1805 by Richard Woodman

goes!'
    'Steady as she goes, sir.'
    'Square the after-yards!'
    Antigone
steadied on her new course,
standing south under her three topsails, running before the wind inside
the shoals and parallel with the coast. It wanted an hour before high
water but here the tide ran north for several hours yet and they could
balance wind and tide, checking the ship's southward progress against
the tide, and thus wreak as much havoc as they possibly could while the
smoke from their own guns hung over their deck masking them from the
enemy. The motion of the deck eased considerably.
    'Mr Rogers! Shift over the starbowlines to assist at the
larboard batteries. Every gun-captain to choose his target and fire as
at a mark, make due allowance for elevation and roll. You may open
fire!'
    Drinkwater stared out to larboard. They were a mile from the
cliffs at Raventhun and suddenly spouts of water rose on their beam.
Drinkwater levelled his glass.
    'Mr Gillespy!'
    'Sir?'
    'D'you see that square shape over there, where the ground
falls away?'
    The boy nodded. 'Yes, sir.'
    'That's Ambleteuse fort. Be so kind as to point it out to Mr
Rogers so that he may direct the guns.'
    The little estuary that formed the harbour opened up on their
beam as
Antigone
exchanged shot with the fort.
Within the harbour they could see quite clearly a mass of rafted barges
crammed with soldiers, rocking dangerously as the sharp waves drove in
amongst them.
    A shower of splinters sprouted abruptly from the rail where a
ball struck home and more holes appeared in the topsails. Amidships the
launch was hit by three shot within as many minutes and then they were
passing out of range of the fort's embrasures. Rogers was leaping up
and down from gun to gun, exhorting his men and swearing viciously at
them when their aim failed. As the land rose again a battery of horse
artillery could be seen dashing at the gallop along the cliff. Suddenly
Drinkwater saw the officer leading the troop fling up his hand and the
gunners rein in their horses.
    'Mr Rogers! See there!' Rogers narrowed his eyes and stared
through the smoke that cleared slowly in the following wind. Then
comprehension struck him and he leant over the nearest gun and aimed it
personally. The Frenchmen had got their cannon unlimbered and were
slewing them round. They were shining brass cannon, field pieces of 8-
or 9-pound calibre, Drinkwater estimated, and they were ready loaded.
He saw white smoke flash from an almost simultaneous volley from the
five guns and a second later the shot whistled overhead, carrying off
the starboard quarter-boat davits and dumping the boat in the sea
alongside, where it trailed in its falls amongst the broken baulks of
timber.
    Amidships Rogers was howling with rage as his broadside struck
flints and chunks of chalk from the cliff a few feet below the edge.
But his next shots landed among the artillerymen and they had the
satisfaction of seeing the battery limbered up amid frantic cheers from
the gunners amidships.
    'We're too close inshore, sir. Bottom's shoaling.' Drinkwater
turned to the ever-dutiful Hill who, while this fairground game was in
progress, attended to the navigation of the ship.
    'Bring her a point to starboard then.'
    They were abeam of Wimereux now. Here too, there was a fort on
the rocks at the water's edge, and below the fort two of the French
invasion craft were stranded and going to pieces under the white of
breakers. Drinkwater was suddenly aware that the cloud of powder smoke
that rolled slowly ahead of the ship was obscuring his view. 'Cease
fire! Cease fire!'
    The smoke cleared with maddening slowness, but gradually it
seemed to lift aside like a theatrical gauze, revealing a sight of
confusion such as their own cannon could not achieve. They were less
than two miles from Boulogne now, and under the cliffs and along the
breakwaters of the harbour more than a dozen of the invasion barges lay
wrecked with the sea breaking over them. Their shattered masts had
fallen