Tippett motioned at their table, 'We're Achilles sixty-four, only this day inward-bound fr'm the Caribbee.'
'Saw yez. So ye hasn't the word what's been 'n' happened this side o' the ocean all of a sudden, like.' At the expectant silence he went on, 'As ye knows - yer do? — the Spanish came in wi' the Frogs in October, an' since then ...'
Kydd nodded. But his eyes strayed to the point where Gibraltar ended so abruptly: there was Spain, the enemy, just a mile or so beyond — and always there.
Relishing his moment, Jones asked, 'So where's yer Admiral Jervis an' his fleet, then?'
Coxall started to say something, but Jones cut in, 'No, mate, he's at Lisbon, is he — out there.' He gestured to the west and the open Atlantic. Leaning forward he pointed in the other direction, into the Mediterranean. 'Since December, last month, we had to skin out - can't hold on. So, mates, there ain't a single English man-o'-war as swims in the whole Mediterranee.'
Into the grave silence came Coxall's troubled voice. 'Yer means Port Mahon, Leghorn, Naples—'
'We left 'em all t' the French, cully. I tell yer, there's no English guns any further in than us.'
Kydd stared at the table. Evacuation of the Mediterranean? It was inconceivable! The great trade route opened up to the Orient following the loss of the American colonies - the journeys to the Levant, Egypt and the fabled camel trains to the Red Sea and India, all finished?
'But don't let that worry yez,' Jones continued.
'And pray why not?' said Cockburn carefully.
'Cos there's worse,'Jones said softly. The others held still. 'Not more'n a coupla weeks ago, we gets word fr'm the north, the inshore frigates off Brest.' He paused. 'The French — they're out!' There was a stirring around the table.
'Not yer usual, not at all— this is big, forty sail an' more, seventeen o' the line an' transports, as would be carryin' soldiers an' horses an' all.'
He sought out their faces, one by one. 'It's a right filthy easterly gale, Colpoys out of it somewhere t' sea, nothin' ter stop 'em. Last seen, they hauls their wind fer the north — England, lads . ..'
'They're leaving!'. The upstairs maid's excited squeal brought an automatic reproof from Emily, but she hurried nevertheless to the window. White sail blossomed from the largest, which was the Glorious, she had found out. The smaller Achilles, however, showed no signs of moving and lay quietly to her anchor. Emily frowned at this development. With no children to occupy her days, and a husband who worked long hours, she had thrown herself into the social round of Gibraltar. There was to be an assembly soon, and she had had her hopes of the younger ship's officers — if she could snare a brace, they would serve handsomely to squire the tiresome Elliott sisters.
Then she remembered: it was Letitia who had discovered that in Achilles was the man who had famously rescued Lord Stanhope in a thrilling open-boat voyage after a dreadful hurricane. She racked her brain. Yes, Captain Kydd. She would make sure somehow that he was on the guest list.
The next forenoon the new men came aboard, a dismal shuffle in the Mediterranean sun. They had been landed from the stores transport from England, and their trip across wartime Biscay would not have been pleasant. Kydd, as mate-of-the-watch, took a grubby paper from the well-seasoned warrant officer and signed for them. He told the wide-eyed duty midshipman to take them below on the first stage of their absorption into the ship's company of Achilles and watched them stumble down the main-hatch. Despite the stout clothing they had been given in the receiving ship in England, they were a dejected and repellent-looking crew.
The warrant officer showed no inclination to leave, and came to stand beside Kydd. 'No rowguard, then?'
'Is this Spithead?' Kydd retorted. Any half-awake sailor would see that it was futile to get ashore - the only way out of Gibraltar was in a merchant ship, and they were all under eye not two hundred yards off at the New Mole.
The warrant officer looked at him with a cynical smile. 'How long you been outa England?'
'West Indies f'r the last coupla years,' Kydd said guardedly.
The man's grunt was
