Command

The 'trap' was well sprung and it did not take the attackers long to realise their danger. With a brig-of-war bearing down on them directly and several obviously disguised warships closing in fast on both flanks they were not going to stay and dispute. They turned about abruptly and fled.

Teazer recovered her signal teams from the marker ships and resumed her vigil. Climbing back aboard, Lieutenant Dacres smiled uncharacteristically. 'Such a to-do, you'd never have believed it—I had to draw my sword on the craven villains to get them to conform! '

The rector of the Republic of Dubrovnik himself came aboard with the thanks of the merchant community when the convoy was delivered safely, but Kydd needed to press on. After an uneventful return passage, the massive crenellations of Malta were a welcome sight. He wished that Renzi was there to admire the ancient town with its long city wall and stonework mellowed by the centuries. He was probably still in Tenacious, first lieutenant of an old and weary ship with a vindictive captain. And on endless blockade.

Teazer found her berth again in Dockyard Creek and Kydd gave leave to all the Maltese hands. With certain employment in difficult times they could be relied on to return and their absence released space for the rest.

The muster book had to be sent to Gibraltar and proved before pay could be authorised, and even then it might be months in arrears. The British sailors would have only what they had kept from their previous ship but Jack Tar would never be renowned for frugal habits. Not for nothing was it said, 'They earn money like horses and spend it like asses.' Kydd resolved to try for an advance from the clerk of the cheque in the dockyard.

The shipwrights and riggers tut-tutted over the amount of extra rigging, blocks, pendants, clew garnets and the rest involved in spreading a main-yard but it was the appearance of young Attard, brimming over with self- confidence and full of salty yarns about his experiences, that most eased the process, and Teazer prepared for her new sail, the langard mainsail.

It was more difficult in the matter of carronades. It was not a weapon much seen in Mediterranean arsenals and in the peculiar circumstances of Malta the Board of Ordnance did not figure at all.

No carronades but still, Kydd accepted, six-pounders were not to be despised; Teazer's sixteen long sixes were normally more than enough to settle an argument with a privateer, and even if they were to find carronades it would mean re-equipping with special slides in place of the usual wheeled gun-carriage.

Kydd returned to his ship; there would be some delay while these improvements were put in train and he had time on his hands. 'Mr Dacres.'

His lieutenant came across the quarterdeck from where he had been watching the movements of the exotic little craft about the great harbour.

Kydd removed his cocked hat and smiled. 'I have a mind t' step ashore and see a little o' Malta. I thought to hire a carriage, save m' legs a hard beat t' windward. I wonder if ye'd care t' join me f'r the day?'

'I would like that, sir,' he replied, but then added, 'But without we have a pilot with Italian or the Maltese lingo, I fear we would be at a stand.'

'O' course. Then as this is a problem o' navigation, who better than our master t' plot the course?'

The sun was warm to the skin and had a benign cast that set the mood for Kydd. For the first time in weeks he could let tranquillity take hold. In the sternsheets of the cutter he relaxed against the backboard and grinned at Dacres in the sheer escapism of the moment, but Dacres only smiled back politely.

'Mr Bonnici,' Kydd asked, 'I'm intrigued t' know—who was it built this mighty place? Seems t' me that it's the strongest citadel in all Europe.'

'Well, sir,' Bonnici said, 'ye have to understan' that in the time of your Queen Elizabet' we were attack by the Turk, an' suffer a long and cruel siege. We win, but the knights say they never suffer such again, an' build Valletta —only fifteen year and finished! ' he said proudly.

Kydd picked up the 'your' and wondered at Bonnici's loyalty, but remembered his years of service to the Royal Navy. 'They did a fine job, right enough. An' since then, Mr Bonnici, has any dared t' invade Malta?' In the magnificence of Grand Harbour the island seemed one extended fortress and quite impregnable.

'None, sir,' said Bonnici, simply. 'The French were let here b' treachery, no fight.' He stopped and added, 'Ah, none saving th' English—only one time Malta taken, an' that was you, last year against the French.'

'I rather fancy you're glad to see the back of them,' Dacres murmured.

'Yes!' Bonnici spat with the first emotion Kydd had seen him display. 'They come as robber, bandit—take fr'm our church an' the people. We hunger, starve, our trade finish. They say they come as liberatore, to throw out th' knights, but really they wan' to take, seize.'

Kydd let him subside then asked, 'Where are th' knights now, then?'

'The Gran' Master and most o' the knights go to Russia an' wait to return,' he finished abruptly.

'You don't want 'em back?'

'For me—no, sir, they are no good f'r Malta.'

'But if they are Maltese—y' knows, of th' noble orders—'

'They are not, sir. They come in th' year 1530. Ver' old, but they given Malta by others.'

'So you were before . . . ?'

'No, sir. The Normans were here before, the Count Roger.'

'And before then, you?'

'No, sir. Before them the Arab, an' before them the Greeks.'

'I see.'

'Before them th' east Roman, an' the empire, they call it Melita.'

'And—'

'The Carthaginian before, stay seven hundred years. An' before them . . .'