After the crack of the gun, and the sight of the small cloud of sour smoke from its discharge, the soldiers filed up to claw their way back aboard the boats and take their seats on the inner parts of the thwarts, muskets jutting upwards and held between their knees. One by one, the boats were shoved off the beach, the oarsmen stroking to back-water out far enough for one bank of oars to back-water, the other to stroke forward and turn them round bows-out toward the waiting ships, right in the middle of the surf. All the boats pitched and rolled, cocking their bows or sterns high as incoming waves set them to hobby-horsing, but, after a few minutes, all were clear and on their way out, with the unbroken rollers lifting them a few feet, then dropping them between sets.
“Is the weather getting up?” Lt. Westcott speculated aloud, looking up to the commissioning pendant, the clouds, and the steepness of the wave sets.
“The surf is breaking a tad more boisterous, sir,” Lt. Harcourt agreed.
“You can feel it,” Lewrie said, leaning over the bulwarks for a look at the sea ruffling round the hull. “If we get those clumsy bastards back aboard, we’ll call it a day, then stand out to sea.”
“Aye, sir,” Westcott replied.
Lewrie paced the quarterdeck, now and then ascending to the poop deck for a better view with his telescope, willing himself to be calm, stoic, and un-moved, but that was a hard task. The boats came alongside Harmony in their proper places, bowmen hooked the channels with their gaffs, one bank of oarsmen took hold of the scrambling nets to keep the boats close alongside and keep the nets somewhat taut as soldiers tentatively made their way up the transport’s side to heave a leg over the bulwarks and partly roll back aboard.
“Time, Mister Elmes?” Lewrie asked from the poop deck.
“Twenty-one and one half minutes for the soldiers to get back aboard, sir,” the Third Officer told him. “A bit quicker.”
“That’s ’cause they know the rum issue’s coming as soon as they do,” Lewrie scoffed.
“Perhaps we should set a rum keg on the beach next time, then, sir,” Elmes joshed. “And the first boat ashore gets full measures.”
“Then they’d get so drunk we’d never get them back!” Lewrie said, relieved enough to banter once again.
His own Marines had come back aboard Sapphire much more quickly, the boats had been tented with taut tarpaulin covers to keep out rain and sloshed-aboard seawater in rough weather, and were already being led aft for towing astern once the ship got back under way. Muskets and accoutrements were stowed away, and the Marines had removed their red coats, neck-stocks and waist-coats, only worn when standing sentry or when called to Quarters for battle.
The Sailing Master and the Midshipmen under his instruction had gathered to take Noon Sights with their sextants and slates, though it was a pointless endeavour for Sapphire’s officers, for once, since the ship was still fetched-to about a thousand yards offshore. Lewrie had been so intent upon watching the soldiers’ return that he had missed Eight Bells ringing the change of watch.
“All hands back aboard, sir, arms and boats secured, and ready to get under way,” Westcott, who was now the officer of the watch, reported. “Rum first, sir?”
“No, I want sea-room first,” Lewrie decided as he slowly came back down to the quarterdeck. “Just in case.”
Hundreds of sailors and Marines stood about the deck in the waist, along the gangways, joshing each other, pleased with their own exertions, and jeering at the poor showing of the men of the 77th, looking aft for word of their own rum issue.
“Bosun!” Westcott shouted, “hands to the foresheets and braces! Stations for getting under way!”
There was a collective groan at the delay, but on-watch hands sprang to their duties, and within minutes, Sapphire had come about, and under reduced sail, slowly clawed her way a mile or better out to sea, with Harmony trailing her.
“I’ll be aft, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie finally announced. “I think a good, long sulk is in order. I may even curse the cat!”
Once in his cabins, Lewrie shucked his coat and undid his neck-stock for comfort, pummelled his battered hat into a semblance of its former shape, and flung himself onto his settee. Chalky came dashing with his tail erect and mewing as he leapt into Lewrie’s lap for some long-delayed pets, butting and stroking his cheeks on him.
“Tea, sir?” Pettus asked.
“Aye,” Lewrie agreed, still a bit glum.
The muted music from the ship’s fiddler and a fifer came to him, playing “Molly Dawson” at a lively beat, and there was a cheer raised as the red-painted and gilt rum keg got fetched up from below.
“Think they’ll get better at it, sir?” Pettus asked as he came back with a tall tumbler of cool tea, lemoned and sugared to Lewrie’s likes.
“They’d better, or I’m wastin’ everybody’s bloody time.”
* * *
The weather did get up for the next two days’ running, forcing both ships to keep well out in deeper, open waters, with lots of rain and stiff quarter-gales keening in the rigging. The cancellation of training gave Lewrie enough time to sift through every detail of his plans for teaching lubberly soldiers.
Loath as he was to admit it, he had put the cart before the horse, expecting too much too quickly. “River discipline!” he had blurted out over supper alone in his cabins, feeling much like Archimedes shouting “Eureka!” in his bath water.
Fresh-caught landsmen rounded up by the Press, new-come volunteers, were never expected to be slung aboard a warship and forced to man the guns, tend to the braces, sheets, and halliards, scale the ratlines, take on the perilous passage by the futtock shrouds to the tops, and lay out on the yards, right off. It took weeks safely anchored in port to introduce them to the rudiments before any captain would dare set sail, not just trusting to luck to make a safe passage.
Once the weather cleared, Lewrie ordered both ships back to Gibraltar, and came to anchor near the New Mole. The soldiers were sent ashore to their temporary barracks for a day and a night, fresh rations were fetched aboard Sapphire and Harmony, and both crews were allowed shore liberties before getting back to business.
Then, in the calm waters of Gibraltar Bay, the landing boats were led round to their stations, and the soldiers were ordered over the side, without muskets to impede them at first. Into the boats and sit for a while, then out of the boats and back on deck. A break for water, and they were ordered to do it all over again, several times in the first day, to the point that Harmony’s decks could be cleared in a quick ten minutes.
The next day the drills were done with muskets and all accoutrements, all day long less intervals for water, rum, mid-day meals, and the soldiers were only released from practice late in the afternoon, just before the second rum issue. With a steady, unmoving deck and boats that did not pitch and heave about, the soldiers’ time got even better.
On the third day, the boats were manned, the nets deployed, and the soldiers scrambled down to their places, but this time, the boats rowed off to form line-abreast and stroked in to within close pistol-shot of the quays to glide in so the soldiers could exit over the bow platforms, form by platoons on the town’s dockside street, then get back into the boats and return to the transport to scramble back aboard to do it all over again. Those evolutions raised a great deal of mirth and curiosity in the town, and a lot of good-natured joshing from the town Provosts, dock workers, and off-duty soldiers of the garrison, and some sharp-eyed, calculating looks from civilian men.
Spies, agents, and informers be-damned, Lewrie thought, shaking his head over the necessity, sure that there were several powerful telescopes on the other side of the bay at Algeciras the like of Thomas Mountjoy’s, watching their every move and wondering what it was about.