BOOK FOUR

And in regions far,

Such heroes bring ye forth

As those from whence we came,

Under that star

Not known unto our North.

“TO THE VIRGINIAN VOYAGE”

MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563–1631)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Minor repairs, re-tarring and slushing, re-roving with fresh rope, some touch-up paint, then re-victualling both ships took three days before the Sapphire’s people were given shore liberty, watch by watch, keeping Lewrie aboard most of the time, with only a few hours ashore from the start of the First Dog Watch ’til midnight. It might have been guilt that he might be abandoning his duties that tore him from Maddalena’s fervent embraces before dawn, and “All Night In” which he really desired. His officers and crew could speculate, but no one knew for sure what drew him ashore so often. Japes were made that he was known in the Fleet as “Ram-Cat” Lewrie, and not for his choice of pets, or his fierceness in battle, either.

*   *   *

“Your note said you’ve a new objective in mind, Mountjoy?” he asked as he entered that worthy’s lodgings, handing his sword and hat to Deacon, who gave him a knowing nod.

“Ah, Captain Lewrie!” Mountjoy said, springing to his feet in good cheer. “I do, sir, and may I name to you a replacement officer just seconded to us … Captain Richard Pomfret, late of the 16th Regiment of Foot. Captain Pomfret, I name to you Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of HMS Sapphire.”

“Honoured to make your acquaintance, Sir Alan,” Captain Pomfret said, offering his hand, and a quick jerk of his head.

“As am I t’make yours, Captain Pomfret,” Lewrie replied in kind, sizing him up. Pomfret was tall, nearly six feet, wide-shouldered and slim-waisted, with a hawk’s beak nose, thick dark-blond hair, and pale green eyes, a fellow in his late twenties, Lewrie judged. He looked to be experienced, if the puckered scar on his right cheek meant anything.

“Captain Pomfret was in command of the 16th’s Light Company, d’ye see, Captain Lewrie,” Mountjoy went on, “and is more used to the skirmish than was Major Hughes.” He said that with a wink.

“Mountjoy’s told you of our past operations, and how irregular our tactics have been, then, sir?” Lewrie asked.

“He has, sir, as has General Dalrymple,” Pomfret said with a confident grin. “It’d seem that rapid, assault, and aggressiveness, are your boys in such endeavours, after a stealthy landing and a quiet creep to the objective, of course. Sounds champion! I’m looking forward to the job. Met the other officers, and had a look-in at the 77th’s barracks to introduce myself to the troops. They seem a fine lot.”

“They’ve proven to be, aye,” Lewrie agreed.

“And, here’s Deacon with the wine,” Mountjoy cheerfully said, playing the merry host. “Sit you down, sirs, and I will explain all.”

After one glass of a crisp Portuguese white wine, and several minutes of chitchat by way of introductions, Mountjoy rose and went to fetch his charts and hand-drawn maps, along with the pertinent agents’ reports.

“There are no towns or wee seaports near the objective that I have in mind, sirs,” Mountjoy began, rolling out the chart. “There, at the tip of Cabo de Gata, on some high ground, the Spanish have begun a battery on this out-jutting spur of headland. Further inland, and above it, there already is a semaphore tower, manned by the usual handful of soldiers. The battery, so my reports say, will mount six twenty-four-pounders when completed. As you can see in this sketch, they’ve finished the foundations, and are erecting the stone walls, with a long section with four guns, and two shorter sections either end, angled back and will mount the other two cannon. The ramparts are up level with the flagged floor, now, and work is just started to raise the parapets to the planned height.

“Wooden barracks for the garrison are back here, up the slope,” Mountjoy continued, using a stub of pencil to indicate the details, “and the powder magazine is being dug out here, ’twixt the works and the barracks, very deep … earthen, under a mound of excavated earth. They may flag its floor, just to keep damp out of the powder barrels, but that’s not been done yet.”

Mountjoy went on to explain that the masons and the labourers were drawn from several farming villages that lay inland, the stone brought in from quarries near Almeria by ox-drawn waggons, and the labourers fed and sheltered in a tent camp near the foot of the slope that led up to the semaphore tower.

“They ain’t happy workers, mind,” Mountjoy told them. “Here it is almost harvest season, and most of them have been conscripted for the work, dragooned from their fields, orchards, and flocks, and the pay is very low, and, at the moment, considerably in arrears.”

“Slave labour, you mean,” Captain Pomfret said, with a snort of derision, sitting more erect.

“Pretty much, yes,” Mountjoy agreed, “and dragged away from their women and children, to boot. Oh, there are whores a’plenty at the tent camps, but I doubt if the workers have two centavos to rub together for that, much less enough for a skin of very rough wine, so they’ve little to do after dark beyond grumbling, and trying to run off, so I doubt if the workers will present your men much resistance, Captain Pomfret, when you land. They may help you tear the bloody place down!”

“It’s not so far along that hitting it will delay them much,” Lewrie pointed out, “we could kill the oxen, burn the waggons, burn the semaphore tower, but … if the magazine isn’t finished, there’d be no powder to blow up, and no explosives we could use to destroy the ramparts, unless we haul our own up, and that’d take hundreds of kegs, and hours t’put in place. And, two questions … are the bloody guns already there, and where’s the nearest beach?”

The headland of Cabo de Gata was too rocky for a landing, and the beach below it was much too narrow, according to the sea chart, and the sketches. The nearest beach was two hundred yards East of the headland, broader and sandier, but Sapphire and the transport could not fetch-to any closer than a mile from shore. It would be a long row, both ways.

“How large a garrison is there?” Pomfret asked, his forehead creased in worry. “The Spanish must have some force to keep the workers from running off, I should think, else the whole project falls apart for lack of diggers.”

“There is at least a company of Spanish troops,” Mountjoy had to admit, with a touch of worry in his own face. “A mixed bag, really. Cooks, infantry, some engineer officers and their aides, and about a dozen cavalry. My informants say that they’re used to patrol round the site to prevent workers from deserting, and running down those of them who make off.”

“Mountjoy, is this like Salobrena?” Lewrie asked, scowling. “The only target you know the most about?” He shared a quick look with Captain Pomfret, who had evidently been filled in on Salobrena by the officers of the 77th; neither man looked that confident. “It seems t’me that ye might let this’un hatch, first, or let the Dons lay their egg before we go smash it, when the workers are gone, and the powder’s there, so there’s more for the Spanish t’lose, and their garrison’d be about seventy-five or eighty artillerymen … about ten or twelve men per gun, maybe fifteen?”

“Rather a steep climb up from that beach to the battery, up a draw that could get us enfiladed from either side, what?” Pomfret pointed out. “Not to be a croaker … just saying.”

“You do have other objectives in mind, don’t you?” Lewrie demanded. “Something easier t’get at? It seems t’me that we’d be better off cruisin’ up and down the shore, shellin’ the place from a mile off with quoins out, at maximum elevation. That’d stir ’em up, and cause bags of chaos and mayhem.