The Invasion Year

want them.”

“But the bulk of them surely will succeed, sir,” MacTavish said with complete assurance in his devices. “Boats will be lost to them, some damaged and force the French to replace them, and once a few blow up without warning, think of the panic they will engender. What French sailor would dare to sleep aboard his caique or peniche if the presence of death may come with each sunset?”

Think of the panic in the boat crews who tow the damned things in, ready to explode! Lewrie sourly thought.

“How close ashore to the anchored boats would boat crews have to get before releasing them?” Lewrie asked.

“Well, that would depend on the run of the tide, Captain Lewrie. I should imagine that each boat will have a Midshipman with a passable skill in mathematics,” MacTavish said, shrugging off the problem. “Some of your, what-do-you-call-them… Master’s Mates, able to judge the height of the boats’ masts, and perform simple trigonometry to determine the distance, the speed of the tide, and set the clock timer accordingly.”

Boy Midshipmen with good mathematics? Lewrie wondered; Now there is a snag! A veritable paradox!

“As to the matter of suitable boats, sir,” Lt. Johns brought up once more. “We’ve only a small gig and an eighteen-foot jolly-boat on our inventory. To tow them in quickly, then make their way out just as quickly, it would be best if we had some boats larger than your two cutters… thirty-two-foot barges with two masts for lug-sails and a jib would be best. Or at least twelve-oared barges.”

“We’ll ask of the dockyard,” Lewrie told him. “I’m sure they might have some spares. What condition they’re in, well. If we need authorisation, who do we mention? Are we under Lord Keith and North Sea Fleet? Droppin’ a powerful name sometimes helps.”

“No worry, then, Captain Lewrie,” Mr. MacTavish said with a top-lofty smirk. “We have letters from Lord Melville, personally signed, authorising any expense or requisition. Might they do?”

Mine arse on a band-box! Lewrie thought; What do I want, what does Reliant need… and how much can I get away with?

“I expect they’d do main-well, Mister MacTavish,” Lewrie allowed. “Uhm… could I see these wonders? Not the plans here, but the real articles?”

“Aye, weel…,” Artificer McCloud grumbled, rubbing his beard.

“But of course, sir! This instant!” MacTavish quickly agreed.

* * *

“Hmm… rather big,” Lewrie commented once the canvas shroud had been drawn back just far enough to expose one of the devices to his eyes. To all outward appearances, the “cask torpedo” was a large water butt, about four feet tall and fat in the middle, tapering at each end to shallow hemispherical lids, not the usual flat wooden lids set into the ends two or three inches below the rims. Any large tun, cask, or barrel made to hold liquids was constructed with extra care, of course, so that the staves fit together so closely that only the slightest bit of seepage occurred. In this case, seepage inward would be the ruin of the device, so it had been slathered all over in tar, then wrapped with more tarred canvas.

“Th’ bottom’s heemispherical, ye’ll note,” McCloud pointed out, “sae thayr’s space feer th’ ballast, tae keep eet ridin’ oop-right een th’ water.”

“And the upper hemisphere is a void, a space for air,” MacTavish added. “That is where the clock mechanism sits, along with the pistol which ignites the charge at the proper time. When one is about to let one go, one first pulls the line with the blue paint on the last inches of the line… that will start the clock. The red-painted line cocks the primed fire-lock of the pistol. The clock gears drive a circular wooden disk, which has several dowels projecting from it. The trigger line is bound to one of the dowels, and, as the clock turns the disk, the line is drawn taut, ’til it pulls the trigger of the pistol, and… bang!” he gleefully concluded. “The gunpowder and the pyrotechnicals ignite, and adieu, Monsieur Frog, ha ha!”

“How much gunpowder?” Lewrie asked, getting up on his tip-toes to peer over the top of the torpedo, taking hold of one of the hoisting ring-bolts. “And how low in the water will it ride? I notice the top is not tarred, but painted black. And, how do you set the clock at the last minute?”

“One hundred and twenty pounds of powder,” MacTavish told him.

Lewrie stepped back a foot or two!

“D’ye mean it’s loaded, now?” he gawped.

“Weel, o’ course eet’s loaded!” McCloud said with a short snort of amusement. “But, the pistol’s nae primed, nor cocked, an’ th’ clock ain’t runnin’. Eet’s safe as sae many bricks!”

“So… when the time comes to prime the pistol’s pan, set the clock timer, and ready it to go, how do you, if the top’s sealed?” Lewrie asked, growing a bit more dubious of the whole enterprise, and feeling a faint shudder of dread in his middle.

“As to that, Captain Lewrie,” MacTavish said soothingly, “one must remove the bung set into the very top. The hole is wide enough for your average man to reach down into it, set the clock timer for the minutes judged best, pull the lock back to half-cock and prime the pan, then draw it to full cock…”

Oh, Jesus! Lewrie groaned inside; Pity the poor fool who does that from a wallowin’ rowin’ boat!

“… pull the trigger lines to set it all in motion, then drive the bung back in place,” MacTavish went on, not noticing Lewrie’s look of utter dread. “The torpedo will float with the top six inches free of the water, and, should waves slop over it, the bung will keep things dry enough for as long as the clock runs.”

“Mind noo, ye’ll hae t’wind th’ bluidy thing, feerst!” McCloud hooted, then turned to spit overside.

“That’s why the top is painted black, to hide it from a casual observer or lookout,” MacTavish breezed off. “The ring-bolts will do for hoisting out from this vessel, and for towing lines from the boat which takes it in close. The old socket bayonets will be fitted over muzzle stubs from old Tower muskets, and the same for the grapnels… all the metal fittings screwed in and washered, and tarred inside and out. But, we’ll do all that before they’re hoisted out.”

“So, right now we’re sittin’ on seven hundred twenty pounds of gunpowder,” Lewrie said, shaking his head, “and if anything goes amiss, we could take out old Sandwich yonder, the Medway Boom tenders, and an host of unwary workers?”

“Nae countin’ th’ spare kegs o’ powder stored below,” McCloud said, his head cocked over and nodding genial agreement with Lewrie’s estimate.

“Mister Johns, I think it best if you move Fusee out into the Great Nore anchorage near my ship,” Lewrie suggested.

Not too bloody near, thankee! he thought.

“Of course, sir!” Lt. Johns replied, stiffening with eagerness to be about the start of their “adventure.”

“We’ll take my gig in tow, and bring my boat crew aboard for a bit,” Lewrie added. “Alright with you, sir?” he had to enquire, for it was not his ship, and Lt. Johns was Fusee’s commanding officer.

“Very good, sir! Bosun, pipe all hands to Stations for taking in the anchors!” Johns bellowed.

Lewrie’s Cox’n and his gig’s oarsmen came tumbling aboard from the boat, and a long tow-line was bound to her stem bollard for towing astern. It would be a nice rest for them, instead of another long row of several miles. They began stretching and chattering, peering about at the oddness of a new ship, a type which most of them had never seen.

Patrick Furfy, “stroke oar” and Liam Desmond’s long-time mate from their Irish village, took out a short stub pipe and began to tamp shag tobacco into it.

“Furfy!” Lewrie snapped, looking aghast. “No smoking! If you please,” he added once he saw the surprise on Furfy’s face. “Not ’til we’re back aboard Reliant.”