"Get aboard!" he whispered. Men tumbled into the boats silently, nesting their weapons along the centre-line and taking up their oars.
The pinnace left the comfort of the ship's side, lay off in the inky blackness and waited for the barge and cutter to take position. "On me," Kydd called, in a low voice and the small flotilla set off for a point somewhere to the south of the twinkling lights of the fort where the barque must lie.
They pulled in silence, rags in the thole pins to muffle the clunk of oars and nothing but the swash of their passage to disturb the night. He'd spell the men before they—
Away to the right but frighteningly close, a scream in French—a boat out rowing guard! A musket banged into the night and another. Then a deeper-voiced command had the French boat's crew pulling for their lives—directly away.
Keyed up for a desperate clash at arms, Kydd couldn't understand why they were running. Then he saw. Starting as a wisp of flame, which mounted quickly then cascaded down in a flaming mass, bundles of straw had been lit and thrown over the walls of the fort. More fell and their flaring leaped up until the dark sea was illuminated by a pitiless red glare with themselves utterly revealed at its centre.
"Turn about!" Kydd bellowed, to the boats behind him. "Go back!"
Disbelieving, they hesitated. Then the guns of the fort opened up and the reason for the guard-boat's departure was apparent; it had hastily cleared the field of fire for the artillery and now the cannon thundered vengefully into the night at Teazer's fleeing boats.
Kydd flopped wearily into his cabin chair, his face still smeared with soot. "Be damned t' it!" he muttered. "To be beaten after such a handsome chase. At the least we got away with our skins."
Renzi was in the other chair, looking grave. "It seems the Revolutionary Army does not know much about night firing over sea, Tom. You were fortunate."
"Aye—but the Frenchy captain was a canny one. No codshead he—I should have smoked it. " He frowned, and added sorrowfully, "I should so have liked to set the English crew free, Nicholas. It's a hard enough life they face now."
Renzi nodded, staring down. Then he lifted his gaze to Kydd. "There's conceivably still a prospect of a successful outcome, should we be so bold."
"A direct assault on 'em by daylight? I think not. If I'm seen to hazard men's lives on a merchantman it's to be understood as I'm prize-takin' to the neglect of my orders."
"Quite. But I'm not referring to courage before cannon and blade, rather the devious application of cunning and deceit to attain the same object." At Kydd's puzzled look, he continued, "A stratagem as may secure your ship without need for overweening force, that asks the enemy to allay his fears and put down his arms . . ."
"Nicholas, ye're being hard to fathom. Are you saying we should creep up as they're not looking, then—"
"Not at all. Heaven forbid we should think to skulk about like your common spy," Renzi said, with a shudder. "What crosses my mind is that we could perhaps turn our recent experience to account and . . ."
As dawn's early light stole over the little bay Teazer crept around Cap Lévi once more, her crew quietly at quarters and Kydd on her quarterdeck, tense and edgy. If Renzi's stratagem failed they would be sailing to disaster and it could only be his responsibility.
The bay opened up and the barque was still there. Now at two anchors it was heaved around ready for a rapid departure—and then Teazer had come on the scene. For now she lay watchful but at any moment . . .
All depended on the effectiveness of the ruse. Teazer eased slowly into full view; a trumpet call sounded distantly from Fort Lévi but there was no hint of alarm.
Boldly, Teazer continued on course, set to so on her way southward past the barque, yet still there was no clamour of the call to arms—could that be because she was being lured onwards? They rounded the last of the point, which now took them within range of the fort's cannon. And nothing.
Where was the cutter? It should be . . . but then, coming up fast, Linnet rounded the cape and, sighting Teazer, opened fire on her with six-pounders. Teazer answered shot for shot in desperation— encumbered with three invasion craft towing astern, she was in no position for rapid defensive manoeuvres.
Was it working? No point in wondering now. They were committed. On Kydd's order a string of random flags jerked uncertainly up Teazer 's signal halliards but the wind was blowing them unreadably away from the French.
It was time. "Y' know what to do, Poulden," he told the helmsman. The wheel went over—and Teazer headed directly for Fort Lévi.
The response was immediate. A gun cracked out from the highest turret but it was only to draw attention to the welcoming three-flag hoist. "By heaven, an' we've carried it off," Kydd breathed, and glanced up at the ruddy ochre sails that had done their work so well.
Kydd had counted on the French having word passed of a brig with red sails due from Barfleur towing valuable invasion craft and, obligingly, had provided one. That it was being harried by the Royal Navy was only to be expected, of course, and that it was seeking protection beneath the guns of the fort was equally understandable.
Confident that no French soldier could be expected to know the difference between two similar-sized brig-rigged ships, Kydd took Teazer in, gliding along the foreshore before the fortifications until, at precisely the right position, they hove to, preparing to anchor. Under threat of the shore guns the cutter abandoned its attack and hauled off—then seemed to have second thoughts and, curving round once more, placed herself in a daring show of bravado squarely alongside the barque that had been captured earlier by the French.
Kydd played out the agreed scenario: the position this foolish brig captain had chosen to heave to in just happened to mask the fort's field of fire. Horrified by the cutter's audacious attack, he failed to notice the frantic signals from the fort and sent his men tumbling wildly into the boats and crossing to the barque's rescue. Meanwhile the cutter's men swarmed aboard in attack from the seaward side.
The brig's men scrambled over the other bulwarks and soon were fighting for their lives with the cutter's fierce crew—but any cool observer might have been puzzled at the surprising increase in the number of men racing up from below . . .
To all ashore it must quickly have become clear that the brig's gallant rescue attempt had been in vain; by some means sail was got on the barque and, cables slipped, it headed for the open sea.
But the brave souls in the brig were not going to let it get away— the invasion barges were hacked free and the ship turned seaward to chase after them. Under full sail the ships raced away until at last they had disappeared over the horizon.
"Well, upon my soul, sir!" Admiral Saumarez sat back in amazement. "It does you the utmost credit. When balked of your capture you turned to guile and artifice to accomplish what main force could not. To be quite frank I'd not have thought it, er, in your nature, Mr. Kydd."
Fighting down the urge to give Renzi his due—he had been insistent that his role was not to be mentioned—Kydd responded, "'Twas easily enough done, sir. The moon rose just after midnight, an' by it we sighted the wreck an' stripped it of fore- 'n' main-topsails. The cut o' the canvas wasn't pretty but it sufficed an' Linnet we found floggin' gamely along. She seemed eager enough for the adventure. The rest, well . . ."
"You're too reticent, sir. Did you have a stiff opposition on boarding the Frenchy?"