Quarterdeck (16 page)

and such a size! There was an awed silence along the decks as men came up to stare at the silent monster from the frozen north.

The wind died, leaving a lethargic swell and the ship creaking and groaning under a dull, pearly sky. While Houghton paced up and down in frustration, Kydd noticed one of the larger vessels of the convoy far to the leeward edge. As with all ships, her sails hung lifeless from her yards but for some reason she had none on her foremast, not even headsails. “Odd,” he mused to the master.

Then a signal jerked hastily aloft from her mizzen peak halliards.

Without wind to spread the fl ags it was impossible to make out the message, but there was clearly activity on deck.

“Damn the fellow!” Houghton snapped. Virtually dead in the water, there was little
Tenacious
could do to investigate further.

“I thought so,” the master said, seeing the dead white of a fogbank advancing stealthily in eddying wreaths that hugged the sea surface and eventually engulfed the ship in a blank whiteness. The muffl ed crump of two guns sounded from somewhere

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within the white barrier; in conjunction with the fl ags this was the agreed signal for distress.

Houghton stopped. All eyes turned towards him. They could not lie idle if there were souls in need of them.

“Away launch, if you please, Mr Pearce.” He paused to consider. “A bo’sun’s mate and ten men, and we’ll have two carpenter’s mates in with ’em—and pass the word for the surgeon.”

He looked about the deck and caught Kydd’s eye. “See what all the fuss is about, Mr Kydd. If the ship is at hazard of foundering and our men can save her, do so. Otherwise advise her master in the strongest terms that a King’s ship is not to be troubled in this way.” Kydd knew perfectly well why he had been selected for this duty—as the most junior offi cer, he would be the least missed if he were lost in the fog.

As the yardarm stay tackles were hooked on to the boat Houghton added, “Take an arms chest too, Mr Kydd.” Some of the ships carried convicts for the defensive works in St John’s.

Kydd went to his cabin and found his sword, part of the uniform and authority of a naval offi cer when boarding a strange vessel. Tysoe helped fasten the cross strap and buckle on his scabbard sling. “Nothing but a merchantman all ahoo.” Kydd chuckled at the sight of his grave expression.

“Get a boat compass,” Kydd told Rawson, as he came back on deck. Seamen tumbled into the big launch, then helped sway down the arms chest; there was no point in shipping mast and sails in the fl at calm.

Rawson returned with a small wooden box with a four-inch compass set in gimbals. Kydd had the bearing of the hapless vessel and checked that the indication with the boat compass was good. This was handed down, and he watched Rawson go aboard the launch, correctly wearing his midshipman’s dirk. Kydd then went down the side, last to board.

“Take the tiller, if y’ please,” Kydd told Rawson, taking his
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place in the sternsheets. The surgeon sat patiently on the opposite side. “Why, Mr Pybus, you haven’t any medicines?” he said, seeing no bag or chest.

“Oh? You know what it is then I must treat? Wounds, in fl amed callibisters, one of a dozen poxes? I tried to persuade these brave fellows to load aboard my dispensary entire but . . .”

Houghton called down loudly from the ship’s side: “I’ll thank you to lose no time, Mr Kydd!”

“Aye aye, sir,” Kydd threw back. “Get moving!” he muttered to Rawson.

“Fend off forrard,” Rawson ordered. “Out oars—give way, together.” Kydd gently wedged the compass into the bottom of the boat, careful to ensure there was no iron near. Their lives might depend on it.

The men stretched out. It was a good three miles to pull but conditions were ideal: not any kind of sea and the air was cool and dry—it might be different in the fogbank. Kydd saw that Thorn, the stroke oar, was pulling well, long and strong and leaning into it. He was a steady hand with a fi ne gift for ropework. Further forward was Poulden, who, Kydd vowed to himself, he would see as a petty offi cer in
Tenacious.

Rawson stood with the tiller at his side, his eyes ahead. “Mr Rawson,” Kydd said quietly, “you haven’t checked your back bearing this last quarter-mile.”

The youth fl ashed an enquiring glance astern at the diminishing bulk of
Tenacious,
and looked back puzzled.

Kydd continued mildly, “If we’re runnin’ down a steady line o’

bearing, then we should fi n’ that where we came from bears exactly astern. If it doesn’t, then . . .” At the baffl ed response Kydd fi nished, “Means that we’re takin’ a current from somewheres abeam. Then we have t’ allow for it if we want to get back, cuf-fi n.” He had been checking surreptitiously for this very reason.

The white blankness of the fogbank approached and suddenly

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they left a world with a horizon, a pale sun and scattered ships, and entered an impenetrably white one, where the sun’s disc was no longer visible, its light wholly diffused and reduced to a weak twilight. Men’s voices were muffl ed and a dank moisture lay on everything as a tiny beading of slippery droplets.

They pulled through the wreathing fog-smoke, Kydd making certain of their course—its reciprocal would lead them back to their ship. Paradoxically the heavy breathing of the men at the oars sounded both near yet far in the unpleasant atmosphere that was weighing heavy on his sleeves and coat and trickling down his neck from his hat.

“Sir?” Poulden cocked his head intently on one side. “Sir! I c’n hear a boat!”

“Oars!” snapped Kydd. The men ceased pulling. “Still!

Absolute silence in the boat!” They lay quietly, rocking slightly.

It was long minutes of waiting, with the cheerful gurgle and slap of water along the waterline an irritating intrusion. Men sat rigid, avoiding eyes, listening.

Then there
was
something. A distinct random thump, a bang of wood against wood and a barely synchronised squeaking, which could only be several oars in thole pins or rowlocks—and close.

It was probably innocent, but what boat would be abroad in these conditions without good reason? The sound faded, but just as Kydd was about to break the silence it started again somewhat fainter—but where? The swirling clammy white was a baffl ing sound trap, absorbing and refl ecting, making guesses of direction impossible.

Kydd felt a stab of apprehension. “Break out the arms—I’ll take th’ tiller. Quickly!” he hissed.

The wooden chest emptied quickly. Cutlasses were handed along with a metallic slither, one or two tomahawks, six boarding pistols. Kydd saw that they were ready fl inted and prayed
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that the gunner’s party had them loaded. He drew his sword.

The fi ne-edged weapon, which had seemed so elegant, now felt fl imsy and insubstantial beside the familiar broad grey steel of a cutlass.

He laid the naked blade across his knees and experimentally worked the tiller. Rawson fi ngered his dirk nervously, but the surgeon lolled back with a bored expression. He had no weapon and, in reply to Kydd’s raised eyebrows, gave a cynical smile.

Waiting for the men to settle their blades safely along the side, Kydd held up his hands for quiet once more. In the breathless silence, a drip of water from oars, the rustle of waves and an occasional creak were deafening. Kydd concentrated with every nerve. Nothing.

He waited a little longer, automatically checking that their heading remained true, then ordered quietly, “Oars, give way, together.” The men swung into it and the bluff-bowed launch got under way again.

In one heart-stopping instant a boat burst into view, headed directly for them. In the same moment Kydd registered that it was hostile, that it was a French chaloupe, and that it had a small swivel gun in its bow.

His instincts took over. “Down!” he yelled, and pulled the tiller hard over. The swivel cracked loudly—Kydd heard two shrieks and felt the wind of a missile before the bow of the enemy boat thumped heavily into their own swinging forepart. French sailors, their faces distorted with hatred, took up their weapons and rose to their feet in a rush to board.

The launch swayed as the British responded, snarls and curses overlaid with challenging bellows as they reached for their own weapons in a tangle of oars and blood. Pistols banged, smoke hung in the still air. One Frenchman collapsed fl oppily, his face covered with blood and grey matter; another squealed and dropped his pistol as he folded over.

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It was the worst form of sea warfare, boat against boat, nothing but rage and butchery until one side faltered.

An arm came out to grasp the French gunwale and pull it alongside. A tomahawk thudded across the fi ngers, which tumbled obscenely away. “Get th’ bastards!” Kydd roared, waving his sword towards the enemy.

The boats came together, oars splintering and gouging, enemy opponents within reach. The furious clash and bite of steel echoed in the fog. Kydd’s sword faced a red-faced matelot fl ailing a curved North African weapon. The smash of the blade against his sword numbed Kydd’s wrist, but the man triumphantly swept it up for a fi nal blow, leaving his armpit exposed. Kydd’s lighter steel fl ashed forward and sank into the soft body. The man dropped with an animal howl.

There was an enraged bellow and a large dark-jowled man shouldered his way into his place, a plain but heavy cutlass in his hand. His face was a rictus of hatred and his fi rst lunge was a venomous stab straight to the eyes. Kydd parried, but the weight of the man’s weapon told, and Kydd took a ringing blow to the side of the head.

The man drew back for another strike. He held his weapon expertly, leaving no opening for Kydd. The next blow came, smashing across, and Kydd’s awkward defence did not stop a bruising hit above his hip. He felt cold fear—the next strike might be mortal.

As the man stepped on to the gunwale he cunningly swept a low straight-arm stab at Kydd’s groin and, at his hasty defence, jerked the blade up for a lethal blow to Kydd’s head. Kydd’s sword fl ew up to meet it, an anvil-like ringing and brutish force resulting in the weapon’s defl ection—and a sudden lightness in his hand.

Kydd looked down. His sword had broken a couple of inches from the hilt. The man gave a roar of triumph and jumped into
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the launch. Kydd backed away, fl inging the useless remnant at him. Jostled by another fi ghting pair the man stumbled before he could land his fi nal stroke. Kydd cast about in desperation and saw a bloodied cutlass lying in the bottom of the boat.

He wrenched it up, in the process taking a stroke from the Frenchman aimed again at the head, but Kydd’s blade was now a satisfying weight in his hand and he’d kept the blow from landing. Fury building, he swung to face his assailant. The man paused, taken aback by Kydd’s intensity.

Kydd went on to the attack with the familiar weapon. He smashed aside the man’s strikes, landing solid, clanging hits.

In the confi ned space it could not last. As he thrust the broad blade straight for the belly, Kydd brought one foot forward to the other. The man’s cautious defence was what he wanted. As the man readied his own thrust, the spring in Kydd’s heel enabled him to lunge forward inside the man’s own blade, the cutlass drawing a savage line of blood on one side of his head.

The man recoiled, but met the side of the boat and fell against it. Mercilessly Kydd slashed out, his blade slithering along the top of his opponent’s to end on the man’s forearm. The Frenchman’s cutlass fell as he clutched at his bloody wound.

“Je me rends!”
he shouted hoarsely. Kydd’s blade hovered at the man’s throat, death an instant away. Then he lowered it.

“Down!” he snarled, gesturing. “Lie down!” The man obeyed.

The blood mist cleared from Kydd’s brain and he snatched a glance around him. As quickly as it had started the brutal fi ght was ending. In the launch the three or four Frenchmen who had boarded were dead or giving up, and the bulk of the British were in the chaloupe, forcing back the remainder. The end was not far away.

“Tell ’em t’ lie down!” he yelled. “Don’t let the bastards move an inch!”

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High-pitched shouts came from the French boat; they were yielding. Kydd felt reason slowly return to cool his passions. He took a deep breath. “Secure the boats t’gether,” he ordered, the bloodstained cutlass still in his hands.

His body trembled and he had an overpowering urge to rest, but the men looked to him for orders. He forced his mind to work. “Poulden, into th’ Frogs’ boat and load the swivel.” The petty-offi cer gunner was nowhere to be seen—he’d probably not survived.

While Poulden clambered over the thwarts and found powder and shot, Kydd looked around. There was blood everywhere, but he was experienced enough in combat to know that just a pint looked mortal. The wounded men were being laid together in the widest part of the launch as Pybus climbed back in. When he caught Kydd’s eyes on him, he defi antly handed over a tomahawk—bloodied, Kydd noted.

At Poulden’s call, the French were herded weaponless back into their chaloupe and the swivel brought round inside to menace the boat point-blank. “Hey, you, Mongseer!” Kydd’s exasperated shout was lost on the sullen men in the boat. He turned to his own boat. “Any o’ you men speak French?”

The baffl ed silence meant he would have to lose dignity in pantomime, but then he turned to the midshipman. “Rawson!

Tell ’em they’ll be hove overside if they make any kind o’ false move.” Let him make a fool of himself.

Kydd realised he was still clutching his cutlass, and laid it down, sitting again at the tiller. His hip throbbed and his head gave intermittent blinding stabs of pain; it was time to return to
Tenacious
and blessed rest. He would secure the Frenchy with a short towline; they could then row themselves close behind under the muzzle of the swivel. He would send another three men to stand by Poulden.