Conquest

by Julian Stockwin

  Judging the wind, the frigate wore about and angled across towards the fabled Cape just as a hail came from the fore-top lookout: ‘Sail – I see eight or more, er – an’ one a ship-o’-the-line!’

  Kydd leaped into the shrouds and mounted rapidly to the tops. This had to be a French squadron member undergoing repair or a Dutch sail-of-the-line. Either way the threat to the landing was grave – and if it had friends . . .

  Aware of every eye on him he steadied his pocket telescope against a shroud until he had a good image. It was indeed a ship-of-the-line, perhaps a 74, more powerful by far than anything the English expedition possessed.

  He looked again. It was of an older, more elaborate age; the ships at Camperdown had not been as elderly. Puzzlingly, it had its topmasts down and was moored bow and stern. Then he had it: this was a ship not intended for the sea; it was merely a floating battery guarding whatever amounted to the Dutch marine settlement at Simon’s Town. The others were harmless merchant ships, small fry, coastal vessels. He snapped the glass shut and descended. ‘A liner, it’s true, but a guardship only,’ he announced. At the relieved murmuring, he added sternly, ‘But who’s to say he hasn’t friends?’

  Before them, the Cape of Good Hope was approaching, a legendary place of romance and antiquity that they would pass closely.

  Renzi appeared next to Kydd, engrossed in the spectacle, gazing intensely at the narrow, precipitous finger of rock projecting into the deep green seas. ‘Conceive of it, my friend. The uttermost south of Africa! Should you lay foot on that pinnacle you may walk on due north for miles without count, never getting your feet wet until you arrive at the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Or detour through the Holy Land and eventually you will stand at Calais observing the white cliffs of England itself, still dry-shod . . .’

  ‘I’m devastated to contradict you, old fellow, but this is far from the most southerly point, which being Cape Agulhas we recently passed, some thirty miles of latitude south. And the fine foreland you’re admiring is never our fabled Cape – you’ll find it the more humble point a mile on your left, past the beach.’

  ‘I see,’ said Renzi, with a sniff. ‘I haven’t had the sight of a chart this forenoon. However, I do note that our doughty forebears are right in one particular – the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope involves a decisive change of course from south to east, and thus, whatever its deficiencies of grandeur, it must truly be considered the hinge-point on the road to India.’

  Honour thus satisfied, they stood together as L’Aurore duly turned her prow northward for the last two score miles up the peninsula.

  So far they had done little to alarm the Dutch. English cruisers were no rare sight as they passed on their way to the Indian Ocean or homeward bound, and Kydd intended to keep it that way. His plan was to enter Table Bay, the expansive roadstead before Cape Town, as if on the prowl for prizes but in reality observing as much as he could of the shore defences.

  It was out of the question to land scouts on the hostile shore – they would be instantly taken as strangers – but there was always the possibility of intercepting and questioning a fisherman or coastal trader. Time was pressing, however, and—

  ‘Good God!’ Curzon spluttered, pointing ahead. From around the next headland had suddenly appeared a ship, close-hauled under full sail, standing south, heading directly towards them.

  Kydd hesitated in shocked surprise. L’Aurore was not at quarters but probably neither was the other – but then it shied away, falling off the wind to race back whence it had come.

  This gave them a chance to see that it was of substantial size, well armed but somewhat smaller than they. Kydd’s mind raced. Their mission was reconnaissance, not to engage in battle; any damage to mast or spars could jeopardise their vital task to return and report. They would let it go.

  ‘Hold your course!’ he threw at the conn. This would give the other ship the opportunity to make the open sea and escape, but incomprehensibly it did not. The turn-away slowed and it came back to its original course, directly for them. It was going to fight.

  Only a few hundred yards now separated them and L’Aurore’s guns were not yet cleared for action. And they could not buy time by seeking room to manoeuvre because the hard coastline was to one side and the stranger to seaward. ‘Get those men to the guns!’ he roared, in a fever of frustration.

  Then the vessel was up with them – a cheerful hail in French and a wave came from its fo’c’sle. Kydd stared for a moment, then gave a grim smile. ‘He asks for news, believing we’re a Frenchman homeward bound from the Indies, our build so clearly theirs, and disbelieving an English warship this close in to the Cape.’

  It put over its helm to wear about and run companionably along with them; at sea, to save wear and tear, a ship normally wore no colours and so far neither had hoisted them.

  Suddenly a sharp cry rang out from among the sailors on its deck, then a hoarse bellow and the ship hastily sheered away. Something had spooked them to the true situation and now they were making off as fast as they could.

  ‘Well, I’ll be . . .’ Kydd murmured. It was precisely what was wanted – but then a thought struck. If he held back from engaging, it would signal that he was here for another purpose and the Dutch would immediately be on the alert.

  He had no alternative. ‘We go after him,’ he growled.

  It had to look convincing. The other vessel was most likely one of the corvette-sized privateers that were preying on the India trade and therefore heavily manned. Boarding was out of the question but a running gun duel was the last thing he wanted.

  ‘Brace up sharp, there!’ he roared down the deck. The privateer was angling out to sea as close to the wind as it could lie, but it would take a much finer-lined craft to outdo L’Aurore on a wind.

  ‘Gun crews closed up, sir,’ Gilbey reported, eyeing their chase with smug satisfaction.

  ‘Thank you,’ Kydd said coldly. If the man thought they were taking prizes he would disabuse him, but not just yet.

  It would solve all problems if the privateer got clean away. But the distant captain had seen L’Aurore’s effortless fore-reaching and threw over his helm to go directly down-wind – back into the embrace of the craggy coastline. Kydd followed suit; in a twist of irony he was trying to lose the race but the other man was playing into his hands.

  Short of deliberately slowing, which would be noticed, there was little he could do, for the privateer had allowed himself to be boxed in against the land, and with the down-slope afternoon winds coming in from near abeam, L’Aurore was at her best, at less than half a mile astern and closing.

  Should he reluctantly board or stand off and cannonade it to a ruin? A prolonged roll of heavy gunfire would wake up everything for miles and Cape Town itself was only some twenty or so miles ahead. Damn and blast the useless swabs!

  A quick check of the chart revealed a forbidding steep-to coast stretching into the distance. There was a good chance they would have to take the privateer on when it was forced seaward by the blunt promontory ahead, marked ‘Olifants Bos Point’. Some unknown hand had ominously inked in a graveyard cross and a date pointing to its offshore reef, Albatross Rocks.

  It would soon be over: they were overhauling to seaward, and when the hapless vessel came out to round the breaking seas that marked the reef, they would be waiting with a broadside.

  L’Aurore edged further seaward; without local knowledge, it would not do to come too near those wicked sub-sea fangs – but the privateer seemed not to care. Or was it that he intended to go between the reef and the point? It was odd: he would gain little by it for L’Aurore would simply take him on the other side and, unless he had faultless local knowledge, with the state of tide, inshore currents and the like, he was taking a terrible risk.

  The gap closed – but as L’Aurore sheered clear of the reef the privateer insanely careered on under a full press of sail.

  ‘He’s mad, the bugger!’ shouted Gilbey, outraged at the foolishnes
s of their rightful prize.

  At full tilt the privateer drove on to the rocky plateau at the base of the cliff, rearing up and crashing down, the masts teetering before tumbling in a tangle of rigging until all motion ceased and it lay there, an utter wreck. He had destroyed his ship rather than let it fall into their hands.

  Gilbey raved at the madness until Kydd silenced him curtly. This could not have acted out better: not a shot fired, the privateer destroyed, all in a desolate region where the survivors could be expected to take a long time to straggle out and raise the alarm.

  Even as he watched, figures were tumbling out of the wreck and crowding on the stone-strewn shore. ‘Ease around, Mr Kendall, and we resume our course,’ he said, in grim satisfaction.

  The next and last stage of the reconnaissance was going to be the hardest. An incursion into the very heart of the enemy’s territory: Table Bay itself.

  Kydd’s charts were good: they showed how the settlement of Kaapstad – Cape Town – was on the lower slopes of a spectacular mountain within the sweep of a broad bay open to the north-west. Unusually, there was no harbour marked, simply a single jetty out from the long, sandy foreshore.

  When he rounded Green Point to open into Table Bay, half of his anxieties would be settled. If there was an enemy battle squadron he would find them at anchor opposite the town, and in this near southerly he was confident L’Aurore would be able to make her escape seaward and sail to the rendezvous to bring the expedition word in time.

  However, if there were no waiting battleships this was only the first act. Establishing how the Dutch would defend their possession was crucial. Kydd could think of no easy way to discover the defences to a landing other than to show his colours and flaunt them along the foreshore, provoking the batteries and gun positions to unmask. It would be dangerous but he was relying on the military’s unfamiliarity with gunnery ranges over sea and their probable lack of live practice.

  He studied the chart again. There were batteries marked Chavonne, Amsterdam, Fort Knokke and others. And ominously, just below the town at the shoreline, a major fortification in the shape of the Castle of Good Hope. There was nothing for it but to go in.

  ‘All plain sail, Mr Kendall,’ he said evenly, to the master. ‘After we’ve cleared Green Point, if there’s no French at anchor we’ll follow along the six-fathom line as near as we dare.’ This would place them at a tempting half-mile range but with sufficient water under the keel.

  ‘Colours at main and mizzen, Mr Gilbey, and I’ll thank you to beat to quarters.’ The die was cast.

  As they made the run, to their starboard the grey-brown slopes of the peninsula spine began to rear up massively, near vertical as a great mountain mass loomed, the rearward ramparts of Table Mountain. And the last feature before they turned the corner into Table Bay was the large cone-like peak called the Lion’s Head, the Lion’s Rump its smaller continuation. White-fringed rocks below were marked as North and South Lion’s Paw.

  Atop the Rump there was a signal station, and the thin crack of a gun and wisp of smoke drew attention to the rapid flag hoist on the mast. They had been seen and reported. No doubt there was now the furious drumming and tan-tara of trumpets at the batteries and castle, which was what Kydd wanted – but would there also be the sudden appearance of Willaumez’s frigates?

  Keyed up to expect anything, L’Aurore rounded the low flat of Green Point until the whole bay opened before them – with no dread sight of a massed squadron.

  There were vessels at anchor: a large one close in, several of medium size and a huddle of smaller, all as near as they could get to the shore and its protection. As L’Aurore paused to take in the situation, a series of low thuds sounded from the shoreline, then smoke rose from a small fortified battery at the end of the point and was snatched away by a businesslike breeze.

  Standing next to Kydd, Renzi dutifully noted its existence. ‘Twelves, do you think?’ he said matter-of-factly, as the balls slammed past and sent up vicious plumes nearby.

  Close-hauled to the southerly as she was, Kydd knew L’Aurore must look a picture from the shore: a beautiful, lethal and utterly graceful man-o’-war arrogantly entering the bay. But he had to show purpose or their real mission would be betrayed. ‘Around and through the anchorage as if we mean to take our pick, Mr Kendall,’ Kydd said, as though it were an everyday affair to penetrate casually into the heart of an enemy port and out again.

  Another battery took over, the concussions heavier and with more venom. ‘The Chavonne, I’d believe,’ Renzi said, with interest, counting the embrasures with gun-smoke issuing from them. Kydd spared a glance at the panorama of Cape Town opening up: a curiously neat town on the slopes, regularly spaced streets amid mainly whitewashed houses, dominated by the colossus that was Table Mountain.

  He had seen illustrations but the reality was dramatic. Its perfectly flat summit stretched along for several miles. At three thousand feet high, with a near-vertical face, it gave an impression of grandeur only approached by what he’d seen at Gibraltar.

  Tearing his gaze away, he took stock. There was the castle at the foreshore. It was unmistakable, with its curious low-built bastions and star-shaped design. It was joined by a wall to a fort further along, both completely dominating the only landing place, the jetty.

  Another battery opened up as they approached the inner anchorage; by now there was continuous fire on the presumptuous intruder but so far with little effect. They were going to get away with it.

  The wind’s direction meant that the anchored ships streamed to their cables, presenting a bows-on appearance and therefore unable to fire back. It was nonsense to think that it was possible to board and take one – so near to each other there would be reinforcements by boat on the way before they could bend on sail and put to sea.

  He had to make an aggressive gesture – but there was a catch. He called over a master’s mate. ‘Mr Saxton, go down and tell Mr Bowden it’s my desire to fire on the largest, ahead there. Now – mark me well. He’s not to hit his target, do you hear? Not one shot to strike him.’

  ‘Sir?’ spluttered Saxton, in perplexity.

  ‘Do you not understand plain English, sir? I will give orders to fire and he is to miss. Or shall I have to instruct Lieutenant Bowden myself?’

  He hid a smile at the wry thought that on a day of ironies this was possibly the biggest. He could not fire into the enemy because, if Baird’s enterprise was triumphant in the field, all of these would be British.

  Plunging through the middle of the anchored vessels, Kydd gave the order. As if in too much of a hurry, L’Aurore fired off her broadside early, the savage gouts of shot-strike rising all about the large three-master. They seethed past the untouched ship and Kydd saw the ensign of the French Republic at the staff. It must be a transport, the French reinforcing the Dutch garrison.

  Still more batteries were waiting for L’Aurore beyond, but had as little success. L’Aurore followed the line of the shore. All who could aboard had a telescope up, squinting through the hard midday glare at the alarm ashore.

  There appeared to be a coast road following the long curve of the bay, and after the buildings petered out, the land grew flat and uninteresting, a uniform light ochre and dusty green. As far as Kydd could see in either direction, apart from the single jetty under eye from the castle, there were no port facilities to disembark soldiers and equipment, a grave drawback.

  Robben Island, flat and barren on the charts, gave a natural conclusion to the bay and made a perfect blind for their rapid exit out to sea and the rendezvous.

  What could he report? The most significant fact was that the fearsome battle groups of the French had not been sighted close by. Therefore they had a bracket of time of perhaps one or two days. The presence of the transport was a troubling unknown – how many troops had it brought? As for the defences, it was out of the question to repeat their surprise penetration. They had good information on the siting and calibre of defensive batteries but, on the
other hand, clear evidence that without a port only a beach landing was open to them – and that in the face of hostile fire.

  But those were considerations for others. ‘Course nor’-west after we round the island, Mr Kendall,’ Kydd said. Time was short.

  General Baird rose to his feet. The muted conversations around the table in Diadem’s great cabin died away until there was perfect quiet. He did not speak at first, looking about gravely at the senior officers, an imposing group in their regimental and naval dress.

  Kydd sat respectfully alert; he was not at the table with the commodore and brigadiers but with others in the outer ring.

  ‘Today I received my latest intelligence concerning the situation obtaining in the Cape,’ the general said quietly. ‘And it is that there are no signs of superior French forces in the vicinity. Had there been, be assured, I would have summarily cancelled the expedition and fallen back on St Helena.’

  ‘We go in,’ said Colonel Pack, with a savage smile, but he was pointedly ignored by Baird, his face lined with worry.

  ‘I shall not hide it from you – the decision is hard. Our forces are reduced. We have lost men at sea and the remainder must be accounted in weak condition from so long on shipboard. Moreover, we’ve now few horses left to us available to turn an attack by column.’

  He drew in a deep breath. ‘Not only that, but most of our artillery is lost to shipwreck. If we make an assault – if we land successfully – then it will be but infantry on the field of battle against cavalry and guns. These are not odds most favouring those attempting a descent on a hostile shore.’

  He paused, letting it sink in. Sea-glitter played prettily on the deckhead through the expanse of ornamented stern windows, moving slowly from side to side with the long sway of a South Atlantic swell.

  ‘But, yes, I have decided we will go forward with the landing, and with no further delay.’ A ripple of satisfaction went around the cabin.