Run Them Ashore (12 page)

Edward Pringle launched into a long and enthusiastic description of each vessel in turn, and Williams found that he was drawn from his gloomy preoccupation. He wished that he had brought his telescope with him, but the passion of the naval officer for his subject was infectious. First he pointed out the King’s ships, eleven great ships of the line, two frigates and several smaller vessels including the curiously shaped bomb-ships, each of which carried a huge mortar set low in its deck. The sailor spoke of a ship as some of the wealthier army officers spoke of horses, their shape, their character, virtues and vices, and then with as much assurance of many of their captains.

There were a dozen Spanish ships of the line, and Edward named them as well, although he knew less of their captains or the handling of the ships. A couple were huge three-deckers with more than a hundred guns.

‘The Dons have always liked to build ’em huge, not that it has done them any good. They handle badly in any sort of blow.’

Williams noticed the frowns of nearby Spaniards. They might not understand the words, but the tone, and the dismissive mention of ‘the Dons’, was bound to cause offence. He wondered whether he would have been so sensitive a few years ago, but these days some of his countrymen seemed boorish in their manner. They also tended to speak too loudly in public.

‘Shocking state she is in now. All of them, really, rotten and worm-eaten from end to end, the men on board as decayed as the ships. Do you know we have had to provide gunners so that
we can use some of them as floating batteries? Scarcely one of them has even a quarter of its proper complement.’

Billy Pringle was also clearly aware of his brother’s tactlessness. Perhaps sailors spent too long at sea and in the society of others of their ilk. To be fair many soldiers were as lacking in good manners, but why must their companion be so loud?

‘What about the French ships?’ Billy asked, eager to distract his brother from his theme of the inadequacies of the Spanish navy. ‘I believe that is one,’ he added, pointing out a hulk moored without spars and with only the lowest section of its three masts sticking up.

‘Yes, there are three or four prison hulks left, although I believe all are to be emptied soon. Look, there on the far shore, near the headland.’ Williams spotted a darker shape among the white breakers. ‘That is one of the ones which got away. We thought they had gone adrift in the storm, but it turned out the prisoners had overpowered the guards and then cut the cables. The tide took them back to the far shore and their own army. Another one did it a few days later. We chased them and fired into the hulk, so fewer made it that time, but it was a close business and we lost quite a few men in the exchange of fire. Unpleasant, though. Shells set the ship on fire and some of the men must have burned.’

‘Was it necessary to fire on them at all?’ Williams asked. He had heard of these escapes by several hundred French prisoners of war. They had surrendered to the Spanish back in ’08, but instead of the promised return to France the men were cooped up on overcrowded hulks, poorly fed and left prey to cold, damp and disease.

Edward Pringle looked surprised by the question. ‘They are enemies, going back to fight against us one day, and they were breaking their parole as prisoners.’

‘As the Spanish had first broken their word.’ Williams noticed Billy rolling his eyes, and realised that now he was the one voicing loud criticism of their allies. It seemed best to move on, and they began to go down a long flight of stone steps on to a lower
promenade right by the sea. Wind trapped by a corner of the great stone walls buffeted against them here with considerable force, and they hunched into it, clinging tightly to their hats. A good half-hour after noon, the crowds had thinned considerably. Edward Pringle had spent time in the city before, and took them to eat in a tavern a little further along. It was cool inside away from the sun, and the Pringles drank wine while Williams had sweetened lemon juice, before sharing a table of bread, ham, fish cooked in olive oil, fruit and pastries.

Edward Pringle told them of long months spent blockading this very port when Britain and Spain were still at war. The half-dozen other people in the room were all British officers of one service or another, so that neither his brother nor Williams felt this to be too sensitive a subject. Billy said that he was sure the owner of the place had heard a lot worse and guessed that he had long since ceased to listen. ‘If he does not care for it, he can always spit in our food,’ Edward added cheerfully.

Trafalgar had been fought almost within sight, and after the battle the surviving French and Spanish warships had taken refuge here at Cadiz. ‘And there we kept them, all bottled up, but it is dull work, and harder here than at Brest or Toulon.’ For most of the war the Navy had kept close outside the main enemy ports, waiting in sufficient strength to smash all but the biggest fleets if the French or their allies should come out. There had been no big battles since Trafalgar. ‘They know they cannot match us for seamanship or gunnery,’ Edward boasted, and hearing him two other sailors sitting near by raised their glasses in honour of the sentiment.

‘Hear, hear!’

‘Blockade work takes its toll on men and ships,’ Edward Pringle continued after a moment. ‘Here you can spend hours or days of labour just to stay in position. There are never enough ships so all stay on station longer than they should. All Boney has to do is wait, sit inside his harbour and build ships. Do you know he builds five or six more line-of-battle ships than us every year? Well, he can afford to, can’t he, controlling nearly all the timber
of Europe. His navy keeps getting bigger and one day might be so big that even seamanship and gunnery will not be enough.’

Williams was surprised. For the last few years he had assumed that Britannia truly did rule the waves, unchallenged and unlikely ever to be challenged again after Trafalgar.

‘Is the threat so great?’

‘Not soon,’ Edward Pringle said after a moment. ‘It will take a long while, but then it looks as if Boney will have a long while, won’t he? But you can see how dire the consequences might be if Spain goes under, and the French get their hands on the Spanish fleet. Can you imagine it? A dozen or more line-of-battle ships just here and at Gibraltar, and more elsewhere, all handed over to him. Two or more years’ advantage gifted to them just like that.’ He snapped his fingers.

‘You do not seem to think much of the quality of those ships,’ Billy said.

‘Aye, and we must take the chief blame for that. Cadiz is a safe anchorage, but has little in the way of yards or docks. Spain’s fleet has never been based here, but they had to sit at anchor, riding out each big storm with no prospect of supplies to repair any damage. Their own government took over, starving them of men and money – why pay for idle ships, they thought. And this is the result, half of them barely fit to float, let alone sail. Not that they could not be repaired in time. No, Boney would love to get his grubby hands on them, so that must not happen. I hear that several will be convoyed away in the next few days. One or two may have to be towed, they are in such a state, and we are loaning them hundreds of sailors. Glad I’m not one of them. If the weather turns half of them will go to the bottom.’

Edward Pringle sat opposite them at the table, the other two with their backs to the door, and now the sailor was looking with great interest in that direction. ‘Now there is something I would sail for ever and for ever,’ he said.

Williams turned, and then sprang to his feet, banging his knee painfully against the table leg.

‘Mr Williams,’ said a voice he had not heard for over a year
save in memory and dream. ‘And Captain Pringle too, what a pleasure to see old friends.’

Miss MacAndrews stood in the doorway, struggling to balance a basket on one arm as she folded her parasol. She wore a long-sleeved dress of pale pink muslin, white gloves and a deep bonnet. With the dazzlingly bright sunlight coming through the open door behind her, the dark outline of her legs and body was precisely traced against the pale, almost translucent dress.

Williams struggled to speak, swamped by emotion made worse by the granting of a sight generally reserved for his dreams. The irrelevant thought came to mind that perhaps this was why the local ladies favoured black dresses rather than the pale colours fashionable in England.

‘It is good to see you, Miss MacAndrews,’ Billy Pringle said, as the two redcoat officers tried to ignore a soft ‘Quite wonderful to see you’ from his brother.

Williams managed to step forward, moving so close that his view was less dramatic and the brothers’ perspective masked altogether. He thought he caught a muttered ‘Damn’ from behind him. ‘May I be of assistance?’ he asked.

She smiled, the wide mouth parting to reveal neat white teeth. He could see her better now, and her looks overpowered him again as they always did, but now it was more the sparkle in her eyes than the smooth skin, delicate features and the never quite tamed locks of red hair escaping from beneath the bonnet. At the moment, whatever the future held, he was filled with joy to see a friend. The love was always there, however hopeless, but so was the simple delight in her company.

‘Thank you, but I believe I can manage. I was looking for my mother. She wanted to meet with a Mr Henegan of the Commissariat in the hope of securing passage to Gibraltar on one of the convoys. She was not at the other place where she thought he might be, so I came here. It does not matter, I was merely hoping to walk home with her.’

A cough, and a presence close by his arm, prompted him. Williams presented Edward Pringle to the major’s daughter, and
saw something of his younger brother’s charming ways for the first time. Edward bowed, kissing the fingers proffered to shake.

Miss MacAndrews dazzled him with a smile and a compliment about the Navy. She and her mother had travelled out in a cutter carrying dispatches. ‘We were treated with great courtesy, even in so confined a ship.’

‘I am sure they must have been honoured to carry such precious packages, Miss MacAndrews,’ Edward Pringle said with a smoothness Williams felt unbecoming in a man so recently bereaved.

‘Forgive me, gentlemen, but I must go,’ the girl replied. ‘Happy reunion though this is – and an honour to make your acquaintance, Captain Pringle. You must all call on us,’ she added, and Williams hoped he saw a particular emphasis and look in his direction as she spoke. Then he remembered the changed circumstances and for a moment despised himself as a fortune hunter. It would not do.

He followed her into the street, noting the speed with which the very fair-skinned girl popped her parasol back up. The hot wind caught it, and she struggled to hold it steady until it slackened.

‘It comes from Africa,’ he said for want of anything better.

‘I beg your pardon, Mr Williams?’

‘The wind, it blows across the sea from Africa.’

‘Ah.’ She nodded, understanding him. ‘It is remarkable to see that continent from the other side of the city.’

‘I am continually surprised by the snow on the peaks of the mountains,’ Williams said, merely for the sake of being with her, ‘for I had always associated Africa with great heat.’

‘ ’Tis a shame it disappoints you.’ Jane smiled again. ‘For my part I regret that it is so close and yet still so far away. I should like to see a camel, Mr Williams,’ she added, looking wistful, until the humour surfaced again. ‘It is the first time I have seen the African coast – or at least the first time I can remember. We were at Gibraltar for a while when I was little.’ Over the years her mother had accompanied her father to garrison after garrison
throughout the world. ‘But I do not remember seeing it then. I do remember being chased by an ape and being unable to sleep lest it followed me home!’

‘And here you are in Cadiz being followed by another great ape,’ he said quickly.

Miss MacAndrews gave a little laugh as genuinely amused as it was proper. ‘Well, at least you are a friendly one – and a good deal more becoming in appearance than that horrible beast!’ She gave him an arch look. ‘Though scarcely better dressed!’

Clegg had done a remarkable job of repairing his jacket, and from a distance all looked well, but it was unfit for close scrutiny. Williams decided that he must have a new one made, even if it took the bulk of his remaining savings, already largely devoured because he had not been paid for six months. The army struggled to cope with detached service when it came to such things.

‘The ape apologises,’ he said, and bowed.

Miss MacAndrews smiled again. ‘But I really must go, for there is Mama.’ Williams saw the tall, straight figure of Mrs MacAndrews standing on the wide rampart above them. She was an imperious, somewhat terrifying lady, and he had come to like her a good deal. ‘I do not think she has spied me,’ Jane said, ‘but I must go. It is good to see you. You must call as soon as your duties permit. Tomorrow afternoon if not before. You will be astounded to see how much young Jacob has grown. Sergeant Dobson looks so proud of him. Goodbye, Mr Williams.’

The girl walked away. Her mother had been engaged with her maid, but now noticed her daughter and waved, extending the wave to Williams. He had deliberately stood just in front of the door to the tavern, blocking the route and forcing the Pringles to beg his pardon if they wanted to join them. Billy had sensed his mood and not done so, restraining his brother’s obvious enthusiasm for the company of the young lady.

Williams stepped back, letting the brothers come out, but making sure that he was able to watch the girl as she went to meet her mother. The others had their backs to her and Edward looked disappointed.

Jane struggled as the wind caught her parasol once more, and then she began the long climb up the stone steps to the top of the rampart. He watched her go, and even the dark despair of knowing she was unattainable was something precious to him, somehow bringing her closer before she was lost.

‘Delightful girl,’ Edward Pringle said. ‘Most charming indeed.’

Miss MacAndrews was halfway up the steps when the wind, which had slackened, blew with redoubled force and was funnelled by the shape of the high walls. The parasol shook and then folded inside out. The girl’s high-waisted dress swelled like a balloon, the skirt rising. Even at fifty yards’ distance Williams saw Jane gasp in surprise, mouth opened wide at this sudden assault by nature. Though she was a small girl, her legs were shapely and sheathed in white silk stockings, held up by pink garters just above her knees.