There was a fairly bright moon and a clear, starlit sky the evening after they had destroyed the bridge for good and all, and, as HMS Vigilance stood off-and-on in the Gulf of Saint Eufemia, there was a celebration in the ship’s waist. Sailors and Marines lined the sail-tending gangways to look down upon the revelry. The Marine drummer boy, the flute player, and a skilled fiddler served up lively tunes and jigs, with a contribution from Cox’n Liam Desmond and his uilleann lap pipes. Spry men and ship’s boys stamped round in contre-dances, and contestants took over the midship hatch gratings to vie for which was a champion at hornpipes. Old, favourite songs were belted out, along with the slower laments for home and missing loves, but in the main it was a most cheerful evening from the middle of the Second Dog Watch ’til the 9 P.M. call for all lights to be extinguished belowdecks.
Younger Midshipmen held their own dances and songs on the forecastle, whilst the ship’s officers looked on from the quarterdeck and the forward edge of the poop, above. There was dignity to be lost if they participated, of course, but at least they could sing along and sway, grin and laugh over the sillier songs, and carefully touch the corners of their eyes when a lament was sung.
Lt. Dickson crammed himself into the lee corner of the poop deck, hard up against the bulwarks with an arm round one of the thick tarred mizen mast stays, looking down in wonder, and now and again glancing down to see what Captain Lewrie was doing, and thinking some hard and painful thoughts, for the day and now the evening were eye-opening.
In his previous ships, Third Rate ships of the line, an older three-masted Sloop of War, then a 74-gunned two-decker under his distant kinfolk, he had not seen all that much combat; a shot under the bows of a fleeing merchantman or privateer, followed by a quick surrender, and one passable stand-up fight with a French corvette in the Bay of Biscay that had not lasted quite half an hour before the French captain had struck his colours, his guns fired mostly for the sake of his, and his nation’s, honour.
Today, though, he had been in a ship that had been fired at, with explosive shells to boot, and none of his gun crews on the lower deck had paid any more attention to danger than they would of a shower of cold, cooked peas. And they served their guns accurately, too, steadily and unceasingly getting off three shots every two minutes, cheering their aim and their results when destroying the French artillery, and whooping with delight to see the make-shift bridge crumble under their weight of metal. And tonight they were singing and dancing in a manner that Dickson had never experienced aboard the other ships he had served. Oh, the recruiting posters always promised “music and dancing nightly” along with oceans of prize-money, but it was a rare thing for that promise to be observed.
Vigilance was a highly effective warship, and evidently a happy ship, too, with every hand well-trained and proud of their roles, and of their ship, without being driven to it like dumb cattle too ignorant to understand the finer sentiments of patriotism, service, and dedication that only men like himself could understand, or feel.
The Master at Arms and his Ship’s Corporals finally took up their lanthorns and called for all other lights to be doused at Two Bells of the Evening Watch, raising good-natured complaints among the revellers as the off-watch hands went below to roll into their hammocks for a few hours’ sleep, and the instruments were put aside.
Dickson had the Middle Watch, Midnight ’til 4 A.M. that evening, so he slowly sauntered down to the quarterdeck to go below to the wardroom for a short rest, himself, listening to the Sailing Master grumble over the last puffs from his pipe before tapping the bowl’s contents overside, and the low banter of his fellow officers.
“Goodnight, Captain sir,” Dickson dared say to Lewrie.
“Ah, goodnight to you, Mister Dickson, short though your rest will be,” Lewrie said back, as pleasantly as he bade the others. “I’ll wish t’be wakened at Eight Bells.”
“Aye, sir,” Dickson replied, touching the front of his bicorne hat in parting salute, and feeling as if he was accepted aboard as a full member of the wardroom, and the crew, with no grudge held against him. So long as he did not muck up.
* * *
“Beg pardon, sir,” Midshipman Charles Chenery said as soon as Lewrie stepped out onto the quarterdeck after his breakfast, “the men wish a favour, sir.”
“And what would that be, Mister Chenery?” Lewrie asked him.
“Ehm … the crew would like permission for a broom to be lashed to the mainmast truck, in sign of another clean sweep, sir,” Midshipman Chenery said. “So the French in Eufemia Lamezia see it, and know who we are.”
“And they put you up to the asking?” Lewrie wondered, grinning. “Why not Midshipmen Langdon, Cummings, or Upchurch? They’re the eldest. Even the Bosun, Mister Gore?”
“I would suppose, ehm, because I am your in-law, sir?” Chenery said, tucking his chin into his shirt collar.
“Well, no harm in the doing, I suppose,” Lewrie told him. “But, whoever goes all the way to the truck I conjure to do it most carefully. No sense falling to their death, hear me?”
“Aye, sir!” Chenery answered with a relieved grin.
“And Mister Chenery,” Lewrie added, stopping him from dashing to the waist, “just because we are in-laws, I’ll not have our people thinking that you can work your way with me for any damnfool request. Make sure they know it.”
“Aye, sir!”
“Ah, good morning, Captain Bromhead,” Lewrie said to the Army officer as he made his way to the quarterdeck by the same ladderway that Chenery took to descend. “Ready to smoak out Eufemia Lamezia? We have worn about to sail in close. There’s a sea chart and a landsman’s map in the chart space we can refer to.”
“Ready and willing, sir,” Bromhead told him, “though I may wish to borrow a stronger telescope than mine.”
“Of course, sir,” Lewrie told him, then turned his attention to the base of the mainmast trunk, where a fifteen-year-old topman took up a fresh broom, lashed a few turns of light rope round it, and then bound it to his left arm, as other sailors gathered round to cheer him on. Lewrie felt a shiver in his groin as the young fellow sprang to the top of the windward bulwarks, swung out onto the mainmast stays and rat-lines, and began to climb, as agile as an ape.
Better you than me, Lewrie thought. In his Midshipman days he had spent half of each watch he stood aloft in the rigging, making or taking in sail alongside the hands, and he had hated every bloody minute of it! Up to the cat harpings where the sets of shrouds crossed each other, out to hang upside down like a true sailorman from the futtock shrouds where larboard shrouds dead-eyed on the starboard side of the fighting top, a claw up and over the rim, then up the narrower shrouds to the cross-trees, then onward to work on the royals and the t’gallant yards. But, he had never, even for a hefty wager or a challenge, shinned up to the mainmast truck, or even thought of standing upright on the wee button cap, hundreds of feet aloft with nothing to grab on to for support as the ship swayed and the wind gusted!
“Watch this,” Lewrie told Bromhead, pointing the feat out to him. “And say a prayer?”
“Whatever is he doing?” Capt. Bromhead gawped. “Oh, my word!”
The topman made it to the cross-trees, shared a joke with the lookout posted there, then went on up ’til he was wrapped round the mast top, shinning that slim pole, then removing the broom’s lashings from his arm to transfer them to the truck, with the broom straw jutting skyward. Then, with equal agility, he descended to land on the sail-tending gangway to loud whistles, cat-calls, and applause.
“Mister Acford,” Lewrie bade the nearest Midshipman on the quarterdeck, “do you go find that game fellow’s name and tell him he’s a full measure of rum this morning, no sippers or gulpers.”
“Aye aye, sir!”
“He did that for rum, sir?” Bromhead marvelled.
“For pride of the ship, sir,” Lewrie corrected him.
* * *
Once Vigilance closed the coast, though, and cruised only one or two miles offshore of Eufemia Lamezia, the prospects for a raid to burn the backup of supply convoys looked less than desirable.
For one, what beaches there were appeared too shallow for landings. There were rocks awash fronting the most promising one on the north side of the port’s entrance channel, leaving only two narrow and dubious passes through them and the lively surf to the beaches, which looked little deeper than two barges’ length before they ended in even more rocks, and what looked to be a rather steep scree slope up to the hill behind them.
On the southern hill which dominated the entrance to the town and its harbour, that enigmatic black square that Lewrie had found on the land map could be a fort.
“Old, stone-built,” Capt. Bromhead muttered, peering shoreward with a borrowed glass, “walls sure to be thick. An old monastery, or nunnery, perhaps? Might not be a fort. The windows…”
“Not arrow slits,” Lewrie commented.
“No, too big for archers or crossbowmen, but just about big enough for light cannon,” Bromhead said, sucking his teeth. “If anyone thought to put troops and guns in there. And the slopes up to it…”
“Totally un-suitable,” Lewrie decided aloud. “Too steep for men to climb easily, and the beaches below the hill are even worse than the ones to the north. You could land the whole battalion, perhaps, but you’d have to spend all the morning securing that place and the heights, and by then all the convoys would have scampered, and we’d have nothing t’show for it.”
“And if the French have thought to guard the town with troops, we’d lose a lot of men for that nothing,” Capt. Bromhead agreed with a strong moue of dis-appointment. “And your armed sailors, hah! Why, there’s barely enough room on the southern beaches for them to stand!”
“Even a cutting-out party using two of our barges to sail in in the wee hours might have a rough go of it,” Lewrie said, collapsing the tubes of his telescope with a finality, and a faint hiss from the air inside. “I doubt there’s anything worth taking in there, some fishing boats and such. We’ve convinced the French that sending supplies by sea is out.”
“If we wanted to burn road convoys, sir,” Bromhead said, “then it would have to be done from inland, and I doubt if the local partisans are well-armed enough, or determined and organised enough, to do it. A nice suggestion, but…” he said, tossing up his hands with futility.
“Back to Milazzo, then, and see what else our spies have come up with,” Lewrie agreed. “Mister Grace? Bring the ship onto the wind and shape course for Milazzo.”
“Aye aye, sir!”
At least we can still crow over our “clean sweep” broom, Lewrie thought.
* * *
It felt a lot less victorious the next morning when Vigilance came to anchor in the bay off the 94th Regiment’s encampment, for it was drizzling a dull, steady rain from clouds so low and slow-scudding that the usually visible snowcap of Mount Etna was hidden in fog. A grey haze hung over the land, the forests and olive and fruit groves, mingling with the smoke from the Army’s cookfires, turning lush Sicily to the drabness of an Irish coastline.
As soon as the anchors were set, and the yards squared away to the Bosun’s satisfaction, Lewrie went ashore with Capt. Bromhead to report to Col. Tarrant, and it was a miserable boat ride, for the morning was too warm to wear a boat cloak against the rain, so Lewrie and Bromhead had to suffer a soaking. Once on the make-shift pier, Lewrie looked back at his ship and heaved a sigh, for the upright broom at the masthead looked vain on such a day.
From long use, there was a path through the grain stubble in the field that had been taken over for the camp, and it was muddy, with a puddle here and there, as if the rain had been heavier overnight.
“Oh God, no!” Bromhead exclaimed as they neared Col. Tarrant’s headquarters. “No, dog, no! Down! Down, I say!”
Tarrant’s hound, Dante, was overjoyed to welcome them, bounding at them with his tongue lolling out, and his large paws and forelegs seemingly made of mud. Bromhead’s admonitions did no good, for the hound stood on his hind legs, planted his paws on Bromhead’s fairly immaculate uniform coat, and tried to lick his face.
“Down!” Bromhead barked loudly, shoving the dog aside. “Damn your eyes! Down!” he roared in a voice that could be heard over the sound of a pitched battle.
Dante whined, backed off, and looked at Lewrie.
“Don’t even think of it!” Lewrie growled, pointing a finger.
The dog galloped off towards the headquarters, barking madly as if to announce their arrival, and after a moment, Col. Tarrant did step out onto his covered front gallery and wave to them.
“Aha! You two have come in ‘Pudding Time,’ sirs,” Tarrant said as Dante padded circles round his master, tail and hind end wiggling. “Mister Quill came into camp last night, looking for you. Come in, come in, and dry out.”
“Capital!” Lewrie said at that news. “Let’s hope he’s brought us useful information. Ehm, you don’t have a boot scraper, do you?”
“I’ve no carpets to worry about, Sir Alan, just plain sawn wood boards,” Tarrant told him with a laugh. “Do come in. Hang up your coats to drain, and we’ll sample a keg of ale just come from England. Mail from home arrived with it, by the way. Yours is at the officers’ mess, Bromhead, and yours, Sir Alan, is aboard Bristol Lass.”
They entered, though the air was warmer indoors than out, even with all the canvas covers on the windows rolled up. Tarrant’s man, Corporal Carson, was there in a twinkling to take their hats and wet coats for a sponge-down. Col. Tarrant himself fetched three tall mugs from a sideboard and meticulously tapped the keg, leaving everyone a nice one-inch head on their ales.
“Now, what have you two been up to?” Tarrant asked after taking a deep sip of his ale. “Tell it all to me.”
He was delighted to hear that the bridge re-construction had been completely scotched for a good, long time, but had to sigh with dis-appointment when Bromhead described Eufemia Lamezia.
“It’s simply not on the cards, sir,” Bromhead told him. “By the time we’d get our troops atop either of the hills, the supply convoys would have dispersed, and if their escorts combined and stayed to give us a fight, it would be too costly for us.”
“We up-dated the charts and maps,” Lewrie added, “and we made a few sketches of what the place looks like from the sea. He’s right, it’s not worth the candle, Colonel.”
“Well, that’s alright,” Tarrant replied. “It sounded tempting, at first. Mister Quill has gotten word from his agent over there that he’s having trouble keeping the local partisans to do much more than make pin-prick raids, even with their new arms, and if we did land at Eufemia Lamezia, we’d have no help from them. They seem satisfied to ambush foraging parties and mounted messengers, then melt away as if scared by their own daring.”
“Has Mister Silvester managed to send us copies of the orders and such from those messengers, sir?” Lewrie asked.
“A few, of little import so far,” Col. Tarrant told him, after another sip of his ale. “Whoever’s in charge of re-building the bridge has boasted of his progress, and his defences, and his superiors are confident that they can use the coast road from Naples soon in the future, hah hah! Well, you put paid to that!”
“Captain Lewrie said he smelled a courts-martial for that fellow,” Bromhead said with a wee laugh. “And, now that we’ve scouted out the approaches to Eufemia Lamezia, the French might have to think it’s at risk, and waste troops to garrison the place. Fewer troops available for other places we might attack. Or, troops for convoy escorts.”
“Good thinking, Bromhead, yes,” Tarrant said in praise of the idea.
“What has the regiment been doing in my absence, may I dare ask, sir?” Bromhead said, shifting in his chair to cross his legs.
“Besides the usual close-order drill?” Tarrant answered with a grin on his face. “Why, we held a little route march. Just got back last night before the rain set in. About fifteen miles east near the beaches we practiced on, went into camp, dossing down rough overnight, then marched back here the next morning. Hah! Our poor sutlers and vendors! You never saw the like!”
Both Bromhead and Lewrie leaned forward in their chairs, expecting a gay tale.
“They showed up, as they always do, round breakfast,” Tarrant began, “setting up their little booths and such, but we were already formed in ranks, and marching out, and you never heard such a caterwauling and wailing, sure that we were leaving for good and there’d be no more money to be made off us, hah hah! Up pops the handcarts and donkeys, chasing after us! The old black-clad women galloping along on their bare feet with their goods slung on their backs, or balanced on their heads to keep up with us, hoping we’d stop and buy something! Locals streaming ahead of us to cry their wares? Then, when we camped for the night, the strongest and the fastest had to camp out with us, with no blankets or shelter, to flog what they had left. We left them in our dust in the morning, the poor devils, for they were simply spent, with their tongues lolling out, and had to eat what they meant to sell, or go hungry! I expect the laggarts limping along far behind us simply got drenched in the rain!”
Tarrant was right; it was an amusing picture, and all three of them got a good laugh out of the tale. That laughter ended, though, when Dante began to bark outside, and they could hear Quill vainly trying to keep the dog from greeting him with muddy paws.
“I do believe I hear the call of an ill-omened bird,” Tarrant said in a stage whisper to his guests; he had not forgotten the suggestion Quill had made about Brigadier Caruthers absorbing his regiment.
“Best let him in,” Lewrie said with a shrug.
“Do you go rescue him, Carson,” Col. Tarrant bade his orderly.
A moment later and Mr. Quill appeared in the room, preceded, though, by Dante, who took time to shake himself almost dry, then go to each guest and his master, and sniff crotches and try to place his head and paws in any welcoming lap.
“Dante!” Tarrant snapped, pointing to a filthy quilt over in one corner of the room. “Beddy by! Go to your pallet!” And, amazingly the dog obeyed, though not without a wee whine of protest. He circled on the quilt, then threw himself down with a huffing sound, to lay his head on his paws.
“There, that’s better,” Tarrant said. “Welcome, Mister Quill.”
“Good morning, sir,” Quill replied, taking off a black riding duster and his hat. Dante had managed to smear the duster with mud, so Corporal Carson came to take it for a sponging-off.
“What’s new in Messina?” Lewrie asked.
“Ah, sir, to quote the Bard, ‘there’s something rotten in Denmark,’” Quill said with a put-upon sigh. “Don Julio Caesare is back from whatever he’s been up to, and he’s rather wroth with us, and with some of his under-bosses. In his long absence, I paid some of them to go gather information for us, make contact with Mister Silvester and the partisans … pass on a letter and fetch off any from them? Well, Don Julio said that any money from me was his, and his alone, and that ’Tonio had no right to be making decisions without his permission, or getting any big ideas, the greedy bastard. Don Julio, not ’Tonio, I mean as the greedy bastard. He tongue-lashed me to deal only with him, or he’d pull all his co-operation. I’d given ’Tonio fifty pounds, and Don Julio made him hand it over in front of the others. Is that ale, sir? I’d greatly admire a taste.”
“But of course, Mister Quill,” Col. Tarrant said, finding a fresh mug and pouring it full himself. “That doesn’t sound like a good way to motivate his own people, I must say. Why, one might imagine that this ’Tonio, whoever he is, has gotten some ideas after a humiliation like that.”
“Perhaps something’s gone amiss with some of his businesses,” Lewrie opined. “Don Julio’s always struck me as shrewd, dangerous, but ingratiating, and clever enough to keep people in line without insulting them. How co-operative is this ’Tonio?”
“Very,” Quill said after a long draught and a loud “Aah!” of pleasure. “I told you all before that he’s much more patriotic than his boss, more eager to see the French out of Italy, and Calabria in particular. I get the vague suspicion that most of the under-bosses, the capos, are Sicilians of long standing, and that ’Tonio and some few of the others are originally Calabrians, and might still be considered Calabrians, no matter how long they and their families have resided this side of the Strait.”
“Well, you said Don Julio has business dealings over there, and some of his capos who run things for him in Calabria have to be locals, not Sicilians lording it over them,” Lewrie speculated. “Like the man whose son got us the sketches of the bridge in the first place was a Calabrian capo, right?”
“Yes, but it now seems to me that someone other than Sicilian can be useful, but never can be trusted to run the whole show,” Quill replied, shrugging. “Second-class people. Recall how much Don Julio despises anything or anyone from Naples. Competition? Themselves so insular that they’d sneer at Sicilians?”
“Gad, it sounds very much like all of Italy,” Col. Tarrant said with a wee laugh. “It’s a wonder the Romans held it together without every little town going at the next one down the road with hammer and tongs!”
“You get the sense that this ’Tonio might have big ideas of his own?” Lewrie asked. “Might he aspire to be a Don himself? Over in Calabria, or all of Don Julio’s fiefdom? Hmm. That might be useful, and a lot more co-operative with us.”
“If that happens, Sir Alan, I imagine we’d all be grateful,” Quill said, “but … as a Calabrian, he could never supplant Caesare. I cannot be seen to encourage his aspirations. Too dangerous.”
“But, you could sympathise,” Col. Tarrant stated in a slow, calculating drawl.
“Well, I suppose I could, Colonel,” Quill said, just as slowly, “but if Don Julio hears of it, then ’Tonio is surely done for, and we lose all co-operation with any of Don Julio’s organisation. Frankly, sirs … without them, we might as well pack up and go home. We are completely dependent upon their good will.”
“And we have yet to hit our stride, sirs!” Capt. Bromhead said in protest. “We haven’t hurt the French as dear as we could!”
“Upon that head, sirs,” Mr. Quill pressed, “have you gentlemen any good news for me?”
“We finished off the bridge for good and all,” Bromhead boasted at once, and went on to describe the action, the destruction of the French artillery, the impromptu landing by the Marines and the fires they had set.
“Well, that will force the French to continue routing their road convoys the long, rough way round,” Quill said, somewhat enthused by the account. “And, did you have a peek at Eufemia Lamezia, Sir Alan?”
“Aye, but it was a dead bust,” Lewrie had to tell him, giving Quill the many reasons why a landing there would be fruitless, and quite dangerous in terms of casualties to the 94th. “The only two places that seem worth the candle would be Monasterace, or Catanzaro, and we still don’t know much about either place. Admiral Charlton’s squadron might have some information from when they bombarded Monasterace, but that’s yet to come, hopefully.”
“Have you dug up anything on either, Mister Quill?” Col. Tarrant asked him.
“Before Don Julio got back, ’Tonio was putting together an expedition to Monasterace,” Quill told them, “but that’s scotched, now, and I’ll have to wait for Don Julio to get over his pet before I can approach him with the request, and I can guarantee you that it will not be ’Tonio who goes. Don Julio still has a flea in his ear about Melito di Porto Salvo.”
“That again?” Lewrie hooted, rising to go re-fill his own mug. “You’ve already told him once about why it may be too tough a nut to crack, Mister Quill? What the Devil’s there that he wants, the Crown Jewels, the Holy Grail, or the bloody Ark of the Covenant?”
“A competitor’s storehouses, I’d expect,” Quill gloomed.
“Well, we’re having none of that!” Lewrie declared. “From what we’ve seen of it from close offshore, it looks t’be as well defended as Reggio di Calabria or bloody Naples.”
“We do, however, Sir Alan,” Col. Tarrant said with a frown on his face, “need to strike someplace. This whole endeavour is an experiment, and to continue in existence, it must be seen to be doing something grand, now and then.”
“Believe me, Colonel, I know!” Lewrie all but spat in agreement. He did not return to his chair, but slowly paced to the front of the quarters to look out a window with the canvas drawn up, to sip at his ale and moodily study the anchorage, the moored ships, and the beachside pier, all misted and distanced by a fresher round of rain.
If this fails, will I even keep my ship? he sadly wondered; If Admiralty cancels us, would I end up ashore on half-pay? Being back in London with Jessica’d be so sweet, but … damme if I’ll let all the people who’d love t’see me humbled have a chance t’gloat!
For one daft second, he had a thought to sail off instanter and have a go at Monasterace without proper information and preparation, but realised that would be simply too rash, and sure to get a lot of good men killed or wounded, and a clumsy failure he’d have to confess to Admiralty, which might end his command just as quickly.
“Something you said off Eufemia Lamezia, Captain Bromhead,” he said without turning round. “About how them seeing us so close offshore might alarm them?”
“Yes, sir?” Bromhead hesitantly replied.
Lewrie turned, with the hint of a smile, and with the merest sketch of a plan. “I could take Vigilance and all four transports to sea, round-about Sicily, then make an appearance off Catanzaro, as if we’re going to land. Then, put back out to sea and show up off Melito di Porto Salvo and do the same thing, then up the Strait of Messina to do the same off Eufemia Lamezia.”
“A long time at sea for my men,” Col. Tarrant said, puzzled.
“No troops,” Lewrie countered, “transports only. The French know by now what the sight of us might mean. They would have to move troops and guns to re-enforce every place we’re seen, and thin them out. In the meantime, Mister Quill can arrange a scout of Monasterace, which I shall definitely not visit, and Admiral Charlton may supply us with as much information as he has by the time I return.
“Hell!” Lewrie declared, “I may even come to anchor and get in some gunnery practice to convince them that the Devil and all of his Imps have come to breakfast!”
“Confusion to the French, ah hah!” Col. Tarrant huzzahed with a lift of his mug. “But, why sail round Sicily, when you can trail your colours right under the noses of their generals in Reggio di Calabria, sir? Right down the Strait, with bands playing!”
And it’ll look like we’re doin’ something productive! Lewrie could assure himself.
* * *
Back aboard Vigilance, though, Lt. Dickson was penning a long letter to one of his principal patrons. With no duties at anchor in port, and with nothing to do on a rainy day, he was doing the bidding of the people who had placed him under Capt. Sir Alan Lewrie, sending them his observations of amphibious operations, how they were conducted, and whether the diversion of badly needed troop transports, and the valuable Navy crews who manned them, was worth the doing, and if the whole scheme was worth the expense of Admiralty funds.
Of course, Dickson prefaced his accounts with a long complaint of being removed from command and being placed aboard Vigilance as her Fourth Lieutenant before getting to the meat of the matter, but he had already sent off several letters expressing his embarrassment.
“Good God, a ‘sea letter’!” Lt. Greenleaf commented as he came out of the quarter gallery, headed to the wash-hand stand to clean his face and hands. “You must be very sweet on the girl, Dickson.”
“He’s not even writing on the back of the pages,” Lt. Farley, the First Officer teased, looking up from his never-ending alterations in the Muster Book, “nor cross the first lines, either.”
Dickson shrugged into himself and laid a forearm as if to shield it from view. “It you must know, it’s to my father, with a page or two to sisters and brothers included, to save them postage,” Dickson said in explanation. “A little bit for everyone to be shared out when they get together for Sunday dinner.”
“It’ll weigh nigh a pound before you’re done,” Greenleaf said. “That’ll be a five shilling log!”
Dickson flashed a brief, polite smile. He was still walking on tiptoes round his fellow wardroom mates, waiting for the first sneer, the first pointed comment, for they all knew the reason for him being among them. In truth, Dickson expected guarded derision, feeling as if he went about stoop-shouldered, waiting for the blow to fall, but, so far, though he’d not won any new friends (nor did he care to do so) he had not made any enemies, so long as he fulfilled his duties with professional skill.
He had laid out the details of all the previous landings that he had gleaned from his fellow officers, then portrayed their latest off that bridge above Pizzo, and the demonstration off Eufemia Lamezia, paying suitable praise for the impromptu landing of the Marines to set fire to everything under and round the bridge.
It strikes me, though, that, as daring as the operations have been, they have been few and far between, with weeks on end languishing in harbour before sailing off to strike again. One could assume that the squadron could be put to better use by cruising the Calabrian coast, looking for advantageous places to land, and burn; semaphore towers, enemy batteries, and such, or any town that had a garrison & destroying anything that floats in the ports, as we see in accounts of the doings of Adm. Popham on the N. coast of Spain. Instead, we must bide until adequate information can come to us from a shadowy, frankly criminal gang of smugglers & cut-throats, all under the aegis of a spectral minion of Foreign Office in Messina, a most odd bird or so I am told, and all is done for money, when I imagine that if spies are needful, more trustworthy agents of British blood could be doing the information gathering. Frankly, gentlemen, what little I have seen has been most stultifying, and boresome, so far. I fear, for all his former gallantry, that Capt. Lewrie plays the game too cautiously to be in command of such an experiment.
There, he told himself after signing it; now we’ll see what my patrons make of this. With luck, they’ll find a way to take Lewrie down a peg or two, and get me a command back.