Kings and Emperors

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The last days of May, and the first days of June of 1808 were spent sailing off-and-on under reduced sail, a bit out to sea of Rear-Admiral Purvis’s ten sail of the line, waiting for word from shore, or further orders from Gibraltar. Aboard HMS Sapphire, live gun drill was held, cutlass drill, pike drill, and the striking and hoisting of top-masts, just to keep the ship’s people’s skills from going rusty. The weather was fairly decent, the convoy was well-protected by the ships that Purvis led, and it could almost be termed “cruising and claret.”

Lewrie was bored, of course.

He tried to bear boredom stoically, with much play with Bisquit and Chalky, and with sword-play with his officers and senior Midshipmen. He’d fetch a chair from the dining-coach and sit out on his stern gallery, with the improvised screen door secured so that Chalky could not dash out, leap onto a cap-rail, and go overboard, and practice on his pe

In private, stripped to the waist so he wouldn’t sweat up one of his linen shirts, he would exercise with wooden pails with various weights of swivel gun roundshot, lifting, swinging, and grunting with effort, to the amusement (well-concealed, of course) of his steward, Pettus, and cabin-servant, Jessop.

He’d been skewered in the left thigh by a Spanish bayonet up the Appalachicola River during the tail-end of the American Revolution, had had his left arm shot at the Battle of Camperdown, and had been shot in the right thigh off Buenos Aires two years before, and his workouts made them all let him know that he was getting older, and that he was not the hale and hearty fellow he’d been before, but he persisted. Fourty-five was not that old, after all; was it?

“Cool tea, sir?” Pettus asked after his last efforts.

“Christ yes, thankee,” Lewrie eagerly said, sponging himself off then towelling, and flinging himself into a comfortable padded chair. “With lots of sugar. Whew … woof!”

“Keeps you a fine figure of a man, sir,” Pettus commented.

“Lotta work, if yer askin’ me,” Jessop muttered.

“I don’t do half what you do, Jessop,” Lewrie reminded him. “Ye wished t’be more of a sailor, servin’ a carronade, climbin’ the masts, tailin’ on sheets, halliards, and gun-tackle. That’s your exercise.”

“’At’s just work, sir, wot I’m s’posed t’do,” Jessop rejoined.

“Ages ago, aboard my first ship, the Ariadne, there was a Marine officer,” Lewrie told him, “who suggested that the ladies prefer a fit man over a gotch-gut, one who’s light on his feet and can dance well, not thunder round like ‘John Bull.’ All that exercisin’ I did at my father’s farm t’heal up from gettin’ shot two years ago, t’make myself fit for command, again … ye took part in that, and you’re a fit and spry young fellow, yourself. Ain’t he, Pettus?”

“He is, yes, sir,” Pettus agreed as he fetched a tall, cool glass of lemoned and sugared tea, “the delight of all the girls at Gibraltar, the young rogue.”

“All ’at heavin’ an’ liftin’ beat muckin’ out th’ stables an’ barns, sir,” Jessop said with an impish grin. “I wasn’t havin’ any o’ that. I ain’t a farmer, nor wish t’be. Gimme Portsmouth or London, anytime.”

The Marine sentry outside Lewrie’s cabin doors rapped the deck with his musket butt, and stamped his boots. “Midshipman Griffin t’see the Cap’m, SAH!”

“Shirt, Pettus,” Lewrie bade. “Enter!” he called out once he was partially presentable.

“The flag has made our number, sir, and signalled Captain Repair On Board,” Midshipman Griffin reported.

“Well, just damn my eyes,” Lewrie spat. “The Admiral will have t’settle for slovenly, if he wants me straightaway. Thankee, Mister Griffin. Muster my boat crew, if you please, and I’ll be on deck, directly.”

“Aye, sir.”

Lewrie had not shaved that morning, and was dressed in loose and comfortable slop-trousers, white wool stockings, and a pair of buckled shoes, not his Hessian boots. With Pettus’s help, he got a fresh shirt done up and his neck-stock bound, shirt-tails crammed into the trousers’ waist-band, into a waist-coat and a plainer, older coat.

“Dress sword, sir?” Pettus asked from the arms rack.

“No, give me the hanger,” Lewrie decided, “and me older hat.”

“What will Admiral Purvis say, sir?” Pettus fretted as he provided the requested articles.

“That I was prompt?” Lewrie japed. “Keep the cat amused.”

*   *   *

It was a long and nigh-boisterous journey under lugs’l to the flagship, several miles off, but at last he made it and went up the battens and man-ropes to be greeted with the due ceremony. Once on deck, he noted that a Bosun’s chair was being rigged.

“For General Spencer, I presume?” Lewrie asked the Lieutenant who had been assigned to see him aft.

“Aye, sir,” the officer said with a snigger.

When Lewrie arrived in the Admiral’s cabins, he found that he was one among many; the Captains of all ten ships of the line were present, including Purvis’s Flag-Captain.

“Ah, Captain Lewrie … Sir Alan, excuse my casual address,” Purvis said.

“It’s a Captain Lewrie day, sir, and no matter,” Lewrie offered.

“So I see,” Purvis said with a brow up. This day, he did not appear quite so worn or tired as he had upon their first encounter.

Somthing’s lit his fire, Lewrie thought; feagued him like an old horse with ginger up its rump.

Beyond the cabins, there were more Bosun’s calls, the squeals of pulley-blocks. General Spencer was arriving. Right after he was admitted to the great-cabins, he looked for a place to stow his hat, and peered about as if looking for a drink.

“Sir Brent, welcome,” Purvis said. “We have heard from shore, at last. Wine for all, if you please,” he directed his servants, and ordered all to find a seat.

“We’re landing my damned troops, at long last, are we, sir?” Spencer boomed out, clapping his hands in delight.

“Here is what we know,” Purvis went on, standing behind his desk. “The city, and the Spanish garrison of Cádiz, has risen, and the pro-French governor, and some of his aides and hangers-on, have been dragged into the streets and murdered.”

“Huzzah!” one Captain shouted.

“We are not to enter the city, or the bay, however,” Purvis went on, lifting a quieting hand. “Word has come that the Spanish are to deal with the French ships in harbour. They’re moving bomb vessels and gunboats, and positioning fortress guns to take them under fire if they do not strike. The French Admiral, Rosily, seems determined to resist, though there’s little hope for him. If the Spanish don’t set them afire with heated shot, then they’d face us if they sortie, so … in the interests of supporting our new … ally,” he spat the word, “I must leave the honour of capturing those ships to the Spanish.”

“Oh, sir!” one of the officers commiserated. “After all of our hopes, and yours!”

“I know, I know,” Purvis replied, looking stony for a moment, then perked up, possibly for their benefit. “The silver lining to it … the Supreme Junta in Seville has declared war upon France, and upon Napoleon personally, if one can imagine that. General Castaños at San Roque has been named Captain-General of the Army of Andalusia, and I have been requested to allow merchantmen currently anchored in the Bay of Cádiz to sail for Ceuta, to take off a major portion of the fortress garrison and transport them to Algeciras, to augment General Castaños’s forces.

“I have also gotten a request to provide a ship to bear a delegation from the Supreme Junta to London, to begin formal negotiations to end the war ’twixt Great Britain and Spain, and I am eager to do so. Any suggestions?”