Julian Stockwin - The Admiral's Daughter

The wind freshened as they plunged south, all to Teazer's favour, exulted Kydd, for they were only a few hundred yards astern. A conclusion was certain if it held or strengthened. A little after midnight the moon rose, its silver light picking out the lugger in pitiless detail. Teazer grew nearer and Kydd realised that, with a reduced crew, his opponent had no scope for fast manoeuvre.

The Dodman stood stern and massive in the moonlight when they forereached on the lugger. If only Rosalynd could be there, Kydd thought—but this was his world, not hers; she would take no pleasure in seeing him about to hazard his life. It cooled his battle-fever: from now on, he realised, he had to consider two, not one. But had not her last words to him been, "You must always do your duty"?

"Stand by, forrard!" he roared. The carronades were loaded with alternate ball and canister, there could be no reloading in this dark.

Teazer's bowsprit inched past the lugger's stern. Beside him Standish was watching, his hand working unconsciously at the hilt of his sword.

"Fire!" A split second later a twenty-four-pounder carronade blasted, its gunflash overbright in the gloom. At thirty yards' range there was no missing and in the moonlight leaping splinters could be seen as the ball struck home.

"We have him, damme!" Standish yelled in glee.

If they could do their work before the Dodman and the open Atlantic—but then, without warning, it all changed. There were frightened shouts in the lugger and it sheered up into the wind, sails banging and ropes all a-fly. Then the yards began to drop. It made no sense.

Standish looked at him. "Sir, I do believe he wants to yield."

It was impossible but the lugger had doused all sail and lay submissively to await her conqueror. "Board an' bring that rogue before me, Mr Standish," Kydd ordered.

His lieutenant returned quickly. "Sir. I'm so sorry to tell you— but this is the smuggler, the other the privateer."

Many smuggling craft were lugger-rigged as well and often of sizeable proportions. In the heat of the moment Kydd had forgotten this—and he had lost Bloody Jacques.

"My commiserations on the events of the night," said Job, smoothly, not at all disobliged to be summoned before his captor at such an hour.

"T' damnation with that! Do you check y'r book an' tell me where there's t' be another landing. He'll want t' satisfy his crew after tonight, I'll believe." Kydd handed over the heavy tome.

Job adjusted his spectacles. "Why, there's a landing tomorrow, at Portloe."

"Around the Dodman only. So we'll be there as well," Kydd said, with satisfaction.

Job looked up with a small smile. "And at the same time another—at Praa Sands."

It would be impossible to watch two separated locations at the same time. "Seems t' me you're in a fine way o' business, so many cargoes t' land," Kydd growled.

"Not so much, Mr Kydd," Job came back. "These few days of the month are the choicest for running goods. A smuggler's moon; one that does not rise until the work is done and with a good flood tide to bear it ashore."

Kydd made up his mind. "Praa Sands is nearly up with Falmouth. I'll choose y'r Portloe as is now so convenient f'r the scrovy dog."

Overcast, with the same westerly veering north, it was a perfect night for free trading in Veryan Bay and thus Portloe. But there seemed nothing close to the little port that would serve to conceal a predator, the jagged hump of Gull Rock to the south probably being too rock-girt to lie close to.

They tried their best but their long and stealthy creep from seaward was in vain with not a sight of their prey. Either they had chosen wrongly or, after his recent experience, the privateer was more than usually vigilant and had slunk away.

And, it seemed, there were no more landings in prospect. Their alternatives were now few, the scent run cold. Job was summoned once more; there was just one question Kydd wanted answered. "If Bloody Jacques is not a Frenchy, as y' say, then tell me this. Where's he get his ship refitted after a fight? Where's he get his stores an' such? An' what I'm asking is, he must have a base— where is it, then?"

"A fair question," Job said. "Since Guernsey won't have him, he's taken to seizing whatever he wants from small fisher villages. Simply appears at dawn, sends a band of ruffians to affright the people and takes a house while his men do disport aboard."

"Go on," Kydd said grimly.

"He chooses carefully—only those villages far from others, with poor roads out so he's no worry of the alarm being raised quickly, and a sheltered anchorage for his vessel. Stays for only a day or two, then disappears again."

It was getting to be near impossible to lay the pirate a-lee, but Kydd was resolved to put an end to him. He dismissed Job and sat down to think.

He had now come up with Bloody Jacques twice and had always found him a cool and reasoned opponent. The violence and cruelty in no way prevented him being an able, resolute seaman and enemy. So what the devil would he do now?

Lie low out of the way and wait for Teazer to tire of the chase. Where? Beyond her normal patrol limit—not to the east and the old, well-served and prosperous ports but to the rugged and remote west. Beyond Falmouth and even Penzance—to the very end of all England.

Land's End, where he had given Kydd the slip so easily before? Or perhaps further beyond? The chart gave few details of the region, for its wild majesty was of no interest to seafarers, who feared the ironbound coast. He peered closer—no ports to speak of; he remembered the precipitous cliffs, the dark menace of sub-sea rocky ledges and the rolling waters of the Atlantic meeting stern headlands.

Further round was Cape Cornwall with offshore banks and shoals aplenty: but before that a long beach was marked. Surely the fisher-folk had a village somewhere along it?

They had, and it was called Sennen Cove. Round the coast from Land's End, it was tucked into the end of the beach under high cliffs and guarded from sea intruders on one side by the sprawling Cowloe reef, and on the other an easy escape to the north with these westerlies. The nearest authority of any kind was miles away over scrubland. Ideal, in fact, for such a one as Bloody Jacques.

In some way Kydd was sure that this was the place—he could feel it. And this time there would be no mistake.

He could crowd on sail and bring Teazer round the headland, then fall on the privateer; but what if they were seen by a lookout atop the cliffs and Bloody Jacques slipped to sea again? It couldn't be risked.

A night attack? Problematic, and there was the hideous danger of the Cowloe reef in darkness. Boats, swarming round the point? Just one gun in the lugger would cause horrific casualties before they could close, and in any case they would find themselves hopelessly outnumbered.

This needed thought—the kind that was generally sparked when he and Renzi talked together . . . but Renzi was not available. He would have to find a plan on his own.

It was something Job had said: Bloody Jacques' practice was to go ashore and take a house. That was the answer. Kydd knew he could not simply sail in and send a boat ashore with the lugger crew looking on, but there was another way, and he set Teazer after her quarry.

As long as the weather held. If there was even a slight heave, one of the more common Atlantic swells rolling lazily in, it would be impossible. On this day, mercifully, there wasn't and mere waves would not worry them.

With Teazer safely at anchor, bare yards south of the extreme tip of Land's End, her cutter pulled away by the last light of day with as many men as it could hold, those at the oars cramped and swearing, but it was less than a mile they had to pull.