Conquest

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 foolishness 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.