So Near So Far by C. Northcote Parkinson

Author:C. Northcote Parkinson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: McBooks Press
Published: 1981-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

INVASION PLANS

THE WINTER of 1803–4 might have been spent mostly ashore but Rear-Admiral Knight now thought proper to maintain a show of activity. Addington’s government was tottering under heavy attack and Lord St Vincent had to prove that its naval side was unmatched for vigilance. So Knight kept his squadron busy although with little to show for it. On the French side the sole activity was in slowly assembling the invasion fleet at Boulogne and the adjacent ports. Many of the landing craft were built at small harbours to the westward. When completed they were sent to Boulogne in batches of four or five, keeping close to the French coast and running for shelter whenever a British man-of-war appeared. Under the guns of the nearest battery they would wait until the coast was clear and then resume their voyage. On rare occasions they were caught too far from harbour and were driven ashore and wrecked. Something could be made of this in the Gazette but Delancey, for one, thought that these efforts were useless. He had been in favour of an active policy in summer but these efforts in winter involved too much wear and tear. Apart from that, he preferred to see the landing craft full of troops before he attacked them. All he wanted, in the meanwhile, was to capture a specimen gunboat for future use. The Rear-Admiral was sufficiently impressed by this idea to place two sloops, Cynthia and Plover, under his orders and allot him a cruising area between Cherbourg and Le Havre. Attached to this small force was the captured French fishing vessel Pauline manned by Lieutenant Le Couteur of Jersey with a partly Channel Islands crew, all clad as French fishermen. The hunting ground was the Baie de Seine, the stretch of coast where the landing craft would be tempted seawards, partly to shorten the distance from Barfleur to Le Havre and partly because that coast is particularly dangerous. Delancey thought that a capture might be made off the Plateau de Calvados. Assuming that the landing craft came from the coast of Brittany, they would round the Cap de la Hague and so eastwards. If pursued off the coast of Normandy they would make for Le Havre by going close inshore around Trouville. In that area an innocent-looking French fishing boat would snap up the last of them and the others would be too conscious of pursuit to turn back and attempt a rescue. They would all have crews for the passage only, signed on for the one voyage, not men craving for a place in naval history or national legend. The success of the operation must depend upon placing the fishing boat between the gunboats and their possible place of refuge. It was also essential that the capture should be made without damaging the prey.

Delancey’s plan was sound enough but it depended for its success upon the enemy doing what they ought to do. For weeks they failed to play the part assigned to them, there being no movement of landing craft at all.

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