The Invasion Year

casks; he also took note of a long and heavy boom rigged to the base of the bomb’s foremast, and a hoisting windlass so it could be employed as a crane… forward of the mast, not aft.

“Pardon me for seeming remiss in searching you out, sir, but as I said, orders came aboard not half an hour past,” Johns went on.

“Mine preceded yours by no more than an hour, Mister Johns. It is of no matter,” Lewrie allowed, clapping his hands into the small of his back and craning his neck to look upwards. “I had a converted bomb in the Bahamas, ’tween the wars, but Alacrity, as a gun-ketch, had her masts equally spaced, like a brig, and the mortar wells were fore and aft of the foremast. Your Fusee resembles a three- master that’s missing her entire foremast, and sports but main and mizen.”

“The newer construction allows both mortars to work in concert, sir, bows-on to a target, ’stead of anchored beam-on, and becoming a better target,” Lt. Johns laughed. “I admit the new ones look queer, but with much larger jibs and fore-and-aft stays’ls, they will go up to windward at least a point closer.”

“But still make lee-way like a wood chip?” Lewrie wryly asked.

“No worse than the older class, sir, but… aye,” Lt. Johns said with a fatalistic shrug. “Bombs are notorious for it, unfortunately.”

“Any chance that so much lee-way, when engaged in the, ah… experiments mentioned in my orders, might cause any problems, Mister Johns?” Lewrie asked, lowering his voice like a conspirator plotting mayhem… what sort he still hadn’t a clue.

“Well, sir, I would’ve preferred a vessel with deeper ‘quick-work’ and less lee-way, but the wells are handy for the, ah… things, and Fusee’s lower freeboard will aid in their… deployment,” Johns replied, looking “cutty-eyed” and furtive, all but laying a cautioning finger to his lips. “But, you must meet Mister MacTavish, the fellow who devised the, ah… items, sir!” Johns perked up. “His ideas are visionary. They could revolutionise naval warfare, sir! This way.”

“All that? Hmm,” Lewrie most dubiously said. “Lead on, then.”

“You’ve sufficient ship’s boats, Captain Lewrie, might I ask?” Lt. Johns enquired as he led the way to a small companionway and a very steep, but thankfully short, ladder leading below.

“Two twenty-five-foot cutters, my gig, and a jolly-boat,” Lewrie told him, taking off his hat and ducking, but, “Ow!” he yelped.

“Mind the deck beams, sir,” Lt. Johns warned, much too late. “I have found a cautious crouch best serves, sir, when belowdecks.” A trice later, and Lewrie found himself in the gloom of a very dark and small joke of a “great- cabin.” Lt. Johns’s own quarters right-aft were screened off by deal partitions and a louvred door; down each beam were four “dog-boxes,” and along the centreline stood a rough planked table with sea-chests for seating, much like the orlop deck cockpit of bigger ships, where Midshipmen, Surgeon’s Mates, and Master’s Mates resided.

Two men sat slouched on their elbows at the table opposite each other, poring over sheaves of drawings and plans, which were rolled up hastily at Lewrie’s appearance as they turned to glower at him.

“Captain Lewrie, sir, allow me to name to you the designer of our, of the… Mister Cyrus MacTavish, and his senior artificer and fabricator, Mister Angus McCloud,” Johns announced. “Gentlemen, allow me to name to you Captain Alan Lewrie, of the Reliant frigate.”

At least only the one of ’em popped out of a haggis, Lewrie told himself; with two Scottish names mentioned in his orders, he’d expected a lot worse.

“Captain Lewrie, your servant, sir!” the urbane-looking one said as he cautiously got to his feet and came forward to offer his hand to Lewrie. “MacTavish, sir, formerly Major in the Royal Engineers.”

MacTavish was lean and fair, with an almost noble face, dressed in a plain dark blue coat, buff breeches, and top-boots.

“And my right-hand man, Angus McCloud,” MacTavish pointed out.

If he’d dressed in kilt, cross-gartered plaid stockings, and a Scotch bonnet, McCloud could not have looked more “Sawney,” his grizzly beard included; Lewrie hadn’t seen one on a man in ages. The man wore a slate-grey tweed suit of “ditto,” the fabric so rough that sparrows might have woven it from straw and twigs. McCloud was much older than his employer, grey and bristly curly-haired, with tanned and leathery rough features. He continued scowling. “G’day t’ye, Cap’m,” was all he had to say, with a short nod, still seated.

“Gentlemen,” Lewrie replied. “For the moment, you have the advantage of me. My orders did not specify exactly what it is we’re to do, or what your devices do.”

“And with good reason, sir!” MacTavish said with a bark of good humour. “Do the French learn what is in store for them, it would make our trials much more difficult, not to say impossible. Does the term ‘torpedo’ mean anything to you, sir?”

“Ah… some sort of eel, or ray?” Lewrie asked, shrugging his ignorance. “A fish o’ some sort?”

“Will you take coffee, Captain Lewrie?” Lt. Johns offered.

“Yes, join us and I will enlighten you, sir,” MacTavish grinned. Once all were seated, and Lewrie had a mug in his hands, the man went on with a sly and boastful grin. “There’s all these bloody barges and boats the French have built, not counting the prames and chaloupes of varying sizes and armament built as gunboats to provide escort to the invasion, when it comes. So many that the French have had to anchor them outside the principal invasion ports, up against the breakwaters in row after row, waiting for the moment when the troops and artillery go aboard them.”

“Like trots o’ peegs, a’nuzzlin’ a sow,” McCloud supplied with a gruff tone.

“Now, with that the case, Captain Lewrie, how would you get at them?” MacTavish asked, already smiling with impending glee to reveal his solution.

“With bombs and sea-mortars, gunfire, and fireships, I s’pose,” Lewrie replied, sure that his answer would be wrong. “A cutting-out expedition on dark, moonless nights?”

“Ye canna geet yair frigate that close t’shore,” McCloud piped up. “Bombs canna expec’ calm waters, e’en can they get inta shallower waters, an’ th’ Frogs’ gunboats’d put paid t’yair fireships an’ a’ yair puir sailors ye send rowin’ in.”

“Well, Angus, when the time comes, are we successful, there’ll be all those in concert, but… with the addition of my torpedoes… my cask torpedoes, aha!” MacTavish cried triumphantly. “Those things shrouded in the mortar wells, sir? We’ve half a dozen ready to go and more being fabricated even as we speak. When the time comes we intend to launch them by the hundreds on a French port, and blow all of their caiques and boats and barges to kindling!”

“Uhm… how?” Lewrie had to ask. It sounded fine, but…

“Imagine, sir, an assault launched in the dead of night without an inkling of danger,” Mr. MacTavish continued, squirming impatiently on his seat. “Ship’s boats tow my cask torpedoes in close to shore, cock the detonating mechanisms, start the clock timer, and set them to drift in on a making tide. Channel tides are rapid, inexorable! Now… silently, un-seen, for they ride very low in the water, waves of them waft inshore, right up to those caiques, peniches, and barges, as quietly as mice!”

“Dinna forget th’ grapnels, an’ th’ spikes,” McCloud dryly added.

“They bob up alongside the French boats,” MacTavish further enthused, sketching out the assault with the tips of his fingers flutter-creeping towards a box of sweet bisquits on the table top. “Grapnels and old bayonets snag or spear into the hulls of the boats, the first warning that anything’s amiss to the few French sailors aboard them to watch over their anchor cables and the lines which moor them together, hah! Then, when the clock timer winds up the trigger cords, and those few Frogs’ best efforts to dis-lodge them prove fruitless, up they go in gigantic blasts, ah ha!” he cried, raising his hands, his fingers spreading further to simulate soaring chunks of debris.

“Float in on the tide,” Lewrie said back, shifting uneasily on a hard sea chest. “That could take a while, even on a Channel tide. Your clock timer mechanism…?”

“We determine the speed of the tide, set the timers to account for it, judge the distance at which the torpedoes are released, then prime them and off they go,” MacTavish told him, beaming.

“Uhm, Channel tides flow into their ports, aye, Mister MacTavish… but, there’s a strong tide up or down Channel to consider,” Lewrie had to point out. “Is the bottom smooth, tide-washed sand and mud, or is it rocky, which sets off strong eddies? It’s not as if all your cask torpedoes will just drift straight in. Some will swirl about and might end up a mile from where you