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.
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.