Quarterdeck (13 page)

Houghton took a deep breath. “Then hoist and execute for pennant ships, damn your eyes!”

Rawson already had the signal bent on and swooping up the rigging where it fl uttered gaily for several minutes then jerked down. One by one, from random places in the milling ships, trusted merchant vessels followed the lead of
Tenacious
and hoisted a yellow triangular fl ag above an unmistakable red and white square—the Halifax convoy.

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First
Tenacious,
then the pennant ships marking leading positions in the convoy purposefully set their bowsprits to the open Atlantic, and a pattern formed after them. Ship after ship fell into column, jockeying with shortened sail into their order of sailing; men-o’-war chivvied and snapped at the heels of the laggardly, and the vast fl eet headed away from the land. The gunboats returned to port.

Well before they had left the outer Falmouth Roads and laid the deadly Manacles to starboard, the signal for escorts to take station was made.
Tenacious
led the convoy, she and her con-sorts on the windward side of the mass of shipping—the best position to drop down quickly on any of their charges if they were attacked.

“
Viper
to leave the stragglers and come up to station,”

Houghton ordered testily. “Never know what’s waiting for us out there.” The inevitable late starters would have to catch up as best they could. One lumbering merchantman was caught fl at aback when avoiding another, and Kydd could see its helpless gy-ration through his glass as it gathered stern-way and turned in reverse in obedience to the last helm order.

A grey-white wall of drizzle approached silently. In the westerly wind the craggy loom of the peninsula to starboard was no threat. But when they reached its end, the notorious Lizard, they would leave its shelter and face whatever the Atlantic Ocean could bring.

“Damn!” Bampton cursed. The light rain had reached them and was beginning a damp assault. While Houghton kept the deck no one dared go below, and all had to suffer coats heavy with wet and rivulets of cold water wriggling down their necks.

The captain stood aggressively as the rain ran down his face.

Kydd’s crew shivered and clutched their coats but none dared ask to leave the deck.

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Suddenly Houghton started. “Who has the watch?”

“I, sir,” responded Bampton.

“I shall be in my cabin.” Houghton wheeled round and left.

Other offi cers followed his example and went below, but Kydd knew he must stay so he moved down from the exposed poop-deck. Bampton called for his watch-coat and Kydd his oilskins, but then the rain ceased and the wind resumed a chill buffeting.

Kydd used his signals telescope to survey the slow-moving convoy. Once they made the open sea beyond the Lizard they would spread more sail for best speed, but if the stragglers could not make up the distance before they met the friendless ocean they would be in trouble.

In the main they were closing manfully, but a small gaggle were now miles astern locked together. Kydd shuddered with the cold and lowered the telescope. But something made him raise it again. The larger of the stopped vessels had one corner of her main course drawn up to the yard, a peculiar action at sea. He steadied the glass, leaning back with his elbow braced on his chest to see better. There was activity, but it was not co- ordinated.

Straining to make it out, he waited for a spasm of shivering to subside and concentrated on the other vessel. Something about her—she was not low in the water. “Sir!” he said loudly. “Seems the stragglers are being taken!”

“What?” said Bampton incredulously. He brought up his big telescope. “Are you mad? That’s nothing but a parcel of lubberly merchantmen got in a tangle!”

“But the main course! It’s up to—”

“What are you babbling about, Mr Kydd? She still fl ies her pennant. The other vessel has her vane a-fl y—leave them to it, I say.”

“Sir, should we not send
Viper
down to ’em?”

“And put her to loo’ard and having to beat back just when we
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make the open sea? I’m surprised at your suggestion, Mr Kydd, and can only ascribe it to your, er, lack of experience in these waters.”

The captain appeared from the cabin spaces. “Ah, Mr Bampton. All’s well?”

“Yes sir.”

“Th’ stragglers are bein’ snapped up f’r prizes!” Kydd blurted out.

“What? Give me that,” said Houghton, taking Kydd’s telescope.

“I’m sorry, sir—Mr Kydd’s enthusiasm sometimes exceeds his experience and—”

“Why do you say that?” Houghton snapped at Kydd.

“Main course. It’s goosewings now, but that would be so if they only had time to haul one clew up to the yard, not both, and if the lubbers hadn’t yet loaded the signal guns or shipped aprons against the rain, they—”

Bampton broke in, “What are you wittering about, Kydd?

Those vessels have their numbers hoisted. They have not hauled down their colours or signalled distress—they’re in a god-awful mess. I’ve seen it many times before, and so will you.”

Houghton’s telescope steadied. “
Viper
and
Trompeuse
to close and investigate,” he bawled to the poop-deck.

He rounded on Bampton. “Mr Kydd knows his signals—‘Haul up your main course and two guns to weather’ is the signal for the approach of strange sail. They must have been caught napping by some damned privateer disguised as one of our ships, who knows our procedures and that our attention is all ahead.”

Trompeuse
hurried back along the convoy, keeping to the windward edge.
Viper
angled off downwind.

The master came up to watch developments but remained silent.

“What
is
that idiot in
Viper
up to?” Bampton said.

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Kydd had his own ideas about why the gun-brig had clapped on all sail away to the east, well to leeward of the action, but kept his silence.

Tysoe arrived with Kydd’s oilskins and a warm jersey, which Kydd struggled into under his waterproofs.

“Sail hoooo!”
The masthead lookout’s hand was fl ung out to seaward. As the Lizard opened up to the westward a respectable-sized frigate under easy sail close inshore came into view.

“No colours,” growled Houghton, “but we know what she’s up to. Quarters, Mr Bampton.”

Then
Tenacious
heard the heart-stopping thunder of the drums in anger for the fi rst time this voyage. Kydd’s post in battle was at the signals; he had but to send for his sword and see to the lead-lined bag ready for sinking secret mat erial should the need arise.

“She thinks t’ fall on the convoy while the escorts are to loo’ard dealing with the brig—they wouldn’t guess a ship o’ force was waiting for ’em,” the master said. With grim satisfaction Kydd spared a glance astern.

The enemy must have seen events swing against them, for both the hapless goosewinged merchantman and the anonymous brig loosed sail hurriedly and swung about—but it was too late.

The reason for
Viper
’s move had become clear. She was now squarely between the enemy and his escape.

“Spankin’ good sailin’!” Kydd burst out. With
Trompeuse
now coming down fast from one direction and
Viper
well placed in the other, the end was not really in doubt.

The smoke of a challenging shot eddied up from
Viper,
the ball skipping past the enemy and her prize. The two came briefl y together, probably to recover crew, before one broke out French colours and crammed on all sail to try to make off, leaving the other with ropes slashed and drifting helplessly. So close to Falmouth there would be no trouble recovering the abandoned prize.

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As the brig attempted to pass
Viper,
she made a perfect target for raking fi re and
Viper
did not waste it. When the smoke of her broadside cleared, the brig had already struck her colours.

Jubilation rang out on
Tenacious
from the deck below, and satisfi ed smiles were to be seen on the quarterdeck.

But as
Tenacious
thrust towards her, the frigate shied away and bore south-east, towards the distant French coast. When she had drawn away, and
Tenacious
stood down from quarters, Kydd saw that the convoy was now much closer together, and in impeccable formation.

As one, the argosy rounded the Lizard, taking Atlantic roll-ers on the bow in explosions of white, hauling their wind for the south-west, the wanly setting sun and the thousands of miles that lay ahead.

“Your health, Mr Kydd!” The surgeon leaned forward, as usual in his accustomed evening-wear of a worn green waistcoat. He had an odd, detached way of regarding people, part earnest, part sardonic.

“Thank ye, Mr Pybus,” Kydd answered, “It’s always a pleasure t’ have a doctor wishing me good health.”

The wardroom was abuzz with chatter. Besides the charge of anticipation that a new voyage always brought, there was the tension of getting the convoy to sea—and their fi rst brush with the enemy.

“Sharp of His Nibs to spot the wolf among the sheep,” said Pringle, helping himself to another cutlet.

Adams leaned across for the asparagus. “Did hear that you helped him to a conclusion, Kydd?” he said, and when his eyes fl icked towards the head of the table, Kydd guessed that the story of his
contretemps
with Bampton was now common knowledge.

“Always like t’ help when I can,” he said cautiously. Bampton

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was talking with the purser, but Kydd occasionally caught his eyes straying to himself.

Louder, Adams went on, “To the devil with modesty, old fellow, tell us, what put you on to him?”

“Er, his lee clew t’ the course was—”

“Speak up, dear chap, we’re working to wind’d!” To make her offi ng of Wolf’s Rock in the night, the ship’s taut rigging was causing the length of her hull to creak in noisy protest.

“I said, with only one clew to the yard an’ the chance her guns were yet not primed, she’d be tryin’ t’ let us know she was in trouble and could not. If she had her vanes an’ colours correct, seems to me she was surprised, and then th’ boarders let all stand to make us think she was a vessel retirin’ back to Falmouth.”

He grinned. “But then I thought t’ take a look at her draught—

a brig, outward bound, an’ sittin’ high in th’ water! Stands to reason—”

“You didn’t tell me that!” Bampton’s voice cut through the talk, which quickly died away. “If I’d known what you saw!”

It was on the tip of his tongue to remark that with his bigger telescope Bampton was better placed to see the same thing, but Kydd remained guarded. “Ah, in fact, there was not really time enough t’ tell it.”

Bampton held rigid.

The next morning the land was gone. There was just empty sea and the convoy. In loose columns, they bucketed through the long heaving swells from the west, substantial Hudson Bay traders with fi ne passenger cabins, hardy vessels headed for the Newfoundland cod fi shery, slab-sided timber ships that would return with precious masts for the dockyards of the kingdom.

And impoverished immigrants crammed among supplies for the settlements.

The night-time shortening of sail now became a resetting of
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plain sail to reach maximum speed of the slowest. A tedious schedule of hauling and loosing was necessary to adjust speeds; the leading-edge ships had to be reined in while slower ones, which had slipped to the back during the night, were bullied into lengthening their stride.

Routine was only re-established mid-morning when
Tenacious
was free to go to quarters for exercise of the great guns. After an hour or more of hard work the welcome sound of the tune

“Nancy Dawson” drifted up from the main deck, announcing grog and dinner for the hands.

But fi rst, on an open deck nearly deserted of seamen, the offi -

cers gathered on the quarterdeck for the noon-day sight. Every offi cer performed the duty, including the midshipmen, but only the “workings” of the lieutenants were pooled for reliability.

This would be Kydd’s fi rst occasion as an offi cer, for although since those years in the Caribbean he had known how, it was now that his contribution would be a valid element in the navigation of a King’s ship.

He readied his octant, an old but fi ne brass and ebony instrument, by setting the expected latitude down to the tangent screw. This would shorten the time needed to do a fi ne adjustment in the precious seconds of a meridian altitude. Next, he took the precaution of fi nding his “height-of-eye” on the quarterdeck. There was an appreciable correction to be made—from there the distance to the horizon of a ship-of-the-line was a full seven miles.

Cradling his instrument Kydd took his place, feeling the long swell come in fi ne on the bow in a heave down the length of the ship. He estimated it at no more than twelve feet, which meant another correction to height-of-eye. Then, like the others, he trialled the sun—close, but some minutes to go.

He was aware of the helmsman behind him, silently fl icking

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the wheel to catch a wave, glancing up at the weather leech of a sail, then resuming his blank stare ahead. Kydd knew what he was thinking—the wielding of sextants, the consulting of mysterious fi gures in the almanac marked out an offi cer from a common seaman.

He lifted the octant again: the refl ected lower edge of the sun was getting near the horizon. Kydd waited patiently, shifting the vernier with delicate twists of the tangent screw. Then it was time, the sun was at its highest altitude: refl ected by the octant, its image kissed the line of the horizon.