So Near So Far (24 page)

“Well, they have been fortunate so far. What little wind there was has died away to nothing. There is a flat calm and a dark night. From the French point of view it is now or never.”

“We should be on our way,” said Mr Xenophon, and led his party into the street. There his men separated and disappeared into the darkness. The night's adventure had begun and Delancey cursed inwardly about having sent his boats out on patrol, involving the risk of their clashing with boats from the
guard frigate. But what else could he have done? He could not leave his commissioned officers without a role to play, useless as he thought them to be. Nor did they present the only hazard for the garrison commander at Deal knew nothing about the expected danger. One of his patrols could clash with the marines. Secrecy is essential and yet, he reflected grimly, there can be too much of it.

When
Corsican
appeared, just before 3 A.M., Delancey was sitting on top of Walmer Castle's boundary wall, looking fixedly seawards. Beside him, Mr Xenophon was looking towards the castle. They were both well concealed by a tree which grew against the wall on the landward side. Keeping still and maintaining silence, they were immensely thankful for a warm night. Saying nothing, Delancey touched his companion's arm and pointed seawards. Through his night glass he could just make out the trail of sparks as the steam-vessel approached, after passing the southern end of the Goodwin Sands. The guard frigate lay at anchor about one mile offshore, to the north of the enemy's course and so well to the left of the picture. Delancey handed his night glass to Mr Xenophon who presently handed it back again. “So you were right,” he whispered, “and the frigate lies motionless in a dead calm.” In another half-hour the steam-vessel was abreast of Walmer but no longer headed in their direction. She was steering almost directly towards the frigate but would probably pass her on the far side. At this point the
Corsican
signalled to the shore, a light flashing four times and then, after a pause, twice more. Contact with Fabius had evidently been made.

Delancey felt sorry for Captain Harding of the
Lizard.
What could he make of this spectacle, he who had never seen a
steam-vessel before and who had been given no warning that one might appear? All he could see was a trail of sparks in the night. All he would be able to hear, as this apparition approached, was the unfamiliar noise of the engine. Harding reacted, predictably, with a flare which lit the whole scene for half a minute. Through the night-glass Delancey made out the
Corsican
as a schooner-rigged craft, with no sail set, flying the American flag and towing something astern. Ensigns are not flown at night and this one had obviously been hoisted in anticipation of that flare. As Fulton's name was well known the American flag might not be unexpected. Delancey could imagine Harding's voice on the speaking trumpet, telling
Corsican
to heave to or whatever you do with a steam-vessel, dammit, so as to bring her to a standstill.

The Frenchman responded by altering course so as to pass under the frigate's stern. Then he altered course so as to reach a position on her starboard beam. Watching helplessly, Delancey remembered that the catamaran was a possible threat, a floating box packed with gunpowder, triggered off by pulling a lanyard. If this was the thing being towed, the two sharp changes of course would swing the devilish device against the anchored frigate. If only Harding had been warned. But what, anyway, could he have done? A few minutes later the scene was lit again by a bright flash, quickly followed by the thunderclap of the explosion. It seemed to Delancey that the frigate's stern had been blown off. There was another flare and the sound of a gun but the steam-vessel was now directly ahead of the frigate and there was hardly a gun that could be brought to bear. The
Lizard
must in any case be sinking and all efforts would now go towards lowering her boats. She was on fire aft and there
was light sufficient to see the activity amidships. By the same light Delancey could see that his own boats were coming to the rescue. The fools! But he could hardly blame his officers. Anyone else in their position might well have done the same. But there was the enemy in sight and his own first line of defence had gone! Now the frigate was settling by the stern, her bows in the air, and only a single boat in the water. Most of her men would clearly be drowned and there was nothing he could do to save them. Harding, he knew, would go down with his ship. Now the fire was extinguished by the rising water and darkness closed in upon the scene of the tragedy.

“Poor devils!” muttered Delancey. “How many of them can swim a mile?”

“Only a handful, I should guess,” replied Mr Xenophon, “but boats should come out from Deal.”

A blue flare was lit by one of the boats belonging to the
Vengeance
doubtless to facilitate the rescue operation, but the light also showed that
Corsican
had lowered two boats which were now pulling towards the shore, one directly towards Walmer Castle, the other towards some point further south. All being well, these two parties would be dealt with by Topley and Bartlett respectively, leaving Northmore's men without opponents. But where did
Nautilus II
come into the French plan? Resistance was expected and the purpose of the two boats must be to draw our fire and keep our men occupied. Meanwhile on a flank (probably the left from the enemy's point of view—the flank further from Deal and its garrison)
Nautilus II
would land a small party, perhaps four or five men, to make contact with Fabius, who by then would have the Prime Minister as captive. Delancey whispered his conclusions to Mr
Xenophon and added that he would now lead half of Northmore's men along the path to the far side of the castle.

“All is quiet on this side,” he explained, “but I'll leave Northmore here all the same.”

He scrambled down from the wall and was presently striding down the path behind where Northmore's men had been posted. His worry was lest he should be fired on by his own seamen, but Northmore, as he soon realised, had his men well under control.

“Who goes there?” came the challenge, to which he replied with the password, “Vengeance.” He was then allowed to proceed, the sentinel adding “Beg pardon, sir. You'll find Mr Northmore a hundred yards down the path.”

“Thank you, Cowling.”

Delancey was challenged again by Northmore's orderly and was presently able to tell Northmore that he wanted twelve of his men and a petty officer. “All is quiet on this flank,” he explained. “There may be an attempt to outflank us on the other side.”

“May I come with you, sir?”

“No, you mayn't.”

“Very good, sir. I'll collect the men.”

It took ten minutes to assemble the party, by which time there was a distant sound of musketry, probably from Topley's sector. So Delancey led his party on with what speed was possible in the dark. The seamen followed him, cursing under their breath, and Yates, a boatswain's mate, brought up the rear.

“Halt! Who goes there?”

“Vengeance.”

The next challenge came from Mr Bartlett's orderly. The
marine officer himself was too occupied even to look round.

“I'm holding my fire, sir,” he explained in a whisper, “until the enemy reach the shore.”

There was a pause and Bartlett said, “Ready with the flare, Calvert.”

After another minute came the sound of a boat, being beached.

“Flare!” A blue light revealed the beach, the boat and the enemy. “Fire!”

There followed a scattered volley and the figures on the shore collapsed, one of them however trying to get back into the boat.

“Corporal Samson's party—advance at the double!” Came the sound of the marines' boots crashing through the shingle.

“Well done, the marines!” said Delancey, and led his own party away. When he made contact with Mr Topley he learnt that the other boat had already been dealt with and that there would be no prisoners. He hurried on and was finally rewarded by the glimpse of a distant lantern on the beach itself. As he came near it he was challenged “Qui vive?” and replied by telling the Frenchman that he was a prisoner. There followed the sound of a musket falling to the ground and Delancey, advancing, found a French seaman standing guard over a beached fishing boat. Just beyond the boat the light from the lantern revealed
Nautilus II,
a strange-looking vessel with a glass turret on top. Abaft the lookout turret was a tube which rose another three feet or so—probably the means of ventilation. Looking inside with the lantern he found, as he had expected, that her crew, apart from the one man, had gone ashore. She was driven, he could see, by a screw and this was propelled
by crank handles on which three men could work at the same time. She would be manned by a commander, who would also be the helmsman, and probably six men, allowing three to rest while three worked. She had been cast off by
Corsican
which had towed her across Channel, probably at about the time that the steam-vessel had been sighted, and then had made her final approach while submerged and invisible. The plan would be to rejoin the
Corsican
with Mr Pitt a prisoner on board. It would soon be daylight but no one would dare to intercept
Corsican
with such a hostage at risk. Her fuel would all have been used up but she could have sailed home at leisure with the first breeze. It had been, he admitted to himself, an ingenious plan. Looking wonderingly round the small interior of the submersible craft, Delancey found much to admire. To begin with, she was perfectly dry without any sign of even the smallest leak. She had been coated with pitch and he guessed that this coating had been repeated and thorough. The screw shaft had admitted no water at the point where it pierced the hull. All the workmanship appeared to be excellent. Admitting this, Delancey was still very certain that a brilliant idea may be less important, in practice, than the technique essential to translate theory into practice. Anyone with a lively imagination could devise, on paper, a flying machine or a balloon driven by some sort of engine. The real difficulty lay in making the thing, applying a watchmaker's expertise to a bigger task and one on which one's life might depend. The
Nautilus II
was ahead of her time. An underwater boat should not be built of timber but of some metal—copper perhaps—and it would need a steam engine. Was that possible though? How could the vessel carry enough coal? And how was the explosive charge to be pinned on the enemy? Had Fulton really solved that problem? It seemed to
Delancey that
Nautilus II
was well designed to carry out the sort of mission on which she had been sent but ill-suited for any other type of operation. The practical difficulties were immense and all the available resources in brains, money, and vision were committed to the direction of the present war. For use in some future conflict there might be all sorts of elaborate machines but they would have to be developed during a previous period of peace.

Dismissing these thoughts, Delancey returned to the matter in hand. What had happened at the castle? For all he knew the Prime Minister might have been killed by now. Lantern in hand, he scrambled off the underwater craft and sent his prisoner off under escort. Then he collected his men and prepared to follow the path inland which the Frenchmen would have taken and which led, as he knew, to the castle. Hardly had the march begun, however, when Delancey's party was fired upon from the sea. The volley was, luckily, inaccurate, but musket balls flew overhead, hitting the rocks beyond and whining off on ricochet. Delancey could guess what had happened. Wetherall and Seddon had landed their rescued seamen and were now back on station, eager to prove their vigilance. Whichever of them it was now lit a blue flame and Delancey, jumping on board the fishing boat, waved a white handkerchief and hoped to God that he would be recognised. There was no more firing and Mr Wetherall presently came ashore to offer his apologies. “Beg pardon, sir, I took you for the enemy.”

“Very well, your apology is accepted. Your next task, Mr Wetherall, is to tow this queer vessel into deep water. You will find fifteen fathoms south-west of the Sand Head. When you have depth enough, sink her. Is that understood?”

“Sink her, sir?”

”Yes, knock a hole through her bottom. Do it quietly and then take your boat back to the ship. Say nothing about this to anyone else and tell your men to say nothing about it to their messmates. Your story will be that you tried to tow this experimental craft back to the Downs but that she sank on the way, being quite unseaworthy. Is that clear?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Delancey assembled his men again—they had scattered to take cover when fired upon—and resumed his march inland after ten minutes wasted. Whatever had happened in the castle, he would be too late to play any part in it unless it were to cut off the retreat of the enemy survivors. He did in fact capture three in this way and brought them back to the castle. The drawbridge was down, the gate open, and Mr Xenophon met him in the courtyard which was well lit by lanterns.

“The skirmish is over, sir. We have seven prisoners, two of them still unconscious. You have brought in three more. The rest escaped.”

“And Fabius?”

“He escaped as of course he would. He or his men killed a footman and strangled a young chambermaid who must have tried to raise the alarm. The poor child could not have been more than eighteen years old. She could have been tied up and gagged. There was no need to kill her. Oh, yes, Fabius was here all right. One can recognise his handiwork.”

It was a strange scene, with Pitt's servants collected at windows and doors and just a hint of the coming daybreak. Mr Xenophon went off to make another search of the grounds and it was Delancey who now had to face a tall and imperious woman, one he recognised as Lady Hester Stanhope, niece of the Prime Minister, who had been Pitt's hostess and chatelaine
since the summer of 1803. She was aged 27, he had been told, past the ordinary age for marriage, and Pitt was her only hero. She was not beautiful and at that hour of the morning was not even attractive. She was formidable, however, and her sarcasm had made her enemies or so he had heard, one of them being the Earl Stanhope himself. When Pitt was briefly absent, as must happen fairly often, she held sway over the Cinque Port Volunteers—Delancey had glimpsed her reviewing them—and she was honorary Colonel besides of the 15th Light Dragoons and the Berkshire Militia. At the present moment she was fuming over the disturbance and over the fact that she had not been called and asked, presumably, to take command at least until the Prime Minister should appear.