I don’t play favourites, Lewrie told himself; But I can take a hellish ‘down’ on the likes o’ you! What a beef-to-the-heel buffoon!

Lewrie flung himself into his collapsible canvas deck chair, a frown on his face, and a sour taste in his mouth. Bisquit nudged him with his muzzle, whining for fresh attention, and Lewrie petted and stroked him ’til he sat on his haunches and laid his chest and legs in Lewrie’s lap, making wee, happy whines as he laid his head down, too.

“Now who said you could get that familiar, hey, dog?” Lewrie muttered, ruffling Bisquit’s head, ears, and neck fur, which brought forth a tongue-lolling grin to the dog’s face.

Insley played cater-cousin to Hillhouse, did he? Lewrie thought; To Lieutenant Harcourt, too? How many others, I wonder? No wonder he feels cheated. Good God, though, a man grown, twenty-five years or so, and still can’t stand before a promotion board?

Lewrie sincerely hoped that the coming sunset would be a spectatular one, if only to make up for the upset that Hillhouse had engendered!

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The next month at sea entire was spent close along the coast of Andalusia, chasing after anything that dared put out. Sapphire sailed as far East as the approaches to Cartagena, delving into the seas off Murcia. Standing in within three miles or less of major ports, some tempting three-masted ships could be seen that could have served as their transport, but they were all well-guarded by massive shore fortresses and heavy coastal artillery. Equally tempting was the chance that a well-armed cutting-out party might steal into harbour and take one by force, and sail her out in the dead of night, but, whenever they showed up, guard boats full of soldiers appeared, scuttling like cockroaches cross the mouths of those harbours, and close round the ships.

Lewrie could at least take a little comfort from the fact that those ships sat cringing at anchor, unable to carry on any trade, for fear of his ship’s presence. And, in performance of the brief that Thomas Mountjoy had given him, to raise chaos and mayhem, he could also feel some satisfaction that he had terrified the Spanish by going after anything that floated, from coasting trader to fishing boats.

None were suitable to qualify as Good Prize, but they could make grand warning pyres, once overawed and forced to surrender, then taken in close to the coast by temporary prize crews, their masters and sailors freed to make their way ashore in their own boats, then set afire, by day or night. Admittedly, Sapphire pursued more than she caught, and many Spaniards out-ran them, but at least they ran into port to carry the tale of a merciless Inglese warship prowling for prey, which they only escaped by the skin of their teeth, by God’s Mercy. One of their last captures, an old lateen-rigged merchantman that they ran down off Almeria, carried a crew that wailed in terror that el diablo negro, “the black devil”, had caught them!

And Lewrie’s cook, Yeovill, had finally discovered the right amount of water and cous cous to boil up for an edible dish!

*   *   *

HMS Sapphire stood in towards shore yet another morning, just before dawn. The lower decks had been swept, the upper decks sluiced with water and holystoned, and the wash-deck pumps had been stowed as the hands were released for breakfast. The weather had turned rough, the last two days, with strong winds and high seas that had churned and foamed greenish-white, so it was with a sense of relief that the morning presented light winds and long-set rollers not over five or six feet high.

“Near due West, and we’ll make landfall a bit West of Estepona, sir,” Sailing Master Yelland estimated, bent over the chart, working a pair of brass dividers over it. “About … six miles offshore?”

“At least ’til Noon Sights, Mister Yelland, and then we’ll alter course to Sou’west, or thereabouts,” Lewrie agreed, “and make our way toward the Straits, and into port.”

He stifled a yawn, for he’d slept badly as the rough weather had eased, snatching less than an hour between urges to go on deck to respond to the now-and-then lurches, rolls, and louder groans from the hull. He’d only had time for one cup of coffee, too.

“Sail ho!” came an electrifying shout from the mastheads.

“Another fire, huzzah!” said some sailor on the larboard sail-tending gangway forward of the quarterdeck and the chart room laughed aloud.

Lewrie excused himself to go to his great-cabins and fetch his telescope, then trotted up to the starboard side of the poop deck for a look-see.

“One point ahead o’ th’ starb’d bows, hull-down!” a lookout on the foremast cross-trees shouted down. “Nigh bows-on!”

“Bound for Estepona?” Lewrie heard Lt. Harcourt speculate on the quarterdeck below him.

“She won’t live long enough to make it, sir,” Midshipman Leverett boasted. “We’ll cut her off, if she doesn’t go about and run.”

Lewrie’s telescope revealed what appeared to be a two-master under gaff-hung lugs’ls and a large jib, all winged out to starboard to cup the dawn’s shore breeze. He looked aloft past the brailed-up main course to the commissioning pendant and how it streamed, judging the direction of the wind, and thinking that if Sapphire came about to Nor’west by West, he could block the two-master’s course for the obvious refuge of Estepona, drive her closer inshore, or force her to go about and attempt to run away to the West, where the only safe haven might be the mouth of a minor river.

Sapphire was slowly bowling along under tops’ls, fore course, spanker, foretopmast stays’l and inner and outer flying jibs, making an easy six or seven knots.

“Mister Harcourt,” Lewrie called down to the quarterdeck. “I will have the main course spread.”

“Aye, sir!” Harcourt crisply replied, lifting a brass speaking trumpet to call for topmen to go aloft to cast off brails, and for halliards and clews to be manned.

Yelland said true dawn’d be ten minutes past six, Lewrie told himself, pulling out his pocket watch. He looked aft into the East, just in time for false dawn to depart, and see the first golden blush of sunrise, which painted the horizon and clouds with deep crimson; “Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning”. There would be more dirty weather to come, and he hoped that they captured the stranger in good time, so he could get his ship out into deeper waters before the new bout of foul weather caught up with them.

“Hull-up, there! Deck, there, th’ sail’s hull-up, and bows-on, still one point off th’ starb’d bows!” the foremast lookout cried.

Not tryin’ t’get away? Lewrie thought, finding that puzzling. If her master had any sense, and there was a single pair of eyes over there, she would have hauled her wind long since.

“Damned if I don’t think she is making straight for us, sir!” Lt. Harcourt called up to Lewrie from his post below, looking eager, but perplexed. “Shall we alter course, sir?”

“No, stand on as we are, Mister Harcourt,” Lewrie decided. “If she’s that blind, I’ll oblige the fool.” He closed the tubes of his telescope and descended the starboard ladderway. “I’ll be aft. Keep me informed, while I have some more coffee, and a bit of breakfast.”

“Aye, sir.”

Once in the great-cabin’s dining-coach, Pettus poured him a fresh cup of coffee. There was a plain white china creampot filled with a few fresh squirts from the nanny goat up forward in the manger, and Pettus had shaved off some sugar from the cone kept in Lewrie’s locking caddy. Yeovill swept in with his food barge even as Lewrie took his first sip, apologising for the sparseness of breakfast, seeing that it was a Banyan Day and all, but he did set out a steaming bowl of oatmeal with a plop of stale butter and treacle, and a boiled egg on the side.