Julian Stockwin - Conquest

A sergeant major stepped forward, clipped the Union Flag of Great Britain to the halyards and paused. Kydd nodded. At the gate Bowden signalled, and the first of the minute guns thudded out. It was answered joyously by every ship at anchor as the flag was slowly and ceremoniously raised for all to see. The castle and town were theirs.

Baird put down his sword and scabbard with a clatter on the beautifully polished dark table and sank into one of the chairs, staring into space. Around him, a babble ebbed and flowed as officers commented on the tasteful mix of yellow-wood beams and skilful embellishments in the long room.

‘A damn fine day’s work!’ snorted Colonel Pack, and was heartily echoed by others.

Brigadier General Ferguson, standing in admiration by a dark-stained painting, guffawed. ‘See here, Jeffrey – they’ve taken after Vermeer!’

‘Kydd, old bean, clap your peepers on this – here’s a rattlin’ fine parcel o’ ships for you!’ said another, peering at another oil.

‘They say for wines the Cape can’t be beat!’ said one, with a fruity chuckle.

‘A right agreeable place t’ be in winter, I’m told, what with—’

‘ Be silent! ’ roared Baird, galvanised out of his chair.

The room fell into a hush. ‘Sit, if you please,’ he growled, remaining standing. He went to the small, mullioned windows, looked out moodily, then swung round on them. ‘For reasons that escape me, in taking this castle we’ve had an easy time of it. It makes me uneasy – it makes me suspicious! In the next few hours we’re to move on Cape Town to take peaceful possession. What will we find? That we’re outnumbered by a hostile population intent on selling out to the French? A Hollander army coming over the hill? A trap, well sprung?’

No one stirred. ‘And do I have to remind you that we’ve only this castle and the one town? The governor of Cape Colony has by no means surrendered to us and is still at large – and at the head of a powerful army, which, no doubt, is increasing in size daily. Unless he decides tamely to lay down his arms and capitulate, the rest of the colony is duty bound to rise against us. An area half the size of Europe!’

He sat down, suddenly looking very tired. ‘Gentlemen. We have a task worthy of Hercules himself ahead of us, for while we’ve secured a military victory, if we’re to cling to our toehold on this continent then we must turn a defeated people to accepting our rule, preferring such to any other.

‘Dutch ruled by English – the fruits of this colony instead to flow to London, an alien flag, customs, language. Will they accept it? Do we force them to bend to our laws, pay taxes in the name of King George, speak English to each other? And what of the common currency? Is now the guinea to supplant the Netherlands dollar? Do debts to the Batavian Republic now accrue to the English Crown?’

In the details it was almost beyond comprehension: an entire government and civil service to be brought into being, administration with the devising of rules and ordinances suited to the regulation of a people in the exotic territory of Africa.

‘Yes, gentlemen. Tomorrow we step out and show ourselves to the worthy inhabitants of Cape Town. I will have no indiscipline, still less plundering. This is the newest jewel of empire in the Crown of Great Britain!’

There was a cautious murmur of appreciation, but Baird did not respond, letting it die. He continued in a quite different, muted tone: ‘Gentlemen, we are so few. And at so many thousand miles from England, I pray you will not forget, for I never will do so, we are entirely – and completely – on our own.’

A bitter south-westerly flurried and bullied the immense crowds that pressed up to the bank of the River Thames. They had been there since before the pallid dawn. High-born and low, none was about to miss the greatest occasion that London had ever seen, one that could be talked about for a lifetime – one that they themselves had witnessed.

Frederick Stanhope, Marquess of Bloomsbury, and his wife were spared the crush, guests of the Lord Chancellor at the Inner Temple Gardens of the Inns of Court, and with a splendid view of the river. They, too, had braved the raw weather, determined not to miss the extraordinary spectacle.

For the lady companion to the marchioness, snuggling into her fur-lined pelisse, the day was one of special meaning, touching on the two men closest to her. England was preparing her greatest honours for the hero saviour Lord Horatio Nelson, their late commander-in-chief, whose body at that moment was approaching in the mourning barge of King Charles II, at the head of a river procession that stretched for miles.

From Greenwich, where it had lain in state for three days, the body was to be transported to Whitehall Stairs, to lie overnight in the Captain’s Room of the Admiralty before the pageant of a state funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral the next day.

‘You’re not too chilled, Cecilia?’ the marchioness asked, glancing askance at her cold-numbed face.

‘Not as would stand next to what our brave sailors endure out at sea, m’ lady,’ she replied, with spirit. Who knew where her brother and the man she loved were at that very moment?

Having just missed them at Portsmouth when they had sailed with Nelson, she had sent a heartfelt letter telling Renzi of her deep feelings for him, promising she would wait for ever. Even though he had confessed he loved her, he had absolved her of any implicit obligation, believing it unprincipled even to imply matrimony while he was impecunious. Her letter might or might not have found him, and then the news of the great battle had reached England and, like so many others, she had waited with fear in her heart as detailed casualty lists had been made known.

When the body of Nelson had arrived in his battered flagship she had discovered too late that Kydd and Renzi’s ship L’Aurore had been the one with the honour of bringing it upriver to Greenwich and then was immediately dispatched to sea again.

It was odd that the particular fleet they were attached to was not specified – word was that they were to join some mysterious expedition but, cloaked in secrecy, details had been impossible to come by. She had, however, the infinite boon of knowing they were safe and well – a hurried letter from Kydd at Greenwich before they left had asked her to let their parents know this.

No reply had come from Nicholas . . . but then, almost certainly, he had not received her letter and when he did . . .

But nothing could be certain as far as he was concerned. How would he take her outpouring of passion, her indelicate revealing of ardour and need? As a man of scrupulous sensitivities, how must he regard—

‘Oh, do look, Frederick!’ exclaimed the marchioness, gripping her husband’s arm. ‘I do believe they’re coming!’ From between the piers of Blackfriars Bridge the first of the ceremonial barges was emerging.

The river was alive with craft, some keeping pace, others moored at the embankment, figures clinging to the masts and rigging, naval boats on flank escort. But all eyes were on the four mourning barges in the lead: draped in black with a dash of vivid colour, one after another they issued out in solemn procession, the regular muffled thud of three-minute guns from the Tower of London a fitting dirge.

The marquess consulted a paper. ‘Ah, the first does carry at its head Lord Nelson’s personal standard, his guidon and banners each to be borne by a Trafalgar captain.’ It drew nearer, its sweeps drawn by liveried oarsmen in a rhythmic rise and fall. Under the canopy aft stood a number of richly caparisoned individuals. ‘And aboard from the College of Arms are Rouge Croix and Blue Mantle senior heralds, with their pursuivants.’