The French Admiral Read online

  “Then how am I to get through the draw . . . private?” Alan asked, his blood rising.

  “Get on down an’ I’ll lead off.”

  Alan had to dismount and squelch through the wet grass and mud behind the soldier, who did not give him a backward glance until they were almost in the notch of the draw.

  “Corp’ral o’ the guard, thar! Gotta horse an’ rider with me!”

  More men popped up from the thickets and Alan was waved on past.

  “Mister Lewrie,” someone called. “Come to accept our invitation?”

  “Ah, Burgess Chiswick!” Alan grinned, happy to see someone that he knew. “On my way past, really.”

  “Surely your errand is not so important you could not break your passage, as I believe you sailors say, and have a cup of coffee with us.”

  “Real coffee?”

  “The genuine article,” Burgess boasted.

  “Then I accept, with pleasure.”

  He was led into camp behind the draw, where life was lived more openly than in the forward face of the position. Tents were slung under the trees or stretched like awnings over lean-tos for shelter and concealment. Very small fires burned, with a lot less smoke than Alan could credit.

  “Brother, look who I found tramping in the woods,” Burgess said as they got near the shelter he shared with his sibling. “I promised him some coffee if he’d bide awhile with us.”

  Alan was made welcome under their rude shelter while his mount was led off by an orderly. He shed his tarpaulin coat and sat down on a log before the fire, which was damned welcome after a morning in the cool damp. A large mug of coffee was shoved into his hands and when he took a sip he made the happy discovery that it had been laced liberally with brandy, which made him sigh in pleasure.

  While he took his ease, he explained where he was set up, what his errand was, and related his experiences with the Hessians.

  “Poor bastards,” the elder Chiswick said. “Sent over here as a ready source of money for their prince or whatever he is, no idea of the country or what the fighting is about. Even have to supply their own rifles.”

  “Didn’t look like yours,” Alan commented.

  “No, it’s more like a rifled musket or one of these Rebel Pennsylvania rifles,” Burgess told him, adding a top-up of brandy into the mug. “Poor work, but more serviceable than what the Rebels have.”

  “I thought the Rebels had a wickedly good gun.”

  “Damned long ranged, and most of ’em can shoot the eyes out of a squirrel at two hundred paces.” Burgess shrugged. “But, it’s slow to load because of the rifling in the barrel, a lot slower than a musket, and the stock’s too light to melee with hand-to-hand.”

  “Won’t take any sort of bayonet, either, unless you shove a plug down the barrel,” Governour stuck in. “And then where are you?”

  “Then why make them?” Alan asked.

  “Because they were light enough to carry in the woods, accurate enough to drop game with one shot when that’s all the chance you get to feed your family, and long ranged enough to avoid having to sneak right up on a deer or what have you. It was never meant for a military use. You put a line of Rebel riflemen up against a line of regular infantry and you’ll get your much-vaunted riflemen slaughtered every time once the regulars go in with the bayonet,” Governour confidently said. “We and the Jagers can fire three, four times as fast as they . . . and give ’em cold steel after our last volley.”

  Governour and his younger brother were good-looking fellows. However, even the younger Burgess had a ruthless look. They both had sandy hair and hazel eyes, but those eyes could glint as hard as agate, so Alan assumed they truly knew the heart of the matter when it came to skewering and slaughtering Rebels.

  “So I may depend on the Jagers?” Alan said.

  “Absolutely,” Governour assured him. “They’re highly disciplined and crack shots, near as good woodsmen as we. And Heros von Muecke can be relied on to stand his ground like Horatius at the Bridge. He’s a bit hard to take—thinks he’s some German blood royal and can get his back up over the slightest thing—but we’ve skirmished beside him before, and he and his men have always been bloody marvels.”

  “That is reassuring, since I don’t know the first thing about land fighting,” Alan said, leaning back on the wall of the lean-to. He described where his battery was and how the redan was laid out, until he began to notice how the Chiswick brothers were both frowning.

  “’Tis a bad position,” Burgess said with finality.

  “Why?” Alan asked, once more beholden to someone for knowledge and slightly resenting the necessity of it, of being so unprepared for what he was being called upon to do. Damme, I was getting right good at the nautical cant, and here I am an innocent lamb again, he thought.

  “We rode over that last week, Alan,” Burgess said. “You only have what . . . a ten-, fifteen-foot rise to your front, and you’re set in the open before that last bit of ground. Steep hills on either side, higher than you but not unscalable.”

  “A regular officer would think unscalable,” Governour spat.

  “Rebels’d be all over you like fleas on a dog. Come at night, most like. I would,” Burgess said.

  “No way down the back side, and if you do get down, you’re stuck on one bank of the creek with no way down, or across,” Governour added.

  “Never get your guns out of there if you have to withdraw,” added the younger Chiswick.

  “Never get your own arse out of there, either.”

  “Well, what about you and your troops, then?” Alan sputtered.

  “We cover both sides of the defile in a crossfire, and the front of both little fingers of the ridge.” Governour sketched in the dirt with some kindling from the small fire. “If overwhelmed, we fall back and skirmish to the marshes of the creek to the north-east. We can fall back on the fortified parallel on the river or into either the Star Redoubt or the Fusilier’s Redoubt. Really, I don’t know what the officer who sited you was thinking of,” he concluded, tossing the stick into the fire. “There is no reason to cover that ground, ’cause no one could ever use it.”

  “Because it is too steep and wooded on the east slope, and goes right into the deep ravines of the creek,” Alan said, seeing the sense of it. “They could not bridge it, or find boats to cross it.”

  “Exactly.” Governour smiled briefly. “Might find sites for mortar or howitzer batteries in there, but you’d be much better placed up here with us. If they did set up in there, we could butcher their flanks.”

  “But the ground is so boggy now, it would take fifty mules to get one gun shifted.” Alan groaned. “Mayhap those army guns could move in all this, but mine would not.”

  “We could make a strong-point with our battalion and Lewrie’s guns, Governour,” Burgess enthused. “We would not have to fall back as we planned if assaulted. And with von Muecke’s Jagers to flesh us out . . .”

  “Aye,” Governour said, getting to his feet stiffly. “Do you entertain our naval compatriot while I see Colonel Hamilton about this. He could get the battery resited for us.”

  Lieutenant Chiswick shrugged into his coat and squared his hat, then stalked away on his long legs to see their battalion commander while Burgess lifted the lid of a stewpot.

  “Have you breakfasted, Alan?” he asked.

  “My man Cony snared a rabbit last night. Yes.”

  “Mollow shot a deer yesterday. Care for some venison?”

  “Well, I’d not say no to a slice or two,” Alan beamed.

  It did indeed take nearly four dozen mules to shift the guns to a better site over the next two days, after Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton had made his protestations to Cornwallis’s aides. The rain still came down in sullen showers, clearing for a while and warming up just enough to make everyone steam below gray skies, then starting in again for an hour or two. Alan was constantly shifting into his tarpaulin coat and out of it, constantly checking the priming of his pistols and his musket,
and learning the value of an oily rag wrapped around a firelock, or the worth of a whittled pinewood plug in the muzzles to keep the loaded charge fairly dry. At a suggestion of Governour’s, Alan sought out a wagon-wright to see if he could get field-gun wheels and axles attached to his gun trucks, with some longer timbers to serve as trails and limbers. There was only one dry path across the marshes to their rear, the one the guns had negotiated the week before, and he was damned if he would surrender his artillery for the lack of proper carriages when finally placed in a position he could hope to evacuate.

  They tore down the abatis and loaded them on muleback to be redug into the new position, shoveled down the ramparts into the shallow trench and filled in the magazines and dugouts, leaving only bare patches of earth to show that they had ever been there. The area looked like mass graves when they were finished destroying the redan, and the ease with which it went down gave everyone a squeamish, impermanent feeling.

  There came a time, eventually, when Alan could have killed for a clean set of linen, and there was little that Cony could do to keep his uniform presentable in the field. Alan asked permission to go back to Desperate for some fresh things from his sea-chest, and it was granted. Burgess was curious about shipboard life, so he came along as well, and they had a pleasant ride back to the town and the docks.

  “Boat ahoy!”

  “Aye, aye!” the bowman shouted, holding up one finger to indicate a very low rank to the deck watch of the frigate and the need for only the smallest side party. Under the circumstances, the bosun’s mate did double duty of piping them aboard and representing the ship as watch officer. There were few enough people on deck, at any rate.

  “Permission to come aboard, Mister Weems,” Alan said, doffing his hat and nudging Burgess to emulate him.

  “Aye, Mister Lewrie,” Weems said. “How’re things ashore?”

  “Only half misery, considering, Mister Weems. This is Ensign Chiswick of the North Carolina Volunteers. I suppose that is much like a warrant rank, possibly an acting lieutenant.”

  “Yer servant, sir,” Weems said, knuckling his brow.

  “And yours, sir,” Burgess replied.

  They went below to the midshipmen’s mess, where only little Carey resided at present. He was glad to see Alan, and was full of questions directed at both of them, seeming in full, childish awe of the soldier.

  Alan rapped on the light, temporary partition between his mess and the officer’s wardroom, and was bade enter. He led Burgess in to meet Mr. Dorne, Cheatham, Lieutenant Peck of the marines, and the sailing master, Mister Monk.

  “Had enough of soldiering, have you, Lewrie?” Peck drawled, taking his ease on the transom settee with a clay pipe fuming by the window.

  “And learned sweet damn-all, sir,” Alan agreed. “I would not presume to enter the wardroom, but I believe my chest is stored here, and I need fresh linen and things.”

  “Aye, so it is.” Monk nodded. “Mister Chiswick, sir, take a seat an’ have a drop with us while ya wait.”

  “Thankee kindly, Mister Monk,” Burgess said, shying his hat at a peg and drawing up to the scarred mess table.

  “Ya bring yer laundry, too?”

  “No, sir. Just my thirst,” Burgess said easily. “And a curiosity about your ship.”

  Alan dumped his jute bag of soiled linen, hoping a hammock man could eventually tend to it, and dug down into his chest for clean shirts and stockings, a more presentable neck-cloth, and a second pair of shoes that he could rotate with the only pair he had been wearing in all the muck over the last few days of rain and sogginess. He was intensely relieved to see that nothing had been disturbed in his absence and that a very torn and stained shirt in the bottom was still in the same position and gave off a muted, heavy clinking sound as he shifted it. He packed himself a fresh pair of breeches and a pair of working rig slop trousers as well and relocked his chest.

  “Sit down as well, Mister Lewrie, don’t stand on ceremony,” Monk ordered. “They’s grog, there, an’ some decent red as well. Top up an’ share a glass with us.”

  “Thank you for the wardroom privilege, sir.”

  “Big doings ashore, then, Mister Lewrie?” Mr. Dorne asked as he straightened his eternal tiewig and peered over his tiny spectacles.

  “Nothing much yet, sir. No sign of the enemy to the west of us.”

  “Well, they are up on the Gloucester side,” Peck said. “Lafayette and some Frogs. Lauzun’s Legion, I’m told. Lancers, dragoons, and foot, along with some unit called the Virginia Militia. Some of ’em marched in, some boated in from the French camp on the James.”

  “And we could not stop them, sir?” Alan asked, filling a glass with the red wine. Rum he could get ashore, and it was getting tiresome.

  “The French’re absolute masters o’ the navigation now. Not one British craft c’n swim but by their leave,” Monk said.

  “Well, there’s the spy boats,” Peck stuck in.

  “Sneakin’ in and out at night with letters to an’ from Clinton an’ Graves in New York ain’t challengin’ the French, sir,” Monk retorted.

  “Any word on when we may expect relief, sir?” Burgess asked.

  “None yet, lad.”

  “It is not like Cornwallis to sit so idly, I assure you, sirs,” Burgess said out of pride. “In the Carolinas, we marched like . . . like foot cavalry, active as fleas. There is still a chance to march inland to Williamsburg and cross over into better country. And with enough of these small transports I saw here in harbor, we could cross to the Gloucester side. Tarleton is a Tartar—he could cut a way through for us.”

  “There’s to be an attempt to cross the bay to the eastern shore soon, I have heard,” Cheatham volunteered. “A solid enough rumor of it, in faith. Heard it from the supply quartermaster ashore. Send fireships downriver to frighten the French away and cross before they can respond.”

  “I wish they would tell us,” Alan ventured, thinking that he was too far from the harbor to reembark on that experiment, and fearful of being left behind as a forlorn hope or rearguard. “It would take some time to get our guns back aboard for the attempt.”

  “Yea, well.” Monk coughed in embarrassment and looked away to busy himself with a large swallow of grog.

  That’s exactly what would happen, Alan realized with a cold shudder under his heart. Some regulars would get off, but the Volunteers and my people would be sacrificed. God-damn and blast the bastards!

  They shifted to cheerier topics; the good state of health of Lieutenants Railsford and Forrester over on Gloucester, what Avery was doing with the heavy guns closer around the town, but it was a gloomy mess.

  Wardroom privileges did not extend to supper, so Alan and Burgess excused themselves as the mess cloth was spread, and no one made any noises of invitation to dine with them. Mr. Dorne was good enough to see them out on deck, taking the need of air as an excuse. But once on deck, they met the gloomy presence of Commander Treghues, who swooped up like a wraith in the dark.

  “Mister Lewrie, is it?” he said.

  “Aye, sir. Come aboard for fresh linen, sir. May I present Ensign Burgess Chiswick of the North Carolina Volunteers, sir.”

  “Mister Chiswick, give you joy, sir. I hope Mister Lewrie has not let the reputation of the Navy down?”

  “Indeed not, sir,” Burgess replied. “He has been a most resourceful fellow and a good companion. His battery is attached to our redoubt just on t’other side of the creek. Good artilleryman, he is, sir.”

  “Yes, he likes the sound of guns. Good work, Mister Lewrie,” Treghues said with a small chuckle, which was so out of character from the harsh and bitter man Alan had come to know that he strongly suspected the captain had totally lost his wits, even if it was a startling improvement.

  “Who would have thought it?” Alan whispered after Treghues had quit the deck for his cabins and his own supper. “Mister Dorne, sir?”

  “You’d not notice in the dark, Mister Lewrie, but I performed a slight tr
ephination upon him after you left the ship,” Dorne said softly enough so that even Burgess could not hear. “There was pressure upon the cranium from the occluded blood resulting from the blow he received, which I relieved, and he is remarkably restored to his former self thereof. He has little memory, however, of the last few weeks.”

  Dorne slipped him the wink to let Alan know that he had forgotten even his grudge against his least-favorite miscreant rogue.

  “Thank bloody Christ!” Alan breathed.

  “There is, however, a slight problem,” Dorne continued. “He was dosed with a tincture of hemp, a decoction from the South American plant cannabin, more correctly Nicotiana glauca, in wine for pain. That led to some lucid moments before the trephination, and he has grown quite . . . fond of it, I am afraid. Since my supply is gone, I do not know what he shall be like in future. But we shall see. Perhaps it is best that you are ashore at present, and cannot rekindle any unfortunate memories.”

  “God, yes,” Alan agreed. “I’m off like a hare.”

  “More like a fox, if I know you well at all,” Dorne said. “And good luck to you in our shared misfortune.”

  “Aye, Mr. Dorne, and good fortune to you as well.”

  Once ashore and on horseback once more, Burgess was most complimentary in his opinion of Commander the Honorable Treghues, and of the people in the wardroom.

  “A most charming gentleman, your captain,” Burgess said.

  “As long as he has his wits about him, yes,” Alan replied, and spent the next few minutes of their ride filling Burgess in on how the captain had behaved before his surgery, and how brutally he had treated everyone. Alan did not go into Treghues’s reasons regarding himself; he liked Burgess and wanted him to remain a friend.

  “You’re a lucky fellow, Alan,” Burgess opined.

  “How do you come by that, Burgess?” Alan asked, mystified.

  “When you are on shipboard, you have your fellow midshipmen in a snug mess with a steward and a hammock man to see to your table and your kit, never have to sleep out in the wilds in all weathers, and you are assured where your next meal is coming from. What more could you desire in time of war?”