The Baltic War(186)

The navy's mitrailleuses were based on the Reffye, the most successful of the mitrailleuses used by the French during the Franco-Prussian War. They used individually primed cartridge cases, constructed very much like shotgun shells, fired in succession by turning a side-mounted crank. Each round was expensive, but they could be collected, reloaded, and reused. More importantly, the man on the crank could fire all of them as quickly as he could turn the crank, or only a few rounds at a time, or even single shots, and he could vary the rate of fire to suit a specific tactical need instead of blazing through the entire magazine in a single eruption.



Simpson's mitrailleuse consisted of twenty barrels arranged in five rows of four, mounted in a cylindrical sleeve, which was actually five fewer barrels than the Reffye had had, but it produced a lighter weapon with a slimmer profile, better suited to pivot mounts aboard the navy's warships. It was a .50-caliber weapon, with a crew of five, three of whom were responsible solely for clearing expended cartridge cases from the removable steel breechblocks and replacing them with fresh rounds. Each gun came with four breechblocks and a special extractor. When the block was pressed down onto the extractor, its fingers removed the empty cases while one of the other loaders opened a specially prepackaged twenty-round box that worked like a huge speed loader. A well-trained crew (and all of Simpson's crews were well trained) could sustain a rate of fire of sixty aimed rounds per minute, and reach up to a hundred rounds per minute in emergencies. That was more than sufficient to turn any small craft into a splintered colander, and a single hit from one of its enormous rounds could be counted upon to stop any human-sized target dead.



If any other divers were foolish enough to show themselves anywhere in the field of fire of one of those mitrailleuses, he would never be a problem again. Unfortunately, Simpson couldn't count on their doing anything of the sort.



"The ironclads and Ajax will increase speed and continue downriver to clear the threat zone," he said. "Achilles will tow Achates clear. I want at least one of the bass boats running a perimeter around them. And instruct all units to begin dropping anti-diver charges."



"Yes, sir!" Halberstat saluted sharply and turned to begin issuing the necessary orders.



The first underwater explosions kicked up clouds of spray and dead fish less than four minutes later. The "anti-diver charges" were nothing more than somewhat heavier hand grenades, designed to be used as mini-depth charges. They were light enough that they could be used fairly close to a vessel's hull without threat of damage, but heavy enough to kill or at least incapacitate any diver in the vicinity.



Simpson listened to the muffled explosions and watched the brown river water heave up, then watched the rings of foam drift away. He grimaced. It reminded him of accounts he'd read of depth charge attacks from both world wars. Half the time, the people dropping those charges hadn't known whether there was really a submarine in the vicinity, or not—just as he didn't know whether or not there were really scuba divers stalking his gunboats. But, like those long-ago (or far in the future) escort ship commanders, he had no choice but to make certain.



And in the process, he thought glumly, give anyone on the other side who's watching a quick course in the best way to deal with our scuba divers in the future.



He hadn't wanted to do that . . . but he wanted even less to discover that someone had actually managed to successfully attach an explosive charge to one of his precious ships.



Anatole du Bouvard listened to the explosions coming from the river as he climbed up into his horse's saddle. There was no sign of any American landing parties coming after his shore party, but he had no intention of waiting around until they changed their mind about that.



He watched the ironclads accelerating, obviously to move clear of this stretch of river, and shrugged philosophically. He'd never really expected anything to come of the attempt, after all, and he'd clearly given it his best effort. Surely the cardinal would understand that, especially if du Bouvard and Olier showed a certain . . . constructive creativity in their reports.



Besides, he thought, pressing with his heels and urging his horse to a trot, we have something new to offer him, as well. I suppose we should have realized that the Americans would have worked out their own ways to deal with divers before they ever used them against us.



He led the rest of his men rapidly away from the river bank, still listening to the explosions, and considered how best to make that point in his report. He didn't give the least bit of thought to what might have happened to the second diver. Just a convict, after all, and not one of his men.