“Well, the two soldiers knew the villagers were lying, and had some food well-hidden, so they asked for a cauldron and firewood, and got some rocks from a creek and started boilin’ ’em up, rubbin’ their hands over how good the rocks’d taste,” Lewrie went on. “The village folk’d never heard the like and gathered round to see what they were doing. After a bit, one soldier says that the rocks’d taste better with an onion or two, and one of the farmers ran off and brought ’em onions. Then it was carrots, then potatoes, then some salt, then a few marrow bones, then a chicken, then some rabbits, then pepper and herbs, and, after an hour or so, they’d tricked the village into making a feast. Out came the villagers’ bowls, bread, cheese, and wine, and they all dug in and ate themselves gluttonous.
“In the morning, the village saw the soldiers off with bread, cheese, and full skins of wine, so they could tramp on to the next village and perform the trick all over again. See? Rock Soup!”
“We take it one item at a time,” Mountjoy exclaimed, looking as if he’d clap his hands in glee. “First off … hmm.”
“Two, maybe three companies of infantry,” Lewrie suggested. “I prefer light infantry, light companies used to skirmishing. I s’pose we’d have to go hat-in-hand to Sir Hew Dalrymple for those.”
“Then, when you have the troops committed, it’s only natural that the next request would be to Captain Middleton, for the yards to build the boats,” Mountjoy slyly added.
“And, once the boats are begun, I go prowl about to capture a decent-sized Spanish merchantman to be our transport,” Lewrie said, “or we convince Sir Hew to commandeer one from the next troop convoy.”
“And, if we have the troops, the boats, and the transport, we need extra sailors to man the boats that will carry the troops ashore and back, and supplement the transport’s crew.”
“We get the transport, we get the scrambling nets, then the extra sailors,” Lewrie gleefully schemed on. “It’s good odds that the naval hospital will have men healed up from their sicknesses or their wounds, with no chance to rejoin their original ships, just idling with nothing to do! Lastly, we stock the transport with all manner of rations for all, and we’re off!”
“Huzzah!” Mountjoy cried. “Rock Soup, by God! Huzzah!”
“But only, sir,” Deacon finally contributed, most laconically, “if Sir Hew is of a mind to bother the Spanish.”
“Hey? What’s that, Deacon?” Mountjoy scoffed. “Whyever not?”
“The gentleman may imagine that if Spain will allow a French army march across their country to invade Portugal, then they might go so far as to allow the French to march down here and try to take Gibraltar, with Spanish armies collaborating. He may imagine that it may be better to keep all his five thousand troops here, and send for re-enforcements, instead, sir.”
Damned sharp for a former Sergeant from the ranks, Lewrie told himself; Where do Twigg and Peel find ’em?
“All we can do is ask,” Lewrie said, wondering if their bright ideas might come to nothing. “See what he has in mind, get an inkling of what he’s been told by London that he hasn’t seen fit to share with you, so far, Mountjoy.”
“Well, I suppose we should,” Mountjoy grudgingly agreed, much sobered. “Yes, I’ll send a note to Sir Hew requesting a meeting to introduce you, and our plans. Keep your fingers crossed that he doesn’t send you off to Tetuán for fruit and water, instead. You will run my note up to the Convent, Deacon? There’s a good fellow.”
“The Convent?” Lewrie asked.
“It was a convent, once, when the Spanish had the Rock. Quite a good and roomy place for his headquarters,” Mountjoy explained. “I think your best will be in order, Captain Lewrie … Sir Alan, rather. Sash and star, all that? Sir Hew will place great stock in your turnout.”
“Shave and brush my teeth, too, I suppose?” Lewrie complained.
“If you’d be so kind,” Mountjoy said in wry reply.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Hah, I wonder why they call him ‘the Dowager’, Lewrie had to wonder when introduced to Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Dalrymple in his offices the next afternoon. Mountjoy had told him that Sir Hew had been born in 1750, had purchased a commission as a Lieutenant in his teens, at thirteen, and was now only fifty-seven years old, thirteen years Lewrie’s senior. Sir Hew didn’t look like an aged dodderer, or sound like an ancient “skull full of gruel”. He seemed quite lucid, in fact.
“Is not your ship a tad too large for the operations that Mister Mountjoy, here, envisions, Sir Alan?” Dalrymple asked.
“I would have preferred a frigate, Sir Hew,” Lewrie told him, “but I was given command of Sapphire before Mister Mountjoy’s superiors thought to make use of me.”
“Sir Alan has been involved in several cooperative ventures in aid of Secret Branch since the 1780s, off and on, sir,” Mr. Mountjoy stuck in.
“Spying?” Dalrymple said with a sniff of dis-approval.
“Not directly, sir,” Lewrie had to point out. “Providing naval support and military support in aid of overseas … doings.”
“An unsavoury activity, spying,” Sir Hew commented, grimacing. “Knives in the back, all that? Even are the informations discovered by such doings useful. This hint of a French army preparing to conquer Portugal is disturbing, but welcome, for instance, though the means by which it was gained, well. Forewarned is forearmed. In light of this news, hmm … I fear I may not spare a substantial number of troops at this moment, sirs. If France can obtain Spanish permission for their march cross Spain, then they may even goad the Spanish to mount a new assault against my defences.”
“As you may see in my proposal, sir, Captain Lewrie thinks that only two or three companies of light infantry would be required, along with his Marines and armed sailors,” Mountjoy sweetly, and patiently, wheedled. “Perhaps the skirmishers from two or three regiments. If the Spanish and French do assault the Rock, the grenadier companies and the line companies would be more use upon the ramparts, in the forts.”
“What?” Sir Hew quickly objected, not liking that one bit. “You intend to blend companies from three regiments, troops who have never served together before, officers in charge of them who come from three regimental messes, with disparate traditions, who are suddenly supposed to work together? I do not see how that combination could be even the slightest bit successful!
“And, just where in Andalusia do you intend to make your raids, sirs?” Sir Hew continued quibbling. “From Tarifa to Estepona, close to Gibraltar? Cross the bay at Algeciras? If I am in the near future in danger of a siege of Gibraltar, I would much prefer that it comes later rather than sooner, allowing time for re-enforcements to arrive. A sudden rash of pin-pricks against the Spanish in, or near, their Campo de Gibraltar might cause the government in Madrid to send fresh armies to General Castaños, with orders to assail us once again.”
Deacon was right, damn him, Lewrie thought, wishing he could scowl but keeping “bland” on his phyz; Dalrymple won’t upset the apple-cart, or hurt his good relations with the Dons.
“Had you a fleet, Sir Alan,” Dalrymple said, pleasant now that his “pet” was over, “and I could lure ten thousand men from General Henry Fox on Sicily, I would much prefer having a go at the Spanish enclave at Ceuta, cross the Straits. Blockade the place so that Spanish troops in the great fortress there cannot be ferried over to Castaños, or a French expeditionary fleet could combine with the Spanish, and mount an attack on the South end of the Rock, perhaps down near the Chapel of Europa, or the Tuerto Tower defences.”