‘You’ll take care of her for me,’ Kydd said to Gilbey, as Encounter’s boat approached.
‘Sir, I will,’ his first lieutenant replied gravely. ‘An’ good fortune in what must come.’ Kydd shook his hand before he was piped over the side.
Twisting around he took a last sight of L’Aurore – her trim beauty wrenched at him for he had no illusions about what lay ahead. Service ashore had been inevitable after his experiences with the Army, particularly in the recent capture of Cape Town with these same soldiers, but . . . A premonition lay on him, one that welled up with memories of his time as a young seaman involved in a royalist rising in Brittany those many years ago when all hopes had dissolved into chaos and blood.
He tried to shake off the ghosts and looked back again at his lovely frigate, those divinely inspired lines, the rightness of the curves and proud elegance of the lofty spars – and there was Renzi’s white face at the open stern window, his arm lifted in a sad farewell. Unaccountably a lump formed in his throat and he turned resolutely forward.
Encounter was a gun-brig, one of the plain, stout workhorses of the Navy. That this little inshore gunboat had been expected without hesitation to cross oceans with the fleet was yet another reason why Bonaparte could never prevail against such a navy. But were they now expecting too much of timber and sinew, daring and resolve? Where were the limits?
He shook off the morbid thoughts as he heaved himself over the modest bulwarks to see Godwin, the youthful lieutenant-in-command, waiting for him. ‘Welcome aboard, sir. It’s said as where Captain Kydd is, there’s always sport to be had,’ he added.
Kydd couldn’t help an answering grin. ‘L’Aurore will have to bide her time – I’ve a fancy Encounter is to have all the entertainment to herself.’
‘Er, my cabin for refreshments, sir?’
‘No time,’ Kydd said briskly. ‘And I desire you hang out the “preparative” as soon as you may.’
The breeze was light but steady, the fog-bank a dank, impenetrable screen of dull white. There was nothing to be gained in waiting longer. ‘The “proceed” Mr Godwin,’ Kydd ordered.
Three boats closed with Encounter, their task to sound ahead. A white or red warning flag would fly from each; a row-guard of pinnaces armed with swivels accompanied them – a pitiful defence if the Spanish had hidden sea forces further in.
Kydd glanced back at the ghostly grey of the anchored sixty-fours. They looked so insubstantial but he knew Popham was watching their little expedition leave to be quickly swallowed up by the fog with the entire fate of the expedition in their hands. An indistinct but elaborate signal hoist was up in the flagship – there was nothing that could be done now so without a doubt it was a deeply meant farewell.
Their anchor won and the soldiers crowded on deck, trying to keep to one side, the little ship got under way. The enterprise had begun.
His heart beat a little faster as he glanced back at the rest following. The broad-beamed Melantho was a reassuring bulk, a light in her bows steady to confirm that her own next astern was safely in sight. And then came Triton, the transport containing General Beresford and elements of the 71st with their two guns.
There was little Kydd could do to occupy himself. He was aboard in the leading ship under sufferance to make decisions should there be trouble and to be among the first to land. While Godwin was amiable and attentive, he had his responsibilities. The quarterdeck was ludicrously small, with no room for pacing about, and before long Kydd found himself picking his way forward through the redcoats on deck.
Initially they stiffened as he approached but soon Kydd was able to pass among them without fuss, overhearing the age-old military banter of fighting men about to go into battle. He made his way back down the other side to find a chair waiting for him on the quarterdeck.
Time passed. At a speed of something like three knots it would take several days to cover the hundred and thirty miles to their landing zone. Painstaking work with the hand lead in the boats was needed to establish a safe channel and Russell’s muddled directions were confusing – somehow he had found more drink and now, surly or riotous by turns, he was under personal guard by a relay of midshipmen.
They had agonised over the conflicting charts and finally settled on Punta Quilmes, a dozen or so miles south of the city, the furthest point where the depth of water was anything like adequate, but first there was the fraught passage to negotiate between the notorious Ortiz and Chico banks.
The fog held as they left Montevideo invisibly to starboard, the muddy water gurgling, over-loud, in the pale closeness, their ceaseless motion ever onward into the anonymous reaches of the languid river. When the darkness closed in there was no option but to anchor. Rations and grog were distributed to the troops.
The officers shared the stuffy confines of Godwin’s cabin for their evening meal, humorously making light of their conditions, but as soon as he could, Kydd made his way back to the upper deck. The soldiers lay all about, drawing their blankets around them. ‘They’ll see far worse in the field, believe me,’ a subaltern confided. ‘A few days there and they’ll be yearning for a nice comfortable plank to sleep on.’
Godwin had offered Kydd his cabin, but at his insistence they had compromised on a hammock aloft and alow in the old way and he tumbled into the ‘’mick’ comfortably, like the foremast jack he had been so long ago.
He slept little. The sounds of the ship, the anonymous creaks, rumbles and distant slithers as it swung with the current, were foreign, and his thoughts were chaotic and anxious. It felt quite different from the nervous exhilaration before the Cape Town landings: he could not throw off the feeling of foreboding that was clamping in on him.
The morning dawned with a thinning fog and visibility out to nearly half a mile. As soon as the boats could be seen reliably they were under way once more and, as the day progressed, the fog finally dissolved to reveal a grey desolation of empty sea.
They had made it past Montevideo, the secret of their departure still safe, and Kydd’s spirits rose.
Towards evening they were near the tail of the twin banks, allegedly buoyed, but Russell had warned that mud-scouring would continually shift their moorings and they could not be relied on. A few distant sails were sighted, flat fishing craft that ignored them – and always the drab grey-brown water sliding monotonously past.
As Kydd deliberated about anchoring for the night, Melantho slewed and stopped, nearly bringing Ocean into collision with her. The forced delaying of the fleet settled the question – but had the vessel touched on mud or an outlier of the hard-packed sand of the Chico bank?
In the last of the light it was established that it had been mud – there would be no damage, but freeing the deep-laden transport from the thick, glutinous ooze would not be easy. Her crew would have a hard night of it, lightening ship and hauling off.
But Kydd’s mind was on the next day. In a matter of hours they would be in sight of the enemy. Given the general’s strong opposition to their alteration of plans, would he be looking for an excuse to call it off? Kydd knew if that happened he would be caught up in the inevitable bitterness to follow. He must take care to do nothing that could be flourished at a later court-martial.
Full of dark thoughts he finally drifted off. He awoke early to a cold and cheerless day, rain threatening, a serious matter if they had to land with damp muskets in the teeth of heavy fire. Kydd felt unable to finish his breakfast.
They got under way as soon as possible, and before midday, a low, monotonously flat coastline was raised to larboard. It continued on as scattered buildings came into sight, and then from the masthead a hail, the city itself.