The Invasion Year

ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT, SUMMER 1804
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“Idyll’s over,” Lewrie muttered, once he had signed for a thin set of ribbon-bound and wax-sealed orders hand-delivered direct from Admiralty by a taciturn older Lieutenant; the fellow knew nothing and said little more, then departed to catch the morning coach to London before it left without him.

Lewrie ripped the ribbons upwards, breaking the seal, and unfolded the orders. For a brief moment, his eyes strayed to another, smaller sealed note on his day-cabin desk, one from Lydia Stangbourne. Which would he prefer to read first? But, there was no helping it; he puffed out his lips in irritation as he turned back to the orders.

“ ‘… take upon yourself the charge and command over HMS Fusee, Bomb (Eight), Lieutenant Joseph Johns (Three)…,’ ” he read under his breath, almost mumbling. “There’s three Joseph Johns in the Fleet?” he wondered aloud. “Who would’ve thought it? Ah… ‘has aboard at this time Mister Cyrus MacTavish, Esquire, and his Chief Artificer to perform certain experiments with the devices that Mister MacTavish has designed and fashioned. You will render all aid and support to the timely experimentation, and trial implementation of said devices against French harbours and gatherings of craft amassed for the possible sea-borne invasion of the British Isles. You will see that your officers and men become cognisant of all mechanical details of said devices to support such experimentation and possible implementation with all despatch. You will provide both escort and material support to Lieutenant Johns, his vessel, Mister MacTavish, and his Artificer in this endeavour…’ ” Lewrie wondered if that meant he had to dine them all in each night, and serve them their grog ration, too.

“What the Devil… ‘You are also most strictly cautioned that this endeavour is of a most highly secret nature, and you are not only to protect HMS Fusee, the devices, and their designer and fabricator from capture by the enemy at all hazards, but you are also strictly charged to restrict the secret of the existence of said devices from any naval personnel or civilians not directly involved in the afore-said experimentation.’

“Well, there goes shore liberty and any more chance o’ puttin’ the ship Out of Discipline t’ease her people. Whew!”

Which step to take first? Brief his officers on the so-far unseen mysterious “devices,” or go find this Fusee bomb and speak with Lieutenant Johns, this MacTavish fellow, and his un-named artificer?

Did he have time to read Lydia’s note? No. With a long sigh, he swept both secret orders and billet-doux into the top right-hand drawer of his desk and locked them away.

“Shove me into my coat, Pettus, and pass the word for my boat crew,” he ordered.

It took a shore call upon the Port Admiral to discover exactly where HMS Fusee was anchored, then required a long row into the Medway and through the protective boom to discover Fusee, which streamed to the tide near the old receiving ship HMS Sandwich, which old three-decker still emitted the same old reeks of impressed misery that he’d encountered when manning his first frigate, HMS Proteus, in 1797.

For a vessel engaged in a secret endeavour, her Harbour Watch was remarkably slack; Lewrie’s gig was only an hundred yards off before someone woke up and hailed them. The scramble to man the side for the arrival of a Post-Captain could be called comical, were it not so serious.

“Captain Alan Lewrie, come aboard to speak with your captain,” Lewrie announced to the single Midshipman present. Fusee’s crew was about the bare minimum, not over fifty hands all told, so no more than one Midshipman was required.

“Here he comes, sir… Lieutenant Johns,” the older lad said, almost in relief, as a tall and lean fellow in his mid-thirties turned up on the bomb’s quarterdeck.

“Joseph Johns, your servant, sir,” the fellow said, doffing his hat with a jerky half-bow from the waist. Lt. Johns was scare-crow thin, with a prominent Adam’s apple, a long wind-vane of a nose, and noticeable cheekbones. He looked to be a perfect non-entity but for a pair of eyes that seemed aflame with enthusiasm. “We’ve just received directions from Admiralty that you would be in charge of us, and of our… ehm,” he added, jutting a pointy chin forward to his bomb’s foredeck, where two thirteen-inch sea-mortars would usually be emplaced in side-by-side wells, heavily re-enforced with great baulks of timber to withstand the shock of their upwards discharge, and the down-thrust of recoil. Now, the wells were shrouded by what looked to be a scrap tops’l so large that it might have come off a frigate. Looking in that direction gave Lewrie the impression that the canvas shrouded six great water casks; he also took note of a long and heavy boom rigged to the base of the bomb’s foremast, and a hoisting windlass so it could be employed as a crane… forward of the mast, not aft.

“Pardon me for seeming remiss in searching you out, sir, but as I said, orders came aboard not half an hour past,” Johns went on.

“Mine preceded yours by no more than an hour, Mister Johns. It is of no matter,” Lewrie allowed, clapping his hands into the small of his back and craning his neck to look upwards. “I had a converted bomb in the Bahamas, ’tween the wars, but Alacrity, as a gun-ketch, had her masts equally spaced, like a brig, and the mortar wells were fore and aft of the foremast. Your Fusee resembles a three-master that’s missing her entire foremast, and sports but main and mizen.”

“The newer construction allows both mortars to work in concert, sir, bows-on to a target, ’stead of anchored beam-on, and becoming a better target,” Lt. Johns laughed. “I admit the new ones look queer, but with much larger jibs and fore-and-aft stays’ls, they will go up to windward at least a point closer.”

“But still make lee-way like a wood chip?” Lewrie wryly asked.

“No worse than the older class, sir, but… aye,” Lt. Johns said with a fatalistic shrug. “Bombs are notorious for it, unfortunately.”

“Any chance that so much lee-way, when engaged in the, ah… experiments mentioned in my orders, might cause any problems, Mister Johns?” Lewrie asked, lowering his voice like a conspirator plotting mayhem… what sort he still hadn’t a clue.

“Well, sir, I would’ve preferred a vessel with deeper ‘quick-work’ and less lee-way, but the wells are handy for the, ah… things, and Fusee’s lower freeboard will aid in their… deployment,” Johns replied, looking “cutty-eyed” and furtive, all but laying a cautioning finger to his lips. “But, you must meet Mister MacTavish, the fellow who devised the, ah… items, sir!” Johns perked up. “His ideas are visionary. They could revolutionise naval warfare, sir! This way.”

“All that? Hmm,” Lewrie most dubiously said. “Lead on, then.”

“You’ve sufficient ship’s boats, Captain Lewrie, might I ask?” Lt. Johns enquired as he led the way to a small companionway and a very steep, but thankfully short, ladder leading below.

“Two twenty-five-foot cutters, my gig, and a jolly-boat,” Lewrie told him, taking off his hat and ducking, but, “Ow!” he yelped.

“Mind the deck beams, sir,” Lt. Johns warned, much too late. “I have found a cautious crouch best serves, sir, when belowdecks.” A trice later, and Lewrie found himself in the gloom of a very dark and small joke of a “great-cabin.” Lt. Johns’s own quarters right-aft were screened off by deal partitions and a louvred door; down each beam were four “dog-boxes,” and along the centreline stood a rough planked table with sea-chests for seating, much like the orlop deck cockpit of bigger ships, where Midshipmen, Surgeon’s Mates, and Master’s Mates resided.

Two men sat slouched on their elbows at the table opposite each other, poring over sheaves of drawings and plans, which were rolled up hastily at Lewrie’s appearance as they turned to glower at him.

“Captain Lewrie, sir, allow me to name to you the designer of our, of the… Mister Cyrus MacTavish, and his senior artificer and fabricator, Mister Angus McCloud,” Johns announced. “Gentlemen, allow me to name to you Captain Alan Lewrie, of the Reliant frigate.”

At least only the one of ’em popped out of a haggis, Lewrie told himself; with two Scottish names mentioned in his orders, he’d expected a lot worse.

“Captain Lewrie, your servant, sir!” the urbane-looking one said as he cautiously got to his feet and came forward to offer his hand to Lewrie. “MacTavish, sir, formerly Major in the Royal Engineers.”

MacTavish was lean and fair, with an almost noble face, dressed in a plain dark blue coat, buff breeches, and top-boots.

“And my right-hand man, Angus McCloud,” MacTavish pointed out.

If he’d dressed in kilt, cross-gartered plaid stockings, and a Scotch bonnet, McCloud could not have looked more “Sawney,” his grizzly beard included; Lewrie hadn’t seen one on a man in ages. The man wore a slate-grey tweed suit of “ditto,” the fabric so rough that sparrows might have woven it from straw and twigs. McCloud was much older than his employer, grey and bristly curly-haired, with tanned and leathery rough features. He continued scowling. “G’day t’ye, Cap’m,” was all he had to say, with a short nod, still seated.

“Gentlemen,” Lewrie replied. “For the moment, you have the advantage of me. My orders did not specify exactly what it is we’re to do, or what your devices do.”

“And with good reason, sir!” MacTavish said with a bark of good humour. “Do the French learn what is in store for them, it would make our trials much more difficult, not to say impossible. Does the term ‘torpedo’ mean anything to you, sir?”

“Ah… some sort of eel, or ray?” Lewrie asked, shrugging his ignorance. “A fish o’ some sort?”

“Will you take coffee, Captain Lewrie?” Lt. Johns offered.

“Yes, join us and I will enlighten you, sir,” MacTavish grinned. Once all were seated, and Lewrie had a mug in his hands, the man went on with a sly and boastful grin. “There’s all these bloody barges and boats the French have built, not counting the prames and chaloupes of varying sizes and armament built as gunboats to provide escort to the invasion, when it comes. So many that the French have had to anchor them outside the principal invasion ports, up against the breakwaters in row after row, waiting for the moment when the troops and artillery go aboard them.”

“Like trots o’ peegs, a’nuzzlin’ a sow,” McCloud supplied with a gruff tone.

“Now, with that the case, Captain Lewrie, how would you get at them?” MacTavish asked, already smiling with impending glee to reveal his solution.

“With bombs and sea-mortars, gunfire, and fireships, I s’pose,” Lewrie replied, sure that his answer would be wrong. “A cutting-out expedition on dark, moonless nights?”

“Ye canna geet yair frigate that close t’shore,” McCloud piped up. “Bombs canna expec’ calm waters, e’en can they get inta shallower waters, an’ th’ Frogs’ gunboats’d put paid t’yair fireships an’ a’ yair puir sailors ye send rowin’ in.”

“Well, Angus, when the time comes, are we successful, there’ll be all those in concert, but… with the addition of my torpedoes… my cask torpedoes, aha!” MacTavish cried triumphantly. “Those things shrouded in the mortar wells, sir? We’ve half a dozen ready to go and more being fabricated even as we speak. When the time comes we intend to launch them by the hundreds on a French port, and blow all of their caiques and boats and barges to kindling!”

“Uhm… how?” Lewrie had to ask. It sounded fine, but…

“Imagine, sir, an assault launched in the dead of night without an inkling of danger,” Mr. MacTavish continued, squirming impatiently on his seat. “Ship’s boats tow my cask torpedoes in close to shore, cock the detonating mechanisms, start the clock timer, and set them to drift in on a making tide. Channel tides are rapid, inexorable! Now… silently, un-seen, for they ride very low in the water, waves of them waft inshore, right up to those caiques, peniches, and barges, as quietly as mice!”

“Dinna forget th’ grapnels, an’ th’ spikes,” McCloud dryly added.

“They bob up alongside the French boats,” MacTavish further enthused, sketching out the assault with the tips of his fingers flutter-creeping towards a box of sweet bisquits on the table top. “Grapnels and old bayonets snag or spear into the hulls of the boats, the first warning that anything’s amiss to the few French sailors aboard them to watch over their anchor cables and the lines which moor them together, hah! Then, when the clock timer winds up the trigger cords, and those few Frogs’ best efforts to dis-lodge them prove fruitless, up they go in gigantic blasts, ah ha!” he cried, raising his hands, his fingers spreading further to simulate soaring chunks of debris.

“Float in on the tide,” Lewrie said back, shifting uneasily on a hard sea chest. “That could take a while, even on a Channel tide. Your clock timer mechanism…?”

“We determine the speed of the tide, set the timers to account for it, judge the distance at which the torpedoes are released, then prime them and off they go,” MacTavish told him, beaming.

“Uhm, Channel tides flow into their ports, aye, Mister MacTavish… but, there’s a strong tide up or down Channel to consider,” Lewrie had to point out. “Is the bottom smooth, tide-washed sand and mud, or is it rocky, which sets off strong eddies? It’s not as if all your cask torpedoes will just drift straight in. Some will swirl about and might end up a mile from where you want them.”

“But the bulk of them surely will succeed, sir,” MacTavish said with complete assurance in his devices. “Boats will be lost to them, some damaged and force the French to replace them, and once a few blow up without warning, think of the panic they will engender. What French sailor would dare to sleep aboard his caique or peniche if the presence of death may come with each sunset?”

Think of the panic in the boat crews who tow the damned things in, ready to explode! Lewrie sourly thought.

“How close ashore to the anchored boats would boat crews have to get before releasing them?” Lewrie asked.

“Well, that would depend on the run of the tide, Captain Lewrie. I should imagine that each boat will have a Midshipman with a passable skill in mathematics,” MacTavish said, shrugging off the problem. “Some of your, what-do-you-call-them… Master’s Mates, able to judge the height of the boats’ masts, and perform simple trigonometry to determine the distance, the speed of the tide, and set the clock timer accordingly.”

Boy Midshipmen with good mathematics? Lewrie wondered; Now there is a snag! A veritable paradox!

“As to the matter of suitable boats, sir,” Lt. Johns brought up once more. “We’ve only a small gig and an eighteen-foot jolly-boat on our inventory. To tow them in quickly, then make their way out just as quickly, it would be best if we had some boats larger than your two cutters… thirty-two-foot barges with two masts for lug-sails and a jib would be best. Or at least twelve-oared barges.”

“We’ll ask of the dockyard,” Lewrie told him. “I’m sure they might have some spares. What condition they’re in, well. If we need authorisation, who do we mention? Are we under Lord Keith and North Sea Fleet? Droppin’ a powerful name sometimes helps.”

“No worry, then, Captain Lewrie,” Mr. MacTavish said with a top-lofty smirk. “We have letters from Lord Melville, personally signed, authorising any expense or requisition. Might they do?”

Mine arse on a band-box! Lewrie thought; What do I want, what does Reliant need… and how much can I get away with?

“I expect they’d do main-well, Mister MacTavish,” Lewrie allowed. “Uhm… could I see these wonders? Not the plans here, but the real articles?”

“Aye, weel…,” Artificer McCloud grumbled, rubbing his beard.

“But of course, sir! This instant!” MacTavish quickly agreed.

“Hmm… rather big,” Lewrie commented once the canvas shroud had been drawn back just far enough to expose one of the devices to his eyes. To all outward appearances, the “cask torpedo” was a large water butt, about four feet tall and fat in the middle, tapering at each end to shallow hemispherical lids, not the usual flat wooden lids set into the ends two or three inches below the rims. Any large tun, cask, or barrel made to hold liquids was constructed with extra care, of course, so that the staves fit together so closely that only the slightest bit of seepage occurred. In this case, seepage inward would be the ruin of the device, so it had been slathered all over in tar, then wrapped with more tarred canvas.

“Th’ bottom’s heemispherical, ye’ll note,” McCloud pointed out, “sae thayr’s space feer th’ ballast, tae keep eet ridin’ oop-right een th’ water.”

“And the upper hemisphere is a void, a space for air,” MacTavish added. “That is where the clock mechanism sits, along with the pistol which ignites the charge at the proper time. When one is about to let one go, one first pulls the line with the blue paint on the last inches of the line… that will start the clock. The red-painted line cocks the primed fire-lock of the pistol. The clock gears drive a circular wooden disk, which has several dowels projecting from it. The trigger line is bound to one of the dowels, and, as the clock turns the disk, the line is drawn taut, ’til it pulls the trigger of the pistol, and… bang!” he gleefully concluded. “The gunpowder and the pyrotechnicals ignite, and adieu, Monsieur Frog, ha ha!”

“How much gunpowder?” Lewrie asked, getting up on his tip-toes to peer over the top of the torpedo, taking hold of one of the hoisting ring-bolts. “And how low in the water will it ride? I notice the top is not tarred, but painted black. And, how do you set the clock at the last minute?”

“One hundred and twenty pounds of powder,” MacTavish told him.

Lewrie stepped back a foot or two!

“D’ye mean it’s loaded, now?” he gawped.

“Weel, o’ course eet’s loaded!” McCloud said with a short snort of amusement. “But, the pistol’s nae primed, nor cocked, an’ th’ clock ain’t runnin’. Eet’s safe as sae many bricks!”

“So… when the time comes to prime the pistol’s pan, set the clock timer, and ready it to go, how do you, if the top’s sealed?” Lewrie asked, growing a bit more dubious of the whole enterprise, and feeling a faint shudder of dread in his middle.

“As to that, Captain Lewrie,” MacTavish said soothingly, “one must remove the bung set into the very top. The hole is wide enough for your average man to reach down into it, set the clock timer for the minutes judged best, pull the lock back to half-cock and prime the pan, then draw it to full cock…”

Oh, Jesus! Lewrie groaned inside; Pity the poor fool who does that from a wallowin’ rowin’ boat!

“… pull the trigger lines to set it all in motion, then drive the bung back in place,” MacTavish went on, not noticing Lewrie’s look of utter dread. “The torpedo will float with the top six inches free of the water, and, should waves slop over it, the bung will keep things dry enough for as long as the clock runs.”

“Mind noo, ye’ll hae t’wind th’ bluidy thing, feerst!” McCloud hooted, then turned to spit overside.

“That’s why the top is painted black, to hide it from a casual observer or lookout,” MacTavish breezed off. “The ring-bolts will do for hoisting out from this vessel, and for towing lines from the boat which takes it in close. The old socket bayonets will be fitted over muzzle stubs from old Tower muskets, and the same for the grapnels… all the metal fittings screwed in and washered, and tarred inside and out. But, we’ll do all that before they’re hoisted out.”

“So, right now we’re sittin’ on seven hundred twenty pounds of gunpowder,” Lewrie said, shaking his head, “and if anything goes amiss, we could take out old Sandwich yonder, the Medway Boom tenders, and an host of unwary workers?”

“Nae countin’ th’ spare kegs o’ powder stored below,” McCloud said, his head cocked over and nodding genial agreement with Lewrie’s estimate.

“Mister Johns, I think it best if you move Fusee out into the Great Nore anchorage near my ship,” Lewrie suggested.

Not too bloody near, thankee! he thought.

“Of course, sir!” Lt. Johns replied, stiffening with eagerness to be about the start of their “adventure.”

“We’ll take my gig in tow, and bring my boat crew aboard for a bit,” Lewrie added. “Alright with you, sir?” he had to enquire, for it was not his ship, and Lt. Johns was Fusee’s commanding officer.

“Very good, sir! Bosun, pipe all hands to Stations for taking in the anchors!” Johns bellowed.

Lewrie’s Cox’n and his gig’s oarsmen came tumbling aboard from the boat, and a long tow-line was bound to her stem bollard for towing astern. It would be a nice rest for them, instead of another long row of several miles. They began stretching and chattering, peering about at the oddness of a new ship, a type which most of them had never seen.

Patrick Furfy, “stroke oar” and Liam Desmond’s long-time mate from their Irish village, took out a short stub pipe and began to tamp shag tobacco into it.

“Furfy!” Lewrie snapped, looking aghast. “No smoking! If you please,” he added once he saw the surprise on Furfy’s face. “Not ’til we’re back aboard Reliant.”

And off this “Vesuvius”! Lewrie determined.