Kings and Emperors Read Free Page B

to cease all communication with us, and restrict all further trade cross the Lines.”
    â€œMine 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!
    â€œNo 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?
    â€œI 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.
    â€œWell, 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.
    â€œDon’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.”
    â€œWell, I’m sure Sir