Kydd had made up his mind about his third lieutenant well before raising Jamaica. They had neither the time nor the facilities to nurse a lame duck to something like effectiveness. If only he’d stayed in a ship-of-the-line where it was easier to absorb such a greenhorn … To be fair he’d recommend that he put in service with a bigger ship first but still discharge him in Kingston. Better to have no third lieutenant at all than a morale-sapping passenger taking up space.
He brightened. Jamaica: memories came warmly to mind of those times at the beginning of the war when he was there in the old Seaflower. There was no question but that this part of the world with its exotic and matchless beauty would be a splendid place for his lovely frigate to serve.
This time, though, he was an officer of distinction and quality, captain of his own ship, and he would not want for comforts. He would be revisiting with a very different pair of eyes.
A first spatter of rain brought him to reality: they were being pursued by the lofty white curtain of a line-squall advancing with the breeze, and its outliers were just reaching them. It took him back to hot afternoons in the boat-shed where he had worked, waiting for the deluge to pass, the red rivulets appearing as if by magic, staining the green transparency of Antigua harbour, and that distinctive warm, earthy smell.
It would be good to return.
Ahead, the horizon was obscured by another squall, the white drifting veil lazily moving across their vision.
‘Shorten sail, sir?’
‘No, I think not.’ He didn’t need to look at the chart: the only hazards between them and Jamaica were the Morant Cays, tiny islets with reefs over which the seas continually broke in a smother of white. In daylight, even through the rain, lookouts would spot these well in time.
The squalls thinned and lifted slowly to reveal the two-mile-long line of breakers over to starboard and well ahead.
‘Take ’em south about, a mile clear.’ As they had been so many times before, the cays were a reassuring token of where they were, a mere half-day’s brisk sail from Kingston, to the north-west.
Unexpectedly, over on the far side, the flutter of raised sail appeared. Two masts – and not square-rigged. The hull was hidden by the line of surf but it was obvious that the unknown craft had been anchored in the lee of the cays and on seeing them had cut his cable to run. Was this sudden flight the result of a guilty conscience?
‘Helm down!’ Kydd snapped. ‘Get after him!’
They were far upwind of the stranger and here the big square driving sails of the frigate would be decisive.
Interest quickened around the ship as word spread. Kydd’s swift action had placed the chase squarely ahead of them and even before they reached the islets it was clear that in the fresh conditions they could look to overhaul the vessel before dark.
It couldn’t be better: they would arrive in Kingston with a prize at their heel!
Speculation went back and forth. It was a schooner, raked masts and a black hull, no trader he – almost a caricature of a privateer and almost certainly lying in wait for inbound Jamaican traffic. It was their bad luck that the rain squall had hidden L’Aurore’s approach until it was almost too late.
Within a short time the schooner sheeted in for a dash to the north. Instantly Kydd had L’Aurore on a parallel course to keep upwind and closing slowly.
By rounding Morant Point at the eastern tip of Jamaica and staying ahead until darkness fell, it would be in a position where Kydd would be forced to guess whether it had decided to go to Hispaniola, Cuba or even out into the open sea to the west.
The move closer to the wind was not to L’Aurore’s advantage. With the fresh breeze now forward of the beam the schooner was more than holding its own and the two ships raced ahead, every line taut and straining. Soon after midday the flat, palm-studded Morant Point was in sight but now the schooner was well in the lead and before L’Aurore could come up with the low sprawl, its distinctive pink earth, the schooner had vanished behind it.
‘Sir, charts are talking of reefs offshore a mile, two?’
Kydd tried to recall when he had been last this way – but the small cutter that Seaflower was drew far less than a frigate. ‘Keep her away, then, Mr Kendall.’
It was giving the chase a further advantage but it couldn’t be helped. Mentally he decided on another hour or so beyond the point, and if they weren’t within striking distance, he’d drop it.
The rain squall caught up with them just before they rounded the point, the energetic downpour now an irritating inundation that dampened the spirit and hid their quarry. They pressed on resolutely through the rain-slashed sea until, after one more spiteful flurry, the air cleared.