The sun had just set when Murphy's boat left the docks. Murphy was a captain in the Irish Navy who had been fishing in the waters for more than a decade before becoming an honorable Irish Navy Warrior. He was as familiar with the sea as he was with his wife's, well, temper.

For more than a year, he has been on a mission to monitor this narrow stretch of sea around Belfast. When the weather is fine, you can climb the high watchtower and you can clearly see the whole section of the sea, even if it is a small fishing boat, you should not want to escape the watchtower's surveillance, but at night it is different, the watchtower cannot monitor the situation at night. Although there were huge listening devices installed in the nearby seawater, trying to use this to hear the sound of the machinery of ships, especially steam ships, as they passed by. But this soon proved to be largely unreliable – the currents here are part of the warm Atlantic Current, which runs from south to north. Because the sea here is narrow, the speed of the ocean currents is quite fast, and most of the time, the hydrophone hears the noise of the currents. And for the sake of concealment, the British fleet could completely float along the currents at night, without turning on the steam engine.

Therefore, there is only one way to monitor at night, and that is to send small boats directly to the sea to monitor at close range.

Each ship carried several rockets, and if an enemy fleet was spotted, the boat would launch rockets to warn the watchtowers on the shore. Then, of course, they hurried away, hoping to escape the British warships that were tracking them under the cover of night.

Generally speaking, once the British fleet is discovered, it will most likely only speed up, rather than go to the trouble of finding a small boat. Coupled with the cover of night, the chances of a successful escape are still very high.

But in recent months, things have changed. That is, as the seasons change, the cold air that moves south meets the moist air brought by the warm Atlantic current, so fog occurs almost every day. The sea fog often doesn't dissipate until near noon. Therefore, ships on duty in the strait at night to monitor movements in the strait often have to stay until almost noon, when the sea fog has completely dispersed, before they can return to their home.

This poses more danger. Opposite there was a pier for the British, where there was a cruiser. One of the ship's missions was to hunt down the Irish ships that were monitoring the British fleet here. In the absence of sea fog, the threat posed by the boat is quite limited, for at night it is higher than the Irishman's boat, so the Irishman's boat looks up with a brighter sky in the background; The British, on the other hand, looked down at the Irishman's boat, and the Irishman's boat disappeared completely into the dark sea. So, it was easier for the Irish to spot the British. It can be avoided far ahead of time. Not to mention, the steam-powered cruisers of the British had a voice, so at night it was easier for those dhows in Ireland to avoid them.

But when there is sea fog, the situation is different, before the sea fog dissipates, the situation is not much different from the night, but when the sea fog dissipates and the sun rises in the morning, it is completely different, when the sun rises, everyone knows in their hearts, so they can always retreat at the right time.

But it is really difficult to say when the sea fog will disperse, so if the retreat is early, but the sea fog does not disperse for a long time, it may let the British fleet slip through. But if the retreat is late, the sea fog clears, and then they go and find out that the cruiser of the British is not far from them, then it will be really troublesome.

Two days ago, there was a ship that was a little late in retreating, and even the ship and its people were caught by the British, and I don't know what happened now?

Murphy and his two subordinates rowed the oars together, and the boat rowed down the river toward the sea. The dock for the boats did not dare to be built on the seashore, because the British would come and shell the pier.

The boat paddled about a kilometer east along the creek, bypassed a small mound, and sailed into the sea. The two navy men quickly raised the gray-blue sails, and the boat sailed out into the depths of the sea.

When he reached the predetermined position, Murphy lowered the anchor, and the two warriors lowered the sails - here in the strait, the speed of the current is very fast, and if you don't drop anchor, it is easy to drift out of your position, and it is too tiring to adjust the sails to compete with the current, so anchoring has become the most common means. Of course, if there is an emergency and it is too late to pull up the anchor, then you will have to cut the rope.

If it was before, cut the anchor cable like this and lose the iron anchor, the unit price would definitely be reluctant. But nowadays, the French could be reimbursed for it, so that even the most frugal Irish warriors felt that it was nothing to cut it.

After the anchor is laid, a few people are actually fine. The two warriors were in charge of keeping an eye on the sea, and Murphy skillfully took out his fishing rod, loaded the bait, and began to fish here. Anyway, it's a good thing to catch two fish and go back to catch two fish, and everyone can improve their food.

The boat was swaying on the sea, and the three of them were fine at this time, so they boasted about the bulls. Time passed slowly, and in the process, they seemed to come across a school of herring, and Murphy pulled up more than twenty herrings in one go.

As soon as Murphylla came up, the other warrior cut off the head of the flying fish, and with a pull, he ripped off the internal organs, and then shaved off the bones with two more knives, and put a little salt on them, and stuffed them directly into his mouth.

This is the typical Dutch way of eating; If you pay a little more attention to it, marinate it with some spices, and then eat it with salad and potatoes, this is the German way of eating; If only the internal organs are removed, put head up in the dough and baked into a bread looking up at the stars, that is the British way of eating; If it is smoked and dried and eaten as dried fish, it is a French meal; If it's canned, well, that's the infamous Swedish way of eating. On this boat, of course, they had to resort to the simplest Dutch way of eating.

Twenty Atlantic herrings filled the bellies of all three. The rest is left and ready to be taken home. At this time, the fog on the sea gradually rose, and you could not see anything from a little distance. At this time, the three of them had to rely not only on their eyes, but even more often on their ears to pay attention to the movements on the sea.

The surroundings gradually lit up, the night had passed, and it was about seven o'clock in the morning, which was the time to be most vigilant. From here, to the exit of Campbelltown, it is about seventy kilometers, and at the speed of the British fleet, if they pass through here at this time, they will be able to reach the exit of Campbelltown at about ten o'clock. And the fog usually starts to dissipate at this time. Then the British fleet will turn in the direction of Tyneš, which has more reefs, but the time of today's tide is also at this time. Tide heights are highest along the entire British coast, reaching 8 metres at the highest level. Of course, this is the case at astronomical tides, but even if it is not an astronomical tide, at high tide, the sea level rises by more than five meters, which makes it difficult to pass quickly because of the many reefs into smooth roads, so that the British fleet can rush to the Tenish waterway as quickly as possible. As soon as they entered the Tenish waterway, the French could not prevent their appearance on the North Sea.

It's just that at this time, the fog is still heavy, and the three of them can't see anything, so they can only prick up their ears to listen. It wasn't long before they faintly heard a mechanical voice coming from the south.

"There's movement!" Murphy lowered his voice. Although he knew that it didn't make much sense, in fact, he spoke in a normal voice, and the voice couldn't go far, and the British would certainly not be able to hear it.

But as far as the sound was faintly heard now, it was difficult to tell whether it was the British fleet coming over, or the cruiser that was looking for trouble for them, Murphy and another fighter pulled the anchor up with a winch—whether it was better not to lose it, or not to lose it. The other warrior continued to monitor the movement on the surface of the sea and was ready to raise the sails.

The iron anchor was pulled up, and several men raised the sails together.

At this time, the sound of the machine became more and more obvious, although the sea fog was still very strong, but the sound seemed to come from several places, this was obviously a fleet.

"Captain, look over there." A soldier pointed to the south.

Murphy narrowed his eyes, vaguely as if he saw a red light.

This is a crash light on a warship, and the red light has a longer wavelength, so it can better penetrate the fog and be seen at a greater distance. Then more red crash lights came into view.

"Raise the sails." Murphy whispered.

The gray-blue sails were raised, and the boat began to move westward. The fog was so great that when they saw the red crash lights, the British ships were not too far away from them. At this time, they hurriedly moved out of the way to the west, so as to avoid colliding directly with others.

Murphy counted the number of red lights that passed in front of him, and there were probably a few more that he didn't see, so it was probably the main fleet of the British. The next phenomenon strengthened his judgment even more, that is, his boat suddenly and seriously swayed. This is not the direction of the waves, such a roll can only be one reason, and that is the swell set off when the big ship passes. This shows that the warships passing by here are very large.

"Prepare to launch the rocket, and then we'll run." Murphy ordered.

The movement of the rocket launch was naturally hidden from the British fleet passing through this area, but as Murphy expected, the British did not intend to stop here at all, and then play hide and seek with them in the fog, their time was precious, so they did not even slow down, but continued to move north.

Lord George Kirkburn, the commander of the fleet, knew that the fleet had been exposed when he saw the rocket and heard the loud noise of its explosion, and by the time he reached the exit of Campbelltown, it was likely that the French fleet was already there ready. But there was no turning back for him now. Britain's current situation could not allow the fleet to turn back, or break the blockade and win a great victory; Either that, or a domestic revolution.

In his original intention, he did not want to take such an adventure at this time - the navy had only just completed the basic training of the new warships, and could not fully exploit the full strength of these new warships. But he also knows that there is no time for Britain to wait.

"I can only hope that God will bless the king." Lord Kirkburn thought so.

The news of the appearance of the British fleet immediately passed through the telegraph system and reached the hands of Admiral Bruyers. At that time, the admiral was once again studying a possible naval battle in front of the chart. And when his adjutant Pierre told him that the British fleet was really coming this way, Admiral Bruyers was stunned at first. It took him a while to realize that God had really helped him.

"Thank you to our Father in Heaven. May your kingdom come soon, Amen! He drew a cross on his chest, then stabilized his mood and said, "Pierre, immediately inform all the captains to come to me for a small meeting." Also, let all the warships start to fire. ”

Ten minutes later, all the captains were in place. Admiral Bruyers' lieutenant, Pierre, read out to them the relatively simple information that because of the fog, it could only be judged that a large fleet had passed by, and some of the ships were very large. But more information he could not see. Therefore, there is naturally no information such as the formation of the British fleet in this information. It's not a big deal, though. What kind of fleet the British had in the Irish Sea, everyone actually knew in their hearts.

Admiral Bruyers assigned a combat mission, and although everyone had known about the assignment of this combat mission, he emphasized it again. Then it is to encourage everyone to fight bravely and make achievements.

Then the captains returned to their warships, and at about half-past eight, all the ships were pressurized, and the whole fleet left the anchorage and began to approach in the direction of Campbelltown.

At about half past nine, the fleet arrived in the sea near Campbelltown, and by this time the fog had not yet lifted, but according to calculations, at most an hour later, the British fleet would appear in front of them.

"There was a safe passage in the minefield of the British. But the width of this safe passage is certainly limited, and it is certainly not enough for the entire fleet to spread out in formation. Therefore, when the enemy ship comes out, it must give up the advantage of the T-head. We must seize this opportunity and strike them hard! Admiral Bruyers thought to himself, looking with satisfaction at the slowly thinning fog ahead.