Authors: Dewey Lambdin
Should’ve
stayed
aloft,
Lewrie thought;
and avoided the pest a while longer!
The bomb vessels that Lewrie had seen while aloft were of the newer type, with their two masts set far back to leave their two mortars free play up forward, set deep in re-enforced wells. They’d been anchored by a single stern kedge and both their bower anchors set out at extreme angles so tensioning or loosening their bower cables could swing their aim in great arcs. The older, converted rocket ships were beam-on to the shore, anchored from bows and sterns with springs on their cables to shift their aim. All
seemed
ready.
“Aye, but how many rockets have we to fire?” Lewrie speculated aloud. “How many shells are aboard the bombs? We shoot off half of our bolts, without usin’ the fireships and torpedoes at the same time…?” he added, finishing with another, greater, arm-lifting shrug.
“We’re to sit here and wait for tomorrow night’s tide, and hope the wind co-operates?” Captain Speaks groused. “Pah!”
“Well, at least we may savour a good supper in peace,” Lewrie said with a chuckle. “My cook assures me he’s a cured ham for us, and if we don’t have to go to Quarters, we’ll dine on a hot meal.”
“A hot supper!” Captain Speaks barked incredulously, sneering at Lewrie’s priorities. An inarticulate growl followed.
“You’ll join me, Mister Caldwell?” Lewrie offered, grinning.
“Gad, yes, I will, sir, and thankee most kindly!” Mr. Caldwell quickly responded, rubbing his hands in expectation.
Speaks turned away to mumble something, which made Lewrie grin impishly. “D’ye know, Mister Caldwell, this puts me in mind of Copenhagen, the night before the battle, with the two fleets anchored not two miles apart, like ancient armies, glarin’ at each other, with the battlefield between ’em.”
Lewrie knew how much that would rile Speaks, and determined he would expand on the subject over supper, which Captain Speaks would not turn down … unless he intended to sulk and fast in his hammock!
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
God only knew what the French made of it, but it
was
the following evening, October 2nd, that Admiral Lord Keith ordered the assault on Boulogne to begin. The winds had come round from a favourable quarter, the tide was running shoreward at a brisk pace, and, perhaps far aft in HMS
Monarch
’s great-cabins, a chicken had been sacrificed, and the auguries had been deemed auspicious.
Boats from the flagship had rowed last-minute orders to all the ships, and alerting them to begin when
Monarch
fired a two-gun signal.
Lewrie ordered
Reliant
’s crew to supper in the First Dog Watch, so the galley fires could be extinguished early, then had the frigate brought to Quarters at the start of the Second Dog, at 6
P.M.
“On your way, Mister Westcott, and the best of fortune go with ye,” Lewrie bade the First Lieutenant, and his Midshipmen and the hands who would man the towing boats. The
Penarth
collier had already hoisted all her torpedoes from her holds and tethered them alongside, ready and waiting. “Give the Frogs Hell, Reliants!”
“We’ll fetch you some frogs’ legs
flambé,
sir!” Westcott gaily promised as he ordered his men overside and into the boats. And they were all four well on their way and about to go alongside
Penarth
when the long, anxious peace between the French and the anchored squadron was broken at last by the sharp reports of two guns aboard HMS
Monarch.
Signal flags soared up her halliards ordering engagement.
“Mister Merriman, you may open upon the boats anchored outside the breakwaters,” Lewrie shouted down to the waist.
“Aye aye, sir!” Lt. George Merriman loudly replied, then turned to his waiting gun crews. “Raise the ports! Run out!”
Monarch
and the other frigates fired first, the edgy peace of a fine, mild early evening shattered by the deep, ear-splitting bellows of guns.
“Prime your guns!” Lt. Merriman was roaring. “Captains, take aim! We will fire by threes! Quarter-gunners, see to your charges, and direct them to point at single targets! Ready?”
Gun-captains fiddled with elevation by raising the breech-ends of their pieces with crow-levers and wriggling the wood quoin blocks a bit aft, or a bit forward, to raise the muzzles to their best guess of the range. Some called for their gunners to lever the truck carriages left or right so the barrels pointed directly at specific boats in that long two-deep line of invasion vessels. Only then did they stand erect, clear of the guns’ recoil, drawing the trigger lines to the flintlock strikers taut, and raising fists in the air to signal their readiness.
“By threes … fire!” Merriman shouted, chopping the air with his right arm, and the guns erupted, in groups from bow to stern, with lung-flattening roars, spurting great clouds of burned powder smoke shoreward, shot through with stabs of bright yellow-red flame and fire-fly sparks of vivid orange.
“Swab out! Slow and steady does it, lads!” Merriman directed. “Overhaul recoil tackle, overhaul run-out tackle. Load cartridge!”
The smoke-bank was drifting shoreward rapidly, thinning and rising as it went on a fair breeze, allowing Lewrie and Lt. Spendlove on the quarterdeck to lift their telescopes and survey the initial results. There were shot splashes near the invasion vessels, but so far they saw no evidence of hits; that would be far too much to hope for from the very first shots. It would take several more broadsides ’til the gun-captains honed their aims, and perhaps a couple of hours more of slow and steady hammering to inflict substantial damage.
“Not
too
bad for first broadsides, sir,” Lt. Spendlove said optimistically. “Mostly short, but in line with their chosen marks.”
“Excuse me, sir?” Midshipman Warburton intruded. “What duties might you assign me, sir, now that Captain Speaks took my place?”
“What?”
Lewrie gawped. “What the Devil are ye
doin’
here, Mister Warburton? Took your
place
?” he spluttered.
“At the last moment, sir,” Mr. Warburton explained, looking miserable to be deprived his shot at danger and glory. “He said that
you
had allowed him, that they were
his
torpedoes, and—”
“Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie exclaimed, just shy of an outraged screech. “I’d’ve
never
.…”
Well, maybe I
would’ve
,
he told himself;
if only t’get rid of the bastard for an hour or so. God rot him, he gets killed? Fine!
“Assist Mister Merriman on the guns, Mister Warburton, and I’m truly sorry your chance was stolen,” he told the deeply disappointed sixteen-year-old.
“Aye aye, sir,” Warburton said, doffing his hat and dashing.
“By threes …
fire
!” Merriman roared again, as did the guns a moment later.
“The French have opened upon us, sir,” Lt. Spendlove pointed out. “Enter that, and the time, in the Sailing Master’s journal, Mister Rossyngton.”
Dusk was rapidly turning towards full dark as the return fire from dozens, perhaps an hundred shore guns, sparkled all along the low shore, the overlooks, and the fortifications. The first-class
prames,
the largest French gunboats anchored in the entrance channel, erupted in gouts of smoke and daggers of flame, too, though they showed little sign that they would sortie; they remained at anchor.
“Oh, I say!” Mr. Caldwell declared, jerking an arm towards the great flashes and volcanic explosions from the bomb vessels. Thirteen-inch-diametre mortar shells soared aloft in great arcs, their burning, sputtering conical fuses making pyrotechnic trails cross the darkening sky, some of them incendiaries that seethed like shooting stars. When they reached their apogees, they seemed to pause for an instant, before dashing down and regaining their initial speed to crash into the waters of the inner harbour and burst with loud blasts.
“Impressive,” Lt. Spendlove commented, though he shook his head in worry. “One would hope they aim well, and don’t land in the town, though, sir.”
“Oh, look at
that
!” the Sailing Master declared again as a wave of Congreve rockets whooshed skyward. “Talk about your royal firework shows, hah! Now, those are
truly
awe-inspiring!”
Oooh! Aaah!
Lewrie thought, snickering, though such a fiery display
was
worthy of his awe. For a moment.
The rockets dashed upwards, long yellow tongues of flame trailing them, almost bright enough to espy the long bamboo poles to which the bodies and explosive charges were affixed to steady them like arrow shafts and fletchings … or, should have.
One swerved straight upwards as if trying to spear the moon; yet another swooped up, then back towards the launching ship in a circular arc. A couple more levelled off prematurely and darted shoreward nigh at sea-level, wheeling left or right like lost sparrows … prettily flaming sparrows! Some waddled up and down before diving into the sea far short of the breakwaters, and one perversely wheeled to the right just after launch and looked determined to crash into
Reliant,
growing bigger and brighter and closer before exploding in a shower of stars a half-mile short!
“Well, hmm,” Mr. Caldwell said, mightily disappointed.
“Need some work,” Lewrie said, relaxing his tense dread and letting out a whoosh of relieved breath, “even if they aimed at
us
!”
“As you bear, by threes …
fire
!” Lt. Merriman shouted again, and
Reliant
was shoved a few inches to larboard by the brute force of recoil. Amid the bellowing of their frigate’s guns came the howling-humming of French shot as they passed overhead or wide of the bow and stern. Lewrie lifted his telescope to look over the shore batteries, fearing that neither side had much of a chance for accurate fire, and that it was all futile. Lord Keith had ordered them to anchor at the extreme edge of the French guns’ maximum range, and even with quoins full out and the barrels of the squadron elevated almost to the safe limit for a naval gun which was fired at low elevation and very close range—they weren’t howitzers, after all, designed to loft shot over fortress walls!—even
Monarch
’s lower-deck 32-pounders stood little chance of reaching that far, either. The French might even have the advantage over them, for the fortress guns, and the batteries mounted on the overlooks, stood higher above sea-level and
could
elevate safely to give them the required reach. And
they
had howitzers! Flame-shot smoke burst from batteries to either side of the breakwaters, the flat booming coming seconds later, and the shot they fired lifted high into the night, burning fuses tracing arcs as the shells came darting downwards, the thin wail-hiss of their passage through the air rising in volume and tone like an opera diva trilling for a higher note before they burst prematurely due to too-short cone fuses, or plunged into the sea and exploded in great whitish gouts of spray.
Another shoal of Congreve rockets soared shoreward in reply to the French artillery, the slower-firing mortars of the bomb vessels belched out another salvo, and the night sky was criss-crossed by opposing streaks of fire. Explosive shells burst near the British ships, and over the French batteries, inside the harbour beyond the sheltering breakwaters … some reaching as far as the town-side warehouses and piers!
“They must see that they’re shelling the town!” Lt. Spendlove fumed, quite out of character and the cold-bloodedness demanded from a Navy officer. “We must not do that! It’s not Christian, sir!”
“It’s as narrow as a razor’s edge at this range, sir,” Lewrie told him, shouting a bit over the continual din. “Strike short, hit the anchored ships, or the piers and the town, if you’re over.”
“Deck, there!” a lookout at the mast-head called down in a thin screech. “There’s French launches comin’ out!”
That changed the subject quickly as Lewrie, Spendlove, and the Sailing Master lifted their glasses to spot the enemy launches. They were under oars, as big as admirals’ barges, and mounted cannon fore and aft. They weren’t coming far, Lewrie noted, only two or three hundred yards beyond the rows of vessels anchored outside the breakwaters, but when the boats went in with the torpedoes in tow, they would prove dangerous.
“Mister Rossyngton, my compliments to Mister Merriman, and he’s to shift his fire onto the launches closer to us,” Lewrie ordered.
“Aye, sir!” the Midshipman snapped crisply, dashing forward for the waist.