“No, sir, they’re not.”
“Then-”
Calloway interrupted. “From Weazel-‘Assume the weather station.’”
“Acknowledge.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
It was what he would have done, put the biggest ship between the enemy and the convoy. Lawson was thinking coolly. He, the two cutters and the schooner would stay with the merchantmen and rely on the frigate to deter.
Clinch and Willock came on deck in still-new cocked hats, each self-consciously fingering a dirk and watching Kydd gravely.
The winds were brisk and steady, the seas slight. There would be no escape in a weather change.
He took another sight: the two corvettes were standing on with all plain sail, and the faster of the lesser vessels were passing them, eager to be in the best position to take their pick of victims while the corvettes were engaged with L’Aurore.
“Sir, what will we do?” Dillon asked, in thrall.
“Do?” Kydd said sharply. “We fight! The convoy is much more important than we, sir.”
He checked himself. “This is a serious situation, Mr Dillon. You have a battle station and that is next to me. You’ll take notes of everything of importance as will assist later in writing my dispatch after any action with the enemy.”
“Yes, Sir Thomas.” The intensity of his concentration was touching.
“There’s no need to fret so. You’re not expected to bear arms or face the enemy directly, or even to give any orders. Just be sure to keep a clear head and be accurate in your observations. Nothing else, you see.”
To add point to his words he raised the glass again and calmly dictated the strength of the enemy. Dillon wrote furiously and wisely refrained from asking for explanations.
As if for the comfort of his presence, the two young midshipmen sidled up to their captain.
“Where’s your station at quarters?” he snapped.
“Well, we don’t really-”
“Go to the gunner in the forward magazine and tell him I’ve sent you.” The last thing he wanted now was a distraction.
Kydd had noticed that the corvettes were separating, revealing that they intended to take L’Aurore under fire from two sides. It was likely that, while they’d received word of the convoy and its slight escort, they had not been prepared for an accompanying frigate and were now on the defensive.
An idea was forming. “Mr Curzon-do attend on me for a moment.”
The officer approached and took off his hat.
“We’ve a good advantage, I’m persuaded.”
“Sir?”
“A fresh-fettled ship and a fine crew. I intend to make best use of this. I desire you to make known to the gun crews that what I have in mind requires they leave their guns for sail-handling and back to their guns several times. They’re to obey orders at the rush, even in peril of their lives, Mr Curzon. All depends on speed and instant execution of the manoeuvre. Is that clear?”
“Understood, sir.”
The enemy was coming on at speed. There were several substantial vessels ahead of the corvettes-two with the characteristic three lug-sails of a Brittany privateer and three brig-rigged, foaming out under a taut press of sail.
Now was the time to move.
“Haul to the wind, Mr Kendall. Hard as she can lie.”
L’Aurore curved about and laid her bowsprit precisely in the centre of the two corvettes now a quarter-mile apart, racing ahead as only a thoroughbred frigate could do.
The effect was instant. The corvettes luffed up into the wind, warily closing together then staying in position and waiting for the onrushing frigate to join battle.
Which was not what Kydd did. Instead he threw up the helm and bore down on the astonished privateer passing to starboard. Too late, its captain saw what had happened and tried to slew around but all this did was to slow the vessel and present an unmissable target.
In a pitiless broadside L’Aurore blasted the craft into splintered fragments that, after the smoke had cleared, simply littered the sea.
At the instant the guns had fired Kydd began tacking the frigate about and took up on a course at right angles to the enemy. The leading brig was smashed to flinders by the guns on the opposite broadside, to become more floating wreckage.
The corvettes came to their senses and hardened in for a thrust together at L’Aurore but Kydd had anticipated this and wore around. A luckless privateer lugger took the frigate’s carronades at close range and was out of the fight-and still with not a shot in anger against them.
Dillon, white-faced with shock at the blast of the guns and mad frenzy of seamen racing from tacks and braces to guns and back again, did his best to keep up. Kydd calmly interpreted the action for his noting down.
All the small craft had scrambled to escape the mayhem, putting back for the protection of the corvettes. The convoy had gained a respite; there would be no wholesale falling upon the helpless merchantmen until L’Aurore had been dealt with.
With Weazel shepherding them on, the convoy forged south, but now the enemy’s force was entirely to windward and behind them and, once regrouped, could run them down as it chose.
Once past L’Aurore.
Their force was barely diminished: what Kydd had achieved was a moral victory of sorts but it would not last. The enemy was now under no illusions and would plot his moves carefully and with malice.
His frigate was considerably outnumbered and, in a fair fight against these, could not be expected to survive-but, damn it, this was not going to be fair.
He had one priceless advantage: this was the combat of a crack frigate of the Royal Navy ranged against a ragtag swarm of privateers, not a disciplined fleet.
This translated to many things: gunnery, sail-handling and, above all, command. The senior corvette captain had no means to communicate with his “squadron” for they were not trained up to signal work, and Kydd’s direct assault on the smaller craft had left them in retreat. There would be no co-ordinated simultaneous onslaught, which would certainly have finished L’Aurore.
Now it was the two corvettes. How could he take them on together?
As he pondered, he caught a glimpse of Brice at the forward guns, standing with his feet on a carronade slide, his arms folded: the picture of calm and fearlessness. The man might be odd in his particulars but with his seamanship and coolness in action he could look to a welcome place in L’Aurore.
Kydd deliberated on the alternatives. He believed his frigate to be not only handier but faster so he could turn the tables if he was careful. The main thing was to avoid being trapped between the two.
He glanced back at the convoy. To his surprise it was shaping course inshore to France, not out into the anonymous expanse of ocean. Then he grinned in sudden understanding. A smart move by Lawson.
He knew what to do now.
“Put us about again.”
L’Aurore went around with a will and took up in a broad diagonal pass across the path of the oncoming corvettes.
The implication was stark: either they manoeuvred to avoid a raking broadside into their unresisting bows or they stood on into L’Aurore’s fury of shot.
They broke and fell back, firing as they did so.
It was long range and most of the balls fell short and skipped. Several punched holes in the frigate’s sails but Kydd had achieved what he needed to-delay to allow the convoy to escape.
He turned. “Why, are you hit, Mr Dillon?” he asked in concern. The man was on all fours.
“Sir-one came near me, is all,” he stuttered, and picked up his fallen notebook. His hand trembled as he noted the time of the enemy’s first salvo.
“Pay no mind to the fuss and noise. You’ve a job to do and it’s an important one.”
Dillon nodded grimly.
“Ready about!” Kydd ordered. They would retain their position criss-crossing for as long as it took to allow the convoy to get away. It was working-out of respect for the frigate the lesser breed were staying behind the corvettes and the ships were safe, even now well on their way to safety over the horizon.