Conquest

Kydd left as soon as he decently could and made his way back aboard. L’Aurore was part of the Cape squadron and his thoughts were very much on the little outpost at the tip of the great continent in its time of lonely defiance.

And then, of course, there was Therese. At the ball he’d been much taken with her cool poise and striking attractiveness, which had made it irksome to sail the next day. When he returned, if she had not retreated back to her wine estate, he would most certainly pay her a call . . .

He waited impatiently until Oakley had reported stores and water aboard, then, although it was well into the first dog-watch, he ordered the ship secured for sea and they sailed into the evening to return to Cape Town.

Close-hauled on the starboard tack in the fine south-easterly trades, L’Aurore made a good crossing, raising land soon after dawn. Notorious to every sailor, the African coast at these latitudes was treacherous, desolate and unutterably remote, a burning wilderness, what the old Portuguese called a costa dos esqueletos – the coast of skeletons.

There was vanishingly little reason for the French to be here – but, then, what better place to conceal a secret refuge, a location where a fleet of ships could be assembled out of sight before making their strike south? Kydd dutifully went about and headed south, closing with the stark shore as near as he dared, keeping with the inshore south-westerly.

Through the telescope he peered out at an endless march of tawny sand dunes, shimmering in the heat behind the white line of breaking surf. Occasionally a twist of rock, a low hillock or dry wash-way caught the eye, but the unrelieved boredom of the prospect soon reduced its novelty and the seamen got on with their work with no more glances shoreward.

Shortly after the men settled to their noon meal there was a low cry from the lookout at floating wreckage across their path. It was not unknown to come across derelicts – sad, waterlogged remnants of ships abandoned in storms – and Curzon told the conn to leave it safely to leeward, but as they drew nearer sharp eyes detected movement.

The watch were set to back the fore-topsails to lose way, and as the frigate slowed, it appeared they had stumbled upon a stove-in ship’s boat with a ragged sail stretched over what looked like two bodies. As they approached, a hand threw aside a corner of the canvas and a face burned scarlet by the sun stared up, unbelieving. With an inhuman screech, the figure tried to rise but flopped sideways. Then came husky, tearing cries, piteous in their pleading.

Aroused by the noise, Kydd was soon on deck. ‘Heave to, if y’ please. Away the gig.’ At sea, his orders were to keep the small boat always at the ready in the stern davits, the watch-on-deck to man it.

With a squeal of sheaves, the gig descended and quickly pulled towards the pitiful sight, one of the figures now in a paroxysm of waving and crying. The bowman went over the side into the perilously swaying wreckage, tender hands easing the transfer, and the boat returned with its cargo of suffering humanity.

‘Sorry, sir, an’ he won’t leave the dead ’un behind,’ the coxswain apologised, while a bloated corpse was awkwardly slithered over the bulwarks. The survivor fell on the deck, alternately blubbering and giving vent to hoarse howls.

The surgeon arrived. ‘Extreme desiccation,’ he said, after no more than a cursory look. ‘I’d be surprised if he sees another dawn.’ He stood back and folded his arms.

‘Well, what’s to do, Doctor? You’ll not let him suffer?’

‘I suppose a measure of opium, water, of course, but sparing . . .’

Kydd was about to have the man taken below but paused; obviously in the last extremity of thirst, he continued with his urgent cries. And his eyes, though pits of suffering, were still rational, constantly flicking from Kydd to the others. ‘He’s trying to tell us something . . . His shipmates – he’s been sent to find help!’

But the harsh gobbles were impossible to make out. Then the babbling stopped. The man gathered his strength with desperate intensity and mouthed a single word: ‘Danske!’

‘He’s saying as he’s a Dane, sir,’ Kendall said positively.

To Kydd’s knowledge, there were none of his kind aboard – the English were at war with Denmark. ‘Get him below and comfortable,’ he said, ‘then pass the word for any who think they can understand the poor wretch.’

Later, Kydd was sent for. Olafsen, a half-Swedish sailmaker’s mate, was standing by the hammock in which the man lay, exhausted, eyes still restless, haunted.

‘Says he’s a foremast hand off the Grethe, a trader from Christianborg, sir,’ Olafsen said.

‘Where’s that?’

There was a short exchange. ‘A Danish fort up the Guinea Coast.’

Then the man went into a muscle spasm, his eyes bulging with the effort of trying to get something out – but eventually Kydd had the story.

His ship had taken the ground and been driven ashore over the bank. Most of the crew and passengers had saved themselves, only to face a fearful arid desolation. In a desperate attempt to get help the one surviving ship’s boat, with three seamen, was launched through the surf, commanded by the mate.

During the night the mate and one seaman had been swept over-side, their water lost and the boat swamped. The man’s remaining companion had died in heat convulsions the next day.

‘Ask him where the wreck is,’ Kydd told Olafsen. If they moved quickly, the rest had a chance.

‘He can’t say. He doesn’t know navigation. They knew to head south for Cape Town, so he thinks maybe north of here a few leagues.’

Kydd shook his head. This simple seaman could not know of the cold, surging Benguela current thrusting up. Once swamped and helpless, the boat would have been carried inexorably north. The likelihood was that it wasn’t too far ahead on their original course – to the south.

‘How many aboard?’

It turned out to be forty-seven, including passengers, but of these the captain and nine seamen had been lost