So Near So Far

by C. Northcote Parkinson

  “You can trust me, Lady Hester, and I shall never forget the privilege I have had to meet you.”

  Parting with this great lady, Delancey took the opportunity to walk on the ramparts and see what happened to the Corsican. She was at anchor, he could see, in the position where last seen. There were boats alongside, evidently his own, and her deck was lit by lanterns. She had been taken by his officers and he could just glimpse the white ensign hoisted over the tricolour. With nearly all her own men ashore, her two or three men on anchor watch would have made no resistance. Hurrying down to what had originally been the guard room, now evidently the steward’s office, he found pen and paper and wrote a brief note to Mr Wetherall or Mr Seddon.

  You are hereby required and directed to remove everything of value from the captured steam-vessel, together with any documents found, send your prisoners to the Vengeance, and then blow her up with a keg of gunpowder. Her loss will be described as accidental, so prevent your men knowing exactly how it came about.

  Signed,

  Richard Delancey,

  Captain, Royal Navy

  Having scribbled this note and given it to a petty officer for delivery to Mr Northmore, who would send it out to the schooner, he went out into the courtyard where he found Mr Xenophon in conversation with a young army officer who had just ridden over from Deal to ask what was happening.

  “There has been a French raid on Walmer Castle,” he was explaining, “but we shall probably decide against making the fact public. We shall make it known locally that it was an exercise.”

  When the young officer had gone Delancey asked Mr Xenophon what had happened to the Prime Minister. “He can’t be asleep, surely, after all this noise?”

  “Mr Pitt? He is not here but went to London yesterday afternoon. Dear me, didn’t I tell you? How remiss of me. I can only offer my sincere apologies. I do hope you will forgive me.”

  ”But how astonishing that the Prime Minister should leave so unexpectedly at the very time we had reason to want him out of the way!”

  “Well, not exactly astonishing. He received a royal command to come to Windsor immediately.”

  “How very fortunate!”

  “It was not a coincidence. I have reason to believe, you see, that the King’s letter was a forgery and that His Majesty knows nothing about it.”

  “But how can you be sure of that?”

  “I forged the letter myself.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  DEVILISH DEVICES

  THE PUBLIC never knew anything about the raid on Walmer Castle—as was agreed, indeed, on both sides, for the French were just as reticent about the affair. As for their lordships of the Admiralty, they did not want it to be known that the enemy could set foot in England even in small numbers and by outlandish means. For people in Deal who had heard the firing, the explanation was that there had been a naval exercise, of which the garrison, by some mischance, had received no prior warning. Taken as a whole, the defensive measures had been highly successful.

  Thinking of the affair afterwards, Delancey doubted whether the elimination of William Pitt, had it happened, would have been any serious loss to the war effort. Pitt was resolute, indeed. He had not thought of making peace on the enemy’s terms. As against that, it was a question whether he really understood the art of war. His reputation rested upon his knowledge of finance as revealed in time of peace. That he or Dundas, his previous mentor, had any grasp of strategy might seem more than doubtful. It would seem, moreover, that Pitt was now a sick man, and one addicted to playing soldiers. As against that, had Pitt been taken by the enemy—his amateur soldiering having the chief result of exposing him to capture—the morale effect would have been tremendous. What encouragement it would have given the French and what alarm it would have spread in Britain! How could our soldiers dream of attacking Napoleon when our forces could not even defend Walmer Castle? It had been a desperate attempt, Fabius being the mastermind who had devised it, and Delancey was glad to think that he himself had played a significant part in parrying the threat. He wondered whether Fabius would be blamed for the failure and discredited. On further consideration he concluded that Fabius would be given some other task but at lower level. Had it been a British failure the officer responsible would have been sent to some colony or other, to Jamaica, perhaps, or New South Wales. The French had less scope for this sort of promotion but there were places to which their less outstanding men could be sent. There was Mauritius, for example, where Decaen had been sent as penalty for being a follower of Moreau who had been Napoleon’s rival at one time. Were there to be any revived plan for the invasion of England, Fabius, he concluded, was unlikely to have any hand in it.

  Unfortunately, members of the Cabinet, accepting Delancey’s word for it that Corsican was a suicidal vessel (the boiler of which had blown up) and that Nautilus II was quite unseaworthy, were greatly impressed by the effectiveness of the catamaran. Here was a British frigate destroyed in the Downs. Could not the same device be used against the invasion flotillas? Delancey, had he been consulted, would have pointed out that Lizard was sunk in very unusual circumstances. She had been a sitting duck in a dead calm. She had been deceived by the American flag. Such a situation might never exist again. Nor did the French landing craft present the same sort of target. Above all, the fact that the catamaran had been used successfully by a steam-vessel did not mean that a sailing ship could do the same thing. Delancey had dire misgivings about the catamaran which he thought useless as a weapon and highly dangerous to those who might be ordered to handle it. Were any of them entrusted to him he resolved to sink them in deep water and report that they had proved ineffective. He would accept risks where the object was worthwhile. He would not sacrifice lives in pursuit of mere nonsense.

  The Walmer Castle affair took place in June 1804. By July, it was obvious from their troop movements that the French attack on Britain was to take place in the immediate future. The Army of England, said to be over 160,000 strong, was now deployed between Etaples and Ostend and was organised into the several corps under the command, respectively, of Marshals Ney, Soult, Lannes, and Davoust. Signal for the invasion would be the appearance at Boulogne of the Emperor himself, an event which would be known in Deal within 48 hours. Rear-Admiral Knight, being joined by another frigate, the Sparrowhawk, as replacement for the Lizard, sent for his captains—less the captain of the Gannet, which was off Boulogne—and told them that the crisis was impending.

  “Our defence against the invasion flotilla rests, in the first instance, upon this squadron, which may well be sacrificed at the outset. If and when the flotilla sails I shall attack it immediately without counting the cost or making plans for withdrawal. In the meanwhile it is the government’s policy to discourage the attempt, showing the enemy that it must end in disaster. Movement of enemy landing craft must increase as the chosen date becomes more imminent, partly as the vessels concentrate and partly as the crews are exercised. We shall take every opportunity to press home our attacks, knowing that the resolute handling of our ships might well be witnessed by Napoleon himself. Even a mere skirmish may have its effect on Napoleon’s mind, illustrating on a small scale what confusion and defeat might result from a later attempt on a larger scale. Ours will be a task of the very greatest importance.”

  The Admiral paused at this point, anxious to judge the effect of his words. The officers were unhelpfully silent and he went on:

  “Some members of the Cabinet are anxious for us to make full use of a recent invention to which its supporters have given the inappropriate name of catamaran. I need hardly tell you that a catamaran is, properly speaking, a native craft with an outrigger used on the Coromandel coast of India. This is, however, the official name for this device, which is no more than a floating box of explosives, triggered off by the jerk of a lanyard. We have all expressed our doubts about the utility of this contrivance but ministers are aware that the frigate Lizard was destroyed by a catamaran and they can see no reason
why the French flotilla should not be destroyed in the same way. We know, as others do not, that the device which destroyed the Lizard, tragically ending the distinguished career of Captain Harding and causing the death of so many of his men, was towed by a steam-vessel, able to move in any direction against wind and current. Ministers do not appreciate that a steam-vessel was essential to the success of the French attack. So we are ordered to see what the catamaran can achieve.”

  “Might I ask, Admiral,” asked Flag Captain Saunders of the Antelope, “whether we are to make similar use of steam-vessels?”

  “No, they have been ruled out. Remember also that the steam-vessel which sank the Lizard blew up soon afterwards. This is not generally known but ministers are aware of it and realise that the steam engine is unreliable at any time and would be hazardous in battle. May I ask, gentlemen, whether any of you have experience in using the catamaran?”

  At this point the newcomer to the squadron, Captain Moffat of the Sparrowhawk, spoke up for the first time. He was a thin-faced man with a rather pedantic manner, eager to show his expertise.

  “Yes, Admiral, I am familiar with the catamaran and believe that it can be used with great effect. It is true that results have been disappointing, but I attribute past failures to the ignorance and obstinacy of the officers concerned. Some of them began with a prejudice against this mode of warfare and were resolved to discourage it. The catamaran is useless—more, it is dangerous—when handled by men who are nervous and inept.”

  “May I ask, Admiral,” inquired Delancey, “how these catamarans are to reach the enemy? What form of propulsion are we to use?”

  It was Captain Moffat who replied:

  “They are propelled by the tide. Having towed them by boat to a distance just out of range of the enemy’s gunfire, we cut them loose, jerk the lanyard, and withdraw. The explosion takes place after half an hour, the catamaran having been carried by the tide into the midst of the enemy’s flotilla.”

  “But don’t the enemy see them coming?” asked Delancey.

  “Not if we distract their attention,” replied Moffat patiently. “The catamaran barely shows on the surface and could be mistaken for a piece of wreckage. It is thought advisable, nevertheless, to give the enemy something else to think about. I would myself recommend the use of Congreve rockets. I should remind you, Admiral, that tidal currents run fast on the French coast round here. Catamarans can drift at five to six knots. Apart from the damage they may do, their morale effect can be decisive.”

  “No doubt of that,” was Delancey’s comment, but he added, more quietly, “the French, besides, may die of laughing.”

  “It is easy to sneer,” said Moffat sharply. “I have no doubt that laughter greeted the first man who wished to replace the bow and arrow by the musket. There must be progress, sir. We cannot reject all that is novel because it is new.”

  “I crave your pardon,” replied Delancey, “and I am sure that we shall all benefit from your experience. I wonder, however, whether it might be possible to use a captured French gunboat to tow the catamaran?”

  “Others have had the same inspiration,” said the Admiral. “It seems that we have recently captured one of their craft, complete with crew, near Ostend. I have had instruction to make use of her if the opportunity should offer.”

  “What type of craft is she, sir?” asked Moffat.

  “She is of a class the French call their bateaux cannonières, a lugger armed with two guns. She is smaller than what they call a prame, bigger than a peniche. Strangely enough, the men on board her, seamen and soldiers, were perfectly convinced that they had all but conquered England already. They saw themselves as prisoners for a few weeks, due for release by the Emperor himself.”

  “Is it true, sir, that Napoleon is now at Boulogne?”

  “We have heard that,” replied the Admiral, “and we are inclined to believe it. If he plans to direct the invasion in person—as he surely must—this month would be the best time for it. If he is not at Boulogne now he must be due there very shortly.”

  There was further discussion and it soon became clear that Moffat was to direct a catamaran attack on the Boulogne flotilla with Delancey to cover his withdrawal. The craft captured would tow the catamaran, flying the French flag, to a position just out of range of the French guns, after which the deadly device would drift further inshore on a rising tide. The chosen date was 19 July, on which day the squadron appeared off Boulogne, Vengeance hovering three miles offshore and Sparrowhawk going in to cover the approach of the captured bateau cannonière, which was to come round the headland to the south. The plan seemed to Delancey hazardous in the extreme and especially so in daylight. Would the bateau cannonière be accepted as friendly by the shore batteries? She was not fired upon, as things turned out, but the situation was complicated that afternoon by a rising wind and a heavy sea. The French flotilla in Boulogne roads was gradually dispersed as the smaller vessels ran for Etaples or St Valery-sur-Somme. The launching of a catamaran had become extremely difficult but, apart from that, the target vessels were insufficiently concentrated. With great reluctance Rear-Admiral Knight cancelled the attempt by a signal from Antelope to Vengeance which was repeated to Sparrowhawk. The volunteer crew in the bateau cannonière began to head seawards again, having presumably left their catamaran where the French might possibly trip over it. Watching the fiasco through his telescope, Delancey wondered whether a catamaran would explode on collision or only after a jerk of the lanyard? What he was never to realise until long afterwards was that the 19th/20th was actually a turning point in the war.

  It was, in a way, a horrifying scene. It was blowing hard from the north-north-east and big seas were crashing on the shore with spray tossed high against the dark land and leaden sky. The gusts of wind rose to a shriek and the Vengeance pitched and rolled in sickening fashion as Delancey focused his telescope on the French landing craft. All order among these had been lost, some of the larger vessels working to windward, most of the smaller craft running down wind for Etaples, others again running to anchor off Boulogne. At Delancey’s elbow, Mr Mather was studying the scene.

  “And all this happens to the poor devils before we have even come to close range.”

  The French craft were in fact under distant fire from three gun-brigs which were able to go further inshore than the Vengeance. It did not appear that much damage was being done by this desultory cannonade but it was enough to discourage the movement to windward.

  “Those gun-brigs afford no sort of a gun platform,” commented Delancey. “This weather does not suit them.”

  “It doesn’t suit me either, sir,” replied Mather. “I keep thinking that our masts will go over the side.”

  “We’ll ride more easily when we anchor.”

  The motion did improve after the anchor had been dropped but the wind rose, if anything, towards evening. A passing gleam of light revealed a bay in which the storm-tossed landing craft numbered 27. With the flood tide Delancey stood in closer and saw that several of the craft were ashore west of Boulogne. Three others were wrecked near Portel, others being dismasted with heavy seas breaking over them. The wind whistled through the frigate’s rigging and the scene was generally dismal.

  “Boney must be watching this from the headland,” said Delancey. “I wish we were near enough to see him.”

  “He might have stayed indoors, sir,” objected Mather as a rainstorm beat down on the quarterdeck. “Who would blame him?”

  “No, he would have to be on the headland,” said Delancey. “He must have had reports last night and earlier today, so many craft wrecked, so many men drowned, so many craft reaching St Valery-sur-Somme. He would have to come and look for himself. He would need to show, moreover, that he, for one, is not discouraged. He is there at this moment, you can depend upon it, and he must be wondering whether his invasion plan is practicable. What if it blew like this on the chosen day? He will have lost hundreds of men today. With actual invasion ordered he would h
ave lost thousands and all this with little interference by us.”

  “He will realise now, sir, what the Channel can be like.”

  “This he must have known, Mr Mather. What he has learnt is what the weather can be like even in July. If there can be a gale like this in the height of summer, what could he expect in spring or autumn?”

  “He has chosen, sir, to think again.”

  “But he will not panic on hearing about the catamaran we have launched!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  CATAMARAN

  OFF BOULOGNE, Delancey, firmly braced between the gunwale and the shrouds, was watching the bateau cannonière struggle seawards in a wild sea with spray breaking over her. That she was in British hands was perfectly obvious to the French and Delancey saw that a three-masted prame was heading to cut her off. With twenty guns to the two mounted by her intended prey, the prame ran little risk of defeat. Accurate gunnery between relatively small vessels in such a sea was, of course, impossible, but here again the prame had the steadier gun platform of the two. The time had come to intervene and Delancey ordered Mather to make more sail and steer towards the prame. To rescue the bateau cannonière was really the Sparrowhawk’s responsibility but that frigate seemed to be in difficulties with a broken spar. The depth of water was shoaling from nine fathoms to seven, from seven to five, and Delancey knew that he must allow for the lessened depth in the trough of the wave. Once in four fathoms he would be in range of the coastal howitzers, firing shell, and soon beyond that he might be fired upon by the coastal guns.

  “We shall soon be under fire from the shore, sir,” warned Mather.

  “It will not be effective at extreme range,” replied Delancey, “and we shall try to keep the prame between us and the nearest battery.”