Caribbee (9 page)

‘Fo’c’slemen mustered correct, sir.’ They were last to report – with the capstan manned they were ready to depart.

Kydd looked at his watch. ‘No sense in delaying. Weigh anchor, if you please. Cast to starb’d, Mr Kendall?’

‘Aye, sir.’

Topmen swarmed aloft to stand by to loose sail to take the wind on the starboard side when the anchor had been won, and the age-old quickening of the heart of an outward-bound ship touched them all.

‘Thick an’ dry!’ came the yell from forward. The cable was taut up and down and with the ‘heavy heave’ that broke the anchor’s grip on the seabed they would be free of the land, their voyage begun.

‘Gunfire, sir!’

Kydd had heard it as well, the distinct crack of a small gun. Someone pointed: a low-built cutter of the kind that swarmed by the score in Carlisle Bay was crowding on sail directly towards them, the smoke of the shot dissipating as they watched.

It was inconceivable that they were under attack but unauthorised gunfire in a naval anchorage was forbidden. A civil advice-boat with news or dispatches?

‘Avast at the capstan!’ Kydd snapped, but he was too late: a shout from the fo’c’sle and a simultaneous sliding of the bows downwind showed they were under way.

He thought furiously. ‘Belay the last – get that anchor in!’

It could not have come at a worse moment. With the unusual on-shore south-westerly there was no time to take the turns of cable off the capstan, releasing the anchor to plunge down again, and therefore their only course was to get sufficient way on the ship to claw off.

‘Make sail!’

Canvas dropped and the topmen raced in as the yards were braced around to catch the wind, but instead of an orderly and relaxed departure
L’Aurore
was sent close-hauled across the busy roadstead to clear anchored ships.

Another shot came from the cutter.

‘See if we can heave to, Mr Kendall,’ Kydd said tightly, eyeing the shore. There was less than a mile of usable water for any kind of manoeuvre – there had better be a very good reason for the boat’s antics.

L’Aurore
passed through the cutter’s wind, obliging the little craft to tack about, making a sad showing that left Kydd fuming. He was on the point of ordering the frigate to bear away and make for the open sea when it finally closed with them. A figure in flamboyant dress on its foredeck shouted up indistinctly.

Gilbey made impatient signs to come alongside and hailed irritably: ‘What’s your business?’ With its small local crew and shabby look, it was obviously not a government vessel.

‘L’tenant Buckle, y’r third, come to join.’

Kydd swore. ‘Get him on board,’ he snarled to Gilbey. ‘As quick as you may.’ As he stumped back to the wheel he could hear some sort of altercation concerning baggage and ground his teeth.

They were perilously close to drifting down on a brig-sloop at anchor – he had to take action. But as he was about to give orders to bear away, an inbound merchantman altered course to pass them to seaward, cutting off their track out.

‘Get that looby inboard this instant!’ Kydd bellowed furiously.

It was going to be tricky indeed: how could he—

‘Flat out the headsails, douse the driver!’ he roared. With sternway beginning to make itself felt, they had to move now. He swivelled to glare at the quartermaster. If he forgot to reverse all helm orders—

‘Um, L’tenant Buckle, sir?’

Kydd ignored him. ‘Stand by at the braces!’ he bawled down the deck. It would need faultless timing if they were not to be caught aback.

‘Come aboard t’ join, sir.’ The man seemed to have no idea of the situation and was dressed in a green morning coat and pantaloons tucked into tasselled boots.

Kydd turned to stare at him. ‘Get out of my way, you infernal lubber! Can’t you see—’

Kendall broke in: ‘We has a chance, sir. See the sugar barge, done loading, and she’ll clear the merchant jack in a brace o’ shakes.’

He was right – as long as they had sufficient way on to ensure tight steering. But it would mean committing to the single course of action and if that failed …

‘We’ll do it,’ Kydd responded decisively. Thank the Lord he had a tried and trusty crew. ‘Brace around!’

L’Aurore
was no longer clean-bottomed. Her last careening had been in far-away Cape Town, and it showed in her sluggish responses. Her bowsprit nevertheless swung obediently to aim like a rapier at the merchantman.

‘Er, what d’you want me to do, sir?’ Buckle said eagerly. A generous-sized portmanteau lay at his feet.

They picked up speed, the coral bottom flicking past in the crystal-clear waters. ‘Mr Oakley, double up the fo’c’sle hands. I want ’em to sweat when the time comes,’ Kydd threw at the boatswain.

‘Can I help at all?’ Buckle persisted.

Kydd saw red. ‘Get off the deck, blast y’r eyes. I’ll wait on your explanation later!’ he ground out, trying to see past him to the rapidly growing bulk of the merchant ship. Buckle stood irresolute and Kydd thrust him aside savagely.

‘Stand by, for’ard!’ he roared. But, as he had fervently hoped, close to the merchant ship the wind veered and eased.

‘Helm up!’

As they rounded the ship’s stern there were frightened faces at the rail on one side, and on the other the men at the sweeps in the barge simply gazed up in shock as the frigate swashed heavily past.

‘Wh-where shall I put my baggage, then, sir?’

Not trusting himself to speak, Kydd waited until
L’Aurore
emerged on the seaward side to take the breeze happily, leaning into it with a will as they made for the blessed expanse of the open sea.

‘Get below to the gunroom and wait until I send for you. Give him a hand, Mr Searle.’

They had done it, but the situation should not have arisen in the first place.

Course set westward and order restored, Kydd went to his cabin and summoned Buckle.

Leaning back at his desk he took in his new lieutenant. An agreeable-looking young man in his twenties, with an anxious-to-please expression, he was still in his wildly out-of-place shore clothing.

‘This is damned irregular, joining ship out of rig, Mr Buckle,’ rasped Kydd.

‘Oh, that’s because m’ friends insisted on a righteous send-off, is all.’ The accent was peculiar, touched with a slight Caribbean lilt.

‘And?’

‘Why, nobody thinks to see you put to sea so quick, an’ when they spy you ready to go, I threw m’ gear together an’ here I am.’

‘Was it you fired those shots?’

‘I did! Always take m’ duck gun everywheres and it surely came in handy this time.’

Incredulous, Kydd began, ‘You thought to fire away in a naval anchorage …’ He let it go rather than endure another explanation. ‘Be so good as to show me your orders, Mr Buckle.’

They were correct, the commission dated only the day before and with Cochrane’s signature. ‘Weren’t you in a sickly way betimes?’

‘Er, I took the fever an’ was landed from m’ last ship, but I know my duty when I sees it. When the call came, how could I not arise an’ answer?’

‘Quite. We’d better ask the doctor for a survey, just in case.’

‘Oh – that won’t be necessary,’ Buckle said hastily. ‘I’m feeling prime.’

Kydd frowned. There was something odd about the whole business. And the commission referred to Acting Lieutenant Buckle.

‘Do tell me something about your sea time, Mr Buckle – and I’m bound to tell you that in
L’Aurore
it’s customary to throw out a “sir” every so often.’

‘Aye aye,
sir
! Well, I starts in
Mediator
as a volunteer o’ thirteen years and—’

‘No, your last few commissions.’

It came out. From a prominent Barbados planter family, he had made midshipman at fifteen, managing to serve his entire career in the Caribbean, but had been unfortunate in the matter of promotion. His first service as lieutenant was in his previous ship and had been brief, terminated by a near-mortal but mysterious fever.

‘What, then, was your last ship?’

‘That would be fourth o’
Hannibal
74, Captain Tyrell. A hard man, sir, cruel hard!’

A midshipman with no shortage of interest, yet well past the usual age for a lieutenancy, was questionable, but what raised Kydd’s hackles was the suspicion that he had shammed illness in order to be quit of a lawful appointment – at Bowden’s expense. No wonder he had ‘recovered’ so quickly, the thought of shipping out in a frigate too good to miss.

‘I’ll be honest with you, Mr Buckle. I mislike the cut o’ your jib. You’re not my idea of a naval officer and I doubt others on board
L’Aurore
will disagree. We’re at sea now and I don’t have a choice, but mark my words, sir, there’s no passengers on a frigate. If you’re not in the trim of a sea officer by Jamaica I’m having you landed as useless. Understand?’

‘You can count on me.’ Seeing Kydd’s expression, he squeaked hastily, ‘Um,
sir
!’

‘Go! And get in sea rig!’

With a sketchy salute, Buckle left hurriedly.

Sighing deeply, Kydd knew he had problems. He couldn’t let the ninny take a watch on his own. His first lieutenant Gilbey would have to stand his share, which would not please him. And what the hardened man-o’-war’s men aboard would think of Buckle to serve under …

‘Sir?’ It was the boatswain, knocking softly. He had an odd smile playing on his lips.

‘Yes?’

‘Bit of a predicament is all, sir.’

‘Oh?’ Mr Oakley didn’t often come across problems he needed to take to his captain.

‘Like, it’s the new lootenant. His dunnage don’t fit in his cabin. Three chests an’ other gear he has, sir.’

‘Has he, now. Then he’s to take what he wants as will stow, the rest to go over the side. Clear?’

Grinning openly, the boatswain turned to leave.

‘Oh, and ask Mr Curzon to attend me,’ Kydd added. Buckle would be second officer-of-the-watch to Curzon and Kydd decided to make him responsible so that there was no opportunity for his junior to create a disaster in the taut machine that was a thoroughbred frigate.

It was a fair wind for Jamaica, the reliable north-easterly trades nearly abeam with never a tacking to contemplate, the easiest blue-water sailing possible. Curzon had the deck. Hesitantly his second came up the hatchway and self-consciously fell in behind him.

The watch stared at him in wonder: not only was his uniform stiff new but he wore highly polished hessian boots, a cocked hat a shade too big and a marvellously ruffled shirt peeping out from under his coat.

‘Good God,’ Curzon spluttered, his own plain sea uniform green-tarnished and well-worn.

‘Hello,’ Buckle said brightly. ‘What do you want me to do at all?’

‘We’re on watch. I’m your senior – you call me “sir”.’

‘Oh, right, um, sir.’

‘You should have been here for the handover,’ Curzon said testily. ‘How else can you think to know your course and sail set?’

‘Well, I had s’ much trouble with that odious neck-cloth and things, I can’t think how—’

‘Course west-nor’-west, all sail to royals, nothing in sight,’ Curzon said impatiently.

‘That’s, er, all sail—’

‘If you don’t know, why not take a look at the quartermaster’s slate?’ Curzon’s words were heavy with sarcasm, for it was the officer-of-the-watch himself who chalked in the orders.

‘Aye aye,
sir
!’ Buckle went to the binnacle. ‘Er, do you mind if I take a look at your slate at all?’ he asked an astonished quartermaster, who handed it over without a word.

He returned to stand companionably next to Curzon. ‘I do want t’ get it straight, you see.’

Curzon rolled his eyes heavenward, then told him, ‘Those men forrard at the fore topmast staysail. They’re slacking – I want that tack hardened in properly. Go and stir them along.’

Buckle strode forward importantly and stopped at the group swigging off. ‘I say, you men! Come along, now – work harder!’

Returning, he was met with a stony-faced Curzon, who curtly ordered him to keep close behind for the remainder of the watch to mark and learn – and woe betide if he once opened his mouth.

Days passed and
L’Aurore
pressed deeper into the Caribbean. It was now well into the hurricane season and Kydd, who had reason to fear them from his experience of these waters in the past, took to tapping the barometer every time he went below. But the airs remained fine and settled.

In flying-fish weather the boatswain took the opportunity of doing what he could to fettle the rigging – turning worn ropes end for end so wear took place at another spot, re-reeving same-sized lines to different tasks and taking up stretched ropes where they had slackened. The sailmaker sat on deck in the sun, patching and seaming, helped by his mates and skilled able seamen. By the main-mast midshipmen took their instruction in sea skills from the older men.

The gunroom gathered for supper. With Curzon and Buckle in charge of the deck, Gilbey, now off-watch, was idly reading an old newspaper.

The boatswain came in, found his place and sat, tucking a napkin around his neck.

‘Are we a-taunt yet, Ben?’ rumbled the gunner, Redmond.

‘Not as would satisfy any blue-water sailor I knows.’ Oakley reached for the cold meats.

The master polished his spectacles. ‘Still an’ all, eleven knots on a bowline satisfies me.’

Gilbey lowered his paper and glanced around for pickles to add to his cheese as Curzon came in, shaking water off his hat. ‘You’ve left the deck to that damn looby?’ he asked sourly.

‘That, or be driven out of my wits before my time.’ He slumped into a chair and picked at the offerings. ‘The man shows willing, but …’ He gave a theatrical sigh.

‘We has to do something,’ Gilbey snapped. ‘I don’t fancy standing watch an’ watch for ever – which is what’ll happen if’n he’s landed in Jamaica. We’ll never find another l’tenant there.’

The warrant officers held silent: it was not their place to criticise an officer, but the gunner found a way. ‘Then there’s no word yet about a l’tenant at quarters, then, Mr Gilbey?’ he asked innocently.

That was the nub: this was a fighting frigate, and if their third lieutenant couldn’t be trusted to lead his men at quarters or to take charge of a division, what use was he?