Invasion

With an offshore wind and a favourable tide they could take risks. 'Let's have it eight cables,' Kydd said. The French chart had La Petite and La Grande Grunes at no more than seven. Queripel said nothing.

They approached the bleak shore, and as they eased to sail along it the lookout hailed to point out something in the sea.

It was a wide and lazy surface eddy over some sinister submarine hazard that they wouldn't have noticed had the water not been so calm.

An accusing glance from Queripel told Kydd that these were the Grunes and he turned to the first lieutenant. 'Mr. Hallum, we're going coastal now. The people to their stations, if y' please.'

With the boats in their davits free of their gripes and ready for lowering, a hand on the fo'c'sle with lead-line ready coiled, the watch-of-the-hands alert and in no doubt about their duties for emergency manoeuvres, there was little more they could do to alleviate the deadly danger they were in by sailing so close.

Two or three miles ahead the first anchorage of note was marked. Queripel mumbled that it was a contemptible place with a sizeable rock awash the very entrance, but Kydd would not leave anything to chance.

The south-westerly that had been so briskly bearing them from Alderney had now died to a gentle breeze in the lee of the cliffs and Teazer moved along at little more than walking pace. All depended on what they saw when they passed the headland. In the small bay anything might be at anchor, prey or predator, but they could not meet every hidden inlet closed up at battle quarters: they must trust to quick reactions and correct judgements.

The bay was innocent of any vessel, merely a sweep of sandy beach between two nondescript headlands set amid an appalling sprawl of rocks scarring the sea out to a dismaying distance. The visibility was good and the winds safely offshore—but what would it be to cruise here in adverse weather, Kydd wondered. Around the far headland the coast fell back; it would stay trending away to the east-south-east until the port of Cherbourg, ten miles further on and mercifully less set about with reefs and hazards. They remained under easy sail—there was no point in haste: the patrol was for a period of days on station and then they would return.

Teazer settled to routine, the age-old and comfortable rhythms of the sea that the Royal Navy had evolved to a fine art. 'Hands to supper' was piped, as eight bells signalled the start of the first dogwatch. In noisy conviviality the grog tub was brought up and the spirit mixed for issue to all messes before their evening meal.

Kydd kept the deck out of sheer contentment. Cherbourg came into view; over there, one of Napoleon's arsenals was dedicated to the crushing of England and yet, he reflected, Teazer was sailing by unchallenged with a merry crew enjoying their evening.

The port was well defended by fortifications, which Kydd had no intention of provoking. He knew that small English cutters of shallow draught were lying off the harbour and that their sole purpose was to keep watch on significant movements there. If necessary they could alert Saumarez's heavy frigates within half a day.

Kydd kept well away and, towards dusk, had made the far side of the port. Earlier he had noted a cryptic marking on the French chart that had piqued his interest: Pointe du Brick and within, a tiny bay, Anse du Brick. 'Brick' was French for 'brig' and—who knew?—it might have a more subtle meaning. He intended to anchor for the night close in, under full view of the enemy shore, thereby retaining his clamping hold on the coast.

'Is this wise, sir?' Hallum murmured. 'At our moorings we'll be at the mercy of any of superior force.'

'Aye, this must be so,' said Kydd, 'but ye'll observe that nothing can get by without we know it.' No vessel of size would risk a close-in passage at night and by dawn they would be well on their way.

In the fading light they found their place, little more than a deeply wooded cleft in impassable terrain with a neat beach at its foot. The hand-lead told of rapidly shoaling water so Teazer went to two anchors with a precautionary kedge to seaward. It left them in an admirable position to pounce on any vessel trusting to the cover of darkness to slip by into Cherbourg.

The quiet of the night enfolded them; the delicate scent of woodland was borne out on a gentle breeze and the faint maaaaa of a goat sounded to one side. Only the soft slap and gurgle of the current along Teazer's sides intruded and about the deck men spoke in low voices in respect to the stillness.

It was a bold, even impudent move—but it had a weakness that might prove fatal. If the wind shifted foul in the night they might find themselves trapped against the shore, unable to claw off, helpless against the gunboats that would be quickly called from Cherbourg once their plight was discovered.

The night was quiet and the wind had held, if anything backing more southerly. At dawn Teazer weighed and stood out for the north but almost immediately there was a heavy thud and smoke from a fort on a small promontory.

'Surprisin' t' see 'em awake,' growled the boatswain, shielding his eyes from the first rays of the day as he tried to make it out.

'Fort Levi,' Queripel said.

'An' they should've held their fire until we were under their guns,' Kydd said contemptuously. 'Bear away, if ye please.' They skirted around the impotent fort while he considered the next hazard. 'We'll keep inside the Septentrionale,' he told Dowse, leaving Queripel to mutter on his own. It was hard on the man but this was the only way they would be in any real position should enemy craft chance by.

Once Cap Levi was rounded and they resumed eastward, Queripel came up to Kydd and offered, 'If ye'd keep east b' south five mile, there's an inside passage only th' fisher-folk takes as will see us through t' Barfleur.'

After they had angled across near to the low, marshy coastline Teazer found herself easing between the land and a near-submerged cluster of dark, granite rocks, the highest with a strange-looking twist of iron atop it. 'Th' Chenal Hedouin the Frenchies call it,' Queripel said, 'on account of—'

'Aye, well, do keep a weather eye on y'r channel, then, Mr. Queripel. I don't want to leave Teazer's bones here,' Kydd said tightly. He suspected that only a small number of the countless crags under the surface were showing trace of their existence.

Now within less than half a mile of an endless dun-coloured beach the country's remote nature was plain: low, marshy, a reedy lake. They were far from the civilised world. Eyeing a projecting knot of rock on shore, Queripel said, 'Now east b' north, sir.'