Lewrie lifted his telescope to look for the fall of shot, and felt like whooping aloud as one tall feather of spray heaved upwards within fifty yards of the Spaniard’s larboard quarter, and the second hit the sea short and skipped, punching a neat hole in her foresail.

“That’s more like it, sir,” Lt. Westcott said with glee as the ragged and faded Spanish flag was not simply struck, but cut clean away to flutter down into the two-master’s disturbed wake. Halliards were freed, and her gaff booms sagged, as her sails were lowered in quick surrender.

“Take in sail and fetch-to near her, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered. “Ready the boarding party. Secure from Quarters.”

*   *   *

Half an hour later, and both vessels were lying still near each other, bows cocked up to windward and slowly drifting on wind and currents. Marine Lieutenant Roe, with five private Marines, and a boarding party under Midshipman Britton, secured their prize and searched her, and her crew, for weapons, and her master’s cabin for incriminating documents.

Lewrie paced the quarterdeck and the poop deck in mounting impatience, waiting for a report. The Spaniard seemed about right for Mountjoy’s covert work; she was about fifty feet on the range of the deck, filthy-looking, outwardly ill-maintained, and utterly unremarkable if she was seen anywhere along the coasts of Andalusia, even if she sailed right into Málaga, Cartagena, or the Spanish naval port of Cádiz in broad daylight. But, if the lone accidental hit by a six-pound roundshot had caused damage below her waterline, or right on it, she might sink before she could be gotten back to Gibraltar, and the day’s work would be for nothing.

Even if we do get her back to Gibraltar, I can’t declare her as a prize, so Captain Middleton can’t get any money from the Prize-Court to make repairs, Lewrie fretted; She’s completely off the books!

“The Devil with it!” Lewrie growled, then went down to the quarterdeck. “Mister Westcott, a boat crew for the pinnace, and pass word for Bosun Terrell. I’m going over to her.”

“Aye, sir.”

He tried to appear calm and patient, but it was difficult as he stood by the larboard entry-port waiting for the pinnace to be towed up from astern, a boat crew assembled under former Cox’n Crawley, and the Bosun to be filled in.

“She ain’t much of a prize, sir,” Terrell commented, shifting his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other. “No great loss if she goes down.”

“She could be useful, even so, Mister Terrell,” Lewrie told him, mystifying the Bosun even more.

*   *   *

Lewrie did not relish small-boat work, and it was not the preservation of the dignity of his office and rank that made every embarking and departure from ship to shore, from ship to ship, a slow and careful evolution. Alan Lewrie could not swim!

When the pinnace came alongside the Spanish prize, he felt an even more stomach-chilling frisson of dread, for the boat was pitching, the Spaniard was rolling, and there were no orderly boarding battens and taut man-ropes, but only a pair of man-ropes dangling free and the mainmast shroud platform for an intermediate shelf. There wasn’t even an entry-port let into the bulwarks; he would have to crawl over!

He stood on the boat’s gunn’ls, balancing like a squirrel on a clothesline, a hand on the shoulders of a couple of sailors, ’til he felt the boat rise, saw the prize roll to starboard, and leapt for a death-grip on one of the dangling ropes, one foot scrambling against the hull for a terrifying second before getting the other onto the shroud platform. He clung to the stays, found a foothold on one of the dead-eye blocks, and could reach up to begin scaling the skinny ratlines, hoping that they were stronger and newer than they looked.

After a few cautious feet higher, he could swing in-board with a foot atop the bulwark cap-rail, then jump down to the deck, hiding a huge sense of relief.

“Ehm … welcome aboard, sir,” Marine Lieutenant Roe said.

“Mister Roe, Mister Britton,” he replied, tapping two fingers on his hat brim. “What is her condition?”

“Filthy and reeking, sir,” Roe replied, sounding chipper. “She trades out of Málaga, so far as I can make out from her papers, and is bound home … was, rather … with a general cargo of flour and un-ground grain, rice, and some sort of meal recorded as cous cous, whatever the Devil that is. She also carries cheese, sausages, wine, coffee beans, and sugar.”

“How many prisoners?” Lewrie asked, turning to his mid-twenties Midshipman Britton.

“Her captain, cook, one mate, four hands, and a couple of boys, sir,” Britton reported. “A scruffy lot.”

Lewrie looked over at the Spaniards who were huddled atop the midships cargo hatch gratings, surrounded by Roe’s Marines with their bayonets affixed to their muskets. At his glance, her captain and a couple of others began to gabble their distress at him, either begging or cursing for all that Lewrie could tell.

“If you’d be so kind, Mister Terrell, would you go below and see if our hit caused any major damage?” Lewrie bade.

“Aye, sir,” Terrell said, though sounding as if it was a fool’s errand. “You two lads, and you, Furfy, come with me to shift cargo so I can get to her planking.”

Britton and Roe told Lewrie that they had found only a few weapons aboard, some clumsy pistols, some rusted cutlasses, and personal daggers and work knives. From what Lt. Roe had been able to read so far, her ship’s papers were pretty straightforward, as were her cargo manifests that did not show anything other than innocent goods.

“Though, sir,” Lt. Roe sagely pointed out with one brow up in a smirk, “where they obtained their cargo is not mentioned, and I have not found any receipts from any sellers. Whenever I asked the master which port he’d recently left, he won’t give a straight answer, and starts wailing on how we’ve ruined him.”

“Sounds like he’s smuggling,” Lewrie determined. “Is there a working chart in his cabins, Mister Britton?”

“I’ll go look, sir,” the Midshipman said, and dashed below to a cabin right-aft, before he could be chided for being remiss. A minute later and he was back and unfolding a well-used chart.

“He sailed from Tarifa, did he?” Lewrie said. “Right past the Rock, and no one noticed!”

“In the dead of night, most likely, sir,” Britton supposed.

Patrick Furfy came up from the forward cargo hold bearing a few stiff paper tags. “Mister Terrell said t’ show ya these, sor,” Furfy announced. “They’s in English is what got his curiosity up. They was tied t’grain sacks an’ such.”

“Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie exclaimed with a laugh. “The grain’s from a Gibraltar merchant! I heard that there was some trade cross The Lines, but…! Once back in port, we can report the bastard to General Dalrymple.”

“So that makes her Good Prize, sir!” Britton gladly said.

“Uhm … no, not quite, Mister Britton,” Lewrie had to tell him, dashing the Midshipman’s hopes for a few more shillings in his pocket. Lewrie handed the chart back to Britton and took a good look around. The Spanish coast was about three miles off, by a rough estimate. The port of Fuengirola could not be much more than twelve or fifteen miles to the East. He went aft to look at the boat that was towed behind the Spaniard, which was a 20-footer fitted with a single mast and gaff boom stowed fore-and-aft along her thwarts. It floated, and did not look as if it was too leaky.

“Ya saw those tags, sir,” Bosun Terrell said, coming back on deck and wiping his hands on his slop-trousers. “There’s Devil’s work in her. She won’t sink anytime soon, sir. The ball struck above the waterline, about three foot above, and there’s stove-in scantlings we can replace, if ya really mean to keep her, that is.” He still wore a skeptical look. “I thought we’d all be eaten by her rats.”