Betrayal

He snatched up his boat-cloak from behind the door. ‘I’m going to take a look,’ he threw at the duty master’s mate, then turned on Garrick. ‘Let’s be having you, sir!’

The two hurried down to the mole where Dolores lay alongside, rotated to face seaward. Kydd grabbed a stay and leaped lightly on to its humble deck, closely followed by Garrick, who quickly gave orders to cast off.

‘I do apologise, sir,’ he said, as sailors in pairs got to work with long quant poles in the mud, heaving off the ungainly flat-bottomed vessel. Their departure would obviously not be in crisp naval fashion. Only after reaching open water could they set the gaff main and headsails and later a square fore to begin a workmanlike clawing to seaward in the rattling easterly.

Standing out of the way on the small after-deck, Kydd glanced back at the receding coastline, utterly flat as far as the eye could see, the buildings of the city the only objects in a vertical dimension, not a single mountain or cliff to relieve the monotonous level.

However, with the wind in his teeth and the willing surge of motion Kydd’s heart swelled. He was at sea once more.

Dolores picked up speed. Kydd could see why this workhorse with her exaggerated beam and generous sail area was relied on to ply these waters, but squinting astern at a mark, he noted the dismaying amount of leeway she was making with the wind abeam.

The seaman at the long tiller, which was comfortably wedged into his thigh, chewed contentedly on his quid of tobacco with the customary glassy stare forward of his tribe when under the gaze of an officer.

Suddenly restless, Kydd snapped, ‘Put us about quickly, Mr Garrick. I need to see how she handles before we go in.’

The sails, heavy and tanned ochre with a peculiarly rancid-smelling mixture, were difficult to handle but he could appreciate that they would take substantial squalls without fear. They went about without fuss but there would be no sharp manoeuvring in Dolores: the tiller had needed two men to throw against the pressure of the turn but the tacks and sheets were easily handled by the other three.

Kydd gave orders to take up on the original course and waited until they had settled to speed, then went across and relieved the startled seaman at his tiller. He adopted the same pose, leaning against it, feeling the thrum and life as they foamed along. It was correctly balanced a little to weather, and he brought the vessel more by the wind, feeling its direction with his cheeks as he experimentally luffed and touched, much as he had as quartermaster in Seaflower long years ago in the Caribbean.

Kydd found Dolores surprisingly agreeable to close-hauling, probably due to the big headsails, he reasoned. Satisfied, he gave up the tiller and paced forward, an anxious Garrick close behind.

Her armament, a twelve-pounder carronade on the fore-deck and swivels each side of the after-deck, was enough to dominate in an action between equals but near hopeless if they were ranged against ship-sloops, which could muster a full broadside of six-pounders.

It was a measure of how close Colonia del Sacramento was that they raised the opposite shore soon after midday. The sharp-eyed Garrick spotted Staunch further in with the coast. ‘We’ll join her, if you please,’ Kydd said.

His thoughts raced. If these did prove to be sloops, what the devil was he to do? Even concentrating his entire force of seven he could not be expected to prevail against them, but sending to Popham for heavier metal would take time and risk stranding his vessels in this damnable maze of shoals that was the Rio de la Plata.

Leaving the sloops alone was not in question for in the crossing they had only to lay off each side of the transports to crush with broadsides any foolish enough to contest their passage.

What was puzzling was that vessels of such size were sailing with impunity among the banks and shoals. It was a mystery demanding close reconnaissance.

They reached Staunch, which jauntily dipped her ensign on seeing Kydd. ‘We’re taking a look at your ship-sloops,’ he hailed.

‘The water’s very shoal hereabouts,’ Selby, her captain, came back anxiously. ‘Must be certain of the channels – those devils damn well know what they’re about.’

Kydd had made plenty of allowance for leeway in coming over and they were upwind of Colonia by some miles, having only to bear away before the wind and past a few headlands to reach the hooked point that was the port’s shelter. The chart – little more than a crude sketch in Spanish – gave scant help, scrupulous in showing the positions of churches inland and giving names to every one of the scatter of offshore islands but not mentioning the presence of sub-sea reefs or deep-water channels.

The hook in the coastline gave Kydd his clue. In its lee was Colonia but, more importantly, it then trended sharply away northward. There would be tidal scour around it as the waters scurried past to make the wider bay, and where there was scour there would be deeper water. He looked up. ‘We’ll take it close as we can. Bear away, if you please.’

With Staunch in their wake they closed with the land. It resolved into a partly wooded area with long strips of pale beach and little sign of habitation but he had been right: the seaman forward with the hand lead was reporting steadily deeper soundings. This was how the pair had reached Colonia.

The town was ahead. Kydd had little information to go on other than that it was yet another ancient Portuguese colony that had passed into Spanish hands. He had no idea how formidable it was, still less of their likely reception so close.

After more curving beaches and nondescript woods, the first signs of settlement appeared. Caught to seaward of them, wary fishermen stood motionless in their punts while they passed. Dolores was fast coming up to the last foreland before Colonia. Pale buildings and the incongruous end of an avenue were spotted but then came the thud of a gun, and smoke driven downwind from an unnoticed little fort at the water’s edge. Another. The alarm had now been given. Were they small enough targets?

They barrelled along the last few hundred yards and passed the point. There – two ships at anchor off the small harbour, the red and yellow of Spanish climbing to the mastheads. Their design took after the French corvettes that were causing mayhem in the Channel; these vessels were smaller, but he could see the menacing line of six- pounder gun-ports on each side. A swarm of little craft encircled them.

Kydd quickly took in other details. An exaggerated beam and turn of bilge meant shallower draught; bald- headed with sail only to topsails, they would not be speedy on a wind but, with low top-hamper, were well suited to these conditions. He looked more sharply at the further one, closer inshore. It had no sails bent on the yards and had a definite heel – it was resting on the mud. Careening: he could see the tell-tale gleam of white among the weed on the hull, the same preservative used in the Royal Navy before the use of copper had become widespread.

With these two as the nucleus of a crossing force it was all too clear he hadn’t a chance. His ambition for a classic blockade, leaving Liniers and his growing army impotent at the shore, was now in ruins and they could cross with impunity when they were ready.

Where the devil had they come from? How had they got past Popham’s patrols?

And what was he proposing to do about it?

He felt Garrick’s eyes on him while he tried to think. They were completely outclassed, and the reasonable conclusion was that it would be nothing but a waste of lives to throw his little fleet at them. Yet to give up without trying, to run from the scene, was intolerable. If only L’Aurore were here to set about them like a terrier after rats.

It was a stalemate. The best he could do-

Sail dropped from the fore-yard in the nearer sloop, then jibs and courses blossomed. It was putting to sea and its quarry had to be the insolent sumacas flaunting the British ensign.

Kydd hesitated. He’d seen what he’d needed to see and the sensible thing was to return and confess this grave turn of events to General Beresford. Over on the sloop, its fo’c’sle party finished, the anchor cable was buoyed and slipped, and the yards were bracing round for a lunge to sea.

He hailed Staunch through cupped hands. ‘Return to Buenos Aires independently.

‘We go back,’ he told Garrick. Their passage had taken them well past Colonia and on into the bay beyond. Beating back against the easterly the way they had come was unwise under chase in these waters. Over to larboard, a mile or so off, lay one of the islands, low and thickly wooded. ‘Take us around it and then direct home,’