‘Deck hoooo!’ The sudden hail from the fore-top took everyone by surprise. ‘T’ loo’ard – sail an’ galleys.’
Suddenly apprehensive, Kydd jumped for the shrouds and stared into the band of pearly haze that was the horizon to the east, the Strait of Gibraltar itself. Then he saw a straggle of small craft, many oared, the lofty sweep of the lateen of a Moorish felucca or some such. There could be only one reason for their presence: word had been passed to Tarifa, or another Spanish nest of corsairs, of a convoy becalmed, ripe for the picking.
Given any kind of workable breeze a frigate would be soon among them to blow them out of the water, but with this – cats-paws prettily darkening the sea in long riffles and disappearing as fast as they came, canvas hanging and slatting aimlessly . . .
The cutter would have oars and the sloop awkward sweeps but, without the agility of the lighter enemy craft, they would easily be evaded. His ships and their valuable cargo would then be picked off one by one. Kydd might soon be known as the captain of a frigate whose entire convoy had been taken right from under his nose by a ragtag swarm of picaroons.
‘Mr Oakley – every man you can get in the tops with buckets, the fire-engine with hoses,’ he ordered urgently. ‘Get those sails wet!’
There was no time for much else; stunsails had long been set and he was ready to try, with the only move he could make, to put himself between the beetling menace and the convoy.
It was hopeless. There was simply a contented gurgling as the helm was put over, long minutes of lazy turning while all the time the threat sharpened into focus. On the transport there were movements of red figures where the soldiers were lining the decks with muskets – but they were in no danger: it was the fat merchantmen they were after.
The cutter and sloop needed no orders – they were already swinging to meet the enemy but they were near helpless in the calm.
‘We’re makin’ way, sir,’ Kendall said, with something between surprise and awe. It was true – a small but regular ripple was spreading out from their forefoot. Kydd joined him in looking down the ship’s side and tried to estimate – one, two knots?
‘Does she answer the helm true?’ he threw at the conn. The helmsman wound on four spokes of the wheel. The bowsprit obediently began stepping across and the man spun the helm back, meeting the swing. The bow stopped and came back. They had steerage way.
‘Damn it – we’ve got a chance!’ Kydd blurted. But first they had to overhaul the entire convoy from their post at the rear. The race was on.
One by one they slipped past the helpless ships, threading their way around drifting vessels, L’Aurore catching every slight wafting breath of air to urge steadily on. Kydd couldn’t keep the smile from his face – this was her true breeding, the ghosting in light airs that he had noticed before. And now it was going to save them all.
Around the deck there were grins and laughter – the spell was lifting. This was a ship a sailor could be proud to be in, one that had the promise of witchery, of feats that could be yarned about for years afterwards.
The Alcestes were starting to change to L’Aurores.
The enemy were suddenly presented with the dismaying picture of a frigate emerging from the crowd of frightened sail, and in the flat calm unaccountably bearing down on them. They huddled together – a fatal mistake, for L’Aurore took her time, then slewed about to open with a broadside on the concentrated group.
After the gun-smoke rolling down on their target had cleared it was very apparent they were not about to be troubled any further by the marauders. Making off as fast as they could to avoid the other broadside, they left three wrecks to be dealt with by the cutter, which was gamely trying to keep with L’Aurore.
Sensing the mood, Kydd sent word that instead of the other broadside he desired to see of what calibre his gun-captains really were. Until the targets were out of range each gun would have a chance to punish the enemy. With a steady gun-platform and perfect conditions in the mirrored seas, the strike of ball and subsequent skipping were plain, as was a distant flurry when one hit home to savage cheers.
It was valuable practice but even more pleasing was the spirit it was raising in his ship.
Once the convoy had arrived safely in Gibraltar and the troops landed, L’Aurore was fitted for her main role: the Toulon blockade. For this the watchword was endurance – on station there could be no returning the seven hundred miles for resupply. They must subsist on what they carried, and that included both sea stores and spare parts.
Kydd spent some time with the warrant officers, trying to foresee any situation and whether they would be self-sufficient enough to handle it, using what they carried. With L’Aurore’s small hold, there was no margin for extras.
The next day she sailed from Rosia Bay with the tidal stream, in a decreasing northerly that Kydd recognised as the tail end of the notorious tramontane, an icy blast from the interior of France. It did, however, enable them to crack on at a pace.
With just three days before they raised Lord Nelson’s squadron, Kydd determined to use every hour of it. Gun practice. Sail drill. Signals. From dawn to dusk they slaved, shaving seconds off their times, competing mast against mast, gun against gun – but that was never the point. In the smoke and chaos of action it would be the crew who stayed at their posts, serving their guns and their ship with the confidence of long practice, that would emerge the victors.
On the morning of the third day lookouts were doubled while L’Aurore was priddied aloft and alow as though for harbour inspection. According to the rendezvous he had been given, they should raise the battle squadron at midday, Victory and near a dozen of-the-line and frigates under easy sail.
As always, the rendezvous was a line of latitude rather than a point, running some fifty miles south of Toulon, but the grey expanse of wind-driven sea was empty in every direction. He ran the line down from one end to the other – nothing.
There was no question of the accuracy of the line and he was sure of their position, so where were they? Had Nelson got word that Villeneuve had sortied and flung his squadron at the French? Somewhere out there the deciding battle of the war might be raging.
Or was the fleet at Malta or another port revictualling? Should he go in chase or stay where he was? If the squadron returned from wherever it was and he was not here . . . He would give it one day . . .
But there was another way. Supposing he went north, closed with Toulon and spied into the port. If the French were still there, all urgency was removed and he could return with an easy heart. If they were out – that was another matter and he would fall back on Gibraltar for orders.
He turned to the master. ‘Mr Kendall, we’re to look into Toulon.’ L’Aurore lay to the wind and sailed north in bursts of spray into the short, choppy seas.
Next morning the French coast lifted into view, a hard, darker grey. It was not difficult to make out the low cliffs of Cape Cepet, the protective outlying arm around the great harbour and, behind, the two-thousand-foot Mont Faron, which Napoleon had used to such effect to bombard and recapture the port long ago at the war’s beginning.
There was little to show the true situation but Kydd had a map drawn up by Sir Sidney Smith during that dramatic episode and saw that if he stood on past the cape to the far shore the harbour would open up to his left.