Sir Hew rose and uncovered a large map which was marked with pinned-on arrows indicating where he would like to land that theoretical army, and some dots to mark the bounds of a naval blockade.
“The Sultan of Morocco might not care to have another European power supplant the Spanish, but he would most certainly relish Spain being ousted, sirs,” Dalrymple said, almost smacking his lips at the prospect, and gazing almost lovingly at his map. It was a very well-done and handsome map, certainly drawn at some expense. “I have corresponded with the Sultan at Tangier, and have hinted most broadly as to that possibility. His replies are mildly encouraging.”
“Uhm, sir,” Mountjoy said with a squirm of discomfort. “There is a French ambassador at Tangier, and the Sultan’s court is a cesspool of intrigue. Even the broadest hints, as you say, might have already been bandied about and relayed to Paris, and to Madrid to warn them that you envision seizing Ceuta.”
“French spies, sir,” Lewrie added, summing the matter up, playing on Sir Hew’s distaste for the trade. “Worst of a filthy lot.”
“Here now!” Mountjoy whispered from the corner of his mouth.
Dalrymple sighed longingly over his map for a bit more, oblivious to their exchange, or Lewrie’s broad grin, then slowly re-covered it and came back to his desk.
“Sadly, London has only given Fox twelve thousand men, and he’s none to spare, even for Gibraltar’s defence,” Sir Hew told them. “If I need more, they must come from England. You say that you are here to lend aid to Mister Mountjoy’s doings, Sir Alan? Does that mean that your ship will spend much time in harbour?”
“No sir, sorry,” Lewrie replied. “If I must act alone and use my Marines and armed landing parties, in my own boats, I’ll be out at sea most of the time. Of course, I will need to see Captain Middleton for larger boats, so I can land all my men in one group, quickly.”
Rock Soup’ll have t’start with boats and scramblin’ nets, he thought with a groan; Then I get out of port soonest, and capture some sort o’ boat for Mountjoy.
“Pity, that,” Sir Hew gloomed. “Gibraltar is in dire need of a permanent naval presence. One would wish that you could have Captain Middleton build boats large enough to serve as gunboats, and man them with your sailors.”
“I have my orders, Sir Hew,” Lewrie said.
Mine arse if you’ll have me! he thought.
“And I cannot countermand them,” Dalrymple said.
Thank bloody Christ! was Lewrie’s thought.
“Unless there is a true emergency,” Dalrymple posed.
“So long as the dockyard is building more boats for me, it can produce boats for you, sir,” Lewrie quickly countered, “and there are sailors and gunners recovering in the naval hospital, surely, enough to form a harbour guard flotilla, even some recovering officers and Midshipmen separated from their ships and unlikely to rejoin them anytime soon, who could lead them. Does Captain Middleton have twelve-pounders or eighteen-pounders in storage; well, there you go, sir!”
“Once Captain Lewrie had found a transport for the light infantrymen, sir,” Mountjoy stuck in, springing quickly to lay the ground for another of their requests which they had hoped to bring up later, “we had hoped to avail ourselves of those men, to man the transport and make up the boat crews.”
“In your plan sent to me, Mister Mountjoy, you stated that Sir Alan has a great deal of experience with, what did you call them … amphibious raids and landings?” Dalrymple said, lifting a page from Mountjoy’s proposal to squint over it. “Boat work, in other words, or word, rather? Am-phib-ious?” He worked his mouth over that.
“Buenos Aires and Cape Town last year, sir,” Lewrie boasted. “The Bahamas and Spanish Florida the year before, experiments in the Channel with various torpedo devices in 1804, and landings on the Spratly Islands and the Spanish Philippines in the ’80s ’tween the wars and…”
“Escaping Yorktown after the surrender, too, sir,” Mountjoy added for him. “Two or three ships’ boats got out to sea for rescue, or so I heard. Captain Lewrie’s work in the Far East against native pirates, sponsored by the French, was his first exposure to Secret Branch.”
“Never had to cut a throat, or stab anyone in the back, sir,” Lewrie could not help japing.
I leave all that to Zachariah Twigg, Jemmy Peel, and Mountjoy, he qualified to himself.
“But, just where did you two envision making your raids?” Sir Hew asked, still un-convinced.
“From beyond Tarifa in the West, to near Cádiz, sir,” Mountjoy assured him, “and to the East, from Málaga right to the French border.”
“Hmm … enterprising, I must say,” Dalrymple commented.
“So long a stretch that the Spanish cannot concentrate to defend against us,” Mountjoy schemed on, “and our choices so varied all along the coasts that our movements would be unpredictable.”
“Like the Vikings, or the Barbary Corsairs, sir,” Lewrie said.
“Minus the rape and pillage, of course,” Mountjoy corrected.
Sir Hew Dalrymple took a long moment to think that over, pulling at his earlobes, tugging his nose, before speaking, and that hesitantly, at last. “Hmm, does the defensive situation admit of the release of two or three companies, on a temporary basis, mind, to add some heft to your raids … now and then … then I may be able to spare you a few troops, if you are able to obtain a suitable transport for them. Just as I cannot countermand your orders, Sir Alan, and dragoon you to become a guardian for the bay approaches, I cannot order any vessel under the Transport Board’s hire to serve under your orders. If such is the case, I cannot imagine how you and Mister Mountjoy can gather all the needed elements, but … I wish you good fortune in the doing, and if you manage to put all the pieces together, then I may be able to aid you. I make no firm promises, but…?”
He spread his hands wide and shrugged, then stood, signalling that their conference was at an end, and Lewrie and Mountjoy had to be satisfied that he hadn’t given them an outright refusal.
* * *
“He didn’t say no,” Mountjoy said with a sigh.
“He didn’t clap us on the back and cry ‘sic ’em’, either. Not a good way to begin,” Lewrie groused as they made their way back down to the town. “At least his sherry was tasty.”
“It was Spanish,” Mountjoy told him. “Andalusia’s famous for it, and rivals Portugal … when they feel like trading with us.”
“Now there’s incentive for successful raids,” Lewrie laughed. “Haul off lashings of the stuff … if I can keep my sailors and Marines from drinkin’ it up, first.”
“You’ll see Captain Middleton, next, I suppose?” Mr. Mountjoy asked, taking off his wide-brimmed straw summer hat to fan himself, for the sun was fierce, and there was scant wind from off the bay.
“Thought I would, aye,” Lewrie told him.
“When Admiral Nelson had the Mediterranean Fleet, he came with a dozen extra shipwrights to improve the dockyard,” Mountjoy told him. “They were to build gunboats for the bay defence then, too, but nothing came of it. Shortage of funds, God knows why. Most of them survived the outbreak of Gibraltar Fever in 1804.”
“I never heard that it was un-healthy here,” Lewrie said.
“Only every now and then,” Mountjoy assured him, “though when it does break out, it’s as bad as the West Indies. Civilians who can do so leave town and camp out in tents on the eastern side of the Rock, high above the pestilential miasmas, where there are cooling winds. I have been told that by the time the fevers ebbed three years ago, the garrison was cut in half. Thank God it appears to affect the Spaniards, too, else they could have put together an army and marched right through the Landport Gate!”