Victory

As they neared the craggy, palm-girt beaches, the flames and smoke of destruction could be seen, forts and guard-posts ablaze in the steaming interior. Did this mean they were too late, that the enemy had landed and were victorious?

Grimly they stood to their guns as they neared the swirl of currents about Chacachacare, the first islet, sweating in the heat but keyed up for the fight to come. Once around the dark-green point in the violent red sunset, would they burst like an avenging thunderbolt on Villeneuve at anchor, just as they had at the Nile?

First one ship, then another glided past – and then Kydd himself saw beyond the point into the wide bay of Port of Spain.

It was utterly deserted of ships.

Gasps of disbelief turned to cursing as those with telescopes picked out the English colours hanging limply above the white residence ashore and passed on the sight to others. The island was never under threat and, in what could only be the working of the devil’s magic, Villeneuve and the Spaniards had eluded them once again.

The next morning the Mediterranean Squadron put to sea for the return to Barbados. ‘What did Nelson say?’ Renzi asked quietly of Kydd.

Wiping his forehead, Kydd gave a lop-sided grin. ‘Not, as who should say, cast down but . . .’

‘How could it be? Everything pointed to . . .’

‘A failing of information, is all.’

‘Oh?’

‘A villainous American merchantman swore that he’d been stopped and boarded from a great French fleet that had then crowded on sail to the south. He was lying to deceive, of course, but when the signal post on St Lucia reported a host of ships bound southward as well, what else could be believed?’

‘The lobsterbacks saw a convoy as would seem to them a mighty fleet, I’d wager. But the schooner – she signalled—’

‘The schooner was a Bermudan who was innocently about her trade, signalling to her business agent ashore. That she chose the self-same flags is the greatest of coincidences – while ours was away still searching.’

‘The destruction we saw ashore? If the French were not responsible then . . . ?’

‘Ha! This is your local militia mistaking us for Villeneuve and being over-hasty to retreat and fire their defences.’

It was the damnedest luck, and now they were back where they had started. For the pity of it all, where were the French?

They had hardly cleared the Dragon’s Mouth when they had their answer. A fast cutter made for Victory and soon its dispatches became general knowledge.

Villeneuve had shown his hand. He had not deployed his forces in laying waste to English possessions: instead he had spent precious time throwing his battle-fleet against a rock!

Two years previously, in an epic of courage and adventure, sailors from Centaur had scaled a near vertical monolith and hauled up guns and equipment, arming the rock like a ship. It was rated by the Navy as HM Sloop Diamond Rock and, located at the very entrance to Fort de France, the main harbour of Martinique, it dominated the approaches to the port. From its lofty heights they could spy on every sea movement.

Only after several days’ bombardment and the failure of their water supply did the little ‘ship’ capitulate. But their sacrifice would not be in vain. Nelson was galvanised and, abandoning Barbados, still with the soldiers aboard, set his fleet’s course directly north to pass along the chain of islands that were the eastern limits of the Caribbean Sea and were among the richest in the world. Villeneuve would be sure to fall on them with the forces he commanded.

One by one the islands lifted above the horizon. Local craft were questioned about what they had seen before the ships sailed on to the next, Grenada, St Vincent, St Lucia. Amphion was sent to look into Martinique but found no fleet, Dominica, then Guadeloupe and on to Montserrat. A report there, however, had eighteen sail-of-the-line under French and Spanish colours slipping by not three days previously.

Was it to be Antigua, with the best dockyard in the Caribbean? Or had the enemy vanished into the blue as they had done so often before?

They raised Antigua at first light, the jaded gun-crews at their quarters in readiness – but yet again there was no word. If Villeneuve went much further there would be no more islands for him to assault. Unless he veered to the west and fell on Jamaica . . .

With the prospect of a cataclysmic battle at any moment against a foe with double his numbers, Nelson could not afford to send off his frigates on a thorough search and could therefore only piece together what could be gleaned from local report and rumour.

And this was building to a growing conviction – that Villeneuve’s presence in the West Indies could no longer be assured. Spies in Guadeloupe had seen landed there all the troops and military stores that Villeneuve had carried across the Atlantic, which made it probable he had no longer any intention of invading and capturing territory. And a fleet of men-o’-war, however large, had no place in the Caribbean without an apparent adversary. So if it existed at all – and there was still no absolute proof – what the devil was it up to?

While the long-suffering soldiers aboard were released from their hell below-decks and sent ashore, Nelson called his captains. The tension and frustration were plain to see in the stooped figure but when he raised his head the fire was still in his eyes.

‘It must be plain to you all that a decision must now be made. Do we move to the relief of Jamaica or . . . ?’

‘Port Royal is eight hundred miles away, my lord,’ Keats said slowly. ‘If we meet with the same disappointment it will be . . . unfortunate.’

‘And if in the pursuit we are able to forereach on the rogue and bring him to battle?’