Seaflower - Kydd 03 Page 18

  The enemy broadside came. But in ones and twos. Paltry puffs of powder smoke, the thin crack of four-pounders. And a whole gundeck of cannon staring silently at them. 'Caught 'em on the hop goin' about!' growled Stirk in disgust.

  'They got the yeller fever an' can't man the guns!' someone shouted. Kydd's mind raced; this was no explanation for small-calibre guns.

  Jarman smiled. 'She's a Mongseer merchant jack, puttin' on a show,' he said, with satisfaction. It was a pretence: the open gunports sported only quakers, wooden imitation guns that could not fire. Her bluff was called. The tiny Seaflower had not run for her life as intended, and had dared to attack. Incredulous shouts and cheers broke out while the trim cutter closed in exultantly on her prey.

  * * *

  'Damme f'r a chuckle-headed ninny, but that was rare done!' Patch said, lowering his cutlass to finger the quality of the cordage on the deck of their prize. 'Knoo the exac' time she'd weather th' point, and was there a-waitin',' he continued admiringly. 'Keeps it to 'imself, he does, an' four hours out we has a fat prize.' The French sailors sat morosely on the main-hatch while Farrell and the sailing master inspected below decks.

  It was a matter of small hours to escort the prize back to Port Morant; the talk was all on the astonishing intelligence their sagacious captain must have had, and happy anticipation of prize money to claim later.

  Farrell did not appear affected by his fortune. He appeared punctiliously on deck at appropriate times in the ship's routine, courteous but firm in his dealings with his ship's company, and considerate and businesslike with Jarman and Merrick, who stood watches opposite each other. Seaflower seemed to respond with spirit. Square sails set abroad and her prodigious fore-and-aft canvas bowsed well taut, she slashed purposefully through the royal-blue seas at a gallop, her deck alive with eager movement.

  By the last dog-watch, deep into the Caribbean, Kydd joined Renzi at his customary pipe of tobacco on the foredeck, ignoring the occasional spatter of spray. They sat against the weather cathead, the better to see the gathering sunset astern. Renzi drew an appreciative puff at his clay pipe and sighed. 'This prime Virginia is as pleasing to the senses as any I have yet tried.'

  Kydd was knotting a hammock clew. His nimble fingers plied the ivory fid he used for close work, the intricate net of radiating knittles woven into a pattern that ostensibly gave a more comfortable spread of tensions, but in reality were a fine display of sea skills. He had never caught the habit of tobacco, but knew that it gave Renzi satisfaction, and murmured something appropriate. 'We're right lucky t' take the barque,' he said. Patch had been considerably mollified and was now warily respectful of Kydd.

  'Just so,' said Renzi, gazing at the spreading red display astern, 'yet I believe our captain must be much relieved.'

  'Aye, we could not have taken a real pepperin' from such a one.' Kydd raised his voice against a sudden burst of laughter from the others enjoying the evening on deck.

  Renzi smiled. 'A captain of a vessel charged with despatches endangers his vessel at his peril — but his bold actions may be accounted necessary with shoals under his lee and the enemy to weather.'

  'Doud says as he's a hellfire jack, an' sent into Seaflower for the gettin' of prizes f'r the Admiral,' Kydd said.

  'Possibly - but a humble cutter? Maid-of-all-work? But did not David prevail over the disdainful Goliath?'

  Kydd grinned.

  'You've done well for yourself, my friend. Who would have thought it? A quartermaster — and so quick!'

  'Only a cutter, is all,' Kydd said, but his voice was warm. To direct the conn of a ship of war was a real achievement for any seaman.

  Letting the fragrance of his tobacco wreathe about him, Renzi mused, 'Tom, have you given thought to your future?'

  Kydd looked up, surprised. 'Future? Why, it's here in Seaflower, o' course.' He stopped work and stared at the horizon, then turned to Renzi. 'If you mean, t' better myself, then y' understand, I'm now a quartermaster an' as high as I c'n go. Any higher needs an Admiralty warrant, an' I don't have the interest t' get me one.' He had spoken without bitterness. 'Next ship'll be bigger, an' after that, who knows? Quartermaster o' some ship-o'-the-line will do me right well.' His broad smile lit up his face as he added, 'Y’ can't work to wind'ard o' fate, so my feelin' is, be happy with what I have.'

  Renzi persisted, 'Captain Cook was an able seaman to begin with, my friend — and Admiral Benbow.'

  Kydd's voice softened in respect. 'Aye, but they're great men, an' I ...'

  'You sees, Mr Cole, the boatswain is a mason,' Doggo whispered, looking around fearfully.

  The midshipman opened his eyes wide and leaned forward the better to hear. It was hard on young Cole, the only midshipman aboard and no high-spirited friends to share his lot, but he was a serious-minded lad who wanted to excel in the King's Service. 'I have a great-uncle a freemason, too,' he said, in a slightly awed voice.

  'Do yez good ter get the bo'sun an' you like this,' Doggo held two fingers together, 'an' he'll put in a powerful good word fer you t' the Captain.'

  Cole nodded gravely. 'I see that, but how ...'

  'Well, the masons have this secret sign, wot they use to signal ter each other.' Doggo looked furtively around the sunlit deck. ‘Like this,' he said, and held up his open hand to his face, thumb to nose, and the fingers all spread out.

  Awkwardly, Cole imitated him. Doggo pulled his hand down roughly. 'Not now! Someone'll see. Now, mark what I say, it's terrible important yez do it the right way, or 'e'll think yer mockin' the masons.'

  Blinking in concentration, Cole listened.

  'Yez waggles yer fingers, like so. An' then yer waits, f'r it's the proper thing fer masons to then pr'tend ter be in a rage — just so's nobody c'n accuse 'em of being partial to their own kind.' Doggo paused to allow it to be digested. 'An' then — mark me well, if y' please — yer waits fer the show ter blow over, an' that's when y' makes yer salute, both hands, all yer fingers at once.'

  Later in the watch, Cole had his chance.

  'Where's that idle jackanapes?' roared the boatswain, from the group of men aft preparing to send up a fair-weather topgallant sail. ‘Lay aft this instant, y' lubberly sod.'

  Cole sauntered aft with a confident smile. Merrick drew breath for a terrible blast — but Cole boldly looked him in the eye and made the first sign.

  The boatswain staggered as if struck. 'God rot m' bones — you bloody dog! Damn your impertinence! So help me, I.. .' Merrick paused for control, the enormity of it all robbing him of breath.

  In the appalled silence the seamen looked at each other with horror and mirth in equal proportion. Cole saw that this was time for the salute, and bravely brought up both hands and waggled smartly. The boatswain's eyes bulged and his hands clawed the empty air. When the explosion came it was very terrible.

  Jarman looked at Kydd speculatively. His cabin was tiny, there was not really room for two people, but there was nowhere else to speak in private.

  'Kydd,' he said, and paused, as if reluctant to go on. Kydd waited patiently. 'Kydd, I'm the sailing master 'n' you're m' quartermaster.' This did not need an answer. Jarman levelled his gaze. 'What I'm a-sayin' is not f'r other ears. D'ye know what I mean?'

  Kydd shifted uncomfortably. If Jarman was sounding him out over some spat with another, he wanted no part of it.

  Seeming to sense his unease Jarman hastened to explain: 'Jus' a precaution, y' understands, nothin' t' worry of,' he said. 'No harm keepin' an eye t' weather, like.' Kydd maintained a wary silence.

  The master picked up a book of navigation tables. 'I been to sea since I was a kitling, an' ended up mate in an Indiaman. I know the sea, ye unnerstands — t' get to be master o' Seaflower I has to be examined by th' Brothers of Trinity House f'r this rate o' vessel, a tough haul.'

  Kydd wondered where it was all leading. He had no problem with the master's competence, but then remembered the reserve between him and the Captain. Was he feeling insecure, needing Kydd's approval?
Surely not.

  Jarman's voice dropped. Kydd strained to hear against the hiss of sea against the outside of the hull. 'It's like this — an' please hear me out. Th' Cap'n — an' please t' know I mean no disrespect - is a young man, an' did all his time in a vessel o' size, never in a small 'un. Y' knows that in a big ship ye can make all the blunders y' like an' there's always someone to bring y' up with a round turn, but a small hooker . . .'

  Kydd kept his face blank. This might be the first step on the way to a court-martial for mutiny.

  'As I said, you're my quartermaster, an' directly responsible t' me.'

  This looked grave: was Jarman trying to secure loyalty to himself?

  'Consider, if y’ please. The Cap'n an' me are the only ones aboard that c'n figure our position, th' bo'sun never learned. Now, I could say as how I'm a mort disturbed about we bein' carried off b' the fever, but I'd be lying. See, this is m' first ship as master, an' anything goes awry, then it'll be me t' blame — I don't see as how I should give best if it comes t' an argyment over the workings.'

  Farrell, as captain, had a duty to seek the sailing master's advice only, and could entirely overrule him. Jarman wanted a witness — but what possible use was Kydd?

  'So, I'd take it kindly if ye could jus' think about if you'd like to learn how to do the figurin' y'rself.'

  Kydd sat back in disbelief. But he quickly responded: it was a great opportunity, not the slightest use in his position, but ... 'I'd like it main well, Mr Jarman,' he said, 'but how will I learn?'

  Jarman eased into a smile. 'Don't ye worry — in the merchant service we has no truck wi' pie-arse-squared an' all that, no time!' He tapped the book of tables. 'It's all there — ye just takes y'r sights an' looks it up. I learned it all in a short whiles only.'

  Farrell nodded approval when Jarman brought it up at seven bells. 'If you think it proper, Mr Jarman.' Therefore at noon, on the quarterdeck of Seaflower could be seen the amazing sight of the Captain, the master, the midshipman and Kydd preparing to take the noon altitude. Midshipman Cole as usual borrowed Farrell’s gleaming black and brass sextant, while Kydd gingerly took the worn octant wielded respectfully by Jarman.

  Afterwards, the master, as was his duty, took Cole aside to examine his reckoning and drill him in the essentials. Kydd hovered to listen. 'Now, every point of half th' surface of the earth is projected fr'm the centre on to a tangent plane at some point, call'd its point o' contact — but th' plane o' the equator when projected fr'm the centre on to a tangent plane itself becomes a straight line . ..'

  While the worried Cole tried to commit the words, Jarman turned to Kydd. 'Now, what we have there is a great circle. Nobody sails a great circle - we only steer straight or th' quartermaster-o'-the-watch would be vexed. What we really does is alter course a mort the same way once in a watch or so, an' that way we c'n approximate y'r circle.'

  There was more, and unavoidably it needed books: Renzi took an immediate interest. 'To snatch meaning from the celestial orb — to gather intelligence of our mortal striving from heavenly bodies of unimaginable distance and splendour. Now that is in pursuit of a philosophy so sublime . . .'

  With Hispaniola to larboard, they took a south-easterly slant across the width of the Caribbean, the trade winds comfortably abeam and, in accordance with Kydd's shaky workings shadowing the real ones, raised the island of St Lucia and its passage through to the open

  Atlantic ocean. The Windward Island of Barbados lay beyond.

  Kydd's shipmates accepted his privileged treatment with respect. He was one of their own, daring to reach for the one thing that set officers apart from seamen. It was a rare but not unknown thing for a foremast hand to take part in the noon reckoning, although in the usual way all officers' results were brought together for consensus while those of lesser beings were ignored.

  The rule-of-thumb principles used in the real world, informed by Jarman's utilitarian merchant service experience, Kydd absorbed readily enough — it was really only the looking up of tables. What was more difficult was the bodily technique of using the heavy old octant to shoot the sun against the exuberance of Sea/lower's sea motion. A combination of tucking in the left elbow, lowering the body to make the legs a pair of damping springs and leaning into it, and Kydd soon had the sun neatly brought down to the horizon with a sure swing of the arm.

  The underpinning of mathematics was beyond him, though. Renzi had the sense to refrain from pressing the issue. There would be time and more in the lazy dog-watches to make intellectual discoveries, and Kydd would benefit by the more relaxed explorations. Besides which, it was only the hapless Cole who was under pressure: he would take his qualifying examination for lieutenant within the year.

  Off Cape Moule to the south of the island the boatswain shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun on the calm blue seas — the wind had dropped to a fluky zephyr. 'Have ye news of St Lucia, sir?' he asked.

  The island changed hands with the regularity of a clock, and the green and brown slopes could now be hostile territory, around the point an enemy cruiser lurking.

  Farrell grunted, swinging his glass in a wide sweep over the hummocky island, across the glittering sea of the passage to the massive dark grey island of St Vincent just fifteen miles to the south. 'I don't think it signifies,' he said finally. 'We will be past and gone shortly.'

  In the light airs, Seaflower rippled ahead towards an offshore island and then the open sea. Kydd watched the course carefully: the tiny breeze was dropping and their progress slowed. The big foresail shivered and flapped, and the bow began to fall away. 'Watch y' head!' he growled to the man at the tiller.

  'Can't 'old 'er,' the pigtailed seaman grunted, his thigh stolidly pressuring the tiller hard over.

  'We lost steerage way, sir,' Kydd told Farrell. With the wind so light the heat clamped in, a clammy, all-pervasive breathlessness. Seaflower's sails hung lifeless, idle movements in the odd cat's-paw of breeze. Blocks clacked against the mast aimlessly and running rigging sagged. Kydd looked over the side. Without a wake the sea was glassy clear, and he could see deep down into the blue-green immensity, sunlight shafting down in cathedral-like coruscations.

  Jarman broke the dull silence. 'We have a contrary current hereabouts, sir,' he said heavily. Seaflower lay motionless in the calm — but the whole body of water was pressing inexorably into the Caribbean, carrying the vessel slowly but surely back whence she came. "T would be one 'n' a half, two knots.' That was the speed of a man walking, and even within the short time they had lain becalmed they had slid back significantly against the land. A bare hour later they were back at the point where they had begun their passage.

  A few welcome puffs shook out the sails, died, then picked up again. A tiny chuckle of water at her forefoot and Seaflower resumed her course, heading once more for the offshore islet. Once more the fluky wind betrayed them, and they were carried back again. 'T' the south?' asked the boatswain.

  'No,' said Jarman, moodily watching the coast slip back. 'Can't beat to weather in this, an' if we goes south we have t' claw back t' Barbados after.' Unspoken was the knowledge that a French lookout post might be telegraphing their presence even now to Port Castries and any man-o'-war that lay there; any improvement in the wind later could bring a voracious enemy with it.

  A darkling shadow moving on the sea's surface reached Seaflower, and the welcome coolness of a breeze touched Kydd's face - and stayed constant. Again, the cutter moved into the passage but this time the land slipped by until they had made the open ocean and were set to pass the little islet. 'I believe we may now bear away for Barbados,' Farrell said, with satisfaction, but his words were overlaid by an urgent shout from the crosstrees.

  'Saaail hoooo!; There was no need for a bearing. By chance occluded by the islet at the same rate as their advance, the sails of a square-rigger slid into view, heading to cross their path.

  'Brig-o'-war!' snarled Merrick. There would be little chance against such a vessel and, with the wind gatheri
ng, the further they made the open sea, it favoured the larger craft.

  Farrell's telescope went up and steadied. 'I think not, Mr Merrick — to quarters this minute.'

  But the merchant brig was not ready for a fight and struck immediately — to the savage delight of Seaflower's company. They entered Bridgetown with a prize in tow, sweet medicine indeed.

  To muted grumbles Seaflower was ordered to sea immediately: the niceties of adjudicating shares in prize money between the Admiral whose flag Seaflower wore and the Admiral in whose waters the capture took place would have to be resolved before the sailors saw any, and in any case the Vice Admiralty Court would have to sit first.

  As they put to sea again after storing, busy calculations were taking place in a hypothetical but blissful review of personal wealth. 'Merchantmen — so we don' see head money,' Petit grumbled.

  Farthing pulled up a cask to sit on. 'An' gun money neither.'

  Kydd arrived down the hatchway and joined in. 'Ye're forgettin' that a merchant packet has cargo - that's t' be included, y' loobies.' Gun money and head money were inducements to take on an enemy man-o'-war but the value of a merchant-ship cargo would normally far exceed it.

  He paused for effect. 'D'ye know, we return to Port Royal, but if we fall in wi' the Corbeau privateer, we're t' take her?' As a privateer counted as neither a merchant ship nor a man-o'-war, there was no real profit in an action; and even if they did encounter her, a privateer was crammed with men and would make a fierce opponent. 'Could never meet up wi' her, y' never knows,' Kydd said cheerfully, collecting his rain slick and going back on deck. It was a maddening combination of sun and sheeting rain, and Farrell would be on deck shortly to set the course.