“Aye, sir. Ehm … have any of our torpedoes gone off yet?” Houghton asked.
“None of ours, no,” Lewrie had to tell him. “Ah, glad t’see ye in one piece, Mister Westcott. How did it go?”
“Wet, wild, and woolly for a time, sir,” Westcott told him with another laugh. “Shot splashes all round, and I got soaked to my chest when I mis-judged my leap back into the boat from our torpedo’s back. The tide was still running fairly strong when we let them go, so…,” he said with a shrug.
“You were closer to those anchored boats,” Lewrie said. “Did you note any damage?”
“Not all that much, sir, no. Sorry,” Lt. Westcott said, more softly. “Like in Macbeth, ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ ”
Monarch and the other frigates began firing, again; their boats were back alongside, and no friendly craft lay between them and their new targets, the French launches and gunboats.
“Resume fire, Mister Merriman!” Lewrie took time to order. “Do you take those Frog launches under fire!”
Now it was Midshipman Entwhistle’s boat crew coming back aboard to be congratulated, then … Captain Speaks and his crew.
“Must apologise to your young gentleman for supplanting him, Lewrie, but … I wished to see our torpedoes delivered properly,” the older fellow briskly said, stone-faced, as if to fend off any criticism of his actions.
“Excuse me, sir,” Surgeon Mr. Mainwaring intruded as he came to the base of the larboard gangway ladder. “Are there any wounded?” He had his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows and wore his usual long bib apron of leather; both, thankfully, were still pristine and bloodless.
“Don’t think so, Mister Mainwaring,” Lt. Westcott told him.
“Well, sor…,” Patrick Furfy piped up, holding up his bloodied left hand, “ ’Tis nought a glass o’ neat rum won’t cure.”
“The lummox caught it on one o’ th’ torpedo grapnel hooks, sor,” Liam Desmond related. “Thought he’d git towed ashore t’France before he got free!”
“We must see to that … sew it up,” Mainwaring determined after a quick inspection.
“Be painful, sor?” Furfy asked, looking skittish.
“You’d feel a pinch or two, yes,” the Surgeon told him.
“Arrah, sor, rum’d ease th’ pain? And faith if I don’t feel all weak an’ faint, of a sudden!” Furfy declared, shamming wooziness.
“Below to the cockpit, Furfy … with your rum for pain,” the Surgeon said, rolling his eyes. “Let’s go.”
There was a tremendous explosion close to shore as one of the fireships blew up. There was a monstrous fire ball and an expanding cloud of broken planking, shattered timbers, and flaming tar barrels, every chunk and slightest splintered bit a bright torch, all of it pattering down hundreds of feet away to extinguish in the sea, leaving the ruptured hull smouldering and smothered in black smoke.
“Huzzah!” from Lewrie’s weary gunners, enthused once more.
“Excuse me, sir,” Midshipman Warburton said, doffing his hat as he came to the quarterdeck, casting a brief, bitter glance at Captain Speaks. “Mister Merriman reports that there is so much dark smoke from the fireships that he cannot find targets. The French launches have retreated behind the smoke, sir.”
“He is to cease fire again, Mister Warburton,” Lewrie decided after a long moment, “but stay ready should any launch re-appear.”
There was so much smoke that Monarch and the other frigates had to stop firing, and, after a few minutes, so did the French guns, but for those still trying to sink the remaining fireships. For one hopeful moment, one fireship drifted right between the ends of the breakwaters, pummeled by both stone batteries that guarded the entrance channel. The gunboats lurking just inside the harbour began to blaze away desperately to save themselves, and it looked as if the fireship would succeed … before she exploded prematurely and un-successfully, scattering fiery debris far and wide.
This ain’t a grand assault, Lewrie sourly thought; it’s another bloody experiment! It would be the coming Winter gales, rough seas, and foul winds that would stave off Bonaparte’s invasion ’til Spring, he angrily realised, sincerely hoping that before France could launch that dread expedition, the Royal Navy would come back, the next time in full force and intent, and with someone in command who would press the issue more aggressively … and much more cleverly!
Without torpedoes, he also hoped. He’d seen only two work so far. Lewrie let his attention drift as he contemplated how he would frame his report to Admiralty, and how to praise his officers and …
Christ, I’ll have t’say nice things about Captain Speaks! he gawped. He could not laud his own, without, and if he left Speaks out, he’d never hear the end of it!
… Captain Joseph Speaks, the director of torpedo development, gallantly volunteered to take charge of one of our cutters, and, daring fire and shot, expeditiously …
“Oh, bugger!” Lewrie whispered in disgust.
He was drawn back to full attention by the swelling of gunfire. Monarch and the other frigates had re-opened, now that the smoke from the failed fireships had thinned. The bombardment of Boulogne resumed in full cry, with more mortar shells soaring aloft in fiery trails, and more Congreve rockets screaming shoreward in great arcs.
“Will we ever run short of rockets and mortar shells, I ask you?” Lt. Spendlove wondered aloud. The bombardment of Boulogne looked and sounded less furious, but it went on, relentlessly, if slowly.
“I should take charge of the guns, sir?” Spendlove asked.
“I’ll dry out here on the quarterdeck, sir,” Lt. Westcott offered. “I’ll resume my place … damp, but willing.”
“Go, Mister Spendlove,” Lewrie ordered. “Slow but steady fire on the anchored boats.” He doubled his coat over his chest and buttoned up, wishing for a blanket as he sat down in his canvas chair. It looked to be a long and fruitless night.
* * *
He had managed to doze off in spite of the occasional shrieks of Congreve rockets, and the deep drumming of gunfire and exploding shell in the wee hours, and came awake from a slumped nap with a start, snapped to wakefulness by the lack of gunfire.
“Did I miss something, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie asked once he’d creaked to his feet and padded to the bulwarks facing the shore.
“It seems everyone’s lost enthusiasm, at last, sir,” Westcott told him, yawning. “Or run out of shot and powder, us and the French, both. Except for Captain Speaks,” he added in a furtive whisper. That worthy was still awake, pacing the starboard gangway and muttering to himself nigh-urgently, constantly peering shoreward with his telescope, then consulting his pocket-watch. “Hope springs eternal, what?”
“Any idea whether any of our damned torpedoes worked?” Lewrie asked, yawning himself. “I only could spot two.”
“Some big explosions, but those were hours ago, sir, and short or wide of the mark, as per usual,” Lt. Westcott said, shrugging. “It is long past the run of any of the clocks, so—”
Ba-Whoom! A lurid sheet of flame rose from the sea, a pillar of water an hundred feet tall, then a shriek from Captain Speaks.
“There! There, sirs! Right alongside one of those damned Frog gunboats!” Speaks yelled in triumph. “By God, it worked, and we sank something! There, sir!” Speaks roared, almost in Lewrie’s face after he’d dashed from the gangway to the quarterdeck, an arm flung in the general direction of the blast. “She was right alongside it when it blew up! I saw it plain!”
“Perhaps they thumped against it, and the pistol—,” Lewrie countered.
“No matter!” Speaks cut him off. “One out of six succeeded in sinking an enemy ship. With better clockworks, with better pistols, and more water-proofing, we’ve proven torpedoes valuable, d’ye see?”
Oh, fuck me! Lewrie thought, appalled; Now we’ll never be shot of the God-damned things! You wish t’waste more time and money on ’em, go right ahead, ye poor, deluded prick.
Captain Speaks turned about
and capered round the deck, raising a cheer from Reliant’s weary crew with his cries of success.
“Mine arse on a band-box, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie gloomed.
“Only a small gunboat, for six expended, sir?” Westcott whispered back, almost cheerfully. “And that by accident, if there really was a gunboat alongside it when it went off? He’s the only one who saw it, so … how much do they cost, each? And what sort of rate of return is that?”
“You’re a sly, devious pessimist, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said, suddenly inspired.
“I’ll take that as a compliment, sir!” Westcott said, beaming.
“If God’s just … and I write my report well, we’ll never see or hear of torpedoes again in our lives!”
EPILOGUE
This little Boney says he’ll come
At Merry Christmas time,
But that I say is all a hum
Or I will no more rhyme.
Some say in wooden house he’ll glide
Some say in air balloon,
E’en those who airy schemes deride
Agree his coming soon.
Now honest people list to me,
Though income is but small,
I’ll bet my wig to one Pen-ney
He does not come at all.
~“THE BELLMAN AND LITTLE BONEY”
POPULAR DITTY CIRCA 1804
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“Midshipman Warburton … SAH!” the Marine sentry guarding the entrance to the great-cabins bellowed, slamming his musket hutt, and his boots, in punctuation.
“Enter,” Lewrie bade, seated at his desk in the day-cabin. His coat was off, despite the chill of an early November evening, and his choice of pre-prandial tipple this night, a tankard of brown ale, sat by his elbow as he penned a letter. “Yes, Mister Warburton?”
“Your visitor’s boat is approaching, sir,” Warburton reported.
“Ah ha, just about time. Thankee, Mister Warburton,” he told the Mid, stowing away his pen and ink, and sliding the letter that he was composing into the top drawer of his desk. Lewrie rose and took his coat from the back of his chair and put it on to go on deck to welcome Mr. James Peel from the Foreign Office, who had sent down a note from London even before Reliant had put back into Portsmouth, requesting that they meet. Lewrie assumed it would be about the failed expedition against Boulogne, or those two odd boats he’d captured, but with Peel, one never really knew, so though he would put a gladsome face on, Lewrie did feel a gurgle of trepidation in his innards … or perhaps that was simple hunger.
He took a last swig of ale, clapped on his hat, and strode out past the Marine sentry, then up the starboard ladderway to mount to the sail-tending gangway and entry-port just as Peel’s boat bumped against the hull.
“D’ye require a bosun’s chair, Peel?” he called down in jest.
“Be with you directly,” Peel called back as he scaled the side.
“S’pose ye came hungry,” Lewrie laconically said as Peel’s hat and head appeared over the lip of the entry-port. “It’s uncanny, how you always seem t’turn up just at mealtimes.”
“Hallo, old son, and yes, I did,” Peel rejoined once he’d gained the deck and briefly doffed his fashionable curl-brimmed hat to the flag, then to Lewrie. “I’d never miss a chance for one of Yeovill’s excellent suppers.”
“Let’s go aft, then, and get you a drink,” Lewrie offered.
Peel would have a brandy to ward off the chill of his boat from the docks, while Lewrie settled for a second tankard of ale. They sat at the starboard-side settee.
“So, how are things in London?” Lewrie asked him.
“Folk are in calmer takings, now Winter’s getting on, and they see that Bonaparte won’t cross the Channel in bad weather,” Peel said with a grin, shifting and squirming to get more comfortably seated at his end of the settee. Toulon and Chalky leaped down from their naps on Lewrie’s desk and came to re-make Peel’s acquaintance. “We heard an interesting bit of news from France about the invasion fleet, by the way.” He paused to let the cats sniff his hand, then began to pet them. “Something that may give Boney more pause than any Winter gale, or the attack on Boulogne … bad luck, that, but congratulations to you for your part in it.”
“Even if it went so badly,” Lewrie replied with a groan of remembered futility. “Damn all torpedoes, and their inventors.”
“Yes, well … it seems that Bonaparte and his generals thought a dress rehearsal was a good idea … see how quickly and efficiently his army could board their ships and put out to sea a few miles. With Bonaparte watching from a clifftop, like Xerxes watched the ancient Battle of Salamis,” Peel happily related, “all went swimmingly … how apt, that! ’Til the wind and sea got up and he discovered how much a pack of amateurs his sailors were. God only knows how many barges and boats were wrecked, but our report, from a witness to the event, wrote that thousands of French soldiers and sailors were drowned, and that within a few miles of Boulogne, not out in the middle of the Channel. He might be reconsidering, though he’s spent so much money, time, and effort on the business already that he can’t just abandon hopes of invading us.”
“More fool, he, if he persists,” Lewrie chortled in glee, “and if he insists on usin’ those turtle-back monstrosities, well!”
“Congratulations on fetching two of them in so we could inspect them,” Peel said, bowing his head in gratitude for a second. “Nothing official, mind, just my personal congratulations. Still secret, very hush-hush … though, you must be used to that by now, having worked with Mister Twigg so long.”
“God, aren’t I, just!” Lewrie griped, though good-naturedly.
“Saw some people known to you in London,” Peel blithely went on, seemingly content to sip his brandy, stroke the cats, and slough at ease; he did, though, give Lewrie a sly under-brow gaze.
“Oh? Who?” Lewrie asked, wondering if he should begin to worry, and quickly running through a list of characters best avoided.
“Lord Percy Stangbourne and his sister,” Peel told him, looking waggish. “Leftenant-Colonel Lord Stangbourne, rather.”
“I thought Horse Guards had taken his regiment into service and sent him down to the Kent coast?” Lewrie said, puzzled, and trying to look innocent.
“Back in barracks ’til Spring,” Peel went on, “and back in his old haunts, like Boodle’s and the Cocoa Tree. His sister seems nicer than her repute. Rather fetching, in point of fact.”
Peel peered at him as if expecting Lewrie to gush like a schoolboy in “cream-pot” love, make quibbling noises, or half-heartedly agree with his assessment of her, shrugging it all off.
Damme, does he know everything about everybody? Lewrie thought.
The letter he’d been writing had been to Lydia, whose latest post to him contained an offer to coach down to Portsmouth and spend a few days together—did he still wish? Damned right, he still wished and had already booked lodgings for her at the George Inn, and was writing to tell her so when Peel had intruded. Or, had he known that, too?
“Aye, she is … devilish-handsome and fetchin’,” Lewrie agreed most assuredly.
Peel’s response was a very broad smile and a nod of approval.
“Well-blessed with God’s own tremendous ‘dot,’ too,” Peel said.
“I don’t give a toss for her dowry,” Lewrie bluntly told him. “Percy’ll most-like gamble them into debtor’s prison, anyway.”
“Usually, when a man says a thing like that, that it isn’t about the money, it usually really is,” Peel said, chuckling in worldly-wise fashion. “You, though, Alan … I can take you at your word. I could … bank on it, what?”
“I don’t know whether that’s a compliment or not,” Lewrie wryly replied. “Too honest for my own good, or a bloody fool.”
“Contemplating marriage, though, are you?” Peel too-idly asked.
“No, and neither does Lydia,” Lewrie told him with a guffaw of denial. “Once bitten, twice shy for her, and me … well,
I never got the hang of it, and if she wed me, her reputation’d be utterly ruined! Mean t’say, James … I’m a bounder, a cad, and a rake-hell.”
“Well, some might say you were made for each other,” Peel said with a shrug. “Both of you scandalous?” he added, with a twinkle.
“A bad marriage to a depraved animal was not her fault, and I think you demean the lady, Peel,” Lewrie shot back.
“My pardons, pray forgive me,” Peel quickly retracted, placing a hand on his breast, “for I only know what the papers made of it for years, the divorcement and all. I meant but to tease, but…”
“Forgiven,” Lewrie allowed, more slowly.
“Heard from your nautical sons, lately?” Peel asked, smiling benignly as he changed the subject.
“Aye, I have!” Lewrie enthused. “Hugh’s with Thorn Charlton, on the Brest blockade. Foul weather, cold victuals two days out of four, but he seems t’love it. Sewallis, well … he’s more guarded, yet he sounds as if he prospers. I’ve written his captain, an old friend, Benjamin Rodgers, to enquire, but … tentatively. Haven’t gotten his letter back, yet. You know that Sewallis got his place by fraud and forgery? So…”
“Your father, Sir Hugo, spoke of it to Mister Twigg, and Twigg related it to me,” Peel admitted. “Keep it in petto, sub rosa, what?”
Damme if he doesn’t know ev’rything ’bout ev’rybody! Lewrie had to tell himself; he cocked a wary brow over that admission.
“You have a letter sent to us, too,” Peel said, off-handedly.
Oh, shit, here it comes! The Secret Branch’s leash!
“Indeed,” Lewrie said over the rim of his tankard, keeping his phyz as inscrutable as he could.
“Recall I told you back in the summer how hard it is to maintain communication with people willing to keep us informed of doings over in France?” Peel said, beginning to peel the onion, at it were. “The French open and read every letter, and have cut off all correspondence with Great Britain?”
The Invasion Year Page 39
