“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.”
“It does look as if the enemy is in roughly company strength, sir,” Lt. Westcott estimated. “Damn all the gunsmoke, though. Can’t make out much anymore.”
“There!” Lewrie said, pointing. “To the left. That would be Captain Kimbrough’s company, going forward. They’ve marched ahead of their first smoke. You can almost make ’em out, now!”
A minute later, and the gunfire on the right flank moved up a bit closer to the semaphore tower, as Lt. Keane took his Marines out further, and re-opened fire into the Spanish left-hand of the line. As the volume of fire increased from the left, from Kimbrough’s company, the centre of the British line moved up, as well.
“Am I imagining things, or are the Spanish falling back to the tower?” Lt. Harcourt wondered aloud. “Yes, I think they are!”
“Their gun flashes seem to be slackening, too,” Lt. Elmes said. “Damme, a good, hard fight, and we’re not in it!”
“Land fighting, sir?” Lewrie said with a shake of his head in dismissal. “Be careful what ye wish for, for it ain’t pretty. Do pass word for Mister Snelling, and have him, his Surgeon’s Mates, and the loblolly boys standing by, for we’re sure t’have wounded comin’ back.”
Long before, in his Midshipman days, some wry fellow, he could not recall just who, had commented that glory and honour were won if battle happened over yonder, but when one was personally involved, it was only confusion and terror. Even so, Lewrie wished that he could be ashore, up with the 77th and his Marines, if only to see for himself how the fight was going, and if he could issue orders that saved the day, saved some lives, and won the field.
“I think our fellows are moving forward, again, sir,” Lieutenant Westcott announced. “We may have gained the tower, and driven the Dons into the scrub behind it.”
Four Bells rang out to mark six in the morning, and the sun was almost fully up, revealing more of the scene, the sailors and boats on the shore, the beach now sandy instead of grey, the light line of the gentle surf breaking ankle-high, and the details of the town off to the left. The details of the terrain pencilled upon Mountjoy’s maps were more distinctive, the orchards and wood lot trees, the houses and barns of the scattered farmsteads, the long slope up to the semaphore tower and the tower itself. Upon that slope, Lewrie could espy tiny blotches of red and white scattered here and there, a sight that made him suck in a deep breath as his stomach went chill. British soldiers, some of his own Marines, lay on the ground where they had fallen, and they were too far away for him to see if they lay unmoving, or writhed in pain from wounds, wounds from which they might recover, pray God!
God dammit, what a mess! he thought, almost in pain; No matter the care we took in plannin’, we’ve thrown ’em in the quag.
At long last, the gunfire dribbled off to scattered individual shots, and the groups of British troops were beyond the tower, swarming inside it, and starting the destruction. Uphill and around the tower there were a lot more wee blotches of men in blue and white uniforms on the ground. What remained of the Spanish infantry had run off, out-shot by troops that actually practiced live-fire on a regular basis, and as Lewrie made a quick count of the unmoving Spaniards, he felt a bit of relief that the numbers of enemy soldiers who had run might be too few to mount a counter-attack before the tower was set alight.
“Smoke, sir,” Westcott said, with some delight. “They’ve lit it on fire. We’ll have them back aboard the ships in the next hour.”
* * *
Sapphire’s Marines came up the scrambling nets and the boarding battens in much quieter takings than their demeanours upon departure, and even the sailors who had manned their boats and had guarded the beach but had not been engaged in the fight seemed much more subdued. The Bosun’s Mates and the Surgeon’s loblolly boys saw to hoisting Sapphire’s wounded up the ship’s sides by means of mess-table carrying boards for the seriously hurt, slung horizontal and lifted over the bulwarks with the main course yard, or in Bosuns’ chairs for the others.
Through it all, Lewrie stood four-square and stoic amidships of the forward edge of the quarterdeck, hands clasped in the small of his back, ’til Lieutenant Keane reported to him.
“How bad?” Lewrie gruffly asked.
“Not too bad, all in all, sir,” Lt. Keane said, doffing his hat. “Marine Private Pewitt slain, and five wounded, including Corporal Lester. He’s the worst off. Lieutenant Roe got slightly nicked, and Sergeant Clapper twisted an ankle.”