Victory

by Julian Stockwin

  ‘It is,’ Boyd said, with feeling. ‘What shall we do with Missiessy in the Caribbean? Of course, any orders to the Leeward Islands station will reach there only after the Frenchman is on his way back.’

  ‘I do pity with all my heart your first lord – Melville, isn’t it? Such cares and woes and naught he might do . . .’

  Boyd gave him a wry look. ‘Do save your feelings, Charles. In this case they’ll be wasted.’

  ‘Why, surely—’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon at three, my lords assembled in Parliament did carry a vote of impeachment against the first lord, who had no other alternative than to resign immediately.’

  ‘Impeachment!’

  ‘A foolish affair. His private and public accounts became entangled some years ago. The Speaker’s casting vote in the event became necessary, but the result is the same. As of this moment, when the kingdom is under the greatest threat it has ever seen, the first lord of the Admiralty is gone and no one in his place.’

  ‘This is monstrous! It’s unthinkable!’

  ‘I myself am without employment: there’s no one authorised to sign for expenditures, promotions – or may take operational decisions. The Admiralty is rudderless – paralysed. I really can’t think but that, whether we like it or no, we are now entirely in the hands of Lord Nelson and his band of brothers.’

  From the perspective of L’Aurore, the Mediterranean fleet a few cables off her lee in line ahead was a stirring sight. Through Kydd’s glass he could see Victory’s quarterdeck and one still and lonely figure, upon whom so much depended.

  Kydd’s orders were quickly collected. ‘Proceed with the utmost expedition in His Majesty’s Ship L’Aurore under your Command to round the Isles of Galita, keeping with the coast until you shall fall in with His Majesty’s Ship Ambuscade before Tunis and thence to me at Rendezvous Number 38 as expeditiously as possible.’

  Nelson wanted the inshore passage up against the North African coast reconnoitred for an attempt to slip past to the eastern Mediterranean – to the Ionians, Egypt, even Turkey. Nothing was to be left to chance. The secret rendezvous number was north of Palermo in Sicily, well placed for the fleet to intercept a move through either of the only two routes to the east.

  ‘Loose courses, Mr Kendall,’ Kydd told the master, and in short order L’Aurore spread her wings for the south.

  Close in to the Barbary coast the dull ochre landscape stretched away in both directions from the scrubby islets, and the acrid scent of parched desert wafted out to them, taking him back immediately to those times before in dear Teazer that now seemed so uncomplicated.

  Then it had been the scene of a vanquished Napoleon scuttling back to a divided France; now it was the infinitely more dangerous preventing of an all-powerful emperor combining his forces and falling on England.

  The easterly was making progress difficult but Kydd knew that close inshore the desert winds coming out would be enough to see them along and with bowlines to courses and topsails the frigate seethed through the water, prepared at every low point and headland for the dread sight ahead of Villeneuve’s battle fleet.

  There were Arab fishing craft aplenty but without the lingo it was futile to stop and question them and no other square-rigged vessel was in sight. At the point where the coastline fell away they were in the Gulf of Tunis and their task was over. Ambuscade was duly sighted and they both bore away for the rendezvous.

  They were received courteously enough but their lack of news was clearly a blow. Must they cast further into the thousand-mile expanse to the east – or had Villeneuve, as before, returned to Toulon? A sense of desperation gripped the fleet and a despondent Howlett muttered darkly that it were better that Lord Nelson had kept a conventional close blockade than fall back to allow an escape.

  New orders came. Precious frigates were sent to the Ionians, to Tripoli, another north towards Corsica – and L’Aurore to the west, to round the Balearics and then look into Toulon before heading back to another rendezvous north of Sicily.

  The easterly was veering and the frigate thrashed along at her best speed, every man aboard conscious of time passing by, and the enemy slipping away from a climactic confrontation. Then at dawn, with Ibiza a smudge on the horizon, the lookout hailed the deck: ‘Deck hooo! Topsails over, fine on the larb’d bow!’

  Kydd leaped for the weather shrouds. From the cross-trees he saw that the faded sails belonged to no self-respecting man-o’-war, but even a merchantman had eyes.

  ‘Lay us athwart his course, if you please,’ he said briskly, when he regained the quarterdeck. The master glanced up to the lookout, who threw out an arm, and before long a boat was in the water crossing to a sea-darkened Ragusan barque.

  Kydd hauled himself up the sides. A characterful stench rose from the hold as a surly master presented himself. Experienced from countless boardings, Kydd knew the neutral was ruing the hours that would be lost to a search and examination of his cargo, so drew himself up and instructed Renzi, ‘Tell him I’m not examining his freighting or his papers. It’s where the enemy fleet is that’s most important to me.’

  Renzi began in his Italian but the master waved it aside and answered, in stumbling French, ‘I know of no fleet, Mr Englishman, but I tell you, les vauriens are no friends of mine.’

  ‘Have you seen any in the last month?’

  ‘A month? Why, yes. In fact, many together.’

  Kydd tensed. ‘When?’

  ‘Let me see. It was ten – no, eleven days ago. Off Cape Gatto and standing to the west in a fresh easterly, they were.’

  ‘How many?’ Kydd rapped.

  ‘I remember well – they were so great in number. Twelve big two- and three-deckers, and four others under a press o’ sail. They weren’t like your fleets, all in a nice line, these were in a jumble, hein?’

  After more questions about flags and pennants it was beyond question: Villeneuve had been spotted. Kydd raced back into the boat. ‘Stretch out for your lives, y’ rogues!’ he gasped.

  The French had been found – but it was the worst possible news he was bringing Nelson. Cape Gatto was near the choke point where the Mediterranean narrowed to Gibraltar and it was now very clear that Villeneuve had achieved what all had feared – a breakout.

  L’Aurore raised the fleet after a furious sail. Her signals caused the flagship to instantly heave to the entire squadron. Kydd was summoned to report, only too aware of the consternation his news would bring.

  He was back as quickly. Seeing his grave expression, Renzi put down his work and said quietly, ‘A hard thing for Our Nel indeed. I’d believe that others might forgive should he be caught in a melancholy at our discovery.’

  Kydd took off his coat and gazed out of the stern windows at Victory still lying to. ‘It was a cruel blow, that I could tell, Nicholas. He’s been waiting for two years to have an accounting with the French and now they’re out and who knows where? What wrings his heart is that he thinks he’s failed – they’re out of our grasp and Villeneuve is following his master’s orders and stretching out for England, joining with others in Ferrol and so on.’

  ‘A frightful thing,’ Renzi said, in a low voice.

  ‘Or they’ll be challenged on their way north by Orde’s squadron off Cadiz! Nelson’s much out of countenance that the deciding battle will not be his to command, for you’ll know that Admiral Orde is his senior and no friend.’

  ‘Then it’s too late,’ Renzi said gravely. ‘We must say it’s out of our hands now. Villeneuve two weeks ahead of us, the issue will be settled by others before we can come to help them.’

  It was finally happening: the growing avalanche of joining enemy ships even now converging on the Channel, sweeping aside the Brest blockade and at last allowing the vast invasion fleet to put to sea. There would be heroic sacrifices by Keith’s Downs Squadron as the juggernaut advanced until inevitably tens of thousands of Napoleon Bonaparte’s best troops came flooding ashore in England.

  It would be all over w
ithin weeks, the pitiful numbers of Britain’s army swept aside in a victorious push on London and a falling back on the last strongholds of the ancient kingdom. The land they would eventually return to would be a very different place.

  ‘If Nelson is not to be cast down, then neither shall I,’ Kydd said firmly. ‘The people will be unsettled – this is understandable. The Mediterranean Squadron is to fall back on Gibraltar for news, I’m told, but L’Aurore will stand resolute whatever this is.’

  With deliberate calm, Kydd went out on deck, sniffed the wind and saw a signal fly up Victory’s mizzen halliards. It was the instruction to press westward on the long haul to Gibraltar and he lost no time in giving the orders for taking up their scouting position ahead of the fleet.

  Once settled after the flurry of activity, the men showed little inclination to go below, standing in knots and looking back towards the quarterdeck. They would have worked out the implications for themselves.

  Should he call them aft for a bracing talk? What was there to say?

  Instead he crossed to the helm, looking at the binnacle deliberately as though checking their course. Then, nodding to himself as though satisfied, he stood back with arms folded and gazed thoughtfully ahead.

  As he hoped, the officer-of-the-watch, Gilbey, came up hesitantly beside him. ‘A rum do, sir.’

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’ Kydd came back mildly.

  ‘Why, the Crapauds having escaped Lord Nelson out o’ the Med.’

  Behind him by the helmsman were the silent figures of the quartermaster and his mate, two hands and a midshipman.

  ‘Not at all,’ Kydd returned coolly, in a voice above the usual conversational level. ‘I’m in no doubt it’s part of the plan – have you not considered, Mr Gilbey, that this is why Admiral Orde has been placed off Cadiz for just this happening? He’s to confront the French and in the delay we will join him, as will Admiral Calder from Ferrol, and we’ll have a famous battle.’

  He chuckled. ‘I do pity Villeneuve – he’ll wish mightily he’d stayed safe and snug in Toulon.’

  ‘But—’

  Kydd allowed a frown to appear. ‘Have you any doubt of the outcome, sir? When I saw him Lord Nelson was vastly content that the French have at last showed themselves and longs for a conclusion. We couldn’t find them – now we know where they are. Is this not a cause for joy?’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Gilbey answered carefully.

  It was all Kydd could do: the rumours would fly, he had no control over that, but if the men on watch, overhearing their captain, could take away the observation that to him all was going to plan then it was something they could hold on to.

  Gibraltar. Eight hundred miles to the west: less than a week’s sailing with a fair wind – but the veering easterly had gone through south and was now firming from the west. Dead foul for the Rock.

  Day after day the Mediterranean Squadron tacked in long boards ever westwards, the staying about at the end of each a mechanical routine, their advance pricked off on the chart a dispiriting procession. And day after day the winds held steady from the west, always in their face, always foul for Gibraltar.

  They finally clawed their way into the narrowing passage between Africa and Europe that would end in the Strait of Gibraltar. The winds had fallen to a balmy serenity – and with the notorious current through the strait driving in from the Atlantic the squadron was now threatened with being ‘backstrapped’ – unable to make progress in the light winds and therefore remorselessly carried back whence they had come.

  The weary fight ended temporarily almost within sight of their goal when the squadron was diverted to Tetuan to take on fresh water and supplies.

  Tetuan was well known to all nations for its good watering and it was not remarkable to see a Portuguese ship-of-the-line laying to its task when the squadron dropped anchor. What was not expected was the hurried departure of a boat containing a senior officer, which made its way to Victory. Even less expected was the result: L’Aurore’s pennants and the summoning of her captain.

  The commander-in-chief was furiously busy, a stream of clerks, captains, officers and others demanding audience, seen and sent on their way with his secretary at the tall side-desk steadily documenting the activity. But when Kydd appeared they were banished and Nelson quickly sat him down at the vast table.

  ‘News,’ he said, a marked animation in his tired, worn features. ‘I have a service for you this hour, Mr Kydd, but first I will tell you this that you might understand the task.

  ‘The Portuguee is commanded by an Englishman who knows his duty and he has some startling information. While heading here, he sighted Villeneuve on a bowline north of Cadiz but – mark this – on a course west-nor’-west until out of sight.’

  ‘The – the West Indies?’ hazarded Kydd.

  ‘As I could be persuaded,’ Nelson growled, but fiddled with his pencil. ‘Yet he has troops and the Spanish. To me, this seems to speak less of Brazil or the Caribbean and more of a pass north to raise the blockade of Ferrol and then a strike at Ireland.’

  ‘My lord, if he sailed north, surely he must have encountered Admiral Orde and the Cadiz squadron.’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Villeneuve and his squadron sailed through Admiral Orde’s force to enter Cadiz,’ Nelson said bitterly, not hiding his contempt. ‘Not a shot fired, he lets them pass.’

  Kydd held a wary silence. It had been talked about that once one of Nelson’s invaluable frigates in passing had been intercepted by the senior Orde and taken into local service out of apparent spite and there was little love lost between them.

  ‘Not that you’ll sight him – the Portuguee says he immediately retired northward, no doubt falling back on the Channel and not thinking to send a cutter to tell me of his motions or those of the French.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I’m sanguine he’ll answer for it later, but it leaves me with a decision. I can’t dismiss that Villeneuve is making for the West Indies as in Bonaparte’s old plan, but on the other hand I can’t take the unsupported word of this officer in foreign service.

  ‘In the face of all these rumours I’ve so little intelligence and I must remedy it. You’re to sail for Lisbon this hour, Captain, find out what you can about Villeneuve and tell me.’

  Bowden was not the only one busy with pen and paper: nearly all the gunroom was so occupied, for the chance here in Gibraltar to get a letter away to England, home and family was too good to miss. Ignoring the crushing weariness – they had been frantically storing ship in Rosia Bay until darkness put an end to it – he tested the quill nib and began.

  Dear Uncle

  I hardly know how to start this letter to you, for there’s every expectation that by the time you receive it there’ll have been that great clash of arms so devoutly prayed for by our dear commander, the pity of it all being he shall not be part of it.

  What am I saying? As I write this, while we stay idle Napoleon’s vile hordes may well be unleashed on you and all England to suffer the final reckoning. We cannot know, and Our Nel is beside himself with vexation, for he dare not move for want of intelligence of the enemy which is scant and full of question – but I shall start from the beginning from what we know at this moment . . .

  He sucked the feathered end of the quill distractedly and continued with an account of the sudden irruption of the enemy and their extreme frustrations in following.

  Conceive of the scene, Uncle, the fleet watering at Tetuan, a neutral Portuguese advising that the Frenchy fleet was sighted spreading sail for the open Atlantic. Is it to be the West Indies, or is it a ruse to send us off on a wild-goose chase while they double back to join up in the Channel? We cannot know and what is worse is that while these light airs keep in the west we’re prisoners.

  Not one to weep over what can’t be helped, our commander-in-chief orders us to water and take on greens and dispatches Superb to round up beef for the fleet. He sends a frigate to Lisbon for news. Sh
e’s L’Aurore, a famous sailer in a breeze whom we haven’t heard from yet. Then the wind shifts just enough to the sou’-west and we sail all of a sudden, even leaving Superb’s bullocks standing on the beach!

  And so we make Gibraltar. Uncle, if you could hear the rumours fly, it would stand your hair on end. We’ve stopped every ship, but none with a whisper of where Villeneuve is or has been. It’s as if the devil is concealing his own. The ship thinks to a man, however, that the Frenchies after emptying Cadiz simply carried on north and even now are raising Cain and disputing with Admiral Cornwallis for the Channel.

  He paused, reviewing what he knew and ended:

  What is certain is that as the Mediterranean Squadron this cannot be our concern but, dear Uncle, how long can a firebrand like Our Nel lie idle while matters are decided by others?

  There was little more to say so he carefully creased the paper but paused before the wafer was affixed, thinking that it might be wiser to leave it to the last minute, just in case.

  Some five days later his forethought was rewarded. In furious haste he set up on the table and scribbled rapidly in pencil:

  Uncle – I write in a rush. There’s a dispatch cutter returning in one hour and I must give you this news, which I’ll wager will set you a-gasp – Lord Nelson has broken out of station!

  It was a crime beyond forgiveness for a commander-in-chief to abandon his station without the knowledge of the Admiralty. There, plans were formulated on the premise that on the world chessboard fleets were expected to be in readiness in known areas for the moves and counter-moves that constituted high strategy. It was without doubt that such a one absenting himself and his fleet would answer for it at a court-martial.