The Admiral's Daughter (10 page)

Kydd's grip on the shroud tightened. It had changed so quickly— and only one could see them through:
Teazer
's captain. He raised his eyes and met Renzi's; his friend did not speak but gave a half-smile. Standish gazed hungrily at the oncoming lugger while the others about the deck watched silently.

They must hold their course seaward: the only question now was when to send the men to the guns—but with the leeward bulwarks so low and seas swirling aboard, any pretence at serving a gun there was futile. On their lee side they were essentially defenceless.

The privateer gathered speed, rolling wickedly with the seas abeam but making good progress a half-mile closer inshore. Kydd allowed reluctant admiration for the unknown seaman in command of her: he must possess considerable local knowledge to feel so confident close to this grim coast.

Kydd decided that the men would go to the guns precisely when the privateer put down his helm to tack in their direction; he waited tensely for the lugger to find
Teazer
at the right angle for that sudden slash towards.

Minutes passed, and still the privateer held her course down the coast. “The villain's making a run f'r it, Nicholas!”

Once again the situation had changed, but Kydd was beginning to appreciate his opponent's clear thinking: he had declined battle for good, practical reasons and was now using his lugger's superior rate of sailing to make off, using that local knowledge to stay close inshore, knowing his antagonist dared not do likewise.

“We're going after th' rascal.”
Teazer
eased away three points or so and no longer tight to the wind stretched out in fine style, on the same course parallel to the coast but further seaward. Kydd guessed the privateer's intention was to use his speed to pull far enough ahead to chance going about across their bows, then to escape seaward with no risk of battle damage to cut short his cruise.

It was a shrewd move—but there was one essential not within their control: the winds.
Teazer
was from the Mediterranean, the home of the savage
tramontana,
and with just a single reef in her topsails was handling the bluster with ease, her sturdy design well able to take the steeper seas close inshore. The lugger, on the other hand, was making heavy weather of it. With lugsails taut on all three masts, he had not attempted topsails, at the cost of his speed advantage.

The result was that
Teazer
was more than holding with the privateer and paced the vessel. The long sweep of Mount's Bay ahead ended suddenly at Penzance and as long as they could keep sail on, there would be a conclusion before the day was out.

It was an exhilarating charge along the white-streaked waves, rampaging towards the dour coastline, the lugger tapping every resource of knowledge about rock and shoal in keeping so close in with the shore, while
Teazer
kept tight watch far enough offshore to have warning of any sudden move and in prime position to intercept a break for the open sea.

Dowse pointed out the little settlements as they passed. Poldhu, Chyanvounder, Berepper and then Porthleven. Foreign-sounding, exotic and untouchably remote. A headland loomed, its steep grey crags half hidden in misty spume. Beyond, a beach all of a mile long stretched away with another, larger promontory at its end. Now, more than half-way to Penzance, was this where the attempt would be made?

As if in direct response to the thought Dowse gave a sudden shout. The aspect of the privateer was altering rapidly—he was making his move and it was to seaward. Kydd's stomach tightened. To serve a gun in the insane rolling was madness. Yet how else was he going to fight?

Then, without warning, every sail on the privateer disappeared and the bare-masted vessel fell back, still bows to sea, until it was just clear of the breakers rolling into the beach.

“Well, I'll be—He's thrown out an anchor, sir, an' hopes t' ride it out till dark!” Dowse said, in open admiration.

If in fact that
was
the intention, Kydd mused. He'd already led them on a merry dance. “Mr Dowse, heave to, if y' please,” he ordered. It would give him time to think, and for a short time preserve his superior position.

Lying awkwardly diagonal across the line of white-caps,
Teazer
's motion changed from a deep rolling to a vicious whip as the waves passed at an angle down the pitching hull, making it difficult to concentrate. If the privateer—

Muffled shouts from forward—an urgent
“Man overboard!” Kydd saw the fall of a sheet uncoil out to leeward and staggered to the side. At first he saw nothing but foam-streaked waves in vigorous progression towards the shore but then he made out a dark head against the foam and an arm clutching frantically at air, not five yards off.

It must have been a foremast hand caught by the sudden change of motion and pitched overboard. Kydd could not recognise him from the flailing shape but he was being carried by the waves' impetus ever further from his ship.

“Poor beggar!” Standish handed himself along to stand next to Kydd. But his eyes were on the enemy.

Kydd said nothing; his mind furiously reviewing his alternatives. “Mr Purchet, secure a dan buoy to th' kedge cable and—”

“Sir! You're not proposing a rescue?”

“Why, yes, Mr Standish, o' course I am.”

Face set, Standish confronted Kydd. “Sir, the lugger might take the opportunity to escape.”

“He might.”

“Sir, it is my duty to remind you that we are in the presence of the enemy—that man is as much a casualty of war as if he had fallen from a shot.”

The sailor was now several waves downwind and thrashing about in panic; like most seafarers, he could not swim.

What Standish had said was undeniable, but Kydd's plan would give the man a chance and still have them in some sort of position to—

More confused shouting came from forward, then a figure rose to the bulwarks and toppled into the sea. “Get forrard an' find out what th' hell's goin' on,” Kydd snarled at Standish: with two in the water his plan was now in disarray—were they to be the first men to die in
Teazer?

“Clear away th' cutter,” he bawled, at the gaping mainmast hands. It was the biggest boat they had and was secured up in its davits. “Cut th' gripes away, damnit!” he shouted, as they fumbled with the ropes. This was a desperate throw—he would have the boat streamed off to leeward at the end of a line and hauled back bodily. If it capsized, the men could cling to it.

Standish worked his way aft, his face expressionless. “Sir, I have to report that Midshipman Andrews took it upon him to cast himself in the sea in an attempt to save the man.”

“Four volunteers f'r the boat,” Kydd snapped, “each with a lifeline t' a thwart.” What was the boy thinking, to take such a risk? It was madness, but a noble act for one so young.

It was a fearsome thing to set the cutter afloat with the rocketing rise and dizzying fall of the seas under their stern but at least this was in
Teazer
's lee and temporary protection. The seaman was out of sight downwind, hidden by the driving combers, but the midshipman could occasionally be seen striking out manfully for him in the welter of seas.

“He's seen our boat,” Standish said coldly, watching the lugger. A jib was jerking up in the privateer, and when it had taken the wind, other sails were smartly hoisted. Kydd refused to comment, obstinately watching the cutter as line was paid out and it drew near to Andrews.

“Sir! He's under way and going round our stern. We've lost him.”

Kydd glanced once at the lugger as it leant to the hammering south-westerly and made its escape, derisory yells coming faintly over the tumult accompanied by rude gestures from the
matelots
along the decks.

The privateer was still in sight, driving southwards towards France under all sail possible when the boat was hauled in, half full of water, with a soaked and subdued Andrews. The sailor had not been found.

“Will you follow him, do you think?” Renzi asked softly. Kydd had not seen his friend come up but now Standish had moved away and was standing apart, trying to catch the fast- disappearing lugger in his glass.

“Not today,” Kydd said quietly. It was over for the poor wretch who had reached out obediently to do his duty and found instead a lonely death. In an hour or so a dark shape would appear in the line of breakers at the sea's edge, carelessly rolled about by the swash of surf. They would retrieve it and give it a Christian burial in Penzance.

Kydd's eyes pricked: no matter that he had seen so many lose their lives following their profession of the sea—this had occurred on
Teazer
's first commission in home waters and he as captain. Things could never be the same.

Feeling the need to be alone, he left Standish to lay
Teazer
to her anchor, went to his cabin, sprawled in his chair and stared moodily out of the stern windows. There was a soft knock at the door and Renzi appeared. “Come in, old friend,” Kydd said. Renzi made his way cautiously to the other chair, the lively movement becoming more unpredictable as the ship felt her anchor.

“You would think it fatuous of me should I remark that the sea is a hard mistress.”

“Aye, I would.”

“Then—”

“But then, o' course, it doesn't stop it bein' true, Nicholas.” Kydd heaved a sigh and continued softly, “It's just that—that . . .”

“‘They that go down to the sea in ships . . .'” Renzi intoned softly.

“True as well.”

Renzi broke the moody silence. “Is the Frenchman to be blamed, do you think?” he asked.

“No,” Kydd said decisively. “He has his duty, an' that he's doing main well.” He levered himself upright. “What takes m' interest is that not only does he shine in his nauticals but he knows too damn much of th' coast.”

He reflected for a moment, then said quietly, “He's goin' t' be a right Tartar t' lay by the tail, m' friend.” Pensively he watched the shoreline come slowly into view as
Teazer
snubbed to her anchor, then added, “But we must account him our pigeon right enough. What will I do, Nicholas?”

There was no reply, and when Kydd turned to look at Renzi he saw his friend with his arms folded, regarding him gravely. “I find I must refuse to answer,” Renzi said finally.

“You . . . ?”

“Let me be more explicit. Do you accept the undoubted fact that you have your limitations?”

There was no use in being impatient when Renzi was in logic, Kydd knew, and he answered amiably, “That must be true enough, Nicholas.”

“Then you must hold that this must be true for myself also.”

“Aye.”

“And it follows that since you have advanced so far and so rapidly in the sea profession, you must be gifted far beyond the ordinary to have achieved so.”

Kydd shifted uncomfortably. “If ye mean—”

“For myself, I accept this without rancour, that you are so much my superior in the nautical arts. You have the technical excellence, the daring and—if I may make bold to remark it—the ambition that places you at such an eminence, all of which sets my own small competences to the blush.”

“Nicholas, you—”

“Therefore the corollary is inescapable, and it is that if I were to venture an opinion in such matters then it will have sprung from so shallow a soil that it may not stand against one cultured to so full a bloom. It would be an impertinence to attach weight or significance to it and from this we must accept therefore that it were better not uttered—I shall not be offering a view on how you will conduct your ship, nor praise and still less blame. Your decisions shall be yours to make, and I, like every one of
Teazer
's company, will happily abide by them.”

So there would be no private councils-of-war, for there was no shifting Renzi's resolve, logically arrived at. But then it dawned on Kydd. Close friends as they were, nothing could be more calculated to drive a wedge between them than the holding of opposite opinions before an action, only one of which would be proved correct to the discomfiture of the other—whoever that might be.

Renzi was putting their friendship before self, Kydd recognised. For the future, the decisions would be his own but unconditional warmth of the companionship would always be there at the trifling cost of some defining limits. “Why, that's handsomely said, Nicholas,” he replied softly. He paused, then began again in a different tone: “We have t' put down the rascal, that's clear, but where t' find him? That's the rub.”

Renzi waited.

“An' I have notion where we might . . .”

“May I know your reasoning?” Renzi said carefully. Evidently discussion was possible but advice and opinions were not.

“I feel it in m' bones. Our Bloody Jacques is
not
going home. He's lost not a single spar in th' meeting of us—why should he give it away while he c'n still cruise?” Unspoken was the feeling that, be damned to it, he was going to have a reckoning for his own self-respect.