14-Caribbee: A Kydd Sea Adventure

by Julian Stockwin

  He looked around for Mrs Tyrell and saw her in shy conversation with Curzon, doing his duty to leave no guest unattended. He turned back in time to see Amelia claimed by Bowden. She flashed him a smile before she was whisked away for a Tartan Pladdie.

  Circulating, he made amiable conversation to Pym and his lady, politely remarking on her elaborate bead-embroidered evening dress, then partnered a Mrs Pulteney for the contre-danse.

  Gilbey moved up to tell him that the commander-in-chief was approaching and Kydd took position to greet him. The calls pealed shrilly, and an agreeably surprised Cochrane came aboard for his promised visit, accompanied by his wife, a short but remarkably voluble lady in plain lemon who did not hold back her approval.

  At refreshments Kydd artfully trapped Mrs Jobson, wife of the King’s Harbour Master so that at the resumption of dancing he was well placed to lead her out for the Boulangère, a dance that involved facing first one partner and then another – which, by great coincidence, was Miss Amelia. At changes, it was the work of moments to transfer allegiance and, as smoothly as he had planned, they were together again.

  ‘I do declare, sir, you cut a rare figure at dancing.’ Her eyes shone and Kydd glowed. ‘And in your own ship, as you were so good as to show me. You are too kind and I’m vexed as to how I might return the politeness.’

  She bit her lip prettily, then said brightly, ‘You must pay us a visit, sir. Do come and meet Papa – I’m sure he would be agreeable.’

  The dull thump sounded from some way off to the south-westward, its origin hidden by the hanging grey-white sheets of rain drifting in from the Atlantic but it was from the general direction of Acasta, which had been paired with L’Aurore for the routine sweep to the south of Barbados ordered by Cochrane.

  Kydd wore L’Aurore around and headed into the murk to find his senior, who was summoning him by gun, flag communications being impossible in the conditions. The veil thinned and he caught sight of the sternwork of the big frigate and closed, passing around her lee and coming within hail.

  Dunn was on her quarterdeck and raised his speaking trumpet. ‘I’ve just spoken to a Dansker who swears he spotted a heavy frigate in the squalls to the suth’ard,’ he blared, ‘standing to the sou’-west.’

  Kydd waited. This would not be the first merchantman to report an innocent trader with painted gun-ports as a fearsome warship.

  ‘He could be mistaken, but we can’t take the chance on it being a scouting frigate for a Frenchy raiding fleet, thinking to enter the Caribbean not by the usual passages. I desire you’ll sail south to eleven and thirty latitude, touch at Grenada for intelligence and return to Barbados. I’ll be looking towards Trinidad. Clear?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  ‘Should you fall in with the enemy you will waste not a moment in alerting Admiral Cochrane. This is your first and last duty.’

  ‘Understood, sir.’

  ‘Very well. Carry on, Captain.’

  The two ships parted and Kydd set to the mission. L’Aurore, with the north-easterlies right aft, risked stunsails to larboard for a fast run. The passage between Tobago and Grenada into the Caribbean from the Atlantic was not much more than thirty miles wide and, with luck and speed, he could be in its centre at dawn and in a prime position to spot any fleet.

  L’Aurore did her best for him, eating up the distance into the evening and then the night. It was not comfortable going for it was one of her quirks that, with wind and sea aft, a deep rolling and twisting set in that had the boatswain looking anxiously up at the spars, and seamen passing hand to hand along the decks.

  Casts of the log, adjusted for speed over the ground in a following sea, gave hope that they would meet their goal in good time. In the early hours they reached the 11 degrees 30 minutes track; Kydd bore up due west and shortened sail.

  They were now astride the entry channel and at daybreak their crosstree lookout would be in a position to spy any sail on either side – if the weather held. If it was a questing frigate, the battle-fleet would not be far behind, and Kydd had his strategy ready for returning by the swiftest means: he would round Grenada and pass inside the Windward Islands until the wind was fair for Barbados, then raise it in a single board.

  There were other factors in the equation but he had long ago concluded that worrying about potential problems was futile: they had to be met individually if and when they cropped up. He turned in and, after a sound sleep, was up with the others at quarters to meet the dawn.

  The night changed by degrees into a new day, the tropical morning as usual arriving in minutes, the transformation from silent darkness to lively sunrise always a thing of rapture.

  No sudden cry from the masthead shattered the calm, no menacing line of sail was seen widening across their path: the horizon was clear.

  ‘Stand down, Mr Gilbey,’ Kydd ordered, and turned to go.

  ‘Deck hooo!’ The hail from the lookout was hesitant but insistent. ‘I think I see sail – broad on the larb’d bow.’

  ‘Get up there, m’ lad,’ Kydd said to Searle, handing him his pocket telescope.

  The youngster swung importantly into the shrouds and rapidly mounted to the tops and then the crosstrees where he joined the lookout. They spoke briefly and Searle held up the glass to where the lookout pointed.

  After a few seconds he stiffened, slammed the glass shut and grabbed for a stay, riding it down to the deck. ‘Sir! It’s a ship right enough, big ’un as I could see, but, er, it was setting sail as we looked at it.’ This accounted for the lookout’s initial confusion.

  ‘Courses or t’gallants?’ Kydd demanded.

  ‘Um, it seemed to be tops’ls only, sir.’

  It made no sense. Unless it was a scout in advance of the main fleet, which had kept on small sail only during the night so as not to range too far ahead. Or was it an innocent merchantman resuming full sail after a night under easy canvas?

  If it was a frigate, then the fleet was close astern and he should heave to and stop his progress to leeward, needing as it did a beating back against the wind to make up distance lost. If not, then hanging back could result in missing an enemy further onward.

  The deck fell silent, seamen and officers waiting patiently for his command.

  Kydd decided: the only way to settle the question was to close with and identify the strange sail even at the cost of later clawing back his windward position. ‘We stand on. Hands to breakfast, if you please.’

  He stayed as the deck cleared. Then, as the sail was not yet visible, he went below himself.

  He’d only just begun to eat when a messenger brought the news that the wind had fallen and the officer-of-the-watch feared the pursuit was in jeopardy. He swore under his breath, for his valet Tysoe had contrived jugged kippers and scrambled eggs, but when he reached the open deck, there was now no more than a playful zephyr.

  ‘Masthead lookout!’ he bellowed. ‘How’s the chase?’

  There was a pause, then a mournful ‘Standin’ away. The bugger’s fore-reachin’ on us.’

  Kydd ignored Curzon’s muttered profanity. With the wind coming in from astern, the conditions would reach out in their own good time and take the other too. And, conversely, any change for the brisker here would see them close on a chase helpless in the calms. There was nothing for it, however: all measures must be taken to come up with the fleeing ship before it vanished over the horizon completely.

  All hands were turned up for the effort of clothing L’Aurore in as much sail as she could take. Stunsails to each yardarm, royals, bonnets, ringtails to the staysails and driver, watersails below the stunsails. Her slight motion increased, a cheerful bubbling at the forefoot, the creak of spars taking up wind pressure – but within two hours the lookout had lost the chase.

  It was the worst outcome possible: they were no further forward in identification, while the chase now had freedom to break off to left or right – or to rendezvous with a fleet already within the Caribbean, which it would otherwise have led L
’Aurore on to discover. The question for Kydd now was whether to press on along the same track.

  A decision could not be delayed much longer: both ships were being carried into the Caribbean by a current as fast as a man briskly walking. They would be abreast of Grenada later in the day and he would be forced to either break off or go on.

  He knew even as he thought about it what he would do. Keep on while the wind was still fair for Grenada, then tack about into St George’s where there was a small British garrison and see if there was news, otherwise warn them. It helped that this was in fact more or less what he had been sent to do.

  After midday the breeze freshened, the more extravagant sail was taken in, and by three they were bowling along. The chase was still not in sight. There was nothing for it – L’Aurore hauled her wind for the north, and before evening made landfall on Grand Bay, rounding Point Salines safely well to windward before opening up St George’s Bay itself.

  And almost immediately they saw, not more than a mile or two ahead, a terrified merchantman of precisely the same size and rig as their chase desperately making for the safety of the harbour.

  It took a short visit only to establish that this was their quarry. The vessel had unusually shortened sail in the night to furled lower courses rather than topsails, the longer to remain out of sight at daybreak. And there was no immediate intelligence of an enemy in the vicinity. They had done what they could.

  After spending the night at anchor in order to transit the coral banks to the north in daylight, L’Aurore proceeded back to sea.

  There was no guarantee that the big merchantman was the ship seen through the rain squalls by the Danish but it seemed likely; in any event Kydd’s orders were to return to Barbados and report. They slipped north past the steep, tropical slopes of Grenada, taking their leave of the area, and into the island-studded seas to the north.

  ‘Lay Ronde well to starb’d,’ Kydd instructed, sniffing the breeze. He reluctantly left the sunlit brilliance of the morning and went below to prepare his day.

  In the middle of the third paragraph of his report he froze, then jerked upright, listening.

  Some preternatural sense had triggered an alarm – something so out of kilter with his ordered world that it made the hairs on his neck rise.

  He waited, quill poised. It came again, more felt than heard. The deep crump of an explosion – more; then sounds coming together.

  He raced for the cabin door, nearly knocking down Gilbey, on his way to report, who blurted, ‘Gunfire! Heavy gunfire coming from out o’ the north!’

  A sudden chill stole over Kydd. It was inexplicable that somewhere ahead a fleet action was taking place among the maze of islands that made up the Grenadines. But, then, with St Lucia and Martinique not so far further on and Barbados itself to the east, was it impossible?

  Napoleon’s master-stroke.

  Renzi was already on deck and pointed to a distant ragged smudge of smoke that spread as they watched. The rumbling became sharper, then tailed off and the smoke dissipated.

  ‘All sail to bowlines,’ Kydd snapped, ‘then clear for battle.’ How he might join a major action with not the slightest knowledge of dispositions or foe was not clear, but his duty was: he must get his ship to the British commander on the scene as soon as he could.

  Lookouts were tripled with orders to report the character and position of every ship they could see. If he could build a picture before he was engulfed in the madness of combat …

  But they remained completely silent as the frigate made for the distant thinning band of smoke. Then, without warning, there was a sudden concussion and a colossal plume of flame and smoke shot up – some unfortunate vessel had blown up before their eyes. It explained why the firing had died away, just as it had those years ago at the Nile when there was utter silence for long minutes after the explosion of the French flagship L’Orient.

  The racing wave kicked up by the blast reached them, still with enough energy to send L’Aurore into a fretful jibbing and tossing. Yet as they neared, there were no sightings. Not a sail, let alone a line-of-battle.

  In an awed hush L’Aurore progressed on. Eerily, the entire battlefield was innocent of anything save the deep blue and emerald green of the sea. Not a single ship.

  A cry from a seaman and an outstretched arm pointed to a dark speck in the water off the bow. Closer, it resolved into a body, clinging to a piece of wreckage.

  ‘Bring it in,’ Kydd said tersely.

  He was a black man, his body burnt and bloody. As he was laid on deck there was movement, weak and spasmodic. Eyes half open, he rolled to his side to retch before flopping back with an agonised groan.

  ‘What ship?’ Kydd demanded bending over him. Then, when there was no response: ‘Quel navire?’

  Someone brought a roll of canvas and packed it under his head. The surgeon arrived and inspected the man.

  ‘Are we going to get anything from him, do you think?’ Kydd asked.

  Before the answer came, the man moaned hoarsely, then spoke inaudibly and closed his eyes in pain.

  ‘Er, what was that?’

  ‘Man, Kick ’em Jenny!’ the man croaked with effort.

  Kydd looked up, baffled.

  ‘Sounded like, “Kickum cherry”,’ Gilbey offered.

  A startled cry from forward took their attention. A seaman was urgently gesturing to a sight that clutched at every shellback’s heart, out off the bow. From the Stygian gloom of the deep, an intense, spreading luminescence was rising, moving slowly, with infinite menace. Was a sea-monster of unimaginable size about to appear and devour them?

  Petrified seamen watched as it took shape, rising, growing. With it came a foul smell that …

  Renzi turned on Kydd in sudden understanding. ‘Naples!’

  Kydd reacted instantly. ‘Hard down y’r helm! Get us away, for God’s sake!’

  L’Aurore heeled and ran from the hideous apparition but when they were not one mile off, with a cataclysmic spasm, an underwater volcano vented. Bursting skyward with a deafening blast, a towering plume of grey, shot with flame and lazily arcing black fragments, climbed and then subsided into lesser paroxysms, a fearful and stupefying drama of nature.

  When the heavy rumbling had died away the man opened his eyes again and whispered, ‘Dere – she wake up. Dat Kick ’em Jenny!’

  An invitation arrived from the commander-in-chief, Leeward Islands station to a formal dinner marking the first anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar and the loss of Lord Nelson. It was extended to every naval officer in Cochrane’s command, and the guest of honour was to be the only one of Nelson’s captains on that dread day who was serving on the station: Thomas Kydd.

  The very highest in civil society would be invited to attend too, and in view of the unprecedented numbers, the governor had graciously extended the use of the state banqueting hall, the Long Room.

  It would be, without question, the occasion of the year.

  Kydd felt both humbled and elated. Guest of honour – that meant not only a faultless appearance but a speech, delivered before several hundred sea officers and important guests.

  Renzi could be relied on to confect a splendid talk, replete with apt quotations from the classics and full of elegant, rolling phrases that would be commented on for months – but this time Kydd knew he had to make it his own: set down what it had been to be part of the exalted realm of Nelson’s band of brothers; open to his listeners just what the brutal pressures had been on the little admiral, how he’d triumphed over every one to lead his devoted men to victory in the greatest sea battle of all time.

  And perhaps share something of the humanity and warmth in the man, those details of administration and concern for the fleet, which showed he understood that the men in the ships won his battles for him and …

  He reached for a pen and began to write.

  The evening passed in a haze of exhilaration, splendour and moment. The glitter and array of so much gold lace on dark blue, medal
s, honours – and the sea of faces looking politely up at him when he got to his feet for the crowning occasion of his speech.

  The room settled into a respectful silence while Kydd composed himself.

  ‘Your Excellency, Sir Alexander, distinguished guests, fellow officers …’

  The governor and Cochrane were seated to either side of him at the high table but he could see L’Aurore’s officers together on the right and, close by, Tyrell. Renzi was well down the room; as a retired naval officer he had been accorded the honour of attending.

  ‘It’s difficult for me to conceive that it’s been but a single year since that day off Cape Trafalgar when …’

  He told the tale simply but powerfully, giving fervent credit to the man who had himself raised Kydd to the eminence of post-captain. He tried to give a feeling for the events his audience had only read about in the newspapers and chronicles, a sense of the unbearable tension of the great chase and its resolution in the final cataclysm of the coming together of two vast fleets.

  He paused. The room was in utter stillness. ‘Gentlemen, before we toast the immortal memory of Lord Horatio Nelson, let me read to you words he wrote that, to me, are at the heart of his humanity and greatness as a leader.’

  Reaching down, he found a slim book and opened it.

  ‘This is just a single quotation taken from his ‘Memoir of My Life’ written in 1799.’

  There was a rustle of appreciation. Anything the legendary admiral had said concerning his naval life should be worth hearing.

  Kydd had no need to read, for he would never forget. Lowering the book, he let the resounding words echo out into the vast hall. ‘Gentlemen, Admiral Lord Nelson wrote, of the officers aft on the quarterdeck and the seamen of the fo’c’sle: “Aft the most honour – forward the better man!”’

  The room exploded with applause from all except Tyrell, whose face simply reddened.

  Kydd took his seat, receiving congratulations from right and left and raising his glass in response to them all.

  The evening was enlivened. Many brought chairs to sit by him and hear more of that momentous day; others passed by to touch his shoulder and murmur words of appreciation.