The Admiral's Daughter (7 page)

“Well, Commander Thomas Kydd, first we must see ye squared away wi' a glass.” He signalled to a footman discreetly. “Bazely, sir, Edmund Bazely out o'
Fenella
brig-sloop, and this unhappy mortal be Parlby o' the
Wyvern.
” The handshake was crisp, the glance keen. “Are ye to be a Channel Groper, b' chance?”

Kydd loosened; the champagne was cool and heady and his trepidation was changing by degrees into an irresistible surge of excitement. “Aye, so it seems, f'r my sins.”

“An' new to our charming Devonshire?”

“Too new, Mr Bazely. All m' service has been foreign since— since I was a younker, an' I'm amazed at how I'm t' take aboard enough t' keep
Teazer
fr'm ornamentin' a rock one day.”

“All foreign? Ye're t' be reckoned lucky, Kydd. As a midshipman I can recollect mooning about in a seventy-four at Spithead and with no more sea service than a convoy to the Downs for all o' two years.” He mused for a moment, then recollected himself. “But we have a whole evening looming ahead. If ye'll excuse us, Mrs Parlby, I want to introduce m' foreign friend here to some others.” As they moved slowly towards the side of the room he chuckled. “No lady in tow—I take it from this ye have no ties, Kydd?”

“None.”

“Then where better to make your acquaintance wi' the female sex than tonight?” They reached a group of young ladies with fans fluttering, deep in excited gossip. They turned as one and fell silent as the two officers approached, fans stilled.

“Miss Robbins, Miss Amelia Wishart, Miss Emily Wishart, Miss Townley, might I present Commander Kydd?” Bazely said breezily. “And be ye advised that he is captain o' the good ship
Teazer,
now lying in Plymouth shortly to sail against the enemy!

“Miss Townley is visiting from Falmouth,” he added amiably.

Kydd bowed to each, feeling their eyes on him as they bobbed in return; one bold, another shy, the others appraising. His mind scrambled to find something witty to say but he fell back on a feeble “Y'r servant, ladies.”

“Mr Kydd, are you from these parts?” the bold-eyed Miss Robbins asked sweetly.

“Why, no, Miss Robbins, but I do hope t' make y'r closer acquaintance,” Kydd replied, but was taken aback when the young ladies fell into a sudden fit of smothered giggles.

Bazely laughed. “If ye'd excuse me, m' dears, I have to return. Do see my friend is tolerably entertained.”

Kydd took in their waiting faces and tried to think of conversation. “Er, fine country is Devon,” he ventured. “I've once been t' Falmouth, as pretty a place as ever I've seen.”

“But, Mr Kydd, Falmouth is in Cornwall,” Miss Robbins laughed.

“No, it is not,” Kydd said firmly.

They subsided, looking at him uncertainly. “Not at all— Falmouth is in Antigua—the Caribbean,” he added, at their blank looks.

“Mr Kydd, you have the advantage over we stay-at-homes. Pray tell, have you seen the sugar grow? Is it in lumps ready for the picking or must we dig it up?”

It was not so difficult, the ladies showing such an interest, and so pleasantly was time passing that he nearly forgot his duty. “Miss Amelia,” he enquired graciously, of the shyest and therefore presumably safest, “c'n you find it in y'r heart t' reserve th' cotillion for m'self?”

Gratified, he watched alarm, then pleasure chase across her features. “Why, sir, this is an honour,” she said, with a wide smile. A pity she was so diminutive—not like the admiral's daughter, who, he had noted, was nearly of a height with himself—but Miss Amelia had a charmingly cherubic face and he could not help swelling with pride at the image of the couple they must present.

A disturbance on the floor resolved into the master of ceremonies clearing a space about him and the hum of conversation grew to a noisy crescendo, then died away. “M' lords, ladies 'n' gentlemen, pray take your partners—for a minuet.”

Kydd offered his arm: it had seemed so awkward practising in the great cabin of HMS
Teazer
with Renzi but now it felt natural. It was to be expected that a stately minuet would open the ball, but the dance's elaborate graces and moves were too intimidating to consider until his confidence strengthened, and they stood together on one side as the lines formed. He nodded amiably to the one or two couples that had seemed to notice him and glanced down at his young lady: she smiled back sweetly and Kydd's spirits soared.

It seemed that the admiral's formidable wife was being led out by his flag-lieutenant to open the dancing, and Kydd, conscious of Miss Amelia's arm on his, sought conversation. “A fine sight, y'r grand ball, is it not? Do ye have chance f'r many?”

Her eyes grew wide. “Oh, sir, I have come out only this season,” she said, in a small voice that had Kydd bending to hear.

“That's as may be—but I'll wager ye'll not want f'r admirers in the future, Miss Amelia.”

The cotillion was announced: Kydd led her out with pride and they joined the eightsome opposite a star-struck maiden and her attentive beau, a young lieutenant who bowed respectfully to Kydd. He inclined his head civilly and the music began.

Miss Amelia danced winsomely, her eyes always on him, the more vigorous measures bringing a flush to her cheeks. Kydd was sincerely regretful when it ended and he escorted her gallantly back to her friends.

Somehow he found himself in the position of requesting that Miss Robbins grant him the pleasure of the next dance, which luckily turned out to be “Gathering Peascods,” a fashionable country dance that he had only recently acquired.

Between the changes Miss Robbins learnt that he was widely travelled, had been moderately fortunate in the matter of prize-money and was unmarried. Kydd was made aware that Miss Robbins was from a local family, much spoken of in banking, and lived in Buckfastleigh with her two younger sisters, single like herself.

There was no question but that this was the world he might now call his own. He was a gentleman and all now knew it! At the final chords he punctiliously accorded Miss Robbins the honours of the dance, then with her on his arm wended his way back to her chair.

Happy chatter swelled on all sides; he was conscious of the agreeable glitter of candlelight on his gold lace and epaulettes, the well-tailored sweep of his coat, and knew he must cut a figure of some distinction—it was time to widen his social connections.

He threaded his way through the crowded ballroom and headed for the upper floor, where there would be entertainment of a different sort—cards and conversation. At a glance he saw the tables with card-players and others politely attendant on them but also couples promenading, sociable groups and forlorn wallflowers.

“Mr Kydd, ahoy!” A remembered voice sounded effortlessly behind him and he wheeled round.

“Mr Bazely,” he acknowledged, and went over to the table. Curious eyes looked up as he approached.

“Mrs Watkins, Miss Susanna, this is Commander Kydd, come to see how prodigious well the ladies play in Devon. Do take a chair, sir,” he said, rising to his feet.

“May I know how the pot goes?” Kydd asked courteously, remaining standing.

“Why, four guineas, Mr Kydd,” one of the ladies simpered.

Sensing that Bazely would not be averse to respite, he replied sadly, “Ah, a mort too deep f'r me, madam.” Turning to Bazely, he bowed and asked, “But if you, sir, are at liberty t' speak with me of the country for a space, I'd be obliged.”

Bazely made his excuses and they sauntered off in search of the punch table. “Your Mrs Watkins is a hard beat t' windward, Kydd,” he sighed gustily, “Mr Watkins being a fiend for dancing and always absentin' himself,” he added, with a glimmer of a smile.

“Tell me,” Kydd asked, “how do ye find service in these waters, if I might ask ye?”

With a shrewd glance Bazely said, “For the learning of seaman-ship an' hard navigation it can't be beat. The coast to the sou' west is poor, remote, devilishly rock-bound and a terror in a fresh blow.” He pondered for a moment. “The folk live on fishing mostly, some coastal trading—and free tradin', if they gets a chance.” Kydd knew this was a local euphemism for smuggling.

“So what sport's t' be had?”

“As it dares,” Bazely grunted. Now at the punch table he found glasses and poured liberally. “Getting bold and saucy, y'r Johnny Crapaud. Sees his best chance is not b' comin' up agin Nelson an' his battleships but going after our trade. If he can choke it off, he has us beat. No trade, no gold t' pay for our war, no allies'll trust us. We'd be finished.”

The punch was refined and had none of the gaiety Kydd remembered from the Caribbean. “But ye asked me how I find the service.” Bazely smiled. “Aye, it has to be said I like it. No voyage too long, home vittles waiting at the end, entertainments t' be had, detached service so no big-fleet ways with a flagship always hanging out signals for ye—and doing a job as is saving the country.”

“True enough,” Kydd agreed.

“Come, now, Mr Fire-eater, should Boney make a sally you'll have all the diversion ye'd wish.”

“Why here you are, Mr Kydd,” a silvery voice cooed. “For shame! Neglecting the company to talk sea things. I'm persuaded a gentleman should not so easily abandon the ladies.”

“Miss Lockwood! I stan' guilty as charged!” Kydd said, and offered his arm, his heart leaping with exultation. The admiral's daughter!

C
HAPTER 4

“H
ELP Y'SELF TO THE
B
ATH CAKES
,
Nicholas—I did s' well last evenin' at supper.” Kydd stretched out in his chair. The morning bustle of a man-o'-war sounded from on deck but, gloriously, this was the concern of others.

“Then your appearance in Plymouthian society may be accounted a success?” Renzi asked. “I did have my concerns for you in the article of gallantry, it being a science of no mean accomplishing.”

“All f'r nothing, m' friend. The ladies were most amiable an' I'm sanguine there's one or two would not hesitate t' throw out th' right signal t' come alongside should I haul into sight.”

Kydd's broad smile had Renzi smothering one of his own. “Do I take it from this you find the experience . . . congenial?”

“Aye, ye do. It's—it's another world t' me, new discovered, an' I'm minded t' explore.”

“But for the time being you will be taking your good ship to war, I believe.”

Kydd flushed. “M' duty is not in question, Nicholas. We sail wi' the tide after midday. What I'm sayin' only is that if this is t' be m' future then I find it agreeable enough. We're t' expect some hands fr'm the Impress Service afore we sail,” he added briskly. “This'll please Kit Standish.”

Their eighteen men shortfall translated to a one-in-four void in every watch and station; he was uncomfortably aware that the first lieutenant had found it necessary to spread the crew of two forward guns round the others to provide full gun crews. The Impress Service would try its best, but after the hullabaloo of the hot press on the eve of the outbreak of war every true seaman still ashore would have long gone to ground.

Kydd finished his coffee—in hours
Teazer
would be making for the open sea. Out there the cold reality of war meant that the enemy was waiting to fall upon him and his ship without mercy, the extinction of them both a bounden duty. Was
Teazer
ready? Was
he?

He nodded to Renzi. “I think I'll take a turn about th' deck— pray do finish y'r breakfast.”

At two in the afternoon the signalling station at Mount Wise noted the departure of the brig-sloop
Teazer
as she passed Devil's Point outward bound through Plymouth Sound on her way to war. What they did not record was the hurry and confusion about her decks.

“M' compliments, an' ask Mr Standish t' come aft,” Kydd snapped at the midshipman messenger beside him. Battling
Teazer
's exuberant motion Andrews staggered forward to the first lieutenant who was spluttering up at the foretopmen.

“Mr Standish, this will not do!” growled Kydd. Their first fight could well take place within hours and their sail-handling was pitiful. “I see y'r captain o' the foretop does not seem t' know how t' handle his men. We'll do it again, an' tell him he's to give up his post t' another unless he can pull 'em together—an' that directly.”

“Sir.”

“Only one bell f'r grog an' supper, then we go t' quarters to exercise gun crews until dusk.” He lowered his tone and continued grimly, “We're not s' big we can wait until we're strong. Do ye bear down on 'em, if y' please.”

While they were exercising on a straight course south and safely out to sea, they were away from the coast and not performing their assigned task. Kydd kept the deck all afternoon. He knew that the sailors, so recently in the grog-shops and other entertainments of the port, would be cursing his name as they laboured. The occasional flash of sullen eyes showed from the pressed men—there had been only nine men and a boy sent out to
Teazer
before she sailed, all of questionable worth. There were so few of her company he knew and trusted.

When eight bells sounded at the beginning of the first dog-watch sail was shortened, and after a quick supper it was to the guns until the long summer evening came to a close,
Teazer
's bow still to seaward. Kydd would not rest: one by one the seniors of the ship were summoned to the great cabin and, over a glass of claret, he queried them concerning the performance of their men, their strengths and prospects. It was not to be hurried, the intricate process of turning a collection of strangers into a strong team that would stand together through the worst that tempests and the enemy could bring. Kydd knew that any weaknesses would become apparent all too quickly under stress of weather or battle.

The following day broke with blue skies and a clear horizon; both watches went to exercise and at the noon grog issue Kydd saw the signs he was looking for—the previously wary, defensive responses were giving way to confident chatter and easy laughter that spoke of a shared, challenging existence. This would firm later into a comradely trust and reliance.

Already, characters were emerging; the loud and over-bearing, the quiet and efficient, those who hung back leaving others to take the lead, the ones who made a noisy show with little effect, the eager, the apprehensive, the brash. His seniors would be picking up on them all and he in turn would be taking
their
measure—it was the age-old way of the sea, where the actions of an individual could directly affect them all.

In the early afternoon they wore about to reverse course back to Plymouth but Kydd was determined that his ship should take up her station without the smallest delay. When the misty, rolling Devon coast firmed again, there was only one decision to be made—with his home port at the mid-point of his patrol area, should he go up-Channel or down?

The weather was fair, seas slight with a useful breeze from the Atlantic. “Mr Dowse to set us t' the westward, if y' please,” he ordered.

Ready or no,
Teazer
was going to war. For him, it would be a much different conflict from those he had experienced so far. There was no specific objective to be won, no foreign shores with exotic craft and unknown threats: it would be a challenge of sea-keeping and endurance that might explode at any time into a blazing fight that must be faced alone.

Kydd recognised the massive triangular rockface of the Great Mewstone, the eastern sea mark of Plymouth Sound. That and the sprawling heights of Rame Head on the other side he knew from before, but then he had been a distracted captain about to set forth on his urgent mission to France.

Now his duty was to close with the land, to go against all the instincts of his years at sea and keep in with this hard, fractured coastline. There were other sail, some taking advantage of the flurries and downdraughts from the cliffs and appearing unconcerned at the hazards sternly advised in the chart and coast- pilot. No doubt they were local fishermen who had lived there all their lives.

Once past Penlee and Rame Head, the ten-mile sweep of Whitsand Bay opened up. Dowse moved closer. “If'n we wants t' clear all dangers between here 'n' Looe, we keep th' Mewstone open o' Rame Head.”

Kydd noted the tone of careful advice: it would be easy for the master to slip into condescension or reserve and he needed this man's sea wisdom in these waters. “Aye, then that's what we'll do, Mr Dowse,” he responded, and glancing astern he watched as the far-off dark rock slid obediently into alignment with the bluff face of Rame Head. With
Teazer
a good three miles offshore, this left a prudent distance to leeward in the brisk winds. Kydd relaxed a little: he and his sailing master would likely get along.

The early-summer sun was warm and beneficent; it set the green seas a-glitter and took the edge off the cool Atlantic winds. With
Teazer
eagerly taking the waves on her bow and held to a taut bowline, Kydd could not think of anywhere he would rather be. He gazed along the decks: his first lieutenant was standing forward, one foot on a carronade slide as he observed the topmen at work aloft; the watch on deck were busy tying off the lee lanniards as new rigging took up the strain. Purchet had a party of hands amidships sending up a fresh main topmast staysail, and Kydd knew that below the purser was issuing slops to the pressed men, with Renzi and young Calloway preparing the recast quarters bill.

Somewhere under their lee were the first tiny ports of Cornwall—Portwrinkle and Looe, then the remote smuggling nest of Polperro. This was quite different country from the softer hills of Devon and he was curious to set foot in it.

The afternoon wore on. The big bay curved outwards again and ended in precipitous headlands and steep rocky slopes. With a little more south in the wind Whitsand Bay could well be a trap— embayed, a square-rigged ship would not be able to beat out and would end impaled on those same rocks.

“Makin' good time, Mr Kydd—that's Fowey ahead, beyond th' inner point.” The visibility was excellent and Kydd lifted his telescope: presumably the port lay between the far headland, and the near landmass. He picked out the dark red of the oak-bark-tanned sails of inshore craft—but nowhere the pale sails of deeper-water vessels.

“Fowey? Then I believe we'll pay a visit, Mr Dowse.” Fowey— Dowse had pronounced it “Foy”—was one of the Customs ports and well situated at the half-way point between Plymouth and the ocean-facing port of Falmouth. No doubt they would welcome a call from the navy and it was his duty to make himself known and check for orders.

“Mr Standish, we'll moor f'r the night—no liberty t' the hands, o' course.” There was no point in sending the men, so soon to sail, into temptation. “I shall make m' call on th' authorities, an' I require ye to keep the ship at readiness t' sail.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Standish said crisply.

“An' find me a boat's crew o' trusties, if y' please.”

The busy rush of the waves of the open sea calmed as they passed within the lee of Gribbin Head, the looming far headland. “Leavin' Punch Cross a cable's length berth—that's th' rocks yonder—until we c'n see the castle,” Dowse told him. Kydd gratefully tucked away all such morsels of information at the back of his mind.

They glided through the narrow entrance and into the tranquillity of the inner harbour in the evening light and let go the anchor into the wide stretch of water that had opened up. A twinkle of lights began to appear in the small town opposite through the myriad masts of scores of ships.

“Nicholas, do ye wish t' step ashore or are books more to y'r taste?” said Kydd, as he changed from his comfortable but worn sea rig.

Renzi looked up. He had taken to reading in the easy chair by the light of the cabin window when Kydd was not at ship's business. This was more than agreeable to Kydd as now his cabin had lost its austere and lonely atmosphere and taken on the character of a friendly retreat, exactly as he had dared to imagine.

“When the Romans invaded these islands, brother, the native Britons who did not succumb to the blandishments of civilisation were driven to the remote fastnesses of Cornwall and Wales, there to rusticate in barbarian impunity. Thus we might account the natives here foreigners—or are
we?
I have a yen to discover the truth of the matter.”

“And add this t' your bag o' ethnical curiosities, I'd wager.”

“Just so,” Renzi agreed.

“Then I'd be obliged if ye'd keep sight o' the boat once we land— I've no notion how long I'll be.”

It was Stirk at the jolly-boat's tiller, Poulden at stroke, with Calloway opposite, and a midshipman at each of the two forward oars. Kydd gave the order to put off.

Andrews struggled with his big oar and tried his best to follow Poulden while the larger Boyd handled his strongly but with little sense of timing. Poulden leant into the strokes theatrically giving the youngsters every chance to keep with him as they made their way across the placid waters towards the town quay.

“Stay within hail, if y' please,” Kydd called down, from the long stone wharf after he had disembarked. This left it up to Stirk to allow a small measure of freedom ashore for his crew but as Kydd and Renzi moved away he saw the boat shove off once again and savage growls floated back over the water. The trip back would be more seemly than the coming had been.

Nestled against steep hills, the town was compact and narrow. The main quay had substantial stone buildings, some medieval, to Renzi's delight, and all along the seafront a jumbled maze of small boat-builders, reeking fish quays and pokey alleyways met the eye. They were greeted with curious stares along the evening bustle of Fore Street—word would be going out already in the Fowey taverns that a King's ship had arrived.

The harbour commissioner's office was at the end of the quays, before the narrow road curved away up a steep slope. Inside, a single light showed. Renzi made his farewell and Kydd went up to the undistinguished door and knocked. A figure appeared, carrying a guttering candle. Before Kydd could say anything the man said gruffly, “The brig-sloop—come to show y'self. Right?”

“Aye, sir. Commander Thomas Kydd, sloop
Teazer,
at y' service.” His bow was returned with an ill-natured grunt.

“As I've been waiting for ye!” he grumbled, beckoning Kydd into what appeared to be a musty waiting room illuminated by a pair of candles only. “Brandy?”