They weren’t wanted at Vigo, though; Blaze had dashed inshore and had returned with word that Admiral de Courcy had been replaced by Admiral Hood, and that Moore would be making for Corunna, where there were yet only about thirty transports awaiting him, and that Hood would be sailing to there with nigh a hundred ships. It had taken Blaze a very long and frightful day to beat her way off a lee shore to bear word, and Lewrie had to order his convoy to come into the wind and claw out even more sea-room off the coast of Galicia to get above Cape Fisterra before he’d dare to risk the Costa da Morte, and a run Due East into Corunna.
* * *
“It’s clearing a bit, sir,” Sailing Master George Yelland said as he sniffed the winds and rubbed his chilled hands. “The wind and sea are almost moderate, thank God.”
“Is that a lighthouse I see on yon headland?” Lewrie asked, his telescope to his eye. “To the left of that inlet?”
“Ah, hmm,” Yelland pondered, employing his own telescope for a long moment. “Aye, it is, sir, the lighthouse at Corunna. The port will be round the other side of the heights. This inlet, Orsan Bay, is a dead-end, don’t be fooled by it. We’re almost there.”
“At last!” Lewrie breathed with relief that the ship could be brought to anchor, and blessed stillness, after too many days of risk. He had spent so much time on deck that he still felt chilled to the bone, and so in need of missed sleep that he could nod off on his feet and jerk back to wakefulness.
“Hawse bucklers removed, cables seized to the anchors and free to run, sir,” a weary and storm-ravaged First Officer, Lieutenant Westcott, came aft to report. Shaving had been such a deadly endeavour that everyone had given it up, so he looked as if he could have been a bearded courtier to Henry VIII.
“We’ll stand off a bit, and let the transports have the best anchorages nearest the town,” Lewrie told him. “Mister Kibworth?” he shouted aft to the Midshipman at the signal halliards. “Bend on a signal hoist for the transports to go in first, and for the escorts to stand in trail of us.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Kibworth shouted back.
Slowly, slowly, the little convoy, with Sapphire in the lead, rounded the tall headland and wore away South, standing into the harbour bay, with the escorts swinging wider out into the sheltered bay while the transports angled in round the fortified San Antonio Castle on a small island off the tip of the town.
Corunna was laid out in an L, with another fortress, the Citadel, dominating the short leg of the L to the North, and the civilian part of town angling off along the seashore behind tall sea walls to the Southwest. Even further along near the bottom of the harbour, near San Diego Point, was a commercial port of piers and warehouses close to a village of Santa Lucía; and all of it swarming with soldiers, ship’s boats beetling back and forth under oars, and anchored troop ships.
“Christ, what a pot-mess,” Lewrie wondered aloud. “Who’s in charge, and who do I report to?” He could see several ships of the line anchored, mostly Third Rate 74s, but only one larger Second Rate, so far. Admiral Hood’s armada of troop ships must still be working their way out of Vigo, or thrashing North through the same strong gales as Sapphire had.
“You’ll take time to shave and freshen yourself, first, sir?” Westcott asked.
“No time for the niceties,” Lewrie said with a shake of his head. “I may have to go ashore t’find where they want our ships to anchor … off the town here, or close to the piers down yonder.”
“Taking your Ferguson along, too?” Westcott teased.
“I’ll leave soldierin’ to the people in red, this time, no, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said with a chuckle. “Though I would wish to see the ground. Why? Ye wish t’borrow it and shoot a few Frogs, yourself, sir?”
“Signal from the Second Rate, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth called out. “The Interrogative.”
“Make our number to her, Mister Kibworth, and add that we’ve sixteen transports with us.”
“Aye, sir!” followed moments later by the news that the Second Rate had a Rear-Admiral aboard, and was showing the summons of Captain Repair On Board.
“Damme, we’ll have t’fire him a salute suitable to his rank,” Lewrie groaned. “Pipe hands to the twelve-pounders, Mister Westcott, and fetch up salutin’ charges from the magazines. And have a cutter brought round to the entry-port.”
Have to follow the traditions, Lewrie groused to himself; even if we were comin’ in half-sunk or on fire!
* * *
Matters were out of his hands, he learned after a brief talk aboard the Second Rate flagship. The captains of the anchored Third Rates and other escorts were already assigned roles to organise the boats from their own ships, and the transports, into flotillas to ferry soldiers and their gear out to the chosen troop ships, sick and wounded first, and those the regimental surgeons had determined to be utterly exhausted and useless for further fighting later. It was only then that fit troops would be sent out to other converted merchantmen for evacuation.
General Sir John Moore was in a cleft stick, really, for though he must rescue his army quickly, a French army under Marshal Soult was pressing close, and if he reduced his strength too quickly, he faced the risk that those still ashore might be overcome and taken, or massacred! Lewrie was told that there might be at least fifteen thousand British troops left from the thirty-two thousand that he, General Sir David Baird, and General Sir Henry Paget’s cavalry, had led into Spain. Some thirty-five hundred had been gotten off from Vigo. He also learned that during the long retreat, many artillery pieces had been abandoned, guns, caissons, limbers, and all as they broke down or the horse teams died. What was left to Moore had to be deployed in defensive positions to counter the French when they arrived, but must be evacuated as a point of honour, finally; the loss of one’s artillery was too shameful to be borne!
Even worse, Moore’s remaining army was in terrible shape, low in morale, dis-spirited and nigh-un-disciplined, the bright uniforms ragged, torn, and filthy, and their footwear (for those who still had them) worn through. Until the lead units had met a large supply convoy of waggons meant for the Spanish armies on the road from Corunna, they had also been starving, and badly in need of greatcoats and blankets, to boot.
General Sir David Baird had set up a large supply depot when he had landed his smaller army at Corunna, and Moore was drawing on that, stretching what was left out to feed and re-equip his own men as liberally as he could for as long as it lasted; what his troops ate, wore, and carried would not be left to the French, not one loaf of bread or side of bacon. Lewrie was also told that he’d missed all the fun from a few days before; there were four thousand kegs of powder that had been landed to be given to the Spanish, and General Moore had ordered it blown up in one spectacular blast. Every glazed miradore, the glass-enclosed balconies, in Corunna had been shattered! Not that there were many complaints from the Spanish owners, for the very good reason that most of them had packed up their valuables as soon as the first ragged regiments of the British army had shambled into town and fled into the bleak Winter countryside with as much food and drink as they could carry!
Once back aboard Sapphire, Lewrie had gathered his officers and Midshipmen together in his great-cabins and had given them the orders he’d received from the flagship. They would have to be rowed over to a specific set of troop ships that had come into port with them, get all their ship’s boats and the transports’ boats arranged into one group, and row ashore to the quays by Santa Lucía, and pick up soldiers from one certain regiment, then see them aboard those transports and keep it up ’til every last man of that regiment was accounted for and safely aboard. Lewrie volunteered himself to go ashore with the first boats; he was just too curious to sit idle and let events occur round him with nothing to do about them!