From time to time the
officers brought their ladies of the moment on board for a quick and often
scandalised peek, and the petty officers and men brought their much more
worldly doxies to the fo'c'sle when they had the silver to afford them. His
lady was much more the prime article, and he could see her now, by the capstan
whelps, cool and elegant, asking how the bars were pinned and swifted, then
smiling that warm and special smile at him.
In a glow, he
continued: 'Please signify when you are free, and we will meet wherever you
say.'
That was all that was
needed. After the visit they would step ashore together, and who knew what
might then eventuate? Kydd's brow furrowed at choosing the closing words, and
he decided on a more neutral cast: 'Your devoted friend, Thomas Paine Kydd.'
There! He folded the paper, and
looked for a wafer to seal it. He rummaged guiltily in the compartments of the
master's desk, but found none, or even red wax. The ship's messenger would take
the letter readily enough on his forenoon rounds for a coin or two, but Kydd
did not want him to read its content. He remembered that the caulkers were at
work around the main-hatch: he would use a blob of caulking pitch as sealing
wax. Admittedly it was black instead of red, but that would not trouble a lady
of Emily's breeding.
Kydd strolled back to
the quarterdeck and saw the little frigate. She was making a cautious approach,
probably to warp alongside the New Mole. Lines were passed, capstans manned,
and she was neady brought in.
Distracted, Kydd went
below to rouse out a crew for cleaning down after the caulkers, but his mind
was not on the job. When he returned to the upper deck he caught a glimpse of a
boat rounding under the stern of Achilles. It was probably from the frigate,
and he watched the bulwark to see who would come over.
With unbelieving eyes,
he saw Renzi hoist himself awkwardly aboard, touch his hat to the
officer-of-the-watch, and look round. Kydd crossed over to him rapidly and held
out his hand. 'Well met, Nicholas!' he said happily, but saw that things were
not as usual with his friend. There were dark rings round his eyes and the
handshake clearly gave him pain. 'You're in a frigate now,' Kydd offered.
'I am — Bacchante
twenty-eight, a trim enough daughter of Neptune.' A smile cracked through.
'Quite fortuitous. Glorious was sadly knocked about in the rencontre before St
Vincent and lies under repair at Lagos. I act temporarily in the place of a
wounded mariner in the frigate, having the duty but never the glory, I fear.'
He sighed. 'Yet here you lie in the same berth, topping it the sybarite while
the world is in a moil - and I took such pains to come here of the especial concern
I have for my friend.'
Kydd coloured, but the
pleasure at seeing his best friend was profound, and he didn't rise to the
gende gibe. 'You were there in th' great battle, wi' a mort o' prize money t'
come, I suspect.'
Renzi
looked away. 'I was, but. .. You shall have your. curiosity satisfied, should
you be at liberty to step ashore this afternoon, I have a consuming desire to
be at peace. Do you know of such a place we can—'
'O' course! We c'n—' Kydd stopped. If a
favourable message came from Emily and by his absence he did not respond ... It
was unfortunate timing but—
'Er, Nicholas, I've
just remembered, I have an arrangement f'r tonight. It's very important, y'
know,' he mumbled. Renzi's face fell. 'With a lady, y' see,' Kydd added
hopelessly.
'Then we shall
rendezvous on the morrow, and you shall hear my tale then,' Renzi said softly.
Kydd
watched him leave, with a pang of guilt.
There was no reply by noon, and the
afternoon hours passed at a snail's pace; Kydd had donned his best rig, in case
Emily wanted to take up his invitation immediately. The ship was in harbour
routine. After dinner at noon, those who were allowed, and had the means;
quickly made their way ashore, the remainder settled down restlessly.
By the dog-watches he
was torn with doubt. Had he been deceived by her manner, mistaken in his conclusions?
But there could be no mistaking the need and urgency of that kiss.
The evening had
turned into a study of scarlet and orange, the sea darkling prettily, with
Thomas Kydd, master's mate, still to be found on deck. Then, after the evening
meal, a message came. The coxswain of the gig's crew brought it to him,
apologetically mentioning that due to being called away to attend the captain,
he had not had a chance before to pass it along — and this from early
afternoon.
Kydd ground his
teeth and clattered below to the gunroom. The master had returned, so his cabin
was no longer available. Savagely, he sent the midshipmen to their berth and,
silently cursing the impossibility of getting privacy in a warship, settled to
open the message under the eye of the sallow surgeon's mate and his bottle.
He inspected the
inscription — 'Mr T. Kydd, HMS Achilles' — then split the wafer and hurriedly
unfolded the sheet.
Dear Mr Kydd,
Thank you for the kind invitation to
visit your ship. Unfortunately I have rather a lot of engagements at the
present, hut will let you know when convenient.
Yours
sincerely,
Mrs
Emily Mulvany
He reread, and again, slowly, so as
not to miss any subtle clues. An initial wash of disappointment was replaced by
logic: of course she would be otherwise engaged, it had been kind of her to fit
him in before. 'Mr Kydd': cold or cautious lest the message fall into the
wrong hands? The same might be said of the way she had ended the letter. In any
event, he must bide his time.
Nothing could have been better
calculated to ease Kydd's frustrations than his meeting with Renzi the
following day. True to Renzi's wishes, the pair toiled up the hill to the
commissioner's house, then found the path running along the flanks of the Rock.
There was a row of fig trees on the upper side, and a vineyard below, with
occasional olive trees to afford shade.
'This is particularly
agreeable to the spirit, Tom,' Renzi said. They walked on in the warm sun in
perfect silence but for the sough of the breeze, an occasional murmur of
busyness from the distant town below and their own progress along the dusty
ground.
The quiet was calm and
companionable. Presently they came to a flowered area with a fine orange tree
in the centre and a rustic wooden seat round it, a view of the harbour at their
feet.
'Utterly peaceful — the
work of man, yet supernal in its effects.' Renzi sat and stared at the view,
then closed his eyes. Kydd's mind was alive with distractions of the present.
Was Emily's letter a delaying tactic while she reviewed her feelings? Should he
press his case more clearly, perhaps?
'A lady?' Renzi's lazy
murmur cut through his rush of thoughts.
Kydd glanced suspiciously at him, but
Renzi's eyes were still closed. 'Er, y'r in the right of it - but I beg, tell
me of y'r battle. I heard it was a thunderin' good drubbing f'r the Dons.'
Renzi
opened his eyes and stared into space. 'Little enough to say. It was a
hard-fought encounter and they had overweening forces, but we prevailed.' He
looked at Kydd with a sardonic smile. 'You would have been diverted by the
sight of their Santissima Trinidad — a four-decker of a hundred and thirty
guns, a leviathan indeed.'
As far as Kydd knew,
the largest ship in the Royal Navy only had a hundred guns and three decks, so
such a monster a third bigger should have made a devastating impact. 'Did she —
who should say — get among our ships—'
'We
took her.'
Kydd's
eyes gleamed.
'Then we forgot about her, so she
rehoisted her colours and retired from the field.' 'But Nelson, did he not—'
'The man is a genius of
the sea war — daring and courageous with it. He will either die young or find
great glory, nothing less.'
Kydd fell silent. While
great deeds were happening on the open sea, he was wasting his life in port,
going nowhere.
Renzi shifted position awkwardly.
'Somethin' pains you?' Kydd asked.
'Only a pinking from a splinter across
my chest.' He turned to Kydd. 'You made mention of a lady.. .'
'Er,
yes. Her name's Emily.'
'A
fine name,' said Renzi drily.
'She's
very beautiful.'
'I have no doubt she
has shining parts,' Renzi prompted.
'There
is somethin' that is stoppin' her showin' her true feelings.'
'She
believes you are from an inferior station in life?'
'No. That's to say,
this is not where the problem lies.' He struggled with what had to come next,
feeling a chill of doubt for the first time. 'You see, Nicholas, right at th'
moment. .. she is married.' Kydd blushed, then muttered protestations of love.
Renzi's expressionless
mask did not change. Then, suddenly, he came to his feet, and paced round the
small garden with his hands behind his back, once, twice, then returned to Kydd
and stood before him. 'It seems to me the lady does not appreciate your true
worth, my friend. She probably has cognisance only of the army life, never the
navy.' He paused for effect, then announced gravely, 'I have a plan.'
'Yes,
Nicholas?'
'You shall be known for
a daring, dangerous and romantic sea feat that will have the whole of Gibraltar
talking. She will regard you as her adoring hero, her Galahad.'
' Ye're chousin' me!
Achilles is not goin' to sea, there's no chance o' that.'
'No, but Bacchante is,
and she needs men.' Renzi leaned forward. 'I'm quite certain that the frigate
is bound for the eastern Mediterranean. It is not talked about, there is a
smothering secrecy, but the application of a little logic suggests much. The
master has taken in certain charts of the area, the vessel is under some kind
of Admiralty orders, we are a private ship. The Mediterranean is now without a
single English sail — why would the Admiralty risk a single valuable frigate in
a sea so hostile?' Renzi paused. 'It is because they wish to rescue someone, a
grandee, perhaps, but one of some consequence.'
The romantic
possibilities of an audacious rescue of a notable were easy to see.
Renzi went on, 'We have
abandoned our ports and bases and retreated to Gibraltar, the princes,
governors and such ilk long retrieved. No, this is somewhere that is lately
under threat, and for that we can discount the petty fiefdoms of the Levant,
the decadent Ottomans, the Barbary coast — none would rate any personage of
importance. Italy — now, the French have been pressing them from over the Alps,
they have overrun much of the north. Austria is inviolate — for the moment —
and I believe it is to Italy we are headed.'
A
smile broke through; Kydd waited.
'None of the northern kingdoms of Italy
has much in the way of diplomatic representation, so my conclusion is that our
dignitary is stranded in the nor'-east after fleeing over the Alps and finding
that the English are no longer there, having evacuated the Mediterranean
entirely.'
'Er,
what do we find in th' nor'-east?'
Renzi rubbed his chin.
'Well, there you will find the wild Balkan shore, Ragusa, but also Trieste -
and Venice.'
Chapter
3
Kydd spun the wheel experimentally -
there was no doubt that Bacchante was a sea witch. Responsive and eager to the
helm, she was like a racehorse — and nearly brand new — as sweet a lady as had
ever come down the slip at Buckler's Hard. His practised eye flicked up to the
leech of the main topsail, and he inched the helm over until the hard edge of
the sail began a minute flutter. Satisfied, he checked first against the dog-vane
in the shrouds giving the wind angle, then the compass.