“Aye, sir,” Ward said, going to the poop deck and the taffrail flag lockers.
“One of ours, then?” Mountjoy asked. “Perhaps she’s standing guard over the army’s latest access to the sea.”
“Might very well be, Mister Mountjoy,” Lewrie agreed. “Useful, the Interrogative flag,” he mused aloud. “We once spoke one of our ships near the Greater Antilles. Neither of us had seen the sun for nigh a week, and we’d both been runnin’ on Dead Reckoning. She showed the Church flag, the one ordering to hold services, spelled out Where, and the Interrogative. The up-shot? Oh God, Where Are We? Hah hah!”
“That’s much like the one I saw done when I was Fifth Officer in a seventy-four, sir,” Lt. Elmes reminisced with a grin. “We were alongside Gun Wharf, and another ship was waiting to tie up where we were. Her Captain hoists How Long Will You Be, spelled it all out, and our Captain replied with numerals and spelled out Foot. One hundred eighty feet!”
“Good one!” Lewrie chortled.
“Naval humour,” Mountjoy bemoaned. “Like sailors’ slang, it’s indecypherable.”
“Reply, sir!” Midshipman Griffin shouted down to them. “M … A … C … I … E … R … A … Bay! Maciera Bay!”
“Mister Yelland? I’d admire a look at the charts, if you please,” Lewrie asked, steeling himself to be in the cramped chart room on the larboard side of the quarterdeck, and hoping that Yelland had sponged off in the last week.
“Ah, here, sir,” Yelland said, tapping an ink-stained forefinger on the rolled-out chart of the coast of Portugal. “It’s not much of a bay, though. There’s a wee river, or large creek, that runs down to the sea ’twixt these steep, rocky hills. There isn’t much of a beach to speak of, and ah … aye, we’d have to anchor far out, since the chart shows that the bay approaches are shallow and sandy. Maybe not the best holding ground, either. Do you wish a safe five or six fathoms, we’d be at least a mile or better offshore.”
“We’ll go in sounding the leads, and I will feel better if we anchor in six or seven fathoms,” Lewrie decided, not liking the sketchiness of the chart’s information. “We’re about here, now?” he asked as he tapped the chart near Praia de Ariea Branca.
“Uhm, I’d say near level with Lourinhã, sir, a bit further on than that,” Yelland corrected. “Still about twenty miles seaward of the coast.”
“Very well, sir,” Lewrie said, “we’ll alter course to the Southeast ’til we strike this twenty-fathom line, come level with Maciera Bay, then alter course again Due East and find safe anchorage.”
“Aye, sir,” Yelland said, pinning the ends of the chart down with books so he could duck in and out of the chart space to reference it as often as needed in the next few hours. They then both left the chart space and returned to the quarterdeck, with Lewrie wishing that he could fan away Mr. Yelland’s sour, stale aromas.
Captain Hughes, who had been lounging in the officers’ wardroom, came up from the upper gun-deck to peer about, and see what all the excitement had been. He had taken time to dress properly, and now was slowly pacing with his hands in the small of his back, as if it was just not done to appear too curious, or alarmed.
“I heard some shouting,” he said at last. “‘Sail ho,’ what?”
“We’ve spotted one of our ships down South of us,” Mountjoy told him. “We’ve found General Wellesley’s army, and we’re making our way there.”
“Have we? Capital!” Hughes said with a bark of delight. “Then I shall tell my man to pack my traps. It will be good to dine ashore this evening, even if Sir Arthur’s officers’ mess will most-like serve salt-beef and such. Field rations, ah!”
“They’ve been marching through country un-disturbed by the enemy, in high Summer,” Mountjoy supposed, “so they’ve surely managed to buy or forage the best of the local crops. Portugal is known for its own style of bullfighting. Perhaps they’ve found some fresh beef?”
“If they have, I’d relish it,” Hughes declared. “Relish it, I tell you. I’ve been bilious ever since I set foot aboard this ship.”
“Oh, my dear fellow!” Mountjoy pretended to sympathise. “You found naval fare distressing? My condolences.”
Lewrie bent over to give Bisquit some “wubbies” to hide his delight. When he stood back up, his expression was bland again.
“Mister Elmes, we will alter course to the Sou’east and close the shore,” he directed. “Hands to the braces, ready to ease the set.”
“Wasn’t Navy victuals,” Hughes carped, stifling a left-over breakfast belch. “Not actually.” He threw a frown at Lewrie.
“I found them quite toothsome and delightful,” Mountjoy said. “Captain Lewrie sets a fine table.”
“If you say so, Mister Mountjoy,” Captain Hughes leerily said. “Well, I shall get out from under-foot of the sailors, and see to my despatches.” And with that, he descended to the weather deck and went down the steep ladderway below.
Lewrie shared a look with Mountjoy, quite satisfied with the exchange, and with Mountjoy’s sly wit.
* * *
By sundown, HMS Sapphire was safely anchored bow and stern in about fourty feet of water. Hughes; his batman, a long-suffering Private from Hughes’s old regiment; and Mr. Mountjoy had gone ashore in the launch, and Lewrie was shot of both of them for a time, able to take the evening air on the poop deck in peace. There were several supply ships and troop transports closer to the shore, ships of less than half of Sapphire’s burthen which drew less water. Beyond them, past the two high headlands which framed the Maceira River, the night was aglow with campfires, where half-dressed soldiers took their ease by pale tan tents and cooked their rations with their arms stacked close by. It all looked quite peaceful, but once Lewrie employed his telescope, he could make out a chain of torches snaking down to the sea, and the rowing boats drawn up on the banks of the river and beach. There were even some carts trundling along, slowly and carefully. A closer look showed litter-bearers, and men on those litters.
“Permission to come up, sir?” Lt. Westcott said at the base of the larboard ladderway.
“Aye, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie allowed. “What the Devil?”
Westcott had stopped at the glim which lit the compass binnacle, to ignite a Spanish cigarro, and was puffing away.
“Thought I would indulge, before Lights Out is ordered,” Westcott explained.
“When did you develop the habit?” Lewrie asked.
“A week ago, on a run ashore at Gibraltar,” Westcott told him. “I find tobacco … restful, especially after a good shore supper, and with the trade cross the Lines so open, now, they’re damned near five pence for a dozen.”
“Those torches,” Lewrie pointed out to him, handing Westcott his telescope, “they look like wounded, bein’ rowed out to the ships for care. What does it look like to you?”
“I’d say you’re right, sir,” Westcott said after a long minute. “There’s been a battle, it looks like.”
“Beyond, the army’s camped in what looks t’be good order, so … dare we imagine that Wellesley’s met the French and beaten them?” Lewrie wondered aloud.
“Hmm, high Summer, bad food or water,” Lt. Westcott mused, “it may be sick men coming off the shore, not wounded. Disease will kill quicker than a bullet. Happens to every army that takes the field.”
“I think I’ll go ashore tomorrow morning,” Lewrie decided. “I want to know, either way.”
“And I must remain aboard to keep an eye on things, again, sir?” Westcott said in mock distress. “Damme, but you have all the fun.”
“If you made Commander and had a ship of your own, you could go play silly buggers, too, Geoffrey. I keep throwin’ opportunities at you,” Lewrie told him with a grin.
“When Sapphire’s active commission is up, I will pursue such,” Westcott vowed, “though it’ll be a wrench to part us, at last.”