“Not all the charge went off?” Lt. Johns said, crushed. “How could that be?”
“Someone was remiss as to snugly replacing the tompion, and the sea got in,” Mr. MacTavish accused.
Mine, most-like? Lewrie sheepishly thought, but would not allow that to stand.
“If seawater got to the pistol’s priming or powder charge, it wouldn’t have gone off at all, Mister MacTavish,” Lewrie told him. “I expect it was the main charge below that got soaked, somehow, and went off like a squib.”
“Th’ casks’re tighter’n a drum, an’ tested fair leaks, sair!” McCloud the artificer bristled back, twitching his jaws so hard that his scraggly beard rustled. “Paid ower weet tar an’ bound in tarred canvas. They canna leak!”
“Evidently that’un did, Mister McCloud,” Lewrie rejoined. “Or, being stored at sea for a week or so, the damp got to the gunpowder.”
“Two to go, though, gentlemen. All’s not lost, yet!” MacTavish insisted.
But the trial evidently was over, for after a full hour waiting for the other two to explode, long past the time when they had been set to go off, there were no more geysers or bangs.
“I don’t understand,” MacTavish said, bewildered. “According to my calculations…! I am certain that I prepared mine properly, if no one else managed to follow such simple instructions…!”
“Let’s get under way, Mister Johns,” Lewrie ordered, yawning. “I’m amazed the French haven’t found us, yet, and we must be clear of the coast by dawn.”
“Aye, sir,” a crest-fallen Lt. Johns agreed.
“There’s still two to go, I must point out to you, sir!” Mister MacTavish peevishly demanded. “There’s still darkness!”
“Ain’t in the cards, Mister MacTavish, not tonight it ain’t,” Lewrie told him. “I’m charged with keeping you two, your torpedoes, and anyone involved with ’em, out of French hands, and we’ve pressed our luck as far as I think it seemly t’go, tonight. We’re off.”
And I need some bloody sleep! Lewrie told himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The morning after their assault on the mouth of the Somme river, Reliant and Fusee were forced to return to Sheerness. Lt. Johns had made an inspection of the remaining torpedoes and found that their clockwork timer’s inner workings were so corroded by salt-air damp that they would not run; likewise for the fire-locks of the igniting pistols. A lack of mineral oil to protect them from rusting would have guaranteed a failure. In private, Lt. Johns had also confided to Lewrie that both the clocks and the pistols were of the cheapest manufacture, cast-offs or rejects of such low quality that they appeared to be the first failed efforts of new apprentices. “Trust Scots to pinch and bemoan a groat, sir, a penny bedamned,” Johns had muttered, most sadly disappointed.
MacTavish and McCloud, he’d also reported, had gone off on each other, each blaming the other for the failures, and the artificer sent off in a huff, sacked from his position. MacTavish would have to see to the construction of new torpedoes himself, find a new artificer to oversee the work, and most definitely not spare HM Government’s money this time on the timers or pistols!
Lewrie had begun his report to Admiralty the morning after the trials off the Somme, and completed it just before Reliant had come to anchor in the Great Nore. He dis-passionately described the complicated method of priming and activating, the difficulty with the tompion and the use of them in the total dark, along with the risks involved if deployed during the day; the shoddy materials used in the first place, and the great risk of damp getting to the powder no matter how snugly the torpedoes were sealed, due to being stored above-decks exposed to weather, then slung over the side and towed long distances all but submerged. It was no way to treat gunpowder, if one wished it to stay dry and go Bang!
His clerk and one of his Mids with a good copper-plate writing had made copies, one for MacTavish. Lewrie expected he would hear the fellow’s screeches all the way down-river from Woolwich once he read his copy!
In the meantime, though…
“Excuse me, sir, but I wonder if I might have a word?”
“Aye, Mister Merriman?” Lewrie said, looking up from his stroll of Reliant’s quarterdeck to savour the Summer sunshine.
“It’s about the torpedoes, sir,” Lt. Merriman began.
“Those bastards!” Lewrie said with a dismissive snort.
“Indeed, sir,” Merriman said with a wry grin of agreement. “I and Mister Westcott were talking things over last night, and we were wondering if there would be any more trials with them. If so, we think we’ve come up with a way to improve them. Sea-anchors, sir!”
“Sea-anchors?”
“One uses a sea-anchor to keep a ship’s head to wind in stormy weather, but… was a sea-anchor used in a strong tideway, would not a drogue pull the torpedo shoreward faster? Just bobbing about like they did, we had to get within a mile, with the timer set for fourty-five minutes, but… if we could launch from farther out, we could almost do it in daylight, and be out of range of most shore guns,” Lt. Merriman said, bubbling over with enthusiasm.
“Might as well put a mast and a lugs’l on ’em, sir,” Lewrie rejoined, feeling gloomy of a sudden to imagine that there would be one more round of trials with the damned things! “Or, just shove tons of powder into a fireship and let it sail itself in.”
“The First Lieutenant brought the idea up, too, sir,” Merriman replied, falling alongside of Lewrie’s in-board side as he paced aft to the taffrails. “If the drogues won’t improve the torpedoes, then perhaps a small fireship, a fire-boat, might serve the purpose.”
“There’s the problem of damp, though,” Lewrie pointed out.
“Aye, sir, and on that head we asked Mister Mainwaring the Surgeon if he knew of any earth or element that would absorb damp,” Lieutenant Merriman rushed on, all eagerness. “He cited sodium chloride, sir… whatever that is.”
“Fire-boats… as in ship’s boats, Mister Merriman?” Lewrie asked, pausing in mid-stride.
“Exactly so, sir! Every dockyard’s full of them, or they can be readily bought,” Lt. Merriman continued. “One could place a floor above the ribs and keels, a bulkhead forward in the bows, and deck it all over, with just a cuddy to allow for setting the timer and priming the pistol igniter just before the crew abandons it. Perhaps even construct interior beam partitions to form a box cabin which would secure the powder charge, sir? Fill the voids between the hull and partitions with this sodium chloride whatever to soak up the damp, perhaps even line the entire box with tin, or lead, or… something… to keep it all dry, and a cheaply purchased fire-boat could sail in under its own power. Why, they might not even have to be set alight, and could sail in in the night with the French none the wiser ’til they explode… and a cutter or barge could carry a lot more gunpowder than one of the cask torpedoes, sir!”
“You’ve sketches, Mister Merriman?” Lewrie asked, beginning to be intrigued. Anything would beat MacTavish’s casks all hollow!
“Uhm, Mister Westcott said he would essay a sketch or two, sir,” Merriman explained. “He did not wish to present them to you ’til he and I were perfectly satisfied, but he also said that I should speak to you about the possibility.”
“Hidin’ his light under a bushel basket, is he?” Lewrie japed.
“Well, sir, if our idea seems plausible, Mister Westcott thought that the fire-boats should be deemed as secret as the torpedoes, hence we should show them to no one else but you, for now, sir,” Lieutenant Merriman said in a more guarded way.