Pasha (18 page)

“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.