Victory Read online

  ‘We ain’t got a fuckin’ prayer!’ a young sailor blurted, eyes wild.

  Stirk turned to him and scruffed his shirt. ‘Shut y’r mouth, y’ useless codshead. How’re they goin’ to come at us over that there?’ He jerked his head at the sea-white cleft separating them from the cliff. ‘They has t’ come in a boat, an’ when they do, we’ve guns as’ll settle ’em.’ He thrust the youth contemptuously away and turned to Kydd.

  ‘Sir,’ he said quietly, ‘an’ the carpenter wants a word. He’s in th’ hold.’

  Kydd nodded. It was less than two hours to the top of the tide and then they could make their bid – pray heaven there was no problem.

  They went down the fore-hatchway and Stirk, ignoring his leg wound, found the lanthorn. Without a word they went to a dark cavity at the after end of the ship. Moving awkwardly with the unnatural canting of the deck, Kydd dropped into the black void, filled with terrifying creaking and overpowering odours.

  Stirk passed down the lanthorn and, bent double, they made their way to the lower side, where the carpenter and his mate stood with their own illumination.

  No words were necessary. Evil and malignant, a wet blackness smelling powerfully of seaweed obscenely obtruded through the crushed and splintered hull for six feet or more, a fearful presence from the outside world breaking in on their precious home.

  Kydd turned away that the others would not see the sting of the hot tears that threatened to overcome him at the unfairness of it all. ‘Don’t say anything o’ this,’ he said hoarsely. ‘We’ll – we’ll fother, is all.’ He nearly wept: for Teazer, to leave her bones in this break-heart place . . .

  There was nothing the carpenter could do with a breach of such magnitude. There was a forlorn hope that fothering, dragging a sail over the outside, would give the pumps a chance.

  Trusted men sat cross-legged in the gloom below, frenziedly sewing oakum and weaving matting into the sail, until it was obvious that the tide was ready to lift. It had to work: Kydd made sure the petty officers and others knew the stakes and personally selected the brawniest seamen to man the capstan that was to haul them off towards the anchor.

  They had mounted the reef at about an hour before high water. Husbanding the strength of his men, Kydd waited until the ship shifted and moved restlessly, then drove them mercilessly.

  Sobbing with the pain of the effort the men threw themselves at it, straining and heaving – and won. A sudden jerk, an odd wiggle like an eel, and Teazer was afloat and alive in the surging waters. Like a madman, Kydd roared his orders. Sail on the jury rig, the pumps manned instantly, parties ready at every conceivable point of trouble and the anchor cut loose just in time.

  As they wallowed in clear water the fother sail was hastily produced, hauled into place and secured. Everything depended now on a clear run for England.

  The wind was veering fitfully more westerly, fair to make an offing – but it would take them perilously close to that improbably named headland, Le Stiff. However, it was a bold coast, steep to with deep water, and in the brisk winds Teazer was making respectable way and within the hour had it laid astern.

  Kydd had his two midshipmen positioned to relay any news from the hell below. He knew the chain pumps were beasts to drive, the rubbing of the many leather flaps of the watertight seal creating an inertia that was bone-breaking to overcome. It was not unknown in extreme circumstances for men to fall dead at the endless brutal exertion. ‘Mr Tawse?’

  ‘Holding, Mr Kydd.’ The youngster was pale, his set face giving nothing away.

  The hours stretched out. Kydd stood motionless on the quarterdeck, willing on his ship. After what she’d gone through . . . but they must be nearly halfway by now. In just hours more they would make landfall, say Plymouth or further on at Torbay. Rest for his sorely tried ship.

  The carpenter broke into Kydd’s thoughts: ‘Sir, I’m truly sorry t’ say, we’re makin’ water faster’n we can get rid of ’un.’ Kydd could feel it now. A terrible weariness, no reaction to the bluster and boisterous play of the seas, a—

  ‘Saaail!’ Without tops to mount a lookout at a height, the stranger could not be far off.

  ‘The Frenchy frigate,’ Kydd said dully, as it smartly altered towards them. Fury slammed in on him – how could he give up his brave, his infinitely precious ship to the enemy after all this?

  ‘No, it ain’t!’ Poulden said excitedly. ‘That’s Harpy, ship-sloop!’ A friend! Glory be, they had help – they had a chance.

  The sloop came alongside and hailed. In a whirl of feeling Kydd saw a tow-line passed and the men below on the pumps spelled. All the while, with a terrible intensity, he urged his wounded ship on.

  With fresh men and new heart they laboured unceasingly, but the tow proved a difficult haul. At a little after one, a tiny blue-grey line was seen ahead: England. As if relenting, the seas and westerly began to ease and the unnatural wallowing softened as they struggled on.

  But Kydd could feel in his heart that a mortal tiredness lay on Teazer. Like a dog in its last hour trying to lift its muzzle to lick its master’s hand, she could no longer respond to please him. She was dying.

  He hurried below in a frenzy of anguish. The men, in every stage of exhaustion, were fighting the pump to work amid as deadly a sign as the buboes on a plague victim: ankle-deep water, which was sloshing unchecked from side to side across the decks.

  A lump in his throat threatened to choke him as he went back to the quarterdeck. The land was close enough to make out individual fields, the calm loveliness of Devon. And it was now so cruelly apparent that Teazer would not now make her rest. He could do no more for his love, his first command, she who had borne him on the ocean’s bosom for so many leagues of both adventure and heartache.

  It was time to part.

  The tow was cast off, the men released from their Calvary and set to transferring their pitiful belongings to the boats. Such stores as could be retrieved were taken aboard and then, with the seas lapping her gunports, HMS Teazer was abandoned, her captain the last to leave with a final caress of her rail.

  In mute sympathy, Harpy stood by as Teazer lay down and slipped away for ever from human ken.

  Chapter 2

  ‘Why, Miss Cecilia! We were not expecting you.’

  ‘Is my brother at home, Tysoe?’

  ‘I regret no, miss, but I’m sure Mr Renzi is at leisure to receive you. If you’ll allow me to enquire . . .’

  Renzi bowed politely as she was ushered into the drawing room.

  ‘I did hear that Thomas took lodgings with you in London after . . .’

  Renzi had no idea how she had, but he knew she was of all things a determined lady.

  ‘Rather it is that I took lodgings with Thomas,’ he chided gently. Her near presence was disturbing but he controlled his feelings. ‘He’s customarily engaged at the Admiralty at this hour but might be expected later this afternoon. May I – would you wish for some refreshment, my dear?’

  ‘Should you tell of your recent . . . encounter, I would be much obliged.’

  Renzi was aware of the control in her voice and understood what a shock it must have been for her to learn from the lurid lines in the Morning Chronicle and the more measured but no less horrific account in the Gazette of the furious action and later sinking of Kydd’s ship.

  ‘I shall not keep it from you. It was a bloody enough affair, Cecilia. Er, might we sit at the fire? Tysoe, I know we have a prime Bohea to offer our guest.’

  Renzi felt Cecilia’s steady gaze on him. He began to speak of Kydd’s cool courage, the noble Teazer taking her punishment, her company under Kydd’s leadership achieving heroic renown and then the final harrowing scenes ending in her passing.

  Cecilia sat quietly until he had finished. Then she dabbed her eyes. ‘So Thomas is at the Admiralty, these days. He’s making arrangements, no doubt, for his next ship. I wonder what it will be.’

  ‘I rather fear his prospects for another command are not good, dear sist
er. You see, he’s by way of being a commander, not a post-captain, and there being a superfluity of such gentlemen, there are many who will see it as their right to be granted a ship before such as he.’

  ‘You mean, he’s not a proper captain? I find that hard to credit, Nicholas.’

  ‘It’s the immutable way of the Service. A sloop may claim a commander only as its captain, lesser breeds a lieutenant. And beyond a sloop we find that a post-captain alone may aspire to its command. Therefore Thomas is left on the beach as we term it.’

  ‘But he’s famous! Did you not read of him in the newspaper? In our family Thomas is the only one ever to see his name in the newspaper,’ she said. ‘They must give him a new ship, surely.’

  ‘Dear lady, the world is a wicked, thoughtless place, which sets great store on today and has already forgotten yesterday. I rather fear they will not.’

  She clapped her hands together at a sudden realisation. ‘Then he must settle down on the land at last.’

  Renzi said quietly, ‘If you knew how much losing his Teazer has hurt him you would temper your joy. For a sailor his ship is his love and he has lost her.’

  Cecilia dropped her eyes. ‘Was he truly brave, do you think, Nicholas? I mean, all those men with swords and muskets climbing onto his ship – did he fight them himself or does he order his men to . . . to . . . ?’

  ‘He must face them at the side of his men.’

  Tysoe appeared with the tea accoutrements and set up on the small table. It was served in the Chinese style, delicate cups without handles and a cover on each.

  ‘Then . . . he will— Do you mind, Nicholas, if I ask you a question concerning Thomas?’

  ‘Why, if it is in my power to—’

  ‘Killing a man: it is the last act, the final sanction of man upon man. I know his station in life demands he shall on occasion . . . do it, but can you conceive that over time the character might be . . . coarsened by the repeated experience?’

  Renzi looked away, nearly overcome. This was the woman to whom he had lost his heart, but he had vowed never to disclose his feelings to her until he believed he was worthy enough to offer suit. And she had just revealed not only how far her own character had deepened, but her moral compass, the quality of mind that she would bring to any union . . .

  At his hesitation she added quickly, ‘Oh, Nicholas, I didn’t mean to imply that you yourself have had to . . . are exposed to . . . in the same way . . .’ She leaned forward in wide-eyed concern, her hand lightly on his arm – a touch like fire. ‘You are so gentle, so fine a man, and to think I . . .’

  A rush of warmth threatened to engulf him. An irresistible urge to let the dam free, to throw himself at her and declare— He thrust himself roughly to his feet and moved to the window. ‘I’ll have it known there’s blood on my hands as must be for any other in a King’s Ship!’

  Cecilia bit her lip. Renzi collected himself and returned to his chair without meeting her eye again. ‘If it were not so it would be to the hazard of my duty.’ He stared for long moments at the fire and then said, ‘The subject is not often broached at sea, you’ll no doubt be surprised to know. Yet I believe I will tell you more.’

  ‘Thank you, Nicholas,’ she said.

  He sipped his tea, then expounded to her the imperatives that, when all else failed, led to the resolution of differences between nations by open confrontation – that must logically result in coercion resisted by force, its ultimate expression violence, at first to the instruments of that force and then inexorably to its agents while they adhered to their purpose.

  He touched on the singular but still logical principles of conduct that obtained in the act of taking life, that required the mortal hazard of one’s body before that of an opposer, that in the act demanded dispatch without prejudice, and in the event of a yielding, compassion and protection.

  It was an interesting paradox, yet explicable by known tenets of civilised behaviour if only as an outworking of—

  Her face was set and pale. ‘My dear, it was never my intention to fatigue you with such arcane matters,’ he said gently. ‘Rather it was to set you aright as to our motives when we face the enemy.’

  She made no reply so he went on, ‘You asked about Thomas. And I’m to tell you that he’s not a creature of blood and war, rather he’s one of Neptune’s children, glorying with a whole heart in his life on the briny deep. His duty is to destroy the King’s enemies but we might say this only enables him to take to the waves and find his being on the ocean’s bosom.’

  ‘This is becoming clear to me, Nicholas, never fear. It seems that those whose business is in great waters are a tribe of man quite apart from all others.’

  ‘Truly said, my dear. Should he be unsuccessful in his petition for a ship – which I fear must be so – he needs must find solace on the shore, and would, I believe, be much obliged for your sisterly understanding.’

  ‘He shall get it, Nicholas,’ she said seriously. ‘I shall call tomorrow.’

  ‘Dear sister, perhaps do give him a little time first.’ Toying with his tea, Renzi added lightly, ‘Would it be impertinent of me to enquire of your own circumstances, the marquess having left his position at the Peace?’

  Cecilia had for several years now been a companion to Charlotte Stanhope when she travelled with her diplomat husband who had resigned in protest at the punitive terms of the armistice separating the War of the Revolution and the War of Napoleon.

  ‘He is taken back by the prime minister to serve in the same capacity as before, and the marchioness is gracious enough to extend to me a welcome.’ She smiled, her face lighting. ‘You would laugh to see our antics, Nicholas, she so desirous to keep the megrims at bay while her husband is caught up in such desperate times.’

  ‘So in London you would not lack for admirers, I’d hazard.’

  Cecilia blushed and delicately took up her cup. ‘But how then is your own situation, there being no place in a ship now available to you? Will you make application to another captain and sail away on more adventures, perhaps?’

  There was not the slightest tinge of regret at the prospect that he could detect, and he answered coolly, ‘This is not in contemplation at the moment.’ Renzi knew only too well that an evident gentleman as he was would never find employment as a mere ship’s clerk in any man-o’-war he was acquainted with. The situation with Kydd was unusual to say the least.

  He went on in the same tone: ‘When your brother is in better knowledge of his future, no doubt there will be an arrangement. Thomas, as you know, is in possession of a small but respectable fortune and is frugal in his habits. I’m sanguine he’ll feel able to assist in the matter of respectable lodgings while I pursue my studies.’

  Cecilia smiled encouragingly. ‘Perhaps you would oblige me, Nicholas, by disclosing the progress in your great work.’

  Renzi had sailed as a free settler to New South Wales, hoping to make his fortune there to lay before Cecilia, then ask for her hand in marriage. But his foray into crop-raising had ended in ruin and he had seized Kydd’s suggestion of a project to enable him eventually to press his suit: he had embarked on an ambitious literary endeavour, a study of the varied cultural responses to the human experience. To enable this Kydd had promised to employ him as clerk aboard whichever ship he might captain and give him the opportunity to work on his studies in his free time.

  Renzi put down his cup carefully and steepled his fingers. ‘I own, my dear, it’s been a harder beat to windward than ever I calculated when first taking up my pen. An overplus of facts, as who should say data, and a cacophony of opinions from even the most eminent.’

  Cecilia listened attentively. ‘And in this – dare I say it? – you shine above all others,’ she said warmly, ‘particularly in the art of untangling for us all the threads of the matter to its own true conclusion.’

  Renzi took refuge in his tea, then went on, ‘Nevertheless, I must achieve an order, a purpose to the volume, which I might modestly claim to have
now laid down in its substance, it yet lacking the form.’

  ‘Then it may be said that your travails are near crowned with success?’ she said eagerly.

  ‘Writing is a labour of love but a labour for all that,’ Renzi admitted, ‘yet the end cannot be far delayed.’

  She straightened and, in a brisk voice that he recognised from long before, she said firmly, ‘It does occur to me, Nicholas, that there is a course of action you may wish to pursue, given that you are now without means of any kind.’

  ‘There is?’

  ‘Have you considered the actual publishing of your work?’

  ‘Um, not in so much detail,’ Renzi said uncomfortably.

  ‘Well, then, think on this. Do you not feel that if your work has its merits, then when published it will be bought in its scores – hundreds, even? Your publisher would stand to turn a pretty penny in his bookselling – why not approach one and offer that if he should convey to you now a proportion of this revenue for the purposes of keeping body and soul together, you would agree that he would be the only one with the honour to print it?’

  ‘Oh, er, here we’re speaking of a species of investment, of risk. I cannot imagine that one of your grand publishers would top it the moneylender, dear lady.’

  ‘But it would not harm to enquire of one, to see which way the wind blows, as you sailors say. You will do this, Nicholas, won’t you?’

  ‘I really don’t think—’

  ‘Oh, please, Nicholas, to gratify me . . .’

  ‘Er, well, I—’

  ‘Thank you! Just think that very soon you shall hold in your hand the book that will make you famous.’

  Kydd walked across the cobbled courtyard and mounted the steps through the noble portico of the Admiralty. He nodded familiarly to the door-keeper and turned left in the entrance hall for the Captains’ Room.