"The fishing-boat, sir?" Hallum said doubtfully, indicating a two-masted lugger that had detached from the main body of the anchorage and seemed to be heading for the Goodwins. It was the same as many seiners at this end of the Channel—high curved bow and perfectly suited to conditions where it could blow up so quickly—
Fishing-boat? "That's him!" Kydd said savagely.
"Sir?" Hallum said, puzzled.
"Lay out 'n' loose, damn you!" he roared at the stupefied crew, then turned to Hallum in glee. "What kind of fisher-folk think the fish are biting now? Nearer sunset's more the mark."
In minutes Teazer had slipped and her every sail was set—but the breeze was sadly lacking in strength, favouring the smaller boat, which was also directly before it. Teazer needed to cover the half-mile to the Gull close-hauled before she could square away after the chase.
In barely a ripple they glided along at a slow walking pace in weather that would have the folk ashore bringing out a picnic. Kydd pounded his palm in frustration. "Wet the sails!" he spluttered, and the clanking of the deck-pumps was heard as buckets were filled and swayed up. Water cascaded darkly down the light canvas from the yards but there was no real increase in speed.
The lugger was comfortably under way and beginning to shape up for the Gull, gaining with every minute and showing no sign of noticing them. Was it indeed their quarry or an innocent?
Tide on the turn and no current to assist—it would be a close-run thing. At last Teazer was able to put down her helm and fell in astern of the lugger but almost immediately it was apparent that they were losing the race.
Renzi appeared at Kydd's side; his face was grave. It was unlikely that the languorous breeze would strengthen in the near term, and by the time Teazer had sufficient wind to haul in the smaller vessel, too much lead would have been established in the race for the blue-grey line that was the French coast.
"We're losing him," Kydd said, in a low voice, watching the lugger spread her wings for the open sea. His mind searched feverishly for answers. Rig Teazer's sweeps and row? It was unlikely they could make much more over the ground than they were doing. Ditch guns, water and so on? These were moves more suited to a long-protracted chase when fractions of a knot could add up over the miles. No, what was needed was a miraculous intervention that would see them catching up in just the next few hours. A bow chaser skilfully laid to take down a mast? No: Fulton's safety could not be put at risk.
A stray recollection—and he had it. "Put us about, Mr. Dowse," he said. "Take us back this instant."
There were disbelieving cries but Kydd was having none of it. "Get those men moving!" he bellowed, ignoring Renzi's bewilderment.
Under the impetus of her rapidly spinning helm Teazer swung right round the wind until hard up, heading back for the Deal foreshore as speedily as she could. "Boat in the water the instant we're within soundings!" Kydd ordered.
Sudden understanding spread around the deck. Their captain was going cap in hand back to the admiral. Disappointment replaced frustration, but Kydd seemed unaffected. "I want a particular boat's crew," he demanded, and named, among others, Stirk, Poulden and Mr. Midshipman Calloway.
The mystified men padded aft. Kydd waited until they were mustered, a wisp of a smile playing on his face. Then he stiffened and snapped, "Barkers and slashers!"
Answering grins surfaced—pistols and cutlasses could only mean Kydd expected to close with the French in the very near future.
As Teazer slewed to the wind and stopped, the men tumbled into the launch—but before Kydd could be the last to board Renzi pushed past and clambered in. "Nicholas, this is not your fight, m' friend," he said, in a low voice. In the past Renzi had been insistent on detaching himself from the naval hierarchy, reserving the right only to take up arms if the very ship was threatened.
"You've a fine idea as I'm sanguine will prove diverting, old fellow. You wouldn't begrudge me the entertainment?"
The boat shoved off and Poulden took the tiller. "After him, sir?" he said, watching the lugger with a frown. Although the light breeze was only sending the vessel along at walking pace it was beyond even the stoutest hearts to come up to it under oars.
"No, take us in," Kydd ordered, ignoring the puzzled looks.
The boat grounded lightly in the shingle and Kydd was away up the beach immediately. He knew where to go and quickly told the man what he wanted. "Now or sooner, Mr. Cribben, and it'll be three guineas the man."
The lazy afternoon on the Deal foreshore turned suddenly into a scene of activity: urgent shouts broke the stillness as small boys raced away, hovellers stumbled blinking from their huts, others from the grog-shops, all converging on one long shed amid the sprawl of shanties further along the beach.
Cribben muttered angrily to the knot of locals who stood glaring at the King's men suspiciously, eventually thrusting past them and throwing open the shed doors A surge followed, then from inside came the lusty calclass="underline" "Alaw boat, haaauuul!" and out from the gloom, under the urging of a score of men, appeared the dark-varnished sharp prow of a long, low, oared craft.
This was quite a different matter from the iron sturdiness of the hovelling lugger. There, in unaccustomed daylight for all to see, was the notorious Deal galley-punt. Low and mean in build, it could make the French coast in two hours with twenty men at the oars, in good weather, and was known to be much favoured by smugglers and others of like need.
When the vessel was afloat in the gently lapping sea, the Navy men were sent forward while the oarsmen scrambled in, and then they were off, with low, feathering strokes that were quick and efficient; at night these would leave no telltale white splashes. They skimmed across the balmy seas and Kydd dared hope.
The rowers had quickly fallen into a rhythm and the strokes lengthened to produce a breathtaking dash across the waters. But several miles ahead the fishing-boat had won the open sea and now nothing was between it and Calais, already in plain sight.
"Stretch out for your lives! " Kydd roared at the men of Deal, who made a show of increasing speed. Then, wise in the ways of sailors, he added, "You catch 'em and it's a cask o' beer and another guinea each."
Leaving England to sink into anonymity astern, the rowers laboured on and on in a uniform dip and pull that was regular to the point of hypnotic, studied blankness on their faces as they concentrated on the effort. There was no doubt that they were catching the fishing-boat but would they be in time?
When the rolling dunes and cliffs of Calais were in stark clarity it was nevertheless clear that the race would be won. Pale faces appeared at the stern and Kydd's men prepared themselves. Stirk had a wicked grin as he tightened his red bandanna around his head and eased the pistols in his belt.
Kydd waited for the right moment and bawled across the last dozen yards, "In the King's name, come to or we fire into you!"
Faces showed again and raised voices were heard, but the lugger did not vary its course. "Lay us alongside aft," Kydd hissed.
The rowers panted and sweated but the freshening breeze now cooling them was at the same time their enemy. Under its gathering strength the lugger dipped and swayed daintily, then began slowly to pull ahead—it was agonising.
"Stirk! The grapnel!" Kydd barked.
It was a last chance—but at thirty feet? Stirk stood braced in the fore-sheets, coiling the line deliberately, the main turns in his left hand, the grapnel and flying turns in his right, and began his swing, casting wider and faster and then, at precisely the right moment, he flung out.
The grapnel sailed across—and clunked firmly on the lugger's plain transom.
"Well done, Toby!" Kydd gasped, watching Stirk complete his feat by deftly taking turns around the little samson post and belay, letting the rope take up to allow them to be towed by the fishing-boat.