The French Admiral (17 page)

“Aye, sir,” Alan said.

“There is still time to win a victory over the French and the Rebels, Lewrie,” Railsford told him. “Were I you, I would try to put the best face on it before the hands and not let them see their officers looking distressed. You shall get in a lot less trouble with the captain if you do. At this moment he needs all the enthusiasm and cheerfulness he can get from his people. He would be most cross with anyone that showed any signs of worry or defeatism. You are already in trouble enough with him.”

“Aye, sir,” Alan agreed with a humorless laugh. “Too true.”

“That is why we attacked those transports last night,” Railsford said unexpectedly.

“Sir?”

Railsford went on, mopping his brow with a colored handkerchief against the late-summer heat. “There
were
larger transports, further up the James River, along with some frigates, as we were later informed. We did, in fact, burn a ship to the waterline. But, more to the point, we
did
something, an act of retribution to put heart back into the crew so they could feel we could still strike back on an even basis against our enemies. That is why Commander Treghues took the risk. Not for glory-hunting, and not because he is out of his wits, as you believe. A captain must keep his men in their best fettle, not just in victuals or discipline, but in spirit as well, and you had best remember that if you ever hope to gain a commission.”

“I see, sir,” Alan replied, crestfallen at the implied rebuke.

“A crew that doubts its own abilities is a crew ready to strike the colors at the first broadside, or when they are hard pressed,” Railsford said solemnly.

“But what does one do when recent events are so disheartening?” Alan asked. “When there is no way to put a good face on things?”

“Then hope that discipline and pride will be enough,” the first lieutenant said with a smile. “We drill their little minds into rote behavior so they respond without thought, calm or tempest, day or night, peace or war. And we appeal to their pride in themselves as Englishmen and as sailors. We appeal to their pride in their own ship, in their Service. Nothing else much matters outside the bulwarks. All this talk of King and Country is so much moonshine when you get right down to it. People facing death or dismemberment don't care much for the so-called ‘patriotic' reasons. They die for their shipmates, to go game before their peers.”

“So what must we do to keep the men inspired, sir?” Alan asked, seeing what was necessary over the next few days until they could get out to sea once more.

“Hard work will take their minds off things, for one,” Railsford told him as they reached the porch of the house in question. “If we did not have serious hurts to mend in
Desperate,
we would invent some form of labor to keep them busy. Idle hands and idle minds begin to conjure up the worst in the human spirit. Straighten your hat.”

They entered the house and conferred briefly with an aide to Captain Symonds. Railsford was given a letter to take to the army headquarters for draft animals and an escort for the next day so they could go beyond the newly dug perimeter fortifications for their timbers. Then they had to walk out into the country beyond the town to seek out the army before dark. They spoke with a major of light infantry, got passed to a colonel named Yorke, finally to a senior officer from the Brigade of Guards named O'Hara, and got their request approved. They would be allotted the use of two horse teams for only two days, the needs of the army for the placing of artillery coming first, and would get some provincials for an escort, all to meet them at the docks at an appointed time the next morning.

“Warm work, sir,” Alan said as they made their way back towards town and their waiting boat. “Think we could—”

“No, we cannot,” Railsford intoned solemnly. “Did you not get into enough trouble the last time you were ashore?”

“Not of my own making, sir,” Alan protested.

“Trouble is your boon companion, Lewrie. You do not have to seek it out; it always finds you. Were we to stop into what passes for a public house around these parts for a pint, you'd have a brawl going within half an hour.”

“Sir!” Alan said, much aggrieved by the accusation, but thinking that the first lieutenant was correct; he had gotten into enough trouble in the past with the most innocent of beginnings. Still, it was pleasing to be thought a bellicose sort of rake-hell by his first officer, for the reputation held no malice from Railsford; rather the opposite in fact.

First light found them once more at the main landing in the town, with two boats full of men and tools, men eager to step ashore, no matter what the reason, after months aboard one ship. They were looking forward to a new face or two, new tales to hear, the possibility of actually touching something green. The work would be no harder than anything required of them aboard the
Desperate,
perhaps a lot less with horses to do the major hauling once they had felled their choice of trees and stripped them of bark and limbs. It was almost like a picnic outing, complete with rations and drink prepared for later consumption.

They were met by two six-horse gun teams, decent sized horses rather than the usual runty animals found in the Colonies, which had made the huge beasts captured on the
Ephegenie
so valuable. There were teamsters dressed in the blue coats of the artillery, and a platoon of men in short red infantry jackets with dark blue facings, light infantry of some sort wearing wide-brimmed black hats adorned with a black silk ribbon, bow, and a clump of dark feathers for a plume on the left side of their hats. All of them looked as though they had seen rough service, for the original pristine condition of their uniforms was patched and resewn to orderliness, their white waistcoats and long trousers permanently marred with ground-in dirt, and their lower legs encased in muddy dark gaiters, known as “half spatterdashes.”

“You would be from the
Desperate?
” the young infantry officer asked of Railsford as they alighted on the dock.

“I am, sir,” Railsford replied. “Lieutenant Railsford, at your service.”

“Lieutenant Chiswick, sir, of the North Carolina Volunteers,” the lanky, harsh-looking officer said.

“Midshipman Lewrie, my assistant,” Railsford said. “Our bosun, Mister Coke, and his mate, Mister Weems.”

“Delighted, sirs.” The officer showed no sign of delight at all at that early hour. “This is my ensign, also a Chiswick. We are at your orders, sirs. What is needed?”

“To go inland and find suitable trees to fell for repairs to our ship, Lieutenant,” Railsford said. “Pine trees, for our top-hamper.”

“Whatever that is.” Lieutenant Chiswick yawned. “Not much left around the town. We shall have to go outside the defense line to find good stands of pine. I suppose a naval officer can ride, sir? I have a spare horse for you.”

“Thank you very much. This naval officer was raised in hunting country in Dorset,” Railsford said, grinning.

Railsford mounted expertly and the two parties fell into a rough column, with an advanced party under a corporal leading off, their weapons at high port, ready for anything, even in the midst of an English army encampment. Railsford and Chiswick followed, with the wagons in their wake, and the sailors in a clump behind. Almost without orders, one squad of infantry went to either side of the road, and the rest brought up the rear, as though the sailors were under arrest for some crime.

Alan was galled that he had to walk instead of getting a horse to ride. He had worn his cotton stockings and his worst, cracked pair of shoes in case of mud and damp, and they were not the best fit he had ever ordered from a cobbler. He hoped they were not going far, or his feet would suffer. He fell in at the head of the rough grouping of men from the ship, alongside the young infantry ensign named Chiswick.

“Whatever the devil is that?” Alan asked, seeing the weapon the young man carried.

“A Ferguson rifle, sir,” the ensign replied. “Breechloader.”

“How does it do that?” Alan enthused, all curiosity.

“One rotates the screw-breech, which removes the rear estopment from the user's end of the barrel, sir,” Chiswick explained, taking hold of a large lever behind the trigger and guard. The whole thing screwed down revealing the screw behind the breech. “One loads it muzzle down from the rear. One can fire four shots a minute, and it is accurate out to nearly two hundred and fifty yards.”

Alan noted that the breech of this weapon was already loaded with a powder cartridge, supposedly also fitted with a ball in the chamber.

“You people are most cautious, sir,” he observed, “to load here.”

“If you had fought in the back-country in the Carolinas, you also would be loaded and ready round the clock as well, sir,” the ensign said with stiff pride.

“Ah, I see,” Alan replied, trying to ignore the two unloaded and useless pistols stuck into his pockets. “Seen much action, have you?”

“Quite a bit,” Chiswick boasted. “We're light infantry. The Lord Cornwallis uses us for scouting and skirmishing—first in and last out of a battle. We can keep up with Tarleton's Legion when the line infantry would be worn out.”

“Ah, Tarleton,” Alan said, “I have heard of him. Something of a hard man, I'm told.”

“These are hard times,” the ensign said. “The Rebels in the Carolinas are not exactly gentle, either, I assure you.”

“So a girl once said.”

“And where was that, sir?”

“A whorehouse in Charlestown.” Alan grinned.

“Really? Which one?” Ensign Chiswick asked, with a first sign of humor lighting his face.

“Lady Jane's, just off the Cooper River.”

“I am not familiar with that one.”

“Well, Maude's had moved to Wilmington and t'other had been shut down for brawling,” Alan said.

“I am familiar with Maude's, however.” Chiswick grinned broadly. “Too bad she and her girls could not accompany us, but Lord Cornwallis had us strip to the bone for this march into Virginia, and we had to leave most of the camp followers behind. Damned shame, really.”

“So there is no sport to be had hereabouts?” Alan asked.

“No, more's the pity,” Chiswick spat. “You may get your laundry done but that's about all, and Yorktown is nothing much.”

“Speaking of laundry,” Alan said, reminded of the letter he still bore in the tail pocket of his short uniform jacket. “Do you know of some woman named Rodgers? Her daughter Bess bade me carry a letter to her. I believe she associates with a Sergeant Tompkin in Tarleton's Legion.”

“I know both of them,” Chiswick said. “They are across the river on the Gloucester side. No need for cavalry over here yet. Simcoe's Queen's Rangers and the Legion are both over there. Look here, where does a midshipman stand in the scheme of things?”

“Damned low,” Alan had to confess with a rueful expression. “Petty-officer level, an officer-in-training. I have been in two years almost.”

“An ensign is the most junior officer one can be,” Chiswick said, offering his hand. “My name is Burgess, by the way, Burgess Chiswick.”

“Alan Lewrie.”

They established that Burgess was a year older, nineteen, and had been with the colors for a year with the North Carolina Volunteers. By a fortunate fluke, he had not been at King's Mountain with Major Ferguson, the inventor of the superlative firearm he bore, but he had been at Cowpens attached to Tarleton's Legion and the light infantry that accompanied that body.

“And what happened at Cowpens . . . lord, what a name for a town?”

“Wasn't a town,” Burgess informed him. “Just a big meadow, a clearing used for cattle feeding and selling. And they beat our arses there.”

“Who, the Rebels?”

“Of course, the Rebels,” Burgess said. “They're good as informal fighters, sniping from ambush and all of that, but we mostly had beaten them in more formal battles. The hardest part was catching up with them and bringing them to action, or pursuing them once they were beat. But lately, they've been beating us. Wiped out Major Ferguson and his command at King's Mountain in the Piedmont, mostly Loyalist troops with him, but good ones. And then at Cowpens. Took our charge like regulars and then charged us. Governour and I were happy to see the light of day next morning.”

“Governour?” Alan wondered.

“My brother, our lieutenant,” Burgess said proudly. “He joined up three years ago, being the oldest. I had to stay home until . . . well, when we lost our lands, there didn't seem to be much point of me not taking the colors any longer.”

“What happened to them?”

“Damned Rebels burned us out!” Burgess glared angrily. “Shot all our livestock or drove it off, fired our crops or trampled them flat. Set fire to our barns and stables, torched the house, ran most of the slaves off except for a few house servants. My family had to flee to Wilmington with nothing much more than the clothes they stood up in. Thirty years of work, all gone.”