Kings and Emperors

by Dewey Lambdin

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lewrie was only half-way through his breakfast, a particularly fine omelet with mushrooms, onions, tomato, and cheese, with toasted slabs of fresh shore bread, when one of Sapphire’s Midshipmen standing Harbour Watch hailed an approaching boat. Lewrie perked up, chewing a bite of toast thickly slathered with red currant preserves, cocking an ear to what was occurring just beyond his cabin doors. He faintly made out a call from the boat; “Letter for your Captain!” and sat up even straighter, about ready to cross the fingers of his right hand for good luck. Yes! There was the thump of a boat coming alongside, and the scramble of a messenger up the boarding battens!

  He picked up a bit of spicy Spanish sausage with his fingers and popped it into his mouth as footsteps could be heard clumping on the quarterdeck, leading to …

  “Message for the Captain, SAH!” the Marine Private who stood sentry at the cabin doors cried, stamping boots and musket butt.

  “Enter,” Lewrie called out, trying to sound blasé.

  And don’t let it be from the bloody dockyards! he thought.

  Midshipman Ward, one of the youngest, came round to the dining-coach with his hat under his arm, and a sealed letter in his hand.

  “Yes, Mister Ward?” Lewrie said, between sips of coffee.

  “A message from Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Dalrymple, sir,” Ward stiffly said, laying the missive on the dining table.

  “Thank you, Mister Ward, you may go,” Lewrie told him, paying it no attention for the moment. As soon as Ward was round the corner into the day-cabin, though, Lewrie snatched it up and tore it open. “Aha! Pettus? Pass word to muster my boat crew, if ye please, I’m called ashore.” He reached for the napkin tucked under his chin and almost shot to his feet, but paused. It really was such a toothsome breakfast, too good to be abandoned entirely. He took a few quick bites more of everything, a last slurp of sugared and creamed coffee, then shrugged into his coat, snatched up his sword belt and hat, and left the cabins, still chewing.

  Chalky, who had been feeding from his own bowl atop the table at the far end, took the opportunity to raid what was left, paying close attention to the sausages.

  * * *

  The Convent, headquarters and lodgings for Dalrymple and his staff, did not resemble the dither that Thomas Mountjoy had depicted to Lewrie the night before; it seemed almost somnolent and hushed at its normal routine. Lewrie was shown into Dalrymple’s offices by an aide-de-camp. There was no breathless council-of-war going on; there was only Sir Hew, standing before a large map pinned to a board on a stand, musing over Ceuta and its environs.

  “Ah, Lewrie,” Sir Hew said, almost absent-mindedly. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. I need you to do me a small service, if you can.”

  “Happy to, sir,” Lewrie replied, feeling a bit let-down that his imaginings did not match the reality. “What do ye have in mind?”

  “That bloody place, sir!” Sir Hew spat, jabbing his arm out to tap his map. “London has finally relented to my many suggestions for dealing with Ceuta.” Sir Hew turned to face Lewrie. “Major-General Sir Brent Spencer and an army of seven thousand men are being sent to me to do just that. Lord Castlereagh has sent me formal approval to make the attempt.”

  “And you need someone t’give it a fresh look-over, I see, sir,” Lewrie said, his excitement rising.

  “That Mountjoy fellow reminded me that you had sailed close to Ceuta several times during your, ah … exertions during the Summer, and thought you might be familiar with the number, and calibre, of its artillery,” Sir Hew said, twitching his mouth; he had not been enthusiastic about the raids, even if they might have led to Spanish troops being syphoned off from the vicinity of Gibraltar to protect the coast.

  “It’s a fine day for it, sir,” Lewrie chearly said, itching to be back aboard his ship and out of harbour. “I can be off Ceuta by noon and back in port the day after with a report.”

  “I’ve heard some rumours, which that spying fellow of yours…,” Sir Hew said with a sniff.

  He’s mine is he? Lewrie thought, twitching his mouth.

  “… that Ceuta has been re-enforced,” Dalrymple went on, “with more troops and more guns, perhaps two more regiments and two more gun batteries, though there’s nothing definite. How that’s possible, God only knows. I’ve observers atop the Rock with strong telescopes.”

  Lewrie went to look at the map, searching for the landing place that served the fortress. “Your observers can’t see round the other side of the peninsula, sir, the Sou’west side at the narrow neck below the fortress. Ships from Málaga and Cartagena could sail wide, almost level with Tetuán, then coast up to the landing. Do it in the dark … on stormy nights? Those two big frigates I fought were loaded with supplies, food, and arms. They could have been on their way to concentrate with what’s left of the Spanish navy at Cádiz, but now I suspect that they were on their way to Ceuta when I ran across ’em. That’s most-like how they did it.”

  “And our naval supremacy in the Mediterranean could do nought to stop them?” Dalrymple snapped, as if assigning blame.

  “Our fleet in the Med, sir, is more concerned with the French, at Marseilles and Toulon,” Lewrie pointed out. “When Sapphire raided the coast, it was rare t’run into a naval presence ’til we got up to Barcelona, and, once the raids were suspended…”

  That earned him a deep glower from Dalrymple; he’d been the one who’d ordered that the raids cease, to maintain his amicable relations with his counterpart, Spanish General Castaños.

  “In any event, I do need someone to make a reconnaissance over yonder, Captain Lewrie,” Sir Hew said, stiff-backed and gruffly. “The powers-that-be in London still refuse to see the need for a permanent naval squadron at Gibraltar which I may call upon. I thank you for acceding to my request.”

  “I’ll get right at it, sir,” Lewrie said, turning to go.

  “By the by, how is your progress with the gunboat squadron?” Sir Hew called out.

  “Bloody awful, sir, truthfully,” Lewrie was happy to tell him. “But Captain Middleton at the dockyard is making adjustments.”

  “Be sure that once you return with your report that you bend all your efforts to bringing them to fruition,” Sir Hew sternly told him.

  “But of course, sir,” Lewrie had to agree, while wondering if he could send a written report ashore by boat, then sail off to see what was happening off Cádiz, or Lisbon; anything but gunboats!

  * * *

  “Welcome back aboard, sir,” First Officer Geoffrey Westcott said to him, in his shirtsleeves and sweaty from sword practise. In Lewrie’s absence, the crew had been put to an hour of cutlass drill, and the two-decker had rung with metallic clashes before his boat was hailed, and Lewrie’s Cox’n, the “Black Irishman” Liam Desmond, had shouted back “Aye aye!” and held up four fingers to tell the men of the watch that the Captain was returning.

  “Had enough tinkling, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie asked.

  “Well, aye, sir,” Westcott said with a puzzled frown.

  “Good. Stop the drill and stow the cutlasses away, then pipe Stations for getting under way,” Lewrie told him. “Once we’re fully under sail and beyond Europa Point, we’ll beat to Quarters, to boot.”

  “At once, sir!” Westcott shouted with glee. “Ehm … where are we going? Is there a fight ahead?”

  “We’re ordered to scout Ceuta, and yes, there may be a fight,” Lewrie promised. “It’ll be un-equal, of course, but we should survive it.”

  Westcott was still puzzled, scowling fiercely, but inside he was pleased.

  “Let’s get those bloody awnings down!” Lewrie shouted.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Out at sea, there was a decent amount of wind to carry Sapphire over towards Ceuta under fully-spread tops’ls, t’gallants, all of her stays’ls and jibs, with her main course brailed up against the risk of that great sail catching fire from the discharge of her own guns. It had been several months since the 50-gunned two-
decker fired her broadsides in action, and Lewrie hoped that that hard-won efficiency and accuracy that his crew had developed, that his gunners had been able to concentrate against a shore fort under construction to the point that its foundations had been undermined, and concentrated so brutally in Sapphire’s fight against two big Spanish frigates that had utterly disabled one and sunk the other, still existed, even if they were now a bit rusty.

  “The ship is at Quarters, sir,” Lt. Westcott reported, sternly and formally, even doffing his hat in salute.

  “Very good, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie replied with equal formality, and a doff of his own hat. “Do we have good, deep water with no obstructions, right up to within a mile of the fortress, Mister Yelland?” he asked, turning to the ship’s Sailing Master.

  “Within a mile, sir?” Yelland replied, sucking at his teeth. “Aye, sir, if you’ve a mind. Ten fathom right to the shore, except at the narrows, where it shoals to five.”

  Lewrie nodded agreement, glad that they did not have to enter the chart room on the larboard side of the quarterdeck, for Yelland did not sponge himself as often as he should, nor did he change his small-clothes often, either. Yelland was an excellent Sailing Master, but by God did he reek!

  “Mister Hillhouse, and Mister Fywell,” Lewrie called out to two of his Mids, one in his twenties, and the other still a lad. “I will admire did ye both place yourselves in the main mast fighting top and take a slate, or paper and pencil, with you. We’re going to trail our colours before the Spanish bull, and see how he snorts. I want a count of guns in the fortress, t’see if they have more than the last time we got close to the place. A rough guess as to the respective calibres’d be welcome, too.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Hillhouse, the oldest, firmly replied. Fywell merely nodded with a wide-eyed gulp, for the fortress of Ceuta mounted artillery equal to 32-pounders and 42-pounders in British measure, and could range out to three miles. There already were some thin skeins of smoke rising within the fortress, where roundshot was being heated to red-hot in the furnaces. They might be cooking mid-day dinners, but…!

  “Mister Westcott, you and I will be on the poop deck, where we can use our telescopes to spy out the other details,” Lewrie said.

  “A grand place to catch a cool breeze, sir,” Westcott agreed, despite his understandable worry. This was damn-fool daft!

  “I think we’ll begin at three-miles’ range, then slowly close to two miles, Mister Yelland,” Lewrie said, “and I’ll trust you and trigonometry t’see to that. We’ll not make it easy for them.”

  “Aye, sir,” Yelland said with a throat-clearing grumph.

  “Just … tempting,” Lewrie added before mounting the larboard ladderway to the poop deck.

  HMS Sapphire stood on, with the rocky heights and the fortress of Ceuta almost bows-on for some time, ’til the Sailing Master spoke up. “Three miles off, sir!”

  “Very well. Hands to sheets and braces, and make her head Due East,” Lewrie ordered, and the Bosuns’ calls piped the order, along with loud bawls from Bosun Terrell and his Mates, Nobbs and Plunkett. The helm was put over, and Ceuta swam from being obscured by the fore course and jibs to appear ahead of the bows off the starboard side.

  A long five minutes passed as Sapphire surged along at seven knots, three miles off from the fortress, with nothing happening.

  “What, are they asleep?” Lt. Westcott japed, eager for something to happen, even if it would be dire.

  “Wish I’d thought t’fetch Mountjoy’s astronomical telescope,” Lewrie said, lowering his day-glass in frustration. “I can make out troops on the parapets, sure enough, but evidently they’re not tempted yet. Mister Yelland? Alter course and close to two miles’ range, if you please, then bring her back to Due East.”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  Once more, Sapphire swung shoreward, gathering a little speed as she took the winds more on her larboard quarters, then swung back East. “Two miles, sir!” Yelland reported from the quarterdeck below Lewrie’s position.

  “Very well, carry on,” Lewrie called back, sensing his ship’s loss of speed as she took the winds more abeam. He was still getting used to plodding, after years in sloops of war and swift frigates, and Sapphire, like all her sister Fourth Rates, definitely plodded!

  “Gunfire, sir!” Midshipman Hillhouse shouted down from the main mast fighting top. “The Spanish have opened upon us!”

  “Now, that’s more like it,” Lewrie said with a satisfied grin.

  “The things we do for King and Country,” Lt. Westcott said.

  The fortress of Ceuta slowly erupted in flashes of flame from the muzzles of her guns, and large yellowish-grey clouds of gunpowder. It was seconds later that anyone aboard Sapphire could hear the explosions, and long seconds later before massive solid iron roundshot came moaning and droning towards the ship. The Spanish were in no hurry, for Ceuta’s guns tolled down the length of its northern face as slow and steady as a metronome, or a salute fired to honour an incoming ship. Far ahead of Sapphire’s bows, far astern, and between Ceuta and Sapphire, the shot smacked into the sea, still travelling nigh to eight hundred feet per second, raising great, crystalline pillars and feathers of spray and foam that took forever to collapse upon themselves, and Lewrie thought that they looked quite pretty … so long as they were well wide, or well short!

  One ball skipped from First Graze, dapping to Second Graze, and finally sank about a cable’s distance to starboard. The fortress’s guns were mounted so much higher than the ship that grazing, skipping shot was a rarity, much more common between ships in combat whose guns were much on the same level. The bulk of the Spanish fire came in a descending arc, which created those immense pillars of spray.

  Whee-ooh! First one, then another heavy roundshot moaned overhead to strike the sea beyond Sapphire, higher-pitched as they approached, then going basso as they soared high over the mast trucks and sailed out to sea.

  “Those’ll be the big bastards, their version of forty-two-pounders,” Lewrie commented. “Still like the cool breeze, Geoffrey?”

  “It’s getting hotter,” Westcott replied. “Well, warm-ish.”

  “Just so they don’t glow red,” Lewrie said, lifting his telescope once more. “Is that everything, East to West, from all their embrasures and the upper parapet, d’ye think?”

  “Hmm, it seems to be,” Westcott agreed with his own telescope up to his right eye. “Those last shots came from the Eastern end of the fort.”

  “Mister Yelland, alter course to loo’rd, put us on the wind and get back to three miles’ range,” Lewrie ordered. “We’ll try the East face, next, once we’re beyond the point.”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Yelland shot back, quickly issuing the orders to the helmsmen and hands on the sail-tending gangways. He sounded relieved.

  Ceuta’s gunners had adjusted their aim, and their elevations, and the North face of the fortress tolled again, lashing the sea with shot, but Sapphire’s turn to seaward frustrated them. Their 24-pounders and 32-pounders struck well short, and it was only a few of the massive 42-pounders ’roundshot that came anywhere close, but they all missed.

  “It doesn’t look as if they’ve had much practice, recently,” Lewrie said with a hopeful note in his voice.

  “Good Lord, who’d dare give them any, sir?” Westcott muttered. “We just might be doing them a favour, damn their eyes.”

  A last 42-pounder shot plunged into the sea roughly amidships of Sapphire’s length and only a long musket-shot off, throwing up so much spray that the starboard side was drenched, and everyone could hear a quick hiss and see a gust of steam as it sank. Heated shot!

  “A bit more than three miles off now, sir,” Yelland reported. “Shall we come back to Due East?”

  “Aye, Mister Yelland,” Lewrie agreed, noting that the man was fetching his hat from the deck and plopping it back on his wet hair.

  The man’s had a bath, whether he wanted it or not, Lewrie told himself with a hidden smile.
r />   * * *

  They turned South once the ship was three miles beyond the end of the peninsula on which Ceuta was sited, and played their dangerous game down the fortress’s East face, ducking in and out of range on a “drunkard’s walk” of course alterations, counting the guns fired at them. Lewrie imagined that the Spanish would refuse to co-operate and not be drawn, after a while, seeing the game for what it really was, and loath to waste powder and shot, but, evidently the officer commanding Ceuta thought that he was in need of a live target and practice, or his touchy Spanish pride was pricked too sore, for when Sapphire turned Sou’west to run in towards the North African coast within two miles of shore, the South face opened upon her, too. After a quick count of the guns in the lower embrasures and the open-air parapets above, Lewrie finally, and secretly much relieved that his ship had not taken any damage, ordered Sapphire to turn South and sail away out of range, halfway to the Moroccan port of Tetuán before wheeling seaward to round the Ceuta peninsula by a wide berth.

  “Secure from Quarters, Mister Westcott, and I hope the hands weren’t too bored,” Lewrie said, “standin’ round the better part of the day with not a shot fired.”

  “Oh, I think they’ll not mind too much, since there was nothing our guns could’ve done, even had we gone within a mile or less,” Lieutenant Westcott replied. “Ceuta’s a right formidable bastard.”

  “Aye, it is,” Lewrie agreed as they descended to the quarterdeck, “and I don’t envy anyone who trades fire with it, or tries to take it. The West face, the main gate, and where any besiegers would have t’set up, that’s a killin’ ground. Dalrymple’s daft to try.”

  “If our Navy can keep the French from getting in there, and it can be blockaded proper, maybe Ceuta could be left to wither on the vine,” Westcott decided, “as you told me what you and Mountjoy spoke of. If the French do get a fleet of transports in there and join up with the Spanish garrison, the only shelter from bad weather is on the Southern side, near the landing places, and even that’s wide open to a bad blow.”