The Iberian Flame

Chapter 18

The orders specified that a division of seamen and marines in three boats be provided by each frigate, which would lie off the bar in company to recover the craft.

The assault would go in at eleven that night, being dictated by the flood tide an hour earlier and the moon, rising at one thirty. Speed and surprise were emphasised, the boats throwing their men ashore at each end of the vessel to be stormed, battling their way onto the deck where the sail handlers would race aloft while fighting was still going on.

The Indiaman was prey for Riposte’s division, the frigate Tyger and Vigilant’s. If there was trouble, in view of the tide state and the bar, any talk of rescue by British frigates was off the table, whatever the peril. The entire engagement was expected to take just three hours from departure to return.

In an attachment, there were complicated signals, involving false fires and rockets concerned with recall and abandoning the mission – quite useless, for once discovered there was only one course, to fight free, and unquestionably it was up to the commander on the spot to act as he saw fit.

Kydd called his first lieutenant. ‘Mr Bray. You shall be leading the Tygers.’ It brought a deep grin of satisfaction. ‘And as such you will make preparations as will conform to our orders.’

By evening the lieutenant had them ready. The launch would be commanded by himself, with a boat carronade mounted forward and containing the first wave of seamen boarders, the blue cutter with the second wave under Mr Bowden, and the red cutter, carrying marines, to stand off and maintain fire with Mr Midshipman Rowan.

The boats would have spare oars becketed up under the thwarts, a boat’s bag with plugs for shot-holes, and copper tingles that could be nailed over as a patch on larger breaches. Each man would be equipped with a brace of pistols and a fresh-sharpened cutlass, some with rigging-slashing tomahawks, and all in their loose clothing able to swarm into the tops fully armed.

Kydd wandered down the deck as the work proceeded, reaching for the right words to say to men who would be going into mortal conflict at his order. He knew they were watching him, drawing strength from whatever they saw in his bearing and manner when dealing with matters as they came up.

Rowan, looking absurdly young, stood among a line of well-built seamen at the armourer’s grindstone. He smiled uncertainly at his captain, his face pale and serious. For a fleeting moment Kydd nearly gave in to the temptation of finding some excuse to stand the man-child down but knew he must not. He comforted himself with the thought that in charge of a boat standing off he would not be in actual hand-to-hand struggle with the enemy.

As the time for the expedition approached, Kydd weighed up the odds.

Lisbon was by no means easy meat. This was a world-class harbour with forts each side of the entrance and along the river shore garrison citadels at unknown intervals. It was all of four or five miles to the docks and, unless they were lucky, they could be under fire all the way.

On the other hand it was the last thing the French would be expecting and, with their objectives limited to specifics, there was every reason to be done with the job and get out.

At ten the three frigates closed with the entrance to the Tagus and took position, anchoring, the bows quickly swinging seawards with the incoming tide.

All was in utter blackness, except the glow on the horizon upriver that was Lisbon docks. They could be properly made out only with a glass in the tops, so Kydd climbed up and carefully trained the telescope, the image leaping into focus upside-down as it was a night lens.

He studied the scene. River traffic seemed to be settling down, boats and lighters still at work around the vessels moored out, some in numbers that needed them to be rafted together, useful cover.

Shifting the glass along, he scanned the wharf slowly, the Indiaman clearly visible by its size, and closer to seaward the frigate, looking improbably small. The length of working quay from its beginning at the quaint Tower of Belem onwards was straight, gratifyingly well lit for handling cargo, and therefore suitable for close action.

After another quick look round, he returned to the deck. ‘Well, Mr Bray, it seems quiet enough. I see nothing to dismay us.’

Riposte was close by, difficult to make out in the darkness. A dim lanthorn flickered into life on her quarterdeck: it was raised, lowered, raised.

‘Board your boats!’

Men thumped down into their places with a mutter, a feeble joke. Kydd’s eyes sought out and found the slight figure of Rowan, correctly waiting for his cutter to fill before he went down over the side, his blackened face glancing back just once to the quarterdeck. May God preserve the youngster, he thought.

The pinprick of lanthorn light turned blue as a filter was passed across it.

They were off – there was nothing now that Kydd could do for any of them.

In the blackness of the outer limits they were soon invisible, but he knew where they were going: not directly into the broad entrance of the Tagus with its forts but away to the south, across the wide Bugio sandbar and behind the squat Forte de Sao Laurenco whose cannon were expecting ships to attack through the mile-wide entry into Lisbon. The sandbar was treacherous and shallow, but for boats on a flowing tide it gave a chance to reach deep within the harbour.

As long as the weather held and they were not seen.

It seemed an age before there was any change in the night scene. Then, in a silent display, there was unreadable confusion – too far away to hear firing but within sight in the tops, a vivid criss-cross of gun-flash centred about the two ships. The assault was on.

In a fever of frustration Kydd tried to make out what was happening, but from near five miles distance, it was too chaotic to disentangle. He could just see fighting on the wharf close to them and firing from boats in the water, which shortly petered out.

He held his breath – but there was nothing further.

By now there should be activity in the Indiaman if they’d taken it by boarding from the cargo quay but he could see nothing. Neither was anything happening close by the frigate – a slackening and faltering in the action was not to be expected where Bray was involved.

It was galling to be a helpless spectator, not knowing or even able to guess what was going on. Still the unnatural quiet. As if they’d been swallowed by some sepulchral power.

A sudden whoosh sounded in the darkness – a flaring red rocket sent up from the deck of Riposte. This was the recall signal. Yet there was no apparent response from the scene, no replying firework … nothing.

Another rocket ascended, and on the frigate’s fore yardarm three lights appeared – break off the action.

But no answer or acknowledgement.

Kydd felt something was deeply wrong. Over there, far in among the enemy, Bray and the others were in trouble.

‘Away my barge,’ he ordered.

A distant voice answered his hail at Riposte’s deck-line. ‘What is it, Kydd?’ Mason’s voice was tense.

‘The expedition appears to be in trouble, sir.’

‘So what do you expect me to do about it? They know what-’

‘I propose to take a boat and lay off and, if I can, see what’s troubling them.’

‘And then what will you do about it?’

‘Why, come back and report, of course!’ It was unanswerable: if Mason refused, any unfortunate consequences would be to his account. If he let Kydd proceed and he failed, it would be his own fault.

‘Be quick about it, then!’

The barge’s sails soared up, catching the night breeze handily.

‘Where’s the boat compass?’ Kydd demanded, then set a course direct for the docks, unavoidably taking him at a raking angle across the main channel. He would be spotted, but in the darkness a lone boat under its odd spritsails would hopefully not be seen as a threat.

They made good time but the boat had no carronades, not even a swivel gun, and all aboard were unarmed – himself, coxswain Poulden, bowman Pinto and two other seamen. What were they thinking, seeing the black mass of Portugal slide past as they moved deeper into hostile territory?

As they neared the dock area Kydd eased their speed, trying to assess the situation.

The two ships still lay alongside and, as far as he could tell, were untouched. Other ships moored further out were doing their best to be gone from the area; with no crew on board to speak of while waiting a berth they were drifting away, helpless. Others had simply taken to the boats and were heading away in all directions. So where the devil was their expedition?

Closer still there was noise, shouting, cries of fear and panic. Kydd brought his barge in cautiously. Then, above the confusion and uproar, he heard a thin cry, a hail out of the night.

‘Brail up!’ Kydd ordered. Sail off the boat, it glided on and came to a stop.

Again the hail – down further, past the Indiaman.

A naval cutter was heading for them. It was Rowan, with the marines crouched down among the thwarts.

‘Sir. They’re in trouble. I – I don’t know what to do.’

It didn’t take him long to tell Kydd what had happened. The assault had gone in without difficulty, the men had landed and the Ripostes had boarded the Indiaman with little opposition.

For the Tygers and Vigilants, it had been a different story. By the worst of chances an army barracks was situated on the hill behind and soldiers had come swarming down, catching them from the rear as they attempted the frigate. Their luck fell away even further when the frigate’s guns had opened up – completely unexpected, as guns were normally left unloaded to be safe while in harbour.

Caught between two fires, the assault party had taken to the closest warehouse where they were now sheltering. Yet they were dogged by further ill-fortune: the Indiaman was not only nearly discharged of valuable cargo but her sails had been sent ashore, rendering her useless even to take off the beaten raiders. Aboard her the Ripostes were in possession but were keeping their heads down, unable to do a thing.

It was stalemate. If those in the warehouse tried to take the frigate they would be slaughtered by its guns sweeping over the quayside. If they went for their boats the soldiers would close in and fire down into them as they tried to get aboard.

And it couldn’t last. Reinforcements would arrive before long, and then it would be the end.

Lying out of range, Kydd studied the frigate with his night lens. As the shadows resolved he saw that it was not a light frigate but what the French called a corvette, the size of a large brig-sloop but full-rigged like a frigate. About her decks there were men but not so many – did this mean most were in the taverns ashore? It made no difference: while an entire broadside of guns was trained on the wharf not a soul could move.

The moon was rising and, remembering his timings, he knew that the tide had turned and was now on the ebb. In an hour or so the bar would be impassable.

He snatched up the lens and held it tightly, concentrating on one spot.

There! They had a chance if he could get word to Bray and the Ripostes in the Indiaman.

He looked at the black, cold waters, then at the shadowed mass of the big ship and beyond to the tall, anonymous frontage of the warehouses. It could be done if …

‘Mr Rowan.’

‘Sir?’ The voice was so young, so frightened. Was it right to continue?

‘Your schoolmaster told me that he once gave you a dozen on the breech. What was that for, pray?’

The lad goggled at him, them steadied and answered in a wondering voice, ‘For skulking lessons and swimming in the river with my schoolmates, sir.’

‘Are you good at it?’

‘Er, my friends say so,’ he admitted, with a pathetic touch of pride.

‘Then do you think you could swim over to that Indiaman at all?’

Rowan held still for a moment, then replied calmly, ‘What is it I shall say to them, sir?’

He slipped into the water on the dark side of the boat and began a steady stroke out to the stern-quarters of the ship, where he used a painting stage to reach up and tap on a window. After a moment it opened and he was pulled in.

Kydd watched patiently, and a little later a small figure darted from the ship’s side and across to the warehouse, taking the besiegers off guard.

‘What do we do now, sir?’ Poulden asked, in a low voice.

‘We wait, is all,’ Kydd said quietly.

It was out of his hands – Bray would give the word and set the plan in motion.

Shortly, with a fearsome bull roar, Bray broke from the warehouse with his men and sprinted across to the corvette, directly in the path of her broadside – but there was no gunfire. Imperceptibly the tide had ebbed enough that its line of guns had settled below the edge of the wharf.

Hearing the cry, the Ripostes erupted out of the Indiaman and joined in the frantic rush to board.

It was over quickly, the corvette’s reduced crew overwhelmed, throwing themselves over the side in their haste to get away, while the two boats of marines stood off to blaze furiously at any soldier who showed himself.

Bray’s stentorian voice lashed the men into a fury of exertion, making ready to carry the vessel to sea, and in minutes lines were thrown off and the corvette caught the current, beginning to drift out on the ebb and into the night.