“All we can do is ask,” Lewrie said, wondering if their bright ideas might come to nothing. “See what he has in mind, get an inkling of what he’s been told by London that he hasn’t seen fit to share with you, so far, Mountjoy.”

“Well, I suppose we should,” Mountjoy grudgingly agreed, much sobered. “Yes, I’ll send a note to Sir Hew requesting a meeting to introduce you, and our plans. Keep your fingers crossed that he doesn’t send you off to Tetuán for fruit and water, instead. You will run my note up to the Convent, Deacon? There’s a good fellow.”

“The Convent?” Lewrie asked.

“It was a convent, once, when the Spanish had the Rock. Quite a good and roomy place for his headquarters,” Mountjoy explained. “I think your best will be in order, Captain Lewrie … Sir Alan, rather. Sash and star, all that? Sir Hew will place great stock in your turnout.”

“Shave and brush my teeth, too, I suppose?” Lewrie complained.

“If you’d be so kind,” Mountjoy said in wry reply.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Hah, I wonder why they call him ‘the Dowager’, Lewrie had to wonder when introduced to Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Dalrymple in his offices the next afternoon. Mountjoy had told him that Sir Hew had been born in 1750, had purchased a commission as a Lieutenant in his teens, at thirteen, and was now only fifty-seven years old, thirteen years Lewrie’s senior. Sir Hew didn’t look like an aged dodderer, or sound like an ancient “skull full of gruel”. He seemed quite lucid, in fact.

“Is not your ship a tad too large for the operations that Mister Mountjoy, here, envisions, Sir Alan?” Dalrymple asked.

“I would have preferred a frigate, Sir Hew,” Lewrie told him, “but I was given command of Sapphire before Mister Mountjoy’s superiors thought to make use of me.”

“Sir Alan has been involved in several cooperative ventures in aid of Secret Branch since the 1780s, off and on, sir,” Mr. Mountjoy stuck in.

“Spying?” Dalrymple said with a sniff of dis-approval.

“Not directly, sir,” Lewrie had to point out. “Providing naval support and military support in aid of overseas … doings.”

“An unsavoury activity, spying,” Sir Hew commented, grimacing. “Knives in the back, all that? Even are the informations discovered by such doings useful. This hint of a French army preparing to conquer Portugal is disturbing, but welcome, for instance, though the means by which it was gained, well. Forewarned is forearmed. In light of this news, hmm … I fear I may not spare a substantial number of troops at this moment, sirs. If France can obtain Spanish permission for their march cross Spain, then they may even goad the Spanish to mount a new assault against my defences.”

“As you may see in my proposal, sir, Captain Lewrie thinks that only two or three companies of light infantry would be required, along with his Marines and armed sailors,” Mountjoy sweetly, and patiently, wheedled. “Perhaps the skirmishers from two or three regiments. If the Spanish and French do assault the Rock, the grenadier companies and the line companies would be more use upon the ramparts, in the forts.”

“What?” Sir Hew quickly objected, not liking that one bit. “You intend to blend companies from three regiments, troops who have never served together before, officers in charge of them who come from three regimental messes, with disparate traditions, who are suddenly supposed to work together? I do not see how that combination could be even the slightest bit successful!

“And, just where in Andalusia do you intend to make your raids, sirs?” Sir Hew continued quibbling. “From Tarifa to Estepona, close to Gibraltar? Cross the bay at Algeciras? If I am in the near future in danger of a siege of Gibraltar, I would much prefer that it comes later rather than sooner, allowing time for re-enforcements to arrive. A sudden rash of pin-pricks against the Spanish in, or near, their Campo de Gibraltar might cause the government in Madrid to send fresh armies to General Castaños, with orders to assail us once again.”

Deacon was right, damn him, Lewrie thought, wishing he could scowl but keeping “bland” on his phyz; Dalrymple won’t upset the apple-cart, or hurt his good relations with the Dons.

“Had you a fleet, Sir Alan,” Dalrymple said, pleasant now that his “pet” was over, “and I could lure ten thousand men from General Henry Fox on Sicily, I would much prefer having a go at the Spanish enclave at Ceuta, cross the Straits. Blockade the place so that Spanish troops in the great fortress there cannot be ferried over to Castaños, or a French expeditionary fleet could combine with the Spanish, and mount an attack on the South end of the Rock, perhaps down near the Chapel of Europa, or the Tuerto Tower defences.”

Sir Hew rose and uncovered a large map which was marked with pinned-on arrows indicating where he would like to land that theoretical army, and some dots to mark the bounds of a naval blockade.

“The Sultan of Morocco might not care to have another European power supplant the Spanish, but he would most certainly relish Spain being ousted, sirs,” Dalrymple said, almost smacking his lips at the prospect, and gazing almost lovingly at his map. It was a very well-done and handsome map, certainly drawn at some expense. “I have corresponded with the Sultan at Tangier, and have hinted most broadly as to that possibility. His replies are mildly encouraging.”

“Uhm, sir,” Mountjoy said with a squirm of discomfort. “There is a French ambassador at Tangier, and the Sultan’s court is a cesspool of intrigue. Even the broadest hints, as you say, might have already been bandied about and relayed to Paris, and to Madrid to warn them that you envision seizing Ceuta.”

“French spies, sir,” Lewrie added, summing the matter up, playing on Sir Hew’s distaste for the trade. “Worst of a filthy lot.”

“Here now!” Mountjoy whispered from the corner of his mouth.

Dalrymple sighed longingly over his map for a bit more, oblivious to their exchange, or Lewrie’s broad grin, then slowly re-covered it and came back to his desk.

“Sadly, London has only given Fox twelve thousand men, and he’s none to spare, even for Gibraltar’s defence,” Sir Hew told them. “If I need more, they must come from England. You say that you are here to lend aid to Mister Mountjoy’s doings, Sir Alan? Does that mean that your ship will spend much time in harbour?”

“No sir, sorry,” Lewrie replied. “If I must act alone and use my Marines and armed landing parties, in my own boats, I’ll be out at sea most of the time. Of course, I will need to see Captain Middleton for larger boats, so I can land all my men in one group, quickly.”

Rock Soup’ll have t’start with boats and scramblin’ nets, he thought with a groan; Then I get out of port soonest, and capture some sort o’ boat for Mountjoy.

“Pity, that,” Sir Hew gloomed. “Gibraltar is in dire need of a permanent naval presence. One would wish that you could have Captain Middleton build boats large enough to serve as gunboats, and man them with your sailors.”

“I have my orders, Sir Hew,” Lewrie said.

Mine arse if you’ll have me! he thought.

“And I cannot countermand them,” Dalrymple said.

Thank bloody Christ! was Lewrie’s thought.

“Unless there is a true emergency,” Dalrymple posed.

“So long as the dockyard is building more boats for me, it can produce boats for you, sir,” Lewrie quickly countered, “and there are sailors and gunners recovering in the naval hospital, surely, enough to form a harbour guard flotilla, even some recovering officers and Midshipmen separated from their ships and unlikely to rejoin them anytime soon, who could lead them. Does Captain Middleton have twelve-pounders or eighteen-pounders in storage; well, there you go, sir!”

“Once Captain Lewrie had found a transport for the light infantrymen, sir,” Mountjoy stuck in, springing quickly to lay the ground for another of their requests which they had hoped to bring up later, “we had hoped to avail ourselves of those men, to man the transport and make up the boat crews.”