Dewey Lambdin - The Invasion Year

Near the harbour entrance between the enveloping arms of the breakwaters, Lewrie could barely make out some three-masted gunboats, swinging at single anchors to the wind and tide, where they could sortie if Lord Keith launched his attack. Out beyond them and the lines of boats along the outer breakwater faces, large armed launches were rowing, keeping a wary eye on the British squadron.

“This could turn hopeless, fast,” Lewrie whispered to himself.

“Say somethin’, sir?” Grimes asked.

“Enjoy the view,” Lewrie said, louder, then turned to begin his descent to the safety of the deck.

“The tide’s beginning to run well, sir,” the Sailing Master, Mr. Caldwell, pointed out just after Lewrie stowed his telescope in the compass binnacle cabinet, “though the wind’s both perverse and scant for an assault.”

“Perhaps we won’t be going in, after all, Mister Caldwell,” Lewrie replied with an impatient shrug, and a peek aloft to the commissioning pendant, which was streaming the wrong way. “If we send in the fireships, there’s a chance they’d just drift back onto us .”

“We’ve the bomb vessels in place, the rocket ships anchored and in good range,” Captain Speaks grumbled. “If the wind won’t serve, at least we could begin to shell them, tonight. Stap me, this delay and dithering is maddening!”

Should’ve stayed aloft, Lewrie thought; and avoided the pest a while longer!

The bomb vessels that Lewrie had seen while aloft were of the newer type, with their two masts set far back to leave their two mortars free play up forward, set deep in re-enforced wells. They’d been anchored by a single stern kedge and both their bower anchors set out at extreme angles so tensioning or loosening their bower cables could swing their aim in great arcs. The older, converted rocket ships were beam-on to the shore, anchored from bows and sterns with springs on their cables to shift their aim. All seemed ready.

“Aye, but how many rockets have we to fire?” Lewrie speculated aloud. “How many shells are aboard the bombs? We shoot off half of our bolts, without usin’ the fireships and torpedoes at the same time…?” he added, finishing with another, greater, arm-lifting shrug.

“We’re to sit here and wait for tomorrow night’s tide, and hope the wind co-operates?” Captain Speaks groused. “Pah!”

“Well, at least we may savour a good supper in peace,” Lewrie said with a chuckle. “My cook assures me he’s a cured ham for us, and if we don’t have to go to Quarters, we’ll dine on a hot meal.”

“A hot supper!” Captain Speaks barked incredulously, sneering at Lewrie’s priorities. An inarticulate growl followed.

“You’ll join me, Mister Caldwell?” Lewrie offered, grinning.

“Gad, yes, I will, sir, and thankee most kindly!” Mr. Caldwell quickly responded, rubbing his hands in expectation.

Speaks turned away to mumble something, which made Lewrie grin impishly. “D’ye know, Mister Caldwell, this puts me in mind of Copenhagen, the night before the battle, with the two fleets anchored not two miles apart, like ancient armies, glarin’ at each other, with the battlefield between ’em.”

Lewrie knew how much that would rile Speaks, and determined he would expand on the subject over supper, which Captain Speaks would not turn down… unless he intended to sulk and fast in his hammock!

God only knew what the French made of it, but it was the following evening, October 2nd, that Admiral Lord Keith ordered the assault on Boulogne to begin. The winds had come round from a favourable quarter, the tide was running shoreward at a brisk pace, and, perhaps far aft in HMS Monarch ’s great-cabins, a chicken had been sacrificed, and the auguries had been deemed auspicious.

Boats from the flagship had rowed last-minute orders to all the ships, and alerting them to begin when Monarch fired a two-gun signal.

Lewrie ordered Reliant ’s crew to supper in the First Dog Watch, so the galley fires could be extinguished early, then had the frigate brought to Quarters at the start of the Second Dog, at 6 P.M.

“On your way, Mister Westcott, and the best of fortune go with ye,” Lewrie bade the First Lieutenant, and his Midshipmen and the hands who would man the towing boats. The Penarth collier had already hoisted all her torpedoes from her holds and tethered them alongside, ready and waiting. “Give the Frogs Hell, Reliants!”

“We’ll fetch you some frogs’ legs flambe, sir!” Westcott gaily promised as he ordered his men overside and into the boats. And they were all four well on their way and about to go alongside Penarth when the long, anxious peace between the French and the anchored squadron was broken at last by the sharp reports of two guns aboard HMS Monarch. Signal flags soared up her halliards ordering engagement.

“Mister Merriman, you may open upon the boats anchored outside the breakwaters,” Lewrie shouted down to the waist.

“Aye aye, sir!” Lt. George Merriman loudly replied, then turned to his waiting gun crews. “Raise the ports! Run out!”

Monarch and the other frigates fired first, the edgy peace of a fine, mild early evening shattered by the deep, ear-splitting bellows of guns.

“Prime your guns!” Lt. Merriman was roaring. “Captains, take aim! We will fire by threes! Quarter-gunners, see to your charges, and direct them to point at single targets! Ready?”

Gun-captains fiddled with elevation by raising the breech-ends of their pieces with crow-levers and wriggling the wood quoin blocks a bit aft, or a bit forward, to raise the muzzles to their best guess of the range. Some called for their gunners to lever the truck carriages left or right so the barrels pointed directly at specific boats in that long two-deep line of invasion vessels. Only then did they stand erect, clear of the guns’ recoil, drawing the trigger lines to the flintlock strikers taut, and raising fists in the air to signal their readiness.

“By threes… fire!” Merriman shouted, chopping the air with his right arm, and the guns erupted, in groups from bow to stern, with lung-flattening roars, spurting great clouds of burned powder smoke shoreward, shot through with stabs of bright yellow-red flame and fire-fly sparks of vivid orange.

“Swab out! Slow and steady does it, lads!” Merriman directed. “Overhaul recoil tackle, overhaul run-out tackle. Load cartridge!”

The smoke-bank was drifting shoreward rapidly, thinning and rising as it went on a fair breeze, allowing Lewrie and Lt. Spendlove on the quarterdeck to lift their telescopes and survey the initial results. There were shot splashes near the invasion vessels, but so far they saw no evidence of hits; that would be far too much to hope for from the very first shots. It would take several more broadsides ’til the gun-captains honed their aims, and perhaps a couple of hours more of slow and steady hammering to inflict substantial damage.

“Not too bad for first broadsides, sir,” Lt. Spendlove said optimistically. “Mostly short, but in line with their chosen marks.”

“Excuse me, sir?” Midshipman Warburton intruded. “What duties might you assign me, sir, now that Captain Speaks took my place?”

“What?” Lewrie gawped. “What the Devil are ye doin’ here, Mister Warburton? Took your place ?” he spluttered.

“At the last moment, sir,” Mr. Warburton explained, looking miserable to be deprived his shot at danger and glory. “He said that you had allowed him, that they were his torpedoes, and-”