Conquest

By the time L’Aurore’s yards were down the sky overhead was darkening, the sunlight cut off and the entire eastern aspect hung in livid, hideous greens and ochre upon the mass of dark grey. It had been only an hour or so from the first sighting of the Ox-eye when the winds began to break loose, slamming in from the north-east off the bow to past the beam, directly from the east. If sail had not been brought in they would certainly have been caught aback.

More spiteful blasts rattled the rigging, and combers could be seen here and there, startling white against the grey, the wind now driving almost always from the east. There was little talk along the decks, as men stared out at the gathering phenomenon.

Then they witnessed a strange sheeting across the surface of the sea: unnatural, flat, fan-like shapes of torn white instantly spreading and being replaced randomly by others, so when the wind hit, it was with a shocking force that sent men teetering and set L’Aurore to an uneasy rolling.

This was like nothing Kydd had experienced before. He grabbed a line and tried to peer into the lunatic hammering from the east. The entire sea was now flattened into a tortured expanse of white, yet waves had not appeared – was it that the ‘fetch’ of the winds was too short to build up a sea?

Again strangely, there was no rain – the darkness overhead threatened a deluge but the slam of wind remained dry, then grew damply warm in a ferocious onslaught, droning and howling dismally among L’Aurore’s stark rigging. The frigate for some reason started a nervous wallow and Kydd saw that it was because her head had fallen off the wind, which bullied and blustered mercilessly at her side, slewing her broadside to it.

It could only be that the sea-anchor, prudently led over the bows, had parted. Broadside to the blast L’Aurore rolled like a log, viciously and frighteningly, but Kydd knew the experienced fo’c’slemen would be doing all they could to get another out quickly.

Then the rain came: in storm-driven downpours, bruising torrents that had Kydd bent double to breathe, his sodden, flogging garments a trial as he held on grimly. There was a perceptible quiver and lurch, and L’Aurore was sullenly jibbing to the second sea-anchor, bringing round to face the wind once more.

The merchantmen had long since disappeared into the chaos of spume and darkness and the immediate need was to endure. God knew where they’d have been if they had not struck the topmasts and laid the yards down. No doubt in times past ships must have encountered this terrifying phenomenon and never lived to tell the tale, just vanished into the deep.

In an hour or so the rain had diminished and the frenzied battering lessened to a steady hard driving from the east. There was no navigating in this but there was sense in trying to reduce the awful strains aloft. Kydd raised salt-sore eyes to meet Kendall’s. ‘We’ll scud,’ he croaked, ‘reefed fore-topsail, fore-topmast staysail.’ The topsail would impel L’Aurore before the blast, lifting the bow, and the staysail would act to damp any deadly yaw.

The rain cleared and a desolate grey seascape was revealed – an empty expanse with not a sign of any of the ships that had occupied his attention. When their sails tentatively took the fearful wind, L’Aurore immediately began to roll. It was not the characterful motion they were used to, running before the wind, but a vicious, screwing heave that had each man reaching for a solid hold.

At the same time there was a near unstoppable yaw from one side to the other that left the four helmsmen struggling. ‘A cable, let out over each quarter,’ he shouted hoarsely at the boatswain, clinging to the mizzen shrouds.

Oakley nodded and, working hand to hand, made his way below. Kydd watched him go – his was a near impossible job: in the insane rolling, he had to rouse out a substantial hawser and heave it overboard to trail in their wake as a damper on the yawing.

It was finally done. The yawing eased and L’Aurore plunged on before the wind into the gathering darkness. Mercifully, with the night, the winds eased, and with little in the way of swell, the waves subsided. Only a few hours had passed, from the first appearance of the Ox-eye to its dissipation. Kendall had had it right: it was a species of local tempest that was short but shockingly intense, a product of the tropic regions.

The morning brought an innocent sky, the wind a kindly north-easter once more, the sea a picture of blue tranquillity. It was time to take stock.

Thanks to their precautions, there was no serious hurt to the frigate, and hands were set to clearing away between decks the broken articles, mess slopping about, all expected consequences of foul weather.

But where were they? They had been some hundreds of miles from the coast of Africa and south of Madagascar when the Ox-eye had hit. Then they had scudded before the wind – an easterly, so ironically they had been urged on towards their final destination, Lourenco Marques. They must now find their latitude, which would be possible with precision at noon.

The French were nowhere to be seen, but neither were the Indiamen. Who knew what had happened to them in those wild hours of the previous day? One mystery was solved later that afternoon: two ships close together were sighted ahead and away to the north. They turned out to be the Indiamen, one under tow by the other and relieved to be still afloat. The big ships’ much higher freeboard had enabled them to survive the rolling at the cost of offering a larger area for the wind to press against and they had wisely chosen to scud before it.

Their latitude placed them comfortably south of the Limpopo River further up the coast from Lourenco Marques and it was with some relief that Kydd shaped course towards it, closing with the coast. That left just one concern: where were the French?

The immediate task was to get the Indiamen to safe harbour. As the three storm-lashed ships made their way slowly south, Kydd and the master conferred.

The only chart Kendall had been able to locate was a private Dutch one of ancient provenance. It seemed to warn of a breaking bar across the entrance to the port, one Baixo Paiva Manso. Past that, it opened into a dismaying twenty-mile expanse of shoals at the estuary of the Rio Espiritu Santo. And in several places at the point where the river discharged into the sea there was the ominous-sounding zandgolven, which had been underlined by an unknown hand. It didn’t need much guessing to realise it meant sub-sea sand waves, shifting, unchartable hazards.

Without a pilot, it was going to be a difficult passage, and when they arrived off the sprawling whitish sand-hills and sliding overfalls of the river mouth, the bar was breaking and visible, but not the treacherous sand waves.

With a seaman at the fore-chains chanting the depths and another aft, they slipped past the scrubby margin of Africa in the rising heat until they were within the twin low arms of Ponta da Macenta and opposite, the Ponta dos