They had a bracket of time that was unknown-if it came round too swiftly they would be headed, unable in the narrow confines to make way against it, and must anchor or return. If it happened while passing through the danger zone, disaster would be complete.
They had just two hours before they must set sail.
The boatswain, accompanied by his mate, roamed the ship like a bear, becketing up loose gear and laying along stopper tackles ready to clap on to any severed line.
Dillon set about his duty: the vital task of assembling all confidential papers, codes, lists, anything of value to the enemy. He placed these in a canvas sack weighted with grape shot and securely padlocked. If the worst happened he would throw this out of the stern window to sink out of reach.
Kydd, however, had leisure to worry and endlessly go over the plan.
But two things were on their side.
Surprise! A mighty fleet might try but a lone frigate? At speed under cover of night-it would be the last thing expected.
And the Ottoman Navy. It was all somewhere in the Aegean trying for conclusions with the Russians. He therefore need not fear meeting any on the way or when they reached Constantinople.
With the sun a glowing orb behind them, L’Aurore weighed and proceeded.
She began under easy sail, as if on blockade searching here and there for prey. The forts at the entrance didn’t bother with a shot as the last of the daylight dwindled and they took up on a slant inward.
It was time to make their move.
“Lay out ’n’ loose!”
Topmen leaped into action and sail fell from the yards. Courses on fore and main, the biggest and most powerful driving sails, caught the wind with a bang and a flap before being sheeted in, the driver on the mizzen brought in and hauled in hard.
L’Aurore felt their impetus and the trot turned to a gallop.
“A whisker off twelve!” The cry from the log showed them now creaming through the water at a full four times the speed of soldiers quick-marching. Nothing could touch the flying L’Aurore on a bowline.
Kydd looked up anxiously. There was cloud but it was scattered in low layers and for now the moon poured its chill splendour freely upon the scene. The coastline could be made out distinctly, darker shadowing against the moonpath.
“Mark t’ larboard!” sang out Saxton. His outflung arm towards the European shore had Bowden and Curzon up and sighting while on the other side Brice and Kydd waited impatiently for their call.
“Mark to starboard!” Kydd put his compass to work with its dimmed lamp and steady lubber’s line, the card swimming lazily. Kendall was right: the mosque’s white dome was an indisputable mark for them.
Usually all but deserted in the night watches, the deck was full of men, the tension keeping conversation short as they concentrated.
As they neared the bearings, warnings rapped out and the sailing master bent to the binnacle with its main ship’s compass and waited for the right moment. “Helm up, steer nor’east b’ north.”
Their course was now shaping more northward and the two sides of the Dardanelles began closing in on them-they would meet ahead at the outer castles and then they would know their fate.
Completely silent to any watcher, the frigate raced on, a halfacre of sail aloft, prettily illuminated by the calm moonlight. But so far there was no interest showing from the shore.
They were nearly up with the forts that Kydd remembered so well when the first alarm was given. A signal cannon from the solid mass of the fortress to starboard-and another, but no firing on them.
He smiled thinly: it would be a scene of consternation ashore, where a sleepy duty officer was being asked to decide urgently if they should open fire on what could well be one of their own fleeing from a pursuer. The hapless man could have seen no colours aloft, for L’Aurore was flying none, but evidently he’d thought the chances of an English ship sailing at full tilt up the narrows in the dead of night was too bizarre to contemplate and they passed through without a shot being fired.
Reaching their next waypoint precisely mid-stream, the helm was put up another point and their track was now dead north-with Point Pesquies just two miles ahead.
Their wake seethed and bubbled in a straight line astern, white and glistening in the night, like an accusing finger towards them as the dark thrust of the headland loomed.
This was the most treacherous place of all-the narrows, where the decision had to be made to stay by the north bank, away from the guns but with the greatest current set against them, or the south bank, with clearer water but closer to the guns. And at the same time there was the complication of the risky sharp turn to starboard through nearly a right angle.
Lights twinkled ashore; people there had no idea that an English ship was-
But suddenly-a monstrous gun-flash and deep concussion. Soon gunfire was general, livid flashes and thunderous booming echoing about the still night.
The flash and smoke were making it impossible to spot the passive white of the mosques.
“I’ve lost the mark!” Saxton burst out.
Kendall’s pale face turned to Kydd. “If I doesn’t have the bearings …”
The custom of the sea demanded it was up to the captain to make the fateful decision.
“Lay the foreland two cables to starboard,” Kydd ordered. It was a known position and took them closer to the guns but faster around the point.
The firing was intense-but they were gloriously untouched. Closer stilclass="underline" distant figures of the gunners could be seen frozen in the gun-flash as they frenziedly plied their cannon, but the shots were going wild, giant splashes rearing up in the darkness, smaller skittering across the moonpath.
The point neared-a dull twanging aloft was a backstay shot through and unstranding. A thud and tremor followed: L’Aurore had suffered at least one ball strike to the hull.
She began the turn; they could take up their marks again once they were around and-
In an instant Kydd’s world was transformed into a chaos of pain and disorientation. He found himself sprawled on deck, hearing from an infinite distance Curzon shouting orders and seeing the quartermaster looking down anxiously.
He levered himself up and noticed a still shape next to him. Kendall.
Shaking his head to clear it, he staggered to his feet.
“Sir-wind o’ ball!” Bowden said anxiously.
It took long seconds to register that the path of a cannon ball that had blasted between them had knocked Kendall unconscious and thrown him down with concussion.
The sailing master-of all of them to be taken out of the fight …
Through the pain of a blinding headache Kydd forced himself to focus.
Point Pesquies was coming up fast and the guns were blasting out in a frenzy-but he could see that, blinded by the constant flashes, they were firing more or less at random and probably would not even know when L’Aurore had passed by.
When they lay over at last for the haul to the northeast, they left behind thundering guns in manic play on an empty sea.
They were through!
Kydd’s body throbbed with pain and he squeezed away tears as he flogged his mind to concentration.
It was not over yet.
There was a stretch of twenty or more miles and then it was the Gallipoli forts. It was now well on into the early hours and sunrise could not be far off. If they didn’t get past while it was still dark the gunners would have them over open sights in full daylight.
“Crack on, Mr Curzon,” he croaked. “Every stitch o’ canvas counts.”
He clutched on to one thing: L’Aurore was now sailing at her best. She was travelling at speeds impossible on land: no word of warning could possibly be passed-no running messenger, not even a horse at full gallop, could sustain the pace.