Seaflower - Kydd 03

by Julian Stockwin

  The seamen lost no time in hanging over the side and getting their story from the boat's crew, the tale disjointed and wild but plain in its essentials. Admiral Howe had been at sea for weeks, knowing that a desperately needed convoy of grain was coming from America to relieve revolution-racked France, heavily guarded, of course. The two fleets met at sea and a running battle over three days had culminated in a titanic clash on 1 June and a crushing defeat for the French.

  Willing hands hauled on lines of flags as the receiving ship dressed overall, her token four-pounders banging out to add to the bedlam all around, a delirious show from a nation at the news of a great victory in a major Fleet action at sea.

  Ashore, the dockyard and the town were filling with people, their shouts carrying faintly to the frustrated men who knew full well what was developing in the taverns and pot-houses of the town.

  But to their unspeakable mortification, the Artemis survivors were not allowed to join in the merry-making — and it was so easy to remember their own wild reception after their victory in a sea duel with a French frigate, the first fight among equals of the war, and they wanted to relive the euphoria. There was nothing to do but stare longingly at the shore and endure, a hard and bitter thing for men who had suffered as they.

  The court-martial flag remained at the masthead, but Kydd was not called. Neither was he the next day, and when the flag was hauled down on the third day he shrugged and made ready to leave for home.

  It was also the day that Earl Howe and his victorious fleet arrived at Spithead. The town erupted for the second time, and enviously the Artemis seamen watched as the liberty boats swarmed ashore at Portsmouth Point. Incredibly, they were still being kept aboard.

  Renzi's disquiet turned to unease. This was neither humane nor sensible treatment for shipwrecked souls, and did not make sense. The loss of Artemis would be overlooked in the delirium of the victory of the Glorious First of June, so there was no point in keeping the men from their families.

  A boatswain's mate appeared at the hatchway and pealed a call. ‘Artemis hands! Haaaaands to muster! Aaaaaall the Artemis haaaands — muster in th' waist with yer dunnage!'

  'Well, bugger me days!' said Stirk. 'An' the bastards 'ave remembered we're 'ere!' There was a scramble for their pitifully few possessions, Kydd's own fitting into one small bundle. With lifting heart he tugged on his hat, and hastened on deck into the evening sun. Hooked on below was a big launch, manned by a subdued set of seamen he did not recognise. An older-looking lieutenant was standing at the tiller, his mouth a thin line.

  'Hey-ho, mates — and it's bad luck t' any who ain't chirpin' merry in one hour!' said one Artemis, his eyes shining.

  'Got th' gormy ruddles sittin' in this hooker!' said another, hefting his bag, 'an' the only thing'll cure it 's me comin' alongside some willin' piece who'll show a sailor the way home!'

  Kydd grinned, and after their names were marked off in the muster book, he went down with the others into the boat, Renzi close behind. They settled all along the centre, between the rowers. But there was no answer to their jocular barbs. The crew of the launch were mute and serious and they kept their eyes in the boat facing aft. Slowly the happy chatter of the Artemis hands died away under a sense of apprehension. The boat shoved off, the men at the oars pulling slowly but economically, as if they had a long stretch ahead.

  Kydd looked at Renzi in appeal — he only shook his head. Suddenly a cutter shot out from the other side of the ship. With a shock Kydd saw that it carried a party of marines, complete with muskets and accoutrements. It curved toward them and fell in close astern, the officer not glancing at it as the launch shaped course to parallel the shore.

  'The poxy shabs!' roared Stirk in disbelief. 'We're bein' turned over!' He stood up and grasped the gunwale.

  'Try it, 'n' you'll get a ball in the guts!' growled the lieutenant. Stirk stood rigid as a storm of protest broke around him. It was not uncommon for ships returning from a distant commission for docking and refit to transfer their company bodily to another ship, without the chance of liberty ashore. But survivors of a shipwreck?

  'Silence!' bellowed the officer. 'You're under discipline, you damned rascals, and I'll see the backbone of any who doesn't agree!'

  Chapter 2

  The boat, borne away at speed by an ebbing tide through the harbour entrance, passed scenes and sounds of merriment ashore as the seamen of the victorious Fleet gave vent to their feelings. In the launch there was a grim silence, just the creak of oars in their rowlocks and a regular, hypnotic splash as they dipped into the sea.

  Kydd felt bleakness take hold. A lump grew in his throat as his eyes took in the land. So far! And so much had happened on the voyage! His sorrow left no room for rage.

  Altering to starboard after making the open sea, the boat made for the gaunt shapes in the dusky light of men-o'-war at anchor at Spithead, but not before they had passed close to the raucous revellers in the rickety old buildings of Portsmouth Point, close enough to hear individual cheers and oaths.

  Kydd's eyes fixed on the shore. Renzi tapped him on the shoulder and he looked around to see down

  the massive length of a 74-gun ship-of-the-line. They passed around the stern, with its old-fashioned open gallery, and Kydd looked up. In faded gold there was a big heraldic ribbon. The name Trajan was elegantly lettered inside.

  Bitterness welled up and choked him. Kydd gripped a rope at the edge of the foredeck and stared back at his homeland, unwilling to let the fast-receding land disappear. The seas lengthened as Trajan met the first Atlantic rollers coming up the Channel, sending men staggering. The two-decker was soon clawing to windward as close as she would lie, two other vessels astern and one ahead. The land finally turned to a misty anonymity and vanished, and the lump in Kydd's throat deepened.

  'I must declare myself truly gulled,' Renzi said, appearing at Kydd's elbow shaking out the chinckles in a light line for coiling. Kydd was supposed to be at work on the fo'c'sle, but no one felt inclined to make a point about it. The Artemises were sadly ill-used, was the general opinion, and they were left alone to their misery.

  Kydd glanced at him. 'Gulled? Not th' word I'd choose f'r it m'self,' he muttered.

  Renzi paused. 'Is the loss of the flying Artemis so much on the public mind that we are all to be kept out of the way? Or is the Fleet so in need of seamen that they press even the shipwrecked mariner? No! What we have is a political act, a move to shield the reputation of one who should be brought to account. Instead, and with the exercise of interest at the highest level, Rowley has been excused of blame, your evidence is suppressed — it is only a deposition — and we ... we are an embarrassment ...' His voice trailed off for Kydd's thickening anger was apparent on his face.

  'We're shipped out t' the Caribbee to save Rowley's hide!' His face white with anger, Kydd said harshly, 'T' the West Indies, fever ...'

  'I fear so. But, dear fellow, it is also the Spanish Main, treasure, the richest islands in the world — and glory, too, as we mercilessly seize the sugar islands from the French!' Renzi winced inwardly at the last, but Kydd had to see some purpose in this twist of fate.

  'In this old scow!' Kydd's scornful words were heartfelt. After the trim beauty of Artemis, the elderly Trajan was all that Renzi knew he despised. A ship-of-the-line, she was lumbering and massive, her timbers old and decaying — and she had big-ship discipline: Master-at-Arms and corporals, trumpeter, boatswain's mates. And his previous rate as acting petty officer had not been accepted in Trajan', she had her full complement and no need of him. He was now no more than an able seaman, even if a topman, and he had to sling his hammock with the rest instead of in the cosy privacy of a screened-off petty officer's berth.

  Renzi said nothing. Kydd's words were powerful and true, and could not be denied. He had every reason to feel aggrieved. Howe's great victory had released forces for the ongoing island invasions in the Caribbean, and Trajan was on her way to assist in these — what better way to be rid
of an embarrassment? His gaze lost itself in the tumbling waste of seas stretching to infinity ahead. He tried to swallow his bitterness and went below.

  The noon meal was a cheerless affair — no grog this close to home, small beer only on offer. Boiled with dandelion and herbs, it had a bitterness that was intended to hide rankness, but at least it was better than water from the cask, which quickly grew stale and flat, then stagnant. After weeks at sea the beer would give out and they would revert to rum, which was much preferred, but for now Kydd's pot contained a thin brew that did nothing for his mood.

  Kydd pulled forward his meal — the square wooden plate he remembered only too well from his first ship as a pressed man: no pewter and crockery here. He glowered at the mush of peas and odd-tasting pork. There was soft tommy taken aboard in Spithead, the bread only a couple of days old and useful for wiping up the last of his meal — there would only be hard tack in the weeks ahead.

  'Got yer watch 'n' station, then, mate?' Doggo asked, his grog-roughened voice uncharacteristically low. His ugly, monkey-like face was long and grim.

  For as far ahead as could be seen, Kydd would have to perform his sea duties as assigned this morning in his part-of-ship and watch, and this could be onerous or a satisfaction depending on the character of those in charge. And his quarters in battle — this might have been manning the helm, and therefore defenceless before the pitiless musketry of an opponent alongside, or with the ship-smashing 32-pounder cannon on the lower gundeck, or any one of a number of other dangerous duties.

  'Second o' larboard, maintopman,' said Kydd gloomily, fingering his bread. 'An' the fore magazine f'r quarters.' To his great disappointment he had learned that Renzi was in the opposite watch. This meant that they would only meet for meals and the odd 'make and mend' when they could sit together on the foredeck at work on their clothing. In Artemis they had been in the same watch, and had spent many hours happily discussing life, philosophy and other conundrums.

  Isaac Larcomb's pleasant, open face creased. 'Could be worse, cully, topman ain't a bad start,' he said.

  Renzi nodded, but did not say anything.

  'Aye, and that means I'm in yer watch, Tom!'

  Kydd looked across at the tow-headed Luke, a ship's boy from Artemis. He smiled, but only briefly. Luke was eager and had come to admire Kydd, but he was no substitute for Renzi.

  Kydd was slated to do his trick at the helm in the first dog-watch, and felt immediately better after he had seized control at the man-high wheel. The familiar tug and thrum of the tiller-ropes with their subde transmission of the sea's temper was medicine enough. Trajan felt ponderous but obedient to the wheel, just a little weather-helm, not enough to be a griping, calm and sure.

  He warmed to the ship. Glancing up often to the weather leech of the comfortable old main topsail, he tested how far he needed to meet each boisterous sea on the bluff bows, and what she needed to correct the yaw induced when a sea passed at an angle down her length. It seemed she had no real vices — which would be verified or otherwise when the old lady was really put to the test.

  He could look forward under her sails the whole length of the ship, a sight he never tired of — the lazy heave and fall of the deck, the blue horizon dropping out of sight then emerging at a slightly different angle, a continuous, comforting, satisfying motion. He nodded, and a smile broke through. She couldn't be mistaken for a racehorse, but as a homely old mare she was perfect.

  'Watch yer luff!' growled the quartermaster's mate-of-the-watch. There was no need for his caution — Kydd had been completely in control of the situation and there was never any question of losing way by coming too far into the wind.

  He glanced at the man. Squat, powerfully built, he wore rumpled clothing and a glower that triggered a warning in Kydd. 'Aye,' he said, to be on the safe side.

  At the interchange the officer-of-the-watch looked back from his pacing. Kydd kept his gaze politely forward, aware that he was under eye. He had nothing to worry about, and continued in his duty. After a minute or two, the officer came over. 'You're one of the Artemises, are you not?' he asked. It was not at all the right thing to engage the helmsman in conversation, but this was an officer.

  'Aye, sir,' he said. It would be understandable to keep his eyes on the weather leech of the mainsail. Trajan sailed on; Kydd sensed interest in the officer.

  'You've got a frigate's touch at the helm, I see.' That did not require an answer, but it must have been apparent from his many light moves at the wheel instead of the more deliberate, slower action of a ship-of-the-line.

  'What is your name?'

  'Kydd, sir!' broke in the quartermaster's mate firmly. In direct charge of the conn, the petty officer had every right to deflect any interference from his helmsman.

  "Thank you, Coltard,' the officer said smoothly, but continued to address Kydd, 'So you were in Artemis around the Horn?'

  'Sir,' said Kydd briefly. He wished the officer would go away.

  'At the helm?'

  'Quartermaster's mate, sir.'

  'Hmmm.' Kydd caught the quick glance at Coltard and wondered what it meant. The stumpy petty officer flushed and looked dogged.

  The half-hour trick was over all too quickly, and Kydd felt reluctant to hand over to the able seaman waiting. The officer-of-the-watch contemplated him with a ghost of a smile, and he stood down with a light heart.

  Kydd went forward along the moving deck to complete his watch, ready to lay aloft as a topman at the mainmast The Atlantic's influence was becoming more marked, the longer ocean seas sweeping up the Channel and adding stateliness and a wider range to Trajan's movements. He glanced up at the less-than-white canvas, noticing patches in her sails and signs of hairy chafing in her lines running aloft; as with Duke William earlier they were cutting corners to keep the most valuable units of the Fleet at sea.

  Portland was disappearing astern. They would fetch Torbay on this tack, and from there, rumour had it, they would pick up the convoy to Madeira and then the Caribbean. Another surge of resentment swept over Kydd, this time dulled by resignation.

  * * *

  'An' here's ter pieces o' eight an' a right good frolic in Port Royal!' chuckled Larcomb, raising his pot His sally drew general approval, and expressions lightened along the table.

  'Frien' o' mine in Daemon frigate was out there wi' Rodney in 'eighty-two — an' paid off in Plymouth carryin' home twelve guineas o' prize money,' said the man next to Larcomb, with evident satisfaction at the prospect.

  'Yair, but I got three ol' shipmates went out too an' ain't one of 'em come back yet,' Doggo responded.

  Kydd put down his tankard. 'But y' can have fever anywhere,' he said, 'C'n remember in Artemis we had th' fever after roundin' the Horn, 'n' on our way home — even did f'r the captain.'

  'Aye, but—'

  Larcomb broke in earnestly, 'Look, if yer gonna make fishmeat, yer number is a-written down already, no use wonderin' about it,' he said, 'S' why not rest easy 'n' take yer life as it comes t' yer?'

  There were troubled looks, but Larcomb ignored them. 'Has anyone bin ter the West Indies?' he asked. It seemed none had, and he lifted his pot

  Renzi stirred. 'It would seem that we are doing well in the Caribbean — we have taken Martinique,' he said, to general incomprehension. 'A big island, and wealthy,' he explained. 'I believe our intent is to detach, one by one, the enemy islands from the French.'

  'But if our ships are out there, doin' this invadin', then the French will feel free to fall on England!' Kydd said, with spirit.

  'Yet if we leave these islands to themselves, the enemy will take them! No, the islands are a wellspring of English wealth, and we must defend them.' Renzi's cool assessments were not to the taste of his new shipmates and the conversation faded.

  Auberon, the first lieutenant, was on deck the next forenoon for Kydd's next trick at the helm. He took the wheel from a grey-haired able seaman and squared up. The quartermaster of the previous watch hovered, fidgeting with the tra
verse board and slate as the minutes lengthened and no one came to relieve him.

  'For God's sake, what's the matter?' Auberon said peevishly to him.

  'Er, 'aven't had m' relief,' he said hesitantly.

  Auberon stiffened. 'You mean he's adrift?' he snapped.

  With some hesitation the petty officer nodded awkwardly. Auberon showed him no sympathy. 'You shall quit the deck only when properly relieved,' he growled, and began to pace back and forth.

  Kydd felt the rising tension, and kept a careful alertness. The duty watch on the quarterdeck fell silent as time extended, avoiding each other's eyes, trimming the sails and coiling down the lines from aloft, carefully and quietly.

  The watch was set to exercise — loose and furl. Kydd noted the marked stability the ship showed on the helm even when the big foresail was dowsed and furled, unbalancing the forces of propulsion, then let free and sheeted in to take up again in the brisk easterly. This was a sea-kindly ship.

  A single bell sounded from forward, sharp and clear.

  Instantly Auberon rounded on the mate-of-the-watch. 'Pass the word for the master-at-arms!' he ordered.

  In a short while the master-at-arms appeared. He touched his hat to the first lieutenant. 'Sir?'

  'To wait, if you please, Mr Quinn,' said Auberon coldly.

  Kydd handed over the helm to his relief, and went across to report to the captain of the maintop for his duties for the rest of the watch. Clearly the man did not want to miss anything and set Kydd to rehanking the falls around the forebrace bitts nearby.

  It was unfortunate for the absent man that the first lieutenant was on deck. This was the officer next after the Captain in authority, and who, more importantly, had the responsibility for the watch and station bill detailing every man's place of duty.