Bowden had his glass up. “My, but they’re in a taking over something, and I rather think it’s us, sir.”
Kydd borrowed it. Along the seafront he saw waving fists, odd triangular flags and crowds coming together.
They were safe for now and, without an anchor cast, if any hostile sail appeared it was the work of minutes to loose canvas and be under way again.
“Boat, sir,” Calloway called, pointing.
An odd-looking craft was heading their way. A wide-gutted galley of at least fifteen oars a side, it flew an enormous two-tailed crimson and gold pennant and proceeded to the beat of a heavy drum.
“Man the side,” Kydd ordered.
They welcomed a visitor in embroidered robe and magnificent turban.
“His Excellency Kaptan Pasha,” an interpreter announced, his hands respectfully prayerful, his accent colourful. “He in charge the harbour and ship of Constantinople.”
The pasha gave a sketchy Oriental bow, hand on heart, which Kydd tried to return, then without change of expression gave out with a barrage of Turkish.
“He say, what are your business in the port, sirs?”
“Tell him we come to attend on our ambassador.”
It was relayed but produced only a contemptuous snort and another declamation.
“Kaptan Pasha is not please, you at imperial anchorage. You move to Seraglio Point, is better. There you wait your ambassador bey.”
“Ask him … ask him if there is trouble on the land, the people stirred up against us.”
This evoked a sharp look and a snapped retort.
“He say, why you ask? English are ally with Turkey, nothing to worry.”
“We are seeing the people on the shore. They’re disturbed, shouting.”
“Their business, nothing you worry. He say I will take you to Seraglio Point, you go now.”
Despite his anxieties Kydd was enchanted by the prospect as they slowly sailed the mile or so to the point, past the white beauty of Hagia Sophia and the splendour of the Topkapi Palace. The anchorage was just around the promontory, well situated at the entrance to the fabulous Golden Horn, the trading and shipping heart of an empire.
And, sharing their holding ground, were three Turkish ships-of-the-line.
“Anchor, Cap’ten, they leave you alone.”
Kydd soon saw they were going to be no threat: their topmasts were struck and, with no flags flying, they were in no fit condition for sea.
“Can you inform our ambassador we’re here?” he asked, as the man lowered himself into a boat.
“He see,” he answered, and pointed up to where L’Aurore’s ensign floated free.
In a short time a crowded boat put out from the opposite shore, a large Union flag in its bows.
Kydd went forward to greet the man who stepped aboard.
Spare, thin-faced and with a haughty air, he ignored Kydd’s outstretched hand and gave a short bow. “Charles Arbuthnot, His Britannic Majesty’s ambassador and plenipotentiary to the Ottoman Empire.”
“Sir Thomas Kydd, captain of His Majesty’s Frigate L’Aurore.”
“You took your time, Captain,” the man said acidly. “Is not your commander aware of the grave developments that have taken place here?”
His eyes strayed seaward. “And where are the others? I was particularly firm in my communications that a force of size be dispatched. Pray where is this fleet, sir?”
“I am in advance of it, sir,” Kydd said flatly. He sincerely hoped this would be the case but as its instructions from Collingwood were still in his cabin this might be problematical.
Arbuthnot gave him a withering look. “You’re not to know of it but His Majesty’s interests in the Sublime Porte have been greatly injured. Only a gesture of undoubted martial strength will go towards restoring our position there.”
“Sir, this is not a matter within my ability to command. You may, however, suggest any course that you desire, and if it is in my power to effect it, I will do so.”
There was a pause. The ambassador seemed to make up his mind. “Captain, my position in Constantinople is now untenable and, further, I go daily under fear of my life. My decision therefore is that I seek refuge in your ship. That will be possible, I trust?”
“Certainly, sir.” It would mean yielding up his own bed-place and cabin but a diplomat had every right to demand this of a king’s ship.
“Together with my immediate staff, if you please, twelve in all.”
This was stretching things but he was not going to abandon fellow countrymen to be condemned ashore to some appalling eastern fate.
Fortunately the same northwesterly that had brought them would be fair for a rapid departure.
“Very well, Your Excellency. I should like to point out that the winds are not always favourable in these parts and—”
“What is that to me, sir?”
“If the evacuation is to get away safely, then—”
“What? You have a wrong impression, sir. I am not evacuating, Captain, I am merely taking a prudent sanctuary in your vessel. Now, if you would be so good as to provide a species of cabin with a modicum of space I shall set up my office.”
It soon became clear to Kydd what Arbuthnot was doing. From his assumed safety afloat he was going to bombard the sultan and his government with strong-worded notes, carrying on his diplomatic war with the French from Kydd’s own cabin. Whatever the tumult and confusion in the city and from whatever cause, the man was taking L’Aurore as a little piece of England from which he could shake his fist at his enemies.
His was not to complain, but didn’t the ambassador realise how illusory was his refuge?
They were anchored within a stone’s throw of three 74s, which, however stood down, could still be manned and their guns turned on L’Aurore to reduce her to splintered wreckage in minutes. And, with the waters here restricted to a bare mile wide, their escape route to the open sea could be sealed off by just a few elements of the Turkish Navy.
And what if his angry words inflamed the population? So close to the shore, they would be overwhelmed by scores of boats well before they could weigh and set sail.
“I beg you to reconsider, sir,” Kydd tried. “We are at hazard here. If the Turks wish to offer us violence, there’s little we can do. And I’m persuaded that even if we sail now, if they are minded to, there are forts in the Dardanelles that could sink us within a very short time. It would be best should we leave while we can, reach safety and then—”
“No. Kindly do as I desire, sir, and remain here.”
In the evening, dining alone with Arbuthnot, Kydd pressed for details of what was going on in the city.
“That is not your concern as a frigate captain, sir. Yet I’ll tell you that I’m deeply angry and mortified that the rascally Sultan Selim sees fit to continue to entertain the scheming French, who have intrigued to reach positions of power and influence with him. It is nothing less than scandalous. They have perjured themselves to spread vile rumours about our intentions and to denigrate our military effectiveness and I’m grieved to note they have been all too successful.”
Did he mean he had been outclassed in intrigue by the wily French?
“There’s only one way to redress this deplorable state of affairs. A display of military might before their very gates as will bring them to their senses. With Bonaparte’s troops flaunting themselves as near as Dalmatia, nothing else will persuade the perfidious Selim to offer us the respect that is our due.”
“Sir,” Kydd said, with all the conviction he could muster, “I was fortunate in having surprise on my side when I came here. Should the Turks wish to contest the passage of a fleet I’ve no doubt they could do so in the confines of the waters I’ve seen leading here. Do you not feel that an unfortunate reverse in our attempt to force the Dardanelles would have the opposite effect to what you’d wish?”
“I’m surprised at your tone, Captain. The very appearance of Nelson’s fleet alone will strike awe and terror
in the breasts of these benighted heathen. This is why—and I tell you in the strictest confidence—I have gone over the head of your commander-in-chief to Whitehall and the prime minister, demanding that a showing off Constantinople be made. I expect a positive reply daily, sir.”
This madman, if he got his way, would condemn Collingwood’s fleet to a desperate fight point-blank against forts and the Turkish Navy, almost certainly to end in wreck and retreat, and to what clear purpose? England’s precious blockading fleet decimated and humiliated—it didn’t bear thinking about.
Surely even a land-bound government like Grenville’s would see the risks and futility of it, find some other way of offsetting the French influence—and replace this haughty fool.
At eleven the next morning everything changed. Suddenly bursting into view rounding the point a massive two-decker ship-of-the-line appeared—Canopus, the 80-gun flagship of Rear Admiral Louis’s squadron.
The rest of the squadron would no doubt be waiting hove to in the open water before the peninsula. Arbuthnot had his military might.
Kydd lost no time in taking boat to make his report and hand over Collingwood’s instructions.
He’d last seen this ship as the French Franklin at the Nile, fighting bravely in the darkness of that infernal night—and his own ship, Tenacious, had been her chief antagonist.
But this was going to be a less glorious occasion unless he could persuade the admiral to deny the ambassador his ambition.
“Sir Thomas, is it, then?” Louis had a high-pitched wheeze that made him hard to follow.
“Sir,” Kydd acknowledged. Louis’s baronetcy had been for his role in the San Domingo fleet action in the West Indies under Duckworth.
Handing him the instructions, Kydd waited politely. Louis put the packet aside. “I’ll take ’em up later. Do tell me what you’ve been about, will you, old chap?”
“New-joined to Admiral Collingwood’s blockade fleet, sir. He received disturbing news from the ambassador here concerning unrest and threats to British interests. He desired me to lose no time to find yourself, sir, and give you these instructions.”
“And so you have. But don’t tell me—unable to find me you took it upon yourself to come here to see what assistance you could be to the ambassador.”
“This is why I’m here, yes, sir.”
“Quite right. Then what did you find, pray?”
Kydd told briefly of the disturbances seen ashore, Arbuthnot’s arrival and installation in L’Aurore. Delicately he explained his reservations about the ambassador’s desire to raise the stakes by threatening undisclosed action with an overwhelming naval force.
“And so your appearance here with your squadron is very welcome to him,” he concluded.
“Not so, not so.” Louis coughed, banging his chest. “I’m alone, the flagship only. My squadron lies at anchor at the mouth of the Dardanelles.”
He went on, “A single ship by way of being no provocation was my thinking. He’s to be disappointed, it seems. Does he wish to be taken off?”
“Sir, I believe he would wish to discuss such with you,” Kydd said cautiously.
“I’d better take on board what’s being said here before I see him.” He picked up the instructions. “Excuse me,” he muttered.
“Ah. In so many words I’m to make reconnaissance of these waters and afford what assistance I can to his excellency. I don’t consider forcing the Dardanelles with a squadron a reconnaissance, do you?”
Arbuthnot was bitter and scathing at the admiral’s attitude and insisted on a grand council in Canopus for the following morning.
“Let me put it to you as plainly as I can,” he said. “I’m here on the spot. You’re not. I know the Turk. You do not. And what I’m saying is that they’re a backward, decayed people who understand only the language of strong and weak. At the moment, since the successes of the Corsican in Europe, they do admire him and listen to his siren words.
“Yet the greatness of Nelson is known even here, to which we certainly owe the treaty of amity the French are seeking to overthrow. Gentlemen, what I’m asking only is that the hero’s own navy does flourish itself in all its glory before the walls of Constantinople. The artful Selim will instantly see it in his best interest to eject the French and receive us as brothers.”
Louis heard him out, then put his hands flat on the table and wheezed, “No. No! I cannot counsel nor lend my name or ships to such a foolhardy gesture. Sir, I’m instructed to aid you in so far as it lies in my power—and subverting a reconnaissance into an armed provocation is not—”
A sudden knocking on the door interrupted him. A breathless lieutenant flew in and blurted, “Sir, my apologies—you’re desired on deck this minute, if you please.”
They were met with a chilling sight: smoke rising ominously from several places inland and figures running along the sea-front pursued by an ugly crowd. Several stumbled and were hacked down by those following. Cries of terror and rage came floating out.
“I rather think events have overtaken us,” Louis said.
More emerged from the streets and between buildings; it was obvious that they were making for the jetties on the waterfront. Several boats were lying off and came in, firing upwards to deter pursuers. The frantic victims tumbled in. A few stragglers were too late and were mercilessly dispatched on the quayside or flung themselves into the water.
“The mob’s turned against us, then.”
“So it would seem,” said Arbuthnot, without emotion.
There was no possibility of intervention as any show of force would trigger an incident that could place the situation beyond retrieving.
The boats were all headed towards the looming bulk of Canopus, her ensign proclaiming her a haven of peace and sanity in a world turned mad.
“Your directions, sir?” Louis asked, his features set.
“One moment. Lend me that,” Arbuthnot said to a lieutenant, and took his telescope. “As I thought—that’s Italinski.”
“Sir?”
“They’re not ours. They’re Russians, although what the devil set the Turks off, Heaven only knows.” He handed back the glass and folded his arms, waiting for the first boats.
The Russian ambassador, a big man, was helped over the bulwark, puffing like a whale. He saw Arbuthnot and lumbered across to him.
“T’ank the God you here,” he bellowed, then remembered a bow. “They mad, like beast.”
“My dear Italinski, you have my sincere sympathy.” He glanced at the wild-eyed Russians scrambling over the side. “In course you shall have sanctuary in any ship of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy.”
“Ze bigger ze better, Charles. Zis vill do for now.” His bushy black eyebrows worked with emotion.
“Might I enquire just what stirred the populace to riot and slaughter against your people all of a sudden?” Arbuthnot asked.
“Don’ they always?”
“Just this particular time, if you would humour me, Andrei.”
“Not’ing!”
“Nothing?”
“Well, some fool move by St Petersburg. They order troop into Moldavia, ’at’s all.”
“Ah. Now I understand. You Russians, it seems, have taken Ottoman possessions in the Balkans by force, expecting no reaction from Constantinople to a rather pointed expansion of the Tsar’s empire at their expense. It seems they’ve been rather forgetful in omitting to inform you of their intentions.”
Italinski glowered, then pointedly turned to bark orders at some uniformed flunkeys.
“My cabin?” Louis suggested smoothly, to Arbuthnot, leaving the Russians to sort themselves out.
Kydd hesitated, then went with them.
“Now, sir, we have a problem,” Louis said immediately. “If we’re seen to be sheltering these Russians it will only inflame the mob and I would not reject the possibility that it becomes a focus for their anger, which will then be directed at us.”
“Do you think I have not thought of this?” Arbu
thnot said scornfully. “The solution is obvious.”
“Sir?”
“You will set sail immediately with the Russians on board.”
“A wise course,” Louis said in relief. “Captain Kydd, are you ready to sail?”
“The frigate is not involved. It will not sail.”
“Not … sail? It’s your decision, Ambassador, but in all frankness I cannot—”
“In your profession you’re not expected to understand the finer points of diplomacy, Admiral. This is a capital opportunity to remonstrate with the Sublime Porte in a strongly worded note to the effect that this unrest only points to an urgent need for a realignment of interests and so forth.”
He drew himself up. “And it may have slipped your mind that there are British residents, merchants, commercial agents, those who so loyally assist in the Black Sea trade, all gazing upon us in trust that we will not desert them. I will not, sir!”
Kydd picked up a certain shrillness in the tone. If this man was misreading the signs, they were all in the most deadly peril.
Canopus sailed under cover of dark, and in the morning L’Aurore lay alone to her moorings.
A pale sun revealed sullen knots of people ashore, the flicker of a fire here and there indicating their intent to stay. Set against the backdrop of the Oriental splendour of grand palaces and domes, the air of menace was unnerving.
Arbuthnot kept to his cabin until the afternoon, when he appeared with an elaborately sealed document. “I desire this be landed at the Topkapi Steps and signed for by the grand vizier.”
“You’re asking I risk a boat’s crew to—”
“They will not be troubled by the palace functionaries there, Captain. Please do as I request,” he snapped.
An eerie unreality hung about the anchorage but at least the mob was beginning to break up and disperse, either through boredom or a cooling.
Night came. Kydd was taking no chances and posted double lookouts and hung lanthorns in the rigging.
The hours passed.
A little before midnight there was a faint cry in the darkness. Alerted, the watch-on-deck stood to and saw a boat come into the pool of light from the lanthorns. A man stood up in the thwarts and asked in a quavering voice if the ambassador was still aboard.
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