The Invasion Year

“Well, a ship’s day begins at Eight Bells of the Forenoon Watch, at Noon,” Lewrie explained as they strolled arm-in-arm, half snuggled down the now-dark street, “and each half-hour, a ship’s boy turns the sand-glass and strikes one bell for each half-hour that passes ’til he reaches eight, four hours later. We name each four-hour watch-”

“So much to learn of your world!” Lydia said, almost gasping. “You must tell me as much as you can, and direct me to books where I can discover more!”

“It’s much like learnin’ Russian, or Greek, I warn you!” Lewrie cautioned her. “Sailors’ cant is contrary and sounds like nonsense to a lubber like you.”

“A lover?” she chuckled.

“Lubber… not even a ‘scaly fish,’ yet,” Lewrie told her.

“And when you return, might you quiz me on what I have learned? Might you bend me over a gun and make me… ‘kiss the gunner’s daughter’ with a what did you call it?” she enthused, skipping ahead of him a step or two, their hands together.

“A twine-wrapped length of rope… about this long,” he said, freeing his hands long enough to indicate a length of eighteen inches. “A stiffened rope starter a Bosun’ll use on the slow-coaches.”

“Mercy, sir! That long, is it?”

“Perhaps, do ye have t’be… bent over a gun, I could discover something else that’d serve,” he said with a leer, a bit startled by her boldness… but liking it very, very much!

“Yayss, I surely think that you could,” Lydia drawled, coming back to tuck herself against him as they walked on towards the welcoming lanthorns of the inn.

Just damn my eyes, but I like this woman! Lewrie happily told himself as they dared to embrace and kiss just once more before they had to go in, a kiss that lasted and lasted, but could not last long enough.

BOOK IV

We are come to a new era in the history of nations; we are called to struggle for the destiny, not of this country alone but of the civilised world… We have for ourselves the great duty of self-preservation to perform; but the duty of the people of England now is of a nobler and higher order… Amid the wreck and the misery of nations it is our just exultation that we have continued superior to all that ambition or that despotism could effect; and our still higher exultation ought to be that we provide not only for our own safety but hold out a prospect for nations now bending under the iron yoke of tyranny of what the exertions of a free people can effect.

~PRIME MINISTER WILLIAM PITT (THE YOUNGER)

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