That night the crowds came out again, restless and dangerous. They knew they’d shown their hand and taken up arms against the French, who would now have every reason to exact swift and terrible vengeance. Only if General Morla could snatch a victory would they be in a position to make any kind of demands when it came to treating for terms.
Chapter 40
The following day the general took boat across the bay and landed on the desolate swamplands of the Isla de Leon. For hours he tramped and squelched over its length and breadth, frequently taking notes of sightings of the French ships across the flats.
On the third day he began a heroic operation with long twenty-four-pounders, naked, without tackle or carriage, eleven feet of iron lying in the mud. Hawsers were looped and seized around their trunnions and led out to traces a hundred feet long on each side. From the prisons and barracks, even the street, five hundred men, under the lash, began brute hauling their immense weight, breech first, through the impassable marshes. One by one, their gun-carriages and impedimenta following on makeshift mud-rafts, they were manoeuvred to the northern tip of the Isla de Leon – directly opposite the French.
Before long a white flag of parlay appeared from Admiral Rosily.
‘No! I won’t even hear the cerdo frances,’ snarled Morla.
‘Sir, he offers to disembark his guns, to lie quietly, knowing the English cannot touch him.’
‘That’s a falsehood. He waits for as long as it takes for Murat’s battalions to reach here and rescue him. I’m no fool of his!’
The agony of hauling more guns went on.
On the fourth day before sunset another parlay was requested.
‘The French admiral will haul down his colours, render his ships incapable of combat and-’
‘He knows he’s beat!’ chuckled Morla, grimly. ‘Let him stew. By morning I’ll give him such a waking as will be heard in Madrid.’
Renzi, for the last three days sharing the general’s field tent and rations in the mire and squalor, allowed a touch of hope. Morla was playing it well. One by one the big twenty-fours had been man-hauled through the mud along a broad front, placed on their gun-carriages and positioned atop a firm built-up ground behind a breastwork.
Renzi had been counting them as they’d been brought up at such cost. By this evening there would probably be thirty.
But six massive ships with near five hundred even bigger guns and four thousand seamen and marines outnumbered the Spanish ragtag militia and sailors by at least two to one. These were still terrifying odds.
Yet at the same time Rosily would be watching the steady and careful preparations, knowing that when Morla was ready, there would be more than a score of heavy guns blasting their shot into his ships, for which there could be no real reply to the protected emplacements. It would go on, night and day, until his ships were blood-soaked ruins – or he shifted his anchorage. And that would merely bring them into range of the main forts whose great guns with red-hot shot would make short work of them.
Or they could be driven out to face the British fleet.
What would the morning bring?
At break of day there was heightened tension in the Spanish encampment. Everyone knew that Morla was this day going to bring about the climax and they went about their duties with a wary watchfulness.
It was a wan, dreary morning, the dull sky a fit backdrop to what must come.
The order was issued: at eight, all guns would open fire and cease only by direct order of the captain general.
There was no change in the aspect of the French ships. Across the water they lay unmoving, their colours aloft, drooping in the still air. At this moment Admiral Rosily must be following every movement and would know what to expect. Did he have a trick ready to play at this point?
Anything could happen from this time forward.
The order rang out: ‘Clear the guns!’
To hide preparations, fascines, bundles of brushwood, had been placed in front of each gun position. These were now removed, leaving muzzles bared in snarling menace.
It was a signal to the French captains: aboard every ship, ensigns dipped in rapid, angry jerks.
A boat put off under a white flag. Rosily’s flag-captain had come to treat for a full surrender, his battle lost before it had begun.
Chapter 41
Aboard Tyger
‘A message, sir,’ the duty midshipman said dubiously, offering Kydd a folded piece of paper. ‘From a vegetable-hawker. Says you’re to read it at once.’
It could be from only one source and he opened it quickly.
It was indeed from Renzi, but it was formally phrased and he reread it in astonishment.
Be pleased to dispatch a boat to the Castle of San Sebastian at four, therewith to convey the person of the captain general of Andalucia and governor of Cadiz, chief deputy of the Provisional Cadiz Cortes and military governor of the junta, on board with a view to plenary discussion.
Who? Plenary discussion? Wasn’t that something that was binding?
Reception in the nature of that accorded to a foreign admiral is advised, stand fast gun salutes. Entertainments will not be required.
So, no dinners and so forth, just talking.
Kydd read on.
Do signify acceptance in the usual way.
‘Mr Maynard!’ Kydd bellowed. ‘Throw out “affirmative” at the main this instant!’
No mention of a white flag or the panoply of a cartel exchange.
Nevertheless, at the appointed time, when Tyger’s barge put off to perform the honours it bore on one mast stay the flag of Spain and on the other that of Great Britain. Halgren sat imperturbably at the tiller, Bray in full fig in the sternsheets, with Mr Midshipman Gilpin opposite him, trying to appear grave and noble, the boat’s crew in their tiger-striped yellow and black bending effortlessly to their oars.
Side party assembled and the ship’s company told off to their stations, Kydd waited in full dress-uniform for the august personage to appear.
General Morla, in a florid scarlet and gold-laced uniform, with prodigious bicorne, was a striking figure, his entourage only a little less so.
After all had been piped aboard and greeted, Kydd caught sight of Renzi, in plain dress, slipping over the bulwarks.
‘What the devil’s to do with this crew?’ he hissed at him. ‘Who-’
‘Play it as you will, brother. I fancy you’ll be well pleased by the news he brings.’
Accompanied by Renzi, Kydd returned to the Spaniards, ill at ease in a ship of war of such evident qualities as Tyger.
‘Sir Thomas,’ Renzi began, ‘this is Captain General Tomas de Morla y Pacheco. He desires you to know that the French warships lately at large in Cadiz now lie under the guns of his fortresses and do so beneath the colours of Spain.’
A haughty interpreter rapidly conveyed this to the general, who nodded slowly.
Dumbfounded, Kydd stuttered a reply. That the victorious general thought to make immediate visit to the blockading fleet was significant – and the implications of this were incredible. Probably even more so than this worthy knew.
‘General Morla has dispatched messengers to all of Spain telling of this victory, and wishes to explore the possibility of making common cause against the vile legions of Bonaparte, going forth equally together to effect his ruin and destruction.’
Kydd felt out of his depth. This was hardly a situation he could do much about. Recovering his composure, he declared, ‘Tell him that there is a far greater commander than I who lies out to seaward who would be pleased to hear him.’
He hid a savage smile. By rights he should have passed the general and the decision up to his superior, Rowley, but after the boat assault, the man had gone away with half his squadron, no doubt for even more manoeuvres. Collingwood it would have to be.
‘Hands to unmoor ship!’
At an urgent plea from Morla’s interpreter Renzi hastily intervened: ‘If this is a grand captain of the fleet, General Morla states that he requires opportunity to dress more appropriately. He wishes to send for his manservant and garb fit for an emissary of Spain.’