“Captain Alan Lewrie, come aboard to speak with your captain,” Lewrie announced to the single Midshipman present. Fusee’s crew was about the bare minimum, not over fifty hands all told, so no more than one Midshipman was required.
“Here he comes, sir… Lieutenant Johns,” the older lad said, almost in relief, as a tall and lean fellow in his mid-thirties turned up on the bomb’s quarterdeck.
“Joseph Johns, your servant, sir,” the fellow said, doffing his hat with a jerky half-bow from the waist. Lt. Johns was scare-crow thin, with a prominent Adam’s apple, a long wind-vane of a nose, and noticeable cheekbones. He looked to be a perfect non-entity but for a pair of eyes that seemed aflame with enthusiasm. “We’ve just received directions from Admiralty that you would be in charge of us, and of our… ehm,” he added, jutting a pointy chin forward to his bomb’s foredeck, where two thirteen-inch sea-mortars would usually be emplaced in side-by-side wells, heavily re-enforced with great baulks of timber to withstand the shock of their upwards discharge, and the down-thrust of recoil. Now, the wells were shrouded by what looked to be a scrap tops’l so large that it might have come off a frigate. Looking in that direction gave Lewrie the impression that the canvas shrouded six great water casks; he also took note of a long and heavy boom rigged to the base of the bomb’s foremast, and a hoisting windlass so it could be employed as a crane… forward of the mast, not aft.
“Pardon me for seeming remiss in searching you out, sir, but as I said, orders came aboard not half an hour past,” Johns went on.
“Mine preceded yours by no more than an hour, Mister Johns. It is of no matter,” Lewrie allowed, clapping his hands into the small of his back and craning his neck to look upwards. “I had a converted bomb in the Bahamas, ’tween the wars, but Alacrity, as a gun-ketch, had her masts equally spaced, like a brig, and the mortar wells were fore and aft of the foremast. Your Fusee resembles a three-master that’s missing her entire foremast, and sports but main and mizen.”
“The newer construction allows both mortars to work in concert, sir, bows-on to a target, ’stead of anchored beam-on, and becoming a better target,” Lt. Johns laughed. “I admit the new ones look queer, but with much larger jibs and fore-and-aft stays’ls, they will go up to windward at least a point closer.”
“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.”