“Can barely spot ’em, now, sir,” Lt. Westcott muttered.
“Any time now, on the first one,” Mr. Caldwell, the Sailing Master, said, squinting at his watch. “Yes! There it goes!”
B’whoom! followed the sudden eruption of flame-shot gunpowder smoke and a great sprouting pillar of sea by a second or so.
“Mister Spendlove?” Lewrie asked, turning to the Second Officer.
“By my reckoning, sir, it went off on time, yet still a half-mile short,” Spendlove said, after some quick figuring on his slate. “And, do we take that stretch of shoreline from the white church and steeple on the left, and the grove of trees marking the right end of a mile-long target representing a line of French barges, it seemed to trend larboard, closer to the steeple-end, sir, when it should have ended up closer to the centre.”
“We released from roughly the same place as the earlier trials, on the same strength of tide-race, over the same bottom influences we experienced before, so… there’s no explaining it, sir,” Westcott said, frowning in puzzlement for a moment, but he perked up at last. “It seems, though, that the drogue pulled it closer ashore, and kept it within the margins!” he said, extending both arms to encompass the outer ends of that mile of shore. “Now, if the half-hour torpedo with the rudder behaves the same, that one might come close to succeeding.”
More long minutes passed, then…
“There, sir!” Midshipman Rossyngton crowed, leaping in glee.
The sea boiled of a sudden in a wide, shallow hump that burst like a pus-filled boil, spurting smoke and spray an hundred feet into the air, yellow-grey powder smoke and white foam mingling. A second later came the Ba’whoom! from the gigantic explosion.
“In the shallows, I think,” Westcott deemed it. “Almost ashore.”
“And very close to the mid-point of the mile, sir,” Lt. Spendlove said in a flat voice, as if the torpedo’s seeming success had awakened his initial mis-givings again. “A fluke, most-like?”
“Damme, the bloody things might work, after all,” Lewrie grudgingly allowed.
If they do, maybe they’ll free us for other duties, just thankee, Jesus! he thought; They work, our part’s done, and someone else can go use ’em! I still don’t quite trust ’em.
They recovered their barges, and Lt. Merriman and Midshipman Entwhistle came tumbling back aboard in such glad takings that they could almost be said to dance jigs, babbling away like mag-pies. And, before the barges could be led astern for towing, Penarth came slowly surging alongside within hailing distance, with Captain Speaks at her larboard railings.
“Hoy, Reliant!” Speaks shouted, hands cupped by his face, with no need of a speaking-trumpet. “That did the trick! I will sail for Portsmouth at once, with the design drawings your First Officer made! Congratulations to you and your Mister Merriman, Lewrie! Rest assured my report will be complimentary to you all!”
“Thank you, sir!” Lewrie shouted back.
“Remain on station ’til I return with fresh torpedoes!” Speaks ordered. “Look for me off the Nor’east tip of Guernsey in about ten days to a fortnight!”
Makin’ sure he gets all the bloody credit, first! Lewrie sarcastically realised.
“ ’Til then, cruise independent, and make a nuisance of yourself with the French!” Speaks added.
Hmm, maybe not so bad, at that, Lewrie thought more kindly.
“You’ll not need escort back to Portsmouth, sir?” Lewrie asked.
“With no torpedoes aboard, there’s nought the French may learn, sir!” Speaks shouted over, sounding very pleased and amused. “Adieu, and good hunting, Reliant!”
“Thank you, sir! See you in a fortnight at the latest!”
Penarth sheeted home her fore-course and slowly began to draw away. Lewrie turned to his officers and Mids.
“Well, sirs? He said we should make a nuisance of ourselves, so let’s be about it. Mister Westcott, Mister Caldwell, we can be into the Gulf of Saint Malo by early afternoon. Shape a course,” he said. “Captain Speaks has let us off his leash for a few days. Let us make the most of it.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Westcott wolfishly agreed.
“And get back to proper duties, sir?” Lt. Spendlove asked.
“Doin’ what a frigates’s s’posed t’do, aye,” Lewrie said with a laugh, feeling immense relief. And feeling rather wolfish, himself!
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Making a nuisance of themselves in the Gulf of St. Malo was not as easy as it sounded, however. Reliant’s draught of almost eighteen feet limited where she could go, or dare go for only a few hours, due to the dramatic rise and fall of the tides, forcing her to venture no closer than two miles of the French coast, far beyond the Range-To-Random Shot of her 18-pounder guns.
Besides, other Royal Navy vessels were already in the Gulf and quite successfully making nuisances of themselves, vessels which drew much less water than she; the bulk of them were small and light single-masted cutters, backed up by brig-sloops or the rare three-masted full-rigged sloops, mostly lieutenants’ commands, with half-squadrons or flotillas led by commanders in their Sixth Rates. If Reliant did meet with a larger warship commanded by a Post-Captain, an offer of help was turned down, for the most part, since all the aid the Fifth Rate 38-gun ship could provide was more moral than substantial, too far offshore to back up the blockading patrols or operations unless a French frigate of her own weight of metal emerged… and so far none had. What opposition the French had sent out had been chasse-marees, prames, and chaloupes, the gunboats purpose-built to defend the armada of invasion vessels, and those not too often, either.
Some people were having fun, though, swarming over the convoys of peniches and caiques trying to make their way to join the immense gathering at Boulogne, hugging the coast as close as the shoals, sand-bars, and rocks allowed, sneaking from port to port in short and breathless stages. More enterprising young officers were leading their men ashore at night to cut out barges, or set fire to them, and the very bravest would row up the creeks or rivers to block the many canals or raid the small riverside shipyards where the invasion fleet was being built. And Reliant could take no part in that.
After a few days of fruitless prowling, all Lewrie could do was shake his head, take a squint at Point de Grouin east of St. Malo, and order Reliant turned North for a return to Guernsey and the open waters of the Channel, wishing his more-active compatriots well, though he did in point of fact envy the Hell out of their shallower draughts, their opportunities, and even their lower ranks which could justify their active participation in such harum-scarums. If he could pinch Reliant into high-tide reach of the Normandy coast, he might find a chance for action off Granville, Coutances, Lessay, or Barneville-Carteret or some other inlet or fishing port along the way.
If someone did not beat him to it, first!
He did not know what awakened him, the coolness of the night or his cats. Lewrie had rolled into his hanging-bed-cot round midnight in all his clothes but his boots and coat, more for a long nap than anything else, too fretted by the wind and sea conditions to imagine that he would drop off so soundly or quickly. Just after Lights Out at 9 P.M. the winds had nigh-died on them, and the sea had turned to nearly a flat calm, slowing the frigate to a bare three knots.