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“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 pi
“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 bi
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.
Lewrie took it from his jaws, even if it did stink like so many badgers and was greasy and wet with saliva, got the dog dancing right and left, then threw it back to the flag lockers. Bisquit chased it down, gave it a shake, and brought it back, to do it all again. That went on for a full five minutes before a lookout high atop the mizen mast cried out, “Sail ho!”
“Carry on, Mister Fywell,” Lewrie said, tossing the toy to one of the youngest Midshipmen who had been practising his mathematics on a slate. “Just don’t toss it overboard by accident. Bisquit’d be heartbroken.”
“Where away?” Lt. Elmes shouted aloft with a speaking trumpet.
“Two points off the larboard quarter!” was the bellowed reply. “Two-masted, and hull down!”
Lewrie took his telescope aft to stand atop the flag lockers, clinging to the larboard taffrail lanthorn to steady himself. He had just the slightest hint of two wee parchment-tan ellipses on the horizon, like the upper halves of two close-set commas.
“Eight or nine miles off?” he muttered under his breath, “and how’d she get this close without the lookouts spottin’ her?”
He would have to have a sharp word with his watch officers, so that sort of inattention didn’t happen again! Let Westcott, Harcourt, and Elmes pass the grief along to those deserving.
His perch was rather precarious, so after a minute or so, he clambered down and depended on the shouts between Lt. Elmes and the lookouts aloft.
The strange sail was two-masted, proceeding on a mostly Easterly course, and appeared to be about eight miles astern of Sapphire, though almost keeping up with the much larger ship because she was on a bee-line, whilst the two-decker was angling inshore.
“Whatever she is, she appears to be coasting from either Estepona, Puerto Banús, or Marbella, on a direct course for Fuengirola or Málaga, sir,” the Sailing Master said after Lewrie returned to the quarterdeck. “Blind as bats, or un-caring, for she’s surely spotted us by now, sir.”
“Thankee, Mister Yelland,” Lewrie replied. “How far offshore d’ye reckon her to be?”
“Five or six miles, sir,” Yelland guessed.
“Very well,” Lewrie said, looking up and aft.
When Lewrie had taken command of Sapphire, she had been a part of a squadron commanded by a Rear-Admiral of The Blue, and had flown that ensign, and she had kept that colour when escorting her convoy to Gibraltar. Once there, though, Lewrie and Sapphire operated under Admiralty Orders as an independent ship, and now flew the Red Ensign, which stood out more distinctly at greater distances.
Bisquit’s toy came bumping down the starboard ladder from the poop deck, followed by the dog a moment later. Midshipman Fywell, at the head of the ladder, looked sheepish and embarrassed.
“Mister Fywell, instruct Mister Spears to strike our colours, and hoist those of the Spanish Navy,” Lewrie told him of a sudden.
“Spanish, sir?” Fywell gawped.
“The one with the crowned oval with all the shit in it, mind,” Lewrie said with a grin. He looked aloft to the commissioning pendant to judge the direction of the winds, and made another decision.
“Mister Elmes, I wish t’close that sail, and take her if she’s worth it. Alter course two points to larboard, and make her head Nor’-Nor’east.”