Текст книги "Kings and Emperors"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 26 страниц)
Fortunately, there were soldiers from the Commissariat loading more waggons and carts to bear fresh supplies from the ships up to the army, and one of their officers swore that he’d look after it.
And there were boats plying ’twixt the supply ships and the shore, and Lewrie managed to flag one down and cadge a ride out to Sapphire, out where he belonged, waded out to clamber aboard and take a seat on the stern-most thwart beside a Midshipman.
“How goes the battle, sir?” the young lad asked. “No one can tell us anything.”
“The French are suing for terms,” Lewrie told him, grinning. “We beat the bastards, and broke every one of their battalions.”
“Huzzah, sir! Hear that, lads?” the Mid called to his oarsmen. “We’ve won the battle!”
Lewrie closed his eyes and slumped in weariness, still with a pleased smile on his face, quite enjoying the rock, pitch, and thrust of the boat’s motion as it was stroked out into the bay.
Once aboard, I think I’ll have me a sponge-off, and a good, long nap, he promised himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Phoebe frigate came into the bay the day after the battle, and a great military show it was to form a grand parade to welcome Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Dalrymple to his new post as Commander-In-Chief of British forces in Portugual. Lewrie watched it from a comfortable sling-chair on Sapphire’s poop deck, sheltered from the heat under a canvas awning that spanned the length and breadth of that deck.
He thought it odd, even so, that the army had returned to its encampments, with only a few regiments still posted to keep an eye on the French. Those officers he had overheard as they had awaited the arrival of General Kellermann and his truce party had opined that once the French were dis-armed, the army would march on Torres Vedras, nearer to the prize, Lisbon, for there were very good defensive positions to be had there and that they should strike while the iron was hot.
That was up to General Burrard, Lewrie supposed, and none of a sailor’s business, but he thought it silly to spruce up and march to band music just to make a show for Sir Hew. Frankly, he, and all his crew were growing tired of idling at anchor off the mouth of the Maceira, watching boats working by day and night to ferry off wounded soldiers to ships that would bear them back to England and proper hospitals. Shouldn’t they be going somewhere?
* * *
It was a couple of days later before orders turned up to sail, and they came mid-morning during cutlass drill.
“Boat ahoy!” Midshipman Ward shouted overside at an approaching rowboat, using a brass speaking-trumpet to augment his thin shrill.
“Despatches for your Captain!” came the reply, and a side-party was hastily assembled. Lewrie broke off his own sword practise with Marine Lieutenant Roe and went to the bulwarks in his shirtsleeves.
“Oh, Goddamn,” he groaned, “it’s that damned fool, Hughes.”
“It seems he’s rejoined Sir Hew’s staff, sir,” Lt. Roe said, making a sour face. “Better there than in command of troops, I suppose. At least he won’t stumble about and get himself captured again, on staff.”
“Well, there are proper soldiers, and then there are clerks, Mister Roe,” Lewrie quipped. “I’m sure he has all his paperwork just tiddly.”
Lewrie sheathed his hanger and trotted down to the quarterdeck to welcome Hughes aboard, loath as he was to clap “top lights” on him again. He even plastered on a grin.
“Ah, Captain Hughes! Welcome aboard,” he said in greeting as Hughes completed his climb up the battens to the deck.
“Good morning, Captain Lewrie,” Hughes purred back, in kind, “though, there was a sudden vacancy and I was able to purchase a promotion. It’s Major Hughes, now. Substantive, not brevet.”
“Congratulations, Major Hughes,” Lewrie amended. “Care for a ‘wet’ in my cabins? Cool tea, or cool wine?”
“Thank you, sir, I’d much appreciate it,” Hughes said with an harumph. “Sir Hew has need of you and your ship to bear despatches to Admiral Cotton, off Lisbon, and another set for General Drummond at Gibraltar.”
“This way, if you please, Major Hughes,” Lewrie bade, waving an arm towards the coolness of his great-cabins.
* * *
Once seated on the starboard-side settee, and with a glass of wine in his hand, Hughes gave him a quizzical look. “I heard tell that you were ashore the day of the battle, sir, potting the odd Frenchman alongside the soldiers, what?”
“Curiosity, aye, and I was,” Lewrie said agreeably. “Quite the sight to see, Frogs dyin’ in droves, and runnin’ like rabbits.”
Left unsaid was “You should have been there,” and Hughes was aware of it. He harumphed again and took a deeper sip of his wine.
“Yayss,” Hughes drawled, “young Wellesley did well, for his first encounter with the French. His victory convinced them to offer terms, with their fellow, Kellermann, speaking for Marshal Junot, of even greater import. We refer to it as the Convention of Cintra, the largest town nearby. Junot is offering to evacuate all of Portugal.”
“Well, just damn my eyes!” Lewrie exclaimed, wishing he had something stronger than his cool tea to toast that. “But, doesn’t Junot have the bulk of his hundred thousand troops still whole, and grouped round Lisbon? Why should he just give it all up?”
“Well, he’s surrounded, Captain Lewrie,” Hughes boasted. “He is blockaded by sea, bound in by the Tagus River at Lisbon, and has nowhere to go but to straggle back cross the rough mountains into Spain. Here,” he offered, handing over two thick packets of reports and letters. “There is a letter for you, a summary of the terms of the treaty, so you may answer any of Admiral Cotton’s, or General Drummond’s, questions on the broader points. Yes, it’s best that the French evacuate Lisbon, and their other enclaves, before they run out of provisions and Sir Hew’s troop positions prevent them from foraging the countryside.”
Lewrie opened his letter and scanned down the terms, quickly scowling in dis-belief.
“Mine arse on a band-box!” he barked. “Ship ’em home to France, on British ships, with all their arms, flags, and personal possessions? They’ll be on parole, won’t they? Unable to serve against us ’til exchanged for an equal number of British prisoners?”
“Ah, no,” Major Hughes carefully corrected. “That would require the existence of an hundred thousand or so British soldiers held by the French, already, and we know that ain’t so. Equally, there would be no way to enforce that rule once Junot’s army is back on French soil, so that demand was not made.”
“Good Christ, Hughes, we’ll just hand Napoleon a whole bloody army back? ‘Sorry ’bout that, just dust ’em off and they’ll be good as new, and better luck the next time’?” Lewrie fumed. “Mine arse on a band-box, has Sir Hew addled his brains? If it was up to me, the whole lot’d be stripped naked and sent back over the Pyrenees with their thumbs up their arseholes, and marchin’ on their heels and elbows!”
“Colourful,” Hughes said, only mildly amused, more simpering than laughing, reminding Lewrie over again how much he disliked the beef-to-the-heel bastard.
“Did Burrard, or Wellesley, agree t’this … idiocy?” Lewrie asked.
“The Convention is an agreement ’twixt Sir Hew and Sir Henry,” Hughes said with a sniff. “Sir Arthur is greatly out-ranked by years of seniority, and has very little say in the matter. Within a few days, General Sir John Moore is expected to arrive here with additional re-enforcements from England, and will assume overall command in the field, supplanting Wellesley, or reducing him to a divisional commander, anyway, should Sir Hew or Sir Henry deem his continued presence useful.”
“Oh, so he’s good enough t’be the first British General to beat the French since the war began,” Lewrie cynically surmised, “but he’s not the established Army’s favourite, so he has to go? Is that what you’re sayin’?”
“Well, Captain Lewrie, you surely must know that there is an odour round the entire Wellesley clan that makes them not quite … quite, shall we say?” Major Hughes said with a well-informed simper, idly waving his empty wineglass for a re-fill. “They rankle people the wrong way, and Sir Arthur’s reputation was made in India, after all, his command there sponsored by his brother, who jumped him over men of longer service. And, he is not an easy man to socialise with, being so stand-offish and severe. He may get some of that from his unfortunate choice of wife, haw haw. A very ugly woman to begin with, and one who has turned into the worst sort of religious shrew, with few social graces.
“Is it any wonder, then, that Sir Arthur pursues quim hotter than most, on the side, hmm?” Major Hughes intimated, leaning closer and winking. “He may be more circumspect in his dalliances than his brother, who has become a laughing-stock in England, but Wellesley is just as mad for a romp.”
“Good God, Hughes, who ain’t?” Lewrie laughed off. “Don’t tell me you’ve been got at by the ‘Leaping Methodists’ of a sudden!”
That rankled Hughes, reminding him of his former mistress, Maddalena Covilhā, and the fact that she was Lewrie’s mistress, now.
“A top-up, sir?” Pettus enquired, poised over Hughes’s shoulder with the wine bottle. Pettus knew all about it, and was a clever fellow. Servants, at sea or in civilian homes, usually knew everything that their masters and mistresses were doing. Pettus looked at Lewrie with a smirk on his face, unseen by Hughes, finding the subject of Maddalena, and Hughes’s sudden huffiness, amusing.
“No,” Major Hughes decided of a sudden, setting aside his wineglass and shooting to his feet. “Think I’ll return ashore. You have the despatches, and your sailing orders, sir, and I’ll not detain you.”
“Oh, must you go so soon, Major?” Lewrie asked most blandly, getting up as well to see him out. “Aye, I think I’ll sail as soon as I can get the anchors up, gladly. Sitting here too long’s turned my crew dull and eager to depart for more excitin’ things. I’ll see you to the entry-port, sir.”
They went out to the quarterdeck, where Midshipman Leverett summoned the side-party back to duty for the departure honours.
Lewrie couldn’t help it; as he shook hands with Hughes, he just had to say “Who knows, Major Hughes, I may be able to sail into Lisbon and be ‘in sight’ when the French and Russian warships there are made prize, if there’s time for it, and, it’ll be grand to get back to Gibraltar, at long last. Should I give your regards to your regimental mess?”
Hughes went slit-eyed and red in the face as he doffed his hat in parting salute, then descended the battens to his waiting boat, making Lewrie grin widely and chuckle silently.
“Pardon for asking, sir,” Geoffrey Westcott idly asked as he sauntered over, “but, did that fellow bring us sailing orders?”
“He did, Geoffrey,” Lewrie was happy to tell him. “We’ll get under way right after the hands have had their mid-day meal. We done with cutlass drill?”
“Aye, sir, and all weapons returned to the arms chests. Here are the keys,” Westcott told him, handing over the keys. “Any chance we might return to Gibraltar? The hands are eager for liberty.”
“Count on it,” Lewrie assured him, “though we won’t be bearing grand news to General Drummond. Dalrymple and Burrard have cobbled up a disastrous agreement with the French. Junot will evacuate all of Portugal, and leave it to us. It’s sort of a surrender, yet it’s not,” he went on, drawing Westcott to the chart space on the larboard side of the quarterdeck for a bit of privacy, and laying out the terms that he’d been told, giving him a thumbnail sketch.
“Are they serious?” Westcott gawped, almost beside himself in utter astonishment. “Napoleon will have that whole army re-equipped and right back into Spain in three months, maybe send them right back into Portugal to undo everything! Promise me we won’t be escorting them to France, or have anything to do with this madness.”
“First off, we’re to meet up with Cotton’s blockading fleet off Lisbon, then go on to Gibraltar,” Lewrie assured him, “as far as we can get from it, with no blame attached for bein’ the messenger.”
“Good!” Westcott determined, much relieved. “When news of this gets to London, anyone involved with this so-called … Convention, is it, will be ruined, maybe stood up against a wall and shot, like old Admiral Byng was. I was wondering why the army wasn’t marching on Lisbon straightaway.”
“Hughes told me that Marshal Junot was pretty-much trapped with no way out, and runnin’ low on supplies. Dalrymple and Burrard could march South and close the ring round him, but that’d mean a few more battles, and even with Sir John Moore and his re-enforcements coming in a few days, the old fools … how did they put it in the terms of the treaty? ‘To avoid the useless effusion of blood’? They probably thought that Wellesley’s victories were flukes, up against Marshal Junot’s less-competent fools, and it’s mortal-certain that those two wouldn’t risk their own reputations now they’re in command, and got beaten. Wait for Moore, the darling of the Army and Horse Guards, and let him take the blame.”
“‘Betty’ and ‘the Dowager,’” Westcott sneered. “My Lord! Give it a month or two, and they’ll be up before a court-martial board, mark my words, sir. Anyone associated with it will be tainted for the rest of their lives.”
“They will, won’t they?” Lewrie said, suddenly breaking out a crafty smile. “Ye know, Geoffrey, our old friend Major Hughes looked like a preenin’ peacock just now, like he’d hitched his waggon to a go-er, back on Dalrymple’s staff.”
“Thought he’d reverted to a substantive Captain?” Westcott asked, puzzled.
“Bought himself a jump in rank,” Lewrie shrugged off. “Well, he may have promoted himself, but it may be a hollow Majority if no one’ll have him after word gets out. I think I may have t’go aft and have me a good laugh over his predicament, in private, hee hee!”
“I’ll tell Keane and Roe over dinner,” Westcott said, taking joy of that picture himself. “The whole wardroom will enjoy hearing.”
“Before you do, pass word that we’ll be sailing by Two Bells of the Day Watch, and have everyone make sure that we’re ready for sea in all respects,” Lewrie cautioned, then paused, cocking his head over. “Why do I have a naggin’ feelin’ that I’m forgetting something?”
Lt. Westcott frowned, too, as if sharing his concern. “Aha, sir! What about Mister Mountjoy? We can’t leave him here.”
“Damn my eyes, you’re right,” Lewrie said, all but slapping at his forehead. “Ye know, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since I came back aboard.” He looked about to espy one of the Midshipmen of the Harbour Watch. “Mister Ward, you are to take boat and go ashore to the army encampment, find Mister Mountjoy, and fetch him back so that we can sail.”
“Ehm … Mister Mountjoy, sir?” Ward said with a gulp, turning red in the face, “I, ah … he sent a note aboard late last night and I … I was about to stand the Middle, and…” He felt himself all over, probed all his pockets, and finally produced a wadded piece of lined foolscap. “I’m sorry, sir, I quite forgot about it, being so late, I didn’t wish to wake you, and…”
Lewrie took it from him, un-wadded it, and spread it flat with his palm on the nearest bulwark cap-rail. It was written in pencil.
“Well,” Lewrie said at last, frowning deeply. “It appears that Mountjoy’s left for Gibraltar, already, aboard one of the transports carrying wounded soldiers to the Navy Hospital. Wanted to carry news of the victory quickest, damn him.”
It actually read;
Spies unwelcome, bad food and worse drink, flearidden straw pallet, and barred from negotiations by the “proper” sorts. Gibraltar and Seville must be told at once. See you at the Ten Tuns Tavern, Mountjoy
“Well, that’s a relief,” Lt. Westcott said.
“Mister Ward, though,” Lewrie growled, rounding on the lad. “You’ve been badly remiss, you’ve denied me what amounts to official communication. You know that I should have been roused, or the note sent to my cabins, at once … don’t you, young sir?”
“Sorry, sir,” Ward said, shuddering. It was rare that the Captain lost his temper.
“Mister Terrell?” Lewrie bellowed in his best quarterdeck voice. “Pass word for the Bosun! Mister Westcott, when the Bosun turns up, he is to give Mister Ward a dozen of his best.”
“I will see to it, sir,” Lt. Westcott replied.
Lewrie went aft to his cabins, and only heard the whacks as Midshipman Ward was bent over the breech of a gun and “kissed the gunner’s daughter.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
It really wasn’t all that far from Maceira Bay to Lisbon and the Tagus River, and even the usually plodding HMS Sapphire fetched sight of Admiral Sir Charles Cotton’s blockading ships just after dawn of the next day. Sapphire made her identification number to the flag, then hoisted Have Despatches, quickly answered by the flagship’s demand of Captain Repair On Board, and Lewrie was off in the 25-foot cutter as soon as his ship could come within rowing distance, with his boat crew in their Sunday Divisions best.
“Welcome aboard, sir,” the flagship’s Captain said once Lewrie had attained the deck of the towering Second Rate. “The Admiral is aft in his cabins. If you will come this way? Ehm … we’ve heard some rumours that a surrender has been arranged?” he hinted, as eager as anyone for news from shore.
“I shouldn’t tell tales out of school, sir,” Lewrie demurred, “but aye, there has been. I fear I must leave it to Sir Charles to impart the details, once he’s read it over. Let’s just say that the French will evacuate the whole country, and leave it at that, if you don’t mind waiting a bit more.”
“Hmpfh, well … here you go, sir,” that officer said, irked a bit that Lewrie was not more forthcoming.
He was ushered into the Admiral’s great-cabins, a richly and grandly furnished suite twice the size of his own. Sir Charles Cotton rose from behind his day-cabin desk and came forward to welcome him, a fellow of a most substantial build suitable to his age and rank.
“Despatches, is it, Captain … Lewrie, is it?” Cotton boomed. “Think I’ve heard your name somewhere before. Sit, sir, and will you have tea or coffee?”
“Tea, sir, if you don’t mind,” Lewrie responded, finding a chair in front of the large desk. He looped his canvas bag off before he did so, opened it, and handed over the slim packet inside. “Sir Hew Dalrymple has finalised the terms of the French surrender, sir, and this is your copy of the, ah … Convention of Cintra.”
“That what they’re calling it?” Cotton said, eagerly taking it and ripping it open to read it.
“So I was told, sir,” Lewrie replied. “The largest town near Vimeiro, or something.”
“No, it’s nearer Lisbon, and the coast, where the negotiations have been held,” Cotton countered, with most of his attention drawn to the despatches.
Hughes needs to swot up on his geography, then, Lewrie thought.
“What in the bloody, pluperfect Hell?” Cotton exploded. “My God, what a travesty! Send them back to France, with all their arms and personal…? What a damn-fool joke!” Cotton spluttered. He went red in the face as he flipped through the several pages, then slammed it atop his desk as if touching it was dangerous.
“I was given a separate summary of the agreement, sir, should you have any questions about the broader strokes,” Lewrie offered.
“Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, hah!” Cotton fumed. “Didn’t think him capable, but Wellesley at least beat the French right proper, and he deserved better than this, England deserves better than this rot. Dalrymple must be going senile, and Burrard, that puff pastry…! Don’t tell me that Wellesley signed this willingly.”
“I was given to understand that he had very little say in it, sir,” Lewrie told him, “and I don’t know, but suspect, that the other gentlemen used their seniority to press him to it.”
Lewrie got his tea from a cabin-servant, a cup and saucer in an intricate and delicate Meissen china pattern, with a sterling silver spoon to stir with, and a tray bearing fresh-cut lemons and a sugar bowl was presented him.
“This will be the utter ruin of them all,” Cotton predicted. “Even Wellesley’s family can’t save him from it, this time. I wish I’d been ashore to see it, though, and how anyone beat the French.”
“I was, sir,” Lewrie said with a grin. “It was all quite cleverly managed. He placed his troops along a long, two-mile ridge, and hid the bulk of his men on the back slope, only summoning them up at the moment the French columns got in musket-shot. Two or three thousand muskets firing down on the front and flanks of the columns just melted them away in a twinkling, and then they followed that up with bayonet charges, for the most part, sending the French stampeding back in complete dis-order. It started round nine in the morning, and it was done by noon, or thereabouts.”
“You went ashore?” Cotton marvelled, squinting.
“I wanted to see it, one way or another, sir,” Lewrie said. “The slopes were carpetted with French dead, and thirteen pieces of artillery were captured. It was … grand!”
“Hmm, well,” Cotton said, referring to that damnable treaty once more. “I don’t see any mention as to the disposition of the French warships, or the Russian squadron, at Lisbon. What were you told of them, Captain Lewrie?”
“Nothing, sir,” Lewrie told him. “I don’t believe that they were even considered, but that’s the Army for you. Perhaps Sir Hew Dalrymple might’ve imagined that the French ships would escort their army back to France, but that would be ridiculous.”
“Damn what Dalrymple imagined, or wants!” Cotton said, slamming a fist on his desk hard enough to make his pens jump. “I have long planned to find a way to bring them to action, or make prize of them, and by God, I will! As for Admiral Senyavin’s Russian squadron, well … Russia isn’t an out-right belligerent, yet, and Napoleon and the Tsar had it out last year at the Battle of Friedland, so it isn’t clear if they and the French are allies, either. The Russians might not make Good Prize, but I could force them to intern themselves back in England ’til London tells me different.”
“Aye, sir,” Lewrie agreed. “No sense in allowin’ them to roam free if they are, or will become, French allies.”
“Does your summary say anything about what constitutes ‘personal possessions,’ Captain Lewrie?” Cotton asked, squinting at the documents more closely. “And, what the Devil does it mean, that ‘the export of specie will be permitted’?”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it, sir,” Lewrie had to admit, “but it sounds very much like a license to steal. Damned Frogs.”
“I’ve a few sources of information from Lisbon, you know,” the Admiral slyly boasted. “That Foreign Office fellow at Gibraltar…”
“Mister Thomas Mountjoy, sir?” Lewrie prompted.
“Aye, that’s the one,” Cotton said. “He recently managed to get one of his skulking types into Lisbon, overland from Ayamonte on the Spanish border, who sent me a note by one of my regular fisherman informants … signs himself Aranha, which means ‘Spider.’ He said that the French brought portable mints with them when they invaded. Made no sense at the time, but … that would be a sly way to melt down all their loot from cathedrals, churches, monasteries, and wealthy homes, and turn silver and gold to French coins. Just one more way that the Dowager’s been gulled. This agent’s latest says that Junot is hiring five neutral Danish ships to carry his own personal ‘baggage’! They fully intend to make off with the spoils of their conquest in spite of this damned treaty! Simply appalling!”
“Ehm, this Spider chap,” Lewrie asked, sure that he knew the agent’s identity. “Are his messages … does he sound a tad insane?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” the Admiral confirmed for him.
“Know him,” Lewrie said with a shake of his head. “Well, met him once. He was in Madrid, before the Spanish revolted, and helped it along. He’s daft as bats.”
Romney bloody Marsh! Lewrie thought; How’s he still alive?
“But, incredibly brave and clever,” Admiral Cotton said with a firm nod of praise.
“Anything else you wish to know, sir?” Lewrie asked, finishing his cup of tea. “If not, I must be off to Gibraltar, to deliver General Drummond his copy of the treaty.”
“Good!” Sir Charles Cotton boomed. “I now recall where I’ve heard your name before, Captain Lewrie. The newspapers, and the Naval Chronicle. Quite the dashing and active frigate captain, and more fortunate than most when it comes to prize-money. Not to be uncharitable, but, those French ships are mine, and my squadron’s. We’ve all been banking on them, and I trust you would not wish to dilute the pot and deprive an older man his long-denied due, hah!”
“God no, sir!” Lewrie said with a laugh. “You’re more than welcome to the spoils, tempting though it is to see the French humbled, and tour Lisbon, at last.”
“So you will be off at once,” Admiral Cotton sort-of-asked, one brow up in worry that he might linger, after all, for a few hundred pounds of profit, with a deep scowl to warn him that he shouldn’t.
“Can’t even stay long enough for a second cup of tea, sir,” Lewrie vowed as he got to his feet. “And, may I wish you great joy of your coming success at Lisbon.”
“Capital, simply capital!” Admiral Cotton barked with great satisfaction as he, too, rose to see Lewrie to the entry-port.
* * *
When HMS Sapphire coasted to a stop and dropped her anchor off the Old Mole at Gibraltar, it was evident that the grand news which Mountjoy had carried from Vimeiro was already known from one end of the town to the other. Bands were parading, and all the battlements were fluttering with Union Flags everywhere one looked. The faint sounds of drunken cheers made their way out to the ship, and some daytime fireworks were being let off in enthusiasm.
The mood was not so merry at the Convent, though, when Lewrie handed over the copy of the Convention of Cintra to Major-General James Drummond. Lewrie had had no dealings with the man so far, but that worthy struck him at once as a much more active, intelligent, and capable officer than Dalrymple.
“Hmm,” Drummond grumbled as he read it through a second time, still dis-believing. “Quite extraordinary, even astonishing. Not to criticise my predecessor, but … it appears the French wrote it and our senior officers slavishly surrended to them! Damme, we had them in the bag, then they just let them wiggle free!”
“It’s worse, sir,” Lewrie gloomily told him, repeating what he had gotten from Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, and Romney Marsh’s mystifying despatches. “Junot’s loading five ships with his own loot, and the mints have been workin’ round the clock. Napoleon may end up with as much solid coin as he got when he sold Louisiana, and gets an entire army back, with all their arms. Well, we get to keep all their artillery, about two-dozen waggons full of powder, shot, all their stores, cavalry mounts and draught animals, and over twenty thousand rounds of ammunition. Once Lisbon harbour is ours, a lot of that could be useful to the Spanish. All in all, though, Portugal ends up completely looted. The cupboard’s bare.”
“I would have made them march back to France,” Drummond said with a derisive snort, “if they had to be set free. Ideally, I would have imprisoned them all, but for the cost of feeding the bastards. Bah! How could we have settled for this?”
“I’d’ve stripped them naked and made them cross the Pyrenees with their thumbs up their arses, on their heels and elbows, sir,” Lewrie said, repeating his jape to Major Hughes.
“That might have gone a bit beyond the recognised rules of war, Captain Lewrie,” General Drummond replied, though the comment awoke a wry grin on his phyz. “You’ve shared this with the Foreign Office agent, yet?”
“Not yet, sir,” Lewrie said. “He’s my next stop.”
“Well, I won’t keep you,” Drummond said, pacing over to his large map pinned to a board. Instead of Dalrymple’s map of Spain, Portugal, and his pet project of taking the fortress at Ceuta, the General’s was of Gibraltar and its immediate environs. He pulled a face, not yet dimissing Lewrie, though Lewrie had already risen to his feet, hat under his arm. “At least we have Wellesley’s triumph to celebrate, and that’s the main thing … that, and the ousting of the French from Portugal. This…!” Drummond said, waving the sheaf of paper about, “does not affect us here. We shall celebrate and put a good face on it. I’m told that all the regimental messes are co-operating to stage a grand supper ball, a fête champêtre, even if Italian sparkling wines must stand in for champagne proper. Are you still in port, sir, be assured that you and your officers shall be invited.”
“Thankee kindly, sir, and I look forward to it,” Lewrie said, perking up. “I’ll take my leave, then. Good day, sir.”
* * *
It took Lewrie a hot, sweaty hour of walking to hunt up Thomas Mountjoy after that; Pescadore’s, Mountjoy’s lodgings, the fraudulent offices of his Falmouth Import & Export Company in the lower town, and the Ten Tuns Tavern. He finally bearded him in his den at his upper-town lodgings, having missed him somehow in transit.
“Ah, Lewrie, back at last, are you?” Mountjoy said jovially as he sat out on his awninged gallery overlooking the harbour, and at his ease following a fine mid-day meal. “You look hot. A cool wine?”
“Yes, thankee,” Lewrie said, sitting down on an upholstered iron chair and fanning himself with his hat. “I thought you’d use me as your private yacht to get back here.”
“News of our success just had to be gotten to General Drummond, and the Spanish Junta at Seville. Sorry ’bout that,” Mountjoy said.
“You really should have hung around a tad longer,” Lewrie chid him as Mr. Daniel Deacon came outside with a freshly-opened bottle of sprightly floral Spanish wine and an extra glass. “Hallo, Deacon, and how d’ye keep?”
“Main-well, sir,” Deacon said, pouring all round.
“Celebrating still?” Lewrie asked. “A bit premature, that. As I said, you really should have stayed long enough to hear the details of the terms that Dalrymple, Burrard, and the French thrashed out.”
“Mmm, well … what are they?” Mountjoy had to ask, and Lewrie took joy of being the source of information that the spy-master did not know; it was rare that that shoe was on his foot.
