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Of the six boats he’d requested, Lewrie found only two skeletons begun, their keels, stem posts, and stern posts and frames resting on baulks of scrap timber, with none of the planking started. They were, he was told, to be thirty-six feet in length, and very beamy. Middleton was of the opinion that if Lewrie could not employ them, they would make fine gunboats to protect shipping in the bay.
At least his sets of scrambling nets had been completed; other than that, Lewrie had been badly gulled, and all he could do was stomp off in high dudgeon!
All that was left for him to do ashore was to find some place to dine, sulk, and fume, and take a glass or two more than necessary aboard, even if he had to be hauled back onto Sapphire in a Bosun’s chair!
* * *
A few streets up from the quayside, nearer to Dalrymple’s headquarters in the Convent and the parade grounds, he discovered a chophouse that advertised itself with a large swinging signboard sporting a red lobster on yellow, by name of Pescador’s, a two-storied establishment with a tavern and common rooms below, and a roofed and trellised upper dining room which faced the harbour and provided an airy, cool respite from the mid-day heat.
A young fellow led Lewrie upstairs to that dining room, seated him at a table for two, and referred him to a large chalkboard menu on the back wall which featured standard fare in yellow chalk and daily specials in white.
“Do you have any ale?” Lewrie asked.
“Oh, yayss, señor!” the young fellow assured him. “We have the deep, cool cellars, and have several favourite English ales, porters, and stouts. The owner is the retired Sergeant-Major from Chelmsford, himself, Mister Chumley, and he always say that without English beers, he would be out of business, hah hah!”
“I’ll have a tall, pale Bass,” Lewrie decided.
“Waiter will be right with you, señor!” the lad promised.
The open-sided dining room was much of a piece with Mountjoy’s rooftop gallery, Lewrie thought, for it was awash in potted greenery, with hanging baskets of flowers round the outer balconies, and a cool tiled floor. White wood-slat chairs and tables with gay red tablecloths abounded, only partially filled with diners at that hour of the day; Army officers for most part, with a smattering of civilian men … and women.
The waiter, a swarthy fellow who looked vaguely Moorish, but who spoke in a British accent reminiscent of Lewrie’s neighbours in Surrey and Anglesgreen, brought him a pint of ale and took his order for the fritura mixta, which he rapturously described as a combination of mussels, crab, and sardines in a wine and chili sauce, with a few slivers of anchovies, fried fish, and a grilled lobster tail, which of course came with white wheat rolls, butter, and steamed asparagus. He recommended a nice Italian white pinot to accompany the meal.
The establishment would have offered a fresh green salad, but for the fact that Gibraltar had very little arable land—most of the Rock was vertical!—and what could be traded, or smuggled, across The Lines from Spain could not be counted on, day-to-day.
I think I could like this place, Lewrie told himself. He was cooler, already, his ale was crisply refreshing, and there were women in the dining room, a rare sight for a sailor; young, pretty, merry women whose scents rivalled the flowers. He rather doubted that they were wives, though. Most of the officers he saw were Lieutenants or Captains, in their late teens to mid-twenties, and men of low rank did not marry so young.
What was it that Burgess once said? Lewrie tried to dredge up from memory; Ah! “Lieutenants must never marry, Captains could marry, Majors should, and Colonels must marry!”
He realised that these chirpy, cheerful young women must be the junior officers’ girlfriends, or their mistresses. There were very few proper wives of senior military officers or Crown officials who’d risk voyaging to an overseas posting in time of war, who would have to leave their children at public schools, or with relatives, to spare them from foreign diseases. Hence, no respectable matrons present to demand that the “ladies of the evening” be shoved back into brothels, out of sight, out of mind, and be unable to corrupt the morals of the town, and lure their husbands’ subalterns and clerks from the Right And Proper Way.
These alluring young creatures in their finery were likely hired courtesans or high-priced doxies!
And here I sit with all my cundums stowed in my sea-chest! he sadly throught.
As Lewrie’s first course arrived, along with the Italian pinot cool from the deep stone cellar, another Army officer came up from the common rooms, a Captain of some infantry regiment, with a young woman on his arm. He was older than the others, in his late thirties, or so Lewrie judged, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, with reddish-gold hair and long, thick sideburns brushed forward in the latest style, down to the lobes of his ears. It appeared that the semi-tropical sun didn’t agree with his complexion, for he was florid. It appeared that those younger officers didn’t appeal to him, either, for he glared at them with haughty disdain, and he awarded Lewrie a similar glare as he and his companion were seated at a table for two by the balcony railings, an empty table apart from Lewrie’s.
The Captain’s companion, though … Lewrie lifted an appreciative brow as he got a good look at her. The Army Captain’s back was to Lewrie, back and shoulders almost broad enough to block his view, but she seated herself facing Lewrie, with her chair close to the balustrade, so he could get a peek every now and then.
Deliberately? he hoped.
Compared to the junior officers’ doxies, she was not a superb beauty, nor was her long, dark, almost black hair coiled and roached into an elaborate do, but was worn in a long, gathered mane, parted more to the left than the centre. On the way in, she’d worn a wide straw hat with the ribbons bound under her chin, but as soon as she sat down, she swept it off. Dark eyes, nicely arched, brows, a touch of an olive complexion, a rather fine nose, a very kissable mouth, and a firmly rounded but narrow chin … not beautiful, but more matter-of-factly hellish-handsome, Lewrie determined.
She didn’t look happy, though, he decided; pensive was more like it. Her companion was prattling away, but her attention was on the harbour, the quayside, a hanging flower basket, or a caged bird warbling above their table. She reached up to the cage and a faint smile spread on her face. She looked down, met Lewrie’s eyes, then smiled a bit broader.
“Ah, Miguel!” the Army Captain boomed to the waiter. “A cool ale, t’start with, and a white wine for the lady.”
“Michael, sir,” the waiter said in correction, keeping a bland look on his face, as if he’d done this many times before.
“Yes, yes, so you say,” the officer said, laughing him off. “I will have the roast beef, and she will have the chicken, won’t you, my dear? As you always do, what?”
“I would like…” she said, turning to look at the chalkboard menu on the i
“Please yourself,” the Army Captain dismissively said, with a harumph of slight irritation thrown in for good measure. “You should know their entire repertoire by heart, by now.”
“As often as we dine here, sim, I do,” she replied, looking a tad morose. If it was a complaint, it was a weak one.
Spanish, is she? Lewrie asked himself; Portuguese, or Genoan? None too pleased with him, whatever she is. A kept woman, under his “protection”, most-like. Maybe she’d like t’kick over the traces, but can’t afford to? Poor tit.
“Simply can’t fathom how anyone could relish cold soup!” the Army Captain grumped. “The Frogs with their cold potato mess…”