Julian Stockwin - The Iberian Flame - Thomas Kydd 20

Kydd went up to the lieutenant in charge, who glared at him imperiously and said, ‘Have a care, sir. These are dangerous men – French!’

Kydd held back a grin. This were probably the first and possibly only encounter that the man would have with the enemy. ‘Have they been searched?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

All that had been found was the respectable sum of fifty guineas in banknotes and a single piece of paper with cryptic directions – but it was enough to indicate that this was no impulsive act. It had been organised.

Later Nott, the parole agent, called into Combe Tavy to thank Kydd. ‘You’ll be pleased to know you’re entitled to a reward of half-a-crown a nob, Sir Thomas. Small enough recompense for putting a stopper to those runners. As to your organising, you’re in the right of it but how do I get to the bottom of it, pray? The banknotes are forgeries, I’d wager, and nothing to be gained from the paper.’ He sniffed dismissively. ‘A parole-breaker need only get to London to find a snug berth out in a neutral ship, or quicker still, buy passage out with a smuggler, the vermin.’

‘For both it needs organising.’

‘Aye. But there’s always those who’ll make their way smooth for a rub of silver.’

The four had lost their bid because they had had the misfortune to come upon the only man in the Devon countryside able to penetrate their masquerade. It was galling, but there was nothing more Kydd could do about the flight of any other French officers.

Chapter 6

There was little enough time before Tyger must sail and Kydd was determined to make the most of it. He and his wife spent an agreeable musical evening laced with memories of times past in Plymouth, meeting Persephone’s friends and Kydd singing some of his favourite pieces, lovingly accompanied by her. Then they attended a warm assembly at Bramblebye, the mansion of the gregarious Percival Luscombe, his nearest neighbour to the north, and hosted another dinner for Capitaine Marceau, who listened gravely to Kydd’s account of his arrest of the parole-breakers. He said little, clearly mortified by the dishonourable behaviour of his countrymen.

One morning Kydd took a barn-door hinge to the Ivybridge blacksmith to be mended.

The genial Tovey filled the smithy with sparks as he hammered energetically at some sort of agricultural implement, his ancient workplace a-flare with the ruddy glare of his forge. Kydd waited for the piece to be returned to the fire.

‘An’ what can I do for ye, Sir Thomas?’ Tovey said, wiping the beads of sweat from his reddened face.

‘This bracket is all,’ he replied, handing over the old, creakily worn hinge.

The blacksmith took one look and shook his head. ‘Be takin’ your cobbs for nothing should I do it. Y’ needs a new ’un, no mistake.’

‘So be it,’ Kydd agreed, and became aware that there was another in the smithy behind Tovey. The man was silent, watching him carefully. In a fisherman’s jersey and sea-boots, there was no mistaking his calling, but what he held caught Kydd’s attention.

Those far-off days in Teazer when he’d waged war against the smugglers down the coast – it all came flooding back at the sight. With its dull black finish, cavernous interior, the removable lid and, above all, the long nozzle, it could be nothing else but a smuggler’s spout lantern, a device that could funnel the light out to sea and not be seen from the shore.

At Kydd’s gaze, Tovey defensively tried to move the object out of sight.

‘Er, what’s that you’re holding, pray?’ Kydd asked innocently.

Tovey eased into a tight smile. ‘Why, bless ye, Squire. That there’s a waterin’ can as we use hereabouts on our plots o’ greens. Gives extra reach as saves us a row or two o’ walking.’

‘Oh, I didn’t know. A lot of new things I’m learning in Devon.’

The blacksmith and the other man visibly loosened.

‘Well, I’ll leave you to it, Mr Tovey. A good day to you both.’

Kydd went to the side door, closed it noisily, then tiptoed back behind the rack of tools that divided the workspace.

‘Thursday. Must have it b’ Thursday.’ The man’s tone was gruff and commanding.

‘Oh, aye. A run then, is it? As will see me with a right true rummer in m’ fist b’ midnight?’

‘Not this time, cully. Froggies only, it is. Thursday, I said?’

‘Ye’ll have it.’

Kydd withdrew quietly. He’d stumbled on an escape arrangement for French parole-breakers.

There was plenty of time to warn Nott. But what could a single man do – especially against an armed and dangerous smuggling gang? He’d have to alert the Revenue.

His note to the Salcombe Watch, the nearest, was curtly returned with an accompanying message that they’d be obliged should he allow that they knew their district better than he, and without intelligence of their own to corroborate, they would need considerably more evidence to move on it, short-handed as they were.

Kydd was damned if he’d let it go. He knew what he had seen.

In his mind he went over the old smuggling haunts along the coast between the Great Mewstone at the entrance to Plymouth Sound to the Bolt Head before its turn into the fleet anchorage of Torbay.

There were sandy beaches, some snugly concealed with good communication inland but, while they were fine for landing goods from boats and getting them away fast inland, what was needed was a well-sheltered hidden arm of the sea extending inland that could be approached stealthily, which would cloak the actual taking up of the men, and was far from meddlesome settlements.

In this rugged stretch of coast he could think of one that stood out from the others, which he knew well – the place he’d landed all those years ago with the young Lieutenant Binney, who’d then travelled overland to Plymouth to discover the truth about the great fleet mutiny.

The lieutenant was native to these parts and, taking a ship’s boat, they had landed unseen, not far from Ivybridge, up from the mouth of the Erme.

It made a great deal of sense: the other two possibilities, Bigbury and the Yealm estuary, were overlooked by villages.

But if the Revenue didn’t want to be involved, who was he to take action? If he were aboard Tyger it would be quite another matter. Could he call out the military? There was an army post at Wembury, he recalled, but files of redcoats, floundering about in the dark, was not the answer.

Just beyond Yealm Head, though, there was a small company of Sea Fencibles. A form of naval militia, they’d been originally created to stand against the waves of Bonaparte’s invasion barges and still remained at their posts, for the threat had not gone away. Consisting of fishermen and others with sea experience, they trained weekly and, for their pains, were protected from impressment.

Chapter 7

The day before the planned run Kydd reconnoitred the area. It all came back: the meandering path through thick woodland to the water’s edge where the rickety landing stage still existed; the Erme river, some hundreds of yards of placid water, with its right-hand bend leading a full two miles further to a bar before the open sea.

Kydd saw how the escapees could be brought down the path and assembled by the landing stage while the man with the spout lantern would stand at its end to sight and bring in the smuggler’s boat.

The next day, as dusk drew in, Kydd had his men in place, well back from the path, out of sight in the undergrowth and armed with cutlass and pistol. The Sea Fencibles lieutenant stood with him. It was a cool evening, still and quiet. The moon would not rise for an hour – at this moment the smuggler would be ghosting inshore to lie off clear of the bar, then getting his boat in the water for the pull up the Erme shallows.