The only British in this district were a sergeant and seventeen men of the 71st, who occupied a derelict house. In the pre-dawn cold a tired sentry was aroused by the sound of dogs barking maniacally. He woke his sergeant, who was in no doubt of what was happening.
‘Go as fast as y’ legs’ll carry you, an’ tell Colonel Pack they’re on the move,’ he told the lad. ‘Say I’ll hold ’em as long as I can.’
The sixteen soldiers were posted in fours, covering each other. Steel glittered in the early light as bayonets were fixed, and after he’d told them what he expected the sergeant solemnly shook hands with each man, then sent him out.
A well-aimed shot crashed out in the silence and felled the first blandengue turning the corner. Return fire was ineffective: the disciplined Highlanders spaced their own to cover reloading, and the advance was halted.
The enemy recovered and spread out before making a first charge. This was stopped within yards, fleeing men stumbling over bodies sprawled in the street. Then they split their numbers, advancing down several streets simultaneously. The sergeant placed his men in pairs to confront them but now there was a tidal wave of attackers.
One went down, the other snatching up his musket, but the enemy saw their chance and closed with them. In a welter of blood, the exulting Spanish hacked and gouged at the bodies as they surged forward.
Pack drew in his outer guard and sent for field guns. These were positioned at street intersections; loaded with grape, they could quickly be wheeled round and fired down any street where the enemy were massing.
That night Beresford ordered a counter-attack. Three parties set out at four in the morning, one to steal along the riverbank while the other two circled around to drive in from the flank. This was, however, a city in a feverish state of alert, and very soon they were detected and found themselves fighting for their lives.
Soon the British had no alternative but to pull back and tighten their defences.
Then at eleven in the morning there came a defining moment. Colonel Pack, at the head of his advance guard, was trying to hold the line in the face of impossible numbers when the firing began to fall off; in less than an hour it had stopped completely. Into the silence came an eerie, distant thumping. It strengthened until a small group appeared at the end of the long avenue. An ornately dressed officer in a plumed hat was preceded by a soldier with a massive drum on which he kept up a steady double beat – ta ta boom, ta ta boom. Behind him, two soldiers supported a large white flag of truce.
‘Let’s hear him, then,’ Pack growled.
It was the Virrey Diputado Quintana, who had earlier met them at the gates of the city to proffer surrender. 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.