Invasion (6 page)

He hurried along the last few yards to the school-house gate, lightness of spirit urging him onward. “Good mornin', Ma,” he said happily. “Y' say Mrs. Bawkins is entertainin' this afternoon?”

Teazer
was delayed in her refit. A humble brig-sloop had no claim to priority in a dockyard that was at full stretch keeping the vital blockading ships-of-the-line at sea and she was left for long periods in forlorn disarray, her crew in receiving hulks and her officers bored.

Kydd lost no time in taking rooms ashore. Not for him the noisy intimacy of the Blue Posts at Portsmouth Point, he could now afford to stay where officers of rank were to be found, at the George in Penny Street. And there he began the process of refinement.

It was vexing that Renzi was in London, out of reach for advice, but on the other hand this was Kydd's own initiative and he would see it through. He went first to the largest bookshop; the assistant had been studiously blank-faced as he asked for suggestions as to what primers gentlemen found most answered in a classical education.

He left with a clutch of books and hurried back. The Greek grammar was hopelessly obtuse and required him to learn by rote the squiggly characters of the alphabet before ever he could start. It could wait for later. The other looked more promising; an inter-linear copy of Caesar's commentaries on the campaign in Gaul, the Latin on one line, English on another. At least it was about the manly pursuit of war, not the fantastical monsters and gods of antique Greece.

“Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est . . .”
Did he really have to get his head round all this? Or could he learn some of the more pithy sayings and casually drop them into the dinner-table conversation to the pleased surprise of all? That sounded much the better idea.

In the matter of polite discourse there could be no hesitation. He would be damned as of the lower orders by his own words just as soon as he opened his mouth in company. Since the days of Cecilia's patient efforts on his speech, he had slipped back into his comfortable old ways.

No, this required an all-out effort—and he must apply himself to it this time. Resolved, he gave it careful thought. This was not to be learned casually with others or from books, he needed professional assistance. In the Portsmouth Commercial Directory he found what he was looking for.

“Mr. Augustus DeLisle?” he asked politely, at the door of a smart Portsea terrace house.

“It is, sir, at your service,” the rather austere gentleman answered with a slight bow, appraising Kydd's appearance, then bestowing on him a professional smile.

“Th' language coach as can be engaged t' fit a gentleman for converse even at the Court o' St. James?” Kydd persisted.

“The same,” the man said with a sniff. “You should know that I count most of the noble houses of Hampshire among my satisfied clients and—”

“Are ye available for immediate engagement, sir?” Kydd asked abruptly.

“Why, at such notice—”

“I've ten guineas to lay in y'r hand as says it'll fadge.”

“Er, very well—but be aware, sir, I cannot abide the fugitive aspirate, still less the cruelly truncated participle! You shall bring along your child and he will—”

“Not a younker, sir, it's t' be me.”

“I—I don't quite understand you, sir,” the man said uncertainly.

“M' name's Kydd, and I want t' speak wi' the best of 'em. Ye've got me half a day, every day until I can stand up an' be taken for a lord.”

“Every day?” he spluttered. “My young masters usually attend but twice a week and—”

“M' time is limited, sir,” Kydd said impatiently. “I'd be thinkin' ye a rare 'un if I sees ye refuse half a year's fee for a few weeks' work.”

The refit ground forward in the dockyard but the day came not so many weeks later when
Teazer
was released and became inhabited once more by her rightful denizens. She stored, watered and took in an overseas allowance of powder and shot, the Downs Squadron being considered so active a station as to warrant a maximum loading.

There was no time to be lost: Admiral Keith needed every vessel that swam in his crucial command, and Kydd was determined for
Teazer
to play her part.

“Er, I have to report, ship ready for sea, sir,” Hallum said awkwardly.

Kydd grunted. It was now common knowledge about the ship that their clerk was still at large, adrift from leave. A letter of recall had been sent to him, which had been acknowledged, but he had not appeared and it now seemed that the ship would sail without him.

It was no use. They could not delay. Kydd sighed heavily and went on deck, searching vainly for a hurrying figure on the dockside. “Single up!” he ordered. All lines that tethered them alongside were let go save two. Away from the wharf, dockyard work-boats attended for the sloop to warp out, and in
Teazer
there was the ageold thrill of the outward bound.

Sail bent on, men expectantly at their posts, Kydd reluctantly gave the command. “Take us out, Mr. Dowse.”

Ropes splashed into the murky water and
Teazer
was ready to spread her wings. Colour appeared at the signal tower. “Our pennant, ‘proceed,' sir,” squeaked their brand new midshipman, Tawse, wielding the big telescope importantly.

“Acknowledge,” Kydd said heavily. With the ebb tide
Teazer
loosed sail and left to meet her destiny.

The narrow entrance was difficult and needed concentration. They passed the rickety jollity of Portsmouth Point close abeam, then King Henry's tower on one side with Haslar and Fort Blockhouse only a couple of hundred yards to the other, and they were through.

“
Haaaands
, t' the braces!” Constrained by sandbanks close to larboard and the Nab still to round before clear water, there was little room for manoeuvre.

“He's there, sir!” screamed a youngster, wildly pointing shore-wards. A sharp-lined wherry was putting off hastily from the Sally Port on a course to intercept.

“It's Mr. Renzi, right enough,” confirmed Purchet, after snatching at the telescope.

Without hesitating, Kydd rapped, “Heave to, Mr. Dowse!” It was madness in the fast current and sandbanks past the entrance to be not under way . . . and close astern a heavy frigate was coming down on them at speed. With the wind large there was no other way than to wheel about awkwardly and place the fore aback, but Kydd was not going to lose Renzi.

The frigate plunged past with an energetic volley of abuse from her quarterdeck. The wherry stroked out manfully and at last hooked on at the main-chains. While
Teazer
paid off before the wind, willing hands hauled Renzi in, his bundles of books needing more robust hoisting.

“I do apologise, sir,” Renzi said formally.

Kydd, still in his quarterdeck brace, frowned but said nothing.

“We lost a wheel before Petersfield and—”

“Mr. Renzi! I rather feel that in this instance you might have been topping it overmuch the
cunctator
, as it were.”

Renzi was transfixed with astonishment at his friend's cultivated words. The Latin
cunctator—
delayer—was indeed appropriate, an allusion to the tactic used by the Roman commander in the war with Hannibal, an attempt to deny the enemy a battle. “Why, thank you, sir!” He wasn't about to let Kydd get away with this one, whatever the reason for its mysterious appearance.

“Thank you?” Kydd said, crestfallen.

“For the compliment, of course, dear fellow. It was by this very tactic that Quintus Fabius Maximus may have shamed the Roman Army but it undoubtedly won him the war and his nickname.”

The open Channel won and a fine westerly in their sails, by evening there was chance to sup together.

Renzi opened politely. “Er, at the risk of impertinence I cannot help but remark the elegance of your speech, its genteel delivery, the—”

“Quite simple, Renzi, old chap. I've given it a deal of thought. And it seems to me, the only way to move forward in this world is not to
kick against the pricks
. . .” a flash of smugness was quickly smothered “. . . but be agreeable to the customary forms of civility and breeding when in genteel company. In fine, if I'm to enter in on society, then I'm to be like them. And you have m' word on it, enter in I will!”

“Then you have my most earnest admiration, Tom—er, Kydd, old trout. So recently shunned by society and cast into the very depths, yet you hold no grudge, no antipathy towards those who—”

“It's past. I have a bright future now and I'm going to take it with both hands and do what I have to.”

“Are you certain that—”

“M' dear friend. Since coming into my fortune, I stand amazed at the boldness and presumption as can be found from having a pot o' gold at your back! I cannot fear the rich-dressed when I'm rigged the same, or stand mumchance while they talk wry, when I can, just as well.”

“There are other—”

“You must believe I've not trifled away my time, m' dear Renzi. There's quantities of professional gentlemen in Portsmouth who do rue our sailing, and I have a stand o' books in my cabin as will keep me amused for voyages to come.”

“I honour you for it,” Renzi said.

“You'll oblige me by maintaining a quality o' discourse while about my person.”

“I shall endeavour to do so,” came the sincere response.

“Then m' course is set. Tysoe, do attend to Mr. Renzi's glass, if you please.”

The Downs! A fulcrum for the torrent of shipping that came and went around the corner of the North Foreland into the Thames and the mighty maw of London, where hundreds of ships of all flags might be lying anchored, waiting for a favourable wind to take them outward bound down-Channel, or inbound to the north, or across to the Baltic. The ten-mile stretch of the Downs was bordered five miles offshore by the notorious Goodwin Sands, since medieval times a fearful hazard, but this acted both as a shelter and a barrier. It was the point at which the Channel was at its narrowest, a bare eighteen miles from Dover to the French encampments at Cap Gris Nez. The last Kydd had seen of it had been as the master of a convict ship bound for New South Wales. After the desolate shingle spit of Dungeness, it was the wide sweep of bay that was the foreshore of the smugglers' haunt of Romney Marsh, then the rising crags of Folkestone turning into the soaring white splendour of Shakespeare's cliff, Dover, and on to the rounding of South Foreland.

In the bright early-morning light the massive chalk ramparts seemed to Kydd to stand four-square and proudly defiant against England's foes, marching away north in impregnable array.
Teazer
closed within half a mile of them to round the foreland and make the southern reaches of the Downs. The vista of countless ships at anchor was opening up before them now: coasters, East Indiamen, colonial traders from far distant parts of the globe, an impressive multitude stretching for ten miles of open water. But Kydd had eyes only for the naval anchorage, that of the legendary Downs Squadron standing so valiantly at the forefront of England's defence.

There. Across the anchorage. He would never forget her, ever: the seventy-four riding to two anchors, her lines old-fashioned but graceful. It was
Monarch,
the flagship. After the bloody battle of Camperdown not so many years before, Kydd had, in her, become one of the very few who had taken the incredible journey from before the mast as a common seaman to the quarterdeck as a king's officer.

He let Hallum take
Teazer
inshore to moor while he took his fill of the sight. It seemed odd but only
Monarch
and two other minor ships-of-the-line were present, three frigates further distant and a number of sloops. Where was the battle squadron, if not with their commander-in-chief?

They would know soon enough. Tysoe had out his dress uniform and, buckling on his handsome sword, Kydd returned on deck to board his gig. Poulden, his coxswain, and the entire boat's crew were smartly turned out in matching blue jackets—he was determined to be noticed in the new command.

“Teazer!”
blared Poulden, importantly, in answer to the hail as they drew near to the flagship. A side-party could be seen assembling and Kydd's heart swelled. He mounted the side of the old ship slowly, letting the moment touch his soul.

It was the great cabin he remembered; but Admiral Lord Keith, his commander-in-chief, was before him and this was no time for lingering sentiment.

“Do sit down, Mr. Kydd,” the august being said absently, taking papers from his flag-lieutenant and flicking his eyes down them. The lieutenant collected others, and, with a glance at Kydd, left the cabin.

“I do bid ye welcome to my command, sir.” The Scots brogue seemed to be one with his austere presence.

“Thank you, sir.”