Before sunset the fleet had formed up opposite the port. The approach channel for the catamarans was resolved, the dispatch sloops positioned to seaward, and aboard each the process of arming the torpedoes was put in train.
Locust moved up between them, put its borrowed cluster of gigs in the water, and suddenly there was nothing further to do.
A sombre dusk fell; among the hills the campfires of Napoleon's host twinkled into existence, their myriad expanse a feral menace that seemed to reach right out to them. The last of the day's radiance hardened into a moonless night, a dark almost dense enough to touch. Surrounding ships lost their outline and were swallowed in the blackness, leaving only the single riding lights of the British fleet and the red and gold dots along the hills.
Kydd could only wait. His plans were straightforward enough but what were they next to the reality before him? The catamarans were already in the water but not the hogsheads, which must be swayed aboard fully armed and struck down on their gratings by feel—no lights could be allowed to betray warlike activity.
The watch mustered, and the volunteers. Sailors who had willingly stepped up when called upon that afternoon, who had trusted him in the matter of riding these infernal machines to victory against the foe or . . .
A lump rose in his throat. Would any of them survive the night? With false jollity, jokes were cracked in the age-old way as they pulled on their black guernseys, laced on dark caps and rubbed galley soot into their faces. Some yawned, a sure sign of pre-battle nerves.
"Sir—flagship!" The usual three riding lights in the tops of Monarch were replaced by four. As they watched, the fourth was dimmed. The signal.
"Into the catamarans, the volunteers," Kydd ordered crisply, trying to conceal his feelings.
Without speaking the first two went down the side and, with gasps at the cold, took their places in the catamaran scheduled to lead the attack. "As I live and breathe," Hallum whispered, "this is something I could not do, I confess it."
It was too much: in a rising tide of feeling Kydd leaned over and called hoarsely, "Timmins! Out o' the boat—I'm the one to lead the catamarans."
The group on the quarterdeck fell back in shock; Kydd wasted no time in stripping to his breeches, and when the dripping Timmins appeared on deck, he took the man's guernsey and cap, then went hastily over the side, only remembering at the last minute to throw at the open-mouthed lieutenant, "You have the ship, Mr. Hallum."
The sea was shockingly cold as Kydd settled into the little under-water seat and oriented himself. So close to the water the restless wavelets now held spite and Teazer loomed in the darkness, her barnacles and sea-growth so close.
There were voices; then Stirk was claiming the place of the other in the catamaran. He clambered into the forward seat, cursing vigorously at the cold.
"Thank ye, Toby," Kydd said, in a low voice.
"If 'n ye're going, Mr. Kydd, ye'll need one as knows th' buggers, like," Stirk grunted, and signalled up to the deck. As gunner's mate he had helped Duckitt instruct the others.
The first hogshead came, to be grappled by Stirk and struck down on the gratings. He made an expert slippery hitch, then gave another signal to the deck. The other came down aft, and Kydd struggled to ease the monstrous bulk onto its grating. Numb fingers passed the lashing and finished with the hitch to release it. "Shove off," he growled, pushing at the huge ship's side with his light scull. Almost sub-surface the catamaran was a heavy, awkward thing and he panted with the effort of getting it going. This was going to be near impossible, he thought, in despair.
They cleared Teazer's side and pulled out into the channel. Low hails came from others in the vicinity. Kydd looked about carefully, shivering all the while with the bitter cold. There seemed no betraying noise or bustle in the anchored fleet and, turning shorewards, he saw no sign of any French alarm. Then he peered into the blackness towards the distant and barely visible line of ships that were their target. No indications of suspicion—but, then, the French had every reason to suppose that if there was an assault it would be at dawn in the usual way.
He looked behind—nothing. Ahead, the line of ships. "We go," he hissed, and dug in his sculls.
It was an unreal and frightening world of cold, darkness and beckoning danger. Stroke after stroke, double feathered and as silent as possible, onward towards the target. Muffled splashes from behind told him that the others had fallen into line with him. Stroke, pull, return, stroke. On and on.
Then, quite suddenly, they were close enough to individual ships that they needed conscious alterations of course to head towards them—they were nearing the launch point and still no alarm. It was time to select a victim. Curiously there was no feeling, only the calculated judgement of range and bearing.
"Hssst!" Stirk stopped rowing.
"What is it?" whispered Kydd urgently.
"I thought I heard—It's a Frenchy!"
Then Kydd made out a regular creak and splash of oars in the blackness to the left. The enemy was rowing guard on the moored ships in a pinnace. "Get down!"
They bent as low as they could, faces slapped by the cold sea, and waited. Should he give orders to retreat now while they could? Kydd wondered. If they were discovered it would be slaughter with no mercy. Shivering violently, he heard the sound approach, then cross and, with no change of rhythm, move away to the right.
Apart from the ceaseless rustling of the night waters there was nothing more than a far-away peal of merriment, a shouted hail between sentries, anonymous sounds.
It was time for the climax. "Cast off the line, Toby—it's secured to the other." It was part of Fulton's plan to squeeze a ship between two explosions by connecting the two hogsheads with a line and cork float, which, on the incoming tide, would fetch up on their victim's anchor cable and inexorably draw in the charges on both sides.
"Set for twenty minutes, Toby," he called softly, and waited while the turns were made. "That'll do," he said, as casually as he could. "We'll launch now. Pull the peg, cuffin."
There was a jerk and Stirk turned and handed him the safety pin. Kydd's orders were that all pegs should be returned as a surety that the torpedoes had been launched properly. After a quick tug on the hitch and persuasion with both feet the giant carcass plunged into the sea with a shattering splash.
They dug in their sculls to move out the requisite hundred feet— but a sputtering and popping of muskets started urgently from the line of shore. They had been discovered. The sound grew and was joined by heavier guns.
"Pull!" Kydd gasped. They were moving parallel with the shore to launch the second hogshead but the firing grew steadily in intensity. The timing mechanism was already primed so he fumbled with the safety peg and footed the monstrous thing clear to splash weightily in the sea.
They had done it! Torpedoes away, nothing could stop their rapid retreat. But they found themselves stroking into a strong flood-tide. The riding lights at the masthead of the flagship were just dimly visible but now the shore artillery had added its weight to the barrage, and the entire foreshore of Boulogne was alive with gun-flash. It was only a matter of time before they were spotted—and the venom of a hundred guns unleashed on them.
They passed another catamaran going in the other direction, resolutely pressing forward into the inferno to its launch position, with others on their way behind. Kydd's eyes pricked at their bravery.
It was some minutes before he realised that, surprisingly, with all the blazing guns, there was no shot-strike nearby. Miraculously they had a chance: the gunners were night-blinded by the flash of their own guns and without a knowledge of what their targets were, even with fixed lines of fire, they were aiming high, presuming a usual form of attack.