Seaflower

JULIAN STOCKWIN

Seaflower

CORONET
BOOKS
Hodder & Stoughton

Copyright © 2003 by Julian Stockwin

First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Hodder and
Stoughton This edition published in 2004 by Hodder and Stoughton A division of
Hodder Headline

The right of Julian Stockwin to be identified as the Author
of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.

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purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any
resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the
British Library

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o 340 79478 x

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'To the wind that blows a ship that goes and the lass that
loves a sailor*

Sea
Toast

Chapter
I

The
low thud of a court-martial gun echoed over Portsmouth in the calm early-summer
morning, the grim sound telling the world of the naval drama about to take
place. Its ominous portent also stilled the conversation on the fore lower-deck
of the old receiving ship lying further into the harbour. There, Thomas Kydd's
pigtail was being reclubbed by his closest friend and shipmate, Nicholas Renzi.

'I
wish in m' bowels it were you,' Kydd said, in a low voice. He was dressed in
odd-fitting but clean seaman's gear. Like Renzi, he was a shipwrecked mariner
and his clothes were borrowed. A court-martial would try the sole surviving
officer, and Kydd, who had been on watch at the helm at the time, was a
principal witness.

There
was a muffled hail at the fore hatchway. Kydd made a hasty farewell, and
clattered up the broad ladder to muster at the ship's side. The larboard cutter
bobbed alongside to embark the apprehensive witnesses. In the curious way of
the Navy, Kydd joined diffidently with the petty officers, even though with the
death of his ship his acting rate had been removed and therefore he was borne
on the books of the receiving ship as an able seaman. His testimony, however,
would be given as a petty officer, his rate at the time.

The
pleasant boat trip to the dockyard was not appreciated by Kydd, who gulped at
the thought of crusty, gold-laced admirals and captains glaring at him as he gave
his evidence, which might well be challenged by other hostile officers.

In
fact recently it had not in any way been a pleasant time for Kydd and Renzi.
Their return as shipwrecked sailors to the land of their birth had been met
with virtual imprisonment in a receiving ship; at a time of increasingly solemn
news from the war it was a grave problem for the authorities how to announce
the loss of the famous frigate Artemis. Their response had been to keep the
survivors from the public until a course of action had been decided after the
court-martial, with the result that both Kydd and Renzi had not been able to
return home after their long voyage. As far as could be known, their loved ones
had had no news of them since the previous year, and that from Macao, their
last touching at civilisation.

The
cutter headed for the smart new stone buildings of the dockyard. The last half
of the century had seen a massive expansion of capability in the foremost royal
dockyard of the country, and it was a spectacle in its own right, the greatest
industrial endeavour in the land. As they neared the shore, Kydd nervously took
in the single Union Flag hanging from the signal tower. This was the evidence
for all eyes of the reality of a court-martial to be held here, ashore, by the
Port Admiral. The court would normally meet in the Great Cabin of the flagship,
but the anchorage at Spithead was virtually empty, Admiral Howe's fleet
somewhere in the Atlantic looking for the French.

The
marine sentries at the landing place stood at ease — there were no officers in
the boat needing a salute, only an odd-looking lot of seamen in ill-fitting
sailor rig. There were few words among the men, who obediently followed a
lieutenant into an anteroom to await their call. Pointedly, a pair of marines
took up position at the entrance.

It
seemed an interminable time to Kydd, as he sat on the wooden chair, his hat
awkwardly in his hand. The voyage across the vast expanse of the Pacific and
the early responsibility of promotion thrust on him had considerably matured
him, and anyone who glanced at his tanned, open face, thick dark hair and
powerful build could never have mistaken him for anything other than what he
was, a prime seaman. His past as a perruquier in Guildford town was now
unimaginably distant.

'Abraham
Smith,' called a black-coated clerk at the door. The carpenter's mate stood and
limped off, his face set. Kydd remembered his work on the foredeck of Artemis in
the stormy darkness. Men here owed their lives to the raft he had fashioned
from wreckage and launched in the cold dawn light.

The
clerk returned. 'Tobias Stirk.' The big gunner got to his feet, then paused
deliberately and looked back at Kydd. His grave expression did not vary, but
his slow wink caused Kydd to smile. Then he thought of the trial, and his heart
thudded.

"Thomas
Kydd.'

Kydd
followed the clerk, emerging into a busy room where he was handed over to
another. Expecting at any moment to appear before the great court, Kydd was
confused to be led upstairs to a much smaller room, bare but for a large table.
At a chair on the opposite side was a senior official wearing a grave
expression, who motioned him to sit down. A junior clerk entered and took up
position at a smaller table.

'Thomas
Paine Kydd?'

Kydd
nodded, too nervous to speak.

'My
name is Gardiner. We are here to determine the facts pertaining to the loss of
His Majesty's Frigate
Artemis?
the lawyer announced, with practised ease. 'Your
deposition of evidence will be taken here, and examined to see if it has
relevance to the case soon before the court.'

Perhaps
he would not have to appear in court at all. He might be released and allowed
home — but then reason told him that his contribution was a vital piece of
evidence. He and Renzi had discussed their respective positions. Renzi was a
self-exile with a well-born past, serving 'sentence' for a family crime, and
had a more worldly view. Kydd had a stubborn belief in the rightness of truth,
and would not shift his position by an inch. The result of his stand would be
inevitable.

'Were
you, Kydd, on watch on the night of the thirteenth of April, 1794?' Gardiner
began mildly, shuffling papers, as the junior scratched away with his quill off
to the side.

'Aye,
sir, quartermaster o' the starb'd watch, at the helm.' The man would probably
think it impertinent of him were he to volunteer that, as quartermaster, he
would never have deigned to touch the wheel — that was the job of the helmsman.
He had been in overall charge of the helm as a watch-station under the
officer-of-the-watch, and as such was probably the single most valuable witness
to what had really happened that night

A
pause and a significant look between Gardiner and the clerk showed that the
point had in fact been caught. 'As quartermaster?' The voice was now sharply
alert. 'Acting quartermaster, sir.'

'Very
well.' Gardiner stared at him for a while, the grey eyes somewhat cruel. His
musty wig reeked of law, judgement and penalty. 'Would it be true or untrue to
state that you were in a position to understand the totality of events on the
quarterdeck that night?'

Kydd
paused as he unravelled the words. The junior clerk's quill hung motionless in
the dusty air. Kydd knew that any common seaman who found himself afoul of the
system would be lost in its coils, hopelessly enmeshed in unfathomable
complication. Renzi, with his logic, would have known how to answer, but he had
been asleep below at the time and had not been called as a witness.

Looking
up, Kydd said carefully, 'Sir, the duty of a quartermaster is th' helm, an' he
is bound to obey th' officer-o'-the-watch in this, an' stand by him f'r orders.
That was L'tenant Rowley, sir.'

Lines
deepened between Gardiner's eyes. 'My meaning seems to have escaped you, Kydd.
I will make it plainer. I asked whether or not you would claim to be in a
position to know all that happened.'

It
was an unfair question, and Kydd suspected he was being offered the option to
withdraw gracefully from the hazard of being a key witness open to hostile
questioning from all quarters. He had no idea why.

'I
was never absent fr'm my place o' duty, sir,' he said quietly.

'Then
you are saying that you can of a surety be relied upon to state just why your
ship was lost?' The disbelief bordered on sarcasm.

'Sir,
there was a blow on that night, but I could hear L'tenant Rowley's words —
every one!' he said, with rising anger.

Gardiner
frowned and threw a quick glance at the clerk, who had not resumed scratching.
'I wonder if you appreciate the full implications of what you are saying,' he
said, with a steely edge to his voice.

Kydd
remained mute, and stared back doggedly. He would speak the truth — nothing
more or less.

'Are
you saying that simply because you could hear Lieutenant Rowley you can tell
why your ship was lost?' The tone was acid, but hardening.

'Sir.'
Kydd finally spoke, his voice strengthening. 'We sighted breakers fine to
wind'd,' he said, and recalled the wild stab of fear that the sudden frantic
hail there in the open Atlantic had prompted. L’tenant Rowley ordered helm hard
a'weather, and—'

Gardiner
interjected. 'By that I assume he immediately and correctly acted to turn the
ship away from the hazard?'

Kydd
did not take the bait. 'The ship bore away quickly off th' wind, but L'tenant
Parry came on deck and gave orders f'r the helm to go hard down—'

Gardiner
struck like a snake. 'But Parry was not officer-of-the-watch, he did not have
the ship!' His head thrust forward aggressively.

'Sir,
L'tenant Parry was senior t' L'tenant Rowley, an' he could—'

'But
he was not officer-of-the-watch!' Gardiner drew in his breath.

Kydd
felt threatened by his strange hostility. The lawyer was there to find the
facts, not make it hard for witnesses, especially one who could explain it all.

'But
he was right, sir!'

Gardiner
tensed, but did not speak.

The
truth would set matters right, Kydd thought, and he had had an odd regard for
the plebeian Parry, whom he had seen suffer so much from the dandy Rowley. He
was dead now, but Kydd would make sure his memory was not betrayed. 'Ye should
put the helm down when y' sees a hazard, that way th' ship is taken aback.' He
saw a guarded incomprehension on Gardiner's face, and explained further so
there would be no mistake on this vital point. 'That way, the ship stops in th'
water, stops fr'm getting into more trouble till you've worked out what t' do.'

'And
you allege that Lieutenant Rowley's act — to go away from the hazard — was the
wrong one?' Gardiner snapped.

'Aye,
sir!' Kydd's certainty seemed to unsettle Gardiner, who muttered something
indistinct, but waited.