A Hard, Cruel Shore

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Well, I certainly hope you’re right,” Lewrie said, though in more dubious takings. “We’ll just have to see.”

  “Now we’ve Oporto, you’ll be moving your squadron there, like you had planned?” Mountjoy asked as he topped up their glasses.

  “Definitely,” Lewrie was quick to assure him. “It saves time spent going there and back, though I don’t know if the Prize-Court would move with us. Might have to keep fetchin’ prizes into Lisbon, but work out of Oporto. Move my store ship there, for certain, and at least get my mail delivered there. When I’ve time t’read it,” he added with a grimace. “I still haven’t heard from Admiralty about gettin’ me more ships. Christ, it’s like muckin’ out the Augean Stables. We’ve taken over thirty prizes, burned nigh that many, and the coast is still swarmin’ with French supplies! It’s like swattin’ roaches with only one shoe.”

  “But, it’s a rich, rewarding mucking out,” Mountjoy said. “If it continues.” To Lewrie’s puzzled look, he added, “I’ve word that Marshal Ney has left Galicia and moved down close to Léon, so there may not be as great a demand for supplies delivered by sea, Ney can count on whatever comes cross the Pyrenees. As a matter of fact, if he didn’t leave large garrisons behind him, might you be amenable to making some arms deliveries to the Galician and Basque partisans? I have a fellow up North who has been making contacts.”

  “Do I know him?” Lewrie asked, ready to cross the fingers of his right hand for luck.

  “You do,” Mountjoy said, sighing.

  “Romney Marsh?” Lewrie guessed.

  “The very one,” Mountjoy confirmed.

  “Still cuttin’ French throats?” Lewrie pressed, scowling.

  “Revels at it,” Mountjoy said with a grim nod. “Still good at languages, though. He even sent me a note in Basque. Couldn’t find anyone, Portuguese or Spanish, who could make heads or tails of it, but … there it is.”

  “Seems even the blood-thirsty and totally insane have their uses,” Lewrie gravelled. “Just so long as I don’t have t’deal with him, just land muskets and such on some beach in the dead of night, I could help you.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Mountjoy said, sounding relieved. “Ehm … I’d suppose that if you move your base of operations to Oporto, you might think of establishing Senhora Covilhā there?”

  “It’s her hometown, after all,” Lewrie said. “I should imagine she’d be delighted. How’s she doing, by the way, working for you and all?”

  “As I told you long ago at Gibraltar, I would have recruited her to spy for me then and there,” Mountjoy said, before popping one of the grilled and spiced sardines into his mouth. He chewed for a bit before continuing. “She’s bright, intelligent, circumspect, the very last person our enemies would suspect. Pity the fieldwork in my line is so far off and, frankly, so damned dangerous for any woman on her own. Anywhere the French stand in the Iberian Peninsula, no one is safe from rape or murder, just to relieve their boredom, or get some of their own back when the partisanos ambush some of their chums. It is more in Marsh’s line of work. The reports I got from our army … any French soldiers caught on Soult’s retreat got stripped, nailed to barn doors, emasculated, skinned alive, and left with their pricks in their mouths, so you can understand how barbaric it might be for anyone suspected of spying for us.”

  “Thank God for office work, then,” Lewrie said, though he was delighted to hear how the despised French might suffer. “What do you have Maddalena doing for you?”

  “Oh, translations, for the most part,” Mountjoy told him, “the odd false newspaper account to send over the border into Spain, or up North to the Portuguese. She’s been teaching herself French, as well, with my, and Mister Deacon’s, help, and has been cobbling up faux news items for enemy soldiers to read. Food shortages back home, women rioting for bread, graft and corruption accusations laid against civil authorities, and rumours to undermine Emperor Bonaparte’s image. We’ve been able to obtain copies of the Moniteur, and several regional French papers, and we’ve been copying them, right down to the advertisments, with our false articles inserted.

  “She’s damned clever at it,” Mountjoy admitted, “much sharper at it than me, to be truthful. I’d hate to lose her services.”

  “Hmm, no chance you’d open a branch office of the good old Falmouth Import and Export Company in Oporto, is there?” Lewrie asked.

  “That’s doubtful,” Mountjoy had to tell him, “and the decision would be up to my superiors in London, anyway. Oh, I’m certain that an host of English traders will flock back to Oporto, now the French are gone, but General Wellesley didn’t leave a garrison to hold the city … doesn’t have a big-enough army for that … so the city’s future security will be up to the Portuguese, and if the French come back, well…”

  “Damme, if he didn’t garrison it, I may not be able to count on Oporto being a safe harbour for my ships!” Lewrie almost yelped. All his hopes suddenly seemed dashed, his plans in a shambles.

  “That might be so,” Mountjoy sadly agreed, shaking his head in commiseration for a moment, before flagging down their waiter. “Feel peckish for something more solid, Lewrie? Ah, senhor. Tem comida the caldeirada de peixe hoije a noite? Maravilhoso! Para dois, Captain Lewrie?”

  “Hmm … do you have the açorda de camarãoes?” Lewrie asked the waiter. “Bom, I’ll have that … eu quero aquilo.”

  “You’ve become a linguist, hah hah,” Mountjoy japed. “At last.”

  “Hah-bloody-hah,” Lewrie growled back. “So long as you’re having the fish stew, and I the shrimp, let’s get a bottle of vinho branco. Your treat, I believe you offered?” he said with one of his best shit-eating grins.

  “But, of course, my dear fellow!” Mountjoy loudly assured him. “Anything for the conquering hero.”

  As they poured the last of the espumante into their glasses, a singer struck a chord on his twelve-string guitarra, then began to pick out a melancholy tune in a minor key, with many flourishes, and the other diners hushed to hear him. The fellow began to sing, baying out a mournful, groaning cry of utter sadness that descended the scale, trailing off to a pitiful whimper. Oddly, drinkers came into the tavern from the outdoor area with smiles of anticipation on their faces, and those already inside grinned and pointed to the stage, as if saying “now you’ll really hear something.”

  The entertainer began a long, sad fado. Despite his ability to order supper, Lewrie’s grasp of Portuguese was slight, so he only caught about one word in five, but it made no difference. The song was, like all fados, about something miserable; utter heartbreak, lost love, exile far from home, or mis-spent or long-lost youth. It was the very last thing he needed to hear, the mood he was in.

  Lewrie looked cross the table at Mountjoy, who was swaying in time to the music, a silly grin on his face, and his eyed closed, lost in some personal rapture.

  Gawd, Lewrie thought; but where’s Bisquit when ye really, really need him?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  As much as he wished to dash off uphill to Maddalena’s lodgings, there was the Prize-Court to attend, first, with his subordinates, and all the paperwork taken off their captures. That, unfortunately, took the better part of a day, with all the hemming and hawing and pointed questions from the Proctors, their seeming sense of being put-upon by such a volume of paperwork all at once, along with their dis-approval of how many prizes had been torched and not brought in, even if burning prizes saved the Court their very precious time!

  It was as if they begrudged losing commissions on the cargoes described in the burned ships’ papers, goods which could have been awarded to the Portuguese army, used by the British army in lieu of precious imports, or sold (on the sly) on the Lisbon market. And, of course, the Prize-Court could not yet even make a guess as to the value of their previous captures, which were still going through an exhaustive evaluation!

  “If I may, sirs,” Lewrie said once the long, boring meeting broke up, “I would like to discuss something wi
th one of the senior Court members.”

  “I fear that they are much too busy, Captain Lewrie,” one of the Proctors told him. “Perhaps if you wrote them a letter about the matter?”

  “I could, but,” Lewrie pressed, “now we have Oporto, is there a way that I might move my squadron there, save time in transit from Lisbon to the coast? Or, would I still have to despatch our prizes to the Court here at Lisbon? No way to open a branch office there?”

  “To Oporto, sir?” the Proctor said with a dis-believing sniff, followed by a wee chuckle. “For my part, I do not see a way to do so. Admiralty does not establish Prize-Courts ‘will-he, nill-he’, and we only were established here after a lengthy debate back in London. To open a … branch office … as you term it, at Oporto for your convenience I expect would be completely out of the question. It was a matter of some import to open offices at Lisbon, instead of requiring you to conduct all your business at Gibraltar.”

  “Well, damme,” Lewrie said, groaning, “it was a thought.”

  “I would suppose, sir,” the Proctor went on, in a drawling air of amusement, “that you could write my superiors, but what they would make of it? What London would make of it?” He concluded with a huge hand-spread shrug.

  “Thankee, anyway, sir. Good day to you,” Lewrie said, teeth gritted in a dutiful smile, one he didn’t mean. “I shall write your superiors, and we shall see.”

  “Good luck with it, sir, and good day,” the Proctor said as he gathered up his papers.

  Lewrie bowed his way to the street, clapped his hat on his head, and puffed his cheeks as he blew a long hmmf of dis-satisfaction, thinking black thoughts about the Proctor’s attitude. He looked uphill, imagining that Maddalena might be working at her translations in her lodgings, and that popping in out of the blue would be a grand diversion for her. He set off, with lustful fantasies in mind, that and plans for a supper for two after a passionate rencontre.

  * * *

  Rubio, the bearded day clerk at the lobby desk, allowed himself a wee glower of dis-approval, when Lewrie asked him if Senhora Covilhā was in. Lewrie shrugged it off, and upon hearing that she was, dashed up the stairs to rap on her door.

  “Quem é?” came a brusque, irritated cry from within after his knocking.

  “Maddalena, it’s me,” he called back.

  “Ah? Alan?” came a second cry, this one much fonder, with a note of surprise. A second later, the bolt was shot, the latch was turned, and she swung the door open. “Oh, get in here, meu querido!”

  She flung her arms round him, pressed her lips to his, and practically dragged him inside, and Lewrie shut the door with the toe of his boot as he lifted her off her feet and danced her round the lodgings, making her laugh between fervent kisses and breathless endearments.

  “Damme, but you feel good!” he told her.

  “Oh, so do you!” Maddalena declared, leaning back. “Though, you do smell a bit too much of your ship.”

  He took a whiff of his coat sleeve.

  “Sorry ’bout that,” he told her, “but sailors do carry more odours than salt and tar. How are you, my dear? What’ve you been up to, the last few weeks? Mountjoy tells me…”

  “Ah, sim!” Maddalena brightened even further. “Come see!” as she led him to her dining table, where stacks of newspapers were littered next to some scissors and a sheaf of writing paper. “These are French. Right now, Mister Mountjoy has me translating and re-writing some of the articles, and the advertisements. See here? I re-write the advertisements, making goods sound very hard to obtain, and make the prices for things much higher than they really are, so the French soldiers who read the false papers we print have to wonder how bad it is at home. He, Mister Deacon, and I then create items about hoarders being arrested, people arrested for stealing bread, potatoes, or even turnips, they are so hungry. Who eats turnips, though? Ugh!”

  “We English do,” Lewrie told her. “The Scots, the Welsh, and the Irish, too. Done right, they’re hellish-tasty.”

  “Novamente … ugh!” she said, making a face. “Here is one of our latest. Does it not look exactly like a French newspaper? We re-create the banner of the publisher, include the official bulletins, then repeat the local news, with alternations meant to lower the … morale … of the readers. Look it over, see what you think!”

  She was more animated than at any time Lewrie could recall, almost giddy with pride in her contributions. Lewrie’s understanding of printed French was little better than his ability to speak it, but he took the paper and gave it a good going-over, because it seemed to mean so much to her.

  “Damned if I could tell the difference, Maddalena,” he said in praise. “It looks completely authentic. As we say in the Navy, ‘confusion to the French’. But, how the Devil does Mountjoy get ’em to where the French might find ’em and read ’em?”

  “Oh, that is mostly Mister Deacon’s doings,” she said with a laugh. “He has many contacts among the Lisboêtas, who know their way over the border, and Spanish partisans who come over the border for arms, or with information for Mister Mountjoy. They smuggle them, a few copies at a time. Too many would take waggons, and they would never make it over the border. I have heard Mister Deacon say that some of our papers make it all the way to taverns in Madrid, where French soldiers drink!”

  “What’s Mountjoy done with their defeat at Oporto?” Lewrie asked. “Surely, there’s pure gold in accounts of that.”

  “Oh, Oporto, meu Deus!” Maddalena whooped. “You know of it? You were at sea when…?”

  “Mountjoy told me, yesterday,” Lewrie said. “Damned fine, and let Bonaparte stew over that! A whole army destroyin’ itself on the retreat? Wellesley’s the man!”

  “Oh, we have already sent off a special edition,” Maddalena crowed, “with a bulletin re-printed from the Moniteur, noting even heavier casualties, more suffering, and a hint that Marshal Soult may be tried for such a disastrous failure,” she said, a twinkle in her eyes. “Let Emperor Bonaparte … stew? Why would he make stew, meu amor? Isn’t such for celebration?”

  “More like, fret in despair, is the meaning,” Lewrie explained.

  “Aha! Fret!” she said, beaming. “Yes, Oporto! We must have wine to celebrate. I still have some of that vinho verde you bought for me. I will go get it!”

  Lewrie found a copy of the special edition which purported to be from Bordeaux and looked it over; the so-called official bulletin from the Paris Moniteur on the front page was bordered in black, and grim-looking. He thought it too bad that the French, themselves, by now could say that a man “lied liked a bulletin”, no longer putting any trust in what their masters told them; the French soldiers in Spain would dismiss it, most likely. Those in power who managed the message, and Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s vaunted image, would never admit a defeat so baldly, if they mentioned it at all.

  “If I knew you would come today, I would have tried to chill it,” Maddalena said, returning with the bottle and two glasses. She handed Lewrie the bottle, expecting him to draw the cork.

  Damme, more domestic shite, he thought, searching for a cork-pull; ain’t that what servants are for? I’ll carve the roast, but that’s my limit.

  “Ah!” he said, after pouring himself a taste. “It’s hellish-fine warm. Let me top you up.”

  They sat together on the settee with the bottle on a table to one side. “To General Wellesley,” Maddalena proposed, to which Lewrie heartily agreed, and repeated.

  “Ye know, my dear, now that Oporto’s back in Portuguese hands, I’ve half a mind to transfer my squadron there,” he casually tossed out. “It’d save a day or two going to, or coming back, from the Spanish coast. The damned Prize-Court, though, doesn’t seem all that eager to go along with me. Too comfortable here in Lisbon, damn ’em. I still could, if I could detatch one ship to escort the prizes here to be adjudged, then return to Oporto a day or two later.

  “That’s your old hometown. Like t’see it, again?” he asked.

  Maddalena h
ad been lounging on the settee’s back, but now sat erect, going prim with her wine glass held in both hands in her lap.

  “No more than I would care to see my grandparents’ hometown up in the mountains, no,” Maddelena told him, avoiding eye contact, and staring off into the middle distance. “What about my work here in Lisbon, for Mister Mountjoy and Mister Deacon? It is important work, they tell me, and I enjoy it.”

  “Well, mean t’say … if I’m there, and you’re here…” Lewrie flummoxed, astounded that she seemed so reluctant.

  “No,” she said, more firmly.

  “Don’t want t’see your family, again, your old neighbourhood where you grew up?” Lewrie tried to tease.

  “Not … really,” Maddalena said with a grimace, finally looking at him. “I was never happy in Oporto. My family … my father was a brute, and a drunk, and my mother … as much as she tried she was never much help to me. Father and my brothers made the wine barrels … coopers? We were so poor they didn’t even own their own tools, and could barely read, or write, or do sums. And our neighbourhood? Our house? It was a hovel crammed between two warehouses right by the piers on the South bank of the Douro. They thought it suitable,” she gravelled, “fitting to who we were, and thankful for it, rented from our employer,” she said with an impatient sigh.

  “I didn’t…” Lewrie attempted to empathise.

  “Only my brother Emilio was to do better,” Maddalena went on, “the youngest, closest in age to me, and he was to be a priest, so he had to get a complete education. Hmpf! Emilio was grateful for the education, but he did not dare say that he did not want to go into the church. They were proud of him. He was an excellent student and won prizes every year. What my father did not know was that Emilio taught what he learned each day to me, beyond what little my family thought a girl should know.

  “He is a runaway, too, meu amor,” Maddalena said, inclining her head as if imparting a secret, with a bleak smile. “The grandees in the wine trade sponsored him to attend university at Coimbra, and he went, but he refused to take Holy Orders when he graduated, and it was a great shame to my father, my family. It was as if Emilio had never been born, for no one could speak of him without getting beaten.