“Beg pardon?” Mountjoy asked, his pencil poised in mid-air.
“Use old, cast-off anti-boarding nets hung down each side of the transport by the chain platforms for all three masts,” Lewrie explained. “A boat waitin’ below each.” Lewrie borrowed a fresh sheet of paper and snatched Mountjoy’s pencil to make a quick sketch. “The soldiers’d climb down the nets into the boats, instead of going down the boarding battens and man-ropes, one at a time, which’d take for-bloody-ever, see?”
“Wouldn’t they be over-loaded, and clumsy, though?” Mountjoy said with a frown. “Laden with all the usual…?”
“Light infantry, like I said,” Lewrie almost boyishly laid out. “There for a quick raid and retreat. They’d need their hangers, their muskets and bayonets, perhaps double the allotment of cartridges, and their canteens. Packs, blanket rolls, cooking gear … all that would be un-necessary. They’re not on campaign, and won’t make camp.”
“Oh, I think I do see,” Mountjoy said.
“Of course, I’d have t’do the same with Sapphire, t’get all my people ashore at the same time,” Lewrie fretted. “The nets, and more ship’s boats than I have at present. Perhaps the dockyard here can cobble me up some more launches or barges.”
“The yard’s very efficient,” Mountjoy assured him, slyly retrieving his pencil. “When Victory put in after the Battle of Trafalgar, rather heavily damaged, she was set to rights and off for England within a week. I’m certain that Captain Middleton will have all the used nets and lumber to satisfy all your wants. Our wants, rather.”
“My orders did not name anyone,” Lewrie said. “I was to report to the senior naval officer present. Middleton, d’ye say? Don’t know him.”
“Robert Gambier Middleton,” Thom Mountjoy expounded. “He has been here for about two years, now. He’s the Naval Commissioner for the dockyard, the storehouses, and oversees the naval hospital. Quite a fine establishment, with one thousand beds available.”
“Well, I shall go and see him, right off,” Lewrie determined. “He’ll have the spare hands I need, too, most-like, perhaps even the transport under his command that I can borrow.”
“Ehm … that’s all that Middleton commands, I’m afraid. Even the defence of the town and the bay are beyond his brief,” Mountjoy told him. “Now, when there’s some ships in to victual or repair…”
“What? He don’t command even a rowboat?” Lewrie goggled, and not merely from the effects of the excellent Spanish wine.
“So far as I know, Captain Lewrie, there never has been a man in command of a squadron permanently assigned to Gibraltar. When I got here, ’bout the same time as Middleton, there was a fellow named Otway, who had the office,” Thom Mountjoy had to inform him, shrugging in wonder why not. “He was more than happy to leave, I gathered, ’cause he was pulled both ways by the needs of the commander of the Mediterranean Fleet and the commander of the fleet blockading Cádiz, and what was left of the combined Franco-Spanish fleet after Trafalgar. But, neither senior officer thought he could spare warships from his command to do the job that the Army’s many artillery batteries do. If a few two-deckers and frigates come in for a few days, then the senior officer among them is temporarily responsible.”
“Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie exclaimed. “D’ye mean t’say so long as I’m here, I’m senior officer present?”
“I fear so, sir,” Mountjoy told him. He tried to do so with a suitable amount of sympathy, but during his years aboard HMS Jester as Lewrie’s clerk, he had always been amused by Lewrie’s trademark phrase for frustration, and could not contain a grin.
“Sorry, Captain Lewrie, it’s just…” Mountjoy apologised.
“It ain’t funny,” Lewrie gravelled, scowling. He flung himself back into his chair, feeling that he was deflating like a pig bladder at the end of a semaphore arm; hanging useless!
“Good God Almighty,” Lewrie muttered. “It’s Bermuda or the Bahamas all over again. Backwaters like those I can understand, but Gibraltar? As vital to our interests as the Rock is? Mine…!”
“One would suppose, sir, that His Majesty’s Government, and Admiralty, imagine that the closeness of two large fleets, able to respond with more than sufficient force should they be called upon to do so, would suffice,” Mountjoy said more formally, and humbly.
“Aye, I suppose,” Lewrie grumbled, his head thrown back, deep in thoughts of how to salvage his position. “Hmm … it’s not as if either the French or the Spanish are able t’put an invasion fleet together, not after Trafalgar. They can pin-prick us with those gunboats you mentioned, cut out a prize now and then, but they can’t pose any real threat.”
“And if Foreign Office, and Secret Branch, can manage to manipulate the Spanish into withdrawing from their alliance with France, sir, there would be no threat at all,” Mountjoy pointed out.
“And how likely is that?” Lewrie asked, still in a wee pet.
“Spain’s bankrupt, and has been for some time,” Mountjoy told him. “Her overseas trade with her New World colonies has been cut to nothing, and all the gold, silver, and jewels they were used to getting are not available, and what they do have is syphoned off to support the French. To make things worse, there’s Napoleon Bonaparte’s Berlin Decrees, which is ruining all of Europe, and frankly, ruining France herself.
“Bonaparte’s trying to shut down all trade ’twixt all of the countries he dominates, or occupies, and Great Britain,” Mr. Mountjoy explained further, “and that applies to Spain, which is going even broker because of it. Only Sweden and Portugal are hold-outs, and we have gotten rumours that France may take action against Portugal sometime in the future. But, if Spain turns neutral, then all her goods and exports are open to the world, as would all the world’s goods be available to Spain once more.”
“Hold on a bit,” Lewrie said, sitting up straighter and lifting an interrupting hand. “How the Devil are the French going to be able to take action against Portugal? They can’t do it by sea, by God.”
“Well, we’ve gotten informations from Paris that one of Bonaparte’s favourites, Marshal Junot, has been ordered to assemble an army,” Mountjoy said, almost furtively. “They’re calling it a Corps of Observation, and that ‘Boney’s’ Foreign Minister, Talleyrand, is in negotiations with Godoy in Madrid about marching across Spain to get the job done.”
“Christ on a crutch!” Lewrie hooted in sudden glee. “And the Dons are so lick-spittle they’d abide that?”
“London is trusting that they will not stand such an insult to their national pride, sir,” Mountjoy said with a sly and gleeful look of his own. “We’ve passed that on to ‘the Dowager,’ and Sir Hew relayed the rumour to his counterpart t’other side of The Lines, a General Castaños, in charge of all Spanish forces surrounding Gibraltar.
“Sir Hew has forged a very respectful and amicable relationship with General Castaños since his arrival,” Mountjoy added. “The enemy Castanõs might be, but his correspondence to Sir Hew has hinted that he, his officers, and men are disgusted with their Francophile government in Madrid, ‘Boney’s’ Continental System, and Spain’s alliance to the depraved, anti-Pope, anti-religious French.”
“They might rebel, and take all Andalusia with ’em?” Lewrie speculated.
“If the French cross the border and march on Portugal, it may be that all Spain might,” Mountjoy said, almost in a whisper.
“Ah, but how factual is your rumour?” Lewrie had to wonder.
“We have several sources in France, and in Paris itself, sir,” Mountjoy warily related, “despite the lengths that the French police go to discover them, or how strictly they intercept and read all correspondence posted, or smuggled. Trust me that our source is literally speaking from ‘the horse’s mouth’. She … forget that … has social access to everyone who matters in Paris.”