Betrayal

Chapter 8

General Beresford raised his glass. ‘Gentlemen, do join me if you will. To audacity and its just rewards!’

The toast was noisily acclaimed and bibulous shouts rose above the hubbub from the assembled officers. ‘Stand up! A speech!’

At the other end of the hastily improvised table, Popham took his cue and rose to a storm of applause. ‘Gentlemen – my fellow warriors! I can confidently say that in the long history of our nation there are few deeds of military daring that can stand with what we have accomplished so rapidly and so efficiently.’

He paused to let the exuberant shouts of agreement subside. ‘We have achieved nothing less than the taking of Buenos Aires in a lightning thrust that has sent the Spanish viceroy fleeing and which has turned over this great city to His Majesty’s protection. A city, which I may remind you, of some forty thousand – and if you count the province of which it is the capital as a whole, then some six million, more than the entire people of England!

‘It is at the end of the silver trail from the Potosi mines, and has a prodigious population hungering for the products of English mills, ready to pay for them with the bounty of this immense region.’

A hush descended as the enormity of the achievement sank in. Kydd, flushed with wine, could only shake his head in wonder at the whole thing. Where was history leading now? What lay in their future?

Popham continued, in full flow, ‘And let me speak plain – this is our doing, and ours alone. Sixteen hundred to achieve what takes Napoleon two hundred thousand! And with Britain an impossible seven and a half thousand nautical miles distant, there’s been none to help in the planning, the support, the execution. We’ve seized the moment and been proved right. All we have to do now is stay where we are, keeping our position secure for another few weeks while we await the reinforcements, and then return to our loved ones, victorious and feted by a grateful nation.’

There was an ovation, but now strangely restrained, as if each man was struck in awe of the occasion – or troubled by their sudden elevation from puny expedition to masters of the land.

Beresford’s face had turned sober and grave and Kydd felt for him, the lieutenant governor of a piece of empire that no one knew existed and without a single order or authority to stand behind any of his decrees.

In the morning the wonder of their achievement was still with Kydd, but there was work to do. He was found an office on the upper floor of the fort, small but well situated near the steps that led down to the main floor and, importantly, up to the roof, for he had plans to erect a small signal mast there.

Outside at ten there was much saluting and crashing of arms as a deputation arrived. Kydd peered down from his window and saw a religious procession wending its way towards the high-arched entrance below. He was able to keep to his office while Beresford dealt with them but later there was no escaping the cabildo, the governing council of the city. These were dignified Spaniards of another age, richly dressed in ruffled shirts and elaborately groomed, rigid with formality and barely concealed hostility.

They filed into the biggest room Beresford could find, one that his new interpreter revealed was the real audiencia where the viceroy would receive his petitioners.

The harassed general listened courteously to their long-winded address, and when it became clear they wanted assurances on the future, he patiently outlined a programme of peace, the upholding of local authority and, above all, a new era of libre comercio – the blessings of free trade. This caused the first stirring among them, and Beresford went on to affirm the undoubted advantages and profit to be gained from their city being flung open to commerce with the rest of the world.

For some reason it caused mutters and frowns. A little baffled, Beresford asked the port captain to set out some of the working details for them.

Kydd picked up on his request: these men wanted to know how the system was to be run, whether it would be truly open or an elaborate front behind which arrangements were to be made.

It was not so difficult to explain for he had seen that the methods that had proved so successful in Cape Town could be applied here: the waterfront, with its freely accessible warehousing inward and outward – this, of course, with the necessary side advantage that all was visible to his officials, no enemy contraband possible – and duties a mere pittance, but at the same time rigidly enforced to cover harbour maintenance, with no other charges incurred in order to be cleared for the open sea. A recipe for commercial success if ever there was one.

There was grudging acknowledgement and they left among a flurry of stiff bowing.

‘A sour lot,’ Beresford ruminated, ‘but they’ll get over it in time.’

Towards evening there was a much more agreeable prospect. Instead of army campaign beds in the fort, the officers were to be billeted close by. ‘You’re with a Senor Rodriguez,’ Kydd was informed by the adjutant, ‘a merchant of means, who speaks English.’

The man was waiting for him on the steps of a very fine stone house in the grand San Benito Street. ‘Ah, Capitan Keed. You are expected, sir. Do enter – your baggage, it follows?’

The house had a balcony with ornate lattice-work; inside, Kydd noted the heavy, dark furniture and curious rugs of some kind of animal skin. ‘This is my wife, Dona Corazon.’ A petite, dark-eyed woman in silk with a profusion of lace and long black hair curtsied shyly to Kydd. Accompanied by an Indian maid in formal attire, she showed him to his room and then led him back to the sitting room.

‘Jerez?’ enquired his host.

‘Er, yes, thank you, sir.’ Kydd guessed that he had been offered sherry.

‘We favour manzanillas from around the port of Sanlucar de Barrameda. Would you . . . ?’

Kydd picked up on the casual name-dropping, realised that any wine from far-off Spain would cost a great deal and therefore allowed himself well impressed. When it arrived he was surprised to discover it had a light and fresh yet almost saline quality. He would surprise Renzi with it one day.

‘Most acceptable, Mr Rodriguez,’ he said warmly.

After a short interval, dinner was declared, Rodriguez apologetic that evening meals were much lighter than at midday; tonight it would be cabrito.

As the roast kid was expertly carved by his host and a platter of papas al horno, golden potatoes, arrived, Kydd felt at a loss: how could he make conversation with a man whose country his own had so recently conquered? But on the other hand, he realised, he would not have been taken in to lodge unless there were certain sympathies.

‘How goes your business, sir?’ he asked mildly.

‘As you would expect in the circumstances.’

‘We do intend to make Buenos Aires a free port.’

‘Thees we hear.’ Oddly there was no gushing enthusiasm.

‘And you will take advantage of it?’ Kydd encouraged.

‘Possibly.’

Baffled, Kydd decided to leave it for the moment.

‘Do you find Buenos Aires very different from Spain?’ he ventured shortly, tucking into the delicious dessert, dulce de leche, that Rodriguez had described as ‘milk jam’.

‘I was born here, as my father and his father before. A criollo, I am he.’ He added, ‘My advice, Capitan, the people here are not as in England, one race, one speaking. There are so many . . .’

By the end of the evening Kydd had the picture.

The local born criollos were despised by the Spanish-born peninsulares, who dominated the upper reaches of society and government, and in return were restive under a rule that gave them little power even though they were the economic driving force. Then there were the arribenos, those born in the vast interior with little understanding of the world outside, and Indians, both native and of mixed race, together with a bewildering spectrum of others. There were slaves, country gauchos, peons and any number of foreigners who had decided to make this their home.

And cutting across all was a divide: on one side the loyalists, who stood with Spain and the old ways, and on the other the patriots, who strove to free themselves to achieve independence.

‘And will they succeed, do you think?’ Kydd asked carefully.

‘Only a little, a very little, and the city will explode. Then – God help us all!’ Rodriguez said fervently.

Over the next few days the city settled to a strained quiet. Beresford’s proclamations were received without murmur, the first a restating that the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church would remain unchallenged and untouched, closely followed by a state opening of the cabildo and the installing of the previous alcalde de primer voto to officiate from his same chair.

Bull-fighting at the Retiro would continue; currency reform and the judiciary could wait. The most vital matter was the opening of the port to free trade. Kydd found his time taken up with explaining over and over that this was no Byzantine ploy to entrap traders into incurring punitive fees later, but when a few nervous shippers began loading and sailing others started to come forward.

Passing vessels with no knowledge that the port had changed hands were agreeably surprised to be welcomed in, and from the roof of the fort Kydd could take satisfaction in looking out at a fair number of sails moored in the River Plate, goods being lightered to and fro, and the sight, unique in his experience of a major port, of the strange high-wheeled carts wending their way out across the mud-flats to the flat boats.

Renzi, his curiosity satisfied, preferred to stay with the ship, no doubt in a fever of creativity with his novel, but from time to time various L’Aurores were sent as relief.

Kydd was in a conference when a subaltern of the light dragoons galloped into the square and demanded to be taken instantly to General Beresford.

‘Sir!’ the young man declared, as he was shown into the room. ‘Captain Arbuthnot is in need of escort.’

‘Why so?’

‘Sir, on account we caught up with the viceroy’s treasure, and having relieved ’em of it the captain’s on his way back. He’s now encumbered with fourteen mule-carts of bullion.’

The meeting broke up in a buzz of astonishment. Beresford snapped orders detaching part of the garrison, then growled, ‘And now we’ll have every gold-crazy lunatic in Buenos Aires about our ears until we’re rid of it.’

It made an incredible sight, winding into the square: an endless file of carts accompanied on each side by troops of soldiers. A gathering crowd was held at bay while the treasure was transferred into the fort’s strong-room.

In the evening word came through: a first count had the amount in the sum of an incredible half-million pieces of eight, as well as gold and silver bars, more than a score boxes of doubloons and at least a hundred pouches of coins, three thousand clinking in each.

Together with what had also been discovered hidden in the city treasury they were now in possession of considerably more than a million Spanish dollars. The dragoons, royally entertained that evening, told of how Viceroy Sobramonte, disbelieving that the British would chase him so far into the interior, had panicked. Dropping everything, he had fled towards distant Cordoba, leaving his party to throw the treasure down wells. It had been a tense day or two in the recovery, for roving bands had come down to dispute it, but discipline and haste had won the day.

Needing to report, Kydd went to see Popham in his flagship off Maldonado.

‘A prime catch,’ the commodore purred, ‘as will warm the cockles of every man in the fleet.’

‘If it’s not deemed Droits of the Crown,’ Kydd said, uneasy at what others might see as naked plunder.

‘It won’t be.’

‘We did main well in the article of guns, Dasher. Eighty-six pieces of artillery and five hundred-odd barrels of powder found in the arsenal, not to mention some hundred or so stand of muskets.’

‘Very good indeed. I would like to think that at last things are going our way.’

He extracted a sheet from out of a neat stack of papers before him. ‘Do look at this, old fellow, and tell me your opinion.’

Kydd read:

To the Mayor and Corporation of Manchester, . . . I consider it a duty to the commercial interest of Great Britain . . . that the conquest of this place opens an extensive channel for your manufactures . . . Hitherto, the trade of this country has been cramped beyond belief, and the manufactures could only find their way to this rich province by neutral bottoms and contraband intrigues . . . from this moment its trade will be thrown open . . .

‘If that doesn’t set them in a tizzy of speculation as to who’s to be here first, then I’m a Dutchman!’ Popham added.

Kydd was impressed: it was a direct call to the northern industries that a market of immense size was suddenly open to them with premium prices going to the first to satisfy the hunger for manufactured goods. The River Plate should very soon be thronged with enterprising merchantmen.

‘And our reinforcements?’ It was critical that these were not delayed for it would not be long before the Spanish in the north heard about the catastrophe and, stretched as the British were, there could be only one result.

‘In St Helena I sent dispatches to England with our intentions, and now by fast frigate I shall tell them of our victory against the odds. This news will be accompanied by freight to the value of a million silver dollars to delight the crowd. Do you not think then that the Admiralty would wish to safeguard the nation’s hope?’

Kydd came to the alert instantly. Any frigate captain fortunate enough to return with news of a famous victory and treasure to prove it would be the talk of the hour, not to mention the considerable fee he would earn by right for carrying specie. ‘Er, have you given thought to who-’

‘Oh, well, it will have to depart very soon, of course,’ Popham said airily. ‘I’ve dispatches to complete and General Beresford pleads for much in the way of army stores and supplies – I’d think Narcissus would answer, she being new-victualled for sea.’

Kydd kept his thoughts to himself: was Popham taking the opportunity to rid himself of Donnelly, a senior captain and outspoken critic of his handling of the expedition?

‘And, of course, as a heavy frigate she’s of limited value in these shoal waters,’ Popham finished.

Smiling briefly, he enquired, ‘So. How is our port captain taking to his responsibilities? Does all march well on the waterfront?’

‘No, sir.’ His adjutant was polite but firm and Beresford had no choice but to hear him out. ‘Since your proclamation went out six days ago, there have been but sixty-five citizens sworn.’

‘So few?’ the general said incredulously.

‘Sir.’

This was perplexing: of the tens of thousands of inhabitants only a tiny handful had come to pledge allegiance to the Crown. Did this suggest that the people had no sense of relief at having thrown off the yoke of Spanish rule, or had it deeper significance to do with the King of Great Britain also being Defender of the Faith but not the old one?

‘Should we perhaps follow it up with some form of coercion, loss of citizen’s rights, that sort of thing, do you think?’

The officer spoke carefully: ‘Sir, your words to the deputation of patricios were, I’m persuaded, not best calculated to settle their fears. They asked for an undertaking that we would defend them against a Spanish counter-attack and you-’

‘I know what I said, damn it! They wanted me to guarantee their security against all and every motion of the enemy. This is militarily impossible and I cannot sacrifice my honour to a false promise, sir.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the officer said patiently. ‘But it were better you didn’t say so in so many words. The implication now is that, if it suits us tactically to withdraw from the city before the Spanish return in force, they will be subject to reprisal for collaborating with us, and your Spaniard is well known to be cruel in vengeance.’

‘I’m not pledging my word to an absurdity. Besides, any undertaking assumed by the Crown is a grave responsibility, which is always to be taken seriously. I cannot possibly bind any future military commander to such terms.’

‘I understand, sir.’

‘Now, we must buckle down to the matter in hand. Supplies. We’re settled in and need to find our own forage instead of relying on the ships. This is always a necessary business and I want it in hand as soon as possible. Who knows what the future might bring, hey?’

‘Yes, sir. To another matter, we have our fifteenth desertion reported by Colonel Pack and-’

‘More?’

‘It does seem to be the same class of man, sir. Irish – they find the same religion, and opportunities here not to be countenanced in Ireland, and we suspect they’re being lured away by the Spanish women.’

‘Deserters will meet the same penalty as they would on home station. Harder – this is in the face of the enemy.’

‘Enemy, sir?’ the officer asked innocently.