Conquest

revenge indeed.’

‘Just so,’ Kydd said uneasily. ‘Not as if he has a thirst for blood still?’

‘Hmm. Can’t really say. Now to details, sir. I’m to be flag officer afloat for this expedition and you’ll have my orders and form of signals. These will be straightforward enough, your role in this as escorting frigate to the transport convoy, and at the landing, close gunfire support. After that, well, we’ll see how it all goes.’

Drawing his chair closer, Kydd followed where Popham was indicating in a list.

‘This is the composition of our convoy. Thirteen Indiamen for the regiments and artillery, and thirty-seven of all sorts for their impedimenta and stores.’

Kydd gave a tight smile. With their derisory force, it was a frightful risk: if even a single modern French sail-of- the-line came upon their expedition it would result in a massacre. The longer they were at sea the more exposed to this risk they were, and it would prove a nightmare to provide water and victuals to the thousands of soldiers as they sailed through the fearsome equatorial heat down the length of Africa. And their horses would suffer horrifically, clapped under hatches as they passed through the burning desert of the doldrums.

As if reading Kydd’s thoughts, Popham nodded. ‘Long weeks at sea, yes. However, we shall be touching at the Brazils to water and recuperate before the final leg.’

The anti-clockwise wind-circulation pattern in the South Atlantic made the longer semi-circular passage away from Africa across the ocean to South America the more efficient. But that last leg remained more than four thousand miles and Kydd’s heart went out to the soldiers who must endure for so long, then be called upon to give their all in a convulsive life-and-death struggle.

‘In course,’ Popham added lightly, ‘before we get under way we will purchase replacements for any horses that may die on passage.’

Popham’s responsibility was to ensure the safe arrival of the whole complex structure to its climax at the landing: the jocular tone hid deep worry. Despite his reservations, Kydd asked, with brisk enthusiasm, ‘Then, sir, what is our plan for the final assault?’

‘Why, Captain, that rather depends on the report of the frigate sent to reconnoitre before our arrival, don’t you think?’ he said, with an innocent smile.

In the cold light of morning, the invading fleet made ready to sail. To a casual onlooker it was impressive: fifty or more sail crowding Funchal Roads, a mighty armada about to descend on a luckless enemy.

But to any knowledgeable observer the truth was very different. A dozen of the very largest were nothing more than Indiamen, some with troops – but, as well, laden with luxury cargo and passengers, intended in the event of a dismal failure to continue on to Calcutta and the Raj. Other ships, crammed with artillery and stores, were slow and vulnerable. Still more were anonymous utilitarian hulls, of varying size down to the pipsqueak Jack, a Botany Bay ship hired for the task by a harried Transport Board and of questionable fitness for the long voyage.

And all that had been spared to escort them could virtually be counted on the fingers of one hand.

It was madness. Compelling evidence lay at anchor away to one side: a survivor of an Indies convoy found by Admiral Allemand and his squadron, which had sortied from Rochefort, the so-called ‘invisible squadron’ sent to play havoc off the coasts of Africa.

This convoy, escorted by a single ship, the 50-gun Calcutta, had been set upon by five ships-of-the-line, frigates and corvettes, but in a magnificent yet doomed show of defiance and resolution she had fought the odds, leading the enemy away from her convoy. She had finally struck her colours to prevent further loss of life but all except one of her charges had been able to escape.

Allemand was still at sea, whereabouts unknown. So, too, was the breakout fleet of Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez, even larger and reputedly including Napoleon’s brother – both somewhere in the wastes of ocean, looking for prey and revenge for Trafalgar. If either came up with Popham’s fleet, there would be a massacre.

‘This will do, Mr Kendall,’ Kydd told the sailing master, satisfied with their offshore position, which was well placed to receive the ships now awkwardly getting under way and endeavouring to assemble in some sort of order. The seaward approaches were secured by the other frigate, Leda, and the two sloops, and the convoy, in two loose columns, began falling in behind Raisonnable and Diadem.

As if in concord with their mood, the sky was leaden and louring, the seas with an irritated slop and hurry, while Kydd manoeuvred L’Aurore back and forth in the inevitable never-ceasing efforts to encourage stragglers. Eventually the lines of ships, backing and filling with impatience, were rewarded by the Blue Peter in Diadem whipping down. They were on their way.

At first it was fresh going, running the north-east trade-winds down, the airs warming by the day until in flying- fish weather the convoy laid the Cape Verde islands to larboard to enter the deep Atlantic.

They were lucky: it was at all of three degrees north latitude before the winds eased to a pleasant zephyr and settled to a wispy breeze, fluky and baffling. The doldrums.

Sails hung in their gear, slatting lazily, while the heat descended in a thick, inescapable blanket, melting the tar in deck seams, turning the enclosed mess-deck into a torment to be endured. For three days it continued, ships scattered in random stillness over the glittering furnace, each with its burden of suffering.

On the fourth the first blessed whispers of air from the south-east arrived, playful cats-paws on the sea surface that lifted canvas and set lines from aloft to a cheerful rattle. Sweating sailors braced around and L’Aurore glided forward, the chuckling of water at her forefoot bringing pleased smiles to every face.

However, what could set a fine frigate to motion was not enough for the cumbrous transports, which lay obstinately unmoving. Even when the wafting breeze firmed, it left some like massive drifting logs, and as the day wore on it became clear that the convoy was in danger of disintegrating because those who were able to sailed on.

Kydd was summoned to pass within hail of Popham and received orders to stay by the laggards as a separate formation. He watched the others sail off at speeds not much more than a baby’s crawl; they were still distant white blobs on the horizon in the morning when he set about marshalling his brood.

They were a round dozen sail, including the important King George, with General Yorke and the expedition’s artillery aboard, the William Pitt transport, others with