Quarterdeck(11)

Chapter 2



‘Aye, ’ere she comes, capting,’ the inn porter said, indicating the gig under sail coming around Garrison Point. He held out his hand for a promised sixpence and left them to it, their chests and other impedimenta in a pile on Sheerness public jetty while they waited for the boat from Tenacious.

Kydd’s heart bumped. This was the day he had been looking forward to these several months while Tenacious was under repair, the most important day of his life, the day he joined his ship confirmed in his rank, a King’s officer. The day or so aboard after Camperdown didn’t really count – he could hardly remember anything of the brute chaos and towering weariness in the wounded ship limping back to Sheerness.

The coxswain, a midshipman, cautiously rounded into the wind twenty yards off. Two seamen brailed up and secured the sail for a pull under oars the final distance to the jetty steps. It was not what Kydd would have done: the breeze, although fluky, was reliable enough for an approach under sail alone.

As the boat glided alongside, the sailors smacked the oars across their thighs and levered them aloft in one easy movement, just as Kydd had done in the not so distant past. His eyes passed over the boat and the four seamen, as he recalled the old saying, ‘You can always tell a ship by her boats.’ Was caution a feature of this ship, he wondered.

The sailors seemed capable, long-service able seamen economically securing the sea-chests and striking them into the centre of the boat, but Kydd sensed darting eyes behind his back as they took the measure of the new officers.

He and Renzi assumed their places in the sternsheets, at leisure while the midshipman took the tiller. The boat bobbed in the grey North Sea chop and Kydd’s new uniform was sprinkled with its first salt water. He tried to keep his face blank against surging excitement as they rounded the point to open up the view of the Nore anchorage – and his ship.

She was one of a straggling line of vessels of varying sizes moored in this transitory anchorage to await different destinies. A wisp of memory brushed his consciousness: it was at the Nore that he had been taken as a bitter victim of the press gang, so long ago now, it seemed.

He glanced back to the scatter of dockyard buildings, the low fort, the hulks, and a pang of feeling returned for Kitty Malkin, who had stood with him during the dark days of the Nore mutiny. She had uncannily foretold his elevation, and that she would not be a part of it. Other memories of the time came too, dark and emotional. The red flag of mutiny, the spiralling madness that had ended in savage retribution and shame. Memories he had fought hard to dim.

Kydd crushed the thoughts. He would look forward, not back, take his good fortune and move into the future with it. The phantoms began to fade.

‘She’s storing,’ Renzi said, as if reading something in his face.

‘Er, yes, those are powder hoys alongside, she’s ready t’ sail,’ Kydd muttered, his eyes fixed on the approaching bulk of Tenacious. The foretopmast was still on deck for some reason but her long commissioning pennant flew from her masthead. Repairs complete, she now stood ready in the service of her country.

A faint bellow from the ship sounded over the plash of the bow wave. The bowman cupped his hand and bawled back, ‘Aye, aye!’ warning Tenacious that her boat was bearing naval officers, who would expect to be received as the custom of the sea demanded.

The midshipman again doused sail and shipped oars for the last stretch. Kydd resolved to attend to the young gentleman’s seamanship when the opportunity arose. The boat bumped against the stout sides and the bowman hooked on. Kydd held back as Renzi seized the handropes and left the boat. Although their commissions bore the same date, he was appointed fourth lieutenant aboard, and Kydd, as fifth, would always be first in the boat and last out.

The ship’s sides were fresh painted, the thick wales black, with the lines of guns set in natural timber, smart in a bright preparation of turpentine and rosin. A strong wafting of the scent mixed pleasingly with that of salt spray.

Above, a boatswain’s call pierced the clean, winter air. Kydd was being piped aboard a man-o’-war! He mounted the side steps: his eyes passed above the deck line to the boatswain’s mate with his pipe on one side and two midshipmen as sideboys on the other. He touched his hat to the quarterdeck when he made the deck, and approached the waiting officer-of-the-watch. ‘Lieutenant Kydd, sir, appointed fifth l’tenant.’

For a moment he feared this officer would accuse him of being an impostor, but the man merely smiled bleakly. ‘Cutting it a trifle fine, don’t you think?’ he said, then turned to the duty quartermaster and ordered the chests swayed inboard. Renzi came to stand with Kydd.