The trouble

The trouble with France is that it is full of French - so said the Anglo-Irishman Wellington once. Actually the trouble with the French is that too many admirals think they are Napoleon, too many capitaines think they are the admiral Guichet de Gascogne, too many sailors think they are the capitaine, and too many soldiers think they are sailors. And some aliens think they are French, like the rear-admiral self-appointed Chelsea Cheesle who is not even French. So despite being a self-proclaimed anglais-style republique, Venerabile France is full of ambition.

Aha splice the mainbrace mateys

Splice the mainbrace, shoot up the nest, ride the headwind, shin up the main mast. This is the stuff of legend, sailing the seven seas. Righty ho mateys, that's what we are here for, cutting through the warm waters down here near the Bahamas, like the mercantile schooners the Thermopylae and the Cutty Sark, or the square riggers, the Lightning and the Nightingale. Tis a lovely sight to see such graceful square riggers, so low astern, slicing through such blue waters, the Sark captained by Sir William Petrino Cobbett, hero of many a run across the Atlantic, and her sister ship the Nightingale, captained by a jerk-knee reactive seamen called Capt Murphy the OC DSO GCSE. A fine couple of full riggers that emit a lovely shrill whistling sound like an old Spoonerism sound as their bows cut through the warm Bahama waters. Ah yass tis a lovely sight to behold for an old seadog like meself. Gorgeous couple of sarks needing a lot of protection from the infernal kids on the seas that are these Carib pirates. The hairy pirate on the Old Sea Wolf, Barbarossa, helas is never too far away from the Caymans and his infamous daughter pirate the Keira Kay on the Amber Pearl are never far from such beautiful ships in these warm and shallow and transparent but treacherous waters. Ah yass tis a grand consolation for an old timer on the high seas like meself. But the Royals are hard about and astern to look after such delicate mercantile seamen. Oh yass tis mete that the Repulse might protect. Ahoy there mateys.

Once ahoy

Once upon a time we would have followed the Greeks and Romans and Vikings sailed around the Atlantic to the North via the Orkneys and the Faroes, and then via the major land masses of Iceland and Greenland, but with sail we have to follow certain prevailing winds and the like. So here we are not far from the Azores and making a landfall tonight. Here we are a bit too close to some of the big Spanish guns such as the SSS Reale Madrid and the SSS Escorial, two big warships of the Spanish line out of Cadiz. Captained these tow by seasoned veterans of the Burgos and Castile families. There are a few Irish quisling sailors with the fleets of Napoleon, all given over to drinking and playing the wild rover on the piano with the old boy, and a surprising number of Austrian turncoats too after the Battle of Austerlitz. Napoleon's Iberian campaign is not quite the success he had hoped as many ordinary folk in Spain seem to like our Wellington. Wellington is good to the villagers and folk in the countryside, unlike Napoleon who as a socialist revels in the ratty lattrino like sewers of euro-cities. Like a slab of the runny konigin cheese Stinking Bishop so too their Napoleon.

Ahoy in the nest

Ahoy their captains of the line, tis us on the HMS Repulse again. Far out to sea now, and looking for the Capricorn. And other ships besides like the old tugboat of the French navy, the Marshall Ney, putting round the waters of many French embassies abroad and spitting out its pollution like a dirty old canal barge. And we haven't even considered the Spanish fleet yet. There too there are some notable enemies of the Realm. The Count de Cordoba is a very big nasty piece of work with three decks of cannons to face. The Spanish are very reactive south of the Equator so we shall see what we run into soon.

Aha ahoy there in the nest

Ahoy there boyos in the crows's nest up there. These boys inthe nest are a good lookout of a crop of young lads, mostly from solid schools around Greenwich. But they are good at spotting the problem of what we call the Franglais, since these are anglais that have gone over to the French and their Napoleon and still sport english colours, lingo and english manners, with very public school, Oxon, and slightly exagerrated tributes to our goodly king. Les franglais are les miserables venerables though, because though they often put on a brave and somewhat snooty face, many of their working class lads give the game away when they are dancing on the bars of Paris and Rome and Berlin of the Three Sicilies. A snooty lot they try to be, and very pukkha before the foreigners, but treason is always found in their secret backroom cabins with the signals of Ney, Castiche, and Napoleon on their lips. A double dealing lot les miserables venerables and tricky to spot, though oddly enough, their union jacks are curiously flown upside down.

Ahoy there me hearties

Ahoy there me hearties, 'tis a devilish winter that is blowing onto our keels this winter's tale of a day, why 'tis almost a twelfth night and the count himself struggling with the square rigging. Splice the mainbrace shipmates for this is goin' to be a hard fight to the end. We have to get this ship seaworthy and out of the shallows around the treacherous Needles, off the Isle of Wight, and the French to worry about, staring down our very throats. Ay ay captains of the line, 'tis not an easy thing we do today. A day that might yet live long in infamy if the French squadrons catch us out of Cornwall. And yet the Royal Navy limps on to fight another day, much holed by French gunneries. Whatever a French captain might want throw at us off the Needles, we must away today during high tide. The French needle ship, the SS Macormack is still there haunting the coast, running up and down, espying our naval schools, targeting our youthful blonde and blue-eyed sixth formers, just beyond the guns of the men of Falmouth, wittering about, over and over again, and worrying our coastal defences, and troubling our young boys in the sea cadets who have to man our martello towers. Yeah the napoleonics are a dastardly and mutley crowd to deal with.

Ahoy there shipmates

Well here we are in the southern seas now, approaching Tristan de Cunha. The southern seas have always been an encounter zone with the anarchy driven revolutionary navies of France and Spain, even now as we approach the Battle of Trafalgar, about which more later. There are two ships, two French frigates that cause much mayhem in the southern seas around the Cape of Good Hope, the SS Fromage des Routes captained by Stephane de Hayes, and the SS Rue de Petits Champs, captained by Solomon de Cheese, a real cheesy chestnut of a chestleburn, and these two, totally committed to the eternal revolution, have caused a lot of upset and anarchy over the years, as they seek to penetrate the defences of innocent young countries and nations. Even the dubious SS Eveque de Givenchy, captained by Vincente de Cadiz and its sister ship the SS Amusante des Bois de Boulogne, captained by Le Philippe de Rothschilde de Witt are not so daring as these two, in their constant and now unacceptable barrage of innocent poor ports and harbours along the atlantic and pacific coasts right round and up to the Galapagos Islands. Hanseatic Springs. Helas. Here we might find them since they do not know the waters roundabouts the Galapagos and the deeper currents that flow there. Mm a struggle begins. Fromage is ordered down below in the officer's mess, with Captain Sigur Rose de Fitzroy here on board the HMS Repulse, so I must see if I can find some Danish Blue for the captain and his men. 

Of course

Of course out here on the high seas, at night, when there's nothing much between the boys and the deep blue, it is always gusty and blustery. A high wind can blow a boy clean off the poop-deck. Like it or hate it, the napoleonic SS Neptune can sometimes set sail in storms like this bluster and gale of a night, being a fast caravette of a ship, though a bit of a frigate by all and sundry account, and yet they all say, the dark and evil French, that the Neptune is their finest corvette, oblivious to the rise of a new species of French attack boat, the SS Jolie, captained by Capitaine Jean-Claude O'Leary, the famous or infamous Franco-hibernican captain of the watch who had all his crew murdered because they failed to see the HMS Henry VIII slipping out of the deltas and eddies of Alexandria in the fog. Yes those French frigates are quite a vicious lot. Here on the HMS Repulse we are to maintain our watches this night, lest another French fast attack boat slip out of the port at Brest and down the coast to link up with the Napoleonic Spanish. A dreadful lot that stink of garlic and spice and paella, with oceans of Sangria flowing most nights in the officers's mess, and the spices that flutter across the high winds of the Bay of Biscay. We have been at war now with Spain for more than 500 years. Hardcastles these Spanish and most focused of the three enemy navies. Back across the Atlantic tonight. Then on to Washington. 

Actually there is none

Actually there is no warship out there that can really threaten the Royal Sovereign of the Seas, which is a huge ship built in honour of Henry VIII's Mary Rose, and commissioned originally by the hanoverian George III. Not even the Marshall Ney flagship the SS Neptune is quite up to taking on this beast. Yes the Royal Navy is quite pleased with the royalty ships among the ships of the line. Still the theory goes, so as not to make us complacent, that a few little pairs of picket ships of the French, like the SS Butt and the SS Petrina, when paired up as a vicious couple, can always do a bit of damage to a big teuton warship like the Sovereign. And also the napoleonic SS Neptune has a vicious habit of pairing up with coal ships like the SS Antonia, which emits a shrill bleep when shooting its very old pair of canons, as captained by Chief Petter Officer Shrew and his able bodied seaman DS Oscotia, to deliver the odd barrage against Royal ports such as Kingstown Jamaica. These couplings are legendary among the officers of the Royal Navy back at Greenwich who often dine out on their experiences of vicious animal couplings of the napoleonc navies. Marshall BC Ney has a tendency to make vicious and very common concourse with young Spanish frigates from around the corner from the Venerable ports of Brest down by Cadiz, where Brit sailors still do homage to the statue of the Virgin that previous sailors damaged in a battle. Anyway these vicious couplings when 3 lots are put together, as with the SS Milner and the SS Sherington can be quite destructive if they pin their man against the coast or on the rocks of Gibraltar. Our thoughts today go to Capt PD Boyle who served long and hard on board the USA warship the USS Lexington STD.

Ahoy captain

Tis a mighty wind that brings us down here to the Azores and beyond laddies. Ah yes it is not like the old days when men among the Greeks and the Romans rowed across great oceans and hugged the coastlines of the Shetlands and Orkneys and Faroes and Iceland and Greenland and Newfoundland to arrive at a new world of New India. We are making landfall in the Azores where all the locals speak some kind of obscure lingo. Like the lunatic marshall Ney that fights for Napoleon and is out here somewhere sowing confusion in young minds and despair in young bodies, it is time to locate this nasty little brood of vipers among the crowmac napoleon and his French hedonist sailors, sowing dark disease among innocent local populations like la malaise corbeille and generally wrecking the peace again.

Ooh la la la malaise francaise

Ooh la la, la malaise francaise. Difficult to explain why Napoleon does not himself venture out onto the high seas, though rumours are all about Chartres that he is diseased these years and does not appear openly en publique. We have sent our spy Capt Roberto de Suffolk to Versailles to find out what ails the dying dictator - perforce it is the usual Plunkett & Maclean from the Bois de Boulogne alas!!

Etrangers ahoy!

So our few ship's officers from the wreck of the Napoleonic squadron around the SS Revolution, SS Bastille, and SS Paris it seems have gone below to dine with the captain. All pork and bacardi-rum down below. Surprised to bump into Capt Aeneas in such friendly terms but his ship went down with most hands. Ambitious the french, but many do not go down with their ship like other nations do. Like the scottish ie, where Aeneas has been sailing this summer with his aide de camp Capt Pierre-Jean Montgomerie. Napoleon has had an expensive summer, having lost the SS Paris and SS Cap Vincente but he is ambitious to crash a fire ship into the RN port at Portsmouth. A tedious, gray and inconvenient expense to shore up Portsmouth all these years. Capt Christiane de Crispin has been out and about with Napoleon selling RN secrets of the Cinq Ports. A handful of lemons these french.

Whoah ahoy there

A schooner is coming alongside at the moment. Difficult to know who or what is in it, so we have deployed some snipers and gunnery sargeants. Well shivver me timbers 'tis a few sailors from the Deluxe Sovereign of the French, Capt Aeneas and his crewmen officers from the SS Roi du Soleil, the fine warship, the Louis XIV. Well glory be to Queen Bess and Walter Raleigh for dappled things. 'Tis a grand surprise to see a few defectors tonight. Capt Aeneas is well known among the French, having fought in many battles for the Napoleonic SS Venus and SS Mars.

Whoosh!!

Gosh that cannon ball went straight over our heads and through the mainsail. All hands on deck maties. These blighters on the Black Hudson are a huron sort of foe. French and black to the fingernails, too many trips to Paris maybe by the embankment, and there we are. 'Tis a dark night for sailors of the Royal Navy. 7 splashes to date and most of them shortt.

And then there were 7

The seven seas are a great challenge especially to experienced old veterans of the waters such as Capt Domenico Jacobin of the MV Saturnalia who has spent this last year since 1745 touring the seas around the caribbean off-loading grape shot on civilian shorelines with impunity at 7 till 10 every evening. With his trusty aide de camp Leanna de Watkins to help he has found his targets every time from way out to sea beyond the harbour walls of holy mother Jamaica. We have despatched a RN frigate to intercept called the HMS Leoniana, a ship unknown to the Jacobite pirates as they cruise up and down those wrecked shore batteries around Port Royale. Soon we will also deploy the young inexperienced but feisty Capt Keira O Nightsight on her destroyer, the HMS Black Arrow. Even the US ships are considering joining in the action as the USS Lexington is around and also the redoubtable USS Broken Arrow!! 

Ahoy there shipmaties

Ahoy there Capt Aldone of the HMS Antonino - this was our last salutation for the finest of the RN vessels on the high seas of the Germanic Sea (modern North Sea) and the Scottish Sea (North to the Orkneys) as he pulled across our bows and headed down to the flat seas of the Bermuda zone and the Caymans. A brave stocky lad when he joined us on the waves many years ago, and footloose and fancy free in those happy days. Pursuing pirates in the Caymans has been his chief joy this last couple of years. Those pirates on the Black Pearl and their black lady Queen Bess of the MV Venerabile have been at it again, firing their cannons at innocent young lassies off Jackson Heights.

Gosh

Gosh these choppy seas. They are worse than the sluggish mercurial silver seas mentioned by the sailors of Agricola in the first century AD among the romans when they circumnavigated the Scottish islands around 77 AD thereabouts. Anyway, tis choppy out here on the high seas of the Atlantic around Iceland. Lots of sailors in the water and most almost lost overboard. Many are being lost, despite our ropes around their waists. Huge waves breaking over the deck. Even seagulls are landing on the deck and floundering upon our planks. 'Tis a black day for sailors today. A black day for the king's conscience that took us here. As Will says in Henry V.