The Iberian Flame

Chapter 61

Bilbao

The city was in a ferment of excitement and fear. A well-known trading port, it was set up the Nervion river behind a considerable bar. Dillon was delighted to discover that the old naval term for the shackles of malefactors in the bowels of a ship, the bilboes, had its origin there.

Kydd learned the French had occupied the city soon after Murat had moved on Madrid but, hearing of the revolt there, it had risen and now stood alone, no contact with the outside world except Santander, which was containing the French for now. Their loyalty was to king and country, but having three kings with claims to the throne – the old King Carlos, his son and regent, Fernando, and the French puppet Joseph – which was he?

The leader of the Bilbao junta, Inaki Haro, had been effusive in his greetings to Kydd but the situation was grave.

The withdrawing French had moved only a small way inland to prepared positions and seemed to be awaiting further orders, no doubt the retaking of Bilbao. They had to be stopped, but while there were plenty of volunteers there were few weapons. Without guns it was a hopeless cause.

Kydd listened politely to the pleas but knew there was nothing he could do for them. Those guns were weeks away at best when they were needed in days.

He returned to Tyger, anchored offshore. A city that lay more than a dozen miles up a river, between lofty hills and inside a considerable bar, was no place for a frigate.

In his cabin he let his thoughts run free. Logic meant giving up any pretence at help and sailing away, regretfully but by necessity. This would, though, have the inevitable result of turning the inhabitants against the faithless British who, it would be felt, could never be relied on, even in better circumstances later. Was there nothing, even a token, he could do? A few boat-loads of muskets would be sufficient to keep faith and support the cause – but to sail back to the Lisbon depot would leave it far too late.

And then he had it. Why not ransack Tyger’s own armoury of muskets, powder and shot? It wouldn’t be much, but it would be something. That would leave the Royal Marines unarmed, naked of weapons, and his ship unable to mount any offensive action on land – and what would the authorities say about his freely giving away articles of His Majesty’s ordnance?

Yet why leave it at that? Somewhere out there, this side of Bayonne, were another two frigates. Adding their armouries to his would make quite a respectable showing – albeit at the cost of rendering three frigates incapable of shore operations.

In his opinion it was worth the sacrifice: the border with France was not so far away, and to supply their isolated Spanish garrisons, the French would have to pass Bilbao. If this was not in their hands they would be prevented from doing so.

Less than a day’s sail further east he found Seine and Iris cruising to seaward of Bayonne.

Kydd lost no time in calling them aboard, he being senior officer on the coast.

Both were surprised that Bilbao was in Spanish hands. They’d sailed off a lee shore in the recent blow, but with the city inland they’d seen nothing out of the ordinary as they’d cruised to prevent French resupply.

And ‘To harry the enemy’ was a usual phrase within written orders but why was it as loose as that? No other specific instructions?

Kydd’s response was that, while the enemy might be on land and out of reach, it didn’t mean they couldn’t be harried. And in this instance there was a very good reason why they should be – if Bilbao could stand unconquered it would be a strategic blow of the first rank to the French.

But when he outlined how this could be done, there were long faces from the veteran frigate captains. Thinking nothing of plunging into the thick of battle against terrible odds, they shrank at the spectre of a stern accounting for the handing over to rebels of a significant portion of their ship’s armament.

Only after long and earnest pleading by Kydd, with the bookkeeping stratagem that they were in fact making loan of their muskets only to him, a King’s ship, never to a parcel of foreigners, did they relent.

As Tyger hove to off Bilbao, waiting for a pilot, it was evident from the sight of fleeing humanity streaming along the coast roads that the French were on the move.

Kydd needed to act fast, but the pilot informed him that at this state of tide the bar was too dangerous to attempt a crossing. He cursed under his breath. If they were going to have any effect on events, they had to get the guns in quickly.

It could only be boats, his barge to take the lead, the launch and pinnace behind loaded with muskets under a doubled tarpaulin.

As if in discouragement, first one then another wind-driven rain squall whipped across their little flotilla as they entered the Bilbao ria, canvas flapping irritably, and the mizzle soaking Kydd with a biting autumnal chill. Ahead there was a white confusion of leaping seas – the bar. This was where three rivers met the open sea together, and on a making tide the contending flows were fierce.

They nevertheless headed into its bucking wild currents and unruly waters until they made it into an inner calm, the long river Nervion leading to Bilbao.

Haro came down the steps of his town hall in the rain to receive them, his praise for his British friends and benefactor loud and heartfelt. ‘The Frantziako are advancing each side of the Nervion valley,’ he told Kydd. ‘With these we’ll give them true greeting.’

The soldiers who came up to claim their weapons were in the same motley uniforms as before but their eyes glittered with feeling as they snatched at the muskets and loaded them, leaving at the trot for their posts. In the face of things, the several hundred muskets they’d been able to get together was a pitiful amount and, despite stopping the French at a choke point, they surely had little chance against a flood of trained troops.

‘Launch and pinnace to return now,’ Kydd ordered. ‘I’m staying a while longer.’ He hoped his presence might give moral support and proof to the citizens that their plight was not unknown in the outside world.

He strolled about, as if enjoying a promenade through the old town, aware from the stares and warm cheers that he was doing much to raise the standing of Britain, Spain’s new friend in whatever lay ahead.

Deciding to return to Tyger the following morning, he found beds for the night for himself, Dillon and the boat’s crew in a near-deserted dockside tavern. At dinner he heard from the few other guests rumour and gossip that left him no wiser as to the full story.

On the one hand those who’d been travelling in the interior were gleefully telling of the French falling back in dismay at the now nationwide rising by the Spanish people, some said nearly to the border. On the other, the French returning to seize the valuable port, while they could, would be a bitter blow to Bilbao.

It all depended on whether a desperate assault could be staved off until the local French commander decided to join the others behind the Ebro.

Kydd went to bed with more than a few misgivings.

Some time after midnight he was awoken. Shouts, running feet, and what were probably distant shots. He began to struggle into his uniform and suddenly Dillon burst in. ‘Sir Thomas, we must go now! The French have made a surprise night attack and are in the city. We must fly, sir!’

‘Muster the boat’s crew down on the quay. We quit the place this minute.’ As soon as he was dressed he ran out into the darkness. There was a spattering of rain but he didn’t care, bolting for the lower quay where his boat lay. There were figures there, one with a lantern who appeared to be in an altercation.

‘Thank the Lord you’re here, sir!’ said Halgren, standing with the tiller bar, menacing a growing crowd. Others of the boat’s crew stood behind him and, from the flash of white eyes in the gathering, he saw that they were near panic.

‘Get aboard,’ Kydd ordered evenly, pushing through and standing with him.

The painter to his barge was shortened. The crew tumbled aboard and took position. Growls and angry cries came from the onlookers but Kydd could do nothing for them. ‘Into the boat,’ he snapped at Dillon, then pulled himself over the bows and looked back to where the big figure of Halgren still stood, his stolid presence keeping the mob at bay.

Singling up the painter through the ring-bolt, he waited for the right moment then ordered Halgren in. For such a big man he turned nimbly, dropped into the bows and, at the same time, Kydd shoved off, leaving the crowd to curse and shout as they put out around a mole and into the inky blackness towards the harbour entrance.

They were safe.

He settled in the sternsheets with Dillon, looking forward to the sanity and comforts of his cabin.

Five men were at the oars and two were attending to the rolled-up sails along the centreline, rigging the boat by feel alone. Kydd felt a stab of unease at the unfolding realisation that their return would not be easy. The wind had shifted, backing into the north-west, and with the tide well on the ebb, it didn’t take much imagination to see that with the seas heaping up under the driving winds to meet the ebbing tide over the shallows of the bar, their relatively slim-waisted and petite craft would be at a perilous disadvantage.

As soon as they emerged beyond the shelter of the mole he saw that he was right. The dimness of the overcast night was pierced by white combers driven by a flat blast out of the north-west. It was dead foul for the open sea, but in his fore-and-aft rigged craft this should not have been cause for concern. What was of such danger was the erratic lumping and surging of the foreshortened waves as the two forces disputed, wave peaks shooting up, some as high as six feet, others meeting in a confused sliding against each other, an unnavigable welter of angry seas.

Their barge would not live long in that.

‘Sir, we’re not going t’ make it through,’ Halgren said calmly, feeling the unruly cross currents slam at his rudder.

‘We put back.’

Into a city about to fall – from blessed safety back into the inferno. What else could they do?

Inside the mole it was immediately quieter, giving him time to think.

The French were coming in down the valley and in a general sense from the east. Therefore he would head in the opposite direction and find some kind of haven, a boat and the open sea. And the nearest had to be Santander, some forty sea miles away or an uncountable distance through the forested Cantabrian mountains.

‘Put into this wharf to starb’d,’ Kydd told Halgren. He eyed the shoreline. There were a number of sinister moving figures in the darkness but he prayed there was a road over the mountains they could take.

As the boat glided in, there were sudden shouts from the shore – the shapes stopped and wheeled about.

‘Take us in.’ They’d have to get through them: there was no other choice.

The bowman hooked on and forms appeared along the wharf edge, first several and then many. Kydd braced himself but there was a single hoarse shout he thought he recognised. Soon there were happy calls and hands extended.

Dillon translated. These were the patriot fighters who had received their weapons and were now on their way into the mountains to continue the fight. With pride they displayed their muskets – they would now be put to very good use in the hard struggle to come.

And, yes, they knew of the bar and agreed that Santander would offer the best place to get out to his ship. It would be their honour to find a means of transport and be both escort and guide.