As Lewrie made a beginning on Charlton’s requested proposal, he found many other things arising to draw him from the endeavour; for it was approaching the Christmas Season, his first with his new wife, in his own house in what seemed ages, and ashore for the first time in his memory. There were letters to be written to people on both sides of the family, to people at sea or who resided too far off to visit, and Lewrie and Jessica occupied each end of the dining table in the warm morning room after breakfasts, scribbling, folding, and sealing with wax and Lewrie’s rarely used stamp of his knighthood, and Jessica took secret delight each time she used it.
There was the house to decorate with holly, ivy, pine boughs, and coloured wax candles, gifts to be purchased for immediate family and the Boxing Day gifts for their household servants, the obtaining of which kept Lewrie out on shopping errands that prevented him from doing anything about the proposal.
There were parties to plan, wine and spirits to be laid by for their guests, and a continual round of supper parties at the homes of Jessica’s friends to attend, as well as outings to enjoy the holiday festivities. Dramas at the Theatres Royal, the obligatory attendance at a performance of Handel’s Messiah with Reverend Chenery along, and other symphonies which that worthy begged off as a bit too scandalous (thank God!). Lewrie even cajoled all the younger couples to cram into several hackney coaches and go see the quick-change sketch comedies at Pulteney Plumb’s theatre, which all agreed was most amusing.
There were family suppers at Saint Anselm’s manse, at Lewrie’s, and even at Sir Hugo’s house, where Charley Chenery secretly goggled over Sir Hugo’s vast collection of risqué novels and satiric caricatures. And, of course, there were the requisite Divine Services, to mark the season, gloomy as they could be, the joy of Twelfth Night parties followed by a heavy-handed Epiphany service. All that was missing was a really rowdy Frost Fair on the Thames, which did not ice over quite thick enough to support the booths, or skating.
At last, round the start of January, Lewrie finally got serious about scribbling his ideas down, feeling happily satisfied that Christmas as a married man had gone about as sweetly as could be expected, even allowing for Jessica being “under her moon” for a week before Christmas Eve, and insisting on sleeping in the second furnished bed-chamber.
She had put aside her art work for the holidays, too joyously busy with all the preparations, and the celebrations that went with it, but was now intent on a new series of Christmas-inspired paintings involving dogs making off with the goose or the turkey, or children going wide-eyed over a steaming pudding, and was best left to her own devices whilst inspired, leaving Lewrie time at the morning room table with paper, pen, ink, and his rough, first draughts.
The basics were easy enough to explain; barges alongside both beams of all three masts at once, anti-boarding nets slung down which the soldiers would scramble; equipment lists necessary for a quick raid, not for camping ashore, or cooking rations. He did some rough and crude sketches of boats going ashore in line-abreast so all the troops could debark at once, the transport ships aligned as close to shore as possible and parallel to the beach, anchored by bow and stern to make a passably useful breakwater should the seas be up.
But, for the life of him, Lewrie still could not fathom how to land artillery. It would take too long to hoist out of the holds of the transports, too long to ferry ashore in the barges, and would be almost impossible to land from the barges, over their bows, without the entire raiding party, soldiers and sailors, carrying them carriage by carriage, then barrel by barrel, to be assembled. It might take an entire day!
He dabbled in wild speculation, sketching improbable designs of barges with bow ramps, but never could figure out how sailors could even ply their oars with a fully-assembled field piece sitting amidships of a barge, and the span of the axles, and the wheels, taking up most of the inside beam. Did he include a caisson for powder and shot, it would take two barges to land one gun, and half the battalion to man-haul both together, unless there was a way to sling draught horses over the side to swim ashore, and that would take even more transport ships just for them and their fodder, and…!
Now I’m sure this’ll never be tried! he groaned to himself.
Despite his misgivings, and with Jessica’s help with the illustrations, no matter how reluctant she was to further the inanity that, should it look too good it might be deemed feasible, Lewrie ended up with a full proposal to mail to Charlton, and a copy for himself, if even as a folly to be stowed deep out of sight. Besides, there were more important things occupying his time, social obligations that he and Jessica had to attend, and a “hop-master” to visit. It had been years since Lewrie had had reason to tax his dancing skills, but he’d always enjoyed dances, and had secretly thought himself a graceful and practiced man who was quick on his feet, but feared that there was a lot to re-learn of the older figures, and some newer trends to study before he dared take the floor without embarrassing himself, or his new wife!
* * *
Roughly a week after Candlemas, Lewrie came home from a local bookseller’s with several novels, an assortment of newspapers, and a copy of The Naval Chronicle, intending to read the day away in front of the drawing room fire, when Liam Desmond pointed his attention to some mail on the shiny pewter tray on the entrance hall side-board.
“Somthin’ from Admiralty, sor,” Desmond said with a wink.
“Oh, is there?” Lewrie asked, glancing into the front parlour where Jessica was sketching, hopefully too intent to note the arrival of any letters, yet. “Hmm, thankee, Desmond. I’ll be abovestairs.”
He scooped up the letter from Admiralty, and once relieved of his over-coat, hat, gloves, and walking-stick, hid it between two newspapers, and went upstairs as quickly, and as quietly, as he could.
Ain’t even Lady Day yet, so what’s this about? he asked himself, thinking that he would have no reason to go to Whitehall to collect his quarterly half-pay ’til the next Quarter Day, which wasn’t ’til the 25th of March. Once in the drawing room, he dumped everything on the settee and took a moment to warm his backside before the fire, then fetched the letter, threw himself into a wing-back chair close to the fire, and tore it open.
Good Lord, they really want t’do it? he gawped, a quim-hair shy of shouting his reaction out loud. “Please inform the First Secretary of your availability to discuss the proposal you recently submitted to Rear-Admiral Thomas Charlton anent the creation of a landing force suitable for raids against hostile coasts…” he read aloud in slowly increasing volume. “Mine arse on a band-box! They’re really thinkin’ of it? Just damn my eyes! Whoo!”
“Summat, sir?” Tom Dasher asked from the doorway. “Ya call fer hot coffee?”
“Hot coffee, aye, Dasher, with cream and sugar,” Lewrie happily agreed, “and a tot o’ rum t’boot!”
He couldn’t sit still, and had to spring to his feet and pace about the drawing room to re-read the short letter, feeling a rising excitement that it meant that Admiralty would offer him an active commission to implement the plan, hopefully as a Commodore, First Class at last, with a Post-Captain under him to run his new ship, leaving him free to devote all his efforts elsewhere; might it mean a return to a large frigate, or something larger, a Third Rate 74 at last? A Fourth Rate might serve, but there were damned few of those left, and … Get hold of yourself, ye damned fool, he had to temper himself; it may only mean the plan’s approved, and I’m still stuck ashore. Maybe they’ll give it to someone in good favour, like Popham. Charlton said that Popham was plannin’ t’carry the fight ashore on the North Spanish coast. Someone else’ll get all the credit, and I’ll still linger about like a beggar in the streets? Just about what I’ve come to expect, damn their blood! Yet?
Lewrie had good reason to feel aggrieved, and unfairly, spitefully ill-used, so much so that he almost dreaded getting his hopes up, only to have them dashed once more, like a stray mutt kicked or shooed off too often to dare lick a hand that offered a beef steak. He took a deep, calming breath and sat back down in front of the fire, waiting on his coffee, and giving the idea a long think. Oh, he could rush to pen a letter in reply at once and whistle up an urchin to deliver it with the promise of a whole shilling … but that would look too needy, too desperate, and he had his pride, and his honour to consider. No, he thought; it would be best did he set Admiralty’s letter aside for a day, read his papers and The Naval Chronicle, perhaps even delve into several first chapters of one of the novels before writing them back a day or two later. Admiralty officials knew that he was re-married, he was mortal-certain, and taking his time to reply might garner the impression that he was now too busy, or too engaged in civilian doings and pleasures, to quiver and leap at the possibly-offered bone, with his tail wagging and many a hungry begging whine!
Aloof but willin’, Lewrie determined in his mind, even as he wondered how he’d inform Jessica of the letter, and calm her fears of his returning to service with a dismissive laugh or two of how someone else would most-like get the duty, only using his ideas. That’d work, he told himself; She’d buy that, I’m sure. After supper tonight, after a bottle of wine or two.
“Yer coffee, sir,” Dasher said as he entered the drawing room with a tray and the shiny pewter service.
“Ah, thankee, Dasher,” Lewrie said, perking up as if nothing was amiss, and tucking the letter into a breast pocket of his coat. Just as he was spooning sugar into his coffee, though, Jessica came into the drawing room to join him, garbed in a paint-spattered smock over her warm winter gown, with her hair pinned up under a mob-cap.
“Alan, you came in without telling me?” she teased. “Thank you, Dasher,” she added as the lad offered her a cup.
“You looked so intent on what you were doing that I didn’t wish t’disturb you, dearest,” Lewrie replied with a dis-arming smile, and a reach cross the wee table between them to fondly take her hand.
“We’ve several letters,” Jessica said after she’d gotten her coffee to her taste, and withdrawing several from a pocket of her smock, sorting through them and naming the writers. “One or two for you, from your son Hugh, and one from Commander Westcott.”
“Didn’t notice when I came in,” Lewrie lied, “I was too eager to warm my bones in front of a good fire, and find out what’s happening in the world,” he said, gesturing to the papers and books on the settee.
Jessica handed him his letters, then opened one addressed to her and laughed aloud. “Oh, Lord, my sister-in-law up at Windsor is enceinte with her third child, ehm … hoping for another boy, and we’re invited to come up some time after Midsummer Day.”
“To make goo-goo eyes over the sprout’s spit-up, I suppose?” Lewrie teased.
“You’re awful,” Jessica said back, chuckling, turning to another of her letters.
“Mine arse on … ahem,” Lewrie cried, censoring himself, “old Geoffrey Westcott’s captured himself a brace of Yankee Doodles, filled to the gunn’ls with grain, tryin’ t’sneak into L’Orient! There’s your pretty penny or two, aha! Two full-rigged ships, too, sure t’be worth a lot after the Prize Courts get through with ’em.”
“American ships, dear?” Jessica asked.
“Their loss for tryin’ to smuggle goods into France without clearing their cargoes with England,” Lewrie explained. “They sell to us, or else.”
“You miss it, don’t you, Alan?” Jessica asked him, looking pensive. “The excitement, and the prize-money.”
“Hmm, I can’t pretend that I don’t, love,” Lewrie confessed. “I made my pile, though, enough so that if I came home from Indian service they’d call me a ‘chicken nabob’. But, as shy of battle as the French have become, there’s little excitement of the chase, or the fight, available any longer. It’s all gruelling blockade work for the most part, standin’ off-and-on the coast in dirty weather, and a boresome routine, weeks and months on end. Like my eldest, Sewallis, endures, much to his dis-appointment.”
“So, you’re not tempted to…?” Jessica pressed.
“I may be like an old, worn-out fox hound, my dear,” Lewrie said with a wry laugh. “When he hears the master’s horn, he may bark and pace the pen, but…,” he ended with a wistful shrug.
“Oh, you’re not anywhere close to old, my love!” Jessica said with a teasing laugh. “And thank God for it,” she added with a glance that was nigh lascivious.
Christ, explainin’ that letter to her tonight’s goin’ t’be a bit harder than I thought! Lewrie told himself.
* * *
Three mornings later, though, and Lewrie was at Admiralty, in his best dress uniform, For the first time in his memory, he didn’t have to bide in the Waiting Room very long, no more than ten minutes, before being summoned upstairs, and not to the offices of the First Secretary as he usually would be received, but down the hall into the Board Room.
They must be considerin’ this damned seriously! he told himself, awed by the oaken grandeur of the large room, its huge maps of the world on one inner wall, the ornateness of the carved fireplace surround, and the wind vane indicator dial connected to the instrument on the roof. On the long, highly polished board room table a silver coffee service awaited, and a brace of men, one in uniform, sat together at the far end, who rose as he was shown in.
“Aha, Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, welcome, sir,” the man in civilian suitings said, “allow me to name myself to you … John Croker, the new First Secretary, and of course you know Captain Robert Middleton, from your time together at Gibraltar. Captain Middleton is now the Commissioner Without Special Functions. Sit you down, Sir Alan. Will you take coffee?”
“Indeed I would, Mister Croker,” Lewrie replied, taking a seat near them. “Hallo, Captain Middleton. Good to see you, again.”
“Most fortuitously, Captain Middleton was in charge of His Majesty’s Dockyards at Gibraltar when you first outfitted a transport and staged your first raids along the Andalusian coast of Spain,” Croker said as he “played mother” with the coffee pot and a china cup.
“On the smallest scale allowed, that,” Lewrie told Croker, “but Captain Middleton was most helpful at obtaining all I requred, and then some. I take it, sir, that Mistress Middleton is having more luck with her gardens here in England than she did at Gibraltar?”
“We are both amazed at what a sufficient supply of fertiliser will do, Sir Alan,” Middleton said with a laugh. “I doubt that there were less than fifty horses, cattle, or sheep at Gibraltar, and the only manure available came with the livestock imported from Tétuan. Oh, aye, her garden and vegetable crops now thrive.”
Some more pleasantries were exchanged before they got down to the root of the matter. Folios were spread out, and copies of Lewrie’s proposal were gone over, point by point for several hours, requiring food to be sent for, cold sliced beef, mustard, bread and pickles, and some chicken broth, along with a bottle of claret, and more coffee.
There were objections, of course; where would a man-starved Navy get the large crews for the transports’ management and the hands needed to row the barges ashore? From a ship of the Third or Fourth Rate just paying off? The Lieutenants from that ship could be appointed as the transports’ commanding officers, and senior Midshipmen could be given the temporary rank of Sub-Lieutenant to aid them, with Master’s Mates promoted as Sailing Masters, and less-experienced Midshipmen put aboard in their usual subordinate roles.
“And, of course, is a Third Rate sixty-four made the flagship of the force,” Lewrie threw in, “she would have a Marine complement that could re-enforce the landings. Seventy private Marines, plus officers, Sergeants, and Corporals, and the flagship given twenty-nine-foot Admiralty pattern barges and cutters, instead of gigs and jolly-boats?”
Two companies of infantry in each transport, about one hundred to one hundred and fifty troops in all, in three-masted ships of over three hundred and fifty tons burthen, their hulls coppered, even if the rate paid per ton for such ships was dearer than that for un-coppered hulls.
“Five of them, sirs, for a full regiment, if such is available,” Lewrie told them. “Ten companies. Has anyone asked Horse Guards yet?”
“The ah, proposal has been presented to them,” Croker replied with a shrug, “but as of yet we have not heard anything back. They’ve not given us a flat ‘no’, so we must assume that your scheme is still being studied. Where did you get the troops the first time round?”
“General Dalrymple offered two companies sent out to fill the gaps in a regiment on Sicily,” Lewrie said. “And none too keen on it they were, in the beginning. Their officers, all young’uns fresh from their tailors, had to leave all their luxury goods behind, and subsist on ship’s rations … though the twice-daily rum issue was welcomed by their troops.”
“I doubt you’d get a crack regiment,” Captain Middleton said with a sour expression. “One would suppose that our Army regards this as a rather iffy experiment that may come to nothing, or fail outright, so … Horse Guards may suggest that we fill the transports with Royal Marines, instead.”
“Now that would be a delightful result!” Lewrie enthused. “A Marine has twice the wits of a soldier, and they’re used to life at sea to begin with. Do we use Marines, we could place only one hundred aboard each transport, since they come in much smaller complements of fourty, fifty aboard frigates, and give everyone more elbow room, less men per ton.”
“Ahem,” Croker said, moistening a finger to turn a page. “You included a section about intelligence, Sir Alan. Spies, do you mean?”
“Aye, Mister Croker … spies,” Lewrie said with a wide smile of delight, thinking that proper English gentlemen shied like frightened horses when anything covert or cloak-and-dagger arose. “At Gibraltar, I had the able assistance of Foreign Office’s Secret Branch. A Mister Thomas Mountjoy had cultivated a whole coven of informers among the dis-affected Spanish along the whole coast, from Gibraltar to the French border, with disguised British agents posing as humble fishermen and coastal traders to collect their intelligence, and determine what my targets were.”
“Thomas Mountjoy?” Captain Middleton exclaimed in surprise. “I knew the fellow, just in passing, mind, but … I thought he was just a tradesman with some import and export company! Grew magnificent flowers on his balcony, God only knew how. My wife envied him his ‘green thumb’!”
“The very fellow, sir,” Lewrie said with a laugh, “and living a public persona so mild and in-offensive that everyone was fooled, especially the French and Spanish spies on Gibraltar … the ones that old General Dalrymple imagined were under every bed, ha ha! His brief was to swing Spain from their allegiance to France, and become our allies, and a grand job he did of that.
“There must be an intelligence network of spies, informers, and informal scouts,” Lewrie insisted, “who can keep track of what the foe is up to, where their troops are garrisoned, what sort of troops, and how well armed they are … what sort of things can we raid and burn that’ll hurt them the most, with us running the least risk of meeting too much opposition for the few hours we’re ashore. We need someone like Mountjoy and his agents to guide us, or we’re just thrashing about blind.”
“Aha, hmm,” Croker mused. “Well.”
“And,” Lewrie enquired in the sudden silence, “just where would we be using this proposed raiding force, sirs? One would assume that we’d be hitting the French somewhere in Spain, to draw troops away from General Wellesley’s army, or … the French coasts, either in the Mediterranean or along the Bay of Biscay? In the Baltic? Somewhere in the bloody Balkans?”
“We are not absolutely sure where such a force might be used, at the moment, Sir Alan,” Croker admitted with spread hands as if to encompass a world map on the table top. “We are met today to discuss the plausibility of forming such a force, only. Where it will go and how big an endeavour it turns out to be … and how much it will cost … is still to be determined.”
Shit! Lewrie thought; At least they laid on dinner!
“I for one think it most feasible,” Middleton declared. “We’ve seen the havoc that Sir Alan caused with only one transport, and the upset he gave the Spanish before they changed sides.”
“Havoc, chaos, and mayhem,” Lewrie japed. “I’m your man for that!”
“I, too, am of a mind to recommend it to the First Lord, Henry Lord Mulgrave,” Croker announced with a firm nod. “It’s novel, it is daring…”
Oh, don’t say that! Lewrie thought with a wince; Those are bad words, sure t’get the plan strangled in its cradle!
“… and promises to achieve results far beyond the modest investment made to try it out,” Croker concluded.
“Ain’t Mulgrave on his way out, though, sir?” Middleton pointed out. “I heard a vague rumour that his health was failing, and that the front-runner for the office might be the Right Honourable Charles Yorke.”
“Hmm, that would be bad,” Croker opined. “Lord Mulgrave’s done good things as First Lord, and he’ll be missed if he goes. Yorke may do just as well, but … there’s nothing official, yet.”
“And if Lord Mulgrave steps down, any plan he approves might be shelved ’til the new First Lord finds his feet,” Middleton said with a grunt of impatience.
“So it might be months, if ever?” Lewrie wearily asked. “I must confess that I had hopes that my proposal would gain approval sometime soon, and that I might be allowed to put it into motion. But, if I must wait … well.”
“As the author of the plan, and the one officer most familiar with its implementation, you would, of course, be the first choice … if the experiment is approved, Sir Alan,” Croker assured him, a bit too quickly to be taken at face value, or a firm promise.
There’s that other bad word, Lewrie gloomed; “experiment”! Mine arse on a band-box!
“Are there any other details we need to thrash out today, sirs?” Lewrie asked, forcing himself to keep a good face on. “If not, then I suppose I should run along home.” After a glance out the windows that faced the courtyard and the curtain wall, he added, “Before the evening fog gets so thick a cabman can’t find his arse with a lanthorn.”
They all rose and shook hands in parting, chuckling mildly over Lewrie’s wee witticism, and making vague promises of future meetings as soon as someone in authority gave the plan the go-ahead.
* * *
The evening fog was indeed thickening by the time he got home, swirling lazily round the few streetlights along Dover Street, and the lanthorns by the doorways of the houses either side of the street. He was joyously greeted by the dogs, up on their hind legs and pawing at his breeches for pets, and by Chalky, who stood on the entry hall side-board, arching his back, yawning and stretching, and mewing for attention, too. Oddly, there was only one candle lit in the front parlour, and a low fire in need of stoking in the hearth, with Jessica nowhere to be seen.
“Dame Lewrie?” he asked after handing over his hat, boat cloak, and sword.
“She’s in the drawing room, sir,” Pettus told him.
“Ah, good,” Lewrie said, rubbing his chilled hands.
“How did things go at Admiralty, pardon for asking, sir?” Pettus simply had to enquire.
“Still early days, Pettus,” Lewrie told him before heading for the stairs. “We’re bound ashore awhile longer, it seems.”
“Oh, well, sir,” Pettus shrugged, though he sounded oddly glad of the news, and Lewrie took note that his wife’s pretty young maid, Lucy, and Pettus shared a secret smile as she passed by.
Damme, has he topped her, yet? Lewrie wondered; They sure look like they’re both in cream-pot love! Have t’keep an eye on that.
Abovestairs, the drawing room was much brighter lit with many candles, and the fire was crackling nicely. Jessica was seated on the settee near a side-table where a four-prong candelabra glowed, reading a novel. She set the book aside as he entered and rose to come embrace him with warmth, and gladly shared a long kiss with him.
“How did it go?” she asked, looking concerned.
“Oh, they loved the plan,” Lewrie told her as they walked to the fire and the pair of wing-back chairs. “It’s novel, it’s daring, and most-like as dead as mutton, ’cause it’s still being mulled over by various and sundry, and probably will be ’til next Epiphany, with no clue where it’d be sent, if it’s approved,” he wryly carped, telling her of meeting the new First Secretary, and his old acquaintance, Captain Middleton, and whether any decision would have to wait ’til a new First Lord of the Admiralty took up his post.
“So I should not fear that you will be torn away from me anytime soon, Alan?” Jessica said with a fond look, and in evident relief.
“I’m here ’til the cows come home, as the Yankee Doodles say,” Lewrie assured her. “If they do approve the plan, there’s no guarantee that they’ll let the likes of me have anything t’do with it, either, so … I suppose you’re stuck with me.”
“Oh, good!” Jessica exclaimed with a laugh. “Exactly what I wanted! Though, I must allow that you do look dashing in your uniform, dear. Forgive me if I say that I hope that you wear it only on special occasions.”
“At least it still fits,” Lewrie replied, and tossing her a kiss, and thinking that the fit was the only good virtue he’d found.