Quarterdeck (21 page)

It seemed to Kydd that he was the only one looking forward to the sea-time. The weather had been miserable these past few days, cold and blustery, and although they would only be out a day or so at most, the general consensus was that it was an ideal time to snug down in harbour until better conditions returned.

Kydd had long ago realised that he was a “foul-weather jack”—one of those who revelled in the exhilaration and spectacle of stormy seas, racing clouds and the life-intensifying charge of danger. In this short voyage he knew they would probably not face a full-blown tempest but the thought of a lively exper ience at sea lifted his spirits.

Tenacious
and
Ceres,
a 32-gun frigate belonging to the Newfoundland Squadron, proceeded to sea together. With the
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cliffs of Chebucto Head abeam, they braced up for the hard easterly beat to rendezvous with the convoy.

The weather was freshening: their bows met foam-streaked waves at an angle, dipping before them, then rearing up to smash them apart in explosions of white. Standing aft, Kydd felt the sheeting spray in his teeth. With canvas taut as a drum, weather rigging harping to the wind’s bluster, and, far on their beam,
Ceres
swooping and seething along under small sail, he was happier than he had been for some time. There would be no problems with the enemy—any rational privateer would have long since scuttled southwards until the weather improved. No prize could be boarded in this.

By afternoon they had not sighted the convoy; almost certainly it had been delayed by the poor weather. Houghton, on the quarterdeck in oilskins slick with spray, obviously had no plans to return to port and at the end of the day they shortened sail and kept enough way on the ship to head the easterly. It showed signs of veering, which had the master muttering anxiously to Houghton. At midnight they wore to the south and at the end of the middle watch took the third leg of a triangle to approximate their dusk position again.

A cold dawn brought no improvement in the weather, just the same streaming fresh gale and lively decks a-swill with water.

There was no sign of the convoy but
Ceres
had stayed with them and by mid-morning there was a fl utter of colour at her peak halliards: the convoy had been sighted.

Widely scattered, the ships were struggling to stay together—

it was a miracle that they were even within sight of each other after so many thousands of miles of ocean. Without a convoy plan Kydd had no idea how many there should be, but a quick count enabled him to report what must be a sizeable proportion to the captain when he appeared on deck.

“We’re looking for
Lord Woolmer,
she’s carrying the new

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lieutenant-governor,” Houghton said brusquely, “an ex-Indiaman.

Be so good as to apprise the lookouts and report to me when she’s in sight.”

Ships of all kinds laboured past, converging on the rendezvous position; some showed obvious signs of storm damage. Towards the rear a battered sloop appeared, oddly out of shape with a truncated foretopmast, but bent on coming up with
Tenacious.

“Heave to, please,” Houghton ordered, as he took the offi cer-of-the-watch’s speaking trumpet and waited. The sloop barrelled up to leeward and backed her headsails. Close by, the little vessel’s appalling motion was only too apparent—she was bucking in deep, jerky movements, bursts of spray sheeting over the small huddle at the wheel.

“Where—is—
Lord—Woolmer?
” Houghton called.

A fi gure in the sloop made his way to the shiny wet shrouds and aimed a speaking trumpet. Kydd could hear thin sounds from it, but not make out what was said. The sloop showed canvas enough for it to ease in, its exaggerated bucketing so much the more pitiable as it lurched closer alongside.

“
Woolmer—
sprung mainmast—left her at fi fty-fi ve twenty west—running down forty-three north . . .”

At that longitude she was considerably to eastward of her course; somewhere in the stormy grey of the Atlantic she had encountered a squall that had nearly taken her mainmast by the board. She would have fi shed the mast with capstan bars and anything to hand, then been grateful for the easterly, which at least would have her heading slowly but surely for Halifax.

Looking down from the deck of
Tenacious,
Kydd felt for the sloop commander. Without a soul to ease the decision out there in the lonely ocean he had needed to weigh the consequences of standing by the injured vessel with her important cargo or resume his watch over the convoy. His presence was proof of the hard resolution he had made: to him the value to England of
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the merchant ships had outweighed that of one big ship and her passenger.

The sloop sheeted home and thrashed away after her convoy.

Houghton turned to the master. “Mr Hambly, all sail conform-able to weather. I believe we shall lay on the larb’d tack initially, with a view to returning to starb’d and intersecting our forty-three north line of latitude somewhere about fi fty-seven west longitude.”

Much depended on the weather.
Lord Woolmer
was heading westwards as close as she could stay to a known line of latitude.

If
Tenacious
sailed along the same line in the opposite direction they should meet. The problem was that the wind was dead foul from the east—in diffi cult conditions
Tenacious
would need to tack twice to intersect the line at the probable furthest on of the other ship. And
Woolmer
herself would be fi nding it hard to be sure of her latitude without sight of the sun for days at a time.

Kydd went below to fi nd a dry shirt. He was watch-on-deck for the last dog-watch and wanted to be as comfortable as possible; there would be no going below later. As he came back up the companionway he saw the master, face set grimly, entering his tiny sea cabin. “Do ye think th’ easterly will hold?” Kydd asked, wedging himself against the door for balance. The hanging lanthorn cast moving shadows in the gloom.

“See this?” Hambly tapped the barometer, its vertical case on gimbals also a-swing. His face seemed old and more lined in the dim light. “Twenty-nine ’n’ three fourths. These waters, as soon as we gets a drop more’n a tenth of an inch below our mean f’r the season, stand by. An’ we’ve had a drop o’ two tenths since this morning.”

He checked the chart again and straightened. “North Atlantic, even at this time o’ year, it’s folly to trust. It wouldn’t surprise me t’ see it veer more southerly, an’ if that’s with a further drop we’re in for a hammering.”

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Kydd turned to go, then asked, “You’ll be about tonight, Mr Hambly?”

“I will, sir,” said the master, with a tired smile.

In the last of the light the foretop lookout sighted strange sail. It was
Lord Woolmer
with no fore and aft canvas from the main or anything above her course. She put up her helm to run down on
Tenacious,
and Kydd could imagine the relief and joy aboard.

With luck they would be safe in Halifax harbour in two or three days and the story of their crossing would be told in the warmth and safety of their homes for months to come.

By the time the ship had come up with
Tenacious
it was too dark for manoeuvres, so they waited until the big, somewhat ungainly merchantman pulled ahead then fell in astern, three lanthorns at her foreyard to comfort the other ship, whose stern lanthorns were plainly visible.

The morning brought the south-easterly that the master had feared; the wind had strengthened and the barometer dropped.

It was time for even a well-found ship like
Tenacious
to take the weather seriously.

Houghton did not waste time. “Mr Pearce, Mr Renzi, we’ll have the t’gallant masts on deck.” The jibboom was brought in forward. Aloft, all rigging that could possibly carry away to disaster was doubled up, preventer braces, rolling tackles put on the yards, slings, trusses—nothing could be trusted to hold in the great forces unleashed in a storm.

Anchors were stowed outboard—they would be of crucial importance should land be seen to leeward—and were secured against the smash of seas on the bows with tough double ring painters and lashing along the length of the stock.

The rudder, too, was vital to safeguard: a relieving tackle was rigged in the wardroom and a spare tiller brought out. It would need fast work to ship a new one—Rawson could be trusted in
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this, or to rouse out a portable compass and align its lubber-line to the ship’s head for use if the tiller ropes from the wheel on deck broke. The relieving tackle would then be used to steer.

On each deck a hatchway forward and aft ventilated the space through gratings. These now were covered with strong canvas and fastened securely with battens nailed around the coaming. Seas breaking aboard might otherwise send tons of water into the ship’s bowels.

The most feared event in a storm was a gun breaking loose: a big cannon might smash through the ship’s side. The gunner and his party worked from forward and secured them; each muzzle seized like an ox to the ringbolt above the closed gunport, with double breechings and side frappings. Finally, on deck, lifelines were rigged fore and aft on each side of the masts, and on the weather mizzen shrouds a canvas cloth was spread to break the blast for the helm crew.

Tenacious
was now snugged for a blow. Kydd hoped that the same was true for the merchantman. What would probably be of most concern to her captain was the state of his noble passengers. However splendid their appointments, their cabins would now be a hell on earth: the motion would be such that the only movement possible would be hand to hand, their only rest taken tied into a wildly moving cot, their world confi ned to a box shaken into a malodorous, seasick chaos.

The ships plunged on into the angry seas. Aboard, muscles wearying of the continual bracing and staggering along the deck, eyes salt-sore in the raw cold and the streaming wet, Kydd made a circuit of the deck looking for anything that could conceivably fret itself into a rapidly spiralling danger.

He checked little things, that the drain-holes of the boats were kept open, their deck-gripes bar-taut, spare spars under them lashed into immobility. When he stripped off in the damp fug

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of the wardroom, he could see his own concern refl ected in others’ eyes, and Renzi wore a taut expression.

He pulled on wool: long undergarments, loose pullovers.

Anything to keep out the sapping cold of the streaming wind.

This was no longer an exhilarating contest with Neptune, but something sinister. The fi rst feelings of anxiety stole over Kydd—

there was a point in every storm when the elements turned from hard boisterousness to malevolence, a sign that mankind was an interloper in something bigger than himself, where lives counted for nothing.

Back on deck Kydd had no need to check the compass to see that the wind had veered further: the angle of the treble-reefed topsails was now much sharper. If it continued much past south they stood to be headed, prevented from making for Nova Scotia to the west, no more than two days away.

Kydd could just make out a few words as he approached Houghton, who was talking to the master under the half-deck near the wheel: “. . . or lie to, sir.” Hambly pointed out over the foam-streaked seas. Beneath the wind-scoured waves a swell, long and massive, was surging up. And it came from the south-west, a portent of the great storm that had sent it.

Kydd glanced at the merchantman. They were but two days from port. So near, yet—Houghton had no authority over her and, indeed, if he had it was diffi cult to see how any meaningful signal could be made.

“The monster crosses our way, sir, and I’m not sanguine of th’ chances of a wounded ship in a real North Atlantic storm,”

continued the master.

“We stay with
Lord Woolmer.
That must be our duty,”

Houghton said abruptly.

Within the hour
Woolmer
began to turn—away from the wind.

“She’s scudding!” said Houghton.

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“No, sir, I do believe she wears.” The ship continued round, slowly and uncomfortably, until she had come up on the opposite, starboard tack where she held a-try about four points from the wind.

“I thought so!” Hambly said, against the bluster of the wind at the edges of the half-deck. “He’s seen enough of the western ocean t’ know that if there’s a turn f’r the worse, the shift will come out of somewheres close to th’ north, and wants to get his staying about over with now.” It also meant that
Woolmer
had given up hope of making it through to Halifax and now lay to under storm canvas, going very slowly ahead, waiting out the storm. Kydd’s heart went out to the passengers, who must be near to despair: storms could last weeks.

Tenacious
was set to edging round to conform, and together the two vessels endured. By midday the seas had worsened and the wind’s sullen moan had keened to a higher pitch, a dismal drone with whistling overtones. The swell had increased and the depth between each crest became a dismaying plunge and rise.

Kydd had experienced Caribbean hurricanes, but this was of a different quality: the cold at its heart gave it a unique dark malice. Like the other offi cers, Kydd stayed on deck. At noon they took stale bread and cold tongue, biscuit and anchovies, then resumed their vigil.

Suddenly, a mass of panic-stricken men burst up from the after hatchway, spilling on to the deck, falling over themselves to be out. A chill stabbed at Kydd. A seaman shouted hoarsely,