The Privateer's Revenge (32 page)

Kydd thanked his stars for an experienced crew: what he was contemplating was not for the faint of heart. Rapidly assuring himself once again of the exact relative position of the islets, reef and the wind's eye, he gave the order to go about.

Witch of Sarnia
did not hesitate. She pirouetted to the other tack and took up quickly, passing into the few-hundred-yards-wide channel between reef and islets—and thrashing into the teeth of the wind where no square-rigger could go.

With a pang for his old command, Kydd saw
Teazer
left far astern as the
Witch
energetically made the north tip of Guernsey and round. It was done. They had won the open Atlantic and the rest was up to him.

The low lines of the privateer meant exhilarating going, but there was a price to pay: very soon Kydd found his new command was going to be a wet ship, knifing through the waves instead of soaring over them; with every second or third roller the decks were thoroughly sluiced.

But the
Witch
lived up to her name. It was remarkable how close she held to the wind and her square sail aloft gave added impetus and, at the same time, a degree of manoeuvrability that required fewer men for the same tasks than a sloop.

The vessel type had originated in England, but it was the Americans who had termed it a schooner and taken it as their own, adding special features. From his time on the North American station Kydd recognised the deeply roached topsail that allowed it to clear the rigging; the lead of the schooner stay that was like a shroud moved forward, easing pressure on the foremast to spread an expansive fore staysail.

Engrossed in becoming acquainted with his lady he failed at first to notice Cheslyn next to him.

“Goes like a witch, don't ye think?” he offered, but the man's features remained stony, and an expressionless Le Cocq stood with him.

“This time o' year, after th' equinoctials, gets chancy,” the big man said cautiously. “B'sides, the glass is still droppin'.”

Kydd looked at him in surprise. “Why, if I didn't know th' better, I'd have t' say m' first l'tenant's gone qualmish!”

Cheslyn reddened. “The
Witch
ain't built f'r heavy weather. An' that there's no lady's puff.” He gestured at the low-lying dark-grey cloud masses across their path.

“A squall or two, I'll grant ye, but this is only y' regular-goin'

Western Ocean blash!” Kydd had seen the Atlantic at its worst and this was no threat at the moment. “I'm t' raise Flores in five days, Mr Cheslyn, do y' like it or no.” If the wind stayed steady from the west they could do this even earlier in one slant to the south-south-west and then they would be at their cruising ground.

He turned and left for his cabin, the prospect of rest suddenly enticing. He closed the door firmly; it was not a big cabin—a high bunk over drawers on one side, a working desk with lamp the other and a neat dining-table at the after end. Mercifully there was a skylight above, with a compass repeat farther forward. He ripped off his spray-soaked coat and boots, let them drop carelessly, heaved himself into his bunk and closed his eyes.

The
Witch
was close-hauled and had an angle of heel that could be alarming on first meeting but he wedged himself in familiarly and let the sounds of the sea wash past him. Reaching ever westwards into the vastness of the Atlantic involved an endless repetition of a sudden crunch from the bows followed by a defiant rapid upwards lift, then an eager long glide downward and forward, the hiss of their way quite audible through the hull.

Weariness laid its hand on him and thoughts crowded in, but one in particular would not let go. Unless he succeeded, this was going to be the very last voyage he would make as a captain. Neither the Navy nor others would ever offer him employment again.

A double wave thumped the bows and the schooner lost her stride with an affronted wiggle, which dislodged Robidou's book in the bedside rack. It fell into his bunk. Kydd sat up and opened the little volume. Thomas Hartwell Horne.
A Compendium
. He leafed through. It was an exposition in clear English of the Prize Law of 1793 in the form of a handbook of guidance to privateers and ships-of-war, and it had been published by Clarke of Portugal Street this very year.

One stout passage caught his eye: “Lawful force may be used to enforce a boarding, it being assumed a vessel cannot be proved innocent otherwise. Contumacious resistance to fair inquiry is evidence of guilt in law, to be followed by just confiscation.”

So, if any objected to his boarding, whatever the circumstances, he had the whole force of the law at his back. And whatever else there was in this little treasure . . .

As he addressed himself to the task of teasing out the practical meanings of the legal rules he barely noticed a tiny knock at the door. It was repeated unsteadily.

“Come!” he called loudly.

It was Pookie, gamely passing hand to hand in the lively motion with a small cloth bundle. “S-sir, Mr Purvis says as how th' fire ain't lit but wonders if this'n will do.” It was cuts of cold meat, cheese and bread.

“It'll do fine, younker.” The little figure had a pale face and Kydd felt for the effort it must have cost to come below where there was no horizon to steady senses thrown awry by the relentless heave and jerking. “No—leave that, I'll do it,” he protested, when his carelessly cast aside wet gear was painfully but tidily stowed in the side-locker. “Compliments t' th' officer o' th' deck,” he added, “an' because ye have the youngest eyes in th' ship ye're t' be lookout. F'r prizes, o' course.”

The child looked up gratefully and scuttled out.

Kydd resumed his book, munching hungrily on the cold victuals, but he soon noticed a definite change in the rhythm of the vessel, a sulky twist after each lift. He frowned and glanced up at the compass repeat.

North-west? Be damned to it! He slipped out of his bunk, grabbed his grego and made the upper deck. “Mr Cheslyn? What's th' meaning of—”

“I've taken in reefs an' we're headin' f'r shelter in Falmouth,” he said truculently, against the bluster of the wind.

“Ye've abandoned course!” Kydd burst out in amazement. “An' without s' much as a by-y'-leave?” It was a near treasonable of-fence in the Navy.

“Take a look f'r y'self!” Cheslyn said, heated, pointing at the layer of darkness near the horizon ahead.

Kydd caught his anger. “An' what's the barometer say?” he asked dangerously.

“A bare twenty-nine—an' losin' fast.”

Without a word Kydd crossed to the hatchway, then to the saloon where a neat Fortin barometer hung on gimbals. He looked closely: as he suspected the fiducial point had not been set—the vernier would not read reliably without a true datum. He tapped the mercury column carefully and adjusted the levelling screw, then saw the reading was closer to twenty-nine and a quarter inches, a figure not out of place in a southern English autumn.

Snorting with contempt, he resumed the deck. Behind Cheslyn the stocky figure of Le Cocq was flanked by Gostling and the boatswain, Rosco, hovered uncomfortably. No one spoke.

“Who has th' deck?” Kydd said loudly, knowing full well who it was.

“Me,” snapped Cheslyn.

“Get back on course west b' north,” Kydd said coldly, “an' we'll douse th' fore staysail I think.”

“We reckon it's goin' t' be evil doin's afore long, an' we—” “We?”

“As every sailor knows, a westerly in th' fall ain't t' be trusted. An' with th' barometer—”

“At twenty-nine and a quarter? What lubber can't do a correction?” Kydd said scornfully. “I've crossed th' Western Ocean enough times an' I know what I see—what ye have ahead is a parcel o' black squalls only, nothing t' fret upon.”

It was worrying that Cheslyn, a reputed North Atlantic mariner, was having trouble with this weather—until Kydd realised he might have other more mercenary reasons for a quick visit to Falmouth. “Bear up, there,” he commanded the helmsman. “Course, west b' north.”

The others flicked anxious glances at Cheslyn, and Kydd wondered darkly what tales of sea-woe he had been spinning to them. “This I'll do,” he said. “Should th' glass fall below twenty-nine before dark I'll put about f'r Falmouth.”

It was not much of a concession—if it fell so quickly he would flee in any event—but he was confident in his reading of the sea and felt it unlikely. But he missed having a sailing-master to fall back on for advice and the comfort of such wisdom at his side. He was on his own and would have to stand by his decisions.

Just as dusk was closing in, the first line-squalls arrived. As he suspected, they were short-lived but with disconcerting venom, short periods of screaming and droning in the rigging, and bucking in the canvas. Kydd knew that, behind, a series of black squalls was marching in from windward with an abrupt drop in temperature and the wind veering sharply in their wake.

He was determined to press on. The
Witch of Sarnia
was well found, nearly new, and her gear could be trusted. It would be uncomfortable and daunting to some but they would do it. But once deep into the ocean, what if a real Atlantic howler coming out of the unknown fell upon them?

A black squall, heavy with stinging rain, blustered over them; the keening winds that followed brought a shock of raw cold as they bullied at watch-coats and oilskins. Kydd sent below those he could, but realised this might not have been a mercy to any still finding their sea-legs; in the fitful conditions the schooner was skit-tish and unpredictable in her movements.

The seas, however, were constant from the west, long combers, white-streaked down their backs and as powerful as bulls, coming at them ceaselessly. Kydd ticked off the seconds between cresting: if the time had increased, the swell was lengthening, a sure sign of weather to windward.

Another squall; in square rig, with these backing and veering winds, there would be heavy work in the bracing of yards and at the tacks of so many more sails, but in the
Witch,
with but two main sails, it was so much less.

Some time into the dark hours the wind shifted northerly and at the same time the barometer sank below twenty-nine inches. “Time t' turn an' run,” Cheslyn said pugnaciously to Kydd.

“In this dark? What codshead would go a-beam in these seas without he knows what's a-comin' at him fr'm windward? We're safe as we go, an' we stay this way.”

The next day dawned on a cold, grey waste of heaving, white-streaked seas and sullen cloudbanks, but no sign of the broken and racing scud of a coming storm. “It'll blow itself out,” Kydd said confidently. Cheslyn merely stumped below.

There were no sun-sights possible but despite the dirty weather they seemed to be making good progress. With a whole clear ocean ahead they would pick up their position in time. For now, however, Kydd must estimate the extent of the set to leeward caused by the weather coming at them.

The constant motion was wearying, the bracing against anything solid taking its toll of muscle and strength. He sent Calloway to round up the ship's boys, then start a class of how to pass bends and hitches and the working of knots; possibly it would take their minds off the conditions.

They were now well out into the Atlantic and the weather had eased more westerly again. The underlying swell was long and languorous, which might mean anything, but the wind was back in the south-west as a strong breeze streaming in, fine sailing weather for a schooner.

Night drew in with little in the evening sky to raise concern and Kydd read his
Compendium
with interest before turning in. He fell asleep almost immediately; any worrying about just where in this vast desert of sea he might find prey could wait for the light of day.

At some time in the night he came suddenly to full wakefulness and lay in the dark
knowing
something was amiss but unable to pinpoint it. There was nothing, no sudden shouting, no change in the regular pitching and heaving of the ship. The feeling intensified, and a sense of preternatural dread stole over him. He rolled out of his bunk, threw on the grego over his nightclothes and hurried up on deck, his eyes straining into the blackness.

The watch-on-deck looked at him in astonishment. “Cap'n, sir?” said one with concern, approaching. Kydd tried to make sense of his feelings. The rollers showed white in the darkness, seething past as usual, and the overcast made reading the sky conditions difficult. But
something
was . . .

Then he had it. An almost indefinable continuous low roar at the edge of hearing beneath the bluster of the wind but, once detected, never fading. He froze in horror: a memory from long ago, burned into his soul burst into his consciousness—one night perilously close to the dreaded Cape Horn and . . .

He threw himself at the wheel as he had done then, knocking the helmsman aside, and spun on turns. The little schooner seemed reluctant and frantically Kydd willed it on for otherwise they had but seconds to live.