“Well, we don’t know, and that’s worrisome,” Mountjoy gruffly confessed. “I was up to the Convent earlier today, to see the Dowager, at his request. He told me that his Spanish counterpart in charge of the military district, General Castaños, had sent him a letter saying that Madrid has ordered him to cease all communication with us, and restrict all further trade cross the Lines.”
“Mine arse on a band-box,” Lewrie started. “That sounds like a joint Franco-Spanish attack on Gibraltar! What did Sir Hew make of it?”
Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Dalrymple, best known as the Dowager for his lack of field experience, governed Gibraltar, and was responsible for its defence and continued existence. During his short term in that post, Sir Hew had fostered a warm and peaceable line of communication with Castaños, a “live and let live” and a “let sleeping dogs lie” relationship. Lewrie imagined that Dalrymple’s headquarters, once a real convent when Gibraltar had been captured from Spain in 1704, would be as topsy-turvy as the city of Lisbon tonight!
“No sign of panic when I was there today, but bags of active scurrying,” Mountjoy told him with a grin. “Urgent despatches are being sent to our Army on Sicily, asking for re-enforcements, more are on the way to London, and Sir Hew’s dusted off his scheme to attack the Spanish fortress of Ceuta, again. It seems that Lord Castlereagh, our War Secretary, had an inkling that the French would be moving on Portugal way back in August, and sent Sir Hew a letter wondering if Ceuta could be used by the French as a base for an expedition to take Gibraltar from the South. In league with the Spanish, of course.” Mountjoy told him with a smirk of how that alliance would work. The Spanish had yearned to recover Gibraltar the last hundred years, and there had been siege upon siege, all failures. Would they want the Rock back so badly that they’d tolerate their own country full of Frenchmen?
From where he sat, Lewrie could look down the main town street which led to Europa Point, about four miles South, and picture in his mind the twelve miles of sea that separated Gibraltar from Ceuta. At Europa Point, there were no defensive works, such as there were on the West and North of the peninsula. The last fortifications ended a bit below the New Mole, and the Tuerto Tower, for the very good reason that there were no beaches on which to make a landing, and the bluffs were nigh-vertical, right down to the sea.
No, anyone landin’ there’d have t’be a Barbary ape just t’get a toe-hold, Lewrie told himself; And, can the French get a fleet and a huge convoy of transports to sea, with our Navy keepin’ close watch on their main bases at Toulon and Marseilles?
“I don’t see it happening,” Lewrie told Mountjoy, and explained why he doubted the French could pull it off. That seemed to mollify the man’s worries on that score.
“Well, you’re the sea-dog, so I’ll take your word for it being nigh-impossible,” Mountjoy breezily said, as if a large load had been taken from his shoulders. “But, the Dowager’s always wanted to take Ceuta, and now’s perhaps his chance. If Lord Castlereagh fears that the place is a risk for Gibraltar, they’d both want it eliminated.”
Back in the Summer, before he and Mountjoy put together their raiding force, Lewrie had scouted past Ceuta looking for supply ships which he might snap up as prizes, and he had his doubts about taking Ceuta, too.
“Don’t see that happening either,” he told Mountjoy, describing how mountainous and rocky, how North African–desert dry was the land on which the great fortress complex was built, the massive height and thickness of the walls, and how many heavy guns he’d counted when he sailed Sapphire temptingly close to extreme gun-range. “There’s no approaching any gate, or landing at its foot. You can blockade it, but I doubt it can be taken, even if ye had God’s own amount of heavy siege guns, and even then, it’d take a year t’batter down a breach in the walls. Best isolate it and leave it be to starve.”
“Well, I’m sure Sir Hew’s aware of all that, but he’s still so dead-keen on the attempt, I expect he relished Castlereagh’s letters,” Mountjoy scoffed. “Ceuta’s his bug-a-bear.”
“Hmm … he’d need someone t’go scout the place, wouldn’t he?” Lewrie suggested, feeling sly and clever.
“Well, yayss,” Mountjoy drawled back, “but only if that person kept his fool mouth shut and kept his doubts to himself. Have anyone in mind?”
“Me, Mountjoy,” Lewrie snickered. “Dalrymple’s sent off all of his available ships in port t’carry his letters, and who’s left here? You’re up to the Convent tomorrow? Good, you can suggest that Ceuta needs a close eye-ballin’, and remind Sir Hew that I’m familiar with the place from before.”
“Anything to get free of those gunboats, right?” Mountjoy said with a laugh.
“You’re Goddamned right!” Lewrie assured him.
“I’m to attend a staff meeting just after breakfast, I’ll put the flea in his ear then,” Mountjoy promised.
* * *
After a couple of glasses of a sprightly white Portuguese wine, Mountjoy sloped off for his lodgings for the night, covertly shadowed by ex-Sergeant Deacon, who tipped Lewrie a grim nod of recognition.
Lewrie strode South, further down the quayside street to meet Maddalena for his own supper. There was a lovely and colourful sunset behind Algeciras and the Spanish mainland the other side of the bay, one that was mirrored in the harbour waters, and there was a slight cooling breeze wafting down the Strait from the Atlantic, a breeze that had a touch of Winter to it, at long last. Looking up at the massive heights of the Rock, Lewrie could see that the sundown colours painted the stark mountain red and gold, and tinted the white-washed stone buildings of the upper town in the same warm hues.
He reached Maddalena’s lodgings and trotted up the stairs to her floor, down the hall to the front of the building, and knocked at her stout wooden door.
“Ah, you are here!” Maddalena said as she swept the door open, and quickly embraced him with a fiercer hug than usual. As he stroked her back, Lewrie felt a tenseness in her.
“What is it, minha doce?” he asked, using what little Portuguese that he’d picked up from her over the months: my sweet.
“It is true, the rumours in the markets?” she fearfully asked. “The French are taking my country? Lisbon?”
“I’m afraid it’s true,” Lewrie had to admit to her. “They aren’t there yet, but they’re marching on Lisbon,” and he added what Mountjoy had told him of the evacuation of the Portuguese court and all of the national treasures.
“We’ve a dozen ships of the line to see them to Brazil, along with all the Portuguese navy. The French won’t get anything.” Lewrie added, “Your Dom João bamboozled Bonaparte and the French, stringin’ them along ’til the last moment, promising t’close his ports to British trade, but planning t’flee all along.”
“But your country cannot stop them?” Maddalena fretted. “Your army and navy can’t…?”
“Not right away,” Lewrie had to tell her. “We have t’save Gibraltar first, then London will come up with something.”
“I never saw Lisbon,” Maddalena mournfully said, drifting off towards the wine-cabinet to pour them drinks. “When we sailed from Oporto on our way here, we came close … but not so close that I could see the city. I was always told how beautiful it is, and now … you must save Gibraltar first?” she asked with a deep frown.
“The French are sending several armies into Spain, too, bound here and Cádiz, most-like, t’lay siege here, and get their ships from Trafalgar back. Gibraltar’s always held, and I doubt if the French and Spanish together can change that. We’re safe. You’re safe,” he assured her as he took an offered glass, marvelling again at how fortunate he was to have discovered her. She’d been “under the protection” of an army officer, a Brevet-Major Hughes, when he met them, and a dull and joyless relationship that had been for her, for Hughes was a fool. General Dalrymple had put Hughes in command of the land forces for the raids, and, fortunately for Lewrie, the idiot dashed off in the pre-dawn dark and confusion and was captured by the Spanish, and still languished in their custody, on his parole ’til a Spaniard of equal rank could be exchanged for him. Hughes never knew what he’d had.