Pasha

CHAPTER 5

“THEY’RE OUT, SIR!” Curzon said urgently. The first lieutenant’s glass was on the opposite, northern, side of Bahia Cadiz.

L’Aurore was alone, deep in the bay. She had gone in on reconnaissance to steal past the sheltering peninsula of Isla de Leon and look direct into the inner harbour.

It was a very risky manoeuvre, usually done in boats.

Nelson had gone down in legend for joining his boats’ crews and in the brutal hacking to escape the swarming gunboats that always came out to contest such spying.

It rarely happened but there could be, as now, a combination favouring a ship to enter-nothing more than a light frigate, but no gunboats would dare approach her broadside.

Any variation in the weather could quickly spiral into disaster. It had to be a wind from the north: from the east, would be dead foul; from the west would embay and trap the intruder; and from the south would bring opposing frigates out from the port. And the timing of the tide was crucial: if the winds were slight an ingoing tide would set up an adverse current to the southeast while the ebb would see it press to the northwest.

It was an enterprise never encouraged by admirals as the sight of a helpless frigate being taken would shake morale considerably-quite apart from the loss of strength to the fleet-and at the same time greatly raise that of the enemy. Only the most daring of captains would even consider it, but Kydd believed an accurate and timely account of all the assets facing them was worth the risk.

“Wind’s turned fluky,” muttered the sailing master, eyeing the masthead vane. Without the steady north-northeasterly to rely on, they could find themselves perilously clawing their way out.

“A few more minutes only, Mr Kendall,” Kydd said, the big signal telescope steadied over a midshipman’s shoulder as he, like all the officers, took careful note of what they could see on the inside of the peninsula, the great port complex of Puerto Cadiz. It was not only numbers they were after-they counted above thirty ships of size-but their readiness for sea. Sail bent on to the yard was a sure sign that a sally to seaward was in contemplation.

Midshipmen Clinch and Willock, too, were eagerly recording the observations.

“I make it eighteen o’ the vermin,” Curzon rapped, his eyes on the gathering swarm at Rota, opposite. Each gunboat had a single cannon in the bows: taken together, enough fire-power to seriously challenge a frigate.

“They wouldn’t dare!” grunted Kydd. Dillon, at his side, faithfully noted down everything of consequence that was said, whether he understood it or not.

“We’ll be headed if’n the wind backs a point further, sir,” Kendall said, more strongly. The leading edge of every sail was now fluttering; if the wind got past the board-hard canvas it would instantly slap it flat aback and they’d be dead in the water or, worse, a dismasted hulk.

“Sir, I must protest!” he blurted. “We’re at the five-fathom line and I can’t answer should we have to stay about.”

“Very well. We shall wear ship. Now.”

“Sir, that’ll put us damned close to the Vista Hermosa forts,” Curzon spluttered.

He was ignored.

“Hands to stations to wear ship!”

Agility was all. If the treacherous winds backed further they would be in serious trouble.

The order was given. The men on the helm spun the wheel. Others raced down the deck with the lines that swung the big yards in time with their falling off the wind, and going about the long way to take up on the other tack-a manoeuvre that needed much more sea-room than tacking through the eye of the wind.

It brought them within range of the forts.

A heavy thudding began, like the far-off slamming of giant doors. These were big guns in stone emplacements-and they had been sighted in properly along their firing sector.

The tearing sound of shot overhead was nerve-shredding.

The shocking passage of an invisible ball across the quarterdeck left the officers staggering with the buffeting. Others in the salvo ended in great white plumes around them, some skipping into the distance.

“Rather good practice that, the brutes,” said Bowden, rubbing his deafened ears.

But they were now headed for the safety of the open sea and the next shots were wide.

“Ease her, no need to risk our sticks.”

They won into clear water and Kydd shaped course for the anchorage to note up his findings.

Before he could go below there was a signal. “Sir-Flag, our pennant.”

Was the captain of L’Aurore to be chastised for hazarding his ship?

“Heave to in her lee, away my barge.”

The admiral was not at the ship’s side to greet him and he followed the flag-lieutenant down to Collingwood’s day cabin.

He was deep in murmured discussion with his flag-captain and Kydd waited apprehensively, rehearsing his defence.

“Thank you, we’ll talk more about it later,” Collingwood told the officer, who left. He put the papers together slowly, his face careworn and lined.

“Sir Thomas, I would have you prepare your frigate for immediate service.”

“Aye aye, sir.” So it was nothing to do with his escapade.

“There’s a deal of trouble brewing in the eastern Med and I need you to undertake a mission of quite some importance.”

“Sir?”

“I’ve disquieting intelligence that suggests the Turks are not as neutrally inclined as they should be, given their position. They’ve been listening to some French agitators and seem ready to shift sides. Arbuthnot, our ambassador in the Sublime Porte-that’s what they call their Turkish court-seems to think it will come to a sorry situation imminently and he’s crying to be taken off.

“I don’t myself believe it will come to that, an evacuation, but he’s a privy councillor, in thick with Wellesley and similar, and I don’t want to be thought uncaring.

“You’re the swiftest sail I have, Kydd. I want you to carry my instructions to Admiral Louis in Malta to do what he can to seem helpful.”

Malta had memories for Kydd. It was here that he had taken up his first command, the lovely little sloop Teazer, and the midshipman who alone had been present at her commissioning was here on this very quarterdeck as his second lieutenant-Bowden.

There were the massive forts so well remembered, St Elmo, Fort Tigne, and then it was Grand Harbour and the anchorage, but he couldn’t delay: the situation was urgent.

They passed within, all due honours paid, but apart from a pair of sloops in Rinella, there was no squadron in port.

Kydd lost no time in taking boat for the Lascaris Steps: if he didn’t find the squadron soon, Collingwood’s urgent instructions could not be delivered.

Then he was hurrying over the familiar black basalt slabs of the Grand Master’s Palace and up the elliptical staircase to meet the governor.

Alexander Ball had been captain of his namesake Alexander before the great battle of the Nile, and his daring and dogged rescue of the dismasted Vanguard and Nelson, which Kydd had witnessed, had been a turning point of history. There was no question-if the fabled admiral had been lost at that point, there would have been no clash of fleets and Bonaparte would now be standing astride the world.

“Then how might I be of service, Sir Thomas?” Ball opened, clearly interested in what brought a dashing frigate to the more remote eastern Mediterranean.

“I’ve urgent instructions for Admiral Louis, sir,” Kydd said. “Do you have knowledge of his movements at all?”

“Pray do not alarm yourself, Captain. In this part of the world things seldom happen with any degree of rapidity. Have you any notion of what those instructions might contain?”

This was a senior naval officer and a civil governor who had every right to know what was happening. Kydd clutched to himself the gratifying knowledge that he was no longer a dutiful messenger carrying sealed dispatches. He was at a rank and respected enough to be a player in the wider drama, trusted with inside knowledge.

“Lord Collingwood was good enough to inform me, yes, sir. And they are …”

He briefly told of the worsening situation in the Turkish capital and the desperate plea of the ambassador to be taken off.

“I had no idea it had got to such a pass-but I can’t help you much to find Admiral Louis’s squadron. Let’s get out the charts and take a look at the rendezvous positions he’s used in the last few months.”

It was an impossibly large area to cover: from Egypt in the south to the Aegean in the north, the ancient sea held so much of significance and threat that no single place thrust itself out over the others.

“If he’s got wind of how things are deteriorating, he may wish to place himself athwart the only seaway to Constantinople. This is the strait of the Dardanelles and is damned narrow and chancy navigating. The rendezvous for that is here, at the island of Tenedos, just south of the entrance. I’d start there, if I were you.”

Standing south to avoid a blustering gregale, L’Aurore rounded Greece and headed for the northern Aegean.

It was sailing of the kind that Kydd disliked most: uncertainty, aimless searching, yet all to be done at breakneck speed with no promise of a happy ending. From daybreak to darkness, doubled lookouts, relieved every half-hour, and the same intensely fatiguing duty at night, straining for lights in the blackness.

They reached the Dardanelles and the island of Tenedos. Bare, straggling and all of five miles across, it lay just off the coast of Anatolia, providing a useful haven.

But it was empty of anything that flew a British flag.

Kydd brought his ship to anchor and retired to his cabin, tired and dismayed. A crisis was brewing and the ambassador thought it so bad he was apparently abandoning his post. The longer the delay, the worse things would get, and only L’Aurore’s precious instructions would start in train a powerful squadron to the rescue.

He had to find Louis! L’Aurore was in the far north of the Aegean. If they were not here, by definition the squadron was in the south. Or in the west off the Morea, Greece. Or even, damn it all, southwest off north Africa. He could go mad just thinking of the alternatives.

One of which was-do nothing. Stay at anchor until the squadron came upon them on its constant ranging around the eastern regions.

His nature shied from inactivity as a course of action, but what else could he do?

He threw down his pencilled notes in frustration and went on deck.

He gazed on Turkish Anatolia opposite-a dry, scrubby and nondescript coastline, looking as old as time. A light breeze blew from the land, darkling the sea in delicate feather-like fans.

He was not the only one staring at the shore: Dillon stood over the two new midshipmen, one of whom had a small telescope up.

Oh, to be as carefree as those two! Presumably this would not be their view …

On impulse he drew nearer.

Dillon was treating his duties as schoolmaster seriously. He had taken to carrying a rattan cane borrowed from the boatswain’s mate and frowning at his charges on all possible occasions, which had raised a smile from more than one onlooker.

Kydd had let him loose on harmless paperwork after a week’s apprenticeship under the ship’s clerk, Goffin, and he had proved effortlessly able, even suggesting a novel system of filing. But it would inevitably be some time before he could be trusted with confidences.

For all that, the young man was keen and hadn’t been dismayed by his small taste of action. Was he seeing the far parts of the world that he’d yearned for?

“Now mark this, Mr Willock,” Dillon said, in gruff tones. “If I inform you that the river you see to the left is the Scamander, what does this tell you?”

Kydd gave a small smile: Dillon must have sighted the ship’s charts to know that.

“Oh, it’s a long one?” one boy hazarded.

Even in the small weeks they had been at sea, the pair had bloomed, due in most part to his inspired idea to have that hardened old reprobate but first-class seaman Doud on hand as their “sea-daddy” just as, so long ago, the seamed old Bowyer had taken him under his wing.

Doud had found them both in his watch and was at first disdainful and short, but their childish desire to deserve well of L’Aurore had melted him, and now there was none on the gun-deck who would dare make sport of his lads.

To watch him teach the youngsters fine sennit or an intricately worked west-country whipping would have softened the hardest heart. His big, blunt seaman’s fingers would carefully tease the twine and rope, and the result would always be a perfection of neatness that challenged their little fingers. He would softly encourage, allow them to make their mistakes and never let impatience show.

The result had been a rising confidence, a willingness to try more and a disarming glee at what they had accomplished, which was on occasion brought before their captain for grave praise.

Before long he would allow Doud to get them aloft.

“No, no, Mr Willock,” the schoolmaster said reprovingly. He pointed the cane sternly at the bare hillocks. “Regard! That … is the Troy of Helen and Paris, Achilles and Hector, is it not?”

“It is?”

Curzon turning to listen, raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Ignoring him, Dillon glared at the hapless boy. “Scoundrel! You have not attended to your histories. In the dog-watch you’ll write out for me two hundred times:

“Oh, sir! Do I have to?”

“Which being meanly translated from the Homer is, ‘I carry two sorts of destiny towards the day of my death.’ You may choose which tongue it is you inscribe.”

With new-found respect Curzon came over, too.

“And now, Mr Clinch. You have the advantage, you know where we are. Pray tell us, then, what of this island, that we anchor in its shelter?”

“Oh, well, it has a temple of sacrifices and similar?” the lad said hopefully.

“For not knowing that this is the very island behind which the Greeks hid their ships while the Trojans hauled their wooden horse inside the city, you are under the same penalty, sir.”

Kydd grinned. “I do believe we’re not to be spared an education even as Mr Renzi has left us, Mr Curzon.”

In much improved humour he returned to his dilemma-and quite suddenly had the answer. Just as the Greeks had cut through an insoluble stalemate at Troy with a bold stroke, so would he.

“Ask Mr Kendall to step down,” he said, and put his thoughts in order.

“Sir?”

“We’ve an urgent situation as won’t allow us to wait in idleness for Admiral Louis to join us. I’ve a mind to do something about it.”

“Send out boats, sir?”

“Not at all. I intend that L’Aurore shall pierce the Dardanelles and go to the rescue of the ambassador directly on our own.”

“To Constantinople?” The master tried to hide his anxieties. “We’ve nary a chart as takes us past the Sigeum, and I’ve heard the currents inside are a sore trial. And as well-”

“We find a pilot.”

“Sir?” Pilots had legal obligations, duties of care, and in England were closely examined for competency by Trinity House. If there was an equivalent here, where the devil … ?

“Mr Curzon will take a boat away and find one who knows his Dardanelles in the first town of size he comes to.”

The first lieutenant was hesitant. “If the capital is in an uproar then what’ll we meet? No one who’s about to cross the grand sultan by conning a British man-o’-war up the strait.”

“Constantinople is far away and they owe it nothing but taxes. You’ll offer honest silver, and I’d find it singular should any in these parts refuse coin for a simple passage up the strait.”

“Not wishing to cry coward, Sir Thomas, but there’s one objection I feel I do have to voice.”

“And what’s that, pray?”

“I’ve not a word of the Turkish. How I’m to persuade some old fellow to our way of thinking without the lingo, I’m vexed to know, sir.”

“Why, you’ve no need to. On board we happen to have a scholar of modern languages who I’m sure would bear you a hand.”

Dillon was more than happy to take on the role.

“Do I have to wear a cutlass?” he asked, and looked disappointed when it was explained that the entire boat’s crew would be going without weapons to forestall any accusation by the Turks of an armed incursion.

“You’ve twenty-four hours,” Kydd told Curzon genially. “Then we’ll come and look for you.”

They were back before nightfall with not one but two gentlemen, both sporting an elaborate turban and gown to the clear satisfaction of L’Aurore’s crew.

“What’s this, then, Mr Curzon?”

“My idea, sir,” he answered smugly. “We have one in the bows, one on the quarterdeck. If they’re in agreement on a helm order, we do it. If not, we can be sure one’s up to trickery.”

“Well done, Mr Curzon. And you too, Mr Dillon. So you’ve studied the Turkish?”

“Not really, sir. That’s a heathen tongue, by origin from Tamerlane and his ilk of Central Asia, who overran these lands not so many centuries ago.”

“Then how … ?”

“All in these parts know a species of barbarous Greek, which answered, Sir Thomas.”

“Good work! Then we’ll not waste time any further. Hands to unmoor ship!”

Kydd clutched to himself the thought that should get them through: his brazen entry would catch any hostile elements by surprise. Their speed would ensure they were well past before orders could arrive from Constantinople to stop them.

But no captain ever relished putting his ship voluntarily into restricted waters and the Dardanelles was narrow and confined.

A cleft of sea pointing to the northeast, it ran for forty miles or so of tight navigation, at times with opposite shores being less than a mile apart, then opened up into the internal Sea of Marmora, which narrowed again to the Bosporus at Constantinople. Beyond that were the Black Sea and Russia.

It meant that any wind within three points either side of northeast would be dead foul-if this present northwesterly held, they were fair for the ancient city but if it changed, while they were deep within the passage, it would be a serious matter. Kydd’s experience and sea sense told him that the flood of fresh water from the Black Sea mixing with the salt water would create complex and baffling currents, which, if strong, could prevail against anything from sails in a light breeze.

The biggest unknown was the Turkish fleet.

It consisted of ships-of-the-line, frigates and many smaller types, any or all of which Kydd could find arrayed across his path.

L’Aurore got under way for the entrance, slipping within two headlands not more than a couple of miles apart.

The coast on the left was steep and forbidding, to the right more even and low, and when they closed in on both sides, here and there a pale-walled fortress could be made out.

But wearing the colours of an ally they were not troubled and they made good time through the narrow waterway until they reached the Sea of Marmora, an open stretch of water.

After an easy overnight sail a grey coastline appeared with the morning-the fabled Constantinople, a city of the Byzantines but now the capital of the great Ottoman sultan, Selim III, with his harem and all the mystery of an Oriental court.

Kydd was well aware that he was taking his ship into a situation with not the slightest knowledge of what was going on. Should he proceed closed up at the guns in readiness or would that be construed a provocative act? Or should he play the part of a peaceable visitor and be defenceless?

His “pilots” had not eased his mind with their insistence that both be dropped at one of the islands before Constantinople, and as the coast firmed, his anxiety grew.

Dismayingly, there was no offshore multitude of merchant shipping in this chief port between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Had they fled an impending calamity?

Nearer still the city took shape: sea-walls miles long were surmounted by hills thronged with white buildings, domes and lofty minarets, then the unmistakable form of the beautiful Hagia Sophia at the end of a peninsula to the left.

A mile-wide channel, the famed Bosporus leading to Russia, separated the coast of Asia to the right from Europe to the left.

Palaces and stately buildings amid parks and groves occupied most of the end of the peninsula and, with another noble grouping further along, made for one of the most dramatic and magnificent sights Kydd had ever seen.

“Sir, where … ?” The master seemed subdued by the spectacular panorama.

“We heave to for now, Mr Kendall. Two cables off should do it.”

“A boat, sir?” Curzon asked.

Kydd eyed the shoreline where excited activity was building at their arrival, whether in fear or outrage it was not possible to tell.

“No, I’m sending nobody ashore in this.”

“Then?”

“We wait. I’ve yet to come across a port without it has its swarm of meddlesome officials. We’ll find out from them how the land lies.”

Bowden had his glass up. “My, but they’re in a taking over something, and I rather think it’s us, sir.”

Kydd borrowed it. Along the seafront he saw waving fists, odd triangular flags and crowds coming together.

They were safe for now and, without an anchor cast, if any hostile sail appeared it was the work of minutes to loose canvas and be under way again.

“Boat, sir,” Calloway called, pointing.

An odd-looking craft was heading their way. A wide-gutted galley of at least fifteen oars a side, it flew an enormous two-tailed crimson and gold pennant and proceeded to the beat of a heavy drum.

“Man the side,” Kydd ordered.

They welcomed a visitor in embroidered robe and magnificent turban.

“His Excellency Kaptan Pasha,” an interpreter announced, his hands respectfully prayerful, his accent colourful. “He in charge the harbour and ship of Constantinople.”

The pasha gave a sketchy Oriental bow, hand on heart, which Kydd tried to return, then without change of expression gave out with a barrage of Turkish.

“He say, what are your business in the port, sirs?”

“Tell him we come to attend on our ambassador.”

It was relayed but produced only a contemptuous snort and another declamation.

“Kaptan Pasha is not please, you at imperial anchorage. You move to Seraglio Point, is better. There you wait your ambassador bey.”

“Ask him … ask him if there is trouble on the land, the people stirred up against us.”

This evoked a sharp look and a snapped retort.

“He say, why you ask? English are ally with Turkey, nothing to worry.”

“We are seeing the people on the shore. They’re disturbed, shouting.”

“Their business, nothing you worry. He say I will take you to Seraglio Point, you go now.”

Despite his anxieties Kydd was enchanted by the prospect as they slowly sailed the mile or so to the point, past the white beauty of Hagia Sophia and the splendour of the Topkapi Palace. The anchorage was just around the promontory, well situated at the entrance to the fabulous Golden Horn, the trading and shipping heart of an empire.

And, sharing their holding ground, were three Turkish ships-of-the-line.

“Anchor, Cap’ten, they leave you alone.”

Kydd soon saw they were going to be no threat: their topmasts were struck and, with no flags flying, they were in no fit condition for sea.

“Can you inform our ambassador we’re here?” he asked, as the man lowered himself into a boat.

“He see,” he answered, and pointed up to where L’Aurore’s ensign floated free.

In a short time a crowded boat put out from the opposite shore, a large Union flag in its bows.

Kydd went forward to greet the man who stepped aboard.

Spare, thin-faced and with a haughty air, he ignored Kydd’s outstretched hand and gave a short bow. “Charles Arbuthnot, His Britannic Majesty’s ambassador and plenipotentiary to the Ottoman Empire.”

“Sir Thomas Kydd, captain of His Majesty’s Frigate L’Aurore.”

“You took your time, Captain,” the man said acidly. “Is not your commander aware of the grave developments that have taken place here?”

His eyes strayed seaward. “And where are the others? I was particularly firm in my communications that a force of size be dispatched. Pray where is this fleet, sir?”

“I am in advance of it, sir,” Kydd said flatly. He sincerely hoped this would be the case but as its instructions from Collingwood were still in his cabin this might be problematical.

Arbuthnot gave him a withering look. “You’re not to know of it but His Majesty’s interests in the Sublime Porte have been greatly injured. Only a gesture of undoubted martial strength will go towards restoring our position there.”

“Sir, this is not a matter within my ability to command. You may, however, suggest any course that you desire, and if it is in my power to effect it, I will do so.”

There was a pause. The ambassador seemed to make up his mind. “Captain, my position in Constantinople is now untenable and, further, I go daily under fear of my life. My decision therefore is that I seek refuge in your ship. That will be possible, I trust?”

“Certainly, sir.” It would mean yielding up his own bed-place and cabin but a diplomat had every right to demand this of a king’s ship.

“Together with my immediate staff, if you please, twelve in all.”

This was stretching things but he was not going to abandon fellow countrymen to be condemned ashore to some appalling eastern fate.

Fortunately the same northwesterly that had brought them would be fair for a rapid departure.

“Very well, Your Excellency. I should like to point out that the winds are not always favourable in these parts and-”

“What is that to me, sir?”

“If the evacuation is to get away safely, then-”

“What? You have a wrong impression, sir. I am not evacuating, Captain, I am merely taking a prudent sanctuary in your vessel. Now, if you would be so good as to provide a species of cabin with a modicum of space I shall set up my office.”

It soon became clear to Kydd what Arbuthnot was doing. From his assumed safety afloat he was going to bombard the sultan and his government with strong-worded notes, carrying on his diplomatic war with the French from Kydd’s own cabin. Whatever the tumult and confusion in the city and from whatever cause, the man was taking L’Aurore as a little piece of England from which he could shake his fist at his enemies.

His was not to complain, but didn’t the ambassador realise how illusory was his refuge?

They were anchored within a stone’s throw of three 74s, which, however stood down, could still be manned and their guns turned on L’Aurore to reduce her to splintered wreckage in minutes. And, with the waters here restricted to a bare mile wide, their escape route to the open sea could be sealed off by just a few elements of the Turkish Navy.

And what if his angry words inflamed the population? So close to the shore, they would be overwhelmed by scores of boats well before they could weigh and set sail.

“I beg you to reconsider, sir,” Kydd tried. “We are at hazard here. If the Turks wish to offer us violence, there’s little we can do. And I’m persuaded that even if we sail now, if they are minded to, there are forts in the Dardanelles that could sink us within a very short time. It would be best should we leave while we can, reach safety and then-”

“No. Kindly do as I desire, sir, and remain here.”

In the evening, dining alone with Arbuthnot, Kydd pressed for details of what was going on in the city.

“That is not your concern as a frigate captain, sir. Yet I’ll tell you that I’m deeply angry and mortified that the rascally Sultan Selim sees fit to continue to entertain the scheming French, who have intrigued to reach positions of power and influence with him. It is nothing less than scandalous. They have perjured themselves to spread vile rumours about our intentions and to denigrate our military effectiveness and I’m grieved to note they have been all too successful.”

Did he mean he had been outclassed in intrigue by the wily French?

“There’s only one way to redress this deplorable state of affairs. A display of military might before their very gates as will bring them to their senses. With Bonaparte’s troops flaunting themselves as near as Dalmatia, nothing else will persuade the perfidious Selim to offer us the respect that is our due.”

“Sir,” Kydd said, with all the conviction he could muster, “I was fortunate in having surprise on my side when I came here. Should the Turks wish to contest the passage of a fleet I’ve no doubt they could do so in the confines of the waters I’ve seen leading here. Do you not feel that an unfortunate reverse in our attempt to force the Dardanelles would have the opposite effect to what you’d wish?”

“I’m surprised at your tone, Captain. The very appearance of Nelson’s fleet alone will strike awe and terror in the breasts of these benighted heathen. This is why-and I tell you in the strictest confidence-I have gone over the head of your commander-in-chief to Whitehall and the prime minister, demanding that a showing off Constantinople be made. I expect a positive reply daily, sir.”

This madman, if he got his way, would condemn Collingwood’s fleet to a desperate fight point-blank against forts and the Turkish Navy, almost certainly to end in wreck and retreat, and to what clear purpose? England’s precious blockading fleet decimated and humiliated-it didn’t bear thinking about.

Surely even a land-bound government like Grenville’s would see the risks and futility of it, find some other way of offsetting the French influence-and replace this haughty fool.

At eleven the next morning everything changed. Suddenly bursting into view rounding the point a massive two-decker ship-of-the-line appeared-Canopus, the 80-gun flagship of Rear Admiral Louis’s squadron.

The rest of the squadron would no doubt be waiting hove to in the open water before the peninsula. Arbuthnot had his military might.

Kydd lost no time in taking boat to make his report and hand over Collingwood’s instructions.

He’d last seen this ship as the French Franklin at the Nile, fighting bravely in the darkness of that infernal night-and his own ship, Tenacious, had been her chief antagonist.

But this was going to be a less glorious occasion unless he could persuade the admiral to deny the ambassador his ambition.

“Sir Thomas, is it, then?” Louis had a high-pitched wheeze that made him hard to follow.

“Sir,” Kydd acknowledged. Louis’s baronetcy had been for his role in the San Domingo fleet action in the West Indies under Duckworth.

Handing him the instructions, Kydd waited politely. Louis put the packet aside. “I’ll take ’em up later. Do tell me what you’ve been about, will you, old chap?”

“New-joined to Admiral Collingwood’s blockade fleet, sir. He received disturbing news from the ambassador here concerning unrest and threats to British interests. He desired me to lose no time to find yourself, sir, and give you these instructions.”

“And so you have. But don’t tell me-unable to find me you took it upon yourself to come here to see what assistance you could be to the ambassador.”

“This is why I’m here, yes, sir.”

“Quite right. Then what did you find, pray?”

Kydd told briefly of the disturbances seen ashore, Arbuthnot’s arrival and installation in L’Aurore. Delicately he explained his reservations about the ambassador’s desire to raise the stakes by threatening undisclosed action with an overwhelming naval force.

“And so your appearance here with your squadron is very welcome to him,” he concluded.

“Not so, not so.” Louis coughed, banging his chest. “I’m alone, the flagship only. My squadron lies at anchor at the mouth of the Dardanelles.”

He went on, “A single ship by way of being no provocation was my thinking. He’s to be disappointed, it seems. Does he wish to be taken off?”

“Sir, I believe he would wish to discuss such with you,” Kydd said cautiously.

“I’d better take on board what’s being said here before I see him.” He picked up the instructions. “Excuse me,” he muttered.

“Ah. In so many words I’m to make reconnaissance of these waters and afford what assistance I can to his excellency. I don’t consider forcing the Dardanelles with a squadron a reconnaissance, do you?”

Arbuthnot was bitter and scathing at the admiral’s attitude and insisted on a grand council in Canopus for the following morning.

“Let me put it to you as plainly as I can,” he said. “I’m here on the spot. You’re not. I know the Turk. You do not. And what I’m saying is that they’re a backward, decayed people who understand only the language of strong and weak. At the moment, since the successes of the Corsican in Europe, they do admire him and listen to his siren words.

“Yet the greatness of Nelson is known even here, to which we certainly owe the treaty of amity the French are seeking to overthrow. Gentlemen, what I’m asking only is that the hero’s own navy does flourish itself in all its glory before the walls of Constantinople. The artful Selim will instantly see it in his best interest to eject the French and receive us as brothers.”

Louis heard him out, then put his hands flat on the table and wheezed, “No. No! I cannot counsel nor lend my name or ships to such a foolhardy gesture. Sir, I’m instructed to aid you in so far as it lies in my power-and subverting a reconnaissance into an armed provocation is not-”

A sudden knocking on the door interrupted him. A breathless lieutenant flew in and blurted, “Sir, my apologies-you’re desired on deck this minute, if you please.”

They were met with a chilling sight: smoke rising ominously from several places inland and figures running along the sea-front pursued by an ugly crowd. Several stumbled and were hacked down by those following. Cries of terror and rage came floating out.

“I rather think events have overtaken us,” Louis said.

More emerged from the streets and between buildings; it was obvious that they were making for the jetties on the waterfront. Several boats were lying off and came in, firing upwards to deter pursuers. The frantic victims tumbled in. A few stragglers were too late and were mercilessly dispatched on the quayside or flung themselves into the water.

“The mob’s turned against us, then.”

“So it would seem,” said Arbuthnot, without emotion.

There was no possibility of intervention as any show of force would trigger an incident that could place the situation beyond retrieving.

The boats were all headed towards the looming bulk of Canopus, her ensign proclaiming her a haven of peace and sanity in a world turned mad.

“Your directions, sir?” Louis asked, his features set.

“One moment. Lend me that,” Arbuthnot said to a lieutenant, and took his telescope. “As I thought-that’s Italinski.”

“Sir?”

“They’re not ours. They’re Russians, although what the devil set the Turks off, Heaven only knows.” He handed back the glass and folded his arms, waiting for the first boats.

The Russian ambassador, a big man, was helped over the bulwark, puffing like a whale. He saw Arbuthnot and lumbered across to him.

“T’ank the God you here,” he bellowed, then remembered a bow. “They mad, like beast.”

“My dear Italinski, you have my sincere sympathy.” He glanced at the wild-eyed Russians scrambling over the side. “In course you shall have sanctuary in any ship of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy.”

“Ze bigger ze better, Charles. Zis vill do for now.” His bushy black eyebrows worked with emotion.

“Might I enquire just what stirred the populace to riot and slaughter against your people all of a sudden?” Arbuthnot asked.

“Don’ they always?”

“Just this particular time, if you would humour me, Andrei.”

“Not’ing!”

“Nothing?”

“Well, some fool move by St Petersburg. They order troop into Moldavia, ’at’s all.”

“Ah. Now I understand. You Russians, it seems, have taken Ottoman possessions in the Balkans by force, expecting no reaction from Constantinople to a rather pointed expansion of the Tsar’s empire at their expense. It seems they’ve been rather forgetful in omitting to inform you of their intentions.”

Italinski glowered, then pointedly turned to bark orders at some uniformed flunkeys.

“My cabin?” Louis suggested smoothly, to Arbuthnot, leaving the Russians to sort themselves out.

Kydd hesitated, then went with them.

“Now, sir, we have a problem,” Louis said immediately. “If we’re seen to be sheltering these Russians it will only inflame the mob and I would not reject the possibility that it becomes a focus for their anger, which will then be directed at us.”

“Do you think I have not thought of this?” Arbuthnot said scornfully. “The solution is obvious.”

“Sir?”

“You will set sail immediately with the Russians on board.”

“A wise course,” Louis said in relief. “Captain Kydd, are you ready to sail?”

“The frigate is not involved. It will not sail.”

“Not … sail? It’s your decision, Ambassador, but in all frankness I cannot-”

“In your profession you’re not expected to understand the finer points of diplomacy, Admiral. This is a capital opportunity to remonstrate with the Sublime Porte in a strongly worded note to the effect that this unrest only points to an urgent need for a realignment of interests and so forth.”

He drew himself up. “And it may have slipped your mind that there are British residents, merchants, commercial agents, those who so loyally assist in the Black Sea trade, all gazing upon us in trust that we will not desert them. I will not, sir!”

Kydd picked up a certain shrillness in the tone. If this man was misreading the signs, they were all in the most deadly peril.

Canopus sailed under cover of dark, and in the morning L’Aurore lay alone to her moorings.

A pale sun revealed sullen knots of people ashore, the flicker of a fire here and there indicating their intent to stay. Set against the backdrop of the Oriental splendour of grand palaces and domes, the air of menace was unnerving.

Arbuthnot kept to his cabin until the afternoon, when he appeared with an elaborately sealed document. “I desire this be landed at the Topkapi Steps and signed for by the grand vizier.”

“You’re asking I risk a boat’s crew to-”

“They will not be troubled by the palace functionaries there, Captain. Please do as I request,” he snapped.

An eerie unreality hung about the anchorage but at least the mob was beginning to break up and disperse, either through boredom or a cooling.

Night came. Kydd was taking no chances and posted double lookouts and hung lanthorns in the rigging.

The hours passed.

A little before midnight there was a faint cry in the darkness. Alerted, the watch-on-deck stood to and saw a boat come into the pool of light from the lanthorns. A man stood up in the thwarts and asked in a quavering voice if the ambassador was still aboard.

“Wake Mr Arbuthnot,” Kydd said, when he was told. “There’s something afoot.”

They reached the deck together. “One to come aboard, Mr Curzon.”

A bent figure painfully made his way up the side.

“Why, it’s Mr Dunn,” Arbuthnot said, in astonishment. “This is very irregular! What brings you here?”

“Oh, Your Excellency, sir, dire news.”

“Go on.”

“My man-whom I trust with my life-comes to me with dreadful tidings.” The merchant’s hands writhed together as he tried to find the words.

“He knows of a dreadful plot, Excellency, one that chills my blood, so it does!”

“Please be more specific if you will, Mr Dunn.”

“Sultan Selim plans to take all Englishmen hostage at once against what he’s been told by the Frenchmen is a return of Nelson’s fleet to take revenge upon their dishonouring.”

“What are you talking about, ‘dishonouring?’”

The whites of the man’s eyes stood out in the half-light.

“I beg your excellency’s pardon, but your retiring to this ship was cried up by the French as fear and-and faintness, this being what they say, not me.”

“And?”

“They say your big ship ran away from just a few Turkish ruffians and-”

“Enough! This is insupportable. That craven Sebastiani and his devilish plots touch on my honour. I will not allow that by any wight.”

Dunn continued, “Excellency, my people are fearful of their fate. If the sultan seizes them they may well suffer the same as the Wallachian hospodar. Hostage, and put to torture to bring a quick yielding by others.”

Arbuthnot snorted with contempt and shot an angry glance at Kydd. “You see, Captain? If you’d shown more backbone when …” He stopped, breathing hard. “I’m feeling ill. I’m going to my cabin.”

Kydd was left standing with an astonished Dunn.

“What shall we do?” he stammered. “Your common Turk is not nice in his manners when roused.”

“Sir, to be truthful I cannot think what to advise.”

The boat disappeared into the night, leaving Kydd to try to make sense of what was happening.

One thing was certain: it were better that L’Aurore prepared herself for any eventuality.

She went to single anchor, and sail was held to a spun-yarn for a rapid move to sea. Guns were awkwardly loaded inboard out of sight but not run out-every second one with canister. Lieutenant Clinton posted his marines in two watches the length of the vessel, and arms chests were brought up for use in repelling boarders.

Apart from this, there was little else he could do, given that the dangers they faced were all but unknown.

The first of the terrified refugees began arriving within an hour or two of Dunn’s departure. They babbled of wild rumours, troops marching in the streets, looting of warehouses and desperate panic as fear spread.

Before daybreak it had turned to a flood-merchants, clerks, families, hapless servants, all turning to the only safety they could see: L’Aurore.

It was hopeless. The gun-deck was crowded with sobbing, desperate humanity; there could be no working the guns, no defences. More climbed up until every clear space was crammed with people-there had to be an end to it.

As dawn turned to morning the tide of incomers had ebbed but Kydd was left with few options.

“Wake the ambassador and tell him we’ve a decision to make.”

The midshipman quickly returned with a message that Arbuthnot was too ill to consider discussions. He refused the offer of a naval surgeon to attend on him.

Kydd knew very well what that meant, but it was a release: he could make the decisions alone.

If even half of what was being rumoured was true they were in mortal danger. He had no right to risk his ship and all aboard simply to maintain the fiction of a British deterrent. If it meant that watchers ashore would take it as a fleeing, so be it.

“Hands to unmoor ship! Get us under way, Mr Kendall.”

Bowden pointed at the moored ships-of-the-line. “Sir …”

There were crew running down the decks and disappearing below and other activity at the capstans. Manning the guns and warping around? It could be quite innocent-or the first step in a coup.

L’Aurore’s anchor cable was coming in slowly, impeded by the crowded decks. “Mr Curzon, get those lubbers flatting in at the jib. I mean to cut the cable and cast to starboard.”

It was the last degradation but L’Aurore had to make the open sea before the cataclysm closed in. The carpenter took his broad-axe forward and, with several blows, parted the anchor cable, which plashed with a finality into the Bosporus.

“Let loose!”

With a fair wind L’Aurore stood away for the Dardanelles and freedom.