‘Of course! This is your foxy Marechal, properly keeps his frigates with his squadron and sends out squiddy ship-sloops or similar. Can’t be better – we can always out-sail and out-gun the villain. I’m to take him and I’ve a notion this captain has a tale to tell.’
‘That seems a reasonable supposition, old fellow. And if you-’
‘Get those men off the yard!’ bawled Kydd, in exasperation. The corvette was now well in with the land, nearly lost against the contrasting vegetation and sand-hills. Until the men were off the spar the yard could not be braced round to catch the wind, but the furl had been as tight as possible to escape detection and two sailors were still scrabbling to cast off gaskets.
They finished, and crabbed frantically along the footrope inward to the top. ‘Brace up roundly!’ Kydd roared instantly, and the men threw themselves into it with a will, jerking the yard around to catch the wind, but the last one off the yard missed his hold and fell backwards with a shriek, cut off when he bounced off the bellying lower sail and into the sea.
‘Man oooverboooaaard!’
Kydd hesitated only for a moment, then blurted the orders to heave to and lower a boat. His features were thunderous. ‘Where away?’ he called to the after lookout. Obediently the man pointed – it was his duty to keep his eyes fixed on the unfortunate in the water until the boat came up with him.
The gig in the stern davits was swung out to serve as the ship’s lifeboat and it kissed the water smartly, stroking strongly away at the lookout’s direction and soon found the topman, who lay gasping as they hauled him over the gunwale. The boat lost no time in making it back.
‘Where is that damned villain?’ Kydd spluttered, vainly casting about, looking for their quarry. ‘The lookouts, ahoy! How’s the Frenchy bear?’
There was no answer. He realised they had glanced away to check the progress of their shipmate’s rescue and neglected their duty. He had now lost sight of the chase. ‘I’ll see those scowbunking beggars afore me tomorrow, Mr Gilbey,’ he threw at his first lieutenant angrily.
Had the corvette gone north – or south? Choose the wrong one and he would lose this precious chance of at least establishing that Marechal was at large in the Indian Ocean and at best gaining a notion of the squadron’s rendezvous position. Back to the north? That would mean a run near close-hauled in this slight wind and, as well, against the current. To the south would give a handsome quartering breeze and going with the current – but was this what the other captain wished him to conclude?
‘Bear away t’ the south, if you please,’ Kydd decided. This was something L’Aurore did well, a slight wind on the quarter – there were few that could stay with her in those conditions and if the Frenchman had headed to the south he would quickly overhaul it. And on the other hand if it was not sighted within a few hours he could be certain that it was off to the north. Then any contest between one out with the ocean breezes and the other anxiously dodging the shallows would be a foregone conclusion.
Their only chart was a single small-scale one painstakingly copied from the Portuguese of nearly a century before, sketchily detailing the littoral with precious few depth soundings – and the mud-banks would surely have shifted in the years since then. Closing with the coast as near as they dared, they could be sure, however, that the brightness of the chase sails could be seen against the darker shore.
The land slid past, a dense variegation in dark green with occasional palms and small hills in otherwise unrelieved flatness. After three hours there had been no sighting.
‘He’s gone north. ’Bout ship, Mr Curzon,’ Kydd ordered.
It was late afternoon: they had to press on to overhaul the corvette before night fell giving it cover to escape. ‘Bowlines to the bridle, Mr Curzon,’ Kydd said crisply, ordering the edge of the big driving sails drawn out forward for maximum speed. L’Aurore stretched out nobly for the horizon to the north, her wake creaming ruler-straight astern and lookouts doubled aloft.
An hour – two, more – and still there was no sign.
Perplexed, Kydd and the sailing master did their calculations. With an essentially onshore wind there was no possibility that their quarry could have made a break directly to seaward while they were away in the south, and even if they had made off as close to the wind as they could, their ‘furthest on’ was still firmly within the circle of visibility of L’Aurore’s masthead. It was a mystery.
‘He’s gone t’ ground,’ Gilbey growled.
‘Aye, but where?’
There was no response.
‘I rather think up a river,’ Renzi suggested.
‘In a ship-rigged vessel?’ Gilbey said scornfully. ‘Even a mongseer corvette draws more’n the depth o’ water of any African river I’ve seen.’
‘Then are you not aware that under our lee is the great Zambezi River, which for prodigious size is matched only by your Congo?’
‘Nobody but a main fool would take a ship up among all th’ crocodiles an’ such,’ Gilbey replied, but stood back as the master brought up the chart and they saw that indeed the river entered the sea close by – but with an awkward twist. Like the Nile, it ended in a delta of many mouths – four, at least.
‘You’re right, Nicholas,’ Kydd agreed. ‘But up a river? If he’s there, he’s trapped, but then how to get at him?’
‘Sure t’ be boats against broadsides,’ Gilbey muttered.
‘Right,’ said Kydd, briskly, ignoring him. ‘Which mouth’s it to be, gentlemen? Four – we’ll take ’em one at a time.’
Kydd did not add that, quite apart from the time it would need, there was the possibility that their prey could go inland and around, then scuttle out of one of the other mouths. They being near to forty miles apart, it would be impossible to tell from which he would emerge. ‘We start with the first ’un – the Chinde River, it says here,’ he said, tapping the chart.
So close in, it was an easy fix when the first Zambezi mouth was sighted. Discoloured water could be seen more than five miles out, and across their path was the white of breaking seas on a monstrous bar a mile across and extending directly out to sea for three – just one branch of a giant African river endlessly disgorging into the ocean from the vast and mysterious interior.
‘I’m not taking her in,’ Kydd told Renzi. ‘Moor offshore, send in a boat. Go myself, I believe, reconnoitre what we’re up against,’ he added casually, inviting Renzi along, too. He left unspoken that it was also a chance to satisfy his curiosity and see the wonders of tropical Africa. The odds were against the corvette lying hidden in the very first river mouth they visited.
Kydd’s barge was of modest draught and not designed for fighting, but they were not expecting any. With his coxswain, Poulden, at the tiller, Renzi in the sternsheets with him, four hands ready for the oars and Doud in the eyes of the boat with a hand lead, they pushed off under sail.
They passed along in the lee of the bar. A channel of some depth quickly became evident, which they used to follow into the estuary – a two-mile-wide sprawl of constantly sliding grey-green water. They then left behind the ceaseless hurry of the sea’s waves and cool breezes for the lowering heat and humidity, the echoing quiet and rich stink of the dark continent.
The sailors looked about, fascinated. On either bank was the uniform low tangle of mangroves from which a miasma of decay drifted out as uncountable numbers of birds beat their way into the air at their intrusion. Bursts of harsh sounds from hidden creatures came on the air and insects swarmed annoyingly.
Doud urgently hailed aft: ‘’Ware rocks!’
Ahead were three or four bare brown humps – but as they watched one disappeared and others turned to offer gaping mouths. ‘Hippos!’ Renzi said, and others turned to watch, exclaiming excitedly.
‘Eyes in the boat!’ Kydd growled. The age-old call to boat discipline seemed out of keeping on a frigate’s barge in an African river and a sense of unreality crept in. Naval service had taken him to many exotic places in the world but this promised to be the strangest.