‘Watch my back,’ he told Stirk. With a bent wire he prised open the door lock and stepped inside, ready for anything.
Serrano was there, alone, sitting moodily at a table with a single candle. He looked up in fright when Renzi appeared. ‘Santa Madre de Dios! How you find me?’
Renzi remained silent.
‘You assassinate me?’
‘That depends,’ Renzi said silkily, taking a seat opposite, his eyes drilling remorselessly into Serrano’s skull.
The artist looked up obstinately. His eyes were red. ‘It make no difference, not now …’
‘Oh? Tell me.’
Slowly it came out. Liniers was now revealed as a royalist; he had gone along with the revolutionary fervour but had cunningly diverted it into a movement to oust the British first. He had been joined by los patriotas to whom he’d given deliberately minor roles in the reconquista and, now in control, he had hardened his grip with a view to handing the whole back to the Spanish, with himself high in government.
That it was not yet so was mainly because the viceroy, Sobremonte, was still far inland where he had fled, but the fact remained that Don Baltasar and the Sociedad Patriotica were therefore neatly sidelined and destined to be once more hunted rebels in the resumed administration – they had been betrayed and the clock was being wound back.
‘Mr Renzi, I didn’t mean that Captain Keed is tricked. When they said I had to, I thought …’
Renzi let it hang, then leaned across and demanded, ‘I want to know what happened to him – and I want details.’
Serrano looked surprised. ‘Why, he were caught! His ship go on the mud.’
‘So he’s a prisoner!’ Relief washed over him in a flood.
‘Why, no. He sign parole so he in lodging but not the old. They are liking the English too much so he was move to another.’
‘Where?’
‘I say the captain is a good man, not many as him. I’m apologise for what I do, an’ ashamed for my country.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Serrano hung his head as he explained. The terms gained by Beresford were good: that in return for laying down their arms, there would be an immediate evacuation of the British, each man to undertake not to serve against the Spanish until the formalities of an exchange were completed, their passage back to England to be funded by the Spanish government.
Yet even with the terms ratified in writing it quickly became clear that the Spanish had no intention whatsoever of abiding by them. Carts had been rounded up and the brave soldiers were beginning to be marched away, far up-country. They would be followed by the officers. There would be no release.
The ultimate betrayal.
‘We don’t get t’ him, an’ main quick, he’s a gone goose! Where’s he at, y’ bugger?’ Renzi hadn’t noticed Stirk slip in but, given the circumstances, he couldn’t have phrased it better himself.
‘He’s not far. You write to say come, he see your writing an’ he come. I send a boy to bring him.’
On parole an officer was released on his word of honour to return and therefore had limited freedom to move about.
Prudently, Serrano disappeared, and twenty minutes later Kydd walked suspiciously into the room.
‘Hail, fellow – and well met!’ Renzi cried, moved beyond words to see his friend once more.
But instead of an effusive greeting Kydd said abruptly, ‘You, too, are taken, Nicholas – how’s this?’
‘Not at all, dear chap. We’re here to take you back.’
Kydd held his breath, then let it out slowly. ‘You’re on the loose in a captured city – I won’t ask how, but it won’t answer.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I can’t go back, and you know why. You and Stirk have risked it for nothing.’
‘You mean you’ve given parole.’
‘Indeed, as has General Beresford and we all. I would have thought it reasonable, given we’re to be shortly exchanged, according to the terms o’ capitulation.’
‘There’s a boat from L’Aurore lying off, waiting for us. We must move fast.’
‘You didn’t hear me. My parole is my word given, which on my honour will never be broken. Can you not see this? And how damn cruel it is, you tempting me like this.’
Renzi swallowed his irritation. ‘Dear fellow, I have to tell you the Spanish have broken the surrender terms and are marching all British away up-country as prisoners. Parole is meaningless in the face of such treachery.’
‘Where did you hear that? I can’t believe General Liniers to be so lost to honour he’d risk the world’s condemning. It’s nonsense … or is it that you’re spinning me a stretcher as will make me break my parole?’ he demanded, incredulous.
‘Not at all, dear friend. I hesitate to hurry you, but urgency dictates-’
‘No! They’ll only be moving the men to better quarters, I’d think. No, Nicholas, I don’t believe a word of what you’re saying. I’m duty-bound to stay, and that’s an end to it.’
The stalemate was suddenly broken when the bedroom door opened and Serrano came in, pale-faced but resolute.
In open astonishment Kydd looked first to Renzi and then to Serrano. His face darkened. ‘This treacherous dog – what’s he doing here?’
Serrano replied, in a quaver, ‘Captain Keed, sir! Hear me. He tell it right. They are sending the British soldiers off. I here because I, too, am betrayed.’
Seeing Kydd swell with growing anger, he quickly went on, ‘Why am I here? Is easy for me not to come, but I come. To tell you – is the truth! The terms are broken by General Liniers. Your soldiers are taken away. Soon you!’
Kydd hesitated. ‘To break parole is a hard thing,’ he muttered. ‘Nicholas, what do you-’
‘The abrogation of a treaty by one sovereign nation renders it a nullity for both,’ Renzi said firmly. ‘I cannot see how an agreement of parole is in any wise different.’
‘Then …’
‘Then perhaps we should exercise a modicum of celerity in our departure?’
Kydd straightened. ‘My word of parole is withdrawn. As of this moment.’
‘Quite so,’ Renzi said, with relief. ‘Shall we now-’
‘Not yet. Understand I’m not abandoning the others.’
He paused, then ordered crisply, ‘This room is now our centre of operations. All British officers are to be assembled here for escape, which will be done by twos.’
‘There’s only the gig – it can only take, say, five at a time and-’
‘I’m not leaving ’em, Nicholas. Now, we have to pass the word to muster here. Um, Mr Serrano, how’s this to be done, do you think?’
Clinton, billeted nearby, was the first to arrive, blinking at the sudden turn of events.
They waited in rising tension for the others, but then Serrano burst in, panting. ‘Not good! The officers, they being taken – Gen’ral Beresford argue wi’ Liniers. Now they come looking for you, Captain.’
They had to get away instantly but it was madness to think that two English officers in uniform could get through. Kydd had a plan.
‘Nicholas – you’re taking us somewhere, Stirk follows as servant.’ This would give them a chance on the main streets, where parole would allow them, a not uncommon sight, but closer to the fort and the foreshore it would be a different matter.
‘Ready?’ Kydd then turned to Serrano. ‘I thank ’ee for what you’ve done tonight – but if ever you run athwart my hawse again, I’ll screw your neck, so help me God.’
The streets of Buenos Aires were still in festive array when they moved out, Renzi affecting to ignore the taunts and jibes and taking refuge in a dignified silence. It seemed to work and they made good progress but he feared it couldn’t last, not if they were out looking for Kydd. They were four; such a number was too many to overlook. It was time to make for the back-streets and the waterfront. Their little boat – so near yet so far.
As they came closer to the water the danger multiplied for t
hey had no excuse to be there. The fort loomed; the sentries limned in the diffuse moonlight.
Renzi came to a sudden stop. ‘We’ve a problem,’ he whispered, and pointed ahead to the mole. It was guarded. ‘The boat is beyond, just around the point, but how the devil do we get past?’ There was no slipping underneath the massive compacted stone structure.
Then Clinton had an idea, a long shot, but there was no going back. ‘I’ll trouble you for your coat, Mr Kydd.’ He removed his own and explained, ‘It’s fever – smallpox. You and Stirk are carrying me, a dead body, and Mr Renzi will chant the offices!’
The coats were turned inside out and arranged over ‘the body’ and they set off in the dim light.
With Renzi in the lead making the sign of the cross and mumbling away they approached the sentries who lapsed into a suspicious silence, unslinging their muskets.
‘?Paso, paso – la viruela!’ Renzi wailed mournfully, and resumed his reciting.
There were exclamations of alarm and the soldiers drew back, watching fearfully as they passed. It wasn’t until they had gone around the point that the spell was broken. One of the sentries woke up to the fact that the burial ground was in another direction and urgent shouts broke the night stillness.
‘Quickly – we need to get the boat in the water!’ Renzi urged, looking about with Stirk in the dimness.
Clinton threw off the coats and got to his feet, waiting tensely with Kydd.
‘Can’t find the damned thing!’ Renzi blurted, breathless and angry.
‘It ain’t here – ’cos the owner’s taken ’un back!’ Stirk spat.
More shouts came and figures started to run towards them.
‘Find another bloody boat!’ Kydd demanded – but there was none.
There was only one thing they could do. ‘Into the water!’ Renzi urged and hurled himself in, splashing noisily out as fast as he could. The others followed, stumbling in the mud, the cold of the sea shocking as they sloshed their way further out.
A musket shot came, then another, but the wild firing into the darkness was no real danger.
The little group moved out deeper and deeper. The line of freezing cold rose remorselessly up their bodies, bringing uncontrollable shuddering and a draining of life-warmth until their minds could hold only the desperate need to press on and on – and then, with water up to their necks, out in the night there was an anxious low call.
‘Toby? Mr Renzi?’
Chapter 16
The outlines of a boat emerged from the early morning pearly mist. Two challenges rang out simultaneously from the lookouts in L’Aurore.
The triumphant reply roared back, ‘L’Aurore!’ indicating that this was no less than the anointed captain of their ship.
It brought every man and boy of the ship’s company on deck in a gleeful rush, with a disbelieving Gilbey. Then the boatswain importantly took position at the ship’s side with his silver call.
The gig hooked on and Kydd mounted the steps gravely, his dignity respected even when coming aboard in a filthy uniform without cocked hat or shoes. The side-party, however, was all grins: order had returned to their universe.
‘Pleased to be back, Mr Gilbey,’ Kydd replied, to the mumbled welcome. ‘Hands to unmoor ship, if you please.’
He acknowledged warm greetings from Curzon and Bowden and quickly left the deck for that unimaginably desirable heaven: his quarters. He opened the door to see Tysoe advancing with soap and towels, a fresh uniform on the side dresser.
Kydd stood for a moment with misted eyes, then croaked, ‘Not now, Tysoe – there’s something I have t’ do first.’ And in front of his appalled valet he reverently knelt down and kissed the deck.
Later, after they had got under way, there was time for breakfast with his officers in the gunroom. It was stout but meagre ship’s fare and he recalled, as if in a bad dream, that his last meal had been rancid blood sausage.
He heard of their interminable idleness at anchor, provisions and stores ransacked to be sent ashore, leaving them on woefully short rations and above all, as matters worsened, the complete absence of news.
He heard, too, how Clinton had sent Dodd away with false dispatches and was touched to find that the sergeant had loyally carried back his precious sword as well.
But there were so many faces missing from L’Aurore, good men who had volunteered for the Royal Blues and were now somewhere out in the bleak country ranges of South America. But what could he do for them?
Maldonado was raised a day later, the fleet left at just two sixty-fours and some transports in a loose moor. With the frigate Leda away, and the small brig-sloop Encounter a distant sail, it was no real deterrent if the Spanish Navy ever returned from the north.
Kydd forced the thought away – it was hardly Popham’s fault that the reinforcements had not arrived to swell the numbers, but after his treatment the last time they had spoken he found it difficult to summon a warm sympathy for the commodore.
At the flagship he was shown to the great cabin by the first lieutenant. Popham was sitting at a table by the window and raised his head at Kydd’s entrance. ‘I’d thought you to be taken at the fall of the city,’ he said distantly.
‘As I was, Dasher, but with the help of shipmates I got away.’ Kydd was shocked to see the effect of the last few weeks on the man: features ravaged by care, bloodshot eyes and a pall of weariness about his movements.
Popham stared for a long time out of Diadem’s stern window at the hurry of grey sea and the distant bleak coast. ‘I’m … sorry for what I said to you before, Kydd,’ he said, so softly that it was difficult to catch. ‘It was churlish of me. I can only plead an extremity of distraction.’
With a surge of feeling, Kydd came back, ‘It was a near enough thing, I’m thinking, and if it wasn’t for those blaggardly reinforcements …’
‘Yes, quite,’ Popham said bitterly. ‘I’ve pleaded and begged but still none.’
He pulled himself together visibly, and enquired, ‘We’re all on short commons as you’ve no doubt noticed – what’s the state of L’Aurore?’
‘In want of water, dry provisions to three weeks, but the barky in good fettle. And I suppose it must be said that, with more than a few in Spanish hands, we’ll last the longer.’ He paused then continued in a low voice, ‘I feel it hard, Dasher, that they’re still there while we sail away.’
‘Don’t be,’ Popham said, with something like his old fire. ‘I’m staying here. When those damned reinforcements finally come we’ll be in a position to retake Buenos Aires and then, in course, they’ll be freed.’
‘We’re mounting a second invasion?’
‘We are,’ Popham said shortly. ‘We’re on the spot, we’ve achieved so much with so few and, well, we know the way,’ he finished, his head drooping again.
Kydd was taken aback. The reinforcements might well be fewer in numbers than he supposed, and to go in again without overwhelming force would in any circumstances be a grave mistake.
‘Dasher, I’ve seen this Liniers. He’s stirred up the people with patriotism and high words and I’d wager they’d be much harder to beat this time.’
‘Do you take me for a poltroon? I’m not cutting and running! They’re for the most part an undisciplined rabble that will crumble before a determined thrust, take my word for it.’
‘We’ll still need to find many more ships and men than we can expect of the reinforcements, Dasher.’ Kydd paused. ‘Can we not make sure of it by calling for more from another station?’
Popham spoke slowly: ‘I’ve asked Governor Baird for more from Cape Town but St Helena won’t send another man.’
‘No, Dasher. I was thinking more of the Leeward Islands station. Ships-o’-the-line, troops, stores – all for us, if we can convince ’em of the value of rescuing this expedition.’
For a long moment Popham remained silent. Then he straightened painfully. ‘Umm. It is the nearest, I’ll grant you, but I’d hoped not to trouble them in matters c
oncerning this expedition.’
At his words, Kydd realised that he must have refrained from such a move before for one very compelling reason: the far more senior commander-in-chief there would promptly take control of the whole enterprise, its profits and laurels. But higher things were at stake now.
Popham gave a sad smile. ‘However, I believe you to be in the right of things, Thomas. It would make it sure – and that’s what counts. I shall pen a letter immediately. I don’t suppose you’d object to the voyage?’
Kydd threw off his coat and eased into his favourite chair by L’Aurore’s stern windows, accepting Tysoe’s proffered toddy.
His friend waited impatiently. ‘So, what is to be our fate, dear fellow?’
Kydd finished his drink, then replied, ‘To sail to the Leeward Islands station to beg for reinforcements. We’re to clap on all sail and spare none.’
Renzi beamed. ‘The Caribbean! A little tropical sunshine would be a capital restorative.’
He looked intently at his friend. ‘And I’m put in mind of some illustrious adventures in the past on that refulgent main. Do you remember our dear Seaflower cutter?’
For a long space Kydd gazed out of the window – and then, for the first time in many weeks, a smile spread.
Author’s Note
For readers wondering what happened next – well, the longed-for reinforcements arrived a few weeks after the surrender took place, not from England but from Baird at the Cape. However, they were too slight to effect more than the token capture of Maldonado.
Stung by public opinion, the government had in fact sent out reinforcements but they did not arrive until early the following year, and with them Popham’s replacement: he’d been summarily recalled to face court-martial for leaving his station.
The reinforcements were turned into an expedition for the retaking of Buenos Aires. This started well, with the capture of Montevideo, but Whitelocke, a remarkably incompetent political appointee, had been sent out to replace the able General Auchmuty.
The final assault on Buenos Aires was all but over when victory was turned into complete defeat by Whitelocke. Liniers then had the satisfaction of taking the sword of yet another British general. Terms this time were for a complete evacuation, including prisoners from the first incursion.
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