Mutiny - Kydd 04

by Julian Stockwin

  Emily was cross with herself. Mr Kydd had come to her, and she had ended up tongue-tied, like a silly girl, letting him walk away. And this morning she would have to face the odious Mr Goldstein again to inform him that the committee did not see fit in this instance to contravene their inviolable rule that tradesmen, however eminent, were not eligible to join the library.

  She fussed a row of learned journals into line, then heard a diffident knock. Brushing aside the Maltese helper, she strode rapidly to the door and opened it with a sweet smile. 'Why, Mr Kydd!' He was just as she recalled, the same shy smile. Emily inclined her head gracefully: she would not be discommoded this time.

  'Er, I was wonderin', miss, if there's any chance I might borrow a book 'r two?'

  His eyes were so open and guileless - if he had seen much, it wasn't in salons or drawing rooms. 'Mr Kydd,' she said coolly, 'this library was created after the Great Siege by the officers of the garrison who did not want to endure such another without they had food for the intellect. This is their library by contribution.'

  Kydd's face fell. Emily suppressed a smile: he was so adorably transparent.

  'Naval officers have nobly contributed as they can,' she continued, 'and the committee have therefore declared them equally eligible for borrowing privileges.' She picked up a book and pretended to scrutinise its pages.

  Kydd didn't respond, and when she looked up, she was surprised to see rueful resignation. 'Then I'm brought up wi' a round turn — I'm a master's mate only.' At her puzzled look he added, 'A warrant officer.'

  Her face cleared. 'We don't care what kind of officer you are, Mr Kydd. You may certainly join our library.'

  Kydd's smile returned and Emily responded warmly. 'Now, let me see, what do we have that will interest you .. .'

  It was a nice problem: there were officers who earnestly sought educational tomes, others who reserved their enthusiasm for accounts of the wilder excesses of the fall of Rome, yet more who would relentlessly devour anything on offer. Kydd did not seem to fit any of these.

  'May I suggest the Gabinetti, Customs and Cultural History of the Iberians'? It might prove interesting for someone come to this part of the world.'

  Kydd hesitated. 'Er, I was thinkin' more ye might have one b' Mr Hume — I have a yen t' know more about what he says on causality.' Mistaking her look, he hurried to add,' Y' see, I have a frien' who is more in th' metaphysical line, an' will much want t' dispute empiricism wi' me,' he finished lamely.

  'Oh,' Emily said. 'We don't get much call for that kind of thing, Mr Kydd, but I'll do what I can.' There was a dark old leather volume she remembered behind the desk by Hume, but she hadn't the faintest idea what it contained.

  'Ah, here you are,' she said brightly, 'David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding'

  Kydd took the litde book and leafed through it reverently. His hands were very strong, she noticed. 'This will do, thank ye, miss,' he said.

  'Splendid!' Emily said, with relief. 'And it's Mrs Emily Mulvany,' she added.

  Kydd gravely acknowledged her, his old-fashioned courtesies charming. At the door he turned to bid her farewell. 'Oh, Mr Kydd, I may have omitted to let you know, we are holding an assembly and you are to be invited, I believe,' she said, as off-handedly as she could manage. 'I am sure you will find it congenial after your long voyaging.' It would be a fine thing to display such a prize — and so interesting a man. Emily's thoughts were bubbling: Gibraltar was small and unchanging and she'd never met someone like Mr Kydd before. Imagine — discussing philosophy with his friend under the stars, yet ready at a moment's notice to engage the enemy in some dreadful battle. And his great feat in rescuing the diplomat in a tiny boat on the open sea. He'd certainly led a much more exciting and romantic life than a soldier. She watched him depart. A man's man, he was probably restless, hemmed in by the daily round of the Rock. It would be an interesting challenge to keep boredom at bay for him ...

  The invitation came the following morning, a plainly worded card, beautifully penned in a feminine hand and addressed to 'Mr Kydd, on board HMS Achilles'. It was the first social invitation he had ever had, and he fingered the expensive board with both pleasure and surprise. Mrs Mulvany was obviously of the quality and he'd thought that she was just being polite when she mentioned the assembly.

  An assembly, he knew from a single previous experience in Guildford, was a fairly informal social gathering — but then he remembered that it involved dancing ...

  'M' friend,' he said to Cockburn, after showing him the invitation, 'do ye help me, I must refuse. I'm no taut hand at th' dancing, an' I'll shame the ship. C'n ye give me some rousin' good reason I cannot attend, or—'

  Thomas, you must attend,' Cockburn said, his face shadowed at this familiar token of polite society he was most unlikely to see himself. 'An absence would bring dishonour on both you and the service!'

  'But I can't dance, I never learned,' Kydd said, in anguish. He would far rather face an enemy broadside than make a fool of himself before tittering ladies.

  'Ah.' Cockburn had grown up with the attentions of a dancing-master and had no apprehension himself of the dance floor, in fact he rather enjoyed the decorous interplay of femininity on gentlemanly ardour.

  'My folks were never much in th' social line’ Kydd said forlornly.

  'Then I shall be your teacher!' Cockburn declared impulsively.

  ‘Wha— No!' Kydd blurted. A moment's fantasy flashed by of Emily's slim figure bobbing in delight at his dancing skills, her attractive ringlets springing out in the mad whirl, a blush on her cheeks as . .. 'Could ye? I don't—'

  'Of course. It's, er, it's rather like your redcoats doing their drill, and they learn it easy enough.'

  The dog-watch saw them both repair down to the dim cockpit on the orlop, the area outside the surgeon's cabin, the purser's and the midshipman's berth.

  Cockburn looked around warily, then addressed himself to Kydd. 'In the matter of a cotillion, it is of the first importance to place the feet so ...' he said, as he gracefully adopted the pose. Kydd did so, looking down doubtfully. 'You look at the lady, not your feet — is she not to your liking, sir?'

  Kydd's head lifted, and he strained to be graceful. A muffled splutter came from the shadows and he wheeled round. 'Clap a stopper on y'r cacklin', damn y'r whistle,' he snarled, 'or ye'll be spending y'r dog-watches in the tops!' A midshipman slunk back into the shadows.

  Cockburn persevered. The gloom and thick odour of the orlop did nothing to convey a ballroom atmosphere, and there were ringbolts on the deck, here above the main hold. 'The measure is stepped like this — one, two, three and a stand, and a one, two, three and a four ...'

  The surgeon's cabin door opened noiselessly, and Cockburn was aware of muffled footfalls from forward, an appreciative audience gathering in the shadows. 'No, Tom, you've forgotten the "four" again,' he said, with some control, for Kydd had tripped and sent him staggering. His pupil had a memory as short as ... 'It won't answer, not at all,' he said to the crestfallen Kydd. He muttered under his breath, then had an idea. 'Please to pay attention -1 will now make this clear enough for the meanest intelligence.' Kydd looked at him resentfully.

  'Er, the first is to make sail, then we haul our wind to the starb'd tack, and wear about before we drops anchor to boxhaul around, like this.' The relief on Kydd's face was plain. "Then we tack about twice against the sun and heave to for a space, let the lady get clear of our hawse, and we are under way again, this time to larb'd . ..'

  'Shouldn't be more'n a half-hour,' the lieutenant said, through his towel, finishing his personal preparations for a rendezvous ashore. 'Lobsterbacks like marchin' around, up 'n' down, that sort of thing, then they flog the poor wight an' it's back to barracks.'

  'Aye, sir,' Kydd said, without enthusiasm. He had agreed to take the lieutenant's place in an army punishment parade to represent Achilles as a major ship in the port.

  'Mos' grateful, Mr Kydd. As long as you're at the Alameda by five be
lls ...'

  Kydd clapped on a black cockaded hat, and settled a cross-belt with its distinctive anchor shoulder plate over his white waistcoat. The rather worn spadroon sword he had borrowed from Cockburn was awkward in the scabbard; it was so much longer and daintier than a sturdy cutlass. A glance reassured him that his shoes were well shined - the gunroom servant needed coaxing of a sort but was a knowing old marine.

  With two marines as escort stepping out smartly ahead, Kydd found his way to the Alameda, and halted the marines.

  The Alameda was a remarkably large parade-ground that would not be out of place in the bigger army establishments in England. It was alive with ranks of marching soldiers, hoarse screams sending them back and forth. Splendidly kitted sergeant-majors glared down the dressing of the lines and bawled in outrage at the hapless redcoats. The discordant blare of trumpets and the clash and stamp of drill added to the cacophony, and from the edge of the arena Kydd watched in wonder for what he should do.

  A sashed, ramrod-stiff figure with a tall shako detached himself from the melee and marched up, coming to a crashing halt before Kydd. His eyes flickered at Kydd's polite doffing of his hat and strayed to the marines motionless behind him.

  'Sah! With me. Sah!' He wheeled about abrupdy and marched energetically across to a ragged square of men across the parade; Kydd saw with relief that a few were in navy rig.

  'An' what happens next?' Kydd asked a weathered marine lieutenant. The other navy representatives nodded cautiously or ignored him in accordance with rank.

  The man's bored eyes slid over to him. 'They brings out the prisoner, the town major rants at 'im, trices him up t' the whipping post, lays on the lashes, an' we goes home.' The eyes slid back to the front in a practised glassy stare.

  Kydd saw the whipping post set out from the wall they were facing, an unremarkable thick pole with a small platform. He had grown inured to the display of physical punishment at sea, seeing the need for it without a better solution, but it always caused him regret. He hoped this would not take long.

  The parade sorted itself into a hollow square behind them. Within minutes a small column of men appeared from the further side of the parade-ground. They were accompanied by a drummer with muffled drum, the slow ta-rrum, ta-rrum of the Rogue's March hanging heavy on the air.

  The prisoner was a blank-faced, scrawny soldier without his shako. The column halted and turned to face the post. From the opposite corner of the parade-ground, a small party appeared, led by a short, florid officer strutting along bolt upright.

  'Actin' town major,' murmured the marine.

  The peppery army officer looked about testily, ignoring the prisoner. Slapping his gloves against his side irritably, he stepped over to the assembled representatives. 'Fine day, ge'men,' he rasped, his flinty eyes merciless. 'Kind in ye to come.'

  The eyes settled on Kydd, and he approached to speak. 'Don' recollect I've made the acquaintance?' The tautness of his bearing had a dangerous edge.

  'Thomas Kydd, master's mate o' Achilles, sir.'

  The eyes appraised him for a moment, then unexpectedly the man smiled. 'Glad t' see your ship here, Mr Kydd - uncertain times, what?' Before Kydd could speak, he had stalked off.

  The essence of the business was much as the marine had said: the town major tore at the prisoner's dignity with practised savagery, the hard roar clearly meant for the parade as a whole. The offence was the breaking into of an army storeroom while drunk.

  Stepping aside contemptuously, he ordered the anonymous brawny soldier with the lash to do his work. It was a lengthy and pitiful spectacle - the army had different ideas of punishment and, although delivered with a lash that was lighter-looking than a navy cat-o'-nine-tails the blows went on and on, thirty, forty and finally fifty.

  At the conclusion, in a flurry of salutes, the attendant officers were dismissed. Kydd avoided the sight of the wretched victim still tied to the whipping post and declined the invitation to a noon-day snifter. He wanted to get back aboard to sanity.

  'Ah, you there — Jack Tar ahoy, is it?' A resplendent sergeant-major, tall and with four golden stripes, was heading rapidly towards him. 'Me boy!' the soldier bawled. He came closer, his smile wide. 'A long time!'

  Soldiers leaving the parade-ground went respectfully around them while Kydd stared and tried to remember the man.

  'Why, it's Sar'nt Hotham, if m' memory serves!' The desperate times on Guadeloupe came back vividly.

  'Not any more, it ain't,' Hotham boomed, the effortless authority of his voice still the same. 'Colour Sar'-Major Hotham will do fer you, m'lad.' His happy satisfaction turned to curiosity. 'An' what're you now, then?'

  'Master's mate Tom Kydd, it is now.' His hand went out and was strongly gripped. 'Thought you wuz dead, Tom,' Hotham said, more quietly.

  'No, got t' the other fort on the west, got taken off b' Trajan’ he said.

  He hesitated, and Hotham picked up on it. Td admire ter have yer as me guest in the barracks fer a drink or so. Then we c'n take a look at th' fortress, if yez got the time.'

  Line wall and bastions, counterguard and casemates, innumerable heavy gun positions and watchful sentries everywhere. Gibraltar was nothing if not a mighty fortress. The garrison even had its barracks, Town Range, in the centre of the town, which was itself behind massive walls and ramparts.

  'We gets a ride on th' ration wagon, you'll see somethin'll make ye stare.' Hotham flagged down the small cart pulled by mules. They sat together on the back, legs dangling, and the cart wound slowly up a steep zigzag track.

  The view rapidly expanded, an immense panorama of misty coast, dusty plains and sea. Kydd was fascinated.

  The cart stopped at a gate, which was neatly set round a large hole in the side of the Rock. Hotham dropped to the ground briskly and, nodding to the curious sentry, motioned Kydd inside.

  Coolness, a slight damp and the peculiar odour of unmoving air on old stone enfolded him as they strode into the bowels of the Rock of Gibraltar.

  'Watch yer bonce,' Hotham warned, his own tall frame stooped, but Kydd was used to the low deckhead of a man-o'-war. The tunnel drove on, then widened, and suddenly to the left there was a gallery with bay after bay, and in each a twenty-four-pounder gun facing out of an aperture in the rock. The gaUery was bright with daylight, and a cheerful breeze played inwards.

  'See 'ere, cully,' said Hotham, edging towards the opening on one side of the first gun. Kydd stared out at a dizzying height from the sheer face of the north aspect of the Rock. Far below was a flat plain that issued from the base, curving around until some miles further on it dissolved into mainland.

  'Spain, cully!' Hotham declared, waving outwards.

  'Where?' These guns could fire far, but not to the hills.

  Hotham grinned. 'There!' He pointed directly down to the flat plain. No man's land, and only some half a mile away. So close — an enemy in arms against Britain, continuously ready to fall upon them if there was the slightest chance. Kydd tried to make out movement, figures on the hostile side of the lines, but to his disappointment could not.

  'We got a hunnerd 'n' forty like this'n,' Hotham said, patting the twenty-four-pounder, 'an' thirty-twos, coehorns, even our own rock mortars. Nothin' ter fear, really, we ain't.' Kydd wondered what it must be like to look up at the sheer heights of the Rock, knowing the fire-power that could be brought down on any with the temerity to test the impregnability of Gibraltar.

  Kydd was no more than half-way returned to his ship when he heard the first gun, a low crump, from somewhere above him. He craned to look, scanning the skyline, but there was only dissipating smoke. Suddenly, below him, there came the heavier thud of an answering gun. Kydd hurried on. Within minutes there were signs of agitation, shopkeepers emerging to look about nervously, water-carriers halting their donkeys in confusion. A young seaman acknowledged Kydd, just as the measured thump of a minute gun started from somewhere in the harbour. Guns opened up in other parts of the Rock and the sudden soaring of a rocket fro
m below was quickly followed by others.

  Achilles, It could be nothing less than an urgent general recall. Kydd had to make it back: there was peril abroad and his deepest instincts were with his ship. At the Ragged Staff gate there was a scrimmage for boats; Kydd and others quickly packed into the launch. Bedlam erupted all along the Rock — guns, church bells, shouting and confusion.

  'What's th' rout, then?' one sailor demanded.

  'Spanish. Sighted t' the east, mebbe a dozen or more sail-o'-the-line, comin' on like good 'uns an' straight for us!'

  The Spanish Mediterranean battle fleet was usually skulking far away in Cartagena but they had heard of the English evacuation of the Mediterranean and knew Gibraltar was at the moment defended only by an old 64, a handful of unrated ships and local craft. Were they now going to take revenge for nearly a century of humiliation — and finally liberate the Rock?

  Achilles was frantic with activity: she couldn't go to quarters until sail had been bent to the yards as she was still in refit. But a single ship? The enemy fleet would now be in sight from the point, a sinister straggling of tiny sail spreading over half of the eastern horizon.

  Kydd's battle quarters was on the main gundeck, but for now he was at the foremast, frantically driving men to send up the long sausages of sails to seamen on the yard. The new hands, landmen all, were pale and frightened at the prospect of battle and needed hard pressing. Kydd grew hoarse with goading. 'Haaands to unmoor ship!'

  The boatswain's mates pealed out their calls, but Kydd knew they had two anchors out, which would take time to buoy and slip — it was a race against time.

  From his station at the catheads, Kydd kept an eye on the point: the eastern side of Gibraltar was sheer and inaccessible, and any invading force must come round to this side, sweeping aside with concentrated cannon fire the single ship of significance before beginning their landing.