Command (41 page)
Authors: Julian Stockwin
Tags: #Sea Stories, #General, #Action & Adventure, #Historical, #Fiction
If, on the other hand, he sheeted in and made for the coast to larboard there was all the danger to be met on a rock-bound seaboard. But if he could find shelter to ride it out the situation would be saved. “Down y’r helm an’ we’re running f’r the coast,”
he yelled, and without waiting went to his cabin and pulled out his precious chart, bracing at the wild motion that had his tiny lamp swinging jerkily. It would be touch and go—there were but two possible havens: south of the Bay of Fires in the far north and the Freycinet Peninsula somewhere to his north-west.
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The only alternative was being lost in the wastes of the South Pacific. But being at last reckoning only some twenty miles off the land there was still time and daylight to coast south until they found shelter.
On deck Kydd was grateful for the thick coat he had snatched before coming up: the temperature had plummeted since the squall hit. The rain came and went in miserable drifting curtains as they barrelled along through the seas rolling in abeam.
In a short time they sighted the dark, uneven coastline of Van Diemen’s Land. Cautiously Kydd eased
Suffolk
round and began to search.
He knew what he was looking for and by mid-afternoon had sighted it. A spine of serrated uplands, light-grey and naked above dark green woodlands on the lower slopes, a single large island at its finality. Again they leaned to the winds and thrashed past the island, seeing its tip enveloped in explosions of white from the surging waves until they had reached the great bay beyond.
They were still not safe: from early maps Kydd knew that he would need to sail deep into the south-facing bay, perhaps to its end before he could be sure of shelter from the malevolent southerly.
Suffolk
rounded the island and raced up the bay before the wind once more, passing craggy ridges and squat headlands until a long glimmer of sand ahead warned of the head of the bay—
but, praise be, the final rearing of dappled pink granite peaks provided a lee of a good two miles of calmer waters and, with infinite relief, Kydd gave orders that saw
Suffolk
’s anchor plunge down and all motion come to a halt.
Renzi was sitting morosely in the cabin when Kydd went below to strip off his streaming oilskins. Worn and tired by the battering of the weather, Kydd threw his foul-weather gear outside and slumped on the edge of the bunk.
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“Be obliged if ye’d shift out o’ there, Nicholas, an’ let me get t’ my charts,” he mumbled, against the rattle of rain on the little skylight. Renzi seemed not to have heard. “If ye would be s’
good—” Kydd began heavily.
“I heard you the first time,” Renzi snapped, rising and squeezing past Kydd, who bent under his chair, fumbling for the tied bundle of charts and sailing directions.
“Why,
thank
’ee,” Kydd said sarcastically, slapping the folio on to the bunk and spreading out the contents.
“My pleasure,” retorted Renzi venomously.
“Be buggered!” Kydd exploded. He saw the dark-circled eyes and sunken cheeks but he had no patience left for the strange petulance in Renzi. “What ails ye, for God’s sake, Nicholas? Have y’
not a civil tongue for y’ friends? What’s wrong with ye?”
“Nothing! Nothing that can possibly be of concern to you.”
“Nothing t’ concern me? What about Cecilia? Do y’ write t’
her the same as ye serve me?” Something about Renzi’s manner caught his suspicion. “Y’ haven’t written to her, have ye?” With rising anger he said, “She knows y’ here at th’ end o’ God’s earth setting up t’ be a—a gentleman o’ the land, an’ after all she’s done f’r you y’ won’t even tell her how ye’re faring?”
Suspicion sharpened at Renzi’s stubborn silence. “Ye never told her, did you?” he said in disgust. “You jus’ walked away leaving her t’ wonder what’s become o’ you. That old soldier’s yarn about needing t’ cut y’self off fr’m the past! Why, ye’re nothing better than—”
“Enough! Hold your tongue!” Renzi turned white. “You don’t know the half of it. This is my business and mine alone. You will not tax me with my faults and still less my decisions, which are answerable to me only.” He continued thickly, his chest heaving,
“We are constrained to this vessel for the present time but I wish you to know that any conversation between us I consider to be unnecessary until we reach Port Jackson. Good day to you, sir!”
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• • •
There was little Kydd could do to plan for eventualities. It now seemed so obvious that any French settlement would be in the south: it would be easy to defend, furthest from the existing British colony and in a climate closest to Europe. But to dissuade them if this was the case . . . It was difficult to conceive of a more hopeless objective.
The ceaseless southerly now beat in; soaked by rain and spray from romping grey seas thumping and bursting on the larboard side, Kydd slitted his eyes and tried to make out their course ahead. He had allowed two points of the helm a-weather for leeway in the run down to Cape Pillar and prayed it would be enough—the note on the chart had promised an iron-bound coast and if they were to be embayed between two capes . . .
Then slightly off the bow to starboard a vision slowly appeared from out of the misty, drifting curtains of rain squalls. High and majestic, a mighty rampart of basalt, an uncountable number of vertical columns like devilish organ pipes nearly eight hundred feet high. It could only be Cape Raoul.
Thankful beyond measure, Kydd waited until they were past.
Now all they had to do was turn north-west, enter Storm Bay and the Derwent.
Suffolk
made fine sailing, her schooner rig well suited to the close coastal task of a maid-of-all-work around the colony, but as they sailed on in the gathering murk of evening they were faced with a new danger. According to the chart Storm Bay forked into two inner leads, both to the north-west.
One led to the sheltered calm of the Derwent, the other to the
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ever-shallowing snare of Frederick Henry Bay. But if in the gloom he erred too far to the westward he would come up against the other shore of Storm Bay.
He set a strict compass course according to the chart and stood by it as they plunged on, his uneasiness increasing as the stern coastlines faded into the twilight. “Another light!” he snapped—
he could barely see the binnacle—but before the lanthorn arrived he saw something that touched his being with the eerie chill of the supernatural. Attuned to the angle of the waves and the steady pressure of wind on his cheek, his seaman’s senses told him that they were on the same course but the compass was calmly stepping away to the west. Five, ten, fifteen degrees away: should he put up the helm to counteract? Or hold whatever course the compass told?
“Ease t’ starboard,” Kydd muttered at last. It ruined his dead reckoning but he had to compromise between the two. The white of the helmsman’s eyes flashed in the dimness as he looked anxiously between the compass and Kydd.
Unbelievably, it happened again—this time in the opposite direction. Five, ten degrees and more; frantic, Kydd tried mentally to compensate but, with a seaman’s sixth sense, he knew that land was looming near. To shorten sail would be to lose the ability to react quickly, but to keep on a press of sail could end in shipwreck.
“Send a hand wi’ a lead line forrard,” he threw at Boyd.
A man stumbled to the bow and began the swing. He had just sung out the first sounding—eleven fathoms—when he stood rigid, his voice rising to a falsetto. “Breakers, f’r Chrissakes!”
He pointed to larboard and a roiling white in the sea that, in the heightened atmosphere of the half-light, was cold with menace.
They could no longer bear for the Derwent. Kydd’s thoughts skipped chaotically in his tiredness, clinging to scraps of reality.
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He became aware of a long dark mass in the night, precipitous and bold, lying parallel to their course. Flogging his memory to bring the outline of the chart to mind, he could have sworn there was no headland facing them—an island? They were close enough to hear the sullen roar and thud of the seas that ended their onrush at its rocky foot. If an island, there had to be a lee at the end, before the coastline proper.
“Get that swab forrard t’ work,” he roared, in his anxiety, and to Boyd he snarled, “Stand by t’ anchor—yes, to anchor, damn you!”
He glanced at the helm. “Steady, lad,” he said to the frightened youngster. The island seemed to go on for ever until, quite suddenly, the dark bulk fell away. “Down y’r helm, now!” he barked, and cupped his hand to bawl, “Stan’ by, forrard!”
As he had suspected the wind fell away to a confused gusting and the seas quieted. “Let go, forrard!” he shouted, and felt rather than heard the rush of cable over the deck. “Douse y’r fore ’n’ main,” he ordered the men at the brails, then sensed the schooner feel her anchor. He stared into the darkness for any clue as to where they were but saw nothing and simply thanked Providence that they were now snugly at anchor where but for a few yards they could have been yet another wreck on this desolate shore.
In the wan light of morning Kydd strained to see where they were.
Suffolk
was snubbing contentedly to her anchor on the northern end of a steep island, but not half a mile distant was a long, low beach that extended for miles in both directions. If they had continued past the island in the night they would have ended shattered and broken on a sandy shore.
The chart told the rest of the story. He had been right: apart from a small wedge-shaped island past Cape Raoul there was no
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other in Storm Bay. Therefore this had to be Betsey’s Island, just at the mid-point between the two leads of Frederick Henry Bay and the Derwent.
“Let’s be having ye,” Kydd briskly told Boyd. “Hands t’ unmoor ship.”
It was a matter of less than an hour to win the three miles to the west, which placed them past the sloping face of Cape Direction and squarely in the spacious channel of the Derwent for the final leg. As with Port Dalrymple, Flinders had named a peak Mount Direction. Now ahead, it would show the eventual navigable head of the river, but what dominated all was the flat-topped bulk of a four-thousand-feet-high mountain: Mount Table, the chart said.
If there was to be a settlement then, sensibly, it would be at the foot of the great mountain. But the open bay before it was hidden from view round a point. They sailed on in trepidation: what would be the form of the French occupation? Huts, the streets laid out already, a
tricolore
floating out above soldiers drilling on a square?
There were no boats crisscrossing the calm waters but the ships had probably left some time before. They passed a smaller mountain, every man of
Suffolk
’s crew on deck, staring forward.
Then, suddenly, they were beyond the point and into the wide final bay beyond.
For a split second Kydd’s mind was filled with dread in anticipation of what he would see but a hasty swing about by eye showed nothing to interrupt the smooth carpet of dark green vegetation spread out in every direction. His telescope went up rapidly to inspect every part of the shoreline.
And then it hit him. The French were not there! He had been to the two finest locations for a settlement in Van Diemen’s Land and found them both unoccupied. It was beyond belief that any
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Frenchman in possession of the same geographic knowledge as himself would pass up the chance to plant his colony in the best setting available in favour of a lesser. The only reasonable conclusion was that they had made it in time. King’s plan to forestall the French with a sub-colony could proceed. This new land would speak English and be a little piece of England at the far end of the earth, and generations to come would mark this year as the birth of their land.
Filled with awe and wonder at the implications, Kydd ordered
Suffolk
to the head of the cove where the Derwent entered, but it was not really necessary: the river narrowed quickly and could no longer take deep-sea vessels. Any settlement would be nestled under the great mountain. Their business in the south was now concluded and they could return to the civilisation of Port Jackson.
The voyage of return would be five hundred miles and more—
it would be prudent to water before they set out. The nearest watering, however, was a complete unknown in this wilderness, but then Kydd remembered Adventure Bay at the far end of Van Diemen’s Land. There, Captain Cook himself had stopped to water, as had Bligh and others.
Suffolk
went about and left the fertile green coves of the Derwent astern, making her southing in several broad reaches. As they dropped down the river Renzi appeared from below and sat on the foredeck staring into nothing, a bent and lonely figure.
Storm Bay opened up; away over on the larboard bow would be Cape Raoul and the open sea but they kept in with the land to starboard until they reached the long island that had so figured in the logs and journals of famous explorers. Half-way along, a demi-lune bay all of seven miles across opened up—Adventure Bay.
Kydd could have reached for his chart and seen precisely where
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