The Admiral's Daughter (30 page)

The afternoon wore on; the wind stayed unwavering in the same direction and the desperate clawing of the other ship continued. It could not last: some time during the night its crew's strength must fail and the sea would claim them. It was so unfair. Two ships separated only by distance; one to sail on to safety and rest, life and future, but the other condemned to death in the breakers.

“She's struck!” someone called.

Kydd whipped up his glass and caught flashing glimpses of an old merchantman no longer rising with the waves or her seadarkened canvas taut to the wind. Now she was in the lines of breakers, slewed at an angle and ominously still. The foremast had gone by the board, its rigging trailing blackly in the sea, and as he watched, the vessel settled, taking the merciless seas broadside in explosions of white.

Whitsand Bay was shallow; the seas therefore were breaking a long way from shore. The figures that could be seen now crowding up the masts to take last refuge were as doomed as if a cannon was aimed at them.

Pity wrung Kydd's heart: more ships were lost to the sea than to the enemy, but here it was playing out before their eyes. It was hard to bear. But if—“Mr Standish! I'm goin' t' have a try. Pass the word f'r any who's willin' to volunteer.”

His lieutenant looked at him in astonishment. “Sir, how—”

“Mr Dowse. Lay us in the lee of th' Rame. Close in with th' land an' anchor.”

The master did not speak for a moment, his face closed and unreadable. “Aye aye, sir,” he said finally.

Close to, Rame Head was a colossal, near conical monolith, its weather side a seething violence of white seas, but miraculously, as soon as they rounded the headland, the winds were cut off as with a knife.

“Here, Mr Dowse?”

“A rocky bottom, sir,” the master said impassively.

“Then we'll heave to. Mr Purchet, away boat's crew o' volunteers an' we'll have the pinnace in the water directly.”

Dowse came up and said quietly, “I know why ye're doing this, Mr Kydd, but we're hazardin' th' ship . . .” As if to add point to his words,
Teazer
swung fretfully under wild gusts volleying over the heights, they were only yards from the line of wind-torn seas coming round the point.

“I'm aware o' that, Mr Dowse,” Kydd said briefly.

Standish approached: he had found a young seaman native to the area. “Sawley says there's a scrap o' sand inshore where you may land the boat.”

Kydd nodded. “We're going t' try to get a line out to the poor beggars. I'll need as much one-inch line as the boatswain c'n find.” His plan was to cross the Rame peninsula on foot to the other side, Whitsand Bay, and by any means—boat, manhauling, swimming—get a line out to the wreck. The one-inch was necessarily a light line for they faced carrying it the mile or two to the beach over precipitous inclines.

“After we're landed, recover the boat and moor the ship in Cawsand Bay. We'll be back that way.” This was the next bay round with good holding and a common resort for men-o'-war in a south-westerly.

“Aye aye, sir,” Standish said uncomfortably.

Once more Kydd blessed the recent invention of davits, making it so much easier to hoist and lower boats than the yard-arm stay tackles of older ships. In the water the pinnace jibbed and gyrated like a wild animal, the men boarding falling over each other, oars getting tangled and water shipping over the gunwale. Gear was tossed down and when the men had settled Kydd boarded by shinning down a fall.

They cast off and Kydd called to Sawley. The young seaman surrendered his oar and made his way to Kydd.

The boat rose and fell violently in the seas, and at the sight of the steep sides of the Rame plunging precipitately into the sea it seemed utter madness to attempt a landing.

“Where's th' sand?” Kydd wanted to know.

“I'll go forrard, sir, an' signal to ye.” At Kydd's nod, Sawley scrambled down the centreline and wedged himself into the bow. He glanced aft once then made a positive pointing to starboard.

“Follow th' lad's motions,” Kydd growled. Bucketing madly, the boat approached the dark, seaweed-covered granite, the surge of swells an urgent swash and hiss over the wicked menace of unseen rocks. The hand went out again and Kydd saw where they were headed: an indentation so slight that it was unlikely that the boat's oars could deploy, but there
was
a strip of sand at its centre.

A small kedge anchor was tossed out and the boat went in, grounding hard. It floated free and banged even harder. “Go, y' lubbers!” The men tumbled over the side and crowded on to a tiny strip of bare sand. Kydd dropped into the shallows and followed.

“Sir, how we's a-goin' t' get up there?” one man croaked, gesturing at the near-vertical slopes covered with thick, dripping furze. Kydd had counted on at least sheep tracks through the impenetrable thickets.

“Sawley, can we get round this?” he called, but the lad was already disappearing into the brush. Kydd waited impatiently; then he suddenly emerged and beckoned Kydd over. Sawley fished about in the undergrowth and came up with the knotted end of an old rope. “The smugglers, sir—they'd parbuckle the tubs up to th' top wi' this'n,” he said, with glee.

“You first, younker, show us how t' do it.”

Sawley tested it with jerks then began to climb, clearing the rope of vegetation as he went. If it was for parbuckling there must be another near; Kydd found it and followed, the wind, with cruel cold, finding his wet clothes. The men came along behind.

It was hard going, the furze prickling and gouging, and his upper body having to remember long-ago skills of rope-climbing. Eventually he reached a rounding in the hill, a saddle between the continuing slopes inland and the higher conical mass of Rame Head, dramatically set off in the stormy weather with a ruined chapel on its summit.

He mustered his men together; far below
Teazer
was moving away to the safety of the next bay. Out to sea there was nothing but a white-lashed wilderness.

“Gets better now, Mr Kydd,” Sawley said brightly.

Eight men: would it make a difference? They would damn well try! Kydd set off, following a faintly defined track up the slope, pressing on as fast as he could, the ground strangely hard and unmoving after the wildly heaving decks.

They reached the summit of the hill and were met with the renewal of the wind's blast in their teeth and the grand, unforget-table sight of Whitsand Bay curving away into the misty distance, with parallel lines of pristine white surf. The grounded merchant-man was still out in the bay, her foremast gone, sails in hopeless tatters, her men unmoving black dots in the rigging.

Scanning the horizon Kydd could see no other sail. They were on their own. He humped his part of the long fake of rope and moved off again, their way along the long summit now clear. He bent against the pummelling wind, trying not to think of the stricken vessel below as they reached a fold in the hills that hid the scene.

“We're goin' t' Wiggle, sir,” Sawley panted.

“Wha— ?”

“Aye, sir. It's a place above th' hard sand.”

They came from behind the hill and looked directly down on the scene. Numbers of people were on the beach watching the plight of the hapless merchant vessel. Would they help—or were the lurid tales of Cornish wreckers true?

Reaching the beach and shuddering with cold, Kydd tried to think. It was heart-wrenching to see how near yet how far the vessel was. At this angle only ragged black spars were visible above the raging combers, perhaps a dozen men clutching at the shrouds.

The wreck was bare hundreds of yards off but in at least ten feet of water, enough to drown in. Every sailor knew that, if run ashore, their end would not be so merciful—the rampaging waves would snatch them and batter them to a choking death as they rolled them shoreward, their only hope a quick end by a crushed skull.

The onlookers stood still, looking out to sea dispassionately. Kydd pulled one round to face him. “Aren't ye goin' to
do
something?”

The man looked at him. “They'm dead men,” he said dully. “What's to do?”

Kydd swung on his men standing behind. He quickly worked a bowline on a bight at the end of the line. “You!” he said, pointing to the tallest and heaviest. “With me!”

He lunged into the water, feeling the strength in the surge of the next wave hissing over the beach. He splashed on until another foamed in, its impact sending him staggering. Recovering, he thrust deeper into the waves, feeling them curiously warmer out of the wind's chill. The rope jerked at him. He turned and saw that all eight of his men were floundering behind him, bracing when one was knocked off his feet, then stumbling on.

A lump grew in his throat. With these men he could . . .

A foaming giant of a wave took him full in the chest and sent him down in a choking flurry, handling him roughly until he brought up on the rope and finally found the hard sand under him. When he heaved himself up he saw that only two of his men were still standing, the rest a kicking tangle of legs and bodies.

Flailing forward Kydd tried again, feeling the spiteful urge of the sea as it pressed past him. At the next wave he gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand firm while the force of the water bullied past him unmercifully. As it receded he saw another beyond, even bigger.

The breaker tumbled him down and when he rose his forearm bore a long smear of blood. Trembling with cold and emotion, he had to accept that he and his men were utterly helpless.

He turned and staggered back to the shore, teeth chattering. Along the beach some fishermen had launched a boat, but as Kydd watched it reared violently over the first line of surf, the oars catching by some heroic means. By the third line, though, it had been smashed broadside and rolled over and over in a splintered wreck.

A strange writhing in the surf caught his eye: an unravelled bolt of some workaday cloth. The ship was breaking up and the cargo was coming ashore with other flotsam. The silent groups of watchers came to life and began wading about after it—this was what they had come for, thought Kydd, with a surge of loathing.

His heart went out to the black figures in the shrouds of the doomed ship, giving their very lives for this cargo—and as he watched, one plummeted into the sea without resisting, the last pitiful remnant of his strength spent in exhaustion and cold.

Kydd closed his eyes in grief. A fellow sailor had now given every thing to the sea, perhaps an individual whose laughter at the mess-table had lifted the hearts of his shipmates, whose skills had carried the ship across endless sea miles . . .

A jumble of casks appeared at the water's edge and were immediately fallen upon, but evening was approaching and the light failing. Another figure dropped. Kydd turned away. When he looked again, the mainmast had given way and now many more lives were reaching their final moments. His eyes stung.

There were only three left in the mizzen shrouds when the first corpses arrived. Untidy bundles drifting aimlessly in the shallows, the ragged remains of humanity that had been so recently warm and alive.

As soon as the first body had grounded an onlooker was upon it, standing astride and bending to riffle through its clothes, checking the fingers for rings. It was too much—Kydd fell on the looter shouting hoarsely, until his men ran over and pulled him off.

When he had come to his senses, the mizzen was empty.

“Thank 'ee, you men,” he said, gulping. “I don't think we c'n do any more here.”

Not a word was spoken as they trudged up the wind-blown slopes, not a glance back. After Wiggle the hill descended the other side into the fisher village of Cawsand. And out in the bay was HMS
Teazer.
The lump in his throat returned as Kydd took in her sturdy lines, her trim neatness.

They made their way to the little quay and signalled. Even this far round the Rame the swell was considerable; there were still combers leaving white trails in their wake, but here the sting had been taken from the storm and the boat stroked strongly towards them.

Renzi was there to greet him as Kydd climbed aboard. When he saw Kydd's expression, he offered, “A wet of brandy may answer—”

But Kydd brushed him aside. “Mr Standish, I want a double tot f'r these hands. Now.”

He stopped at another thought; but there was no need. In rough camaraderie their shipmates would certainly ensure that each one would be found a dry rig. But one thing at least was in his power: “An' they're t' stand down sea watches until tomorrow forenoon.” An “all-night-in” was a precious thing at sea but if any deserved it . . .

He climbed wearily into his cot and slumped back, closing his eyes and hoping for sleep. It was not as if the evening's drama was unusual—it was said that the wild West Country had taken more than a thousand wrecks and would claim many more. Why should this one touch him so?

It was not hard to fathom. Head in the clouds with his recent good fortune and new prospects for high society, he had lost touch with the sterner realities of his sea world. The fates had warned him of what might befall his command should he fail to give the sea the attention it demanded.