'Could I get some bomb-ketches in here, within three miles of the place… shallow, improvised bombs up this channel a little way, with ten-inch sea mortars, I could pound it into ruin,' Lewrie stated, standing and peering through the borrowed telescope. 'Buoyed up with 'camels' to either beam, to get 'em up this slough. Wood-based light Coehorn mortars in launches and pinnaces to sail right up the island's west side, that 'd keep their heads down and their buttocks clenched!' he hooted in anticipatory mirth. 'Two… three combined companies of Marines from off a few ships of the line could go with the small boats and assault it from the rear. Landward walls of a sea fort aren't designed against a strong assault.' He lowered the glass and looked down at the channel.
'Though I don't much care for the current. Looks fast to me,' he said, frowning at the eddies, swirls, and bent-over reeds. 'Take a slack tide, and how long that'd last… else the mortar boats could not breast the tides under sail, and rowing'd be sheer buggery. Make less than a mile an hour, slower than a man could walk it.'
'Or Fort Coquilles could be ignored, if it can't reach to this shore with its guns,' Mr. Pollock mused as Lewrie sat back down, handing him the glass to stow away. 'Then… in your professional opinion, could a large force be landed here? Where we now sit? It's not over thirteen miles from here to New Orleans, over a fairly good road, too. Mister Peel, being a cavalryman at one time, suggested that this might prove the best route, when we talked before leaving Kingston.'
'Beats sailing an hundred miles up the Mississippi River from the Gulf,' Lewrie cautiously allowed, 'or God knows how far down from from Canada, aye. How large a force could be landed here, though…' Lewrie mused, shrugging. He fixed Pollock with a sharp, leery eye and grinned. 'And did Mister Peel drop a few hints, hey, Mister Pollock, as to what he thought the size of the force required could be?'
'Well, ahem! … he did mention a squadron of horse, merely in passing, d'ye see,' Pollock responded.
'Oh, I'm sure he did!' Lewrie said, laughing. 'Old habits die hard. Tarra-tarra… 'draw sabres and charge'! Peel, no matter his influence in London or Kingston, no matter his knowledge of any secret plans already drawn, Mister Pollock, ain't a sailor. He and his Army contacts see the problem from this hillock inland, with nary a worry 'bout how they're t'be gotten here. He really should've chosen an infantry officer in disguise for this part of our mission, not me.'
'Mister Peel, ah…' Pollock hesitantly explained, 'said that the crux of the matter was the getting ashore, and that you, sir, had the wits to solve it, or, ahem!… Scotch it, should it not prove to be practical.'
'Mine arse on a band-box! Peel said that?' Lewrie gawped. 'It is news t'me that… hmm. Well, well!'
And all this time Peel's good as told me I'm an idiot! Lewrie thought; A useful idiot, now an ' again, but… hmm, well, well!
'Horse transports are even rarer than hens' teeth, sir,' Lewrie laid out to his guide, suddenly in much better takings, even finding professional delight in sketching out a plan on the chart. 'I expect only one or two might be
available on short notice, so… let's say no more than two or three troops of cavalry, not an entire squadron. A couple of batteries of horse artillery, nothing heavier than four- or six-pounders, too. Troop transports aren't that common, either, so… no more than three or four regiments of foot, with their four-gun batteries of equally light artillery pieces.'
He'd anchor the invasion fleet off Cat and Ship Islands in deep water; sail or row barges, launches, pinnaces, and Coehorn mortar boats from there into Lake Borgne… dead of night, all that!… even tow some astern of the extemporised bombs, which could fire far inland to suppress any opposition as the troops were going ashore. Light infantry, fusiliers and such, ashore first to scout and skirmish their way west to protect the fairly small landing ground, which was not quite as big as a cricket pitch, really. Some light regimental guns next, their limbers stuffed with cannister and grape, not solid shot. Then cavalry and horse artillery, followed by the rest of the regiments… the line companies and grenadier companies, the Marines for the Bayou Bienvenu, near where they sat.
Aye, the bayou, by God! A Heaven-sent highway in its own right, that (so Mr. Pollock assured him) meandered right into the northern suburbs of New Orleans itself, fed the Marigny Canal, hard by the many farm plots and cart paths behind Fort St. John and the shore of Pontchartrain!
'Takes most of the supply waggons or pack-mules off the single road,' Lewrie said, chuckling. 'Supply boats, gigs, launches, cutters… shallow-draught stuff off every vessel can get up Bayou Bienvenu. Pole 'em if they can't be rowed! Cuts down on the number of draught animals to transport or feed, too! Less hay and oats, more shot and powder, more troops. Who are fed worse than horses, really. Hmmm, swivels and two- pounder boat-guns on the bayou boats, to keep the Dons well back, and up to their necks in muck.'
Seven miles from New Orleans, the chart showed a large tongue of higher, dryer ground to the north of the Chef Menteur road, framed by great groves of cypresses. The surprised, scurrying Spanish garrison would, in his limited military judgement, think that the perfect place to rally, to form a defence line and fight. Firm ground on which to emplace heavier guns than the landing force could boast, and Lewrie couldn't see a way round it without a thrust into Lake Pontchartrain in boats to land infantry behind that 'solid ground, to take the Spanish in flank or rear before they could get sorted out and unlimber their artillery pieces… or just after, and sweep them up, thereby shattering the frantic resistance even further? Or could cavalry do it on their own, unsupported? Lewrie grimaced as he imagined that it might take a whole squadron of horse to be landed, after all!
'It's… feasible,' Lewrie said at last, grimacing with doubt, despite his tentative statement of approval, 'with a brigade of foot, a battalion of Marines, and Peel's damned squadron of cavalry. One day to land, sort out, and march past here. Fight a battle here, on this firm ground, if cavalry can't seize it right off, then… whistle up the bandsmen for the march into New Orleans. Land a second brigade?'
'Once New Orleans falls, a second or third brigade could sweep up the forts down the Mississippi, one at a time,' Pollock contributed.
'Whilst a squadron of frigates sails up to help reduce them by direct fire,' Lewrie supposed.
'Then what small, wretched garrisons there are at Mobile and Pensacola could be overwhelmed?' Pollock asked. 'Nor more than fifty or an hundred men to each, really. Mounting guard over the mosquitoes and the mildew, heh heh!' Pollock scoffed.
'A touchy endeavour, even so, Mister Pollock,' Lewrie counselled. 'Where do we get that many tropic-seasoned troops, and transports in sufficient number? If they come from England, it would depend on whether it's hurricane season or not, or how long they have to languish aboard their ships and still be healthy, whether they go ashore on Jamaica for long during Fever Season before the Army has things done all 'tiddly,' and Yellow Jack kills two-thirds of them. You have pen and paper?'
Lewrie sat cross-legged and jotted. Four brigades, say, and 12,000 infantry; average transport 300 to 350 tons with two men per ton of displacement; 600 to 700 men each-say, no more than 500 to 600 for health reasons in the tropics… It would take twenty-four transports, with another dozen for supplies. Nearly 500 cavalry mounts plus artillery nags (assume a quarter died or broke legs on-passage) so plan on seven or eight rare, specialised horse transports, and an equal number just for fodder and oats, and the light artillery could have eight animals per gun, not the usual six, in case the soil was soggy…
He broke off and gazed out at Lake Borgne and the open sea, in disgust. 'Hundreds of barges and cutters, all coming t'this wee patch o' mud. And our Army in charge of it? Hmmm, I don't know…'
'Something wrong?' Pollock asked, taking fret from his tone.
'Anchored so far off, bloody miles of choppy, shallow sea they must cross,' Lewrie gloomed. 'Unless it's flat calm, it'd take days to land them, and the Spanish would have time to react. Our wonderful Army just doesn't have 'quick' in its vocabulary, Mister Pollock. A large force would hamper itself, a small, quick'un could be knackered. Saw at at Toulon in '93 and '94, and that was a proper
