Tenacious(112)

When dusk brought a halt to the work Kydd returned to the headquarters. Smith had the map laid out and courteously enquired what steps he had taken. Kydd told him, puzzled that Hewitt was not present as was their usual practice when setting the night watch. Smith’s expression did not change. ‘I’m grieved to say that Lieutenant Hewitt was gravely wounded in the discharge of his duty and has been returned to his ship. I have asked for another officer.’ Kydd’s heart went out to the dry, sensitive Hewitt, who had suspected from the first that his own blood would join that of others in the history of this ancient, holy land.

‘Therefore I will assume the first watch,’ Smith said, in a controlled tone.

‘Aye, sir. May I ask if the ravelins—’

‘They are secure and their guns will be in place tomorrow.’

Kydd tossed in his cot. The endless striving, the blood-letting, and the knowledge that under the ground a mine was advancing that would end at any moment in a deadly explosion – all this, and the exhaustion of days and weeks facing the worst that the most famous general of the age could throw against them – was bearing down on his spirit.

At daybreak he went to the parapets to scan the distant French encampment with his signal telescope. There were no signs of untoward activity: perhaps today would be quiet.

At breakfast the new lieutenant was announced. Kydd lifted his eyes – to see Renzi standing there. ‘Have I lost m’ reason in the sun – or is it you, m’ dear friend?’ he cried, lurched to his feet and gripped Renzi’s hand. He broke into a smile – the first for a long time.

Renzi greeted his friend warmly, and Kydd brightened. ‘Why, Nicholas, but I had hoped you were safe in England,’ he said. ‘How is it I find you in this place o’ misery?’

‘And leave all the sport to your own good self?’ Renzi said lightly. ‘Besides, I am only returned these two days, and seeing this is set fair to be the most famous siege of the age, I could yet find myself noticed…’

They paced slowly along the scarred walls of Acre, Renzi blank-faced as he learned of the perilous state of the siege and the imminent return of the victorious Buonaparte.

‘Did your visit to y’r family go well?’ Kydd asked, after a space. Renzi had said nothing to him before he left, other than that a family concern required his attention.

They walked further before Renzi replied quietly, ‘It was a matter involving a decision of great importance to my future and, I confess, it is not yet resolved.’

Kydd knew his friend to be one who cared deeply about moral issues and worried at them until he had drawn all the threads into a satisfactory conclusion. Perhaps this was one such instance. ‘Should you wish t’ debate a little, Nicholas… ?’

‘That is kind in you, dear fellow, but the nature of my dilemma does not readily yield to the powers of rational philosophy.’

‘Then I shall no longer speak on it,’ Kydd said firmly. Renzi would come out with a fully reasoned decision when he was ready, and at the moment they had other more pressing concerns.

‘Did I mention,’ Renzi said, in quite another voice, ‘that our good chaplain Peake comes ashore shortly? Knowing his extreme distaste for the effusion of blood I tried to dissuade him from this charnel pit but he is a stubborn old horse.’ He considered for a moment and added, ‘Do bear him with patience – he’s been aboard an anchored ship for an age while he knows that there are men here dying without comfort, and he devoutly wishes to do his duty in some way.’

The morning conference opened with the news that Buonaparte was drawing close, and the dismaying intelligence that because he no longer had to look to a threat from inland he could bring up and deploy every resource to the one object – the reduction of Acre.

‘This, then, is the climax,’ Smith declared. ‘Buonaparte has all his forces present and if he cannot triumph over us with these he never will. I recognise this as our supreme moment. My intention is to deny him his victory and, to that end, I am stripping our ships of every man that can be spared and bringing ’em ashore to fight. Gentlemen, we shall not be beat!’

It was crazy – a few hundred seamen, a handful of ship’s guns and the Turks and Arabs, who could at best be only a few thousand against the might of Buonaparte’s army.

‘We must hold,’ Smith went on. ‘I have word from Constantinople that a Turkish fleet is on its way to us, and troops are summoned from Rhodes. We have but to hold and we’re assured the final victory.’

He felt for a satchel under the desk and swung it up. ‘Taken from a French supply vessel yesterday. See what our devilish friend is up to now.’