The Baltic Prize

Chapter 58

‘That’s all your people, Edmund,’ Kydd said weakly, seeing the last of the Fenellas off on the travelling block.

‘Aye,’ said Bazely, in an odd voice. ‘We’ve been together a mort o’ times, the old girl an’ I. Let me stay a space t’ say m’ goodbyes, there’s a good fellow.’

Kydd knew exactly what he was asking and, without another word, swung out on the line and was soon hauled shivering into the launch.

‘Commander Bazely will be with us presently,’ he said quietly.

Back aboard Tyger, Kydd took Bazely down to his cabin. ‘You shall be my guest, dear fellow. Doss down in here until we shall know what to do with you.’

‘If I can manage sleep in this palace,’ Bazely grumbled.

Kydd grinned. He knew how much more splendid his quarters in Tyger were compared to those in a little brig-sloop.

‘You will, old trout. But first we’ll-’

‘I needs to know my company are safe and well fettled in this heathen barky. Later.’

Kydd settled back in his comfortable armchair, a whisky magically appearing by his elbow, and closed his eyes.

Some time later he opened them again – he’d heard a garbled account of his third lieutenant being brained, now resting in the sick bay; the pinnace coming under enemy fire, with one casualty, left in the care of the flagship doctor; and a midshipman bracing the commander-in-chief.

He summoned Rowan. Was it his imagination or had the lad changed from a fresh-faced, wide-eyed youngster to a lean, confident youth, who was now telling him why he’d carried on after taking casualties, and in wry good humour describing his encounter with the commander-in-chief himself?

‘Mr Rowan, I confess I stand amazed. Do you remember reporting afore me in this cabin just small months ago?’ In a surge of feeling he recalled the shy, eager lad, whose countenance had quite unmanned him. And now all that he saw formed before him could only have been brought about by his service in Tyger, the ship of which he himself was captain. It was nothing less than a swelling wash of pride that came over him as he regarded the young man.

‘Aye, sir.’

‘And what did I say?’ Kydd said gruffly.

‘I shall be acting midshipman only, and if I didn’t earn your trust I’d be put out of the ship.’

‘Quite so. And this is to say, young fellow, you’ve well earned that trust and from this hour on you’re no longer an acting reefer, you’re confirmed in rank and are one with the ship’s company of HMS Tyger.’

‘Th-thank you, sir!’ The ardent youngster who lay not so far under the new-found manly confidence flashed through with shining eyes and a huge smile, and Kydd had to turn away for a moment.

‘You shall claim a bottle of best claret from my servant to take back to the midshipmen’s berth, there for all to drink to your elevation. Carry on, Mr Midshipman Rowan.’

When Bazely returned a little later, he subsided into the other chair and sat unblinking, gazing through the sweep of stern windows at the line of warships anchored in the glittering seas.

Kydd said nothing. He motioned quietly to Tysoe, who nodded and brought another whisky, a large one.

Bazely hesitated, then downed it in one, avoiding Kydd’s eye.

‘A right hard thing, to lose a ship,’ Kydd said softly. ‘After all those years and so many miles under your keel.’

There was no response, the bluff seaman he knew so unnaturally twisted by some inner grief.

The man held out his glass. ‘I’ll need another,’ he said hoarsely, ‘As I has something t’ say.’

‘Fill ’n’ stand on,’ Kydd said gently, invoking the sailor’s invitation to lay open a hard thing.

‘Aye. Well, it’s not Fenella – who I’ll never forget all m’ days.’

He finished the whisky quickly and at last turned to Kydd. ‘No, shipmate, it’s not – it’s you.’

‘Me?’

‘I’m here t’ admit I was adrift in m’ bearings when I said … the things I did.’ He paused, gathering his words. ‘If you was a flag-chaser, a glory-hunter, why, you’d never have done what you did today. Nothing in it as would be talked on in y’r clubs an’ salons, a fine triumph t’ make the ladies gawp. Only a damn fine piece o’ seamanship as saved a ship’s company from a sailor’s grave.’

‘Just a jackstay and-’

‘And a cove who has the salt t’ bring out the line at risk of his own skin,’ Bazely continued, in a charged voice. ‘Who did it only … f’r a friend.’

‘Well, and it’s all finished now, Edmund. We’ll-’

‘Not finished!’ Bazely said thickly. ‘I did ye wrong, cuffin, and for that I begs pardon. You’re no boot-licker o’ royalty, no politicking shabbaroon – ye’ve won all ye have by copper-bottomed seamanship an’ a rattling good headpiece. There’s not a man I know can stand alongside ye in the article o’ bein’ a hero and I must have ye know it.’

The hand came out hesitantly but Kydd gripped it hard. ‘From you, my friend, I do value it above all things.’

‘Then … then we’ll step ashore t’gether sometime, on the frolic, like – raise a wind as we did afore?’

‘Count on it, dear fellow,’ Kydd answered, with a deep sincerity. ‘I’d wish for nothing more gleesome. To tell it right, I’ve found this fame and the public eye is something of a poisoned chalice. The pettish misunderstandings, jealousy, the friends I’ve lost, it doesn’t bear the reckoning.’

‘Aye, this must be so. But there’s square sorts like Keats who’ll see you back on the briny where you belong an’ will come around to it in the end, while you’re always going to clew up with a flotilla o’ green-dyed shicers like Mason in the offing, an’ these you c’n leave t’ stew in their own envy.’

‘You’re in the right of it, Edmund. But for now what I’d reckon best is to pay my dues to a fine and true sailorman who showed a prime frigate the way in to an enemy anchorage and come out with the news.’

The two friends solemnly raised their glasses and drank – to each other.