Betrayal (35 page)

This implied a single course of action: allow the Spanish to believe their surprise had been successful, then open up with everything that could fire in a single devastating blast of shot. In the night it might be terrifying enough to deter the onslaught or, at the very least, to gain them enough time to reload.

‘Silence fore ’n’ aft!’ Kydd snapped, and made his dispositions, having the men keep out of sight until his order. Each had a blade weapon and a brace of pistols with four muskets lying in the chest, while the oil lamp was suspended out of sight by rope yarns, ready to be lashed to the foremast as a fighting lantern for reloading the carronades.

There was little more he could do.

Water chuckled against the vessel’s side, the wind dropping yet more to a cold night zephyr bringing a stillness that carried every sound in breathless clarity. The distant betraying slither and clunk of unmuffled oars on the air became plain as the two
falucho
s emerged from the channel and came around. Kydd gave a conspiratorial grin at Dougal, lying on the deck next to him – that would never do in a professional cutting-out expedition.

It was a half-mile of hard pulling for them; they could have hoisted sail and done it in less time but the sudden pale glimmer of canvas would have been an immediate giveaway. Kydd was content to let them tire themselves, the better to dull their fighting ardour.

At two hundred yards he hissed, ‘Stand by!’

In the winter gloom men gripped their weapons, loosened pistols in readiness and tensed for the order.

‘Fire!’ Kydd roared.

The night was split apart by multiple flashes and concussion as ball, grape and musket fire hammered into the hapless
falucho
s, shrieks and shouts accompanying the mayhem. Slewing sideways the leader canted to one side, out of the fight, but the other stretched out frantically with the obvious intention of falling on
Stalwart
before her guns were reloaded.

The fighting lantern was in place but to go through the motions with sponge, rammer and charge was asking a lot of men who were half blinded by gun-flash. Kydd felt a creeping anxiety as the enemy craft came in fast, broad on their beam. An officer was shouting encouragement and foreign-sounding cheers came floating over the water.

Kydd saw the white face of Beekman looking back at him from forward, waiting on his decision. A gentle puff of the night breeze came; they were at anchor, stemming the slight current and—

‘Get that mizzen hoisted!’ he bellowed, in sudden conviction.

Startled, men turned in incomprehension.

‘Now! Hoist the bugger!’ His voice cracked with the effort, but it lashed them into movement. Two seamen clambered aft and helped him raise the ponderous sail. It flapped twice, then bellied, and under the leverage of sail aft on the anchor forward,
Stalwart
obediently began swinging into the wind – bows on to the approaching enemy.

It had worked! Now the target they offered was reduced and, most important, under oars there was no easy coming in to board at an angle amidships; instead they must either grapple and come in over the bow by ones and twos or crab around to get alongside while under fire the whole time.

They chose the bows.

With three men on muskets and pistols and two reloading,
Stalwart
did what she could but a grapnel came sailing in and hauled the craft together, the other bowsprit spearing over their fore-deck until the two were awkwardly locked side by side. With a roar of triumph the enemy boarders crowded forward.

Throwing aside their empty pistols the defenders drew their cutlasses and, with bared teeth, dared them to try. The first two ran out on the bowsprit – if
Stalwart
had had pikes they would have been dead men – and with sword points extended they leaped down either side, then raced for the defenders.

Kydd had four men in a line across the wider part of the triangular fore-deck and the two closed with a vicious 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
falucho
but they hesitated. A figure bravely darted past Kydd and began sawing at the grapnel line with his midshipman’s dirk. It fell free, the craft swinging clear, but with their boarders out of the line of fire there was a last vengeful burst of musketry from the enemy. In the vicious whip of bullets, Kydd’s upraised blade took a ball squarely, with a numbing clang that caused him to drop it in pain but, with a sudden flash, their starboard carronade had banged out and a storm of grape tore into the men opposite, throwing them aside like bloody skittles.

It was the end of the fight: the
falucho
, out of control, drifted away, leaving the Stalwarts to count the cost.

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.

T
he 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.

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.