“Ah, supper is laid and ready, sir,” Pettus reported.
“Good! Let’s dine, then, sirs,” Lewrie bade them, waving them to the dining-coach and their places at the table.
Some victory, though, he thought as he took his seat at the head of the table; too dearly won, and we’re still slinkin’ off like thieves in the night. And, there’s still tomorrow. The army ain’t away Scot free, yet!
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The 17th of January dawned cold, mockingly clear, but with boisterous seas out beyond the harbour. It appeared almost too cheerful and sunny, as the day progressed, to shine so on the scene of such a dreadful and desperate battle. Upon mounting the poop deck for his first look-round with a telescope, Lewrie discovered that the number of transports huddled in Corunna’s harbour had been reduced. During the night, those ships with the sick and wounded, and the remnants of the army’s wives, children, and camp-followers, had departed.
Word had come during their supper the night before that all of the evacuated troops would not be returned to Lisbon, where they had started, but would be borne back to English ports, as if the entire expedition had been given up as a failure. That prompted speculation that the ten-thousand-man garrison left in Portugal might be withdrawn, as well. “Keep it to yourselves,” Lewrie had cautioned, though “scuttle-butt” would spread, as it usually did, to every man and boy aboard as if he had stood on the quarterdeck and bellowed the news to one and all!
Make the best of your way to English ports, is it? Lewrie reminded himself as he scanned the fleet, and gave out a derisive snort; Well, which bloody ports, hey? Regimental sick, wounded, wives, and kiddies end up at Falmouth, and their men end up at Sheerness? What idiot decided that, I wonder? England, well! It would be grand to be home for a while.
He spotted some movement among the transports anchored close to the quays at Santa Lucía; several were hauling themselves to Short Stays, and beginning to loose canvas, now full of soldiers and whatever of their weapons, gear, and rations that they could carry away. The quays and the commercial town round the village seemed to have turned red with all the regiments queued up and waiting to begin embarkation into others.
“Good morning, sir,” Lt. Westcott said, looking up from the quarterdeck. “The evacuation has begun, then?”
“Good morning, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie replied in kind. “Aye, so it appears. I think I can make out some defensive lines out beyond the town. Come on up and have a look for yourself.”
Westcott joined him and stood by the bulwarks, slowly panning his own telescope back and forth. “Looks as if they’re coming down to the quays by whole brigades. Soon as their ships are full, they’ll be off. Hmm, no sign that the French mean to have a go at them, yet.”
“No, not yet,” Lewrie glumly agreed, scanning back and forth. Bisquit came to the poop deck and sat on his haunches between them, uttering wee whines for attention. Lewrie leaned down to pet him for a bit.
“I say, sir,” Westcott said, “but is that a French flag atop Santa Lucía Hill, yonder? Our troops must have left it during the night. Yes, yes it is a French flag. Damn my eyes, I think I can make out artillery pieces!”
Lewrie straightened up and leaned onto the bulwarks with his telescope to his eye, again, straining to confirm Westcott’s observation. “Damme, you’re right. They’ve a whole battery up there, the snail-eatin’ bastards!”
As they watched, they could hear the rustling of sail-cloth, the distant rumbling of anchor cables, as more transports began to get under way, along with the approved capstan chanties allowed aboard Royal Navy warships as they, too, began to get under way to escort this clutch of ships out to sea and back to England.
“They’re opening upon our transports,” Westcott spat as they both saw the first puffs of gunpowder smoke from Santa Lucía Hill, followed seconds later by the reports of discharges, and the keens and moans of incoming roundshot.
“Aha!” Lewrie shouted as he spotted the Sailing Master, Mister Yelland, coming up from the wardroom below, still chewing on a last bite of bacon. “Mister Yelland, fetch yer sextant and come up!”
Yelland had to duck into his starboard-side sea cabin for his sextant, and a slate and chalk, before he ponderously mounted the ladderway to join them on the poop deck. “Aye, sir?” he asked.
“Where we intended to go yesterday and fire on the French if they gained the Monte Mero,” Lewrie impatiently pressed, “if we go there this morning, can we elevate our guns high enough to engage that damned Frog battery?”
For a seasoned sea-captain, Lewrie would be the last to claim that he was a dab-hand at mathematics, not like his past Sailing Masters during his career. He was forced to wait while Yelland hefted his sextant to his eye, took the measure of the hill’s height, then scribbled on his slate with many a cock of his head and some “Ah hums” thrown in for good measure. At last, he announced, “Not as deep into the inlet as you proposed yesterday, sir, no.” Yelland rubbed his un-shaven chin and allowed “If we come to anchor nearer the mid-way point ’twixt that point and the quays of Saint Lucía, about two-thirds of a mile off from the hill, would be best, and that at extreme maximum elevation of the guns.”
“Good enough, then,” Lewrie said, slamming a fist on the cap-rails of the bulwarks. “Mister Westcott, pipe All Hands to hoist the anchor and make sail. We’ll beat to Quarters once we’re under way!”
“Aye aye, sir!” Westcott said, looking positively wolf-evil as he bared his teeth in a wide, brief grin.
* * *
“Bless me, are they actually aiming at any ship?” Captain Chalmers observed from the quarterdeck of his Undaunted frigate, as French shot rumbled into the harbour waters, raising great pillars and feathers of spray and foam. “Why, they’re all over the place!”
“That will most-like change, sir,” his First Officer opined. “Cold barrels and ranging shots, what? Oops, oh my!” he added, as the French artillery scored a hit on a departing transport, splitting the ship’s main tops’l and leaving a large hole in the canvas. A second or so later, and that transport was struck, again, this hit just a bit wide of the mark and scoring down her larboard side, and raising a great cloud of dust and engrained dirt from her timbers.
“Damned plunging fire!” the Third Lieutenant exclaimed.
“I will thank you to mind your tongue, sir!” Chalmers snapped. “You know my views on curses, and blasphemy.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“There’s Sapphire getting under way, sir!” the First Officer pointed out.
“Mister Lewrie?” Captain Chalmers called out. “Has there been a signal from the flag for our group to make sail that you missed?”
“No, sir,” Midshipman Hugh Lewrie quickly answered. “The last signals to that effect showed the numbers for other ships. She is getting under way on her own, it appears, sir!”
HMS Sapphire was ringing up her best bower, even as she began to make sail; spanker, stays’ls, tops’ls, and jibs. She was turning slowly, wheeling away as if to make for the lower end of the harbour and the French battery. Undaunted was near enough to her former anchorage for everyone aboard to hear her Marine drummers beating out the Long Roll, and her fiddlers and fifers starting to play “The Bowld Soldier Boy.”
“And just what does he intend, I wonder?” Chalmers asked the aether. “Should we join him? Any signal to us?”
“That’s my grandfather’s favourite tune, sir,” Midshipman Hugh Lewrie said with a wistful note to his voice. “My father’s, too. He is going to fight!” he said with pride. “Sapphire makes no signal, sir.”
“Do you imagine, sir,” Undaunted’s First Officer asked, “that Captain Lewrie intends to draw the French battery’s fire upon his ship? She’s stouter than us. She can take their eight- and twelve-pounder shot better than we could, perhaps even the plunging fire from their howitzers.”