Invasion Read online

  Renzi came on deck, blinking in the sunlight. He glanced in puzzlement at the open sea with the coast at their backs, then at the sun. “Either the land has shifted in its axis or the celestial orb has taken leave of its senses,” he mused.

  “Neither.” Kydd chuckled. “This is the termination of our patrol line. Y’ see the Baie de Seine ahead but, when wind an’ tide permit, we wear about and return.”

  Renzi gazed intently at the French coast.

  Concerned that his friend was still fatigued from his labours in Jersey, Kydd said softly, “Not as if you’re to miss a fine sight, Nicholas. The coast here is dull enough country, you’ll believe.”

  Renzi turned to face him. “Ah. Then this is . . . ?”

  “Pointe de Barfleur.”

  “Barfleur?”

  “The town is a league down the coast.”

  “Quite.” Renzi brightened. “Then . . . would it be at all convenient should we sight the same?”

  Kydd responded to the sudden animation in his tone. “Why, yes, m’ friend. The breeze backing more southerly by the hour, a little diversion will find us with a fair wind for our return. An’ t’ tell it true, I’d be happier then with th’ tide on the make.”

  Hauling their wind, Teazer made sail southwards and Barfleur was sighted, a small but prosperous-looking village with a squat church in a tight little harbour, but otherwise undistinguished. The quarterdeck officers were respectfully standing to leeward, allowing the friends their privacy.

  “The Edward III of Capell’s Shakespeare mentions this place warmly, I believe.” Renzi looked about. “Then there must be under our keel at this very moment the last sad relics of the Blanche Nef .”

  “Erm, which is?”

  “I will tell you, dear fellow. On a dark night in the year 1120, the White Ship sailed from Barfleur for England, with the only son of the most puissant Henry the first aboard. The mariners, in a merry state, neglected to consult the state of the tide, with the dolorous consequence that the ship ran fast upon a rock and was lost. Only one was saved—and that was not the King’s son.”

  “A cruel tragedy.”

  “It was—but worse for England. At Henry’s soon passing in grief, his daughter Matilda’s crowning as Queen of England was disputed by his nephew, Stephen. The realm was plunged into years of an anarchy that only a medieval world can produce.”

  Kydd nodded. “Aye, but this is y’r centuries past. We’re now to consider the invading of England herself, no less!”

  “Then what more apposite place than this little town I cannot conceive of, brother,” Renzi said drily. “It was from Barfleur, of course, that in 1066 William the Conqueror did sail to seize England, the last successful invasion of our islands, I believe.”

  Further historical musings were cut short, for Kydd had found it necessary to give the orders that saw Teazer go to exercise of her foretopmen while they stretched further down the coast. As anticipated, the wind’s backing produced a useful southerly, and by the time the ship reached Pointe de Barfleur again it was fair for the return, a near perfectly executed cruise, were it not for the complete lack of action.

  They rounded the point and took up by the wind on the lar-board tack for the inshore passage, handing in the sheets in a smart and seamanlike manner that brought a grunt of satisfaction from Teazer’s commander as he considered whether to anchor in the lee of Cap Lévi for the night—

  A disbelieving cry of “Saaail!” came from the maintop lookout. “Two points on the bow, a—a brig wi’ some . . .” He tailed off in perplexity but threw out an arm to starboard.

  Kydd leaped for the main-shrouds and shaded his eyes as he peered out at a confusing scene—numbers of vessels of different sizes crowding together, about four or five miles off. The largest was a brig-o’-war with distinctive red ochre sails and quite as large as Teazer. It was being circled by a smaller vessel, a topsail cutter, and had three open craft of puzzling form close astern. Kydd fumbled for his pocket telescope. It soon became clear that they had come upon a drama which could have only one meaning. “Colours, Mr. Hallum!” he roared.

  Their white ensign flew aloft as he jumped to the deck to meet the expectant faces of the quarterdeck. “Frenchy invasion barges! Three of ’em being towed by a brig-o’-war as is fighting off a cutter!”

  After a short delay the cutter responded with the correct private signal to Teazer’s challenge. She would be one of a number of game little ships that were making life uncomfortable for the gathering invasion fleet and had come upon these three barges probably being towed to the next port. No doubt they had been new-built at Barfleur and, thinking that Teazer was continuing south, had been gulled into taking the chance of slipping out.

  The cutter had found she had not been able to take on the bigger ship but had been snapping at its heels. Now the tables were well and truly turned. Against two determined men-o’-war the brig stood little chance—and fleeing into the land was no longer an option, for Teazer, in her inshore passage, was waiting.

  Caught under two fires the brig did its best. The barges’ tow lines were thrown off and, ignoring the cutter, the brig circled round to confront Teazer’s onrush, but as its crew hauled on the braces it slewed suddenly and stopped. Then the fore-topmast tumbled.

  “He’s taken a rock!” Hallum crowed, watching the confusion on the hapless vessel’s deck.

  “Boarders, if you please,” Kydd said sourly, as their prize slowly settled. On the opposite side he could see that the cutter was hove to and already had a boat in the water. “I’ll take ’em m’self,” he muttered and, with a token force of men, set out for the brig.

  The vessel had driven up a ledge of rock and was fast aground, but the slight swell was lifting the after part, then dropping its dead weight again and again in a cacophony of cracking timbers. Closer to, Kydd could see that this was a merchant brig converted to appear fierce and protective: the guns were “quakers”—false wooden cannon at the gunports meant to intimidate. The crew were crowded together on the highest part and appeared to await their fate with resignation.

  Kydd had the boat brought alongside to the main-chains and swung himself lithely on deck. At the same time a lieutenant from the cutter boarded from the opposite side. “My bird, I think!” the officer said, with a dazzling grin. He was absurdly young, and it was difficult to take offence. Kydd smothered a cynical smile. Any naval ship in sight at the time of a capture could demand a share of any prize-money.

  “Kydd, Commander, Teazer brig-sloop.”

  “Oh, sir—Clive Leveson-Wardle, Lieutenant-in-command, Linnet cutter.”

  “Well, now, Mr., er—L’tenant, do ye take possession o’ this vessel, sir, as you’ve half a right t’ do so? An’ I’d not linger, sir. I fancy she’s not long for this world,” Kydd said, knowing that any talk of prizes was now merely academic.

  By this time the brig lay ominously still and unresisting to the waves, hard upon the rocky ledge just visible below in the murky depths.

  Kydd crossed to the little forward companionway access to the hold and opened the door. There was an unmistakable dark glitter and the hollow swash of water below. The ship’s bottom was breached and it had flooded, then settled on the ledge, which it would never leave.

  “Th’ barges, sir?” The boatswain, his cutlass still drawn, nodded to where they were being secured by the cutter.

  “Ye’re right, Mr. Purchet,” Kydd said, with a quick grin. “They’ll serve.” He returned to the young lieutenant. “Sir, I’m taking ye under my command,” he said. “Your orders are to send a party o’ men to recover as much o’ what she carries as ye can an’ stow it in the barges.” It would go some way to making up for the loss of the brig.

  “I understand, sir.”

  “An’ then to take ’em under tow until ye make your offing and shape course for Guernsey. I’ll send help when I can.”

  “Er, it’s that I see soldiers in them there barges, sir,” the boatswain said uncomfortably.
/>   “All th’ better,” Kydd said briskly. “No doubt they’ll kindly bear a hand in return for they’re saved from the briny deep.”

  Kydd surveyed the activity with satisfaction. The cutter’s master’s mate had had the sense to disarm the soldiers before boarding each barge and, with marines borrowed from Teazer to act as guards, they were brought alongside one by one for transshipment to Linnet .

  He looked down curiously at one of the strange craft. It was the first he had seen at close quarters of the thousands he had heard were being built and assembling in the invasion ports.

  This must be a péniche, designed for landing the maximum number of soldiers in the minimum time. Over three score feet long and twelve feet in the beam, the open boat could probably cram aboard sixty or seventy troops and all their equipment. It had provision for stepping three masts, a simple lug rig. No doubt a howitzer or mortar could be mounted forward.

  And this was the smallest of the flotilla: there were others much larger that could take horses and field guns, still more that were big enough to warrant the same three-masted square rig as a frigate and with guns more than a match for Teazer .

  “Sir? I heard ’em say among ’emselves like, they’m new-made in Barfleur an’ hoping t’ take ’em to Cherbourg.” It was one of Teazer’s Guernseymen, with the Breton tongue.

  It was a chilling sight, so close to the reality of Napoleon’s menace. Notwithstanding Kydd’s seaman’s instinct, which was telling him that, fully loaded, they would be pigs to sail, the thought of them in uncountable numbers crowding across the Channel to invade England was a fearsome prospect.

  There was little more he could do. He called the lieutenant over. “I’m continuing m’ cruise to the west. I’ll leave the marines for the prisoners and expect ye to haul off before dark. Good voyage to ye, sir.”

  In the late afternoon they had reached the western end of the inshore channel without further incident and Kydd was looking forward to supper with Renzi, who had been locked away for hours in his tiny cabin restoring acquaintance with his philosophical studies after his labours in Jersey.

  He turned to go below, then stiffened: a distant sound, like the mutter of thunder. Guns!

  He strained to hear, but there was no more. He might have imagined it—but one or two about the deck had paused, like him.

  “Mr. Calloway!” he called. A younger man’s ears would be sharper. “Did ye hear guns?”

  “Aye, sir, I did.”

  “I thought six-, nine-pounders?”

  “Could be twelves, Mr. Kydd.”

  Some frigates mounted twelve-pounders as main armament, and if he went to see what it was about, Kydd knew he might find himself turned upon by one of unanswerable force. His duty was plain, however. “Clap on more sail, Mr. Dowse.”

  As near as he could tell it had been somewhere in the open sea beyond where Cap Lévi marked the abrupt turn south into the bay of Cherbourg, so he decided to press on directly after reaching the cape.

  They passed the sprawling point and met deep water once more. Stretching out for the west, Teazer lengthened her stride in relief that the treacherous shoals were left behind, and in half an hour’s fast sailing she had made her sighting: right in the eye of the sunset, and as close to the veering southerly breeze as practicable, it was a substantial vessel. If it saw them it gave no sign, crossing their bows steadily on the starboard tack some three miles or so distant, making directly for Cherbourg.

  With the light fading, it was difficult to discern details until two things made all plain. The first was that the ship was barque-rigged, so it was not a man-o’-war. And the second was the two flags that fluttered at her mizzen—the French national flag triumphantly over the English ensign. She was, therefore, a British merchant ship taken recently by the enemy vessel whose guns they had heard. The French, with the safety of the port so close, were flaunting their prize.

  It was galling—in front of their eyes a valuable British ship being borne off to France. Kydd felt for the luckless crew, now prisoners destined to rot in one of Bonaparte’s prison-fortresses. “Be damned to it! I’ll not see ’em in chokey!” he burst out, but he was not clear how this could be prevented. Teazer was still on the same larboard tack, leaning into it on a course parallel with the distant depths of the bay, while the barque was already on the opposite tack and set fair to make Cherbourg in one reach.

  Firing on the vessel was out of the question and the time needed to tack about in chase would probably hand the Frenchman an unbeatable lead. They could hope for a wind-change in the fluky conditions nearer the coast, but the breeze was holding strength, now veering slowly to the south-west.

  Kydd saw the plain stern-quarters of the barque pulling steadily away and gritted his teeth. Either way they stood to lose the chase— unless . . .

  It was without question that he had the finer ship. But how much better? “Mr. Purchet, bowlines to th’ bridle, an’ sheet in on all courses until ye hears ’em sing.” He was going to make a race of it; a long board deep into the bay, a flying stay about to the other tack and direct chase in the hope that he could head the other ship before it made port.

  Word got about quickly. Soon the decks were crowded with tars, each with his own opinion of how to get the best from their fair barque, some all for an immediate tack and lunge, others urging extremes of sail spread.

  The boatswain was cautious. “Sir, ye’ll want a slip-rope an’ toggle on the bowlines, I’m thinking.” Their purpose was to tauten the leading edge of the major sails to allow the helmsman to ease in right up to the wind. Purchet was suggesting a way to cast them off rapidly and take up on the other side when they tacked about.

  “Aye, make it so,” Kydd agreed, as he considered the next move. Teazer’s trim was fine. He made a point of checking whenever possible for it had a surprising effect on performance: if the ship had a tendency to come up to the wind—if she was ardent—this had to be counteracted by the opposite rudder, which necessarily caused a degree of turbulence and drag to the detriment of speed.

  He crossed to the helmsman, Poulden, probably the best timoneer aboard. “Does she gripe?” he demanded. He had not sensed any giveaway lurch to windward when the bows rose.

  “Not as who should say, sir,” the man said stolidly.

  They were making excellent speed. The seas were fine on the bow, and without the need to punch through them, there would be no slowing to their progress. However, the barque was well past and into the bay, making a fine show of it with royals now spread.

  It was time for vigorous measures. Teazer did not carry fancy sail—he could set the fore-topmast stuns’l in these conditions, but bonnets and drabblers would impede rather than assist. No, this race would be won if he tuned his ship like a violin.

  “I’ll have ye swift in the cat-harpings,” he told the boatswain. He considered for a moment, then turned to the master. “Take the lar-bowlines an’ see to the bracing, Mr. Dowse. Each yard to be braced in half a point more’n the one below it.” The resulting slight spiral would take into account the stronger winds to be found aloft.

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “An’ set hands to th’ lifts, the yards to be agreeable as ye can to the horizon.” At their lively degree of heel so close-hauled, this would restore the sails’ natural aspect rather than bag the wind to the lee side.

  “Sir.”

  There was more to think about: too great a press of sail might bury her forefoot or thrust her to leeward. Paradoxically it was often better to reduce sail to increase speed—that foretop-gallant, for instance? He gave the order to Dowse to make it so.

  It was exhilarating sailing. Never had Teazer been urged like this, the sea hissing and seething past, all sail drawing to perfection in the spanking breeze and glorious sunset.

  Kydd stood by the wheel, every nerve at full stretch, sensing the exact angle of the wind on his cheeks, listening intently to its thrum on taut rigging and the creaking, high-pitched then low, from deep within t
he ship as the waves passed under her keel. Any of this might change and be the first warning of sudden calamity in the straining spars and rigging.

  “Mr. Hallum? Stations f’r staying.” This was the trickiest part: putting about to the other tack. If they fumbled it, all would be over. And they needed more than a workmanlike manoeuvre. They had to make it a lightning move that had them over on their new tack and sails fully drawing with not a second’s delay.

  Kydd snatched a glance at the barque, now significantly closer to Cherbourg and safety. He was going to play it out to the last card. “I have the ship, Mr. Dowse,” he said formally, to the sailing master.

  “Aye, sir.” There was no resentment in his tone: he understood that it was for his own protection—any failure in timing or execution could not now be blamed on him.

  “Stay by me, if y’ please,” Kydd added quietly.

  Hallum approached to report that stations for staying ship were now complete: lines thrown off from the belaying pins and faked along for running, every part-of-ship readied and tense—waisters, fo’c’slemen, topmen, each a part of the whole. Just one falsestep could bring them all down.

  “Ready about!” Kydd roared, and looked over the side.

  They were slashing along as fast as he had ever seen her stretch before.

  “Ready . . . ready . . . Ease down the helm!” Carefully, spoke by spoke, Poulden began the fateful turn. This was not the time for a sudden showy spinning of the wheel and abrupt angling of the rudder over, which would result in spectacular white foaming and a sudden slowing in impetus as the drag came on. Instead Teazer kept her speed on, allowing time for the jib sheets to be eased and, behind Kydd, the mainsail boom hauled amidships to keep the sail full until the last moment.

  “Helm’s a-lee!” Forward there was instant movement as the fore-sheet was let go, together with the sheets to the head-sails, and Teazer’s bow began to swing into the wind, the sails slatting busily. Checking away the top bowline and lee fore-brace they heaved around. Kydd saw the motion and bawled, “Rise tacks an’ sheets!”