Betrayal

Kydd was unable to work and sat staring at his papers. Here he was in the warm and dry while others fought for their lives. And was L’Aurore in good hands? He knew Gilbey as a tarpaulin to be sensitive to weather moods but for the same reason he could be relied on to make no concessions to comfort and the frigate would be lying to two anchors, jibbing like a frightened horse at the onrush of frenzied seas.

Kydd dozed at his desk but was wide awake at the first sign of light before the winter dawn. The storm had diminished to a sullen bluster, cold and heartless, but the rain had thankfully ceased. The sea was in a fret and restless, and wherever he peered there was no sight of distant sails. Clutching an oilskin to himself he went outside and looked towards the mole to see one craft alongside, and one poling itself in. Just two.

He pretended to exercise, pacing up and down the foreshore in the mud, among the seaweed and debris thrown up, his oilskin ballooning and the cold wind piercing, but of his seven vessels, by mid-morning there was only one further arrival. Unable to keep up the pretence, he returned to the fort but was shortly summoned back.

‘Um, just beyond the point, sir,’ a soldier said, stolidly leading. It was as Kydd had dreaded. Some way out there was the low, untidy black outline of a washed-up wreck with two figures picking at it. With a catch in his throat he started out to it.

‘Oi, sir, don’t you . . .’ began the soldier, but Kydd was not to be stopped and squelched on over the mud, then into the heavily discoloured water until he reached the pathetic remains, shattered and tangled with seaweed- strewn rope.

‘Stalwart, sir,’ said a petty officer from the fort.

‘Any . . . ?’

‘Two on ’em only, sir,’ the man said, pointing to the foreshore where tarpaulin-covered bodies lay, which he’d overlooked in his haste. He sloshed back and, with the soldier gravely watching, he carefully pulled back the covering on one.

Dougal. Master’s mate. The pallor of death but a calm face, a trace of wistful sadness that was so touching in one on the threshold of manhood. Kydd tenderly covered it again.

The other was Lieutenant Hellard, utterly determined to succeed in his first command. His features were heavily bruised but not enough to hide the bitter indignation, the rage at Fate that had been his final emotion.

Kydd turned away. This cursed place was touching so many lives. He felt hatred rising as he stalked back, trailing mud and water into the fort.

In his office he heard the reports of the three vessels that had survived, listening with compassion as the officers recounted their ordeal.

The hard truth of the matter was that two might be made fit for sea but the third was little more than a wreck, brought back by sheer bull-headed courage and matchless skill.

Two – to stand before Colonia and the massing Spanish Army. It was impossible, but the imperatives of war dictated he try.

Conscious of their tired and strained faces, Kydd nevertheless spoke firmly: ‘That’s a grim tale, which I’m sure’ll be told in every wardroom in the fleet – but here’s the rub. You’re the only ones left to me. We have to make a showing off Colonia or the Dons will take heart and try a crossing.

‘Gentlemen, I desire you’ll get your craft ready for sea by any means you can contrive. In two hours you’ll put out for Colonia and the blockade where you’ll stay to the last biscuit, drop of water and shot. They must not sail! Do you understand me?’

He did what he could, finding seamen to bear a hand with repairs, soldiers to help with the storing and watering, and any small thing he could think of that might in any way make their lot more bearable.

When he went back to his desk a hovering clerk said apologetically, ‘Sir, a Mr Serrano t’ see you – seems very anxious an’ all.’

‘Show him in,’ Kydd said. That the artist was daring to come to the fort and risk being taken for a spy in the pay of the British must indicate some urgency.

‘Good in you to come, Mr – er, Senor Serrano. A tea, perhaps?’ The young man was rumpled and unshaven but had an intensity about him, an exaltation even.

‘No! Captain Keed – no time. I will tell you, ver’ important. I come as quick as I can. Gen’ral Liniers, he coming! He trick you – while your ships scatter because of the storm he’s to make a crossing over.’

‘When?’ Kydd breathed, his tiredness vanishing in a flash.

‘Is not when, is where. Not from Colonia del Sacramento, there he knows you will see him. No, he march forty mile along to Punta Pavon. At there is deeper, an’ ship can come in close. He can load up his boats wi’ soldiers quickly, you cannot see him.’

Kydd rummaged for his largest-scale chart and found the spot, a third of the way back to Montevideo. Sure enough, there was a tongue of three- or four-fathom water the other side of the Ortiz Bank, coming to within a short distance of the uninhabited coast.

‘Ships – how’s he going to get them, without we see them move from Colonia?’ Kydd snapped, cudgelling his mind to take in the implications of the all-too-possible stratagem.

‘He leave them there, an’ you think he will still cross. He brings boats from Montevideo, many.’

‘Mr Serrano, I need to know – when?’

‘Not more an’ two days. This I hear from the general talking.’

Kydd slumped in despair. Only two to set against a probable armada, and they a good sixty miles off in still rough conditions. And in two days . . .

‘This is hard news, Mr Serrano. Are you very sure of what you heard?’

‘Is so, sir.’

‘And . . . you’re telling me the truth, that is to say, no twisters? Do you swear to it?’

‘I say it true,’ the young man said, set and pale.

‘Oh, I’m not saying your flamming me,’ Kydd said hastily. ‘It’s just as how I must now change plans at the gallop.’

‘They come, I swear it.’

Kydd looked into the burning eyes, then eased into a smile. ‘Thank you, Mr Serrano, I believe you. Can we find you some refreshment? You must be-’

‘I go now,’ he whispered, and slipped away.

Kydd tried to marshal his thoughts. He should go immediately to Beresford with the news and the grave admission that the Navy was powerless to stop Liniers; the general would have to improvise his own defences, but if only he could report to him with -

Something stirred at the back of his mind. He peered again at the chart. The tongue of deeper water was indeed an extension of the indented sea passage that gave Montevideo its ocean access – the sparse soundings were probably unreliable but it was worth a try. Animated, he snatched up the dividers and stepped it out. Forty- eight miles. Possible.

He shouted for the master’s mate. ‘Rouse out our fastest dispatch boat – I’ve orders for L’Aurore frigate as will need it to fly.’

It would be a close-run thing but if the frigate met Liniers’s invasion at sea it would be a massacre. Grinning savagely, he dashed off the order that would have the frigate rendezvous off Punta Pavon with his remaining two sumacas, Staunch and Protector. Sobering, he took another sheet and carefully outlined the situation for Popham, setting out his reasoning for working the frigate up to the embarkation point even if it meant stranding the vessel, helpless on the mud between tides.

It would exercise Gilbey considerably to lighten the ship to the extreme as well as the tricky task of feeling his way through the shoals and banks.

Was there anything else? Yes – he should make some showing off Colonia to assure the Spanish that he was still there and blockading, for if they suspected he knew of the real embarkation point they would revert back and no frigate could make it up that far. There was just one snag – he didn’t have a ship for the task.

In frustration he stood up and looked out over the open roadstead before the city. There was a huddle of small fry and one or two larger craft – like the fine-lined schooner close in and the European-looking ship-rigged merchantman. Circumstances demanded a desperate remedy – but what he was contemplating was little more than piracy.

When the master’s mate returned, Kydd was ready. ‘I want a party of twenty good seamen. Arm them and let