1805

1805 Read Online Free PDF

Book: 1805 Read Online Free PDF
Author: Richard Woodman
the salver. ‘Thank you. I have two bags of mail for the fleet in my barge and a draft of forty-three men for the squadron . . .’
    â€˜I shall inform the Captain of the Fleet, sir. Sir William, your permission?’
    â€˜By all means.’ The admiral bent over the opened dispatches as the flag-lieutenant left the cabin. The servant withdrew and Drinkwater was left with Cornwallis, his immobile secretary and another man, a dark stranger in civilian clothes, who seemed to be regarding Drinkwater with some interest and whose evident curiosity Drinkwater found rather irksome and embarrassing. He avoided this scrutiny by studying his surroundings. The great cabin of His Britannic Majesty’s 112-gun ship
Ville de Paris
was a luxurious compartment compared with his own. As a first-rate line of battleship the
Ville de Paris
was almost a new ship, built as a replacement for Rodney’s prize, the flagship of Admiral De Grasse, taken at the Battle of Saintes in the American War and so badly knocked about that she had foundered on her way home across the stormy Atlantic. It was an irony that a ship so named should bear the flag of the officer responsible for keeping the French fleet bottled up in Brest. Drinkwater did not envy the admiral his luxury: the monotony of blockade duty would have oppressed him. Even in a frigate attached to the inshore squadron cruising off Ushant, the perils of tides and rocks would far outweigh the risk of danger from the enemy coupled as they were with the prevailing strong westerly winds. As his old friend Richard White constantly wrote and told him, he was lucky to have avoided such an arduous and thankless task. There were a few who had carved out a glorious niche for themselves with brilliant actions. Pellew, for instance, in the
Indefatigable
and with
Amazon
in company had caught the Frenchbattleship
Droits de l’Homme
, harried her all night and forced her to become embayed in Audierne Bay where she was wrecked. The thought of embayment still caused him a shudder and he recollected that Pellew’s triumph had also caused the loss of
Amazon
from the same cause. No, for the most part the maintenance of this huge fleet with its frigates and its supply problems was simply to keep Admiral Truguet and the principal French fleet capable of operating in the Atlantic, securely at its moorings in Brest Road. By this means Napoleon would not be able to secure the naval supremacy in the Channel that he needed to launch his invasion. Whatever the monotony of the duty there was no arguing its effectiveness. All the same Drinkwater was not keen to be kept under the severe restraint of commanding a frigate on blockade.
    There was a rustle as Cornwallis lowered the papers and leaned back in his seat. He was a portly gentleman of some sixty years of age with small features and bright, keen blue eyes. He smiled cordially.
    â€˜Well, Captain Drinkwater, you are not to join us I see.’
    â€˜No, Sir William. I am under Lord Keith’s command, attached to the Downs Squadron but with discretionary orders following the delivery of those dispatches.’ He nodded at the contents of the waterproof packet which now lay scattered across Cornwallis’s table.
    â€˜Which are . . . ?’
    â€˜To return to the Strait of Dover along the French coast, harrying trade and destroying enemy preparations for the invasion.’
    â€˜And not, I hope, wantonly setting fire to any French villages en route, Captain?’ It was the stranger in civilian dress who put this question. Drinkwater opened his mouth to reply but the stranger continued, ‘Such piracy is giving us a bad name, Captain Drinkwater, giving the idea of invasion a certain respectability among the French populace that might otherwise be not over-enthusiastic about M’sieur Bonaparte. Hitherto, whatever the enmities between our two governments, the people of the coast have maintained a, er,
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