The Invasion Year

Lewrie savoured the last few sips of tepid coffee in his pewter mug as he stood by the windward bulwarks of the quarterdeck, slouched a tad, it must be admitted, as he surveyed the lines of warships, the sea and sky. Did the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte wish for fine weather in which to launch his titanic invasion force, he could not ask for a milder day, for the conditions were rarely seen in the Channel in late Autumn, this first day of October of 1804.

The sky above was a soft and milky pale blue, almost completely blanketed by vast swathes of thin cirrus clouds, the sunlight softened and almost shadowless. Further up the Channel nearer to the Straits of Dover, and further down-Channel on the West horizon, there were thicker, taller, and more substantial clouds through which the sun speared down in bright shafts. There were sootier, darker shafts, too, as if there might be rain there, or, as superstitious old salts maintained, the sun was drawing up columns of water for a later deluge.

The waters of the Channel, usually boisterous, cross-chopped and sparkling with white-horses and white-caps, were calmer, too, the waves longer and shallower for once, and the muted sunlight turned the sea’s colour to steely grey-blue close aboard, and a paler blue that mirrored the sky further away. France, off the bows, was a thin smear of dull green and sand, a single coloured pencil-stroke, so far.

The only stark colours were the solidities of the warships, and their hulls and sails; dark brown weathered oak, the shiny black of the painted upperworks or the matte black of tarred wales, and the yellows, reds, ochres, or buffs of their hull stripes, with here and there glints of giltwork on transoms, entry-ports, or carved figureheads. Pale, new white canvas, or aged and weathered buff or parchment tan sails, made a ragged scudding cloudbank above those hulls. Above them all, and aft on wooden staffs, all ships sported Blue Ensigns with vivid red-white-blue Union flags in their cantons… and all flew yards-long commissioning pendants from their main-mast tops, streaming and flickering like snakes’ tongues licking the wind for the taste of prey.

Lewrie finished his cold coffee, set the mug down on the deck, and strolled to the break of the quarterdeck to peer over the hammock stanchions, now full of tightly rolled bedding, down into the waist.

Admiral Lord Keith had not yet ordered the squadron to Quarters, and Lewrie felt it odd to be sailing into action with his crew acting as if it was just another day far out at sea, with their frigate alone and without a threat on the horizons. The ports were still shut, and the great-guns were still snugly bowsed to the gun-port sills, each of them still plugged with red-painted wood tompions in their muzzles. A few men idled round the companionways, but only half the crew, of the starboard watch, stood the watch. Well, there were the Marines… if action was expected in an hour or so, Lt. Simcock was going to be ready for it, and properly dressed, too; his men had doffed their everyday slops and had changed into cockaded hats, red coats, white waist-coats and trousers, and black canvas “half- spatterdash” leggings, with all of their martial accoutrements hung about them.

“France… dammit,” Lewrie muttered, as the squadron closed to within six or seven miles of the shore. “Bloody, bloody, France!”

“Well, some of their young ladies are fetching, sir,” Lieutenant Westcott breezily commented near Lewrie’s side. “Recall the fair Madamoiselle Sylvie at Kingston?”

“Oh, is that why you insisted you lead the boats?” Lewrie said with a laugh. “You’ve a taste for French mutton, have you?”

“I rather doubt there’d be any aboard the invasion boats, sir,” Westcott replied, all whimsy. “Though one might hope?”

Lewrie wished to keep Lt. Westcott aboard Reliant should they run into opposition from French gunboats, but Westcott had asked for a private word and had claimed the honour of leading the boats that would tow the torpedoes in; it was the senior lieutenant’s role by right and tradition, and, “How else may I make a name for myself and gain notice for advancement, sir, if I’m held back?” he’d posed with a wry laugh, and Lewrie had acceded to his desire, charging him to look after his Cox’n, Liam Desmond, and Desmond’s long-time mate, Patrick Furfy.

He would send his oldest Midshipmen; he could spare them, and were men to be lost, it was better to lose Mids than officers. That was traditional, too, and after all, Houghton, Entwhistle, and Mister Warburton had as much need of a bit of fame and notice at Admiralty, and in the papers, as any other man; how else might they advance? And, Lewrie grimly considered, even the most seasoned Midshipmen were as hungry for honour and glory as lion cubs!

“It’s taking long enough,” Captain Speaks impatiently snapped as he strolled up to join them.

Such a pretty day, ’til he ruined it! Lewrie thought, stifling a groan, keeping his gaze fixed on the bow-sprit, and pretending that he had not heard the man.

Just before they had sailed from Portsmouth to join Lord Keith off The Downs, Speaks had come aboard Reliant, without specific orders-and thankfully without his damned parrot!-claiming that making passage in Penarth would interfere too much with Lt. Clough and his preparations, though he also alluded to un-seen orders to see the job right through to the finish, and a “duty” to see “his torpedoes” successful. Lewrie’s orders were to accompany Penarth and use his men and boats to launch the devices, and they made no mention of Speaks, but… Speaks was senior to him, and Lewrie couldn’t drive Speaks back into his hired boat at sword- point, or even demand to see those hinted-at orders, so… he was stuck with the pest! And a garrulous, peevish, and annoying pest he’d turned out to be, practically presiding and ruling meals with Lewrie and his officers, and constantly on the quarterdeck when Lewrie was, never interfering, exactly, with Reliant’s captain and officers of the watch, but hovering, with many a dis-approving scowl, sniff, grunt, questioning cocked brow, or muttered comment!

“They’re my torpedoes, Lewrie, my collier from which you’ll fetch them,” Speaks had briskly rattled off, a calculating little smile upon his face, “and I’m damned well going to see them handled properly.”

A kindly and charitable man might have deemed Captain Speaks’s zeal admirable… the sort of fellow Captain Alan Lewrie definitely was not, even before the bastard had come aboard. No, what the fellow wanted the most, Lewrie suspected, was a chance to be at sea aboard a proper frigate, not a hired-in collier that mounted only pop-guns, and damned few of those. Reliant was a warship very much like Speaks’s last command of 1801, which, had he not come down with pneumonia and had had to be replaced, he might have sailed into the Baltic as a lone ship to scout the Danish, Swedish, and Russian fleets, then returned in time to take part in the glorious battle with Nelson at Copenhagen, and felt robbed of the opportunity.

Lewrie was dead-certain that Speaks had no orders; his brief had been to test the catamaran torpedoes, then turn them over to some other officer to be employed. He might have felt a trifle sorry for the old fellow-had he not been as bristly as a currying brush, nowhere near the “firm but fair” and well-liked officer of old! And if he wished to be close to his charges, and take part in a battle, at long last, more power to him, Lewrie thought-so long as he did so anywhere else but aboard his ship!

“Signal, sir!” Midshipman Munsell, high aloft, called down in a thin and shrill voice, reading off a string of number flags. “General to all ships, with two guns!”

“It is… ‘Come to Anchor,’ sir,” Midshipman Rossyngton said, after a quick scan through his code book.

“Anchor?” Captain Speaks barked. “We’re still five miles off!”

“Have the signal repeated, Mister Rossyngton,” Lewrie told his Mid, “but I’d admire did we fetch-to, Mister Westcott, not anchor, as ordered. Do the French come out, we’d be immobile too long for my liking… and caught tryin’ t’go to Quarters and heave up the best bower and the entire length of a cable at the same time.”

HMS Reliant was put up into wind, fore-and-aft sails still drawing to drive her forward, but with tops’ls aback to act as brakes, and let her make just a bit of stern and lee-way, practically immobilised, but still able to pay off and get back to speed in a mere minute, avoiding getting caught by a French sortie “with her pants down.”

“It was an order,” Captain Speaks muttered half to himself, just loud enough to irk. “Ahem,” he covered, loudly clearing his throat.

“Interpreted by all but the two-deckers and the flagship according to captains’ best judgement, sir,” Lewrie pointed out through gritted teeth, in a rictus of an outwardly pleasant smile. “The rest have fetched-to, the other frigates and such. As you can see,” he added as he swept an arm towards the lighter ships, which stood a little