Quarterdeck: A Kydd Sea Adventure

by Julian Stockwin

  ‘Isaac Hannaford, s’ please yer, sir.’

  ‘And?’

  The man’s eyes shifted uneasily. ‘Can’t rightly recolleck,’ he finally answered.

  ‘First o’ starb’d, sir, afterguard,’ Lawes said heavily.

  ‘Let’s see y’r clothing, then, Hannaford,’ Kydd said. The ditty bag was upended to reveal a forlorn, unclean assortment. ‘Mr Lawes, what’s in this man’s list?’

  ‘Sir, shirts, two, stockings, four.’ Hannaford was an old hand and knew the ropes – but he had sold his clothing for illicit grog.

  ‘Come, now, Hannaford, you’re an old haulbowlings. Can’t you see, without kit, you’re not going t’ be much use to the barky?’ There was no use waiting for an answer, and he rounded on Lawes. ‘To see th’ purser for slops, t’ make up his list.’ It would be stopped out of his pay; whether that would have any effect was doubtful. ‘And each Sunday t’ prove his kit to the petty officer of his watch.’

  As Lawes scrawled in his notebook Kydd passed to the next man. ‘Thorn, sir.’ Kydd nodded and moved on.

  He stopped at a fine-looking seaman, so tall that he stood stooped under the deckhead. ‘Haven’t I seen you afore now? Was it . . . Bacchante, the Med?’

  ‘’Twas, right enough, sir,’ the man said, with a surprised smile. ‘But you was master’s mate then – no, I tell a lie, quartermaster as was. Saw yez step ashore in Venice, I remembers.’ At Kydd’s expression he hurried to add, ‘An’ it’s William Poulden, waist, sir, second o’ larb’d.’

  Kydd decided he would see if he could get this good hand changed from the drudgery of being in the waist with the landmen to something more rewarding.

  He stopped at a shy-looking youngster with a stye on one eye. ‘What’s y’r station for reefing at th’ fore?’

  ‘Ah – fore t’ gallant sheets ’n’ clewlines, sir,’ the boy said, after some thinking.

  ‘Hmmm.’ This was a topman – he should have been quicker to respond. ‘And mooring ship?’

  ‘T’ attend buoy an’ fish tackle,’ he said instantly. Kydd knew that the quick reply was a guess. No topman would be left on the fo’c’sle while taking in sail. ‘Mr Lawes, this man c’n claim his tot only when he knows his stations. And he sees the doctor about his eye.’

  The rest of his division seemed capable. He noted the odd character eyeing him warily – but he would see their quality soon enough when he stood his first watch.

  A distant call sounded from forward, a single long note, the ‘still’. The captain was beginning his rounds.

  ‘Straighten up, then! Mr Lawes, see they toe the line properly, if you please.’ The rows shuffled into line, to Kydd’s eyes their alert and loose-limbed bearing infinitely preferable to the perfect rigidity of a line of soldiers.

  He saw the captain approach, accompanied by the first lieutenant, looking under pressure, with the captain’s clerk and Pringle. Kydd whipped off his hat and prepared for inspection, but the captain managed only a rapid glance, a nod at Kydd and a few words with Lawes before he passed to the gundeck below.

  The officers assembled for sail drill had no indication of the captain’s mind when he appeared from his cabin. His fixed expression could mean disappointment at the quality of the men he had seen earlier or satisfaction with the relative ease with which Tenacious had been manned.

  In any event, now would be the time that reputations were won or lost, weakness and strengths revealed, not least of which would be that of the captain himself, as he reacted to the success or otherwise of the morning’s evolutions.

  Kydd felt the tension. His eyes met Renzi’s and provoked a slow half-smile as both turned to face their captain.

  ‘Loose and furl by mast and watch. I shall not want to exercise further today – but if we are not striking topmasts within the space of three days . . .’

  Already at his station on the quarterdeck, Kydd watched the other officers move to the fo’c’sle, main deck and forward of the main mast.

  ‘Larb’d watch o’ the hands – haaaands to stations for making sail!’

  Two hundred seamen raced to their stations, the fore, main and mizzen shrouds black with men heading for the tops; others ran to the pin rails at the ship’s side and the massive square bitts at the base of each mast, around which hung a complex maze of ropes.

  Along the deck men hurried to the belaying points for important lines running aloft, braces, halliards, sheets. Petty officers pushed and bullied the hapless landmen into their places, showing no mercy to the slow-witted. It all seemed so straightforward now, but Kydd recalled his first daunting experiences at tailing on to a rope, in the old 98-gun Duke William in these very waters.

  When the muttering, cursing and murmuring had settled, the captain lifted his speaking trumpet. ‘Foremast, loose all sail to a bowline.’

  Adams, clearly tense and waiting for the start, instantly lifted his head and blared up, ‘Lay aloft, royal yardmen! Lay aloft . . .’

  ‘Belay that!’ Houghton’s face was red with anger, and the hard edge in his voice carried forward. ‘Brace around, damn it, lay the yard first, you fool!’

  Adams’s command had been a mistake. Firmly anchored, and with but one mast with sail abroad, there was no opportunity to use another mast, with sails backing, to balance the forces. His order would have seen the ship move ahead and strain at her moorings.

  Crimson-faced, Adams stood down his men at the halliards, shifting them to the forebraces, and brought the yards round, as he should have done before sending the men aloft to set the sail.

  Kydd knew his turn would come.

  The exercise went on. At the foremast, sail cascaded down at the volley of commands, to hang limply forward. Minutes later, men returned to the yards, this time to furl the sail to a seamanlike stow. Houghton said nothing, his furrowed brow evidence of the direction of his thoughts.

  ‘Mainmast, loose all sail to a bowline,’ Houghton ordered. He was staying with the larboard watch and moving along the masts: Kydd, at the mizzen, would be facing his test so much the earlier. Would his petty officers be reliable enough on the job, up there on the mizzen top? There was no chance that he himself would ever again be up there with them, to see their work, intervene if needed, chase down laggards . . . It took an effort of will to remain aloof and outside the real action, merely to direct in general – but at the same time the responsibility was his alone.

  ‘Mizzen, loose all sail to a bowline!’

  Kydd turned instantly.

  ‘Lay aloft an’ loose mizzen tops’l!’

  No point in going through the orders in detail from the deck, when the captain of the mizzen top was perfectly capable of taking charge on the spot. Kydd wheeled around and snapped, ‘Let go brails and vangs – man the clew outhaul and out spanker!’ The mizzen did not have a course spread on the cro’jack to worry about, but it did have a mighty fore and aft sail, the spanker, and this with not only a lower boom but a substantial gaff that had to be bodily raised apeak.

  ‘Get those men movin’, the maudling old women!’ he threw irritably at the petty officer of the afterguard in charge of the halliard crew on deck. This was no time to be cautious, here directly under the captain’s eye.

  The mizzen topsail yard was nearly hoisted. Kydd bit his lip, but the sail came tumbling down at just the right time. He had been right to trust the men in the top.

  ‘Lay aloft – loose t’ garns’l!’ Men swarmed up the higher shrouds, while below the topsail was settled. With the sail hanging down limply as it was, Kydd had foreseen the need to haul out the foot forward, and used the old trick of untoggling the top bowlines from their bridles and shifting them to a buntline cringle.

  He stole a quick glance at Houghton. The captain stood impassive, waiting.

  The topgallant set, it was then just the mizzen royal – and the gaskets came off smartly at just the time the spanker gaff reached its final position. Kydd judged that there would be no need on this occasion for play with a jigger at t
he spanker outhaul, and simply waited for the motion to cease.

  ‘Start the halliards b’ a foot or two,’ he warned the afterguard – they had unwisely belayed fully before the order.

  Sheepishly they threw off the turns, but Kydd was startled by a blast of annoyance from the captain. ‘What the devil are you about, Mr Kydd? Not yet finished?’

  The sprightly sound of ‘Roast Beef of Old England’ on fife and drum echoed up from the main deck. The men had already taken their issue of grog and gone below for the high point of their noonday meal, leaving the deck to the officers and indispensables of the watch. As they returned to work, to part-of-ship for cleaning, Kydd thankfully answered the call and made his way to the wardroom.

  The table was spread, wine was uncorked and splashing into glasses; expressions were easing after the morning’s tensions. Laughter erupted at one end of the table and the fragrance of roast pork agreeably filled the air.

  ‘Your good health, brother!’ Renzi grinned at Kydd over his glass: he had done tolerably well at the main mast that morning, avoiding the captain’s wrath at the last moment by quick-thinking at the braces.

  ‘Thank ye – and yours, old friend,’ Kydd replied. There was a lot to think about, not the least of which was his standing in this world, so utterly different from that of the seaman.

  An insistent tinkling intruded into his thoughts. It was the second lieutenant, tapping his glass with a spoon. ‘Gentlemen, may I have your attention?’ He waited until the talk died. ‘I don’t have to tell you that we shall soon be rejoining the fleet, which means, of course, that we shall need to provision against some months at sea.’

  He looked pointedly at Kydd. ‘There are some who are victualled “bare Navy” but have nevertheless seen fit to accept the hospitality of this mess.’ Mystified, Kydd turned to Adams, who merely raised his eyebrows. ‘This is neither fair nor honourable. But be that as it may, in my humble post as mess caterer, I have calculated that we shall need to consider the sum of fifty pounds per annum as a minimum subscription.’

  ‘Preposterous! That’s more’n five poun’ a head!’ Bryant’s glass trembled in mid-air. ‘What do we get for that?’

  Bampton heaved a theatrical sigh. ‘The mess commensal wine by quarter cask is half a pint a day, captain to dinner once a month. We lay in the usual cheeses, barrel oysters, tea and raisins, other conveniences for the pantry, such as cloves, pickles, ginger and the like, and when we consider breakages in glasses and dishes . . .’

  Kydd thought of the seaman’s broadside mess, with its square wooden plates and pewter tankards, the men using their own knives. There was little that could be considered breakable, and even the petty officers carried few crockery items in their mess racks. He decided to lie low while discussions raged about the mess subscription. He himself was not pressed for money and he had taken the precaution of appointing an agent. The Caribbean prizes had long yielded their bounty, but Camperdown was promising not only a medal but gun money in surprising degree.

  ‘That’s settled, then.’ Bampton made a pencil note and sat back. ‘We agree to subscribe the sum of five guineas per head. The officers’ wine store is near empty, and with the usual allowance I believe you shall find room for four dozen apiece – you will be laying in your own cabin stores, of course.

  ‘Now, it is usual to empower the mess caterer to go ashore on the wardroom’s behalf. I shall do so in Yarmouth, and will expect one guinea in advance from each officer.’

  Chapter 3

  Over the next few days the rumble and squeak of gun trucks was a never-ending background to shipboard life. Not content with exercising the company of Tenacious at ship drill, their captain had a quarter gunner and his four gun-crews in turn hard at work from dawn to dusk.

  Houghton had been on a gun-deck in the long-drawn-out battle of the Glorious First of June. ‘Different ships, different long-splices,’ was the saying before the mast: some captains were particularly keen on appearances, others favoured the niceties of seamanship. With this one it was gunnery, Kydd had realised quickly.

  Then the awaited sailing orders came. Within minutes Houghton had summoned his officers to his cabin. ‘I have here the Admiralty’s instructions – and I have to say, they are not what I was expecting.’ Houghton lifted his eyes from the paper, enjoying the suspense. ‘Indeed not. It would seem that their lordships believe that after Camperdown the North Sea Fleet may be safely reduced, and therefore we are to be sent to join the North American station.’

  Excited talk broke out. ‘Sir, if we should fit foreign, then . . .’ The first lieutenant needed details. Not only did there have to be a wholesale hold-restowing but there would, no doubt, be official impositions, from carrying mails to chests of specie for a garrison, to prickly passengers and returning prisoners.

  ‘Now where in Hades do we find real foul-weather gear in Sheerness?’ Pringle muttered. ‘Gets cold as charity in Halifax.’

  ‘Quite,’ agreed Houghton, ‘but we shall touch at Falmouth for a convoy. If my memory serves, there is adequate chandlery servicing the Atlantic packets. I’d advise you all to wait and procure your cabin stores there.’

  ‘You’ve been to Halifax, sir?’

  ‘I have. But not since His Highness took up his post.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘His Royal Highness Prince Edward. Our only overseas possession to boast a prince of the blood. Quite turned society on its head, I’ve heard.’ Houghton stood up. ‘Gentlemen, may I remind you there is not a moment to be lost? The first lieutenant will provide a list of actions that will result, I trust, in our being under way for the Downs in two days.’

  ‘Haaaands to unmoor ship! Aaaall the hands! All hands on deck!’ Although expected, the order brought a rush of excitement at the first move in putting to sea for a voyage of who knew how long.

  A smack poled away from the sides of the ship, the tender now released from its workaday fetching and carrying. Her crew waved up at the big two-decker flying the Blue Peter at the fore masthead. She was outward bound to foreign parts, to mysterious worlds across the oceans, while they remained at home.

  Kydd stood easy on the fo’c’sle, waiting with his party to bring the anchors to final sea stowage. Decks below, in the fetid gloom, the capstans would be manned and the fearsome job of winning her anchors would be acted out. Thankfully, this was not his concern.

  The soft green of the land held a tinge of melancholy: how long before he would see these shores again? What adventures lay waiting? Just a brief stop in Falmouth to pick up the convoy, then he might be looking on his native England for the last time – deaths by disease and accident far exceeded those from enemy action.

  Kydd’s thoughts were interrupted by a swirl of muttering from his men as they watched a fishing-boat putting out from the shore. Under every stitch of sail, and heeled to her gunwales, it was making directly for Tenacious. Kydd went to the deck-edge and saw it come to clumsily at the side-steps. A redcoat stood up, swaying, and started waving and shouting.

  The man obviously wished to board, but the side-ropes were no longer rigged. Kydd could hear shouting as a number of sailors gathered at the ship’s side. A rope was flung down, knocking the man to his knees. The fishermen fashioned a bowline on a bight and passed it under the man’s arms and, to barely muffled laughter, he was hoisted spinning and kicking aboard Tenacious. His baggage followed quickly. This would be the long-expected junior marine officer, Kydd guessed, but when he looked next, both marine and baggage had disappeared.

  He glanced up. The men aloft were at their place – the cast would be to larboard, and his men deployed accordingly. Bampton waited at the gangway, watching Kydd with disdain. But with a clear hawse and the tide not yet on the make, Kydd was confident he knew what to do.

  Over the bow, the starboard cable curved down into the grey-brown sea, the anchor buoy bobbing jauntily seventy feet ahead. From the low hawse hole the twenty-two-inch cable gradually tautened, a heavy shuddering settling to a ste
ady passing inboard.

  Checking yet again that the cat and fish falls were led properly along the deck, Kydd watched the anchor buoy inching towards the ship until the buoy boat grappled it. The process grew slower the steeper the angle of cable, until at last it was up and down.

  ‘Short stay,’ he growled at a seaman, who whipped up a white flag. The quarterdeck at the other end of the ship now knew that the anchor was ready to be tripped from the sea-bed. It would be essential to loose sail the instant this happened, the ship under way and therefore under control immediately; otherwise she would simply drift with the wind.

  All waited in a tense silence. Kydd looked over the fat beakhead. The cable had stopped passing in, and he could imagine the savage struggle taking place at the capstan.

  Suddenly the cable resumed its movement and Kydd sensed the ship feel her freedom. ‘She’s a-trip,’ he snapped. The man’s arm came down. With anchor aweigh Tenacious was now no longer tethered to the land. She was at sea.

  Houghton’s voice sounded through the speaking trumpet. Sail dropped from yards and staysails jerked aloft. He was taking a chance that the remainder of the cable would be heaved in and the anchor duly catted by the powerful tackle before the ship got too much way on. Kydd looked over his shoulder down the deck; when he saw Houghton’s challenging figure, he knew he must not fail.

  The first ripple of water appeared about the stem at the same time as the inches-thick anchor ring broke surface. ‘Stoppers!’ roared Kydd. It was now a race to uncouple the anchor from the cable and heave it clear of the water before the wake of the ship established itself. ‘Hook on!’ He leaned over the side to see. Men were furiously passing the stoppers on the cable, which would then be ready for hauling in at the hawse. He wheeled round, and cannoned into the second lieutenant, winding him.

  ‘Have a care, damn you, sir!’ Bampton said venomously.

  ‘Aye, sir.’ Kydd burned; the officer had no right to be there in a difficult operation for which he had no responsibility. The situation was well in hand: on hearing the ‘hook on’ the quick-witted fo’c’sle party had, without orders, taken the strain and begun hauling vigorously on the big cat-fall. Kydd had seen Poulden’s leadership in this and blessed his recommendation to have the seaman transferred from the waist.