They broke free of the fogbank to find the convoy still becalmed, and away over the moonlit sea the silhouette of a 64-gun ship-of-the-line that could only be Tenacious.
A mystified officer-of-the-watch saw two man-o’-war boats hook on as the missing Kydd came aboard. At the noise, the captain came out on deck. ‘God bless my soul!’ Houghton said, taking in Kydd’s wounds and empty sword scabbard.
‘Brush with th’ enemy, sir,’ Kydd said, as calmly as he could. ‘Compass knocked t’ flinders, had to find some other way back.’
‘In fog, and at night? I’d be interested to learn what you did, Mr Kydd.’
‘Caused us quite some puzzling, sir, but I’ll stake m’ life that Mr Rawson here would be very pleased to explain th’ reasoning.’
Rawson started, then said smugly, ‘Oh, well, sir, we all knows that f’r any given line o’ longitude – the meridian, I mean – the moon will cross just forty-nine minutes after the sun does, and falls back this time for every day. After that it’s easy.’
‘Get on with it, then.’
‘Well, sir, we can find the moon’s southing on any day by taking the day of her age since new, and multiplying this by that forty-nine. If we then divide by sixty we get our answer – the time in hours an’ minutes after noon when she’s dead in the south, which for us was close t’ eight o’ clock. Then we just picked up our course again near enough and—’
Houghton grunted. ‘It’s as well Mr Kydd had such a fine navigator with him. You shall take one of my best clarets to the midshipmen’s berth.’ Unexpectedly, the captain smiled. ‘While Mr Kydd entertains me in my cabin with his account of this rencontre.’
Chapter 5
The Newfoundland convoy was now safely handed over off St John’s, along with Viper and Trompeuse, the ship signalling distress in the fog missing, presumed lost. Tenacious hauled her wind to sail south alone to land her French prisoners and join the fleet of the North American station in Halifax.
As they approached there was a marked drop in temperature; chunks of broken ice were riding the deep Atlantic green of the sea and there was a bitter edge to the wind. Thick watch-coats, able to preserve an inner retreat of warmth in the raw blasts of an English winter, seemed insubstantial.
Landfall was made on a low, dark land. It soon resolved to a vast black carpeting of forest, barely relieved by stretches of grey rock and blotches of brown, a hard, cold aspect. Kydd had studied the charts and knew the offshore dangers of the heavily indented rock-bound coast flanking the entrance to Halifax.
‘I’m advising a pilot, sir,’ the master said to the captain.
‘But have you not sailed here before?’ Houghton’s voice was muffled by his grego hood, but his impatience was plain: a pilot would incur costs and possibly delay.
Hambly stood firm. ‘I have, enough times t’ make me very respectful. May I bring to mind, sir, that it’s less’n six months past we lost Tribune, thirty-four, within sight o’ Halifax – terrible night, only a dozen or so saved of three hundred souls . . .’
While Tenacious lay to off Chebucto Head, waiting for her pilot, Kydd took in the prospect of land after so many weeks at sea. The shore, a barren, bleached, grey-white granite, sombre under the sunless sky, appeared anything but welcoming. Further into the broad opening there was a complexity of islands, and then, no doubt, Halifax itself.
The pilot boarded and looked around curiously. ‘Admiral’s in Bermuda still,’ he said, in a pleasant colonial drawl. ‘Newfy convoy arrived and he not here, he’ll be in a right taking.’
Houghton drew himself up. ‘Follow the motions of the pilot,’ he instructed the quartermaster of the conn.
With a south-easterly fair for entry, HMS Tenacious passed into a broad entrance channel and the pilot took time to point out the sights. ‘Chebucto Head – the whole place was called Chebucto in the old days.’ The ship gathered way. ‘Over yonder,’ he indicated a hill beyond the foreshore, ‘that’s what we’re callin’ Camperdown Hill, after your mighty victory. Right handy for taking a line of bearing from here straight into town.’
Running down the bearing, he drew their attention to the graveyard of Tribune. Up on rising ground they saw the raw newness of a massive fortification. ‘York Redoubt – and over to starb’d we have Mr McNab’s Island, where the ladies love t’ picnic in summer.’
The passage narrowed and they passed a curious spit of land, then emerged beyond the island to a fine harbour several miles long and as big as Falmouth. Kydd saw that, as there, a southerly wind would be foul for putting to sea, but at more than half a mile wide and with an ebb tide it would not be insuperable.