Kings and Emperors

“Good Christ, Hughes, we’ll just hand Napoleon a whole bloody army back? ‘Sorry ’bout that, just dust ’em off and they’ll be good as new, and better luck the next time’?” Lewrie fumed. “Mine arse on a band-box, has Sir Hew addled his brains? If it was up to me, the whole lot’d be stripped naked and sent back over the Pyrenees with their thumbs up their arseholes, and marchin’ on their heels and elbows!”

“Colourful,” Hughes said, only mildly amused, more simpering than laughing, reminding Lewrie over again how much he disliked the beef-to-the-heel bastard.

“Did Burrard, or Wellesley, agree t’this … idiocy?” Lewrie asked.

“The Convention is an agreement ’twixt Sir Hew and Sir Henry,” Hughes said with a sniff. “Sir Arthur is greatly out-ranked by years of seniority, and has very little say in the matter. Within a few days, General Sir John Moore is expected to arrive here with additional re-enforcements from England, and will assume overall command in the field, supplanting Wellesley, or reducing him to a divisional commander, anyway, should Sir Hew or Sir Henry deem his continued presence useful.”

“Oh, so he’s good enough t’be the first British General to beat the French since the war began,” Lewrie cynically surmised, “but he’s not the established Army’s favourite, so he has to go? Is that what you’re sayin’?”

“Well, Captain Lewrie, you surely must know that there is an odour round the entire Wellesley clan that makes them not quite … quite, shall we say?” Major Hughes said with a well-informed simper, idly waving his empty wineglass for a re-fill. “They rankle people the wrong way, and Sir Arthur’s reputation was made in India, after all, his command there sponsored by his brother, who jumped him over men of longer service. And, he is not an easy man to socialise with, being so stand-offish and severe. He may get some of that from his unfortunate choice of wife, haw haw. A very ugly woman to begin with, and one who has turned into the worst sort of religious shrew, with few social graces.

“Is it any wonder, then, that Sir Arthur pursues quim hotter than most, on the side, hmm?” Major Hughes intimated, leaning closer and winking. “He may be more circumspect in his dalliances than his brother, who has become a laughing-stock in England, but Wellesley is just as mad for a romp.”

“Good God, Hughes, who ain’t?” Lewrie laughed off. “Don’t tell me you’ve been got at by the ‘Leaping Methodists’ of a sudden!”

That rankled Hughes, reminding him of his former mistress, Maddalena Covilhā, and the fact that she was Lewrie’s mistress, now.

“A top-up, sir?” Pettus enquired, poised over Hughes’s shoulder with the wine bottle. Pettus knew all about it, and was a clever fellow. Servants, at sea or in civilian homes, usually knew everything that their masters and mistresses were doing. Pettus looked at Lewrie with a smirk on his face, unseen by Hughes, finding the subject of Maddalena, and Hughes’s sudden huffiness, amusing.

“No,” Major Hughes decided of a sudden, setting aside his wineglass and shooting to his feet. “Think I’ll return ashore. You have the despatches, and your sailing orders, sir, and I’ll not detain you.”

“Oh, must you go so soon, Major?” Lewrie asked most blandly, getting up as well to see him out. “Aye, I think I’ll sail as soon as I can get the anchors up, gladly. Sitting here too long’s turned my crew dull and eager to depart for more excitin’ things. I’ll see you to the entry-port, sir.”

They went out to the quarterdeck, where Midshipman Leverett summoned the side-party back to duty for the departure honours.

Lewrie couldn’t help it; as he shook hands with Hughes, he just had to say “Who knows, Major Hughes, I may be able to sail into Lisbon and be ‘in sight’ when the French and Russian warships there are made prize, if there’s time for it, and, it’ll be grand to get back to Gibraltar, at long last. Should I give your regards to your regimental mess?”

Hughes went slit-eyed and red in the face as he doffed his hat in parting salute, then descended the battens to his waiting boat, making Lewrie grin widely and chuckle silently.

“Pardon for asking, sir,” Geoffrey Westcott idly asked as he sauntered over, “but, did that fellow bring us sailing orders?”

“He did, Geoffrey,” Lewrie was happy to tell him. “We’ll get under way right after the hands have had their mid-day meal. We done with cutlass drill?”

“Aye, sir, and all weapons returned to the arms chests. Here are the keys,” Westcott told him, handing over the keys. “Any chance we might return to Gibraltar? The hands are eager for liberty.”

“Count on it,” Lewrie assured him, “though we won’t be bearing grand news to General Drummond. Dalrymple and Burrard have cobbled up a disastrous agreement with the French. Junot will evacuate all of Portugal, and leave it to us. It’s sort of a surrender, yet it’s not,” he went on, drawing Westcott to the chart space on the larboard side of the quarterdeck for a bit of privacy, and laying out the terms that he’d been told, giving him a thumbnail sketch.

“Are they serious?” Westcott gawped, almost beside himself in utter astonishment. “Napoleon will have that whole army re-equipped and right back into Spain in three months, maybe send them right back into Portugal to undo everything! Promise me we won’t be escorting them to France, or have anything to do with this madness.”

“First off, we’re to meet up with Cotton’s blockading fleet off Lisbon, then go on to Gibraltar,” Lewrie assured him, “as far as we can get from it, with no blame attached for bein’ the messenger.”

“Good!” Westcott determined, much relieved. “When news of this gets to London, anyone involved with this so-called … Convention, is it, will be ruined, maybe stood up against a wall and shot, like old Admiral Byng was. I was wondering why the army wasn’t marching on Lisbon straightaway.”

“Hughes told me that Marshal Junot was pretty-much trapped with no way out, and ru

“‘Betty’ and ‘the Dowager,’” Westcott sneered. “My Lord! Give it a month or two, and they’ll be up before a court-martial board, mark my words, sir. Anyone associated with it will be tainted for the rest of their lives.”

“They will, won’t they?” Lewrie said, suddenly breaking out a crafty smile. “Ye know, Geoffrey, our old friend Major Hughes looked like a preenin’ peacock just now, like he’d hitched his waggon to a go-er, back on Dalrymple’s staff.”

“Thought he’d reverted to a substantive Captain?” Westcott asked, puzzled.

“Bought himself a jump in rank,” Lewrie shrugged off. “Well, he may have promoted himself, but it may be a hollow Majority if no one’ll have him after word gets out. I think I may have t’go aft and have me a good laugh over his predicament, in private, hee hee!”

“I’ll tell Keane and Roe over di

“Before you do, pass word that we’ll be sailing by Two Bells of the Day Watch, and have everyone make sure that we’re ready for sea in all respects,” Lewrie cautioned, then paused, cocking his head over. “Why do I have a naggin’ feelin’ that I’m forgetting something?”