Command

by Julian Stockwin

  He sat alone by the light of a candle, chewing tepid cutlets and sad greens, feeling by turns dispirited and exalted. Hammocks were piped down—he had ordered that for tonight going to quarters could be overlooked—and the watch below turned in. After Tysoe had cleared away, Kydd pulled over the pile of papers and set to. A knock on the door an hour or so later interrupted his concentration. It was Laffin, with the thick-set figure of another seaman in the shadows behind carrying a dim lanthorn.

  “Sir. Galley fire doused, lights are out fore ’n’ aft, two inches in th’ well, no men in bilboes,” Laffin said impassively. As a boatswain’s mate in a sloop he took the duties of a master-at-arms, which included ship’s security.

  “Thank ye, Laffin,” Kydd said. These reports, made to him as captain, allowed the silent hours officially to begin.

  “Er, do you . . .” For some reason he was reluctant to let Laffin go. “. . . go an’ prove the lookouts,” he finished lamely.

  “Aye aye, sir,” the seaman said stolidly.

  Kydd put aside the paperwork and retired for the night, but he lay awake in his cot, mind racing as he reviewed the day, senses jerked to full alert by every unknown noise in the new ship, then lulled as his seaman’s ear resolved them into patterns falling in with the regular motions of the invisible ocean.

  The wind had freshened in the night and the morning dawned bright and boisterous, white horses on a following deep blue sea. Teazer’s sturdy bowsprit rose and fell. Kydd was concerned to notice the foredeck flood several times, even in these moderate conditions, the water sluicing aft before it was shed to the scuppers—with the working of the vessel’s seams this would translate into wet hammocks for those below.

  He heard a tinny sound above the sea noises: a young sailor at the main hatchway was enthusiastically beating away at an odd-looking small drum, breaking into the ordered calm of the early morning.

  “Wha—”

  “Quarters, sir,” said Bowden, hiding a smile. As master’s mate, he was taking watches opposite Dacres and had the deck. Kydd wondered at his confidence: he remembered his own first watch on deck as an officer and the nervous apprehension he had felt.

  But that drum would have to go: the martial thunder of Tenacious’s marine drums left no doubt about their purpose— the men to close up at their guns to meet the dawn prepared for what the new day would reveal.

  With no enemy sail sighted, quarters were stood down, hammocks piped up and the men went to breakfast. There was no need for Kydd to remain on deck but he found it hard to stand aside from the routine working of the ship. He had been an intimate part of it since he had first gone to sea, and particularly since he had become an officer.

  He turned abruptly and went below to his cabin. If he chose, there was nothing to stop him remaining in the comforts of his great cabin for the entire day—but then he would not know what was going on on deck. “Thank ye, Tysoe,” he said, as the man brought in coffee. As routines became evident Kydd’s needs were being intelligently anticipated: Kydd blessed his choice those years ago of Tysoe as servant.

  An unexpected surge of contentment surfaced as he gazed through his stern windows at the swelling seas. Teazer had a pleasing motion, predictable and rarely hesitating—that was the sign of sea-kindliness: neither crank nor tender, she would lean before the buffets of wind and sea and smoothly return to a stable uprightness.

  Today he would discover more of his men and his ship. Dacres was the most imperative task: he was the entire officer corps of Teazer and, in practical terms, a deputy-captain. Kydd needed a right-hand man—but, more than that, someone he could confide in, trust, one with whom he could not only mull over ideas and plans but whom he could place in hazardous situations and discover how far he could rely on him. The trouble was that Dacres’s studiously polite but reserved manner made him difficult to approach.

  As he finished his coffee, the thumping of bare feet sounded loud on the deckhead above. It would be the afterguard racing across the top of his cabin to the cro’jack braces, which, as in all Navy ships, were crossed and led aft. He longed to know why they were being tended but forced himself to stay seated. Then the ship heeled to larboard for a space before returning. It was too much. He left his cabin, just remembering his hat, and bounded on deck. A quick glance at the binnacle and out over the exuberant seas told him, however, that all was well. He saw Dacres steadying himself by the weather main shrouds and looking fixedly forward.

  At Kydd’s appearance, Dacres moved to leeward, as was the custom. Kydd asked him, “How does she go for ye, Mr Dacres?”

  Dacres glanced at him briefly, his pale face taut, then hastily looked away without speaking.

  Kydd frowned. “I said, how is she, Mr Dacres?”

  The officer remained silent, obstinately turned away. If there was going to be bad blood between them due to some imagined slight the situation would become impossible. “Mr Dacres. I desire you should wait on me in my cabin—directly, if y’ please!” he snapped, and strode below.

  “Now, sir!” he said, rounding on Dacres as he entered. “You’ll tell me what it is ails ye, d’ye hear me?”

  Holding to one side of the desk with Teazer’s lively motion Dacres stared at Kydd. His eyes were dark pits and he seemed to have difficulty forming the words. Kydd felt a stab of apprehension.

  Dacres tensed, his eyes beseeching. Then he swung away in misery, scrambling to get out. Kydd heard the sound of helpless retching from beyond the door.

  The south-westerly hauled round steadily, now with more than a little of the north in it until Teazer was stretching out on the larboard tack in a fine board deep into the eastern Mediterranean. More close-hauled, the motion was steadier but the angle of the waves marching in on the quarter imparted a spirited twist to the top of each heave.

  This rendered Dacres helpless with seasickness. Kydd left him to claw back his sea legs, trusting in his sense of duty to return to his responsibilities as soon as he was able. For a sailor it was different: seasickness was not recognised as a malady and any man found leaning over the side was considered to be shirking and failing his shipmates. A rope’s end was hard medicine, but who was to say that it was not a better way to force attention away from self-misery?

  The morning wore on: it was approaching noon. “Mr Bowden! Where are y’r young gentlemen? The heavens wait f’r no man. I will see them on th’ quarterdeck one bell before noon or know the reason why, sir!” Kydd growled.

  The two new midshipmen could not have been more different. Attard, the nominee of the dockyard, was slightly older at fifteen. Wary but self-possessed, he clearly knew his way about ships. The other, Martyn, was diffident and delicately built, with the features of an artist.

  “Carry on, Mr Bowden,” Kydd said, but stayed to observe their instruction in the noon sight ceremony.

  Martyn struggled with his brand new sextant. It was a challenge to any to wield an instrument in the lively motion of the brig and Kydd sympathised. Attard had a well-used piece that seemed too heavy but Bowden’s easy flourishes encouraged them both.

  Kydd adopted a small-ship straddle, standing with legs well apart, feet planted firmly on the deck with a spring in the knee, then lifted his octant. He noticed Bowden’s imitation—he was learning quickly.

  Local apparent noon came and went; Bowden and the young lads importantly noted their readings and retired for the calculations. Kydd delayed going below: the prospect from the quarterdeck was grand—taut new pale sails and freshly blacked rigging against the spotless deep-blue and white horses of the sea. With the brisk westerly tasting of salt, Teazer was showing every sign of being an outstanding sailer.

  The four days to the rendezvous saw Dacres recover and Teazer become ever more shipshape. The boatswain twice had the brig hove to while the lee shrouds were taken up at the lanyards where the new cordage had stretched, and the marks tied to the braces to indicate the sharp-up position were moved in. And, as Kydd had surmised, a light forefoot made for a drier f
o’c’sle but livelier motion. He was getting to know his tight-found little ship—and loving her the more.

  At fifty miles north of Alexandria the fleet rendezvous was an easy enough navigational target, a line rather than a point, the latitude of thirty-one degrees forty-five minutes.

  Kydd felt anxious at the thought of meeting an admiral for the first time as a commander. Sir John was known to be a stickler for the proprieties and probably had his powerful force arrayed in line ahead with all the panoply of a crack squadron at sea— gun salutes of the right number, frigate scouts to whom a humble brig-sloop would tug the forelock and all manner of other touchy observances.

  Yet Teazer was the bearer of dispatches—news—and for a short time she would be the centre of attention. As the rendezvous approached Kydd saw to it that her decks were scrubbed and holystoned to a pristine paleness, her brightwork gleaming and guns readied for salutes.

  Before sailing from Malta, the dispatches had been placed into padlocked canvas bags weighted with grape-shot. Kydd took them out and placed them on his desk in anticipation of the instant summons he expected; his dress uniform and sword were ready in his cabin and his coxswain went off to prepare his boat’s crew.

  They reached the western end of the rendezvous line: all that was necessary now was to run down the line of latitude until the squadron was sighted. At the foretop there was now a pair of lookouts and Bowden had two seamen at the main as signals party. They were leaving nothing to chance. “Th’ foretop lookouts, ahoy!” bellowed Kydd, “T’ keep y’ eyes open or I’ll . . . I’ll have ye!”

  They shaped course eastwards along the line. With a height-of-eye of eighty feet at the main they would be able to spy the royals of a ship-of-the-line from a fifty-mile broad front in clear weather. In the quartering winds Teazer was at her best point of sailing and foamed along at speed.

  By noon, however, they had nearly reached the mid-point of the thirty-mile line with Warren’s squadron not yet in sight. Kydd was aware of the momentous events taking place not so far to the south, the landings near Alexandria intended to wrest the whole of Egypt and the Levant from the French. But if the dispatches did not reach their intended recipient in time it left the whole seaward approaches wide open to Ganteaume.

  Towards evening they finally reached the other end of the line with still no sighting. In the privacy of his cabin Kydd checked his orders yet again: the rendezvous was specified in two distinct places and could not be in error. Might there be in fact two locations as there were off Toulon, for close in and more distant? If so, it was never mentioned in orders. Had the squadron sailed on further beyond the end of the line due to navigational error? With the figuring of half a dozen ships to rely on, this was unlikely. Was their own navigation at fault? Had he missed the delivery of his charges through some ridiculous oversight?

  Kydd chose to sail beyond the end of the line until dark before going about and returning. The night-recognition signals he had on hand only applied to Keith’s main fleet; he had none for Warren’s detached squadron. Tension increased as Teazer wore round and snugged down to double-reefed topsails, waiting for dawn.

  Daybreak brought with it no welcome sight of sail, only the empty vastness of the sea. The westerly now headed them and Kydd could make progress only in long, uneven tacks each side of the line, a wearying sequence that had the brig going about twice in every watch with no assurance that they would intercept the squadron.

  They reached the mid-point of the line: still no sign. They approached the western end of the line—ominously there was not a sail in sight anywhere. For Kydd, the elation and excitement of command had slowly ebbed into a stomach-churning morass of worry as he reviewed for the twentieth time what might have gone wrong.

  He could heave to and wait for the squadron to return but if it was on station at some other place he would never meet up with it. But could he thrash backwards and forwards along the rendezvous line for ever? Time was running out.

  At three in the morning, in the dimness of yet another sleepless night, Kydd resolved on action. He would leave the line and look for the squadron—the details would wait until morning. He fell sound asleep.

  At first light he appeared on deck and sniffed the wind. “Put up y’r helm an’ steer sou’-sou’-east,” he told Dacres. They would head towards Egypt and the fighting: if the squadron was anywhere, the probability was that it would be there.

  Full and bye, Teazer stretched south nobly. In three hours they were sighting sail, small fry and a possible frigate who did not seem inclined to make their acquaintance. In a few more hours, as the coast firmed ahead in a lazy blue-grey, more vessels showed against it—but no ship-of-the-line. When Kydd recognised an untidy straggle of buildings and a distinctive tower as Alexandria, he knew that the gamble had failed: the squadron was not there.

  He ordered Teazer to put about, knowing that he could now be judged guilty of quitting his station without leave, a grave offence. Kydd went to his cabin with a heavy heart and had barely sat down when there was a knock. “Captain, sir!” Martyn shrilled. “Compliments from Mr Dacres and a vessel is sighted!”

  Kydd hastened on deck: a small topsail cutter flying a blue ensign was leaning into the wind trying to close with them. “Heave to, Mr Dacres,” Kydd called, and waited while the sleek craft came up and exchanged private signals.

  “You’ve missed ’em!” shouted the young lieutenant-incommand as the vessel rounded to under their lee. “That is, the East Med squadron, if that’s who you’re after,” he added, shading his eyes against the sun. “What’s the news?”

  Kydd bridled at the familiarity and answered shortly, “No news, L’tenant. What course did Sir John take when he left?”

  “Why, to the rendezvous, I should think, sir,” said the lieutenant, remembering himself.

  “North,” Kydd ordered.

  Teazer’s signal of dispatches aboard ensured her swift passage past officious scouting frigates within sight of the squadron, which was in tight formation and precisely on the line of the rendezvous.

  “To place us t’ loo’ard o’ the flagship, Mr Bonnici,” Kydd told the master and went below to prepare, in obedience to the summons to place himself and his dispatches before the admiral immediately.

  Teazer’s cutter smacked into the water and the boat’s crew swarmed aboard. Kydd’s coxswain, Yates, sat at the tiller importantly, a beribboned hat with Teazer picked out in gold paint incongruously smart against his thick-set, hairy body.

  “Stretch out, yer buggers!” he bawled. Kydd winced. This was not the coxswain he would have wished but the man was a veteran of both St Vincent and a blazing frigate action.

  The whole squadron lay hove to, the flagship Renown at the centre. The boat rounded the noble stern of the battleship, all gilt and windows and with her name boldly emblazoned. Mildly curious faces looked down from her deck-line above.

  Renown’s boatswain himself set his silver call to piercing squeals to announce the arrival on board of the captain of a vessel of the Royal Navy, an honour that would have sent a delicious thrill through Kydd if it had come at any other time.

  In the admiral’s quarters the flag-lieutenant murmured an introduction and left Kydd with the admiral, who stared at him stonily, waiting.

  “Ah, Commander Thomas Kydd, sloop Teazer with dispatches, sir.” Warren had a powerful air of intimidation and Kydd found his own back stiffening.

  “From the commander-in-chief?” The admiral’s hard tone did nothing for Kydd’s composure.

  “Er, no, sir, from Malta.”

  “Malta! Who the devil thinks to worry me with dispatches from there, sir?”

  “Gen’ral Pigot, sir—he says they’re urgent,” Kydd said, and handed over the satchel, which the admiral took quickly.

  “These are dated more than a week ago,” said Warren sharply, looking up.

  Kydd added in a small voice, “We thought t’ find you at the rendezvous, sir. We beat up ’n’ down the line for several
days an’ then—an’ then, sir, I thought it best to—to leave station an’ look for you t’ the s’uth’ard, sir . . .” He tailed off.

  Warren’s frosty stare hardened. “It took you that long to find I wasn’t there and go looking? Good God above!” He snorted. He still held the dispatches and riffled through them. “So what do we have here that’s so damned urgent it needs one of the King’s ships to tell me?”

  “The French, Sir John—they’re out!” said Kydd, his voice strengthening, “Sailed fr’m Leghorn just this—”

  “From Leghorn—yes, yes, I know that. Why do you think I’ve been away from the rendezvous? No other than chasing your Ganteaume.” His face tightened. “And this must mean, sir, you have sailed right through them on their way back! What do you have to say to that?”

  Kydd gulped, he had ignored all sail sighted in his haste to reach the rendezvous. And with his precious dispatches shown to be not much more than gossip, he felt anything but a taut sea-captain with a vital mission. He flushed, but stubbornly held Warren’s eye.

  Something in his manner made Warren pause. “Do I see a new-made commander before me, Mr Kydd?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Your first errand, I venture to say?”

  “Sir.”

  A tiny smile appeared. “Is all as you expected it to be?”

  Kydd’s tensions eased a fraction. “It’s—different t’ what I expected, yes, sir.” It was difficult to know whether the admiral was making conversation or had an object in mind.

  “Expect the worst, Mr Kydd, and then you’ll never be disappointed.” He looked pleased at his aphorism, adding, “And give the men not an inch. They’ll never thank you for it.”

  “Have you any dispatches for Malta, sir?” Kydd asked.

  “Malta? What conceivable interest would I have there? No, sir, carry on about your business and be thankful I’m not taking you under command.”