‘Umm – no. And it has to be safely in the legal cant.’ Baird was downcast for only a moment, then brightened. ‘No – but the Dutch have. This nabob making common cause with us you can be certain will leave nothing to chance in this way. Splendid! I’ll trouble you to draw up our draft form o’ words while I send out for the chap and we’ll have something to show for a good afternoon’s work.’
Kydd was only too aware that for sailors a death at sea, when not in the presence of the enemy, must always be attended with the proper forms of respect – a muster at the ship’s side, prayers and then a flag-draped body consigned to the deep.
For the three who did not return there could not be all of this. But regular service at sea saw many a fall from the yard at night, a rogue sea sweeping the fore-deck and other hazards taking life and leaving nothing, and there were long-hallowed traditions of the captain gathering the men, ensuring the right words were said. As was the way of the Service, L’Aurore put to sea immediately afterwards, duty bound.
They sailed away from the sunset, the seamen at their mess-decks muted over their evening grog. Later there would be the traditional ceremony about the foremast as the dead sailors’ kit and treasured possessions were auctioned to their messmates, the proceeds always many times the actual value of the items, to go eventually to their loved ones – but it would be many months or even years before they would hear of their loss.
Kydd missed Renzi. Through the years they had contrived to stay together and now he was no longer there, so Kydd would dine alone. Most captains did, of course, unless invited by the gunroom, or at breakfast with the offgoing officer-of-the-watch and a brace of tongue-tied midshipmen, but Kydd had grown used to Renzi’s company.
Would Renzi soon tire of acting the scribe for a precarious land-bound bureaucracy? Like himself, Kydd knew his friend relished the broad horizons and freedoms of the sea, and perhaps the fetters of unchanging routine would become irksome.
The long but slight southerly swell gave a pleasing rhythm to L’Aurore’s easy leg seaward; in the morning she would close with the land to resume her easterly course, the next fortress marked as Onrusberge. And in the meantime he would try to let sleep soften the images of the day.
A rose-tinted dawn saw the frigate raise the long rocky spit at Hangklip; their position secure, a couple of tacks into the south-south-easterly, and they were approaching an immense stretch of bright sand-hills as far as the eye could see, at its northern end a small settlement below rumpled umber heights that stretched away inland.
‘To quarters, if you please,’ Kydd ordered. Their chart was a dozen years old, and the modest battery on the hill above might well have been strengthened since then to give them an unpleasant surprise.
Located well into the hook at the end of the bay, Onrusberge was on a dead lee shore and L’Aurore prudently came to well clear, conveniently out of range of any guns. Taking the officer-of-the-watch’s telescope while his barge was being prepared, Kydd carefully inspected the land. Set many miles to the south-east and separated by formidable country, there was the prospect that the news of Cape Town’s surrender had not reached it, if the terse notations on the chart were to be believed.
Their appearance had created something of a stir, for there was noticeable activity ashore. He swept the heights, searching for the fort. There was none evident, only a low jumble of square grey structures. Could this mean that it was in some way concealed?
Under sail, his barge made for the distant cluster of houses, surfing before the swell with bellying sails, a large white flag high and prominent. He had a minimal boat’s crew and was unarmed, and noted warily a gathering of figures along the shore.
Kydd directed the boat towards its centre. A small file of soldiers appeared and began to form up. When they were closer, he could see that they were at the head of a projecting flat tongue of rock, which had a rickety jetty perched along it.
The swell urged them inshore with dismaying rapidity. Kydd glanced at Poulden at the tiller; unusually, his calm features were set in a frown. It was a delicate judgement in seamanship: wind abaft, the swell translating to white-capped seas driven ever higher as they surged in, and the small jetty with barely a boat’s length to come up to. In this craft it would be lunacy to make a direct approach, the seas only too ready to smash against its pretty but squared-off transom before Kydd could make it to dry land.
He said nothing, letting Poulden make his decision. A hundred yards off, both sails came down at the run and oars thumped into their thole pins. For a moment there was an awkward slewing as the boat lost way before they could find their rhythm, but then Poulden saw his chance and brought the boat round, head to seas.
It was masterly: now the barge was keeping position against the onrushing combers, edging across until it was within oar’s length of the jetty.
‘Sorry, sir,’ Poulden said, trying to work out what was happening ashore.
Any but a lubberly crew would see the need for a rope thrown to bring them in the last few yards but the reception party just stood like statues. ‘I’ll go for’ard,’ Kydd said, finding his way down to the bows, and when Poulden brought them in at an angle, he would be ready for that split-second moment when bow touched jetty.
He saw his chance: he would seize one of the vertical top timbers of the jetty and pull himself over. The bow approached, touched, and he sprang for the upright, heaving up with all his strength. The barge fell away immediately – but suddenly there was a rending crack of old timber and he dropped to his waist in the swash of the next wave.
Energised by anger, he performed a topman’s trick, rotating to let his feet walk up as he hauled in on the sagging timber until he could twist up and on to the ramshackle decking, in the process losing his gold-laced cocked hat to the waves.
He straightened, trying to fix a smile as he faced the five rather quaint-looking soldiers and their elderly officer, who had wisely not ventured out on the old jetty. A moment of mutual incomprehension passed, and then a quavering but jaunty air arose from the fife-player.
Sloshing forward, Kydd approached the little group, the smile still fixed. The officer drew his sword and energetically saluted him, his gaze carefully averted. Without a hat to raise and feeling more than a little mutinous, Kydd bowed shortly.
Knowing that the Batavians and French were allies he declared importantly, ‘Je transmets les salutations de sa majesté le roi George, et les frères néerlandais, félicitations—’
‘Do you come from the Grand Admiraal Nelson, sir?’ the officer asked abruptly, in English.
Nettled, Kydd ignored the question. ‘I am here to treat with your fort commandant on an important matter. Be so good as to take me to him.’ His wet clothes clung annoyingly.
‘I am he,’ the officer admitted, the sword-point drooping a little. ‘Ritmeester Francken. And these are my men.’
‘Ah. Captain Thomas Kydd, my ship L’Aurore of thirty-two guns,’ he said, indicating the frigate nobly at anchor out in the bay. ‘May we go to your fort to discuss a delicate matter, sir?’
‘We must surrender to you, hein?’ Francken asked politely.
Kydd blinked, then collected himself. ‘Er, shall we go to the fort?’
‘Het spijt – and it’s not fit for such as you, sir,’ Francken said admiringly.
Kydd took his arm and propelled him away from the gaping onlookers. ‘You’ve heard of Blaauwberg?’
‘Sadly, yes. The fishermen. Sir, are you sure you’re not sent by Admiraal Nelson at all?’
It was becoming clear. ‘He has other business and asks me to treat with the gallant defenders directly. Sir, do you—’