Quarterdeck

The men looked at each other, then the seaman who had sung 'Ben Backstay' got to his feet and stood purposefully under the lanthorns. He muttered an aside to the violinist and clutching a tankard launched loudly into:

To our noble Commander

His Honour and Wealth,

May he drown and be damn'd—

Singer and violinist stopped precisely in mid-note and looked at Kydd. Their point made, the duo continued:

—that refuses the Health;

Here's to thee Billy, honest an' true;

Thanks to the men who calls them his crew

An' while one is drinking, the other shall fill!

A girl sprang into the pool of light. 'A sarabande!' she called. But Kydd had left.

CHAPTER 6

'WELL, I WISH YOU JOY of your voyage, gentlemen—unhappily I have a court-martial to attend and therefore shall not be with you.' There was no mistaking the smug satisfaction in Bampton's tone. In the normal run of events the inbound convoy would have been met by one or two of the hard- working frigates, but this one was transporting the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick and his family to take up his post and Tenacious had been deemed more suitable.

It seemed to Kydd that he was the only one looking forward to the sea-time. The weather had been miserable these past few days, cold and blustery, and although they would only be out a day or so at most, the general consensus was that it was an ideal time to snug down in harbour until better conditions returned.

Kydd had long ago realised that he was a 'foul-weather jack'—one of those who revelled in the exhilaration and spectacle of stormy seas, racing clouds and the life-intensifying charge of danger. In this short voyage he knew they would probably not face a full-blown tempest but the thought of a lively experience at sea lifted his spirits.

Tenacious and Ceres, a 32-gun frigate belonging to the Newfoundland Squadron, proceeded to sea together. With the cliffs of Chebucto Head abeam, they braced up for the hard easterly beat to rendezvous with the convoy.

The weather was freshening: their bows met foam-streaked waves at an angle, dipping before them, then rearing up to smash them apart in explosions of white. Standing aft, Kydd felt the sheeting spray in his teeth. With canvas taut as a drum, weather rigging harping to the wind's bluster, and, far on their beam, Ceres swooping and seething along under small sail, he was happier than he had been for some time. There would be no problems with the enemy—any rational privateer would have long since scuttled southwards until the weather improved. No prize could be boarded in this.

By afternoon they had not sighted the convoy; almost certainly it had been delayed by the poor weather. Houghton, on the quarterdeck in oilskins slick with spray, obviously had no plans to return to port and at the end of the day they shortened sail and kept enough way on the ship to head the easterly. It showed signs of veering, which had the master muttering anxiously to Houghton. At midnight they wore to the south and at the end of the middle watch took the third leg of a triangle to approximate their dusk position again.

A cold dawn brought no improvement in the weather, just the same streaming fresh gale and lively decks a- swill with water. There was no sign of the convoy but Ceres had stayed with them and by mid-morning there was a flutter of colour at her peak halliards: the convoy had been sighted.

Widely scattered, the ships were struggling to stay together— it was a miracle that they were even within sight of each other after so many thousands of miles of ocean. Without a convoy plan Kydd had no idea how many there should be, but a quick count enabled him to report what must be a sizeable proportion to the captain when he appeared on deck.

'We're looking for Lord Woolmer, she's carrying the new lieutenant-governor,' Houghton said brusquely, 'an ex-Indiaman. Be so good as to apprise the lookouts and report to me when she's in sight.'

Ships of all kinds laboured past, converging on the rendezvous position; some showed obvious signs of storm damage. Towards the rear a battered sloop appeared, oddly out of shape with a truncated foretopmast, but bent on coming up with Tenacious.

'Heave to, please,' Houghton ordered, as he took the officer-of-the-watch's speaking trumpet and waited. The sloop barrelled up to leeward and backed her headsails. Close by, the little vessel's appalling motion was only too apparent—she was bucking in deep, jerky movements, bursts of spray sheeting over the small huddle at the wheel.

'Where—is—Lord—Woolmer?' Houghton called.

A figure in the sloop made his way to the shiny wet shrouds and aimed a speaking trumpet. Kydd could hear thin sounds from it, but not make out what was said. The sloop showed canvas enough for it to ease in, its exaggerated bucketing so much the more pitiable as it lurched closer alongside.

' Woolmer— sprung mainmast—left her at fifty-five twenty west—running down forty-three north . . .'

At that longitude she was considerably to eastward of her course; somewhere in the stormy grey of the Atlantic she had encountered a squall that had nearly taken her mainmast by the board. She would have fished the mast with capstan bars and anything to hand, then been grateful for the easterly, which at least would have her heading slowly but surely for Halifax.

Looking down from the deck of Tenacious, Kydd felt for the sloop commander. Without a soul to ease the decision out there in the lonely ocean he had needed to weigh the consequences of standing by the injured vessel with her important cargo or resume his watch over the convoy. His presence was proof of the hard resolution he had made: to him the value to England of the merchant ships had outweighed that of one big ship and her passenger.

The sloop sheeted home and thrashed away after her convoy. Houghton turned to the master. 'Mr Hambly, all sail conformable to weather. I believe we shall lay on the larb'd tack initially, with a view to returning to starb'd and intersecting our forty-three north line of latitude somewhere about fifty-seven west longitude.'

Much depended on the weather. Lord Woolmer was heading westwards as close as she could stay to a known line of latitude. If Tenacious sailed along the same line in the opposite direction they should meet. The problem was that the wind was dead foul from the east—in difficult conditions Tenacious would need to tack twice to intersect the line at the probable furthest on of the other ship. And Woolmer herself would be finding it hard to be sure of