Ba-Whoom! A lurid sheet of flame rose from the sea, a pillar of water an hundred feet tall, then a shriek from Captain Speaks.
“There! There, sirs! Right alongside one of those damned Frog gunboats!” Speaks yelled in triumph. “By God, it worked, and we sank something! There, sir!” Speaks roared, almost in Lewrie’s face after he’d dashed from the gangway to the quarterdeck, an arm flung in the general direction of the blast. “She was right alongside it when it blew up! I saw it plain!”
“Perhaps they thumped against it, and the pistol-,” Lewrie countered.
“No matter!” Speaks cut him off. “One out of six succeeded in sinking an enemy ship. With better clockworks, with better pistols, and more water-proofing, we’ve proven torpedoes valuable, d’ye see?”
Oh, fuck me! Lewrie thought, appalled; Now we’ll never be shot of the God-damned things! You wish t’waste more time and money on ’em, go right ahead, ye poor, deluded prick.
Captain Speaks turned about and capered round the deck, raising a cheer from Reliant’s weary crew with his cries of success.
“Mine arse on a band-box, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie gloomed.
“Only a small gunboat, for six expended, sir?” Westcott whispered back, almost cheerfully. “And that by accident, if there really was a gunboat alongside it when it went off? He’s the only one who saw it, so… how much do they cost, each? And what sort of rate of return is that?”
“You’re a sly, devious pessimist, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said, suddenly inspired.
“I’ll take that as a compliment, sir!” Westcott said, beaming.
“If God’s just… and I write my report well, we’ll never see or hear of torpedoes again in our lives!”
EPILOGUE
This little Boney says he’ll come
At Merry Christmas time,
But that I say is all a hum
Or I will no more rhyme.
Some say in wooden house he’ll glide
Some say in air balloon,
E’en those who airy schemes deride
Agree his coming soon.
Now honest people list to me,
Though income is but small,
I’ll bet my wig to one Pen-ney
He does not come at all.
POPULAR DITTY CIRCA 1804
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“Midshipman Warburton… SAH!” the Marine sentry guarding the entrance to the great-cabins bellowed, slamming his musket hutt, and his boots, in punctuation.
“Enter,” Lewrie bade, seated at his desk in the day-cabin. His coat was off, despite the chill of an early November evening, and his choice of pre-prandial tipple this night, a tankard of brown ale, sat by his elbow as he penned a letter. “Yes, Mister Warburton?”
“Your visitor’s boat is approaching, sir,” Warburton reported.
“Ah ha, just about time. Thankee, Mister Warburton,” he told the Mid, stowing away his pen and ink, and sliding the letter that he was composing into the top drawer of his desk. Lewrie rose and took his coat from the back of his chair and put it on to go on deck to welcome Mr. James Peel from the Foreign Office, who had sent down a note from London even before Reliant had put back into Portsmouth, requesting that they meet. Lewrie assumed it would be about the failed expedition against Boulogne, or those two odd boats he’d captured, but with Peel, one never really knew, so though he would put a gladsome face on, Lewrie did feel a gurgle of trepidation in his innards… or perhaps that was simple hunger.
He took a last swig of ale, clapped on his hat, and strode out past the Marine sentry, then up the starboard ladderway to mount to the sail-tending gangway and entry-port just as Peel’s boat bumped against the hull.
“D’ye require a bosun’s chair, Peel?” he called down in jest.
“Be with you directly,” Peel called back as he scaled the side.
“S’pose ye came hungry,” Lewrie laconically said as Peel’s hat and head appeared over the lip of the entry-port. “It’s uncanny, how you always seem t’turn up just at mealtimes.”
“Hallo, old son, and yes, I did,” Peel rejoined once he’d gained the deck and briefly doffed his fashionable curl-brimmed hat to the flag, then to Lewrie. “I’d never miss a chance for one of Yeovill’s excellent suppers.”
“Let’s go aft, then, and get you a drink,” Lewrie offered.
Peel would have a brandy to ward off the chill of his boat from the docks, while Lewrie settled for a second tankard of ale. They sat at the starboard-side settee.
“So, how are things in London?” Lewrie asked him.
“Folk are in calmer takings, now Winter’s getting on, and they see that Bonaparte won’t cross the Channel in bad weather,” Peel said with a grin, shifting and squirming to get more comfortably seated at his end of the settee. Toulon and Chalky leaped down from their naps on Lewrie’s desk and came to re-make Peel’s acquaintance. “We heard an interesting bit of news from France about the invasion fleet, by the way.” He paused to let the cats sniff his hand, then began to pet them. “Something that may give Boney more pause than any Winter gale, or the attack on Boulogne… bad luck, that, but congratulations to you for your part in it.”
“Even if it went so badly,” Lewrie replied with a groan of remembered futility. “Damn all torpedoes, and their inventors.”
“Yes, well… it seems that Bonaparte and his generals thought a dress rehearsal was a good idea… see how quickly and efficiently his army could board their ships and put out to sea a few miles. With Bonaparte watching from a clifftop, like Xerxes watched the ancient Battle of Salamis,” Peel happily related, “all went swimmingly… how apt, that! ’Til the wind and sea got up and he discovered how much a pack of amateurs his sailors were. God only knows how many barges and boats were wrecked, but our report, from a witness to the event, wrote that thousands of French soldiers and sailors were drowned, and that within a few miles of Boulogne, not out in the middle of the Channel. He might be reconsidering, though he’s spent so much money, time, and effort on the business already that he can’t just abandon hopes of invading us.”
“More fool, he, if he persists,” Lewrie chortled in glee, “and if he insists on usin’ those turtle-back monstrosities, well!”
“Congratulations on fetching two of them in so we could inspect them,” Peel said, bowing his head in gratitude for a second. “Nothing official, mind, just my personal congratulations. Still secret, very hush-hush… though, you must be used to that by now, having worked with Mister Twigg so long.”
“God, aren’t I, just!” Lewrie griped, though good-naturedly.
“Saw some people known to you in London,” Peel blithely went on, seemingly content to sip his brandy, stroke the cats, and slough at ease; he did, though, give Lewrie a sly under-brow gaze.
“Oh? Who?” Lewrie asked, wondering if he should begin to worry, and quickly running through a list of characters best avoided.
“Lord Percy Stangbourne and his sister,” Peel told him, looking waggish. “Leftenant-Colonel Lord Stangbourne, rather.”
“I thought Horse Guards had taken his regiment into service and sent him down to the Kent coast?” Lewrie said, puzzled, and trying to look innocent.
“Back in barracks ’til Spring,” Peel went on, “and back in his old haunts, like Boodle’s and the Cocoa Tree. His sister seems nicer than her repute. Rather fetching, in point of fact.”
Peel peered at him as if expecting Lewrie to gush like a schoolboy in “cream-pot” love, make quibbling noises, or half-heartedly agree with his assessment of her, shrugging it all off.
Damme, does he know everything about everybody? Lewrie thought.
The letter he’d been writing had been to Lydia, whose latest post to him contained an offer to coach down to Portsmouth and spend a few days together-did he still wish? Damned right, he still wished and had already booked lodgings for her at the George Inn, and was writing to tell her so when Peel had intruded. Or, had he known that, too?