Command

by Julian Stockwin

  Excitement rose in him as the swell from the open sea caused the first regular heaving and the deck became alive under his feet. On either side grim fortresses guarding the entrance slipped past until the coast fell away and Teazer—his very own ship—felt the salt spray on her cheeks and knew for the first time the eternal freedom of the ocean.

  She was a sea-witch! Her lines were perfect—her willing urge as she breasted the waves, and eagerness in tacking about, would have melted the heart of the most calloused old tar. Kydd’s happiness overflowed as, reluctantly, they returned to moorings in the last of the light.

  But there were things that must be done. He had learned much of Teazer’s ways—every ship was an individual, with character and appeal so different from another. As with a new-married couple, it was a time to explore and discover, to understand and take joy, and Kydd knew that impatience had no place in this.

  There was not so much to do: the lead of a stay here, the turning of a deadeye there, redoubled work with holystone and paintbrush. His mind was busy: the ship’s tasks included, among other things, the protection of trade and it would be expected that he begin showing the flag at some point, the ideal excuse for an undemanding cruise to shake down the ship’s company.

  • • •

  Kydd found time to go in search of cabin stores: it was unthinkable for a captain to go “bare navy”—ship’s rations only—for there would be occasions when he must entertain visitors. It seemed, however, that “table money” for the purpose of official entertainment was the prerogative of a flag officer alone, and therefore he must provide for himself. Fortunately he had been careful with his prize-money won previously, knowing that prospects of more were chancy at best.

  He was no epicure and had no firm idea of the scale of purchases necessary, but he knew one who did. The jolly-boat was sent back for Tysoe, who had been previously in the employ of a distinguished post-captain. It was an expensive but illuminating afternoon, which left Kydd wondering whether the cherries in brandy and a keg of anchovies were absolutely necessary on top of the currant jelly and alarming amount of pickles; Kydd hoped fervently that the wine in caseloads would not turn in the increasing heat of early summer, but he trusted Tysoe.

  Kydd took the opportunity as well to find some articles of decoration: the bare cabin was stiff and unfriendly—it needed something of himself. Diffidently he selected one or two miniatures and a rather handsome, only slightly foxed picture of an English rustic scene. These, with a few table ornaments and cloths, made a striking improvement—the silver would have to wait: his substance was reducing at a dismaying rate. Later, if he had time, he would do something about his tableware. If only his sister Cecilia were on hand . . .

  There was no one of naval consequence to notice the little brig-of-war as she slipped her moorings and made for the open sea. No one to discern the bursting pride of her commander, who stood four-square on her quarterdeck in his finest uniform, her brand-new pennant snapping in the breeze, her men grave and silent at their stations as they sailed past the bastions of the last fortress of Malta, outward bound on her first war voyage.

  Kydd remained standing, unwilling to break the spell: around him the ship moved to sea watches, the special sea-duty men standing down as those on regular watch closed up for their duty and others went below until the turn of the watch. The boatswain checked the tautness of rigging around the deck while the ting-tinging of the bell forward brought up the other watch, the shouts of a petty officer testily mustering his crew sounding above the swash and thump of their progress—it was all so familiar but, at this moment, so infinitely precious.

  “Mr Bonnici,” Kydd called, to the figure in the old-fashioned three-cornered hat standing mute and still, staring forward.

  The master turned slowly, the shrewd eyes unseeing. “Sir?”

  “I, er—” It was not important. They both had their remembrances and he left the man to his. “No matter. Please—carry on.”

  This was what it was to have succeeded! To have reached the impossible summit before which paled every other experience the world had to offer. He, Thomas Kydd of Guildford, of all men, was now captain of a ship-of-war and monarch of all he surveyed.

  A deep, shuddering sigh came from his very depths. His eyes took in the sweet curve of the deck-line as it swept forward to the sturdy bow, the pretty bobbing of the fore spars in the following seas and the delicate tracery of rigging against the bright sky—and the moment burned itself into his soul.

  In a trance of reverence his eyes roamed the deck—his deck. Within Teazer’s being were over eighty souls, whose lives were in his charge, to command as he desired. And each was bound to obey him, whatever he uttered and without question, for now all without exception were in subjection below him and none aboard could challenge his slightest order. It was a heady feeling: if he took it into his mind to carry Teazer to the North Pole every man must follow and endeavour to take the vessel there; in the very next moment, should he desire, he could bellow the orders that would clear the lower decks and muster every man aboard before him, awaiting his next words, and not one dare ask why.

  The incredible thought built in his mind as his ship sailed deeper into the sea. Controlling his expression, he turned to Dacres and snapped, “Two points t’ starboard!”

  “Two points—aye aye, sir,” Dacres said anxiously, and turned on the quartermaster. “Ah, nor’-east b’ north.”

  The quartermaster came to an alert and growled at the man on the wheel, “Helm up—steer nor’-east b’ north.” While the helmsman spun the wheel and glanced warily up at the leech of the foresail the quartermaster snatched out the slate of course details from the binnacle and scrawled the new heading. Returning it he took out the traverse board and inspected it. At the next bell the line of pegs from its centre would duly reflect the change. He glanced down at the compass again, squinting at the card lazily swimming past the lubber’s line until it slowed and stopped. “Steady on course nor’-east b’ north, sir.”

  “Sir, on course nor’-east b’ north,” Dacres reported respectfully, nodding to the expectant mate-of-the-watch who hurried forward, bawling for the watch-on-deck. There would now be work at the braces, tacks and sheets to set the sails trimmed round to the new course before the watch could settle down.

  “Very well,” Kydd said, in a bored tone but fighting desperately to control a fit of the giggles at the sight of the serious faces of the men around him under the eye of their new captain, who, no doubt, had a serious reason for his order. He had laid a course to raise Cape Passero and this indulgence would throw them off, but perhaps he should wait a decent interval before he resumed the old one.

  • • •

  They had made good time and landfall would be soon, an easy leg from Malta north-east to the tip of Sicily across the Malta Channel, with a second leg into the open Mediterranean to the east before completing the triangle back to port. But it was also a voyage in a state of war: at any time predatory sail could heave above the horizon.

  The log was hove once more: their speed was gratifyingly constant and allowing for the prevailing current would give a precise time of landfall. In this straightforward exercise Kydd had no doubt of his own skills and now felt Bonnici was capable also. But the time arrived and there was no far-off misty grey smear of land dead ahead.

  “We’ll give it another hour on this course, Mr Bonnici,” Kydd said. He had gone over in his mind the simple calculations and could find no fault. Even his little dog-leg on a whim had been taken into account and—

  “Laaaand hoooo! Land two—three points t’ weather!” the lookout at the main royal masthead hailed excitedly, pointing over the larboard bow.

  “Luff up an’ touch her,” Kydd ordered. Although this land could not yet be seen from the deck, on the line of bearing reported, the cape would not be reached on this tack. Yet it was the cape. How was it possible?

  Going about, Teazer laid her bowsprit toward the undistinguished promontory,
which Kydd easily recognised. Already he had his suspicions. “Lay me south o’ the Portopaio roads,” he told Bonnici.

  Obediently Teazer made her way to another headland a mile or two from Cape Passero, rounding to a mile distant from the scrubby, nondescript cliffs. It was a well-known point of navigation—Kydd had passed this way before as part of Nelson’s fleet—and the exact bearing of the tip of the one on the other was known. However, the bearing by Teazer’s compass had strayed a considerable way easterly, much more than could be accounted for by local variation. The instrument could no longer be trusted, neither it nor the secondary one.

  There were obvious culprits and men at the conn were searched for iron implements. Nothing. Kydd questioned whether he should have taken more care over the compasses before going to sea. Some held that not only the earth varied in its faithfulness in revealing magnetic north but that the ship’s ironwork had a part to play in deceiving the mariner, but how this could be dealt with they did not say.

  There were only two explanations for the delay in their landfall: that Sicily had changed its position, or that their measure of distance run was incorrect. And as the latter was more likely and was taken by one means alone, the log, it was this that had to be at fault.

  “Mr Purchet, I’ll have the log-line faked out an’ measure the knots, if y’ please.” Speed was arrived at by casting astern a weighted triangular piece of wood, the log-ship, that was carried astern as the ship sailed on. The line flew off from a reel held overhead and at the end of a thirty-second period it was “nipped” to see how far it had gone out, indicated by the number of knots in the line that had been run off. As the ratio of thirty seconds was to an hour (really twenty-eight, to allow for reaction times) so the length of line was for one knot—at forty-seven feet and three inches.

  The carpenter’s folding rule was wielded industriously. And, without exception, the knots fell close enough to their appointed place.

  Kydd stood back, trying to think it through.

  “Sir—the glass?” suggested Bowden.

  It was unlikely: the twenty-eight-second sand-glass was a common enough object and the grains were specially parched to prevent clogging. “Go below an’ check it against the chronometer,” Kydd ordered doubtfully.

  While this was done he set Teazer about and they headed safely off shore in darkening seas; during the night he and Bonnici would take careful astronomical observations. Compasses were inaccurate at the best of times but it was possible that when they had adjusted theirs in Malta harbour they had been within range of the influence of iron on the seabed, perhaps an old cannon.

  Bowden returned. “No question about it, sir. This is a thirty-three-second glass,” he said, trying to hide the smugness in his voice.

  Kydd looked accusingly at Bonnici, who reddened. “Er, a Venetian hour-glass it mus’ be, sir,” the master mumbled. “We take fr’m the Arsenale when we store th’ ship.”

  But it was nothing that could not be put right, thought Kydd, with relief, thankful that the heavens had been restored to their rightful place and his ship sped on unharmed into the warm night.

  Free from the routine of night watch-keeping, Kydd could take no advantage of the luxury of an all-night-in: excitement and anticipation coursed through him making sleep impossible. Then came memories: that lonely, exhausted night as a press-gang victim, new on board; the first time he had stood watch as a green and terrified officer-of-the-watch—and the bitter time following when he had felt he could never belong in the company of gentlemen. And now he was past it all and elevated above every one of them. Restless and unsleeping, he longed for morning.

  At long last he heard the muffled thump of feet on deck and lay back, seeing in his mind’s eye the activity of hands turned out and irritable petty officers urging them on to meet the break of day at quarters. He remained for a few minutes longer in his cot, aware that voices in the after end of the ship were respectfully subdued in deference to his august being.

  As the early light strengthened he came on deck. Only his word of a clear horizon would be sufficient to allow the men to be stood down from quarters and go about their day. He acknowledged Dacres’s salute and gave the word, savouring the instant activity it produced while he breathed deeply of the zest of a sea dawn.

  Reluctantly he went for his breakfast, to be eaten in solitary splendour. He took his time, knowing that his presence would be unwelcome in the scurry of striking down hammocks, lashing them tightly and sending them up to the nettings, the domestics of the evening mess deck now to assume a martial readiness.

  A discreet knock: it was the carpenter, duly reporting inches only of water showing in the well. Then came Dacres, with a question about employment for the hands in the forenoon. The rhythms of the morning took hold without him and he was free to attend to his own concerns.

  Later he ventured on deck; Dacres moved to leeward of the quarterdeck, as was the custom. Kydd, keyed up with feeling, acknowledged him politely, then began strolling down the deck.

  The effect was instant: on either side men fell silent and stiffened, ceasing their work to straighten and touch their hats. He ducked under the main staysail and the men on the other side, tailing on to a jib sheet, lost their hauling cadence and came to an untidy stop. The petty officer in charge looked at Kydd warily, clearly at a loss.

  It was no good. Kydd knew full well what was happening: there had to be some pressing reason why the captain, next down from God, should march the length of the vessel to see them—it could only mean trouble. He had to face the fact that, as captain, he was not at liberty to wander about his own ship as he pleased. Every movement, intentional or careless, had significance for the men, who would now be watching him as the creatures of the jungle regarded the pacing lion.

  “Carry on,” he told the petty officer, and made his way back to the quarterdeck. The next time he wanted to stretch his legs and enjoy the sights forward on his pretty ship he would need to make some excuse to have the master or carpenter with him.

  On impulse, Kydd crossed to the boatswain. “Mr Purchet. I’m not comfortable with th’ play we’re seeing in the main topmast cross-tree, th’ t’gallant mast in the cap.”

  “I’ll take a look, sir,” Purchet said, glancing up.

  “No, thank ’ee,” Kydd said quickly. “I’ve a mind t’ see myself.”

  He handed his hat and coat to an astonished Dacres and swung easily into the rigging, mounting with the fluid agility of the top-man he had been those years ago. He climbed around the futtock shrouds, ignoring the startled looks of two seamen working in the maintop, and on up to the cross-trees.

  The lookout could not believe the evidence of his own eyes and stared at Kydd as he heaved himself up and on to the trestle-tree. Kydd hung on in the lively movement, muscles aglow, and took his fill of the lovely symmetry of Teazer’s foreshortened length far below, hissing through the seas in a sinuous line of foam-flecks. After making a pretence of inspecting the topgallant mast as it passed through the cap he then shaded his eyes and looked away to the horizon.

  An immensity of sparkling sea stretched before them as Teazer sped eastwards into emptiness, mainland Greece more than a hundred leagues distant and nothing ahead but the unchanging even line where sea met sky. It was a breathtaking sight from this height, one that in times past he had always thrilled to.

  Reluctantly, he started to descend, then became aware that the clean line of horizon was broken. Eyes honed from a hundred watches scanning into nothing soon picked it up: a speck of paleness occasionally flashing brilliant white as the sun caught it.

  “Sail hoooo!” he roared to the deck below. “Fine on th’ weather bow.” His hail to the deck caused the lookout beside him to jerk with surprise. Kydd then saw, in place of the sharp angularity of the usual Mediterranean lateener, the more blocky indication of square sail. “Square sail, an’ studding athwart!”

  This was not a trading felucca or any other of the myriad small craft native to this part
of the great inland sea: it was of significant size and European built; perhaps a transport for Napoleon’s lost army—or a hunting frigate . . .

  Realising he had an urgent need to be back on deck, he reached out for a topmast backstay and swung into space. In seconds he had slid hand-over-hand down the backstay, arriving with a light jump on his own quarterdeck.

  He was conscious of eyes on him: this was now the classic dilemma faced by every smaller ship, to sail towards a potential prize or retreat from what could be a more powerful enemy. To play safe would be to put up the helm and slink away, but that would be to throw away any chance of securing their first prize. Yet if he pressed on to investigate and it turned out to be one of the French admiral Ganteaume’s fast frigates then Teazer stood little chance.

  “Course t’ intercept, Mr Bonnici,” he snapped. He had a bounden duty to stop and investigate every sail. If things turned out against them, it couldn’t be helped.

  “Clear for action, sir?” Awkwardly Dacres held out Kydd’s cocked hat and coat, which Kydd accepted but did not put on, mindful of his ruined cotton stockings and tar streaks on his hands.

  From the main deck, the top-hamper of the chase was not yet visible. “No. We’ll have time enough later. Report when he’s topsails clear, I’ll be below.”

  It seemed an age before the report finally arrived, but Kydd had already guessed the chase must be a smaller vessel or a merchantman that had decided to make a run for it—and they were slowly overhauling it. There was always the chance that it was leading him on into a trap, and with a new ship and untried crew the consequences could be serious—but it was unlikely.

  When he went up on deck he deliberately left his sword on its hook below as a sign that he did not expect to fight. “Chase bears ahead nine miles, sir,” Dacres said importantly. Hull-up, the ship was clawing to windward in a losing battle with the brisk breeze; Teazer had bowlines in their bridles drawing out the leading edge of her courses and topsails and was slashing along in exhilarating fashion. The end could not be in doubt.