Conquest

reason we touched at the Cape.’

They started to come up from below, blinking in the sunlight, stretching and rubbing their limbs, in their dozens, scores – too many to count. Their rising joy was infectious as they laughed and shouted incredulously, and tried to shake hands with every Englishman they could reach, some weeping openly and a few staring gape-mouthed at the overwhelming sight of so many ships and the grand bulking of Table Mountain.

‘Er, Sar’nt Dodd – get those men into lines or something!’ Kydd chided, in mock indignation. This was an altogether unexpected bonus and at the very least a welcome addition to Baird’s forces.

‘And you’re welcome to that heathen beast we have below,’ the captain said sourly. ‘It took seven good men to put him in irons, no less.’

Kydd toyed with leaving the troublemaker for later but, in the general joy, decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘Go below and see if he’ll come quietly,’ he told Dodd. ‘Any trouble and he stays.’

When the sergeant returned it was with a barrel of a Chinaman with fiery eyes and a scowl. Kydd recognised him instantly. ‘Ah Wong!’ He laughed delightedly. It had been many years but at one time he had been messmates with the circus strongman and seen his skill at scrimshaw.

Wong’s face showed suspicion and surprise, then creased into happiness. Hurrying across, he gave a respectful Oriental bow and touched his forehead. ‘Ah, Tom Kydd, sir! You now officer. Plissed to see!’

Aboard L’Aurore, Wong was overwhelmed when he found another old shipmate, Toby Stirk, there to greet him. Kydd soon found out what had happened: discharged from a broken-down man-o’-war in Sheerness, he had signed aboard a transport on the India run, which had had the misfortune to encounter the Willaumez battle squadron, and he had done his best to make known his displeasure at captivity.

What he would do when he found Doud and Pinto below as well could only be imagined, but of one thing Kydd was sure: they had just won a valuable addition to L’Aurore’s company.

Kydd’s invitation to the cool promenades of the Company Gardens was accepted with a coquettish pout. ‘Why, of course I should, M’sieur le capitaine grand!’

It was the place to see and be seen and Kydd strolled with Therese on his arm, flaunting her beauty before the gentility of Cape Town. With Vrouw Coetzee at a discreet distance behind, he nodded graciously to those who doffed their hats in admiration, bowing civilly to others, all the time his heart swelling with pride.

She did not deign to glance at anyone, her head lifted in patrician disdain, but Kydd didn’t care. She was openly admitting that a liaison existed between them and from now on the world would not be the same.

From the gardens they made their way to the first race meeting at Green Point Common and, in the senior officers’ enclosure, absorbed the excitement and atmosphere of the racing. The fine spectacle and fierce thud of hoof-beats brought a flush to her cheeks and an animation that was directed to him alone.

Enjoying the many looks of curiosity and envy, Kydd bowed extravagantly to the governor and the fiscal, flashing a barely concealed look of triumph at Renzi, who was standing with them. Beside him, Therese curtsied in dignified court fashion and was rewarded by an exaggerated bow from Baird.

More social interchanges would come later, at a governor’s levee, perhaps, but for now Kydd was supremely content. The acknowledged beauty and reclusive French princess had made her choice and all the world knew it.

‘A small matter, ma chere,’ he apologised, when the racing was over. He had chosen the recently formed Africa Club on the Heerengracht to make his social pied-a-terre and, besides a subscription of forty rixdollars, rules dictated he deposit twenty-five bottles of wine in the club’s cellar. Who better to select them than Therese?

Duty done by the delighted club secretary, he stepped out with his lady into the fine evening, a French dinner a deux promised for later. He fought off a feeling of unreality as his mind allowed a fleeting but alluring image: returning to Guildford, a post-captain with a royalist French beauty of noble birth. It would be a breathtaking sensation in the little town, to be talked about for years . . .

‘I’m sorry, Mr Secretary, but he’s insisting he’s to see the governor and no other,’ Stoll said apologetically, explaining that the man outside was one of the recent survivors so much talked about.

‘I’ll receive him here.’ Renzi sighed.

He was called Knudsen and was of an age, bowed and with his silver hair still dull with the privations he had suffered, face cruelly burned by the sun.

‘I am the colonial secretary,’ Renzi said courteously, ‘and I’m to say that unhappily the governor is not to be disturbed at this time.’

‘I understand, sir,’ Knudsen said, in a voice barely above a whisper, and in curiously accented English. ‘My business, however, is of the greatest importance and must not be delayed.’

He leaned forward confidentially. ‘A serious matter for His Excellency, concerning as it does the safety of this settlement.’

There was something in the man’s calm but earnest manner that triggered unease in Renzi. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, and went to find Baird.

The general was in a genial mood. ‘Send him in, Renzi – and, mark you, he’ll not get a moment over ten minutes.’

Knudsen was shown to a chair. He looked up at Baird, clearly having difficulty in finding the words. ‘Sir. You must believe me to be a true citizen of Denmark. Our countries are at war and this has placed me in a most odious moral position.’

‘Please go on, sir,’ Renzi said, in an encouraging tone.

‘I have fought with my conscience since we were in all humanity granted our liberty here in Cape Town and now have come to a personal decision.’

‘Yes, Mr Knudsen?’

‘It was a noble act that your frigate captain did, to land and search for us in hazard of his own life, and another that we were given our freedom as shipwrecked souls in this place.’