Pasha (27 page)

Still the deathly quiet.

He looked ahead to the van of the line.
Canopus
was leading
Repulse
and the two three-deckers into the narrows, the wind fair but light. They seemed to be favouring the north bank—deeper water and away from the bigger fortress.

Nearer and nearer … Then both citadels erupted in smoke and gun-flash. These were shotted and
Canopus
was quickly straddled,
Repulse
next. But there was no return fire—Duckworth was going to play it out as the injured party.

There was no holding back from the shore. Each ship was targeted as they passed … still with no reply. And these were heavy-calibre weapons, sending up plumes to the main-yards—sixty-pounders was the best guess, vastly out-gunning anything the fleet mounted.

The line moved on agonisingly slowly as the guns played on them. The three-deckers were clearly the focus of anger but still their gun-ports remained obstinately shut.

Kydd's face set hard. The point had been made: the Turks had definitely opened fire first. Why didn't the admiral unleash the combined broadsides of the fleet?

The leading ships passed beyond range and into a bend to the left, the following ships now coming under fire. Harvey's
Standard
lost a spar and then it was
L'Aurore
's turn to face the fortresses' spite. With shot so big coming in, it was useless to take cover. Kydd slowly paced his quarterdeck as the tension grew.

But it seemed the Turkish gunners were growing fatigued,
manhandling the huge guns: only a few shots came their way—and then they were through.

Unexpectedly, behind them the little bomb-ketches suddenly fired their thirteen-inch mortars—just two rounds in reply to all the punishment the fleet had taken.

Now the inner castles had to be penetrated. These were double the size and fully alerted—Duckworth must surely respond!

There wasn't long to wait. His signal was made: gun-ports flew open at the rush and the fleet showed its teeth.

The channel was getting perilously narrow: if any of the line-of-battle took a crippling hit it would cause a disastrous obstruction. Sailing before the wind there was no chance for the rest to turn and retreat.

The fortifications opened up with a deep thunder of heavy guns. Instantly
Canopus
got off her broadside in a mighty roar of stabbing flame and towering gun-smoke. It was well-aimed, the shot-strike around the redoubt leaping and battering and throwing up dark, whirling chunks. Its fire petered out rapidly—the Turks manning it could never have experienced such a holocaust before.

The fort opposite was quickly battered by another broadside but a weakness showed: in the interval of reloading in the ships the gun-smoke receded, the forts recovered and the firing resumed.
Repulse
and the following battleships took the lesson and kept up a rippling fire that dismayed the shore gunners, and in a continuous roar of cannonading the ships slipped past, one by one.

The most dangerous part lay ahead: they could not retreat against the wind so their only course was to continue. Kydd remembered only too well the succession of redoubts, forts and strongholds of the legendary Dardanelles defences he had seen along the strait.

Looming over all was the dread prospect of the Ottoman fleet
descending on them and a pitched fleet action in the impossible confines of these waters. It would be a slaughterhouse fight of ship laid alongside ship until the issue was decided.

Kydd raised his glass. The head of the line was coming up to a point that stood out from the Asiatic shore, hiding the strait, which led on around it in a bend to the right. On its tip was a fortification, Point Pesquies, which had to be passed to reach the relative safety of the slightly broadening strait further on.

Canopus
fired early and the fort was nearly hidden in flying debris and its own powder smoke, the duel continuing as the big sail-of-the-line moved slowly on.

The other battleships crashed out their anger at the fort as they shaped course to round the low point.
L'Aurore
followed in their wake. Then came a chilling sight.

Too late, the line-of-battle had passed beyond the point. Suddenly revealed, tucked in its lee, was the Ottoman fleet.

It was cunningly positioned: the big ships passing could not turn back and engage, and now the Turks were upwind and in a dominating position for attack.

Duckworth, with no room to manoeuvre, immediately anchored in an impregnable line and awaited the onslaught.

Smith, however, had sighted the masts above the low point and had his signal for close action soaring up. With his division tightly astern, he swept around the headland to fall on the Turks.

Beside Kydd, Dillon stood clutching his notebook, waiting. It would be hardest on him, intelligent and imaginative but with no fighting role to discharge tension and fear, in his first big action.

Kydd took in the rest of the quarterdeck group, grave and confident as they waited for orders; the men, stripped to the waist at the guns, loose-limbed and fearless; the boatswain on his rounds, checking preventer tackles, the becketing of stoppers in their place, a gruff word to his mates. Kydd had trusted each one in
the greatest battle of the age and he trusted them now. He knew what to expect and what to do—but Dillon would have none of this comfort.

He spared him a quick glance. To his surprise, the man had a look of exaltation and returned him a serene smile. Kydd was taken aback: did he think it was in some way romantic to go into battle against an enemy? If so, his education was about to be considerably advanced.

They completed rounding the point and Kydd saw the foe, the flagship in the centre and the rest at anchor in formal array about it not a half-mile distant.

In disbelief he blinked and looked again.

The fleet the Turks had brought against them was contemptible, derisory. Not much more than a single 64 as flag and a motley collection of frigates, corvettes, with a brig, gunboats—against the might of British battleships.

Surely Duckworth would sail on, confident that the Ottoman admiral would fall back in awe at the crushing superiority of numbers and weight of metal, leaving them untouched.

Their commander, though, was not going to let them pass without a show of defiance, and opened fire.

Like a vengeful tiger, Smith led his squadron around and into the midst of the Turks. A storm of destruction followed: broadsides from port and starboard into the mass of motionless ships filled the little bay with smoke and gunfire.

Cables were cut to escape the punishment but one by one ships drove aground in their terror, their crews scrambling for the shore. One frigate, managing to claw out of the maelstrom, was set upon by
Active
and fled but was overhauled and, under the terrible gunfire into her stern, slewed and grounded on the opposite shore.

In minutes the Ottoman fleet had been transformed into a dozen scattered wrecks. Signals flew up
Pompée's
mizzen: boats were to
be manned and sent to board the derelict warships and burn them under menace of the squadron's guns.

Pompée
was first away, her launch and cutter making for the flagship, forlornly at an angle on the shoreline. Others took their cue, and soon boats were frantically criss-crossing on their mission to destroy.

Kydd sent Curzon and Calloway in the launch to board the beached 3
8
-gun frigate opposite and the cutter with Bowden to deal with a brig.

But as the gun-smoke over the anchorage dissipated Kydd saw, close to the foreshore, a long, squat fortification of some size. It had a clear field of fire and its heavy guns began to speak.

“Mr Oakley—kedge fore 'n' aft,” Kydd bellowed, above the noise. He snapped to Kendall, “Take her in.”

As the one with the least draught, he was best placed to do what was necessary.

A leadsman hastily took post in the fore-chains and began his chant. As the water shallowed under her keel, she dropped a kedge on short stay forward, and when she swung under the impetus the other was cast aft. Now they had cables they could haul on to train the ship's entire battery.

They didn't waste time. After the first broadside her twelve-pounders were fired in successive aimed shots at the redoubt's embrasures and its deadly fire ceased. The sight of
L'Aurore
close in with a regiment's worth of artillery devoted just to them caused the soldiers to flee for their lives.

The mission to burn and destroy continued.

The Turkish flagship was first afire, then smoke was issuing from a frigate's fore end. It was the same in other stranded ships—it was a rout.

Lieutenant Clinton drew Kydd's attention. “Sir, may I make a suggestion?”

“Why, certainly.”

“It crosses my mind that we shall be this way again on our return. It might well be of service should we land and spike the guns of that redoubt. Might I … ?”

“A good idea, Mr Clinton. Get your men together with the gunner's mate and his tools.” Stirk would take great satisfaction in the job and they still had one boat.

Brice stepped up. “Sir—you're sending a party ashore against the fort?” His uniform was stained and his eyes masked with the grey smudging of powder smoke.

“I am. Why do you ask?”

“Sir. I want to lead them.”

Kydd hesitated. It would leave him without a single officer on board and Clinton possessed a cool head, but they were landing on enemy soil where so many had fled and had every reason to return to take revenge. He nodded to Brice and saw the party off.

They landed and made speed up to the redoubt, then disappeared inside. Kydd's attention returned to the mayhem.

Curzon returned from his mission, ecstatic. “My God, you should have seen it! Ran like rabbits and we had the barky ablaze in a brace o' shakes. Then when we—”

“Trouble, sir,” the master interrupted, pointing ashore.

Beyond the redoubt a seething mass of horsemen was assembling at the skyline.

“To the guns, tell 'em to shift aim to the Turk cavalry!” Kydd rapped, but within minutes he heard back that they were out of effective range of their twelve-pounders.

The fate of their courageous band didn't bear thinking about, and Kydd's blood ran cold at the image of Stirk's sturdy loyalty ending under an Ottoman scimitar.

All eyes turned to him—but the matter was taken out of his hands when, like the vengeful thunder of Jove, the powerful
thirty-two-pounders of
Pompée
opened up past them and the horsemen were swept from sight.

Come on!
Kydd mentally urged the strike ashore. They seemed to be taking their time. But, then, to disable fifty or so great guns would be a considerable task and—

“Flag, sir. Signal to retire.”

Kydd swung to face
Pompée.

“No, sir.
Royal George.”

Duckworth was pulling out Smith's squadron. All around the anchorage ships were on fire but the enemy flagship was blazing so furiously that sparks were ascending above its masthead. This was threatening a cataclysm that could turn victory into disaster in a blinding flash.

“Get in the after kedge, shorten cable forrard,” Kydd ordered, willing on the brave souls ashore.

Smith had the grace to wait and cover the scene until running figures suddenly appeared and
L'Aurore's
boat put off.

Showing sail aft,
L'Aurore
slowly pivoted around her anchor until she was before the wind once more and the boat had thrown a line. Then, with
Pompée,
they sailed away in relief from the scene of devastation.

Against all the odds, and despite prophecies of doom, they had broken through.

They had some hours of quiet sailing before they reached the great fortresses of Gallipoli. Smith's division took position at the rear in the line-of-battle and the fleet sailed on. If only the wind held …

Kendall spotted that
Royal George
was shortening sail and the entire battle line therefore was slowing. For a moment Kydd did not realise what was going on.

Then he had it. “As he wishes to transit the Gallipoli forts under cover of dark, a bold notion, don't you think?”

It also gave a chance for the tired men to be fed and take their grog.

As planned, the fleet reached the closing point at the far end of the Dardanelles, Gallipoli, in darkness. Unlike passing the outer and inner castles, which involved two bends nearly at right angles and impossible to navigate at night, here the narrows were straight and uncomplicated. It might just work.

Under a press of sail the fleet swept on by the Gallipoli fortresses. Wild firing tore apart the night but a brisk breeze saw them past unscathed and into the Sea of Marmora beyond.

It was miraculous. They had penetrated the famed Dardanelles, and all their number, save
Ajax,
still with them.

There was nothing between the powerful battle fleet and Constantinople but the open sea.

R
ENZI ALLOWED HIMSELF TO BE DRAPED
with a napkin and accepted a quite decent claret, apparently from the Balkans. He was fussed over by a possessive Jago, who took it upon himself to keep the heathen Turkish servants at bay.

In the warm light of the oil-lamps Zorlu sat decorously opposite—they would talk together only after they were left alone.

Renzi was under no delusions: Selim was using him. The shrewd sultan wanted to hear from all sources, not just the French, before he made up his mind, and an English lord's presence was a very convenient situation. Renzi allowed himself a touch of optimism. If he could exploit this further, perhaps by—

But something was happening. Out beyond the palace walls, shouts and disorder.

Zorlu's eyes caught his in alarm.

More noises—Zorlu excused himself. He was back quickly, his face lined. “They're shouting something about Nelson's fleet returning to take its vengeance—I couldn't make out more.”