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“That’s our brief, don’t ye know, Captain Pomfret,” Lewrie said to the Army officer with a wink and a grin, “creatin’ chaos and mayhem in job-lots.”
Mountjoy did not take that at all well; he sat back with his arms crossed upon his chest, scowling with his lips pursed and brows furrowed. “It is my best … our best … option at the moment, yes,” he grudgingly confessed. “The others are too strongly defended, or too hard to get at, at present. Hmm.” He drummed his right-hand fingers on his left arm. “How about this, sirs. Sapphire will close the coast and take it under fire, up and down, ’til the battery’s damaged and the garrison and the workers have been run off. Then, if the two of you deem it practical, land the troops and scandalise the works and the semaphore tower. No pre-dawn surprises, do it in broad daylight.”
“Well…” Lewrie tentatively responded, after taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling. “How do I judge if the battery’s damaged sufficiently from a mile off, by telescope? How would Captain Pomfret judge that the defenders’ve been driven away from his transport, which will be fetched-to even further off? Whose responsibility is it to committ the troops into God knows what? Just a simple sailor, me.”
“Good point, sir,” Pomfret agreed, breaking out a wee smile. “The responsibility and assessment of the risk … not the ‘simple sailor’ part.”
“Aye, I can hammer the place,” Lewrie allowed, though still in some doubt as to the value of the attack. “Though it’s more the work of howitzers or sea-mortars, with fused explosive shells. I’ll take Harmony along, just in case, but I doubt if the troops, or my Marines, will have much of a chance t’get their feet wet. Perhaps you should take passage aboard Sapphire, Captain Pomfret,” Lewrie suggested. “If a decision to land the troops must be made, it’d be best if we were face-to-face. Signal hoists are for orders, not discussion, and the best I could send would be ‘yes’, ‘no’, or, ‘maybe’.”
“I’d hoped to be with my troops, sir,” Pomfret said, “but in this case, I agree that I should be in the same ship as you. My officers are practised enough in dis-embarking their companies, by now, and if we do decide to land the men, I could go in with your Marines.”
“We’re settled, then?” Mountjoy perkily said. “Everyone satisfied? Good!” he bulled on, not waiting for them to respond. “Deacon and I will prepare copies of the maps, sketches, and the chart, and we’ll consider the battery at Cabo de Gata our next objective.”
They shared a final glass of wine and some more idle chatter, in which, to Lewrie’s shock, Pomfret casually revealed that he had been with his regiment on Sicily, but had been brought to Gibraltar and the naval hospital after being wounded in action, along with some men of the 16th Foot, and had only been on staff duties at the Convent for a fortnight after being released!
* * *
“Good God, d’ye think he’s physically up to it?” Lewrie asked, with a queasy feeling, after Pomfret had taken his leave. “I doubt if Dalrymple’d appreciate it if he keeled over.”
“He looks fit as a fiddle to me, and I’ve been assured that he is cleared for duty,” Mountjoy replied with a faint grin. “An officer experienced at skirmishing is the best we could have hoped for, as you said yourself in the begi
“I’ll have t’take your word for him, then,” Lewrie said, with a shrug. “He doesn’t seem half the tight-arse that Hughes was. Heard anything of what happened to him, yet?”
“No, the Spanish haven’t sent Dalrymple any word,” Mountjoy told him, then got a crafty look oh his phyz. “Speaking of Hughes … Mister Deacon told me you’ve adopted his mistress. If the lady that he saw you with is not Hughes’s girl, then she’s the spitting image.”
“I have,” Lewrie replied, gri
“Shore lodgings? Removing from one to another? Shopping?”
“Dammit, Mountjoy, have ye set him t’spy on me?” Lewrie barked.
“Nothing of the sort,” Mountjoy replied, with a wave of his hand. “Just idle happenstance that he saw you. Christian charity, is it?”
“The stupid fool left her nothing, and made no arrangements for her upkeep should anything happen to him,” Lewrie objected. “I asked about with his fellow officers, but he hadn’t a thought for her. His loss. More like pagan lust, if you must categorise it. I was quite taken with Mistress Maddalena Covilhā from the first time I saw her and Hughes dining, as you well know, and as you cautioned me to shun, so Hughes wouldn’t go pettish on us. Utterly wasted on a swine like Hughes. She’s Portuguese…”
“From a mountain town named Covilhā, thence from Oporto, where she took up with a young man in the wine trade,” Mountjoy interrupted, ticking off what he knew, “and followed him to Gibraltar in 1803. He perished in the last bout of Gibraltar Fever in 1804, and she’s been ‘under the protection’ of a series of British officers since. She’s fluent in English as well as Spanish and her native tongue, is well-read in all three languages, and is much brighter than one would imagine of a young woman from such a background, with a fine mind.”
“You’ve spied on her?” Lewrie gawped.
“As soon as Hughes was chosen to command our troops, we looked into her,” Mountjoy said, with that sort of “I know something that you don’t know” superiority that was rife in the espionage trade, and which had always gotten right up Lewrie’s nose. “I told you early on that Gibraltar’s simply teeming with suspect foreigners, and the last thing we needed was a tempting young woman in contact with the enemy, who might beguile a braggart like Hughes into revealing too much of our plans, or my sources, and how we gathered information on potential targets. I have to protect my network.”
“Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie barked.
“For your information, Mistress Covilhā is guileless and safe,” Mountjoy assured him, slyly amused. “Though it wouldn’t do to reveal too much of our doings to her, even so. Second-hand blabbing in the markets could be overheard by real enemy agents. For a time, I had a thought to recruit her, don’t ye know, if only to see if Hughes could be trusted to keep mum, and, she’s a clever girl, and could listen to what talk there is in the markets, and assist Deacon in shadowing any people we suspect. Who’d suspect a girl of twenty-three, out on her shopping, what?”
Twenty-three? Lewrie wolfishly thought; Yum, yum!
“So, take what joy you may, for as long as you can,” Mountjoy suggested with a twinkle, “and I’m sure you’ll treat her better than Hughes ever would.”
“And make arrangements, should…” Lewrie agreed, stopping short of the thought of his own demise, and rapping the nearest wood surface for luck, and to ward off the very idea.
“Quite,” Mountjoy said, beaming.
“Well, if that’s all, I’m off,” Lewrie said, tossing back the last of his wine and rising. “Time for my di
“Bon appétit!” Mountjoy cheerfully wished, with a wry wink. “Oh, by the by, before you go, I think I should pass along one bit of information that’s reached me via Cummings and his damned boat. He’s been into Cartagena, and says that there’s some activity round the navy yards … a couple of large frigates now have their yards crossed and are victualling?”
“The Dons, preparing t’go to sea?” Lewrie said, frowning. “If that’s so, perhaps I should leave the transport behind, this time. It ain’t all the warships in Cartagena gettin’ ready, is it? Their Navy hasn’t ventured out since Trafalgar, and I can’t think of a good reason for them t’start, unless our raids’ve pricked ’em too sore.”
“Cummings said that it was only the two frigates,” Mountjoy assured him as he rose to see him out, “but, he was in no position to nose about too closely. Do you think they might sail out against us?”