As the word spread, from every sugar-producing port others would be joining the mass flight – an impossible number to protect. The French frigate and the ever-present privateers would, with great satisfaction, swoop to the kill.
All feelings of diversion and languor fell away. This was the new war and unquestionably L’Aurore was critical to it. It was probably the best course to return as soon as he could to Port Royal for orders – but they were on the north coast of Jamaica on the opposite side. There was little for it but to reach the eastern end by long, tedious boards in the Cuba Passage and call at Port Morant, the naval dispatch station, to see if anything had changed drastically in the meantime.
The atmosphere had altered in L’Aurore: the jollity of the past days had evaporated for it was plain to all that the balance had shifted to the defensive and they were in the front line. And if this French frigate was with another – they often hunted in pairs – they could at any moment be fighting for their lives.
In a near calm they reached Port Morant, at last to be met by an advice-boat with a general order that wherever L’Aurore was to be found she should be sent with all urgency back to Port Royal. The war had caught fire.
Chapter 7
No sooner had L’Aurore rounded Port Royal Point than her pennant number shot up on the flagship – captain to repair on board immediately. Kydd had expected this and, as L’Aurore glided to her anchorage, her gig was already lowering.
‘Where the devil have you been, sir?’ Dacres greeted him, and when he tried to answer brushed him off with, ‘Belay that, we’ve a pretty problem on our hands. Sit down.’
As Kydd had already found out, after one or two had put to sea the rest of the merchantmen had scrambled to follow. ‘Never mind we can’t protect ’em, they have to do it.’ Dacres glared at Kydd as though it was his fault, adding, ‘And now they’re being taken.’
‘Enemy frigate?’
‘You’ve heard? Yes, they’ve sent a pair of raiders – a 32 and a 28 – under a dasher of a captain from La Rochelle, Sieyes. Damn desperate timing for us, I thought.’ His tone hardened. ‘They have to be stopped. Losses at this scale are not to be borne, sir.’
But if the Navy was to be employed in escorting, it could not be on patrol – a dilemma for the admiral that could only be solved by the removal of the threat. Kill the enemy frigates and the Caribbean could revert back quickly to its previous relative peace.
Dacres continued, ‘I have every one of my cruisers out after them, save Anson and yourself. Now you’ll have my orders before sundown to put yourself under Lydiard’s command, and the pair of you will have the Windward Passage and north of Jamaica to yourselves. You’re to store this hour and I’ll expect you to keep the seas in all weathers until they’re found and put down.’
All weathers – this was the tail end of the hurricane season … What was very plain was that while their Caribbean trade was so vulnerable this pair had to be hunted down, whatever it took.
Kydd lost no time in setting L’Aurore to storing and took the opportunity of going to Anson to confer. She was of forty-four guns, one of the class of heavy frigates cut down from a ship-of-the-line to a single gun-deck. Pellew had gone on to glory in one, Indefatigable, and others had since distinguished themselves around the world. They had every chance of success – if they found their quarry.
‘Kydd? Good to meet you at last.’ Lydiard had a jovial manner, his twinkling eyes hinting at a well-developed sense of fun.
‘Er?’
‘At Alexandria in the last war. Saw off Mongseer Crapaud in fine style, if you remember, you being ashore with your, um …’
‘Plicatiles. And damnably unhandy beasts they were, too, those little boats.’
‘Just so. Well, we’ve quite another job to do now, one that’ll stretch us beyond the ordinary, I fear.’
‘That’s how to run ’em to ground first,’ Kydd replied.
‘Indeed. I’ve done a study of the captures so far, trusting we can chase up a pattern of where the devils are operating. And it’s the damnedest thing – some taken off the Leewards, others as far away as Honduras, then Santo Domingo. You’d swear they had wings.’
‘Privateers?’ Kydd offered.
‘Only if you grant they’ve more than doubled their numbers in a month. We’ve been getting the better of the beggars since the beginning of the year and we’ve kept good watch on Guadeloupe and their other nests. No sign of ’em breeding – and besides which, this big jump in numbers we’ve lost only happened since the frigate pair arrived in these waters.’
‘I’d like to know just how they’re causing so much ruin.’
‘Stands to reason, they’ve got us on the run by flying from place to place and never tarrying long enough for us to catch ’em by the tail. Odd, though – for all their seizures, no one’s ever come across a prize of theirs to recapture. Where are they sending ’em in, we ask?’
Kydd digested it all. ‘Taking the long way around to be sure?’ he hazarded.
‘Could be, but this is to say that on the main point we’ve no suspicion of where to look to ferret ’em out. That’s why every sail o’ war Dacres has is out in a different place. Spread thin, but it’s the only way. We’ve got a plum spot, the Windward Passage, but who knows?’
‘Um. So we’re a scouting pair,’ Kydd reflected. ‘Stay in sight until one of us spies something and whistles up the other.’
‘Ah – I was thinking more a distant sweep. Lay away to each side, return to an agreed rendezvous each dawn. Any sighting, retire instantly towards the other.’
‘Nelson before the Nile.’
‘Aye, Nelson style.’
The two frigates slipped to sea in a gathering dusk, their strategy decided; a fast run to the Windward Passage between Cuba to the north and Hispaniola to the south. Then put about for a more thorough search: L’Aurore to comb the waters along the coast of Cuba while Anson looked into the deep gulf in Hispaniola that led to the old French trading harbour of Port-au-Prince.
In the steady north-easterly they drove into the night and, at precisely midnight, went about on the other tack to lay north. Dawn found them flying onwards together, in the increasingly brisk conditions an exhilarating sail. This was a relatively rare experience, for generally there was always the nagging need to conserve canvas and cordage, spars and rigging.
They were therefore treated to the breath-catching sight close abeam of a fellow frigate stretching out under full sail, heaving majestically, every line and scrap of canvas taut and thrumming with a sea music that set the spirit soaring.
By the afternoon they neared the coast of Cuba and, in a neat evolution, both frigates tacked about simultaneously, now hard by the wind on course for their goal, which, given that the weather held, they would raise comfortably by daybreak the next day.
As it happened, the spanking breeze freshened and veered more easterly. As they took up on the new tack, it was with seas smacking hard against the bow, sending spray shooting up to curve and sheet aft, soaking the watch-on-deck, but at least there was no longer the jerking roll from before when the waves had marched in on their beam, now only a determined pitch and toss as L’Aurore butted into the weather.
‘Not to worry overmuch, sir,’ Kendall said quietly, ‘but I times these waves at less’n eight seconds now.’