Betrayal

Colonia del Sacramento was now overwhelmed by an armed encampment that extended far out into the country. As Serrano was escorted through it he was thrilled by the sight of legendary regiments, soldiers in blue with red sashes, drilling proudly, and countless volunteers in their tall shakos, with their muskets a-slope, led by officers in magnificently plumed headgear.

Over to the right the blandengues, the veteran frontier militia, had their distinctive poled tents in rows, and in the distance cavalry thundered in mock charges. These blandengues had just completed a forced march over the ninety miles from Montevideo to Colonia but showed no sign of it.

Serrano threw out his chest: he was not in a fine uniform but he knew he had tidings for the commander in chief that would affect every last one of them.

Approaching the headquarters tent, he saw Guemes talking to an officer and waved gaily. His friend looked back at him in astonishment and Serrano felt his gaze follow him into the tent.

Several distinguished-seeming officers stood over a desk where an older man in a severe black uniform, finished in gold and scarlet, was seated, writing.

‘Sir, an agent from Buenos Aires with news.’

‘Wait.’

The man finished scratching away, then thrust a paper at one of the officers before looking up at the intruder.

‘Don Santiago Liniers!’ whispered someone behind Serrano.

‘Sir. I have to report . . .’

‘Well?’ The voice was soft and calm.

Encouraged, Serrano went on, ‘Sir, there is no need for a battle, sir.’

There were gasps and a stifled giggle.

‘Go on.’

‘I, personally, have interviewed the capitan de puerto himself and have made discovery that the treacherous English are in dire want of any kind of provisions. I put it to you, sir, that it is only a matter of a short while and they will be starved out. If we are patient, they must soon surrender to us, and without a drop of our own blood shed.’

‘What do you know of military affairs?’ snarled one of the officers. ‘Leave us to-’

Serrano’s face burned.

‘No, no, Miguel, he means well. Tell me, what account of the present state of their stores can you give me? How many men are on rations? Where is it kept? Can they supply from the sea? These things I need to know for if we wait longer we must find more supply for our own army.

‘And the biggest question is, when will their reinforcements arrive? If you can tell me the answer to that it would be of the greatest service. As it is, I must go forward without delay on the assault, you see.’

A tall officer bent down and whispered to Liniers, who nodded and said, ‘There is an office you can perform for me, as it happens.’

‘Anything, sir!’

‘You’ll no doubt be aware that our naval forces at Colonia suffered in a recent reversal at arms. This has had the unfortunate effect of frustrating our strategy to cross the Rio de la Plata and join with our brothers for the grand assault on Buenos Aires. I would not have them think we are unwilling and therefore I shall write a message of encouragement and patience, which I desire you shall take to them.’

‘Sir!’ said Serrano, stiffening to attention.

‘It will be to Colonel General Pueyrredon, commander of the Voluntarios Montados Bonaerense.’

‘The gauchos?’

‘Quite.’

‘We’ll stand on a little further, I believe,’ Acting Lieutenant Hellard said evenly, watching the three craft fleeing ahead of him, each not much smaller than his own and which, together, could overcome Stalwart, the sumaca, if they chose – but they were at a crucial disadvantage: they faced the moral superiority of the famed Royal Navy that had the year before at Trafalgar crushed the best that Spain could send against it. These would never chance a confrontation.

The chill wind was getting stronger, tearing the tops from the waves – it gave speed to the more stoutly built sumaca but was threatening the odd assortment they were chasing: two feluccas whose soaring lateens could not easily be reefed and a balandra, a more European-styled cutter. All were clawing into the wind, the edges of their sails fluttering desperately, pale faces looking back on their implacable pursuer.

The heading could not be sustained. Up the River Plate to its end there was a maze of mud-flats and the blunt thirty-mile barrier of impenetrable marshes that separated the two shores. Sooner or later they must turn and face their fate or drive aground to be taken separately by Stalwart. Hellard grinned in anticipation and glanced at his crew, each with a cutlass and a brace of pistols: they didn’t need to be told what was in prospect.

Abruptly the lead felucca put her helm down and lay over on to the other tack, followed like wheeling starlings by the other two.

‘Ready about,’ Hellard ordered languidly, and Stalwart made to follow suit. In an instant the three ahead swung back to their original course, gaining nearly a hundred yards, but the end could not be long in doubt.

It was the balandra, marginally larger than the other two, that took the ground first. Almost comically slowing as the muddy seabed rose to brush her undersides she stopped, still under full sail. The other two pressed on.

Hellard ordered savagely, ‘Come to, a half-pistol-shot abeam.’

Then he snapped, ‘Ahoy there, the swivel. One round to wake him up!’

The shot was sent low over the little half-deck aft where the crew crouched. They ducked out of sight and he ordered, ‘Boarders away!’

In a well-practised move their boat was launched; with Hellard at the tiller and four men at the oars, they pulled strongly towards the balandra’s squared-off stern. Muskets banged from the deck- line but Hellard smiled cynically – in their inexperience they were firing much too early and the shots were going wide.

At the last minute he threw over his tiller and brought the boat in at an angle with a thump. With a roar a brawny seaman tossed his cutlass aboard and reached for a rope to heave himself in. Four crouched men rose to meet him – but Hellard’s ready-aimed pistol kicked in his hand and the first went down in a gurgle of blood. A seaman’s pistol behind him took the next with a bullet in the stomach and the man toppled forward, screaming, into the sea.

The third held his blade at point and retreated, pale and shaking. Hellard swung aboard and faced him with his sword, motioning for him to drop his weapon. The man was rigid with terror but kept his position, the tip of his crude cutlass wavering, his eyes black pits of fear. The lieutenant made a threatening gesture but the sailor kept up his weapon. A plunge overboard the other side was presumably the last making his escape.

It was butchery but there was no alternative: Hellard swept up his blade as though to slash down – the cutlass went up to protect and, with a sharp twist and stoop, Hellard was lunging inside, catching the man in the throat in a bloody spray. He fell to his knees, choking his life away.

Out ahead the two feluccas were making a broad circle, looking to an opportunity for revenge – Hellard and his party had little time.

In the cabin he found an oil lamp. He shouted down into the waist for the wreckers to stop smashing at the bottom of the vessel with broad-axe and maul, then dashed the lamp to the deck. It splintered and the oil caught in roiling flame.

As men tumbled into the boat to return to Stalwart the bowman leaned over and fished out a shapeless dripping black object. ‘So what’s this’n?’

‘Get on your oar!’ Hellard snarled at him in reply and they were away.

In the dim twilight, Serrano stood up to his knees in the sea, clutching his arms and shivering uncontrollably with cold and fright. It had taken hours for the blaze to be noticed from shore and a cautious fishing boat sent to