The Atlantic had been fierce that Winter, driving most of the expeditionary force back to ports in England, though some ships with three thousand of Spencer’s army did arrive at Gibraltar in late January much the worse for wear, and Sir Hew Dalrymple did send them on to Sicily, which occupying force had been reduced when London ordered Sir John Moore’s eight thousand back to England, not back to Sicily. Now, Spencer had come, with nothing to do, and his remaining four thousand were added to the Gibraltar garrison, in case French Marshal Murat did indeed plan to lay siege to Gibraltar for the umpteenth time since 1704.
“Just waiting for the shoe to drop, we are, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie told him, strolling over to the windowed coach-top above his cabins to retrieve his pewter coffee mug and take a sip.
“Pray God it does drop, sir,” Westcott said with eagerness to be doing something more than blockading Ceuta, “and flings us into a purposeful action. I’m growing bored.”
“You’ve your mistress ashore to relieve that, surely,” Lewrie teased. Finding a wench had been Westcott’s first act as soon as he stepped onto the Old Mole, long before Lewrie had found his.
“She proved faithless,” Westcott said, heavily scowling. “She found herself an Army Colonel with a fuller purse to keep her. We’ve been at sea so long, so uselessly, that she grew bored, too.”
“Ah, well,” Lewrie said in sympathy. “I’m sorry for that. By God, you’d think that Spain’d be up in arms, by now!”
French Marshal Murat crossed the border into Spain in the middle of February, they had since learned. On one pretext after another, the French had taken Pamplona, San Sebastian, Figueras, and Barcelona, and were reputedly bound for Madrid, just as Mountjoy had expected. So far, though, there were no agents’ reports of any Spanish reaction. Another of Mountjoy’s agents, nigh as dashing as Romney Marsh, captained a filthy trading vessel along the coasts of Andalusia, pretending to be a Spaniard. He carried orders and requests for information from informers and brought back fresh news from Spain, and made a fair profit trading Gibraltaran goods to Spaniards starved for grains and luxuries. The harsh Winter seas had penned him in one port or other for weeks on end, but John Cummings, aka Vicente Rodríguez, reported that news of the Spanish incursion had not yet reached the South of Spain, and it was he who had spread the news to the Andalusians. Now, here it was March of 1808, and the fuse to the powder keg had been lit, but so far, there was no bang!
“Boat ahoy!” one of the Midshipmen standing Harbour Watch shouted to an approaching boat.
“Message for your Captain!” one of the boatmen shouted back.
Lewrie and Westcott crossed the poop deck to the starboard side to see what the fuss was as the boat was rowed to the bottom of the entry-port, and a shoeless boy in his shirtsleeves scampered up the boarding battens to hand a letter over, then just as quickly got back down the battens and into the bows of the boat.
“A letter from shore, sir,” Midshipman Spears reported with a doff of his hat after he’d come up to the poop deck.
“Thankee, Mister Spears,” Lewrie said, turning the wax-sealed missive over to see that it was from Thomas Mountjoy. Once it was torn open, Lewrie grinned quickly, with a hitch of his breath. “I’m summoned ashore, instanter, Mister Westcott, for a discussion.”
“You think…?” Westcott hopefully asked.
“Fingers crossed, mouth held just right, all that. Continue with provisioning whilst I’m away,” Lewrie said, almost bounding to the quarterdeck and aft into his cabins for a quick change of clothes.
* * *
“Good morning, sir!” Mountjoy’s assistant, and bodyguard, said with un-wonted good cheer as Lewrie entered Mountjoy’s lodgings. Mr. Deacon was usually a cautious, guarded fellow who bore himself in total seriousness, but now his harsh features were split in a smile. “He’s waiting for you, sir,” Deacon said, pointing a finger to the top of the stairs.
Lewrie trotted up the stairs and went out on the top-floor open-air gallery, where he found Mountjoy in his waistcoat, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows, and his neck-stock discarded. He held a smuggled bottle of French champagne.
“We’re celebratin’ something, I trust?” Lewrie asked, pausing by the glazed double doors.
“They’ve done it! The bloody Spanish have at last done it!” Mountjoy whooped in glee. “A week ago … they’re calling it the Tumult of Aranjuez, God knows why … it was too much for ’em, all those bloody French, all the cities taken over.…”
Is he insane, or drunk? Lewrie had to wonder; He’s babblin’!
“The Spanish mobs have risen up, they’ve forced King Carlos to step down, and they’ve put Ferdinand on the throne, and for all that I know, he’s finally arrested the Foreign Minister, Godoy, and named a new one! I fully expect to hear in a few days that that treaty with France is torn to shreds, too. Oh, they’re teetering on the brink of changing sides, maybe raising armies to drive the French back home. Christ Almighty!” he yelled at the sky, and began to whirl about in an impromptu dance, putting Lewrie in mind of an Ottoman dervish. “Have a drink, Captain Lewrie! Have a whole bottle, hah hah!”
“Damned if I won’t!” Lewrie hooted, and went to the iron table before the settee to pour himself a glass from a second open bottle.
Neither Mountjoy or Deacon had taken time to cool the champagne in a water-filled bucket or tub, so Lewrie felt as if his mouth was full of foam as he glugged down a goodly measure. He looked to the West, over towards Algeciras, then North to the Lines, and the Spanish fortifications beyond them.
“Mind if I borrow your telescope?” he asked. Mountjoy paid him no mind; he was still dancing and drinking from his bottle, so Lewrie stepped round him and bent down to see if the Spanish troops on the walls had heard the news, too, and if they had, what was their reaction. It was a fine astronomical telescope, able to fill the ocular with an image of the moon when pointed aloft at night.
Right, no reaction, Lewrie told himself; perhaps their officers haven’t told ’em yet, or they haven’t heard, themselves.
Some sentries under arms were slowly pacing their bounds atop the parapets, but most were leaning on the walls, some smoking their pipes or cigarros, and one un-kempt corporal was picking his nose and puzzling over what he’d gouged out. He slewed the tube over to look at Algeciras, and the mouths of the rivers that fed into the bay; the many Spanish gunboats were sitting empty at their moorings or along the quays beneath the fortifications there, and that enclave looked as somnolent as the Spanish Lines. A downward tilt showed Lewrie a close-up view of one of the British gunboats wheeling itself about in almost its own length as the exercises continued.
“Maybe you should send some letters cross the Lines,” Lewrie told his host. “I don’t see any riots in the Spanish garrisons.”
“They’re military,” Mountjoy gleefully stated. “They aren’t allowed to riot. God, it’d be grand if Madrid sent General Castaños orders to march off and defend their country. Might be hard, though,” Mountjoy said, taking another deep swig from his bottle, and calming down. “I’ve heard that Murat’s sent a small advance party to scout our lines, with lots of money and grain, which the Spanish really need. Who knows who in their army can be bribed to go along with the occupation of their own nation? Castaños may be too closely watched for him to take action on his own. Yet.”
“The Dowager must be over the moon,” Lewrie speculated, going to the settee to have a sit-down, and a refill of his wineglass.
“Damned right he is!” Mountjoy buoyantly said. “He’s still in a quandary whether Gibraltar is threatened, but very pleased with the news. If the revolts spread, as we expect, we may have Spain as an ally, and a British army in Spain to assist them. Not from here, ye see … not ’til we know one way or another what else the Spanish will do … but from England. As soon as the weather at sea is improved, London will be sending an army to re-take Portugal, and you did not hear that from me. Maybe Sir John Moore, again. Or, we might launch ourselves into So
uthern Spain from here, depending.”
“Well, that’s all grand news,” Lewrie said, scowling in deep thought, “but it don’t signify to me, or Sapphire. That’s soldier’s doings, and I’d still be stuck here at Gibraltar, keepin’ an eye on Ceuta.”
“Grand events, even so, Lewrie,” Mountjoy chortled.
“Aye, fun t’watch unfolding, like watchin’ a play, with no part in it but t’clap and laugh,” Lewrie sourly commented. “Grand, hah!”
“Lord, but you’re a hard man to please!” Mountjoy groused.
“Aye, I s’pose I am,” Lewrie admitted. “Last Summer’s raids … those were just toppin’ fine. We were doing something, killing Dons and smashing things, burning captured ships and semaphore towers. Now, it’s … plodding off-and-on the same bloody headland, days on end.”
“You could be in charge of the gunboats,” Mountjoy pointed out. “Be thankful you’re not. You could be ordered to join Admiral Collingwood’s blockading squadron off Cádiz, Charles Cotton’s off Lisbon, or do your plodding at Marseilles or Toulon as a minor part of the Mediterranean Fleet.”
Lewrie feigned a shiver of loathing for either of those choices. He no longer had a frigate, and would have no freedom of action to probe and raid inshore, and it would be bloody dull sailing in line-ahead behind larger ships of war, continually under the eyes of senior officers and their Flag-Captains. Except for single actions or small squadron actions in the Caribbean or Asian waters, there had been no grand engagements since Trafalgar, now three years before. France, and her puppet ally, the Batavian Dutch Republic, still built warships, but, once built they sat at their moorings, their crews idling, bored to tears with “river discipline” training, which was not the same as the experience gained through long spells at sea. The best of the Spanish navy had been crushed at Trafalgar, and blockaded into ports ever since, and might never dare come out again.
He’d helped in making them fearful a few months back in 1807, when he stumbled across a brace of large Spanish frigates off Cabo de Gata, East of Gibraltar. Fine ships, fine crews, gallant captains … with the gunnery skills of so many chipmunks, and he’d taken both on, getting to windward of them and keeping the wind gage through a two-hour battle, forcing one to strike and the other to limp off for the nearest port, sinking an hour later.
The way things are goin’, I may never see an enemy at close broadsides again! he fretted to himself; Twenty-eight years in the Navy, it’s been, and it’s all been shot and powder stink!
He frowned heavily again as he pondered the possibility of Bonaparte’s eventual downfall, and peace. What sort of life would he have, then? A decade or so on half-pay with no new active commission, slowly going up the list of Post-Captains, a meaningless promotion to Rear-Admiral of the Blue, then a slow ascent of that list as elder officers died?
I’ll whore and drink myself to an early grave, damned if I won’t! he thought; Just like my useless father!
“My, sir … so morose of a sudden,” Mountjoy said.
“So bored,” Lewrie amended, “and daunted by the prospects. Is there anything in your line that needs doing?”
“Can’t think of anything off-hand,” Mountjoy told him. “And for now, Sir Hew needs you off Ceuta. You know … the duty you invented for yourself to avoid the gunboat squadron?”
“Ouch!” Lewrie spat, going for the champagne bottle.
“Now, how far afield you carry that task, that may be up to you,” Mountjoy suggested with a sly wink. “You never know, Sir Hew may send you to Tetuán to fetch the garrison an hundred head of cattle.”
What that filth would do to his ship didn’t bear thinking about; there’d be cow piss dripping onto the mess tables and hammocks of the upper gun-deck for days, and cow pats piling up as high as the weather deck gun-ports!
“Tetuán, hmm,” Lewrie mused aloud. “Ye know, I’ve not been to that port, yet. It might be a good idea t’make myself familiar with it.”
“Well, if you like slave-markets, and insults ’cause you’re an infidel, perhaps,” Mountjoy chortled. “If you ain’t a Muslim, you’ll get the evil eye from one and all, even if they like your money.”
“Not much by way of melons, grapes, or vegetables this time of year,” Lewrie mused some more, “but surely they’d still have grain in storage … wheat, millet, that couscous? Sheep, goats, cattle, hmm.”
“What are you thinking?” Mountjoy asked, puzzled by the sudden change in Lewrie’s mood from despondent to scheming-impish.
“They trade with anyone, right? Even the Spanish if they’ve solid coin?” Lewrie asked.
“Well, yes, but—,” Mountjoy replied.
“Sir Hew’s convinced that Ceuta’s been re-enforced, with more guns, and at least two new regiments of troops,” Lewrie said. “That means more gunners, more mouths to feed. I don’t know how much they had in their stores before the re-enforcements, but I doubt that the ships that sneaked them there, from Algeciras, Tarifa, or Malaga, can keep ’em fed. They can’t sneak in a second time! It’s what, only ten miles by sea from Tetuán to Ceuta? Where else can the Dons get their provisions? I think I’ll wander a bit more far afield, as you said.”
“I stand amazed, Captain Lewrie,” Mountjoy announced, standing up and bowing to him with his arms widespread. “Utter boredom inspires and awakens your slyness!”
“Sly? Me?” Lewrie scoffed, goggling at him.
“Or do you prefer … low cunning?” Mountjoy teased.
“I’ll call it curiosity t’begin with,” Lewrie said, laughing, “and if that leads to a little adventure—a successful adventure, mind—I may settle for the low cunning, later.”
“We must open another bottle of champagne,” Mountjoy decided, turning his upside down to see one lone drop dribble out, frowning in disappointment.
Aye, drunk as a lord in an hour, Lewrie judged him; as drunk as an emperor by the afternoon. Lewrie figured that Mountjoy had earned himself a good drunk, after a year or more of scheming, planning, disappointments, and set-backs. The spy trade didn’t allow all that many successes, and the few had to be savoured and celebrated, one way or another.
“You’ll have t’drink without me, sorry,” Lewrie told him as he got to his feet and fetched his hat. He did drain his glass of champagne to “heel-taps,” though. “I think I’ll ramble down to Maddalena’s to see if she’d like to dine out.”
“I see,” Mountjoy said, sniggering. “I celebrate my way, and you will celebrate your own way.”
“Something like that, indeed!” Lewrie told him, grinning.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Boat-work, I see, sir,” Lieutenant Harcourt, the ship’s Second Officer, said, leaning over an old chart on Lewrie’s desk in his day-cabins.
“We draw too much water to go right to the docks,” Lewrie told him, tapping the chart with a pencil stub. “Tetuán’s a full two miles inland, up this long inlet, which is also too narrow for us. I asked round ashore with various merchants, and they all said it’s best to anchor off the mouth of the inlet and send boats in, or a single boat to place orders with the Moroccan traders, and wait for them to barge the goods out. They’re used to British ships putting in to purchase foodstuffs, so your presence won’t seem remarkable. I wish you to accompany Mister Cadrick, the Purser, who’ll buy flour and couscous, to give us a good reason to be there, but … I want you to keep a sharp eye out for any Spanish buyers, any boats along the quays, to see if the Dons cooped up in the fortress of Ceuta use Tetuán as a source for provisions. With all those new arrivals, they’re sure to be on short-commons, and need food from somewhere.”
“I’m to ‘smoak’ them out, sir? Aye, I see,” Harcourt agreed.
“All the men in your boat party will be armed, just in case,” Lewrie went on, “but the last thing I wish is swaggerin’, so keep the men close, and the arms out of sight unless they’re really needed. I don’t have to mention that there’s no drink to be had in an Arabic port, so the people in your party must be warned abou
t that. I don’t know what Arabs think about whorin’, so you’ll have to caution them on that head, too. Once Mister Cadrick’s business is done, come back out to the ship, making it appear to be business as usual, with your report. Who will you have?”
“Able Seaman Crawley and his old boat crew, sir, and one of the cutters,” Harcourt decided quickly, playing old favourites from the ship’s former Captain’s days.
“Take Midshipman Fywell along,” Lewrie told him before Harcourt could request his ally, Midshipman Hillhouse. “He draws well, and art work could be useful.”
“Aye, sir,” Harcourt agreed, but that was rote obedience.
“The Moroccans have no way to enforce the accepted Three Mile Limit, so once we round Ceuta and come to anchor off Tetuán, we will do so one mile off the mouth of the inlet, where most of our traders and warships do. As I said, business as usual, and no one suspecting what we’re really about.
“We’ll also take a peek at the dock area on the South end of the neck of land below Ceuta, to see if they’ve any vessels there,” Lewrie continued. “If there are, there may be more boat-work, a cutting-out raid in the dark of night, but that’s for later. Right?”
“Right, sir,” Harcourt said. “And thank you for the duty, sir.”
“Good. Go brief your chosen hands, and we’ll be about it,” Lewrie told him in conclusion, and dismissal. He lingered after the Second Officer had left the great-cabins, studying the chart for a bit longer, noting that close inshore of the Moroccan coast ’twixt Ceuta and Tetuán there were soundings indicating six or seven fathoms. If Sapphire had to chase Spanish coasters into those waters, there would be no refuge for them; his ship could still swim in there!
Satisfied at last, he rolled up the chart, grabbed his hat, and went out to the quarterdeck and the larboard-side chart room to place it back in a slot, then went to the helm, the compass binnacle cabinet to take a peek. At last, he ascended to the poop deck for a long look about.
Kings and Emperors Page 6