Betrayal (30 page)

He snatched up his boat-cloak from behind the door. ‘I’m going to take a look,’ he threw at the duty master’s mate, then turned on Garrick. ‘Let’s be having you, sir!’

The two hurried down to the mole where
Dolores
lay alongside, rotated to face seaward. Kydd grabbed a stay and leaped lightly on to its humble deck, closely followed by Garrick, who quickly gave orders to cast off.

‘I do apologise, sir,’ he said, as sailors in pairs got to work with long quant poles in the mud, heaving off the ungainly flat-bottomed vessel. Their departure would obviously not be in crisp naval fashion. Only after reaching open water could they set the gaff main and headsails and later a square fore to begin a workmanlike clawing to seaward in the rattling easterly.

Standing out of the way on the small after-deck, Kydd glanced back at the receding coastline, utterly flat as far as the eye could see, the buildings of the city the only objects in a vertical dimension, not a single mountain or cliff to relieve the monotonous level.

However, with the wind in his teeth and the willing surge of motion Kydd’s heart swelled. He was at sea once more.

Dolores
picked up speed. Kydd could see why this workhorse with her exaggerated beam and generous sail area was relied on to ply these waters, but squinting astern at a mark, he noted the dismaying amount of leeway she was making with the wind abeam.

The seaman at the long tiller, which was comfortably wedged into his thigh, chewed contentedly on his quid of tobacco with the customary glassy stare forward of his tribe when under the gaze of an officer.

Suddenly restless, Kydd snapped, ‘Put us about quickly, Mr Garrick. I need to see how she handles before we go in.’

The sails, heavy and tanned ochre with a peculiarly rancid-smelling mixture, were difficult to handle but he could appreciate that they would take substantial squalls without fear. They went about without fuss but there would be no sharp manoeuvring in
Dolores
: the tiller had needed two men to throw against the pressure of the turn but the tacks and sheets were easily handled by the other three.

Kydd gave orders to take up on the original course and waited until they had settled to speed, then went across and relieved the startled seaman at his tiller. He adopted the same pose, leaning against it, feeling the thrum and life as they foamed along. It was correctly balanced a little to weather, and he brought the vessel more by the wind, feeling its direction with his cheeks as he experimentally luffed and touched, much as he had as quartermaster in
Seaflower
long years ago in the Caribbean.

Kydd found
Dolores
surprisingly agreeable to close-hauling, probably due to the big headsails, he reasoned. Satisfied, he gave up the tiller and paced forward, an anxious Garrick close behind.

Her armament, a twelve-pounder carronade on the fore-deck and swivels each side of the after-deck, was enough to dominate in an action between equals but near hopeless if they were ranged against ship-sloops, which could muster a full broadside of six-pounders.

It was a measure of how close Colonia del Sacramento was that they raised the opposite shore soon after midday. The sharp-eyed Garrick spotted
Staunch
further in with the coast. ‘We’ll join her, if you please,’ Kydd said.

His thoughts raced. If these did prove to be sloops, what the devil was he to do? Even concentrating his entire force of seven he could not be expected to prevail against them, but sending to Popham for heavier metal would take time and risk stranding his vessels in this damnable maze of shoals that was the Río de la Plata.

Leaving the sloops alone was not in question for in the crossing they had only to lay off each side of the transports to crush with broadsides any foolish enough to contest their passage.

What was puzzling was that vessels of such size were sailing with impunity among the banks and shoals. It was a mystery demanding close reconnaissance.

They reached
Staunch
, which jauntily dipped her ensign on seeing Kydd. ‘We’re taking a look at your ship-sloops,’ he hailed.

‘The water’s very shoal hereabouts,’ Selby, her captain, came back anxiously. ‘Must be certain of the channels – those devils damn well know what they’re about.’

Kydd had made plenty of allowance for leeway in coming over and they were upwind of Colonia by some miles, having only to bear away before the wind and past a few headlands to reach the hooked point that was the port’s shelter. The chart – little more than a crude sketch in Spanish – gave scant help, scrupulous in showing the positions of churches inland and giving names to every one of the scatter of offshore islands but not mentioning the presence of sub-sea reefs or deep-water channels.

The hook in the coastline gave Kydd his clue. In its lee was Colonia but, more importantly, it then trended sharply away northward. There would be tidal scour around it as the waters scurried past to make the wider bay, and where there was scour there would be deeper water. He looked up. ‘We’ll take it close as we can. Bear away, if you please.’

With
Staunch
in their wake they closed with the land. It resolved into a partly wooded area with long strips of pale beach and little sign of habitation but he had been right: the seaman forward with the hand lead was reporting steadily deeper soundings. This was how the pair had reached Colonia.

The town was ahead. Kydd had little information to go on other than that it was yet another ancient Portuguese colony that had passed into Spanish hands. He had no idea how formidable it was, still less of their likely reception so close.

After more curving beaches and nondescript woods, the first signs of settlement appeared. Caught to seaward of them, wary fishermen stood motionless in their punts while they passed.
Dolores
was fast coming up to the last foreland before Colonia. Pale buildings and the incongruous end of an avenue were spotted but then came the thud of a gun, and smoke driven downwind from an unnoticed little fort at the water’s edge. Another. The alarm had now been given. Were they small enough targets?

They barrelled along the last few hundred yards and passed the point. There – two ships at anchor off the small harbour, the red and yellow of Spanish climbing to the mastheads. Their design took after the French corvettes that were causing mayhem in the Channel; these vessels were smaller, but he could see the menacing line of six-pounder gun-ports on each side. A swarm of little craft encircled them.

Kydd quickly took in other details. An exaggerated beam and turn of bilge meant shallower draught; bald-headed with sail only to topsails, they would not be speedy on a wind but, with low top-hamper, were well suited to these conditions. He looked more sharply at the further one, closer inshore. It had no sails bent on the yards and had a definite heel – it was resting on the mud. Careening: he could see the tell-tale gleam of white among the weed on the hull, the same preservative used in the Royal Navy before the use of copper had become widespread.

With these two as the nucleus of a crossing force it was all too clear he hadn’t a chance. His ambition for a classic blockade, leaving Liniers and his growing army impotent at the shore, was now in ruins and they could cross with impunity when they were ready.

Where the
devil
had they come from? How had they got past Popham’s patrols?

And what was he proposing to do about it?

He felt Garrick’s eyes on him while he tried to think. They were completely outclassed, and the reasonable conclusion was that it would be nothing but a waste of lives to throw his little fleet at them. Yet to give up without trying, to run from the scene, was intolerable. If only
L’Aurore
were here to set about them like a terrier after rats.

It was a stalemate. The best he could do—

Sail dropped from the fore-yard in the nearer sloop, then jibs and courses blossomed. It was putting to sea and its quarry had to be the insolent
sumacas
flaunting the British ensign.

Kydd hesitated. He’d seen what he’d needed to see and the sensible thing was to return and confess this grave turn of events to General Beresford. Over on the sloop, its fo’c’sle party finished, the anchor cable was buoyed and slipped, and the yards were bracing round for a lunge to sea.

He hailed
Staunch
through cupped hands. ‘Return to Buenos Aires independently.

‘We go back,’ he told Garrick. Their passage had taken them well past Colonia and on into the bay beyond. Beating back against the easterly the way they had come was unwise under chase in these waters. Over to larboard, a mile or so off, lay one of the islands, low and thickly wooded. ‘Take us around it and then direct home,’ Kydd ordered. As an afterthought he added, ‘Post a couple of men in the bows for I mean to make it uncomfortable for our friend to follow.’

After his service around Guernsey he knew what to look for in shoal waters, the arrowed ripples, out of synchrony wavelets, the dark of seaweed beneath the surface. As well, he posted two men to lie flat on deck in the eyes of the craft, staring down into the water for the ghostly shadow of reefs or banks looming.

He shielded his gaze to take in the lie of the island. It was often possible to note a backbone of rock stretching out into the sea that would later be a jagged underwater spine extending out – and indeed there was one, pointing like an accusing finger back at Colonia. ‘Two points to starboard, leave it well clear.’ He glanced back at the sloop. It was making remarkably good sailing before the wind, its plain, broad sail-plan working well in this north-easterly. North? The wind was backing – what did this mean in these unholy waters? A faster return certainly, and once around the island they’d take advantage of their fore-and-aft rig to cosy up to the wind and leave the ship-sloop standing.

It would almost certainly be satisfied with seeing them off and let them go. For the moment it was half a mile or so in their wake, but when they began passing the island it gave no sign of breaking off the chase. It made no difference because—

The double yell from forward came too late. With a sharp wooden thump and squeal of outraged timbers, the
sumaca
reared up and ceased forward motion. Sent sprawling, Kydd picked himself up. ‘Get sail off her – move yourselves!’ he bellowed hoarsely.

The craft had mercifully slewed round, spilling the wind; if it had gone the other way they would have been a dismasted wreck by now. Kydd looked over the side – in the turbid water he saw the line of a ledge below the surface, at right-angles and as abrupt as if it had been built that way. No wonder the sloop had let them crowd on sail.

Garrick scrabbled up the canted deck, nursing an arm. ‘Tide’s on the make, sir. If we could . . .’

Kydd looked sourly at the oncoming enemy. ‘There’s no time. If you’ve any signals, papers, get ’em ditched now.’

Their nemesis hove to well clear and quickly had two boats in the water, pulling strongly towards them. When they found that not only had they a prize but also made prisoner a senior officer of the Royal Navy, there would be no end to the crowing. It was hard to take.

‘Be damned to it! I’m not f’r a Spanish chokey!’ one of the seamen shouted, and leaped into the sea forward, quickly followed by another. It was foolish for they would soon be picked up by the boats and—

Then Kydd saw they had found firm ground under them and were now standing in water no more than chest deep. Kydd looked at Garrick. ‘To the island, I think!’

They scrambled for the bow and lowered themselves in. Trying to ignore the cold and wet, Kydd waved them forward. ‘To the island!’

He thrust ahead, feeling iron-hard sand beneath, powering towards the island a good three hundred yards off. The others followed in a straggling line. Snatching a glance behind, he saw both boats making straight for them and redoubled his efforts, panting hard, stumbling at occasional hidden rocks.

The seabed began rising and the last hundred yards were done in a stumbling run. Suddenly they were among a scatter of light-grey rocks in the sand and then into low woods, spiky branches whipping across their faces until they stood gulping and wheezing together in a clearing.

‘They’s more interested in the
Dollars
,’ one seaman said. Originally the sailors had called
Nuestra Señora de Dolores
‘Our Lady of the Dollars’, but the Spanish now swarming over her would find little to plunder. And then they would come after her crew.

‘I c’n see
Staunch
!’ a sailor shouted, pointing through a gap in the trees to the sea the other side of the island. Spontaneously they broke into a stumbling run, crashing through the undergrowth and low branches until they emerged on to a rock-studded beach where they waved and shouted.

She sailed on and their hopes faded. ‘They’re not keepin’ a lookout, the shonky bastards!’ But then the two masts started to come together as she began to put back – they were returning to pick them up.

‘God bless ’em, every one!’

‘See if the Dons are after us yet,’ Kydd told a seaman, pointing back the way they’d come.

The man loped off, but returned quickly. ‘Boat on its way,’ he panted. ‘Too many on ’em.’

They were completely unarmed and must surrender to any with a weapon. And
Staunch
was still some way off.

‘Into the water!’ Kydd barked urgently, and waded into the sea. On the weather side the waves were several feet high, slamming and jostling against him. The seabed under his feet was much less even, with rocks and crevices that twice nearly had him sprawling full-length. From the splashes and cursing behind him he knew it was slowing the others, too.

The sea bottom grew steeper and before they had gone out a hundred yards the water was to his armpits and he was being carried off his feet by the surging waves. They could go no further. Ahead,
Staunch
was cautiously slowing, but she was way out of reach.

Suddenly, to the right, there was the smack and plume of a bullet. Another whipped over to strike between Kydd and
Staunch
. He swung around – on the beach, the Spanish were running down to take aim at the water’s edge. He turned back to
Staunch
– and saw that a boat had been launched, but with only one aboard. Then he understood: they were streaming the boat downwind to them at the end of a long line.