“Ugly beasts!” Kydd murmured to Hallum, who seemed lost for words as he stared down at them. Low in the water alongside, and within a canvas screen, they were dormant in the evening light, submerged until the upper surfaces were nearly awash, one of each type, black, deadly and evil.
Fulton arrived as the sun was lowering, in a fluster after some disagreement with officials of the Ordnance Board. He and Kydd, with Duckitt, went over the side and into a low punt. “This is your hogshead,” Fulton said, and slapped its swelling bulk affectionately. It reverberated sullenly, a black parody of a large barrel of beer. Next to it floated a low cylindrical device, its exterior smooth black-painted copper but much bigger than the first, with a single line and grapnel. “The small coffer.” Then, outside them all, lay a crocodilian shape all of twenty feet long, its dark menace barely visible under the surface. “The large coffer,” Fulton said lightly, and stepped on to it from the punt. It barely gave, betraying its tremendous weight.
“Er, how heavy is it, Toot?”
“No more’n two tons. Get him going at the enemy, there’s nothing on God’s earth will stop him.”
“Sir,” Duckitt asked quietly, “an’ how do we, er, fire ’em?”
“Good question. You’ve to throw aside all notions o’ firing . These don’t mess with slowmatch—we use a modern mechanism.”
“An’ how c’n we be sure—”
“See here?” Fulton pointed out a slightly recessed indentation. “Inside is your timing engine. Screw in the plug and, for every turn, the explosion takes place five minutes later.” He demonstrated, twisting deftly.
Kydd started. Surely Fulton had not initiated the detonation . . .
“Three turns, fifteen minutes. This handsome machine is charged and armed and will explode in a quarter-hour.” Duckitt caught his breath. “Were it not for this.” Fulton flourished an object very similar to a miniature belaying pin. “The safety peg. It comes from here”—he pointed to a tiny hole next to the timing screw, fortunately occupied by an identical one—“and so long as he sleeps in his hole, all is tranquil. Withdraw it, and whatever is set on the timing will be the moment of destiny for the coffer.”
No one spoke, but Fulton grinned inanely. “A contrivance of beauty and perfection, don’t you think?”
• • •
Kydd needed time—much more than the days he had. Keith’s orders were clear and sound: he was keeping back his conventional warships on outer guard tasks to allow the torpedoes clear sight of the enemy, a prudent and sensible measure given the disaster that would eventuate in the fog of war if a ship in the night chaos were to plough through the slow-moving and near-invisible catamarans.
But it meant as well that he alone was responsible for devising the technique that would see them to the launch point and a successful conclusion. The first worry was the size of the beasts: the large coffer would need the biggest of ship’s boats to get it going against inertia and water resistance and he could not see how a “small” coffer could be brought aboard the catamaran. Even the hogsheads were huge and unhandy. It would be asking a lot of the crews.
A soft sunset had finally faded into the advancing night. They could begin. “Pipe the launch’s crew to muster,” he ordered.
Expecting the order they quickly appeared. “Poulden,” he said, to the coxswain, firmly, “this is not a time for volunteers. They’ll be called on the night we’re to attack. At this time I want a measure of how well these infernals swim.” It had slipped out—it couldn’t be helped. “Take the large coffer in tow six fathoms astern. When you reach a cable or so off, slew it around and, at the bo’sun’s pipe, lay out with all your heart. Clear?”
Poulden could be relied on to get the best out of his men but he dropped his eyes and mumbled, “Um, sir, is it, as who should say, tender in its motions?”
“If you’re worried about it exploding precipitate like, don’t. The safety peg is in. However, er, do keep clear of its hawse. It’s armed and has a full charge.”
Uncharacteristically muted, the boat’s crew tumbled into the launch, secured the coffer and bent to their oars. Straining and tugging produced only the slightest movement, and it was long minutes before they were able to heave it off into the darkness.
It was a clear night and a quarter-moon was rising. At a cable’s length, when the boat made its turn gingerly, Kydd was dismayed to see its beetling black shadow clearly against the glittering moon-path. As promised, though, the torpedo was all but invisible.
He took out his watch and held it to catch the light from the binnacle lamp. The boatswain raised his call ready. “Pipe!” he said. The distant rowers started in a flurry of strokes but slowed immediately to a near stop. Poulden’s frenzied hazing could be heard floating across the water—it made Kydd smile, but on the night it would not do.
Twenty minutes on the return: this was dismaying. “He’s a pig t’ steer, sir,” Poulden reported, after returning aboard. “Worse’n a bull in a paddock as is shy o’ the knife.”
A catamaran was available now and it was brought round. As Kydd had suspected, there was no possibility that the small coffer could be raised and carried on the flimsy gratings fore and aft. It would require ship’s boats as well.
“Load with hogsheads,” Kydd said, after the two reluctant oars-men had taken their place at the stubby sculls. One was swayed across and lashed in place. The catamaran settled at an angle until the other was aboard and then, with a heavy reluctance, the ungainly craft shoved off. “Same as the others, if y’ please,” Kydd told them.
They made slow progress, but this was due to their near comic performance at the sculls, so close to the water. They turned and started back. This was more encouraging—inches above the water only, it was difficult indeed to make them out. But it was hard going.
Helped aboard, the two oarsmen, soaked from the shoulders down, shuddered uncontrollably. “Every man as pulls a plunging boat is entitled to a double tot, if he wants it,” Kydd ordered. “Get ’em dry and see it’s served out immediately.”
Too much hung on their efforts for rest and the remainder of the night was spent in timed trials, with two boats on the coffer, then three; the smaller with the pinnace at an angle to the launch and the carcass between, and, of course, the procedure for recovering the operations crew after the launch.
It was done: he had the facts, now for the figuring. But when he awoke later in the morning doubts and anxieties flooded in. Send them in as a broad wave or in stealthy column? The coffers first or the catamarans? Request some kind of diversionary tactic? Would volunteers step forward when the time came?
And the orders. His orders. The first he had ever given as a squadron commander as, in reality, he was. He bent to the task, nibbling his quill. So much to plan and decide.
“It’s madness, is what I say,” exploded Mills. “Settin’ these vile contraptions afloat wi’ a quarter-ton of powder an’ two men sailing t’ meet the enemy! I’ve never heard such—”
“Have a care, Mr. Mills!” Kydd barked. “These are my orders and I mean them to be obeyed! If you have objections, I’m sure Admiral Keith would like t’ hear them.” With men’s lives in the balance, only trust and teamwork would see it through. He resolved to catch Mills privately later.
Teazer’s great cabin seemed an incongruous setting for such a briefing. Kydd had seen this room dappled by water-reflected moonlight from warm and exotic Mediterranean harbours; it had been the scene of his hopes and fears—and now was to be the place of his disposing of so many destinies.
Containing his emotions, he resumed his orders. “The large coffers will have two boats each and will set off first on either side of the designated channel. The faster catamarans will then move forward and past the coffers, being able to penetrate unseen up to the French line where the torpedoes will be launched.”
He paused, conscious his words had rung with false confidence, then went on, “The recovery of the catamaran crews will be the responsibility of Mr
. Lamb and his little fleet o’ gigs. The whole operation should take less than two hours.”
“How do we give coverin’ fire if we’re laying off t’ seaward?” growled Mills.
Kydd bit his lip. Now was not the time for a confrontation. “You don’t. The whole point is to stand clear of the channel of approach and let the torpedoes go in and do their work quietly. You’re a dispatch vessel; crew the catamarans and boats and send ’em on their way only. No play with the guns—is that clear?”
Lamb seemed troubled and Dyer’s face showed resignation, but they paid attention while the remaining details were laid out—elementary signals concerning the start and others for cancellation of the assault, provision for an assembly-and-dispatch sequence, launch timing, accounting for munitions expended, the order of night mooring.
Kydd tried to end on an upbeat note. “In the morning there’s to be practice with the catamarans, and my gunner, Mr. Duckitt, will instruct on the timing engine and other. Now, gentlemen, this is our chance t’ give Boney a drubbing as he can’t be expecting. Let’s make it a good ’un, shall we?”
It seemed so thin, so fragile, but was this because he didn’t really believe in the infernals—or himself?
The final conference was in Monarch and Keith wasted no words. “I’m sailing at noon to anchor before Boulogne at sunset. I want the assaulting division to be ready for launch three hours after sunset, namely nine p.m. Mr. Kydd?”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Savery coughed. “Er, sir. To appear in force in full view of the enemy before sunset? They’ll surely know something’s afoot.”
“Can’t be helped. The torpedo craft need to know where we are in the darkness, so they will fix our position while daylight reigns. They won’t do that if we’re tacking and veering about all the time. And it hardly needs pointing out that we’ve not been strangers to this coast, and while we’ll be arriving in force, the enemy has no conceiving of the nature of our assault. We attack as planned.”
Weighed down with anxieties, Kydd returned to his ship. Now there would be the call for volunteers, an advisement to his dispatch sloops—it was all but committed. He swung over the bulwark, touching his hat to the boatswain at his call.
Renzi stood there, his face grave. “Then we sail against the flotilla,” he said quietly. He was using a cane to support his wounded leg.
“We do,” Kydd said, then added, “Nicholas, this is not your war—I want you ashore.”
“Ashore? Of course not! There’s—”
“You’ll go, and that’s my order,” he said harshly, staring his friend down.
“Very well, then I must do as I’m bid,” Renzi said softly. He slowly held out his hand. “Can I—may I sincerely wish that you do fare well in what must come?”
Kydd’s bleak expression did not alter. He took the hand briefly then turned and hurried below.
HMS Teazer led the torpedo squadron to sea. For Kydd the overcast autumn day had a particularly oppressive and lowering undertone. Some five miles off Boulogne the fleet assembled about the flagship—frigates, minor ships-of-the-line, sloops, cutters and, at the centre, what gave it its purpose.
Before sunset the fleet had formed up opposite the port. The approach channel for the catamarans was resolved, the dispatch sloops positioned to seaward, and aboard each the process of arming the torpedoes was put in train.
Locust moved up between them, put its borrowed cluster of gigs in the water, and suddenly there was nothing further to do.
A sombre dusk fell; among the hills the campfires of Napoleon’s host twinkled into existence, their myriad expanse a feral menace that seemed to reach right out to them. The last of the day’s radiance hardened into a moonless night, a dark almost dense enough to touch. Surrounding ships lost their outline and were swallowed in the blackness, leaving only the single riding lights of the British fleet and the red and gold dots along the hills.
Kydd could only wait. His plans were straightforward enough but what were they next to the reality before him? The catamarans were already in the water but not the hogsheads, which must be swayed aboard fully armed and struck down on their gratings by feel—no lights could be allowed to betray warlike activity.
The watch mustered, and the volunteers. Sailors who had willingly stepped up when called upon that afternoon, who had trusted him in the matter of riding these infernal machines to victory against the foe or . . .
A lump rose in his throat. Would any of them survive the night? With false jollity, jokes were cracked in the age-old way as they pulled on their black guernseys, laced on dark caps and rubbed galley soot into their faces. Some yawned, a sure sign of pre-battle nerves.
“Sir—flagship!” The usual three riding lights in the tops of Monarch were replaced by four. As they watched, the fourth was dimmed. The signal.
“Into the catamarans, the volunteers,” Kydd ordered crisply, trying to conceal his feelings.
Without speaking the first two went down the side and, with gasps at the cold, took their places in the catamaran scheduled to lead the attack. “As I live and breathe,” Hallum whispered, “this is something I could not do, I confess it.”
It was too much: in a rising tide of feeling Kydd leaned over and called hoarsely, “Timmins! Out o’ the boat—I’m the one to lead the catamarans.”
The group on the quarterdeck fell back in shock; Kydd wasted no time in stripping to his breeches, and when the dripping Timmins appeared on deck, he took the man’s guernsey and cap, then went hastily over the side, only remembering at the last minute to throw at the open-mouthed lieutenant, “You have the ship, Mr. Hallum.”
The sea was shockingly cold as Kydd settled into the little underwater seat and oriented himself. So close to the water the restless wavelets now held spite and Teazer loomed in the darkness, her barnacles and sea-growth so close.
There were voices; then Stirk was claiming the place of the other in the catamaran. He clambered into the forward seat, cursing vigorously at the cold.
“Thank ye, Toby,” Kydd said, in a low voice.
“If ’n ye’re going, Mr. Kydd, ye’ll need one as knows th’ buggers, like,” Stirk grunted, and signalled up to the deck. As gunner’s mate he had helped Duckitt instruct the others.
The first hogshead came, to be grappled by Stirk and struck down on the gratings. He made an expert slippery hitch, then gave another signal to the deck. The other came down aft, and Kydd struggled to ease the monstrous bulk onto its grating. Numb fingers passed the lashing and finished with the hitch to release it. “Shove off,” he growled, pushing at the huge ship’s side with his light scull. Almost sub-surface the catamaran was a heavy, awkward thing and he panted with the effort of getting it going. This was going to be near impossible, he thought, in despair.
They cleared Teazer’s side and pulled out into the channel. Low hails came from others in the vicinity. Kydd looked about carefully, shivering all the while with the bitter cold. There seemed no betraying noise or bustle in the anchored fleet and, turning shorewards, he saw no sign of any French alarm. Then he peered into the blackness towards the distant and barely visible line of ships that were their target. No indications of suspicion—but, then, the French had every reason to suppose that if there was an assault it would be at dawn in the usual way.
He looked behind—nothing. Ahead, the line of ships. “We go,” he hissed, and dug in his sculls.
It was an unreal and frightening world of cold, darkness and beckoning danger. Stroke after stroke, double feathered and as silent as possible, onward towards the target. Muffled splashes from behind told him that the others had fallen into line with him. Stroke, pull, return, stroke. On and on.
Then, quite suddenly, they were close enough to individual ships that they needed conscious alterations of course to head towards them—they were nearing the launch point and still no alarm. It was time to select a victim. Curiously there was no feeling, only the calculated judgement of range and bearing.
�
�Hssst!” Stirk stopped rowing.
“What is it?” whispered Kydd urgently.
“I thought I heard—It’s a Frenchy!”
Then Kydd made out a regular creak and splash of oars in the blackness to the left. The enemy was rowing guard on the moored ships in a pinnace. “Get down!”
They bent as low as they could, faces slapped by the cold sea, and waited. Should he give orders to retreat now while they could? Kydd wondered. If they were discovered it would be slaughter with no mercy. Shivering violently, he heard the sound approach, then cross and, with no change of rhythm, move away to the right.
Apart from the ceaseless rustling of the night waters there was nothing more than a far-away peal of merriment, a shouted hail between sentries, anonymous sounds.
It was time for the climax. “Cast off the line, Toby—it’s secured to the other.” It was part of Fulton’s plan to squeeze a ship between two explosions by connecting the two hogsheads with a line and cork float, which, on the incoming tide, would fetch up on their victim’s anchor cable and inexorably draw in the charges on both sides.
“Set for twenty minutes, Toby,” he called softly, and waited while the turns were made. “That’ll do,” he said, as casually as he could. “We’ll launch now. Pull the peg, cuffin.”
There was a jerk and Stirk turned and handed him the safety pin. Kydd’s orders were that all pegs should be returned as a surety that the torpedoes had been launched properly. After a quick tug on the hitch and persuasion with both feet the giant carcass plunged into the sea with a shattering splash.
They dug in their sculls to move out the requisite hundred feet— but a sputtering and popping of muskets started urgently from the line of shore. They had been discovered. The sound grew and was joined by heavier guns.
“Pull!” Kydd gasped. They were moving parallel with the shore to launch the second hogshead but the firing grew steadily in intensity. The timing mechanism was already primed so he fumbled with the safety peg and footed the monstrous thing clear to splash weightily in the sea.
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