‘Good practice indeed,’ Beresford acknowledged, when the three rounds had been expended. While they had not blown the target out of the water, all that was wanted had been achieved: that in the invisible profile of an enemy ship around the float, every shot would have told.
‘Sir, stand down the people for dinner?’ Gilbey asked respectfully.
Kydd nodded.
Gear was secured and the welcome blast of ‘Up spirits’ was piped by the boatswain’s mate. A happy line of mess-men was soon lining up by the tub in the waist where the grog was mixed in the open air, under the strict supervision of the master-at-arms and the mate-of-the-watch.
The general wanted to visit the mess-decks during their noon meal. Kydd knew it would be an eye-opening experience for him. Army other-ranks were in truth the lowest forms of humanity, from ignorant farmhands and factory workers down to thieves and murderers, their training little more than musket drill and marching. Aboard ship there was no room for these untrained masses: the skills and teamwork in bringing in madly flogging sails on the yardarm or serving the great guns in a no-quarter fighting match were vital and essential.
As well, daily life at sea within the confines of a man-o’-war had its own demands. The committing to test courage on a daily basis put side by side with the human need to relate to one’s shipmates brought out character and strength in the relationships that shaped them. These men were individuals, formed in a crucible of ordeals, ranging from personal combat to the howling menace of a gale, and over time they drew together in a mutual interdependence and regard that was at the very core of what it was to be a member of the company of a fine ship.
The general, with his hat under his arm and therefore deemed invisible, passed between the tables, hearing yarns and ditties, laughter and concerns, feeling the temper of a prime frigate at her best. Afterwards he visited the galley, with its large, purpose-built Brodie stove. The cook in his kingdom ruled his mates and skinkers with an iron fist, lordly checking the metal tallies on the nets of fresh meat doled out from the huge copper vats to the mess-cooks and quick to see that the slush rising on the seething surface was diligently skimmed for his later profitable disposal.
Of course, changes would come after only days into a sea voyage, away from a friendly harbour source of fresh victuals. No more fresh meat but salt beef and pork from the cask, bread replaced by the hard tack that the Navy insisted go under the same name, and in place of greens, preserved stuff such as sauerkraut and trundlers, dried peas.
In the afternoon, those off-watch went to their accustomed leisure on the fo’c’sle while the watch-on-deck took grave glee in exercising their sea skills – stropping a block, invisibly joining two ropes with a long-splice, or rattling down the shrouds on the leeward side. Intricate knots were worked, thick canvas was sewn with palm and needle, and impossibly complex tackles and purchases were devised to move an inoffensive mess-tub. The general took in that these were but a small part of what an able seaman was expected to do for his ship.
‘Four bells, sir,’ Gilbey reported.
‘Very well. Make it so.’
This was a signal for the last act. ‘Hands t’ take stations f’r lowering.’
The launch at sea was stowed on the upper-deck waist, the pinnace nested inside. To ensure its ton weight safely afloat was no trivial feat, demanding the rigging of heavy tackles from the fore-yard and main-yard, connected together with stay tackles and masthead top-burtons to ease the weight. The entire operation, from rest on the chocks to a lively boat in the sea alongside, was conducted in silence, the only sound the harsh piercing of the boatswain’s call.
It was a telling illustration of the skills and training necessary for even the most straightforward of tasks at sea. By contrast, the gig on davits over L’Aurore’s quarter descended to the water in a squeal of sheaves, the boat’s crew making light of scrambling along the driver boom to the jacob’s ladder at its end to tumble handily into it.
Beresford’s attention was drawn back to the launch, which was stroking away to the frigate’s beam, and he was startled at the light-hearted cry from the main-top lookout. ‘Deck ahooooy! I spy pirates! Pirates on the st’b’d beam!’
The launch had rounded to and boated oars but up the stumpy mast rose the dread banner of the skull and crossbones. From their hidden positions in the bottom of the boat a dozen pirates appeared. Fearsome in red bandannas and eye patches, they screeched curses and brandished cutlasses. Then the launch was joined by the gig, and the two, manning their oars, swept round and headed straight for L’Aurore.
‘Repel boarders, Mr Gilbey,’ Kydd ordered crisply.
The first lieutenant wore a sour expression at the sight of the men disporting themselves, but he had his orders. ‘Stand t’ your fore!’ he snarled.
The pirates came on in fine style, swarming up the sides and spilling on to the deck in a tidal wave of action. The brave defenders did what they could but were hard pressed and fell back, hewing and slashing, pistols banging. Casualties mounted on all sides until, with a dreadful roar that startled even Kydd, the awe-inspiring figure of Stirk appeared at the main hatchway, bringing a wave of reinforcements for an attack from behind.
It was quickly over, the last pirates alive preferring a watery grave overside to the wrath of the King’s men.
‘Well done, well done!’ Beresford laughed. ‘His Majesty’s jolly tars triumph again!’
But Kydd had not finished. As the panting men stood down, he called over a pikeman.
‘On guard!’ he ordered. Obediently the man stood firmly, legs astride, the butt of the long pike wedged on deck in the ball of his foot, its forged iron tip questing outward at eye level for the first over the bulwark. ‘Sir, you see here a formidable weapon awaiting a boarder. But it has a fatal flaw.’
He took a cutlass from another and made to strike at the pikeman, who instantly responded, the deadly point turning unwavering on Kydd’s eyes. In a flash Kydd had dropped to one knee in the classic fencing pose for a lunge, but with his cutlass diagonally above his head. Then his blade swung up with a clash on the pike, preventing it lowering, and at the same time he rose, forcing the blade along the pike in a lethal slither – inside the man’s defences.
‘This man is now at my mercy, which does not exist in a boarding.’
Beresford acknowledged with a slow nod. ‘Pistols?’
‘One shot only,’ Kydd replied shortly, ‘into the face, then it’s aught but a club.’
‘Knives?’
‘Worse than useless.’
‘Tomahawks?’ He remembered some boarders had carried these.
‘Never carried by defenders as not for fighting – their use is to cut away defensive ropery when rigged.’
‘Then-’
‘Far better to stop ’em boarding in the first place – canister or grape from carronades, the marines and such with muskets seen to be waiting, and swivels on the breast-rail or in the tops. In harbour there’s boarding nettings spread from below the gun-ports, which can stop even the most vicious assault. We’ve naught to fear except in close battle with a larger.’
‘Oh. So your little show is nothing but a confection.’
‘No, sir. It has a purpose.’ Kydd waited until he had full attention, then went on quietly, ‘In all my professional life at sea, I’ve only been boarded by the enemy once, yet I’ve taken my men to the enemy three, four, five times. This is the reality: that the Royal Navy is more active, enterprising and resolute than the enemy.
‘I ask you, General, now to reverse the situation here and consider that each time you read of a valiant boarding or cutting-out we are the attackers who must overcome any or all of these defences which the enemy can be relied on to throw out.’ He had the attention he wanted.
‘Therefore, sir, think on the quality of the men that I have the honour to command, that I lead in perfect confidence that none will shrink, that all will follow me whatever the day brings.’
Beresford stood for
a moment, pursing his lips and watching L’Aurore’s men cheerfully disperse. ‘Captain Kydd. I’ve never before given you an order, but I’m minded to, should it be in my power to issue it. Sir – and forgive if the form is wanting – do you splice the mainbrace!’
The gunroom dinner went off to the greatest satisfaction. Kydd yielded his customary position at the head of the table, when guest of the wardroom, to Beresford, who was unanimously voted Mr Vice by an awed mess. L’Aurore, under easy sail, daintily dipped and heaved, the gimballed lights setting uniforms a-glitter and casting constantly moving shadows, the feeling so beguilingly that of a living being that, for the thousandth time, Kydd wondered at how shore folk could be content with the inert deadness of the land.
After the cloth was drawn, Mr Vice was prompted for the loyal toast, restrained from rising in the Army way, and, suffused with good humour, did the honours most graciously.
Talk then became general, with anecdotes of service in all the seas of the world coming out.
Renzi, gently teased for his performance the previous year as a Russian to seize enemy documents, set the gunroom in a roar with his tale of a Lieutenant Kydd furiously signalling to an invading fleet in Minorca with a pair of red undergarments. Lieutenant Bowden added to the glee by detailing the forlorn state of Kydd’s first command in Malta when they had nevertheless formally commissioned HM brig-sloop Teazer with only themselves as both crew and witness.
Beresford responded with reminiscences of his adventures as a young captain at the fraught siege of Toulon in the first year of the war, when the royalist insurgency had been destroyed single-handed by the actions of an equally young French captain of artillery, one Napoleon Bonaparte.
A most agreeable evening concluded with the appearance of a midshipman to report the lights of Cape Town in sight.
‘A cognac in my cabin, General, while these gentlemen go about their duties?’ Kydd suggested.
This was what the entire day had been leading up to, uninterrupted access to the one who was seen as most likely to take the bait as military commander of the expedition – and he was the chief conspirator.
Tysoe served their drinks and silently withdrew. Kydd summoned his wits: this sly politicking was foreign to his nature but he knew it would not be the last occasion he would need to deploy it.
Beresford raised his glass. ‘I don’t mind telling you, Kydd, I’m impressed. In my twenty years in the Army I’ve learned to be a judge of men, and you have the best. I honour and envy you for it.’
‘Thank you, General,’ Kydd said, flattered, then, seeing his chance, added, ‘As they’ll no doubt be needed only too soon.’
‘Oh?’ said Beresford, with a puzzled frown.
‘The expedition, sir?’ Kydd glanced up with a guarded expression.
‘What expedition?’
Kydd looked hastily over his shoulder at the door, then leaned forward. ‘Sir, the one that has us all a-buzz. You know, to the River Plate.’
‘River Plate? I know nothing of this.’
Allowing a touch of anxiety to show, Kydd said, ‘I’d be grieved to hear it’s not been taken up, sir.’
‘An expedition to the Spanish Americas? I’ve never heard of it!’ There was, however, a telling gleam of interest in Beresford’s eyes.
‘Oh? I do apologise. I’d thought it dependable you would have heard it from Sir David or the commodore, it being a matter at the highest level.’
‘No, sir, I have not. Pray tell, who did you get this from?’
Kydd replied, in some embarrassment, ‘Well, it’s in the nature of a common rumour among the naval commanders, Commodore Popham letting slip once that he was privy to Mr Pitt’s designs on Montevideo and as how it was such a pity to let the opportunity go now that conditions are favourable.’
He briefly outlined the audacious plan with its breathtaking consequences, ending, ‘And it would seem only reasonable that the governor, having higher duties, must require one other to lead the Army ashore. If it seems that another has been chosen then I do apologise again for making mention of the subject …’
The fuse had been lit.
‘Time’s not on our side, Kydd,’ Popham said, with a sigh, when Kydd reported. ‘Every hour we delay a move, the more likely it is the Spanish will return to their station. Recollect, friend Waine has been some weeks on the voyage here and Miranda will be deeply engaged in his invading, but not for ever. I’d have thought you better advised to speak directly instead of spending days on your little circus.’
Kydd flushed. ‘Beresford is now trusting in the Navy and he has much to think on. I’d feel it the surer course, Dasher.’
‘We’ll see. If there’s no movement on this in the next three days I’m going to-’
A flustered officer-of-the-day appeared at the door. ‘From the castle, sir,’ he said, proffering a slip of paper. ‘And needing immediate reply.’
Popham read, and a broad grin appeared. ‘Why, by this it seems you’ve done splendidly, old chap.’ He handed it to Kydd.
It was a personal note scrawled by Baird himself. ‘… and the fellow’s raving something about a descent on the Spanish Americas! He says you know all about it and so I’d be most obliged if you’d tell me, Dasher!’
‘No reply,’ Popham told the waiting officer. ‘Captain Kydd and I will attend on the governor this hour.’
Baird was waiting with ill-concealed impatience. ‘Well, Dasher? Why am I always the last to hear of high things in my own kingdom? A conspiracy, what?’
‘As it’s in the nature of wry talk, is all, David.’
Baird looked suspiciously at Kydd. ‘Am I to be told why he’s here?’
‘Of his own concern only, sir. He wishes to hear from you directly why the River Plate enterprise is quite impossible at this time, and won’t be denied.’
‘Damn it, Dasher!’ Baird exploded. ‘All this tomfoolery talk about the Americas! Won’t someone tell me what it’s all about?’
‘I am probably in fault for the whole thing, but it’s nothing to speak of, David. Simply said, Mr Pitt commissioned a scheme by me for laying the Spanish by the tail in their own colonies, which was interrupted by Trafalgar. Now, as it happens, it seems conditions are unusually opportune to resume the enterprise, and officers of spirit in my command are clamouring to be let loose on it.’
Popham outlined his dealings with Miranda, the development of plans to provoke an uprising against the Spanish, with its consequences for the wider war and, quite incidentally, the probable fame of any who would be concerned in the shattering of centuries of empire.
‘And now this fellow Waine sails in direct from Buenos Aires with the news that the viceroyalty is clear – quite clear – of any defending warships, leaving it wide open to any descent of ours. Captain Kydd here is of the opinion that, with the retirement of all the French marauding squadrons, there is a shining opportunity to execute the plan – if only we move instantly.’
Baird looked at Kydd keenly. ‘And where do you hope an army of invasion might be found at this instant, young feller?’
Popham came in smoothly, ‘It needs but a comparable force to that which we employed to reduce Cape Town, David, for its purpose is only to hold a strong point, such as Montevideo, until reinforcements and garrison troops arrive.’
‘Then if that’s so why isn’t this plan being put in train?’ demanded Baird, loudly. ‘Be damned, when the stakes are so high, why not, man?’
Popham shook his head ruefully. ‘It not being the province of a sailorman, I’m reluctant to judge, but the situation as I see it is that without orders we are at a loss. London has hardly had time to receive the glad news of Blaauwberg, let alone conjure plans for wider gains. And they’re hardly in a position to know the strategics of what is happening on the other side of the world, so they’ll not be in haste to complete our orders.’
Baird threw him a piercing glance, then began pacing about the room. ‘What you’re telling me is that, if you received orders
to do so, you’d sail against the Spanish.’
‘With pleasure.’
‘To resume what was planned and prepared by Whitehall before?’
‘Just so.’
Baird’s pace accelerated and furrows of concentration deepened on his brow. Suddenly he stopped, wheeled around and confronted Popham. ‘I’m governor and ruling panjandrum in these parts. If I get together a picked army, a few guns and a supply train, would you then sail?’
‘I could be held culpable of quitting my station,’ Popham replied carefully, ‘as not having Admiralty orders.’
‘This is something you’ll have to square with them later,’ Baird retorted. ‘I’ve no authority in that line, as well you know. And I’ve my own worries. Detaching forces when so pinched, and justifying all the expenditures, well …’
‘I’d do my part, David.’
‘Yes, of course you will. Dasher, we’d be in this together, dear fellow, but think what a noise about the world we’d make! I’m sanguine their lordships will overlook the details when this great stroke be known. After all, we’re but anticipating orders, is all.’
‘So you think-’
‘Give me your plans. We’ll work something out together and be damned to the rules!’
‘Seize the hour!’ Popham murmured.
‘Time and tide!’
Chapter 4
Renzi tucked into the lamb silently. Kydd was getting used to it, the faraway look, the air of distraction, the sudden scribbling in a pocket notebook; it was not the Renzi he knew. Gone was the languid observer, the courteous gentleman, in his place a man oblivious to the world.
‘Nicholas,’ Kydd began carefully, ‘the master-at-arms is complaining that he sees light in your cabin in the silent hours contrary to ship’s standing orders and must beg you put it out time and again.’
‘Oh, er, yes. Pray understand, dear fellow, that the muse is not to be commanded by mere mortals. There are times when-’
‘You put him in a hard situation, he not being of a mind to make a charge against you, but he has his duty by me and the other officers. If-’
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