• Complain

Dewey Lambdin - The Invasion Year

Here you can read online Dewey Lambdin - The Invasion Year full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. genre: Adventure. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

No cover

The Invasion Year: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "The Invasion Year" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

For a fellow like Captain Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy, who despises the French worse than the Devil hates Holy Water, its hellish-hard to gain a reputation for saving them, not once but twice, when the French refugees from Haiti surrender to England rather than the vengeful ex-slave armies in November of 1803!After that, it could be all claret and cruising in the Caribbean, but for a home-bound sugar convoy, one so frustrating as to make even the happy-go-lucky Alan Lewrie tear his hair out, kick furniture, and curse like . . . well, like a sailor! Back in England for the first time in two years, there are honours from the Crown for gallant service . . . a lot more than he expected from King George III, who was having a bad morning, then a chance to move in Society after an introduction to an intriguing daughter of a peer. But then come secret orders to experiment with several types of infernal engines of war, which might delay or postpone the dreaded cross-Channel invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte, his huge army, and his thousands of invasion craft. For the rest of 1804, Alan Lewrie and his crew of the Reliant frigate will deal with things more dangerous to them than they may prove to be to the French!

Dewey Lambdin: author's other books


Who wrote The Invasion Year? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

The Invasion Year — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "The Invasion Year" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Dewey Lambdin

The Invasion Year

(Lewrie 17)

This one is dedicated to Forrest

Forrest was my shadow, and my foot-warmer under the desk whenever I wrote even a short letter, much less a chapter of the books, and I miss that very much, too.

Nathan Bedford, my little general, and his bubba Mosbys groomer, fellow prankster, and hot water bottle on cool nights. Forrest was white-furred, with a grey tail, ears and nose, and the brightest, widest jade green eyes. He was an ambusher, a talker whod hold long conversations with me, or any message left on the phone, and could purr louder than any other cat I can remember. He was only 9? when he left this life on July 2nd, 2010, and Mosby and I miss him very much, and wish he could have stayed with us many years more-if only to help Mosby open every under-counter cabinet door in the house, or lay side by side to paddle all the sliding closet doors open so they could get inside and prowl.

Forrest, I give you the Sunday wardroom toast,

Absent Friends.

Pateant montes silvacque lacusque

cunctaque claustra maris; spes et metus omnibus esto

arbiter. Ipse locos terrenaque summa movendo

experiar, quaenum populis longissima cunctis

regna valim linquamque datas ubi certus habenas.

Let mountains, forests, lakes

and all the barriers of ocean open out before them;

hope and fear shall decide the day for all alike.

I myself by shifting the seat of empire upon earth

shall make trial which kingdom I shall elect to let

rule longest over all peoples, and in whose hands I

can without fear leave the reins of power once bestowed.

~

ARGONAUTICA, BOOK I 556-560

GAIUS VALERIUS FLACCUS

PROLOGUE

Vae victis.

Woe to the vanquished.

~ HISTORY , BOOK X

TITUS LIVIUS (LIVY)

59 B.C.-17 A.D.

CHAPTER ONE

Damme, but I do despise the bloody French!

Understandably, sir, the First Lieutenant softly agreed.

Their bloody general, Rochambeau, Captain Alan Lewrie, RN, further gravelled, hed surrender tthat murderous General Dessalines and his Black rebel army, but hes too damned proud tstrike to us?

Well, Dessalines did give them ten days truce to make an orderly exit, sir, Lt. Westcott pointed out. Else, it would have been a massacre. Another, really.

If they dont come out and surrender to us, soon, itll be all Frogs Legs Flambe, and Dessalines truce be-damned, Captain Lewrie said with a mirthless laugh as he extended his telescope to its full length for another peek into the harbour of Cap Francois and at the ships anchored inside, on which the French now huddled, driven from the last fingernail grasp of their West Indies colony.

Evidently, the Black victors of the long, savage insurrection were getting anxious over when the French would depart, too, for those solid stone forts which had guarded the port from sea assault showed thin skeins of smoke, rising not from cook-fires but from forges where iron shot could be heated red-hot, amber-hot, to set afire those ships and all the beaten French survivors aboard them-soldiers, civilians, sailors, women, and children. Root and branch, damn their eyes, Lewrie thought; burn em all, root and branch!

He lowered his glass and grimaced as he turned to face his First Officer, Lt. Geoffrey Westcott. Is it askin too much, dye imagine, sir, that the Frogs could face facts? Which is the greater failure or shame admittin the rebel slaves beat em like a rug, and surrenderin tthem or strikin to a civilised foe, like us? Theyve done the first, so what matters the second?

Perhaps its the matter of Commodore Lorings terms, sir, Lt. Westcott supplied, inclining his head towards their senior officers flagship, idling under reduced sail further out to seaward. He will not let them dis-arm and sail for France on their parole.

Be a fool if he did, Lewrie said with a dismissive snort, and Admiraltyd never forgive him for it if he did. Wed, escort them to Jamaica, intern their civilians make the women and kiddies comfortable Rochambeau and all his officersd be offered parole, quarters, and funds til theyre exchanged

Of course, wed sling all their sailors and soldiers into the prisoner hulks, Lt. Westcott added with a touch of whimsy, then, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, said, And surely some of those French jeunes filles, or fetching young widows surely some of them are, sir might find themselves in need of a British officers protection?

Hmm, well, Capt. Lewrie allowed, rocking on the balls of his feet, making his Hessian boots creak; they were new from a cobbler at Kingston, still in need of breaking in. I expect youd be one to make such an offer, Mister Westcott? I warrant youre a generous soul, he said with a leer. Since their first acquaintance fitting-out their new frigate at the renewal of the war with France a little after Easter, Lewrie had discovered that Geoffrey Westcott was a Buck-of-The-First-Head when it came to putting the leg over biddable young ladies almost himself to the Tee, in his younger, frivolous days.

Well I hope to be, sir, Lt. Westcott replied, shrugging in false modesty, or piety (it was hard to tell which), and flashing a brief, teeth-baring grin before turning sober and salty once more.

Wish ye joy of it, Lewrie said, turning to probe the harbour with his telescope once more.

Cap Francois, casually known as Le Cap in better days, had at one time been the richest entrepot on the French colony of Saint Domingue, rivalling Jacmel, Mole St. Nicholas, or Port-Au-Prince itself. Nigh a thousand ships had put in there each year with all the luxuries of Europe and the Orient, and had cleared laden deep with sugar, rice, molasses, and rum, making Saint Domingue the richest prize of all the Sugar Islands, richer than all the British possessions put together.

Cap Francois and Mole St. Nicholas further west out towards the extreme Norwestern cape of Saint Domingue were well placed for trade-on the North side of the colony, accessible to the passages out into the broad Atlantic, which made for shorter voyages to American or European markets.

Give the Frogsa little credit, Lewrie thought; at least they made something of their half of Hispaniola.

The eastern half of Hispaniola was held by the Spanish, but San Domingo had never produced a pittance of wealth compared to the French half; cattle herding, sheep and pigs, subsistence farming along with the boucaniers who dressed in hides, and had become the dreaded buccaneers of pirate lore.

Now, though it was all lost, to both France and any other nation which might try to possess it; as Great Britain had in those early days of the French Revolution, when theyd landed an army ashore, and had been fought back to the beaches and piers by the rebel slaves when they werent fighting their former grands blancs masters, or the petits blancs and half-bloods, or each other, for dominance.

That brute General Dessalines had once been an aide to the former house slave Toussaint LOuverture, whod turned out to be a much more brilliant general than any that the French had sent to fight and die here. Over thirty generals, Lewrie had heard tell, and over fourty thousand French soldiers had perished, including Napoleons brother-in-law, General LeClerc. Oh, LeClerc had managed to lure LOuverture to a parley and had enchained him, then shipped him to die in an alpine prison in France-dead of cold, hunger, and heart-break that Napoleon Bonaparte would betray him, the Napoleon of The West, and break all the promises of the French Revolution, of

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «The Invasion Year»

Look at similar books to The Invasion Year. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «The Invasion Year»

Discussion, reviews of the book The Invasion Year and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.