HMS Athena: A Charles Mullins novel (Sea Command Book 4) Read Online Free Page A

Howard had nearly stripped the ship of its trained men, leaving behind the mostly unskilled landsmen sent over in the boat. Although the replacement hands had no skills at all to offer their new master, at least they had strong backs and were near their port. The ship could deliver its badly needed cargo safely enough.
    Visits to the other convoy members produced additional skilled hands to fill out Athena’s crew. She spent another week offshore drilling her crew, then put back into port. Mullins regarded this crew as one of the better ones he had ever had.
    After receiving additional stores to replace those used during their short exercise, a signal from the flag required Mullins to report for his orders, then it was off to the coast of France.
     
    The work there was the same as he had experienced late in the last war. The enemy was assembling a fleet of small craft intended to transport an invasion army to the shores of Britain. These craft were being built in small yards along the coast and then sailed to Boulogne or ports nearby. These were often hastily-built craft; many were made from green timber that had little or no seasoning.
    Bonaparte had funded this building program by unusual means. Earlier, he had taken ownership of the vast area to the west of the United States from Spain. The United States had offered to purchase New Orleans from France to secure a port at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Deciding it would be difficult to defend his entire Louisiana holdings from British or American incursions, he offered to sell the entire property to the United States.
    Banking houses in London and Amsterdam handled the financial arrangements and Bonaparte received fifteen million US dollars, which he used to fund his proposed invasion attempt against Britain.
    Mullins knew this entire building program was wasted effort for the French, since there was no way they could make their way across the Channel save under a combination of good weather and a protective shield of French warships. The crude, poorly constructed craft could only make it across the Channel by only the greatest of good luck. Even with this good luck, there was still the British Channel Fleet to pass. His navy being vastly inferior to Britain’s Royal Navy, Bonaparte was throwing his money to the winds.
     
    HMS Athena, newly commissioned and manned, needed time at sea to have any defects, whether in the ship or her crew, discovered and repaired. In addition, her crew needed to learn how the ship needed to be treated.
    All of one stormy day that summer, Athena paced a small enemy convoy on its way toward Cherbourg. Close-hauled, some of the vessels in the convoy were having heavy going. Athena remained inshore of the convoy, heading off any attempts by the escorting corvette to reach port with her flock. The convoy itself was composed of newly constructed small craft meant to carry men of the invading army across Channel.
    As they neared the menacing French coast, Mullins approached to leeward of the convoy, while the escort came in to meet her. In other conditions, this could lead to serious problems for HMS Athena, but her captain was unconcerned.
    The individual members of the convoy were of no menace at all to Athena’s safety. Lightly built, poorly constructed and mostly unarmed, they could be dismissed as posing no threat.
    The corvette was a different matter. Many of these were well built and properly manned, could give a good account of themselves. In fact, once taken, these corvettes were proving valuable in British service. Athena herself had once been a French corvette. Consequently, he hoped to take the warship, while allowing those crude invasion craft to escape, if they could.
    The corvette was doing her best to fend off this predator, but she had problems of her own. Many of her seamen had received little training and her trained gunners had been transferred to the army, replaced recently by conscripts.
    Intending to get to seaward of