Victory

‘A bare score or two of volunteers only, sir. The rest mainly the damned quod.’

The ‘quod’ was those men supplied by law from all the counties of England under the quota system. At best, they were guaranteed to be useless rural labourers and at worst, felons released to make up numbers.

‘Any of value, do you think?’ Kydd asked.

‘Precious few. We’ve less’n fifty so far and no petty officers as I could see.’ Kydd frowned – quite apart from being under a quarter manned, without a strong backbone of sea-experienced senior hands to train the others, how could they set sail, let alone fight?

He glanced up. The masts and rigging were full of men working and the shouts and cries of orders and curses sounded along the deck, as ignorant men were driven to menial tasking around the shipwrights, caulkers and artisans of all stripes hastening to finish their last jobs.

The noise was worse below-decks, the thuds and scrapes magnified and the empty spaces echoing with discordant noises. Kydd needed to think; he told Howlett he would be back and paced off through the dockyard, deep in thought.

He was being pushed to hurry completion for sea and the ultimate responsibility for manning L’Aurore was his. There were authorities like the Impress Service but they were there only to assist. Attracting more volunteers was down to him. It wouldn’t be difficult to get a press warrant and mount a raid, but in a notoriously man-hungry port like this their haul would be pathetic, of men with a grudge.

There had been stories told of ships swinging about a buoy for months waiting for men – the thought was too terrible to contemplate. What if—

Something cut through his dark musings. He had left the dockyard, yearning for the solitude of the open spaces of Southsea Common, but as he went through the gates he heard a man’s voice, a pure, light tenor lifted in song:

‘Life is chequer’d – toil and pleasure

Fill up all the various measure;

Hark! The crew with sunburnt faces

Chanting Black-eyed Susan’s graces . . .’

It was issuing from within the old Admiral Benbow, hard by the dockyard gate. He stopped: he knew the voice and the air. The years fell away in an instant: his time of terror when first climbing aloft, that desperate open-boat voyage in the Caribbean – it had to be . . .

Without stopping to consider he hurried over and threw open the doors – and saw it was Ned Doud, songster and shipmate from the old ninety-eight-gun Duke William, somewhat aged but still with the same open, laughing face and with his pot of ale as he sang.

The tavern fell still. Doud tailed off and the resentful eyes of seamen and their women turned Kydd’s way. A full post-captain bursting in on a sailors’ taphouse – what did it mean?

Kydd hesitated, then took off his gold-laced hat, clapped it under his arm and slowly went over to Doud, who put down his ale warily.

Conscious of the incomprehension and hostility about him, Kydd allowed a smile to surface. ‘And I see you’re still topping it the songbird, Ned.’

The man squinted, then started with sudden recognition. ‘Be buggered, an’ it’s our Tom Kydd!’ he blurted, then fell silent, unsure and defensive.

Kydd grinned and said heartily, ‘Should you want it, there’s a berth in m’ frigate.’

Confronted with the young seaman of the past now unaccountably garbed in the awful majesty of a senior captain, Doud was speechless.

‘Are you free t’ volunteer?’ Kydd asked neutrally.

‘I’m quartermaster o’ Naiad,’ Doud answered carefully.

Kydd felt a pang for the long-ago days in the Caribbean when things had been so carefree and . . . different. ‘We have young Luke Calloway aboard,’ he said.

‘Leave ’im be, Cap’n!’ said one of the females, sharply. A hostile murmuring began behind him.

Kydd decided it was time to go. ‘Then – then I’ll bid you goodbye, and wish you every fair wind.’

‘Aye, thank ’ee,’ Doud muttered.

Kydd got as far as the door before he heard Doud call after him, ‘I’ll come if’n ye can square it wi’ Cap’n Dundas – exchange, or somethin’.’

Kydd paused. ‘I think it possible.’

‘An’ only if I gets to bring off m’ particular friend.’

More memories.

‘Pinto?’ Kydd brought to mind the quick, fiery-eyed Portuguese, deadly with a knife.

‘Aye. Quarter gunner.’

‘It’ll be done. We’re fitting out. You’re needed aboard just as soon—’

‘Aye. We’ll be there – Mr Kydd.’

It cost him not one but three prime hands to achieve the exchange, and when L’Aurore’s marines reported, there was still only a pitiful number of proper seamen on the books. They had a seasoned sergeant, Dodd, but only a green subaltern as officer, Clinton – no captain of marines