“Well, in any case, once I’ve seen Captain Middleton, I’m off to sea t’get your boat,” Lewrie stated, “and our transport, too, is God just. Two-masted, about fourty or fifty feet overall?”
“That would do quite nicely, though even after all my time with you aboard Jester, I still know little of ships and the sea,” Mountjoy confessed. “A fishing boat, no matter how badly it reeks?”
“Perhaps a coastal trader, with a partial cargo of grain, and an host of rats?” Lewrie teased.
“No matter,” Mountjoy said with a wee smile, “for I’ll not be aboard her. No reason to be.”
“You’ll just sit in your cool offices, or on your shaded gallery, peekin’ through your telescope and playin’ the sly spy-master, instead,” Lewrie teased again. “By God, but His Majesty’s Government must be told how they’re wastin’ their money on idleness.”
“My dear fellow, but are you sounding envious?” Mountjoy japed.
“You’re Goddamned right I am!” Lewrie barked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“The tea tastes diff’rent,” Lewrie commented after a sip or two. He held his glass up to the light of a swaying overhead lanthorn with a squinty expression. “Fruitier?”
“Ehm, that’d be a dram or two of orange juice that Yeovill put in it this morning, sir,” Pettus told him. “There’s a whole sack laid by in your lazarette, along with lemons and bunches of grapes, and a few pomegranates, though he isn’t sure what to do with those, as yet. There are all sorts of melons, too, The Mohammedans in Morocco don’t make wine with their grapes, but they sure grow a lot of fruits and such. Do you like it, sir?”
“Aye, right tasty,” Lewrie agreed, recalling how he’d relished cool tea with peach or strawberry juice offered him by their British Consul in Charleston, South Carolina, a few years back.
“Mister Snelling had the Purser buy up barrels of lemons, too,” Pettus went on as he bustled about the dining-coach. “Even if Mister Cadrick can’t sell them to the hands and turn a profit. For the good of the crew’s health, Mister Snelling said, for their anti-scorbutic properties.”
“Anti-scarrin’?” Jessop muttered.
“Prevents scurvy, Jessop,” Pettus explained, “like wine, sauerkraut, or apples.”
“Had a lemon, once,” Jessop said. “I’d rather have an apple.”
Jessop had the loose sleeves of his shirt rolled to the elbows, proud to sport his first tattoo on his left forearm. It was a fouled anchor.
Christ, which came first? Lewrie asked himself; The whores, the rum, or that? And which of his guardians lost track of him long enough t’let him have it done? I think I’ll haveta have a word with Desmond and Furfy.
He finished his tea with an appreciative smack of his lips and a dab with his napkin, then announced that he would go on deck for a stroll.
It was a beautiful mid-morning, with thin streaks of clouds overhead, a glittering blue sea dappled here and there with white caps and fleeting cat’s paws. HMS Sapphire trundled along on a fine tops’l breeze, her motion gentle and swaying slowly from beam to beam only a few degrees, and pitching and dipping her bows as she encountered the long-set rollers.
“Good morning, sir,” Lt. Elmes said with a doff of his hat as Lewrie emerged onto the quarterdeck.
“Good morning to you, sir,” Lewrie replied, tapping the front of his own hat in return. “Good t’be back at sea?”
“Aye, sir,” Elmes gladly agreed. “Though I doubt that our men would agree. One whole day of shore liberty has only piqued their interest.”
“Grumpy, are they, Mister Elmes?” Lewrie asked.
“Not really, sir,” Elmes told him with a smile. “All in all I’d say they’re in fine fettle, what with the action with the French, the prospect of prize-money to come from it, and a run ashore. And more of that to come?”
“So long as we’re working out of Gibraltar, aye,” Lewrie said.
That promise pleased Lt. Elmes right down to his toes, for he and the rest of the wardroom had had much more free time ashore than the ship’s people. Over supper the first night out at sea, the conversations round Lewrie’s dining table had been rapturous and excited about exploring the many caves, touring the massive fortifications, the excellence of their meals and the wines, the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables (some smuggled cross The Lines from Spain) and an expedition by donkey-back to the heights of the Rock, and their encounters with the filthy Barbary apes which ran wild up there. What else his officers and Midshipmen had done with the ladies of Gibraltar was anyone’s guess, and none of Lewrie’s business, but count on Lt. Geoffrey Westcott to smirk, wink, and grin in sign that he had managed to find himself a liaison, if no one else did. Among those hundreds and hundreds of foreigners that Mountjoy had mentioned who resided at Gibraltar, many were women; Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, principally from Genoa, many of whom practiced their own version of “mercantile trade” with the soldiers and officers of the garrison, those merchants, and the crews of ships putting into harbour.
Lewrie had taken Sapphire cross the Straits to look at Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in North Africa, and take a peek at the nigh-impregnable fortress there. There had been no shipping there, but he’d found it disturbing that there were no British blockading ships present, either. He’d trailed his colours only four miles offshore, one mile beyond the maximum range of the heaviest fortress guns, then had ordered the course altered to the Nor’east to begin prowling the coast of Spain.
“Land ho!” several masthead lookouts shouted, almost as one. “Deck, there! Land ho, two points off the larboard bows!”
The Sailing Master, Mr. George Yelland, popped out of his sea cabin on the starboard side of the quarterdeck, looking disheveled and unkempt, as if he had been napping in his clothes. “Landfall, sir?”
“Mountaintops, most-like,” Lewrie commented. “Let’s look at the charts.”
They crossed to the larboard side of the quarterdeck and went into the dedicated chart space. Yelland dry-scrubbed his face with rough-palmed hands, making a raspy sound against his unshaven cheeks, as if to rouse himself to full wakefulness, before leaning over the chart of the Spanish coast pinned to the angled tabletop. He checked their latest position from yesterday’s Noon Sights, followed the pencilled line of Xs which showed their hourly Dead Reckoning positions, and made some humming noises.
“Mountaintops, certainly, sir,” Yelland opined at last. “The Andalusian coast possesses some truly magnificent ranges. From where we reckoned ourselves to be two hours ago, we are in sight of the Sierra Nevada range. Which particular mountains sighted is still moot, but … the shores I believe to be about eighteen miles off, and we should sight the port of Fuengirola in a while.”
“No shoals reported?” Lewrie asked.
“Not unless we proceed to within a mile or two of the coast, sir,” Yelland informed him, “where the soundings show six fathoms or less.”
“Very good, sir,” Lewrie said. “We’ll stand on as we are, and see what turns up. With the coast so mountainous, and the roads tortuous-bad, as they usually are, we might stumble upon a fair amount of coasting trade. Sorry to have interrupted your nap.”
“Not a nap, sir,” Yelland said, stifling a yawn. “Simply resting my eyes.”
Lewrie went back out onto the quarterdeck, snatched a day telescope from the binnacle cabinet rack, and went up to the poop deck for a slightly higher vantage point. There were clouds to the North and East, but if there really were mountains up there, they were only darker, still indistinct smudges that could be taken for rain clouds beneath or ahead of the rest.
There was a whine, and a pawing at his knee. Bisquit, wakened from a nap atop the aft flag lockers, had brought his newest, favourite toy, a length of old three-inch line whipped with twine to stiffen it, with a monkey’s fist fashioned at either end, and made tasty with some slush from the galley. The dog could gnaw on it like a bone or shake it like a snake in mock “kills”, with delighted yips and growls.