Flashman and the Emperor

by Robert Brightwell

“But… but we can’t just sail into Salvador on our own. We know that their fleet is there and there will be harbour defences. We would never get out again alive.”

  “Come now, Thomas, have a little faith. I studied the entrance while we were blockading the port and I have an accurate chart showing the harbour. We will go in at night, then I can see exactly where to send the fire ships.”

  “But that means we will have to get in close to see what ships are where,” I countered. Creeping around a crowded enemy anchorage at dead of night seemed to me a recipe for disaster, and one that I was not keen on participating in.

  “Exactly,” grinned Cochrane. “It should be a grand adventure!”

  Chapter 20

  According to Cochrane’s log, the night we visited Salvador was the twelfth of June. If I could not recall the exact date, the event itself has long remained seared in my memory. My first efforts had been centred on getting out of the venture entirely, for it seemed to me a mad, hair-brained affair. We would be sailing right into the lion’s den at night and if anything went wrong there would be no hope of rescue. I professed a sudden concern for the marine who had blown the mine. Then I suggested that I should perhaps stay and command the battery protecting the anchorage in Cochrane’s absence. But he dismissed my concerns.

  “Nonsense, we will be back here by morning,” he scoffed. “If the Portuguese admiral was not nervous before, he certainly will be once we have left our calling card.”

  “Well, obviously I would like to come,” I lied. “But if my marine has been badly injured or even killed by that explosion, then as his commanding officer my duty should be to remain here. It will be their first casualty and I do not want to lose any more men through desertion if they become demoralised.”

  “Ah you are a good man, Thomas, putting duty before adventure,” said Cochrane with a monumental misunderstanding of my real motives. “I will have Doctor Craig sent over to examine your marine before we go. If his injuries are severe then perhaps you will have to stay.”

  I paced that bloody deck for the next half an hour in the selfish hope that the young soldier had been blown to pieces or was at least at death’s door. But then the surgeon returned to cheerily report that while the man was still a bit deaf from the explosion, the only burns on the malingering bastard were to his uniform coat. Well, he seemed set to survive, but my goose was well and truly cooked as I had no other excuse to get off the flagship. I was trapped and it seemed in no time at all that men were at the capstan hauling up the anchor and sails were appearing aloft.

  During the previous few weeks I had been bemoaning my lot at being stuck at the wretched anchorage. But now as I looked over the aft rail at the rocks of Morro de São Paulo, I dearly wished I could be sheltering behind those canvas walls again. Even though they would not stop an Indian’s arrow, never mind a cannonball, they surely provided a more secure haven than the Emperor on this death-or-glory mission.

  I had pressed Cochrane for more detail on his plan in the naive hope of receiving some reassurance that the risks of this endeavour had been carefully calculated. However, as I feared, we were being led by our admiral’s belief that he could deal with whatever the enemy could throw at us. This was notwithstanding the fact that he cheerfully admitted he was not sure where in the river mouth the Portuguese ships were likely to be anchored, how many there might be or what defences or fortifications the enemy might have built. A track record of beating outrageous odds is all very well, but there is only so often that you can play kings before someone puts down aces. And anyway, when I had sailed with him in the past he at least had a plan and usually a second scheme up his sleeve if the first did not work. Here, he just seemed to be throwing the dice and hoping for the best.

  I tentatively suggested that perhaps a daylight reconnaissance by a smaller, faster ship might be better. But he pointed out that the Portuguese would have plenty of time to prepare a reception and ensure the vessel did not get far. “We may have to attack with fire ships at night too,” he told me. “Darkness would only add to the enemy confusion, but first we need to know precisely where their fleet is anchored.”

  So we pressed out to sea that afternoon, to travel the forty miles up the coast towards Salvador. By dusk we were ten miles offshore. If the Portuguese saw us against the darkening eastern sky they probably thought we were just resuming our blockade. In that part of the world it gets dark quickly. As soon as we were sure we could not be seen from the coast, Cochrane put the helm over so that we were on a westerly course with the wind coming as usual from the east. It was only a light breeze, but with all sail set we made good time. Cochrane had plotted our starting position from the last of the daylight and had a crewman measuring our speed every hour. Sometime after his second measurement the admiral announced that he thought we were at the river mouth.

  “Are there fortifications guarding the entrance?” I asked.

  “There will be on either bank, but the river is some six miles wide here and I think we are in the middle. We are well out of the range of their guns, even if they could see us.”

  It was a dark night and I strained my eyes to see either shore. A few stars glimmered through gaps in the clouds, but I could not see any sign of land at all. Cochrane altered course to the north – Salvador was on the northern river bank – but we could not be certain where we were. Crosbie sent a leadsman to the bows with orders to only call out if his weight struck bottom, and even then, to do so quietly. The last thing we needed was for the hapless sailor to announce our arrival, right under the guns of the citadel. The wind had weakened but I did not mind as that meant we were travelling slower, which gave us more chance to react to whatever we blundered into.

  I stared into the night for any hint of the port until my eyes ached. Every minute seemed like five as I half expected guard boats, rocks or even harbour wharves to loom unexpectedly out of the darkness. Half an hour must have passed and I was beginning to think that we had turned too soon. Perhaps we were travelling up the coast having missed the river mouth. Then we heard it. The plaintive ring of a church bell marking the hour. It was feint but coming from beyond the bows of the ship. In the next few moments we heard three more from other churches in the city.

  “Salvador dead ahead,” announced Cochrane and I saw the white gleam of his teeth in the darkness as he grinned in satisfaction. “Crosbie, have the men go to their quarters, but quietly now.” There was the padding of feet as men made their way to their stations around the guns, which had already been loaded on the way in.

  “Should we run the guns out, sir?” Crosbie asked.

  “No, leave them inboard,” ordered Cochrane. “Let’s see what we find first.” He turned to me, “Come on, Flashman, we should go up to the bows.”

  A few moments later and we were standing on either side of the bowsprit along with a couple of young powder boys we had collected on the way. Cochrane thought that their young eyes would be keener than ours. We all stared blindly forward as water truckled under the bows below. For several minutes we saw and heard nothing and then gradually, the city emerged before us.

  I cocked my head, listening. “I can hear a dog barking over to the right.”

  Cochrane leaned over the rail to the leadsman standing below in the chains. “Any bottom now?” he asked. There was the splash of the lead into the water but before the man had a chance to play out all his rope, one of the boys beside me stiffened and pointed ahead.

  “There, sir,” he whispered. “Lights!” For a moment I could not see anything, but then first one and then two more pinpricks of light appeared.

  “We must be getting close,” I muttered before being interrupted by the leadsman announcing that he still could not detect the bottom with his lead. As he spoke a black shadow loomed out in front of us. At first it was an indistinct mass, a line where the dim starlight stopped reflecting on the water. Then there was a roofline vaguely visible against the slightly lighter sky above.

  “It’s the harbour, sir
,” whispered the boy beside me and again my eyes struggled to keep up with his. But slowly I could see the big shapes of warehouses and stone wharfs. Then I realised that one of the lights I had noticed earlier was a lantern on a jetty, an empty jetty.

  “The harbour is empty,” exclaimed Cochrane. “There are no damned ships here at all.”

  “I told you Costa was a lying bastard,” I reminded him. “They must have sailed while we were pinned against the coast. But we had better change course or we’ll be mooring here ourselves in a minute.” Cochrane sent the boy beside him back to Crosbie with orders that he change course to follow the coast, but stay close enough to see it. We were still some two hundred yards off when the bow swung slowly north-east. The only things afloat we had seen were a couple of cutters and an old ship hull without masts.

  “There have to be some ships here,” Cochrane insisted. “Unless they have abandoned the port already, and I do not believe that. We know their naval fleet is here somewhere though we have not seen it. Perhaps they have taken them further up river for protection.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “But if they have also prepared a trap for us, we will blunder into it in the dark.”

  “Well, they don’t know we are here yet and I don’t want to leave until we find them. The tide is still coming in and this light wind will give us time to react to anything we see.” Even though I could not see his features, I could tell from the tone of his voice that Cochrane’s mind was made up. So we stayed there at the bows staring at the shore. My companion was undoubtedly praying for sight of his enemy, while I was quietly hoping that we would not see a thing and would then be forced to quietly return the way we had come. For a while it seemed that it would be my wishes that were granted. We passed the rest of the harbour without sighting a single ship and then started to sail up the river, first one mile and then two. A couple of times the leadsman struck bottom and we swung out to avoid a headland that jutted into the bay, but still there was no sign of any shipping.

  “How wide is the river here?” I asked as Crosbie sent word that we were now three miles up it.

  “Beyond the neck of the river mouth it opens up into a wide bay, twenty miles long and a similar distance wide,” He replied. I began to relax a little until he added, “But there are some islands that we will need to avoid.” Another hour passed as did another three miles at the gentle pace we were travelling. I went below deck to where there was a lantern I could use to see the face of my watch.

  “It’s eleven o’clock,” I told Cochrane when I returned to the deck. “How much farther do you think we should go? We will need to be out of sight of the shore by dawn if you want to keep the element of surprise for our attack.”

  “Unless we find their fleet we won’t know where to attack,” snapped Cochrane irritably. “We will keep going up river until midnight. If we have not found them by then, we may have to capture a fishing boat and sail it back here in daylight to seek them out.” He swore softly to himself while I heaved a silent sigh of relief that this reckless venture would soon be over. It would be a cold day in hell before he got me aboard that damn fishing boat, I decided. I resumed my place in the bows, staring at a black shore that only just stood out from the surrounding inky darkness. The powder boy beside me was tired and several times I saw his head drift down until his chin hit the bulwark. Then he rested his chin on his hands and I was sure he was asleep, not that I blamed him; I was missing my cot myself. He gave a quiet snore and like a fool I shook him awake.

  “Wake up, boy, we’re relying on you to see things ahead.”

  “Sorry, sir.” The boy rubbed his eyes and looked about him. I was sure that there was nothing to see, as had been the case for the last three hours, but he threw up his arm and pointed to starboard. “I think there is a mast, sir.”

  “Are you sure?” whispered Cochrane.

  “Fairly sure, sir, I think I can make out yardarms too.”

  Cochrane sent the boy beside him running back to Crosbie to order a change in course. A few moments later the bows swung around to their new heading. I stared ahead for a glimpse of what the boy had pointed at. At last I saw it, but before I could say anything, the view changed as though a door had swung open. The blackness on my right was moving away to reveal a dozen masts and ships, lanterns glittering among some of them like stars in the night sky.

  “We’ve found them!” exclaimed Cochrane, thumping the bulwark beside him in delight.

  “Yes, but what is this place?” I asked, for I was losing my bearings in the dark. It was not a door that was swinging open to reveal the ships; it was us that was moving. The ‘door’ was a rocky outcrop that I now realised was close on our starboard beam. Staring to my left I saw that there was a matching promontory there – we were sailing through a twisting narrow neck of water into a bay that was hidden from the main estuary.

  “There’s a fort up there!” the boy beside me called in alarm. Looking up I saw he was right; there were walls with battlements along the top. I could see the outline of at least two cannon barrels poking out of embrasures.

  “Quiet, lad,” warned Cochrane. “Whisper anything you see, we don’t want to wake them up yet.” He turned to me. “By Christ, if we can get our fire ships through this entrance passage we will burn their whole fleet! They will cause chaos among such tightly packed vessels and none will be able to escape. If we can anchor a fire ship in the narrowest part of the channel, our fleet in the main bay will easily take care of any that get past.” Even in the gloom his eyes seemed to gleam with excitement as he stared about him.

  Crosbie steadily steered the Emperor around the next bend in the waterway. Once past that we found ourselves in the hidden bay. I remember gasping in astonishment for it was a sizeable stretch of water, but it seemed full of ships. I thought that there must be at least a hundred, although I learned later that the number was closer to ninety. Most were merchants but I saw frigates and corvettes of the Portuguese naval fleet mixed in among them. Every ship in Salvador had been carefully hidden away, but now we had found them.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked. “They don’t know we are here, we could put about and come back tomorrow with the fire ships.” It was the sensible thing to do and I am sure that Cochrane knew it. But he just could not bring himself to give the order. At bottom I am sure he was more a pirate than a naval officer and here before him was a sleeping prize that he could not resist. It would be like me finding a sultan’s unguarded harem; even if you knew the sentinels were on their way, you could not consider leaving without a quick fondle or risking a plunge or two.

  “No, I want to leave a calling card while we are here. Look over there.” I followed his gaze to see, in one of the nearest rows of ships, a vessel almost identical to our own. A seventy-four-gun ship of the line had to be the flagship of the Portuguese admiral. “We will sail up behind it and rake it. Perhaps we will board and set fire to it before we go, and then they will have no ship to challenge us here.”

  As he spoke, the sail on the foremast above us flapped noisily, but I barely noticed. If the Portuguese spotted us now it might be a blessing as we would be forced to retreat. My mind was filled with an image of us blazing away in the middle of this enemy anchorage and men all around us rushing to their guns. We had no idea how many guns were in the fortresses that guarded the narrow entrance to the bay. If they recognised us as the enemy in the gloom they would pound us with shot. But Cochrane was already rushing back to the quarterdeck. He was focused on beating his adversary and perhaps too keen to reverse the humiliation of their first encounter.

  I stayed where I was, watching as we crept across the surface of the bay at little more than walking pace. Five minutes later we glided towards the end of the row of vessels that included the flagship. As we turned again several of the sails flapped loudly above our heads as they lost the wind. Sailors rushed to brace them round, but now we were barely moving at all. The wind was dying and hardly a ripple showed in the water: to be becal
med here would be disastrous. I imagined the sun coming up and the entire Portuguese fleet finding us lying impotently in their midst, with sails slack and no means of escape. I started to run back to the quarterdeck with a mounting sense of panic, praying that Cochrane would not do anything reckless before I got there.

  I was halfway across the main deck when I heard the first voice call out. Some watchkeeper had heard our sails flapping and made out the dark mass that was moving in the anchorage.

  “What ship is that?” The words were Portuguese but similar to Spanish and someone on the quarterdeck must have understood them, for a second later I heard Cochrane’s voice call out in English.

  “We are a British ship.” I braced myself for further shouts of enquiry as I ran up the steps to the quarterdeck, but there were none. Whoever had shouted was apparently satisfied with this minimal response.

  “We can’t attack,” I gasped at Cochrane as I gathered my breath. “The wind is going, we will never get away again.”

  Cochrane just grinned at me and then glanced across at Crosbie before rolling his eyes in apparent exasperation. “Now we have former soldiers giving us sailors advice on the wind. This navy is going to the dogs.”

  I saw Crosbie grinning back in the gloom, and was furious that they did not seem to realise the danger we were in. “Don’t you understand, we are trapped here,” I insisted.

  “Thomas, we are not trapped,” said Cochrane putting a comforting hand on my shoulder. “But I agree, it would be wise not to attack now.”

  “What do you mean we are not trapped?” I asked. “How can we get away if there is no wind?”

  Instead of answering, Cochrane looked over my shoulder and raised his hat in greeting. I turned and saw that we were now a bare twenty feet away from a merchant ship. On its deck a bewildered watch officer was staring at us. “Good evening, sir,” called Cochrane in English and then he turned to one of the Brazilian lieutenants. “Ask him in Portuguese if there are moorings at the end of this row, will you?”