6-Tenacious Read online

‘I tell you this in order that you be under no apprehension that he is to be accorded any privileges whatsoever beyond those extended to his fellow young gentlemen. Notwithstanding his gentle birth – and you may understand he is my sister’s child – I desire that he be treated the same.’

  ‘Sir, with respect, I can’t see how this is a concern f’r me.’

  Essington smiled. ‘This is then the delicacy. It is my wish that young Bowden do learn his nauticals properly, neglecting none, to be a sure foundation for his future. I do not ask you will be the schoolmaster in this, but I would take it very kindly in you should you watch over his learning. That is, his notions of seamanship will then be of prime worth, coming as they will from one whose own such are so unquestioned.’

  ‘Sir, you flatter me,’ Kydd said carefully. But nursemaid to a midshipman? And, anyway, as an officer he would not have any direct relationship with a midshipman: that was the province of the master’s mates and petty officers.

  Essington frowned. ‘I do not ask you will interfere, merely that as the occasion presents you do try him in the particulars, sparing neither his feelings nor time as you deem necessary.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ Kydd acknowledged formally.

  ‘Very well. Captain Houghton knows of my request and will hear any suggestion you may have, conformable to the requirements of his ship.’

  Hesitating, Essington went on quietly, ‘The boy is, er, eager to please, having latterly formed a pressing desire for the sea life, which will not be denied, but his ideas of life in a midshipman’s berth are somewhat whimsical.’

  ‘Sir, I—’

  ‘I have instructed him that under no circumstances should you be approached on matters not pertaining to the sea profession,’ Essington said. ‘He’ll find his place soon enough – or suffer. Either way, this is not a concern of yours.’

  He hauled a gold hunter from his waistcoat. ‘I see it is past eleven – I have to go ashore now. It only remains for me to wish you good fortune, Mr Kydd, and to thank you.’

  Kydd watched the gangling midshipman he had seen in the captain’s cabin emerge from the cabin spaces aft. The lad, in brand new blues and a too-large cocked hat, looked bewildered. Seeing Essington, he went to him, remembering at the last moment to remove his hat. His fingers worked nervously at his dirk as they exchanged murmured words; the boy attempted a last embrace and then Essington went down the side amid the ceremonial shriek of pipes. Kydd caught the glint of tears, the rigidity of barely held control.

  ‘Mr Rawson!’ he bellowed, up to the poop deck, where he knew his signal midshipman had been working at the flag locker.

  Rawson appeared at the poop rails in his shirtsleeves, then slid down the ladder to join him. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Mr Rawson, this is Mr Bowden. Be so good as to convey him t’ the midshipmen’s berth, and settle him in – an’ none of y’r guardo tricks if y’ please.’

  Kydd turned away, feigning disinterest, but listened to the exchange that followed.

  ‘So what do we call ye, then?’ Rawson teased. ‘Spit it out, younker!’

  ‘Er, Charles, sir.’

  ‘No, all of it,’ Rawson said, with relish. ‘We’ll find out from the ship’s books anyway.’

  ‘Well, er, it’s – it’s… Her-Her—’

  ‘Damn it, fellow, we haven’t got all day.’

  ‘Her-Her-Hercules A-A-berdour Charles Ayscough, sir,’ said Bowden, in a small voice.

  ‘Well, now! What infernal bad luck for you!’ Rawson said fruitily. ‘I’d wager “The Honourable” as well?’

  The boy nodded miserably. ‘Couldn’t be bettered!’ Rawson said, with a whoop. ‘Welcome to th’ Cockpitonians. Where’s your sea-chest, then?’

  By later that forenoon Tenacious was in tolerable sea-going order, her gear inspected and renewed or turned end for end, spars scraped back and well blacked, guns and gunlocks minutely checked. Every conceivable corner and space was stowed with sea stores: a thousand miles into a hostile Mediterranean was not the place to discover deficiencies.

  Sitting with the others scratching away at last letters, Kydd sucked his quill: there would be no mail sent or received as they sailed deeper into the ancient sea. He bent again over his letter to his family but was noisily interrupted by a midshipman hurtling into the wardroom. ‘All officers!’ he shrilled. ‘On deck instanter – it’s the admiral!’

  The admiral’s barge had been seen putting off from Vanguard, but it did not shape a course inshore as usual: with Flag pennant a-flutter it headed straight for Tenacious, with an unmistakable figure, resplendent in gold lace and decorations, in the sternsheets.

  An appalled watch officer sent messengers scurrying while he hastily pulled together a side party. Houghton shot up from below, roaring for the first lieutenant who, when he finally appeared, showed every evidence of hasty dressing.

  Kydd took his place with the receiving party of officers on the quarterdeck, nervously tugging his hat and smoothing his waistcoat. No one was in fit state to greet an admiral; it was the usual custom to alert the ship well in advance, but this was the famed Nelson, who was known to be different from the rest.

  The bowman of the barge hooked on with a quite unnecessary flourish. High at the deck edge the boatswain waited with his silver call poised, his mates and sideboys in a line inward to the group of officers.

  At the instant the top of a cocked hat appeared, the calls pealed out together and Rear Admiral of the Blue Sir Horatio Nelson came aboard, his flag breaking at the mizzen. Houghton came forward and removed his hat. ‘Sir, welcome aboard HMS Tenacious. Might I have the honour of presenting my officers?’ The deck was absolutely still; not a man moved except around the admiral.

  At the junior end of the receiving line Kydd dared a glance at the man who even now was known throughout the navy and increasingly by the general public, one whose reputation must shortly be tested in this daring foray.

  Not as tall as Kydd’s, Nelson’s figure was sparse and drawn, in no sense that of a hero, and seemingly dwarfed by the weight of his decorations and gold lace. Kydd tried not to look at the empty sleeve pinned across his chest and the spindly legs, and tensed as the admiral approached.

  ‘And Lieutenant Kydd, sir, fifth and junior.’ Houghton’s tone betrayed that he, too, was affected by the presence.

  ‘Do you come from a seagoing family?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Kydd answered. ‘I come fr’m Guildford, in th’ country.’ He became uncomfortably aware of prematurely white hair and the odd, milky-blue right eye.

  ‘Then what made you follow the sea?’

  ‘I – I was pressed, sir.’

  There was no avoiding the admission, but to his relief a thin smile appeared. ‘And now you are a king’s officer, come aft the hardest way. To your great credit, sir – that’s so, Captain?’

  ‘It is, sir,’ Houghton stuttered.

  Kydd tried to think of a suitable reply, but Nelson had passed on.

  Before they entered the cabin spaces Houghton turned to the officers. ‘Sir Horatio wishes to address you all. Shall we say my cabin in ten minutes?’

  In the great cabin of Tenacious a chart of the Mediterranean was already spread out on the table. Nelson wasted no time. ‘You will have heard from your captain the essence of what faces us. The enemy is up to mischief – but where?’ He looked from face to face. ‘There’s been no news, no more intelligence forwarded to me than you yourselves know. We’re sailing into the unknown. But of this I’m sure. The enemy must make his move soon and we shall be ready, gentlemen. We have the finest sea service of the age, and we shall do our duty!’ There were murmurs of approval, Bryant’s sounding above them all.

  ‘Now, to strategy. Our course will be to Toulon. We cruise off and on until we discover for a certainty what the French are doing. If they make a move to the west we fall back. I’m prepared to let Gibraltar be taken to make certain that we can hold them at Cadíz and there with the whole fleet we shall try for a conclusion.’ T
here was a shocked silence, which he broke: ‘We are talking now of the very security of our islands – they will not pass.’

  He touched the chart to the east. ‘If, on the other hand, General Buonaparte is considering an adventure to Constantinople he will find he is trapped. The waters are shoal and there is but the one entrance, the Dardanelles. There he will find us waiting, and he will see that it will bring the Turks into close alliance. And if they are further east, to the Levant perhaps, the Red Sea, we shall fall on their lines of supply.’

  He straightened painfully, his face grim and set. ‘But all is vaporous posturing until we have met their fleet and disposed of it. While it exists, the Mediterranean is a French lake. All our striving must be to entice it to sea and bring it to battle. That, gentlemen, is our entire strategy. Questions?’

  The heightened feeling was almost palpable. Bryant asked boldly, ‘What will be our force, sir?’

  ‘Vanguard, yourselves, Orion and Alexander, with three frigates. Too big to discourage from looking where we please, too small to think we engage. Big enough to lure ’em out,’ Nelson snapped, and waited for another question.

  ‘Signals, sir. We haven’t yet the new instructions,’ Kydd found himself saying. The others frowned, but he was concerned that he did not yet have a signal book ready for any major fleet action in prospect.

  ‘Neither will you,’ Nelson said briefly. ‘You are in a detached squadron of Sir John’s fleet off Cadíz. His signals therefore will still apply.’ He then turned to Kydd and smiled grimly. ‘And if any ship of the enemy lie ahead, why, our duty is plain and no signal required.’

  There was a stirring among the officers. These were not the highly planned, intricate tactics of a fleet in line-of-battle: service under this admiral promised to be a time each would remember.

  After the men had finished their grog and noon meal the officers sat down to dinner. The wardroom was alive with only one topic. ‘A proud man, but conceited,’ Bampton said firmly. ‘Vanity does not a leader make, in my opinion.’

  ‘Oh, so you have personal knowledge of our famed commander?’ There was an edge to Adams’s voice.

  ‘Not directly. But I have heard—’

  ‘Let the man’s actions speak for ’emselves, I say!’ boomed Bryant.

  Bampton came in instantly: ‘They have.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Orders. Do you call them orders? “If you see an enemy ship, damn the signals and close with him.” What kind of orders are those? In a fleet action there has to be detail – every circumstance foreseen, all manoeuvres planned in such a manner that every captain will know what is expected of him. As for signals – is this an example to our junior officers? Are you satisfied, Mr Kydd?’

  Kydd had no experience in a fleet action as an officer. As a master’s mate on the lower deck during the battle of Camperdown he had never been privy to the wider tactical picture on the quarterdeck. Now, as a signal lieutenant, he was expected to act as a crucial link in the chain of command.

  ‘He’s a fighting seaman, that I like,’ Kydd said firmly. ‘A rear admiral, but goes out in th’ boats himself at Cadíz, takes the fight t’ the enemy.’

  ‘Seeking a reputation at the cannon’s mouth.’

  Bryant snorted impatiently. ‘A plain-sailing admiral – I’m satisfied, an’ I surely know what will answer with him.’

  Kydd finished his meal in silence, and went up on deck. A lone figure stood by the hances. It was Bowden, staring out, unseeing. Kydd approached, but before he could say anything the lad had moved away.

  ‘Tysoe!’

  Kydd’s servant appeared quickly: the Princess Royal was giving a grand reception that evening in honour of Admiral Nelson, and all Gibraltar would be there.

  ‘Full fig ’n’ sword.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’ Kydd held back a smile – Tysoe was never more contented than when he was arrayed in his finery. ‘The silver buckles, sir?’

  ‘Of course.’ Kydd knew that this was Tysoe’s way of ensuring he would not follow the modish wearing of Hessian half-boots and pantaloons in place of knee-breeches and stockings.

  But Tysoe was not privy to the real purpose of the evening. The function was a ruse – seeing a grand party begin, the watching Spaniards would conclude that there would be no martial activity in the fleet that night or, indeed, the following morning. But while the affair was proceeding the darkened vessels at anchor were being prepared. Directly the officers returned in the early hours they would put to sea, and at dawn the Spanish would realise that the English fleet had sailed – but out of their sight and in the opposite direction to their expectation: back into the Mediterranean at last.

  At dusk boats put off from all ships, heading for the glittering spangle of lights on Princess Royal’s quarterdeck. The sound of an orchestra and excited voices floated across the still water.

  Kydd mounted the side and was greeted by the flag lieutenant. The effect of so much blue and gold of the navy and the scarlet and gold of regimentals was breathtaking under the soft lanthorn light.

  An officer of equal standing in the host ship took him into the throng. Seaman servants circulated with wine; ladies stooped to admire the flowers that adorned the bitts round the mast and marvelled at the vivid colours of the flags of every nation draped along the bulwarks.

  Kydd felt a well of contentment: this was what it was to be a king’s officer, to taste the sweets of his own achievement in a world he had entered by right, the stage upon which he would perform for the rest of his professional life.

  He saw his host bringing forward a young lady, who dimpled with pleasure on seeing Kydd. ‘The Honourable Arabella Grantham. Believes she saw you before,’ he added enviously.

  ‘Y’r servant, Miss Arabella,’ said Kydd, essaying a deep bow.

  ‘Mr Kydd, you might not remember, but when you were King Neptune I was a cygnet.’ She giggled.

  It stopped him short until he recalled the fancy-dress assembly he had attended the last time he had been in Gibraltar. ‘But o’ course! The cygnet! Er…’

  Impulsively she pressed forward, eyes wide. ‘Mr Kydd, it would make me very happy if you could… I have no right—’

  ‘Y’r pleasure is my command,’ he said immediately, feeling smug. Renzi would be impressed with this evidence of his developing urbanity.

  ‘Er, yes. Mr Kydd. What I’d adore more than anything in this world…’ her eyes dropped, but the lashes fluttered as she finished breathlessly ‘. . . is that you do introduce me to your famous Nelson.’

  A lowly junior lieutenant? Sir Horatio Nelson? ‘Miss Arabella…’ he began. Her blue eyes looked up at him beseechingly. He glanced aft. It was easy to spot Nelson; he was conferring at the centre of a distinguished group of senior officers and their followers.

  ‘If y’ please.’ He offered his arm awkwardly and navigated them through the throng, warning her of the odd ringbolt and hatch coaming, rehearsing the words he would use that would excuse the impertinence of approaching a flag officer without leave.

  Nelson looked distracted as he listened to an anecdote from a jovial admiral who was clearly his senior. It did not take a great leap of imagination to grasp that he would far rather be ranging the seas than dallying in port.

  Kydd waited for the account to finish and the guffaws to die, then addressed Nelson with trepidation: ‘S-sir, might I present Miss Arabella Grantham, who did express t’ me a desire to make y’r acquaintance and will not be denied.’

  Nelson gave Kydd a cold stare, before which he quailed. Then the gaze turned on the young woman and was transformed. ‘Why, my dear, you are to be gratified this instant,’ he said. ‘Do you now meet Admiral Nelson of the Blue, at once your devoted admirer!’ He bowed, then took her hand and kissed it. ‘Lieutenant, your discernment in the matter of beauty is to your credit, but I can only lament that it is much in evidence you have failed in your duty. This young lady is without the means of refreshment on this warm night.’

  ‘Aye
aye, sir,’ said Kydd. He noted that the hand had not been released, bowed and went dutifully in search of some punch.

  Tempers on deck were fraying in the hot night as Tenacious made ready for sea. ‘Get forrard this instant, damn your blood, sir!’ an officer threw at Bowden, as the hapless midshipman was jostled by men too busy to tell him where to go.

  ‘It’ll be stuns’ls, o’ course,’ the master said. Unable to risk the revealing bending of sail before the concealment of dark they were now faced with the task of sending up the long bolsters of canvas almost by touch. Casting under jib, as the large fore and aft sail mounted, it became plain from its limp flap that the light wind had backed even more easterly and they were once more held in the thrall of the Rock.

  ‘This will need more than stuns’ls,’ Houghton snapped. ‘I’d hoped we’d make our offing by dawn, but now…’

  ‘Sir, Vanguard is putting her boats in the water,’ Bampton said carefully. This implied a hard time for all.

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ Houghton said irritably. ‘But what will they do?’ There was no question but that they must follow the motions of the admiral, and there were two alternatives he could take: tow the heavy warships out with every boat available, or warp out.

  ‘Their launch and large pinnace only in the water, sir.’

  ‘Then it’s to warp.’ He turned to the boatswain. ‘Mr Pearce, see to the launch and red cutter.’ They would lay out an anchor ahead of the ship and heave up to it using the capstan, then take it out and repeat the process, inching to sea by main force.

  ‘Mr Kydd, if you are at leisure you’d oblige me by taking away the launch,’ Houghton said. Adams was to have the cutter.

  Hoisting out the heavy boat would take time, so Kydd went to his cabin to change into a comfortable sea-going rig, then mustered his boat’s crew. It was going to be hard, sweaty, painful work with the half-ton of the kedge anchor slung from the boat and the even bigger weight of the catenary of hawser stretching to the ship.

  Kydd was glad to see Dobbie, a petty officer built like a prize-fighter, in his party. ‘Sir,’ he acknowledged, with a gap-toothed grin. ‘Better’n being down in th’ cable tiers.’ The familiarity would have irked some officers but since his ‘duel’ with Dobbie in Halifax – when the seaman had accused him of betraying the mutineers at the Nore, and Kydd, although an officer, had been prepared to defend his name in the time-honoured fashion of the lower deck – Kydd had reason to tolerate it. Besides, Dobbie was right: in a short while the job of the men coiling in the heavy, wet cable in the hot, fetid gloom of the orlop would be all but unendurable.