Tenacious

communication in the immediate future, and Rawson, with his handful of seamen, could be trusted to stand by at the signals. 'Take the glass,' Kydd told him, handing over his telescope, 'and any signal from the flagship I want t' know about instantly, d'ye hear?'

The entire ship's company was at work, an ants' nest of activity. Men taking up shot for the garlands alongside each gun jostled past Kydd; streams of sailors brought up hammocks and soaked them to form barricades in the fighting tops for the marine musketeers. A party was at work on the sauve tete, the netting spread twelve feet high above the deck to protect against rigging shot to pieces falling from aloft.

The boatswain and his mates were methodically laying out essential damage-control gear—rigging stoppers and lengths of line that could be secured above and below a severed rope to restore its function. Jigger tackles were becketed up under the hatchway coaming, canvas and twine ready to repair important sails at hand, as were grappling irons to hold an enemy alongside while they boarded. Kydd smiled wryly: Tenacious would probably be the smallest man-o'-war in the line—any boarding would likely be in the other direction.

He glanced aloft at the massive lower yards, tons in weight. Chain slings were rigged to support them should the tye blocks at the mast be shot through, and the braces to heave round the yards were augmented by preventers and pendants to handle the heavy spar if cannon fire knocked it askew. From forward he heard the reassuring sound of grinding steel as the gunner's party put a final edge on the tomahawks, cutlasses, pikes and other edged weapons.

Down the main hatchway it was a different kind of bustle. Cabin bulkheads were knocked away and officers' personal effects were struck below in the hold. He saw his own cabin dismantled, the desk where each day he had faithfully written his journal taken bodily by two seamen to the hatch, preceded by his cot and chest. Renzi's cabin was treated in the same way, and when the long wardroom table had been disassembled and carried away there was nothing to spoil a continuous sweep of the gundeck right to the stern, the torpid eighteen-pounder gun with which he had familiarly shared his cabin now awakened and readied for fighting.

On the gundeck more preparations were in train. The gunner had unlocked the grand magazine and stringent fire precautions were in force: fearnought firescreens and leather fire-buckets were around each hatchway and in the magazines lanthorns were put in sealed sconces. Wearing felt slippers, those inside this area would make up cartridges and pass them out to the chain of powder monkeys, who in turn carried them up to the guns. Kydd shivered at the fearful thought of being confined here in a blazing battle, with no knowledge of the outside world, the tons of powder in plain sight their only company.

He moved forward and saw Renzi, who gave a grave nod before turning back to a quarter gunner with orders. Images of Camperdown flashed before him. This place was not named 'the slaughterhouse' for nothing: within hours it would be a hell of smoke and noise, smashed timbers and screaming. And after sunset the dim gold of battle lanthorns would be the only light they had to fight the guns.

The preparations continued. Spare gun-breeching ropes and tackles were laid around the hatchways and arms chests for boarders were thrown open on the centreline. Gun captains returned from the store with a powder horn, gunlock flints, pouches of firing tubes, all the necessary equipment to bring the great guns to life. Finally, the decks were strewn with sand and galley ash, then wetted. This would not only give a better grip for the men at the gun tackles but help them retain their footing in blood.

Kydd's last stop was the orlop, where the surgeon made ready and the carpenter gathered his crew. As part of battle preparations, the men held in irons there were released, given full amnesty for their crimes in the face of events of far greater moment. He was about to go down the ladder when a breathless Rawson dashed up. 'Signal, sir. 'Prepare t' anchor by the stern.'' His eyes were wide.

'Thank ye, I'll be up directly.'

By the stern? Had Rawson misread the signal? He hurried back to the poop, pushing past the busy swarms and snatched up the signal log. There it was, and repeated by Orion and others.

'Mr Kydd,' Houghton called from the quarterdeck.

'Sir?' Kydd hurried down the poop ladder.

'Do you not understand Sir Horatio's motions?'

'Er, t' anchor by the stern? Not altogether, I have t' say, sir.'

'Then, sir, mark the enemy's position. They are anchored in line along the shore away from us and directly down the wind, I'll have you note. Without doubt the admiral wishes to advance on them from there, then lay his ships alongside an enemy and stay—in short, to anchor. But should we anchor in the ordinary way, by the bow, then as is the way of things we will rotate round to face the wind and—'

'O' course! We'd be cruelly raked until our guns bear again.'

'Undoubtedly. And additionally—'

'With springs on th' cables we c'n direct our fire as we please.'

'Just so, Mr Kydd.'

With one signal—two flags—Nelson had levelled the odds.

'Then you will oblige me, sir, in taking a cable through a stern chase gunport.'

'Aye aye, sir. Making fast t' the mizzen?'

'Yes.'

Kydd saluted and left the deck, happy to have something of significance to do in this time of waiting. 'Mr Pearce!' he called to the boatswain. 'We have a task ...'

It was no trivial matter, rousing out the hundred-fathom length of twelve-inch stream cable from below, then ranging it along the gundeck from where it was seized round the fat bulk of the mizzen mast, through the gunroom and out of one of the pair of chase ports. With the wake of the moving ship foaming noisily just feet below, the thick rope had to be heaved out of the stern and passed back along the ship's side beneath the line of open gunports and to an anchor on the bows. The cable was kept clear of the sea by a spun-yarn at every third port ready for instant cutting loose, and at the bows it was bent on to the anchor.

Bryant approached the captain. 'Ship cleared for action, sir.' There was a taut ferocity about the first lieutenant, Kydd saw, almost a blood-longing for the fight. He wondered if he, too, should adopt a more aggressive bearing.