Julian Stockwin - Quarterdeck

Kydd thought of the seaman's broadside mess, with its square wooden plates and pewter tankards, the men using their own knives. There was little that could be considered breakable, and even the petty officers carried few crockery items in their mess racks. He decided to lie low while discussions raged about the mess subscription. He himself was not pressed for money and he had taken the precaution of appointing an agent. The Caribbean prizes had long yielded their bounty, but Camperdown was promising not only a medal but gun money in surprising degree.

"That's settled, then." Bampton made a pencil note and sat back. "We agree to subscribe the sum of five guineas per head. The officers' wine store is near empty, and with the usual allowance I believe you shall find room for four dozen apiece—you will be laying in your own cabin stores, of course.

"Now, it is usual to empower the mess caterer to go ashore on the wardroom's behalf. I shall do so in Yarmouth, and will expect one guinea in advance from each officer."

CHAPTER 3

OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS THE RUMBLE and squeak of gun trucks was a never-ending background to shipboard life. Not content with exercising the company of Tenacious at ship drill, their captain had a quarter gunner and his four gun crews in turn hard at work from dawn to dusk.

Houghton had been on a gun-deck in the long-drawn-out battle of the Glorious First of June. "Different ships, different long-splices," was the saying before the mast: some captains were particularly keen on appearances, others favoured the niceties of seamanship. With this one it was gunnery, Kydd had realised quickly.

Then the awaited sailing orders came. Within minutes Houghton had summoned his officers to his cabin. "I have here the Admiralty's instructions—and I have to say, they are not what I was expecting." Houghton lifted his eyes from the paper, enjoying the suspense. "Indeed not. It would seem that their lordships believe that after Camperdown the North Sea Fleet may be safely reduced, and therefore we are to be sent to join the North American station."

Excited talk broke out. "Sir, if we should fit foreign, then . . ." The first lieutenant needed details. Not only did there have to be a wholesale hold-restowing but there would, no doubt, be official impositions, from carrying mails to chests of specie for a garrison, to prickly passengers and returning prisoners.

"Now where in Hades do we find real foul-weather gear in Sheerness?" Pringle muttered. "Gets cold as charity in Halifax."

"Quite," agreed Houghton, "but we shall touch at Falmouth for a convoy. If my memory serves, there is adequate chandlery servicing the Atlantic packets. I'd advise you all to wait and procure your cabin stores there."

"You've been to Halifax, sir?"

"I have. But not since His Highness took up his post."

"Sir?"

"His Royal Highness Prince Edward. Our only overseas possession to boast a prince of the blood. Quite turned society on its head, I've heard." Houghton stood up. "Gentlemen, may I remind you there is not a moment to be lost? The first lieutenant will provide a list of actions that will result, I trust, in our being under way for the Downs in two days."

"Haaaands to unmoor ship! Aaaall the hands! All hands on deck!" Although expected, the order brought a rush of excitement at the first move in putting to sea for a voyage of who knew how long.

A smack poled away from the sides of the ship, the tender now released from its workaday fetching and carrying. Her crew waved up at the big two-decker flying the Blue Peter at the fore masthead. She was outward bound to foreign parts, to mysterious worlds across the oceans, while they remained at home.

Kydd stood easy on the fo'c'sle, waiting with his party to bring the anchors to final sea stowage. Decks below, in the fetid gloom, the capstans would be manned and the fearsome job of winning her anchors would be acted out. Thankfully, this was not his concern.

The soft green of the land held a tinge of melancholy: how long before he would see these shores again? What adventures lay waiting? Just a brief stop in Falmouth to pick up the convoy, then he might be looking on his native England for the last time—deaths by disease and accident far exceeded those from enemy action.

Kydd's thoughts were interrupted by a swirl of muttering from his men as they watched a fishing-boat putting out from the shore. Under every stitch of sail, and heeled to her gunwales, it was making directly for Tenacious. Kydd went to the deck-edge and saw it come to clumsily at the side-steps. A redcoat stood up, swaying, and started waving and shouting.

The man obviously wished to board, but the side-ropes were no longer rigged. Kydd could hear shouting as a number of sailors gathered at the ship's side. A rope was flung down, knocking the man to his knees. The fishermen fashioned a bowline on a bight and passed it under the man's arms and, to barely muffled laughter, he was hoisted spinning and kicking aboard Tenacious. His baggage followed quickly. This would be the long-expected junior marine officer, Kydd guessed, but when he looked next, both marine and baggage had disappeared.

He glanced up. The men aloft were at their place—the cast would be to larboard, and his men deployed accordingly. Bampton waited at the gangway, watching Kydd with disdain. But with a clear hawse and the tide not yet on the make, Kydd was confident he knew what to do.

Over the bow, the starboard cable curved down into the grey-brown sea, the anchor buoy bobbing jauntily seventy feet ahead. From the low hawse hole the twenty-two-inch cable gradually tautened, a heavy shuddering settling to a steady passing inboard.

Checking yet again that the cat and fish falls were led properly along the deck, Kydd watched the anchor buoy inching towards the ship until the buoy boat grappled it. The process grew slower the steeper the angle of cable, until at last it was up and down.

"Short stay," he growled at a seaman, who whipped up a white flag. The quarterdeck at the other end of the ship now knew that the anchor was ready to be tripped from the sea-bed. It would be essential to loose sail the instant this happened, the ship under way and therefore under control immediately; otherwise she would simply drift with the wind.

All waited in a tense silence. Kydd looked over the fat beakhead. The cable had stopped passing in, and he could imagine the savage struggle taking place at the capstan.

Suddenly the cable resumed its movement and Kydd sensed the ship feel her freedom. "She's a-trip," he snapped. The man's arm came down. With anchor aweigh Tenacious was now no longer tethered to the land. She was at sea.

Houghton's voice sounded through the speaking trumpet. Sail dropped from yards and staysails jerked aloft. He was taking a chance that the remainder of the cable would be heaved in and the anchor duly catted by the powerful tackle before the ship got too much way on. Kydd looked over his shoulder down the deck; when he saw Houghton's challenging figure, he knew he must not fail.

The first ripple of water appeared about the stem at the same time as the inches-thick anchor ring broke surface. "Stoppers!" roared Kydd. It was now a race to uncouple the anchor from the cable and heave it clear of the water before the wake of the ship established itself. "Hook on!" He leaned over the side to see. Men were furiously passing the stoppers on the cable, which would then be ready for hauling in at the hawse. He wheeled round, and cannoned into the second lieutenant, winding him.

"Have a care, damn you, sir!" Bampton said venomously.

"Aye, sir." Kydd burned; the officer had no right to be there in a difficult operation for which he had no responsibility. The situation was well in hand: on hearing the "hook on" the quickwitted fo'c'sle party had, without orders, taken the strain and begun hauling vigorously on the big cat-fall. Kydd had seen Poulden's leadership in this and blessed his recommendation to have the seaman transferred from the waist.