“Good Christ!” Mountjoy gasped, shaking his head in disgust. “Fine intelligence gatherer I am. Right cross the Strait, and I hadn’t a clue!”

“You wish, sirs?” a waiter asked, interrupting their covert mutterings.

“Ah … yes,” Mountjoy replied, as if coming up for air, “Oh, look! They have macaroni and cheese. And roast beef. Must be the weather, or the gloominess lately, but I’m craving something exotic for a change.”

Lewrie went for spiced kid medallions au jus atop a bed of couscous, and a vegetable medley, whatever that amounted to in Winter with all trade cross the Lines shut down by orders from Madrid.

“A basket of rolls to begin with, with herbed oil and butter, and lots of roast beef for me,” Mountjoy insisted.

“‘When mighty Roast Beef was the Englishman’s food … It ennobled our hearts and enrich-ed our blood,’” Lewrie attempted to sing.

“You sing, sir, on par with how you tootle on the penny-whistle,” Mountjoy said with a wince, and a laugh. Once the waiter was gone to place their orders, though, he leaned closer and lowered his voice to a mutter again. “London also believes that Murat will march on Madrid and oust the Bourbon dynasty, then place one of ‘Boney’s’ brothers on the Spanish throne. Bonaparte’s leaning towards Joseph, even though he’s already the King of Naples. From our source, whom you despise, we also strongly suspect that Murat dearly wants it for himself. He’s seen so many of his old comrades awarded duchies and minor kingdoms, and we gather that he feels he’s more than earned one, and it’s his due.”

“You say the Spanish people want Ferdinand, and no more truck with France,” Lewrie replied. “You ought to cheer up, Mountjoy, for if Napoleon does that, Spain has to revolt and change sides. That’s what they sent you here to accomplish, isn’t it?”

“The Spanish are proud enough to rise up,” Mountjoy said, looking glum. “But, will they, and will it amount to anything? There’s the rub.”

“Then, let’s all keep our fingers crossed,” Lewrie suggested. “And like my First Officer says they do at the Artillery School at Woolwich, it depends on holding your mouth just right, too. Christ, Mountjoy, cheer up! The prospects are good … and, the menu shows they’ve a berry duff for dessert!”

BOOK ONE

Nothing should be left to an invaded people but their eyes for weeping.

—ATTRIBUTED TO OTTO VON BISMARCK, PRUSSIAN CHANCELLOR (1815–1898)

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Aren’t they pretty, sir?” Lt. Westcott said in glee as they stood atop the poop deck to watch the gunboat squadron, now a dozen in number, exercise in the bay.

“So long as it’s someone else’s bloody gunboat squadron, I’ll allow that they look … smart,” Lewrie said, lowering his telescope. “Speaking of smart, has the dockyard sent us the paint we requested?”

“The Commissioner’s clerk says that there’s very little paint on hand, at present, unless we prefer green,” Westcott told him.

“Well, I don’t,” Lewrie said with a growl. “Green? Mine arse on a band-box. What’s that here for, the walls of the hospital?”

HMS Sapphire had spent the better part of the tumultuous Winter at sea off Ceuta, and what she needed was black paint to renew the upper-works of the hull, and whitish-cream buff paint to touch up the gunwale stripes along her gun-ports, which colour scheme was becoming the standard for the Royal Navy, à la Nelson.

“It may be some months before an adequate supply arrives, sir,” Westcott said. “I suppose the old girl will have to look … dowdy for a while more. Any more word from shore, sir?”

“It seems that Spanish spies are as good as ours,” Lewrie told him with a bark of mirth. “The Madrid papers printed accurate details of our planned attack on Geuta on the fourteenth of February. By the time General Spencer’s main body came in to harbour here, it was given up as hopeless.”

The Atlantic had been fierce that Winter, driving most of the expeditionary force back to ports in England, though some ships with three thousand of Spencer’s army did arrive at Gibraltar in late January much the worse for wear, and Sir Hew Dalrymple did send them on to Sicily, which occupying force had been reduced when London ordered Sir John Moore’s eight thousand back to England, not back to Sicily. Now, Spencer had come, with nothing to do, and his remaining four thousand were added to the Gibraltar garrison, in case French Marshal Murat did indeed plan to lay siege to Gibraltar for the umpteenth time since 1704.

“Just waiting for the shoe to drop, we are, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie told him, strolling over to the windowed coach-top above his cabins to retrieve his pewter coffee mug and take a sip.

“Pray God it does drop, sir,” Westcott said with eagerness to be doing something more than blockading Ceuta, “and flings us into a purposeful action. I’m growing bored.”

“You’ve your mistress ashore to relieve that, surely,” Lewrie teased. Finding a wench had been Westcott’s first act as soon as he stepped onto the Old Mole, long before Lewrie had found his.

“She proved faithless,” Westcott said, heavily scowling. “She found herself an Army Colonel with a fuller purse to keep her. We’ve been at sea so long, so uselessly, that she grew bored, too.”

“Ah, well,” Lewrie said in sympathy. “I’m sorry for that. By God, you’d think that Spain’d be up in arms, by now!”

French Marshal Murat crossed the border into Spain in the middle of February, they had since learned. On one pretext after another, the French had taken Pamplona, San Sebastian, Figueras, and Barcelona, and were reputedly bound for Madrid, just as Mountjoy had expected. So far, though, there were no agents’ reports of any Spanish reaction. Another of Mountjoy’s agents, nigh as dashing as Romney Marsh, captained a filthy trading vessel along the coasts of Andalusia, pretending to be a Spaniard. He carried orders and requests for information from informers and brought back fresh news from Spain, and made a fair profit trading Gibraltaran goods to Spaniards starved for grains and luxuries. The harsh Winter seas had penned him in one port or other for weeks on end, but John Cummings, aka Vicente Rodríguez, reported that news of the Spanish incursion had not yet reached the South of Spain, and it was he who had spread the news to the Andalusians. Now, here it was March of 1808, and the fuse to the powder keg had been lit, but so far, there was no bang!

“Boat ahoy!” one of the Midshipmen standing Harbour Watch shouted to an approaching boat.

“Message for your Captain!” one of the boatmen shouted back.

Lewrie and Westcott crossed the poop deck to the starboard side to see what the fuss was as the boat was rowed to the bottom of the entry-port, and a shoeless boy in his shirtsleeves scampered up the boarding battens to hand a letter over, then just as quickly got back down the battens and into the bows of the boat.

“A letter from shore, sir,” Midshipman Spears reported with a doff of his hat after he’d come up to the poop deck.

“Thankee, Mister Spears,” Lewrie said, turning the wax-sealed missive over to see that it was from Thomas Mountjoy. Once it was torn open, Lewrie grinned quickly, with a hitch of his breath. “I’m summoned ashore, instanter, Mister Westcott, for a discussion.”

“You think…?” Westcott hopefully asked.

“Fingers crossed, mouth held just right, all that. Continue with provisioning whilst I’m away,” Lewrie said, almost bounding to the quarterdeck and aft into his cabins for a quick change of clothes.

*   *   *

“Good morning, sir!” Mountjoy’s assistant, and bodyguard, said with un-wonted good cheer as Lewrie entered Mountjoy’s lodgings. Mr. Deacon was usually a cautious, guarded fellow who bore himself in total seriousness, but now his harsh features were split in a smile. “He’s waiting for you, sir,” Deacon said, pointing a finger to the top of the stairs.