The Invasion Year

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?