Текст книги "Kings and Emperors"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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CHAPTER FIVE
HMS Sapphire ghosted her way to Parsley Island just after dawn the next morning under tops’ls and jibs, with leadsmen in the foremast chain platforms sounding for the shallows. The only charts available were copies of very old Spanish charts—make that ancient Spanish charts—borrowed from the dockyard superintendent. Certainly, no Arabic seamen had made surveys or soundings in the time when the Moors held Spain, Portugal, or North Africa, and made their corsair voyages on “fishermen’s lore.” To make sure that the ship did not strike some submerged rock or shoal, one of the twenty-five-foot cutters led Sapphire by several hundred yards, under a lugsail, with two leadsmen in her bows, as well, and armed with a swivel gun to be fired should they run into any measure less than five fathoms. So far all was well.
“We’re really looking for parsley, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked between yawns. “It looks a damned dry place, to me.”
“I did a little fiddling over the charts last night,” Lewrie told him, “and it appears that this little island might not be visible from Ceuta … straight-line ruler, bulge of the mountains ’twixt here and there? But, still close enough to Ceuta to be able to take any approaching Spanish or French ship under fire, if there’s any way t’mount guns ashore.”
“If there’s any way to get guns ashore, sir,” Westcott countered. “It looks damned steep.”
The island was not all that big, really, and it put Lewrie in mind of a half-sunk scone, with bald rock cliffs all across the side that they were approaching. Atop of its ragged, erose surface there were hints of desert-like scrub and sere grass, but there didn’t seem a way up to the top. Africa, North Africa, he thought; who’d want it?
“Eight fathom! Eight fathom t’this line!” a leadsman wailed.
Sapphire drew nigh twenty feet right aft, slightly less at the bows, so he considered the going safe for a time more, but the best bower anchor was ready to be let go should the men in the chains call out five fathoms, crewmen stood by to seize upon the sheets and braces, and a pair of experienced helmsmen were prepared to put the ship about into the wind in a twinkling.
“The cutter is showing numeral flag Six, sir!” Midshipman Griffin shouted aft from the forecastle.
“We’re about half a mile off the island now, sir,” the Sailing Master, Mister Yelland, reported, after a quick peek with his sextant and some figuring on a chalk slate.
“Seven fathom! Seven fathom t’this line!” a leadsman called.
“Put the ship about, Mister Westcott, and prepare to let go the best bower,” Lewrie decided.
“Aye, sir. Hard down your helm, there! Topmen, trice up and lay out to take in sail!” Lt. Westcott ordered in his best quarterdeck shout. “Ready brace-tenders to back the fore tops’l!”
Sapphire slowly wheeled about to turn up into the wind, barely making four knots in the beginning, and starting to sag slower as the rudder was put over at such a great angle. The jibs began to flutter as the wind came right down the boom and bowsprit, the fore tops’l pressed back against the foremast, and the ship almost came to rest.
“Let go the bower!” Lewrie ordered, and the large larboard anchor dropped free from the cat-heads to splash into the sea, and the thigh-thick cable rumbled and roared out the hawsehole. Sapphire drifted shoreward for a time, ’til the anchor hit bottom and a five-to-one scope had paid out. Then she snubbed, groaned, and was still.
“We’ll take the second cutter and the launch,” Lewrie told his assembled officers. “Mister Roe, ten Marines into the launch, and I’ll take the cutter.” Lieutenants Westcott, Harcourt, and Elmes all peered at him, evidently disappointed. “What? D’ye think you’re to have all the fun? Pass word to my steward that I’ll need my brace of pistols, my Ferguson rifled musket, and all accoutrements. Crawley and his old boat crew to man the launch, and my boat crew to man the cutter. And Mister Fywell…”
“Sir?” the lad piped up.
“Go fetch your drawing materials and join me in the cutter,” Lewrie ordered. “We may have need of some more sketches.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Fywell said with a face-splitting grin before doffing his hat and dashing off below to the orlop cockpit.
“Permission to go ashore, sir?” Lewrie’s cook, Yeovill, asked from the foot of the ladder in the ship’s waist. He held up a woven basket. “If there is parsley growing there, I could pick some, or a batch of wild bird eggs.”
“Permission granted,” Lewrie said with a nod.
“It looks deserted, sir,” Marine Lieutenant Roe commented. “Do you think the Spanish might have troops there, anyway?”
“We saw no campfires, no lanthorns or glims during the night, so I rather doubt it,” Lewrie told him, shrugging. “We might run into a Robinson Crusoe, or some Arab fishermen, but—”
“The boats are coming alongside, sir,” Lt. Westcott announced. “Bring me back a mermaid.”
“Right up to an Arabic country, I’d have thought you’d ask for a hareem, or a genie in a bottle,” Lewrie teased, for Westcott was a fellow madder for quim than any he’d ever seen.
“Oh, one or two jewels from some sultan’s hareem would suit me just as well,” Westcott allowed, pulling a face.
* * *
“Reminds me of Malta, sir,” Marine Lieutenant Roe commented as the cutter was slowly stroked towards the shore of Perejil Island, “a vertical rock wall everywhere you look but for Valletta Harbour.”
“You’ve been there, sir?” Lewrie asked, wondering how a young Roe could have served in the Med before, aboard another warship.
“Oh no, sir,” Roe said with a chuckle, “but my uncle has been, and he had an illustrated book about the Turk siege of 1565. That’s how I formed my view of it. A rather fanciful book.”
“Can’t see that fort no more, sor,” Patrick Furfy, stroke oar and long a member of Lewrie’s small entourage, pointed out with a jut of his chin to the East. “They’s tall bluffs in th’ way.”
“No, you can’t,” Lewrie realised, taking a look for himself. “Thankee, Furfy.”
“No place t’land, sor,” Cox’n Liam Desmond said.
“Let’s go round the East end of it, then,” Lewrie decided.
Close in, within a long musket-shot of the shore, the island’s bluffs looked to be as tall as the masthead of a ship of the line and just as hard to scale. There might be hand-holds for anyone determined to climb, but sea birds of a myriad of sorts had built nests where one could put a hand or foot, and the narrow ledges would be slick with guano, making that approach almost impossible, if not suicidal.
The two boats rowed round the Eastern end of Perejil, looking for a landing place, but it was much the same there, too, but—
“Damn my eyes, will ye just look at that!” Lewrie exclaimed as he beheld a wide, sheltered bay on the South side of the island, and a jutting headland that daggered at the African mainland, a headland with a pronounced slope. A few more minutes of rowing on calmer waters took them towards the tip of the headland, and Lewrie was even more pleased to see that the headland separated one bay from another to the West, just as spacious and sheltered from strong winds.
“We’ll have to take soundings, but each one looks as if more than ten transport ships and smaller warships could anchor in each bay!” Lewrie crowed, clapping his hands together.
The cutter and launch steered into the second wide bay, and Lieutenant Roe raised an arm to point. “There, sir. There’s a notch in the West side of the headland, like someone took an axe to it … and I think there’s a way up.”
“Take us over to it, Desmond, and let’s see,” Lewrie said.
“There is a landing!” Midshipman Fywell exulted.
Sure enough, the split notch began at the foot of the bluffs, by a small patch of gravelly, shingly “beach” littered with rocks the size of cobblestones, and a path led up from that spot to the top of the bluff. Low wind-shaped scrub bush and stunted trees grew in that shelter, here and there.
“Mister Roe, land your Marines from the launch, first, and go scout your way to the top,” Lewrie ordered, turning on his thwart to wave the launch ahead of his own boat.
“Fix bayonets and prime your pieces!” Roe shouted over to the Marines in the launch. “We’ll be going up first, Sar’nt Clapper.”
“Roight, sir!” Sergeant Clapper acknowledged.
“Think there’s enough room for two boats, sir?” Roe asked, anxious that he not be separated from his men.
“Take us in, Desmond, soon as Crawley’s hands have boated their oars,” Lewrie ordered. “We don’t want t’snap any more of the things.”
At least Midshipman Fywell found it funny.
First the launch, then half a minute later the cutter, ground their bows on the beach, and bow men leapt out with painters to find some place to lash their lines to keep the boats ashore. Marines filed forward to the launch’s bows and jumped overside into shallow water, not up to their shins. Lieutenant Roe leapt out of the cutter, drew one of his double-barrelled pistols, and joined them, leading them up the notch.
“Leave four hands from each boat, Crawley.… Desmond, the rest follow the Marines,” Lewrie said, stumbling forward over thwarts and stowed oars to the cutter’s bow to step ashore himself.
Stealth, should any Spanish soldiers be on the island, was out of the question. Issue boots slipped and slid on rocks and hard, dry soil, and their presence stirred up several hundred sea birds to caw and mew in protest and take wing with the sound of flapping canvas.
Have to exercise more, Lewrie told himself as he scrambled up, grasping on to the thin, stunted trees and shrub branches that were so thinly rooted that they could not be trusted, head up and ears cocked for danger. The notch was wider than it had first appeared, but deeper, and steeper a climb, deep enough to cast them all into shade from the rising sun.
“Hold it up, hold it up,” Sgt. Clapper was warning in a growl of caution, waving sailors and Marines to hunker down as Lieutenant Roe knelt at the very top of the notch with a Private Marine to each side of him, and was slowly raising his head for a wary look-see.
“Come on up, lads, there’s no one here,” Roe called down the notch to the shore party. He and his brace of Marines scrambled up to the top of the island and stood, looking round.
“Un-inhabited?” Lewrie asked Roe once he was up.
“Well, sir, there’s a rock circle where someone camped out not a stone’s throw from the top of the notch, some broken crockery, and a cast-off blanket,” Roe told him. “If anyone lit a cookfire, it’s been ages since.”
“Wild bird eggs, hmm,” Yeovill mused, looking about. “A dozen might make a regular-sized omelet. Tiny. But, there’s nests everywhere you look.”
“An’ bird shite,” Furfy said with a snort.
“Let’s spread out and look around,” Lewrie ordered. “If you run into anything interesting, give a shout. If we must run back to the boats, Mister Roe will blow on his whistle.”
“That notch, sir,” Lt. Roe said, pointing downward. “If that’s the only way to get up here, fifty Marines could defend it against hundreds. Fifty men, with a pair of swivel guns, or boat guns?”
“Desmond, you and Furfy scout the top of the bluffs Westward, to the tip of the island, to see if there’s another way up,” Lewrie told them. “And, if you find a source of water, that’d be welcome.”
“Aye, sor,” Desmond said, knuckling his brow in salute. “Come on, Pat. We’ll work some of our fat off.”
Lewrie walked off North, making a bee-line for his ship, which was anchored off and in plain sight from anywhere on the island. He discovered that the roughly flat surface of Perejil was not so flat as it had first appeared. There were rocky outcroppings here and there, and some depressions in which rainwater might gather, where the plant life was a shade greener and healthier than the dried grasses and shrubbery, which were so wind-shaped that they put him in mind of the miniature trees or stylised representations of trees that he’d seen at Canton, China, long ago. There were some wildflowers here and there, wilted by a Summer of Mediterranean heat and a lack of rain, poking up among what he could only call weeds. His late wife had been the one with a green thumb, lovingly tending the back garden of their old house, and the large circular plot before it where carriages could turn around.
“Whoo!” Yeovill shouted, some hundred yards away. “Parsley!”
At least someone’s pleased, Lewrie sourly thought.
He turned about to see Midshipman Fywell sketching madly away, unsure what he’d depict first, but eager to limn it all.
Close to the North bluffs, Lewrie stopped and looked right and left, speculating on how much loose rock, some of it large slabs or boulders, there was, and how hard and dense was the soil. A sly grin arose on his face as he imagined several gun emplacements dug into the edge of the bluffs, screened with piles of rock before each for make-shift parapets. He drew his hanger and probed the ground, bringing up little mounds of gravel, sand, and dirt, and smiled some more.
“It’s a stone ship of the line,” he whispered. “Half a mile long, un-assailable, and the Dons can’t see it from Ceuta. Hah!”
He walked back towards the top of the notch, found Lt. Roe, and had him blow the recall signal. “Back to the ship, lads! Rally here!”
Desmond and Furfy were the last stragglers to return, blowing with their exertions. “They’s no other way up, sor,” Desmond said. “It’s nigh vertical bluffs right down t’th’ tip of th’ island.”
“Anybody wish t’live here, they’d best bring a water hoy, for they’s no water anywheres, sor,” Furfy added, licking his lips.
“We’ve five-gallon barricoes in both boats?” Lewrie asked, and looked at Desmond and Crawley for confirmation. “Good. As soon as we’re at the boats, we’ll all have a ‘wet.’ Careful where ye place your feet on the way down, lads, and don’t trust the hand-holds. I’d not like any broken bones or heads.”
“Ah, but a sprain, sor!” Furfy enthused. “Light duties for a week, that!”
“Take a tumble on purpose, and it’ll be bread and water with no rum for those ‘light duties,’” Lewrie warned. “Let’s be on our way. Clear the pans of your weapons before we do.”
He blew the priming powder from his own pistols, eased them off cock, and stowed them in his coat pockets.
* * *
Some of the landing party did slide and stumble on the way down, but there were no injuries beyond some scrapes and bruises. They boarded the boats and shoved off, after a break for water, and rowed back to the ship.
“No dancing girls, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked, looking disappointed when Lewrie got to the quarterdeck.
“Only dancing gulls, sorry,” Lewrie quipped. “Morrocan fisherman, or Barbary Corsairs, might put in here, but it’s un-inhabited.”
“Ah, well,” Westcott said with a large sigh.
“Mister Fywell?” Lewrie called down to the ship’s waist, where the Midshipman was sorting through his sketches.
“Aye, sir?”
“Once we have got the ship back under way, I’d admire that you bring all your drawings of the island to my cabins,” Lewrie said.
“Very good, sir!”
“Back to Gibraltar, and our damned gunboats, I suppose, sir?” Westcott asked. “So much for freedom, however short.”
“Aye,” Lewrie told him, with a grunt of displeasure at the prospect. “Hmm … you can’t see Ceuta from the quarterdeck, can you?”
“No, sir, there’s a young mountain in the way,” Westcott said.
“Masthead!” Lewrie bawled up to a lookout in the main mast cross-trees. “Can you see the fort from up there?”
“Nossir! It’s b’hind a lotta bluffs!” the lookout reported.
“Excellent!” Lewrie exclaimed. “Hands to the capstan, Mister Westcott, and let’s get under way!”
CHAPTER SIX
“These are quite good,” General Sir Hew Dalrymple said as he looked over Midshipman Fywell’s sketches in his offices at the Convent the next morning. “That many guns, though, Captain Lewrie? Damn.”
“Those mounted atop the walls, the lighter twelve-pounders and eighteen-pounders, didn’t have the range to engage us, sir, and the lightest cannon that protect the West face, where any land attack would come, couldn’t fire on us, but we think the count’s right,” Lewrie said.
“That confirms that the rumours of re-enforcement are true,” Sir Hew said with a sigh. “We must assume that the troop re-enforcements are equally true, and that Ceuta now has two more full regiments to defend it. It’s much too formidable to be attempted. It would have been a tough nut before. Now … ah well.”
“It has to be supplied, sir,” Lewrie pointed out, “and, did my ship stand off-and-on so no supplies could reach it, and the Isle of Perejil would be occupied, with some artillery emplaced, the Spanish would be cut off and starved.”
“Perejil?” Sir Hew said with a scowl, glancing over to his large map.
“This little dot here, sir,” Lewrie said, crossing to the map and tapping at it. “There’s nobody there. The Spanish named it, so they may claim it, though it’s close to the border with Morocco, so they may claim it, too, but the Dons’ve never done a thing with the place. Look at the chart we made, sir. There’s two roomy bays either side of this headland, only one steep path up this notch to the top, and plenty of rock and sand for emplacements. Fifty men could guard the landing place against hundreds. No timber or water, though.”
“Fywell?” Sir Hew said. “Peter Fywell? From Hampshire, is he?”
“Ehm, I don’t know, sir,” Lewrie replied, perplexed.
“Knew a fellow at Eton named Fywell, and this one could be his kin,” Sir Hew said, maundering. “Oh, well. Didn’t stay long, it was the Army for me, don’t you know, and I was with my regiment when I was thirteen. My dear old regiment, ah!”
“One battery, six twenty-four-pounders, could keep the Dons from fetching supplies to Ceuta from Cádiz, sir,” Lewrie strongly hinted, before the Dowager could launch into humming his favourite regimental march. “The Dons can’t see Perejil from Ceuta, so they wouldn’t know what we’re up to ’til it’s too late.”
“Hmm, what if it’s really Moroccan territory, and only named and claimed by the Spanish, unlawfully?” Sir Hew quibbled. “I have established good relations with the Sultan at Tangier, and I’d not wish to endanger them. They’re touchy enough about Spanish Ceuta.”
Why, you just have so many friends, everywhere! Lewrie thought, wondering when the Dowager would see his point, if ever.
“Captain Middleton’s yard has scads of timber, and we could establish a regular supply of rations, ammunition, and water for the garrison you put on Perejil, or Parsley, Island, sir,” Lewrie pressed on.
“Is there any parsley?” Sir Hew asked, as if it was vital.
“Very little, so late in the year, sir, and bitterer than the usual,” Lewrie replied. “I didn’t care for it as garnish.”
Hands t’yourself, and don’t pound his desk! he chid himself.
“I’d like to go back and sound the two bays, sir, determine the depth—,” Lewrie tried again.
“And so you should, Captain Lewrie, at once!” Sir Hew woke up and urged him. “I will send along an officer of the Royal Engineers to determine the suitability of the island for artillery, and siting any guns. There’s a Naval Captain available, too, a Captain Ussher, at hand with nothing to do so far. He’ll go along with you, too.”
Someone who could take charge of the damned gunboats, maybe? Lewrie thought in sudden hope; Can I cozen the man into the job?
If Perejil was garrisoned, it would be under the command of an Army officer, surely, with Royal Artillery supported by as much as a half-battalion of infantry, and no place for a sailor.
“Once I drop them off with sufficient supplies, and chart the bays, sir, ’til the island’s garrisoned, I can blockade Ceuta from re-supply from Cartagena, Algeciras, or Cádiz,” he suggested, crossing the fingers of his right hand for luck.
“Yayss,” Sir Hew slowly drawled, “that would be best.”
“Well, I shall take my leave, sir, if there’s nothing else, and await the officers of your choice to come aboard to begin their survey of the island,” Lewrie said, “if they will notify me as to how many in their party they think necessary to accompany them. I must make arrangements for their berthing.”
“I will speak to them and have them do so, Captain Lewrie,” Sir Hew promised. “By the by, sir … you deliberately trailed your colours well within Ceuta’s gun range to count their guns?”
“Aye, sir,” Lewrie told him.
“And the Spanish obliged? Good God!” Sir Hew exclaimed.
“I expect they were bored with garrison duty in such a dull place, sir,” Lewrie told him, tongue-in-cheek. “An exciting time was had by all parties, with no damage done. They’re bad shots.”
“I cannot determine whether you are intrepid, or mad, sir,” Sir Hew declared, goggling at him and shaking his head with a bit of bemusement.
“Well, the jury may still be out on that head, sir,” Lewrie replied with a laugh.
* * *
Sapphire thankfully spent much of the remaining year of 1807 at sea, after the survey of Parsley Island was completed, loitering off the fortress of Ceuta as an ever-present threat, and only departing for deeper waters as stormy Winter weather came on, always returning to just beyond maximum gun range. Thankfully, Sir Hew Dalrymple wrote to Admiralty in London, explaining what Lewrie and Sapphire were doing, and requesting a draught of officers and sailors to man the burgeoning squadron of gunboats, so someone else was stuck with that onerous chore.
There was some excitement when the renowned General Sir John Moore and an army of eight thousand men entered Gibraltar Bay on the first of December, bound from Sicily, with orders to land somewhere in Portugal and fight the French. That army spent two days in port, then sailed for Lisbon; they were back at Gibraltar by the tenth. Lisbon and Portugal were firmly in French hands, and there was a small squadron of French ships in the Tagus, and a suspect squadron of Russian warships, too. The Russians were nominally allies of France, but so far had not taken any hostile action against Great Britain; more interested observers than active participants, so far, but no one could know on which side they might fall if challenged.
Lewrie had been in port to re-provision when Moore first arrived, and had had a brief chat with the man at a supper party hosted by Sir Hew Dalrymple, and had found Sir John Moore a paragon of active soldiering. Maddalena thought him handsome, too.
Barely was Moore back, though, when orders came from Lord Castlereagh in London to leave two regiments at Gibraltar and bring all the rest home to England. There was nothing to be done for Portugal in the middle of a rough Winter, and plans would have to be re-thought for the Spring.
Bad weather also delayed the arrival of General Sir Brent Spencer and his 7,000 men who had been counted on to take Ceuta; they were still in England. Parsley Island remained un-occupied.
* * *
A little after the New Year of 1808, Sapphire was back at Gibaltar to replace some sprung top-masts and other storm damage, when Thomas Mountjoy sent him a note, inviting him to come ashore and dine. Lewrie sprang at the chance, and had a note sent ashore at once, and was at the landing stage an hour later, in a rare, driving rain.
“You look miserable, like a drowned rat,” Lewrie said as he shook hands. “What’s that, a parasol?”
“They’re calling them ‘umbrellas,’ and every gentleman at home with any sense of style, and wishes to stay somewhat dry, has one,” Mountjoy told him, not rising to teasing in his usual manner. He looked drawn, and tired. “Be a sailor, be a stoic, and we’ll see who is the drowned rat. Let’s go to the Ten Tuns Tavern, they’ve a good menu of late.”
Lewrie had to shake water from his hat, and briefly, from his uniform coat by the time they arrived and went inside, where it was much warmer, and the wind-whipped rain did not spray into the outdoor covered patio.
“Too bad that Spencer and Moore could not combine their armies, and do something in Portugal,” Mountjoy began, after ordering them a bottle of claret.
“We’ll see in the Spring,” Lewrie said with a shrug. “Better weather, better plans?”
“I’ve heard from Romney Marsh in Madrid,” Mountjoy imparted in a mutter, hinting that there were some new developments, but this time he did so without his usual twinkle of knowing something that Lewrie did not. He sounded tired. “Crown Prince Ferdinand is plotting to usurp King Carlos and arrest Godoy, for real. It ain’t a rumour anymore. That painter, Goya? He’s doing portraits of the royal court, heard whispers, and passed it on to Marsh. The Spanish people would be all for it … anyone’s better on the throne than Carlos, and they think that Ferdinand will tear up any treaties with France if he does win out, and get them out of this miserable war.”
“Napoleon’d never abide that,” Lewrie said with a sneer. “He’d be over the Spanish border in force, like he did with Portugal, to put a puppet in charge.”
“Perhaps he’s planned to do that all along,” Mountjoy said with a hint of his former slyness. “He’s gobbled up enough of Europe for an empire, already, and if he holds the Spanish throne, perhaps he thinks that gives him all of Spain’s overseas possessions, too?”
“Hah!” Lewrie scoffed. “No one in any Spanish colony pays the slightest bit of attention to Madrid, anymore. If France gobbles up Spain, most of ’em would declare independence and say to Hell with European doings. Bonaparte would take an empty purse with not one penny in it, even if the Spanish roll over and beg, which they would not. Sure t’be riots and revolution. Then you get your fondest wish … Spain comes over to our side. Are you sure you’re getting true accounts from Marsh, not just idle rumours? Don’t see how he does it.”
Romney Marsh could be considered insane, but a perfect spy; he could assume a myriad of identities and carry them off with panache. The only question was how he could juggle all his multiple personas and keep straight which one he played at any given time.
“I gather he plays an artistic priest, he draws extremely well, and can play the guitar so he can pose as an itinerant musician in taverns,” Mountjoy related. “What else he is in his spare time, I’d not hazard a guess. Napoleon is plotting to take all of Spain and her possessions. London’s sent me a letter condensing what they’ve heard from Paris.”
“That bitch!” Lewrie snarled, meaning Charité Angelette de Guilleri, the worst-named murderess ever, once a Louisiana Creole who had gone pirate to raise money for a French rebellion to take the colony and her beloved New Orleans back from Spain, then a salon celebrity in Paris, and part of the force that had hunted Lewrie and his wife to the Channel coast during the Peace of Amiens, where his Caroline was shot in the back and killed. The woman had turned British spy when Napoleon Bonaparte sold New Orleans, and Louisiana, to the United States.
“One of ‘Boney’s’ Marshals, Joachim Murat, is gathering another army cross the Pyrenees, over one hundred thousand men, with orders to pretend sweetness and light, and lie like the Devil so the Spanish don’t suspect anything ’til it’s too late. He’ll march on Cádiz, to free up the French ships blockaded there since Trafalgar, and he’ll come to Gibraltar. The treaty that Godoy signed with France proposes an alliance to take Gibraltar.”
“Any mention of Ceuta?” Lewrie asked, suddenly concerned.
“Not to do with Murat, no,” Mountjoy told him. “When Sir Hew Dalrymple wrote to the Sultan at Tangier about your proposal to take Perejil, or Parsley, or whatever it’s named, the French legation at Tangier learned of it at once, and wrote to Paris. Bonaparte was furious, I’m told. He doesn’t have the navy or the transports to use Ceuta as a base, not with our Mediterranean Fleet in the way, and fears that we’d use Perejil for a landing to take Ceuta, first. Now we occupy the little speck—”
“We haven’t yet,” Lewrie had to tell him. “We surveyed it but Sir Hew’s still making ‘nicey-nice’ with Tangier, so nothing’s been done.”
“Good Christ!” Mountjoy gasped, shaking his head in disgust. “Fine intelligence gatherer I am. Right cross the Strait, and I hadn’t a clue!”
“You wish, sirs?” a waiter asked, interrupting their covert mutterings.
“Ah … yes,” Mountjoy replied, as if coming up for air, “Oh, look! They have macaroni and cheese. And roast beef. Must be the weather, or the gloominess lately, but I’m craving something exotic for a change.”
Lewrie went for spiced kid medallions au jus atop a bed of couscous, and a vegetable medley, whatever that amounted to in Winter with all trade cross the Lines shut down by orders from Madrid.
“A basket of rolls to begin with, with herbed oil and butter, and lots of roast beef for me,” Mountjoy insisted.
“‘When mighty Roast Beef was the Englishman’s food … It ennobled our hearts and enrich-ed our blood,’” Lewrie attempted to sing.
“You sing, sir, on par with how you tootle on the penny-whistle,” Mountjoy said with a wince, and a laugh. Once the waiter was gone to place their orders, though, he leaned closer and lowered his voice to a mutter again. “London also believes that Murat will march on Madrid and oust the Bourbon dynasty, then place one of ‘Boney’s’ brothers on the Spanish throne. Bonaparte’s leaning towards Joseph, even though he’s already the King of Naples. From our source, whom you despise, we also strongly suspect that Murat dearly wants it for himself. He’s seen so many of his old comrades awarded duchies and minor kingdoms, and we gather that he feels he’s more than earned one, and it’s his due.”
“You say the Spanish people want Ferdinand, and no more truck with France,” Lewrie replied. “You ought to cheer up, Mountjoy, for if Napoleon does that, Spain has to revolt and change sides. That’s what they sent you here to accomplish, isn’t it?”
“The Spanish are proud enough to rise up,” Mountjoy said, looking glum. “But, will they, and will it amount to anything? There’s the rub.”
“Then, let’s all keep our fingers crossed,” Lewrie suggested. “And like my First Officer says they do at the Artillery School at Woolwich, it depends on holding your mouth just right, too. Christ, Mountjoy, cheer up! The prospects are good … and, the menu shows they’ve a berry duff for dessert!”
