Command

Keith looked up, his face drawn and tired. 'Ah, Mr Kydd. Joy of your encounter with La Fouine, of course. Your actions were in the best traditions of the service and do you much credit.' He shook Kydd's hand vigorously but was clearly distracted. 'In more tranquil times you should most certainly be my guest at dinner, but I do beg forgiveness in this instance and hope to receive you at another time.' His legendary chilliness melted into something akin to melancholy as he added, 'But, then, these are not normal times and I can promise nothing.'

He paused, staring into space for long moments, then seemed to focus again. 'I have this hour received Admiralty instructions. Your orders are being prepared, Commander, and will be delivered by hand to your vessel by evening gun.'

Kydd murmured something, but Keith cut him short. 'You will be desirous of returning to your ship. Pray do not delay on my account.' As he turned to go, Kydd felt Keith's hand on his arm. The flinty eyes bored straight into his. 'Please believe, Mr Kydd, I would wish you well for your future.'

Kydd went down the side to the strident squeal of the boatswain's pipe and into his boat. What did this mean? Was Keith conveying more than approval of his recent triumph? Perhaps he was to be accounted as an admiral's favourite.

As they made their way back to Teazer a chance veering of the wind direction had the great ships swinging to their anchors, and past two 74s he saw at last the familiar shape of the ship he had spent so much of his sea life aboard, HMS Tenacious.

'Stretch out f'r that sixty-four,' he ordered Poulden.

'Aye aye, sir,' his new coxswain replied.

As they approached Tenacious she seemed dowdy and downcast; she was well ordered, but in small things she wasn't the fine old warhorse he remembered. In places the gingerbread— the gilded carved adornments round her stern and beakhead—no longer gleamed with the lustre of gold leaf and had been economically painted over in yellow. The rosin finish between the wales of her side was now a dull black and her ensign seemed limp and drab.

But for Kydd this was a moment long coming. The first satisfaction—to be well savoured—would be in encountering Rowley once more. How would he find it in him to utter the words of civility due to a fellow captain?

Poulden answered the hail from Tenacious with a bellowed 'Teazer!' indicating that not only was a naval officer to board but that this one was a captain of a King's ship. They approached slowly to give the ceremonial side party time to assemble and to warn Tenacious's captain to stand by to receive.

Mounting the side steps Kydd saw with a jet of warmth all the familiar marks left by countless encounters with the sea and malice of the enemy still there.

The blast of the boatswain's call pealed out the instant his head appeared above the level of the bulwark and Kydd gravely removed his hat and acknowledged the quarterdeck, then the small group who awaited him.

A young lieutenant stepped forward anxiously. 'Sir, L'tenant McCallum, second o' Tenacious.'

'Commander Kydd, Teazer,' Kydd said crisply. 'To visit th' first lieutenant.'

Hesitantly McCallum replied, 'Captain is ashore, sir, and the first lieutenant at the dockyard, but he'll be back aboard presently. Er, we'd be honoured if you'd accept the hospitality of the wardroom in the meantime.'

One satisfaction deferred, then, but another pleasurably delayed. Renzi could be relied on to manage the niceties of a captain come to visit a lieutenant instead of the more usual summoning in the reverse direction.

'First l'tenant's sairvant, sir, an' would ye desire a wee drop?' It was not like Renzi to have a youngster with a Scottish brogue as manservant—he normally favoured a knowing and dour marine.

'No, thank ye,' Kydd answered, and settled automatically into his old second lieutenant's chair, looking around the well-remembered intimacies of the first ship in which he had served as an officer. So many memories . . . When the servant had left he tiptoed self-consciously to the end cabin, larboard side, the most junior officer's. He guiltily pulled aside the curtain and peered in at the ludicrously tiny space that he had once considered the snug centre of his domestic world. The cunningly crafted writing desk was still there, a small gilded portrait of someone's young lady peering shyly at him from the bulkhead above it.

He let the curtain fall and feeling washed over him. From the anguish of those long-ago times to now, captain of his own ship. Could fortune bring more?

'Ahem. Sir?' A tall, stooped officer stood at the door looking mystified.

'Yes, L'tenant?' Kydd answered pleasantly.

'Well, er, sir,' he said in embarrassment, 'Edward Robbins, first lieutenant.'

It took Kydd aback. 'Oh, er, Mr Renzi is not y'r first—he's been moved on?'

'Oh, no, sir,' said the officer. 'I've only been in post these three weeks since Mr Renzi was landed with the fever. It's been a busy time keeping in with things.'

'Fever?' Kydd said blankly, a cold presentiment creeping into him.

'Why, yes, sir—did you know Mr Renzi at all?'

'I did—do.'

'Oh, I've sad news for you then, sir. Mr Renzi was taken of an ague, let me see, this month past off Toulon. The doctor exhausted his quinine and having only a few leeches remaining there was little that could be done.'

'He is . . .' began Kydd, but could not finish.

'We sent him in a lugger—to here, sir, the Lazaretto, but our doctor told us then that he was not responding and we should be prepared.' Seeing Kydd's stricken face, he finished lamely, 'I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, sir.'

Icy cold with the fear of what he would shortly know, Kydd headed down the harbour past Bloody Island and to