It had wound down after another hour, with the wine replaced by hot tea or coffee, and the officers of the 77th had been seen to the entry-port and waiting boats, though more than a few had had need of a Bosun’s chair, roped into the sling on a board for a seat, hoisted aloft suspended from the main course yardarm, and lowered into a boat, with the youngest and drunkest, Litchfield and Gilliam, delighting in it so much that they shrilled, “Whee!”

Lewrie thought that he had managed the whole affair most handily, and had used the junior officers’ comments and suggestions to do the goading and prompting without a direct confrontation with Major Hughes, all but patting himself on the back … but he’d been wrong.

“A word, sir,” Hughes had rasped in a threatening growl as the last of the 77th’s officers had departed the deck. “What a disreputable show, Captain Lewrie, I’ve never seen in all my born days, I tell you! Is that the way you run your ship, by a bloody committee, with damnable democracy, and a vote for all?”

“I thought it would prove useful, sir, since, as you said, we are breaking ground with such operations,” Lewrie had bristled up, “and celebrate their first success.”

“Prejudicial to good order and discipline is what I term it, sir!” Hughes had gravelled back, his face flushed with more than wine, and his eyes red. “Children, and subalterns, should be seen, but not heard. Next thing you know, they’ll begin second-guessing my orders, and questioning me why! Damme, they’re to obey my every order, else it all turns to utter chaos! You undermine my authority, sir, and I won’t have it!”

“I’ve done nothing of the kind, sir!” Lewrie had shot back.

“General Dalrymple appointed me to command the landing forces, sir, me!” Hughes had insisted, getting louder and drawing the attention of the people in the harbour watch. “If you find my conduct lacking, do you think me incapable, say so to my face, here and now, and ask the General for another officer!”

“I do not think you incapable, Major Hughes,” Lewrie had had to respond in kind, “but I do think you drunk. I have no intention of asking for you to be replaced.”

“You just handle your part, Captain Lewrie,” Hughes had fumed, “just get us where we’re supposed to go, and leave the military part to those who know what the Devil they’re doing, with no interference from … amateurs! Damme, I’ve spent twenty years at a soldier’s trade, sir, Ensign to Major, and I know what I’m about more than a sailor, or a tailor’s dummy of a Marine, and I’ll show you, I’ll show all of you, how to handle troops and win victories, damme if I won’t!”

He had been almost chest-to-chest with Lewrie, and had seemed ready to make his points with jabs of a stiffened finger, before stepping back, wheeling to stomp to the entry-port, and start to descend with no help. As he’d doffed his plumed bicorne in a departing salute, Hughes had flung his last shot.

“I will show you all!” he had barked.

*   *   *

“No, that doesn’t sound as if it went at all well,” Mountjoy agreed, looking gloomy. “Do you think he’s not really up to scratch?”

“At this moment, I haven’t a bloody clue,” Lewrie confessed. “He’s efficient, has all the nigglin’ little details seen to, and has his men trained, well-behaved, and … frisky. He takes good care of ’em. He’s just so … rigid. Hopefully, I’ve lit a fire under his arse, or rowed him enough t’change his ways. We’ll just have to see how he behaves on the next operation.”

“How soon can you sail, then?” Mountjoy asked.

“Hmm … end of the week?” Lewrie loosely estimated. “I spoke with the Captain of a frigate that’d just come in, and he said that there’d been some vicious gales from Sardinia to the Balearics, and I expect ’em here before they blow themselves out. Might get some precious rain at the Rock by tomorrow.”

“My gutters and rain-barrels are ready for it,” Mountjoy said, all but clapping his hands in expectation, “and the house has a good, deep cistern. My hydrangeas could do with a good rain.”

“Which’re those?” Lewrie, who had not a single clue about botany beyond recognising the difference ’twixt flowers and weeds, asked.

“Those in the pots, there,” Mountjoy told him as if amazed by his lack of knowledge.

“Ah,” Lewrie said. “Heard from that fool, Romney Marsh, yet?”

“Just the one note,” Mountjoy said, shaking his head in wonder. “Cryptic as all Hell … ‘Have arrived, met Goya’.”

“Who’s Goya?” Lewrie asked, befuddled once more.

“A famous Spanish painter,” Mountjoy said, snickering. “So … end of the week, you say?”

“Weather permittin’, aye,” Lewrie told him. As he sipped at his wine, though, he wondered again just what Major Hughes had meant when he said that he would show everyone how good a soldier he was.

What’s he goin’ t’do t’prove it? Lewrie wondered.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The planning session for the raids on the semaphore towers went well, with the junior officers of the 77th asking sensible questions, and showing some eagerness that they had lacked before, after having a taste of their strange, new tasks, and coming through them with success, which filled them with a certain elan.

Major Hughes was his usual brisk and efficient self, showing no sign that he and Lewrie had almost come to loggerheads. For the landing at Almerimar, he decided that the two companies of the 77th would form on the right and advance up to guard facing the village, whilst Keane, Roe, and their Marines would have the honour of assailing the tower, driving off the few Spaniards reported there, and burning the tower and small troop quarters.

Lewrie would place Sapphire directly opposite the tower, and the troop transport would fetch-to to starboard of her, allowing the 77th to land on the right, though within arm’s reach of the boats from his ship. Both ships, he told them, would have to fetch-to about two thirds of a mile from shore, making for a longer row this time, but the tide would be ebbing and the beach would be broad, with what the reports said was good cover in the vegetation behind the deep sand and the overwash barrows for the boat crews to guard their boats.

Salobreña took longer to plan for, but Major Hughes saw little difficulty, showing that hoped-for flexibility as he gestured over the enlarged hand-drawn map of the area round the town, and the objective. They would all go for the wood lot, first, three companies abreast of each other, with the Marines on the right flank, this time, then advance by companies, Kimbrough’s company from the left flank, first, to cover the town, as far as one of the farmhouses’ buildings, then the company under Captain Bowden would get into the olive orchard, followed by the Marines advancing as far as the pastures on the other side.

“There is a garrison of infantry inland at Órjiva … see the printed map,” Hughes gruffly instructed, “but we hope to be in and out before they can get word of our presence. If our raid at Almerimar does draw Spanish troops to the coast to guard their precious towers, I cannot imagine that there would be much more than a detachment of several files, possibly an entire company, but I expect that we can deal with them easily. Even with our diversion offshore to the East following Almerimar, we should be back on the coast off Salobreña in such a short time that the Dons’ initial response would be more deliberate than hasty. We’ve done nothing to make them panic, yet! As we do depart Almerimar going East, it’s more than likely that the Dons feel that re-enforcing their coast defences from Almeria up to Cartagena is more prudent. Questions, gentlemen?”

There were a few, some notes made on their copies of the maps, arrangements for gunpowder kegs, flints and tinder made, and after a few hours, everyone seemed wolfish to get going.