Jago gaped. The reason why there were more marines around than usual was suddenly made clear. He swung towards James Read. “God Almighty! It’s Prinnie! What the hell’s he doin’ here? You were supposed to stop ’im!”
The Chief Magistrate did not reply. The corners of his mouth twitched. Commissioner Dryden studied his toes.
Before he could remonstrate further, a splash and a cry from one of the support boats reached Jago’s ear. He turned towards the sound.
A seaman had missed his footing transferring from bumboat to warship and fallen into the water, much to the amusement of his shipmates. Their laughter as he was hauled back aboard the bumboat in an undignified heap floated over to the quayside. It was what happened next that caused Jago to gasp. As the luckless seaman lay floundering in the well of the bumboat, the marine seated in the stern of the craft slammed the butt of his musket across the seaman’s shoulders. He was further amazed when the seaman’s companions rounded on the marine and let loose a broadside of abuse.
It had not been the spectacle of the blow from the musket or the seamen turning on the marine that had stunned Jago so much as the language that had been used. His first thought was that he must have misheard, but as he looked on the insults continued to be traded back and forth until a sharply issued command from the stern of a nearby officer’s gig stung the seamen into an uneasy silence.
Jago searched for the source of the order. There were half a dozen or so officers in the gig, and another armed marine. Jago looked closer. Something about the officers’ appearance didn’t sit quite right. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was definitely something odd about them.
The commotion had drawn the attention of the men on the warship’s deck. A group of them had gathered by the starboard rail to see what the fuss was about. Another cry went up as a dark object tumbled from the rail. A feather bedecked hat. It spiralled down, bounced off the side of the ship and splashed into the water like a wounded seagull. Before it had time to sink, however, it was rescued by a member of the bumboat’s crew. Another derisive cheer marked the hat’s expeditious retrieval. The seaman who had performed the rescue waved the hat above his head. The hat had not survived the fall undamaged. The feathers lay flat and sodden. What was more noticeable, however, was that one side of the hat had been newly branded by a broad yellow streak.
Jago’s stomach turned over. He looked quickly from the hat back up to the warship’s deck. Deprived of the sheltering brim, the features of the hat’s owner were now clearly defined. It was a disclosure that rocked Nathaniel Jago to the core.
“Bloody hell!”
Jago swung round to discover that Chief Magistrate Read and Commissioner Dryden were regarding him closely.
Senses reeling, Jago took another, longer look at the occupants of the officer’s gig. What was it about the uniforms that had caught his eye? True, they weren’t the smartest he’d ever seen; decidedly scruffy, in fact, considering the occasion. If Jago didn’t know any better, he’d have said the state of the uniforms was more reminiscent of a slop chest’s contents than of a newly commissioned crew set to join a brand-new man-of-war.
And then it hit him like a bolt of lightning. He spun, taking it all in: the ship, the men on board her, the activity on the dockside, the presence of the marines, and the words that had been bandied in jest by the men in the boats.
“Mother of God!” Jago said in awe. He looked at James Read with horror on his face. “You’re mad! It’ll never bloody work!”
William Lee stroked his jaw tenderly, feeling the bristly beginnings of his new stubble, and a welcome sense of pleasure moved through him. He had missed the feel of a beard. He had worn one for the last ten years or so and felt naked without it. Now that his mission was coming to an end, with the necessity for disguise no longer paramount—it would have been unusual for a French aristocrat to have been so hirsute, Lord Mandrake had advised him—he was looking forward to the beard’s return. It would be like greeting the appearance of a long-lost friend.
Lee took his hand from his chin and prepared to deploy the Narwhale’s eye.
It was an invention of his own, independent of Fulton’s design, and necessitated by a fundamental flaw in the operation of the submersible. In order to keep its target under constant observation, the vessel had to keep breaking the surface, which inevitably increased the risk of the dome being spotted. The obvious key to the problem, Lee had reasoned, lay in providing a means by which the commander could keep the target in sight while remaining submerged. The solution, after much trial and error, had been simple and ingenious: a two-inch diameter sealed metal tube with a reflecting mirror set into each end. The surface of the mirrors ran parallel to each other at a 45-degree angle to the axis of the tube. Opposite each mirror, set into the side of the tube, was a small inlay of glass. Looking through either glass into the adjacent mirror one could see a reflection from the mirror at the other end of the tube.
Lee had sunk the device into the roof of the tower. Seated beneath the dome, the commander of the vessel could raise or lower the tube at will. With the vessel submerged and the tube raised, the commander, by looking into the bottom mirror, could see what was reflected in the top mirror, above the surface of the water.
Through experimentation, he had settled on twenty-six inches as the optimum length of the eye tube. Any longer and the image relayed back from the surface was severely distorted and too small to be of any use. Taking further inspiration from a spyglass, Lee had attempted to incorporate a series of lenses between the mirrors in an effort to magnify the image, but so far he had not been successful.
Lee raised the eye and wiped a tear of moisture from the rim. The device, though effective, had its drawbacks. The sealant—a concoction of pig grease and wax—had a tendency to leak over prolonged periods. Once water had seeped inside the tube, the mirrors would mist over with condensation. Lee hadn’t yet managed to solve that problem. He’d tried various methods of prevention and, although each successive attempt had been an improvement, he was still some way from devising a foolproof, not to say waterproof, solution. But for the time being it would suffice. At a distance of eighty yards from the target, the eye enabled him to observe the ship in close proximity. He could even see the name board at her stern. Lines were being hauled on board and made fast. The fleet of support craft was dispersing. Through the glass he could see the bunting and the flags in fine detail. He searched and picked out the one that marked his target: the standard of the Prince of Wales. It meant the Regent was on board, probably among that group of men at the stern, he reasoned.
“Closer, Mr Sparrow, if you please.”
The hull of the ship rose broad and sheer out of the water like the side of a cliff.
Lee lowered the eye. He discovered that his mouth was as dry as sand.
He looked at his watch. It was time.
“Take her down easy, Mr Sparrow. Gently does it.”