Betrayal

The day wore on, the unremitting wind bringing a dirge-like drone in the rigging and reefs in the topsails, with an uncomfortable corkscrew sea on the quarter demanding rolling tackles to the yards and an eye to nearby handholds. A pall of blackness lay out to the south-west with startlingly vivid white rain squalls hanging before it as it drifted towards them. Prudent measures were put in train to meet the unpleasantness, for although Kydd was confident that they had won their offing there was no sense in taking risks.

Sail was shortened in conformity with the blow, which was now flat and hard, its whistling moan rising in pitch as spindrift torn from wave-crests filled the air with the tang of salt. Kydd glanced across at the flagship. Diadem was a wet ship, a fluke of design seeing her bows buried in the rollers for much of the time, then reluctantly rising to shed the seas each side like a waterfall. Working headsails in her would be dangerous; it was not for nothing that sailors often called the bowsprit ‘the widowmaker’.

There was no signal from the commodore, however, no order to lie-to or scud; Popham was anxious to avoid loss of time and the little fleet kept on course, the winds nearly abeam. In a way this was merciful for while they were still under sail the force of the blast was dampening the roll, but things could change quickly.

And not only for the worse: it was just as conceivable that they might be crabbing across the worst of the gale to emerge to calmer conditions the other side.

‘Life-lines,’ Kydd ordered, before leaving the deck to Curzon.

It was a customary Atlantic gale of this time of the year but the knowledge didn’t lessen the hours of moving from hand to hand, the muscle-bunching brace against the deep heaving and the endless vigilance against a violent squall coming out of the blackness of night or a wild wave rearing up to smash, surge aboard and snatch the lives of any whose attention had grown careless.

Morning brought a seascape of white – long combers, spray lazily curling from their crests, the air alive with driven spume and the near horizon a broad blur of white. But it was becoming clear the bluster was easing.

As the forenoon wore on the horizon moved out, and from the mist a light-grey phantom hardened – another ship, one of the transports gamely heading on course with them.

It became possible to allow their soldier passengers on deck, solitary figures dragging themselves to the ship’s side, draped hopelessly as they ‘cast their accounts at the court of King Neptune’, soon joined by others. They were tended with rough kindness by the watch-on-deck but by nightfall there were substantial numbers needing to be shooed below.

There was always the cheerful time after every storm when the galley fire could safely be lit and the first hot victuals issued. Ravenous after days of hard tack and cheese, the seamen wolfed theirs, their captain no less appreciative as his was served after the men had eaten. ‘Rousin’ good scran,’ Kydd mumbled to Renzi. ‘Never thought I’d lust after a hand o’ mutton so.’

His friend dabbed his mouth with his napkin. ‘The very pinnacle of the art,’ he murmured in satisfaction. ‘As it-’

A tentative knock broke in: it was the master-at-arms, his usually impassive features creased in bafflement. ‘Sir, we’s got a bit of a puzzler. See, there’s a man bin found as we don’t know who ’e is, like.’

‘You’re not being clear, Master.’

‘Why, when th’ watch went below, an’ took them who was seasick t’ put ’em in their hammick, there’s one who couldn’t say where he slings it. He bein’ sick, like, we got no sense outa him. We asks about, an’ no one pipes up t’ claim him.’

‘Where’s he now?’

‘On the uppers still. Won’t let go an’ get his swede down, so I left him wi’ the bosun’s mate, sir.’

‘You did right to inform me. Ask the officer-of-the-watch to look into it and report, if you please.’

Gilbey was down in minutes. ‘An’ I stand well flammed, sir. It’s our artist cove, the one in Cape Town we commissioned our ornament pictures off.’

Serrano! ‘When he’s of a condition to talk, bring him here.’

Kydd guessed their destination was an open secret and assumed that Serrano had wanted to be at the scene of action when the hated Spanish were humbled. He had gone about it intelligently, insinuating himself aboard, then insisting he was of the other when questioned by either a sailor or the military. It had only gone wrong when he had been laid low by seasickness.

Or was he a spy, ready to slip ashore the moment they arrived to ingratiate himself with the Spanish? It didn’t seem likely, though, not with the depth of feeling Kydd had personally heard.

The weather eased and a wan sun had given heart to the sufferers when the artist was brought before Kydd in the coach.

Shooing out the midshipmen at their workings, their estimates of the ship’s position by calculations, he demanded, ‘Now then, sir. Your actions are both foolish and unlawful. I’ve to decide what’s to be done with you. What have you got to say?’

Serrano was in rumpled, soiled clothes, his eyes empty and slack. Kydd felt there was little prospect of getting much out of him. Inevitably, it meant that he must be held prisoner, fastened with leg irons in the bilboes outside the gunroom, like a common malefactor, until things were resolved.

But there was a defiant stirring, his eyes trying to focus while he croaked, ‘This is heestory. I be there, I see my home free. Libertad para el pueblo . . .’ The words trailed off weakly but there was stubbornness and pleading in the ravaged expression.

‘I understand, Mr Serrano, and you have my sympathy, but this is a ship of war and may bear no civilian passengers. My proper course is to keep you confined until we touch at St Helena and then land you in custody.’

‘No! I mus’ be there! Meester Kydd, you must understand, sir!’

Kydd softened. ‘There is a way. If you shall enlist to serve under English colours I can promise you’ll be there.’

‘I – my family, they are patricios, sir. I cannot.’

‘Then . . . ?’

‘Er, may I not be your interpreter, your man of trust as will talk with los espanoles, can treat wi’ the patriots, what they want?’

Kydd could see times when delicacies of conduct would be needed in dealing with proud revolutionaries and the like, and Serrano would presumably know them.

‘And, sir, while the ship guns do roar an’ your army storms the citadels, as witness I will paint for you such a scene as your gran’children will for ever admire!’

‘Why, that would be well appreciated, Mr Serrano. Let me see . . . you shall be assistant to Mr Renzi, who is my secretary, to perform such duties as he bids you to do.’ This would place him in Kydd’s personal retinue, rather than on the books of the Navy, and therefore answerable to him alone. It would also keep him under eye.

‘You will berth in steerage and mess with the gunroom. Your wages will, um, be decided.’ He went on more sternly, ‘Do mark what I say, Mr Serrano – by so doing you place yourself under ship’s discipline, to obey all lawful commands of myself and my officers. Do you so agree?’

Kydd took a muffled groan as an assent and shortly told a curious Renzi, ‘You may use him how you will, old trout, but he’s mine when we raise the River Plate.’

Soon Renzi’s assistant was another being. Taken in hand by the gunroom steward, he had been instructed in the art of slinging a hammock and his little bundle of possessions had been safely stowed in Renzi’s cabin. His appearance at table provoked good-natured curiosity but he kept to himself, saying little, remaining polite but watchful.

For Renzi his presence was gratifying. At any time he chose he had on hand a Spanish tutor and linguist sparring partner, who was both interesting and challenging to the intellect.

Of a noteworthy family, it seemed, he had been a student in philosophy and letters at the National University in Buenos Aires and, having been less than discreet in his writings, had been imprisoned twice before his expulsion. In the simmering atmosphere of discontent the Spanish had been merciless and he had fled for his life having been caught up in a hotheaded street rising.

‘You are not acquainted with the sainted Locke? Then, mi compadre, for the sake of your soul you will cast in the purest Castilian the paragraphs I will mark out in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.’

‘Si, maestro, lo hare con encantado.’