The Invasion Year

It made the great-cabins cramped, but Westcott, Merriman, and even the reluctant Spendlove, who had gone off with one of the afternoon torpedoes in strict rotation, were there, as were the Midshipmen who had tried them out: Houghton, Entwhistle, and Warburton. Eight of them sat round Lewrie’s dining table whilst he jammed himself in at the head next to Speaks, using the chair from his desk from the day-cabin. There was tea and two bottles of claret on the side-board.

“We’ve proved that they work,” Captain Speaks began, clearing his throat and speaking in a gruff voice full of seeming confidence. “Everyone agreed on that point?”

“In terms of reliability of their timing and ignition mechanisms, aye, sir,” Lewrie agreed; sort of.

“They do go off most impressively, sir,” Lt. Westcott added.

“Right, then, we’re halfway there.” Speaks beamed, rubbing his hands together. “Now, about why they don’t seem to go in as quick as we’d like, or… end up anywhere near where we’d wish, well,” Speaks tossed off as if that was a mere quibble. “Perhaps the reasons for that lie more in our imperfect hydrographic charts of the area, with a lack of knowledge of what varies the expected straight run-in of the tide, than with the torpedoes themselves. The Admiralty is desperately in need of a proper office of hydrography, after all. All those captains’ journals, sailing masters’ journals and observations, stacked to the rafters in the basements, ignored for years and years, Those that survive the annual floods of the Thames that rise in the basements, ha!”

“Perhaps we should send ashore to Guernsey for experienced fishermen to aid us, sir?” Lt. Westcott dared to suggest.

“And let out the torpedoes’ secrecy to one and all? No, sir!” Captain Speaks said with a growl, one brow up and leaning far back in his chair, making it squeak alarmingly.

“Hardly a secret by now, sir,” Lewrie pointed out, nigh tongue-in-cheek. “I expect Guernsey’s whole population brings their dinners to the shore to watch, like a royal fireworks show.”

“Now, had we done the trials off Land’s End, The Lizard, or the Scillies, there would be fewer spectators,” Lt. Clough contributed.

“The Channel Isles were Admiralty’s choice, sir,” Captain Speaks gruffly rejoined, “not mine, or ours. Better than launching torpedoes off the mouth of the Somme, hey, Captain Lewrie? Or was that their designer’s choice, to which you demurred?”

“Admiralty orders, sir,” Lewrie told him, stung by the gibe over the location of the first trials with MacTavish’s casks. “I still have them, do you wish to see them, sir.”

“Hmm!” Speaks uttered, twisting his mouth to a grimace. “It is of no matter. Now, sirs! What may we do to increase the range and the accuracy of our torpedoes? That’s the matter at hand.”

“One might as well try to direct a sheep to graze northwards,” Lt. Spendlove baldly stated, though he did so in a calm voice without too much sarcasm. “Do the French anchor row after long row of peniches and barges along their harbour moles and breakwaters, a torpedo might end up alongside one of them, sir, but which one would be asking far too much of them, in their present form. I doubt even Merriman’s idea for explosive boats could choose a target, any more than a fireship set loose to sail in on its own.”

“I think Captain Speaks does not intend that sort of accuracy, sirs,” Lt. Clough quickly interjected. “It’s more a matter of ending up somewhere alongside those long, anchored rows, instead of drifting a whole mile wide.”

“Drogues,” Lewrie said. “Sea-anchors t’pull ’em in quicker and straighter.”

“Though, whatever variations in the direction of the tides, the eddys and such, might not a drogue pull them off course even faster?” Clough wondered aloud, his thick brow as furrowed as a wheat field.

“We’ll never know ’til we try,” Lewrie said.

“Rudders, too, sir,” Lt. Merriman stuck in, looking eager again after the general gloomy tone of the gathering. “I dare say our Carpenter and the Bosun could whip something up in short order.”

“Sir?” Lewrie said, turning to Speaks.

Poor old fart don’t have a ship command, and now it looks as if his project’s a dead-bust, too, Lewrie thought as Captain Speaks hemmed and hawed and wiped his hand over his mouth.

Lewrie felt certain that the catamaran torpedoes in their current form would sort of work, if the yards built enough of them and the eventual attack on the main French marshalling port of Boulogne used hundreds of the damned things at one go. That might be enough success for Admiralty, and Speaks’s career. But, if the old fellow was seen to use his wits and made improvements which worked even better…! There was a feather in his cap, a pat on the back from Admiralty, and a promotion into a ship of his own.

Will ye mention me in your report, when Merriman’s modifications solve the problem? Assumin’ they do, o’ course! I could use some new credit in London, too. Get that Henry Legge and court-martial off my back! Lewrie speculated.

“I suppose it would not hurt to try fitting the last two with drogues, and perhaps one of them with a fixed rudder,” Speaks grudgingly allowed, after a long think. “We’ve what left, Mister Clough?”

“One set for fifteen minutes, sir, one for half an hour,” that stout worthy replied.

“Excellent!” Speaks enthused, or pretended to; he looked as if he was driven to sham zeal, no matter what he really thought of torpedoes, or their reliability, or even the honourability of using them as weapons of war. Lewrie suspected that poor Speaks was in over his head in a project he didn’t have a clue about, and might even hold to be a ghastly, sneaking, and atrocious idea, but… the torpedoes were all he had, and he would prove them useful no matter his reservations. Even were they horrid wastes of materiel and money, he would persevere to the last sticking post to prove himself worthy.

“The after-end hoisting ring-bolts, sir,” Lt. Merriman babbled on, producing a lead pencil and a scrap of paper from his coat. “Do we bind the tiller to either of those, anchoring its end to the stand-pipe with a wood mast hoop from one of the barge’s lug-sails…”

“Um-hum, I see…,” Speaks gravely replied, leaning over to peer at the quick sketch. “Like a fixed sweep-oar rudder.”

“Exactly so, sir!” Merriman said, chuckling.

“But… would it not wobble, Mister Merriman?” Speaks asked.

“Well, hmm…” Merriman frowned, looking cock-eyed at his idea. “If we nailed some small baulks of scrap timber to the torpedo. They are wood chests, after all, yes! We could nail baulks through the tarred canvas and outer planking, say four inches thick and high, eight inches long, to make a restraining channel for the long tiller, which we’d still attach to the stand-pipe with a mast hoop…!”

Pettus came to the table and leaned over to whisper in Lewrie’s ear, then stood over to the side-board to gather wine glasses for all the company.

“You’ll stay aboard to dine, sir, Mister Clough?” Lewrie asked his guests. “I’m told my cook’s preparin’ bean soup, roasted rabbit, and a sea pie, with apple tarts to boot.”

“Delighted, Captain Lewrie!” Captain Speaks replied, turning to look at him very briefly, now intent upon Merriman’s sketch, to which he quickly returned. “Once in place, why not nail restraining boards over the brackets, so the tiller won’t hop out or slip free, sir?”

Lewrie crooked a finger to Pettus.

“Sir?” Pettus said in a whisper, leaning close again.

“Best see that the cats eat very separate tonight,” Lewrie said, with a slight incline of his head towards their senior officer.

“I’ll see to it, sir.”

He’s in a good mood, for once, Lewrie thought; Pray God nothin’ spoils it!

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Drogues, or sea-anchors, were easily cobbled together from the iron hoops of depleted ration butts or kegs,