“Ehm … make a lodgement exactly where, Sir Hew?” Spencer asked in sudden shock at a new, even more dangerous, assignment.
“Well, so long as the forts are in the hands of the pro-French governor, it would have to be somewhere near Cádiz proper,” Mountjoy declared, then turned to Lewrie and raised a brow to prompt him.
“Anyone have a sea chart?” Lewrie asked.
General Dalrymple did not, but an aide-de-camp managed to turn up a map of the city and its environs, after a frantic search.
“Hmm, there’s this little port of Rota, though that’s a bit far from the city,” Lewrie opined after a long perusal. “Closer into the area, there’s Puerto de Santa María, on the North side of the bay.”
“Captain Lewrie became very efficient at landing and recovering troops along the coast last Summer,” Sir Hew said. “If you choose to land near Cádiz, he’s your man.”
“Well, we only put three companies ashore at one time, sir, for quick raids,” Lewrie had to qualify, “without packs or camp gear, rations and ammunition, and no artillery, no horses. If you have to depend on your transports’ crews to row your men in, it’ll take forever, they’re so thinly manned, and the number of boats will be limited. How many troops do you have, sir?”
“At present, just a bit over three thousand,” Spencer said, “a little over one brigade. Daunting. Have the French sent one of their armies to Cádiz?”
“General Castaños tells me that there is a French brigade in the city, under a Brigadier Avril,” Dalrymple said. “So far, at least, the French have left San Roque and Algeciras alone.”
“You could not enter Cádiz itself, sir,” Mountjoy warned them, “even if the Spanish juntas were suddenly in charge. They would not allow a ‘second’ Gibraltar under British rule. Their touchy Spanish pride is too great for that.”
“I will send for transports, and obtain an escort from Admiral Purvis, now blockading Cádiz,” Dalrymple declared. “Boats from those warships, manned by British sailors, will speed the landings, at whichever place you decide, Sir Brent.”
“Or, where the Spanish let you,” Mountjoy cautioned again.
“We have some idle transports in port, already, troopers, and supply ships,” Dalrymple said. “Captain Lewrie, you and your ship will go along as part of the escort. Depending upon whom Purvis sends me, you may be senior in command of the escort, and the co-ordination.”
“I was wondering why I was summoned, sir. Aye,” Lewrie said, grinning. “Happy to oblige.”
“Then let us have a drink, to seal the bargain, as it were,” Dalrymple happily proposed.
Well, that’s one way t’end my bordeom, Lewrie thought as wine and glasses were fetched; but if I get pressed into Admiral Purvis’s fleet, will I ever see Gibraltar again, or Maddalena?
At least it would beat the sight of Ceuta, or hauling cattle from Tetuán, all hollow.
BOOK TWO
Therefore let every man now task his thought
That this fair action may on foot be brought.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, THE LIFE OF HENRY THE FIFTH, (ACT I, SCENE II, 309–310)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Should we hoist a broad pendant and name you a Commodore, sir?” Lt. Westcott proposed, craning his neck to look aloft. “Even if it’d be the lesser sort—”
“An Army general gave the orders, and he don’t count,” Lewrie countered, looking upwards himself. “No, I may command the escorting force … such as it is … but Admiralty’d never stand for it. I’ll stand on as I am.”
He lowered his gaze to the clutch of troop ships and supply vessels that wallowed along in passably decent order astern of his two-decker. All that could be scraped up at short notice to protect the convoy was a 32-gun frigate, a Sixth Rate sloop of war mounting but twenty light guns, and two brig-sloops. Lewrie knew that the French warships left over from the Battle of Trafalgar, now closely blockaded in Cádiz, would never come out to harm his charges, but there were still rumours that a large squadron of French ships at Rochefort, and some frigates in the mouth of the Gironde River near Bordeaux, could sortie at any time. Those rumours kept him up at night, and he secretly hoped that he could get General Spencer’s troops ashore, and the merchant ships away, without opposition, so they would no longer be his responsibility.
“Damn these perverse winds, and the currents!” he spat.
Since leaving Gibraltar on the fourteenth of May, and rounding Pigeon Island into the Strait, they had proceeded at a slug’s pace, hobbled by the in-rushing current into the Mediterranean. Sailing “full and by” hard on the wind for several days might seem swift and bracing, but that was an illusion, for their overall speed over the ground resulted in only a few miles per hour. The convoy’s first leg, a long board Sou’west, only got them a few miles West of Parsley Island before they had to tack and cross the Strait to halfway ’twixt Pigeon Island and Tarifa. The second tack Sou’west had fetched them close to the Moroccan city of Alcazar, and the third had gotten them five miles East of Tarifa.
And so it had gone from there, day after day. Lewrie led the convoy out West-Sou’west to get clear of the current, taking advantage of a wind shift, far enough out off the coast of Morocco that a simple turn North would bring the convoy into contact with Admiral John Childs Purvis’s blockading ships off Cádiz. Another shift of winds had put a stop to that simple run, that combined with a bout of foul weather, and they all had short-tacked under reduced sail through several half-gales to make their Northing. And, when the gales blew out and calmer winds and seas returned, they ran into a fringe of the Nor’east Trades, into which they butted the wrong way. The Trades were simply grand for departing Europe for the Americas or the Caribbean, but nigh a “dead muzzler” for returning.
“Land Ho!” the main mast lookout in the cross-trees shouted down. “Two points orf th’ starb’d beam!”
“Any guess as to what land?” Lewrie scoffed to his assembled watch-standers. “Mister Yelland?”
“Some part of Spain, sir,” the Sailing Master said, sounding as if he’d made a jest. “If we could send a Mid aloft with my book of the coast, I could tell you more.”
“Fetch it,” Lewrie demanded. “Mister Harvey?” he said to the nearest Midshipman. “Aloft with you and Mister Yelland’s book, and tell us what you see.”
“Aye, sir,” Harvey replied, looking eager for a scaling of the shrouds.
“Don’t drop it overside, mind, Mister Harvey,” Yelland said as he brought the book of coastal sketches from the chart toom. “Or your bottom will pay for it.”
Midshipman Harvey took the larboard shrouds, the windward side, to the cat harpings, switched over to the futtock shrouds to make his way to the main top, hanging like a spider upside down for a bit, and then up the narrower upper shrouds and rat-lines to the cross-trees, a set of narrow slats that braced the top-masts’ stays, to share that precarious perch with the lookout on duty. Harvey raised a telescope to peer landward, flipped pages in the coastal navigation sketchbook, peered some more, then shouted down. “It’s Cape Trafalgar, sir! Cape Trafalgar, fifteen miles off!”
“Very good, Mister Harvey!” Lewrie called aloft, cupping hands by his mouth. “Return to the deck, with the book.”
“Aye aye, sir!”
“We’ll stand on on this tack ’til Noon Sights, then,” Lewrie announced, “when Cape Trafalgar is truly recognised, then go about Nor’west, which’d put us somewhere off Cádiz, and in sight of our blockading squadrons sometime round dusk. Sound right, Mister Yelland?”
“If the winds hold, aye, sir,” Yelland agreed. “That’d place us, oh … round twenty-odd miles off Cádiz, and sure to run across one of our ships.”
“I s’pose I’ll have t’shave, and dress for the occasion,” Lewrie glumly said, rubbing a stubbly cheek. “Called to the flagship, all that? Mister Westcott, best you warn my boat crew t’scrub up and wash behind their ears. Best turn-out, hey?”
“Aye, sir,” Westcott responded with
a faint snigger.
“I’ll be aft. Carry on, the watch,” Lewrie said, turning to go to his cabins.
“Why does the Captain dislike dressing in his finest, sir?” Lt. Elmes asked once Lewrie had departed the quarterdeck.
“It’s the sash and star of his knighthood he dislikes, Mister Elmes,” Westcott informed him in a low voice. “Officially, it was awarded for his part in a fight against a French squadron off the coast of Louisiana in 1803, but he strongly suspects that it was a cynical way for the Government to drum up support for going back to war, by publicising the fact that the French tried to murder him, and killed his wife instead, when they were in Paris during the Peace of Amiens.”
“Murdered?” Lt. Elmes gawped.
“The Captain was invited to a meeting with Napoleon at the Tuileries Palace,” Westcott explained. “He had five or six swords of dead French officers, and thought to return them to the families, in exchange for an old hanger that Napoleon took off him at Toulon in Ninety-Four, when the Captain would not give his parole and leave his men after their mortar ship was blown up and sunk. It turned to shit, he angered Napoleon somehow, and the next thing he knew, they were being chased cross Northern France to Calais.”
“He’s met the Ogre?” Elmes marvelled. “Twice? I never knew. What a tale!”
“To make matters worse, when the Captain was presented at Saint James’s Palace to be knighted, the King was having a bad day, and got confused and added Baronet,” Westcott went on, making a face. “You can imagine how it all left a sour taste in the Captain’s mouth. He earned a knighthood, and a Baronetcy, a dozen times over during his career, mind, long before I met him, and he’s done a parcel of hard fighting, since, but … that don’t signify to him. He doesn’t like to speak of it, so … don’t raise the matter with him.”
“I stand warned, Mister Westcott, though … I’d give a month’s pay to hear the whole story,” Elmes said with a wistful note to his voice.
“I’ll tell you of the fight off Louisiana,” Westcott offered. “The French were taking over Louisiana, and were rumoured to be sending a large squadron to New Orleans for the hand-over, and we were ordered to pursue and stop them if we could, just four ships, three frigates, and a sixty-four…”
* * *
Late in the afternoon, the winds dropped and the seas calmed, just after lookouts aloft spotted strange sails on the Northern horizon, quickly identified as British ships. Sapphire made her number to them once within five miles of them, and the towering First Rate flagship hoisted Captain Repair On Board. The salute to Admiral Purvis was fired off, the cutter was drawn up to the entry-port battens, and Lewrie was over the side and into his boat at once, dressed in his best, with the sash and star over his waist-coat and pinned to his coat, with his longer, slimmer presentation sword at his waist instead of his favourite, everyday, hanger.
“With luck, they’ll sport me supper, Mister Westcott. Keep things in order ’til I get back,” Lewrie shouted up in parting, and the cutter began its long row to the flagship. Another boat set out from one of the transports; General Sir Brent Spencer would attend the meeting, whether he’d been summoned or not.
It was a long climb from his boat to the quarterdeck of the flagship, past three decks of guns and a closed entry-port on its middle gun deck, one surrounded by overly ornate gilt scrollwork. He was panting, and his wounded left arm and right leg were making sore threats by the time he heaved himself in-board to the trilling Bosuns’ calls, the stamp of Marines’ boots, and the slap of hands on wooden stocks as arms were presented. He took a deep breath, made sure he was two steps inward from the lip of the entry-port, and doffed his hat in a replying salute.
“Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of the Sapphire, coming aboard to report to the Admiral,” Lewrie told the immaculately turned-out Lieutenant.
“If you will come this way, sir,” the officer bade, motioning towards the stern, and the Admiral’s cabins. “Ehm … who is that coming alongside, sir?”
“That’ll be General Sir Brent Spencer, who’s been sent to land near Cádiz.”
“Oh. I see, sir!”
* * *
He was announced to Admiral John Childs Purvis, though taking a moment to gawk over Purvis’s great-cabins’ spaciousness and elegant decor. He had come to think his own cabins were a tad grand, but the Admiral’s were magnificent.
“Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, sir, of the Sapphire,” the Lieutenant said, doing the honours.
“Sir Alan,” Purvis replied, slowly rising from the desk in his day-cabin, looking worn and tired, and just a bit leery whether this un-looked-for newcomer might be yet another onerous burden to be borne. “I take it that your convoy bears General Sir Brent Spencer and his troops? I received a letter from General Dalrymple two days ago, but I had not expected the force to be assembled, yet, much less sent on. How many troops does Spencer have?”
“Nigh five thousand, sir,” Lewrie crisply replied. “Sir Hew Dalrymple added the Sixth Foot, and some artillery from Gibraltar’s garrison. There are more being ordered from Sicily, to come later. Sir Hew sent these latest appreciations for you, sir, and all the intelligence he could gather up.”
“Ah, thank you, sir,” Purvis said, sitting back down to open the thick packet and scan through them. “Do sit, Sir Alan. Wine?”
“Please, sir,” Lewrie replied.
“Hah!” the Admiral scoffed after reading through the gist of Dalrymple’s packet. “Dalrymple is rather precipitate to send along the troops so soon. Land in, or near, Cádiz? At present, the place is firmly in the hands of the French, and a pro-French lackey government. I see that he is aware of the French brigade under General Avril, though not of the division at Córdoba under a General L’Étang, who could march to re-enforce Avril rather quickly, should Spencer land.”
“Perhaps it was General Dalrymple’s intent to precipitate, to goad the Spanish into action, sir,” Lewrie suggested as his wine came. “As you can see, sir, the Spanish have already rebelled in several cities besides Madrid. Their General Castaños is almost ready to act, if he can get the garrison from Ceuta into Algeciras or Tarifa to re-enforce—”
“I am aware of those developments,” Purvis peevishly cut him off, “but Cádiz has not rebelled, and until it does—”
He was cut off, himself, by a rap on the doors to the cabins. The same Lieutenant stepped in. “Admiral, sir, General Sir Brent Spencer is come aboard, and wishes to speak with you.”
“He has, has he?” Purvis snapped, scowling heavily, then let out a much-put-upon sigh. “Very well, very well, have him come in.”
Purvis and Lewrie shot to their feet as General Spencer blew in, beaming. “Admiral Purvis!” Spencer bellowed.
“Sir Brent,” Purvis replied, rather laconically. “Wine, sir?”
“Relish a glass, thankee!” Spencer answered, coming to the desk with a glad hand out. Purvis waved both of his guests to sit, then plopped himself down behind his desk, again.
“B’lieve Sir Hew Dalrymple wrote you of our coming, and what my little army’s to do, hah?” Spencer began.
“He has, sir, but, as I was just explaining to Captain Lewrie, here, that until the situation in Cádiz changes, there is no chance of that,” Admiral Purvis declared.
“But, my men are cooped up, elbow-to-elbow, and as crop-sick as so many dogs, sir!” Spencer protested. “I must get them off those damned ships soon! If we land somewhere near Cádiz, surely the Dons would rise up and welcome us, and kick the French out!”
“Well, I will allow that I’ve gotten word from sources ashore that the city’s taken on a distinctly anti-French mood, of late,” the Admiral cautiously said, “so much so that the French consul has abandoned his residence and offices, and taken refuge aboard one of the French warships anchored in the sheltered bay behind the peninsula on which the city, and the fortifications, sit.”
“You have agents in Cádiz, sir?” Lewrie asked, amazed. “That would be welcome news to Mister Th
omas Mountjoy, at Gibraltar. He’s tried to place agents inside, so far with poor results.”
“Mister Mountjoy would be one of Foreign Office’s … shadier sorts, hey?” Purvis asked with faint amusement.
“He is, sir,” Lewrie admitted.
“As I say, ’til the Spanish rise up, I fear your troops must stay aboard their transports, Sir Brent,” Admiral Purvis repeated. “And, even if they do, and declare themselves allies of Great Britain, you would not be allowed in the city, or the forts.”
“Captain Lewrie, here, mentioned some alternatives, sir,” Spencer blustered on, fidgeting where to place his ornately egret-featherd bicorne hat as a cabin steward fetched him a glass of wine. “Somewhere near Cádiz? What were they, Lewrie? Porto-something, or … started with an R?”
“Puerto de Santa María, or Rota, sir,” Lewrie supplied. “But, with the French warships, there’d be no safe way to enter the Bay of Cádiz. Same for Puerto Real, on the same bay. There’s San Fernando, South of the city, but quite close. Rota is North of the city by some eight to ten miles.”
“Oh, totally unsuitable, then,” Spencer quibbled. “But, there must be some place. God knows I’m fed up with ships, already. Even getting aboard this one, brr! Being slung up and over like a cask of salt-meat? Mean to say!”
General Spencer meant that he’d not tried to scale the battens and man-ropes, but had been hoisted aboard the flagship in a lubberly Bosun’s chair, like a cripple, or drunk. Admiral Purvis and Lewrie shared a brief smirk of amusement.
“San Fernando is near the base of the peninsula, and landing there might cut off the land route to the city,” Admiral Purvis said, “but, that would be up to the Spanish, once they do rebel, and manage to oust the French on their own. At any rate, the situation may not be my responsibility much longer. My active commission is coming to an end, and Admiralty has informed me that Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood is to relieve me on this station.”
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