Julian Stockwin - Victory

‘No, Nicholas. I’ve a notion that all is sadly ahoo there at the moment. I will leave tomorrow, but pray do stay here until I’m able to send for you.’

The journey seemed never-ending, notwithstanding Kydd’s travelling with all the speed of a costly post-chaise. At Guildford they changed horses at the Angel, and in the familiar surroundings of the Tudor hall set about with minstrel’s galleries he took to wondering at the unreadable workings of Fate that had so quickly transformed him from the contemplation of a genteel retirement in the country to that of hastening to his destiny in command of a frigate.

He hugged the knowledge to himself yet again but ever more insistently came a thought. He had not been able to call on any ‘interest’ in his cause, no patron in high places who could speak for him, raise him to notice. To what did he owe his elevation, then? It was a deepening mystery for he knew that while his recent action had attracted favourable comment there were others, certainly, with equal or better claim to advancement.

He shrugged. No matter: he had achieved his transmogrification and would join the tiny number of common seamen who had risen this far – Admiral Benbow, James Cook, even William Bligh, who was at this moment firmly set on course to fly his flag as admiral. The mystery would remain; he would probably never know why it had been him.

The rain had cleared by the time they made the Landport gate, Portsea and then the short distance to the George posting house. He had no wish to see his rooms – in a fever of excitement there was only one thing he wanted to set his eyes on, and she was lying somewhere in the dockyard past the Hard.

He paused at the dockyard gates and looked up at the pair of golden globes that surmounted the entrance. It brought him back to the time that seemed so distant, when he had passed through these gates as a young sailor to adventures that could fill a book. His eyes misted and he stood for a while, letting the feelings surge.

A moment later he stepped resolutely forward. The porter’s lodge was just inside and he sought the man out. Nothing escaped the eye of the gate porter of a royal dockyard. ‘Can you give me a steer for L’Aurore d’Égalité , frigate just caught?’

‘ Le Roar ? Aye, I can. Past yon ropewalk an’ th’ basin and hard by y’r block mills. She’s docked, havin’ her lines taken off, y’ knows.’

‘Thank you.’ Kydd smiled, leaving the man staring at the crown piece in his hand.

He strode off through the busy dockyard, past the mast ponds and ropewalk, between the steaming kilns and dock basins with their mastless hulls in all stages of fitting out and repair, and on to the new block mills, said to be the wonder of the age.

There was only one dry dock in front of them and Kydd knew that there he would find her. He hurried forward. His first sight was of three stumpy lower masts protruding above the dock edge. The docks were designed to take the mightiest first-rate battleships and the frigate was swallowed up in the space.

And then there she was! HMS L’Aurore d’Égalité , or whatever she would be named eventually. Sitting neatly, even primly, on keel-blocks was the naked hull of his new command. In the muddy depths of the dock, teams of men were at work and, on impulse, he found the chain-guarded stone steps leading down to the bottom and descended.

The gigantic immensity of the dark hull above him was awe-inspiring. Then his seaman’s instincts translated what he saw into the actuality of a seaway. That fine entry forward and long, clean run aft spoke of speed but at the same time, no doubt, meant her being wet in anything of a head sea. Her unusually steep turn of bilge would help with leeway and the pronounced tumblehome might imply tender handling, but Kydd was left with one overriding impression: speed.

The work-gangs looked at him curiously as they plied their chains and plumb-bobs. It had long been Admiralty practice to take off the lines of captured ships such that if they showed exceptional qualities in service the quirks of their design would be adopted.

And this was what was going on: the distance of the hull out from the keel at different heights was being measured at regular intervals; later these points would be faired into the familiar sheer draught and half-breadth plans that shipbuilders had evolved down the centuries, and – who knew? – a new class of warship might be born.

Filled with new excitement, Kydd puffed his way back up the vertical side of the dock and turned to take in her length. There was no one on deck: the gangboard had been roped off. Disappointed, he had to be content with what he could see from the outside.

And there was much to admire. L’Aurore d’Égalité was in truth a full-blooded frigate and pierced for thirty-two carriage guns. He exulted at the discovery – she was a fifth-rate. He had skipped over the smaller sixth-rate and, apart from the despised fifty-gun fourth-rate, he was, in theory, next down from his old ship-of-the-line Tenacious .

Compared to Teazer , she seemed enormous, her unbroken deck-line stretching all the way from where he stood to the distant beakhead. Impulsively he began stepping out for the bows, counting the paces. Ten, twenty, thirty – fifty-six. A hundred and thirty or forty feet long at least!

She was not looking at her best without her topmasts, her top-hamper struck down and rigging laid along by uncaring dockyard workers, but he could still take in her modest, sheer, clean lines and somewhat old-fashioned trim.

Her stern-lights were lofty and spacious, however, the characteristic high arched curve of the French-style transom pleasing in its symmetry, the quarter-galleries noble and well proportioned. Her stern-piece was more vertical than a British shipwright would have it but it allowed a broader-bladed rudder and . . .

He ached to get aboard. It was the hallowed custom to allow captains a certain latitude when it came to the necessary conversion work for Royal Navy service and he was already forming ideas. The diminutive poop cabin must go, of course, and—

‘Your business, sir?’

He swung round. An important-looking official, with two attendants carrying plans, was eyeing him distrustfully. ‘I’m appointed to be her captain,’ Kydd said apologetically, knowing he was not in uniform.

‘Well, now, Captain,’ the man said, thawing. ‘Hocking, master shipwright. You’d be wanting t’ get aboard, I’ll wager.’ He chuckled drily.

‘I would,’ Kydd replied.

‘Come wi’ me, then,’ Hocking said, and motioned to one of his assistants, who freed the barrier. They stepped across above the great pit to the dock floor and then Kydd was aboard his ship.

For a long moment his gaze took in the sweep of the deck-line, the rearing bowsprit, the pleasing square drop at the drift rail and he smothered a sigh. ‘Mr Hocking – I see there’s not so much action damage. Do you know aught of how we came by her?’

‘Why, there’s none t’ be found, is all. She thought to make a break from Rochefort in the fog an’ had the crass bad luck for it to lift – an’ she finds herself in the middle o’ our blockade squadron. With six o’-the-line sightin’ down their guns, a decision wasn’t hard t’ make.’

Kydd felt a momentary sympathy with the unknown captain and crew, whose voyage and future had thus been settled in an instant. ‘A pretty lady,’ he murmured appreciatively, looking about him. ‘I’d be beholden for your opinion, Mr Hocking.’

There was a fleeting smile and Kydd suspected that Hocking was not often consulted for his opinion by naval officers.

‘I’m not taken wi’ the Frenchy ways much, m’self – scantlings are too light an’ that there fine-run hull’ll mean a smaller hold an’ that means her sea endurance won’t be worth a spit.’