‘What’s that, Flags?’
‘The court-martial, sir. You now have your five captains.’
‘Ah, yes. Like to get this disagreeable business over with before we sail. Er, set it in train, will you? There’s a good fellow.’
Legal proceedings could not begin in a court-martial unless five post captains could be found to sit in judgment and cases had sometimes dragged on for months while waiting for the requisite number.
It was not the most auspicious beginning to his service here.
Back aboard his ship, Kydd cleared lower deck and told her company of developments, mentioning that with powerful reinforcements on their way their shipmates would soon be set at liberty, and announcing the agreeable news that they would be exchanging the winter shoals and lowering darkness of defeat in Buenos Aires for the delights of the Caribbean. It more than made up for the trials of the voyage.
In the time-honoured way, boats had already put off from the shore to the newly arrived ship, laden to the gunwales with tempting delights for sailors long at sea – hands of bananas, moist soursops, grapefruit-tasting shaddock, fried milk, not to mention bammy bread and live chickens, all dispensed with noisy gusto by laughing black faces.
Even Gilbey, the dour first lieutenant, was borne along on the tide of excitement and, wrinkling his nose at the mauby beer, insisted on picking out half a dozen fresh coconuts for the gunroom.
‘That no good for youse, de fine buckra officer!’ a stout lady said, snatching them back. ‘I got toppest kind, verra tender an’ young. You leave others t’ the kooner-men!’ She triumphantly produced some smaller ones, still enshrouded with fine coir hair.
Kydd kept a blank expression. He knew very well what was going on from those long-ago times in the Caribbean as a ‘kooner-man’ himself. Deciding not to interfere, he let Gilbey conclude the deal and stood back as seamen quickly moved in to relieve her of the store of bigger, older nuts. Quite soon there would be merriment of a different kind below decks: the L’Aurores would have wasted no time in ‘sucking the monkey’ – quaffing the powerful rum that had taken the place of milk inside their purchases.
Curzon was compounding with Bowden, the third lieutenant, in the subscribing of a sea-turtle – calipash and calipee – and Kydd graciously acceded to joining them, looking forward to the warmth of a dinner with his officers.
Liberty ashore was promised as soon as storing was complete, but for Kydd there was first a stern duty. At the summons of the single court-martial gun booming over the anchorage, he boarded his gig for Northumberland. He noted others making their way over the glittering sea but he had been occupied with the rendering of myriad accounts, reports and the like to his new commander, and a probing survey of fitness of his ship. Today, therefore, was their first face-to-face meeting, and he was looking forward to making the acquaintance of those with whom he would serve in the future.
This time Kydd was gravely welcomed at the side by the admiral, then went over to join the group of captains standing together on the other side of the deck.
He lifted his cocked hat in greeting. ‘Kydd, L’Aurore frigate, new joined.’
‘New snaffled, I’d wager,’ one hard-faced captain retorted. ‘Always was tight with his ships, our Sir Alex. Oh – Sam Pym o’ Atlas 74. We’ll know more of you shortly, I’d hazard. Your first time in the Caribbee?’ he asked.
Kydd caught himself. It was not, for he had been here as a young seaman – it seemed so very long ago. ‘Er, in the last war, as a younker only,’ he admitted, then went on, ‘Do we know who’s to be tried at all?’
‘Won’t take long, if that’s your meaning. Some foremast jack out o’ Hannibal thought to offer his lieutenant violence on being given an order or some such. His Nibs can be relied upon to come down hard on any who—’
A sour-faced captain leaned forward and hissed, ‘Sssh, gentlemen. There’s to be no discussing the case before it’s heard.’
The court met in the admiral’s spacious day cabin, set out in its full panoply – dark polished mahogany on all sides, flag-draped side tables and the scarlet of marine sentries rigidly to attention. A long table set athwart dominated the scene.
In dignified silence, the captains filed in one by one and sat in order of seniority, the president of the court occupying the largest chair in the centre. On either side were tables for the prosecution and the defence, the clerkly judge-advocate decorously apart from both. The massed dark blue and gold of full-dress uniforms filled the space with a powerful impression of the awful majesty of naval discipline.