Seaflower (29 page)

A
sudden shudder and simultaneous twanging from close by made Kydd grip the
tiller convulsively. The cause was ahead of him — there, the weather running
backstay had taken a ball and was now unstranding in a frenzied whirl. Kydd
instantly threw the helm hard over, sending
Seaflower
down
before the wind.

Farrell
saw what had happened and rapped out orders to ease away sheets to conform to
the change in direction. The running backstays were vital sinews in taking the
prodigious strain of
Seaflower's
oversize mainsail without which the mainmast would
certainly carry away with the asymmetric forces playing on it. The stay now had
some relief — but for how long? 'Mr Merrick—' But the boatswain was already
calling for a rigging stopper, shading his eyes and gazing up to where the
final strand was giving way. The lower part of the stay fell, its blocks
clattering to the deck, leaving the upper length to stream freely to leeward.

Corbeau
had been caught unawares, but now fell in astern in pursuit, the sudden silence
of the guns from her bow-on angle allowing the victorious yelling of the enemy
seamen to come clearly across the water.

The
fighting stopper, a tackle with two tails, would be applied to each side of
Seaflower wound, drawing the stay together again to
be tautened by heaving on the tackle, but so high was the wound that someone
would have to climb to the ratlines in the face of the storm of shot and
musketry. Merrick took the hank of rope and blocks, the lengths of seizing, and
without pausing draped them around his neck and swung up into the shrouds.

'Sir.'
Jarman was pointing to the little islet not a quarter of a mile ahead: he
seemed to be suggesting some sort of hide-and-seek around the island.

Farrell
stroked his chin. 'One hand forward,' he said, common prudence with coral
about, 'and we'll keep in with the island until we are to leeward, then .
..'

Kydd
eased the tiller, snatching a glance astern. The schooner thankfully had no
chase guns, but she was clapping on every stitch of sail and was gradually
closing on
Seaflower.

Jarman
went forward with the lookout, staring intently into the water ahead, and
indicated to Kydd with his arm where they should go. Musket balls occasionally
hissed past, and one slapped into the transom, but the real danger would be
when
Corbeau
reached and overhauled them. With the size of her
crew, aroused to an ugly pitch, the privateer would be merciless.

Kydd
clamped his eyes on Jarman. They were up to the island, and now began to round
its undistinguished tip.

The
schooner must have sensed their desperation, for she continued to crowd on
sail, her crew clearly visible on her fo'c'sle, the glitter of edged weapons
catching the sun as they waved them triumphantly.

'She's
slowing!' Farrell's incredulous gasp came. 'She's - she's taken the ground!
Corbeau's
ashore!'

Kydd
snatched a look over his shoulder.
Corbeau
was untouched, motionless on the course she had
taken. She had misjudged the offshore reefs and her deeper keel had become firmly
wedged among the coral heads.

Seaflower
curved round, but
Corbeau
lay
unmoving.

'God
be praised — we get t' live another day!' muttered a voice.

An
angry shout sounded from above. Merrick had passed the seizing on the upper length
of the stay, and was demanding the rest to be hauled up to him. They had the
luxury of dowsing sail while the operation was completed,
Corbeau
a
diminishing image in the distance. The jury stay
rigged, they could then beat a dignified retreat.

'Ready
about,' ordered Farrell. 'We finish the job,' he said firmly. They carefully
returned on a track that kept the bow of the schooner towards them. He hailed
Stirk. 'Grape.'

Seaflower
shortened sail to glide in within a hundred yards,
then put up the helm and let go the stream anchor forward and kedge anchor aft.
They came to a standstill, but were now in a position to adjust cables to aim
her entire broadside to bear on the unprotected length of the big schooner.

With
terrible deliberation Stirk went from one gun to the next, sighting carefully
and touching off an unstoppable blast of man-killing grape-shot into the
hapless vessel. It took until the third gun before activity was seen in the
Corbeau
—
they were launching their longboat.

'That
will do, Stirk,' Farrell called. Kydd was struck with Farrell's humanity in
allowing the enemy to abandon ship without unnecessary killing, and felt
ashamed of his own blood-lust.

'Give
y' joy on y'r prize, sir!' Jarman said, with considerable respect.

'Renzi!'
Seaflower's
captain
ordered. 'The longboat — do ye take possession of our prize.'

Grinning,
Kydd watched Renzi climb into the longboat with his crew, but they were only
half-way across when the first wisps of smoke arose. The boat's crew lay on
their oars and watched blue smoke bursting into flame as tarry ropes caught,
spreading the consuming blaze to the upper rigging. A crackling, bursting
firestorm turned the schooner into an inferno, the shape of her hull only just
perceptible in the flames. The climax came when first her foremast and then her
main crashed down in a gout of sparks and the rapidly charring ruin forlornly
settled to the reef. Corbeau's crew watched silently, lined along the
shoreline. They were still there when Seaflower brought her longboat aboard and
sailed away.

'Barbados?'
asked Jarman. They had been cut about; it stood to reason they refit.

The
beady eyes of Snead, the carpenter's mate, announced his presence on deck.
'Sir,' he said, touching his shapeless felt hat, 'we've taken a ball in midships,
an' takin' in water.' The clinker build of
Seaflower
's hull was
proving its worth - the strake where the ball had entered would need replacing
but the rest were sound.

'How
bad?' Farrell asked.

'Can
swim a-whiles,' said Snead, *but she can't take a blow.'

'Dockyard,'
said Merrick.

Snead
looked at him and nodded.

Jarman
turned to Farrell. 'Antego,' he said, without hesitation.

'Antigua
— a couple of days only, thank the Lord,' said Farrell, but Kydd flinched. Of
all places
...

Chapter 11

English
Harbour shimmered under the noon-day heat it was quite the same as Kydd
remembered — the beauty, the rank effluvia, the calm solidity of spacious stone
buildings. Here it was that he had nearly ended his existence on earth, here it
was
...

Seaflower
came to anchor a few hundred yards off. There were
hardly any ships in harbour, only a small sloop alongside at the capstan house
without her upper masts. Signal flags mounted
Seaflower's
main
topgallant peak. Kydd knew what they were asking and determined to be elsewhere
when Caird came aboard for his survey.

Uncaring
of the still, clammy heat building below decks in the absence of a clean
sea-breeze, the boatswain ordered the platforms in the crew space overlaying
the hold taken up. Kydd as quartermaster had the task of re-stowing their
stores — firkins of butter, barrels of salt beef, hogsheads of water — over to
one side of
Seaflower
in order that the damaged strake could be lifted
clear for repair.

When
the master shipwright made his survey, unaccountably the cutter's
quartermaster was not free to accompany him, but from his busy job shuffling
the master's charts, Kydd was able to hear through the skylight. 'A strake
'twixt wind and water — a trifling matter,' came Caird's voice. 'As we have so
few to care for at this time, my party will attend on you presently.'

Indistinct
words came from Farrell, and Caird replied, 'No, I do not believe that is
necessary. Our riggers will perform the task. We have skilled hands among the
King's Negroes, you'll find.'

A
bumping on the hull told Kydd that the dockyard boat was putting off. He waited
a little before coming on deck. The shipwright's punt would be making its way
out soon, and there were some he would welcome to see again, but in no
circumstances would he venture ashore.

Farrell
did not go ashore either. Curiously, Kydd saw him in the shade of the after
awning, his attention seeming to be on the nondescript sloop tied up off the
capstan house. Farthing said quietly, 'Old ships! That's
Patelle, it's fr'm her that he got his step, cap'n
o' Seaflower?

A
distant boom sounded — Kydd looked automatically to Shirley Heights, the army
post high up on the point. Smoke eddied away: strange sail had apparently been
sighted far out to sea. Signal flags appeared, and were answered in the
dockyard. Minutes later a boat under sail left the shore and headed directly
for them. Kydd hoped that it wasn't a French squadron out there: English
Harbour was particularly helpless now with only one warship — their own —
available to meet them.

‘Four
strange sail sighted!' hailed a seaman in the boat, 'an'
Patelle unable ter shift!'

Farrell
stiffened. 'Secure the vessel, Mr Merrick,' he rapped. 'Do you and Mr Jarman
remain aboard — I am going ashore. Stirk, you and Kydd attend on me in the longboat.'

Reappearing
in full uniform, Farrell saw Kydd and Stirk in their comfortable loose shirts
and snapped, 'Jackets, at the least, please!'

They
tumbled down the hatchway and Kydd grabbed at his blue jacket with the brass
buttons that marked him a petty officer. 'What d'ye think, Toby?' Kydd asked,
slipping it on.

'Dunno,'
Stirk said flady, and they bounded up the ladderway.

Farrell
took the tiller and they rapidly pulled ashore, the bowman hooking on at the
stone steps while they landed. It was close by, the Admiral's House, but the
absence of the appropriate flag showed it had no occupant. Mounting the steps
in a hurry, Farrell bumped into a clerk. 'Who is the senior officer?'

Eyebrows
lifting in astonishment, the clerk replied, 'The commissioner is with Captain
Mingley in St John's at the moment - sir.'

'Then,
sir, who is in command, may I ask?'

The
clerk paused, as if to take his measure. 'Sir, in the absence of Captain
Mingley that would necessarily be the senior officer afloat.'

'Is
Captain Fox still with the
Patelle?

'He
is at St John's at the same court-martial.'

"Then
who is in command?'

'Patelle
is under the temporary command of one of her
lieutenants.'

Farrell,
followed by the clerk, entered an anteroom on the ground floor, and glanced about.
'I shall set up headquarters here. Desire the Shirley Heights garrison to send
an officer to attend me here for an immediate council-of-war.'

The
clerk looked affronted but, at Stirk's grim look, quickly left. A sergeant of
marines shortly appeared and gave a crashing salute. 'Sah!' With his local
knowledge, Kydd helped to pull things together, and within the hour a captain
of the Royal Scots Fusiliers was in respectful attendance.

Meanwhile,
Farrell had the marine messenger busy with orders: 'To the officer commanding,
Shirley Heights: "It would be of some service to me should you see fit to
begin heating shot as of this moment."' Guns mounted on the commanding
heights above the harbour could send red-hot shot among invading ships.

'My
compliments to the commander of
Patelle
and he is to send her longboat, mounted with a
swivel, to lie at grapnel in the entrance to the harbour.'