Command

by Julian Stockwin

Kydd turned to Hawkins. “Have ye anything t’ say?” Hawkins stood loosely, with an expression of boredom. He lifted his eyes to Kydd’s. There was nothing in them that could be read. Then he shrugged.

  “Articles o’ War, if y’ please.”

  “Orf hats!” Purchet roared. Heads were bared with a single rustle of movement.

  Peck came forward and read from the frayed leatherbound booklet. “If any person in the fleet . . .” his voice was flat and reedy and almost certainly not heard at the back “. . . uses reproachful or provoking speeches . . .” Kydd watched the men carefully for any sign of unrest behind the glazed expressions and shuffling feet “. . . upon being convicted thereof shall suffer such punishment . . . and a court-martial shall impose.”

  “On hats!” bawled Purchet. The rustle of movement stopped quickly: it was of deep interest to all to hear how their captain would punish.

  “Ye can have a court-martial if y’ desires it.” This would mean remaining in irons until they returned to Malta.

  “No, sir,” Hawkins said evenly.

  “Very well. I find ye in contempt of good order an’ naval discipline an’ you shall take your punishment this very day.” It was a good opportunity to address the assembled ship’s company sternly but Kydd could not find it in himself. He waited for a heartbeat then drew himself up. “Six lashes!”

  There was a wave of murmuring but it could have been worse. Kydd stood back from the lectern and thrust his hands behind his back. “Strip!”

  “Carpenter’s mate,” growled Purchet, looking about. A grating was removed and, in the absence of a half-deck, it was triced up to the main shrouds. The boatswain’s mate took up his ready position with a cat-o’-nine-tails.

  In a deathly silence, broken only by the low hissing of the ship’s wake, Hawkins’s thumbs were secured above his head with spun yarn. His head flat on the gratings, he fixed Kydd’s eye, then deliberately looked the other way and tensed.

  Feeling a sick emptiness inside Kydd croaked, “Do y’r duty, boatswain’s mate.”

  There was no mercy in Laffin’s low, sweeping strokes: aboard Teazer there were no marine drummers to heighten the tension with furious volleying, only the swish and harsh smack of the lash, as powerful as the kick of a horse. Apart from a first muffled grunt, Hawkins made no sound, and when sentence was complete and he was cut down, he made play of picking up his shirt and jauntily throwing it on his shoulder, over livid purple and red-seeping weals.

  Kydd nodded at Purchet’s enquiring glance and the boatswain pealed out his call. “Carry on, the hands.” The assembly turned forward and dissolved into a babble of talk as they streamed below for the grog issue. Not wishing to meet anyone’s eye, Kydd left the deck to take refuge in his cabin.

  The whole affair had been his fault. The black depression riding on his back was no excuse; childish petulance, unworthy of a real captain, had precipitated the incident.

  Kydd’s table was spread for the midday meal, a ragoo of kidneys gently steaming and a cold collation tempting, but he was in no mood to enjoy it. Tysoe entered noiselessly and began pouring a sea-cooled white wine. “Thank ’ee, Tysoe, but ye can carry on, if y’ please—leave the wine.”

  He drank deeply in the silence of the great cabin, the gentle sway of the little ship sending bright dapples of sunlight from the stern windows prettily back and forth. This usually brought a welling of contentment, but not now.

  More wine. He told himself that his mood was probably the consequence of being too euphoric at his sudden life change, that he had been due a dose of reality, but that was no remedy. He splashed the last of the wine into his glass.

  Hawkins was forward, separated only by a few dozen feet, and while he himself sat with his wine, the sailor, probably surrounded by his shipmates offering rough consolation and a gulp of grog, was in great pain—all of Kydd’s doing.

  There was no getting away from it: he had failed. “Tysoe!” he called loudly. His servant appeared suspiciously promptly. “An’ I’ll have another—open me a red for th’ kidneys.”

  What was happening to the new-born spirit of comradeship and pride in the ship that he was trying to cultivate? If he was not careful, it would fly apart.

  The red wine had the coolness of the wine-store about it; a tiny smile twisted his lip. He had caught out Tysoe for once that he had not a carefully nurtured room-temperature bottle ready to serve. This steadied him: being a captain involved far more than the exercise of absolute power. Insight into human nature, the wise foreseeing of threat and neglect, the assiduous assimilation and control of the mass of detail that was the smooth running of a ship-of-war—these were the skills that had to be acquired, not the indulgence of personal vexations.

  But he had no one to talk to, to reflect things back into a measure of proportion. He slammed the glass down and got to his feet. Renzi was no more. He had to find his own salvation—and he would, damn it!

  The coast of Barbary was much the same as he had seen it before: low, desolate, mile after mile of scrubby sand and little else. The untidy jumble of Tripoli lay to starboard as Teazer’s helm went over and she began her quest for the enemy.

  As every headland approached it had to be assumed that on the other side was the dread sight of ships-of-the-line at anchor, ranging frigates cruising in pairs suddenly sighting Teazer. What then?

  The winds were briskly from the north-west, as expected, and could not have been fairer for their run along the coast but would be in their teeth in the case of a desperate flight back to Malta. And with offshore sandbanks and unknown currents it would need fine seamanship indeed to get through.

  Bonnici had a general knowledge of the coast and a number of well-thumbed charts, but was withdrawn and apprehensive: for him this was the lair of the Barbary corsair, who had plagued his people for centuries.

  Headland after point, cape after promontory, gulfs, bays, coves—for days, the never-ending low, anonymous line of sandy coast. It was tense, wearying work, which tried the nerves and endurance of men in the confines of the little ship. They stopped several of the ever-present coastal feluccas, not much larger than ship’s boats, but there was never a word of any French ships.

  Each night Teazer stood out to sea and at first light closed with the coast, scrupulously taking up the search where she had left off. Provisions began to fail; one of the three remaining water casks proved foul. If they replenished at any one of the straggling settlements they would find victuals and water well enough, but at the cost of both revealing their presence and later bringing down on themselves a full quarantine in Malta for touching at a Barbary port.

  Kydd’s spirit hardened. He knew his manner had stiffened at the worry and care that had entered his soul. He was now unsmiling and abrupt; few dared open conversation with him and talk died when he approached. If this was the price to be paid to be a captain, then so be it.

  A garrulous Sicilian trader had no word of any French fleet in the vicinity but had heard rumours of a lone cruiser to the north. Discounting this, it seemed increasingly obvious to Kydd that there was no substantial French presence: if they were to fall on the British reinforcements they would be best advised to conceal themselves more to the far north until they were ready, then make a sally in force. Either that or lurk to the west of Sicily and attack the transport at source.

  Obedient to his orders Kydd kept Teazer ever eastward until they reached the deepest extent of the Gulf of Sirte, still with no sign of Ganteaume. And then it was time to return.

  With a worsening state of provisions and water now three upon four, Teazer lay over on the larboard tack as close on the wind as she could and left the desolate desert land astern. She made good time to thirty-five degrees north, then went about for the second leg to Malta.

  In the empty expanse of the eastern Mediterranean it was odd for the masthead lookout to hail the deck and stranger still for him to be in some confusion about what had been sighted.

  “Get up there an’ report what you
see,” Kydd told Bowden, who swung himself smartly into the shrouds clutching a telescope and joined the lookout.

  “A boat, sir,” his report came down. “I think in distress.”

  This far from land the constant south-easterly current in these parts would be sweeping it further and further into the lonely vastness. Teazer’s bow turned towards it and they drew nearer. There was a small mast but no sail spread and the five aboard lay in postures of exhaustion.

  One in the bow had sufficient strength to take a line and they drew the boat alongside. Sailors from Teazer dropped into it to bring up the pathetic creatures waving feebly with thin cries. From the quarterdeck Kydd watched them helped aboard, guessing from the rising jabber of his Maltese sailors that they were probably survivors from a local craft caught in a storm.

  It was odd, however, that there had been no undue movement in the barometer lately that Kydd had noticed and also puzzling that the boat was of western European style. He glanced up at the sails flogging in their brails—the wind was backing more to the west and he was anxious to be on his way before he was headed for Malta.

  “Get a move on, Mr Dacres!” he bawled.

  “Go forward an’ tell ’em to take th’ rest inboard,” he snapped to Martyn, standing meekly at his side. “And make the boat fast under our stern—an’ main quick, dammit!” he threw after the youngster.

  Kydd stood motionless. More mouths to feed, water to guzzle when they themselves were so short . . . Was his heart hardening so much that he was begrudging this of shipwrecked sailors? He did not want to answer the question.

  Sail was loosed and braced round, and Teazer resumed her course homewards. Kydd knew he could leave the details of caring for the passengers to the good-hearted seamen, who in all probability would give them the shirts from their own backs.

  “Sir, I talked wi’ them an’ I think you mus’ know.”

  “Yes, Mr Bonnici.” Kydd’s interest quickened. They had seen Ganteaume afar off, perhaps? Or even . . .

  “Th’ French, sir. It was the French did this t’ them!” Bonnici’s eyes glittered.

  “And?”

  “Not ships-o’-the-line. A ship—corvette. To save prize crew they cast adrift all th’ prisoner!”

  “They were taken by a National ship? When? What was his name?” This was very different: a unit of the French Navy loose on the sea lanes. He would not be going back with nothing. Warren could not afford any interference with shipping in the approaches to Alexandria and would quickly dispatch a frigate to deal with it.

  “Sir, his name La Fouine, ship-rig wi’ eight-pounders, an’ fast.” He added, “They were took three day ago.”

  Kydd gave a wry smile. The corvette would be well clear of the area and could be anywhere. But he had something to tell.

  • • •

  “T’ twenty degrees east, sir, conformable to y’r orders.”

  “And nothing—not even a whisper?” Warren said testily, his gouty foot was supported discreetly by a cushion under the table.

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “You spoke with merchantmen, of course.”

  “Yes, sir. No word of Ganteaume anywhere in this part o’ the Mediterranean.”

  Warren glowered at Kydd.

  “Sir, we picked up a boatload o’ survivors on returning. They say they were taken by a French National ship—a corvette, sir,” Kydd added hastily, seeing Warren’s sudden jerk of interest. “And this two or three days ago.”

  “So he’s on the high seas somewhere to the east at last report,” Warren mused. “Nothing for a battle squadron to concern themselves with. But if he gets among our transports . . .”

  The usual corvette was bigger than an English ship-sloop but smaller than a frigate; with extended quarterdeck and bulwarks well built up, they had been called by some “petty-frigates.”

  “Do ye know his name?” he rumbled, leaning forward.

  “Sir—it’s La Fouine.”

  “Ha!”

  “You know him, sir?”

  “Never heard of him in my life. Your French not up to it, I see?” Warren’s grim face eased into a thin smile.

  “Er, it means some sort o’ bird?” Kydd hazarded. His lessons with Renzi had been workmanlike and to the point, but it sounded a bit like—

  “It does. What we might call a stone marten.” His look of amusement increased. “And were ye not a gentleman in France and were addressed so, it might be comprehended as ‘weaselface,’” he added, with a sudden fruity cackle.

  Kydd tried to crack his face into a comradely chuckle but the proximity of a rear admiral of the Mediterranean Fleet was too much for him and the smile sagged weakly.

  Warren looked speculatively at Kydd. “Can I take it, sir, that you’re at leisure as of your return to Malta?”

  “Sir,” Kydd stuttered.

  “Then you shall have orders that I believe will keep you tolerably employed. I desire that you will seek out and destroy this corvette, should he have the temerity to sail east or south of Sicily.” Warren peered at Kydd to see the effect of his words. “I will not have frigates absented from my squadron before Ganteaume, yet I cannot tolerate such a one astride the approaches to Egypt. Can ye do it?”

  “Thank you, Mr Bonnici—spread ’em out, if y’ please.” Kydd’s great cabin seemed small with three in it; himself one side of his table, Dacres and now Bonnici on the other, scrutinising the charts.

  “Now I want y’ best thinking. If La Fouine is here,” Kydd indicated the broad area to the south and east of Sicily, “then where should we start?” Focus on a single war-like object had done wonders for his spirits. If anything was going to bring him to notice it would be a successful action against a true French man-o’-war.

  “It would be of great assistance were we to discover his mission, sir,” Dacres said diffidently. “Is he a common prize-taker, or does he seek to distress the lines of supply to our army? The one, he will desire to place himself at the point of most shipping, the Sicily Channel to the west; the other, he will keep well to the east at the seat of the fighting. Which is it to be?”

  “Well said, Mr Dacres,” Kydd replied. “And we must assume that as Admiral Warren is fresh come from th’ north, we will not find La Fouine thereabouts.” He rubbed his chin and pondered. “There is besides one thing other t’ consider—how does he keep the seas for long without he has a friendly port at his back t’ keep him victualled an’ in powder an’ such?”

  “They have a treaty with Sicily but I doubt they would operate from there—I have heard Taranto has been visited by them,” Dacres offered.

  “Aye, could be, but this is a mort distant fr’m both the Sicily Channel and the fighting. If it were me, I’d like t’ find somewhere between the both—but there’s none I can see. Mr Bonnici?”

  “Not f’r me saying, sir, but has he sail back to France?”

  Kydd bristled. “No, he hasn’t—we’ll find him sure enough!” If he could not, this chance of distinction was gone for ever. He looked from one to the other but each avoided his gaze, and stared down at the chart. This was hardly Nelson’s band of brothers before a battle, he brooded; but was he not the captain with the full power, and responsibility, to make decisions?

  “Very well, this is what we’ll do.” He collected his thoughts. “Er, th’ most important is our landings. We start there, say, thirty degrees east, an’ then track west. Because we’ve a head wind we’ll have t’ proceed tack b’ tack—but this is no matter, for it obliges us to crisscross the shipping lanes, which in course we must do until we’ve raised Sicily again.

  “A hard flog, gentlemen, but it’s the only way I can see we’ll lay him by th’ tail.”

  Empty seas. Seas with every kind of vessel imaginable. The dreary north African coast yet again. Once, a British convoy straggling in a cloud of sail. It went on for long days, then weeks of hard sea-time with never a whisper of a rumour of their quarry.

  Kydd was tormented with thoughts that his decisio
n was a failure, that the corvette had turned back after seizing its prize and was now in Marseille. But surely there would be no point in the Frenchman turning out its prisoners to save on prize crew unless it intended further predation?

  And was he correct to insist on flogging back against the weather, instead of making a judgement on where the corvette must pass and wait comfortably until it did?

  They turned south, deep into the lee shores of the Gulf of Sirte and the hunting grounds of the pirate corsairs of Tripoli and Tunis. They beat against the north-westerlies and suffered the withering heat and blinding dust of the sirocco. Still there was no sign.

  Scoured by sea salt and dust storm Teazer was no longer new. Her bright sides had faded and her lovely white figurehead had lost its gold, now defiantly weather-beaten. There were also signs of hard usage—ropes turned end for end when they became too hairy at the nip, smart canvas now a bleached grey and everywhere a subtle rounding of sharp corners, a shading of colours about a shape.

  However, Kydd saw only a growing maturity, a sea-tried ship to which he could trust his life. But this was war and there would come a time when she must be pitted in merciless battle against another, bigger and stronger than she was. Kydd steeled himself against the thought of what an enemy broadside would do. But if Teazer could not find and then overcome her opponent it would mean the end for him.

  Kydd kept the Barbary city of Tripoli well under his lee as they passed: the British were in amity with the rapacious pasha, but within the distant stone ramparts of the city there were reputed to be Christian slaves in miserable squalor.

  They rode out a storm from the north-west, the seas punching their bows with short, savage blows, the spindrift in whipping, horizontal sheets that left the eyes salt-sore and swollen.

  When they closed the coast again, the boatswain and Dacres approached Kydd. “Sir, I’m truly sorry to have to tell you that Mr Purchet advises that the last water cask in the hold is foul,” Dacres reported.

  “Aye, sir, beggin’ y’r pardon, but this’n means we shall have t’ return . . .”

  Now he would have to head back with nothing to show for his voyage; it was unlikely that he would be given another chance, which, of course, probably meant that it was a return to dispatches and convoys, then a quiet relieving of command and forced retirement from the sea.