“‘His men would follow him anywhere … if only for the entertainment’, d’ye mean?” Lewrie japed. He leaned closer to whisper his next question. “If not you, who d’ye recommend? Who can we best do without?”

“I’d send Harcourt, and hope it’s permanent, sir,” Westcott was quick to say.

“My thoughts exactly,” Lewrie said with a secretive smile, and turned to the Mids assigned to the quarterdeck. “Mister Fywell, pass word for Mister Harcourt, with my compliments.”

“Aye aye, sir,” the lad said, doffing his hat and scampering.

Lt. Westcott saw to boats to be brought up from being towed astern, and spare hands told off to man them and form part of the prize crew. Lewrie spoke with Marine Lieutenant Keane for at least twenty of Sapphire’s fifty private Marines to go aboard the prize to guard her French crew, sure to be larger than normal in expectations that she would have taken prizes of her own. Sapphire’s tall and skeletal Surgeon, Mr. Snelling, and his Surgeon’s Mates would have to go over to tend to any French dying or wounded, if the prize didn’t carry a doctor of her own, or if the casualty count was too high for that one to see to by himself.

“You sent for me, sir?” Lt. Harcourt reported, doffing his hat.

“Aye, Mister Harcourt,” Lewrie replied, “I wish you to take charge of the prize, and see her safely to Gibraltar. Best done in company with the rest of us, but, she’s sure t’have a large crew who won’t take kindly to bein’ slung into a prison hulk.”

“Very good, sir!” Lt. Harcourt agreed with his first sign of joy since Lewrie had come aboard.

“Take whom ye will,” Lewrie offered.

“I’ll have Midshipman Hillhouse, sir,” Harcourt said.

Thought ye might! Lewrie told himself; Birds of a feather!

“Former Cox’n Crawley, and a few others from his old boat crew, too, sir,” Harcourt added.

“I can’t assure you it’ll be permanent,” Lewrie cautioned, “but she’s French, so her captain’s wine stores should make up for it.”

“I’ll see to my kit, if I may, sir?” Harcourt asked, eager to be off.

“Carry on, then, sir, and the very best of good luck,” Lewrie told him in dismissal.

And oh, wouldn’t it be sweet if it was permanent! he told himself, feeling whimsical; Harcourt gone, Hillhouse, and from what I’ve heard from my lads belowdecks, Crawley and his pack are the hardest of holdouts from Captain Insley’s days, too.

He took another look towards Comus with his telescope, and it looked as if the other French corvette was showing Ralph Knolles a clean pair of heels.

“Mister Britton, make a signal to Comus,” Lewrie ordered with a sigh. “Her number, and Discontinue The Action.”

“Aye, sir,” Midshipman Britton replied, sounding as if all of his hopes were dashed.

Mine, too, lad, Lewrie thought; Still, it’s been a good day.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HMS Sapphire’s convoy skirted within twelve miles of Cape Trafalgar as they entered the Straits of Gibraltar’s approaches, keeping enemy Spain, and Europe, to their larboard side, close enough for the crews and passenger-soldiers to see and marvel over, near where the famous battle had been fought not quite two years before. The coast of Africa and the Barbary States appeared on their starboard side as they began the transit, and wary eyes were cast in that direction, for though the United States Navy had humbled the infamous corsairs from Tangier and other lairs, the sight of a British convoy ripe for the plucking might be too tempting for those bloodthirsty pirates who had terrorised European coasts, even in the English Channel, for hundreds of years.

The Straits of Gibraltar were thirty-six miles long, narrowing to only eight miles wide at its slimmest point. There was plenty of depth for even Sapphire, and, once begun, the entrance to the Mediterranean was assured, even under “bare poles”, with no sails flying. The steady Eastward-running current would carry a ship through; it would be the getting out against that current that would be an arduous and slow passage.

Lewrie ordered all ships to steer within four miles of Tarifa, and the little fortified Tarifa Island, on the North shore, almost as if taunting any Spanish gun batteries, but a safe mile beyond the range of even the biggest 42-pounder cannon. From there, the Spanish coast trended Nor’easterly, expanding the separation from shore, with all ships firmly in the grasp of the Eastward-running current, and free of the variable swirls and eddies of currents inshore.

The bucklers had been removed from the hawse holes, the thigh-thick cables fetched up from the tiers, and bent onto the best bower and second bower anchors, and to the stern kedge anchors, in preparation for coming to anchor in Gibraltar Bay, and for the unfortunate accident of Gibraltar’s dangerous wind shifts which might leave them at the current’s mercy and sweep them past Europa Point and past the anchorages, forcing them to struggle, perhaps even towing themselves with ships’ boats, onto the Rock’s Eastern shore ’til a favourable slant of wind arose that could carry them back round Europa Point and into the bay proper, off the Ole Mole or the New Mole and the ancient Tuerto Tower, or, hopefully, right off the small town itself, which would be right handy for Lewrie’s shore visits.

“Should we enter ‘Man O’ War’ fashion, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked as the heights of the Rock hove into view, and Pigeon Island appeared off their larboard bows.

“Christ, no, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie quickly objected, laughing at the suggestion. “I’m not so sure of our people’s seamanship, yet. To go in ‘all standing’ and muff it’d be a hellish embarassment … not t’mention a good way t’run aground. I’ll leave that to the flashy fellows.”

Extremely well-drilled, and sometimes lucky captains, could go in “all standing”, then reduce every stitch of sail in a twinkling and coast to a stop to drop the best bower in one smooth operation, but there was “many a slip ’tween the crouch and the leap” as the old adage said.

“There they are, Mister Snelling,” Mister Yelland, the Sailing Master, pointed out to the Ship’s Surgeon. “Gibraltar to the North, and the high headland of Ceuta to the South.”

“The Pillars of Hercules,” Mr. Snelling marvelled, “that led to Plato’s fabled kingdom of Atlantis!”

“Beyond which the ancients would not go,” Yelland reminded him.

“But, they must have, Mister Yelland,” Snelling objected, “for how else did the Atlantic ports of Spain and Portugal, Roman Iberia and Lusitania, get their goods to the rest of the Empire? And, back in those days, were there not Roman provinces round the shoulder of North Africa, like Mauretania Tingitania? Did not Roman seafarers know of the Canaries?”

“Well, perhaps it was only the Greeks who feared to go beyond the Pillars, sir,” Mr. Yelland replied, looking a bit nettled for the landlubber to know more than he did.

“Aye, Mister Yelland,” Lewrie said, hiding his amusement. “The Romans held the Greeks in low regard, in all things. Though, no seafarers in the ancient world liked t’get too far out of sight of land.”

“Did that Mister Gibbons say much of that in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, sir?” Lt. Westcott slyly enquired, taking a moment from his strict watchfulness. He knew that Lewrie had found it slow going.

“Haven’t gotten t’that chapter yet, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said with a harumph to indicate that he’d been “gotten” for fair.

“And, there is Cabreta Point, just now becoming visible past Pigeon Island, sir,” Yelland pointed out.

“Do the latest charts show Spanish batteries, there, Mister Yelland?” Lewrie asked. “I’d admire to stand into the inshore variable currents as close as we can, and shave Cabreta Point, so we don’t get swept right past the bay’s entrance.”