Quarterdeck: A Kydd Sea Adventure

by Julian Stockwin

  Fully satisfied in the matter of explanations, Mrs Wood retired to contemplate, at which Mr Kydd turned his attention to the red-faced gentleman. ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’s interestin’ this week – says about your electric fluid invented by Mr Volta all comes from frog legs in the end,’ he remarked bravely.

  The man shook his head slowly in amazement. ‘Now, that’s something I never knew,’ he said at length. A look of barely concealed satisfaction suffused Mr Kydd’s face as he looked up the table to where Mr Renzi sat quietly, nodding slowly.

  A footman obliged with claret. ‘Wine with you, sir!’ Mr Kydd said happily, with all the joyous relief to be expected of one having passed through a personal trial and not been found wanting. ‘I give you Lady Fortune, an’ may she always be one!’

  Chapter 2

  ‘Aye, ’ere she comes, capting,’ the inn porter said, indicating the gig under sail coming around Garrison Point. He held out his hand for a promised sixpence and left them to it, their chests and other impedimenta in a pile on Sheerness public jetty while they waited for the boat from Tenacious.

  Kydd’s heart bumped. This was the day he had been looking forward to these several months while Tenacious was under repair, the most important day of his life, the day he joined his ship confirmed in his rank, a King’s officer. The day or so aboard after Camperdown didn’t really count – he could hardly remember anything of the brute chaos and towering weariness in the wounded ship limping back to Sheerness.

  The coxswain, a midshipman, cautiously rounded into the wind twenty yards off. Two seamen brailed up and secured the sail for a pull under oars the final distance to the jetty steps. It was not what Kydd would have done: the breeze, although fluky, was reliable enough for an approach under sail alone.

  As the boat glided alongside, the sailors smacked the oars across their thighs and levered them aloft in one easy movement, just as Kydd had done in the not so distant past. His eyes passed over the boat and the four seamen, as he recalled the old saying, ‘You can always tell a ship by her boats.’ Was caution a feature of this ship, he wondered.

  The sailors seemed capable, long-service able seamen economically securing the sea-chests and striking them into the centre of the boat, but Kydd sensed darting eyes behind his back as they took the measure of the new officers.

  He and Renzi assumed their places in the sternsheets, at leisure while the midshipman took the tiller. The boat bobbed in the grey North Sea chop and Kydd’s new uniform was sprinkled with its first salt water. He tried to keep his face blank against surging excitement as they rounded the point to open up the view of the Nore anchorage – and his ship.

  She was one of a straggling line of vessels of varying sizes moored in this transitory anchorage to await different destinies. A wisp of memory brushed his consciousness: it was at the Nore that he had been taken as a bitter victim of the press gang, so long ago now, it seemed.

  He glanced back to the scatter of dockyard buildings, the low fort, the hulks, and a pang of feeling returned for Kitty Malkin, who had stood with him during the dark days of the Nore mutiny. She had uncannily foretold his elevation, and that she would not be a part of it. Other memories of the time came too, dark and emotional. The red flag of mutiny, the spiralling madness that had ended in savage retribution and shame. Memories he had fought hard to dim.

  Kydd crushed the thoughts. He would look forward, not back, take his good fortune and move into the future with it. The phantoms began to fade.

  ‘She’s storing,’ Renzi said, as if reading something in his face.

  ‘Er, yes, those are powder hoys alongside, she’s ready t’ sail,’ Kydd muttered, his eyes fixed on the approaching bulk of Tenacious. The foretopmast was still on deck for some reason but her long commissioning pennant flew from her masthead. Repairs complete, she now stood ready in the service of her country.

  A faint bellow from the ship sounded over the plash of the bow wave. The bowman cupped his hand and bawled back, ‘Aye, aye!’ warning Tenacious that her boat was bearing naval officers, who would expect to be received as the custom of the sea demanded.

  The midshipman again doused sail and shipped oars for the last stretch. Kydd resolved to attend to the young gentleman’s seamanship when the opportunity arose. The boat bumped against the stout sides and the bowman hooked on. Kydd held back as Renzi seized the handropes and left the boat. Although their commissions bore the same date, he was appointed fourth lieutenant aboard, and Kydd, as fifth, would always be first in the boat and last out.

  The ship’s sides were fresh painted, the thick wales black, with the lines of guns set in natural timber, smart in a bright preparation of turpentine and rosin. A strong wafting of the scent mixed pleasingly with that of salt spray.

  Above, a boatswain’s call pierced the clean, winter air. Kydd was being piped aboard a man-o’-war! He mounted the side steps: his eyes passed above the deck line to the boatswain’s mate with his pipe on one side and two midshipmen as sideboys on the other. He touched his hat to the quarterdeck when he made the deck, and approached the waiting officer-of-the-watch. ‘Lieutenant Kydd, sir, appointed fifth l’tenant.’

  For a moment he feared this officer would accuse him of being an impostor, but the man merely smiled bleakly. ‘Cutting it a trifle fine, don’t you think?’ he said, then turned to the duty quartermaster and ordered the chests swayed inboard. Renzi came to stand with Kydd.

  ‘Captain Houghton will want to see you immediately, I should think,’ the officer-of-the-watch said.

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ Kydd replied carefully, conscious of eyes on him from all over the busy decks. He remembered little of her from the exhausted hours he had spent aboard after the battle, fighting to bring the damaged vessel to safe harbour, but all ships had similar main features. He turned and went into the cabin spaces aft.

  Renzi reported first. There was a rumble of voices; then the door opened. ‘Seems pleasant enough,’ he whispered to Kydd.

  Kydd knocked and entered. The captain sat behind his desk facing him, taking advantage of the wan light coming through the stern windows. He was glowering at a paper.

  ‘L’tenant Kydd come aboard t’ join, sir.’

  ‘Don’t sit,’ the captain said heavily. ‘You’re to hold yourself ready to go ashore again.’

  ‘But, sir, why?’

  ‘You are owed an explanation, I believe,’ Houghton said, looking at Kydd directly. ‘I’ve been given to understand that your origins are the lower deck, that is to say you have come aft through the hawse, as the expression goes.’

  ‘Er – aye, sir.’

  ‘Then this must be to your great credit, and shows evidence, no doubt, of sterling qualities of some kind. However . . .’ he leaned back in his chair, still fixing Kydd with hard, grey eyes, ‘ . . . I am determined that Tenacious under my command shall have a loyal band of officers of breeding, who will be able to represent the ship with, um, distinction, and who may be relied upon in the matter of courtesy and gentle conduct.

  ‘You should understand that it is no reflection on yourself personally, when I say that I am applying to the commissioner to have you replaced with a more suitable officer for this vessel. There is no question in my mind that your services will be far more valuable to the service perhaps in a sloop or gunboat, not in a sail-of-the-line.’ He stood. ‘In the meantime you may wish to avail yourself of the conveniences of the wardroom. Carry on, please.’

  Kydd stuttered an acknowledgement and left. He felt numb: the swing from exhilaration to the bleakness of rejection was as savage as it was unexpected.

  The mate-of-the-watch waited on the open deck. ‘Sir?’ Kydd’s chest and personal possessions lay in a small heap.

  ‘Leave ’em for now.’ Kydd felt every eye on him as he went below to the wardroom. The only inhabitant was a marine captain sitting at the table, pencilling in an order book. He looked up. ‘Some sort o’ mistake,’ Kydd mumbled. ‘I’m t’ be replaced.’

  ‘Oh, bad luck, ol
d trout.’

  Kydd took off his coat and sat at the other end of the table. As desolation built, he tried to subdue the feeling of homelessness, of not belonging in this select community. He got up abruptly and, pulling himself together, stepped out on deck. He had seen Renzi with a party forward getting the topmast a-taunt. Renzi would have no problems of breeding with this captain, and later he must find his friend and bid him farewell.

  The officer-of-the-watch caught sight of Kydd and turned with a frown. Some waiting seamen looked at him with open amusement. Face burning, Kydd returned to the wardroom. It was half-way through the afternoon and the marine captain had left. A young wardroom servant was cleaning the table. ‘Ah, sorry, sir, I’ll leave,’ he said, collecting his rags.

  ‘No, younker, carry on,’ Kydd said. Any company was better than none.

  He looked about. It was a surprisingly neat and snug space with louvred cabin doors looking inward to the long table along the centreline and the fat girth of the mizzen mast at one end. The bulkheads and doors were darkly polished rich mahogany, and at the other end there was plenty of light from the broad stern windows – even the privacy of a pair of officers’ quarter galleries. She would be an agreeable ship for far voyaging.

  This old class of 64s were surprisingly numerous – still probably near thirty left in service – and were known for their usefulness. As convoy escorts they could easily crush any predatory frigate, yet at a pinch could stand in the line of battle. In home waters the mainstay of the major battle fleets was the 74, but overseas, vessels like Tenacious were the squadron heavyweights.

  Kydd’s depression deepened as he wandered about the wardroom. On the rudder head he found a well-thumbed book, The Sermons of Mr Yorick. Raising his eyebrows in surprise he found that it was instead a novel by a Laurence Sterne, and he sat to read. Half-way into the first chapter and not concentrating, he heard a piping of the side and guessed that the captain had returned with news of his replacement.

  Word was not long in coming. A midshipman pelted down and knocked sharply. ‘Lootenant Kydd? Sir, cap’n desires you wait on him.’

  On deck the officer-of-the-watch looked at him accusingly. His chest and bags, obviously a hindrance, had been moved to the base of the mainmast. ‘Be getting rid o’ them soon,’ Kydd said defiantly, and went inside to see the captain.

  This time Houghton stood up. ‘I won’t waste our time. We’re under notice for sea, and there’s no officer replacement readily at hand. I see you will be accompanying us after all, Mr Kydd.’

  A leaping exultation filled Kydd’s thoughts. Then a cooler voice told him that the explanation for his change of fortune was probably the inability of the commissioner’s office to change the paperwork in time – an officer’s commission was to a particular ship rather than the Navy as a whole, and could not easily be put aside.

  ‘I’ll not pretend that this is to my liking, Mr Kydd,’ the captain continued, ‘but I’m sure you’ll do your duty as you see it to the best of your ability.’ He stared hard at Kydd. ‘You are the most junior officer aboard, and I need not remind you that if you fail me then, most assuredly, you will be landed at the first opportunity.’

  ‘I will not fail ye, sir.’

  ‘Umm. Quite so. Well, perhaps I’d better welcome you aboard as the fifth of Tenacious, Mr Kydd.’ He held out his hand, but his eyes remained bleak. ‘Show your commission and certificates to my clerk, and he will perform the needful. My first lieutenant has your watch details and you will oblige me by presenting yourself on deck tomorrow morning for duty.’

  Excitement stole back to seize Kydd as he stood in the wardroom supervising his gear being carried down. His cabin was the furthest forward of four on the larboard side, and he opened the door with trepidation: only a short time ago this had been officers’ private territory.

  It was small. He would be sharing his night-time thoughts with a gleaming black eighteen-pounder below, and his cot, triced up to the deckhead for now, ensured that he could never stand upright. He would have to find room for his chest, cocked-hat box, sword, personal oddments and books. A cunningly designed desk occupied the forward width, taking advantage of the outward curve of the ship’s side. He pulled at its little drawers and wondered which dead officer had unintentionally left it behind for others.

  The gunport was open. At sea it would be closed and then the cabin would be a diminutive place indeed, but he had been in smaller. He tried the chair at the desk. It was tiny, but well crafted to fit into such a space, tightly but comfortably enfolding his thighs. He eased into it and looked around. Spartan it might be, but it was the first true privacy he had ever experienced aboard ship. His eyes followed the line of intersection where the bulkhead met the overhead beams. The thin panels were slotted: at ‘beat to quarters’ this entire cabin would be dismantled and struck down in the hold below. Over the door he noticed a ragged line of colour, where a curtain had once been fastened to cover the door space; he could have the door open and still retain a modicum of privacy.

  It was adequate, it was darkly snug – and it was his. He went to his chest and rummaged around. Carefully stored at the bottom was his commission. Undoing the red silk ribbon he unfolded the crackling parchment and read it yet again.

  By the Commissioners for executing the Office of Lord High Admiral of Great Britain . . . Lieutenant Thomas Kydd . . . we do appoint you Lieutenant of His Majesty’s Ship the Tenacious . . . strictly charging the Officers and all the Ship’s Company . . . all due Respect and Obedience unto you their said Lieutenant . . .

  Kydd savoured the noble words.

  It concluded sombrely:

  Hereof nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer to the contrary at your peril. And for so doing this shall be your Warrant . . .

  It was signed Evan Nepean, secretary to the Admiralty, and the date of seniority, 20 January 1798, with the scarlet Admiralty seal embossed to the left. This single document would figure prominently for the rest of Kydd’s life, defining station and position, rank and pay, authority and rule. He creased it carefully and put it away. A deep breath turned into a sigh, which he held for a long time.

  He turned and found himself confronting a black man. ‘Tysoe, sir, James Tysoe, your servant,’ he said, in a well-spoken tone.

  Kydd was taken aback, not that Tysoe was black but at the realisation that here was proof positive of the status he had now achieved. ‘Ah, yes.’ He had had a servant in the gunroom before, but this was altogether different: then it had been a knowing old marine shared with all the others; here the man was his personal valet. ‘Do carry on, if y’ please,’ Kydd said carefully.

  Tysoe hesitated. ‘I think it were best, sir, should I stow your cabin.’

  ‘Thank ye, no, I’ll take care of it,’ Kydd said, with a smile. There was nothing too personal in his possessions, but the thought of a stranger invading his privacy was an alien notion.

  ‘Sir, I can do it,’ Tysoe said softly. Something in his voice told Kydd that he should let the man go about his business. Then he realised that, of course, Tysoe needed to know the location of everything if he was to keep his master well clothed and fettled.

  ‘Well, just be steady with the octant,’ Kydd admonished him.

  ‘Lieutenant Kydd, I believe!’ Renzi chuckled as he entered the wardroom.

  Kydd’s heart was full, but he was still unsettled by his unfortunate welcome to the ship and could only manage, ‘Aye, do I see Lieutenant Renzi before me?’

  Renzi dumped a number of well-used order books on the table. ‘Well, my friend, it does seem this is a task it would be prudent to begin immediately, if not earlier.’

  Regulations. Orders. Directions. Covering every possible situation. Each in careful phrasing ensuring that every subordinate in the chain of command would be in no doubt that if any disagreeable situation arose it would not be the fault of his superior.

  From the Admiralty:

  Article: The Captain is to demand from the Clerk of the
Survey a book, with the inventory of the stores committed to the charge of the Boatswain and Carpenter . . .

  Article: If any be heard to curse or blaspheme the name of God, the Captain is strictly required to punish them for every offence by causing them to wear a wooden collar . . .

  Article: The Lieutenant is expected that he do provide himself with the necessary instruments, maps and books of navigation, and he is to keep a journal according to the form set down and at the end of the voyage shall deliver copies thereof signed by himself into the Admiralty and Navy Offices . . .

  Article: No commander shall inflict any punishment upon a seaman beyond twelve lashes upon his bare back with a cat of nine tails, according to the ancient practice of the sea . . .

  The commander in chief of the North Sea Fleet had his own instructions – from the timing of the evening gun when at anchor, to conduct when in sight of the enemy – all in all a dizzying succession of domestic detail, mixed with grave admonitions to duty.

  Kydd sensed movement outside.

  ‘Well, now, if I’m not mistook, here’s our fourth and fifth lootenants!’ It was a pleasant-faced young officer, rubbing his hands with cold.

  ‘Ah, Thomas Kydd, sir, at your service.’

  ‘Well, then, my dear sir, I am your humble and obepdient Gervase Adams, third of this barky – was junior luff in Raven, sadly no more.’ Kydd shook hands, grateful for the friendliness.

  Adams turned to Renzi. ‘Give you joy of your step, Renzi,’ he said formally, holding out his hand. Renzi had served for a small time in Tenacious as master’s mate: he’d been part of the ship’s company at Camperdown. Kydd realised that they assumed his origins to be a senior midshipman promoted, not someone from forward, as he was.

  Adams looked over Kydd’s shoulder at the books. ‘This is what you should be boning up on, m’ boy.’ He tapped one marked ‘Captain’s Orders’. ‘This owner is new to me, but if he’s running to form he’ll expect you to have it by heart in a day – “This is the word of the Lord: hear ye and obey!”’