It had been resolved that the situation could not be suffered to continue. The British would seize the Cape so that in any further thrust for empire they would be sitting squarely astride the trade routes of the world.
It was easier said than done. The Dutch were a proud people and could be counted on to resist. An opposed landing on a hostile shore all of seven thousand miles from home would be the most ambitious warlike endeavour Britain had yet contemplated.
The enterprise had been planned and launched in great secrecy; the military transports had sailed from Cork and the naval support from other ports – it was here at Madeira that the final assembly of the fleet had been concluded. It was to be a joint army and navy operation, which was not uncommon, but with the different perspectives of these two arms of the military there was always potential for unforeseen problems.
‘What is our force, sir?’ Kydd asked.
Popham frowned. ‘Not as it will terrify the enemy,’ he muttered. ‘In a descent of this importance we are granted no ships-o’-the-line save three old sixty-fours and a contemptible fifty. For the rest we have but two frigates, a brig-sloop and a gun-brig.’
Kydd blinked, astonished. This was fewer than there had been in many minor operations he had witnessed and he felt a stir of misgiving. Was this a measure of the importance Whitehall was giving the enterprise?
With a sudden cynical insight he saw the reason: if the venture failed, as well it might, the costs would be minimal and easily explained away.
‘And for the landing?’ After his experiences in Egypt and Acre he was well aware of the difficulties facing troops attempting to establish a foothold on a fiercely defended shore.
‘Beyond our preceding gunfire support, nothing. Once landed, the army is on its own.’
‘With—’
‘Soldiers of the Seventy-first and Seventy-second Highland Regiment of Foot, the Seaforths; the Sutherlanders – that’s the Ninety-third – and the South Wales Borderers out from Egypt. For cavalry they rejoice in the Jamaica Light Dragoons. Light artillery: some, the Royal Artillery with six-pounders, providing we can get them landed. And . . . well, shall we say but two brigades in all, of some two to three thousand effectives?’
Against who knew how many troops on their home ground, easy supply lines inland and the ever-present threat of French reinforcements, it was a breathtaking assumption that at the end of a lengthy and wearying voyage they would be fit enough to stand and fight, equipped only with what they could carry with them.
‘If you’ll be frank with me, sir, can you tell me a little of the army commanders?’ It was perhaps presumptuous but Kydd knew that Popham would be open in his opinions: it was his way to allow his subordinates to know his thinking.
‘The Highlanders, a hot-blooded enough lot. Colonel Pack, a firebrand, Lieutenant Colonel the Lord Geoffrey MacDonald, Lord of the Isles – like ’em all, hungry for glory. Well led, they’ll give a good account of themselves, I believe.
‘The generals: there’s Lord Beresford, a prickly chap, second to Baird but competent enough. Yorke, with the artillery – an old-fashioned sort, stickler for the forms but brave to a fault.’
He paused. ‘Major General Baird is likeable enough – we get along. He’s shrewd, a calm thinker and sees things through. I have no doubt but if he sees a chance he’ll not hesitate to take it.’
‘And if not . . . ?’
‘He’ll not sacrifice his men, not after what he’s been through.’
‘Oh?’
‘You saw the sword he wears?’
Kydd remembered a rather outlandish and extravagantly ornamented curved Oriental weapon.
‘He seized that from the still warm body of Tippoo Sahib after Seringapatam and has worn it since. Can’t find it in me to blame him – Baird was once incarcerated by him in chains for three years, with his men of the Seventy-first, in atrocious circumstances, after being overwhelmed in battle by the man’s father. It must have been a sweet revenge indeed.’
‘Just so,’ Kydd said uneasily. ‘Not as if he has a thirst for blood still?’
‘Hmm. Can’t really say. Now to details, sir. I’m to be flag officer afloat for this expedition and you’ll have my orders and form of signals. These will be straightforward enough, your role in this as escorting frigate to the transport convoy, and at the landing, close gunfire support. After that, well, we’ll see how it all goes.’
Drawing his chair closer, Kydd followed where Popham was indicating in a list.
‘This is the composition of our convoy. Thirteen Indiamen for the regiments and artillery, and thirty-seven of all sorts for their impedimenta and stores.’
Kydd gave a tight smile. With their derisory force, it was a frightful risk: if even a single modern French sail-of-the-line came upon their expedition it would result in a massacre. The longer they were at sea the more exposed to this risk they were, and it would prove a nightmare to provide water and victuals to the thousands of soldiers as they sailed through the fearsome equatorial heat down the length of Africa. And their horses would suffer horrifically, clapped under hatches as they passed through the burning desert of the doldrums.
As if reading Kydd’s thoughts, Popham nodded. ‘Long weeks at sea, yes. However, we shall be touching at the Brazils to water and recuperate before the final leg.’
The anti-clockwise wind-circulation pattern in the South Atlantic made the longer semi-circular passage away from Africa across the ocean to South America the more efficient. But that last leg remained more than four thousand miles and Kydd’s heart went out to the soldiers who must endure for so long, then be called upon to give their all in a convulsive life-and-death struggle.
‘In course,’ Popham added lightly, ‘before we get under way we will purchase replacements for any horses that may die on passage.’
Popham’s responsibility was to ensure the safe arrival of the whole complex structure to its climax at the landing: the jocular tone hid deep worry. Despite his reservations, Kydd asked, with brisk enthusiasm, ‘Then, sir, what is our plan for the final assault?’
‘Why, Captain, that rather depends on the report of the frigate sent to reconnoitre before our arrival, don’t you think?’ he said, with an innocent smile.
In the cold light of morning, the invading fleet made ready to sail. To a casual onlooker it was impressive: fifty or more sail crowding Funchal Roads, a mighty armada about to descend on a luckless enemy.
But to any knowledgeable observer the truth was very different. A dozen of the very largest were nothing more than Indiamen, some with troops – but, as well, laden with luxury cargo and passengers, intended in the event of a dismal failure to continue on to Calcutta and the Raj. Other ships, crammed with artillery and stores, were slow and vulnerable. Still more were anonymous utilitarian hulls, of varying size down to the pipsqueak Jack, a Botany Bay ship hired for the task by a harried Transport Board and of questionable fitness for the long voyage.
And all that had been spared to escort them could virtually be counted on the fingers of one hand.
It was madness. Compelling evidence lay at anchor away to one side: a survivor of an Indies convoy found by Admiral Allemand and his squadron, which had sortied from Rochefort, the so-called ‘invisible squadron’ sent to play havoc off the coasts of Africa.
This convoy, escorted by a single ship, the 50-gun Calcutta, had been set upon by five ships-of-the-line, frigates and corvettes, but in a magnificent yet doomed show of defiance and resolution she had fought the odds, leading the enemy away from her convoy. She had finally struck her colours to prevent further loss of life but all except one of her charges had been able to escape.
Allemand was still at sea, whereabouts unknown. So, too, was the breakout fleet of Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez, even larger and reputedly including Napoleon’s brother – both somewhere in the wastes of ocean, looking for prey and revenge for Trafalgar. If either came up with Popham’s fleet, there would be a massacre.