The King's Marauder

“A dangerous business,” Lewrie commented as Pettus brought him a tall glass of cool tea with lemon and sugar.

“As you’d know best yourself, Sir Alan,” Romney Marsh said in a secretive whisper, leaning a tad closer than Lewrie liked. “We were told of your doings up the Mississippi to Spanish New Orleans a few years ago, and how you scotched that Creole pirate business. Mister James Peel sends his regards. His fondest regards.”

Marsh said that in yet another guise, this time sounding like the idlest, most affected courtier at St. James’s Palace with the grandest airs. Lewrie didn’t much care for simpering, either!

“Not all that dangerous, Captain Lewrie,” Cummings stuck in, “for my brief doesn’t require that I meet our agents face-to-face, but deal with drop-points where their reports are secreted. And Mountjoy is counting on the luxury goods we carry to make our presence welcome. I also have enough bribe money to mollify even the most-corrupt Spanish authorities. Marsh here has the more dangerous job…”

“Volunteered for it, gladly,” Marsh said in a loud boast, “for God, King, and Country. And, for the thrill of it all.”

“He’s to go to Madrid, and nose about,” Cummings said in awe of the mission, and Marsh’s daring.

“And get back, I presume?” Lewrie dryly asked.

“Contact whom I can among the influential in Madrid who oppose the French, and the Godoy administration,” Marsh preened, all but buffing his fingernails on the lapels of his waist-length leather jacket, “gather impressions of the sentiments of the common people and tradesmen, soldiers, and such. Perhaps influence whom I can, as well, and spread a little sedition. Then, get back to the coast and wait for Señor Rodriguez an’ heez feelthy barca to peeck me up, comprender?” he said, slipping into a Spanish accent once more.

“And how may I aid you two in that?” Lewrie asked, imagining that they would have steered well clear of Sapphire at first sight if they didn’t need something.

Just like gettin’ roped in by Zachariah Twigg as useful to his schemes ages ago in the Far East, Lewrie sourly thought; There’s never an end to it! There’s always something more!

“You’ll note, sir, that we’ve a large horizontal patch of new, white sailcloth in our foresail, from luff to leech,” Cummings told him. “By that sign you will know us, hah hah! If we must meet I will show a very badly faded, but perfectly strong, red jib, and you can pretend to chase me out of sight of land, and any watchers. Do you encounter us along the coast, and we’re anywhere near a port, I’d like you to chase after us … clumsily, so I can put in and escape, to the congratulations of other Spanish mariners, do you see?”

“That’s all?” Lewrie asked, both puzzled and relieved.

“That’s the nub of it, Captain Lewrie,” Cummings said, tossing up his hands and gri

“Oh, I suppose I could, if asked,” Marsh slyly boasted. “What is one more priest among many, one more sandalled peasant droving his pigs to market, or a proud hidalgo on a fine horse?”

“Marsh can portray himself as Catholic as the Pope himself!” Cummings bragged. “He can conduct any rite, or a Mass, in Latin and Spanish. I’ve seen him do it, to practise.”

“The benefits of a classical education, Cummings,” Marsh said, “and a … dare I say, a widespread, catholic interest. Small C ‘catholic’, mind. Church of England, myself, and damned proud of it!”

“One never knows just who he is when he comes down to breakfast,” Cummings said with a laugh. “Costumes, wigs, false beards, and mustachios…”

“Well, it’s said that ‘clothing makes the man’,” Marsh airily stated. “Amateur theatrics was my chief delight at school, and with the help of Secret Branch, I’ve honed my skills by studying under the very best in Covent Garden and Drury Lane.”

He’s daft as bats! Lewrie thought, amazed at his smug expectations.

“Do you ever want for droll amusement when in London, Sir Alan, you must attend Pulteney Plumb’s Comedic Revue in Drury Lane,” Marsh imparted, leaning close once more as if touting a sure-thing long shot horse at Ascot.

Lewrie, in mid-sip of his tea, spluttered a gulp in his lap!

He’s deader than cold, boiled mutton! Lewrie thought; Soon as he steps ashore, the Spanish’ll be askin’ him if he’s up for a match of cricket! Pulteney bloody Plumb, of all the…!

Once he calmed himself, all he could say in reply was, “Seen it.”

“Man’s a genius, as is his wife,” Romney Marsh praised.

Lewrie thought that perhaps James Peel hadn’t told Cummings or Marsh all about Lewrie’s past, or his association with Pulteney Plumb during the Peace of Amiens, when he’d somehow insulted Napoleon Bonaparte at a levee in the Tuileries Palace in Paris, and had to flee for his life to Calais, pursued by police agents and soldiers, and it had been that daft fool Plumb and his wife who had spirited Lewrie and his wife clear cross France in a variety of costumes and guises, re-living his younger days of doing the same thing for condemned French aristocrats as part of a larger secret collaboration, and naming himself the “Yellow Tansy”!

Lewrie had to grudgingly admit that Plumb had gotten them to the coast, where a schooner was waiting to bear them to Dover, as it had during The Terror in 1793 for the Yellow Tansy, the Ruby Begonia, or other human smugglers of that coterie. It had only been bad luck that the French had caught up with them as the schooner’s boat was in the surf, just feet from showing the French a clean pair of heels.

Less he knows, and the less said of Plumb, the better, Lewrie thought, almost snarling his displeasure.

“You show a red jib, I chase you out to sea for a ‘rondy’, and if not, I pretend t’chase you. Got it,” Lewrie summed up. “D’ye need chasin’ today?”

“It would not hurt, I suppose,” Cummings said. “We’re bound to Estepona, first, then Almeria, then Málaga, where we land Marsh. The roads are better from there to Madrid.”

“Not Estepona,” Lewrie quickly cautioned. “Your ship’s master and crew I let go free, there, and they’d have you hung for piracy as soon as they recognise her. But, let’s be about it, before someone ashore sees us together.” He set aside his glass of tea and rose to bring matters to a welcome close.

*   *   *

They saw Cummings/Rodriguez and Romney Marsh/The Multitude off without a side-party or debarking honours, though Lewrie doffed his hat from the lip of the entry-port as they scrambled down the battens to their waiting rowboat, thinking that he might see Cummings again, but Marsh? The odds were definitely against it. There were some people who were just too confident to live!

Oddly, when the boat was about one hundred yards off, Marsh took off his narrow-brimmed hat and waved back at Sapphire, shouting “Floreat Etona!”, for some reason or another.

“We’ve one of his fellow Etonians aboard?” Lt. Harcourt wondered aloud. “Who, I can’t imagine.”

“The Captain, very briefly, before he was expelled,” Westcott informed him from the corner of his mouth in an amused whisper.

“Expelled? For what?” Harcourt asked, surprised.

“You’d have to ask him,” Lt. Westcott said, with a snicker.

“Perish the thought!” Harcourt said with a mock shiver.