Pasha (41 page)

It was a sound plan: he'd noted quite a number of mosques and had taken their bearings at points along their course. What they had to do now was to come up with a best track; then at the waypoints where a change of course was necessary, transfer to the original plotted course new bearings. This would fix the point at which the helm should go over.

It was professional work in which Kendall could be expected to excel, and Kydd turned his mind to the practicalities.

The passage through would be all in one board, on the starboard tack, so sail-handling would not be a problem.The only need to touch gear was in the dog-leg between the inner castles when they would have to brace around to conform to their heading.

Firing back was out of the question—gun-flash would blind the helm and those taking sights. They would have to make the entire distance without defending themselves.

The slightest error in the bearings would be disastrous. It was crucial to be sure of the course changes, and Kydd took pains to make it so.

The passage plan waypoints were in the form of specified bearings. That was, if the seamark bore on its line of bearing at the same time as an opposite one lined up with its own, then the waypoint had been reached and the wheel would be put over.

He would have all the officers at the same task: separately equipped with boat compasses, they would each be tracking progress on their side of the ship and call a warning when coming up to a line of bearing. At the same time the master's mates would be ahead of them, searching out and identifying the next seamark.

It was as much as they could do to prepare—but would it be enough?

Kydd was uncomfortably aware of the two things he could not control and which might in a trice render them a helpless wreck: the moon and the wind.

The quarter-moon was favourable: enough to make out their marks ashore but not so bright as to allow the fort gunners to aim accurately. But if the worst happened—clouds coming up to veil the face of the moon—then they would no longer make out their seamarks, and under full sail a quick end was inevitable.

For the moment the wind was fair: east-southeasterly. But Kydd knew now that the usual pattern in this part of the world was for the reigning winds tending to be either northeasterly or southwesterly. The master's log, taking wind direction every watch, showed their present good fortune to be only a stage in a slow but persistent backing as it shifted from south to north.

They had a bracket of time that was unknown—if it came round too swiftly they would be headed, unable in the narrow confines to make way against it, and must anchor or return. If it happened while passing through the danger zone, disaster would be complete.

They had just two hours before they must set sail.

The boatswain, accompanied by his mate, roamed the ship like a bear, becketing up loose gear and laying along stopper tackles ready to clap on to any severed line.

Dillon set about his duty: the vital task of assembling all confidential papers, codes, lists, anything of value to the enemy. He
placed these in a canvas sack weighted with grape shot and securely padlocked. If the worst happened he would throw this out of the stern window to sink out of reach.

Kydd, however, had leisure to worry and endlessly go over the plan.

But two things were on their side.

Surprise! A mighty fleet might try but a lone frigate? At speed under cover of night—it would be the last thing expected.

And the Ottoman Navy. It was all somewhere in the Aegean trying for conclusions with the Russians. He therefore need not fear meeting any on the way or when they reached Constantinople.

With the sun a glowing orb behind them,
L'Aurore
weighed and proceeded.

She began under easy sail, as if on blockade searching here and there for prey. The forts at the entrance didn't bother with a shot as the last of the daylight dwindled and they took up on a slant inward.

It was time to make their move.

“Lay out 'n' loose!”

Topmen leaped into action and sail fell from the yards. Courses on fore and main, the biggest and most powerful driving sails, caught the wind with a bang and a flap before being sheeted in, the driver on the mizzen brought in and hauled in hard.

L'Aurore
felt their impetus and the trot turned to a gallop.

“A whisker off twelve!” The cry from the log showed them now creaming through the water at a full four times the speed of soldiers quick-marching. Nothing could touch the flying
L'Aurore
on a bowline.

Kydd looked up anxiously. There was cloud but it was scattered in low layers and for now the moon poured its chill splendour freely upon the scene. The coastline could be made out distinctly,
darker shadowing against the moonpath.

“Mark t' larboard!” sang out Saxton. His outflung arm towards the European shore had Bowden and Curzon up and sighting while on the other side Brice and Kydd waited impatiently for their call.

“Mark to starboard!” Kydd put his compass to work with its dimmed lamp and steady lubber's line, the card swimming lazily. Kendall was right: the mosque's white dome was an indisputable mark for them.

Usually all but deserted in the night watches, the deck was full of men, the tension keeping conversation short as they concentrated.

As they neared the bearings, warnings rapped out and the sailing master bent to the binnacle with its main ship's compass and waited for the right moment. “Helm up, steer nor'east b' north.”

Their course was now shaping more northward and the two sides of the Dardanelles began closing in on them—they would meet ahead at the outer castles and then they would know their fate.

Completely silent to any watcher, the frigate raced on, a halfacre of sail aloft, prettily illuminated by the calm moonlight. But so far there was no interest showing from the shore.

They were nearly up with the forts that Kydd remembered so well when the first alarm was given. A signal cannon from the solid mass of the fortress to starboard—and another, but no firing on them.

He smiled thinly: it would be a scene of consternation ashore, where a sleepy duty officer was being asked to decide urgently if they should open fire on what could well be one of their own fleeing from a pursuer. The hapless man could have seen no colours aloft, for
L'Aurore
was flying none, but evidently he'd thought the chances of an English ship sailing at full tilt up the narrows in the dead of night was too bizarre to contemplate and they passed through without a shot being fired.

Reaching their next waypoint precisely mid-stream, the helm
was put up another point and their track was now dead north—with Point Pesquies just two miles ahead.

Their wake seethed and bubbled in a straight line astern, white and glistening in the night, like an accusing finger towards them as the dark thrust of the headland loomed.

This was the most treacherous place of all—the narrows, where the decision had to be made to stay by the north bank, away from the guns but with the greatest current set against them, or the south bank, with clearer water but closer to the guns. And at the same time there was the complication of the risky sharp turn to starboard through nearly a right angle.

Lights twinkled ashore; people there had no idea that an English ship was—

But suddenly—a monstrous gun-flash and deep concussion. Soon gunfire was general, livid flashes and thunderous booming echoing about the still night.

The flash and smoke were making it impossible to spot the passive white of the mosques.

“I've lost the mark!” Saxton burst out.

Kendall's pale face turned to Kydd. “If I doesn't have the bearings …”

The custom of the sea demanded it was up to the captain to make the fateful decision.

“Lay the foreland two cables to starboard,” Kydd ordered. It was a known position and took them closer to the guns but faster around the point.

The firing was intense—but they were gloriously untouched. Closer still: distant figures of the gunners could be seen frozen in the gun-flash as they frenziedly plied their cannon, but the shots were going wild, giant splashes rearing up in the darkness, smaller skittering across the moonpath.

The point neared—a dull twanging aloft was a backstay shot
through and unstranding. A thud and tremor followed:
L'Aurore
had suffered at least one ball strike to the hull.

She began the turn; they could take up their marks again once they were around and—

In an instant Kydd's world was transformed into a chaos of pain and disorientation. He found himself sprawled on deck, hearing from an infinite distance Curzon shouting orders and seeing the quartermaster looking down anxiously.

He levered himself up and noticed a still shape next to him. Kendall.

Shaking his head to clear it, he staggered to his feet.

“Sir—wind o' ball!” Bowden said anxiously.

It took long seconds to register that the path of a cannon ball that had blasted between them had knocked Kendall unconscious and thrown him down with concussion.

The sailing master—of all of them to be taken out of the fight …

Through the pain of a blinding headache Kydd forced himself to focus.

Point Pesquies was coming up fast and the guns were blasting out in a frenzy—but he could see that, blinded by the constant flashes, they were firing more or less at random and probably would not even know when
L'Aurore
had passed by.

When they lay over at last for the haul to the northeast, they left behind thundering guns in manic play on an empty sea.

They were through!

Kydd's body throbbed with pain and he squeezed away tears as he flogged his mind to concentration.

It was not over yet.

There was a stretch of twenty or more miles and then it was the Gallipoli forts. It was now well on into the early hours and sunrise could not be far off. If they didn't get past while it was still dark the gunners would have them over open sights in full daylight.

“Crack on, Mr Curzon,” he croaked. “Every stitch o' canvas counts.”

He clutched on to one thing:
L'Aurore
was now sailing at her best. She was travelling at speeds impossible on land: no word of warning could possibly be passed—no running messenger, not even a horse at full gallop, could sustain the pace.

And Kendall's painstaking work was paying off.

Quickly picking up the seamarks again, they made good speed but there was a perceptible change now. To starboard the sky was definitely lightening.

It was a race to the finish.

When it came it was almost an anticlimax.

The craggy cliffs loomed to larboard and there was no alarm. Even as the grey chill break-of-day spread there was still no sudden activity on the land.

The sight of an anonymous frigate scudding by in the innocent dawn had taken them completely by surprise. When well past, forlorn shots rang out but it was too late. Now they were free: ahead was open sea—and Constantinople!

Kydd leaned on his elbow in his cot while the surgeon pressed on him an evil-tasting concoction, apparently a sovereign remedy for headache. After a few hours' sleep he was on the mend although his head still pounded—but he had to face that the critical time lay ahead.

They had achieved a miracle by surprise and daring but it would be all for nothing if he failed at his main task: to force the Turks to deliver up his friend.

In the rush of technical and professional preparation for the passage, he had not had time to give it much thought but now he must.

He groaned and pushed aside Tysoe's well-meant gruel.

Even supposing he could brazenly arrive under flag of truce and demand to speak with their sultan or whomever, what argument could he bring to bear?

A wave of nausea threatened to undo Peyton's good work.

“Leave me,” he gasped, but it was too late.

The surgeon wordlessly cleaned it up and left, prescribing more rest.

Kydd lay back in despair.

By the afternoon he could sit up without queasiness but his headache still thumped pitilessly.

They were hours away only …

Incredibly, quite soon, it came to him what he would say.

It would be: the Turks, quite unwittingly, had made a serious blunder.

It had been brought to the ear of the puissant and dread King of England that his cousin the sultan was shamefully detaining the person of the noble and worthy Lord Farndon, closely related to the royal family.

Certainly an oversight—nevertheless, if the wholly innocent aristocrat was not delivered up safely to the captain of the frigate detailed to bring him home, the King would feel it upon his honour to strip the rest of the world of his very own Royal Navy and send it—all 467 battleships—to Constantinople to effect his release.

No doubt the sultan would be pleased to comply once the mistake was known and that would be an end of the matter.

Yes!

“Mr Dillon, the carpenter and the gunner to attend on me,” he ordered firmly.

Shortly, there took place an extraordinary meeting.

The result was perfect: two boards, covered with red baize and bound like a book. On the outside of the “cover” was fastened a gun tompion from the saluting cannon, in the form of a King
George crown, suitably gilded, licked with scarlet and green and satisfyingly heavy.

On the inside was a vellum, executed in meticulous script by Dillon and detailing the King's solemn concerns. It was liberally adorned with seals and ciphers, each of which had a tail of gold lace or tassel sacrificed from Kydd's own dress uniform.

Curzon arrived and announced, “The coast o' Turkey, nor'-west eight miles.”

It was a question, of course.

“Stand off and on until after dark, if you please. We want to arrive before dawn.”

There was little danger of being sighted. The blockade was biting and there was no point in anything being at sea when they had nowhere to go, and with their navy otherwise engaged …