Julian Stockwin - Command

Empty seas. Seas with every kind of vessel imaginable. The dreary north African coast yet again. Once, a British convoy straggling in a cloud of sail. It went on for long days, then weeks of hard sea-time with never a whisper of a rumour of their quarry.

Kydd was tormented with thoughts that his decision was a failure, that the corvette had turned back after seizing its prize and was now in Marseille. But surely there would be no point in the Frenchman turning out its prisoners to save on prize crew unless it intended further predation?

And was he correct to insist on flogging back against the weather, instead of making a judgement on where the corvette must pass and wait comfortably until it did?

They turned south, deep into the lee shores of the Gulf of Sirte and the hunting grounds of the pirate corsairs of Tripoli and Tunis. They beat against the north-westerlies and suffered the withering heat and blinding dust of the sirocco. Still there was no sign.

Scoured by sea salt and dust storm Teazer was no longer new. Her bright sides had faded and her lovely white figurehead had lost its gold, now defiantly weather-beaten. There were also signs of hard usage—ropes turned end for end when they became too hairy at the nip, smart canvas now a bleached grey and everywhere a subtle rounding of sharp corners, a shading of colours about a shape.

However, Kydd saw only a growing maturity, a sea-tried ship to which he could trust his life. But this was war and there would come a time when she must be pitted in merciless battle against another, bigger and stronger than she was. Kydd steeled himself against the thought of what an enemy broadside would do. But if Teazer could not find and then overcome her opponent it would mean the end for him.

Kydd kept the Barbary city of Tripoli well under his lee as they passed: the British were in amity with the rapacious pasha, but within the distant stone ramparts of the city there were reputed to be Christian slaves in miserable squalor.

They rode out a storm from the north-west, the seas punching their bows with short, savage blows, the spindrift in whipping, horizontal sheets that left the eyes salt-sore and swollen.

When they closed the coast again, the boatswain and Dacres approached Kydd. "Sir, I'm truly sorry to have to tell you that Mr Purchet advises that the last water cask in the hold is foul," Dacres reported.

"Aye, sir, beggin' y'r pardon, but this'n means we shall have t' return . .."

Now he would have to head back with nothing to show for his voyage; it was unlikely that he would be given another chance, which, of course, probably meant that it was a return to dispatches and convoys, then a quiet relieving of command and forced retirement from the sea.

"Sir," the master began.

"Mr Bonnici?" Kydd replied, aware of the irony that this man whom he himself had taken on would continue to remain at sea professionally while he—

"We c'n get water," the master continued softly.

"Where?" To call at any port on the Barbary coast would be to condemn Teazer and her company to the insupportable tedium of a Malta quarantine.

"Sir, all they who sail th' Mediterranean know where is water. Not at the port—no, on th' shore, in the rock." His shrewd eyes crinkled with amusement.

"Go on!"

"Near Zuwarah. Another five leagues, no more."

Cautiously, Teazer shortened sail as the little bay opened up. Miles from any settlement that Kydd had noticed, there was a ragged point of land with a small beach, ending in an untidy jumble of rocks and a tight cluster of tall date palms. Not far beyond was another point, which provided the opposite enfolding arm of a calm haven.

"What's the depth o' water?"

"Good holding in seven fathom, jus' four cable off."

While watering they would be vulnerable, but the bay was set back and out of the way of casual coastal transits. The prize of perhaps another week at sea was too good to pass up.

"We'll do it!"

With a leadsman chanting the depths they ghosted in and anchored—with chancy desert winds inshore, Kydd took the precaution of laying out a kedge first and Teazer came slowly to rest.

The hold was opened. As quickly as possible, the planking of the mess deck was taken up and the hatchways thrown back to allow tackles between the two masts to be rigged to sway the big casks up and into the cutter for the pull to shore.

Dacres returned from a quick exploration. "Water indeed, sir! Comes out from between the rocks in that cliff." Heaven only knew how water was present in such quantities in rocks of the desert, but Kydd was not in the mood to question; the sooner they were under way again the better. He paced impatiently up and down, then retreated to his cabin.

He stared out of the stern windows at the watering party ashore: with an exotic earth beneath the feet they might be difficult to control. Perhaps he should have sent Dacres instead of midshipman, but he knew he could not grudge them a light-hearted seizing of the moment.

A sudden shout of alarm pierced his thoughts. Confused thumping of feet sounded and, as he stood up, the door burst open. Attard was wide-eyed. "Mr Dacres's compliments—sir, there's a frigate! A thumper! He says—"

Kydd knocked him aside in his rush on deck. It was the nightmare he had feared—Ganteaume! They were neatly trapped in the little bay as if by special arrangement. And there it was, frighten-ingly close in, and manoeuvring to close off their escape.

"That's not Ganteaume—that's one of ours!" Dacres exclaimed, with relief.

"One o' Warren's frigates?"

"No, it ain't, sir," Purchet said heavily. "Can't say as I know 'oo he is—but one thing's f'r sure, he's not ours."

Kydd ignored Dacres's anxious look and snatched his telescope. He did not recognise the vessel either. Big, very big. In a sudden rush of hope he searched the mizzen rigging, the image dancing with the thump of his heart, until he found what he was looking for. "Thank God," he breathed. "Stars 'n' stripes," he said, in a louder tone, snapping the glass shut decisively.

"Stars and what, sir?" Dacres asked hesitantly.

"They're Americans," Kydd said happily. "The United States Navy!"

"The United States?"

"Yes, Mr Dacres. They have a regular-goin' navy now, I'll have ye know." It was not the time to explain that two years or so before he had been aboard the first war cruise of the newly created United States Navy.

What was puzzling was that their concern, as far as he knew, was in the defence of the seaboard of the United States and their interests no further distant than the Caribbean. Why were they in the eastern Mediterranean?

Then another thought struck: he had not heard that the quasiwar was over, the undeclared war that had broken out between the United States and an over-confident France over the latter's arrogant interpretation of the rights of neutrals and the subsequent taking of American prizes. Could they be here as a consequence of quasi-war operations?

"Clear away th' pinnace and muster a boat's crew. I'm t' call on the Americans, I believe, Mr Dacres."

It soon seemed clear that their manoeuvring was an evolution to allow them to remain, probably for watering, and while he watched, sail was struck smartly while their anchor dropped. Kydd made sure that Teazer's ensign flew high and free and put off for the American. She had a no-nonsense, purposeful air, spoiled for Kydd's English eye by the bold figurehead of a Red Indian chief and a rounded fo'c'sle instead of the squared-off one to be seen in a King's ship.

As they approached, he saw activity on her decks. At first he feared his gesture of respect had been misconstrued: in his experience the young navy could be prickly and defensive, but then again there could be no mistaking his own purpose, with boat ensign a-flutter and his own figure aft. Then he saw they were assembling a side party to pipe him aboard.