“The French have opened upon us, sir,” Lt. Spendlove pointed out. “Enter that, and the time, in the Sailing Master’s journal, Mister Rossyngton.”
Dusk was rapidly turning towards full dark as the return fire from dozens, perhaps an hundred shore guns, sparkled all along the low shore, the overlooks, and the fortifications. The first-class prames, the largest French gunboats anchored in the entrance channel, erupted in gouts of smoke and daggers of flame, too, though they showed little sign that they would sortie; they remained at anchor.
“Oh, I say!” Mr. Caldwell declared, jerking an arm towards the great flashes and volcanic explosions from the bomb vessels. Thirteen-inch-diametre mortar shells soared aloft in great arcs, their burning, sputtering conical fuses making pyrotechnic trails cross the darkening sky, some of them incendiaries that seethed like shooting stars. When they reached their apogees, they seemed to pause for an instant, before dashing down and regaining their initial speed to crash into the waters of the inner harbour and burst with loud blasts.
“Impressive,” Lt. Spendlove commented, though he shook his head in worry. “One would hope they aim well, and don’t land in the town, though, sir.”
“Oh, look at that!” the Sailing Master declared again as a wave of Congreve rockets whooshed skyward. “Talk about your royal firework shows, hah! Now, those are truly awe-inspiring!”
Oooh! Aaah! Lewrie thought, snickering, though such a fiery display was worthy of his awe. For a moment.
The rockets dashed upwards, long yellow tongues of flame trailing them, almost bright enough to espy the long bamboo poles to which the bodies and explosive charges were affixed to steady them like arrow shafts and fletchings… or, should have.
One swerved straight upwards as if trying to spear the moon; yet another swooped up, then back towards the launching ship in a circular arc. A couple more levelled off prematurely and darted shoreward nigh at sea-level, wheeling left or right like lost sparrows… prettily flaming sparrows! Some waddled up and down before diving into the sea far short of the breakwaters, and one perversely wheeled to the right just after launch and looked determined to crash into Reliant, growing bigger and brighter and closer before exploding in a shower of stars a half-mile short!
“Well, hmm,” Mr. Caldwell said, mightily disappointed.
“Need some work,” Lewrie said, relaxing his tense dread and letting out a whoosh of relieved breath, “even if they aimed at us!”
“As you bear, by threes… fire!” Lt. Merriman shouted again, and Reliant was shoved a few inches to larboard by the brute force of recoil. Amid the bellowing of their frigate’s guns came the howling-humming of French shot as they passed overhead or wide of the bow and stern. Lewrie lifted his telescope to look over the shore batteries, fearing that neither side had much of a chance for accurate fire, and that it was all futile. Lord Keith had ordered them to anchor at the extreme edge of the French guns’ maximum range, and even with quoins full out and the barrels of the squadron elevated almost to the safe limit for a naval gun which was fired at low elevation and very close range-they weren’t howitzers, after all, designed to loft shot over fortress walls!-even Monarch’s lower-deck 32-pounders stood little chance of reaching that far, either. The French might even have the advantage over them, for the fortress guns, and the batteries mounted on the overlooks, stood higher above sea-level and could elevate safely to give them the required reach. And they had howitzers! Flame-shot smoke burst from batteries to either side of the breakwaters, the flat booming coming seconds later, and the shot they fired lifted high into the night, burning fuses tracing arcs as the shells came darting downwards, the thin wail-hiss of their passage through the air rising in volume and tone like an opera diva trilling for a higher note before they burst prematurely due to too-short cone fuses, or plunged into the sea and exploded in great whitish gouts of spray.
Another shoal of Congreve rockets soared shoreward in reply to the French artillery, the slower-firing mortars of the bomb vessels belched out another salvo, and the night sky was criss-crossed by opposing streaks of fire. Explosive shells burst near the British ships, and over the French batteries, inside the harbour beyond the sheltering breakwaters… some reaching as far as the town-side warehouses and piers!
“They must see that they’re shelling the town!” Lt. Spendlove fumed, quite out of character and the cold-bloodedness demanded from a Navy officer. “We must not do that! It’s not Christian, sir!”
“It’s as narrow as a razor’s edge at this range, sir,” Lewrie told him, shouting a bit over the continual din. “Strike short, hit the anchored ships, or the piers and the town, if you’re over.”
“Deck, there!” a lookout at the mast-head called down in a thin screech. “There’s French launches comin’ out!”
That changed the subject quickly as Lewrie, Spendlove, and the Sailing Master lifted their glasses to spot the enemy launches. They were under oars, as big as admirals’ barges, and mounted cannon fore and aft. They weren’t coming far, Lewrie noted, only two or three hundred yards beyond the rows of vessels anchored outside the breakwaters, but when the boats went in with the torpedoes in tow, they would prove dangerous.
“Mister Rossyngton, my compliments to Mister Merriman, and he’s to shift his fire onto the launches closer to us,” Lewrie ordered.
“Aye, sir!” the Midshipman snapped crisply, dashing forward for the waist.
Reliant’s guns fell silent for a moment as the aim was shifted. The smoke thinned, and Lewrie peered hard down the long line of barges outside the breakwater, looking intently for any sign of damage they might have inflicted, but spent powder smoke from the French batteries cloaked them, and the night was too dark, only fitfully and briefly illuminated by the passage of flaming carcase shells or rockets. He slammed the tubes of his telescope compact, shaking his head in mounting anger over how useless the assault seemed, so far. By the faint candlelight of the compass binnacle, he checked his pocket-watch, and nigh-groaned aloud to note that it was nearly 9 P.M.!
The both of us, blazin’ away half the night, with nothing to show for it! he thought, a feeble anger growing inside him, looking seaward towards Monarch, whose starboard side was lit up with stabbing flame from her guns.
“Deck, there! Fireships is goin’ in! Cutters, launches, an’ ships’ boats is goin’ in!” the lookout wailed, sounding cheerful.
“Mister Westcott’ll be having himself some fun,” Mr. Caldwell hooted with glee.
“One hopes,” Lt. Spendlove glumly replied. “At least fireships are conventional weapons.” Un-like rockets, was what he meant, or the lofting of explosive mortar shells into Boulogne itself.
Lewrie felt a faint stir of hope. It had been fireships that had panicked the Spanish Armada when sailed into their anchorage at Gravelines in 1588, driving them to cut their cables and flee to the open sea, never to re-assemble in strength. With any luck, hundreds of those anchored vessels would be set afire, and the few French sailors aboard each one would be unable to fend off, or extinguish the fire aboard their own, abandoning it and fleeing as the conflagration spread from theirs to the next and the next, and when the blazes reached the tons of gunpowder stored in the fireships’ holds went off, even more of them would be blasted to fiery kindling!
The French saw the threat, recognised it for what it was, and shifted their aim to counter the fireships, and the swarm of sailing launches and cutters escorting them, hoping to sink them before they reached those anchored lines. Their armed launches dared to come out further from shore in anticipation, their oars flashing in unison as they rowed out, and swung to point their guns at the British launches. Lewrie’s orders from Admiral Lord Keith had stated that some of those un-manned explosive boats would be employed as well, and Lewrie hoped that the French might concentrate on those, going in before Reliant’s torpedo-towing barges and cutters, and ignore his men, who would come to a stop, then turn about and flee seaward after letting their primed torpedoes free.