“A good idea, Mr Clinton. Get your men together with the gunner’s mate and his tools.” Stirk would take great satisfaction in the job and they still had one boat.
Brice stepped up. “Sir-you’re sending a party ashore against the fort?” His uniform was stained and his eyes masked with the grey smudging of powder smoke.
“I am. Why do you ask?”
“Sir. I want to lead them.”
Kydd hesitated. It would leave him without a single officer on board and Clinton possessed a cool head, but they were landing on enemy soil where so many had fled and had every reason to return to take revenge. He nodded to Brice and saw the party off.
They landed and made speed up to the redoubt, then disappeared inside. Kydd’s attention returned to the mayhem.
Curzon returned from his mission, ecstatic. “My God, you should have seen it! Ran like rabbits and we had the barky ablaze in a brace o’ shakes. Then when we-”
“Trouble, sir,” the master interrupted, pointing ashore.
Beyond the redoubt a seething mass of horsemen was assembling at the skyline.
“To the guns, tell ’em to shift aim to the Turk cavalry!” Kydd rapped, but within minutes he heard back that they were out of effective range of their twelve-pounders.
The fate of their courageous band didn’t bear thinking about, and Kydd’s blood ran cold at the image of Stirk’s sturdy loyalty ending under an Ottoman scimitar.
All eyes turned to him-but the matter was taken out of his hands when, like the vengeful thunder of Jove, the powerful thirty-two-pounders of Pompee opened up past them and the horsemen were swept from sight.
Come on! Kydd mentally urged the strike ashore. They seemed to be taking their time. But, then, to disable fifty or so great guns would be a considerable task and-
“Flag, sir. Signal to retire.”
Kydd swung to face Pompee.
“No, sir. Royal George.”
Duckworth was pulling out Smith’s squadron. All around the anchorage ships were on fire but the enemy flagship was blazing so furiously that sparks were ascending above its masthead. This was threatening a cataclysm that could turn victory into disaster in a blinding flash.
“Get in the after kedge, shorten cable forrard,” Kydd ordered, willing on the brave souls ashore.
Smith had the grace to wait and cover the scene until running figures suddenly appeared and L’Aurore’s boat put off.
Showing sail aft, L’Aurore slowly pivoted around her anchor until she was before the wind once more and the boat had thrown a line. Then, with Pompee, they sailed away in relief from the scene of devastation.
Against all the odds, and despite prophecies of doom, they had broken through.
They had some hours of quiet sailing before they reached the great fortresses of Gallipoli. Smith’s division took position at the rear in the line-of-battle and the fleet sailed on. If only the wind held …
Kendall spotted that Royal George was shortening sail and the entire battle line therefore was slowing. For a moment Kydd did not realise what was going on.
Then he had it. “As he wishes to transit the Gallipoli forts under cover of dark, a bold notion, don’t you think?”
It also gave a chance for the tired men to be fed and take their grog.
As planned, the fleet reached the closing point at the far end of the Dardanelles, Gallipoli, in darkness. Unlike passing the outer and inner castles, which involved two bends nearly at right angles and impossible to navigate at night, here the narrows were straight and uncomplicated. It might just work.
Under a press of sail the fleet swept on by the Gallipoli fortresses. Wild firing tore apart the night but a brisk breeze saw them past unscathed and into the Sea of Marmora beyond.
It was miraculous. They had penetrated the famed Dardanelles, and all their number, save Ajax, still with them.
There was nothing between the powerful battle fleet and Constantinople but the open sea.
CHAPTER 10
RENZI ALLOWED HIMSELF TO BE DRAPED with a napkin and accepted a quite decent claret, apparently from the Balkans. He was fussed over by a possessive Jago, who took it upon himself to keep the heathen Turkish servants at bay.
In the warm light of the oil-lamps Zorlu sat decorously opposite-they would talk together only after they were left alone.
Renzi was under no delusions: Selim was using him. The shrewd sultan wanted to hear from all sources, not just the French, before he made up his mind, and an English lord’s presence was a very convenient situation. Renzi allowed himself a touch of optimism. If he could exploit this further, perhaps by-
But something was happening. Out beyond the palace walls, shouts and disorder.
Zorlu’s eyes caught his in alarm.
More noises-Zorlu excused himself. He was back quickly, his face lined. “They’re shouting something about Nelson’s fleet returning to take its vengeance-I couldn’t make out more.”
They must mean the frigate that had taken off the ambassador just before he’d arrived. But why would it come back, knowing it would inflame the population? Taking vengeance was nonsense, of course: no captain would be mad enough to think to restore honour by beginning a shooting war against an ally.
“It’ll settle down.” Renzi tried to sound confident but he was aware that only a single gate separated them from a gathering mob.
They continued eating but the unrest grew louder, more strident.
“I don’t like it, my lord,” Zorlu muttered. “They’re-”
At the outside door there was a fierce knocking.
A frightened Miller answered but was pushed aside roughly by a Janissary. The man glowered, then pointed at Renzi, unmistakably ordering him outside.
Zorlu got up, protesting. A scimitar hissed out, and he stopped in his tracks.
“Stay, Zorlu Bey. I’ll be back when-”
The Janissary shouted at him, gesturing angrily.
In the outer darkness Renzi could see at least a hundred of the elaborately plumed soldiers, the steely gleam of their weapons caught in the moonlight.
At an ill-tempered command he was jostled into the centre of the group, which closed around him and stepped off quickly.
Out of the courtyard, then on to the inner second one, advancing right across to a long domed and arched edifice, shadowed, but in parts lit luridly by torches. Waiting for him was a smaller party of men in tall white hats and gold-edged robes. He was handed over: his wrists were bound and a hood placed over his head. Then he was marched away.
After a succession of turns they finally came to a halt. Renzi heard a door being unlocked and he was pushed inside. His hands were untied and his hood removed. The door crashed shut, leaving him alone in a room lit only by a small lamp on a side table. There was a low, plain bed and a form of dresser with a water-jug.
He sat on the bed and calmed his racing heart. He was a hated Englishman of the tribe that was bringing their ship against the capital. It could all be over quickly when the frigate captain came to his senses and left … or just as easily the crowd could bawl for his head as a token of defiance.
In the deathly quiet he tried to think. Would he ever see dear Cecilia again? He crushed the thought.
The door suddenly rattled and a tall dark man in the same white robes he’d seen before stepped in. He bowed without a word, then beckoned Renzi to follow.
They passed down a narrow passage into a small room, richly ornamented with intricate gilded fretwork.
Sultan Selim rose from a divan. He was alone.
“You will appreciate, my dear Fahn’ton Pasha, that this is for your own protection.”
With a courtly bow, Renzi murmured an acknowledgement and added, “My household, Sire?”
“They will be protected, never fear. Do you know why you are here?”