Pasha (25 page)

Blackwood nodded sadly. “Just between you and me, Kydd, I have the gravest reservations about this mission. It's one as is ill conceived by an interfering Admiralty acting under political pressure and not knowing the facts of the matter.”

These were near treasonable sentiments and Kydd knew that only the worst fears would have driven the loyal Blackwood to utter them.

“Here we have Admiral Duckworth arriving afire for action, and in a day backing and filling with caution when he should be boldly standing on. You know what this implies?”

“That Duckworth is not confiding in his subordinates—he's had weeks to consult Sir Sidney Smith, who knows these waters and could have warned him of conditions?”

“Just so. I rather think we have an ambitious man overreaching himself, who now sees that, far from a glorious opportunity for fame and distinction, this is threatening to descend into failure
and ignominy. Hardly a leader to inspire.”

“And his orders are to defer to the ambassador in both strategy and tactics—a divided command, I believe.”

“Yes, indeed. I'm particularly exercised in how he'll rein in Sir Sidney. Our Swedish knight is not known for either his tact or strict obedience to orders.”

“His courage is undoubted.”

“As will be tested when we attempt the Dardanelles, of course, but this is not the prime requisite in our case. We shall see.”

More sherry was poured. “You've done well, indeed, Sir Thomas,” Blackwood said respectfully. “Since first shipping your swab, Trafalgar within a few months in a new frigate command and then … what was it next? The Cape?”

The dinner passed agreeably, the lamb cutlets superbly cooked and accompanied by a very passable claret.

“Do you miss
Euryalus?”
Kydd asked.

Blackwood's frigate had played a central role in Trafalgar even after the battle, acting as flagship for Collingwood, towing the
Royal Sovereign
to safety in the great storm that followed, and under a flag of truce going into Cádiz to parley for prisoners.

“To be frank, I do. She was only a year or two old and I had her set to rights just as I wanted her. But a frigate … Well, they're a young man's command and a ship-of-the-line is a next step to one's flag, so as of last year, here I have Ajax.”

“A fine command, even so,” Kydd said, with sincere admiration. “I saw her in action at Trafalgar.”

“Of course you did. And did you know it was Lieutenant Pinfold, her first lieutenant, who commanded? Lechmere was called away to a court-martial and the young fellow found himself pitched in without warning.”

“And served nobly, as what I witnessed.”

“I heard he was made post directly and given a frigate command.”

The two men sat back reflectively. It was not so long ago but already it seemed another age, a time for heroes, fighting for survival against fearful odds and the end always in doubt. Now it was the slow but sure acquisition of empire and—

There was a muffled crash that seemed to come from under their feet, perhaps in the wardroom or midshipman's berth.

Blackwood frowned.

Another. Then the thump of running feet.

Blackwood jumped up, lunging to open the door. He was met by the heart-stopping sight of billowing dark smoke and the stink of burning.

A tearing cry of “Fire!” was taken up, urgently spreading forward and an unseen stampede began.

“If I can do anything …”

But Blackwood was off into the roiling murk, fighting to reach his quarterdeck.

Kydd had a primitive fear of fire and his heart pounded as he thrust after him. In seconds he was staggering in the choking darkness, nearly knocked off his feet by running figures. Bellowed orders and cries of panic rang out.

How had the 'tween decks filled with smoke so fast?

Kydd dimly saw it was puffing up the main-hatch out into the gun-deck—which suggested it had taken hold below first.

It was near impossible to see to manoeuvre a fire-engine in the darkness or even get some idea of where the core of the blaze was. And to get water down to the bowels of the vessel in quantity meant a long and near useless bucket chain, or opening the bilge cocks and risking the ship sinking with no guarantee that the water flooding in could be diverted for fire-fighting.

He hesitated—his every fibre screamed at him to get out of the claustrophobia to the open air; this was not his ship, or the men his to command, and he had no reason to get in the way of those
who were trying to stem the rampaging advance of the fire. He heard a lieutenant's hoarse urging—and stumbled guiltily, eyes streaming, to the ladder and the blessedly clear night air.

The smoke was soon thick and billowing on deck as well, streaming up through the gratings of the main-hatch, a choking hindrance to those trying to rig fire appliances. As yet there were no open flames.

Kydd went to the knot of men he could just see on the quarterdeck. Blackwood was in the centre with a lace kerchief over his mouth and nose, the only officer—the others, no doubt, were below rallying the men. Those about him were the master and boatswain; the carpenter was away knocking down bulkheads to get at the fire.

“If there's any—”

But Blackwood just looked through him at the extremity of distraction.

“I sent my first luff below to discover the fire but he's not returned,” he said eventually. “I've no idea what's to do down there.”

In a surge of sympathy Kydd's hand went out, but it fell away in hopelessness at trying to convey his feelings.

It was one thing to have command and responsibility, quite another to have no knowledge at all on which to base decisions and orders.

An inhuman shriek came clear above the pandemonium and then another—things of horror were happening and they could do nothing.

“All boats in the water,” Blackwood ordered, in not much more than a croak.

The boatswain left, bellowing for hands to muster at the boat skids forward. These would have to be hoisted out by block and tackle at the yardarm, a task normally needing hundreds of men and there was not that number on deck. The smoke was getting
worse, now with an acrid edge that made it a choking, suffocating trial. An increasingly impenetrable murkiness hid everything: what it must be like between decks for the heroes at the bucket chains and pumps could not be imagined.

A sudden bright orange light flickered through at the main-hatch. The blaze was now flaring up from the bowels of the ship, hopelessly afire below.

Blackwood hesitated for only a moment. “Abandon ship!” he said, breaking off in a paroxysm of coughing. “Get the men out, every one—abandon ship!”

As if to add point to the inevitability the flames shot up in a sudden blaze amid a hellish chorus of shrieks. The end was not far off—but how could word be spread below? Those it reached might make the safety of the upper deck but many, fighting for the life of their ship, would never hear it.

The smoke was near invisible in the dark so it came as a shock to the other ships at anchor to see flames stabbing up. A gun banged out into the night from forward,
Ajax's
anguished cry for help. More cracked out, vivid flashes just piercing the sullen smoke clouds rolling about the deck.

It would take time for boats from the ships to be launched and reach them.

Men stumbled up from below, retching and pitiable. Some took a few breaths and fought their way back down to pass the word and help up shipmates blinded by smoke. Kydd's heart went out to them.

The main-hatch was turning into an inferno, the sails on the lower yards smouldering and taking fire. Such was its ferocity, Kydd realised, with sick dismay, that in a very short time the after end of the ship would be a death-trap.

He seized Blackwood's arm and gasped urgently, above the chaos, “We have to get forrard.”

It was a desperate journey: the roaring blaze blinding them with its light in the blackness, the conflagration's heat and roar beating on them as they passed, paralysing Kydd's mind with the stark terror of elemental fire, wild and berserk.

On the far side were the long gangways leading over the waist of the ship and past the boats, still on their skids, to the foredeck. There were scores of men at the ship's side, broken and gasping, staring at the flaring blaze taking pitiless hold aft, then looking down into the inky blackness of the water. Very few could swim and in the blackness their struggles would be invisible, their cries unheard against the crackling din. Every man now faced a stark choice—to be incinerated or drowned.

“They're not coming,” Blackwood said, in a low voice, gesturing to the other ships.

The few boats that had been launched were hanging back, fearful of what must come. They knew that when the fires reached the grand magazine of the great guns
Ajax
would cease to be.

“We've got to go,” Kydd urged, but he, too, was held in deadly thrall by the still, dark waters.

Blackwood drew himself up. In strong, solemn tones, he told his men, “There's no hope for it, I'm sorry to say. Cast yourselves over-side is your only chance. God bless you and keep you.”

Several plunged into the sea but many more held back in eye-bulging terror.

Unexpectedly, Blackwood touched Kydd's arm. “Dear chap. I hesitate to ask it, but if you'd help me, I'd be much obliged to you.”

In the wildness of the night his calmness reached out to Kydd. “Of course. How might I … ?”

It was the act of a brave and intelligent man. Blackwood knew that his ship was destined for destruction but he realised that the rest of those in the anchorage could not escape in time and would be caught up in the holocaust. He had noticed that
they were all riding to their anchors facing into the slight night breeze so he was asking Kydd to help him cut the cable of
Ajax
to let her drift through the fleet and away before the cataclysm.

They stumbled down the fore-hatchway in near pitch dark, the smoke choking, blinding, while they fumbled about for the riding bitts where the anchor cable was belayed, feeling their way in a howling chaos of panic and death. And all the time the fire was raging out of control. The final blast could happen at any moment; the actual time would depend on where the fire had started. If above the level of the magazine, then the rising heat of the blaze would consume the upper part of the vessel before it ate its way down. If not, then the next second could be their last.

They found the massive square bitts. Grabbing a fire-axe from each side of the fore-mast they threw off their coats and, coughing helplessly, eyes streaming, by turns swung in savage hits at the six-inch thick cable.

Obstinately the cable remained iron-hard and unyielding—the thousands of tons of battleship at her anchor tautening it.

In the confined space they couldn't take a vertical swing or be sure to strike in the same place and, in despair, Kydd saw that their efforts were only stranding the massive rope. Nearly blinded now with sweat and tears he swung and hit mechanically, on and on, until suddenly the rope parted with a bang and slithered and bumped away out of the hawse.

“Let's be out!” Kydd gasped, and they made for the broad ladder to the foredeck.

He saw by the other ships starkly illuminated in the outer blackness that they had begun imperceptibly to slip away sternwards.

“Shall we go?” he said, hesitating with his leg over the side-rail.

“I'll—I'll be along presently,” Blackwood said, his eyes fixed on the raging fire now turning the whole after end of the ship into a white-hot furnace.

Kydd crossed to him quickly, tugging at his sleeve. “We have to go now—she'll blow any second!”

Blackwood turned slowly to him with a sad smile. “You see, I can't swim, old chap.”

Kydd ran to one of the boats and pulled out an oar. “Clap hold of this when you're in the water until they find you.”

He pushed him to the beakhead, the closer for Blackwood to drop into the water. The man swung down on to the small grating above the bowsprit and, hesitating only a little, grabbed a line and lowered himself down, dropping the last few feet into the blackness. Kydd saw him, frantically splashing about, and quickly let the oar go to float near him. Blackwood grabbed it, giving a shamefaced wave.

With a last glance at the terrible scene Kydd peered down at the dark waters to check they were clear, and let go. A half-second of weightlessness and then shocking cold. He spluttered and kicked until he was head above water and looked around.

On one side was the immense bulk of the battleship, on the other the fleet, its boats hanging back in fear and impossibly far off. The cold was ferocious, clamping in and forcing his inner core of warmth smaller and smaller. He knew that when it was finally extinguished he would be dead.

There were men in the water here and there, some splashing and shouting, others ominously still, but no sign of Blackwood.

He stroked clumsily to a piece of wreckage. It turned out to be a chicken coop, drowned fowls still inside and a body slumped half across it. There was no sign of life, its eyes stared sightlessly up. He gently pushed it off and tried to pull himself up. It was a mistake—out of water the wind cut into him cruelly and, reluctantly, he slid back into it.

The burning hulk of
Ajax
retreated into the distance and the boats finally moved in.

At the last extremity of bitter cold Kydd was dragged out of the
water and a rough blanket wrapped tenderly about him. He joined two or three others bundled on the bottom boards. Shuddering uncontrollably he took a gulp from the flask of rum offered, then lay down, letting the fire of the spirit spread through his body.

It was now only a matter of enduring.

“I think I speak for all of us,” Duckworth declared ponderously, “when I say how in sympathy we are for Captain Blackwood on the loss of his ship.”

“And her company,” muttered Smith.