Pasha (33 page)

“Surgeon thinks you've a good chance, William.” It wasn't quite what had been said.

“My r-report, sir.” The voice was weak and slurred but piteously determined.

“Not now, dear fellow,” Kydd said.

But Clinton was going to do his duty. It came out painfully, with pauses to gather his strength.

The first to land had not known the extent of the enemy infiltration until they had rounded the hill and come under fire from concealed gun emplacements protected by the fortified monastery.

They had held their ground until the reinforcements from the fleet had reached them. Jointly it was decided that the guns were too big a threat to be ignored. Mounted on the crest overlooking the fleet, they could place it under a pitiless onslaught of steady, aimed fire.

The problem was that any advance on the gun-pits would be dominated by musket fire from the loopholes of the monastery. One course would have been to land their own guns for an artillery duel but that would take time.

It had to be a frontal assault with no wavering and this had been bravely accomplished. The monastery was taken, the guns spiked and the enemy in full retreat. But before it had ended Clinton had lost three men killed and much of his detachment wounded.

Then orders had come to return on board.

Without knowledge of events on the island Duckworth had obliged them to break off and leave it to the Turks.

“Thank you for your report, Lieutenant,” Kydd said softly. “You have done your duty most nobly, sir.”

Dawn came, and with it, what Kydd had been most dreading. The wind had veered during the night and now was fitfully blowing
from the northeast. A broad reach to Constantinople in one board.

It was fair at last for the bombarding of the ancient city.

Like the tragic conclusion of a Greek drama, each of the main players stepped through their parts to the inevitable climax.

A signal mounted in the flagship's halliards: “Weigh and proceed as previously ordered.” Obediently the warships of the squadron raised anchor and ensigns rose in the ships as they manoeuvred into line-of-battle.

In the delicate early light, the terrifying majesty of the spectacle was made poignant by the knowledge of what was to come. The Ottomans had broken the cease-fire and must now endure the consequences. That morning there would be scenes of destruction that would resound around the world.

L'Aurore
took her position to starboard of the line. With the other frigate, her duty was to keep watch to seaward as the battleships did their work. At least Kydd's ship would have no direct part in the ruin of the city.

The wind strengthened; sails caught and bellied, speeding the ships on to their destiny. Very soon magnificent buildings, olive groves and the splendour of the imperial palace spread out ahead, firming from a blue haze.

Within the hour they would …

Kydd grabbed a glass.

Stretching all along the seafront were moored warships, large and small, a ringing of the peninsula with a continuous line of guns. Kydd steadied his telescope further in—on the cannon manned and waiting, an unbroken chain of artillery that encircled the capital.

A monstrous gathering of strength, an insuperable barrier that even a battle fleet could not batter down.

They were too late.

Duckworth signalled the fleet to reverse its course in succession. It did so, carefully out of range. The shore guns remained silent.

Another signal—“Wear and advance.”

Tacking and veering in front of Constantinople, the admiral flaunted his might at the Turks in the hope of luring them to sea and a confrontation. Again and again, up and down, but the Turks never stirred from their unassailable positions.

It was useless, humiliating, and could have only one ending. Before the close of the day the British fleet had retreated: spread sail and set course southward for the Dardanelles and the wider world.

As they sailed into the darkness there was little cheer in
L'Aurore.
It was clear to the humblest crew member that the expedition, bigger by far than had taken Cape Town and Buenos Aires, comparable in scale to anything seen in the Mediterranean since Trafalgar, had completely failed.

To Kydd, it now seemed plain that, with their helplessness so vividly demonstrated, French influence could only increase to the point at which Bonaparte might at long last look to bursting out of his European confines.

And there was now no conceivable hope that anything could stop the inevitable slide from influence to power, from there to domination and rule, just as it had in so many countries. Would Bonaparte insist that the next sultan be a brother or cousin, crowned and loyal to France only? He would then have his royal road to India and the world.

It was an utterly depressing thought, made worse by their very helplessness.

That night the gun-room invited him to dinner. He was grateful, for a black mood had clamped in—not only at their dismal failure but at the news that Poulden, Cumby and the midshipmen had not been found in the monastery. He was leaving them behind to their fate in a Turkish prison.

“Cádiz will be a sad let-down after this,” Bowden offered.

“A pox on that,” retorted Curzon. “Any station that offers me a trifle of sport at the Frogs' expense will do.”

“Afore there's talk o' going back,” Redmond, the gunner rumbled, “there's a little matter should give us pause.”

“What's that, then?”

“Yez saw how quick-smart your Turk was, gettin' the defences as they were, in only a few days? Now, if they's as nimble in the Dardanelles, we're in for a right mauling as we sails down past them forts.”

“Wasn't so bad coming up, Thad,” Oakley said. “All a mort pitiful, them Turks as had a try at us.”

“Ah—that's because they weren't expectin'. I'll give youse a guinea to a shilling that they, knowin' we has to go back the same way, has somethin' in the way of a farewell salute in mind.”

“How piquant.”

Everyone looked suspiciously at the surgeon Peyton, who rarely spoke at gun-room gatherings.

“What do y' mean, Doc?”

“Why, can't you see? The French are the enemies of Turkey and have been since 'ninety-eight when they invaded their territory in Egypt. We're their allies from the same date. So who's firing at whom?”

“All a bit murky f'r an old shellback like me,” the boatswain growled. “I'd be beholden to the cap'n to give us a steer.” In the recent past the question would have been directed at Renzi.

“Not so hard to fathom. I'm grieved to say it, but we're seeing yet another country drop into Napoleon's bony hands. Unless we can come up with some sort of stratagem, I fear we're witness to yet one more conquest.”

“Stratagem? You mean land an army or some such, sir?”

“Well, something—anything as sees Johnny Crapaud put to embarrassment, is all I can say.”

“No chance o' that now, I'm thinking. We're scuttling off like frightened rabbits, no glory in that a-tall.”

The evening tailed off, none of the usual jollity—well polished yarns, songs, sly digs and honest laughter. How could it be otherwise, with the pitiful burden of pain and suffering in the coach above and every mile they sailed into the night separating them from their chubby-faced midshipmen and honest British tars in some Turkish dungeon?

The next day the fleet was informed it was Duckworth's decision that, as they had intention of making the straightforward passage of Gallipoli at night, they would anchor at Marmora Island, thirty miles from the northern entrance of the Dardanelles and there they would water.

Kydd had his reservations. Would not this give warning of the British re-passing? Nevertheless a chance to re-stow with fresh water was always welcome.

The anchors went down in the lee of the island, off a tiny fishing village nestling snugly beneath bare mountains. The watering place near the tip of the sharp headland could accommodate only a few boats at a time and several took the opportunity to land in the port to bargain for fish and vegetables.

“Go with 'em, Dillon. You never know what you might hear.”

After the loss of their shipmates on another island they were taking no chances, and the launch with its water leaguers was accompanied by a full section of armed marines.

They arrived back some hours later and Dillon hurried to Kydd. “Sir Thomas, I've disturbing news that I'm not sure you'll want to hear.”

“I'll be the judge of that.”

It was an extraordinary tale. An old fisherman, an ethnic Greek, had approached Brice with information to offer. His broken English
could not easily be made out and Dillon was brought across. With a mix of makeshift modern Greek, a little English and much signing, the essence was learned.

After the first forcing of the Dardanelles the Turks had been enraged. Knowing they must return the same way, this time there would be a nasty surprise for the insolent British at its narrowest part. Monster guns would be put in place to smash the helpless ships to splinters. The very ones that the great Sultan Mehmet had used many centuries before to batter his way into Constantinople and bring down the Byzantine Empire and the last Roman Caesar.

The old man had seen them pass with his own eyes and had asked the marching gunners about them. He was told they were the biggest guns in the world, firing marble shot of immense size, each weighing as much as four men. No ship could pass them and live.

He had begged the English admiral to think again about going back through.

“I had no reason to disbelieve him, Sir Thomas. He had little to gain by telling us a fabrication.”

There was nothing for it but to go to Duckworth with the information.

“Monster guns? I'd believe eighty-pounders—we saw some great shot thrown at us on our way up, but more than that, I doubt it. I think your man's been practised upon—how the devil would they load the piece if they can't lift the ball? And what sort of charge would you need to … No, it's just not possible.”

“There may be some truth behind it, sir.”

“Dragging out an old museum piece to frighten us? Where would they get the ammunition, hey? No, Kydd. We'll be having a warm time of it at Pesquies but not like that. I'm surprised at you, upsetting your people with wild rumours from damned foreigners.”

At dusk they weighed for the Dardanelles.

As before, they made the transit of Gallipoli in pitch darkness. This time the night was split apart by gun-flash in a frenzy of violence but they sailed on untouched. In the morning they were well down the passage and nearing the awkward dog-leg about Point Pesquies and Abydos, which had to be navigated in daylight.

At full alert the fleet stole on, gun-ports open, ready for what must come in the narrows. Battleships in line ahead, frigates on either side.

There was an eerie quiet as the head of the line closed with the same point of land where Smith's division had overwhelmed the Turkish force. The many wrecks were still there and the sour stink of destruction lingered.

The first ships rounded the point—and first one, then another titanic blast of sound erupted, like an earthquake sending shockwaves through the ground and water.

Almost too quick to register, Kydd saw a brief blur that transformed a seaman into a hanging red mist and flung his shipmates into a huddle of bodies. Then, with a violent crash, the ball went on to send the main-mast of
Windsor Castle
teetering and falling like a great tree in a forest.

Another fearful roar of sound, now accompanied by a tempest of other cannon-fire. It stunned the senses but Kydd reasoned the mammoth guns would not be wasting their gargantuan shot on mere frigates: they would be going after the big three-deckers.

“Shiver the tops'ls,” he bellowed.
L'Aurore
slowed until she could slip in astern, out of the line of fire. Towering pyramids of smoke ashore drifted over, masking targets for her own gunners, but under the furious storm of shot the only essential was to get off a convincing reply.

The noise was indescribable. Could they survive the holocaust?

He watched helplessly as, ahead of them,
Windsor Castle
grappled with their damage. She was under topsails but the loss
of her biggest mast with its staysails badly unbalanced the ship.

An out-of-control battleship would effectively block the escape of others behind.

Kydd looked in dread past her to
Repulse
as one of the massive shots struck and sent up a spray of black specks—how much more could they take?

The firing reached a mind-numbing crescendo—but then he saw how they had a chance. The wind was not only fair but now from dead astern, urging them on without the need for
Windsor Castle
and others to risk sail manoeuvres. And the monster guns might have been giant in calibre but this brought with it a fatal disadvantage—a paralysingly slow rate of fire.

They had only to win through the narrows and they would be in the open sea.

The furious cannonade became ragged and gradually died, the gun-smoke clearing. There had been devastation and casualties but the fleet was still together, every ship under way in a blessed release.

There were a few desultory shots from Cape Janissary and then they were free of the Dardanelles.

Tenedos was the fleet rendezvous. The anchors had barely gone down when a demand was signalled for a damage survey and casualties report.
L'Aurore
had escaped lightly: a scored yard, rigging parted, two small shot-holes. And one seaman killed with three lying moaning in their hammocks. Clinton was now fully conscious and showed every sign of being on the mend.

It was a different matter for some of the others. The gigantic stone ball strike Kydd had seen had smashed through
Repulse
's poop, splintering the deck, carrying away her wheel and nearly severing her mizzen-mast. As it did so, it had killed both quartermasters, five seamen and three marines, and wounded many more in a single blow.