Command

by Julian Stockwin

“I was pardoned,” Kydd said quietly.

  “Then I give you joy of your fortune.” He swilled the rum in his glass then went on, in a different tone, “You’re master of the Totnes Castle.”

  “Aye, f’r my sins.”

  “Then you’ve done well in the sea profession. Did you leave the Navy . . . afterwards?”

  “No.” Kydd saw through the look of polite enquiry and knew he could not lie. “I was a lucky wight, an’ that’s the truth of it. Not more’n six months after, at Camperdown, I took th’ eye of the admiral an’ went t’ the quarterdeck.”

  “I stand amazed! And, by God, I take the hand of a man who has had the backbone to seize Dame Luck by the tail and give it a hearty pull.”

  Kydd blushed and took refuge in his rum.

  “So, while we’ve been taking our rest at His Majesty’s expense you’ve been cresting the briny, as it were. Did you smell powder after that at all?”

  “Nothing t’ speak of—that is, apart fr’m our meeting at the Nile.”

  “The Nile? You were with Nelson at the Nile?”

  Kydd nodded, embarrassed to see Redfern regard him with something suspiciously like awe.

  “And now, for your own good reasons, here at the other end of the earth in New South Wales. Is the land to your liking and expectations, Mr Kydd?”

  Redfern would obviously have no feeling for the place, Kydd reasoned, and said wryly, “It smells too much o’ the prison—an’ I’ve never seen a country like this. T’ me it’s like young flesh on old bones, if ye take m’ meaning.”

  Redfern leaned over and spoke with a quiet intensity: “Appearances can deceive. This country is like no other—there are some who call it a thief-colony but they mistake its destiny. Here, those who have fallen afoul of society’s expectations are offered a second beginning, a new life. If they seize their chance there is a future for them here, free of encrusted prejudices and attitudes of old, somewhere they might reclaim their dignity and freedom.”

  He stopped then said slowly, “Mr Kydd, here we can have hope.”

  “But y’r lashes, barracks . . .”

  “Yes—for those who cannot put aside their selfish antagonism to the social order. Now, think on it. If a convicted felon has a mind to it, he can ask for and be granted a ticket-of-leave. Freedom. He may then take up a trade, marry, live in his own dwelling—in fine, he will be once more a credit to society. Now where in England may he do this, I ask?”

  “You are still . . . ?”

  “Yes, Mr Kydd. I am a convicted prisoner serving out his time—but equally I am assistant surgeon to the Crown on Norfolk Island, of not inconsequential status I may add. And there are more like myself who have taken advantage of this enlightened position and have thus advanced in the social order. You should think also of the free settlers who arrive on these shores with the sole purpose of wresting a living from the soil. Together we are creating nothing less than a new nation.”

  He hesitated, then slumped back and considered Kydd with hooded eyes. “But this is not of any interest to one who will shortly depart for more civilised climes.”

  Kydd smiled. Perhaps there was something in what Redfern had said. “I’ve stepped ashore in Canada, m’ friend. They’re making a new nation there an’ it’s just as hard a country. If’n they can raise a nation by guts an’ spirit, then so will you.” He emptied his glass, then added, “But I’m not t’ shortly depart—the Totnes Castle is t’ be careened an’ repaired afore I’ll be on m’ way.”

  Redfern returned the smile. “So you’ll need lodgings. I’d not recommend the usual seafarers’ rests—they’re to be found at what we term the Rocks. No, if you wish, you may stay here, if sleeping on my examination couch does not discommode. I have the use of this cottage during my regular visits back from Norfolk Island. Now there’s a hard place—peine et dure indeed . . .”

  “That’s kind in ye, sir. It’s been a long voyage,” Kydd said. Redfern would be agreeable company and he had no real wish at present to be among the rowdy jollity and lusty vigour of sailors ashore. “Tell me,” he asked, “what are th’ two Frenchmen lying across the harbour?” It had been niggling: in a time of peace they had every right to be there but he had not seen any sign of working cargo.

  “Why, have you not heard? It caused not a little stir when they came. This is the celebrated French expedition of Commodore Baudin! Given special status as a neutral by the Admiralty in a voyage of survey and exploration in the south of New Holland and Van Diemen’s Land.

  “Nearly prostrated with scurvy when they arrived, and you would not conceive the commotion when a little later our own Investigator puts in!” He chuckled. “Commander Flinders, sent by the Admiralty to do a like task. Both believe they are alone in this uncharted realm, making discoveries and naming names, until each meets the other at the same enterprise.”

  “Where is Mr Flinders now?”

  “You haven’t noticed? The rather grubby little North Sea collier the other side of what we call Garden Island. Why don’t you pay him a visit? He’d be sure to welcome a man of events.”

  Kydd completed his letter, a formal request from a fellow officer to come aboard HMS Investigator if convenient to visit. As he was about to sign his name he hesitated—they were of equal rank—then he dashed off Lieutenant Thomas Kydd at the foot. There was no way as a convict-ship master he wanted it known that he was an ex-commander, Royal Navy.

  A courteous reply arrived almost immediately and Kydd lost no time in making his way out to the little ship. Only a hundred feet long and about three hundred tons, Kydd estimated—not much more than dear Teazer, but she was a very different vessel. Stout and roomy with a beam that spoke of a broad bottom and shallow draught, she was a workaday collier disguised as a ship-of-war and undertaking explorations on a scale not seen since Captain Cook.

  There was not a scrap of gold leaf or other naval ornamentation but Kydd felt a growing respect, even awe, for this humble ship so newly emerged from the unknown regions.

  He was met at the side by her commander. “My ship is all ahoo, sir—it’s my intention to sail just as soon as these scallywag shipwrights can set her to rights.” Flinders was of slight build and about his own age; Kydd was struck by his eyes, soulful against dark hair. “Shall we take refuge below?”

  In Investigator’s great cabin, smaller even than Kydd’s quarters in Totnes Castle, every conceivable surface was set out with papers and charts. On one, a large black cat with white figuring looked balefully at Kydd, then leaped straight at Flinders, who caught him neatly.

  “This is the noble Trim,” Flinders said, as he affectionately stroked the jet-black fur. “The butler in Tristram Shandy, of course. He’s been aboard since the first, and must be accounted the most nearly travelled of all his tribe.”

  Flinders found a chair for Kydd and sat at his desk with the cat curling fussily into his lap.

  “Sir, y’r fame is assured fr’m what I’ve been told about y’r exploring,” Kydd began.

  Flinders inclined his head civilly. “Should the Good Lord and the rotten timbers of this ship allow, I shall complete a circumnavigation of this vast land, Mr Kydd.”

  Kydd leaned back in admiration. What it must be to swing a bowsprit between two headlands where no man had been before! Was there to be a bay opening beyond, deep and broad, or was this to be a mysterious passage separating two great lands?

  He knew that the man before him, within this present voyage, had finally established that New Holland was one immense continent, there was no navigable channel leading from a vast inland sea or any other. Flinders had achieved this and therefore solved the last great geographical question remaining. There was no doubt that his name would be known to history.

  “Ah, Mr Flinders, I’m curious—for th’ fixing of the longitude, should ye sight something of interest.”

  “A hard question! If it be convenient to come to an anchor, then I find the method of eclipses of Jupiter’s keepers answers when taken with a
worked lunar distance. The chronometers are there to verify. Under way, of course, it is a task for the compass and a carefully measured log-line to fix the position relative to the last known.”

  “A compass is a fickle enough thing t’ use in strange waters.”

  Flinders looked at Kydd sharply. “Indeed. Yet on this voyage I have observations that may persuade you. I am to communicate these to Sir Joseph Banks but the essence of them is that there is a fixed error attributable not to polar magnetic orientation but magnetism induced in the ship’s own upright iron fittings by the earth’s vertical magnetic component. A deviation, sir, not a variation.”

  At Kydd’s serious expression he intoned gravely to a properly respectful cat:

  Then through the chiliad’s triple maze they trace

  Th’ analogy that proves the magnet’s place,

  The wayward steel, to truth thus reconcil’d

  No more th’ attentive pilot’s eye beguiled . . .

  Flinders stood and selected one of his charts. “See here,” he said, outlining the continent. “Terra Australis, or ‘Australia’ as I’ve come to call it.” His voice dropped as he continued: “From a hundred and twelve degrees east to a hundred and fifty-three— over forty degrees in width, the same distance as from Africa to the Caribbean, London to Muscovy. What must lie hidden within its inland immensity, awaiting a bold man’s discovery?”

  He laid down the chart carefully. “You have not seen the half of its wonders here. There are penguins, giant crocodiles, nameless creatures of fantastical appearance whose only home is this land, and snakes of a size and deadliness that would match any. And territory of a wild beauty that speaks to the heart—and of all nations we are called to grow and populate it.”

  Careening could not begin until another vessel had been completed, and the shipwrights resolutely refused to work on the lower strakes of Totnes Castle until then. It was a very different pace of life in the colony from England, for hurry had no place in a society where events were so few and far between.

  Redfern was an agreeable companion but had medical duties, and would soon return to Norfolk Island, and society, even in this remoteness, made a distinction that placed the idle redcoats of the New South Wales Corps ahead of a mere merchant-vessel captain, especially of a convict ship.

  In two weeks Commander Flinders in HMS Investigator had departed for the north; Kydd watched their progress out to sea from the lonely signal station atop the southern head of the harbour entrance, seeing her last communication with the colony and her sails bright against the steel-grey of the empty ocean diminishing in size as she stood well out to make her offing.

  Back at the cottage he decided to write to Cecilia. There was possibly a chance that a returning ship would sail soon and take it to England; otherwise he would find himself carrying back his own letter to her. Still, it would occupy the time.

  He stared out of the window to gather his thoughts, nibbling the end of his quill.

  He supposed Renzi would have written to her before they left and explained his departure, but if he was in the same mood of disengagement from his old world then it was likely she would have had no word of his decision.

  But what could he say when he himself had no idea of where Renzi was or how far along his path to attainment of whatever it was he yearned for? No doubt he could find Renzi but respect and reluctance to intrude prevented it. He would omit anything about him therefore.

  What would seize Cecilia’s interest and imagination, then, here in this wild and remote corner of the world? The wildlife, certainly: the curious whip bird, wonga pigeons and smaller folk like the white-footed rabbit rat. He had seen black swans, calm and serene—fine-tasting they were, too—as well as the big, bounding kangaroos and the unknown tribes of nocturnal creatures that could turn the night into a riot of unearthly sounds.

  She would want to know about society: it would amuse her to see the earnest striving after fashion by the ladies when their only resources were six-month-old newspapers and the odd articles of dress brought in as ventures by visiting ships. And it was not so easy to explain how difficult it was to maintain a distance from the convicts when so many walked free about the town with a ticket-of-leave that enabled them to pursue a trade or even engage in business.

  In fact, how could he convey the whole feel of a settlement established for the purpose of the removal of criminal elements far from society at a time when it was so clearly being altered and improved with permanent building and an inflow of free settlers?

  There were other things: there was not a drop of beer—it did not last the voyage and there were no hops here for a brewery. Rum was the universal tipple, with wine only for the well-off.

  Then there were the black people. Around Sydney Town, the Eora loitered on street corners with lobster claws in their bushy dark curls, their bodies smelling of rancid fat; some sprawled hopelessly drunk. Dark tales were still told about occasional spearings and the kidnap of white women, and one runaway convict had recently come staggering back with stories of bodies roasting on a fire.

  There would certainly be many things to tell of when he returned—when he returned. For him there would be his promised ship, but for Cecilia . . . What could he say? Cecilia must now face her own future.

  He dipped his pen and began to write.

  The invitation came one morning as a blustering southerly rain squall eased. Kydd disliked the rain: it caused runnels of reddish water to cascade into the harbour from a thousand bare surfaces, making roads a squelching trial, and today he was due another wearisome argument with the shipyard.

  It was an odd invitation; personally written, it was addressed to a Lieutenant Kydd and signed by a Philip Gidley King. Then it dawned on him. This was a letter from the august person of no less than the governor. Puzzled, he read on. With every amiable solicitude it apologised for the remissness in not earlier inviting a fellow sea officer to his table and hoped to remedy the omission that Friday evening at an informal affair with friends.

  “M’ dear William, what am I t’ make of this?”

  Redfern looked up from his journal and took the letter. “Well, now. It does seem as if you have been recognised, old chap. This is Himself, of course, and you must know that, since the First Fleet, every governor has been a naval officer. He must be curious about you, my boy.”

  “What sort o’ man is he, then, as you’d hear it?”

  “Sociable and affable—been here right from the start in ’eighty-eight at Botany Bay—and while you’ve been quilting the French he has done a service for New South Wales, in my opinion. It was in sad dilapidation before. The lobsterbacks held the whole place to ransom by trading in rum and the colony was going to rack and ruin. Now we have brick-built houses and roads, quite an achievement with no resources at hand.”

  “Aye,” murmured Kydd. A useless penal colony at the ends of the earth would be all but forgotten by a country fighting for its life against a despotic revolution.

  “And don’t forget that as a naval officer he is a rare enough creature, and he faces not a few enemies. The traders are few in number but they want to run the port for their own ends and are wealthy and powerful. And he has the military: the marines were all sent back to the war and we’re left with the sottish rogues in the New South Wales Corps. When you add in the big landowners, like MacArthur, who have their own conceiving of how they should be governed, you will know his task is no light one.”

  “Has he th’ bottom f’r a fight?”

  Redfern grinned without humour. “I think so, friend. He’s the son of a draper born in the wilds of Launceston and knows what it is to stand before gentlemen and prevail.” His face clouded. “I honour him most for his fearless support of those who have paid their penalty and want to contribute to their society. There are many—your MacArthur is chief among them—who would deny us the right and take the odious view that, once a criminal, the blood is tainted and we must be deprived for ever of any chance to aspire to higher t
hings.”

  “Do have some more silver bream, Mr Kydd. You’ll find then why it’s famed for its succulence,” Mrs King said brightly, easing a morsel of fish on to his plate, then motioning to the servant to offer it to the other guests.

  It was indeed a fine dish and Kydd did justice to it. “Tell me, Mrs King,” he mumbled, “what is th’ name o’ the sauce? It has a rare taste.”

  “Ah, that is our Monsieur Mingois having one of his better days. It is his Quin’s fish sauce.”

  King beamed at Kydd. “Rather better than we find on our plate after a week or two at sea, hey?”

  “Aye, sir—an’ you’ll be remembering th’ midshipman’s burgoo an’ hard tack, not t’ say other delicacies an enterprising young gentleman c’n find!”

  Laughing gustily, King looked fondly at his wife. “L’tenant, not so free, if you please, with your sea tales in front of Anna.” She dimpled and stifled a giggle.

  Picking up his glass, Kydd enquired politely, “The French still in harbour, sir, is it resolved as t’ who may name th’ new-found territories? Commander Flinders or . . . ?”

  “Why, we, of course,” King answered smugly. “Flinders was there before them. For all their ‘Napoleon Strait,’ ‘Josephine Bight’ and such, they were pipped. We have sea charts of our south such as would make you stare, sir.”

  “Mr Kydd,” broke in Mrs King, “were you indeed an officer at the glorious Nile with Admiral Nelson? I’ve only just heard.”

  “Why, er, yes, Mrs King,” Kydd said. Now he understood: it had only just been discovered that he was a hero of the Nile, which placed him at a social pinnacle in this faraway outpost and had earned him the good-natured envy and curiosity of the governor, himself a naval officer and far from the excitement and honours of active service.

  “Goodness, how exciting! We shall have a soirée and all my friends will come to hear Lieutenant Kydd speak of his adventures. Such an honour to have you, Mr Kydd, believe me.”

  “I’d be interested m’self, if I’m to be invited,” the governor said stiffly, but with a friendly gesture leaned over to top up Kydd’s glass. “Should you have been received by the first governor, your invitation to Government House would say, at the close, ‘Guests will be expected to bring their own bread.’”