The man shook his head slowly in amazement. "Now, that's something I never knew," he said at length. A look of barely concealed satisfaction suffused Mr Kydd's face as he looked up the table to where Mr Renzi sat quietly, nodding slowly.
A footman obliged with claret. "Wine with you, sir!" Mr Kydd said happily, with all the joyous relief to be expected of one having passed through a personal trial and not been found wanting. "I give you Lady Fortune, an' may she always be one!"
CHAPTER 2
"AYE, 'ERE SHE COMES, CAPTING," the inn porter said, indicating the gig under sail coming around Garrison Point. He held out his hand for a promised sixpence and left them to it, their chests and other impedimenta in a pile on Sheerness public jetty while they waited for the boat from Tenacious.
Kydd's heart bumped. This was the day he had been looking forward to these several months while Tenacious was under repair, the most important day of his life, the day he joined his ship confirmed in his rank, a King's officer. The day or so aboard after Camperdown didn't really count—he could hardly remember anything of the brute chaos and towering weariness in the wounded ship limping back to Sheerness.
The coxswain, a midshipman, cautiously rounded into the wind twenty yards off. Two seamen brailed up and secured the sail for a pull under oars the final distance to the jetty steps. It was not what Kydd would have done: the breeze, although fluky, was reliable enough for an approach under sail alone.
As the boat glided alongside, the sailors smacked the oars across their thighs and levered them aloft in one easy movement, just as Kydd had done in the not so distant past. His eyes passed over the boat and the four seamen, as he recalled the old saying, "You can always tell a ship by her boats." Was caution a feature of this ship, he wondered.
The sailors seemed capable, long-service able seamen economically securing the sea-chests and striking them into the centre of the boat, but Kydd sensed darting eyes behind his back as they took the measure of the new officers.
He and Renzi assumed their places in the sternsheets, at leisure while the midshipman took the tiller. The boat bobbed in the grey North Sea chop and Kydd's new uniform was sprinkled with its first saltwater. He tried to keep his face blank against surging excitement as they rounded the point to open up the view of the Nore anchorage—and his ship.
She was one of a straggling line of vessels of varying sizes moored in this transitory anchorage to await different destinies. A wisp of memory brushed his consciousness: it was at the Nore that he had been taken as a bitter victim of the press gang, so long ago now, it seemed.
He glanced back to the scatter of dockyard buildings, the low fort, the hulks, and a pang of feeling returned for Kitty Malkin, who had stood with him during the dark days of the Nore mutiny. She had uncannily foretold his elevation, and that she would not be a part of it. Other memories of the time came too, dark and emotional. The red flag of mutiny, the spiralling madness that had ended in savage retribution and shame. Memories he had fought hard to dim.
Kydd crushed the thoughts. He would look forward, not back, take his good fortune and move into the future with it. The phantoms began to fade.
"She's storing," Renzi said, as if reading something in his face.
"Er, yes, those are powder hoys alongside, she's ready t' sail," Kydd muttered, his eyes fixed on the approaching bulk of Tenacious. The foretopmast was still on deck for some reason but her long commissioning pennant flew from her masthead. Repairs complete, she now stood ready in the service of her country.
A faint bellow from the ship sounded over the plash of the bow wave. The bowman cupped his hand and bawled back, "Aye, aye!" warning Tenacious that her boat was bearing naval officers, who would expect to be received as the custom of the sea demanded.
The midshipman again doused sail and shipped oars for the last stretch. Kydd resolved to attend to the young gentleman's seamanship when the opportunity arose. The boat bumped against the stout sides and the bowman hooked on. Kydd held back as Renzi seized the handropes and left the boat. Although their commissions bore the same date, he was appointed fourth lieutenant aboard, and Kydd, as fifth, would always be first in the boat and last out.
The ship's sides were fresh painted, the thick wales black, with the lines of guns set in natural timber, smart in a bright preparation of turpentine and rosin. A strong wafting of the scent mixed pleasingly with that of salt spray.
Above, a boatswain's call pierced the clean, winter air. Kydd was being piped aboard a man-o'-war! He mounted the sidesteps: his eyes passed above the deck line to the boatswain's mate with his pipe on one side and two midshipmen as sideboys on the other. He touched his hat to the quarterdeck when he made the deck, and approached the waiting officer-of-the-watch. "Lieutenant Kydd, sir, appointed fifth l'tenant."
For a moment he feared this officer would accuse him of being an impostor, but the man merely smiled bleakly. "Cutting it a trifle fine, don't you think?" he said, then turned to the duty quartermaster and ordered the chests swayed inboard. Renzi came to stand with Kydd.
"Captain Houghton will want to see you immediately, I should think," the officer-of-the-watch said.
"Aye aye, sir," Kydd replied carefully, conscious of eyes on him from all over the busy decks. He remembered little of her from the exhausted hours he had spent aboard after the battle, fighting to bring the damaged vessel to safe harbour, but all ships had similar main features. He turned and went into the cabin spaces aft.
Renzi reported first. There was a rumble of voices; then the door opened. "Seems pleasant enough," he whispered to Kydd.
Kydd knocked and entered. The captain sat behind his desk facing him, taking advantage of the wan light coming through the stern windows. He was glowering at a paper.
"L'tenant Kydd come aboard t' join, sir."
"Don't sit," the captain said heavily. "You're to hold yourself ready to go ashore again."
"But, sir, why?"
"You are owed an explanation, I believe," Houghton said, looking at Kydd directly. "I've been given to understand that your origins are the lower deck, that is to say you have come aft through the hawse, as the expression goes."
"Er—aye, sir."
"Then this must be to your great credit, and shows evidence, no doubt, of sterling qualities of some kind. However . . ." He leaned back in his chair, still fixing Kydd with hard, grey eyes. ". . . I am determined that Tenacious under my command shall have a loyal band of officers of breeding, who will be able to represent the ship with, um, distinction, and who may be relied upon in the matter of courtesy and gentle conduct.
"You should understand that it is no reflection on yourself personally, when I say that I am applying to the commissioner to have you replaced with a more suitable officer for this vessel. There is no question in my mind that your services will be far more valuable to the service perhaps in a sloop or gunboat, not in a sail-of-the-line." He stood. "In the meantime you may wish to avail yourself of the conveniences of the wardroom. Carry on, please."
Kydd stuttered an acknowledgement and left. He felt numb: the swing from exhilaration to the bleakness of rejection was as savage as it was unexpected.
The mate-of-the-watch waited on the open deck. "Sir?" Kydd's chest and personal possessions lay in a small heap.
"Leave 'em for now." Kydd felt every eye on him as he went below to the wardroom. The only inhabitant was a marine captain sitting at the table, pencilling in an order book. He looked up. "Some sort o' mistake," Kydd mumbled. "I'm t' be replaced."
"Oh, bad luck, old trout."