14-Caribbee: A Kydd Sea Adventure Page 14

  ‘He’s a slave, damn it. Has no right to go swearing oaths! He’s still my property and—’

  ‘Unfortunately, the oath was sworn, whether in error or no. And the one to King George may not be put aside. It has prior standing over any other in the kingdom. Why do you think deserters are hanged at the yardarm? It is because they have violated their oath to the sovereign. We don’t want that happening to your slave now, do we?’

  ‘God rot me! If every slave was allowed to enlist we’d be—’

  ‘They are not, Mr Thistlewood,’ said Renzi, clearly pained by his language. ‘This is why the law does disallow it.’

  ‘So—’

  ‘It is clearly stated that should a slave or apprentice, or any bound by law to a master, attempt to decamp by enlisting, then the master may on representing the case claim him back, with costs against the captain.’

  ‘Then—’

  ‘Providing he does so within the span of thirty days. Our muster-roll has no evidence that any such claim was made against the person of Tysoe. Therefore he was entered in full as a bona-fide member of the ship’s company.’

  ‘So you’re saying—’

  ‘Do present this man that we may hear the revoking of his oath. Then I’m sure Captain Kydd will be happy to initial his release – won’t you, sir?’

  Thistlewood saw his answer on Kydd’s face. ‘I’m not letting him go – get off my property now or I’ll set the dogs loose,’ he snarled.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Kydd grinned. ‘It seems we have here an attempt to conceal a deserter. I do believe I’m quite within my rights to use lawful force to recover same. Mr Searle, go to the first lieutenant and ask him to land five hundred men – armed. I mean to arrest this villain.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir!’

  ‘Wait! I’ll get him – but I’m after compensation.’

  ‘For a piccaninny?’ Renzi said disapprovingly. ‘A child under the age of ten is considered a liability, not an asset, Mr Thistlewood. Rather, the Crown should be seeking recompense from you in the article of his bringing up. Now, does this mean we have to …?’

  As L’Aurore heeled to a fine sea breeze Tysoe brought in their wine, as if nothing whatsoever had happened that day.

  ‘Thank you, Tysoe,’ Kydd said courteously, as he always did, but he didn’t fail to catch the glimmer of feeling that passed unacknowledged between them.

  In fine good humour, he chuckled, and said to Renzi, ‘Topping it the lawyer, Nicholas. I didn’t know you had it in you.’

  ‘Ah, well, it was all I could think of at the time.’

  ‘Does it mean anything?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. I made it up as I went along – it seemed to fadge.’

  It was raining. Not in the sense that an Englishman would recognise but a white mist drifting across the surface of the sea. It could be seen from the comfort of his cabin prettily stippling the water outside the sweep of his stern windows, while on the upper deck it would bring a pleasant cooling to the men on watch; the sun-warmed planking would be gently steaming and the lower edges of each water-darkened sail busily dripping along its length.

  They were in no hurry. As visibility was obscured they had shortened to topsails while, in this north-easter, they made an offing away from the reef-strewn northern coast of Jamaica.

  When the showers lifted to a thinning sprinkle they were quite unprepared for the sight of a ship some distance away in the eye of the wind.

  Kydd, called on deck, snatched the telescope from the officer-of-the-watch and trained it carefully. With all friendly merchant shipping at a standstill in port, this could be only one of three: a French frigate, one of their own patrolling frigates or an enemy privateer.

  For reasons of size this was not a privateer and for a certainty no other British frigate had reason to trespass on their patrol line. It had to be the enemy.

  His heart beat faster. This was how it always began, out of the blue on a quiet day, a sudden sighting, a swift confrontation, then danger and death.

  ‘We’re to join action shortly, I believe, Mr Gilbey. Men to quarters as soon as you may, if you please.’

  The next few minutes would be revealing. Would their opponent fight or fly? L’Aurore was as close to the wind as she could lie – being directly upwind the situation depended greatly on whether the other decided to turn and bear down on them, in which case they could look to broadsides within no more than an hour, the enemy being in the position of choosing their course of attack. If that happened, there would be no reason to loose courses, the larger driving sails, for almost always combat took place under topsails. For now, they would keep them set as they were.

  Then another curtain of misty rain spread across, and when it thinned and cleared they had their answer.

  And it was a puzzler. The ship was now considerably to the right of where it had been, under full sail, its course directly for the land.

  Kydd raised the telescope. Broadside on, every detail of the other became plain – and he had his explanation. This was no warship: it was a merchantman – a large one and making to flee inshore as fast as it could. A Frenchman desperate to break out to the Atlantic with a cargo of colonial sugar, so much needed in the motherland.

  He rubbed his hands in glee as he announced the news to cheers from the quarterdeck.

  ‘You may stand down the hands, Mr Gilbey.’ This was now merely a chase.

  It was odd that the vessel had not tried to lose itself in the open expanse of the Cuba Passage but, then, it probably reasoned that it didn’t stand a chance against a predatory frigate and was heading instinctively for the nearest land, hoping to shake them off in the shallows.

  This was probably the better decision, for L’Aurore at that time was stretching out on the starboard tack. To close with their prey, not only had they to put about on the other tack, but as well set their big courses abroad on all masts first.

  The ship made the coast and had just disappeared on the far side of Pedro Point by the time they had started closing with it, some hours behind. Impatiently, Kydd waited for the rocky bluffs to pass, opening up the long north coast of Jamaica – and their quarry. But it was nowhere to be seen.

  Frustratingly, the twisting coastline was deeply indented, beaches and coves endlessly stretching into the distance. This was what the wily captain was counting on – with local knowledge, a hideaway in one, such that his pursuer would be delayed, looking into them all.

  Then Kydd realised he had a trump card. ‘Mr Buckle!’ he hailed down the deck forward.

  The young man hurried back from his station at the fore-mast. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Should you be fleeing a hunter, where would you head?’

  ‘A’tween us and Montego Bay, why, there’s only two places will take a full-rigged ship. Tom Piper’s Bay the larger, Mosquito Cove the smaller. And my money’s on the last.’

  When the frigate opened up the first bay they saw right into its mile or more depth but with no result. They sailed onwards, on Buckle’s advice ignoring the many smaller ones until they came up with Mosquito Cove. It was narrower but just as deep and they could see into it completely – but when they looked, right to the end, there was nothing.

  As they prepared to get under way again there was murmuring about the deck and Buckle looked crestfallen, but then he brightened. ‘I remember there’s a small watering place inside past the narrows on the left. If he’s there and warps close in we won’t be able to see him from seaward. Sir – he’s in there!’

  It had to be – to go to ground so promptly when there was nowhere else.

  Kydd thought quickly. If it was to be a cutting out it could be tricky in the narrow shallows, and if there was a better way …

  ‘Launch and cutter in the water, both with carronades. Lively, now!’

  While they were being hoisted out he had a quiet word with the boats’ crews, who quickly caught on. When L’Aurore shook out sail, the two boats pulled strongly for their positions – out of sight, one eith
er side of the entrance.

  Any interested observer would notice that, after a while, L’Aurore had tired of the pursuit of her vanished prey and had put about, returning down the coast whence she’d come.

  Two hours after the frigate had disappeared there was movement – and through the narrow entrance emerged a wary merchantman under full sail. Like a bolt slamming shut, the two boats tugged hard on their oars, coming to a stop in the middle of the entrance before slewing around – to face out, each with a loaded carronade and effectively barring the way back.

  And L’Aurore had already wheeled about in anticipation and now came down to claim her prize.

  Kydd could not resist the urge to board the vessel himself: he wanted to meet her captain, who had proved both cool and intelligent and, but for Buckle, would have been able to make good his escape.

  As they approached the disconsolate vessel, Kydd felt the first stirrings of unease. Even from this distance, the ship didn’t have the feel of a Frenchman or a Spanish. She had an indefinable alien air about her, the cut of the sails, the lead of the working rigging, and when they came alongside he was sure.

  It was an English ship.

  As he swung over the bulwarks, there was no mistaking the vessel’s master, who was standing by the main-mast with an expression of disbelief.

  ‘Captain Kydd, Royal Navy,’ he said, with just a trace of irritation. ‘It was a merry dance you led us, sir, my congratulations.’

  ‘As did you, old chap! ’Pon my word, a King’s ship strange to these waters and with every appearance of a damned Frenchy!’

  ‘Which was that, sir?’

  ‘I thought all the world would have heard. Étoile 32, Captain Sieyès out of La Rochelle, new sent to harass our Caribbean interests and already struck.’

  ‘No, I hadn’t heard. Now, you’ll oblige me with your papers, if you please …’

  The rest of the boarding passed off without comment and ended with a shared Madeira in the saloon.

  When Kydd returned to his ship he had much to think on and, first, the existence of a French commerce-raiding frigate in these waters, a serious development, which would be causing a deal of concern to Dacres. That it resembled his own French-built vessel was an inconvenience, frightening the innocent, but it couldn’t be helped.

  What was more troubling was that, from what he’d heard, the standing of the bottled-up British merchantmen had changed drastically.

  Commercial pressures had risen above fear of the unknown. While the L’Aurores had been disporting at leisure, one ship had plucked up the courage to sail come what may. Others had realised that if it won through to any kind of market it could set its own prices, an intolerable position for those left. They had sailed together, some risking a voyage without insurance, putting out in the desperate hope they wouldn’t be seen in the more than thousand-mile passage to the convoy rendezvous at Barbados.

  As the word spread, from every sugar-producing port others would be joining the mass flight – an impossible number to protect. The French frigate and the ever-present privateers would, with great satisfaction, swoop to the kill.

  All feelings of diversion and languor fell away. This was the new war and unquestionably L’Aurore was critical to it. It was probably the best course to return as soon as he could to Port Royal for orders – but they were on the north coast of Jamaica on the opposite side. There was little for it but to reach the eastern end by long, tedious boards in the Cuba Passage and call at Port Morant, the naval dispatch station, to see if anything had changed drastically in the meantime.

  The atmosphere had altered in L’Aurore: the jollity of the past days had evaporated for it was plain to all that the balance had shifted to the defensive and they were in the front line. And if this French frigate was with another – they often hunted in pairs – they could at any moment be fighting for their lives.

  In a near calm they reached Port Morant, at last to be met by an advice-boat with a general order that wherever L’Aurore was to be found she should be sent with all urgency back to Port Royal. The war had caught fire.

  Chapter 7

  No sooner had L’Aurore rounded Port Royal Point than her pennant number shot up on the flagship – captain to repair on board immediately. Kydd had expected this and, as L’Aurore glided to her anchorage, her gig was already lowering.

  ‘Where the devil have you been, sir?’ Dacres greeted him, and when he tried to answer brushed him off with, ‘Belay that, we’ve a pretty problem on our hands. Sit down.’

  As Kydd had already found out, after one or two had put to sea the rest of the merchantmen had scrambled to follow. ‘Never mind we can’t protect ’em, they have to do it.’ Dacres glared at Kydd as though it was his fault, adding, ‘And now they’re being taken.’

  ‘Enemy frigate?’

  ‘You’ve heard? Yes, they’ve sent a pair of raiders – a 32 and a 28 – under a dasher of a captain from La Rochelle, Sieyès. Damn desperate timing for us, I thought.’ His tone hardened. ‘They have to be stopped. Losses at this scale are not to be borne, sir.’

  But if the Navy was to be employed in escorting, it could not be on patrol – a dilemma for the admiral that could only be solved by the removal of the threat. Kill the enemy frigates and the Caribbean could revert back quickly to its previous relative peace.

  Dacres continued, ‘I have every one of my cruisers out after them, save Anson and yourself. Now you’ll have my orders before sundown to put yourself under Lydiard’s command, and the pair of you will have the Windward Passage and north of Jamaica to yourselves. You’re to store this hour and I’ll expect you to keep the seas in all weathers until they’re found and put down.’

  All weathers – this was the tail end of the hurricane season … What was very plain was that while their Caribbean trade was so vulnerable this pair had to be hunted down, whatever it took.

  Kydd lost no time in setting L’Aurore to storing and took the opportunity of going to Anson to confer. She was of forty-four guns, one of the class of heavy frigates cut down from a ship-of-the-line to a single gun-deck. Pellew had gone on to glory in one, Indefatigable, and others had since distinguished themselves around the world. They had every chance of success – if they found their quarry.

  ‘Kydd? Good to meet you at last.’ Lydiard had a jovial manner, his twinkling eyes hinting at a well-developed sense of fun.

  ‘Er?’

  ‘At Alexandria in the last war. Saw off Mongseer Crapaud in fine style, if you remember, you being ashore with your, um …’

  ‘Plicatiles. And damnably unhandy beasts they were, too, those little boats.’

  ‘Just so. Well, we’ve quite another job to do now, one that’ll stretch us beyond the ordinary, I fear.’

  ‘That’s how to run ’em to ground first,’ Kydd replied.

  ‘Indeed. I’ve done a study of the captures so far, trusting we can chase up a pattern of where the devils are operating. And it’s the damnedest thing – some taken off the Leewards, others as far away as Honduras, then Santo Domingo. You’d swear they had wings.’

  ‘Privateers?’ Kydd offered.

  ‘Only if you grant they’ve more than doubled their numbers in a month. We’ve been getting the better of the beggars since the beginning of the year and we’ve kept good watch on Guadeloupe and their other nests. No sign of ’em breeding – and besides which, this big jump in numbers we’ve lost only happened since the frigate pair arrived in these waters.’

  ‘I’d like to know just how they’re causing so much ruin.’

  ‘Stands to reason, they’ve got us on the run by flying from place to place and never tarrying long enough for us to catch ’em by the tail. Odd, though – for all their seizures, no one’s ever come across a prize of theirs to recapture. Where are they sending ’em in, we ask?’

  Kydd digested it all. ‘Taking the long way around to be sure?’ he hazarded.

  ‘Could be, but this is to say that on the main point we’ve no suspicion of where
to look to ferret ’em out. That’s why every sail o’ war Dacres has is out in a different place. Spread thin, but it’s the only way. We’ve got a plum spot, the Windward Passage, but who knows?’

  ‘Um. So we’re a scouting pair,’ Kydd reflected. ‘Stay in sight until one of us spies something and whistles up the other.’

  ‘Ah – I was thinking more a distant sweep. Lay away to each side, return to an agreed rendezvous each dawn. Any sighting, retire instantly towards the other.’

  ‘Nelson before the Nile.’

  ‘Aye, Nelson style.’

  The two frigates slipped to sea in a gathering dusk, their strategy decided; a fast run to the Windward Passage between Cuba to the north and Hispaniola to the south. Then put about for a more thorough search: L’Aurore to comb the waters along the coast of Cuba while Anson looked into the deep gulf in Hispaniola that led to the old French trading harbour of Port-au-Prince.

  In the steady north-easterly they drove into the night and, at precisely midnight, went about on the other tack to lay north. Dawn found them flying onwards together, in the increasingly brisk conditions an exhilarating sail. This was a relatively rare experience, for generally there was always the nagging need to conserve canvas and cordage, spars and rigging.

  They were therefore treated to the breath-catching sight close abeam of a fellow frigate stretching out under full sail, heaving majestically, every line and scrap of canvas taut and thrumming with a sea music that set the spirit soaring.

  By the afternoon they neared the coast of Cuba and, in a neat evolution, both frigates tacked about simultaneously, now hard by the wind on course for their goal, which, given that the weather held, they would raise comfortably by daybreak the next day.

  As it happened, the spanking breeze freshened and veered more easterly. As they took up on the new tack, it was with seas smacking hard against the bow, sending spray shooting up to curve and sheet aft, soaking the watch-on-deck, but at least there was no longer the jerking roll from before when the waves had marched in on their beam, now only a determined pitch and toss as L’Aurore butted into the weather.