clash of steel. Dougal took one and Kydd the other but, behind, two more were jumping down and Kydd was aware of the set-faced petty officer beside him lunging forward to meet them, and a vague impression of their fourth giving savage blows to one side before he was swallowed in the confusion.
His opponent had an old-fashioned rapier, which flicked about like a snake’s tongue, searching for an opening, its lightness giving it deadly speed while Kydd’s snatched-up cutlass seemed heavy and unresponsive.
In the flickering pool of light, the fight was brutal and with no quarter possible – but they had to hold the line: no more enemy boarders could make it on to the crowded deck while they did so, and their attackers knew it, throwing themselves forward in a frenzy of violence, stabbing, hacking, smashing.
As he parried and slashed, a tiny part of Kydd’s mind coolly told him he was right: this ferocity owed its intensity to the need to stop a secret being spilled, which could only be the point of entry of the arms smuggling.
His momentary lapse in concentration was punished by the sight of the pitiless features of his opponent as the rapier pierced his defences in a lunge to his face. He reflexively tried to avoid the blade but it hissed through his collar and he felt its hot burn along his neck. Instinctively he twisted away – it brought pressure on the rapier blade, impeding its withdrawal, and Kydd desperately brought his cutlass in a wide slash across towards the belly. The man pulled back – and tripped, falling full length, and Kydd was on him, the heavy cutlass swinging down and laying the man’s body open in a welter of blood and viscera.
In a split second Kydd trampled over the body and thrust his bloody cutlass at the one bearing down on Dougal. The man swung to meet him but Dougal’s blade transfixed his side – in this morbid hackery there was no space for the gallantries of the fencing code and he whirled around to meet one about to impale him from behind. His blade at parry, something made the man hesitate – Kydd pressed his advantage and his opponent stumbled backwards against the low bulwark to topple over the side.
The sound of the plunge was loud against the grunts, steel clashing and slithers that filled the air. Thinking, perhaps, that his comrades were abandoning the fight and swimming for their lives, one made the fatal mistake of looking over his shoulder and was cut down in an instant; another turned and ran, and a last leaped over the side.
There were more in the
It was the end of the fight: the
There were two enemy dead, one seaman on his hands and knees rocking with pain, another biting off gasps as a shipmate bound his forearm – and the huddled form of Beekman still forward. Kydd hurried over but by the sputtering light of the lamp it was obvious his wound was mortal: even as the midshipman had knelt at his ship- saving task, a ball had struck in at the shoulder and raked down into his body.
The lad’s consciousness was slipping, his eyes flicking from one side to the other, desperately scrabbling for life. Kydd tried to cradle the absurdly slight body while the last battle was fought, his heart wringing at the pity of it. A sudden spasm seized the boy in a paroxysm of desperation but when it had left – so had his life.
Chapter 12
The sound of Kydd’s steps echoed from the stone stairs as he made his way yet again to the roof parapets of the fort. He stood and looked out to the restless grey water, with its limitless horizon, feeling for the freedom and contentment of the open sea.
With every fibre of his soul he wanted to be quit of the place, with its mood of foreboding and treachery; the monotony of the flat, endless landscape; the inescapable stink of mud and animals; the pinched rations and strained faces; the tedium of waiting and keeping his flotilla at their vital blockade until relief finally came.
He thought of brave little Beekman, who would leave his bones here, never again to see the grand sight of Cape Town’s Table Mountain and the sun-splashed veld. In his sea life Kydd had seen countless tragedies and had acquired a detachment that usually kept him distant, but Beekman had got under his guard. Such a pitiable waste.
Swallowing, Kydd forced himself to concentrate as he made his usual appraisal of the weather. The glass was falling but too little to worry about, the winds gusty and sulky from the north-east, not a concern for the blockade of Colonia. Moreover, the mud-flats close by were under water, ensuring there was navigability around the Chico Bank. There was no telling, however, in these duplicitous waters: he had heard of one occasion when, with an adverse wind, the incoming tide had actually been cowed into retreating, leaving the whole River Plate a vast mud-flat, shore to shore.
He turned to go, but hesitated at what he saw developing inland to the south-west. A peculiar roll of cloud, separate from the rest, stretched for miles and had a dark, unhealthy hue. It put him in mind of the Southerly Buster, a phenomenon he had once been caught up in some years ago off Australia: it had the vicious trick of advancing with high winds from one direction, then whipping round to attack an unfortunate ship from the opposite direction.
When he wandered back up just before noon to check, it was considerably nearer, a peculiar uniform long tube of brown-grey, slowly and ominously rolling forward. Under its baneful influence the winds before it faded, bringing an oppressive humidity and the feral apprehension that always came before a storm.
Kydd thought of his little band of vessels on their ceaseless patrol against the far shore. At the sight of this kind of weather he himself would be taking full storm precautions, no matter how big his vessel. Should he call off the blockade and bring them all safely back to port? If this was a harmless local phenomenon he would be risking all, for Liniers with his superior knowledge of these parts would jump at the chance of a breakout. No: he must leave it to the judgement of his captains.
At two, however, it became clear that this was no trivial weather spat. The rolling cloud was nearly overhead and behind it hung a dark pall. In nearby buildings wooden shutters had been hastily fastened, the last people abroad were hurrying home and all small craft had vanished.
And not one of his little fleet had returned. They had chosen to stay at their post – but if it was the same species of tempest he’d encountered in Australia, would they know of the fiendish wind reversal? Even if they survived they’d be thrown on a deadly lee-shore, driven in by the bluster, and-
A heavy concussion, so loud it shook the stonework of the fort, startled Kydd. Not far out on his right a fork of lightning burst on his senses – then another, leaping between the clouds in hideous display. A further avalanche of thunder pealed out, nearly deafening him.
In the breathless atmosphere it was a devil’s display of malice, intense blue-white lightning arcing down in strikes seconds apart, the smell of sulphur clear on the air. Then a squall buffeted him, a chill and malevolent blast – from the south! The wind swung back, fretful and restless, before another southerly gust caught him, pummelling with a force that increased all the time.
Then came the rain. Gusty torrents and afterwards a hammering roar of heavy drops that quickly became a deluge, driving Kydd to take shelter in a corner. His last sight of the sea was of a perfect fury of whiteness. It was a fight for life that now faced his navy, out there somewhere.
Another stupefying round of thunderclaps burst overhead, this time accompanied by a volley of hailstones as big as musket balls that rushed and clattered violently about. Kydd retreated, hurrying back down the steps, now echoing with the storm’s frenzy, and returned to his desk. The view from the window was a blur of grey and white through the sheeting rain on the glass, the muted drone and scream of the wind, quite different from the open howl through bare rigging at sea, and his heart went out to the seamen facing the worst in this chaos.
For hours the tempest beat about them, from dead south to more in the west, a flat, hard, savage blast that numbed the senses with its roar and venom.
