Authors: Dewey Lambdin
“But still make lee-way like a wood chip?” Lewrie wryly asked.
“No worse than the older class, sir, but … aye,” Lt. Johns said with a fatalistic shrug. “Bombs are notorious for it, unfortunately.”
“Any chance that so much lee-way, when engaged in the, ah … experiments mentioned in my orders, might cause any problems, Mister Johns?” Lewrie asked, lowering his voice like a conspirator plotting mayhem … what
sort
he still hadn’t a clue.
“Well, sir, I
would’ve
preferred a vessel with deeper ‘quick-work’ and less lee-way, but the wells are handy for the, ah … things, and
Fusee
’s lower freeboard will aid in their … deployment,” Johns replied, looking “cutty-eyed” and furtive, all but laying a cautioning finger to his lips. “But, you must meet Mister MacTavish, the fellow who devised the, ah … items, sir!” Johns perked up. “His ideas are visionary. They could revolutionise naval warfare, sir! This way.”
“All that? Hmm,” Lewrie most dubiously said. “Lead on, then.”
“You’ve sufficient ship’s boats, Captain Lewrie, might I ask?” Lt. Johns enquired as he led the way to a small companionway and a very steep, but thankfully short, ladder leading below.
“Two twenty-five-foot cutters, my gig, and a jolly-boat,” Lewrie told him, taking off his hat and ducking, but, “Ow!” he yelped.
“Mind the deck beams, sir,” Lt. Johns warned, much too late. “I have found a cautious crouch best serves, sir, when belowdecks.” A trice later, and Lewrie found himself in the gloom of a very dark and small joke of a “great-cabin.” Lt. Johns’s own quarters right-aft were screened off by deal partitions and a louvred door; down each beam were four “dog-boxes,” and along the centreline stood a rough planked table with sea-chests for seating, much like the orlop deck cockpit of bigger ships, where Midshipmen, Surgeon’s Mates, and Master’s Mates resided.
Two men sat slouched on their elbows at the table opposite each other, poring over sheaves of drawings and plans, which were rolled up hastily at Lewrie’s appearance as they turned to glower at him.
“Captain Lewrie, sir, allow me to name to you the designer of our, of the … Mister Cyrus MacTavish, and his senior artificer and fabricator, Mister Angus McCloud,” Johns announced. “Gentlemen, allow me to name to you Captain Alan Lewrie, of the
Reliant
frigate.”
At least only the
one
of ’em popped out of a haggis,
Lewrie told himself; with two Scottish names mentioned in his orders, he’d expected a lot worse.
“Captain Lewrie, your servant, sir!” the urbane-looking one said as he cautiously got to his feet and came forward to offer his hand to Lewrie. “MacTavish, sir, formerly Major in the Royal Engineers.”
MacTavish was lean and fair, with an almost noble face, dressed in a plain dark blue coat, buff breeches, and top-boots.
“And my right-hand man, Angus McCloud,” MacTavish pointed out.
If he’d dressed in kilt, cross-gartered plaid stockings, and a Scotch bonnet, McCloud could not have looked more “Sawney,” his grizzly beard included; Lewrie hadn’t seen one on a man in ages. The man wore a slate-grey tweed suit of “ditto,” the fabric so rough that
sparrows
might have woven it from straw and twigs. McCloud was much older than his employer, grey and bristly curly-haired, with tanned and leathery rough features. He continued scowling. “G’day t’ye, Cap’m,” was all he had to say, with a short nod, still seated.
“Gentlemen,” Lewrie replied. “For the moment, you have the advantage of me. My orders did not specify exactly what it is we’re to
do,
or what your devices do.”
“And with good reason, sir!” MacTavish said with a bark of good humour. “Do the French learn what is in store for them, it would make our trials much more difficult, not to say impossible. Does the term ‘torpedo’ mean anything to you, sir?”
“Ah … some sort of eel, or ray?” Lewrie asked, shrugging his ignorance. “A fish o’ some sort?”
“Will you take coffee, Captain Lewrie?” Lt. Johns offered.
“Yes, join us and I will enlighten you, sir,” MacTavish grinned. Once all were seated, and Lewrie had a mug in his hands, the man went on with a sly and boastful grin. “There’s all these bloody barges and boats the French have built, not counting the
prames
and
chaloupes
of varying sizes and armament built as gunboats to provide escort to the invasion, when it comes. So many that the French have had to anchor them outside the principal invasion ports, up against the breakwaters in row after row, waiting for the moment when the troops and artillery go aboard them.”
“Like trots o’ peegs, a’nuzzlin’ a sow,” McCloud supplied with a gruff tone.
“Now, with that the case, Captain Lewrie, how would you get at them?” MacTavish asked, already smiling with impending glee to reveal
his
solution.
“With bombs and sea-mortars, gunfire, and fireships, I s’pose,” Lewrie replied, sure that his answer would be wrong. “A cutting-out expedition on dark, moonless nights?”
“Ye canna geet yair frigate that close t’shore,” McCloud piped up. “Bombs canna expec’ calm waters, e’en can
they
get inta shallower waters, an’ th’ Frogs’ gunboats’d put paid t’yair fireships an’ a’ yair puir sailors ye send rowin’ in.”
“Well, Angus, when the time comes, are we successful, there’ll be all those in concert,
but
… with the addition of my torpedoes … my
cask
torpedoes, aha!” MacTavish cried triumphantly. “Those things shrouded in the mortar wells, sir? We’ve half a dozen ready to go and more being fabricated even as we speak. When the time comes we intend to launch them by the hundreds on a French port, and blow all of their
caïques
and boats and barges to kindling!”
“Uhm … how?” Lewrie had to ask. It
sounded
fine, but …
“Imagine, sir, an assault launched in the dead of night without an inkling of danger,” Mr. MacTavish continued, squirming impatiently on his seat. “Ship’s boats tow my cask torpedoes in close to shore, cock the detonating mechanisms, start the clock timer, and set them to drift in on a making tide. Channel tides are rapid, inexorable! Now … silently, un-seen, for they ride very low in the water,
waves
of them waft inshore, right up to those
caïques, péniches,
and barges, as quietly as mice!”
“Dinna forget th’ grapnels, an’ th’ spikes,” McCloud dryly added.
“They bob up alongside the French boats,” MacTavish further enthused, sketching out the assault with the tips of his fingers flutter-creeping towards a box of sweet bisquits on the table top. “Grapnels and old bayonets snag or spear into the hulls of the boats, the first warning that anything’s amiss to the few French sailors aboard them to watch over their anchor cables and the lines which moor them together, hah! Then, when the clock timer winds up the trigger cords, and those few Frogs’ best efforts to dis-lodge them prove fruitless, up they
go
in gigantic
blasts,
ah ha!” he cried, raising his hands, his fingers spreading further to simulate soaring chunks of debris.
“Float in on the tide,” Lewrie said back, shifting uneasily on a hard sea chest. “That could take a while, even on a Channel tide. Your clock timer mechanism…?”
“We determine the speed of the tide, set the timers to account for it, judge the distance at which the torpedoes are released, then prime them and off they go,” MacTavish told him, beaming.
“Uhm, Channel tides flow
into
their ports, aye, Mister MacTavish … but, there’s a strong tide up or
down
Channel to consider,” Lewrie had to point out. “Is the bottom smooth, tide-washed sand and mud, or is it rocky, which sets off strong eddies? It’s not as if all your cask torpedoes will just drift
straight
in. Some will swirl about and might end up a mile from where you want them.”
“But the
bulk
of them surely will succeed, sir,” MacTavish said with complete assurance in his devices. “Boats will be lost to them, some damaged and force the French to replace them, and once a few blow up without warning, think of the
panic
they will engender. What French sailor would dare to sleep aboard his
caïque
or
péniche
if the presence of death may come with each sunset?”
Think of the panic in the boat crews who tow the damned things in, ready to explode!
Lewrie sourly thought.
“
How
close ashore to the anchored boats would boat crews have to get before releasing them?” Lewrie asked.
“Well, that would depend on the run of the tide, Captain Lewrie. I should imagine that each boat will have a Midshipman with a passable skill in mathematics,” MacTavish said, shrugging off the problem. “Some of your, what-do-you-call-them … Master’s Mates, able to judge the height of the boats’ masts, and perform simple trigonometry to determine the distance, the speed of the tide, and set the clock timer accordingly.”
Boy Midshipmen with
good
mathematics?
Lewrie wondered;
Now
there
is a snag! A veritable paradox!
“As to the matter of suitable boats, sir,” Lt. Johns brought up once more. “We’ve only a small gig and an eighteen-foot jolly-boat on our inventory. To tow them in quickly, then make their way out just as quickly, it would be best if we had some boats larger than your two cutters … thirty-two-foot barges with two masts for lug-sails and a jib would be best. Or at least twelve-oared barges.”
“We’ll ask of the dockyard,” Lewrie told him. “I’m sure they might have some spares. What
condition
they’re in, well. If we need authorisation, who do we mention? Are we under Lord Keith and North Sea Fleet? Droppin’ a powerful name sometimes helps.”
“No worry, then, Captain Lewrie,” Mr. MacTavish said with a top-lofty smirk. “We have letters from Lord Melville, personally signed, authorising
any
expense or requisition. Might
they
do?”
Mine arse on a band-box!
Lewrie thought;
What do I want, what does
Reliant
need … and how much can I get
away
with?
“I expect they’d do main-well, Mister MacTavish,” Lewrie allowed. “Uhm … could I see these wonders? Not the plans here, but the real articles?”
“Aye, weel…,” Artificer McCloud grumbled, rubbing his beard.
“But of course, sir! This instant!” MacTavish quickly agreed.
* * *
“Hmm … rather big,” Lewrie commented once the canvas shroud had been drawn back just far enough to expose one of the devices to his eyes. To all outward appearances, the “cask torpedo” was a large water butt, about four feet tall and fat in the middle, tapering at each end to shallow hemispherical lids, not the usual flat wooden lids set into the ends two or three inches below the rims. Any large tun, cask, or barrel made to hold liquids was constructed with extra care, of course, so that the staves fit together so closely that only the slightest bit of seepage occurred. In this case, seepage inward would be the ruin of the device, so it had been slathered all over in tar, then wrapped with more tarred canvas.
“Th’ bottom’s heemispherical, ye’ll note,” McCloud pointed out, “sae thayr’s space feer th’ ballast, tae keep eet ridin’ oop-right een th’ water.”
“And the upper hemisphere is a void, a space for air,” MacTavish added. “That is where the clock mechanism sits, along with the pistol which ignites the charge at the proper time. When one is about to let one go, one first pulls the line with the blue paint on the last inches of the line … that will start the clock. The red-painted line cocks the primed fire-lock of the pistol. The clock gears drive a circular wooden disk, which has several dowels projecting from it. The trigger line is bound to one of the dowels, and, as the clock turns the disk, the line is drawn taut, ’til it pulls the trigger of the pistol, and … bang!” he gleefully concluded. “The gunpowder and the pyrotechnicals ignite, and
adieu, Monsieur
Frog, ha ha!”
“How much gunpowder?” Lewrie asked, getting up on his tip-toes to peer over the top of the torpedo, taking hold of one of the hoisting ring-bolts. “And how low in the water will it ride? I notice the top is not tarred, but painted black. And, how do you
set
the clock at the last minute?”
“One hundred and twenty pounds of powder,” MacTavish told him.
Lewrie stepped back a foot or two!