“And, except for Encounter, sir, none of our ships could get within gun-range to support them during the evacuation,” Westcott pointed out.
“How long would it take for orders to that effect to reach us to send the boats inshore, too, sir?” Merriman said, sucking the last few crumbs which adhered to his fork. “At short notice, there would be only Encounter’s, Narcissus’s, and the five transports’ boats to do the work, and it would take too long to get them all off before the Spanish find a way across the river up-stream, where it might be a tad shallower and narrower.”
“Even worse, if there’s another bridge up-stream, or a ferry,” Lewrie fretted. “We’ve no maps of inland Argentina, so we just don’t know! Christ, I hope that Popham … the Commodore, mean t’say … wrote Admiralty for re-enforcements before we left Cape Town, or Saint Helena.”
Slim chance o’ that, Lewrie thought; He wanted his marvellous coup t’be a grand surprise! Maybe Governor Patten sent a report home, after giving us those extra men and guns.
“Then, we must hope that General Beresford can hold out ’til we do get re-enforcements, sir,” Westcott said, grimacing, and his savage face looking even harsher. “Assuming the government even knows where we are, and how long it would take to get word to London that we are even here, and in need! Good Lord above.”
“Unless that Army officer’s estimate of enemy forces was right, sir,” Lt. Merriman said with a hopeful expression. “If they only had fifteen hundred or so to begin with, suffered some casualties when we skirmished with them, they may have run so far that they are no threat any longer, and our twelve hundred or so can stand on the defensive in the town. We may be borrowing trouble.”
“Then let us pray that that is so, Mister Merriman,” Lewrie intoned. “Else, we have a debacle on our hands.”
Well … Popham’ll have a debacle on his hands, Lewrie thought; And we’re safely out of it!
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
A day later, manna figuratively fell from Heaven. A dowdy brig-rigged vessel, captured in the small port of Ensenada, came down from Buenos Aires laden with beef, pork, and bread, some of the meat fresh-slaughtered and newly salted and casked in brine, and some of it still on the hoof. As if in answer to Lt. Westcott’s prayer, some smaller kegs contained choicer slabs of steaks and roasts, not a week off the cow, and, when the salt was rinsed off in the steep-tubs, were as fresh and juicy as any that could be ordered in a London chop house.
Reliant received two live bullocks and four hefty pigs, guaranteeing fresh meat for all hands for several days, and at least a week’s worth of much fresher salt-meat in casks. All of it was welcomed aboard as enthusiastically as chests of prize-money.
Equally welcome were the fresh vegetables and fruit. The Argentine had been settled for centuries, time enough for orchards and market gardens to provide a year-round cornucopia of European staples and the more exotic crops native to the Indios. Yeovill scrambled from one case or keg to the next, gathering all manner of peppers and raw spices or herbs, snagging hands of green bananas, mangoes, guavas, and Spanish fruits for Lewrie’s table, trailed by the Purser, Mister Cadbury, and his Jack-in-the-Breadroom who were trying to inventory the lot before it could be pilfered.
Cadbury was pleased, as well, for with all the victuals, there were sacks of coffee beans, bundles of leaf tobacco, and many kegs of local red wine suitable for issue in lieu of the Navy’s “Blackstrap”, and for once it would not cost him a single pence, for it was all for free, taken as booty from a conquered foe!
“A steak for your supper tonight, sir!” Yeovill promised with glee. “Along with these wee white potatoes, broad beans, and baked rolls. Medium rare, as you like it, the potatoes roasted in wedges with garlic, onion, and rosemary, the beans in oil … as good as any shore supper you ever tasted! Will you be having guests in, sir?”
“Not tonight, Yeovill,” Lewrie told him, “for I fully intend t’be a pig and feast upon this bounty all by myself. I will even try the local red wine.”
And so will Pettus, Jessop, and yourself, Lewrie assured himself, for a captain’s servants in essence ate from the same dishes as the man they served, even if it was only the left-overs. But, it was the wise captain who did not question how much was prepared for him alone! Even his clerk, Faulkes, usually shared in the bounty, at least the tastier bits, though he was officially fed alongside the sailors.
“Hoy, there!” Lewrie called over to the older Midshipman from the Narcissus frigate, who was in charge of the victualling vessel as another net-sling load of goods was swayed up from her holds by the main course yardarm. “Any orders for us?”
“None, sir!” the Mid called back.
“How do things go in town?” Lewrie asked.
“Mostly quiet, sir, in the main,” the Midshipman answered, “though there have been some … scuffles with the locals. They are not happy with our being there, and some trouble-makers have become bold enough to shake their fists and shout, but the Army patrols daunt them … so far. That is the last due you, sir,” he said, pointing to the sling-load. “I will be off to victual Diadem. Is she still anchored off Montevideo, or does she cruise?”
“No matter, sir, she’s the only vessel swimming off there,” Lewrie assured him, “and thankee kindly for all the goodies!”
“As the French say, sir, bon appétit!” the Midshipman cried as he began to get his little ship back under way.
Lewrie turned his attention back to Reliant’s forward weather decks, where their burly Black Ship’s Cook, idle sailors, and ship’s boys were herding the hogs into the forecastle manger and barring them in, and hobbling the two bullocks, preparatory to one of them being slaughtered.
“Thank God today is not a Banyan Day, sir,” the Sailing Master, Mr. Caldwell, jovially said from nearby on the quarterdeck. “It’d be hard on the people to see all that juicy meat on the hoof, and still be fed on porridge, bisquit, and cheese!”
“And the officers’ mess is so looking forward to a hefty beef roast, hey?” Lewrie teased.
“Individual steaks, sir, at least a pound apiece I was told,” Caldwell chortled. “Grilled, not boiled, praise the Lord! It appears that if there will be no prize-money doled out for taking the Argentine, there are at least some compensations.”
“Even if there were prize-money awarded, we weren’t ‘In Sight’ at the moment of capture, and are unable to share,” Lewrie said with a sigh. “Come to think on it, neither were Encounter and Narcissus … where they lay at anchor off Point Quilmes was twelve miles or more from the city.”
“It was all seized by the Army, sir,” Mr. Caldwell countered as he patted his belly. “Mark my words, it will all be deemed to be Droits of The Crown, not Droits of The Admiralty, and be whisked to England, soon as dammit.”
“One may only hope, then, t’be the ship that whisks it,” Lewrie said with a snicker. “There’s a wee percentage allowed the ‘whiskee’, at least.”
“Then it is just too bad that we draw too much water to be able to go and fetch it, sir,” Caldwell said with a disappointed grimace.
“Captain Donnelly, and Narcissus,” Lewrie supposed, grimacing along with the Sailing Master. “The lucky … fellow!”
“Sure to be, sir,” Caldwell gloomily agreed. “Sure to be.”
Up forward, a wash-deck pump was being rigged and manned before Mr. Cooke, who had so aptly named himself after fleeing slavery on Jamaica, began the killing. He had a middle maul with which to stun the beast, his sharpest and longest knife with which to cut its throat and bleed it—helpers stood by with buckets to catch as much blood as they could for other uses—and then a boarding axe and stouter, shorter knives with which to skin it and butcher it into eight-pound chunks. Bisquit was prancing about in anticipation, and in mock hunting growls and barks; it was quite possible he’d never seen a bullock, certainly not aboard ship, and didn’t know what it was. Idle crewmen stood about on gangways and the foredeck hatch cover, cheering, jeering, and ready to whoop in glee over the bullock’s impending demise.