Quarterdeck: A Kydd Sea Adventure

by Julian Stockwin

  The squealing of sheaves stopped as the anchor rose to the projecting cathead. ‘Well there, the cat.’ It had done its duty by hoisting the anchor out of the sea. He turned back to the side and called down: ‘Pass th’ ring-painter – get that stopper on fast!’ The three and a half tons of forged black iron was now being buffeted by passing waves.

  There was a problem with the stoppering, the ropes passed to restrain the great weight of the cable. A hundred pounds in every six feet, it was a slithering monster if it worked free. Another fo’c’sleman swung round the beakhead to help, but with the vessel now under way and a frothy bow-wave mounting, the situation was getting out of control.

  ‘Poulden!’ Kydd barked. ‘Get down an’ get the fish-tackle on.’ The tall seaman dropped to the swaying anchor and, balancing on its arms like a circus acrobat, took the fish-tackle and applied it firmly below the inner fluke.

  Kydd’s early intervention enabled the anchor to be hauled up sideways out of the race of water while the crossed turns at the cable were cleared away.

  ‘Walk away with the fish, y’ sluggards!’ Kydd ordered, satisfied. He had been right: Tenacious was a sea-kindly ship, her regular heave on the open sea reminiscent of a large frigate, even if there was more of the decorum of the mature lady about her.

  Kydd lingered on the fo’c’sle after the party had secured. The hypnotic lift and crunch of the bows was soothing and he closed his eyes for a moment in contentment – but when he opened them again he saw four seamen looking at him resentfully.

  Straightening, he took off his hat, the sign that he was there but not on duty, and left; it was their fo’c’sle and the men off watch had every right to their relaxation. He no longer belonged there: he had left their world and entered a higher one, but in its place did he now have anything that could provide the warmth and companionship he had enjoyed before?

  On the way back, as he passed the belfry, there was a sharp clang: seven bells of the forenoon watch. Until safely anchored once again there would always be, for every hour of the day or night, a full complement of hands taking care of the ship, keeping watch and ward over their little community in the endless wastes of ocean.

  Kydd was due to go on duty with Mr Bampton as officer-of-the-watch and himself as second. He made his way to the quarterdeck, where the captain held conference with the first lieutenant. They paced along the weather side, deep in conversation, while Kydd waited respectfully on the leeward.

  At ten minutes before the hour Bampton mounted the main companion to the deck. He was in comfortably faded sea rig, with the modest gold lace allowed a lieutenant bleached to silver. A few months at sea would have Kydd’s brand-new blues in the same way. Kydd was at his post early, and he said peevishly, ‘I thought to see you below, Mr Kydd.’

  ‘Sir.’ Kydd touched his hat.

  ‘No matter. Pray keep station on me, and don’t trouble to interrupt, if you please.’ Bampton waited impatiently for the captain to notice him. ‘Sir, to take the deck, if you please.’ Kydd heard the captain’s wishes passed – course and sail set, special orders.

  ‘I have the ship, sir,’ Bampton said formally, and thereby became commander pro tem of HMS Tenacious. His eyes flickered to Kydd, then he turned to the mate-of-the-watch. ‘I’ll take a pull at the lee fore-brace,’ he said, ‘and the same at the main.’ He looked up, considering. ‘Send a hand to secure that main t’gallant buntline – and I mean to have all fore ’n’ aft sail sheeted home in a proper seamanlike manner, if you please.’

  He turned on his heel and paced away down the deck. Kydd didn’t know whether to follow or stay at attention. He compromised by taking a sudden interest in the slate of course details stowed in the binnacle. ‘Nobbut a jib ’n’ stays’l jack,’ he overheard the quartermaster’s low growl to his mate, and saw no reason to correct the observation.

  It was a hard beat down Channel, a relentless westerly heading them and the brood of merchant shipping that was taking advantage of the company of a ship of force. They clawed their way tack by tack, driven by the need to make Falmouth and the convoy on time.

  The wind strengthened, then fell and eased southerly, allowing a tired ship’s company to shape course past the Eddystone, albeit in an endless succession of rain squalls.

  The master put up the helm and bore away for Falmouth. As the yards came round and the wind and seas came in on the quarter – a pleasant lift and pirouette for him, a lurching trial for the landmen – Kydd looked ahead. He’d never been to Falmouth, the legendary harbour tucked away in the craggy granite coast of Cornwall. It would be the last stop in England before the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean.

  The master stood hunched and still, raindrops whipping from his dark oilskins and plain black hat. This man held a repository of seamanship experiences and knowledge that even the longest-serving seaman aboard could not come close to: he could bring meaning and order into storm, calms, and the unseen perils of rock and shoal.

  Kydd moved up and stood next to him. ‘My first visit t’ Falmouth, Mr Hambly,’ he said. ‘I’d be obliged should you tell me something of the place.’

  The head turned slowly, eyes cool and appraising. ‘Your first, Mr Kydd? I dare say it won’t be y’r last while this war keeps on.’ He resumed his gaze forward. ‘A fine harbour, Falmouth, in the lee of the Lizard, and big enough for a fleet. At the beginning o’ last year, you may recollect the great storm – ’twas then four hundred sail sheltered f’r three weeks in Falmouth without we lost one. Fine port, Mr Kydd.’

  ‘Then why doesn’t we have the Channel Fleet there instead of Plymouth?’

  The master’s expression cracked into a smile. ‘Why, now, sir, that’s a question can’t concern an old shellback like me.’

  ‘Th’ hazards?’

  ‘No hazards, sir, we have nine mile o’ ten-fathom water inside, Carrick Roads, and no current more’n a knot or two . . .’

  The coast firmed out of the clearing grey rain, a repelling blue-black only now showing here and there a tinge of green. To larboard of them the great promontory of the Lizard thrust into the Channel. The hurrying seas had changed direction and were now heading in the same direction as Tenacious.

  Hambly pointed to a jumble of broken coastline: ‘The Manacles.’ Kydd had heard of their reputation. ‘An’ here is where you’ll find the great sea wrack and th’ bloody sea dock,’ Hambly added. ‘Seaweed, in course.’

  ‘The bottom?’

  ‘Grey sand, mixed wi’ bits o’ shell and brown gravel, but as soon as y’ finds barley beards or cornets, think t’ turn up th’ hands an’ shorten sail.’ When approaching a coast in fog or other murk the only indication of its proximity was a change in the appearance of what was brought up in the hollow base of the hand lead-line armed with tallow. To Kydd this was singular – these tiny sea mites had been born and died deep in the bosom of the sea. The first time they met the light of this world was when they were hauled up by a seaman, to convey the means of preserving the life of half a thousand souls. Held in thrall, Kydd stared over the grey seascape.

  ‘And it’s here you’ll fin’ the sea grampus – an’ the baskin’ shark, o’ course. As big as y’ longboat, he is, but as harmless as a sucking shrimp—’

  ‘Mr Hambly,’ Bampton cut in sharply from behind. ‘Be so kind as to attend your duties – we’re but a league from St Anthony’s.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ Hambly said calmly, and crossed to the binnacle in front of the wheel. He picked up the traverse board and deliberately matched the march of its pegs with the scrawled chalk of the slate log, then looked up at the impassive quartermaster. ‘Very good, son,’ he said, and resumed his vigil forward.

  An occluding head of land opened to an indentation and the smaller sail accompanying them began to converge on the same place. ‘St Anthony’s,’ Hambly murmured, as the headland, fringed with white, pulled back to reveal an opening in the lowering coastline no more than a mile wide. On the western side was the stark, squat, greyish-white of a
broad castle turret. ‘Pendennis, an’ Falmouth lies beyond.’

  He turned to the officer-of-the-watch. ‘Tops’ls will suffice, sir.’

  By this time the captain had appeared on deck, but he made no attempt to relieve the officer-of-the-watch.

  ‘Bo’sun, all hands on deck, pipe hands to shorten sail.’ Kydd wondered at Bampton’s order: to his eyes there was no urgency – the watch on deck were quite capable of taking in the courses one by one.

  The calls pealed out and men tumbled up from below to take in the big lower sails. ‘Keep the men on deck, if you please,’ Bampton ordered.

  ‘You’ll beware Black Rock,’ Hambly warned Bampton. ‘A pile o’ broken rocks squatting athwart th’ entrance, right in our course.’ He pointed to a flurry of white around a mound of black right in the centre of the harbour entrance.

  ‘Which side, Mr Hambly?’ Bampton asked.

  ‘The eastern, sir, deepest channel.’

  ‘A point to starboard,’ snapped Bampton. The quartermaster spoke quietly to the helmsman, who set the bowsprit pointing off to starboard of the gloomy black whaleback.

  ‘Not as you’d say difficult,’ Hambly said. ‘You sees Black Rock at half-tide, and on th’ overflow you c’n be sure there’s three fathom over the bar within.’

  A coastal brig, sailing at the same rate, converged on the eastern passage with Tenacious. Both vessels were before the wind; they drew closer. The smaller vessel seemed to ignore their presence.

  The captain snatched up the speaking trumpet from its bracket. ‘The brig ahoy, sheer off. Bear away, this instant!’ A ship-of-the-line was far too ponderous to play games.

  ‘He means to head us through,’ Houghton exclaimed in disbelief. ‘You villains! Bear off! You must give way to a King’s ship, damn you!’

  Houghton stalked forward, eyeing the menace of Black Rock ahead. ‘Give him a gun, forrard!’ he roared. A six-pounder on the fo’c’sle banged out. The gunsmoke was borne away in a body through the entrance, but the brig paid no heed, her main yard dipping and swaying closer and closer to their own lower rigging. ‘We take the eastern channel, let that villain choose the west,’ Houghton snapped. The brig’s shallower draught would allow him the passage.

  ‘Aye aye, sir. Lay Black Rock close to larb’d, and hold your course,’ Bampton acknowledged.

  Just two hundred yards from Black Rock the brig diverged to the other side of the danger. The seaweed-covered rocks were now in close detail. All eyes followed the rogue vessel still under full sail plunging past the hazard.

  ‘Sir!’ the helmsman called urgently. Unable to release the wheel he indicated vigorously with his head. With all attention on the brig they had not noticed two fishing smacks close-hauled under fore and aft sail, crossing their bows to leave harbour. They shot into view from behind St Anthony’s Head to starboard. Seeing the brig they changed their minds and tried to go about, floundering in stays dead ahead.

  Bampton’s mouth opened – but closed again. The channel was only a few hundred yards wide, with Black Rock to one side and the high headland of St Anthony to the other. It didn’t take much imagination to see that, running downwind as they were, backing or dousing sail to stop their way was impossible – even if this was achieved Tenacious would probably slew helplessly round to cast up on shore. The smacks were doomed.

  ‘Helm a-larb’d,’ Hambly calmly told the man at the wheel. ‘Keep with th’ land a cable or so.’

  ‘No . . .’ Bampton hesitated. He could not utter the words of contradiction that would firmly sheet home to him responsibility for the next few minutes.

  The master kept his eyes ahead, his face tranquil. Tenacious’s bows slowly paid off towards the rain-dark coast towering so near to starboard. Individual tumbling rock formations could be made out, seagulls perched on them watching the big ship curiously. The swash of their wake, the slat and creak of shipboard noises were loud in the silence.

  They’d avoided the smacks, but another danger presented. Sprawled across their track was a new headland, with a round castle prominent on its heights, but Hambly kept his course.

  ‘Should you—’

  Hambly did not deign to notice Bampton.

  Kydd saw the problem. If they could not come hard round their only other action to starboard was to head ignominiously into a creek just opening up. He held his breath, then felt the first puff of a playful easterly coming down the creek . . . Depth of water close to, local winds – the master had known!

  The edge of their sails shivered and Hambly said, over his shoulder, ‘We’ll brace up, I believe.’

  As they did so, Kydd saw that, without any movement at the helm, the ship’s bow swung safely away from the shore.

  ‘Aye, the set of th’ ebb,’ Hambly said and, unexpectedly, smiled. HMS Tenacious found her course again and came to anchor in the spacious expanse of Carrick Roads and Falmouth.

  Kydd hugged his boat-cloak around him as the officers’ gig left the shelter of the ship’s side, sails to a single reef. He pulled his hat tighter and smiled weakly at Renzi through spats of spray. A straggle of low buildings along the shoreline, Falmouth was a small town tucked away just inside the western headland, around from the ruined Pendennis Castle.

  Inside the harbour, clusters of smaller ships were moored close before the town, but the majority of shipping, assembling for the convoy, crowded into Carrick Roads – a mass of merchant ships of all kinds and destinations, with boats under sail or oar criss-crossing the waters.

  ‘Fish Strand,’ Renzi told the coxswain, as they approached the town. The gig headed past the anchored vessels for the tiny quay. ‘Return before dusk, if you please,’ he ordered, and the two friends stepped ashore.

  ‘If you should desire a restorative . . .’ The First and Last on Market Street seemed to meet the bill – with a jolly tavern-keeper and roaring fire in the taproom to accompany their hot spiced rum.

  ‘Fish Strand?’ Kydd said, cupping his toddy.

  ‘Indeed. Mr Pringle assures us that somewhere about here we’ll find all we need to preserve the soul in the wilderness of Nova Scotia.’ Renzi pulled a battered guinea from his pocket. ‘And it seems that I should return with a proof suitable for a diminutive midshipman against Boreas’s worst.’

  Lieutenants did no watches in harbour: this was a duty for master’s mates and midshipmen. Kydd acknowledged that it was very satisfactory to be free to go ashore as the spirit moved, and he was privately relieved to be away from the atmosphere in the wardroom.

  A grey-haired man of some quality entered the alehouse. He saw the two naval officers and inclined his head, then signalled to the pot-boy and came across. ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. Do I see officers of that fine two-decker in the roads?’

  ‘You do, sir,’ Renzi answered. ‘Lieutenants Kydd and Renzi of His Majesty’s Ship Tenacious, at your service.’

  ‘Greaves, Lawrence Greaves. And your noble vessel is bound for North America?’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘Ah! Then you will be our guardian angel, our protector of this “trade”, perhaps?’ Greaves was clearly no stranger to sea passages – a ‘trade’ was the common maritime term for a convoy. ‘May I sit with you?’ he asked. ‘My wife and I will be embarked on the City of Sydney for Halifax.’ The pot-boy hovered. ‘The same? Or would you prefer wine?’ The grey was confined to his side-whiskers, and his eyes were genial. ‘Your first visit?’

  ‘It will be,’ Kydd admitted, ‘but I’ll wager this is not your first, sir.’

  ‘No indeed. I’m commissioner for lands in Halifax, as it happens, returning to my post.’

  ‘Then, sir, it puzzles me t’ know why you don’t take the packet service – it’s much the faster,’ Kydd said, seeing a smart brigantine with the Blue Peter at her masthead through the tavern window.

  ‘No mystery, my friend. My wife is no sailor and insists on the conveniences of a larger vessel, and for me, I much prefer the comforting presence of one of His Majesty’s men-o’-wa
r about me. Do you know much of these packets?’

  ‘Not a great deal, sir, but that they do carry inviolable protections against the press,’ said Renzi.

  ‘Well, then, the post-office packet, small but fast, the mails of the kingdom are entrusted to these, and not only that but passengers and specie – bullion for treasury interchange. They risk tempest and privateers to make a fast passage, and I ask you to conceive of the value to a merchant of receiving his letter-of-credit by reply within fifteen weeks of consigning his petition to an Atlantic crossing.’

  Kydd murmured an appreciation, but Greaves leaned forward. ‘A nest of villains, sir! They carry the King’s mails, but should they spy a prize, they will not scruple to attack at risk of their cargo – and worse! Even under the strictest post-office contract, they weigh down their vessel with private freight to their common advantage. And should this not be enough, it is commonly known that while the post office will recompense them for a loss at sea to an enemy, profit may just as readily be won from the insurances.’

  A crack of gunfire drew their attention to the brigantine. Her Blue Peter was jerking down, with vigorous activity at her foredeck windlass. ‘Ah, yes, she’ll be in Halifax two weeks before us – if the privateers let her . . .’

  Kydd put down his glass. ‘Mr Greaves, have you any suggestions f’r preserving body ’n’ soul in Halifax? We’ve heard it can be grievous cold at times.’

  ‘Why, yes, but you’ll be paying over the odds here, you’ll find. Pray wait until Halifax and you will quickly acquire an embarrassment of stout gear. Shall we raise a glass to the success of our voyage?’

  ‘Just curious,’ Kydd said, as they strolled down the sea-smelling streets of Falmouth, the keening herring gulls raucous along the seafront, clouds of them swooping on the boats landing fresh-caught fish.