Conquest Read online

  Kydd took stock. L’Aurore was fitted with chase-ports in her stern but these were intended only for the carronades used in defending against gunboat attack. Forward there were two nine-pounders and proper ports used as classic frigate chase guns against quarry – could these be brought aft to bear on their tormentor?

  It would mean traversing the entire rearing and jerking length of the ship with near a ton of cold iron on the loose. But anything was better than a meek surrendering to Fate.

  It took more than an hour of fighting the beast aft with handspikes, tackles and wearisome tying off by stages but then it was on the quarterdeck and aft to the taffrail. The port, designed by a long-ago Frenchman who had known nothing of carronades, was more than adequate and the gun was wrestled into place. Now they had teeth – even if they were only half the calibre of the other’s.

  Another hour saw their big pursuer gradually close until they came into range. Kydd didn’t expect miracles, particularly with a single gun, but it might give the enemy pause in its relentless pursuit and there was always the remote possibility of a disabling strike.

  Stirk chose his own gun-crew and set to work, but it quickly became plain that his task was impossible. The motion at the stern was a dizzying rise and plunge much faster than the gun could be laid. It bravely crashed out, the powder-smoke carried instantly away, but there was no sign of the flight of the ball.

  L’Aurore suffered her first casualty, a gun-tackle number carried below, whose nimble avoidance of the weapon’s leaping recoil had ended in his near-braining on the driver boom above.

  Doggedly Stirk continued until a shame-faced gunner found that there was no more of the seldom-used nine-pounder chase-shot in the locker and their pathetic defiance ceased. He wearily shook his fist at the looming nemesis seething along in their wake.

  The French had contemptuously ignored the firing; they had forward chase guns of their own but no doubt thought it a waste of ammunition in the circumstances. Why were they so bloody-minded in their chase?

  Then – incredibly – the wind started to veer and, with it, its violence. The quirky and unpredictable southern weather had changed the entire equation. With less force L’Aurore could regain her greyhound speed. First, reefed topgallants were cautiously shown, and later the reefs were shaken out just as the sun reclaimed command of the heavens.

  Now it was a more even contest. Free to choose her best point of sailing, L’Aurore lay into it and flew. As the wind eased there were the royals to set – and later perhaps stuns’ls.

  Kydd had no doubts now, for he knew his ship was a thoroughbred. Slowly they were hauling ahead. Now was the time for the thwarted pursuer to break off the chase for the end was plain to see. Yet it did not! Instead more sail was crowded on as the two frigates sped across the sea.

  In the sparkling weather L’Aurore pulled ahead triumphantly but powder-flash and smoke stabbed out of the enemy fore-deck. Chase guns! The seas were still lively, a complex cross-swell making predictions of deck motion problematic and the ball-strike was nowhere to be seen, but it was an unwelcome development. More than one engagement had been settled by a chance hit on a mast or spar.

  A hail came from the masthead. ‘Saaail – I see sail ayont th’ Frenchy!’

  It could be friend or foe appearing beyond their pursuer. As far as he knew, the next India convoy was not due for some time. Another French frigate? They often hunted in pairs. Kydd was not about to investigate and they plunged on.

  Within a short time it was clear that the sail was not accompanied by another. It had sighted them and was falling into the line of chase. And while the French frigate must know of it, there was no sign it was taking any notice. The chase continued, as did the harrying gunfire.

  And then a sharp eye recognised a peculiarly discoloured topsail on the distant ship. By chance the gunfire had attracted an English frigate at the end of its patrol line – it was Leda and she wanted to join the encounter.

  Exulting, Kydd saw the tables had been turned. Now the hunter was the quarry – between the two of them the French frigate would be at their mercy. It only needed considered teamwork and they would have it. Of course, Honyman in Leda was the senior but Kydd must deliver the Frenchman to him.

  If the dogged pursuit continued it would be easy; otherwise Kydd’s duty was to turn and engage to achieve a delay until Leda could come up.

  ‘Helm down, alter four points to starb’d,’ he ordered. L’Aurore fell off the wind and, with furious work at the braces, they were quickly making off downwind. Unbelievably, the other followed suit almost immediately, the foremost guns on her broadside firing a ragged salvo at an angle, one shot punching a neat hole in L’Aurore’s mizzen topsail.

  Leda was now on the beam and on this course the tracks would eventually converge – yet still the Frenchman hung on. It could be that this was a determined attempt to crush them before Leda came up, but Kydd’s course was clear: he must stay ahead until they were two, then turn at last on his pursuer.

  The seas were now moderating, the winds steady, the land far off: it was a clear field of battle for an all-frigate action with the odds for once on their side – but would the enemy stay to fight?

  As Leda approached there was no sign of a breaking off. Still L’Aurore stretched out ahead, the French frigate stubbornly in her wake and Leda angling in from to leeward.

  And then the Frenchman put over his helm and wheeled to starboard. As his broadside bore momentarily he opened up on L’Aurore’s unprotected quarter in a storm of fire. Kydd staggered and fell to his knees with the wind of one ball, which went on to take the quartermaster squarely and send him into a bloody, squirming heap before severing a shroud with a bass twang. Another, blasting and splintering into Kydd’s cabin, brought shrieks of pain from further forward and yet one more ended in a brutal crunch somewhere in the hull.

  The sudden eruption of violence was shocking: the malevolence of the nameless French captain had reached out and savaged L’Aurore; it was now a punishing downwind fight against a cunning and tenacious enemy.

  Even before he could struggle to his feet there was the sound of a further thunderous broadside – but this was from the frigate’s opposite side and it hammered into Leda’s bows. Kydd gave a grim acknowledgement: to achieve a broadside on two opponents within such a short space of time was the work of a fighting seaman worthy of notice.

  Kydd hauled L’Aurore around and now they were following. On an impulse he took out his pocket glass and trained it on the carved stern: Africaine. It now had a name.

  They passed Leda beginning her turn, but then the Frenchman swung to larboard, and once again L’Aurore faced that deadly broadside, now to her bows. Time froze: but not a single gun fired. Kydd gave a cynical smile: this great captain had neglected gun drill in favour of manoeuvres, and despite the masterly tactics, he’d been let down by the gun crews and left with no guns ready.

  And he would pay for it. Savagely, Kydd gave the orders that brought L’Aurore around parallel. Now the Frenchman must stay on course and endure what was coming – if he turned away he would take a full broadside to his high, scrolled stern. Kydd savoured the moment then roared, ‘Fire!’

  Instantly L’Aurore’s starboard broadside of twelve-pounders crashed out triumphantly, gunsmoke towering up between the two ships to be snatched away by the wind. To his intense satisfaction, Kydd saw the shot strike Africaine in gouts of splinters, the sudden appearance of black holes in the hull and the parting of ropes to trail in the wind. Their twelves would never be the battle-winners that the opposing eighteens, half as big again, could be, but they had hit back.

  Something made him suddenly wheel around. He saw that the Frenchman had timed his turn precisely and had manoeuvred to be between L’Aurore and Leda leaving an impotent Honyman to curse Kydd for a fool in masking his guns. Face burning, Kydd was about to give the orders to sheer away when he realised with horror that to do so would be to fall in with the expectation that he would presen
t his stern once again.

  In a fury of self-accusation, thoughts flashed through his brain – then he bellowed, ‘Hard a st’b’d!’ It was crazy but it would not be expected that he would throw his ship entirely in the other direction – towards, instead of away. Understanding, the boatswain tore men from the guns in a frenzy to man the lines as L’Aurore swung about, taking up close-hauled hard to the wind to place herself directly in the path of the French frigate. There would now be a fearful and crippling collision if one of them did not give way – and it would not be Kydd.

  At first the other frigate stood on, as though in contempt of the move, but Kydd knew his man now – at this moment he would be coolly reasoning that if L’Aurore’s reckless tactic ended only in tangled rigging it would nevertheless give Leda all the chance she needed to close in and that was a risk he simply could not take.

  Grimly holding to his course, Kydd saw the other’s bowsprit, like a spear, swinging round to aim at their vitals – then it wavered, slowed and began falling away. Within less than fifty feet it shot by the awkwardly turning frigate, Kydd regretting that with men away from the guns he could not slam in a broadside as it passed.

  There had been a sputtering of musket shot but otherwise they were unscathed, and once past, Kydd lost no time in wheeling about for battle again. The frigate was taking punishment from a vengeful Leda; Kydd’s larboard broadside being ready, he would ease in and resume his pounding when the range was clear. This was how it must be – teamwork.

  Leda’s cannonade ceased and she fell back while L’Aurore came up to take the other side. This would be the final act – a brutal battering between two fires until colours were struck. It could take hours – the frigate was still full of fight and, in the hands of its bloody-minded, devious captain, was capable of anything.

  Kydd sent L’Aurore forward, her men at the guns keyed up for combat – but before she was in position the big frigate yawed widely to starboard and its broadside hammered out ahead of their own. Again the shock and violence of the enemy’s malice, debris falling from above, the insane flapping of a ragged sail and a hoarse, morbid bubbling from a doubled-over member of a gun crew. Then their own broadside opened up into the gunsmoke, sounding so puny against the eighteens.

  So it was to be a smashing match! L’Aurore’s topsails were shivered to spill wind and she eased back to allow Leda to come up for the next bout. Both ships fired simultaneously in a fury of gun-flash and smoke, Leda every bit a match in size and guns for the Frenchman, who nevertheless fought back furiously.

  Guns reloaded, L’Aurore began her run in, Kydd alert for any ploy, but this time there were no broadsides. As they began their overlap L’Aurore’s forward guns fired one by one, as soon as they bore in a deliberately aimed cannonade, but were answered gun for gun by the French in a display of cold courage that demanded respect.

  But before half her guns had fired, there was the shock of a shot-strike on L’Aurore’s lower fore-yard, and with a rending crack it broke in two, instantly ripping the fore-topsail from top to bottom and descending to the fore-deck in a tangle of ropes and torn canvas.

  The sails thus unbalanced had an immediate effect – L’Aurore reeled like a drunken man from side to side as the helmsmen fought to keep her from surging into the side of Africaine. Quick work on the quarterdeck had the driver boom sheet thrown off and the big fore-and-aft sail in brails to correct for it. However, to all intents and purposes, L’Aurore was out of the fight, falling away while the other topsails were doused until she was dead in the water.

  Kydd waited for the boatswain’s report, knowing Oakley would not be rushed. ‘Could be worse, Mr Kydd. A clean break t’ larb’d. I’ve a notion t’ fish the spar with stuns’l booms an’ capstan bars. We’ve a chance!’

  Kydd trusted him. It would be hard work, laying along the strong bars and tight-lashing them to the wounded yard, while above, the jeer and other large blocks must be overhauled and much of the rigging re-rove. It would take time, and even as he watched, the two duelling frigates moved away, still firing. Honyman in Leda would know that they would rejoin as soon as they could – perhaps two or three hours?

  While the work went on, Kydd paced up and down. The strange events leading up to the battle didn’t make sense, and neither did the peculiar action of the frigate in falling on them as if utterly to destroy L’Aurore, to remove her from the world of man. The ships had never met before; whoever the astute and skilful French captain was, he could not have known Kydd was L’Aurore’s captain and therefore any element of personal vengeance was highly unlikely.

  And close to the coast, frigates simply did not hazard themselves like that unless they had duties of watching the shore, which had no meaning in these regions. Was it something to do with the secret army? Was there a connection with the brig? What if the brig contained something of such value to this secret army that it needed an escort of force – so important, in fact, that its very presence in that location had to be a closely guarded secret in itself? The more he thought about it, the more it added up. That was why the Frenchman had tried to crush them – to stop the secret getting out.

  Was it guns, gold, a famous general? Whatever it was, it could prove the key to solving the whole riddle of the boastful threat to take Cape Colony.

  A growing conviction rose that he should be where the brig lay, unmasking its secrets, and not here, contributing in a minor way to a battle. Impatiently he strode up to where the boatswain had his crew splicing, heaving, stropping and seizing in a frenzy of activity. The L’Aurore’s were clearly in good heart, laying in with a will and, judging from their banter, relishing a re-match.

  ‘As quick as you know how, Mr Oakley,’ Kydd urged.

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ the boatswain responded, aggrieved.

  A mysterious brig? Supposition? In the cold light of reason it didn’t seem much to set against the action he was now contemplating. The easier thing would be to forget about it and rejoin the fray, but he could not.

  ‘Let’s be having sail on her, then!’ The fore-yard was now in place at the slings and the running rigging led along. Bending on the new topsail would test the repair and he was eager to be under way.

  On the footrope of the fished yard as it took the wind, a gleeful Oakley raised his arm in acknowledgement as it eased to the strain, and Kydd gave the orders that saw sail drop from the yards and brought L’Aurore back to life.

  ‘Cast to larb’d,’ he ordered crisply.

  ‘Larb’d, sir?’ said Gilbey, puzzled. At best this would have L’Aurore at right angles to the course of the battle. The two ships were far off, hull-down with only their upper rigging barely visible, an occasional mutter of thunder and slowly rising smoke a token of the continuing combat.

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘But that’ll take us clear of the fight!’

  ‘We’re going back to investigate the brig. Are you questioning my orders, sir?’ The deck stilled as men stopped to listen.

  Gilbey stepped back as if he’d been struck. ‘You’re – you’re leaving Leda to fight on alone?’

  ‘She’s perfectly capable of standing up to the Frenchy – we’ve got more important business. To find out what that brig’s about.’ There was now no one who was not agog to hear what was being said.

  ‘Sir, this is hard to take.’ His face grew pale and set. ‘Am I t’ understand you’re not resuming the engagement?’ he said thickly.

  ‘We’re not, and that’s an end to it, sir!’

  Men took position behind Gilbey as he stubbornly continued, ‘Mr Kydd, there’s those who’d say you’re in a fair way of having to explain y’self before a court-martial should you take such an action.’

  If Kydd was wrong, there was, of course, nothing more certain: the Articles of War were as strict and unbending on captains and commanders as they were on the common seaman. After court-martial, Admiral Byng of the Royal Navy had been shot on his own quarterdeck for irresolute conduct in the prosecution
of an engagement, and what Kydd was intending was nothing less than the abandonment of the field of battle in the face of the enemy.

  ‘I said, are you questioning my orders, sir? If you are, you’ll face a court-martial yourself for direct disobedience, Mr Gilbey.’

  He stared down his first lieutenant, who looked away, then drew himself up with wounded dignity. ‘Then, sir, I would be very much obliged should you log my objections to this course of action.’

  ‘Are you sure you wish to go on record?’ If Kydd was right about the brig it would go against Gilbey at the Admiralty, but if he was wrong . . .

  ‘Sir.’

  Kydd nodded at Kendall, who looked uncomfortable but made a note in his notebook, then told him, ‘Clap on all sail, if you please – we’re going back to the brig.’

  Curzon moved across beside him. ‘Mr Gilbey has a point, you know, sir,’ he muttered. ‘To quit the scene of action and—’

  ‘It’s not your decision, Mr Curzon. Obey my orders and your yardarm is clear,’ Kydd said cuttingly. He was conscious that Bowden stood apart, avoiding his eye. Was this because he shared the general opposition to his action, or that he did not want to be seen siding with his captain, trusting that there was a good explanation for his order?

  It was essential they make the coast without delay. The brig would wait for the return of its escort to continue on its way, of that there was little doubt, but for how long? And if Africaine got away from Leda would it come back for its charge?

  ‘Rouse yourselves, y’ lubbardly crew!’ Kydd roared, at the men slowly moving in the tops.

  It was the wrong thing to say: these men were keyed up for a fight and were resentful and sullen at the abandoning of their step-ashore mates in Leda. But Kydd could not shrink from what he believed was the right moral course.

  He grimaced, his face hardening. That mystery brig had better reveal a world-shaking secret . . .