Invasion (35 page)

It was a clear night and a quarter-moon was rising. At a cable's length, when the boat made its turn gingerly, Kydd was dismayed to see its beetling black shadow clearly against the glittering moon-path. As promised, though, the torpedo was all but invisible.

He took out his watch and held it to catch the light from the binnacle lamp. The boatswain raised his call ready. “Pipe!” he said. The distant rowers started in a flurry of strokes but slowed immediately to a near stop. Poulden's frenzied hazing could be heard floating across the water—it made Kydd smile, but on the night it would not do.

Twenty minutes on the return: this was dismaying. “He's a pig t' steer, sir,” Poulden reported, after returning aboard. “Worse'n a bull in a paddock as is shy o' the knife.”

A catamaran was available now and it was brought round. As Kydd had suspected, there was no possibility that the small coffer could be raised and carried on the flimsy gratings fore and aft. It would require ship's boats as well.

“Load with hogsheads,” Kydd said, after the two reluctant oars-men had taken their place at the stubby sculls. One was swayed across and lashed in place. The catamaran settled at an angle until the other was aboard and then, with a heavy reluctance, the ungainly craft shoved off. “Same as the others, if y' please,” Kydd told them.

They made slow progress, but this was due to their near comic performance at the sculls, so close to the water. They turned and started back. This was more encouraging—inches above the water only, it was difficult indeed to make them out. But it was hard going.

Helped aboard, the two oarsmen, soaked from the shoulders down, shuddered uncontrollably. “Every man as pulls a plunging boat is entitled to a double tot, if he wants it,” Kydd ordered. “Get 'em dry and see it's served out immediately.”

Too much hung on their efforts for rest and the remainder of the night was spent in timed trials, with two boats on the coffer, then three; the smaller with the pinnace at an angle to the launch and the carcass between, and, of course, the procedure for recovering the operations crew after the launch.

It was done: he had the facts, now for the figuring. But when he awoke later in the morning doubts and anxieties flooded in. Send them in as a broad wave or in stealthy column? The coffers first or the catamarans? Request some kind of diversionary tactic? Would volunteers step forward when the time came?

And the orders.
His
orders. The first he had ever given as a squadron commander as, in reality, he was. He bent to the task, nibbling his quill. So much to plan and decide.

“It's madness, is what I say,” exploded Mills. “Settin' these vile contraptions afloat wi' a quarter-ton of powder an' two men sailing t' meet the enemy! I've never heard such—”

“Have a care, Mr. Mills!” Kydd barked. “These are my orders and I mean them to be obeyed! If you have objections, I'm sure Admiral Keith would like t' hear them.” With men's lives in the balance, only trust and teamwork would see it through. He resolved to catch Mills privately later.

Teazer
's great cabin seemed an incongruous setting for such a briefing. Kydd had seen this room dappled by water-reflected moonlight from warm and exotic Mediterranean harbours; it had been the scene of his hopes and fears—and now was to be the place of his disposing of so many destinies.

Containing his emotions, he resumed his orders. “The large coffers will have two boats each and will set off first on either side of the designated channel. The faster catamarans will then move forward and past the coffers, being able to penetrate unseen up to the French line where the torpedoes will be launched.”

He paused, conscious his words had rung with false confidence, then went on, “The recovery of the catamaran crews will be the responsibility of Mr. Lamb and his little fleet o' gigs. The whole operation should take less than two hours.”

“How do we give coverin' fire if we're laying off t' seaward?” growled Mills.

Kydd bit his lip. Now was not the time for a confrontation. “You don't. The whole point is to stand clear of the channel of approach and let the torpedoes go in and do their work quietly. You're a dispatch vessel; crew the catamarans and boats and send 'em on their way only. No play with the guns—is that clear?”

Lamb seemed troubled and Dyer's face showed resignation, but they paid attention while the remaining details were laid out—elementary signals concerning the start and others for cancellation of the assault, provision for an assembly-and-dispatch sequence, launch timing, accounting for munitions expended, the order of night mooring.

Kydd tried to end on an upbeat note. “In the morning there's to be practice with the catamarans, and my gunner, Mr. Duckitt, will instruct on the timing engine and other. Now, gentlemen, this is our chance t' give Boney a drubbing as he can't be expecting. Let's make it a good 'un, shall we?”

It seemed so thin, so fragile, but was this because he didn't really believe in the infernals—or himself?

The final conference was in
Monarch
and Keith wasted no words. “I'm sailing at noon to anchor before Boulogne at sunset. I want the assaulting division to be ready for launch three hours after sunset, namely nine p.m. Mr. Kydd?”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Savery coughed. “Er, sir. To appear in force in full view of the enemy before sunset? They'll surely know something's afoot.”

“Can't be helped. The torpedo craft need to know where we are in the darkness, so they will fix our position while daylight reigns. They won't do that if we're tacking and veering about all the time. And it hardly needs pointing out that we've not been strangers to this coast, and while we'll be arriving in force, the enemy has no conceiving of the nature of our assault. We attack as planned.”

Weighed down with anxieties, Kydd returned to his ship. Now there would be the call for volunteers, an advisement to his dispatch sloops—it was all but committed. He swung over the bulwark, touching his hat to the boatswain at his call.

Renzi stood there, his face grave. “Then we sail against the flotilla,” he said quietly. He was using a cane to support his wounded leg.

“We do,” Kydd said, then added, “Nicholas, this is not your war—I want you ashore.”

“Ashore? Of course not! There's—”

“You'll go, and that's my order,” he said harshly, staring his friend down.

“Very well, then I must do as I'm bid,” Renzi said softly. He slowly held out his hand. “Can I—may I sincerely wish that you do fare well in what must come?”

Kydd's bleak expression did not alter. He took the hand briefly then turned and hurried below.

HMS
Teazer
led the torpedo squadron to sea. For Kydd the overcast autumn day had a particularly oppressive and lowering undertone. Some five miles off Boulogne the fleet assembled about the flagship—frigates, minor ships-of-the-line, sloops, cutters and, at the centre, what gave it its purpose.

Before sunset the fleet had formed up opposite the port. The approach channel for the catamarans was resolved, the dispatch sloops positioned to seaward, and aboard each the process of arming the torpedoes was put in train.

Locust
moved up between them, put its borrowed cluster of gigs in the water, and suddenly there was nothing further to do.

A sombre dusk fell; among the hills the campfires of Napoleon's host twinkled into existence, their myriad expanse a feral menace that seemed to reach right out to them. The last of the day's radiance hardened into a moonless night, a dark almost dense enough to touch. Surrounding ships lost their outline and were swallowed in the blackness, leaving only the single riding lights of the British fleet and the red and gold dots along the hills.

Kydd could only wait. His plans were straightforward enough but what were they next to the reality before him? The catamarans were already in the water but not the hogsheads, which must be swayed aboard fully armed and struck down on their gratings by feel—no lights could be allowed to betray warlike activity.

The watch mustered, and the volunteers. Sailors who had willingly stepped up when called upon that afternoon, who had trusted him in the matter of riding these infernal machines to victory against the foe or . . .

A lump rose in his throat. Would any of them survive the night? With false jollity, jokes were cracked in the age-old way as they pulled on their black guernseys, laced on dark caps and rubbed galley soot into their faces. Some yawned, a sure sign of pre-battle nerves.

“Sir—flagship!” The usual three riding lights in the tops of
Monarch
were replaced by four. As they watched, the fourth was dimmed. The signal.

“Into the catamarans, the volunteers,” Kydd ordered crisply, trying to conceal his feelings.

Without speaking the first two went down the side and, with gasps at the cold, took their places in the catamaran scheduled to lead the attack. “As I live and breathe,” Hallum whispered, “this is something I could not do, I confess it.”

It was too much: in a rising tide of feeling Kydd leaned over and called hoarsely, “Timmins! Out o' the boat—I'm the one to lead the catamarans.”

The group on the quarterdeck fell back in shock; Kydd wasted no time in stripping to his breeches, and when the dripping Timmins appeared on deck, he took the man's guernsey and cap, then went hastily over the side, only remembering at the last minute to throw at the open-mouthed lieutenant, “You have the ship, Mr. Hallum.”

The sea was shockingly cold as Kydd settled into the little underwater seat and oriented himself. So close to the water the restless wavelets now held spite and
Teazer
loomed in the darkness, her barnacles and sea-growth so close.

There were voices; then Stirk was claiming the place of the other in the catamaran. He clambered into the forward seat, cursing vigorously at the cold.

“Thank ye, Toby,” Kydd said, in a low voice.

“If 'n ye're going, Mr. Kydd, ye'll need one as knows th' buggers, like,” Stirk grunted, and signalled up to the deck. As gunner's mate he had helped Duckitt instruct the others.

The first hogshead came, to be grappled by Stirk and struck down on the gratings. He made an expert slippery hitch, then gave another signal to the deck. The other came down aft, and Kydd struggled to ease the monstrous bulk onto its grating. Numb fingers passed the lashing and finished with the hitch to release it. “Shove off,” he growled, pushing at the huge ship's side with his light scull. Almost sub-surface the catamaran was a heavy, awkward thing and he panted with the effort of getting it going. This was going to be near impossible, he thought, in despair.

They cleared
Teazer
's side and pulled out into the channel. Low hails came from others in the vicinity. Kydd looked about carefully, shivering all the while with the bitter cold. There seemed no betraying noise or bustle in the anchored fleet and, turning shorewards, he saw no sign of any French alarm. Then he peered into the blackness towards the distant and barely visible line of ships that were their target. No indications of suspicion—but, then, the French had every reason to suppose that if there was an assault it would be at dawn in the usual way.

He looked behind—nothing. Ahead, the line of ships. “We go,” he hissed, and dug in his sculls.

It was an unreal and frightening world of cold, darkness and beckoning danger. Stroke after stroke, double feathered and as silent as possible, onward towards the target. Muffled splashes from behind told him that the others had fallen into line with him. Stroke, pull, return, stroke. On and on.

Then, quite suddenly, they were close enough to individual ships that they needed conscious alterations of course to head towards them—they were nearing the launch point and still no alarm. It was time to select a victim. Curiously there was no feeling, only the calculated judgement of range and bearing.

“Hssst!”
Stirk stopped rowing.

“What is it?” whispered Kydd urgently.

“I thought I heard—It's a Frenchy!”

Then Kydd made out a regular creak and splash of oars in the blackness to the left. The enemy was rowing guard on the moored ships in a pinnace. “Get down!”

They bent as low as they could, faces slapped by the cold sea, and waited. Should he give orders to retreat now while they could? Kydd wondered. If they were discovered it would be slaughter with no mercy. Shivering violently, he heard the sound approach, then cross and, with no change of rhythm, move away to the right.

Apart from the ceaseless rustling of the night waters there was nothing more than a far-away peal of merriment, a shouted hail between sentries, anonymous sounds.

It was time for the climax. “Cast off the line, Toby—it's secured to the other.” It was part of Fulton's plan to squeeze a ship between two explosions by connecting the two hogsheads with a line and cork float, which, on the incoming tide, would fetch up on their victim's anchor cable and inexorably draw in the charges on both sides.

“Set for twenty minutes, Toby,” he called softly, and waited while the turns were made. “That'll do,” he said, as casually as he could. “We'll launch now. Pull the peg, cuffin.”