‘You’d take on a frigate?’
‘Don’t have to, friend. There ain’t nothin’ above a brig can enter here, an’ you knows it. You’re on your own, and while you thinks on it, I can wait here as long as I likes.’
Kydd knew L’Aurore couldn’t stay indefinitely: a cutting out would be expensive in casualties against a well-manned and alert privateer, and if he sailed away to get more appropriate support it would release them to leave.
But he had something up his sleeve. He folded his arms and gave a tantalising smile. ‘I think you may be wrong about that,’ he said coolly.
‘Why, damn it?’
‘My ship carries twelve-pounders, Mr Dale.’
‘Ha! What’s that to me?’
‘At this moment I have one landed on the spit, and when it’s through to this side at, say, one or two hundred yards range, I doubt it’ll take much more than ten minutes to smash you all to flinders, sir.’
For a long moment the man stared at him, then sagged. ‘Then I guess you’ve got all the cards. What do we do?’
‘The hold, Mr Dale.’
His instincts had been right: what the Maid was carrying was most certainly not in accordance with the manifest. In fact, the rich assortment suggested quite another explanation.
Kydd gestured to the marines to come aboard. ‘Mr Dale. You fly the American flag yet you have plunder aboard that proves you to have been a-caper. Without a letter of marque and reprisal, my conclusion can only be that you are pirates, your hand set against each and any.’
‘Wha’-’
‘As pirates, therefore, no civilised nation will dispute that you’re beyond the law of man and deserving of extermination. I’m bound to hang each and every one of you on the spot. What do you say to that?’
It had the desired effect. Dale turned to look despairingly at a dark-featured seaman behind.
The man pushed him aside and, with a sullen bow, said, ‘Je suis le capitaine de la Pucelle d’Orleans, le corsaire.’ He drew out a document. ‘Mon lettre de marque.’
Trying not to let his satisfaction show, Kydd took it. He’d forced their hand: this was the true captain of the privateer, the American a convincing act.
‘Mr Saxton, strike that flag!’
His heart full, Kydd stood astride the quarterdeck with Renzi at his side as they approached Kingston harbour. He knew his friend must be aware of what he was feeling at the prospect of arriving back at the scenes of his youth. So much had passed. Would it be the same?
As they were a ship of significance a pilot was taken aboard at Port Morant, and he was free to enjoy a sight he had last seen from the tiller of a tiny cutter putting to sea on that fateful voyage when they had been overwhelmed by the raw forces of Nature.
And today there was to be no slipping in between Drunkenman’s Cay and the Turtle Head for a King’s frigate: it was the direct route between Lime Cay and Gun Cay, and close about Port Royal Point, the years melting away as well-known seamarks passed.
Rounding the low, sandy point they opened the harbour, and there at anchor was the Jamaica Squadron. They were relatively few, however: a single ship-of-the-line, two frigates and a number of sloops. The rest must be at sea, Kydd reasoned. At the masthead of the largest there was no admiral’s flag to salute but he recollected there was a fine admiral’s residence ashore.
L’Aurore glided into the anchorage, secured a place among the frigates, slipped her bower and found her rest.
‘I think I must make my number with the admiral, Nicholas. Should you wish to come ashore?’ Kydd asked politely, as he completed his full dress uniform.
‘In course, dear fellow. I am, like you, curious indeed to see if it’s the locus that has changed or myself.’
They made landing at the little pier at the end of one of Kingston’s streets. In the naval way of things, Poulden, as Kydd’s coxswain afloat, would do like service ashore and he was sent to engage transport.
The hot and dusty streets were as busy and colourful as ever, with the white-and-green-painted houses and tiny gardens with their profusion of tropical plants, the noise and babble of Jamaica on all sides.
Poulden returned with a ketureen, a light gig with a decorated sun-roof. Standing aside as the two boarded, he swung up next to the driver and ordered, ‘The Admiral’s Pen, y’ villain.’
There was a show of whip-cracking, and soon they were bowling along for the cooler hills above Kingston, the breeze of motion welcome.
The residence, with a large blue ensign lazily floating at the mast, came into view and they drew up at the door. ‘I doubt I’ll be long delayed, Nicholas. Do amuse yourself as you will, old fellow.’
Renzi was content to close his eyes and breathe in the fragrance of frangipani.
Kydd was greeted by the flag-lieutenant and conducted into the cool inner office of James Richard Dacres, vice admiral of the Blue. Kydd had heard that he had been on station since the beginning of Napoleon’s war, and his near fifty years of sea service had been steady and not undistinguished.
‘Captain Kydd, L’Aurore frigate new-arrived, sir,’ he reported.
‘Welcome, Mr Kydd. From the Leeward Islands Squadron, I believe, come to join our little band. And with a prize at your tail, I notice – you’ve a good notion of your duty, I see.’
There was a shrewd intelligence behind his genial manner, and Kydd answered with a guarded ‘I have indeed sir, being recently come from Buenos Aires.’
‘Ah. One of Mr Popham’s restless spirits. You’ll be able to tell me more of your southern adventuring on some other occasion.’
He paused for a moment, considering. ‘Now, sir. I can’t pretend that your presence is anything other than opportune, not to say pleasing. You’ve been in these waters before?’
‘Er, only as a youngster, sir.’
‘Yes, a midshipman’s view of things can never be accounted reliable. Well, I will tell you myself what will be your chief concerns on this station. The Leeward Islands Squadron is rightly preparing for a descent by a battle-squadron from the Atlantic, presumably commanded by one bolder than Villeneuve. Ours, however, is a very different war, Mr Kydd. I don’t have to tell you that these sugar islands are a fountain of revenue for the government, providing for all from coalition subsidies to the meanest fore-mast jack’s shilling.
‘But what we are seeing here, sir, is the imperilling of it not by fleets of men-o’-war but a piecemeal destruction by privateers. At Barbados the West Indies convoy assembles from all over the Caribbean for its voyage across the ocean and will be well escorted, but they must sail as independents from each sugar island before they reach there. I’m not able to provide escorts for all of them, so the others are ready prey for the corsairs that do infest these coasts.
‘Understand this is your prime task, Kydd. Exterminate the creatures where you can, deter and dismay by your presence otherwise. No privateer born can stand against a frigate and they know it.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. This leads me to the next. While we bend our every effort to ensure our sugar cargoes reach England, we’re duty-bound to prevent the French from delivering theirs. Thus their ships are fair game to us but they’ve been shamelessly making use of neutrals, particularly the Americans who see no sin in playing both sides. The law is clear, however: both the French and our own Navigation Act forbid them to carry cargoes between colonies and the motherland. At the same time, though, it allows them to trade freely with the same colonies on their own account.’
‘I’d heard there’ve been legal developments.’
‘Ha! Yes, you’re right. Our American friends are found out. Their practice has been to take up French sugar on the pretence that this is their importing, but when they arrive in a United States port they turn their ship around and head for France with new papers that show it as goods produced at home for export.’