“Damn these perverse winds, and the currents!” he spat.
Since leaving Gibraltar on the fourteenth of May, and rounding Pigeon Island into the Strait, they had proceeded at a slug’s pace, hobbled by the in-rushing current into the Mediterranean. Sailing “full and by” hard on the wind for several days might seem swift and bracing, but that was an illusion, for their overall speed over the ground resulted in only a few miles per hour. The convoy’s first leg, a long board Sou’west, only got them a few miles West of Parsley Island before they had to tack and cross the Strait to halfway ’twixt Pigeon Island and Tarifa. The second tack Sou’west had fetched them close to the Moroccan city of Alcazar, and the third had gotten them five miles East of Tarifa.
And so it had gone from there, day after day. Lewrie led the convoy out West-Sou’west to get clear of the current, taking advantage of a wind shift, far enough out off the coast of Morocco that a simple turn North would bring the convoy into contact with Admiral John Childs Purvis’s blockading ships off Cádiz. Another shift of winds had put a stop to that simple run, that combined with a bout of foul weather, and they all had short-tacked under reduced sail through several half-gales to make their Northing. And, when the gales blew out and calmer winds and seas returned, they ran into a fringe of the Nor’east Trades, into which they butted the wrong way. The Trades were simply grand for departing Europe for the Americas or the Caribbean, but nigh a “dead muzzler” for returning.
“Land Ho!” the main mast lookout in the cross-trees shouted down. “Two points orf th’ starb’d beam!”
“Any guess as to what land?” Lewrie scoffed to his assembled watch-standers. “Mister Yelland?”
“Some part of Spain, sir,” the Sailing Master said, sounding as if he’d made a jest. “If we could send a Mid aloft with my book of the coast, I could tell you more.”
“Fetch it,” Lewrie demanded. “Mister Harvey?” he said to the nearest Midshipman. “Aloft with you and Mister Yelland’s book, and tell us what you see.”
“Aye, sir,” Harvey replied, looking eager for a scaling of the shrouds.
“Don’t drop it overside, mind, Mister Harvey,” Yelland said as he brought the book of coastal sketches from the chart toom. “Or your bottom will pay for it.”
Midshipman Harvey took the larboard shrouds, the windward side, to the cat harpings, switched over to the futtock shrouds to make his way to the main top, hanging like a spider upside down for a bit, and then up the narrower upper shrouds and rat-lines to the cross-trees, a set of narrow slats that braced the top-masts’ stays, to share that precarious perch with the lookout on duty. Harvey raised a telescope to peer landward, flipped pages in the coastal navigation sketchbook, peered some more, then shouted down. “It’s Cape Trafalgar, sir! Cape Trafalgar, fifteen miles off!”
“Very good, Mister Harvey!” Lewrie called aloft, cupping hands by his mouth. “Return to the deck, with the book.”
“Aye aye, sir!”
“We’ll stand on on this tack ’til Noon Sights, then,” Lewrie announced, “when Cape Trafalgar is truly recognised, then go about Nor’west, which’d put us somewhere off Cádiz, and in sight of our blockading squadrons sometime round dusk. Sound right, Mister Yelland?”
“If the winds hold, aye, sir,” Yelland agreed. “That’d place us, oh … round twenty-odd miles off Cádiz, and sure to run across one of our ships.”
“I s’pose I’ll have t’shave, and dress for the occasion,” Lewrie glumly said, rubbing a stubbly cheek. “Called to the flagship, all that? Mister Westcott, best you warn my boat crew t’scrub up and wash behind their ears. Best turn-out, hey?”
“Aye, sir,” Westcott responded with a faint snigger.
“I’ll be aft. Carry on, the watch,” Lewrie said, turning to go to his cabins.
“Why does the Captain dislike dressing in his finest, sir?” Lt. Elmes asked once Lewrie had departed the quarterdeck.
“It’s the sash and star of his knighthood he dislikes, Mister Elmes,” Westcott informed him in a low voice. “Officially, it was awarded for his part in a fight against a French squadron off the coast of Louisiana in 1803, but he strongly suspects that it was a cynical way for the Government to drum up support for going back to war, by publicising the fact that the French tried to murder him, and killed his wife instead, when they were in Paris during the Peace of Amiens.”
“Murdered?” Lt. Elmes gawped.
“The Captain was invited to a meeting with Napoleon at the Tuileries Palace,” Westcott explained. “He had five or six swords of dead French officers, and thought to return them to the families, in exchange for an old hanger that Napoleon took off him at Toulon in Ninety-Four, when the Captain would not give his parole and leave his men after their mortar ship was blown up and sunk. It turned to shit, he angered Napoleon somehow, and the next thing he knew, they were being chased cross Northern France to Calais.”
“He’s met the Ogre?” Elmes marvelled. “Twice? I never knew. What a tale!”
“To make matters worse, when the Captain was presented at Saint James’s Palace to be knighted, the King was having a bad day, and got confused and added Baronet,” Westcott went on, making a face. “You can imagine how it all left a sour taste in the Captain’s mouth. He earned a knighthood, and a Baronetcy, a dozen times over during his career, mind, long before I met him, and he’s done a parcel of hard fighting, since, but … that don’t signify to him. He doesn’t like to speak of it, so … don’t raise the matter with him.”
“I stand warned, Mister Westcott, though … I’d give a month’s pay to hear the whole story,” Elmes said with a wistful note to his voice.
“I’ll tell you of the fight off Louisiana,” Westcott offered. “The French were taking over Louisiana, and were rumoured to be sending a large squadron to New Orleans for the hand-over, and we were ordered to pursue and stop them if we could, just four ships, three frigates, and a sixty-four…”
* * *
Late in the afternoon, the winds dropped and the seas calmed, just after lookouts aloft spotted strange sails on the Northern horizon, quickly identified as British ships. Sapphire made her number to them once within five miles of them, and the towering First Rate flagship hoisted Captain Repair On Board. The salute to Admiral Purvis was fired off, the cutter was drawn up to the entry-port battens, and Lewrie was over the side and into his boat at once, dressed in his best, with the sash and star over his waist-coat and pinned to his coat, with his longer, slimmer presentation sword at his waist instead of his favourite, everyday, hanger.
“With luck, they’ll sport me supper, Mister Westcott. Keep things in order ’til I get back,” Lewrie shouted up in parting, and the cutter began its long row to the flagship. Another boat set out from one of the transports; General Sir Brent Spencer would attend the meeting, whether he’d been summoned or not.
It was a long climb from his boat to the quarterdeck of the flagship, past three decks of guns and a closed entry-port on its middle gun deck, one surrounded by overly ornate gilt scrollwork. He was panting, and his wounded left arm and right leg were making sore threats by the time he heaved himself in-board to the trilling Bosuns’ calls, the stamp of Marines’ boots, and the slap of hands on wooden stocks as arms were presented. He took a deep breath, made sure he was two steps inward from the lip of the entry-port, and doffed his hat in a replying salute.