“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.”