‘But . . .’
Renzi waited for the implication to sink in, then added, ‘But I’d be beholden if you’d allow me to call for volunteers to assist me.’
Gilbey recovered quickly. ‘No, I will not! Do y’ really think a foremast jack will want t’ go back into-’
‘I’m going alone. These are boat’s crew only, to lie to a kedge offshore. And, yes, I do think they’ll come forward.’
Gilbey gave him an intense look and snapped, ‘You go, then. However, you’ll get no men from me.’
Renzi leaned across. ‘Then I’d ask you to conceive of your standing as captain among your Jack Tars if it becomes known you’d not allow me even to try a rescue of their Mr Kydd! Comprende?’
There were many volunteers. Far too many for L’Aurore’s smallest boat, the gig, which was all a grudging Gilbey would allow. As he’d also been adamant that there were to be no officers or midshipmen, it was just Poulden on the tiller, Stirk in the bow and old shipmates Pinto and Doud to tend sail and oars. All others had to be content with a well-meant and noisy farewell, which inevitably finished in a three times three hearty cheer.
‘We sail after twenty-four hours!’ growled Gilbey. ‘Not a minute later!’
Renzi had no idea how it was to be done when they pushed off into the darkness, the fishing punt in tow. He realised they would need the rest of the night to make passage, lying at one of the many hard sand shoals mid-estuary during the day and closing to within a mile or so of the city the next night. Gilbey would not dare to put to sea before dawn the following day.
A plan crystallised: it all hinged on the traitor – or patriot – Serrano. If he could persuade him with sufficient threat to divulge Kydd’s fate, or possibly his whereabouts, it would radically change the odds.
In his somewhat worn, plain shore-going rig, he would be a confused Italian merchant, unsure of what was happening, seeking news, reassurance. It would suffice.
The boat’s crew were not to be risked, for this matter was what he owed his friend personally. To pen a sorrowful letter to Kydd’s sister without knowing his ultimate fate was unthinkable. They could come inshore but the final dash would be his alone in the punt, brought along for the purpose.
The lights of Buenos Aires were visible miles to seaward, and as they crept in, there were soaring fireworks, gunshots and all the signs of a city very much awake. ‘Lie off for me, Poulden. Be sure if I’m not back an hour before first light to return immediately to L’Aurore. Is that clear?’
There was some mumbling, but Renzi was having nothing of it. ‘I say quit this place an hour before. No later. Compree?’
‘Aye,’ Poulden said grudgingly.
Renzi stepped into the punt and took the oars, looking shoreward to take bearings for the return.
The punt swayed dangerously. He looked round – Stirk was climbing in.
‘Shift y’ arse, I’m coming wi’ ye,’ he announced.
‘Toby, you can’t-’
‘Can’t I? Two reasons – y’ need a pair o’ peepers as’ll watch y’r stern, an’ blow me down, what’ll they say o’ the Billy Roarer that they lets orficers take th’ oars?’
He shouldered Renzi out of the way and shipped oars professionally. ‘Give way, sir?’
There was one spot that suggested itself as a place for landing. Below the fort, he remembered, was where the washerwomen plied their trade. There would be none there at this hour and Renzi conned the punt in, conscious that they would be under observation – but he also knew that this was the time when flounder fishermen were about in England, and might not the equivalent be abroad in Buenos Aires?
It seemed to work: there were the silhouettes of sentinels behind the parapets of the fort but they were taking no notice and the foreshore was deserted.
The punt nudged in to the muddy shore; they pulled it up beyond the tide line and prepared to set out.
‘Er, Toby – if you’d kindly allow me . . .’ He bent down, then came up suddenly to slop mud in his face. Stirk spluttered with indignation but Renzi inspected him critically. ‘Perhaps a little more. Just here possibly . . .’
Looking around, he found a pile of fishermen’s sacks waiting for the morning and helped himself to one, bulking it out with seaweed and thrusting it at Stirk. ‘Ready? Then follow me, my man.’
On the streets knots of revellers drifted by; figures laughed, brawled and argued. They took no notice of the woebegone merchant trudging along with his servant behind.
It was not far to the back street where he had discovered Serrano lived with his woman. Renzi had no real animosity towards the young man, who must have done as he had more out of ardent patriotism than perfidy, and he was the only possible lead to Kydd’s fate.
If, however, he suspected Serrano was aware of his friend’s whereabouts, he would have no qualms at all about doing what was needed to wrench the information from him. After his time with French royalist agents, he knew the ways.
‘Watch my back,’ he told Stirk. With a bent wire he prised open the door lock and stepped inside, ready for anything.
Serrano was there, alone, sitting moodily at a table with a single candle. He looked up in fright when Renzi appeared. ‘Santa Madre de Dios! How you find me?’
Renzi remained silent.
‘You assassinate me?’
‘That depends,’ Renzi said silkily, taking a seat opposite, his eyes drilling remorselessly into Serrano’s skull.
The artist looked up obstinately. His eyes were red. ‘It make no difference, not now . . .’
‘Oh? Tell me.’
Slowly it came out. Liniers was now revealed as a royalist; he had gone along with the revolutionary fervour but had cunningly diverted it into a movement to oust the British first. He had been joined by los patriotas to whom he’d given deliberately minor roles in the reconquista and, now in control, he had hardened his grip with a view to handing the whole back to the Spanish, with himself high in government.
That it was not yet so was mainly because the viceroy, Sobremonte, was still far inland where he had fled, but the fact remained that Don Baltasar and the Sociedad Patriotica were therefore neatly sidelined and destined to be once more hunted rebels in the resumed administration – they had been betrayed and the clock was being wound back.
‘Mr Renzi, I didn’t mean that Captain Keed is tricked. When they said I had to, I thought . . .’
Renzi let it hang, then leaned across and demanded, ‘I want to know what happened to him – and I want details.’
Serrano looked surprised. ‘Why, he were caught! His ship go on the mud.’
‘So he’s a prisoner!’ Relief washed over him in a flood.
‘Why, no. He sign parole so he in lodging but not the old. They are liking the English too much so he was move to another.’
‘Where?’
‘I say the captain is a good man, not many as him. I’m apologise for what I do, an’ ashamed for my country.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Serrano hung his head as he explained. The terms gained by Beresford were good: that in return for laying down their arms, there would be an immediate evacuation of the British, each man to undertake not to serve against the Spanish until the formalities of an exchange were completed, their passage back to England to be funded by the Spanish government.
Yet even with the terms ratified in writing it quickly became clear that the Spanish had no intention whatsoever of abiding by them. Carts had been rounded up and the brave soldiers were beginning to be marched away, far up-country. They would be followed by the officers. There would be no release.
The ultimate betrayal.
‘We don’t get t’ him, an’ main quick, he’s a gone goose! Where’s he at, y’ bugger?’ Renzi hadn’t noticed Stirk slip in but, given the circumstances, he couldn’t have phrased it better himself.
‘He’s not far. You write to say come, he see your writing an’ he come. I send a boy to bring him.’
On parole an officer was released on his word of honour to return and therefore had limited freedom to move about.