And he dines and sups, rely it,
Every day on naughty people.
So our conspiracy was to save England from that cannibal, Bonaparte. The castle itself was a fine place for intrigue. Four semicircular battlements jutted from a central keep, the edifice looking like a gigantic clover plopped into a moat. Hodgepodge additions had created sleeping quarters with modern paneling and a central sky-lit atrium. Window glass filled old gun ports, and Oriental carpeting and four-poster beds gave the bastion a homey feel. While militarily obsolescent, Walmer was a splendid hideaway for plotters, assassins, spies, and secret weapons. Rumor was that its cellars held not just agents of questionable loyalty, such as me, but trunks of gold to pay saboteurs and scoundrels. I’d wandered about to test the truth of that story, so far without success.
Now Pitt called us to order. “Gentlemen, we must defeat the French at sea, not on the farms of England. We must take the war to them, not wait for their blows to fall on us. Boney has gained thirty ships of the line through alliance with Spain. Until Austria, Russia, and Prussia march against him in a Third Coalition, we stand alone.”
Sidney Smith spoke up. “The information obtained by my agents enabled us to foil the French naval trap detailed in Talleyrand’s papers. That has bought us time.”
I was annoyed he didn’t give me credit.
“Yes, but there’s a terrible new development that must be kept secret by all of you,” Pitt replied. “Our spies in Paris whose reports came through instead of being confiscated”—he glanced at me—“have reported that Admiral Villeneuve’s fleet slipped out of Toulon at the end of March. As we all know, the gravest threat to England is for the French Mediterranean fleet to link with the French and Spanish Atlantic fleets to achieve temporary naval superiority in the Channel. If that happens, Napoleon can invade.”
“Surely Nelson is on Villeneuve’s tail,” General Smith said.
“So we pray, but as yet we have no word. I don’t envy Nelson’s task. The sea is a vast place to hide in, and the availability of Spanish ports immensely complicates his search. If he fails, we lose the war.”
“Which means that was a costly four million Spanish dollars you stole back in October,” I couldn’t help interjecting, since I was grumpy from my troubles. The British navy had greedily intercepted a Spanish treasure convoy off Cadiz several months back when the two nations were still at peace, pushing Spain into an unhappy alliance with Napoleon.
“We’re dealing with the strategic situation as it is, Ethan, not as it might be,” Sidney Smith reminded, yanking my leash. “You of all people should know the futility of dwelling too long on opportunities lost. And I’ll note that Commodore Moore captured one hundred fifty thousand ingots of gold and twenty-five thousand sealskins, helping balance the millions Bonaparte received from your nation for its purchase of Louisiana.”
I resented the comparison. “And had to pay Spanish captain Alvear thirty thousand pounds for blowing up nine members of his innocent family on a neutral ship, the Mercedes.” It wasn’t diplomatic, but the British bullied everyone at sea. I was lonely for my wife, newly poor, and hadn’t received proper thanks.
“A litigation which is none of the affair of an American agent who has debt and legal troubles of his own,” Smith snapped.
I wasn’t helping myself, I knew. “Sorry. I think out loud sometimes.”
“You should be in Parliament,” Pitt quipped, to relieve the tension. Everyone laughed.
“There are actually intriguing opportunities in South America now that we’re at war with Spain,” Home Popham spoke up. “The Spanish colonies are restive and might be encouraged to revolt, becoming new trade partners. I might lead an expedition there myself.”
This was a larger picture than I’d contemplated. Maybe there was method to English madness after all.
“Sir Sidney recommends you as a tireless warrior when pressed,” Pitt said to me with a politician’s practiced charm. “And all of us regret the entry of Spanish ships into the war, Mr. Gage. The question for today is what to do about it, or, rather, how to cripple the French before they can make an effective alliance.”
“The Dagos will bloody hell wish they’d never tangled with Nelson,” Johnstone put in.
“Agreed, if Nelson can force battle. But can modern invention make such a clash unnecessary?” Pitt wanted to get to the point. “Colonel Congreve?”
The soldier straightened. “Prime Minister, you may recall that a quarter century ago, the Indian sultan Tippoo defeated the East India Company at the Battle of Pollilur with rockets. They hit our power stores, and our ammunition blew up. In the Indian wars as a whole, rockets have caused more British casualties than any other weapon. Their explosions kill up to three men at a time. The rockets’ long bamboo tails thrash through our ranks.”
I recalled Tippoo. Napoleon had planned to link up with this Indian patriot after conquering Egypt. The British killed the sultan before alliance could be made, but without Tippoo Napoleon might never have invaded Egypt, I might never have accompanied him, and Astiza might never have experienced my charm. The world is indeed small.
“Rockets were also used by the Irish rebel Robert Emmet in his failed revolt a couple of years ago,” Congreve went on. “I began my own experiments at the Royal Arsenal. In effect, rockets provide an explosion without having to bother with a cannon to deliver it. They’re cheap, simple, and terrifying. If launched in great numbers at the French fleet anchored at Boulogne, they could set it on fire. I’ve devised a black powder propellant in an iron tube with a fifteen-foot tail. Thousands of these cheap weapons might engulf the invasion fleet in chaos and havoc.”
“Here, here,” Sidney Smith said.
“Sounds like the devil’s brew,” Johnstone seconded.
“Mr. Fulton?” Pitt said.
“My inventions complement those of Colonel Congreve,” my American friend said. “The French rejected them as immoral, but why blowing someone up with a torpedo is less moral than slaying them with a cannonball, I’ve never understood.”
“Here, here,” repeated Sir Sidney.
“My primary device has already seen active service against the Tripoli pirates. I call it a torpedo, after the Latin word for the jolt from an electric ray. A charge of gunpowder is drifted against enemy hulls and triggered by clockwork. Tide and current do most of the work. In one design, two torpedoes are attached to a rope that drifts down on an enemy mooring line. As the anchor cable catches this rope, the bombs will float past to lodge on either side of the hull of the ship. Then the explosions go off, cracking the hull like an egg. As we break the French line, more torpedoes can be floated through the gaps. The carnage should be extraordinary.”
“Here, here,” Smith said again.
“It sounds a trifle unfair,” Popham objected. “Sinking ships without using a ship?” He was a naval officer, after all.
“Bloody brilliant,” Smith rejoined. “Clandestine, silent, invisible, and deadly.” His uncle and brothers nodded. I wouldn’t want to face off against his clan in a vendetta.
“Setting ships on fire and letting them drift down on enemy fleets has been used since ancient times,” Pitt pointed out. “This only adds technological precision to the idea. But drifting mines are hardly the most ingenious part of Fulton’s scheme. Explain, Robert.”
“While some of my torpedoes can be released from British warships to float with tide and current, I suggest another group be aimed precisely with what I call a catamaran.” Fulton stood and whisked a cloth off an easel. Underneath was a diagram of an invention I hadn’t seen before.
“This craft has two sealed pontoons with the torpedo suspended between. Weighted with lead, the contraption is almost entirely submerged, making it hard to see or sink. Two helmsmen steer with a paddle, aiming for specific ships and specific mooring cables. As they near the target, one yanks a lanyard to set the clo
ckwork ticking, releases the torpedo, and they paddle the catamaran away.”
“Paddle where?” Popham asked. I admired such practicality.
“To English ships waiting offshore. It will take pluck, of course, but the doughty rogues who steer this weapon might turn the tide of war.”
All the Smiths turned to look at me. I hastened to speak up. “Damned clever, like all Yankee ingenuity. As an American myself, I’ll direct the attack from a quarterdeck, given my knowledge of the French port. I can study the charts, observe the weather, and make calculations off the tide tables.”
“Tide tables!” Sidney Smith laughed. “I know you too well to think you’d be content with that, Ethan. Nor would I trust your arithmetic. No, no, this is the perfect job for you and your giant friend, Pasques. Doughty rogues indeed! And you both speak fluent French, in case you’re hailed by suspicious lookouts. By God, I’ll wish I was with you, paddling toward the entire French navy and army with blackened face and dark little cap, lonely spearhead for the might of England, unleashing a positive cataclysm of rockets, mines, and cannon fire.”
“You can take my place,” I offered hopelessly.
“Alas, I’m chained to high command. But you can unleash a hideous new way of warfare. Not quite sporting to sneak in like that, but effective, what? Yours will become a peculiar kind of glory, but glory nonetheless.”
“I’ll slip you so close we’ll smell their damned snails,” Johnstone added.
“It is the garlic one smells,” Pasques contributed.
I cleared my throat. “Sir Sidney, I thought you didn’t trust me after my poor performance as a spy in France?”
“Which is why I know you’re burning to prove yourself, Ethan. Sign on to make this work, and your friend Robert there gets a lucrative contract from the admiralty to build more of his devil machines.”
“Bully for him.”
“Sign on, and history turns a new chapter.”
“History will flip its own pages without any help from me.”
“Sign on,” he said, looking at me intently, “and you’ll win passage to Venice to find your wife and son.”
CHAPTER 23
The French masts combed the sky like a line of dead timber, backlit by lanterns on the hills of Boulogne. The British ships were entirely dark, and we ghosted to attack on a light midnight breeze, planning to win the war not with blazing line of battle but secret weapons. The captains and sailors I met thought we inventors were eccentric at best and bound for bedlam at worst, but they were under orders to let us try.
Our mission was to set ablaze the line of ships guarding Boulogne, and then all the invasion craft inside the harbor. Our plan was to attack first with Fulton’s torpedoes, and then with volleys of Congreve’s rockets.
My job was to get things off to a rousing start.
It had taken nine agonizing months since returning to England to prove myself, lay new plans, and train for this mission, all the while with no word of my wife and son. I was wildly impatient to search for them, but Smith kept a close eye on me, and two warring nations stood in my way. So maybe this inventive warfare could end the conflict. My separation from Astiza had stretched to an eternity, but perhaps this night eternity would have an end.
Fulton built two pontoons connected by thwarts, with a long cylinder slung beneath that was packed with gunpowder. This was the torpedo. Each component floated, but lead sank this “catamaran” so that the top of the twin pontoons was barely above the surface of the water and the torpedo itself was entirely submerged to protect it from gunfire. Pasques and I straddled each pontoon like riders on horses, dressed in black with our faces coated with polish. Once released from our mother ship, we were to paddle with the tide to reach the anchor cable of a moored French naval vessel, tie on the torpedo, and paddle away.
“All that’s required is pluck and genius to reach the anchor cable undetected and set the clock ticking under the very eyes of the enemy,” Fulton told me after the catamaran was lowered over the side of the Johnstone’s Phantom, clunking ominously against its hull. “Having first landed and then escaped from France, you’ve demonstrated the skulking skills necessary. And your French companion there has strength.”
“I didn’t accomplish a thing. Pasques is helping out of desperation.”
“That’s because you didn’t have the aid of modern science, except for sympathetic ink. Now American ingenuity is on your side. We live in an age of invention and experimentation, and you’ve been chosen by fate to pioneer its wonders.”
Smith, who’d been rowed over from the flagship to witness our launching, seconded this endorsement by pumping my hand. “This time you have the chance to crush the entire invasion and write Nelson about how you did it, Gage. He’ll be wild with jealousy.” Smith and Nelson respected each other as warriors but were inevitable rivals for public acclaim. Nelson thought Smith a flamboyant and impractical dreamer, while Smith thought Nelson vain and annoyingly lucky, even though the admiral had lost an eye, a limb, his marriage, and any ounce of fat he’d once possessed.
“And why aren’t you paddling, Robert?” I asked the inventor.
“I’m the bow and you’re the arrow, Ethan. The quickest way back to Astiza is through the French fleet.” He pointed, as if I didn’t know which direction my renewed enemy was. “Start your lethal clockwork for love.”
So Pasques straddled one pontoon to prove himself to English service, and I straddled the other to end the damned war. If the invasion scheme could be foiled, Napoleon somehow toppled, Catherine captured, and peace returned, I could find my family without interference.
“Are you ready, Pasques?”
“More than you know, my friend.”
Once we got under way we said not a word, knowing how sound can carry across water. I pointed at a particularly promising dark shape, Pasques nodded, and we aimed our awkward craft at the warship’s anchor cable, which curved from its bow down into the dark sea. The French ships were anchored bow to stern to form a wall of cannon-studded wood. French land batteries flanked each side.
Our first problem was that the tide threatened to carry us past the intended anchor hawser, and only by digging in my paddle to pivot our ungainly craft at the last moment did I manage to snag the rope. Our stern kept swinging, so Pasques, who remained a poor swimmer, had to slide himself carefully forward to grasp the weedy cable in his big paws, holding us so we didn’t drift down on the enemy ship. I glanced up at the looming bluff of its bow. There was a knob up there that might be a sentry’s head, but no alarm was given. It was a cloudy night, and we were blotted out against a sea of ink. Or so I hoped.
It was eerie to rest there a moment. I could hear the creak of tackle, the mutter of French voices, and the slap of waves against hulls. I took quiet breaths as if it might make a difference. We hung just under the stern of the next ship in line, its stern windows a great bank of mullioned glass and the top of its rudder like the fin of a whale.
The rope to attach the torpedo to the ship’s cable was at the front of our contraption, so Pasques tied it off while I pried off a cover and set the timer.
“Have you set the fuse?” he whispered.
“It’s ticking.”
We had three minutes to escape.
When we pulled the pins to release each hull from the torpedo, they squealed.
“Qui est là?” a lookout challenged.
Our catamaran came apart. The torpedo floated by itself. In theory, the line at its nose was just long enough to let it drift down on the ship. We backed with our paddles, my pontoon accidentally banging the explosive-filled coffer and making me wince. This was not as easy as it looked on Fulton’s diagrams.
A lantern lit. “Anglais!”
There was a boom, and a foretop blunderbuss erupted, spraying an ark of musket balls at the shadow we made. Waterspouts sprang all around us, some bullets pin
ging off our lead-covered hulls.
“Merde,” Pasques muttered.
Miraculously, we’d not been hit, but we were in it now. Shouts and bells sounded up and down the French line. Gunport doors lifted like lion mouths, and muzzles trundled forward to aim at British ships that couldn’t be seen yet. Muskets fired blindly into the dark, the stabs of light trying to find us. I dared not shout to my companion, but he was digging his paddle into the water as furiously as I was, both of us driving our separated pontoons that were as maneuverable as soggy logs. It felt like Napoleon’s entire navy and army were trying to take a bead on us.
The clockwork kept ticking.
Paddling as furiously as a Canadian voyageur, I seemed barely to budge a pontoon sheathed in metal and as easy to steer as a mule. I cursed that we hadn’t time to try this in England before our attack. The tide was carrying us down the French line even as we strove to work away from it. Our saving grace was that the current was so swift that the blind shooting was throwing up spouts of water well behind us now.
For an instant, I allowed myself hope. Maybe the crazy scheme would really work! I’d be a hero, Pasques would have a new country, and the British would send us on to look for Astiza, Harry, and a medieval artifact.
And then the Frenchman looked over his shoulder.
“The torpedo is following.”
I wrenched around. The bomb had somehow come loose from the anchor cable and was drifting merrily in our wake, almost keeping pace despite our furious paddling. It was only a hundred feet behind, as persistent as a duckling.
Ticking remorselessly.
“We need them to sink it!” I shouted in English. “Here! Shoot here!” I made a splash with my paddle.
“Imbecile!” my companion cried.
Cannon blasts erupted, the suck of their trajectory almost tipping me over. As a professional gambler, I was calculating that the torpedo was longer than my narrow silhouette and that such odds meant a cannonball might sink it before hitting me. There were slaps as several balls skipped off the waves. The French cannon flashes were answered by British ones. Both fleets lit up.
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