Kings and Emperors

by Dewey Lambdin

  Lewrie took note that Sir Hew’s map stand no longer featured Ceuta and the fortress, but now displayed a large map of the entire Iberian Peninsula, with bits of ribbon pinned to various Portuguese or Spanish cities. He assumed that the blue’uns represented French-held cities, and the gold’uns stood for places where the Spanish had risen up. Sir Hew set aside the next letter for a moment, rose from his desk more slowly than before, crossed to his map, and stuck a gold ribbon on Cádiz, then stepped back to admire his map with a satisfied sigh.

  “What’s the red ribbon for, sir?” Lewrie asked. It was stuck in the ocean, not the land, up near Corunna in Northwest Spain.

  “It represents General Sir Arthur Wellesley, Sir Alan,” Sir Hew told him as he returned to his desk, and his despatches. “London sent me a letter that he might land there, first. I eagerly await news of that.”

  “Rather a long march to Lisbon, ain’t it?” Lewrie asked. “Even the roads close to the coast are sure t’be bad. But, if the French confront him in force, he could always be taken off by sea, from Vigo or Oporto, if need be. Wellesley’s idea, that?”

  “Lord Castlereagh’s, most likely,” Dalrymple said, frowning and stroking his chin. “I know of the Wellesleys, but little of Sir Arthur, but for his reputation gained in India. I do not know his fighting qualities, or whether he is a cautious man or an audacious one. Flighty Hindoos are one thing; the French are quite another. I’m not aware of any ‘Sepoy’ generals of note who have fought well against the French.” He almost sneered.

  “Well, so far, Sir Hew,” Lewrie drawled, “our Army’s not done all that well against them, no matter their generals’ bona fides.”

  “Think so, do you?” Dalrymple snapped, coming to the defence of his service, but he could not deny the truth. “I see that the French fleet in Cádiz is neutralised, with the honours going to the Spanish? No prize money in it for the Navy? How sad.”

  That was a definite sneer. Lewrie shrugged it off, sure that the interview would soon be over.

  “Any ideas of how you might employ my ship, given the change in circumstances, Sir Hew?” he asked anyway. “She’s too slow for a despatch vessel. Ye need frigates and such for that.”

  “An orphan, are you?” Dalrymple posed, sounding as if he was still nettled by Lewrie’s comments about the Army and its generals. “If Admirals Collingwood and Purvis found no use for your services, perhaps you might call upon your Mister Mountjoy. You were sent here partially under his auspices, were you not? You still operate under Independent Orders.”

  “I shall do that, Sir Hew,” Lewrie replied, shifting in his chair, prepared to rise and depart. “Anything else you need from me regarding the situation at Cádiz?”

  “No, I believe the despatches speak for them,” Sir Hew said. “You may go, and good luck to you finding employment.” He shooed Lewrie off as he would a fly.

  “Very good, Sir Hew. I’ll take my leave,” Lewrie said, and rose to deliver a brief bow. When he looked back for a second, he caught Sir Hew Dalrymple gazing at his maps with a contemplative grin on his face, and his eyes alight with some scheme.

  There was nothing for it. As much as he wished rencontre with Maddalena, he would have to go speak with Mountjoy first.

  * * *

  “Is he in, Mister Deacon?” Lewrie asked at the ground-floor entrance to Mountjoy’s lodgings.

  “He is, sir, and was just about to send me to find you,” that craggy-faced, grim, and ever-vigilant worthy replied with a taut grin. “Go right on up. There’s wondrous news to be shared.”

  The interior rooms were empty, but there were some plunking noises coming from the rooftop gallery that overlooked the bay, and the Lines, and that was where Mountjoy could be found. Lewrie walked out under the canvas awnings to find the local chief of Secret Branch seated on the settee, with a book of musical notes on the table in front of him.

  “Good God, what’s that?” Lewrie asked.

  “This,” Mountjoy happily told him, “is what the Spanish call a guitar. I got it down at the markets, once free trade was opened cross the Lines.” He moved the fingers of his left hand and strummed some chords with his right, tapping a foot to keep time, and screwing up his face in concentration. “Haven’t gotten good at it, yet.”

  “Aye, so I hear,” Lewrie gybed, sweeping off his hat and going for a comfortable chair. “You’ve been out-done, ye know. Purvis, off Cádiz, and Cotton off Lisbon, have gotten agents of some kind ashore, where you couldn’t.”

  “Ah, but in the meantime, I’ve discovered hundreds of patriotic Spaniards, just eager to send letters down, telling me of French movements, and towns that have risen up,” Mountjoy countered, laying his guitar aside. “Almost weekly reports from Marsh in Madrid, and from others at Seville, Córdoba, Málaga, and Granada. It’s definite. Napoleon’s deposed the old king, the new king, and put them under a rather comfortable house arrest in France. I’m told that the Foreign Minister, Talleyrand, is saddled with them at his estate, and is not happy with the arrangement. Joseph Bonaparte is on his way to Madrid to be crowned the newest King of Spain, and all’s right with the world, as the old saying goes. There are rebel juntas springing up all over Spain, and there’s been fighting ’twixt the Spanish Army and the Frogs. I’ve gotten reports of victories, though I’ll take those with a grain of salt ’til truthful results are in.

  “What’s more intriguing are the reports I’ve gotten concerning the Spanish people, themselves,” Mountjoy gleefully related. “Oh, my manners. Deacon? Fetch us all some wine, will you? That tangy and sparkly white? Thank you.”

  “What about the Spanish people?” Lewrie had to ask.

  “There are bands of men in the back country who have taken up what arms they own,” Mountjoy said, practically bubbling over with delight. “They’re ambushing despatch riders and small foraging parties where they can, slitting French throats, and taking their arms and ammunition to use against them. They gallop in, kill or capture the French soldiers, loot them, then gallop away, quick as you can say ‘knife,’ and disappear into the hills and woods, and I’ve word that the French are tearing their hair out, unable to chase them very far, or in units small enough to pursue quickly … too many of those have been ambushed and murdered, themselves. Heard of Zaragosa?”

  “Went down with the Spanish Armada, didn’t he?” Lewrie japed. “Ye know I haven’t.”

  “It’s a city, capital of Aragon,” Mountjoy said, casting his head over to one side and making a face at Lewrie’s idea of wit. “It is under siege, after the citizens rose up and slaughtered the occupying French garrison. Spanish troops marched in to aid them, and the city’s holding out, just laying Frenchmen dead in windrows when they try to break in. I’ve sent a letter about it to London, with a drawing … invented here by an artist with the Chronicle … about a heroine, a girl named Augustina, whom the Spanish report defended her own burned-out house with a sabre, dressed in pantaloons. She’s real enough, even if the drawing’s not. It’s sure to make all the London papers. War by the press, hah hah!”

  “Well, that’s all fine…,” Lewrie began to say, but Deacon showed up with a bottle of wine and three glasses.

  “Best news of all, Lewrie,” Mountjoy said with a twinkle in his eyes, “the latest mail packet in from England bore word that the peace treaty with Spain has been signed, she’s a British ally, now! We’re united against the French!”

  “Well, no wonder they didn’t shoot at me when I sailed in,” Lewrie replied, with less enthusiasm than Mountjoy might have wished. “Aye, that’s toppin’ fine. You pulled it off. Congratulations.”

  “A deed that can’t be celebrated often enough, Captain Lewrie,” Deacon said, baring a rare smile as he poured the wine for them.

  After drinking half his glass, clinking with the others to celebrate, Lewrie leaned back in his chair and asked, “Now that the Dons are allies, what did you have in mind for me to do?”

  “Hmm,” Mountjoy paused, frowning in puzzlement. “Haven’
t given it a thought, since you sailed off with Spencer’s convoy. I didn’t know if I’d get you back.”

  “There’s the arms, sir,” Deacon suggested. “A lot more than John Cummings’s coastal trader can carry at one go.”

  “He’s still alive?” Lewrie blurted. “There’s a wonder.”

  “Alive, and thriving,” Mountjoy said with a laugh, “though he still avoids Estepona. Yes, do you recall early on last Summer, that some of our sources on the Andalusian coast requested arms to counter the French invaders? Good. We’ve managed to assemble five thousand muskets, with bayonets and accoutrements, and half a million pre-made cartridges. The requests have come, again, but I have no way to get them where they’re needed.”

  Of course, John Cummings, who posed as Vicente Rodríguez, had to avoid Estepona; it was the home port of that dowdy coaster that Lewrie had taken for espionage use the last Summer, and he would’ve been lynched or garrotted had he sailed her in there.

  “Does Dalrymple know of the arms?” Lewrie asked, wondering if Mountjoy was playing a double game. “After we landed Spencer at Ayamonte, he gave all his spare weapons to the Spanish, but he could only arm about half of ’em, and that was about all that Dalrymple could spare, either, for Spencer, or Castaños. And just where did ye think t’land ’em?”

  “Let’s just say that my superiors sent the arms along in case I could get them to the Spanish,” Mountjoy said, going cat-sly as he did so, “and foment an uprising before the real thing happened.”

  “Málaga’s forts are still occupied by a French garrison,” Mr. Deacon informed him, “but the junta at Granada could use them. The closest place along the coast would be Salobreña.”

  Christ! Lewrie thought; Where we got our noses bloodied last year. What sort o’ welcome would we have after killin’ Spanish troops?

  “The road from Salobreña to Granada is decent, and direct. The Spanish could cart them on from there.” Mountjoy added, “I know, it cuts rough to go back there, but I’m assured that there are eager volunteers in need of arms.”

  “El Diablo Negro, returnin’ to the scene of the crime?” Lewrie scoffed. That was the sobriquet Sapphire had earned during her raiding forays along the Andalusian coast in 1807.

  “They are our allies,” Mountjoy pointed out.

  “Anyone told them, yet?” Lewrie countered.

  “They’ll chair you through the streets, most-like,” Mountjoy cajoled. “Deacon, here, will go along as my representative. He has excellent Spanish.”

  “And I don’t,” Lewrie said with a grunt.

  “Bless me, we’re all glad that you can speak English!” Mountjoy hooted.

  “How soon must they have their guns, then?” Lewrie said, surrendering.

  “As soon as you can take them aboard and sail,” Mountjoy told him. “General Castaños is of a mind to try his hand against General Dupont, now at Córdoba, and he’ll need all the armed troops that he can muster.”

  “A day to take on firewood and water, a day of shore liberty for my crew, a day of lading your arms, and I could be off on the fourth day—,” Lewrie decided.

  “Wind and weather permitting!” Mountjoy interrupted, using one of Lewrie’s usual qualifiers.

  “Aye, wind and weather permitting,” Lewrie agreed.

  “Hmm, I fear your crew may have to forgo their liberty for a time,” Mountjoy said upon second reflection. “Getting the arms to the Spanish is paramount. If you could begin taking them aboard as soon as you complete loading your ship’s immediate needs, that would be simply topping.”

  Damme, he’s givin’ me outright orders, again! Lewrie thought in a moment of resentment. He knew that he was seconded to the young man, but it did rankle, now and then, to be bossed about by civilians.

  “Well, if it’s that urgent, I s’pose I could,” Lewrie drawled. “What? You want the arms off Gibraltar before Dalrymple knows you have ’em?”

  Hah, hit a sore spot there! Lewrie thought, congratulating himself as he saw Mountjoy’s cheek wince; Well, at least I get one day with Maddalena.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The sleepy fishing port of Salobreña had not been a victim of HMS Sapphire’s shore bombardments, none of its fishing boats or coastal trading boats had been burned right in the harbour, but some of the prizes which Sapphire had run down, taken, and burned close to shore had surely come from there. Only the semaphore tower high up behind the town had been burned, after a brisk pre-dawn skirmish with Spanish troops who were not supposed to be there, according to Mountjoy’s informers, but some Spanish commander had sent them down from Órgiva on a route march to keep them fit, or to punish them, and they had been there, sleeping in Salobreña’s taverns, when the alarm was raised. For sleepy, half-drunk soldiers, they had put up a decent but brief resistance before breaking and running off into the bracken behind the town.

  “That’s the semaphore tower, Captain Lewrie?” Mr. Deacon asked as he peered shoreward with his own smaller telescope. “Doesn’t look like much to die for.”

  “I’m sure those who did, or were crippled for life, thought the same, Mister Deacon,” Lewrie replied.

  “They never re-built it, it appears,” Deacon said after a longer perusal. “Mister Mountjoy said that his reports tell much the same tale of the others you burned, and the batteries you blew up or shot to bits.”

  “The French drained so much from the Spanish treasury that the whole country’s ‘skint,’” Lewrie replied with a shrug. “Now they own Spain as a conquest, it’ll be their job t’re-build. Their soldiers mannin’ and guardin’ the bloody things. Hmm … if I could round up troops, boats, and a transport or two, we could start maraudin’ all over again, against the French this time.”

  “If General Dalrymple could spare troops, again, sir, which I doubt,” Deacon told him. “I also doubt the French could man and guard a new line of towers. If the Spanish people are becoming guerrilleros, it might take two companies to each tower to protect them.”

  “Gueri…?” Lewrie gawped. “What the Devil’s that?”

  “Roughly, guerrilla comes close to ‘little war,’ sir,” Deacon said with a grin, “with irregular fighters, ambushers, throat-slitters, those sort of attacks that Mister Mountjoy was so excited about. The French haven’t seen anything like them in any of their other conquered countries, and it’ll drive them mad. More like Red Indian warfare on the American frontiers.”

  “And the French are a very European army,” Lewrie replied with sudden good humour, the opposite of his qualms over how the Spanish would receive their sudden appearance, even if they were bearing them gifts. “God help ’em, then. Saw my share of Indian fighting in Spanish Florida during the Revolution. Brr! Vicious!”

  “Seven fathom! Seven fathom t’this line!” one of the leadsmen called back from his post on a foremast chain platform.

  “We’ll stand on ’til we strike six fathoms, Mister Yelland,” Lewrie called down to the Sailing Master on the quarterdeck.

  “Aye, sir, six fathoms, and we round up,” Yelland agreed.

  “I think I see Spanish troops on the quays, sir,” Lt. Westcott pointed out. “The French wear blue uniforms, mostly, and this lot’s white. Do the Frogs wear that colour?”

  Lewrie looked to Deacon for an answer; he’d been a soldier in the Guards, and should know, but all he got from that worthy was a shrug and a puzzled face.

  “Wish we had a Spanish officer with us, then,” Lewrie said. “I would’ve thought that Mountjoy could whistle one up from General Castaños’ staff.”

  “A rush job, Captain Lewrie,” Deacon said, winking. “No time to look for one.”

  “Six fathom! Six fathom t’this line!” a leadsman shouted.

  “Fetch-to, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie snapped. “Round up into the wind, and ready the best bower.”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Westcott called back, then began to bellow orders to steer up into the wind, take in sail, and drop the larboard anchor.

  “We’ll take the thirty-
two-foot pinnace,” Lewrie told Deacon as they descended from the poop deck to the quarterdeck. “It’s more impressive than a cutter, and has more room for all.”

  * * *

  They ain’t shootin’ at us, yet, Lewrie thought in trepidation as the pinnace came alongside the quays, as the bow man gaffed the piers and sprang to tie off a line to a bollard, as another sailor did the same at the stern.

  Deacon plastered a smile on his craggy face and made cordial noises in fluid, fluent Spanish. A Spanish officer came forward to palaver with him. The Spaniard was an odd bird, Lewrie thought, wearing a cocked hat twice as big as any he’d ever seen, with tall dragoon boots with knee-flaps on his legs, and a long smallsword tucked up under his armpit instead of slung on the hip. His mustachio was long, pointed, and looked waxed. The Spanish officer frowned a lot, then broke out in a smile, turned to face the townfolk who had gathered in curiosity, clapped his gloved hands, and began to babble in rapid Spanish. Whatever he’d told them set off tremendous cheers.

  “Commandante Azcárte, it means he’s a Major, sir, says that we and our arms are more than welcome,” Deacon translated as the fellow turned back to face them. “Someone in contact with Gibraltar alerted them that we would be coming, and Major Azcárte was sent from the Granada junta to escort them inland, with waggons, carts, and a strong escort. I’m naming you to him now, sir, though I don’t know how to render ‘Baronet’ in Spanish.”

  “Makes no matter,” Lewrie shrugged off, beaming fit to bust, himself, and nodding pleasantly. He made out “Capitano” and “Caballero,” “la Marina Real Británica,” but the rest was higgledy-piggledy. When Deacon drew breath, Lewrie doffed his hat and bowed from the waist; there was no way to make a formal “leg” while still standing in the pinnace.

  “Honoured to make your acquaintance, Commandante Azcárte,” Lewrie replied. “Uhm, Deacon, ask him if the locals can help get the arms ashore with their boats. It’d take hours, else.”

  “I will, sir,” Deacon said, and launched into more gibberish. Major Azcárte nodded vigourously, replied with more smiles, and turned to the citizens of Salobreña to ask them to help, which launched a rush of fishermen to their boats along the quay, to break out oars, and begin to stroke out towards Sapphire.