The King's Marauder (39 page)

What’s he goin’ t’do
t’prove
it?
Lewrie wondered.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The planning session for the raids on the semaphore towers went well, with the junior officers of the 77th asking sensible questions, and showing some eagerness that they had lacked before, after having a taste of their strange, new tasks, and coming through them with success, which filled them with a certain
elan.

Major Hughes was his usual brisk and efficient self, showing no sign that he and Lewrie had almost come to loggerheads. For the landing at Almerimar, he decided that the two companies of the 77th would form on the right and advance up to guard facing the village, whilst Keane, Roe, and their Marines would have the honour of assailing the tower, driving off the few Spaniards reported there, and burning the tower and small troop quarters.

Lewrie would place
Sapphire
directly opposite the tower, and the troop transport would fetch-to to starboard of her, allowing the 77th to land on the right, though within arm’s reach of the boats from his ship. Both ships, he told them, would have to fetch-to about two thirds of a mile from shore, making for a longer row this time, but the tide would be ebbing and the beach would be broad, with what the reports said was good cover in the vegetation behind the deep sand and the overwash barrows for the boat crews to guard their boats.

Salobreña took longer to plan for, but Major Hughes saw little difficulty, showing that hoped-for flexibility as he gestured over the enlarged hand-drawn map of the area round the town, and the objective. They would all go for the wood lot, first, three companies abreast of each other, with the Marines on the right flank, this time, then advance by companies, Kimbrough’s company from the left flank, first, to cover the town, as far as one of the farmhouses’ buildings, then the company under Captain Bowden would get into the olive orchard, followed by the Marines advancing as far as the pastures on the other side.

“There is a garrison of infantry inland at Órjiva … see the printed map,” Hughes gruffly instructed, “but we hope to be in and out before they can get word of our presence. If our raid at Almerimar
does
draw Spanish troops to the coast to guard their precious towers, I cannot imagine that there would be much more than a detachment of several files, possibly an entire company, but I expect that we can deal with them easily. Even with our diversion offshore to the East following Almerimar, we should be back on the coast off Salobreña in such a short time that the Dons’ initial response would be more deliberate than hasty. We’ve done nothing to make them panic,
yet!
As we do depart Almerimar going East, it’s more than likely that the Dons feel that re-enforcing their coast defences from Almeria up to Cartagena is more prudent. Questions, gentlemen?”

There were a few, some notes made on their copies of the maps, arrangements for gunpowder kegs, flints and tinder made, and after a few hours, everyone seemed wolfish to get going.

“Think that covers everything, Captain Lewrie?” Hughes asked.

“I do believe it does, Major Hughes,” Lewrie replied, satisfied that even the most minor matters had been dealt with.

“Then let’s board the transport tomorrow morning, gentlemen,” Hughes confidently concluded. “Bright-eyed, and
relatively
sobre, at least, and be about it! Let’s show the Spanish how
real
soldiers go about their business … let’s show the world!”

*   *   *

Imbued with confidence from their first relatively successful raid at Puerto Banús, the landing at Almerimar went off like clockwork, the officers and men of the 77th’s detachment boarding their boats with alacrity, the boat crews forming up in line-abreast formation as if they’d been doing it for years, and, once the boats grounded the soldiers and Marines advanced on the semaphore tower, and created a screen ’twixt the tower and the town, in a twinkling, going in at the double-quick and raising great, feral cheers.

As soon as it was evident that two “
Inglese
” ships were coming to the town, church bells in Almerimar had begun to peal madly, audible even two-thirds of a mile offshore. Spaniards could be seen dashing about the streets, loading carts, hitching up mules, horses, or donkeys, saddling up, and piling their most treasured possessions in the carts or waggons, even snatching the town’s clotheslines bare to salvage any scrap of clothing or bedding. The townspeople fled East up the coast towards Roquetas de Mar, or inland towards El Ejido, raising clouds of dust from the roads or fields.

There was no opposition, and the landing could have been done by only one company of men. The few Spanish soldiers who manned the semaphore tower stayed at their posts ’til British troops began to swarm ashore from the boats, and the arms of the tower with the black balls at the ends finally stopped wig-wagging, sagging in a downward vee as the positioning ropes were left slack, at last. Seven or eight Spaniards dashed off-inland, their officer and sergeant flailing away with whips to spur their donkeys to a full run, leaving those on foot in their dusty wake.

A few minutes after
Sapphire
’s Marines surrounded the tower, it and the Spanish signalmen’s tents began to smoke, then break out into a roaring fire, helped along with lanthorn oil and scattered gunpowder, sending dense, rising, spreading clouds of dark grey smoke rising high in the morning sky, letting the towers up and down the coast know that the one at Almerimar was silenced for a good, long time, and if they weren’t watchful, the same thing might soon happen to them.

The Marines marched back to the beach in a column-of-twos, and as soon as they were under way, the two companies of the 77th retired from their guard upon the town and fell in behind them, the trailing company still spread out in pairs of skirmishers to form a rearguard. The boats were soon filled, and gotten off the beach, and, in looser, more casual order, returned to the ships to muzzle by the masts’ channel platforms and the scrambling nets. They boarded both ships with laughs, cheers, and impromptu songs, at least an hour before the first rum issue was piped.

No one had been injured, and the worst complaint was that some had gotten their boots and trousers wet to the knees, and had to go change their stockings once weapons and accoutrements had been stored away.

As planned,
Sapphire
led
Harmony
up the coast to the East, in plain sight and only a mile or two offshore of Roquetas de Mar, and Aguadulce, and a Midshipman in
Sapphire
’s mainmast cross-trees could gleefully report that he could see semaphore towers as far off as the city of Almeria whirling away like so many dervishes. Satisfied with the morning’s work, Lewrie then ordered the course to be altered, out to sea and out of sight, gradually fading hull-down from watchers on the tip of Cabo de Gata, as if further raids might take place East of Almeria, threatening Mojacar, Garrucha, Palomares, or Aguilas. Once completely out of sight, though, about both ships went once more, to shape course for their second objective.

*   *   *

One lone stroke upon the forecastle bell rang out most eerily as the ship’s boy who tended it opened a small hooded lanthorn just long enough to see the last of the sand in his half-hour glass run out.

“Boats are in place and manned, sir,” Lt. Westcott reported to Lewrie on the blackened quarterdeck.

“Very well, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie replied, shivering a bit to the cool night breeze. “Load the boats. Pass word to Lieutenant Keane, and send the Execute lanthorn flash to
Harmony.
”

“Aye, sir.”

HMS
Sapphire
was fetched-to just a little over half a mile off the shore, slowly rolling to the faint scend of the sea, hull timbers and mast steps making faint creaking noises. The breeze was light, and the sea, though black as a boot, barely rippled, reflecting tiny lights from Salobreña’s waterfront, the lights which burned that late in the town of Amuñécar off a bit to the West, and from Motril, higher up and inland from Salobreña, casting amber winkings from the tops of what waves there were, as if the warship lay on the edge of a lawn aswarm with fireflys that flashed in their hundreds as they hummed about.

Hope they’re up to it,
Lewrie thought, worrying that the training in the complete dark, and the experience that the soldiers had gotten from the first two landings, might not be enough to put them onto the shore at 4:30
A.M.
, over a full hour before false dawn. There was a nagging thought that he might be asking a bit too much of them this night. He peered shoreward intently, searching for any sign of breaking surf on the black beaches, but could not discern any disturbances. At least the boats would have an easy row in over a blessedly calm sea and ground on a beach on which the waves rolled in lazily to roil in ripples, sweep cross the hard sands, seep in, then retreat as slowly and as gently as the breathing of a sleeping kitten.

He went up to the poop deck for a better view, taking along a night-glass, despite the skewed view it would provide in its ocular.

Streetlights, doorway lights … were some of them moving, he wondered? Small as Salobreña was, could the town afford nightwatchmen? Even at that hour, fishermen might already be awake and astir, their wives stoking hearth fires, and one waterfront tavern or two might be open that early to dish up hearty breakfasts for men who had to rise that early and put out in their boats by sun-up. And all it would take would be one shout of alarm, and the whole attack could go smash!

“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” Lewrie whispered to the night.

“Light, sir!” Lt. Westcott shouted up to him, startling him. “Two flashes from the boats. They’re in contact with each other!”

He’d been so intent on the blackness of the land that he had missed seeing it. Both ships were darkened, revealing nothing to any casual watcher, but now came another risk, the signal to proceed with the landing, from seaward, which any fool might spot!

“Three flashes back, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie called back.

He looked for the tiny splashes from the blades of the oars as they dug in, for the eery phosphorescence that arose from disturbances in nighttime waters, but this time there was nothing to see, no sign of the boats’ very existence.

Pray God it
stays
so!
he thought. He felt as if he was waiting for the wee plop of a pebble tossed down a well, a well so deep and infinite that it would never come.

He lowered the telescope and pushed its tubes shut, and despite a lifetime of training not to, he leaned on the bulwarks, arms on top of the cap-rails and his chest pressed against the wood, facing that stygian shore. Something bumped the back of his right knee above his boot, once, then again, and he groped down to find a cold nose and a furry muzzle; Bisquit had come up to seek company, awakened by all of the clumping of sailors and Marines leaving the ship.

“And a good morning t’you, too, Bisquit,” Lewrie cooed in a soft voice, turning to kneel down and greet the dog with ruffles of his fur, gentle strokes of his perked ears, and a hug or two. “Come t’calm me down, have ye? In need o’ company yourself? Ah, but you’re a fine dog, you are.” He got his face licked as Two Bells rang out from the forecastle belfry; it was five in the morning.

If I’m too senior t’go ashore with ’em,
he told himself;
And have t’stand and wait, at least he’ll keep me occupied for a while…’til the shit begins t’fly. There’s a belly needs scratchin’. Wish that worked for me!

After the requisite belly rubs, Lewrie paced aft to the taffrails, peered at the shore some more, and sat down on the flag lockers for a while. Bisquit hopped up to sit beside him, leaning in close as if for reassurance, then finally turned about and laid his paws and and his head in Lewrie’s lap, to the amusement of the hands who stood watch in the After-Guard, as the skies began to lighten, making the mountains of Sierra de Almijara an erose black mass above the shore.

Lewrie gave the dog a last ruffle of his head fur and rose to go exchange his night-glass for a day-glass, at long last, and peered shoreward from the quarterdeck. It was barely enough of the pre-dawn to make out the boats strung along the beach, and ant-like sailors on shore, forming a defensive arc around them. Higher upslope, he got a hint now and then of red coats and white crossbelts filtering through the trees of the wood lot and the orchards.

Bells began ringing in Salobreña, and doors and windows were flung open, revealing candlelight or lamp light from early risers responding to the alarm. A quick scan of the town showed Lewrie a mass of dark figures along the waterfront and quays, in the seaside streets, who seemed frozen in place, and only slowly bunching together to confer as to what the bells’ tolling might mean. They were not panicked into fleeing, yet, but that might soon come.

“Gunfire, sir!” Lt. Harcourt pointed out. “Uphill, somewhere near the semaphore tower!”

“Rather a lot of it,” Lt. Westcott commented more calmly with his own telescope to one eye.

Lewrie could see bright amber spurts of explosions as priming powder went off, the gushes of more amber-yellow sparks from muzzles, and a quickly rising fog of spent powder, in four places; three groups a bit downslope he took for his soldiers and Marines firing upward at somebody, and a rippling line of returning fire from dozens of muskets up above his own, spaced out around and a little below the dark bulk of the semaphore tower, whose arms, tipped with lanthorns, were going like Billy-Oh! The pre-dawn wind was so light, now, that the sound of gunfire could be heard, a continual crackling like bundles of twigs tossed onto a good campfire.

Calm, fool!
Lewrie chid himself;
Cool and calm does it!,
though his first instinct was to stamp his boots, wave his arms, and demand that somebody tell him what the bloody Hell was going on.

“It appears that the Dons are quicker off the mark t’re-enforce their damned towers, sirs,” Lewrie said, lowering his telescope. “One day after we went ashore at Almerimar? Let’s just hope that Hughes’s estimate of a single company come down from Órjiva is right, and that we out-number them.”