Command

'It does. What we might call a stone marten.' His look of amusement increased. 'And were ye not a gentleman in France and were addressed so, it might be comprehended as 'weasel-face,'' he added, with a sudden fruity cackle.

Kydd tried to crack his face into a comradely chuckle but the proximity of a rear admiral of the Mediterranean Fleet was too much for him and the smile sagged weakly.

Warren looked speculatively at Kydd. 'Can I take it, sir, that you're at leisure as of your return to Malta?'

'Sir,' Kydd stuttered.

'Then you shall have orders that I believe will keep you tolerably employed. I desire that you will seek out and destroy this corvette, should he have the temerity to sail east or south of Sicily.' Warren peered at Kydd to see the effect of his words. 'I will not have frigates absented from my squadron before Ganteaume, yet I cannot tolerate such a one astride the approaches to Egypt. Can ye do it?'

'Thank you, Mr Bonnici—spread 'em out, if y' please.' Kydd's great cabin seemed small with three in it; himself one side of his table, Dacres and now Bonnici on the other, scrutinising the charts.

'Now I want y' best thinking. If La Fouine is here,' Kydd indicated the broad area to the south and east of Sicily, 'then where should we start?' Focus on a single war-like object had done wonders for his spirits. If anything was going to bring him to notice it would be a successful action against a true French man- o'-war.

'It would be of great assistance were we to discover his mission, sir,' Dacres said diffidently. 'Is he a common prize-taker, or does he seek to distress the lines of supply to our army? The one, he will desire to place himself at the point of most shipping, the Sicily Channel to the west; the other, he will keep well to the east at the seat of the fighting. Which is it to be?'

'Well said, Mr Dacres,' Kydd replied. 'And we must assume that as Admiral Warren is fresh come from th' north, we will not find La Fouine thereabouts.' He rubbed his chin and pondered.

'There is besides one thing other t' consider—how does he keep the seas for long without he has a friendly port at his back t' keep him victualled an' in powder an' such?'

'They have a treaty with Sicily but I doubt they would operate from there—I have heard Taranto has been visited by them,' Dacres offered.

'Aye, could be, but this is a mort distant fr'm both the Sicily Channel and the fighting. If it were me, I'd like t' find somewhere between the both—but there's none I can see. Mr Bonnici?'

'Not f'r me saying, sir, but has he sail back to France?'

Kydd bristled. 'No, he hasn't—we'll find him sure enough!' If he could not, this chance of distinction was gone for ever. He looked from one to the other but each avoided his gaze, and stared down at the chart. This was hardly Nelson's band of brothers before a battle, he brooded; but was he not the captain with the full power, and responsibility, to make decisions?

'Very well, this is what we'll do.' He collected his thoughts. 'Er, th' most important is our landings. We start there, say, thirty degrees east, an' then track west. Because we've a head wind we'll have t' proceed tack b' tack —but this is no matter, for it obliges us to crisscross the shipping lanes, which in course we must do until we've raised Sicily again.

'A hard flog, gentlemen, but it's the only way I can see we'll lay him by th' tail.'

Empty seas. Seas with every kind of vessel imaginable. The dreary north African coast yet again. Once, a British convoy straggling in a cloud of sail. It went on for long days, then weeks of hard sea-time with never a whisper of a rumour of their quarry.

Kydd was tormented with thoughts that his decision was a failure, that the corvette had turned back after seizing its prize and was now in Marseille. But surely there would be no point in the Frenchman turning out its prisoners to save on prize crew unless it intended further predation?

And was he correct to insist on flogging back against the weather, instead of making a judgement on where the corvette must pass and wait comfortably until it did?

They turned south, deep into the lee shores of the Gulf of Sirte and the hunting grounds of the pirate corsairs of Tripoli and Tunis. They beat against the north-westerlies and suffered the withering heat and blinding dust of the sirocco. Still there was no sign.

Scoured by sea salt and dust storm Teazer was no longer new. Her bright sides had faded and her lovely white figurehead had lost its gold, now defiantly weather-beaten. There were also signs of hard usage—ropes turned end for end when they became too hairy at the nip, smart canvas now a bleached grey and everywhere a subtle rounding of sharp corners, a shading of colours about a shape.

However, Kydd saw only a growing maturity, a sea-tried ship to which he could trust his life. But this was war and there would come a time when she must be pitted in merciless battle against another, bigger and stronger than she was. Kydd steeled himself against the thought of what an enemy broadside would do. But if Teazer could not find and then overcome her opponent it would mean the end for him.

Kydd kept the Barbary city of Tripoli well under his lee as they passed: the British were in amity with the rapacious pasha, but within the distant stone ramparts of the city there were reputed to be Christian slaves in miserable squalor.

They rode out a storm from the north-west, the seas punching their bows with short, savage blows, the spindrift in whipping, horizontal sheets that left the eyes salt-sore and swollen.

When they closed the coast again, the boatswain and Dacres approached Kydd. 'Sir, I'm truly sorry to have to tell you that Mr Purchet advises that the last water cask in the hold is foul,' Dacres reported.

'Aye, sir, beggin' y'r pardon, but this'n means we shall have t' return . ..'

Now he would have to head back with nothing to show for his voyage; it was unlikely that he would be given another chance, which, of course, probably meant that it was a return to dispatches and convoys, then a quiet relieving of command and forced retirement from the sea.

'Sir,' the master began.

'Mr Bonnici?' Kydd replied, aware of the irony that this man whom he himself had taken on would continue to remain at sea professionally while he—

'We c'n get water,' the master continued softly.