The Privateer's Revenge

by Julian Stockwin

  “Aye, we know.”

  “Are ye going t’ take him, sir?”

  At first Kydd did not answer. This was so different from a war patrol in a King’s ship when stopping a vessel with a row of guns at his back was so straightforward.

  “Not so easy as that, lad,” Kydd said, then came to a decision. “Bear down on him gently, Mr Rowan,” he ordered, and the privateer leaned to the wind on a course to intercept. “Mr Calloway,” he said gravely, “you’re t’ be a sea officer in time, an’ I’ll always remember it was a hard enough beat t’ wind’d for me t’ hoist aboard how we takes a prize.” Kydd glanced at the distant ship, still holding her track. “Let me give ye a course t’ steer as will see y’ through. There’s only one thing we’re after, an’ that’s evidence.”

  “Evidence?”

  “Aye, m’ friend. Even y’ stoutest courage at the cannon’s mouth an’ the bravest o’ boardings won’t stand unless we has th’ proof.” He regarded Calloway seriously. “The richest ship we c’n take will never make us a prize ’less th’ Admiralty Court says so, an’ this they’ll never do without we show ’em evidence as will convince th’ judge t’ condemn him as good prize.”

  “A—a judge, Mr Kydd? What’s t’ be th’ crime?”

  “An’ we’re talkin’ international law now,” Kydd went on, “as all nations agree on. Now here’s the ‘crime.’ The one, if we bring evidence that he’s an enemy o’ the Crown. The other, if he’s a neutral an’ he’s found a-tradin’ with ’em.”

  “That’s all, Mr Kydd?”

  “That’s all—but th’ devil’s in th’ detail, m’ lad.”

  “Er . . . ?”

  “Ye’ll be findin’ out soon, never fear.”

  The heavily built merchant ship seemed resigned to her fate, bracing aback her foreyards and slowing. Bien Heureuse went around her stern to take position off her weather side and Kydd cupped his hands. “Bring to f’r boarding, if y’ please!” he hailed, across the short stretch of water.

  He turned to Rowan. “I’ll board, an’ take Calloway as m’ notary, with three hands t’ rummage th’ hold,” he said. “Have a boardin’ party standin’ by t’ send across if I hail.” It was the usual arrangement when not expecting trouble.

  Their boat was in the water smartly and Kydd eyed the vessel as they approached. His experience in boarding was extensive but almost all in the Mediterranean and overseas. Here the principles would be the same but the players different.

  He had noted that the ship was the Asturias as they rounded her stern; her sides were worn but solid and she had the familiar sparse workaday reliability of a merchantman. A rope-ladder clattered down her sides; he mounted nimbly and swung over on to her upper deck.

  “I’m Kydd, an’ I hold th’ Letter o’ Marque of a private cruiser.” He offered the paper to the grey-haired man he took to be the master. It was ignored.

  “I’ll ask ye t’ submit to my examination, sir,” he said evenly. The ship smelled of the Baltic: an undertone of pine resin and a certain dankness, which seemed to go with vessels from cold climes.

  The man snapped orders at one of the men behind, then met Kydd’s eyes coldly. “I vill, thenk you,” he replied tightly, then added, “Pedersen, master.” Yards were laid and sails doused to take the strain off the masts while the ship settled to wait, lifting uneasily on the slight swell.

  They took to the small saloon, and after Kydd and Calloway were seated, Pedersen left to get the ship’s papers. This was the living space for the officers; here among the polished panels and brass lamps they would eat their meals, exchange the comfortable gossip of the voyage. To Kydd, their intrusion seemed an act of violation.

  Pedersen returned and slapped down a thick pack of papers. Sitting opposite, he waited with barely concealed bitterness.

  “Spanish flag?” Kydd enquired mildly. The master made much of riffling through the pile and finding the sea-brief, the attested proof of ownership. He passed it across; as far as Kydd could see, the title of the ship was vested in Spanish owners trading with northern Europe and, as King George was as yet still in amity with Spain, this, with a florid certificate of registry on Cartagena, entitled it to fly the Spanish flag.

  “Your muster roll, Captain.” As a naval officer, Kydd had by this means unmasked deserters and renegades among crews before now. Swedes, several Finns and other Scandinavians—no Danish. Spanish, Italian names, some unpronounceable Balkans—the usual bag for merchant ships in wartime. Nothing there.

  He looked up at the master. “No Englishmen, then, astray fr’m their duty?”

  Pedersen returned his look stolidly. “Nej .”

  So it was a neutral, but this by no means disqualified it as a prize. “Charter party?” Pedersen found it and passed it over. This was the contract for the freighting of the cargo and might reveal to Kydd whether the owners or its destination was illegal—which would make the cargo contraband and subject to seizure.

  It was a voyage from Bilbao to Göteborg in Sweden: varying shippers, each with an accompanying bill of lading and duly appearing on the manifest, all apparently innocent of a French connection. And most papers in Spanish but some in Swedish. But such were the common practices and argot of the sea that there was little difficulty is making it out; Kydd had dealt with far more impenetrable Moorish documents in the Mediterranean.

  Watched by a wide-eyed Calloway he painstakingly compared dates and places. Even the smallest discrepancy could be exploited to reveal that the papers were false and therefore just reason to act.

  He called for the mates’ book. The practice in every country was that the first mate of a ship was responsible for stowing the cargo and maintaining a notebook of where each consignment was placed, generally on the principle of first in last out. Against the bills of lading Kydd now checked off their stowage for suspicious reversals of location while Calloway jotted down their actual declaration for later.

  Conscious all the time of Pedersen’s baleful glare, Kydd knew that under international law he was as entitled as any warship to stop and search a neutral and took his time. But he spotted nothing.

  “Port clearance?” This was vital: clearing a port implied the vessel had satisfied the formalities in areas such as Customs, which demanded full details of cargo carried and next destination. For the alert it could reveal whether there was an intention to call at another port before that declared as destination and perhaps other incriminating details.

  It was, however, consistent. A hard-working trader on his way from the neutral but unfriendly Spain, voyaging carefully through the sea battlefield that was the Channel to the Baltic before the ice set in.

  No prize? He wasn’t going to let it go. There was something— was it Pedersen’s truculence? If he had the confidence of a clear conscience he would enjoy seeing Kydd’s discomfiture, sarcastically throw open the ship to him as other innocents had done before.

  No—he would take it further. “I’d like t’ see y’r freight, Captain. Be s’ good as t’ open y’r hold, sir.”

  Pedersen frowned. Then, after a slight hesitation, he nodded. “Ver’ well.” He got up heavily and they returned on deck.

  While the master threw his orders at the wary crew, Kydd called Calloway to him. “We see if what we find squares wi’ what’s on the manifest,” he whispered. “Check off y’r details—any consignment not on y’r list he’s t’ account for, as it’s not come aboard fr’m some little Frenchy port on the way.”

  “Or any as is missing,” murmured Calloway, “which he could’ve landed . . .”

  Kydd chuckled. “Aye, ye’re catchin’ on, m’ boy.”

  The thunderous cracking of timbers and goods working in the lanthorn-lit gloom and the dangerous squeeze down amid their powerful reek to the foot-waling below did not deter the experienced quartermaster’s mate Kydd had been and he clambered about without hesitation.

  Muslin and linen, cased oranges, Spanish wine in barrels; each was pointed out by the mate and account
ed for, Kydd’s sharp-eyed survey omitting no part of the hold, no difficult corner.

  Nothing.

  It was galling. There was something —his instincts told him so. But what? There was no more time, two ships lying stopped together might attract unwelcome visitors.

  Kydd was about to heave himself out of the hold when a glimmer of possibility made itself known. He paused. This would be one for Renzi—but he wasn’t here . . .

  Slithering down again he worked his way back to the tightly packed wine barrels. He held the lanthorn above one. “Tinto de Toro, Zamora” was burnt crudely into its staves. He sniffed deeply, but all he could detect was the heavy odour of wine-soaked wood.

  On its own it was not enough, but Kydd suspected that inside the barrels was not cheap Spanish wine but a rich French vintage. He squirmed over to the casks closest to the ship’s side and found what he was looking for—a weeping in one where it had been bruised in a seaway or mishandled.

  He reached out, then licked his finger: sure enough, the taste was indisputably the fine body of a Bordeaux—a Médoc or other, perhaps? He was not the sure judge of wine that Renzi was but, certainly, a cheap Spanish table wine this was not. And he could see how it had been done: they had left Bilbao with Spanish wine on the books as a welcome export, passed north along the French coast, crept into a lonely creek and refilled the barrels before setting sail once more.

  He had them! Exultant thoughts came—the most overwhelming being the vast amount the prize would bring, with the sudden end of his immediate troubles, but cooler considerations took hold.

  The only “evidence” was his nose; was this sufficient justification for him to bring his boarding party swarming over the bulwarks and taking the grave action of carrying the vessel into port? The ship’s papers were in perfect order and any trace of a quick turn-aside would be difficult to prove.

  He returned to the saloon. “Ship’s log!” he demanded. Kydd ignored Pedersen’s thunderous look and flipped the dog-eared pages: he wanted to see the dates between sailing and rounding Ushant. It was scrawled in Swedish, but again the shared culture of the sea allowed him to piece together the sequence. Light airs from the south when leaving on the tenth, veering to a fresh seven-knot south-westerly within the day—but not to forty-five degrees north before another two days.

  “There!” Kydd said, stabbing at the entry. “Seven knots on a fair wind an’ it takes ye three days to cover fifty leagues!” He snorted. “If’n it does then I’m a Dutchman. Ye put in t’ Bordeaux country an’ took a fill o’ Frenchy wines, as I c’n prove below.”

  Pedersen’s expression did not change. “Ef wine are not Spanish, ze merchant iss cheat—not vorry for me,” he snapped. “An’ m’ time?” he went on frostily. “I lost by privateers inspect me there, two time!”

  “An’ may we see, then, y’r certificates?” Kydd shot back sarcastically. These had to be issued by the examining vessel on clearing any vessels boarded, that any subsequent boarding could be waived—and none had been shown to Kydd before he began his inspection.

  “An’ they’m be French?” Pedersen came back with equally heavy sarcasm. The French did not issue such certificates.

  It was no good; the man was lying through his teeth and had been trading with the enemy, but he could not take the ship prize with this hanging over it. At the very least there would be lengthy litigation, which would cost his investors dearly. He had to let it go.

  At his desk the day wore on for Renzi. First there was the matter of the arms shipment. It would arrive soon in a store-ship. To preserve secrecy it would be better to make rendezvous and trans-ship at sea to the lesser vessel that would be making the dangerous run into France. This would probably mean smoothing the offended sensibilities of the master and mate, who would be expecting the formalities of clearing cargo in the usual way, and the crew, who would resent the need to open the hold and rig special tackles in an open seaway.

  Then there was the task of finding a vessel suitable for the final dash. D’Auvergne had suggested employing a privateer as their season was drawing to a close and one might be tempted to an extra voyage. They were well armed and not afraid of fighting if the need arose and, of course, had the carrying capacity, but Renzi had a naval officer’s healthy dislike of the breed: it would mean haggling with near-pirates.

  His attention turned to the details of the currency shipment: this would be coming from England in a cutter and there would be no alternative to the flummery associated with the movement of bullion. It would necessarily be taken aboard and signed for in the flagship, then released upon signature into the delivering vessel—it was the right of the captain of any naval vessel carrying bullion to claim a “freight money” percentage and did this apply to the flagship captain? How were the receipt and delivery to be accounted for in a form acceptable to the Treasury? Who would make the clandestine conveyance? Another privateer?

  And all the while he worked on these details, he knew desperate men were risking their lives. Wearily, Renzi picked up another sheet from the growing pile on his desk.

  Days passed: the area was not proving as productive as Kydd had hoped. Possibly the autumn weather was thinning the flow or another privateer at work in the vicinity might be frightening off their rightful prey.

  It gave Kydd time, though, to make another attempt on sea discipline, but he quickly discovered that, without well-tested naval command structures in place, it was really to no purpose—there was no interlocking chain of responsibility linking the seaman on a gun through gun captains, petty officers, warrant officers and so on to the commanding officer, such that at any point his will was communicated in ready understanding straight to that seaman.

  But then he was finding that a merchant sailor was in some ways more independent and expected to perform his seaman-like functions on his own; the ship-owner would not outlay good money on layers of command that were only vital in the heat and stress of combat.

  He had to make the best of it: his was a merchant ship prettied up with a pair of nine-pounders and gun-crews of untrained amateurs. Enough to overawe small fry but if any showed real resistance . . . He kept his thoughts to himself and focused on where to find that prey. All too aware that every day without a return was draining capital, Kydd kept the deck from first light until dark—and then their luck changed.

  Anchored overnight in the lee of a convenient sweep of rocky headland, Bien Heureuse was greeted in the chill of the morning by the astonishing sight of another vessel no more than a few hundred yards away. In the darkness it had unknowingly chosen the same shelter as they and was still firmly at anchor when it caught sight of them— and the boat thrashing across that Kydd had instantly in the water, with Rowan at the tiller.

  It was hardly a ship, more a low, floating barge that was easily recognisable as a store-ship for the Brest dockyard. As the boat drew close, the crew abandoned their efforts to weigh anchor and hastily took to their own boat to escape ashore.

  With satisfaction Kydd watched Rowan go alongside and board, his men fanning out fore and aft on the deserted vessel. He had only to select a prize-master and crew and Bien Heureuse had one in the bag.

  Rowan returned quickly. “A prize, t’ be sure. Dried fish ’n’ potatoes f’r the garrison in Brest.” No complications with papers and international law, this was an enemy that was now rightfully theirs.

  Kydd sent Tranter away as prize-master, glad to see the back of him; the new captain wasted no time in hoisting sail for the run back to Guernsey, ribald shouts of encouragement echoing across the water. Kydd’s chest swelled. Their first prize!

  Turning his gaze to sea, his eyes focused on a sail, a good three miles away but an unforgivable lapse in lookouts whose attention had been diverted. Square-rigged, she was hove-to and alone out to sea. Uneasy, Kydd sent for his glass as Bien Heureuse won her anchor.

  A brig-rig, the workhorse of coastal shipping: she could be anything, but there was something . . . Then, as he watched, the ship got
under way again, laying over as she took the wind . . . and he knew for a certainty that it was Teazer .

  It affected him deeply, this sudden encounter with the ship he’d loved, his first command, where he had experienced the joys, insights and anxieties that went with the honour of being a captain. And the one where . . . Rosalynd had never come aboard Teazer, had not seen where he slept, never had the chance to . . .

  He crushed the thoughts, but when he lifted his telescope he found his eyes stinging and his glass not quite steady. He forced himself to concentration as she altered her course—and headed inshore towards them.

  Kydd had no wish to make contact and snapped at Rowan to hasten the unmooring, but Teazer arrived as they were getting under way. Her colours broke at the mizzen shrouds in unmistakable challenge and Kydd had to decide: to attempt a break to the east or await events?

  “Luff up,” he ordered, resigned to the inevitable.

  Teazer rounded to, backing her fore topsail. “Bring to, I’m coming aboard of you, Captain!” It sounded like Prosser with a speaking trumpet, giving the same orders that he himself had used. As it came closer Kydd saw an officer in the sternsheets.

  He stood back as the man came aboard. It was Prosser, stiff in his new lieutenant’s uniform. He looked about him importantly, then stumbled in shock when he saw Kydd. “I, er, I’ve been sent b’ Commander Standish t’ examine y’ vessel, um, Mr Kydd,” he said uncomfortably.

  “Here’s m’ Letter o’ Marque. As ye can see, it’s all in order,” Kydd snorted. The brailed-up sails banged and slatted overhead impatiently.

  Prosser took it, then looked up awkwardly. “He means y’ full papers—where bound, freight an’—”

  “I know what an examination means,” Kydd said cuttingly. “I now need y’ reason why m’ vessel is bein’ detained after I’ve proved m’ business.”

  “It’s not like that, sir. Mr Standish is hard on them who don’t carry out his orders t’ satisfaction, an’ he said—”

  “Then tell Commander Standish as I’m a private ship-o’-war and may not be delayed in m’ tasking without good reason. Good day, L’tenant.” He stalked to the ship’s side; Prosser’s boat was bobbing off the quarter, the men at their oars.