“In your plan sent to me, Mister Mountjoy, you stated that Sir Alan has a great deal of experience with, what did you call them … amphibious raids and landings?” Dalrymple said, lifting a page from Mountjoy’s proposal to squint over it. “Boat work, in other words, or word, rather? Am-phib-ious?” He worked his mouth over that.

“Buenos Aires and Cape Town last year, sir,” Lewrie boasted. “The Bahamas and Spanish Florida the year before, experiments in the Channel with various torpedo devices in 1804, and landings on the Spratly Islands and the Spanish Philippines in the ’80s ’tween the wars and…”

“Escaping Yorktown after the surrender, too, sir,” Mountjoy added for him. “Two or three ships’ boats got out to sea for rescue, or so I heard. Captain Lewrie’s work in the Far East against native pirates, sponsored by the French, was his first exposure to Secret Branch.”

“Never had to cut a throat, or stab anyone in the back, sir,” Lewrie could not help japing.

I leave all that to Zachariah Twigg, Jemmy Peel, and Mountjoy, he qualified to himself.

“But, just where did you two envision making your raids?” Sir Hew asked, still un-convinced.

“From beyond Tarifa in the West, to near Cádiz, sir,” Mountjoy assured him, “and to the East, from Málaga right to the French border.”

“Hmm … enterprising, I must say,” Dalrymple commented.

“So long a stretch that the Spanish cannot concentrate to defend against us,” Mountjoy schemed on, “and our choices so varied all along the coasts that our movements would be unpredictable.”

“Like the Vikings, or the Barbary Corsairs, sir,” Lewrie said.

“Minus the rape and pillage, of course,” Mountjoy corrected.

Sir Hew Dalrymple took a long moment to think that over, pulling at his earlobes, tugging his nose, before speaking, and that hesitantly, at last. “Hmm, does the defensive situation admit of the release of two or three companies, on a temporary basis, mind, to add some heft to your raids … now and then … then I may be able to spare you a few troops, if you are able to obtain a suitable transport for them. Just as I cannot countermand your orders, Sir Alan, and dragoon you to become a guardian for the bay approaches, I cannot order any vessel under the Transport Board’s hire to serve under your orders. If such is the case, I cannot imagine how you and Mister Mountjoy can gather all the needed elements, but … I wish you good fortune in the doing, and if you manage to put all the pieces together, then I may be able to aid you. I make no firm promises, but…?”

He spread his hands wide and shrugged, then stood, signalling that their conference was at an end, and Lewrie and Mountjoy had to be satisfied that he hadn’t given them an outright refusal.

*   *   *

“He didn’t say no,” Mountjoy said with a sigh.

“He didn’t clap us on the back and cry ‘sic ’em’, either. Not a good way to begin,” Lewrie groused as they made their way back down to the town. “At least his sherry was tasty.”

“It was Spanish,” Mountjoy told him. “Andalusia’s famous for it, and rivals Portugal … when they feel like trading with us.”

“Now there’s incentive for successful raids,” Lewrie laughed. “Haul off lashings of the stuff … if I can keep my sailors and Marines from drinkin’ it up, first.”

“You’ll see Captain Middleton, next, I suppose?” Mr. Mountjoy asked, taking off his wide-brimmed straw summer hat to fan himself, for the sun was fierce, and there was scant wind from off the bay.

“Thought I would, aye,” Lewrie told him.

“When Admiral Nelson had the Mediterranean Fleet, he came with a dozen extra shipwrights to improve the dockyard,” Mountjoy told him. “They were to build gunboats for the bay defence then, too, but nothing came of it. Shortage of funds, God knows why. Most of them survived the outbreak of Gibraltar Fever in 1804.”

“I never heard that it was un-healthy here,” Lewrie said.

“Only every now and then,” Mountjoy assured him, “though when it does break out, it’s as bad as the West Indies. Civilians who can do so leave town and camp out in tents on the eastern side of the Rock, high above the pestilential miasmas, where there are cooling winds. I have been told that by the time the fevers ebbed three years ago, the garrison was cut in half. Thank God it appears to affect the Spaniards, too, else they could have put together an army and marched right through the Landport Gate!”

“Well, in any case, once I’ve seen Captain Middleton, I’m off to sea t’get your boat,” Lewrie stated, “and our transport, too, is God just. Two-masted, about fourty or fifty feet overall?”

“That would do quite nicely, though even after all my time with you aboard Jester, I still know little of ships and the sea,” Mountjoy confessed. “A fishing boat, no matter how badly it reeks?”

“Perhaps a coastal trader, with a partial cargo of grain, and an host of rats?” Lewrie teased.

“No matter,” Mountjoy said with a wee smile, “for I’ll not be aboard her. No reason to be.”

“You’ll just sit in your cool offices, or on your shaded gallery, peekin’ through your telescope and playin’ the sly spy-master, instead,” Lewrie teased again. “By God, but His Majesty’s Government must be told how they’re wastin’ their money on idleness.”

“My dear fellow, but are you sounding envious?” Mountjoy japed.

“You’re Goddamned right I am!” Lewrie barked.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“The tea tastes diff’rent,” Lewrie commented after a sip or two. He held his glass up to the light of a swaying overhead lanthorn with a squinty expression. “Fruitier?”

“Ehm, that’d be a dram or two of orange juice that Yeovill put in it this morning, sir,” Pettus told him. “There’s a whole sack laid by in your lazarette, along with lemons and bunches of grapes, and a few pomegranates, though he isn’t sure what to do with those, as yet. There are all sorts of melons, too, The Mohammedans in Morocco don’t make wine with their grapes, but they sure grow a lot of fruits and such. Do you like it, sir?”

“Aye, right tasty,” Lewrie agreed, recalling how he’d relished cool tea with peach or strawberry juice offered him by their British Consul in Charleston, South Carolina, a few years back.

“Mister Snelling had the Purser buy up barrels of lemons, too,” Pettus went on as he bustled about the dining-coach. “Even if Mister Cadrick can’t sell them to the hands and turn a profit. For the good of the crew’s health, Mister Snelling said, for their anti-scorbutic properties.”

“Anti-scarrin’?” Jessop muttered.

“Prevents scurvy, Jessop,” Pettus explained, “like wine, sauerkraut, or apples.”

“Had a lemon, once,” Jessop said. “I’d rather have an apple.”

Jessop had the loose sleeves of his shirt rolled to the elbows, proud to sport his first tattoo on his left forearm. It was a fouled anchor.

Christ, which came first? Lewrie asked himself; The whores, the rum, or that? And which of his guardians lost track of him long enough t’let him have it done? I think I’ll haveta have a word with Desmond and Furfy.

He finished his tea with an appreciative smack of his lips and a dab with his napkin, then announced that he would go on deck for a stroll.

It was a beautiful mid-morning, with thin streaks of clouds overhead, a glittering blue sea dappled here and there with white caps and fleeting cat’s paws. HMS Sapphire trundled along on a fine tops’l breeze, her motion gentle and swaying slowly from beam to beam only a few degrees, and pitching and dipping her bows as she encountered the long-set rollers.

“Good morning, sir,” Lt. Elmes said with a doff of his hat as Lewrie emerged onto the quarterdeck.

“Good morning to you, sir,” Lewrie replied, tapping the front of his own hat in return. “Good t’be back at sea?”

“Aye, sir,” Elmes gladly agreed. “Though I doubt that our men would agree. One whole day of shore liberty has only piqued their interest.”