Julian Stockwin - Seaflower

The schooner must have sensed their desperation, for she continued to crowd on sail, her crew clearly visible on her fo'c'sle, the glitter of edged weapons catching the sun as they waved them triumphantly.

'She's slowing!' Farrell's incredulous gasp came. 'She's - she's taken the ground! Corbeau's ashore!'

Kydd snatched a look over his shoulder. Corbeau was untouched, motionless on the course she had taken. She had misjudged the offshore reefs and her deeper keel had become firmly wedged among the coral heads.

Seaflower curved round, but Corbeau lay unmoving.

'God be praised — we get t' live another day!' muttered a voice.

An angry shout sounded from above. Merrick had passed the seizing on the upper length of the stay, and was demanding the rest to be hauled up to him. They had the luxury of dowsing sail while the operation was completed, Corbeau a diminishing image in the distance. The jury stay rigged, they could then beat a dignified retreat.

'Ready about,' ordered Farrell. 'We finish the job,' he said firmly. They carefully returned on a track that kept the bow of the schooner towards them. He hailed Stirk. 'Grape.'

Seaflower shortened sail to glide in within a hundred yards, then put up the helm and let go the stream anchor forward and kedge anchor aft. They came to a standstill, but were now in a position to adjust cables to aim her entire broadside to bear on the unprotected length of the big schooner.

With terrible deliberation Stirk went from one gun to the next, sighting carefully and touching off an unstoppable blast of man-killing grape-shot into the hapless vessel. It took until the third gun before activity was seen in the Corbeau — they were launching their longboat.

'That will do, Stirk,' Farrell called. Kydd was struck with Farrell's humanity in allowing the enemy to abandon ship without unnecessary killing, and felt ashamed of his own blood-lust.

'Give y' joy on y'r prize, sir!' Jarman said, with considerable respect.

'Renzi!' Seaflower's captain ordered. 'The longboat — do ye take possession of our prize.'

Grinning, Kydd watched Renzi climb into the longboat with his crew, but they were only half-way across when the first wisps of smoke arose. The boat's crew lay on their oars and watched blue smoke bursting into flame as tarry ropes caught, spreading the consuming blaze to the upper rigging. A crackling, bursting firestorm turned the schooner into an inferno, the shape of her hull only just perceptible in the flames. The climax came when first her foremast and then her main crashed down in a gout of sparks and the rapidly charring ruin forlornly settled to the reef. Corbeau's crew watched silently, lined along the shoreline. They were still there when Seaflower brought her longboat aboard and sailed away.

'Barbados?' asked Jarman. They had been cut about; it stood to reason they refit.

The beady eyes of Snead, the carpenter's mate, announced his presence on deck. 'Sir,' he said, touching his shapeless felt hat, 'we've taken a ball in midships, an' takin' in water.' The clinker build of Seaflower 's hull was proving its worth - the strake where the ball had entered would need replacing but the rest were sound.

'How bad?' Farrell asked.

'Can swim a-whiles,' said Snead, *but she can't take a blow.'

'Dockyard,' said Merrick.

Snead looked at him and nodded.

Jarman turned to Farrell. 'Antego,' he said, without hesitation.

'Antigua — a couple of days only, thank the Lord,' said Farrell, but Kydd flinched. Of all places ...

Chapter 11

English Harbour shimmered under the noon-day heat it was quite the same as Kydd remembered — the beauty, the rank effluvia, the calm solidity of spacious stone buildings. Here it was that he had nearly ended his existence on earth, here it was ...

Seaflower came to anchor a few hundred yards off. There were hardly any ships in harbour, only a small sloop alongside at the capstan house without her upper masts. Signal flags mounted Seaflower's main topgallant peak. Kydd knew what they were asking and determined to be elsewhere when Caird came aboard for his survey.

Uncaring of the still, clammy heat building below decks in the absence of a clean sea-breeze, the boatswain ordered the platforms in the crew space overlaying the hold taken up. Kydd as quartermaster had the task of re-stowing their stores — firkins of butter, barrels of salt beef, hogsheads of water — over to one side of Seaflower in order that the damaged strake could be lifted clear for repair.

When the master shipwright made his survey, unaccountably the cutter's quartermaster was not free to accompany him, but from his busy job shuffling the master's charts, Kydd was able to hear through the skylight. 'A strake 'twixt wind and water — a trifling matter,' came Caird's voice. 'As we have so few to care for at this time, my party will attend on you presently.'

Indistinct words came from Farrell, and Caird replied, 'No, I do not believe that is necessary. Our riggers will perform the task. We have skilled hands among the King's Negroes, you'll find.'

A bumping on the hull told Kydd that the dockyard boat was putting off. He waited a little before coming on deck. The shipwright's punt would be making its way out soon, and there were some he would welcome to see again, but in no circumstances would he venture ashore.

Farrell did not go ashore either. Curiously, Kydd saw him in the shade of the after awning, his attention seeming to be on the nondescript sloop tied up off the capstan house. Farthing said quietly, 'Old ships! That's Patelle, it's fr'm her that he got his step, cap'n o' Seaflower?

A distant boom sounded — Kydd looked automatically to Shirley Heights, the army post high up on the point. Smoke eddied away: strange sail had apparently been sighted far out to sea. Signal flags appeared, and were answered in the dockyard. Minutes later a boat under sail left the shore and headed directly for them. Kydd hoped that it wasn't a French squadron out there: English Harbour was particularly helpless now with only one warship — their own — available to meet them.

‘Four strange sail sighted!' hailed a seaman in the boat, 'an' Patelle unable ter shift!'

Farrell stiffened. 'Secure the vessel, Mr Merrick,' he rapped. 'Do you and Mr Jarman remain aboard — I am going ashore. Stirk, you and Kydd attend on me in the longboat.'

Reappearing in full uniform, Farrell saw Kydd and Stirk in their comfortable loose shirts and snapped, 'Jackets, at the least, please!'

They tumbled down the hatchway and Kydd grabbed at his blue jacket with the brass buttons that marked him a petty officer. 'What d'ye think, Toby?' Kydd asked, slipping it on.

'Dunno,' Stirk said flady, and they bounded up the ladderway.

Farrell took the tiller and they rapidly pulled ashore, the bowman hooking on at the stone steps while they landed. It was close by, the Admiral's House, but the absence of the appropriate flag showed it had no occupant. Mounting the steps in a hurry, Farrell bumped into a clerk. 'Who is the senior officer?'

Eyebrows lifting in astonishment, the clerk replied, 'The commissioner is with Captain Mingley in St John's at the moment - sir.'

'Then, sir, who is in command, may I ask?'

The clerk paused, as if to take his measure. 'Sir, in the absence of Captain Mingley that would necessarily be the senior officer afloat.'

'Is Captain Fox still with the Patelle?