The broad bay, enticing in the sunshine with its emerald-green sea, was near twenty miles deep and fifteen across. So close at last to the shores of Africa, L’Aurore’s decks were filled with interested spectators, but the brown and hard-green mountainous landscape kept its secrets.
Judging the wind, the frigate wore about and angled across towards the fabled Cape just as a hail came from the fore-top lookout: ‘Sail – I see eight or more, er – an’ one a ship-o’-the-line!’
Kydd leaped into the shrouds and mounted rapidly to the tops. This had to be a French squadron member undergoing repair or a Dutch sail-of-the-line. Either way the threat to the landing was grave – and if it had friends . . .
Aware of every eye on him he steadied his pocket telescope against a shroud until he had a good image. It was indeed a ship-of-the-line, perhaps a 74, more powerful by far than anything the English expedition possessed.
He looked again. It was of an older, more elaborate age; the ships at Camperdown had not been as elderly. Puzzlingly, it had its topmasts down and was moored bow and stern. Then he had it: this was a ship not intended for the sea; it was merely a floating battery guarding whatever amounted to the Dutch marine settlement at Simon’s Town. The others were harmless merchant ships, small fry, coastal vessels. He snapped the glass shut and descended. ‘A liner, it’s true, but a guardship only,’ he announced. At the relieved murmuring, he added sternly, ‘But who’s to say he hasn’t friends?’
Before them, the Cape of Good Hope was approaching, a legendary place of romance and antiquity that they would pass closely.
Renzi appeared next to Kydd, engrossed in the spectacle, gazing intensely at the narrow, precipitous finger of rock projecting into the deep green seas. ‘Conceive of it, my friend. The uttermost south of Africa! Should you lay foot on that pinnacle you may walk on due north for miles without count, never getting your feet wet until you arrive at the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Or detour through the Holy Land and eventually you will stand at Calais observing the white cliffs of England itself, still dry-shod . . .’
‘I’m devastated to contradict you, old fellow, but this is far from the most southerly point, which being Cape Agulhas we recently passed, some thirty miles of latitude south. And the fine foreland you’re admiring is never our fabled Cape – you’ll find it the more humble point a mile on your left, past the beach.’
‘I see,’ said Renzi, with a sniff. ‘I haven’t had the sight of a chart this forenoon. However, I do note that our doughty forebears are right in one particular – the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope involves a decisive change of course from south to east, and thus, whatever its deficiencies of grandeur, it must truly be considered the hinge-point on the road to India.’
Honour thus satisfied, they stood together as L’Aurore duly turned her prow northward for the last two score miles up the peninsula.
So far they had done little to alarm the Dutch. English cruisers were no rare sight as they passed on their way to the Indian Ocean or homeward bound, and Kydd intended to keep it that way. His plan was to enter Table Bay, the expansive roadstead before Cape Town, as if on the prowl for prizes but in reality observing as much as he could of the shore defences.
It was out of the question to land scouts on the hostile shore – they would be instantly taken as strangers – but there was always the possibility of intercepting and questioning a fisherman or coastal trader. Time was pressing, however, and—
‘Good God!’ Curzon spluttered, pointing ahead. From around the next headland had suddenly appeared a ship, close-hauled under full sail, standing south, heading directly towards them.
Kydd hesitated in shocked surprise. L’Aurore was not at quarters but probably neither was the other – but then it shied away, falling off the wind to race back whence it had come.
This gave them a chance to see that it was of substantial size, well armed but somewhat smaller than they. Kydd’s mind raced. Their mission was reconnaissance, not to engage in battle; any damage to mast or spars could jeopardise their vital task to return and report. They would let it go.
‘Hold your course!’ he threw at the conn. This would give the other ship the opportunity to make the open sea and escape, but incomprehensibly it did not. The turn-away slowed and it came back to its original course, directly for them. It was going to fight.
Only a few hundred yards now separated them and L’Aurore’s guns were not yet cleared for action. And they could not buy time by seeking room to manoeuvre because the hard coastline was to one side and the stranger to seaward. ‘Get those men to the guns!’ he roared, in a fever of frustration.
Then the vessel was up with them – a cheerful hail in French and a wave came from its fo’c’sle. Kydd stared for a moment, then gave a grim smile. ‘He asks for news, believing we’re a Frenchman homeward bound from the Indies, our build so clearly theirs, and disbelieving an English warship this close in to the Cape.’
It put over its helm to wear about and run companionably along with them; at sea, to save wear and tear, a ship normally wore no colours and so far neither had hoisted them.
Suddenly a sharp cry rang out from among the sailors on its deck, then a hoarse bellow and the ship hastily sheered away. Something had spooked them to the true situation and now they were making off as fast as they could.
‘Well, I’ll be . . .’ Kydd murmured. It was precisely what was wanted – but then a thought struck. If he held back from engaging, it would signal that he was here for another purpose and the Dutch would immediately be on the alert.
He had no alternative. ‘We go after him,’ he growled.
It had to look convincing. The other vessel was most likely one of the corvette-sized privateers that were preying on the India trade and therefore heavily manned. Boarding was out of the question but a running gun duel was the last thing he wanted.
‘Brace up sharp, there!’ he roared down the deck. The privateer was angling out to sea as close to the wind as it could lie, but it would take a much finer-lined craft to outdo L’Aurore on a wind.
‘Gun crews closed up, sir,’ Gilbey reported, eyeing their chase with smug satisfaction.
‘Thank you,’ Kydd said coldly. If the man thought they were taking prizes he would disabuse him, but not just yet.
It would solve all problems if the privateer got clean away. But the distant captain had seen L’Aurore’s effortless fore-reaching and threw over his helm to go directly down-wind – back into the embrace of the craggy coastline. Kydd followed suit; in a twist of irony he was trying to lose the race but the other man was playing into his hands.
Short of deliberately slowing, which would be noticed, there was little he could do, for the privateer had allowed himself to be boxed in against the land, and with the down-slope afternoon winds coming in from near abeam, L’Aurore was at her best, at less than half a mile astern and closing.
Should he reluctantly board or stand off and cannonade it to a ruin? A prolonged roll of heavy gunfire would wake up everything for miles and Cape Town itself was only some twenty or so miles ahead. Damn and blast the useless swabs!
A quick check of the chart revealed a forbidding steep-to coast stretching into the distance. There was a good chance they would have to take the privateer on when it was forced seaward by the blunt promontory ahead, marked ‘Olifants Bos Point’. Some unknown hand had ominously inked in a graveyard cross and a date pointing to its offshore reef, Albatross Rocks.