Command

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There was no one of naval consequence to notice the little brig-of-war as she slipped her moorings and made for the open sea. No one to discern the bursting pride of her commander, who stood four-square on her quarterdeck in his finest uniform, her brand-new pennant snapping in the breeze, her men grave and silent at their stations as they sailed past the bastions of the last fortress of Malta, outward bound on her first war voyage.

Kydd remained standing, unwilling to break the spell: around him the ship moved to sea watches, the special sea-duty men standing down as those on regular watch closed up for their duty and others went below until the turn of the watch. The boatswain checked the tautness of rigging around the deck while the ting- tinging of the bell forward brought up the other watch, the shouts of a petty officer testily mustering his crew sounding above the swash and thump of their progress—it was all so familiar but, at this moment, so infinitely precious.

'Mr Bonnici,' Kydd called, to the figure in the old-fashioned three-cornered hat standing mute and still, staring forward.

The master turned slowly, the shrewd eyes unseeing. 'Sir?'

'I, er—' It was not important. They both had their remembrances and he left the man to his. 'No matter. Please—carry on.'

This was what it was to have succeeded! To have reached the impossible summit before which paled every other experience the world had to offer. He, Thomas Kydd of Guildford, of all men, was now captain of a ship-of-war and monarch of all he surveyed.

A deep, shuddering sigh came from his very depths. His eyes took in the sweet curve of the deck-line as it swept forward to the sturdy bow, the pretty bobbing of the fore spars in the following seas and the delicate tracery of rigging against the bright sky—and the moment burned itself into his soul.

In a trance of reverence his eyes roamed the deck—his deck. Within Teazer's being were over eighty souls, whose lives were in his charge, to command as he desired. And each was bound to obey him, whatever he uttered and without question, for now all without exception were in subjection below him and none aboard could challenge his slightest order. It was a heady feeling:

if he took it into his mind to carry Teazer to the North Pole every man must follow and endeavour to take the vessel there; in the very next moment, should he desire, he could bellow the orders that would clear the lower decks and muster every man aboard before him, awaiting his next words, and not one dare ask why.

The incredible thought built in his mind as his ship sailed deeper into the sea. Controlling his expression, he turned to Dacres and snapped, 'Two points t' starboard!'

'Two points—aye aye, sir,' Dacres said anxiously, and turned on the quartermaster. 'Ah, nor'-east b' north.'

The quartermaster came to an alert and growled at the man on the wheel, 'Helm up—steer nor'-east b' north.' While the helmsman spun the wheel and glanced warily up at the leech of the foresail the quartermaster snatched out the slate of course details from the binnacle and scrawled the new heading. Returning it he took out the traverse board and inspected it. At the next bell the line of pegs from its centre would duly reflect the change. He glanced down at the compass again, squinting at the card lazily swimming past the lubber's line until it slowed and stopped. 'Steady on course nor'-east b' north, sir.'

'Sir, on course nor'-east b' north,' Dacres reported respectfully, nodding to the expectant mate-of-the-watch who hurried forward, bawling for the watch-on-deck. There would now be work at the braces, tacks and sheets to set the sails trimmed round to the new course before the watch could settle down.

'Very well,' Kydd said, in a bored tone but fighting desperately to control a fit of the giggles at the sight of the serious faces of the men around him under the eye of their new captain, who, no doubt, had a serious reason for his order. He had laid a course to raise Cape Passero and this indulgence would throw them off, but perhaps he should wait a decent interval before he resumed the old one.

*  *  *

They had made good time and landfall would be soon, an easy leg from Malta north-east to the tip of Sicily across the Malta Channel, with a second leg into the open Mediterranean to the east before completing the triangle back to port. But it was also a voyage in a state of war: at any time predatory sail could heave above the horizon.

The log was hove once more: their speed was gratifyingly constant and allowing for the prevailing current would give a precise time of landfall. In this straightforward exercise Kydd had no doubt of his own skills and now felt Bonnici was capable also. But the time arrived and there was no far-off misty grey smear of land dead ahead.

'We'll give it another hour on this course, Mr Bonnici,' Kydd said. He had gone over in his mind the simple calculations and could find no fault. Even his little dog-leg on a whim had been taken into account and—

'Laaaand hoooo! Land two—three points t' weather!' the lookout at the main royal masthead hailed excitedly, pointing over the larboard bow.

'Luff up an' touch her,' Kydd ordered. Although this land could not yet be seen from the deck, on the line of bearing reported, the cape would not be reached on this tack. Yet it was the cape. How was it possible?

Going about, Teazer laid her bowsprit toward the undistinguished promontory, which Kydd easily recognised. Already he had his suspicions. 'Lay me south o' the Portopaio roads,' he told Bonnici.

Obediently Teazer made her way to another headland a mile or two from Cape Passero, rounding to a mile distant from the scrubby, nondescript cliffs. It was a well-known point of navigation— Kydd had passed this way before as part of Nelson's fleet—and the exact bearing of the tip of the one on the other was known. However, the bearing by Teazer 's compass had strayed a considerable way easterly, much more than could be accounted for by local variation. The instrument could no longer be trusted, neither it nor the secondary one.

There were obvious culprits and men at the conn were searched for iron implements. Nothing. Kydd questioned whether he should have taken more care over the compasses before going to sea. Some held that not only the earth varied in its faithfulness in revealing magnetic north but that the ship's ironwork had a part to play in deceiving the mariner, but how this could be dealt with they did not say.

There were only two explanations for the delay in their landfall: that Sicily had changed its position, or that their measure of distance run was incorrect. And as the latter was more likely and was taken by one means alone,