“Mister Mountjoy sent for assistance to expand the reach of his posting, sir,” Cummings elaborated. “We arrived at Gibraltar only one day after you left port.”
Lewrie only half-heard that; he was still goggling at Marsh, who had just as quickly turned Spanish and was singing some song with a daft grin on his face, lisping away like the haughtiest Castilian.
Bloody lunaticks, the both of ’em! Lewrie thought.
“Ehm … shouldn’t we be discussing such in private, Mister Cummings?” Lewrie asked. “‘Under the rose’, all that?”
“Well, we shouldn’t stay too long in company with your ship, lest watchers ashore associate Gallegos with the Royal Navy,” Cummings said, “but, perhaps a few minutes, over a glass of something?”
“That great American, Benjamin Franklin, once wrote that ‘wine is God’s way of telling us that he loves us, and wishes us to be happy’,” Romney Marsh cited, turning his face angelic. “Yes, make us happy, please do, Sir Alan!”
“This way, then, gentlemen,” Lewrie bade. “Mister Harcourt, we will remain fetched-to a while longer. Alert me does a strange sail turn up.”
“Aye, sir,” Lt. Harcourt replied, trying not to laugh at the continuing antics of the mysterious Mr. Marsh, who was practising some dance steps, and humming to himself.
* * *
“Wine, Pettus,” Lewrie requested once they were all seated in the starboard-side settee area. “Tea for me.”
“Oh, but the sun is below the yardarm, Sir Alan,” Marsh said, “since it has just arisen. Ah, you have a cat! Hallo, puss. Venir, el gato bonito!” he crooned with his head over to one side.
Chalky would have none of it; he crouched down with his tail tucked round his front paws near the wine-cabinet.
Someone in here’s got some sense, Lewrie amusedly thought.
“You’re re-enforcing Mountjoy, you said, Mister Cummings? He said he had a man coming to command his boat, should I be able to get him one,” Lewrie asked, by way of beginning, and getting their meeting over quickly, so he wouldn’t have to deal with them for long.
“And, you did a splendid job of it, sir,” Cummings replied as Pettus fetched a bottle and two glasses of a smuggled Spanish white. “Yes, I’m to play-act a local trader, bearing goods smuggled out of Gibraltar, which as you know, thrives despite the regulations against it. I’ve always played around boats, I’ve always had a good ear for languages, and especially for Spanish and Portuguese, and the regional dialects. Nowhere near Marsh’s talents at it, but I cope. We’re to enter Spanish ports all along the Andalusian, Murcian, and Catalan coasts, ostensibly to trade, but also to pick up reports from agents in place, along with tavern talk. Carry instructions from Mountjoy, that sort of thing, find answers to questions, and fill in the gaps in what we know, and don’t know.”
“A dangerous business,” Lewrie commented as Pettus brought him a tall glass of cool tea with lemon and sugar.
“As you’d know best yourself, Sir Alan,” Romney Marsh said in a secretive whisper, leaning a tad closer than Lewrie liked. “We were told of your doings up the Mississippi to Spanish New Orleans a few years ago, and how you scotched that Creole pirate business. Mister James Peel sends his regards. His fondest regards.”
Marsh said that in yet another guise, this time sounding like the idlest, most affected courtier at St. James’s Palace with the grandest airs. Lewrie didn’t much care for simpering, either!
“Not all that dangerous, Captain Lewrie,” Cummings stuck in, “for my brief doesn’t require that I meet our agents face-to-face, but deal with drop-points where their reports are secreted. And Mountjoy is counting on the luxury goods we carry to make our presence welcome. I also have enough bribe money to mollify even the most-corrupt Spanish authorities. Marsh here has the more dangerous job…”
“Volunteered for it, gladly,” Marsh said in a loud boast, “for God, King, and Country. And, for the thrill of it all.”
“He’s to go to Madrid, and nose about,” Cummings said in awe of the mission, and Marsh’s daring.
“And get back, I presume?” Lewrie dryly asked.
“Contact whom I can among the influential in Madrid who oppose the French, and the Godoy administration,” Marsh preened, all but buffing his fingernails on the lapels of his waist-length leather jacket, “gather impressions of the sentiments of the common people and tradesmen, soldiers, and such. Perhaps influence whom I can, as well, and spread a little sedition. Then, get back to the coast and wait for Señor Rodriguez an’ heez feelthy barca to peeck me up, comprender?” he said, slipping into a Spanish accent once more.
“And how may I aid you two in that?” Lewrie asked, imagining that they would have steered well clear of Sapphire at first sight if they didn’t need something.
Just like gettin’ roped in by Zachariah Twigg as useful to his schemes ages ago in the Far East, Lewrie sourly thought; There’s never an end to it! There’s always something more!
“You’ll note, sir, that we’ve a large horizontal patch of new, white sailcloth in our foresail, from luff to leech,” Cummings told him. “By that sign you will know us, hah hah! If we must meet I will show a very badly faded, but perfectly strong, red jib, and you can pretend to chase me out of sight of land, and any watchers. Do you encounter us along the coast, and we’re anywhere near a port, I’d like you to chase after us … clumsily, so I can put in and escape, to the congratulations of other Spanish mariners, do you see?”
“That’s all?” Lewrie asked, both puzzled and relieved.
“That’s the nub of it, Captain Lewrie,” Cummings said, tossing up his hands and grinning. “Now, over on the Atlantic coast, round Cádiz, we’ll have to take our chances with our blockading ships, ’til Mister Mountjoy can get word to the Admiral commanding … Saumarez, the last I heard … but I’m still not sure if we’ll be sent there in the near future. What’s left of the Franco-Spanish combined fleet is still sulking in port, there, and the city’s an armed fortress, so we have very few assets in Cádiz, and getting an agent, or agents, sneaked in is even more difficult.”
“Oh, I suppose I could, if asked,” Marsh slyly boasted. “What is one more priest among many, one more sandalled peasant droving his pigs to market, or a proud hidalgo on a fine horse?”
“Marsh can portray himself as Catholic as the Pope himself!” Cummings bragged. “He can conduct any rite, or a Mass, in Latin and Spanish. I’ve seen him do it, to practise.”
“The benefits of a classical education, Cummings,” Marsh said, “and a … dare I say, a widespread, catholic interest. Small C ‘catholic’, mind. Church of England, myself, and damned proud of it!”
“One never knows just who he is when he comes down to breakfast,” Cummings said with a laugh. “Costumes, wigs, false beards, and mustachios…”
“Well, it’s said that ‘clothing makes the man’,” Marsh airily stated. “Amateur theatrics was my chief delight at school, and with the help of Secret Branch, I’ve honed my skills by studying under the very best in Covent Garden and Drury Lane.”
He’s daft as bats! Lewrie thought, amazed at his smug expectations.
“Do you ever want for droll amusement when in London, Sir Alan, you must attend Pulteney Plumb’s Comedic Revue in Drury Lane,” Marsh imparted, leaning close once more as if touting a sure-thing long shot horse at Ascot.
Lewrie, in mid-sip of his tea, spluttered a gulp in his lap!
He’s deader than cold, boiled mutton! Lewrie thought; Soon as he steps ashore, the Spanish’ll be askin’ him if he’s up for a match of cricket! Pulteney bloody Plumb, of all the…!