Invasion

any other way to get at Bonaparte's menace?

Kydd found Fulton in his casemate, head in his hands. 'Is there a problem, Mr. Francis? Are you not well?'

Fulton lifted his head and Kydd could see the ravages of fatigue in his face. 'I'm as well as I can be,' he croaked. 'Nothing to worry of.'

'Are the plans near complete at all?' Kydd ventured.

'Don't concern yourself, Mr. Kydd, if that's the purpose of your visit. My calculations show a working depth of thirty-five feet and an increase to thirty in the number of submarine bombs she can carry in her deck compartments—and you cannot but admire my undersea observation ports in the dome.'

Before he could look, Fulton pushed the plans to one side and swivelled round to Kydd. His eyes burned with a feverish glow. 'Tell me, Mr. Sea Captain, what is it you're thinking? That I'm mad or a quack—that this is all a humbug to win gold from your king? Go on, say away!'

Kydd felt for the man. 'You've been at your scribbling for weeks now. Have you had any bear you a hand?'

'There's no one on God's earth that's in any kind of position to help me. I conceive of it, I test the idea, do the calculations and then the draughting. Who else?'

'So all this time you've been here . . .'

Fulton slumped in the chair wearily. 'I've worked every hour God gives, so help me. Night and day, meals brought in, don't wash, don't sleep much.' Then he sat up, energised. 'It's just so . . . damned breathtaking, dazzling to the mind working on the beast, I can't leave it.'

Here was a man entirely on his own in a foreign country, grappling with devices and concepts far beyond the wisest philosopher and conjuring into being a mechanical sea-beast to plunge into the depths so that man could for the first time be truly a child of Neptune. 'I'll tell you what I'm thinking about your submarine boat, Mr. Francis, but not here,' Kydd said. 'You'll first hoist inboard a square meal, as we say in the Navy, then talk.'

'I can't—'

Kydd gave a friendly smile. 'I'm not without means. It'll be entirely at my pleasure, sir.'

The snug of the White Horse Inn was unoccupied, and Fulton devoured his steak and ale pie in privacy, expressing every degree of satisfaction with the victuals. He dabbed his mouth with his napkin, then prompted, 'So what, then, is your feeling, sir?'

'I've had space t' think about it, Mr. Francis. Therefore I say to you . . . it's the most fearful and wonderful thing I've ever seen. And I'm persuaded it's the future, sir.'

Fulton gave him a penetrating look, then threw back his head and laughed until the tears came. 'At last—at last! A believer! And, dare I hazard, one who's ready to go with my Nautilus into that future whatever it brings, no matter that some name me a murderer of sailors, a charlatan and projector? You are to be congratulated, then, sir.'

Kydd was discomfited by his ardour and took a pull at his drink. He caught the eye of the potboy and signalled for another round, then asked, as casually as he could, 'Have you heard anything of the committee, sir?'

'Ah, yes. I meant to speak to you about it. They have constituted it and I'd be pleased to hear your opinions as to its members. We have Sir Joseph Banks its chairman, whom I met once, Henry Cavendish, a scientist—'

'Banks, of course, is of some eminence. I know but little of Cavendish,' Kydd said. 'Who will be the naval representative? Gresham, I suppose.'

'Not at all! Note was taken, he's not on it. But I'd wager it's not the last we'll hear from the gentleman. No, it's to be one Popham, a high captain of sorts.'

'Popham! Then you've a right cunning fellow there—he has distinguished service, and is a scientifical and inventor too. He's introducing a completely new method o' signalling into the Navy. If there's anyone to convince, it'll be he.'

'Umm. Then there's Rennie, dockyards, and a redcoat Congreve from an ordnance department of some sort.'

'Seems sound enough but I'm not sure I can add much.'

'Ah, well.' Fulton took a pull of beer.

'Do you have plans o' business as will see your Nautilus a-swim? One man on his own . . .'

'Yes,' said Fulton crisply, 'I do. The prime need is to get one party interested enough to fund my design. In this case, your Admiralty. She builds and off she goes under licence to my company and starts among the enemy like a tiger let loose. I will have a contract that says for every ship of size I put down, there's a royalty—tonnage or guns, I don't care. With these proceeds I build more and better. It's cheap, pays for itself, so other countries take a note and next thing there's submarine boats in every navy.'

'You said before as your intention is universal peace and liberty for all b' making it impossible for warships to put t' sea.'

'Just so. When all have my vessels, how can they? Some kind of mutual-destruction war? I don't think so. Therefore the high seas are made free for any and every man.'

'I see,' said Kydd. 'Then I should wish you good fortune, Mr. Francis.'

'Look, my friends call me 'Toot'—will you?'

'Oh, er, of course, um, Toot.' Kydd warmed to the man's need to reach out. He was alone in the country, yet with such world-shattering plans in his head.

'Thank you, sir. And you?'

'Well, I'm Thomas Kydd, Thomas Paine Kydd after the radical as charmed my parents.'

Fulton chortled. 'Tom Paine! I'll have you know, the old feller's been a good friend to me, living in Paris all this time. Returned to New York only a year or so past. So right readily I'll call you Tom, my friend.'