“And so you have. But don’t tell me-unable to find me you took it upon yourself to come here to see what assistance you could be to the ambassador.”
“This is why I’m here, yes, sir.”
“Quite right. Then what did you find, pray?”
Kydd told briefly of the disturbances seen ashore, Arbuthnot’s arrival and installation in L’Aurore. Delicately he explained his reservations about the ambassador’s desire to raise the stakes by threatening undisclosed action with an overwhelming naval force.
“And so your appearance here with your squadron is very welcome to him,” he concluded.
“Not so, not so.” Louis coughed, banging his chest. “I’m alone, the flagship only. My squadron lies at anchor at the mouth of the Dardanelles.”
He went on, “A single ship by way of being no provocation was my thinking. He’s to be disappointed, it seems. Does he wish to be taken off?”
“Sir, I believe he would wish to discuss such with you,” Kydd said cautiously.
“I’d better take on board what’s being said here before I see him.” He picked up the instructions. “Excuse me,” he muttered.
“Ah. In so many words I’m to make reconnaissance of these waters and afford what assistance I can to his excellency. I don’t consider forcing the Dardanelles with a squadron a reconnaissance, do you?”
Arbuthnot was bitter and scathing at the admiral’s attitude and insisted on a grand council in Canopus for the following morning.
“Let me put it to you as plainly as I can,” he said. “I’m here on the spot. You’re not. I know the Turk. You do not. And what I’m saying is that they’re a backward, decayed people who understand only the language of strong and weak. At the moment, since the successes of the Corsican in Europe, they do admire him and listen to his siren words.
“Yet the greatness of Nelson is known even here, to which we certainly owe the treaty of amity the French are seeking to overthrow. Gentlemen, what I’m asking only is that the hero’s own navy does flourish itself in all its glory before the walls of Constantinople. The artful Selim will instantly see it in his best interest to eject the French and receive us as brothers.”
Louis heard him out, then put his hands flat on the table and wheezed, “No. No! I cannot counsel nor lend my name or ships to such a foolhardy gesture. Sir, I’m instructed to aid you in so far as it lies in my power-and subverting a reconnaissance into an armed provocation is not-”
A sudden knocking on the door interrupted him. A breathless lieutenant flew in and blurted, “Sir, my apologies-you’re desired on deck this minute, if you please.”
They were met with a chilling sight: smoke rising ominously from several places inland and figures running along the sea-front pursued by an ugly crowd. Several stumbled and were hacked down by those following. Cries of terror and rage came floating out.
“I rather think events have overtaken us,” Louis said.
More emerged from the streets and between buildings; it was obvious that they were making for the jetties on the waterfront. Several boats were lying off and came in, firing upwards to deter pursuers. The frantic victims tumbled in. A few stragglers were too late and were mercilessly dispatched on the quayside or flung themselves into the water.
“The mob’s turned against us, then.”
“So it would seem,” said Arbuthnot, without emotion.
There was no possibility of intervention as any show of force would trigger an incident that could place the situation beyond retrieving.
The boats were all headed towards the looming bulk of Canopus, her ensign proclaiming her a haven of peace and sanity in a world turned mad.
“Your directions, sir?” Louis asked, his features set.
“One moment. Lend me that,” Arbuthnot said to a lieutenant, and took his telescope. “As I thought-that’s Italinski.”
“Sir?”
“They’re not ours. They’re Russians, although what the devil set the Turks off, Heaven only knows.” He handed back the glass and folded his arms, waiting for the first boats.
The Russian ambassador, a big man, was helped over the bulwark, puffing like a whale. He saw Arbuthnot and lumbered across to him.
“T’ank the God you here,” he bellowed, then remembered a bow. “They mad, like beast.”
“My dear Italinski, you have my sincere sympathy.” He glanced at the wild-eyed Russians scrambling over the side. “In course you shall have sanctuary in any ship of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy.”
“Ze bigger ze better, Charles. Zis vill do for now.” His bushy black eyebrows worked with emotion.
“Might I enquire just what stirred the populace to riot and slaughter against your people all of a sudden?” Arbuthnot asked.
“Don’ they always?”
“Just this particular time, if you would humour me, Andrei.”
“Not’ing!”
“Nothing?”
“Well, some fool move by St Petersburg. They order troop into Moldavia, ’at’s all.”
“Ah. Now I understand. You Russians, it seems, have taken Ottoman possessions in the Balkans by force, expecting no reaction from Constantinople to a rather pointed expansion of the Tsar’s empire at their expense. It seems they’ve been rather forgetful in omitting to inform you of their intentions.”
Italinski glowered, then pointedly turned to bark orders at some uniformed flunkeys.
“My cabin?” Louis suggested smoothly, to Arbuthnot, leaving the Russians to sort themselves out.
Kydd hesitated, then went with them.
“Now, sir, we have a problem,” Louis said immediately. “If we’re seen to be sheltering these Russians it will only inflame the mob and I would not reject the possibility that it becomes a focus for their anger, which will then be directed at us.”
“Do you think I have not thought of this?” Arbuthnot said scornfully. “The solution is obvious.”
“Sir?”
“You will set sail immediately with the Russians on board.”
“A wise course,” Louis said in relief. “Captain Kydd, are you ready to sail?”
“The frigate is not involved. It will not sail.”
“Not … sail? It’s your decision, Ambassador, but in all frankness I cannot-”
“In your profession you’re not expected to understand the finer points of diplomacy, Admiral. This is a capital opportunity to remonstrate with the Sublime Porte in a strongly worded note to the effect that this unrest only points to an urgent need for a realignment of interests and so forth.”
He drew himself up. “And it may have slipped your mind that there are British residents, merchants, commercial agents, those who so loyally assist in the Black Sea trade, all gazing upon us in trust that we will not desert them. I will not, sir!”
Kydd picked up a certain shrillness in the tone. If this man was misreading the signs, they were all in the most deadly peril.
Canopus sailed under cover of dark, and in the morning L’Aurore lay alone to her moorings.
A pale sun revealed sullen knots of people ashore, the flicker of a fire here and there indicating their intent to stay. Set against the backdrop of the Oriental splendour of grand palaces and domes, the air of menace was unnerving.
Arbuthnot kept to his cabin until the afternoon, when he appeared with an elaborately sealed document. “I desire this be landed at the Topkapi Steps and signed for by the grand vizier.”
“You’re asking I risk a boat’s crew to-”
“They will not be troubled by the palace functionaries there, Captain. Please do as I request,” he snapped.
An eerie unreality hung about the anchorage but at least the mob was beginning to break up and disperse, either through boredom or a cooling.
Night came. Kydd was taking no chances and posted double lookouts and hung lanthorns in the rigging.
The hours passed.
A little before midnight there was a faint cry in the darkness. Alerted, the watch-on-deck stood to and saw a boat come into the pool of light from the lanthorns. A man stood up in the thwarts and asked in a quavering voice if the ambassador was still aboard.