewrie looked down and spotted Captain Bromhead of the 94th. He had not seen him since breakfast, and had completely forgotten that he was aboard!
“Loud, was it, Captain Bromhead?” Lewrie asked him, making the Army officer look up.
“I was standing with Captain Whitehead of your Marines along the rails,” Bromhead replied with a laugh and a shake of his head as if he was trying to clear his ears. “Right above the middle of all of your cannon, sir. I wish someone would have suggested candle wax in my ears beforehand, hah hah!”
“Know anything about construction, sir?” Lewrie asked him. “If you do, please come up and help me make sense of what I’m seeing.”
“Well, gladly, Captain Lewrie, though I know little of engineering,” Captain Bromhead said. “My math skills were hopeless for entry into Woolwich. Artillery, engineering, whoo!”
He trotted up, though, and pulled out a smaller, silver-chased pocket telescope and trained it on the bridge, now astern of the ship. The smoke from Vigilance’s broadsides had thinned to a fine mist, by then, and the bridge lay stark and almost clear.
“They building a chimney?” Bromhead puzzled after a long study. “A long, tall box most chimney-like, I’d say. Logs?”
“Stout oak tree trunks, perhaps,” Lewrie said, just as puzzled. “They look as if they’ve been milled square, somewhere nearby. Interlocking at the ends, like cabins I saw in the Americas. They must be twelve feet long or better, and thick. Foot and a half thick, do you think?”
“Hard to tell at this distance, sir,” Bromhead said, shrugging. “Very thick and stout, to bear as much weight as heavily-laden waggons crossing the bridge. Bless me! Is that a forge down in the ravine? That smoke there, sir.”
“Aye, I noticed that before we opened fire,” Lewrie agreed.
“Well, they can’t just stack them up without some sort of nails or heavy spikes,” Captain Bromhead enthused over the idea. “I’d wager their engineers have used the artillery battery forge waggon to make long and stout iron spikes to keep them from shifting under the weight whenever a waggon goes across!”
“And there’s still a good fire in it,” Lewrie said, getting an idea. “Lots of hot coals, bellows to stoke with … hmm.”
“We can go ashore and set it all alight, sir!” Bromhead urged. “We’ve driven off any opposition!”
“We can, indeed, sir!” Lewrie said with a laugh. “Mister Farley! Mister Wickersham! We will anchor, this time, and complete the destruction of their artillery. We will also land the Marines to go start a huge fire! Pass word for Captain Whitehead.”
“Aye aye, sir!” the First Officer called back, eager for more action, but he had other duties to see to, first. “All hands, ready to tack! Hands to sheets and braces!”
Vigilance had stood out to sea at least three miles, hard on the winds, and gathering sufficient speed with which to complete a tack cross the eyes of the wind, and not get caught “in irons,” missing stays, and brought fully aback to drift down onto a lee shore before making a second try.
“They’re getting their courage back, sir!” the Sailing Master said in an idle moment allowed from stern concentration on the tack.
Sure enough, the French workers and engineers, the artillerymen from that second half-battery, supposed that the Anglais Devil ship was done with them for the day, and was sailing away. They were cautiously drifting, skulking, back closer to the bridge to repair what damage had been done. Lewrie smirked as he watched them once Vigilance crossed the eyes of the wind and hauled her wind to run a beam reach down the coast as if bound South, then began to fall off the wind to make another run, setting off a new stampede to safety.
Scurry, mice! he thought gleefully; The cat ain’t done yet!
* * *
Once anchored by bower and kedge, close to where she had come to anchor the first time they’d attacked the bridge, a quarter-mile offshore, the upper deck 18-pounder guns began to roar, from bow to stern in carefully laid shots at the abandoned half-battery on the north end of the bridge approaches, with idle hands, ship’s boys, and gun crews whooping and cheering over the accuracy of each shot, or jeering a poor one.
Captain Whitehead and his Lieutenants, with an eager Captain Bromhead along, took all the Marines and the armed boats crews ashore, onto the gritty beach at the foot of the ravine. Muskets, bayonets, and cartridge boxes were laid aside, and coats and hats stripped off so they could pump the leather bellows to stoke the forge fires into bright, yellow-hot coals, while others opened ten-pound kegs of gunpowder to strew round the chimney-like bridge timbers. Fine-mealed coal was fed to the forge to make even more sizzling hot chunks which were shovelled over the vast piles of broken timbers from other raids, onto the milled timbers waiting to be hoisted into place, and tossed high up onto the timbers already erected, which were smeared with some sort of preservative. Great, sputtering flashes erupted round the base of the centre pillar as the loose gunpowder took light and spewed enormous clouds of yellow-white smoke reeking of sulphur and rotten eggs.
Slowly, the erected timbers began to burn on the outside, and the piles of milled timbers began to flare ’til the whole ravine was belching dense grey and black clouds of smoke and flame, fires and smoke so thick that the Marines were driven back to their boats on the beach.
“I do believe that thing is beginning to act like a chimney, sir!” Lt. Farley cheered.
Their joy was interrupted by a massive explosion as an 18-pounder shot hit one of the caissons of the half-battery on the north end of the bridge, and that explosion transmitted itself to the rest, one so strong that a French 12-pounder artillery piece was driven over the low stone verge of the coast road to tumble down the steep cliff to smash itself to kindling on the rocks below.
“Hoist the Recall signal,” Lewrie ordered. “Let’s get our people back aboard. Once the boats are secure, we’ll turn the lower deck twenty-four-pounders loose on what’s left of the bridge.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Lt. Farley replied, then coughed into his fist.
“Aye, it is gettin’ a tad thick,” Lewrie said, as the smoke off the fires ashore began to cover the entire area, the raw, oily stink of it even reaching the ship despite the onshore breeze.
He could, however, make out Captain Whitehead of the Marines waving his arms widely in acknowledgement of the Recall signal, and summoning his men into the waiting barges. With muskets and accoutrements re-slung, the Marines helped the armed sailors push the barges off the gravelly beach and leap aboard, arms, legs, and oarsmen all entangled as the boats drifted into slightly deeper water.
“Secure the upper deck guns, sir?” Lt. Farley asked him.
“No,” Lewrie told him. “They’re to hold their fire ’til all of our people are back aboard, and then we’ll haul up the boarding nets and re-open upon what’s left of the bridge with all guns.”
“Aye, sir,” Farley said.
It was a joyous pack of sailors and Marines who clambered up the boarding nets minutes later, joshing and laughing with each other, and taking long looks at their handiwork once they’d gained the decks before drifting off in small groups to stow away their arms and queue up at the scuttlebutts for a welcome drink of water.
“Nets secured, sir,” Lt. Farley reported, “and all boats aft and ready for towing.”
“Very well, Mister Farley, you may open on the bridge,” Lewrie ordered, before trotting up to the poop deck with his telescope.
“All guns! Stand to and make ready! Individual fire on the chimney-looking thing!” Lt. Greenleaf bellowed on the upper gun-deck.
One at a time, much like the tolling of a doleful church bell, the guns on both decks erupted, spearing gushes of powder smoke shot through with embers from the flannel powder cartridges and long tongues of red and amber fire. Errant iron roundshot made spanging and bonging noises as they struck rock in the dry ravine, whilst other rounds created parroty squawks when they struck wood. One roundshot smashed the forge, creating a cloud of fireflies spreading outwards like the burst of a fireworks rocket as hot coals flew about.
Slowly, the upper reaches of the construction got shaken apart, scattering long, thick milled timbers far aside, some to tumble over and over before crashing down into the morass of bright flames, and the interlocking beams of the pillar were shortened, the whole thing shaken and loosened, beginning to come apart with groans. At last, there was nothing left to shoot at but a jumbled pyre little taller than the mast of a sailing lugger, with the fierce wind that the fire created revealing hints of the original Roman stone pillar inside, and it, too, looked shorter than the last time they had seen it, as the heat of the fires ate the ancient mortar, allowing the weight of the dirt and rubble-filled centre to push outwards and collapse that, too.
“Cease fire, Mister Farley,” Lewrie called down to the deafened men on the quarterdeck below him. “I think we’ve done enough.”
“Aye, sir,” Farley agreed, plucking candle wax from his ears.
“And I’ll have reports from both gun-decks about the accuracy of individual crews, for tobacco and rum rewards,” Lewrie added.
“Aye, sir!”
“Swab ’em down good, lads!” Lt. Greenleaf roared, full of good cheer. “Not a speck of powder smut on your guns, from muzzles to the cascabels before the tompions go back in! Good shooting, damned fine shooting! We’ve done a grand day’s work today!”
After a last, triumphant look at the carnage they had created, Lewrie collapsed the tubes of his telescope and sauntered down the ladderway to the quarterdeck to stow it in the rack on the compass binnacle cabinet. Captain Bromhead of the 94th, with nothing to do but stand round as a spectator, came aft from his vantage point by the starboard entry-port, wiggling fingers in his ears.
“Protect your hearing better this time, Captain Bromhead?” Lewrie asked him.
“Ah, no sir. No time to melt some wax before the guns started up again,” Bromhead replied, tilting his head far over. “Lieutenant Greenleaf said I should press my hands over my ears and keep my mouth open, but it didn’t help all that much.”
“Let’s pray we didn’t deafen you permanently, then,” Lewrie said with a slight grin. “Join me for some cool tea, ginger beer, or ale?”
“I’d be delighted, sir,” Bromhead gratefully told him. “I find my mouth is coated with powder smoke. Ehm … we will be looking in at Eufemia Lamezia after this?”
“Not today, no,” Lewrie said, pulling out his pocket watch. “I think a nice, quiet night out at sea will do for us, stand off-and-on the place ’til dawn, then sail in to look it over tomorrow.”
“Oh, good!” Bromhead replied. “Time and enough for word of what we did here today to reach the town, and make them shake in their boots at their first sight of us, haw!”
“Aye, our arrival will, won’t it?” Lewrie said, quite pleased at the prospect. “Though, when word reaches Naples or Reggio di Calabria, I’d imagine it’ll be more anger than fear in their senior officers. In point of fact, our success here might result in some courts-martial for whoever was assigned to guard this place.”
“Might we relish the thought, sir, that we’ve ruined Marshal Murat’s dinner,” Bromhead teased, “or, when word reaches Paris, we put Bonaparte himself off his feed, hah hah?”
“Death, confusion, and frustration to the French!” Lewrie said, and had himself a good laugh.