But for how long? Kydd knew there was one course he would take in their position that would in a stroke checkmate his strategy. He could only hope that it would be later rather than earlier that they tumbled to it.
And he knew they had when, after an hour of exchange of fire, the gap between the two corvettes began widening.
Still to windward and bows on to L’Aurore they diverged steadily until they were more than a mile apart.
“Doesn’t look so good, sir,” Bowden said, watching them.
Kydd said nothing, hoping they would not take it further-but they did.
Sacrificing their superiority as a pair, they were now so widely apart that they presented Kydd with an insoluble conundrum: they were ready to make a strike-but separately. He could go after one but meanwhile the other would get past and lead the pack to fall on the convoy.
It was no use expecting to batter one into submission then return for the other-any captain worth his salt would bear away, leading him off on a chase while the carnage was being completed by the first.
So it was payback time; the last act.
The hero of Curacao would be pointed out in the streets as the one who, in command of a famous frigate, had allowed inferior French warships to prevail over him and decimate a convoy under his protection. An outraged public would show no mercy.
There was little he could do now, but he would play it to the end.
Putting about once more, he was not committing to one or the other, but as they came up to pass him on either side he must choose and then it would be all but over.
They came on, under full sail and determined.
It was time.
“The starb’d one on this board, I think,” he said heavily.
But then salvation came. Lawson’s inspired tactic had paid off.
In a glorious vision that brought wild cheers of relief from the gun crews, first one, then another massive shape firmed out of the grey winter haze. In stately line ahead, the battleships of Cornwallis’s Brest blockade were proceeding on their occasions, not to be troubled by the convoy’s insignificance, and only the weather escorting frigates were detached to investigate.
It was all over: the French had turned tail and were fleeing for their lives.
L’Aurore crept northward over a calm, glittering sea, a long swell from the west languidly rolling in as it had not a year and a half ago when these waters had echoed and resounded with the madness and ferocity of the greatest sea battle of all time. The desolate sand-spit, with, further inland, a line of cliffs and a modest tower, was gravely pointed out to gaping new hands as the very Cape Trafalgar that had given it the name.
And not much more than twenty miles further on was the great Spanish port of Cadiz-and Collingwood’s fleet, which had a stranglehold on it.
They had left the convoy at Gibraltar, watered and stored, then turned north to join the blockade and were now raising the fleet, which lay arrogantly at anchor across the port entrance.
“Flag, sir. Ocean, ninety-eight, Vice Admiral the Right Honourable the Lord Collingwood, commander-in-chief Mediterranean fleet,” Curzon intoned formally, reading from the Pennant Book.
“Thank you. My barge, if you please.”
He would pay a call and receive the standing orders that would mark the solemn accession of L’Aurore to the Mediterranean fleet. He would as well make his first acquaintance with the friend of Nelson’s who had led the lee column into the enemy line as Kydd had watched from the deck of this very ship.
In full dress uniform, shyly conscious of the broad scarlet sash and glittering star of his knighthood, he mounted the side and came aboard through the carved and gilded entry-port.
The piping died away and there, past the side-party, was the admiral.
Kydd took off his cocked hat and bowed, careful to note the height of the deckhead as he straightened.
“Captain Thomas Kydd, L’Aurore frigate, my lord.”
“Do I not spy that it were rather ‘Sir Thomas’?” Collingwood said, with a twinkle, and held out his hand. “My, but you’ve no idea how good it is to see a new face! Come below for a restorative and tell me all about it.”
As they went into the day cabin, a dog ran up to him, leaping and snuffling joyfully. “Down, Bounce,” Collingwood said, in mock severity. “Where are your manners, sir?”
The cabin was the homeliest Kydd had ever seen in a man-of-war. Miniature portraits, knick-knacks and ornaments that could only have come from a woman’s hand-it was touching in a great admiral.
“Now, sir. You’ve come to join our little band?”
“As L’Aurore and I were here in October of the year five,” Kydd said quietly.
“Yes. Well, I’m still here, you see.”
It was difficult to credit but Collingwood had stayed faithfully at this post after the great victory of Trafalgar, doing his duty by the nation, and had not once set foot on land, while others had returned to bathe in the delirium of public adulation that had followed their release from the mortal fear of invasion.
His genial face was careworn and old. It was said that while he yearned for peace and retirement the government had been too fearful to let him go for want of any with his formidable skills as a diplomat and strategist.
“Flags will give you your fill of orders, signals and so forth, so let me tell you something of how the larger situation has changed our position here.”
The dog curled up under his chair while he gathered his thoughts.
“The main purpose of the Mediterranean fleet remains the same. To deny the French the Mediterranean. To that end we’ve a close blockade of Toulon and the same at Cartagena. But there’s complications as you’d expect of Boney.
“We’ve lost Naples but we must perforce keep Sicily or the eastern Med is denied us.
“In the west we have the Barbary Deys in Morocco and similar to be polite to, else we lose our beef and water, but further east it’s much more troublesome. The Russians have ambitions to be a player upon the world stage and have thereby sadly affronted the Turks, who consider themselves to be the reigning power in the east. As they are our allies both, it makes for tiresome dealings.”
“My lord, what of Bonaparte’s decree? What is its effect in these waters? And you are speaking to one only recently returned from the Caribbean.”
“His grand Continental System? Then it has to be said that it’s a sore trial to our manufactories and traders in their northern markets but in these parts, while we suffer his ships to moulder in port, he cannot enforce it.”
He sighed and gave a sad smile. “Here we sit, Kydd, in the full knowledge that it is in our power to lose the war for England in a single day. Yet in this peril we are given less force by far than a year ago. And all the time we are commanded at a distance by a landlubber first lord and a parcel of ninnies in government who have no conception of sea power and expect me to act upon their vapourings of the moment.”
Kydd murmured something but Collingwood hadn’t finished. “At times I wake up from a dream where I’m a circus whip, who prowls up and down to keep the wild beasts at bay, armed with nothing but a goad and a fierce look. All it needs …”
He stopped, then brightened. “But let not my maunderings spoil the hour. You’ll stay to dinner? And you shall send for your officers. Are there any performers at all? We have a very passable theatre troupe of amateurs, who display their talents upon the slightest provocation …”
CHAPTER 4
“LORD AND LADY BARRADALE,” the master of ceremonies intoned.
A portly noble in crimson and gold with silk breeches and an old-fashioned wig brought his wife forward on his arm. He made an elegant leg to the Countess of Farndon and a polite bow to the dowager countess and the earl, while his wife sank down in a curtsy.