Betrayal

This time he bore a letter from General Liniers. It was addressed to the commander-in-chief of the British forces, General Beresford.

Pack found a close escort for Quintana and he was taken to the fort where Beresford, it seemed, was not about to be impressed.

‘The general is in conference and will see you in due course,’ Quintana was told, and shown to an ante-room where he sat with his letter, fuming.

When at last he was ushered in he wasted no time. Standing rigidly erect, he intoned, ‘Sir. Comandante Liniers is privy to your difficulties in every wise and demands you give up the city of Buenos Aires.’

Beresford gave a thin smile. ‘Sir, I’m unaccustomed to demands placed upon my person by others, still less by a foreign officer. Good day to you, sir.’ With a brief bow he turned on his heel to leave.

‘General Beresford! Sir! I have a letter from the commander-in-chief of the Spanish forces, Comandante General Santiago Liniers.’

‘I give you joy of it,’ Beresford said tightly.

‘Sir, sir – the letter, it contains . . . It is very important!’

‘Very well. Read it,’ Beresford commanded his interpreter.

It began by pointing out that the British had seized Buenos Aires in the first place by an audacious stroke, enabled by a lack of direction of the population, but these same, inspired by patriotic enthusiasm and led by regular troops under a full general, were now about to fall on Beresford’s tiny force. It ended with an ultimatum demanding unconditional surrender by one o’clock.

‘Why, this is nothing but a threat, sir,’ Beresford said, in mock astonishment. ‘But do allow me to consider it for a space, and I shall pen a reply.’

Quintana was led away, expressionless.

‘Gentlemen,’ Beresford said, after his officers had assembled. ‘The Dons are in earnest, I believe.’

Clinton grinned and whispered to Kydd, ‘If the commodore knew what’s in contemplation, I’d wager he’d have an apoplexy.’

‘Do put a stopper on your jawing tackle, William.’

Kydd wondered how the general would style his withdrawal. It was fast becoming clear that Buenos Aires must be abandoned, either now or in the near future. If there were to be an orderly evacuation the rearguard must be supported at the same time as the main body was extracted, but without a wharf or normal port facilities it could be a hard-fought action for the Navy.

Beresford finally spoke, briefly and abruptly: ‘I do not propose to accede to this demand. My duty is clear – to hold the city until reinforced, which at this time I expect hourly. I shall not be quitting my post until then, you may believe. Gentlemen, I shall remain here as long as it is within my power to do so.’

There would be no withdrawal? No retreat out of the city, no return to the fleet – just a holding out until . . . Kydd glanced at Clinton, whose expression sobered, then turned grave.

The general issued various orders, then turned to Kydd. ‘Sir, I would ask that you find a transport to take off our sick and wounded, to be at the mole before one.’

This was barely disguised advice to any whose business was not at the end of a gun that they should for their own safety leave with them.

Kydd told the general he would attend to the transport directly. But did that include himself? A siege was without question a matter for the Army, which didn’t need distractions. For him, with few ships left and no port to speak of, perhaps it were better he left quietly and returned to L’Aurore.

Then, accusingly, a vivid recollection came of the time when he was a junior lieutenant at the siege of Acre, fighting alongside the Army. Together they had held out against Napoleon Bonaparte in person and prevailed, their victory owed squarely to the tenacity and loyalty of the Navy. If only to honour that memory he must stay and do what he could.

Taking Clinton aside, he told him, ‘I’m coming back after I get the wounded away – I have some ideas. I’ll need a dozen of your Royal Blues, which I’d be obliged if you’d find for me at my return.’

Clinton’s gaze was level and calm. ‘It’ll be done, sir.’

The mole was only a short distance from the fort and there was no firing on the injured soldiers as they were trundled over the mud on the high-wheeled carts and laid gently on the deck of the transport.

Kydd noted with concern that for a hundred yards or so it was open ground to the mole; if their final withdrawal was contested this might be a bloody place indeed.

But he put these qualms to one side for there was work to do. He planned to create a floating artillery platform that could lie offshore and fire into the enemy. This would need to be the shallowest-draught vessel he could find that would bear carriage guns. An empty grain brig, oddly named Iasthma, was conveniently at anchor offshore. Kydd bundled out its captain and crew, and set his party to preparing it as best they might.

It was simple but effective. Everything possible was offloaded – sails, furniture, victuals, spars, stores – and on the bare deck cannon were lined up to form a one-sided broadside. To manoeuvre, a kedge would be streamed out forward and another aft. Sail-power would be replaced by hard work at the capstan but now at least they had means to fight back.

He wished them well and returned to the fort, knowing the unearthly quiet would end at one o’clock. A distant trumpet bayed; it was taken up by another out to the left and one more to the south. An ugly, surging roar sounded in response. Coming ominously from all three directions, it meant that Liniers had succeeded in flanking Pack and his line, and now the net was tightening.

The fighting was vicious and one-sided. Although Pack could command the streets with his artillery it was the city buildings themselves that were his greatest foe. In deference to the sultry heat of summer each had a flat roof, edged for safety with a modest wall all round. Enemy marksmen quickly found these an admirable parapet and, firing down, made a hell of blood and death for the English gunners and any who stood to fight.

Iasthma hauled herself up and down the seafront, stopping only to open up with a crash of guns when enemy troops showed themselves. At one point Liniers ordered two of the Spanish field guns down to the shore and a gun duel opened. A hit brought down her mizzen and with it her ensign. Wild cheering erupted from the enemy. A nimble sailor, however, quickly had the colours aloft once more on the bare mainmast, and her crew gave savage cheers as they threw themselves into serving their guns.

Then, for reasons that couldn’t be made out from the shore, the brave vessel took fire, flames starting from her after end and rapidly finding naked powder charges, which flared and blazed. Her guns stopped, and in minutes her crew were in the water, making for the land – to inevitable death or capture.

Beresford had no choice: he pulled in his forces so that only the big square, the Plaza Mayor, was being defended, and this with every gun and soldier he had.

‘Captain – I’ve no right to ask it of you,’ he said, in a low voice to Kydd. ‘If I had any means of landing a force behind their lines to delay . . .’

Justina was one of the few vessels left in the roadstead. She had fulfilled her charter as troop transport and had been hovering, waiting for the rich cargoes promised. Now she was at anchor and deserted, her crew long since fled.

‘I shall need volunteers,’ Kydd replied, thinking of the gallant Royal Blues, fighting on land. This would be more to their liking and he knew he could count on them.

‘The St Helena men have volunteered,’ Beresford said, missing his meaning. ‘Artillery men all, they begged a more active war.’

Kydd was touched. That far-off island, a tiny speck in the vast wastes of the Atlantic – and since these were East India Company men, there was no compelling reason for them to be in this fearful cauldron.

He nodded. ‘Thank you, sir. We’ll sail immediately.’

It took a moment or two for Kydd to shift from a land-bound perspective back to the imperatives of the open sea. A respectable north-easterly was building so it would be close-hauled on the starboard tack and the tide safely making, with no doubt, a useful northerly current. It was possible.

Clinton had another Royal Blues detachment mustered ready. There were set faces among them: Iasthma’s fate might well be their own but none had been conscripted into the venture and all knew the risks.

An army subaltern reported that men had now been posted to cover the embarkation at the mole and it was