Dewey Lambdin - The Invasion Year

Will ye mention me in your report, when Merriman’s modifications solve the problem? Assumin’ they do, o’ course! I could use some new credit in London, too. Get that Henry Legge and court-martial off my back! Lewrie speculated.

“I suppose it would not hurt to try fitting the last two with drogues, and perhaps one of them with a fixed rudder,” Speaks grudgingly allowed, after a long think. “We’ve what left, Mister Clough?”

“One set for fifteen minutes, sir, one for half an hour,” that stout worthy replied.

“Excellent!” Speaks enthused, or pretended to; he looked as if he was driven to sham zeal, no matter what he really thought of torpedoes, or their reliability, or even the honourability of using them as weapons of war. Lewrie suspected that poor Speaks was in over his head in a project he didn’t have a clue about, and might even hold to be a ghastly, sneaking, and atrocious idea, but… the torpedoes were all he had, and he would prove them useful no matter his reservations. Even were they horrid wastes of materiel and money, he would persevere to the last sticking post to prove himself worthy.

“The after-end hoisting ring-bolts, sir,” Lt. Merriman babbled on, producing a lead pencil and a scrap of paper from his coat. “Do we bind the tiller to either of those, anchoring its end to the stand-pipe with a wood mast hoop from one of the barge’s lug-sails…”

“Um-hum, I see…,” Speaks gravely replied, leaning over to peer at the quick sketch. “Like a fixed sweep-oar rudder.”

“Exactly so, sir!” Merriman said, chuckling.

“But… would it not wobble, Mister Merriman?” Speaks asked.

“Well, hmm…” Merriman frowned, looking cock-eyed at his idea. “If we nailed some small baulks of scrap timber to the torpedo. They are wood chests, after all, yes! We could nail baulks through the tarred canvas and outer planking, say four inches thick and high, eight inches long, to make a restraining channel for the long tiller, which we’d still attach to the stand-pipe with a mast hoop…!”

Pettus came to the table and leaned over to whisper in Lewrie’s ear, then stood over to the side-board to gather wine glasses for all the company.

“You’ll stay aboard to dine, sir, Mister Clough?” Lewrie asked his guests. “I’m told my cook’s preparin’ bean soup, roasted rabbit, and a sea pie, with apple tarts to boot.”

“Delighted, Captain Lewrie!” Captain Speaks replied, turning to look at him very briefly, now intent upon Merriman’s sketch, to which he quickly returned. “Once in place, why not nail restraining boards over the brackets, so the tiller won’t hop out or slip free, sir?”

Lewrie crooked a finger to Pettus.

“Sir?” Pettus said in a whisper, leaning close again.

“Best see that the cats eat very separate tonight,” Lewrie said, with a slight incline of his head towards their senior officer.

“I’ll see to it, sir.”

He’s in a good mood, for once, Lewrie thought; Pray God nothin’ spoils it!

Drogues, or sea-anchors, were easily cobbled together from the iron hoops of depleted ration butts or kegs, which the Ship’s Cooper had dis-assembled and stored below, one small hoop from a five-gallon barrico for the small end, and a larger one for the main opening. The canvas and the sewing work to bind the canvas cones to the hoops was done by the Sailmaker and his Mate, and the Bosun provided the one-inch manila for the tow-lines.

The Ship’s Carpenter, with the Bosun and his Mate, created the stabilising rudder device. It looked damned odd, for it had to mate to the flat top of a torpedo, then curve to match the slope of taper along the after-end, nailed in place in its brackets, with a wood ring at the end that fit round the stand-pipe, then doubled to hold a cut-down rudder off Reliant ’s jolly-boat, so it would not wobble.

The modifications were finished by mid-afternoon of the next day, then borne over to Penarth for fitting, and the trials would come on the next morning tide.

“Flags, Mister Merriman?” Lewrie asked as he stood by the entry-port to watch his boat crews board their barges.

“Mister Clough’s idea, sir,” Merriman told him, impatient to be about the trials with his improvements. “We’ll tie them to the stand-pipe to show what time we pulled the priming lines, and be able to see where they go… at least for the experiment, sir.”

“Good thinkin’,” Lewrie agreed. “Once set free, I hadn’t the slightest clue where they were ’til they went ‘bang.’ Away with you, Mister Merriman, Mister Entwhistle. Have fun!” he wished them.

Don’t blow yourselves up! Lewrie wished to himself.

“If they work better this time, sir,” Lt. Westcott said, coming to his side as Lewrie paced back to the centre of the quarterdeck, “we may have to buy more colliers into the Navy. Else it will take better than three or four hours to hoist all eight out of the holds and ready them all for launching.”

“Hmm. Hadn’t thought about that part of it,” Lewrie confessed. “Come t’think on it, I doubt if anyone else has, either. If we do end up launchin’ ’em by the hundred, it’d take a whole flotilla of colliers and ship’s boats. And, they’d have to anchor two miles off the French coast hours before the tide begins to make.”

“ Sacre bleu, mort de ma vie, vottever are zose Anglais doing?” Westcott scoffed quite cheerfully. “Henri, do you z’ink we should tell someone of zis, or open ze fire wiz ze cannon on z’ese pests?”

“If there’s a makin’ tide in darkness, perhaps,” Lewrie speculated, with a leery grimace. “Oh, all this is nonsense and moonshine! Even if they work somewhat as desired, it’s deployin’ ’em that’ll be the rub. It makes more sense that we just barge up to Range-To-Random Shot and fire away ’til the powder magazine’s empty.”

The last torpedo was slung overside into the sea, and the barges took them in tow. Today, the trials were done under reduced sail, not anchored, so Penarth did not block their view.

The barges sailed in towards Guernsey ’til they were within an estimated mile, and handed their sails for a minute or two. Through their telescopes, Lewrie and Westcott could see people scrambling onto the torpedoes, which were floating awash with the chop breaking over them. Tiny triangular red pendants sprouted a foot or so above the sea as Lt. Merriman and Midshipman Entwhistle jerked the priming lines and replaced the tompions, then the barges rowed out ahead of the torpedoes to deploy the drogues and tow them for a bit, before letting go the drogues’ lines and rapidly turning away to re-hoist sail and leave the immediate area, soonest.

Sand trickled through the quarter-hour and half-hour glasses, pocket-watches were consulted almost every two minutes, and everyone who had access to a telescope peered intently from the starboard-side shrouds or bulwarks. The tiny red pendants shrank smaller and smaller as the minutes ticked by, with some of the more enthusiastic boasting that the torpedoes seemed to be drifting faster this time, and seemed not to be drifting too far off the section of the shore that had been chosen as a “target.”

“Can barely spot ’em, now, sir,” Lt. Westcott muttered.

“Any time now, on the first one,” Mr. Caldwell, the Sailing Master, said, squinting at his watch. “Yes! There it goes!”

B’whoom! followed the sudden eruption of flame-shot gunpowder smoke and a great sprouting pillar of sea by a second or so.

“Mister Spendlove?” Lewrie asked, turning to the Second Officer.