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.”