“Yes, Sir Thomas.”
He summoned Tysoe. “Kindly conduct this gentleman below and inform Mr Curzon that I’m now possessed of a new confidential secretary and the ship has a schoolmaster.”
At his curt dismissal Dillon left awkwardly, following the valet down a hatchway to a bewildering world of polished doors and a long table; this was apparently the gun-room where he would sleep and mess. His luggage was piled outside his cabin, which was impossibly small.
The convoy sailed on uneventfully westward, and as the last dog-watch mustered and darkness fell, canvas was shortened to topsails, and leading lights began twinkling in every ship’s rigging. Weazel surged alongside to hail a goodnight.
Kydd entered his great cabin when all had assembled at the table. His officers scrambled to their feet.
“It’s right good to see you, Sir Thomas!” Bowden said, with unaffected pleasure. “On this our first night of the commission.”
“Hear him,” others echoed.
Kydd took his place at the head, looking down with unfeigned pleasure at the familiar faces-and those of Brice to his left, and at the junior end, Dillon, sitting apprehensively with the boatswain and gunner.
“Mr Curzon is not … ?”
“He wishes to express his disappointment at not being able to attend but feels it his duty to remain on deck at this time.”
It left Bowden and Brice free to take pleasure in their evening.
Tysoe moved forward unobtrusively to fill Kydd’s wine glass, the servants behind each chair taking their cue.
“Then let us rejoice in our good fortune,” Kydd said loudly. “A well-found ship, good company and the Dons to provide for our entertainment later!”
Glasses were raised amid happy shouts of approval.
“And here’s to our new shipmates,” he added. “Mr Brice! To your good health and fortune in L’Aurore!”
The man’s tense expression barely eased as he raised his own glass in answer and sipped sparingly, his eyes watchful.
“Do relate something of your sea service,” Kydd prompted. This was a chance to unbend, to regale his new messmates with well-polished yarns and emerge as an individual.
“As I told you, sir. Out of Leith in Raven, brig-sloop. North Sea, the Baltic.”
“Come, come, sir. You’re much too modest. We here know a trifle of what it is to be in the North Sea in dirty weather. And your Baltic convoy-I’ve heard numbers of above two hundred mentioned. How is this possible with so few escorts?”
“You may believe we did our duty, sir.”
“You’ve smelt powder on occasion, surely.”
“Some action, sir, yes.” He took another sip of his wine.
“Good God! You’re with friends now, Mr Brice. Can you not speak of your service to us?”
“Three French corvettes on Dogger Bank and we with a forty-sail convoy. We saw them off over three days.”
The man’s wariness was unsettling.
“’Pon my soul, but you’re a tight fellow with your words,” Kydd said, in mock exasperation. “Yet we’ll have it out of you before long.”
He looked directly down the table. “And here we have Mr Edward Dillon, my pro tem confidential secretary following the elevation of Mr Renzi and about to take up his duties. Here’s to you, sir, and may your time in L’Aurore be a happy one!”
“Th-thank you, Sir Thomas. I’ll strive to win your approval.”
“And that’ll be a hard beat t’ windward, I’m thinking,” the sailing master, Kendall, muttered, addressing his glass.
“How so?” Clinton, the Royal Marine lieutenant, asked mildly.
“In course he’s a-following in Mr Renzi’s footsteps.”
“Ah. That I can see,” he answered, nodding wisely.
“Aye, and a rare hand, him, wi’ his learning an’ such.”
“Not forgetting his undoubted talents in the article of intelligence ashore,” Bowden added respectfully.
“Always to be relied on t’ tip us the griff on any foreign moil.”
“And a taut hand wi’ a blade an’ all.”
“Remember ’im in Corfu? Coming it the Russky, then gets the Frogs to hand over their papers?” Oakley chortled. “Heard they’s all a-tremble as he tells ’em to!”
“And there was Curacao,” Bowden said, in admiration. “And Marie-Galante. I don’t rightly know what he was about, but the admiral seemed mightily pleased at the end of it all.”
Dillon blinked nervously. “I-I really can’t say that-”
“Pay no mind to them, Mr Dillon,” Kydd said kindly. “Your duties will not include adventures such as Mr Renzi had, have no fear about that.”
The morning dawned cold and damp but the dark shapes of the convoy columns continued to lumber on ahead, a quick reckoning telling that none had strayed during the night. Familiar routine had the watch-on-deck about their duties and looking forward to their burgoo.
“Mr Calloway?”
“Sir?”
“You aren’t planning on making Mr Dillon’s day more confusing than it already is for him, are you?”
“What, me, sir?” the crestfallen young man answered.
“Yes, you, sir. I’ve a need for that gentleman’s services in the shortest possible time and it’s your job to see he takes inboard his nauticals at the gallop. None o’ your tricks with finding the key to the starboard watch or how to swing a sky hook, you rascal. Just show him the ship’s main particulars and have him speaking some sea lingo that makes sense. Compree?”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“And our newest reefers?”
“A useless pair, sir, but they’ll shape up, or I’ll know the reason why.” Calloway had himself started sea life as a runaway waif and clearly had his views about mollycoddled young gentlemen.
“Piping the eye, homesick both. They’re together in Mr Bowden’s watch. I dare say he knows how to teach ’em their duty,” Calloway added.
Dillon arrived, clutching a large notebook and pencil, and wearing a suitably studious expression.
“This is master’s mate Calloway, Mr Dillon. He’s to teach you the essentials, which I trust you’ll absorb in quick time.”
“You’ll not find me wanting in application, Sir Thomas. Mr Calloway?”
Kydd found quickly that he did indeed have a call for a secretary-in fact, a sore need.
Barely into their voyage there were so many papers at his desk clamouring for his attention. In the course of things, Renzi would discreetly have sorted them for priority and importance before ever he saw them, flagging those needing thought and deliberation as opposed to the “requiring signature” rained on him by an officious ship’s clerk.
It was too much to expect of his new man at this stage, and as well there were confidential matters that he’d have to handle himself until there was sufficient trust. He was becoming acutely aware that the task, with its complexity and delicacy, was not one for a temporary jobbing secretary. He needed one who would grow into the job and see it as a long-term prospect.
Was Dillon the man to take it on? His talk of seeing the world might be satisfied in full by the time they reached Gibraltar and Kydd would have to look for another. With Dillon’s romantic notions it was not an impossible prospect.
Moodily, he gazed down the deck forward where the watch was bending on a fore-topgallant. A routine procedure, furling and sending down the old sail for repair first, it still required skill and timing. It was Brice in charge at the foot of the mast and Kydd stopped to watch.
The boatswain had immediate control of the men on the yard and Brice was standing impassive, letting Oakley and the topmen get on with it. This was a good sign, demonstrating his understanding of the intermeshing authority of petty officers and men, whose trusting interdependence could so easily be perturbed by interference from the outside.
Once, he had spotted a fouled clew-line block out of sight of the boatswain; with crisp, efficient orders he had dealt with it and returned authority to the boatswain immediately. The officer’s seamanship was faultless, no doubt the result of the close-quarter responsibilities he’d have encountered in his small brig in stormy waters. Given a good report from Bowden, he’d have him take full officer-of-the-watch duties earlier rather than later.