Victory

The wind was veering fitfully more westerly, fair to make an offing – but it would take them perilously close to that improbably named headland, Le Stiff. However, it was a bold coast, steep to with deep water, and in the brisk winds Teazer was making respectable way and within the hour had it laid astern.

Kydd had his two midshipmen positioned to relay any news from the hell below. He knew the chain pumps were beasts to drive, the rubbing of the many leather flaps of the watertight seal creating an inertia that was bone- breaking to overcome. It was not unknown in extreme circumstances for men to fall dead at the endless brutal exertion. ‘Mr Tawse?’

‘Holding, Mr Kydd.’ The youngster was pale, his set face giving nothing away.

The hours stretched out. Kydd stood motionless on the quarterdeck, willing on his ship. After what she’d gone through . . . but they must be nearly halfway by now. In just hours more they would make landfall, say Plymouth or further on at Torbay. Rest for his sorely tried ship.

The carpenter broke into Kydd’s thoughts: ‘Sir, I’m truly sorry t’ say, we’re makin’ water faster’n we can get rid of ’un.’ Kydd could feel it now. A terrible weariness, no reaction to the bluster and boisterous play of the seas, a—

‘Saaail!’ Without tops to mount a lookout at a height, the stranger could not be far off.

‘The Frenchy frigate,’ Kydd said dully, as it smartly altered towards them. Fury slammed in on him – how could he give up his brave, his infinitely precious ship to the enemy after all this?

‘No, it ain’t!’ Poulden said excitedly. ‘That’s Harpy, ship-sloop!’ A friend! Glory be, they had help – they had a chance.

The sloop came alongside and hailed. In a whirl of feeling Kydd saw a tow-line passed and the men below on the pumps spelled. All the while, with a terrible intensity, he urged his wounded ship on.

With fresh men and new heart they laboured unceasingly, but the tow proved a difficult haul. At a little after one, a tiny blue-grey line was seen ahead: England. As if relenting, the seas and westerly began to ease and the unnatural wallowing softened as they struggled on.

But Kydd could feel in his heart that a mortal tiredness lay on Teazer. Like a dog in its last hour trying to lift its muzzle to lick its master’s hand, she could no longer respond to please him. She was dying.

He hurried below in a frenzy of anguish. The men, in every stage of exhaustion, were fighting the pump to work amid as deadly a sign as the buboes on a plague victim: ankle-deep water, which was sloshing unchecked from side to side across the decks.

A lump in his throat threatened to choke him as he went back to the quarterdeck. The land was close enough to make out individual fields, the calm loveliness of Devon. And it was now so cruelly apparent that Teazer would not now make her rest. He could do no more for his love, his first command, she who had borne him on the ocean’s bosom for so many leagues of both adventure and heartache.

It was time to part.

The tow was cast off, the men released from their Calvary and set to transferring their pitiful belongings to the boats. Such stores as could be retrieved were taken aboard and then, with the seas lapping her gunports, HMS Teazer was abandoned, her captain the last to leave with a final caress of her rail.

In mute sympathy, Harpy stood by as Teazer lay down and slipped away for ever from human ken.

Chapter 2

‘Why, Miss Cecilia! We were not expecting you.’

‘Is my brother at home, Tysoe?’

‘I regret no, miss, but I’m sure Mr Renzi is at leisure to receive you. If you’ll allow me to enquire . . .’

Renzi bowed politely as she was ushered into the drawing room.

‘I did hear that Thomas took lodgings with you in London after . . .’

Renzi had no idea how she had, but he knew she was of all things a determined lady.

‘Rather it is that I took lodgings with Thomas,’ he chided gently. Her near presence was disturbing but he controlled his feelings. ‘He’s customarily engaged at the Admiralty at this hour but might be expected later this afternoon. May I – would you wish for some refreshment, my dear?’

‘Should you tell of your recent . . . encounter, I would be much obliged.’

Renzi was aware of the control in her voice and understood what a shock it must have been for her to learn from the lurid lines in the Morning Chronicle and the more measured but no less horrific account in the Gazette of the furious action and later sinking of Kydd’s ship.

‘I shall not keep it from you. It was a bloody enough affair, Cecilia. Er, might we sit at the fire? Tysoe, I know we have a prime Bohea to offer our guest.’

Renzi felt Cecilia’s steady gaze on him. He began to speak of Kydd’s cool courage, the noble Teazer taking her punishment, her company under Kydd’s leadership achieving heroic renown and then the final harrowing scenes ending in her passing.

Cecilia sat quietly until he had finished. Then she dabbed her eyes. ‘So Thomas is at the Admiralty, these days. He’s making arrangements, no doubt, for his next ship. I wonder what it will be.’

‘I rather fear his prospects for another command are not good, dear sister. You see, he’s by way of being a commander, not a post-captain, and there being a superfluity of such gentlemen, there are many who will see it as their right to be granted a ship before such as he.’

‘You mean, he’s not a proper captain? I find that hard to credit, Nicholas.’