They were as ready as they could be.
But when the frigate had straightened and settled on course to engage, all became clear. There was to be no braving of L’Aurore’s broadside – instead Sieyes, in one audacious move, was going to end the battle before it started.
The big 32 was taking all the time it needed to sail past L’Aurore’s stern, delivering an overwhelming punishment as it did, raking down the length of the tethered vessel, bringing about the utter destruction Kydd had dreaded, and not taking a shot in reply.
This could only be contemplated by a consummate seaman, utterly sure of himself and his ship’s company to consider such a manoeuvre – running close to deliver the blow but then wheeling about on a sixpence in the perilously short distance before the reef and shallows to reach out to sea again for another pass.
They were helpless to stop it – or were they?
‘Chain shot! Every gun – load with chain!’ Kydd bellowed urgently. He ignored the bewildered looks from the gun-deck. There was so little time.
‘The carpenter – tell him to step up on deck this instant,’ he rapped.
What he had in mind was a once-only move. If it failed, they were most certainly finished.
The enemy frigate lined up for its run with deliberation, as deadly as a bullfighter bringing his sword up for the kill. Nearer and nearer, every detail of the ship showing clear and stark – from the men at the guns to those standing by the ropes for the whirlwind of action that must follow the crushing blast.
Kydd watched with an icy calm: timing alone would determine whether his men lived or died.
It was the forefoot of the oncoming warship that was his mark – the angle between that and-
‘Now!’ he roared.
In a blur of motion the carpenter swung his razor-sharp broad-axe. It thudded into the bar-taut cable of the kedge, near severing it in one. Under the strain the rest parted and fell away. Released from her position athwart the wind, L’Aurore immediately began swinging back to face into the gale streaming in, held as before by her bower anchors. And it brought her broadside around to bear – the tables had been turned.
So close, the enemy frigate was committed but had not reached the point where its own guns could bear – the timing had been perfect. With great satisfaction Kydd saw consternation on the opposing quarterdeck as he blared, ‘Fire!’
The guns thundered and blasted in a deliberate broadside – but upwards, producing instant and visible ruin in the Frenchman’s rigging. Canvas ripped and tore as if by a magic hand, severed lines streamed away and the fore main-yard folded gracefully in two, bringing down with it the fore topsail above.
Sieyes had been overconfident: he had not reckoned on Kydd throwing away his only defensive posture and, more importantly, to abandon the British preference for hammering round-shot into the hull for the French practice of shots into the rigging. Now he was about to pay the price.
And it wasn’t long coming. Fighting desperately to come around in time, with their damage and in the prevailing conditions, they didn’t stand a chance and, slowly but surely, like the inevitable climax of a Greek tragedy, the frigate struck.
Immediately it slewed and heeled, the seas surging and smashing against the bare, glistening hull like a half-tide rock, beginning a merciless battering and assailing of the doomed ship. By morning there would be nothing but wreckage.
It had been only minutes from start to finish.
Chapter 8
At his book by the stern windows in the great cabin Renzi heard movement on the deck above, then stillness. A few minutes later the silvery shriek of the boatswain’s call was on the air – the captain had returned from the admiral. Oakley liked to make a performance of it, ornamenting the upper notes with clever trills and tailing off in a perfectly contrived falling cadence.
Renzi knew Kydd set great store on the ceremony of piping aboard, not for the honour and personal satisfaction it gave but for it being a token of the discipline and order that arose naturally in the practice of the ancient customs of the Royal Navy.
A little time later his friend emerged into the cabin, Tysoe magically appearing to strip him of his finery.
‘Not as if you seem gratified at your reception, brother.’ Kydd certainly did not much resemble a frigate captain returning after reporting the destruction of an enemy to his commander.
‘Oh, he gives me joy of my victory, Nicholas, and mentioned that Lydiard went on to place a prize crew on the other Frenchy after he lost spars in the storm and hauled down his flag.’
‘Then?’
Kydd broke off to order sherry from Tysoe and continued, ‘As he’s much vexed and distracted by dispatches from Lapwing sloop. It turns out that while we were putting an end to the frigate pair, in quite another area we’re taking losses still, proving it can’t be them.’
‘So the conundrum remains,’ Renzi reflected. ‘Widely separated actions, which can’t be by privateers because we have most under eye in Guadeloupe and Martinique, and there’s no other port in the Caribbean that can sustain same.’
‘It’s more puzzling even than that. What no one can reckon is where they’re sending their captures to be condemned and sold – or any word at all about what happens to their crews. As if they’ve vanished entirely.’
‘So, an unknown enemy performing unknown evil acts, the result of which is not known.’
‘Don’t jest, Nicholas. The planters are in a right taking, saying it’s the work of the devil. Some believe this is Bonaparte with a secret weapon and you can be sure I’m not going to tell ’em of Mr Fulton’s submarine boat.’ His brow suddenly furrowed. ‘You don’t think …’
‘Well, I did say there would be a serious retaliation by Mr Bonaparte, but I’m not sure it’s to be that, not unless he’s improved his torpedoes greatly.’
Kydd settled into his chair. ‘Are we then to suppose that they’re taking their captures somewhere right away, with a view to mounting a convoy to sail ’em to Europe all together?’
‘We cannot dismiss the notion, dear fellow, but this does not address the first cause. How are they able to strike without our patrols see them? Where is their base that can sustain whatever they are at in so many different parts of the Caribbean? What is our defence against it? We beg to know.’
‘These are questions that we can’t answer, not at anchor here in Port Royal. Dacres is insistent on it: we’re driven to sea until we find the rogues and put a stop to it. L’Aurore sets out as soon as we’ve stored and fettled, but to where, no one has any notion.’
Renzi murmured his sympathy, but could find little of value to contribute. It was a perplexity in the extreme, for if this was the grand revenge he had always feared Bonaparte would inflict, it was succeeding only too well.
While Kydd got on with his paperwork he bent his mind to the problem with all the logic he could muster. His instincts told him that it had to be accepted it must be a species of secret operation that was being conducted, since their regular naval forces had never encountered any of its participants at any time. And they were suspiciously successful, implying some form of intelligence being gained and exploited.
He himself was no stranger to clandestine activity, at one time having been at the centre of a plot to kidnap Napoleon, and he knew the excruciating level of detail required to carry it off. He sombrely recalled Commodore d’Auvergne and his crushing burden of control, the string of agents stretching from Normandy to Paris itself – and their useless bravery.
So what, then, if the French had set up such a network? The British could claim no monopoly on covert operations. What if there was a web of agents across the Caribbean, being controlled by a gifted French naval officer much like d’Auvergne? Someone with an equal grasp of detail, who was pulling the strings of a commerce-raiding operation quite unlike the usual.