Betrayal Read Online Free Page A

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 Maréchal 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