Invasion

by Julian Stockwin

  The mainsails had lost their taut straining and their lines were manhandled to clear the nettings and other gear as Teazer nosed into the wind. “Haul in! Mainsail haul!” Kydd bellowed.

  Hand over hand the mainyard was braced around at a furious pace, the fore remaining on the old tack. As Teazer rotated through the wind’s eye this levered round the after part of the ship. The fore as well took the wind aback but on the opposite tack, pushing the bows away on to the new course.

  Everyone knew the stakes. It was the synchrony of movements that held the key, and Teazer responded nobly. “Haul of all!” Kydd ordered exultantly—the main would fill and draw just as fast as the new weather tack and lee-sheets could be brought in. The fore was braced around smartly and, with a brisk banging and flapping, the sails caught. Teazer leaned to her new course, the men frantically at work to get in every foot of their hauling.

  It was done—and beautifully. Kydd grunted, satisfied. His ship was as capable as she was pretty.

  As they settled to their rushing passage he looked across at the barque. It was now on the same board and, although it was ahead by a considerable margin, the game was far from over. Their prey was clawing as close to the wind as it could, while Teazer, thanks to Kydd’s patient and careful estimates, lay to the wind with every sail drawing optimally.

  “We’re fore-reaching,” the master admitted, eyeing the other vessel. Their tracks were converging and Teazer was coming up on the barque with every minute. Kydd found himself clenching his fists, frustrated that there now seemed little more that could be done.

  The boatswain cleared his throat awkwardly. “Er, sir, when I was a younker I seen a trick once.”

  “Oh?”

  “Th’ lower yards, sir. T’ increase th’ traverse.”

  A square-rigged ship could lie only about six points to the wind, for the big spars swinging across the ship would come up against the mast stay and shrouds, a natural limit. Kydd glanced at the big mainyard above them, immovably up against the mainstay at the extremity of its traverse. “I’d like to know how, Mr. Purchet.”

  “Why, sir, we slacks off th’ truss-tackle as gives us play, an’ then cants down th’ weather yard-arm while we swigs off on th’ catharpings all we can.” This would allow the yard to slide up and into where the shrouds were at their narrowest—at the cost of the set of the sail.

  From his memory of studying for his lieutenant’s examination Kydd recalled the double tangent rule: the tangent of the angle of the wind to the yard should be twice that between yard and keel. This ensured that even a little achieved would see the effect multiplied. “We do it, Mr. Purchet,” he said. It would be tricky work: with sails drawing hard, the truss-ropes held the big spar against the mast. To slacken them deliberately . . .

  With both main- and fore-course cocked up at an angle they sheeted in once more.

  “Half a point, I’d say,” the master said, clearly impressed.

  While this was not dramatic, it would amount over the miles to several ship’s lengths further to weather. Could it make the difference? Kydd eyed the distances. The object was to point higher into the wind yet retain a faster speed, culminating in an overlap at any distance to windward with the chase at his mercy under his lee. Should they end even yards to leeward it was certain to get away.

  Dowse assumed position next to Poulden and monitored closely the flutter at the edge of the main. It could so easily change to the sail taken violently aback. “Be ye yare at th’ helm, son,” he said quietly, aware of the tender situation. “I’ll bear watch.” Together they worked to bring the racing sloop to within a knife’s edge of the wind.

  “Luff ’n’ lie,” Dowse murmured, and Poulden inched over the wheel. “Dyce!” he ordered. “An’ nothing t’ leeward.”

  Teazer flew. In the gathering dusk she seemed to reach out after the fleeing barque, every man aboard watching forward and feeling for the gallant ship now doing her utmost for them. If the chase ended triumphantly, the epic pursuit would be talked about for years to come.

  In the further distance the sullen dark mass of northern France lay across their path, with the lights of Cherbourg dead ahead and their prey now visibly nearer, as though it were being hauled closer on a rope. It was evident that before long a convergence would take place.

  In the last of the sunset they were finally within cannon shot of the vessel to windward. Kydd spared a fleeting sympathy for the unknown captain, who must now be seeing the stone quays of the entrance to the harbour, but then he thought of the prisoners soon to taste freedom. “Place us within hailing distance, Mr. Dowse,” Kydd said—but suddenly the situation changed utterly.

  The barque fell away to leeward in a tight turn, wearing about to place itself directly before the wind—away from the safety of Cherbourg and back towards where they had come from. It caught Kydd completely off guard and it was some time before they could throw off the gear they had rigged for the chase against the wind.

  It was a meaningless move: there was no friendly port to the north or anything except the endless desolation of rocks and reefs before Barfleur and there was now no question but that Teazer was the swifter. The barque had made good distance by the sudden wearing but Teazer was closing rapidly, the wind astern allowing any course she chose. When the other ship veered towards the shore Teazer did likewise. At this rate it would be over before they made Cap Lévi even though the Frenchman had put up a fine show.

  Then, half a mile short of the cape and with Teazer only a few hundred yards astern, the vessel sheered towards the land and, in the gathering darkness, rounded to and calmly let go her anchor. Incredulous, Kydd was about to give the orders for a final reckoning when the mystery resolved. In a flurry of gunfire, bright flashes stabbed from the squat fort on the promontory above. In the gloom he had overlooked Fort Lévi. The guns were of respectable calibre and quite capable of smashing Teazer to a ruin well before he and his crew could secure their prize. It was all over.

  Circling out of range, Kydd knew he should give best to the Frenchman now sheltering under the guns of the fort and move on. But his blood was up and he would not give in. Boats after dark—a cutting-out expedition! The French would imagine that he would give up and sail away during the night and therefore would wait patiently for morning before making for Cherbourg—but they would be in for an unwelcome surprise.

  The night was moonless, impenetrably black and relatively calm; perfect conditions. The fort obliged by carelessly showing lights that were ideal navigation markers and Kydd set to with the planning.

  He reviewed his forces: the barque would be manned by a prize-crew only and should not present a serious difficulty for a prime man-o’-war’s boarding party. The main object was to crowd seamen aboard in sufficient quantity that sail could be loosed and set before the fort could react. Too few, and with three masts to man, there would be a fatal delay. So it must be every boat and all the hands that could be spared.

  There would be two main divisions: the armed boarders as first wave over the larboard bulwarks and the seamen to work the ship over the starboard. It was essential to have the best men in the lead, those who would not flinch at mounting the rigging in the dark and with the initiative and sea skills to know what needed doing without being told.

  “Mr. Hallum, are ye familiar with the barque rig?”

  “Er, no, sir.”

  “Then I’ll take command in the boats.” There were no barquerigged vessels in the Royal Navy and although the major difference was only in the fore-and-aft-rigged mizzen Kydd felt it was probably asking too much of this staid officer. And, of course, he himself had made a voyage to Botany Bay as the reluctant master of a convict-ship barque in the days of the last peace.

  There was no point in delay. Divisions for boarding were quickly apportioned and equipment made ready—cutlasses, boarding pistols, along with a fresh-sharpened tomahawk for every fourth man to use in slashing through boarding nettings and the like.

  Faces darkened by
galley soot, the Teazers awaited Kydd’s order. He peered into the blackness once more: nothing to see, no sound. They could wait for the last moment before moonrise just before midnight, but little would be gained by sitting about.

  “Get aboard!” he whispered. Men tumbled into the boats silently, nesting their weapons along the centre-line and taking up their oars.

  The pinnace left the comfort of the ship’s side, lay off in the inky blackness and waited for the barge and cutter to take position. “On me,” Kydd called, in a low voice and the small flotilla set off for a point somewhere to the south of the twinkling lights of the fort where the barque must lie.

  They pulled in silence, rags in the thole pins to muffle the clunk of oars and nothing but the swash of their passage to disturb the night. He’d spell the men before they—

  Away to the right but frighteningly close, a scream in French—a boat out rowing guard! A musket banged into the night and another. Then a deeper-voiced command had the French boat’s crew pulling for their lives—directly away.

  Keyed up for a desperate clash at arms, Kydd couldn’t understand why they were running. Then he saw. Starting as a wisp of flame, which mounted quickly then cascaded down in a flaming mass, bundles of straw had been lit and thrown over the walls of the fort. More fell and their flaring leaped up until the dark sea was illuminated by a pitiless red glare with themselves utterly revealed at its centre.

  “Turn about!” Kydd bellowed, to the boats behind him. “Go back!”

  Disbelieving, they hesitated. Then the guns of the fort opened up and the reason for the guard-boat’s departure was apparent; it had hastily cleared the field of fire for the artillery and now the cannon thundered vengefully into the night at Teazer’s fleeing boats.

  Kydd flopped wearily into his cabin chair, his face still smeared with soot. “Be damned t’ it!” he muttered. “To be beaten after such a handsome chase. At the least we got away with our skins.”

  Renzi was in the other chair, looking grave. “It seems the Revolutionary Army does not know much about night firing over sea, Tom. You were fortunate.”

  “Aye—but the Frenchy captain was a canny one. No codshead he—I should have smoked it.” He frowned, and added sorrowfully, “I should so have liked to set the English crew free, Nicholas. It’s a hard enough life they face now.”

  Renzi nodded, staring down. Then he lifted his gaze to Kydd. “There’s conceivably still a prospect of a successful outcome, should we be so bold.”

  “A direct assault on ’em by daylight? I think not. If I’m seen to hazard men’s lives on a merchantman it’s to be understood as I’m prize-takin’ to the neglect of my orders.”

  “Quite. But I’m not referring to courage before cannon and blade, rather the devious application of cunning and deceit to attain the same object.” At Kydd’s puzzled look, he continued, “A stratagem as may secure your ship without need for overweening force, that asks the enemy to allay his fears and put down his arms . . .”

  “Nicholas, ye’re being hard to fathom. Are you saying we should creep up as they’re not looking, then—”

  “Not at all. Heaven forbid we should think to skulk about like your common spy,” Renzi said, with a shudder. “What crosses my mind is that we could perhaps turn our recent experience to account and . . .”

  As dawn’s early light stole over the little bay Teazer crept around Cap Lévi once more, her crew quietly at quarters and Kydd on her quarterdeck, tense and edgy. If Renzi’s stratagem failed they would be sailing to disaster and it could only be his responsibility.

  The bay opened up and the barque was still there. Now at two anchors it was heaved around ready for a rapid departure—and then Teazer had come on the scene. For now she lay watchful but at any moment . . .

  All depended on the effectiveness of the ruse. Teazer eased slowly into full view; a trumpet call sounded distantly from Fort Lévi but there was no hint of alarm.

  Boldly, Teazer continued on course, set to so on her way southward past the barque, yet still there was no clamour of the call to arms—could that be because she was being lured onwards? They rounded the last of the point, which now took them within range of the fort’s cannon. And nothing.

  Where was the cutter? It should be . . . but then, coming up fast, Linnet rounded the cape and, sighting Teazer, opened fire on her with six-pounders. Teazer answered shot for shot in desperation— encumbered with three invasion craft towing astern, she was in no position for rapid defensive manoeuvres.

  Was it working? No point in wondering now. They were committed. On Kydd’s order a string of random flags jerked uncertainly up Teazer’s signal halliards but the wind was blowing them unreadably away from the French.

  It was time. “Y’ know what to do, Poulden,” he told the helmsman. The wheel went over—and Teazer headed directly for Fort Lévi.

  The response was immediate. A gun cracked out from the highest turret but it was only to draw attention to the welcoming three-flag hoist. “By heaven, an’ we’ve carried it off,” Kydd breathed, and glanced up at the ruddy ochre sails that had done their work so well.

  Kydd had counted on the French having word passed of a brig with red sails due from Barfleur towing valuable invasion craft and, obligingly, had provided one. That it was being harried by the Royal Navy was only to be expected, of course, and that it was seeking protection beneath the guns of the fort was equally understandable.

  Confident that no French soldier could be expected to know the difference between two similar-sized brig-rigged ships, Kydd took Teazer in, gliding along the foreshore before the fortifications until, at precisely the right position, they hove to, preparing to anchor. Under threat of the shore guns the cutter abandoned its attack and hauled off—then seemed to have second thoughts and, curving round once more, placed herself in a daring show of bravado squarely alongside the barque that had been captured earlier by the French.

  Kydd played out the agreed scenario: the position this foolish brig captain had chosen to heave to in just happened to mask the fort’s field of fire. Horrified by the cutter’s audacious attack, he failed to notice the frantic signals from the fort and sent his men tumbling wildly into the boats and crossing to the barque’s rescue. Meanwhile the cutter’s men swarmed aboard in attack from the seaward side.

  The brig’s men scrambled over the other bulwarks and soon were fighting for their lives with the cutter’s fierce crew—but any cool observer might have been puzzled at the surprising increase in the number of men racing up from below . . .

  To all ashore it must quickly have become clear that the brig’s gallant rescue attempt had been in vain; by some means sail was got on the barque and, cables slipped, it headed for the open sea.

  But the brave souls in the brig were not going to let it get away— the invasion barges were hacked free and the ship turned seaward to chase after them. Under full sail the ships raced away until at last they had disappeared over the horizon.

  “Well, upon my soul, sir!” Admiral Saumarez sat back in amazement. “It does you the utmost credit. When balked of your capture you turned to guile and artifice to accomplish what main force could not. To be quite frank I’d not have thought it, er, in your nature, Mr. Kydd.”

  Fighting down the urge to give Renzi his due—he had been insistent that his role was not to be mentioned—Kydd responded, “’Twas easily enough done, sir. The moon rose just after midnight, an’ by it we sighted the wreck an’ stripped it of fore- ’n’ main-topsails. The cut o’ the canvas wasn’t pretty but it sufficed an’ Linnet we found floggin’ gamely along. She seemed eager enough for the adventure. The rest, well . . .”

  “You’re too reticent, sir. Did you have a stiff opposition on boarding the Frenchy?”

  “That’s the pity of it, sir. They yielded t’ Linnet as we came over th’ bulwarks, so we needs must fight among ourselves.” He chuckled as he recalled goading the Linnets to have at the Teazers in order to keep up the pretence, and the bewilderment thi
s had caused among the French.

  “When we released the crew of the merchant ship from below they loosed and set sail tolerably quick.”

  “No one can doubt that at this moment they are drinking your health in a bumper, Mr. Kydd,” Saumarez said drily. “A pity the French got back their invasion craft, I suppose.”

  “For that, sir, ye can rest easy. The men took along the bungs for keepsakes, leaving ’em t’ sink.”

  This left Saumarez speechless. Then he laughed and clapped Kydd on the shoulder. “You’ve had a grand cruise, that’s not to be denied.”

  “Thank ’ee, sir.”

  The admiral’s expression turned thoughtful. “And it leaves me in something of a dilemma.”

  “Sir?”

  Saumarez crossed to the window and gazed down on the harbour scene. “This is a quiet station, as you know. Due mainly to the enterprise of officers of initiative such as yourself the enemy are kept cowering in their harbours and I should be grateful that one of your quality is under my command.” He turned back and regarded Kydd gravely. “Yet I cannot help but reflect that two elements converge that are in themselves unanswerable. The first, that the kingdom lies under a menace unparalleled in its history and in stern need of its most able warriors. The second, that your continued presence here will render it near impossible to achieve a distinguished action and hence preferment. In all conscience, I believe that your recent ill-usage deserves better.

  “Mr. Kydd, with great reluctance I’m going to have you and your ship released to the very forefront of the struggle. The Downs Squadron.”

  CHAPTER 3

  HOLDING BACK HIS EXCITEMENT, Kydd peered from the window of the coach as it crossed the bridge and ground up High Street past well-remembered sights from his youth. Renzi had been anxious to visit London so this time Kydd had journeyed to Guildford on his own.

  They approached the Angel posting house, the coachman cracking his whip to clear a path for the Portsmouth Flyer as it wheeled round and clattered into the courtyard. The snorts of the horses echoed in the confined space and their pungent aroma lay on the air as Kydd descended and went inside. He had taken rooms at the Angel as he didn’t want to burden his mother.