Invasion (36 page)

There was a jerk and Stirk turned and handed him the safety pin. Kydd's orders were that all pegs should be returned as a surety that the torpedoes had been launched properly. After a quick tug on the hitch and persuasion with both feet the giant carcass plunged into the sea with a shattering splash.

They dug in their sculls to move out the requisite hundred feet— but a sputtering and popping of muskets started urgently from the line of shore. They had been discovered. The sound grew and was joined by heavier guns.

“Pull!”
Kydd gasped. They were moving parallel with the shore to launch the second hogshead but the firing grew steadily in intensity. The timing mechanism was already primed so he fumbled with the safety peg and footed the monstrous thing clear to splash weightily in the sea.

They had done it! Torpedoes away, nothing could stop their rapid retreat. But they found themselves stroking into a strong flood-tide. The riding lights at the masthead of the flagship were just dimly visible but now the shore artillery had added its weight to the barrage, and the entire foreshore of Boulogne was alive with gun-flash. It was only a matter of time before they were spotted—and the venom of a hundred guns unleashed on them.

They passed another catamaran going in the other direction, resolutely pressing forward into the inferno to its launch position, with others on their way behind. Kydd's eyes pricked at their bravery.

It was some minutes before he realised that, surprisingly, with all the blazing guns, there was no shot-strike nearby. Miraculously they had a chance: the gunners were night-blinded by the flash of their own guns and without a knowledge of what their targets were, even with fixed lines of fire, they were aiming high, presuming a usual form of attack.

“Go to it, Toby!”
he bawled, stretching out until his muscles burned. Then, blessedly, they were up with the gigs and being pulled into the boats with words of rough, sailorly sympathy. They fell back on the dispatch sloops.

Kydd was hauled aboard his ship utterly exhausted, but insisted on remaining on the upper deck where he sat in a chair shivering under a cloak. It should be at any time now. With the sky and sea a fiery pandemonium it was difficult to make out anything. The French were firing wildly into the night, not understanding what was going on.

They would soon find out, thought Kydd, grimly. Then something clutched at his heart. So many brave sailors would, before long, be blasted to pieces—at his hand.

The rage and fervour of battle ebbed a little. Was Renzi right that this furtive creeping and stealthy detonating were no better than cold-blooded murder? With a dull spirit Kydd waited for the first cataclysm—but none came. Perhaps it was asking too much of the delicate watchmaking art to function in this wet chaos. But then the sudden thump and roar of a colossal explosion tore at his senses, its flash lighting the sea in sharp relief for miles, the firing dying away in awe at the spectacle.

Another—this time an even larger one, which seemed to be on the far side of the defensive line. More—then a gigantic roar in the centre. And more. Fulton's infernals had worked to perfection but at each detonation Kydd's heart wrung at where man's ingenuity and creative spirit had led him—and that the world must now change.

The last explosion died, the guns petered out and suddenly there was nothing left but to return to the Downs and home.

When
Teazer
had picked up her moorings opposite the slumbering town of Deal and sea watches had been stood down, Kydd went to his cabin and collapsed into his cot. Exhaustion and reaction made sleep impossible and his thoughts raced on into nightmare—battles in the future fought under water and England's mighty ships-of-the-line replaced by swarms of catamarans. And for ever the fear that any stout ship, brought to her rest after hard voyaging, might without warning be blown to splinters with all her crew.

He drifted off, but was gently woken by Renzi. “Dear brother, I'm desolated to intrude on your rest but Admiral Keith does require your attendance.”

“Er, what o' clock is it, then?” Kydd asked, struggling awake.

“Eleven.”

Kydd pulled himself up. “Then this is the first reconnaissance now returned. I must go.” He would soon be faced with the product of his night's work, the tally of blood that would hang about his neck for the rest of his life.

He slipped to the deck, catching sight of himself in the mirror— grey, drawn and old.

Teazer
's boat bore him to the flagship, the bright morning a mockery of what had gone before. Gravely welcomed by the flag-lieutenant he was shown to the great cabin with the others. There were few pleasantries and Keith entered grim-faced.

“I've first to thank you all for a stout and bravely executed action of the last evening—being as it was in the best traditions of the Service.” He paused, letting his gaze move about the seated officers. “Further, I've to inform you of the results of the first reconnoitre now to hand.”

A ripple of interest went round, but Keith's bleak countenance did not change. “Gentlemen, the torpedo contrivances exploded to expectations—each and every one.”

The chill of dread stole over Kydd as he steeled himself for the news.

Keith leaned forward. “And I have to tell you they did so to no effect. None. Nothing whatsoever. The flotilla remains as it did before.”

Kydd's mind reeled. None? He had personally—

“I find that, at great hazard to our seamen, the torpedoes were launched to order and, further, that they were correctly armed and prepared, resulting as we've seen in their successful exploding. What was not in expectation was that the method of their delivery to the target has signally failed us and, quite frankly, I cannot readily conceive of any other.”

The sudden buzz of talk was cut short by Keith, who went on, “And now the French are aroused and no doubt preparing a mode of defence to meet them. This can only be construed as nothing less than a catastrophic failure of the weapons. Gentlemen, as a direct result, we'll not be troubling you with such contrivances any further. That is all.”

The meeting broke up in a babble of noise but Keith called, “Mr. Kydd, a word with you, sir.”

Still shocked, Kydd made his way through the hubbub. “Sir?”

“You should know that I believe your part in last night's action was entirely to my satisfaction.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“But now it is over. Done with. You are forthwith relieved of your duties with the American and will rejoin my Downs Squadron. Flags will attend to the consequentials. Understood?”

“Sir.”

Stumbling out into the bright sunlight, Kydd in his tiredness did not notice the lonely figure waiting by the mainmast. All he knew was that he had failed. His brave little fleet had achieved a derisory nothing. The enemy was untouched. No greater condemnation of a warrior's endeavours could be made.

“Tom? Tom, old friend.” Fulton took his shoulder and swung him round. “What have you heard? Did you give the French a quilting?”

Kydd looked up dully. “No. Nothing . . . touched.”

“Y-you mean . . . ?”

“They exploded, but without effect. We did our best—but I'm to be taken off duties with you, Toot. Your contract will be at hazard, I'd believe.”

Fulton staggered back. “They—they can't! I'm promised . . . Tom, my friend, if you'll stay with me, speak with your high and mighty friends in the Admiralty—”

“I'm sorry. You tried your best—I tried. It wasn't enough.”

“Wait! I've some new—some ideas as will stretch the mind, will change everything. You'll see!”

“I wish you well, Toot, but it's finished. I have t' go now.”

“The world hasn't heard the last of me! I've only
begun
to conjure ideas. Listen . . .”

But Kydd had reached the side and, with a last wave, left to return to his old existence.

“You knew!” Kydd said, when Renzi hobbled into his cabin with a brandy.

“I did. Your sailor is not a retiring sort when stepping ashore after a hard action.”

Kydd said nothing, holding his glass and staring unseeingly. “Nicholas, I have to live with this failure for all of my life,” he said, with a catch in his voice.

“Not at all!” Renzi began, but Kydd cut him off.

“Is there any more disgrace than a commander of men who leads them on into—nothing?” Savagely, he drained his brandy and slapped the glass down. “I'll be a laughing stock.”

“It's not you they'll laugh at, brother.”

“What do you mean, Nicholas? Speak up!”

“The men ashore, they're singing glees about the infernals—about frog-toasters and catamarans that can do no better than entertain the enemy to an expensive fireworks show.”

“That's unfair! Fulton tried—”

“They are right, dear fellow,” Renzi said firmly. “He tried—and failed. The time is not ripe for such dread weapons. The wit is there but the substance to work with is too frail. It is too new, the mechanicals not so advanced in sophistication.”

He regarded Kydd with an odd smile. “There will be a time, I'm persuaded, when a submarine boat will be a common sight—and, no doubt, huge and with a steam engine to boot. Your torpedoes will probably come with paddle-wheels that allow them to seek out the enemy at a far distance—but not now. Their moment is not yet.”

Kydd closed his eyes in thought, then opened them. “You're in the right of it, Nicholas, m' friend. Yet while there was a chance to hammer the invasion flotilla, we had to try.”

Renzi gave a half-smile. “And I now concede there was no other course—for England's sake.”

Kydd knew what this admission meant for someone of Renzi's moral code. “He's a genius, is Toot. Give him the chance and he'll conjure infernal contrivances as will make the world stare—”

“It's time we don't have,” Renzi interrupted. “Even with all the resources of a plundered continent, Napoleon Bonaparte cannot maintain his colossal army in idleness for much longer. He must make his move, and this will be to clear the way for the invasion by overwhelming force. To this end he will assemble the greatest fleet ever seen on this earth to crush our battle squadrons with such numbers as we cannot prevail. Then the world will witness such a clash of giants as will ring down the ages to resound in the history of nations as the day of destiny for all.”

He continued relentlessly. “I cannot say when, still less where, but in my very bones I feel that, within the compass of months, the issue will be decided for all of time.” The solemn pronouncement hung in the silence for long moments and neither friend looked at the other.

Then Kydd sprang suddenly to his feet. “Ha! So it's no more the enemy skulkin' away where we can't get at 'em. Boney'll have t' step into the ring and fight it out man to man.”

He gave a wolfish grin. “Bring 'em on!”

A
UTHOR'S
N
OTE

Invasion
is somewhat of a milestone in my literary career, my 10th book in print—one million words! When I look back to that day in April 2001 when I held a copy of
Kydd
in my hands for the first time, I can only wonder at the enrichment Thomas Kydd has brought to my life since then. My wife, Kathy, and I were able to give up the day jobs and work together as a creative team and we've travelled the globe delving into the captivating world of the eighteenth-century sailor, at sea and on land. We've met thousands of readers and booksellers, and people from all walks of life have enthusiastically shared their specialist knowledge. These range from Professor Jack Lynch in the U.S., an authority on Georgian speech patterns; to expert knot-tyer Ken Yalden in the U.K.; to Joseph Muscat in Malta, with his deep understanding of Mediterranean sailing craft.

I have seen the Kydd books translated into Japanese, French, Russian and many other languages, and published as e-books, in Braille, as audiobooks and in large-print. My monthly newsletter
The Bosun's Chronicle
exceeds a world-wide subscriber base of 4,000 and my website now celebrates all aspects of Neptune's Realm, thanks to regular input and feedback from readers. One of the most popular pages is the Shipmates' Album, which features photographs of some of my fans from around the world, including one reading
Seaflower
on his honeymoon, another with
Kydd
on a dangerous expedition up the Amazon . . .

I'm often asked whether my original conception of the series and its characters has changed much as I've gone on—and the answer is no, with the exception of perhaps two things. When I first put pen to paper I thought the series would run to 11 books; now I can see it reaching at the very least to 20. As I've delved more deeply into the period I have found there's just so much rich material in the historical record to stimulate an author's imagination. The other main change is the character of Renzi. Initially he was just to be a means of articulating in a way that the uneducated sailor could not, and act as a foil to Kydd. However he's grown into his own character, in some ways as interesting as Kydd himself. Kathy actually tells me I am half Kydd, half Renzi. Just how much an author's personal experiences influence his writing is of course very hard to say, but she may have something there . . .

Writing about the sea in all its moods gives me special pleasure. I take great pains to ensure my prose is as accurate as possible and make daily use of ships' electronic sea charts and my now-vast reference library, as well as regularly consulting the various experts I've discovered over the years. Of course having been a professional sailor myself helps enormously in bringing to mind the sights, smells and sounds of deep sea. When Old Salts tell me they've really felt the heave of a deck under their feet as they read my books, I feel especially chuffed! And whenever I can, I take the opportunity to get in a bit of sea time, whether in tall ships or putting to sea with the modern Royal Navy, whose ships may be steam and steel but many of the traditions from Kydd's day are still honoured aboard.

Although I have rough outlines for all the books, the period of research and fleshing out of the plot at the beginning of each writing year is especially enjoyable. Often one tiny obscure fact will suggest a nice twist in a particular aspect of the story line—and the hunt is on to find out more. About half of the year is devoted to this initial work; during the other half it's down to solid writing, in my case about 1,000 words a day. Kathy keeps a watchful eye on this as I go along and is always on hand with invaluable insights if required. We sometimes go for a walk in the lovely woodlands along the banks of the nearby River Erme to toss around ideas if I find I am writing myself into a corner—and it's never failed me yet.

Would I like to have lived in the eighteenth century? I think the answer must be yes. It was a far more colourful and individual time than it is today. The kind of characters who walked the Georgian stage will not be seen again and some of the great naval feats of the Napoleonic wars will never be repeated. It was also a more romantic and personally fulfilling time, I feel. I'm always taken with the soft effects of candlelight around a dinner table, of the art of conversation, of making your own musical entertainments in the evening. These the Georgians did very well!

In doing my research on historical people I have been fascinated by what has been discovered by modern scholarship—but at times what we
don't
know about some of these personalities is more intriguing. Robert Fulton, the maverick American inventor who appears in this book, is certainly a good example of this. There are several biographies of Fulton which I consulted extensively but he was one of those larger-than-life figures whose persona generates more questions the deeper you dig.

Fulton's nickname of “Toot” was widely used but I can find no definitive reason for it. Some have suggested it derives from the whistle of the steamboat for which he's known, but it seems his nickname was used before this. Fulton was very gifted but difficult to penetrate as a person, naïve but intense. A Maryland farm boy, he came to England by invitation, and for a time lived as a portrait painter in Devon, near where I live. He reached the status of having his work hung at the Royal Academy so he was no amateur, but then went across to revolutionary France, and extraordinarily, within a year he was working on his incredible submersibles. It's on record that he actually met Bonaparte face to face and demonstrated a working submarine, the first
Nautilus.
It remained on the bed of the Seine for an hour to the horror of the assembled dignitaries; Fulton later took it out on several armed war patrols against the British. He destroyed it when the French delayed in making a commercial arrangement along the lines I spell out in the book.

Fulton's proposed machines were the first weapons of mass destruction—deliberately designed to blow up humans without warning or a chance to fight back and caused as much stir then as WMDs do today. Did he really believe in what he said about freeing the world's oceans with the threat of mutual destruction or was this to assuage his feelings of guilt? The record is not clear and I can only guess at the answers to these questions.

And we'll never know whether
if
Fulton had been given full backing, he would have succeeded. It took another century before the world saw the first practical submarine but his terminology (submarine, torpedo, conning tower) is still in use today. How did it all end for him? He scraped together resources for one more try and succeeded in frightening the wits out of Admiralty officials gathered for a demonstration off Deal, but a fortnight later the Battle of Trafalgar took place and effectively ended his dreams. Fulton returned in penury to the U.S. but went on to become famous with the first commercial steamship there. Ironically, he later began building another submarine, this time against the British who were blockading New York in the War of 1812, but he died before it was finished.

Other characters in this book may seem at first reading to be the product of a vivid imagination but there really was a mysterious “Mr. Smith” who detached Fulton from Napoleon to transfer his allegiance to England. There is very little known on this episode so I took what I felt was likely to have occurred, and put Renzi in Smith's place. Likewise, the famed Parisian savant, LaPlace, was indeed a friend of Fulton's . . .

I enjoy Jane Austen's works and it was on a literary whim that I decided to mention her in
Invasion
, via her brother who actually was in post there at the time. She in fact had two sailor brothers: Francis, who Kydd meets in the course of his acquaintance with the Fencibles, and Charles. Both later advanced to become admirals and Jane no doubt consulted them when she created William Price in
Mansfield Park
and Captain Wentworth in
Persuasion
.

As usual, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to many people. I cannot acknowledge them all for space reasons but deep thanks are due to Rowena Willard-Wright and Joanne Gray of English Heritage, who arranged special access to Dover Castle, Fulton's base while he was working on his inventions, and Walmer Castle, where Pitt lived and which he used as a secretariat for his clandestine operations against the French. And of course I would be remiss not to mention my literary agent, Carole Blake, and my new editor at Hodder & Stoughton, Anne Clarke.