On the one hand those who’d been travelling in the interior were gleefully telling of the French falling back in dismay at the now nationwide rising by the Spanish people, some said nearly to the border. On the other, the French returning to seize the valuable port, while they could, would be a bitter blow to Bilbao.
It all depended on whether a desperate assault could be staved off until the local French commander decided to join the others behind the Ebro.
Kydd went to bed with more than a few misgivings.
Some time after midnight he was awoken. Shouts, running feet, and what were probably distant shots. He began to struggle into his uniform and suddenly Dillon burst in. ‘Sir Thomas, we must go now! The French have made a surprise night attack and are in the city. We must fly, sir!’
‘Muster the boat’s crew down on the quay. We quit the place this minute.’ As soon as he was dressed he ran out into the darkness. There was a spattering of rain but he didn’t care, bolting for the lower quay where his boat lay. There were figures there, one with a lantern who appeared to be in an altercation.
‘Thank the Lord you’re here, sir!’ said Halgren, standing with the tiller bar, menacing a growing crowd. Others of the boat’s crew stood behind him and, from the flash of white eyes in the gathering, he saw that they were near panic.
‘Get aboard,’ Kydd ordered evenly, pushing through and standing with him.
The painter to his barge was shortened. The crew tumbled aboard and took position. Growls and angry cries came from the onlookers but Kydd could do nothing for them. ‘Into the boat,’ he snapped at Dillon, then pulled himself over the bows and looked back to where the big figure of Halgren still stood, his stolid presence keeping the mob at bay.
Singling up the painter through the ring-bolt, he waited for the right moment then ordered Halgren in. For such a big man he turned nimbly, dropped into the bows and, at the same time, Kydd shoved off, leaving the crowd to curse and shout as they put out around a mole and into the inky blackness towards the harbour entrance.
They were safe.
He settled in the sternsheets with Dillon, looking forward to the sanity and comforts of his cabin.
Five men were at the oars and two were attending to the rolled-up sails along the centreline, rigging the boat by feel alone. Kydd felt a stab of unease at the unfolding realisation that their return would not be easy. The wind had shifted, backing into the north-west, and with the tide well on the ebb, it didn’t take much imagination to see that with the seas heaping up under the driving winds to meet the ebbing tide over the shallows of the bar, their relatively slim-waisted and petite craft would be at a perilous disadvantage.
As soon as they emerged beyond the shelter of the mole he saw that he was right. The dimness of the overcast night was pierced by white combers driven by a flat blast out of the north-west. It was dead foul for the open sea, but in his fore-and-aft rigged craft this should not have been cause for concern. What was of such danger was the erratic lumping and surging of the foreshortened waves as the two forces disputed, wave peaks shooting up, some as high as six feet, others meeting in a confused sliding against each other, an unnavigable welter of angry seas.
Their barge would not live long in that.
‘Sir, we’re not going t’ make it through,’ Halgren said calmly, feeling the unruly cross currents slam at his rudder.
‘We put back.’
Into a city about to fall – from blessed safety back into the inferno. What else could they do?
Inside the mole it was immediately quieter, giving him time to think.
The French were coming in down the valley and in a general sense from the east. Therefore he would head in the opposite direction and find some kind of haven, a boat and the open sea. And the nearest had to be Santander, some forty sea miles away or an uncountable distance through the forested Cantabrian mountains.
‘Put into this wharf to starb’d,’ Kydd told Halgren. He eyed the shoreline. There were a number of sinister moving figures in the darkness but he prayed there was a road over the mountains they could take.
As the boat glided in, there were sudden shouts from the shore – the shapes stopped and wheeled about.
‘Take us in.’ They’d have to get through them: there was no other choice.
The bowman hooked on and forms appeared along the wharf edge, first several and then many. Kydd braced himself but there was a single hoarse shout he thought he recognised. Soon there were happy calls and hands extended.
Dillon translated. These were the patriot fighters who had received their weapons and were now on their way into the mountains to continue the fight. With pride they displayed their muskets – they would now be put to very good use in the hard struggle to come.
And, yes, they knew of the bar and agreed that Santander would offer the best place to get out to his ship. It would be their honour to find a means of transport and be both escort and guide.
Chapter 62
Lisbon
The capacious harbour was alive with seaborne traffic: victuallers and powder hoys, transports of every kind, all in a purposeful criss-crossing.
Something was afoot.
Conqueror was at the naval anchorage, her admiral’s pennant drooping in the light breeze. Kydd made sure Tyger went to the most inconspicuous mooring and prepared to make his report. It would not be pleasant and he braced himself as he came aboard.
‘What in Hades …?’
‘Sir Thomas Kydd, Tyger frigate,’ Campbell, the long-suffering flag-captain, said quietly, ushering Kydd in.
‘I know that!’ Rowley spluttered. ‘What I don’t know is why he’s here. Tired of cruising in the north, is it, Kydd?’
‘Pursuant to your orders, sir, I proceeded to the north coast of Spain on patrol, seeking to harry the enemy wherever he might be found.’
‘And?’
‘There was no sign of the enemy – except at Bilbao.’ He’d leave the piece about Santona and the Basque rebels to the written report. ‘There, the city had risen and driven the French out. They desired that I render assistance in their defence, which, we now being their friends, I endeavoured to do.’
‘Boats, with your usual fireworks, then.’
‘No, sir. Their request was for weapons – muskets and equipment. They have men enough to do the fighting.’
‘Be brief, Kydd. I’ve a lot to do.’
‘Sir, knowing the value of a strong port held by the Spanish so close to the French border, I conceived it as a vital objective. For the price of a few muskets the city would be held for us without we send a man ashore.’
‘You’re not making much sense, sir.’
‘This is to say I landed such muskets as were carried by Tyger and passed them over to the junta, which is the-’
‘You what?’ roared Rowley, slapping his palms down on his desk.
‘I fell in with Seine and Iris frigates and added their muskets to mine to increase the effectiveness. They were well received.’
Rowley rose slowly, his eyes blazing. ‘Do I understand you to mean you cleaned out three frigates of their arms and handed the lot over to some ragabash parcel of Spaniards?’
‘In the interests of prosecuting the war against Bonaparte in the conditions obtaining, yes, I did.’
‘You – you expect me to excuse the reckless disposing of His Majesty’s ordnance in such a manner? It’s monstrous! Damn it – tell me why I shouldn’t put you under open arrest, Kydd.’
He burned. ‘There’s many who’d agree that their use by others to achieve the same object as if used by ourselves, but without the hazard, begs some measure of approval.’
‘Approval? Why, it’s nothing but-’
‘Sir,’ Campbell intervened smoothly, ‘I’m bound to observe that Admiral Collingwood may well consider that Captain Kydd’s action does in fact conform to the recent desires of their lordships to afford aid and assistance to the Spanish wherever practical in their rising against the French.’