Flying the black flag

Good golly me hearties, here we are sailing down the east anglia coast where we have just collided head ho with a battle group of one black flagship called the Speranza assisted by 3 red corvettes, the Doulos, the Vincente, and the Corday, so 3 reds suspiciously supporting a token black, but really designed to draw out real navy ships from the Broads and those orthodox narrow channels. Napoleon o Doulos is a minx. And fancy that lot sitting on top of a Great Yarmouth too ???? 

Sunrise at China

It is always sunrise in the empire of the sun, as there is always hope of another sinking of an RN warship, such is the way of the postponed futures of the little junk canon ships of the Chinese left, hiding away in the bottom left corner of their ship junk chip monk refectories, while mouthing revolution but always creeping up the petty officers surrounding the highly isolated captain, another midget junk ship like the Sv Adriano and the Mv Yellowcake of the Ukra divs. Yes Chinese fire ships but packing a punch above their weight, fat stocky little things, every Shiela's dream in Nanking. 

Omg

Oh my God, by the gods of the seas and the gods of human conflict, old Boney has done it again, his second in command, Marshall Gray has pulled off another coup d'état and hoisted another Napoleonic flag over another fleet, what with the launch of a new ship, the Uss Milecastle in honour of his great mentor Hadrian the emperor and Julius Caesar the soldier. That old Boney is so full of new tricks for an old dog. My oh my. 

The SS Nap

The SS Napoleon is taking on water. Many police rushing to her aid. All want to help her, to ease the many paynes of her final hours. She is an evil ship though, much taken by other Arab galleys, and much given over to Arab hyperbole. Maybe the chief petty officer will order the band to play the Marseiilaise as she slips below. She was an evil ship, full of dark dead men's bones. 16 men on a dead captain chest. A bottle of rum for the twin boys who fired the fatal shot. She is running low on cheese. 

No sunsets ever

Funny that in all the skirmishes at sea, between Wellington and Napoleon, there are two ships that never do sink, despite all the ships sinking around them, in their own carefully orchestrated set piece naval battles. I am referring to two captains on two ships that are supposed to be on opposite sides, but which are always synchronised. These two captains, Capt Toy and Capt Cheese, on the SS Napoleon and the HMS Charlotte Corday; maybe Marshall Grey and Admiral Cheese are stoking each other's charcoal supplies while playing possum in all battles. The Corday and the Nap, two very solitary frigates. 

Sunset

So as Napoleon tries to get away, his carriage is pursued and intercepted and he is taken prisoner. And today his burgundy cloak plus carriage will be put on display at Windsor castle armoury rooms. Splice the mainbrace, tis time to celebrate with a bottle of rum.

Sunset for another republican era. 

Time to head for home and Charlestown in Cornwall me hearties. Waterloo was a wash. Republicans away. Dr Byrd come in number 7, time to wax lyrical. A close run thing, says Wellington, but Napoleon was beaten by a siesta and an over confident nincompoop general on his own side. Waterloo was not necessary in fact at all, and it cost Napoleon his freedom. Wellington retires to London with his generals and presides over a banquet celebrating the victory, while Napoleon goes into exile. 

So there it is

Life over easily. The imperial guard surrounded. Napoleon in his carriages, getting away.

Sunset for a France without a king.

A long road without end.

Napoleon captured on the road to Eric Bourgeois's house at Lille.

Oh an overture

Good golly miss Molly laddies, the French think the battle is over and have charged up the hill to pursue and cut down the apparently fleeing allies, only to be met by heavy muskets on the far side of the ridges from the scots highlanders. Napoleon has come out ... Of his tent, and screamed at the soldiers, "which son of a gun ordered all the cavalry up the hill without infantry support?!" The French cavalry are now massacred by the highland fighting men. It is all over. The highlanders won the battle of Waterloo begob begob!! Scots win so often.

The Prussians are in the woods. It is all over for old Boney now. Blucher has turned up. Germans are fighting machines and used to battles.

The blacks and greens of the German scouts are now visible.

Old Boney has just put on his burgundy cloak n hood and is brave but knows it is the moment for deserting what is left of his huge army. He is fleeing the field. By rights with such a huge army, he should have won, and easily put Wellington to flight. But the Irish troops of Wellington were a fixed mien and an experienced foe, and though Scotland had its day, the larger fates were against him and his iron-clad cavalry were not so good on soft rain soaked ground. Too much. 

1815 be like 1812

Yes, I can hardly believe this report. Apparently the old Irish General has ordered the whole army to move back, to turn tail for 300'paces, taking it over the ridge and out of sight. 

The sunset of all our hopes?

Nope old nosey has ordered the army to withdraw and wait in the corn beyond. Forming the highlanders into squares.

Crikey me hearties, old Boney has gone into his tent for a nap, but his generals have taken the withdrawal as a full-scale retreat, begob begob. And unbelievable. Marshall Ney of the French has ordered all the heavy cavalry up the hill - !!

1815 contd

Well lads, still becalmed out here on the Biscay, and the sea cadets are getting impatient. Still it is 3.30 in the après midi and latest reports suggest that scots were brave but hacked down by the polish lancers. Not nice these scenes of après. Very charge of the light brigade at Sevastopol we are told. Some Lord a Cardigan making a humongous name for himself as ever in faraway Scotland. 

End of the roade for the scots greys. But there you go. Like a Dun nottar above. A sunset. 

But can old Nosey pull one back? Wellington was Irish once, can he be subtle again, subtler than old Boney? 

Out of the blue a trumpet call. Not the Prussians of blucher surely? No, nosey is sounding a retreat begob begob. Now what? This cannot be the end!!!!

Begob begob

Well there ye are laddies and lassies of the auld HMS Scozzeze, insofar as you have gotten out of the hammocks below decks after so much whetting of young underpar whistles. But here is the latest bulletin from Waterloo -

Fresh from her campaign in Egypt old Boney m is still astonished that this little rout at the crossroads has turned into the main event. It wasn't supposed to be a big battle at all at all me hearties. Even odds but ye gads even Cara Armada is getting involved - it is like Thermopylae already -

Shivver me timbers but over the hill the London grenadiers were replenished by the welsh grenadiers, and old Boney is perplexed at the stiff resistance of the west. 

It has all become a murderous if minor affair. He is moving up his French artillery on the royals, and the scots greys have just charged at them - !! The most feared cavalry in Europe !! Says old Boney, so we shall have to commit my precious Polish lancers now sacre bleu!!

Cara has charged with her British Rajette Long Lancers, right in front of the scots greys!!

Well Waterloo 1815

Well me hearties, here we are in a squall aftermath, sitting becalmed now off the coast of a France, waiting for news from the French attempt to seize Brussels. 

Meanwhile amazing news - an impossibly small troupe of grenadiers was sent to block the immortal Imperial guards of Napoleon at a farmhouse on a road to Bruxelles. Holding it there at La Haye mais Sainte we believe while taking many hits and much loss even of life. Old Boney is losing patience and getting old too, and throwing in even his artillery and heavy cavalry, but the London company of proud grenadiers are doing a grand job begob lads. Methinks we are stopping the French advance at last at last. Bruxelles soon to be free.

Here's a pic boyos -

Epic stuff - in the pic a Gb grenadier is finishing off a drunk Frenchman, drunk with a victory he thought was already in the bag and an easy run of it. 

Loose cannons

Any sailor who has to work in the proximity of gunpowder, knows the problems that can be posed by loose cannons on deck, and we have had the spectacle of several ships blowing themselves up in the French Napoleon flotillas, ships like the SS Gladys Nightly, a lean brig designed to sail fast into Royal Navy waters, which then linked up with an Italian man of war called the SS Santa Monica, and then there was the SS Alison Rathaus which blew up several times in friendly waters, carrying too much oil to be of much use, and then there was the spy ship the SS Adriana Lukasova, which also blew itself up in Portugese waters, and then the SS Jackina Ken which blew up against all prediction, carrying too many Arab slaves. And so on. 

Moscova 1812

Old Boney Napoleon was quite a general, a field commander that was a legend, but chiefly in his own lunchtime, because all of his glorious victories ground to a halt at the walls, those real walls, of Moscow. Oh yes a real legend among simple peasant French Maghreb boys of Tunisia, but then he had to face the Russian winter. He did not expect a million Marshall Zhukhovs to be waiting for him outside Moscow. So French legends in France, with a bunch of Tunisian boys, but then he had to face the real men of Russia. Hail to the glorious legions of Holy Mother Russia - !!

Well there's a waterspout

Well shiver me timbers me hearties, there is a fine vessel, the HMS Venerabile with its 21 gun salute for us all as we sail out of Portsmouth and the Sound on the Solent. And not far behind us is the new fangled steamship, the newly decommissioned Temeraire, an experiment that is not universally liked, as most of the sailors of the Line prefer sail and rope. 

Old Boney

Well rumour here in the Bay of Biscay is that Old Boney Napoleon didn't entirely trust his flagships and corvettes, which is why he appointed a scuttle man of war among the grey flags and old grey sludgery of the SS Haddon, SS Whitmoan, and SS Hombres, namely the SS Bon Viveur out of Helsinki, given that private property is an antidote in itself to all socialism, just to keep an eye on these big old grey tugs as they mowed down Boney's key faster younger ships albeit juniors in the French Navy. Dieu et mon droit - as we say for our next trip to Archangel in the Northern Russian seas, near the site of PQ-17. A French navy all united ? Not so, not so. These younger men n their captains could easily turned by a Turner beastie. 

Shiver the old timbers

Well shiver the old timbers, this old tug does creak a bit at night, as old old square riggers do, like the 4 corvettes of the Rigatoni class. Central pillars on central bulkheads. Such is the new design, a return to classicism though on Greek triremes, but necessary in choppy seas. Centralitas.