‘Always like t’ help when I can,’ he said cautiously. Bampton was talking with the purser, but Kydd occasionally caught his eyes straying to himself.
Louder, Adams went on, ‘To the devil with modesty, old fellow, tell us, what put you on to him?’
‘Er, his lee clew t’ the course was—’
‘Speak up, dear chap, we’re working to wind’d!’ To make her offing of Wolf’s Rock in the night, the ship’s taut rigging was causing the length of her hull to creak in noisy protest.
‘I said, with only one clew to the yard an’ the chance her guns were yet not primed, she’d be tryin’ t’ let us know she was in trouble and could not. If she had her vanes an’ colours correct, seems to me she was surprised, and then th’ boarders let all stand to make us think she was a vessel retirin’ back to Falmouth.’
He grinned. ‘But then I thought t’ take a look at her draught – a brig, outward bound, an’ sittin’ high in th’ water! Stands to reason—’
‘You didn’t tell me that!’ Bampton’s voice cut through the talk, which quickly died away. ‘If I’d known what you saw!’
It was on the tip of his tongue to remark that with his bigger telescope Bampton was better placed to see the same thing, but Kydd remained guarded. ‘Ah, in fact, there was not really time enough t’ tell it.’
Bampton held rigid.
The next morning the land was gone. There was just empty sea and the convoy. In loose columns, they bucketed through the long heaving swells from the west, substantial Hudson Bay traders with fine passenger cabins, hardy vessels headed for the Newfoundland cod fishery, slab-sided timber ships that would return with precious masts for the dockyards of the kingdom. And impoverished immigrants crammed among supplies for the settlements.
The night-time shortening of sail now became a resetting of plain sail to reach maximum speed of the slowest. A tedious schedule of hauling and loosing was necessary to adjust speeds; the leading-edge ships had to be reined in while slower ones, which had slipped to the back during the night, were bullied into lengthening their stride.
Routine was only re-established mid-morning when Tenacious was free to go to quarters for exercise of the great guns. After an hour or more of hard work the welcome sound of the tune ‘Nancy Dawson’ drifted up from the main-deck, announcing grog and dinner for the hands.
But first, on an open deck nearly deserted of seamen, the officers gathered on the quarterdeck for the noon-day sight. Every officer performed the duty, including the midshipmen, but only the ‘workings’ of the lieutenants were pooled for reliability.
This would be Kydd’s first occasion as an officer, for although since those years in the Caribbean he had known how, it was now that his contribution would be a valid element in the navigation of a King’s ship.
He readied his octant, an old but fine brass and ebony instrument, by setting the expected latitude down to the tangent screw. This would shorten the time needed to do a fine adjustment in the precious seconds of a meridian altitude. Next, he took the precaution of finding his ‘height-of-eye’ on the quarterdeck. There was an appreciable correction to be made – from there the distance to the horizon of a ship-of-the-line was a full seven miles.
Cradling his instrument Kydd took his place, feeling the long swell come in fine on the bow in a heave down the length of the ship. He estimated it at no more than twelve feet, which meant another correction to height-of-eye. Then, like the others, he trialled the sun – close, but some minutes to go.
He was aware of the helmsman behind him, silently flicking the wheel to catch a wave, glancing up at the weather leech of a sail, then resuming his blank stare ahead. Kydd knew what he was thinking – the wielding of sextants, the consulting of mysterious figures in the almanac marked out an officer from a common seaman.
He lifted the octant again: the reflected lower edge of the sun was getting near the horizon. Kydd waited patiently, shifting the vernier with delicate twists of the tangent screw. Then it was time, the sun was at its highest altitude: reflected by the octant, its image kissed the line of the horizon.
‘Stop,’ he called, his voice mingling with the others. The time to a second was recorded by a master’s mate: this was the exact instant of local noon along this line of longitude, the meridian. By the elevation of the sun above the earth, the distance along that line from the equator, the latitude, could be found, and where the two intersected would be the ship’s position.
He lowered his instrument and, through habit, glanced into the binnacle: at noon on the meridian the sun was exactly due south so this was a good time to check the compass.