It was a magnificent undertaking – or insanity: a tiny force to set against the vastness of a whole continent, smaller by far even than the one that had so narrowly seized the Cape. But the circumstances were very different, Kydd reminded himself. Here they would be welcomed as liberators, the catalyst that would set Montevideo aflame with rebellion and end Spanish rule for ever.
That they had left before formal orders had been received was of concern, of course, but once word of their bold stroke reached Pitt, the prime minister who had steered England successfully through the worst that Bonaparte could do and who had originally agreed to the expedition, then it would be quickly made up with the Admiralty.
This was precisely what the exercise of sea-power was all about. Kydd’s heart lifted. ‘Sheet in – we’re off to war, Mr Kendall.’
L’Aurore responded with a will, and as the others came round ponderously to their course of north-west by north he went below to deal with the inevitable paperwork that the purser had laid out for him.
During the morning the wind had hardened and backed more to the south, the sure sign of a blow in these parts. After his customary turn around the decks at dawn Kydd stopped to peer out at the distant sails of the fleet. All were down to topsails and making heavy weather of it, tiny bursts of white appearing continually and the ships spread well apart. He felt a pricking of sympathy at what the soldiers must be enduring packed below, and then remembered they themselves had forty-five redcoats and a dour lieutenant squeezed on to their single mess-deck. But there was nothing he could do; they would all have to live with it.
He went to his cabin for breakfast. Renzi was at the stern windows, braced in a chair and reading the last newspaper obtained in Cape Town.
He looked up and offered, ‘Buenos dias, Senor.’
‘Er, I didn’t quite catch that, Nicholas.’
‘Oh – um, como es el clima. Vamos a tomar el desayuno?’
‘You’re vexing me with your classical lingo, you dog!’
‘Not at all. I’m learning the Castilian of Cervantes and Mendoza, that noble language of far Hesperia.’
‘As I said.’
Renzi sighed. ‘It is the Spanish, dear fellow, which you will have cause to require before long, I’d hazard.’
‘I suppose so – the prisoners, of course.’
‘Or worse.’
Kydd lifted his chin defiantly. ‘If you’re not to be warm in the cause then I’d thank you kindly to keep your opinions to yourself.’ He caught himself and then asked, ‘Er, but why . . . ?’
Renzi adopted a pained expression. ‘In all conscience there’s little enough I can offer to my friend at this time.’ Before Kydd could reply he added, ‘And then again, the acquiring of another Romance language is always to be applauded.’
This brought a grin from Kydd. ‘I thank you for the thought, m’ friend. It could be damned useful at the capitulation.’
‘Er, yes. So now you are safely to sea on this . . . crusade, shall you wish to know the latter adventures of Il Giramondo? I rather fancy I’m in a flow of sorts and am quite exercised to know if others do see it as I.’
‘Why, er, I’m rather pressed at the moment, old chap. I will when I can, never fear.’
The day wore on, the unremitting wind bringing a dirge-like drone in the rigging and reefs in the topsails, with an uncomfortable corkscrew sea on the quarter demanding rolling tackles to the yards and an eye to nearby handholds. A pall of blackness lay out to the south-west with startlingly vivid white rain squalls hanging before it as it drifted towards them. Prudent measures were put in train to meet the unpleasantness, for although Kydd was confident that they had won their offing there was no sense in taking risks.
Sail was shortened in conformity with the blow, which was now flat and hard, its whistling moan rising in pitch as spindrift torn from wave-crests filled the air with the tang of salt. Kydd glanced across at the flagship. Diadem was a wet ship, a fluke of design seeing her bows buried in the rollers for much of the time, then reluctantly rising to shed the seas each side like a waterfall. Working headsails in her would be dangerous; it was not for nothing that sailors often called the bowsprit ‘the widowmaker’.
There was no signal from the commodore, however, no order to lie-to or scud; Popham was anxious to avoid loss of time and the little fleet kept on course, the winds nearly abeam. In a way this was merciful for while they were still under sail the force of the blast was dampening the roll, but things could change quickly.
And not only for the worse: it was just as conceivable that they might be crabbing across the worst of the gale to emerge to calmer conditions the other side.
‘Life-lines,’ Kydd ordered, before leaving the deck to Curzon.
It was a customary Atlantic gale of this time of the year but the knowledge didn’t lessen the hours of moving from hand to hand, the muscle-bunching brace against the deep heaving and the endless vigilance against a violent squall coming out of the blackness of night or a wild wave rearing up to smash, surge aboard and snatch the lives of any whose attention had grown careless.
Morning brought a seascape of white – long combers, spray lazily curling from their crests, the air alive with driven spume and the near horizon a broad blur of white. But it was becoming clear the bluster was easing.
As the forenoon wore on the horizon moved out, and from the mist a light-grey phantom hardened – another ship, one of the transports gamely heading on course with them.
It became possible to allow their soldier passengers on deck, solitary figures dragging themselves to the ship’s side, draped hopelessly as they ‘cast their accounts at the court of King Neptune’, soon joined by others. They were tended with rough kindness by the watch-on-deck but by nightfall there were substantial numbers needing to be shooed below.
There was always the cheerful time after every storm when the galley fire could safely be lit and the first hot victuals issued. Ravenous after days of hard tack and cheese, the seamen wolfed theirs, their captain no less appreciative as his was served after the men had eaten. ‘Rousin’ good scran,’ Kydd mumbled to Renzi. ‘Never thought I’d lust after a hand o’ mutton so.’
His friend dabbed his mouth with his napkin. ‘The very pinnacle of the art,’ he murmured in satisfaction. ‘As it-’
A tentative knock broke in: it was the master-at-arms, his usually impassive features creased in bafflement. ‘Sir, we’s got a bit of a puzzler. See, there’s a man bin found as we don’t know who ’e is, like.’
‘You’re not being clear, Master.’
‘Why, when th’ watch went below, an’ took them who was seasick t’ put ’em in their hammick, there’s one who couldn’t say where he slings it. He bein’ sick, like, we got no sense outa him. We asks about, an’ no one pipes up t’ claim him.’
‘Where’s he now?’
‘On the uppers still. Won’t let go an’ get his swede down, so I left him wi’ the bosun’s mate, sir.’
‘You did right to inform me. Ask the officer-of-the-watch to look into it and report, if you please.’
Gilbey was down in minutes. ‘An’ I stand well flammed, sir. It’s our artist cove, the one in Cape Town we commissioned our ornament pictures off.’
Serrano! ‘When he’s of a condition to talk, bring him here.’
Kydd guessed their destination was an open secret and assumed that Serrano had wanted to be at the scene of action when the hated Spanish were humbled. He had gone about it intelligently, insinuating himself aboard, then insisting he was of the other when questioned by either a sailor or the military. It had only gone wrong when he had been laid low by seasickness.
Or was he a spy, ready to slip ashore the moment they arrived to ingratiate himself with the Spanish? It didn’t seem likely, though, not with the depth of feeling Kydd had personally heard.