‘Rafaela – you cannot possibly-’
‘I can go in places denied to a man. Will you stop me playing my part?’
The three hurried down the Calle Victoria to the mansion of Martin de Alzaga where they were hastily admitted.
‘Senor Charcas,’ the silver-haired man said softly. ‘Is it planned?’
‘I have word from Don Baltasar, now in amicable alliance with the royalists. It is . . . that you should proceed as planned.’
‘Ah,’ breathed Alzaga, ‘I shall start hiring tomorrow. And who are these?’ he added carefully.
‘Servants of the fatherland!’ Serrano said loudly, with a bow.
‘I see.’
Charcas allowed a thin smile to show. ‘Senor Alzaga is a rich man but he is dedicating his fortune to the glory of his country.’
‘And to his honour,’ Serrano blurted.
‘He is funding the construction of a secret tunnel, which will begin under the seminary of St Francis – and will end under the barrack rooms of the soldiers. Thirty-six barrels of gunpowder will put an end to them as they sleep.’
‘Wait for it . . . About turn!’ Sergeant Dodd’s effortless bellow echoed across the square to the lines of Royal Marines opposite. They stamped about crisply, their dress faultless. A few passers-by stopped to watch but most ignored them.
‘Companyyyyyy . . . halt!’ Dodd strode up and inspected them before reporting to Clinton with a quivering salute. The lieutenant acknowledged and, accompanied by Dodd, went over for an officer’s inspection. That complete, Dodd stood before the men while Clinton reported to Kydd, who had emerged from the fort.
He went up and down the ranks, here and there giving words of praise and encouragement. ‘A splendid body of men, Lieutenant. Carry on, please.’
The men marched off, Kydd receiving a magnificent salute from Dodd. The drill had been devised to give heart to the men, solid evidence that the world, while being out of joint, was still under discipline.
‘A dish of tea, William?’ Kydd offered.
Kydd’s room was cheerless and cold, a fire now a luxury, and the two kept their coats buttoned.
‘How goes it, then?’
Clinton paused before he answered. ‘I’d be to loo’ard of the truth should I say we’re improving our situation. Those on sentry-go are taunted daily and some even suffer rotten food thrown at them. They’re being tempted by offers of women and employment if they desert – but no chance of that with our chaps, sir.’
‘It’s asking much of ’em, I believe, to stand alone on those far posts in the city. If things begin to . . .’
‘They’ll do their duty, sir, never fear.’
‘If only those damnable reinforcements . . .’
They took their tea, the leaves used twice to eke them out, in silence. So close to the foreshore the miasma of rotting fish offal was always on the air, and the harsh cawing of a soaring condor sounded above the rumble of a passing cart.
‘And they’re changing – the people, I mean,’ Clinton said. ‘They’re now openly contemptuous, defiant, hard to handle as a crowd.’
The young man was maturing fast: only in his early twenties, his face was acquiring lines of care and his voice now had the practised calm of authority. He and the fine long-service Dodd were a shining credit to their service and Kydd wished he could express this – but it would never do to say it.
‘How are our Royal Blues bearing their lot? The short canny, I mean.’
Clinton gave a wry smile. ‘They say as how they’ve always held our reasty pork is to be preferred over foreign kickshaws.’
They were reduced to picking the bread – going through the last of the hard-tack for insect life – and buying up voyage-end stores from merchant ships, but in the absence of provisions from up-country there was little else. Kydd knew the older marines were making light of conditions for the sake of the younger men.
An aide interrupted: ‘Captain Kydd? General Beresford desires you should attend on him at convenience, sir.’
He rose, dreading what emergency it was this time.
Beresford sat moodily at his desk, twirling a quill, and looked up with a start when Kydd entered. ‘Ah, Kydd. There’s trouble afoot, I’m persuaded. One of our patrols found three stand of muskets in a house not far from here. Someone’s arming the mob and it has to be stopped.’
‘Have we any conceiving of how they’re entering, sir?’
‘No. I’ve doubled up on checkpoints into the city where we search everything – it must be by another route.’
‘By sea.’
‘It seems so,’ Beresford said flatly.
Kydd was at a loss to know how to prevent this with nearly all of his vessels blockading the far shore, but he replied, ‘I’ll do what I can, sir.’
Beresford nodded bleakly and Kydd took his leave.
It came to him as he made his way back to his office. Some thirty miles further down the coast there was a discreet landing place, Ensenada de Barragan, where in the past dutiable goods had been smuggled into the viceroyalty by that unofficial arrangement with the authorities.
But his little navy was now stretched out along the opposite coast, bar one ship in repair, Protector, and Hellard’s Stalwart, in only that morning, her captain and crew exhausted after days in action. Rather than drive them to sea once more, Kydd’s impulse was to spare them and do it himself.
‘I’m taking Stalwart away,’ he announced. ‘Muster the Protectors as her crew.’
They put out into driving rain from the north-west and squally, spiteful winds, which kicked up an uncomfortable short sea against the incoming tide, yet having the advantage that it was fair for Barragan.
Stalwart was plainly built with few comforts but a snug ‘mess-deck’ had been fashioned within the cargo hold. In the way of sailors, it had all the touches of home in a space that would be spurned in a London rookery – racks against the side for mess utensils, hooks to take the ditty bags that held each individual’s ready-use gear, mirrors and small ornaments, and forward a neat rectangular bin for stowed hammocks.
In accordance with Kydd’s own standing orders, they stopped on the way and boarded the larger flat-bottomed fishing boats, a form of deterrence against contraband that was proving remarkably effective.
Then, as the wan sun was lowering over the flat and bleak shore, they came up with the maze of channels and shoals that was their objective. Off the point there were four vessels – a sumaca, a lugger and two faluchos, local craft, two-masted with a lateen and jib. Even as Kydd watched sail was hoisted and they were rapidly off downwind.
‘A bad conscience,’ grinned Dougal, Stalwart’s master’s mate, who’d insisted on keeping an eye on his ship.
‘We’ll have that gaff higher,’ Kydd snapped. These could either be innocents wary of pirates or, indeed, those they were looking for, but either way he had to stop them to prove the case.
The chase was played well by the Spanish. Fairly quickly they separated, the larger sumaca heading for deeper water offshore and the two faluchos shying from Stalwart’s progress to each side, the smaller lugger with its three masts beating hard into the wind and away. ‘The sumaca,’ Kydd decided, and they headed after it out to sea.
It didn’t take long to discover that the bigger craft was making better speed, standing away in regular bursts of white until it was obvious they had lost the race. Kydd swore and turned to see where faluchos were. They had vanished.
It was impossible – but there was no sign of them. Feeling foolish, he called down the deck. ‘Stalwarts, ahoy! Any who saw where the faluchos went, sing out.’
‘Saw ’em down sail an’ then go in a creek or some such,’ a young lad said diffidently, touching his cap.
He pointed out where it had happened. The area had once been a watering place for ships but had gradually silted, the dark grey mud now extending for miles with an offshore island entrapped in its creeping embrace. An old coastal fort was some miles inland, possibly connected through channels, but the evening was well advanced and there was nothing for it but to leave further investigation for the morning light.