Victory

Chapter 5

Renzi put down his book and got to his feet as Tysoe ushered Cecilia in. ‘Why, sister – you’ve come to hear the news?’

Her face lit up. ‘Yes! Do tell, Nicholas,’ she said impulsively. ‘Was it a grand office at all? Did you—’

‘Office?’

‘The publisher, you ninny!’

‘Oh. Um . . . I was in fact to tell you that your brother has offered me the post of captain’s confidential secretary in his frigate, a handsome gesture you’ll agree.’

Cecilia sat slowly. ‘Then you haven’t been to a publisher?’

Renzi flushed. ‘Er, I’ve been rather busy, you’ll understand.’

She bit her lip. ‘I shall ask the marquess for a letter of introduction to any publishing house you choose. He is not to be ignored you may believe, Nicholas.’

‘Thank you, dear sister, but I can manage the affair myself,’ Renzi replied quickly. ‘A dish of tea with me? There’s some superior China black we’ve been saving for—’

‘Thank you, no,’ Cecilia said coolly, standing and smoothing her dress. ‘I find that I’m overborne with business. Good day, sir.’

Renzi glowered at the wall. She was right, of course. Sooner or later he must approach a publisher. The act of writing was the most gratifying and intellectually rewarding thing he had done in his life. The single-minded pursuit of meaning, its expression and, in fact, the entire act of creation placed his mind on a plane that lifted him above his mortal existence.

But what if he went to a publisher and was told that his first-born was not fit to see the light of day, that it was the mere vaporising of a dilettante amateur? His excuse for taking wings into the empyrean would be snatched from him and then he would be forced to return and . . . It couldn’t be faced.

Therefore it could not be risked: he wouldn’t go. The logic was simple.

Or was it? If he did not go he would never know if the work he had shaped so lovingly with his own hands might be valued by others – he would never see his scratchings on sheaves of paper transformed into a handsome leather-bound volume that would be launched into the far reaches of the world, or have gracious correspondence with enraptured readers, knowing his work delighted so many others.

And at last he would be able to lay before Cecilia his magnum opus to her wide-eyed delight, before falling to his knees and begging her hand in marriage. Dammit – it had to be done.

But how was he to approach a publisher and persuade them that his work was worthy enough to print? And, more to the point, was it that one put forward a sum in consideration to set them in motion or, much more improbably, was Cecilia right that they could be open to suggestions of some sort of body-and-soul advance against future sales?

Renzi was by no means a stranger to the warren of booksellers in both Piccadilly and Paternoster Row as a book buyer, but for a would-be author it was a different matter. The latter was the haunt of the lower sort of hackery – as well as impoverished aspirants to letters eking out a living. The former, with St James’s Street and Pall Mall, was where the better sort was to be found, where Samuel Johnson, Goldsmith, even Wilkes and Franklin had begun their ventures into print.

He dressed carefully, unsure of just what authors wore about town. He settled on his sober deep-brown but added a rather more flamboyant lace cravat and romantically raked hat to set the tone.

In his library there were works from all the publishers of note but he did not know enough about them to impel him from one to another. Then he recalled that John Murray, the ‘doyen of belles-lettres’, had himself seen service as an officer in the Navy during the Seven Years’ War and presumably would be the more sympathetic.

The fly-leaf of a book, however, revealed that the publisher was in Fleet Street, rather nearer to Paternoster Row than he would have liked, but at least the right side of Blackfriars Bridge. Soon he was standing outside an undistinguished four-storey red-brick house with a well-polished brass plaque on the door simply proclaiming, ‘Mr Murray’.

Through that door there might be a new future – or the ruin of a dream. The literary lions of society did not know he existed and he had no recognition from academia: by what right did he claim the attention of probably the most successful publisher in London?

In an agony of indecision he paced up and down until he’d summoned up courage to knock. He met with a quick impression of dark opulence, a discreet staircase and a kindly-looking gentleman in half-spectacles who stopped in surprise. ‘May I help you, sir?’

‘Is Mr Murray at liberty to see me, do you think? A – a private matter concerning any advice he might be able to provide.’

‘Then it’s an author you are, sir? If you’ll kindly wait I’ll see if I can secure an appointment for you.’

He was back promptly. ‘Mr Murray would be pleased to receive you now. I do hope we shall be seeing more of you, sir.’

Ushered into a spacious and undeniably literary study, Renzi was taken aback by the youth of the individual who rose to meet him. ‘Er, Nicholas Renzi. Do I address Mr John Murray?’

‘You do, sir,’ he answered, then smiled. ‘I am the child of the father, so to speak.’

‘Then you have no service in the Navy?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘No, Mr Renzi, my father did. I have not, thank God. Might I enquire what it is you want of me?’

The gaze was confident and intelligent, and more than a little disconcerting, but Renzi pressed on: ‘Mr Murray, you are a publisher of note and I would value your counsel exceedingly.’

‘Yes?’

‘Over these past few years I have laboured on a work that I flatter myself has its merit. It’s close to completion and I’m now at a stand with regard to how I might proceed, er, to be published.’

‘I would be honoured to advise, Mr Renzi. First, do tell me something of your origins.’

‘My origins? If by that you are alluding to any academic or literary qualifications I might possess then I must—’

‘No, sir. Your background of a personal nature – your upbringing, experiences of life, tragic circumstances, perhaps . . .’

‘Sir, the book must speak for itself, surely.’

‘Nonetheless, we publishers like to know something of our authors, sir.’

‘Then I have to tell you that I come from a good family and was privately educated.’

‘Go on.’

It would probably not be of advantage to bring up naval service again, Renzi decided. ‘I’ve had the good fortune to travel a great deal, and to curious and remote lands upon which I gathered much first-hand data.’

‘Ah. A travel piece! I can assure you, sir, that since the late Captain Cook’s voyages to the South Seas the public are insatiable in their curiosity concerning outlandish and romantic parts.’

‘Not, as you might say, a travel piece, Mr Murray.’ He leaned forward. ‘No, sir. Rather, from this data I have converged upon postulates of a causative nature that conjoins ethnical imperatives with those of strictly economic concern.’ Renzi drew a deep breath and confided, ‘This work, sir, is in fact an exhaustive discourse in which I am in pursuit of an hypothesis of consequential response as mediated by culture.’

Murray sat back, blinking.

‘Oh, I can assure you, sir,’ Renzi went on hastily, ‘that in my many appendices there will be sufficient evidence to persuade even the most doubting.’

‘Not a travel book.’

‘No, sir – yet of some interest to those who hold Rousseau to be—’

‘Let me be frank, Mr Renzi.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘I do believe you are more than you seem, sir. I’m a judge of character and in you I perceive one who has seen more of this world than most. Sir, in fine, you have a story to tell. Which is why I do not dismiss you summarily and am prepared to spend time on you.’

‘Why, sir, I—’

‘Consider. Our readership today values the novel before all else – in the Gothic fancy and tremulous with romance. These do sell in their thousands, and even with the barbarous margins booksellers demand, it affords us a flow of revenue sufficient to fund other authors.

‘Your work, however, is of more interest to the scientificals and they will never pay more than a few shillings. Where, then, is the profit to be obtained from a run of just a hundred copies that will cover the printing outgoings?’

Murray leaned back and fiddled with a quill. ‘There are those who will be published on a subscription basis but this I cannot advise unless your acquaintance with the literati is wider than I suspect it is. Others see salvation in a part-book treatment but this, I fear, is not to be contemplated in your case.’

He straightened in his chair. ‘Could you conceive perhaps of a reworking, a different standpoint – say, to appeal more to the worthies of self-help and improvement? Or, better yet, a moral tome for children? Or, best of all, a tale of exotics and adventure such that—’

‘I really cannot see that this will be possible, sir,’ Renzi said, with a pained expression.

‘Then it will be hard to see how you will succeed, Mr Renzi.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Of course, your chief difficulty is that you are as yet unknown to the world. Should your name be more before the public then it would be a different matter. Those in possession of a name may write whatever they will and be assured of an audience.

‘I should start by placing one or two modest articles on your interest in the popular magazines – the Agreeable and Instructive Repository comes to mind.’

Renzi gave a half-smile and stood up. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Murray, and you have made your position abundantly clear. I shall not trouble you further.’

Murray offered his hand. ‘I’m desolated to find that I’m unable to offer you any pecuniary encouragement, sir, but urge you not to abandon your endeavours on my account.’

‘When the manuscript is finished—’

‘Then perhaps we will look at it together. Good day to you, Mr Renzi.’

Cecilia stopped in the street and turned to Jane Mullins. ‘My dear, as we’re passing by, I think I’ll pop in and see how my brother does. Do run along and take another look at that blue bonnet – I shall join you presently.’

It had been five days since last she had spoken to Nicholas. Had he news for her? Her heart beat faster as she tapped the door-knocker and waited for Tysoe to answer.

‘Good morning, Miss Cecilia. I’m afraid Mr Kydd is not here.’

‘Oh – then is Mr Renzi at home, perhaps?’

‘Yes, miss. ’

Renzi was stretched out in an armchair in the drawing room, moodily staring at the fire. He rose guiltily. ‘Why, my dear . . .’

‘Jane and I were passing and I just thought that I’d visit to see how Thomas is with his new ship. Have you heard from him at all, Nicholas?’

‘Not – not recently.’

‘No matter, he’s probably very busy learning all about her. The frigate, that is.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

She sat demurely. ‘By the way, Nicholas, have you consulted your publisher yet?’

‘I – er, no, not yet.’

Cecilia held back a wave of frustration. ‘You mean to say you haven’t been able to find an hour or two in all this time to see to your future as a writer? I really find this hard to credit in you, Nicholas.’

‘I’ve been, um, busy.’

‘This is not the way to see your book finally printed. You must make the effort and see an editor or somebody in charge and find out what has to be done. You promised me!’

‘It’s, er . . . I don’t believe I’m quite ready to – to hand over my manuscript as yet.’

She caught her breath. ‘Mr Renzi, if you find it so very difficult to accept the advice of your friends then there’s nothing more to be said – is there?’ Without waiting for a reply she stood and left the room.

Out on the street anger took hold. That he had the gall to refuse her perfectly reasonable request – her brother had told her in the strictest secrecy that Renzi had confessed to him an undying love for her, a confidence that she had since kept sacred. Was this, then, the man’s conception of the word?

She knew, too, from Kydd that it was Renzi’s plan to offer her marriage just as soon as he had in his hands the volumes that would provide him with the income to support a wife. Why then was he hesitating to conclude arrangements? A tear pricked as she hurried along to her rendezvous with Jane.

Her own feelings for Renzi were unchanged: no more upright and honourable man ever trod the earth and she felt that deep within him passions were held in check only by his formidable logic and moral strength. If they were to be married it would be . . . But he was doing everything to avoid the commitment. What did it mean?

She blinked furiously. Before too many more years she would cross that awful Rubicon – she would be thirty. How long should she be expected to wait?

A lump in her throat made her gulp. If she had been honest with herself she should have seen it long ago: Renzi was a born scholar, a gifted savant whose work the world would value. But it was transforming him. Into a hermit, a recluse. He didn’t want to see a publisher because it was part of a world he despised. And history was full of those, like Isaac Newton and others, who had retired into their private world, had never married, never cared for a woman – who were lost to love.

She had to confront it. He was slipping away from her. No amount of patient waiting would bring him back. These last years had been wasted and if she didn’t do something about it she would end up a sad and lonely figure on the fringe of someone else’s happiness.

That stark prospect was now no longer a possibility – it was certain. The truth brought tears that could not be held back. She was still a handsome and desirable woman and had every right to look forward to marriage and a settled life, children. And – and with Renzi, this was no longer in prospect.

She crushed her anguish and dried her eyes. She had to look to the future. Why, there was Captain Pakenham of the 95th – with only a very little encouragement, by this time next year she could be married into one of the foremost families in the north, chatelaine of her own estate and with a husband on an income of fifteen thousands.

He was twenty years her senior but there were others, too, younger, gayer – she would not lack for laughter and high living and would never have to open her purse with unease again. She must think long and hard about it.

She stopped. In her distraction she had gone right past the shop. Composing herself, she went back. ‘Jane, my dear. The new bonnet, which then is it to be?’

The Board of Ordnance official leaned back with a tired expression while Kydd strove to make the master shipwright understand. ‘It won’t fadge, sir! In this age, a twelve-pounder frigate? Why, it’s not to be borne! If there’s an Admiralty order as will make us an eighteen-pounder, you must comply, sir.’

Hocking sat immovable. ‘The Admiralty may order all it likes, Mr Kydd, an’ it won’t do a ha’porth o’ good. This ship can’t take ’em. I’m telling you an’ I’ll tell their lordships th’ same. I’ve done m’ tests – and there’s two good reasons why, and these I’ll tell ye.’

Kydd had seen him and his party with plumb-bobs and cryptic chalk marks deep in the hold while a single eighteen-pounder carriage gun was moved by degrees out from the centreline on the main-deck.

It seemed that with increased weight high on her decks an entity called the metacentre was being threatened by the upward advance of the centre of gravity, thereby reducing the righting arm available to L’Aurore. In graphic terms Hocking spelled it out: in anything of a blow, as the ship lay over under assault by gale or wave, she would be reluctant to return to the vertical to the extent that her stability would vanish and she could then conceivably capsize.

When the man quoted the tons-per-inch immersion figure to show that, fully loaded with thirty-two eighteens, her gun-port sill would be barely four feet above the sea it became very clear that L’Aurore would remain a twelve-pounder.

After they left Kydd was in a foul mood. The loss of the guns was bad enough but when the surgeon, Peyton, reported, he was unprepared to put up with the supercilious young man and his airs. Readily admitting he was only filling in time before a Harley Street practice, the man had the hide to loudly protest the quality of his cabin. Kydd caustically reminded him that virtually all his patients were in somewhat harder living conditions.

His signature was being constantly required now; the sniffy ship’s clerk, Erasmus Goffin, apparently saw it as his right to interrupt him at will, bearing the duly scratched-at paper back to the purser as though it were a holy relic.

It was a ray of sunshine when Calloway reported shyly. Kydd gratefully appointed him his keeper, and when two volunteers of the first class appeared he placed them in his charge – one eleven years old, the other twelve. Rated as captain’s servants, they were in effect apprentice midshipmen, gaining sea-time and instruction in the best way possible. The ruddy older one was Potts; the more pale and serious lad was Searle. Kydd reflected that the wide-eyed youngsters were now about to start on a life that, for extremes of squalor and glory, could not be equalled. They would survive or not on their own, with little but their character and courage to help them.

At last the first batch of seamen arrived. Howlett set up court with a table at the main-mast, dispassionately disposing of their fates in accordance with their declared skills, Goffin duly inscribing beside him.

Kydd watched from the half-deck. As far as he could see, his first lieutenant was swift, efficient and sound in his judgements, and progress was made. He waited until the process was complete, then walked across.

‘How goes it, Mr Howlett?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘A bare score or two of volunteers only, sir. The rest mainly the damned quod.’

The ‘quod’ was those men supplied by law from all the counties of England under the quota system. At best, they were guaranteed to be useless rural labourers and at worst, felons released to make up numbers.

‘Any of value, do you think?’ Kydd asked.

‘Precious few. We’ve less’n fifty so far and no petty officers as I could see.’ Kydd frowned – quite apart from being under a quarter manned, without a strong backbone of sea-experienced senior hands to train the others, how could they set sail, let alone fight?

He glanced up. The masts and rigging were full of men working and the shouts and cries of orders and curses sounded along the deck, as ignorant men were driven to menial tasking around the shipwrights, caulkers and artisans of all stripes hastening to finish their last jobs.

The noise was worse below-decks, the thuds and scrapes magnified and the empty spaces echoing with discordant noises. Kydd needed to think; he told Howlett he would be back and paced off through the dockyard, deep in thought.

He was being pushed to hurry completion for sea and the ultimate responsibility for manning L’Aurore was his. There were authorities like the Impress Service but they were there only to assist. Attracting more volunteers was down to him. It wouldn’t be difficult to get a press warrant and mount a raid, but in a notoriously man-hungry port like this their haul would be pathetic, of men with a grudge.

There had been stories told of ships swinging about a buoy for months waiting for men – the thought was too terrible to contemplate. What if—

Something cut through his dark musings. He had left the dockyard, yearning for the solitude of the open spaces of Southsea Common, but as he went through the gates he heard a man’s voice, a pure, light tenor lifted in song:

‘Life is chequer’d – toil and pleasure

Fill up all the various measure;

Hark! The crew with sunburnt faces

Chanting Black-eyed Susan’s graces . . .’

It was issuing from within the old Admiral Benbow, hard by the dockyard gate. He stopped: he knew the voice and the air. The years fell away in an instant: his time of terror when first climbing aloft, that desperate open-boat voyage in the Caribbean – it had to be . . .

Without stopping to consider he hurried over and threw open the doors – and saw it was Ned Doud, songster and shipmate from the old ninety-eight-gun Duke William, somewhat aged but still with the same open, laughing face and with his pot of ale as he sang.

The tavern fell still. Doud tailed off and the resentful eyes of seamen and their women turned Kydd’s way. A full post-captain bursting in on a sailors’ taphouse – what did it mean?

Kydd hesitated, then took off his gold-laced hat, clapped it under his arm and slowly went over to Doud, who put down his ale warily.

Conscious of the incomprehension and hostility about him, Kydd allowed a smile to surface. ‘And I see you’re still topping it the songbird, Ned.’

The man squinted, then started with sudden recognition. ‘Be buggered, an’ it’s our Tom Kydd!’ he blurted, then fell silent, unsure and defensive.

Kydd grinned and said heartily, ‘Should you want it, there’s a berth in m’ frigate.’

Confronted with the young seaman of the past now unaccountably garbed in the awful majesty of a senior captain, Doud was speechless.

‘Are you free t’ volunteer?’ Kydd asked neutrally.

‘I’m quartermaster o’ Naiad,’ Doud answered carefully.

Kydd felt a pang for the long-ago days in the Caribbean when things had been so carefree and . . . different. ‘We have young Luke Calloway aboard,’ he said.

‘Leave ’im be, Cap’n!’ said one of the females, sharply. A hostile murmuring began behind him.

Kydd decided it was time to go. ‘Then – then I’ll bid you goodbye, and wish you every fair wind.’

‘Aye, thank ’ee,’ Doud muttered.

Kydd got as far as the door before he heard Doud call after him, ‘I’ll come if’n ye can square it wi’ Cap’n Dundas – exchange, or somethin’.’

Kydd paused. ‘I think it possible.’

‘An’ only if I gets to bring off m’ particular friend.’

More memories.

‘Pinto?’ Kydd brought to mind the quick, fiery-eyed Portuguese, deadly with a knife.

‘Aye. Quarter gunner.’

‘It’ll be done. We’re fitting out. You’re needed aboard just as soon—’

‘Aye. We’ll be there – Mr Kydd.’

It cost him not one but three prime hands to achieve the exchange, and when L’Aurore’s marines reported, there was still only a pitiful number of proper seamen on the books. They had a seasoned sergeant, Dodd, but only a green subaltern as officer, Clinton – no captain of marines over just twenty-eight privates. ‘Is this all?’ Kydd snapped.

‘Oh, I rather think it is, Captain,’ Clinton replied uneasily, looking to Dodd for support.

‘None more left in barracks f’r sea service, sir,’ the sergeant confirmed.

‘Very well. Get ’em kitted and ready for posting immediately.’

‘Sah!’

Ruing that they were sadly under strength as well with the Royals, Kydd turned to go below and saw Renzi standing on the quay, looking up in wonder. ‘Nicholas, ahoy there! Come aboard!’

Renzi mounted the brow slowly, taking in the sweep of the frigate, her teeming decks and bewildered new hands.

Kydd pumped his hand. ‘Welcome – welcome, m’ dear friend! Let’s below and I’ll tell you how she fares.’

After Renzi’s warm approbation of Kydd’s apartments, Kydd unburdened himself of his worries. ‘But she’s a prime frigate, Nicholas. We should have no trouble manning her, they hear we’re shortly outward bound.’

‘It would seem so, but I would think Portsmouth not your most favoured place. Have you considered the outports – Lymington, for instance?’

‘Set up a rondy there?’ A recruiting rendezvous was more usually to be found in the big merchant-shipping ports.

‘Why not? Some rousing posters promising adventure and glory pasted up where young lads can see them on the way to their work in the morning . . .’

‘Yes! Well said, Nicholas. And, o’ course, you’ll bear a fist in the writing, you being the prime article.’

A strange look passed over Renzi’s face before he hurriedly went on, ‘Be that as it may, brother. I rather think something like:

‘“All true British heart of oak who are able and willing to serve their King and Country, and um –”’

‘“– can carry a purse o’ Spanish cobbs a mile,”’ Kydd interjected.

‘“Be it known there are only a few berths left aboard the saucy L’Aurore now lying in, er –”’

‘“Lying at Spithead under orders from the King,”’ Kydd added stoutly, then muttered, ‘And that a lie – we’ve none yet.’

‘“Under the command of the famed Captain Kydd whose prize money from his last voyage –”’

‘Belay that, Nicholas, I won’t have it this is a voyage o’ plunder. It’s Boney we’re after.’

‘“– whose valour against the foe any stout heart may read for himself in the London Gazette, etc. Do repair to the right Royal Portsmouth rendezvous at the, er, some notorious tavern wherever—”’

‘That’ll do. Make it up fair and find a jobbing printer and we’ll have ’em up all over town – and Lymington too. I’ll have Gilbey man the rondy. That’s our second luff – you’ll meet him tonight with the others. Tomorrow we shift berth to the gun-wharf and ship our twelve-pounders so I’m having a dinner at the George while we can.’

The meal passed off heavily: L’Aurore’s officers were little more than strangers at this point but the gesture had to be made.

Howlett was polite but thin-lipped. As administrative head of the ship, he had to make some sense of the few hands they possessed in terms of duties and it was an impossible job. Gilbey and Curzon had little to do until they had a full watch of the hands and were at sea, but their present idleness had its own tedium in a ship only half alive.

Renzi was taken warily after Kydd introduced him as his confidential secretary, but then accorded a civil respect when it was learned that he was a past naval officer in his own right before a near mortal fever. Clinton sat wide-eyed and silent before his superiors while Surgeon Peyton looked patently bored.

Kydd longed with all his heart to get to sea. It would throw them together in the age-old interdependence and brotherhood of the wardroom and their true character would then emerge. As it was, there was not much more he could do to bring the L’Aurores together.

In the morning a passage crew from the dockyard came aboard for the short tow to the gun-wharf close to the harbour entrance and, with sulphurous and imaginative cursing from Oakley, L’Aurore was brought alongside. Kydd left him and the gunner to sway aboard the twelve-pounders one by one, each with its matched carriage that would stay with it through all its service life.

Watching the main-deck being populated with L’Aurore’s teeth of war, Kydd tried to console himself with the thought that, lesser in calibre though they were, these were one and the same as were carried by the mightiest first-rates – along their upper of three gun-decks.

Gunner’s stores, pyramids of shot – but not yet powder, which would be last aboard – arrived and the remaining vestiges of dockyard occupation fell away as the artisans and riggers concluded their last labours and left.

Then it was the final move in the fitting out: L’Aurore was brought out into the broad naval anchorage of Spithead and moored in lonely splendour, the fleet away in close blockade and other strategic deployments.

Kydd sent for the rest of his hands, the pressed men. Tenders brought them from the receiving ships and holding cells ashore: a straggling, resentful and dispirited rabble looking to desert at the first opportunity. And so few!

‘Sir, in all we’ve hardly half a watch aboard, counting the marines. Unless we—’

‘There’s some error, Mr Howlett. We’ll never sail with this complement. Get ’em on the books and I’ll step off and sort it out.’

The port-admiral listened courteously, but made it quite clear that the battleships of Britain’s strategic defences took priority and if Kydd was facing difficulties in manning, well, he was never the first, and enterprising captains would always find tricks to complete a crew.

As he made to leave, the admiral smiled thinly and produced a pack of orders. ‘As you’ve indicated to me that you’re in all respects ready for sea, Mr Kydd, here are your orders, which you’ll sign for in the usual way. Good luck in your commission, and if there’s anything further I can do for you . . . ?’

Burning with the injustice of it all, Kydd returned to L’Aurore where he was met by Curzon, who bitterly complained that the first lieutenant had not addressed him in a manner to be expected of a gentleman. Kydd gave him short shrift and demanded to know what the bedlam was below. It seemed that grog had got aboard and there was fighting between decks. He glared at Howlett and stalked off to his cabin.

With pitifully few petty officers there was no real chain of command, let alone a cohesive structure with perceivable limits of behaviour. The ship was descending into chaos before even it had established a character. All it needed was men – to fill the empty spaces but, more than anything, to form a connected whole and begin the process of coalescing into a single instrument of purpose.

Kydd took out the orders. Unless they had a bare minimum to handle sail it was futile to think L’Aurore could even weigh anchor, let alone form a useful addition to the fleet. He knew that it was not unknown for a captain to be removed in favour of another for failing to get his ship to sea.

He paused. Why wasn’t his confidential secretary present? At last Renzi had every right to be privy to ship’s secrets and he was going to take full advantage of it.

Renzi was in the coach, the next compartment forward, which had evolved into something approaching a ship’s office. There, also, the master was correcting his charts, the ship’s clerk was about his business and later the young gentlemen would be there, painfully going through their ‘workings’.

‘I’m opening our orders, Nicholas. To see what we should be about if L’Aurore had a crew,’ Kydd said. He tore off the wrapper and spread out the sheets in order.

And the first said it all – in cold words that blazed with meaning.

He was being instructed to join with all dispatch the fleet of Lord Nelson in the Mediterranean. The first prize of all the Service could offer! The foremost fighting admiral of the age placed in the very forefront for the cataclysmic fleet action that everyone said must come!

‘Our Nel!’ Kydd gasped, staring at the page. He snatched up another – this was a part-order signed by Nelson himself, the impatient left-hand scrawl unmistakable. Yet another listed vital stores to be carried out to the fleet when L’Aurore sailed, again with the same signature. And addressed to Captain Thomas Kydd!

Thrilled, he laid the paper down. He was now one of Nelson’s captains. He was part of the most famous league of fighting captains in all of history. It was . . . incredible!

‘Dear fellow, I’m sure you’ve noticed something quite singular, not to say suspicious . . . ?’ Renzi’s cool voice penetrated his racing thoughts.

He looked up sharply. ‘I did not!’

‘The date, old chap. Here we have His Eminence issuing orders to one Captain Kydd from before Toulon, at least a few weeks’ sail away from England and the Gazette had not even the time to reach him so he might read of your promotion. If I was of a sceptical cast of mind, I’d believe those forgeries. Otherwise . . .’

It hit Kydd with all the force of a blow. ‘You mean – you’re suggesting it was he who . . .’

‘I would suggest that for a peradventure our doughty commander-in-chief, sorely in need of frigates, on hearing of the capture of L’Aurore asked for it to be sent to him instantly, and for its captain, one of recent record – Teazer’s last fight was much talked about, you’ll remember.’

‘But, Nicholas, even so—’

Renzi smiled openly. ‘Nelson always had a tendre for those of humble beginnings, as you’ll know. Why, I’ve heard that he was not content until he had a first lieutenant of Victory herself who was once a pressed man.’

‘And—’

‘Quite so. In Minorca he’s been quoted: “Aft the more honour – forward the better man!” and by this I’d conceive that your claiming no interest among the highest now no longer holds.’

Kydd sat rigid as the realisation flooded him. Nelson had not only made him post, given him his ship but now – it had to be faced – needed him! All the frustration of his situation beat in on him. He couldn’t let his hero down. Men had to be found, whatever it took.

He leaped to his feet, strode to the door and, opening it, roared at the astonished clerk, ‘Pass the word – all officers to lay aft this instant!’

He returned, pacing impatiently up and down his broad great cabin until all his lieutenants had arrived. ‘Gentlemen, I won’t waste words. We have our orders, and they’re to clap on all sail – to join Admiral Lord Nelson in the Mediterranean.’

There were gasps of incredulity. A raw and untried frigate being sent to join the famed Nelson was a huge honour but a greater challenge. The ship and her men would be tried to the limit and if found wanting would be mercilessly cast aside by the fiery admiral.

‘Men!’ Kydd snapped. ‘I need men and I’ll get them no matter the cost. Mr Howlett, what’s our ship’s company number now?’

‘Eighty-seven,’ he growled.

Well over a hundred to find – petty officers, prime hands, all the varied skills needed in a man-o’-war, not the dregs of the seaports or useless farmers.

‘Mr Gilbey. How’s your feeling of the volunteering at the rendezvous?’

‘Ah. Not s’ good, Mr Kydd. They saw your posters but, beggin’ your pardon, it’s t’ be your first frigate command and they’re distrustful as you’ll be able to show ’em how to lay a prize by the tail.’ At Kydd’s expression he hurriedly added, ‘Besides, word’s out that we’re likely enough t’ be sent to the blockade fleets, s’ no chance at prize-taking.’

‘I see. Mr Howlett, you spoke to the regulating captain. Did he give you a sense o’ the prospects for more pressed men?’

‘No, with Ajax and Orion 74’s having prior claim and the port stripped clean he doesn’t hold out any hope in the matter.’

‘Then we’re on our own. Any ideas, gentlemen?’

The discussion ebbed and flowed, but the outcome was indeterminate. In a bracket of days they had to find a full crew – or a cleverer captain with answers would replace him.

Kydd dismissed them and slumped into his chair, gazing stonily out of the stern windows. Unbelievably he had gained his heart’s desire and to have it snatched away so easily would be painful beyond belief – was there nothing he could do to prevent it?

After a sleepless night he was no further forward. Then in the early dawn light an idea came to him, but one so shocking he was astonished that he had thought of it. It was vile, dishonourable, a scurvy trick to be loathed by any true sailor. But it had one, and one only, saving grace: it was guaranteed to work. He would have his men.

Precisely at morning gun he was at the port-admiral’s office. ‘Sir, I’m grieved to say I’m sadly under strength and with urgent sailing orders for Admiral Nelson. I have a request which I beg you’ll consider . . .’

Two days later when Alceste frigate hove into Portsmouth harbour to pay off after three long years in the West Indies, her men were turned over into L’Aurore without once setting foot on English soil. Kydd stood well back as they came aboard. Whatever else, these men were the best – deeply tanned, fit and, after three years together in a crack frigate, were a known quantity and a priceless contribution to his ship.

But they also looked dazed and bewildered, massing protectively together by the main-mast, occasionally glancing aft bitterly.

He knew how they would be feeling. As they’d sailed back across the Atlantic their thoughts had been with homes, loved ones and the little gifts and curios they would present on their happy return. And as the ship made landfall on the Lizard and began that last beat up-Channel, even the most hardened shellback would have been caught up in the all-consuming excitement – ‘Channel-fever’, the last hours of the voyage passing in a dream-like delirium.

Instead there had been the unaccountable diversion to the Motherbank anchorage, quickly followed by the ship being surrounded by boats from the guard-ship and L’Aurore, together with press-tenders, hoys, launches full of marines. It would have been all over very quickly, the men given minutes to find their sea-bags and chests.

Just an hour or two ago they had thought their voyage had ended but, thanks to Kydd’s cruel decision, it was not to be. He crushed the hot thoughts of injustice that rose, his face stony. There was no other way.

‘Keep the guard-boats!’ Kydd called to Curzon, at the gangway.

The ship had boarding nettings rigged under the line of gun-ports and all boats at the lower boom were kept at long stay. Their entire detachment of Royal Marines patrolled the upper decks and there were even discreet parties in the tops with swivel guns.

The most effective, however, were the boats rowing guard, slowly and endlessly circling the ship at a hundred yards distant, ready to intercept any daring enough to make a break by leaping from the yards or in other desperate moves.

The first lieutenant set up his table to rate the Alcestes and one by one they came up, strong faces, men with pride in their bearing and contempt in their voices. Howlett processed them swiftly for it had been agreed that it made sense to keep the men in the same position they had been in Alceste and fit the lesser number of L’Aurores around them.

‘What are you about, Mr Curzon?’ Kydd roared. ‘My orders are t’ let no boat approach whatsoever!’ A slim Portsmouth wherry had slipped past the circling pinnaces and was hooking on at the main-chains.

The boat hailed L’Aurore – Curzon turned, and shouted back, ‘Two to come aboard, sir – saw your poster and want to join,’ he added incredulously.

The pair hauled themselves inboard, their dunnage thrown after them. It was Stirk and Poulden, survivors of Teazer. Kydd couldn’t bring himself to speak to them; they’d find out what he’d done soon enough. ‘Enter ’em in under their old rate, Mr Howlett,’ he said gruffly, and left the deck.

His first lieutenant reported with jocular satisfaction: ‘A fine haul, sir! She mans more than we, so I took the liberty of turning away any I didn’t like the look of.’ Kydd grimaced. To those held aboard, the sight of the lucky few escaping to freedom would only make their own situation harder to bear.

‘I want ’em in two watches and messed before the dog-watches, if y’ please,’ he snapped. ‘Ship goes to routine after supper.’

It was asking a lot, but this would occupy them with the choosing of mess-mates for each six-to-eight-man mess-table, the stowing of their chests and ditty-bags, and settling the unwritten assumptions of the pecking order.

Howlett would have overnight to produce a watch and station bill for sailing; that for quarters could wait until later. Kydd would then himself take decisions on divisions. This was the partialling of the ship’s company behind each officer so that, with a fair cross-section of skills in each, they could undertake risky tasks such as a cutting-out expedition – storming aboard an enemy ship in its own harbour, setting sail on a strange ship and getting it to sea.

Divisions was as well the Navy’s way of ensuring the men were cared for, that there was his own particular officer a humble seaman could call on whenever things turned against him.

Then it was a matter of storing ship for foreign service and putting to sea, away from the continual sight of what the men could not have. Days only!

Kydd slept well and was up before dawn. Gilbey had nothing of significance to report overnight, but at first light a wretched sight unfolded. Word of Alceste’s turning over had leaked out and a number of boats bobbed beyond the watchful row-guard. From the ship Kydd could see the colours of the dresses of wives and sweethearts who had watched and waited so long for their men to come home from their far voyaging and now expected to be let on board.

A murmuring spread along the deck as men came up from below to see. An occasional hopeful wave from the boats was returned with shouts, but Kydd was stony-hearted. It was asking for trouble to let some men have women and others not and, no doubt, they were bringing more spirituous than spiritual comforts – the ship would be in uproar in a very short time.

‘Keep ’em away!’ he told the officer-of-the-deck.

When hands were piped to muster for Howlett’s watch and station bill to be handed out to the senior rates to acquaint every man with his duties, Kydd decided it was the right time for their captain to address the L’Aurores and tell them of their stern calling to Nelson’s side.

The men assembled on the main-deck, chivvied by petty officers, looked down on by Clinton’s marines from the gangways and hectored by the pig-eyed master-at-arms, Jolley, whom Kydd had inherited from Alceste. They were quiet and sullen.

‘L’Aurores – I can call you that now, as we’ve finally our full company.’ There was little movement, only a hard muteness. ‘This I’ll tell you, there’s no greater service than we’re about to do for our country: to join Admiral Lord Nelson and his fleet and throw ourselves athwart Napoleon’s course for invasion.’

He could sense the officers behind him stirring at the words but it was the seamen he had to win over. ‘I’m sorry this has been so – so difficult for you all, but at the same time you’ll agree that England stands in greater peril now than at any time in her history.’

He paused, looking down on the mass of sailors. He saw strong-featured characters, long-service seamen with carefully maintained pig-tails, neatly stitched clothes, standing tall but scowling resentfully at him. Others had glassy expressions and the characteristic loose-limbed look of the old shellback.

He knew he wasn’t getting through.

‘We’ll start storing as soon as you’ve got your parts-of-ship, and never forget, it’s all England that will thank you.’ He waited for reaction, and when it was obvious there wasn’t one, he turned to Howlett and barked, ‘We’ll start taking ’em aboard by five bells, Mr Howlett.’

The lack of reaction disturbed him. Usually some kind of shout or cheer went up and the hostile reserve was disquieting.

When the storing began he tucked his hat ostentatiously under his arm and went about the ship. It was a mistake: on every hand he met contemptuous silence and flashing glances of naked hatred. Tension radiated from each group. They worked slowly, grudgingly, calling to each other in mocking tones, testing the limits. As he passed the fore-hatch there was a sudden squeal of a block and rushing slither of rope followed by a crash as a cask of dried peas smashed at the bottom of the hold. Harsh laughter broke out: when Kydd looked about him the eyes did not drop but caught his in open challenge. It was getting out of hand, and not helped by an outer ring of boats hopelessly waiting, expectant bum-boats irritated and frustrated.

He had noticed Stirk was with the gunner’s party but when Kydd looked in his direction he pointedly turned his back.

A hot rush of resentment flooded him. This was not something he was proud of or that he had done without considering the implications. He had been at the Nile and remembered Nelson’s heartfelt lament at the preceding chase that ‘Were I to die this moment, want of frigates will be found engraved on my heart!’

Kydd had to keep faith with Nelson and bring L’Aurore to join his fleet when so much needed. He turned on his heel and stalked off.

Renzi held back, keeping out of his way while he sat down and attended to his growing pile of papers. A knock at the door heralded the quiet and courteous sailing master. ‘Sir, I’ve passage charts f’r Biscay an’ the strait. Do ye want others?’

‘Mr Kendall, we sail as soon as we can. We’ve a fine crew but I don’t like their temper. What’s your taking on ’em?’

The master paused, then said carefully, ‘Sooner we’re outward bound the better, I’m thinking. But have ye thought the ship’s untried, we don’t know her handling? We might carry away our sticks or worse wi’ an unwilling crew.’

‘That could be so, Mr Kendall, but I’ve a mind to come down on ’em before then. Ask Mr Howlett to step along to see me when he’s the time, please.’

The first lieutenant entered warily. ‘Do sit, Mr Howlett. Wine?’ He accepted a half-glass from Tysoe as Renzi gathered up his work and left.

‘I mislike the way the Alcestes are shaping up,’ Kydd said slowly. ‘I want vigilance from everyone, nothing left to chance, but no provocations.’

‘Aye aye, Mr Kydd.’

‘What’s your estimate of our readiness?’

‘Storing will be soon complete per your instructions. We take on water, beer and greens at Plymouth for Gibraltar, a few ocean necessaries still to ship – we haven’t your cabin stores, incidentally, sir.’

‘I haven’t had the time. Readiness?’

‘We can sail more or less when you desire, sir.’

‘Very well – shall we say the day after tomorrow? The ship’s under sailing orders, Mr Howlett.’

‘Sir.’

Howlett made no move to leave. ‘Sir. The men – they’re in as ugly a mood as ever I’ve seen.’

Kydd grimaced. ‘They’re not the first to be turned over, and never the last while Boney has any ambitions. There’s no other way I can think on, and don’t forget, while it’s been three years they’ve been gone, the last I was in the Caribbee there were redcoats there who’d been seven years since last they’d clapped eyes on England – and not likely to do so again this age.’

‘I know that, sir, but—’

‘What are you saying I should do? Let ’em step ashore on the ran-tan for a month? We’d never get ’em back. No, they’re to turn to as ordered or I’ll make an example as will put a stop to their galley-skulking behaviour.’

Howlett hesitated. ‘Our Jack Tar is sensible of his rights as the custom of the Service allows, Mr Kydd, and in this—’

‘L’Aurore will put t’ sea in two days and that’s an end to it, sir! Advise the ship’s company of the sailing orders and if they growl bring ’em before me.’

Kydd made a point of doing his rounds of the ship before hammocks were piped down and the hands were sent to supper. Grim-faced, he paced slowly ahead of his entourage of officers and master’s mates while the boatswain led the way, pealing out the ‘still’ on his silver call as they entered each space.

There was almost palpable tension as they progressed, the glitter of hostile eyes in the shadows of the mess-deck, a barely audible muttering at the rear. He made a show of speaking amiably to every petty officer in charge, but there were only surly responses and barely concealed belligerence.

‘Very good, Mr Howlett. The men to go to supper now.’ It was time, too, for an issue of grog – in home waters, beer – and if there was going to be trouble the hotheads would start it then, but he did not want to provoke the men by stopping it.

There was little more he could do – damn it, he would sail the next hour if he could, letting the keen salt winds of the open ocean scour the ship of its mood. There was no sign of the disaffection lifting – and it was destroying his joy at achieving a frigate command.

He ate alone; Renzi had the absent marine captain’s cabin and would be a subscription-paying member of the gunroom by now and making acquaintance. In any case, he didn’t feel like discussion.

Howlett reported apologetically. ‘Four in bilboes, I’m sorry to say, sir.’

‘They stay in irons until tomorrow forenoon. I’ll deal with the rogues then. What’s the charge?’

‘Fighting. The Alcestes taking against the L’Aurores when—’

‘Be damned to it! We’re all L’Aurores now,’ Kydd snapped in irritation. ‘Tomorrow they’ll learn—’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll bid you good night, then.’

Kydd could not face his meal. If he failed to crack down now he would be seen as weak and his authority fatally undermined. Little by little he was being pushed into the very tyranny he despised and could see no way out of the spiral – except to get to sea.

‘Do I intrude, brother?’

‘No, come in, Nicholas. How’s the gunroom? Do join me in this passable claret.’

Renzi accepted a glass. ‘Eminently to my satisfaction, and thank you.’

‘You haven’t come here for the conversation . . . ?’

Renzi sighed. ‘No. My dear fellow, I’m here to tell you that whatever happens you have my quiet support.’

‘Whatever can happen?’ Kydd said, nettled.

Choosing his words carefully, Renzi said, ‘Do not take this amiss, old chap, but granted your undoubted insights into the character of Jack Tar, won from your own experiences before the mast, I rather fancy you are on a different course from they.’

‘And what is that, pray?’ Kydd said sarcastically.

‘Consider. When you were first a lieutenant, I can remember the joy and wonder you declared when obliged to study the professional publications of the strategical sort. Your discovery was that the seaman’s view of his existence is happily circumscribed by his wooden world but an officer’s must necessarily encompass the grievous complications, political and economic, that constitute the outer world.’

‘You’re saying—’

‘Your fore-mast jack has simple but robust views. He sees the enemy vanquished time and again and hears of mighty victories from England’s hearts of oak. In fine, he has the courage of a lion and an iron confidence in his cause and his ship.’

‘He does, but—’

‘Therefore, dear chap, he cannot see in the slightest whit why you’re getting on your high horse about joining Nelson. In his sturdy view there’s time to take a taste of liberty and beat the Crapauds too. You are privy to the dreadful secrets of the coming invasion. In mercy they are not. Therefore their conclusion is that they’re to suffer for your impatience.’

Kydd glowered. ‘This is all to no account. They’ve got their duty and I have mine, and that is to get this frigate to the Med with all dispatch. We take powder aboard tomorrow and then we sail, and there’s an end to it.’

They talked of other things but shortly Renzi made his excuses and went below to turn in, leaving Kydd alone with his thoughts.

He heard the boatswain’s mate pipe the silent hours and the master-at-arms and ship’s corporal doing their turn about the ship, looking for unauthorised lights. Kydd duly took the report and began to prepare for bed, dismissing Tysoe.

Minutes later a subliminal rumble took him instantly back to an earlier time and place: the gunroom of quite another ship, one that was about to be caught up in the desperate and bloody mutiny at the Nore. What he knew he was hearing was the ominous sound of a cannon shot being rolled down the length of the ship in a timeless gesture of defiance.

Still in his shirtsleeves he burst out of his cabin and pushed past the astonished marine sentry. He bounded up the single ladder to the night air and tried to catch sight of what was going on, but in the sepulchral gloom of the moonless evening he could see nothing.

‘The lookouts, ahoy!’ he bellowed.

‘Ho!’ the two aft returned promptly.

‘Did you see anything?’

‘No, sir,’ they replied instantly. He would get nothing out of them, of course, but it was of a certainty now that in the darkness of the bowels of the ship men were meeting, whispering – plotting?

This was deadly serious and could easily explode into something far worse unless . . . But what should he do? Stand the marines to and make search of the ship? No – they would find nothing and all it would achieve would be to demonstrate to the rest of the ship that he was frightened. Turn up the hands and harangue them? Equally useless.

The long night passed, and in the morning it was as if nothing had happened. The watch was changed, the men padding over to their stations without hesitation, standing mutely while muster was made.

When hammocks were piped up there was no show of hostility or defiance – they were lashed with their seven turns, proffered to the boatswain’s mate with his ring to test their tightness, then neatly packed within the hammock nettings, all without fuss. Had a corner been turned?

Breakfast was unusually quiet, however.

At eight bells, when the beginning of the forenoon signalled that the day was to start, and with the entire ship’s company mustered to be detailed off for their morning work, a midshipman noticed a scrap of paper smoothed out and placed precisely in the centre of the deck just abaft the main-mast bitts. He picked it up and took it to the first lieutenant, who turned white before hurriedly passing it to Kydd.

With a sickening lurch Kydd knew what it would contain and struggled to keep his face impassive while he inspected it gravely, knowing that he was under the watchful eyes of his entire crew.

‘Carry on, Mr Howlett,’ he snapped, whipping the paper behind his back. He stood grimly, waiting and glaring.

‘Hands turn to, part-o’-ship,’ Howlett ordered, in an unsteady voice.

The boatswain pealed out the high, falling notes of the ‘carry on’. Quietly, with hardly a word spoken, the men obediently went to their tasks.

When they had all moved off, Kydd called his officers down to his cabin. ‘Gentlemen. I’m obliged to tell you that as of this hour the ship’s company are in a state of mutiny.’

‘S-sir! That cannot be!’ Curzon gasped. ‘They went to their stations!’

He stared at the paper Kydd pushed at him. At the bottom were a dozen names, written in a crude circle. ‘A round robin, sir?’ It was a way to ensure that no single name could be singled out as the ringleader.

‘Read!’

It was straightforward enough:

God save the King! Bless our ship and oure officers who are sett above us too rule us and we meane no foule mutiny and will saile against the foe if they dare showe topsales over but pray considaration for our misrabel pligt. For 3 yeares in Alceste frigate wee have sayled the Caribee for our King and cuontry and now returne too find no libbertey to enjoy the friuts of oure labor as any Cristian desurve.

Sir, we ownly beg thatt we be given ower just rewarde as eny servante of the King do. This is nott much we aske and so we beleeve ower cuase is just and trust in yuor undrstandding wehn wee respekfully declyne too sayle onless we be payed on the barel head ower full duue.

‘The damn rascals,’ spluttered Howlett. ‘They’ll swing for it now!’

‘Once in mut’ny, always t’ be distrusted,’ Gilbey growled. ‘We’ll have no truck wi’ mutineers, I hope. I remember in ’ninety-seven when Black Dick Howe—’

Kydd cut in sharply. ‘They’re about their duties, we can’t move against them.’

‘They’re a scrovy lot as will fall on us when our back’s turned. Sir, we should—’

‘No, Mr Gilbey. If they meant to rise, they wouldn’t warn us like this.’ Uneasily, however, Kydd remembered Hermione: Captain Pigot, with all his officers, had died at the point of a cutlass in an insane mutiny in a similar-sized frigate.

Howlett cleared his throat. ‘Sir. The situation is plain. They’ll not bend sail unless it suits ’em and in anyone’s book that’s rank mutiny. We must send for troops, clear the ship and haul ’em ashore to answer for it. No other way.’

‘Mr Clinton? What of the Royals?’

The young man started, his pale face set at the thought of two dozen marines facing more than two hundred desperate men. ‘I – they’ll do their duty, sir. Sar’nt Dodd is posting them about the ship agreeable to my orders.’

Kydd cleared his head to an icy coolness. Whatever happened to them depended on what he did next, and he had no wish to rush into a confrontation. ‘Gentlemen. They’re going about their duties in accordance with orders given. For now there is no offence.’

Howlett snorted, but Kydd went on quietly, ‘Let ’em carry on. There’s a good chance their nerve will fail before it’s time to weigh.’

‘Sir, I must protest! This note is an insult and an abomination – and under the Articles of War constitutes a treasonable communication. We have no alternative but overbearing force while we can.’

‘I take mind of what you’re saying, Mr Howlett, but it’s my decision to wait it out for now.’

He looked gravely from one officer to the next. ‘On no account will I allow hasty words or other provocation to spark a rising. Confine yourselves to calm and lawful orders. If you feel the need for a weapon, a pistol concealed in the pocket will serve – no swords or similar on display. Any questions?’

There were none and L’Aurore’s officers returned to the quarterdeck. There was an unnatural calm: the men went about their work steadily but in a stiff silence with glances flashed down the deck towards the captain.

Kydd paced slowly, outwardly dignified and calm but his thoughts whirled. Already, as Howlett had pointed out, he was technically in breach of the Articles of War and could be dismissed his ship. Yet if he finally gave orders to weigh anchor and they were obeyed that would be the end of it all, dissolved into the blessed release of making the open sea.

At the forefront of his mind was the one towering imperative: to get his frigate to Nelson. All else was secondary. If he called for soldiers and cleared the ship he would get sympathy but would be left as before, without the men to sail her, and Nelson would be deprived of a most valuable asset. It was a frightful dilemma.

The morning wore on. Powder arrived and was stowed without incident. More stores came aboard and found their way to the boatswain’s and gunner’s lockers on the orlop. There was nothing to suggest that L’Aurore was a ship in mutiny.

As noon approached there was again the question for Kydd: did he allow the customary grog ration or suspend it for fear of inflaming the situation further? If he stopped their grog it would be seen as vindictive or a punishment so he let it go ahead.

The midday meal passed and the seamen remained at their tables, stony-faced. Kydd ordered all officers and warrant officers out of the mess-deck to allow them privacy to talk, hopefully to see the futility and danger of the course they were taking.

As the hour for their meal drew to a close the master-at-arms sidled up to Kydd. ‘I know ’oo it is, then, sir.’

‘What do you mean?’ Kydd had disliked Jolley on sight: sly and vicious, he was too like the first of his kind he had met as a raw pressed man.

‘Why, it’s Paddy Doyle, o’ course. Seen ’im flogged f’r wry words in Alceste more’n once. He’s forrard in the bay now, talkin’ with his mates – and I’m standing by the bitt pins, I was, an’ heard him bold as brass cry up a reg’lar-built mutiny.’

This Kydd could not ignore: it could be the spark that ignited the horrors of a full-scale rising.

‘Mr Jolley,’ he said heavily, ‘arrest Doyle and hale him aft.’

Howlett came across. ‘Trouble, sir?’

‘Rash talk only, Mr Howlett.’

‘That’s as it may be, sir, but we have to consider—’

Suddenly a muffled angry uproar surged from below, died away, then renewed into a storm of cheers and catcalls. The officers looked at each other, then at the fore ladderway. Jolley and his corporal emerged with Doyle between them and dragged him aft, followed by an excited rabble. Kydd hurried down into the waist – and his worst fears were confirmed.

The master-at-arms’s nose was streaming with blood but, with a smirk of triumph, he grated, ‘Did strike me, his superior officer, Captain! An’ before witnesses, sir.’

Kydd took one look at the wild-eyed Doyle and knew he had no choice. ‘Double irons and a sentry, Mr Jolley. The rest o’ these men – back to your duties!’

All around the deck men stood in shocked stillness. Others backed away in horrified expectation. Clinton hurried up and looked questioningly at Kydd.

‘Draw up your men on the quarterdeck, sir, with ball and cartridge but, for God’s sake, man, make it look like you were exercising ’em.’

There was no going back now. At the very least there would be a court-martial and the stark sight of a corpse at the fore-yard before L’Aurore had sailed an inch. It would take weeks to convene, needing five post-captains to sit on the trial. Only then, and under a dark shadow of ignominy, could L’Aurore look to finally taking the seas.

‘Send to the garrison, sir?’ Howlett asked Kydd.

L’Aurore’s captain paused. There would be hotheads among Doyle’s friends who could turn the situation into bloodshed in an attempt to free him from certain death. It was on a knife-edge of spiralling chaos. The whole cursed thing had one and only one cause: his own act in turning over the Alcestes. If there was any moral element it was that Doyle was going to pay for his own impetuosity.

Was it too late? Once the incident and news of the mutiny were thus made public it would inevitably play out to the end like a Greek tragedy. Had he lost the game?

Kydd stepped to the ship’s side, staring out over the deserted anchorage to the dark green verdancy of the land. He needed to think, for what he was now considering was a desperate move that could make him a byword for lunacy in the Navy.

But it might work. And might yet allow him to sail to Nelson.

He wheeled on Howlett: ‘I’ll deal with Doyle now. Pray clear the lower deck and muster all hands.’

Astonishment chased puzzlement on the first lieutenant’s features but he touched his hat and summoned the boatswain to set in train the gravity of a captain’s table. The die was cast. Feeling light-headed with the implications of what he proposed, Kydd went below.

Renzi looked at him strangely, but kept discreetly quiet. He had no role in this and knew it: Kydd would face the consequences of his own decision alone.

‘Ship’s company mustered, sir,’ Howlett reported.

Gravely Kydd left his cabin for the wan sunlight of the main deck. A lectern stood next to a table where the waiting ship’s clerk made much of arranging the books and inkwell. In front of him was a silent mass of seamen, the marines lining the gangways above.

He stepped up to the lectern. ‘Off caps!’ Jolley roared.

Then, when all was quiet, Kydd began: ‘Master-at-arms?’

‘Two bells this afternoon, Patrick Doyle did strike me, ’is lawful superior, contrary to—’

‘Thank you, Mr Jolley. Doyle, is this true?’ An admission would stop Kydd’s plan in its track but, fortunately, the man stood doggedly mute.

‘Come, sir, this is no time for silence. Master-at-arms, tell me what happened – in detail, if you please.’

‘Well, sir, on bein’ h’ordered to apprehend Doyle, I proceeded down t’ the mess deck, where I saw the prisoner with his mates, like. When I—’

‘Who were these mates, then, Mr Jolley?’ Kydd said mildly.

‘Oh, er, there was Smythe . . . an’ McVitty and, er, others.’

‘Carry on.’

‘And then there was words, like. I goes t’ seize Doyle when he tips me a souser on the chops, so I—’

‘So Smythe and McVitty are your witnesses. Where were they standing, pray?’

‘Standing? Why, I reckons in front o’ the crowd somewheres.’

‘Not good enough, Mr Jolley. Was Smythe to larb’d of the others, at the back – the front? Where was McVitty then?’

‘Um, t’ starb’d, I reckons, Smythe near ’im.’

‘Call Smythe.’ When the sailor arrived, nervously kneading his shapeless cap, Kydd asked him, with all the gravity he could muster, ‘Now this is of vital importance – a man’s life hangs on your answer. Where were you standing when – when this incident took place? Think now!’

‘Abaft th’ fore-mast, sir.’

‘Upon which side?

‘Er . . .’

‘We’ll have your oath on it – which?’

‘I c-can’t rightly recall.’

‘Hmm. Call McVitty.’ A slightly built man with darting eyes stood before him. ‘Now, exactly where was Smythe during this time? Be very careful with your answer, sir!’

‘I – I—’

‘Well?’

‘Couldn’t be sure, sir . . .’ The man tailed off.

‘Can’t be sure?’ Kydd said, in exaggerated astonishment. ‘This is a fine thing to set before a court-martial.’ He found what he was looking for in the front row: a grey-haired seaman with steady eyes and a slight smile, as though he knew where Kydd was headed. ‘You, sir! Step forward. Were you on the mess-decks forrard when the master-at-arms was struck?’

‘I was, Mr Kydd,’ the man said, in a firm voice.

‘There, Mr Jolley. As your witnesses are unreliable I have found my own.’

‘Thank ’ee, sir,’ the master-at-arms said uncomfortably.

‘Well, tell me, who was it that struck the master-at-arms?’

‘I didn’t rightly see, sir.’ The expected answer came back instantly.

Kydd allowed disappointment to show, then called over another – with the same result. ‘Tut, tut. This is very unsatisfactory.’ He drew himself up and hailed the men. ‘Any man who saw who struck the master-at-arms to come forward!’

A ripple of murmuring spread out – but, extraordinarily, it seemed there was not one who had happened to be looking in that particular direction when the blow was struck.

‘Then I rather fear we cannot proceed in this, Mr Jolley.’

‘Sir? You can’t – sir, it’s Doyle, an’ that’s a—’

‘The court-martial would think the L’Aurores a sad parcel o’ loobies were we to present evidence like this. You’re not thinking to see the ship shamed so publicly, surely, Mr Jolley?’

‘It was Doyle! I’d stake m’ life on’t!’

‘Not sufficient evidence presented. Case dismissed, Mr Howlett,’ Kydd pronounced crisply.

The first lieutenant stood as though in doubt of his hearing. ‘Why, sir – it’s – we should question ’em individually, lay out the consequences, get the Articles o’ War and—’

‘No. Besides, I’m not finished yet.’ He hid a smile at Howlett’s agitation – this was only the opening act in what he had decided. ‘I’m going to do something about our lamentable situation.’

Instead of concluding the proceedings and returning to his cabin, he waited for the restlessness in the men to settle into baffled curiosity, then theatrically addressed the stunned Doyle. ‘I’d be beholden to you for your advice, sir, as pertaining to the situation in this frigate.’

Behind him, Kydd heard the gasps of his officers. The captain – asking a fore-mast hand for his views?

He smiled grimly. He knew precisely the feeling of the seamen for he had been one himself. ‘Doyle, I know the Alcestes were sorely used – this doesn’t need me to say it. The end of long voyaging, why, a sailor needs to blow out his gaff, raise the wind. I know this – that’s why I’m minded to overlook our little troubles for now.’

He took a deep breath and continued lightly, ‘In fact I’ll go further. Doyle – I’d like to know your opinion of what the hands would say to a little bargain. They get their ran-tan, grog a-plenty, even their wives aboard for all of a day, two days – even three days on the frolic. In return they agree that when it’s all over, we do our duty and put to sea, no questions asked.’

While the man visibly tried to grapple with what was being said, Kydd went on, ‘That is, for three days the main-deck as far aft as my cabin and the entire lower-deck is out of bounds to all officers not passing through. No account will be given to grog brought aboard, nor wives and sweethearts for all of this time.’

A grin surfaced and Doyle shifted restlessly. ‘Ah, but we don’t have the rhino.’

‘Out of my own purse I’ll see to it no man goes short of a right good muzzler. It’ll all be chalked down, never fear.’

‘Why, sir, an’ that’s right handsome in ye,’ Doyle said happily.

‘No hurt to the ship, o’ course.’

‘No, y’r honour.’

‘Then do talk it over with your mess-mates and let me know—’

‘Sir, don’t need to. Ye has y’r bargain.’

‘Very well. Mr Howlett, dismiss the hands, if you please.’

As Kydd turned and marched smartly back to his cabin, the officers crowded anxiously after him.

‘Sir!’ Howlett exploded. ‘Am I to understand you’re seriously intending to turn this ship over to – to those false-hearted rogues in disgusting revelry and licentiousness for three entire days? Are you—’

‘Hold your tongue, sir!’ Kydd said, white with fury. Howlett and the others fell back, looking at him in shocked disbelief.

‘We have one duty, and one only that transcends all others, and that is to go to our country’s aid when its need is greatest. And that means to provide Admiral Nelson with what he must have.

‘I was at the Nile. Lack of frigates nearly did for us then – and there’s going to be an even bigger battle soon when Bonaparte makes his move against England and no one knows when or where that’ll be. One thing only is certain: it’ll be frigates that’ll be telling Nelson.’

‘B-but—’

‘Consider for one moment what we’ve achieved. The mutiny’s been broke, we’ve a full crew and nothing to stop us sailing in three days. Isn’t that worth a little time out of discipline?’

‘Sir, are you prepared to take the word of those mutinous swabs?’

‘Most certainly. Mr Curzon?’

‘Sir, as I understand it, their complaint was that they’re not paid. And you’re . . . ?’

‘This is an evasion. They know damn well that a ship going out of commission doesn’t get a visit from the clerk o’ the cheque until the books have been sent to the Admiralty for the payment to be cleared. No – take my word on’t, it’s your old-fashioned Western Ocean rollick they’re wanting.’

‘But there are surely practical difficulties,’ Curzon came back.

‘How so?’

‘If you’re proposing to confine ’em aboard, how are they going to get their, um, women and grog?’

‘There’s ways and means, sir, which you should not be too nice in the enquiring.’

‘This is hard to take, sir!’ Howlett blurted. ‘Discipline subverted for common debauchery and—’

‘Mr Howlett, how long have you been in the Navy?’

‘Sir?’

Kydd sighed. ‘In your experience, what is the state of a man-o’-war new returned from sea? A nest o’ decorum, the men consulting their appearance, begging leave to give thanks for their deliverance?’

He smiled mirthlessly. ‘No, sir! Portsmouth Poll and her sisters flock out to get aboard and with ’em they bring their gin, and then, sir, the lower-deck soon resembles a promiscuous bacchanalia. But we don’t pay mind to it for, Mr Howlett, it’s the immemorial custom of the Service.

‘So you can see, gentlemen, all we’re about is allowing our brave tars their spree at the beginning, not the end o’ the voyage.’

Relieved murmurs echoed as the sense of where Kydd was leading penetrated. ‘And the ship’s log will show no more than it always does on these occasions – and this to be sent to the Admiralty only when we make port again.’

‘I mislike what they’ll say ashore when they hear of this,’ Howlett said edgily.

Kydd rounded on him: ‘And who’s to tell ’em? If any wants to come aboard they stay the whole time, no going back to spread the word. After we’ve sailed, who cares? We’re outward bound on the King’s service, as so we should.’

‘Er – the grog?’ muttered Curzon. ‘I think we should know . . .’

‘If you must. Our only contact with the shore is the cutter with a picked crew o’ trusties who’ll know to keep their mouths brailed up and I dare to say will know where there’s a decent haul of grog to be had. They come on board and there’s no one at the gangway to enquire too closely. It’ll serve.’

‘And – and the women?’

‘We first throw out a welcome to the wives yonder who’ll set up on the main-deck, then the other, er, ladies on the lower deck.’

‘B-but discipline, order?’

‘We leave them to it! Any who steps too far will answer to his shipmates as fouling their hawse. There’ll be grog a-swilling and lewd behaviour to set the devil himself to the blush – but none of us in witness, for bounds are set about it.’

Suddenly grinning at the appalled faces of his officers, Kydd said, ‘I advise you make your arrangements, gentlemen – I mean to throw open the ship at eight bells.’

Kydd heaved the deepest sigh imaginable: he was at last out in the open sea, sinking Portsmouth astern and leaving behind the ignoble scenes that had enabled them to achieve it. True, there were men comatose in the lee scuppers, and the mess-deck was a bear pit, but that was as nothing compared to the feeling of at last being quit of the land.

They passed the Isle of Wight in a fluky easterly breeze, losing Kickergill Tower in the far distance and then shaping course outward bound with all sight of old Portsmouth dissolved into a blue haze as their bowsprit eagerly sought the freedom of the seas.

He was determined to reach Nelson as soon as he could, but this would not be at the cost of prudence. The first thing was to get the ship away and let the healing power of the sea do its work. When L’Aurore’s company was ready, there was the agreeable task of getting to know her, finding out her best points and, as well, the less endearing, a vital process if he was to throw his ship into battle with the confidence that was necessary in a commander.

It could not be hurried, for their very lives might depend on his deeply knowing his ship. Besides, in the course of events the company would shake down into their new vessel and, in a similar way, each learn about the other and the strengths and weaknesses, quirks and eccentricities that gave a ship its character.

Finally there was the formal procedure of producing an Admiralty Sailing Qualities Report on the vessel’s capabilities, required for all ships newly taken into service. Kydd’s intention was to stand west under easy sail until the next day, then in the chops of the Channel take his new ship through her paces, ending with a visit to Plymouth to have any defects and changes required made good at the dockyard.

Then he would set sail for the Mediterranean. That was the plan – but he was uneasily aware that his move to lessen the injustice of the turning over was appreciated for now but solved nothing in the long term. L’Aurore must sail foreign in days with a ship’s company having had no liberty ashore in England for years. Would this, over time, corrode their loyalty and fester into something worse? With a deep breath of salt-tangy sea air, he went below.

Once again he marvelled at the palatial splendour of his cabin – as spacious as a drawing room and intended for much the same purpose. Tonight he would have his officers to a leisurely dinner and try to ease the strains of the recent past.

‘Ho there, Tysoe. See if Mr Renzi is at leisure and then bring alongside a pair o’ gin toddies.’

It was deeply satisfying to be able to entertain his friend by right rather than the past subterfuge of pretending the ship’s clerk was being constantly required. The affairs of a captain’s confidential secretary were, of course, not to be questioned.

He greeted his friend while Tysoe occupied himself with the drinks. ‘I’m concerned you’re comfortable. Is the gunroom to your liking at all?’

‘A caution to all who’ve sailed in lesser breeds, I can assure you.’

‘And your studies – you’ll bless the opulence of your cabin, I’m thinking,’ Kydd added warmly.

‘Er, quite,’ Renzi said distantly, avoiding Kydd’s eye.

‘Oh? You know you have as well the liberties of the coach, if you wish. It’s in the nature of a public space I’ll agree, quantities of midshipmen and clerks diligently at their workings, but they’ll never dare bother you as they will answer to me.’

‘Um, yes, thank you.’

Kydd frowned. ‘I’m a mort puzzled, Nicholas. Is there anything amiss in your appointments? A prime scholar should not need for—’

‘No, no, dear fellow. My establishment is of the first rank, I do declare. It’s just – there’s a matter that’s of a particular distraction to me at the present time which . . . I must think on.’

‘If it’s anything you’d like to talk about, m’ friend . . . ?’

Renzi glanced at him. ‘Well . . . it’s by way of an embarrassment, if you understand me.’

‘We’ve no secrets, Nicholas. Clap on sail and fire away, man.’

‘Very well. It’s concerning my studies.’

‘Carry on,’ Kydd said, trying to look wise.

‘Um, as things were proceeding so well I thought to consult a publisher about the book’s prospects – how one comes to an arrangement for its printing and so forth. And, er, there would seem to be some difficulties attendant upon it.’

‘Difficulties?’

‘The eminent and worldly publisher I spoke to seems to think that the public reader prefers more in the way of entertainment and less of pure theory, quite putting to the blush my strenuous efforts to adduce rigour to my hypotheses.’

‘A strange notion, Nicholas.’

‘And vexing. Without I include distracting and irrelevant details of cannibals and savage damsels disporting naked, his view is that the number of volumes sold will not be sufficient to pay for its printing.’

‘What’s that against such scholarship you are bringing to your work? Why, it—’

‘Dear fellow,’ Renzi said sadly, ‘writing in these modern times must now be accounted a business, with all the attendant woes of want of treasure, wares to be displayed at the marketplace before the hoi polloi and like concerns. In fine, it would seem he’s asking I amend its delivery, adapt the words to a more modish taste, and that, brother, I will not do.’

‘So?’

‘Those in academia need fear no frowning public, neither those celebrated in the public eye. And should I be desirous of a private publishing, why, this may only be readily accomplished by raising a subscription – not, I hasten to add, for pecuniary reasons, but by this means the attention of the great and good may be secured in advance. And that I’m as yet unknown in literary circles quite dishes any prospects remaining.’

Kydd saw his friend’s face fall and the worry-lines deepen and his heart went out to him. ‘There must be . . .’

‘And that is not the worst of it,’ Renzi said, in a voice so low that Kydd strained to hear. ‘I vowed that when I laid my opus at your sister’s feet, in the same hour I would seek her hand. So what now has become of me?’

‘Nicholas, m’ friend, I’m certain it’s you in yourself she’d be satisfied with, not some old book.’

Renzi looked away and spoke in muffled tones: ‘When I received your letter of recall it was a . . . a relief. You see, Cecilia and I had h-high words and she is now gone off to her world of the highest society and I rather fear she has tired of me.’

‘Cec? Never!’ Kydd said, in sincere disbelief.

‘No? Then why did she not come – as she always has – to fare us well on our voyaging? And no fond gift? A letter, even?’

‘She – she might be busy . . .’

Renzi pulled himself up stiffly. ‘But this is no concern of yours, sir. I shall consider my position and before that time I’d be obliged should you refrain from mentioning it.’

The next morning dawned bright and clear and, unusually for the chops of the Channel, a subdued and calm seascape stretched out in a hard grey winter glitter with barely a swell to make things interesting, but Kydd was beside himself with impatience to make trial of his ship.

At last the men’s breakfast was concluded and both watches were mustered for evolutions. ‘Under all plain sail, full and bye on this board,’ he ordered. This would require the topgallants to be bent on after their easy passage out, as good a test as any of his crew’s mettle.

He watched with satisfaction as the long sausages of sails were hoisted aloft efficiently, the men working steadily under their boatswain. Kydd could have no complaint about the way Oakley swarmed aloft before even the topmen themselves, ready for them as they stretched along the sails and began passing the lines. He was as much a stranger to these men as Kydd was but he was getting the most out of them.

L’Aurore responded well, lengthening her stride like an obedient thoroughbred, the swash of her prettily dappled wake now extending broadly on either side. He called over the senior master’s mate. ‘Mr Saxton? Take two midshipmen and teach ’em to cast a log. I want our speed whenever I call for it.’

He gazed up at the set of the sails, their complexity of lines, the sweet curve of full canvas, and smothered a sigh. The last time he had handled a fully ship-rigged vessel was as a lieutenant in the old 64 Tenacious, and his main worry then had been that he would do nothing foolish under the eye of the captain. And now . . .

‘Log?’ he called imperiously. This would be a baseline performance figure – presuming the wind held he would first ring the changes on trim and see how L’Aurore did.

‘Nine knots and a whisker!’ yelled Saxton. Not bad, but not good. Earlier he had heaved to and taken the draft fore and aft. Some ships liked to be down by the head so the forefoot would bite, more often by the stern to increase manoeuvrability. What he needed now was the effect of trim on speed under standard sail.

‘Right, Mr Oakley, get those forward.’ Trundling the twelve-pounder carriage guns along the main-deck as far as possible was a quick method of shifting weights to imitate a re-stowage of the hold. The effect was immediate – not so much on the speed but the surprising amount of spray and slop that came over the bows. In heavier weather this would translate not only into a wet ship forward but L’Aurore being shy of head seas.

The guns were returned and Kydd tried something else. This time it was to see how close-hauled to the wind L’Aurore could be held, a vital matter in either chase or flight. Without fuss or complaint she lay to the breeze as close as Kydd could recall any square-rigged ship of his acquaintance – five and a third points off the wind no less. Promising!

Next he had a cask thrown over the transom with a jaunty red flag atop it. As it slipped away into the distance astern Kydd sighted aft along the centreline. As the ship slashed along hard up to the wind, little by little the flag inched its way to windward – this was leeway, the ground lost under the side pressure of the wind. He continued until the flag was a tiny speck at about a cable and a half upwind of L’Aurore’s track. Not bad – that would be the Sané steep turn of bilge he’d noticed in dock.

He wore about and ran the cask down on the other tack with similar results. It was most satisfying; here was something to rely on. Now for going large, wind abaft the beam. ‘Take us on a reach, wind four points free, Mr Kendall.’

This was a quartering breeze, for most ships their best point of sailing. Again, L’Aurore did not disappoint, her brisk motion turning to a canter. ‘Speed?’ called Kydd.

‘Near thirteen!’ yelled back Saxton. In this light breeze the figure was astonishing and gratifying, for there was the prospect of more if pushed harder. Surprised grins spread around the deck as word got out.

‘Running free,’ ordered Kydd, and the helm spun as the frigate was placed squarely before the wind. It was proverbial that a ship responding well by the wind did not relish going free – but then a ship that was good both by and large generally performed each of these manoeuvres as a compromise, an outstanding sailer on neither.

One thing became immediately noticeable. With the wind and waves dead aft L’Aurore rolled. Not a simple, regular heave but a nervous wallow with a sharp twitch before she began a slower return roll. They would have an uncomfortable time of it going large in heavier seas.

Without stunsails and other ornaments aloft, there was no point in chasing speed, which left manoeuvring, tacking and veering – through the wind’s eye or the long way around. ‘We wear first,’ Kydd decided.

In fairness to a new company on a strange ship they wore slowly, carefully – but there was no need for concern: L’Aurore obeyed demurely and sweetly took up on her new tack, quickly settling on her course. Again, but this time in earnest. And again. Without fuss, she went round and lay back on her old track as if nothing had happened.

So far, so good: now to the complex manoeuvre of tacking about. The breeze was falling to a pleasant ruffling. Kydd knew the signs: there would be a relative calm soon and his exercising would have to come to an end.

‘Hands to stations for staying,’ he ordered. There would be quick work on the braces and sheets but they were ready. This time, however, L’Aurore seemed to object to being hurried: her slim length to breadth required a more measured pacing, a precision of manoeuvre that would be a hard thing to accomplish in the throes of battle.

They went through stays one more time but Kydd had her measure now, and with it came a growing respect. This was a proud lady who had all the graces and expected to be treated with consideration, but there was little to forgive.

The wind faded into a fluky breeze and their speed began to fall away. Yet L’Aurore stood on, even with her sails hanging loosely and flapping occasionally as if in lady-like impatience. She ghosted along at a walking pace and Kydd’s satisfaction with his new ship swelled. This was a most valuable trait – no prey would escape in a calm with this fine-lined frigate.

So what did he have? A fast ship, that was certain. How fast would have to await the right conditions. Fine-lined but delicate, rather lighter in her scantlings than he would have liked, but if she was to be a flyer it had to be paid for. This would include staying with twelve-pounders for there was no arguing with metacentres that said too much weight too high was dangerous.

L’Aurore was a comfortable ship. His appointments were first-rate and from what he had seen of the gunroom his officers would be satisfied with their cabins. The seamen had good berths but he would suspend judgement on that until after the first real blow, with seas coming over the fo’c’sle.

All in all, then, a fine ship – and one to love, he admitted to himself in surprise. Behind his critical assessments lay a growing affection for her: that willing responding to his wishes, the old-fashioned charm of her fitments that gave her a warmth of appearance so different from the war-like demeanour of modern British frigates.

They were going to get along.