“What didn’t they like, then?” Lewrie asked.
“She’ll go, sir … ponderously,” Westcott said with a laugh. “She’ll set her shoulder and sail stiff, but I doubt if we’ll ever see her make much more than nine or ten knots, and that in a whole gale with the stuns’ls rigged, and all to the royals.”
“Well, maybe we can plod at the French,” Lewrie joshed.
“When we do come to grips, at least we have the artillery for a smashing good blow,” Westcott pointed out, “though, her former Captain only excerised with the great guns once a week, and was a pinch-penny when it came to expending shot and powder at live-firing, sir. We’re changing that, and once we get to sea, I’d like live-firing once each week.”
“You and I, both, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie heartily agreed with that plan. From his earliest days, he had been in love with the roar and stink of the guns, from the puniest 2-pounder swivel guns to the 18-pounders of his last commands. He had ordered gun drill held three times in the week he’d been aboard, and could not wait to be out of harbour where he could see his lower-deck 24-pounders, upper-deck 12-pounders, and all those 24-pounder carronades be lit off.
“Boat ahoy!” Midshipman Harvey called out from the quarterdeck, attracting Lewrie’s and Westcott’s attention.
“Mail and messages for Sapphire!” a thin wail came back.
“Keep some fingers crossed, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said as he eagerly scampered up the ladderway to the quarterdeck. “If it ain’t your tailor’s bills, or your landlady’s love letters, we might have orders!”
Once upon the quarterdeck, Lewrie spotted an eight-oared cutter beetling cross the Great Nore’s light chops bound for his ship’s starboard side. The oarsmen and Cox’n were sailors in Navy rig, and a Midshipman sat in the stern sheets with a large white canvas sack slung cross his chest. It looked very promising and it was all that Lewrie could do to disguise a nigh-boyish sense of anticipation.
It seemed to take ages for the cutter to bump alongside the ship and for the Midshipman to make his way up the battens to the entry-port and to the quarterdeck.
“Good morning, all,” the newcomer gaily announced himself to the Midshipmen of the watch, as if he did not see a Post-Captain on deck.
“Something for me?” Lewrie snapped, stepping forward.
“Your pardons, sir,” the Mid said with a gulp. “Orders and mail for Sapphire, sir. If you would be so good as to sign for them, sir?”
Lewrie quickly scribbled his name on a chit with the new Mid’s stub of a pencil, then took possession of the canvas sack. From that first hail and reply, idle hands and off-watch men had perked up their ears and drifted aft nearer the quarterdeck in curiosity and longing to hear from wives, girlfriends, and family.
Lewrie would have liked to dig into the sack that instant and snatch out his own correspondence, but that would be appearing too eager. He nodded to the cutter’s Mid and turned to go aft into his cabins to sort things out, calling aloud for word to be passed for his clerk, Faulkes. Once ensconsed in privacy, though, he opened the sack and dumped the contents on his desk. “Aha!” he cheered to see a thick packet addressed, to him from Admiralty, thickly sealed with blue wax and bound in ribbon. “And pray God, not the Baltic!” he added softly.
The sudden pile of letters, and the crinkly sound of heavy official bond paper being folded open, attracted Chalky like the sudden appearance of a flock of gulls in the cabins, and he sprang atop the desk to scatter and strew them to the deck, slipping and sliding on the letters that remained, unsure of which of those on the deck he’d pounce upon first. Chalky let out a puzzled Mrr!, then a louder Meow! and dove off the desk to plow into a shallow pile like a boy hurling himself into a mound of autumn leaves.
“Ha … ‘provide escort for troop ships now lying at the Nore’,” he read. “Oh, shit … ‘four ships named in the margin to Gibraltar to re-enforce the garrison, then report your ship to Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Dalrymple, Gov.-Gen’l of Gibraltar, and RN Commissioner of Dockyards, as available for duty, notwithstanding other duties which you will find in a separate correspondence marked “Most Secret And Confidential” you may be asked to perform from time to time’ … what the Devil?”
He rooted round the loose letters on the desk but could not find anything with that mark, or the more usual “Captain’s Eyes Only”. Faulkes entered the cabins and stopped short at the sight of the mess.
“Ah, Faulkes!” Lewrie brightened, “do sort through all that lot on the deck, will you? There’s one official meant for me, but Chalky’s got it at the moment.”
“Ehm, yes, sir,” Faulkes said, kneeling to gather up as many as he could to sort through them. “This must be it, sir.… ow! It’s not yours. Let go the ribbons, Chalky.” He got back to his feet and handed the letter to Lewrie, then knelt again to begin piling the rest into proper order, sorting official correspondence into one pile, personal letters into another, and Lewrie’s other mail into a third.
“Carry on, Faulkes,” Lewrie said, rising and going to his dining coach for a bit more privacy, for this folded-over, wax-sealed letter was from the Foreign Office, and it was not only marked “Most Secret And Confidential” but “Captain’s Eyes Only”, as well. There was only one branch of His Majesty’s Foreign Office that had ever sent Lewrie a scrap of correspondence; Secret Branch, old Zachariah Twigg’s set of spies, secret agents, forgers, and associated cut-throats and assassins, and a most un-official battalion of strong-arm muscle.
“Mine arse on a band-box,” he muttered to himself as he closed the double doors of the dining-coach, sat himself down at the table, and placed the letter before him. He stared at it for a long moment, and even found himself wiping his hands on his trouser legs in dread, for nothing good had ever come of his association with that crowd.
Off and on since 1784, Lewrie had been roped into several nefarious and neck-or-nothing Secret Branch schemes or covert actions; in the Far East between the wars, in the Mediterranean when he’d had the Jester sloop, during Britain’s involvement with the bloody ex-slave rebellion on Saint Domingue, now Haiti, even posing as a civilian merchant marine mate in search of work up the Mississippi, to hunt down Creole pirates in Spanish-held New Orleans. He had been Twigg’s gun-dog, a none-too-bright but useful tool, and frankly, had always felt a most disposable asset if Twigg had felt that necessary. God, but they were a ruthless, faithless lot!
Zachariah Twigg was long-retired, perhaps had even joined the Great Majority by now, but his cheerfully devious protégé-henchman, James Peel, was still in play. “’Tis Peel, sir … James Peel’.” The last he’d seen of Peel was late in 1804, after Lewrie’s secret experiments with catamaran torpedoes had proved a bust. Peel had come to cozen him into writing a letter of forgiveness to one of those Creole pirates, a young woman who’d shot him full in the chest once with a Girandoni air-rifle (and thank God the air-flask was spent!), Charité Angelette de Guilleri, the worst-named girl he’d ever met, who had taken part in hunting him and his wife, Caroline, down after they’d been warned to flee Paris in 1802. That beautiful, beguiling, but dangerous bitch had been in the party that had shot Caroline in the back and killed her, and she’d wanted his forgiveness?
Oh, but the Emperor Napoleon had sold Charité’s beloved New Orleans and all of Louisiana to the Americans, turning her against him and France, and she was so well-placed in Paris, welcome in the salons of the elite, in the beds of Napoleon’s ministers, generals, and naval officials, and it was for King and Country, after all, for her to be a British spy, and all it would take was a letter from Lewrie to turn her to England’s advantage. And damn James Peel for asking that of him! Damn Secret Branch, too, for imagining him useful, again!
At long last, he tugged at the red ribbons and broke the red wax seals, unfolded the letter, took a deep, cautioning breath, and began to read. “Oh. Well, maybe that won’t be so bad,” Lewrie whispered after he’d given it a close reading. It was from Peel, who was now a senior agent;
it was even chatty! Peel related that he had become too well-known on the Continent for covert work and had been promoted to plan and supervise others, from London.
There was rising un-rest and dis-content among the Spanish public, Peel explained, and their alliance with France, and Napoleon, had so far been a naval, military, and economic disaster. Millions in gold and silver had gone to France, part of her navy had been turned over to the French, and meats and grains which could have gone to the nourishment of Spaniards was now trundled over the Pyrenees to feed Napoleon Bonaparte’s armies, and people, and that at a poor rate of return. The Spanish Prime Minister, Godoy, and his elite circle of Francophiles were almost slavish in their admiration and emulation of the French, which was engendering a rising restlestness among the poor, the middle classes, and the titled to declare Godoy and his circle as traitors, anti-Catholic, anti-Church, anti-God, and anti-Spanish.
“We at Foreign Office put a flea in Admiralty’s ear to make better Use of you, Alan, both as a man familiar with, admittedly, our brand of Skullduggery, and as a active Officer better suited to Combat than onerous convoy Duties in Baltic backwaters. At Gibraltar you will be pleased, I am certain, to find that our senior Agent in charge of Correspondence with those Spaniards in positions of Influence disenchanted with the French and their own Government, and their Recruitment, is one well known to you, to wit, your old clerk, Mr. Thomas Mountjoy. Once at Gibraltar, do please make yourself and your Ship available to him for the Landing and Retrieval of Agents and Messengers working for him to sway the Spanish to renounce their Alliance with France, and if Alliance with Great Britian will not suit, at the least it may be possible to turn them Neutral…”
“Boat-work, at night, hmm,” Lewrie mused aloud. “Maybe.”
Lewrie made a face after a second more thought. Sapphire had a serious drawback if Peel and his superiors in their snug London offices thought to use her, and him; his new ship drew around 18 and one half feet forrud, and nearly 20 feet right aft when properly loaded, so any agent landed on a hostile shore in the dead of night would face a very long row to the beach. Sapphire would have to fetch-to miles out to sea, where the waters were deep enough, keeping at least two safe fathoms of water ’twixt her keel and the seabed.
Lewrie folded the “Eyes Only” letter back together, rose, and went to the day-cabin. He scooped the Admiralty orders up and locked both in a drawer of his desk, then went out onto his stern gallery to look down at Sapphire’s boats which idled below and astern.
Maybe fetched-to miles out might work, Lewrie mused; And we use the thirty-two-foot pinnace t’land our agents. Have t’paint it a dull grey, though, else it stands out at night like a white swan.
Lewrie imagined that they would have to fetch-to or anchor so far out that no one ashore could spot them in the dark, even did they look hard for them, but … he found another problem; if an agent had to be recovered, could he get Sapphire close enough to spot the lamp or hooded lanthorn signal, then take long, dangerous hours to send in the pinnace and get the man off?
“Need a cutter, or a sloop,” Lewrie muttered. “Sorry, Peel, I ain’t your man this time.”
He went back in, closing the door to the gallery behind him so the cat didn’t get out, and went to his desk to write Peel at once to point out the big, two-decked flaw in Secret Branch’s plan.
“I’ve all the mail sorted, sir,” Faulkes, his clerk, told him. “All yours is on the brass table. The rim keeps Chalky from scattering it, d’ye see.”
“Very good, Faulkes,” Lewrie said, looking up with a grin. “Do you deliver the officers’ letters to the wardroom, then place all the rest in the chart space ’til Seven Bells of the Forenoon, when you can distribute the hands’ letters from home.”
“Aye, sir,” Faulkes replied. He had a slight drinking problem, Faulkes did, but he’d kept it in check, so far. Delivering mail from home to sailors in the middle of the first daily rum issue would keep him from seeking “sippers” from the others.
“When you drop off the officers’ letters, pass word for Mister Westcott to attend me,” Lewrie added. He smiled at Faulkes’s departing back, knowing that the news of Sapphire’s orders to Gibraltar would be spread throughout the ship within a half-hour. What passed aft in the wardroom or great-cabins never could stay secret for long. Oh, Faulkes would slyly answer sailors’ queries with something like, “It won’t be the Baltic, again”; he knew better than to blurt out accurate details, even if he’d glimpsed at the orders. The summons for Lt. Westcott was icing on the cake, a sure sign that the ship would be sailing soon.
To where, though? He’d keep that quiet a little longer!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next few days were spent lading everything from powder and shot to salt-meat casks to spare sand glasses. Lewrie spent a little time ashore in Sheerness seeing to his personal needs, but took time to make himself known to the Agent Afloat from the Navy Transport Board in charge of the four merchant vessels he would escort, and the four civilian shipmasters. Lewrie also called upon Lieutenant-Colonel Fry, commanding officer of the Kent Fusilier Regiment, which idled, and drilled to a point of madness, in shared barracks with the local garrison troops protecting Sheerness and the mouths of the Thames and Medway Rivers.
“Now, there’s a forlorn hope for you, Captain Lewrie,” Lieutenant-Colonel Fry groused in his borrowed temporary quarters. “Any foe that’s ever tried to sail up the rivers had no trouble at all at doing so, and even the Tilbury Forts barely slowed them down. The garrison here knows it, and is barely manageable … drill upon drill, corporal punishment with the lash by the dozens … and now my men are shoved alongside the local no-hopers, arsehole to elbow, and ruining them! I cannot wait to get them aboard their ships and away to sea before they turn mutinous. More whisky, sir?” Fry asked, waving a hand at a tray that bore a decanter of Scottish whisky.
“Oh, just a touch, sir,” Lewrie allowed. Colonel Fry’s batman poured them both generous refills. Lewrie considered that he might have to develop a taste for the Scottish version, for it was getting harder to find his favourite aged American corn whisky.
“Things might not be a whit better at Gibraltar, either,” Fry gloomed on, lolling his head back on the wing chair in which he sat, as if weary of it all. Colonel Fry was a long, lean, and spare fellow in his early fourties, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and looked as if he was forever in need of a touch-up shave. He seemed to be born glum.
“Why so, sir?” Lewrie asked, to be polite, hiding a wince over the smokiness of the whisky.
“Lord, my early days,” Colonel Fry mused, almost wistfully, “I was posted to Gibraltar a couple of times, and it was all so very neat and orderly, just the finest sort of military efficiency and good behaviour. Church parade, guard mount, close-order drill and musketry twice a week, everything polished, all kits in top condition, and the social rounds delightful, well … then came the war in ’93.”
“Messy business,” Lewrie commented.
“Old Eliot was a good governor, and so was General O’Hara, even if he was getting on in years,” Fry went on, “but, the rotation of men got all muddled. The garrison became temporary duty for regiments who were shuttled in and out, and came back reduced by sickness and battle, and ready to get blind drunk and stay that way, and O’Hara lost control before he died.
“Then came General His Royal Highness Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, five years ago, in 1802,” Colonel Fry spat. “Ever hear of him, sir? Ever hear of how the King himself had to relieve him from command of his own royal regiment for cruelty? The mutiny he caused when he commanded our forces in Canada?”
“Must not have made the papers,” Lewrie said with a brow up in astonishment.
“The Duke of Kent took over command of Gibraltar to replace old O’Hara, and had the post for a year,” Fry told him, sitting up at last as he warmed to his topic. “Damned if he didn’t cause another mutiny! Two parades a day, wake the garrison at three thirty in summer, five thirty in winter
, ‘square-bashing’ for hours on end, working parties to shift supplies from one warehouse to another just to keep the men busy, drinkless curfews after Tatoo, confined to barracks … well, who wouldn’t mutiny after a time, I ask you?”
“Is it still that way?” Lewrie asked, fearful that allowing his crew shore liberty at Gibraltar would corrupt them, too.
“To a certain extent, Captain Lewrie,” Colonel Fry said, pulling a face as he reached for the whisky decanter to serve himself. “Drink still flows like water, and there are pubs on every corner, though the troops no longer get issued eight pence every day after being released from duties. Lieutenant General Sir Hew Dalrymple has been Governor since 1806, and I’ve had letters from officers serving under him there that conditions are much improved, but still … rowdy. Dalrymple’s called ‘the Dowager’,” Fry said with a faint grin of amusement. “He’s been a soldier since 1763, but only saw action in Flanders, and that was a disaster … not his fault, though. Put it all down to the Duke of York.”
“Christ, I was born in 1763!” Lewrie said, snickering.
“Scylla and Charibdis … rock and a hard place,” Fry jested, “and Gibraltar being ‘the Rock’, haw! My soldiers will either be bored to tears here, or debauched there, but at least they’ll not have any opportunity to desert where they’re going. Assuming that we can get going soon, Captain Lewrie, hey?”
“The Agent Afloat assures me that your troops could go aboard the transports by the end of the week, sir,” Lewrie informed Colonel Fry. “The only thing that’s wanting is a second warship to assist my ship. We’ll be crossin’ the Bay of Biscay, trailin’ our colours down the coast of France, and Sapphire may have the guns to protect your men, but not the agility, or the speed. I wrote Admiralty as soon as I got my orders, but haven’t heard, yet. Are we forced to wait much longer after your troops are aboard, then there would have to be some re-victualling, delaying us further. Then, there’s the wind and the weather to contend with, of course.”
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