Julian Stockwin - Betrayal

The sailors looked about, fascinated. On either bank was the uniform low tangle of mangroves from which a miasma of decay drifted out as uncountable numbers of birds beat their way into the air at their intrusion. Bursts of harsh sounds from hidden creatures came on the air and insects swarmed annoyingly.

Doud urgently hailed aft: ‘’Ware rocks!’

Ahead were three or four bare brown humps – but as they watched one disappeared and others turned to offer gaping mouths. ‘Hippos!’ Renzi said, and others turned to watch, exclaiming excitedly.

‘Eyes in the boat!’ Kydd growled. The age-old call to boat discipline seemed out of keeping on a frigate’s barge in an African river and a sense of unreality crept in. Naval service had taken him to many exotic places in the world but this promised to be the strangest.

Where the estuary narrowed, the mangroves gave way to low grassy banks and open woodland. At the water’s edge were four of the largest crocodiles Kydd had ever seen, basking in the late-afternoon sun. The boat glided past them in silence, every man thinking of the consequences of pitching overboard.

Somewhere far upstream the wet season was sending down vast quantities of water, swelling the river and bringing brown silt, tearing clumps of earth from the bank and with it masses of vegetation, occasionally even floating islands of light woodland.

The river took a sharp left turn, Kydd straining for any sign of the French ship. He didn’t need Doud’s patient soundings to know that there was more than enough water for even a ship-sloop.

Or a frigate? Kydd dismissed the thought quickly. There would be sufficient depth but these sharp bends were beyond a square-rigger to negotiate. If the corvette was up one of these river mouths it would be because it had been towed up by its boats against the current; out of the question with L’Aurore . ‘Keep to the outer side o’ the bends,’ Kydd told Poulden. ‘It’ll be deepest there.’

Obediently the tiller went over but as they neared the opposite bank a well-trodden open area came into view with a family of elephants drinking and splashing. They looked up in surprise: indignant, one made to rush at them but stopped and lifted its trunk, trumpeting angrily. A screeching bird flapped overhead.

The loop opened up but only to reveal another bend winding out of sight. The evening was drawing in, bringing with it clouds of midges. The warm, breathy breeze was dropping: much less and it would be ‘out oars’ and a hard pull. By now they were near a dozen miles inland and no sign of any Frenchman.

It was time to return. ‘That’s enough, Poulden, we’re going back,’ Kydd said, twisting to see what Renzi was pointing at.

‘Is that not . . . or am I sun-touched?’ A piece of floating debris, caught on the bank at the sharpest point of the bend, had a regular shape that seemed to owe nothing to nature.

‘Take us near,’ Kydd ordered. As they drew closer his interest quickened.

‘Brail up!’ he snapped. When the boat lost way he motioned it into the muddy bank where it softly nudged in next to the half-buried object.

‘Haul it in, Doud,’ he called. The seaman wiggled it free of the mud and pulled inboard a stout round object, familiar to any seaman. The provision cask was passed down the boat to Kydd. Burned into the staves was the barely decipherable legend: ‘ Marie Galante ’ and underneath roman numerals, then ‘Rochefort’ with a date.

‘Ha! He’s here, an’ just broached his supper,’ Kydd grunted, smelling the interior disdainfully. Not only had they the name of the corvette but Rochefort was the port from which Marechal had sailed. ‘Bear off, and haul out back up the river.’

Under way once more the feeling of unreality increased. Evening was setting in, livid orange inland under a long violet cloud-line with shadows advancing, yet here they were, closing with the enemy.

They swept around the left-hand bend and still another lay ahead to the right. Then, sharp black in the evening sky, above the growth of the intervening bend, they saw the upperworks of a full-rigged ship.

‘Easy!’ Kydd snapped. ‘Down sail, out oars. Now, Poulden, take us close in. Then I want you to quant us around slowly so I can take a peek without disturbing ’em at their supper.’

Using an upturned oar, the barge was poled along, nosing slowly around until Kydd, leaning over the bow, suddenly hissed, ‘Avast! Keep us there.’

The bend opened into a lengthy reach nearly a half-mile long – and at its further end was their chase. Kydd fumbled for his spy-glass and trained it on the vessel. He looked intently to see how it was defended.

‘The cunning beggar,’ he murmured, with reluctant admiration. ‘As he’s made himself as snug as a duck in a ditch!’

The ship was securely moored by bow and stern to the side of the bank at the far end of the reach where her captain could have maximum warning of a cutting-out attack by boats. This also gave an excellent field of fire for, with the guns levered around, it would be an impossibly bloody affair if they approached in boats to storm it.

Kydd lifted the glass again and carefully quartered the riverbank alongside the ship. Men were slashing down the vegetation to create an open space; covered by their opposite broadside, an assault by land would be just as murderous. That left an attack after dark – but a captain so canny would have a boat out to row night guard; illuminations would follow any intrusion and the result would be the same.

He lowered the glass and slid it shut. He couldn’t ask his men to take on such odds even with the stakes of intelligence to be won. The Marie Galante was perfectly safe: they could stay for as long as patience held out, for water and a supply of meat were on hand and it would need only occasional boat trips to tell them when L’Aurore had given up and sailed away. It was galling but it had to be accepted: the Frenchman had prevailed.

There was now no other course than to sail back to Cape Town, bearing the tantalising news that Marechal appeared to be at large but where or when and with what force was anybody’s guess.

‘Return,’ he told Poulden, and made his way back to the sternsheets with Renzi.

His coxswain waited for a sizeable mat of vegetation to be carried past by the current before poling out, then told his crew to hoist sail. The boat curved around, carefully avoiding the relic of torn riverbank that had come down from far up the mysterious Zambezi. Kydd’s thoughts, however, were on what he could do to retrieve something from the situation. At least they didn’t have to search up the remaining three mouths and-

A preposterous idea entered his mind that teased him with its possibilities. He twisted round to glance back whence they’d come. Yes – it could work if . . .

‘Poulden. Lay us alongside the floating greenery, if y’ please.’

The coxswain gave him a puzzled glance but did as requested. Close to, it was a substantial piece of densely matted vegetation, grass of quite another kind from that growing on nearby banks, tall, thick and wreathed with tangling creepers. On one side there were even young saplings and a sprawling bush.

‘Seize on,’ Kydd called to the bowman, who gingerly felt with his boat-hook. The boat swung closer with the current – and Kydd stepped on to the little island, taking care to keep a hold on the boat’s gunwale. It gave a little under his weight and he dared to stand upright. Something near his foot hissed and slithered rapidly away, while a large clumsy bird with a fleshy beak burst out of the bush, cawing.

Kydd trod further into the thick undergrowth. It felt surprisingly substantial and he called to two of the seamen to join him. One caught an ankle and fell prostrate with a frightened oath. The island swayed a little but seemed not to object. They had a chance.