Wolf packs of 1700

One interesting facet of the navy of the Stuart era is the introduction of convoys with escorts, much like the U-Boats in WW2. Obviously there were no U-Bots but there were privateers and ships with letters of mark. The French Dunkirk privateers formed into wolf packs to engage the escorting warships and open the gate for others to take the merchantmen. While N.A.M. Rodgers comments that, as both sides were capturing each others cargoes, it is doubtful if it had any serious impact but for the individual it would most certainly be serious. As we know from pictures of the Dunkirk evacuation, the town is guarded by sand banks and the shoal water in which the troops stood waiting for the small boats to take them to the troopships. The risks to anyone going in to attack boats inside the sand banks and successfully escaping again are an excellent setting for a Hornblower cutting out expedition. There were also incidents where the escorts sacrificed themselves to give the convoy time to escape, often by dispersing, so that, by the time one merchantman was subdued and boarded, the others would be too far away to be caught. Of course, there was also the usual interaction between the convoyed vessels and the escorts which would add drama to a story, especially if some of the crews were fifth columnists – possible, because the crews, even of Navy vessels, were a mixture of several nationalities, from the Mediterranean and the Far East to the Baltic.

One of the things I find attractive about this is that it can be written as distinct episodes, short stories, with the same characters. Like the Eilean Donan castle and Glen Shiel events.

The plot ideas are beginning to take shape but I still want to dig into the background a bit more. Anyway, I have the Flower Show story and the rewrite of the novel for which Bubbles in the Cauldron was the sequel to get into print.