Flashman and the Emperor

by Robert Brightwell

  The lieutenant did as asked and a few moments later the watch officer was replying and pointing down the line, where he assured us there was a large gap we could use.

  Cochrane doffed his hat again in acknowledgement as we drifted down the line at a speed barely faster than a hobbling cripple.

  “Should we raise British colours, sir?” asked Crosbie gesturing at our naked flag halyard, but Cochrane shook his head.

  “No, when word gets out about this, I don’t want more problems with the Royal Navy, especially if we have to start shooting later. Pass word to the gunners to stand ready, but not to show themselves.” With that he started to pace up and down the quarterdeck as if he did not have a care in the world. Crosbie went off to give the necessary orders, while I stared in mounting apprehension at ships awaiting us further down the line. The next ship in front of us was a corvette of the Portuguese navy. I could already see men moving on their quarterdeck and one pointing at the man-of-war creeping at a snail’s pace towards them. Beyond the corvette was the dark, ominous silhouette of the enemy flagship.

  Evidently, the officers on the corvette were less trusting than the merchant, for as we got to the point halfway between them there was a sudden shout of alarm. A moment later a drum began to beat from inside the hull as the crew were called to their stations. A light appeared in the stern windows of the flagship beyond. I imagined the admiral being woken from his slumbers. Would he know if a British seventy-four-gun ship was in the vicinity? I wondered. He certainly knew Cochrane had one and if he was as in awe of our commander’s achievements as he seemed, then the Portuguese admiral could well see through our ruse.

  There was more shouting between the ships ahead and I knew that we only had a few seconds to allay any alarm. I leapt up onto the ratlines at the side of the ship and bellowed at the top of my voice, “We are a British vessel, don’t fire on us.” I repeated the words again in Spanish and hoped that was close enough to Portuguese for them to understand as ‘British’ was ‘britanico’ in both languages. Certainly, my words seemed to sow a seed of doubt, for the drumming on the corvette stopped so that officers on the flagship could shout at the men on the ship behind them. I could not catch what was said at first, but then a plaintive voice called out in English and asked if we were a tartar.

  “What on earth is he talking about?” I asked, climbing back down on the deck and turning to Cochrane. “He’s asking if we are a tartar, at least I think that’s what they’re saying.”

  “HMS Tartar is a British ship,” replied Crosbie. “It sailed from Rio just before we did.”

  “Ah,” I exclaimed as things became a little clearer. “So, we should claim to be her, then?”

  “No,” answered Cochrane. “She’s a frigate and I suspect she came here after Rio. They will know the difference between a seventy-four and a frigate, even at night. If we claim to be her, they will know we are lying as we get closer. Tell them we’re in the same squadron.”

  I did as I was bidden and that seemed to satisfy them. We were creeping past the corvette, still at a painfully slow pace, and were close enough now that I could have tossed an apple down on to their deck. The men summoned by the beat of the drums stood about on their planks watching us as we silently glided by. They stared at us curiously; most would have seen us at the first encounter of the fleets. I wondered if any would remember some detail of our appearance that would give us away. Fortunately, ships of the line were made of similar designs; the Emperor had probably originally been laid down in a Portuguese shipyard itself. To me it looked very much like the enemy flagship that was now coming up on our starboard bow. This, I thought, would be the real test, for surely the admiral would know if a British ship was expected to visit their secret anchorage.

  Cochrane plainly thought the same, for he came up to stand beside me and whispered, “Ask them if their admiral is aboard. With luck, he will be asleep and they won’t want to wake him. Tell him I will visit in the morning.”

  “All right,” I agreed. “But let’s wait until we are closer or my bellowing will wake him up.” It was an interminable wait as we came up on the flagship. It seemed you could measure our progress in inches as the sails occasionally rippled with the lightest of gusts to give us any headway at all. I watched as perhaps a dozen officers and men gathered on the quarterdeck of the Portuguese ship to watch us approach. Eventually, it was one of these who spoke first.

  “What ship are you?” called out a voice in English.

  I glanced across at Cochrane, who just shrugged, leaving me to invent a ship. “HMS Kitty,” I replied, naming us for Cochrane’s wife. “Is your admiral aboard?” I added.

  “No,” came the reply and I felt the tension ease a notch as the man continued. “He is ashore with most of the senior officers at a ball in the city.”

  “It’s all right for some, eh?” I forced a laugh. “He will be in a soft bed tonight.”

  “You know it,” the man agreed. I could make out the speaker now as he came up and stood at the rail. “Hey, where are you going?” he enquired, but without even the slightest hint of suspicion now that we had established a rapport.

  “We were told there is a space to moor down this line,” I told him.

  “Ah, that’s right, but be careful you do not go too far, there are shallows down there.”

  We seemed to be getting along famously and I felt a feeling of recklessness come over me. “If you see your admiral before my commanding officer does, tell him that my commander will be returning to pay his respects soon. He is looking forward to meeting your admiral again.”

  I heard Cochrane chuckle nearby. “Well done, Flashman,” he whispered. “If the Portuguese admiral is half as jumpy as Costa claims, that remark will give him the conniptions when he finds out who his visitors really were.”

  “But they will be expecting us to return now,” warned Crosbie.

  “Ah, they will be expecting that anyway when they find that we have disappeared again during the night. They will soon discover that there is no such ship as HMS Kitty. Then they will guess who we really are and what we were doing.”

  “That is if we can disappear during the night,” I intervened. I was about to say more but the Portuguese officer called back.

  “Thank you, I will let my admiral know. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight to you too,” I replied and stepped down from the rail. “Just how are we going to escape if there is no wind?” I demanded.

  “Tell me, Flashman, how would you escape from here without any wind?” Cochrane asked, smiling.

  “Well, we are all prisoners if we are found here in daylight,” I mused. I could not see a way of escaping with the Emperor at all, not unless the wind returned. Staring at the Portuguese flagship as it fell behind, I saw that several cutters and longboats were tied to its side and remembered we had seen the same on other ships. “You won’t like it,” I told Cochrane, “but I don’t think we can take the ship with us. We need to gather as many smaller boats from the anchored ships as we can and row our way out. We could use the Emperor as a fire ship here or perhaps scuttle her in the channel to trap the ships here for a while.”

  Both Crosbie and Cochrane were grinning now and I found it infuriating that they would not let me in on their plan. “Well, Thomas,” said Cochrane, “I will do a deal with you. If we are not safely out of this bay by three o’clock this morning, which is two and a half hours from now, we will go with your plan.” With that, the cocksure bastard smirked and turned to go below.

  I stomped off back to my former station in the bows, muttering dark thoughts about my long and often frustrating association with Cochrane. But if he was hoping that the wind would return he was destined to be disappointed. For just as the gap in the line of ships appeared, the sails went slack and we glided to a complete stop. From the glimmering lights around the anchorage, I could see that the sea was as smooth as glass and seemingly just as immovable. We were set in it, not moving an inch. Rarely had I felt more powerl
ess. I stood there fuming with impotent rage, knowing that the watch in my pocket was ticking the minutes away that brought dawn closer. Then I heard footsteps coming up behind me. I turned to see it was Crosbie.

  “The wind can be frustrating at times,” he soothed. “This is the first time we’ve had a calm since we’ve been on this coast and it has come at just the wrong moment.” He paused, giving me the opportunity to respond, but I was still too angry with the pair of them and their naval superiority. “I’ll wager you’ve been thinking how much easier things would be if we had the Rising Star here instead,” he continued.

  “You are right, that’s exactly what I had been thinking,” I admitted. “She could have come in here and blasted her way around and escaped, with not one of these ships able to pursue her.”

  “That’s why the admiral commissioned her,” agreed Crosbie, gently reminding me that Cochrane would probably have preferred the Rising Star here too.

  “So how are we going to escape?” I asked at length.

  “The admiral has sworn me to secrecy,” admitted Crosbie, and then seeing the irritation cross my face he added hastily, “but I will give you a clue. The wind is not the only force to move a ship.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Look there,” he said pointing. “It has already started.”

  I stared at the merchant ship he had indicated. For a moment I could see nothing, it seemed perfectly normal, lying at anchor in the line. Then I noticed that its profile was very slowly changing as it began to swing around on its mooring. “The tide,” I exclaimed, “but surely that will not be powerful enough to pull us out of the bay. We are nine miles up-river.”

  “You would be surprised how strong it is; as you can see it is already pulling the stern of every ship to point towards the bay entrance.” Crosbie grinned “And this time the tide will have some help. Come back to the quarterdeck as our admiral has another trick. You know him, he will be itching to show it off.”

  I allowed curiosity to overcome my irritation as I followed Crosbie back to the stern of the ship. As we went I noticed that the Emperor, even though it was not anchored, was also swinging around so that her stern faced the channel too.

  “Ah, Flashman, have you guessed how we are escaping yet?” asked Cochrane as he supervised four crewmen at the stern rail. They appeared to be holding a topsail-sized piece of canvas with ropes attached to each corner.

  “How far do you think the tide will take us by dawn?” I asked, determined not to be impressed with anything he said.

  “With luck, we should be back out to sea.” He appeared pleased with himself, but to my mind this seemed patently absurd.

  “What? Look, I accept that we might get out of this bay. But it’s madness to expect the tide to carry us nine miles out to sea.”

  “Well we will see shall we.” Cochrane was still grinning. “Do you want to wager a guinea on it?” He turned to the men at the rail and added, “Now, my lads, lower that over the side.”

  “What is that?” I asked as it splashed into the water below and the men started to slowly play out the ropes.

  “That, my cynical friend, is a stream anchor,” explained a supremely smug Cochrane. “It acts like a sail under water, being pulled by the tide instead of the wind.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better deployed at the front of the ship to pull us forward?” I asked.

  “No,” Crosbie explained. “The ship is lower in the water at the stern and so the tide will always try to take the ship stern first.” I must have still appeared confused, for he added, “Like a wind vane, the lighter part, the arrow, always points where the wind is from. In this case, the bow will point to where the water is coming from, which is upstream.” To be honest, I was little the wiser for this explanation as science has always been much of a mystery to me, but I nodded as though I understood.

  At first all these theories seemed pretty meaningless as beyond swinging the boat round, the tide did not seem to be moving the ship at all. While Cochrane oversaw adjustments to the ropes attached to his stream anchor, I looked over the stern rail and saw barely a ripple of movement.

  Crosbie came up beside me. “We are moving with the water so you won’t see a wave. That’s why we cannot measure our speed using the log either.” He pointed to the outline of the nearest ship that I could make out in the darkness. “We know that ship is still as it is anchored. Keep an eye on the distance between its mainmast and the mizzen, and you will see it narrow and then disappear as we go past it.”

  I watched as he suggested and sure enough we were moving, although it still seemed slow to me. But as we got closer to the narrow entrance strait to the hidden bay, even I had to admit that our speed had increased. The stream anchor seemed to drag us around the bend in the channel and, staring up at the rocks, I noted that we were moving just as fast out of the bay as we had sailed into it. Once we were in the main estuary Cochrane let the tide take us out and away from the shore. It was still pretty much pitch dark. With no landmarks and with none of the usual creaking and flapping from the masts and sails, it seemed again as though the ship was still and silent. It took a considerable degree of faith to believe that we were still moving and that dawn would not find us just outside the hidden bay and nine miles inside Portuguese-held territory. Cochrane, though, seemed to have no such doubts.

  “I hope you will agree that this is better than rowing home,” he said joining me as I leant on the rail, searching in vain for any landmark.

  “All right, I will admit that it has not been your worst idea,” I conceded. “But you have not won that guinea yet.”

  As it turned out he did not win it at all, for as the sun crept over the eastern horizon we were still half a mile short of the open sea. I did not claim the coin, though, for we were mid-channel and nothing was going to stop us escaping. We were all tired. The visit to the hidden bay seemed almost a dream; I struggled to believe it had happened at all and if you, dear reader, share that feeling, well it is all recorded in Cochrane’s memoirs and confirmed by subsequent events. For if you think our visit to Salvador’s hidden harbour was extraordinary, it was nothing compared with what was to follow.

  Chapter 21

  It took us two days to get back to Morro de São Paulo as although a wind did start to blow as we got back to sea, it was only the lightest of airs. We crept back down the coast and while I had expected Cochrane to be in a fever of impatience to gather his fire ships and start his attack, he surprised me again by spending most of the time by himself, busily weighing up diverse options. When we finally got back to the anchorage he summoned his captains for a council of war. There was an air of eager anticipation from most as they gathered around that table. Only Cochrane seemed calm, while I did my best to hide the growing anxiety that we would once more be visiting the hidden bay and that this time the enemy would be well prepared for us.

  Captain Taylor reported that while the holds of the fire ships were not yet completely full of timber and combustibles, they would burn for a good time and were in all respects ready to use.

  “The wind is strengthening again, sir,” reported Crosbie. “We could weigh anchor tomorrow morning and be at the hidden bay by nightfall.”

  “No,” replied Cochrane quietly. “We are not going to attack now. That is what they are expecting us to do. We will leave them to stew for a while.”

  “But sir,” protested Crosbie. “Every night we do not attack gives them more time to build defences.”

  “Ah, but what can they do, Crosbie? What would you do if you were the Portuguese admiral?” Without giving Crosbie time to consider an answer Cochrane continued. “They would be foolish to distribute their ships all around the estuary as it would just make it easier for us to sink or capture them. So they will lay log booms across the channel at the entrance to the hidden harbour. They will build fires on the shore to illuminate the arrival of our ships and perhaps have patrol boats in the river mouth. But all they will succeed in doin
g is trapping themselves. They will have sleepless nights and false alarms, while we all sleep soundly in our beds. Then in a week or two when they are tired and their guards have become negligent, that is when we will strike. Time is on our side, gentlemen.”

  “So we are to spend the next week resting in our beds?” I queried as this seemed unusually relaxing for one of Cochrane’s schemes.

  “Not quite,” Cochrane laughed. “Taylor will oversee the completion of the fire ships, while we will take the Emperor back to maintain the blockade of Salvador. We don’t want them slipping any ships out or getting more supplies in. Things must be running short now as they have had hardly any ships into the port for over a month.”

  Well it would not be as good as a week of resting in my cot and swimming from the beach, but I could not see a lot of danger there. However, before I could get too complacent, Cochrane reminded me of the perils ahead by adding, “By the way, Flashman, when we do attack their anchorage we are likely to need you and your marines to hold off their soldiers while we cut through any booms and other defences they have laid. Have thirty of your best marines brought back on board, will you?”

  This all explains why two weeks after our nocturnal visit to Salvador’s hidden harbour, I could be found back aboard the Emperor, cruising just off shore from the city. Not a ship had put out from the port in all that time. While a couple of sails had been sighted sailing down the coast, as soon as they saw us they put about again and disappeared. Cochrane was not going to abandon his station to pursue them, but on a couple of evenings he crowded on sail and made a feint towards the estuary entrance at dusk. He was sure that word of his approach would quickly spread nine miles up river, where guards would have a sleepless night expecting his arrival. But we sheered off as soon as it was completely dark and returned to our normal patrol.

  In fact, the only shots fired that entire time came from my marines, who were continuing their musket drills. With the prospect of watching the Portuguese fleet burn, more than thirty of them had volunteered. I had selected those that I thought would be handiest in a fight and left the rest under the command of Moreira. In my party I had chosen Mallee and the tall marine who had fought for me before. As well as muskets, I now gave them cutlasses so that they could get used to the weight and the curve of the weapon. I had drilled them hard over the two weeks, though not through any sense of duty, you understand. I was just very conscious that these men were likely to be between me and the enemy when we went into the harbour. God only knew what we would be up against, so I needed them to put up a good show, to at least buy me time to escape if we were overwhelmed.