Kydd had started in surprise when he’d first seen the man. Rowley was no stranger – he’d known him from his time on the lower deck when he himself had been shipped out to the Caribbean to avoid damning testimony being given against him. Later, as a lieutenant under his command in a ship-of-the-line off Toulon, Kydd had been cast out of his ship for trivial reasons. That it had been the means of his receiving his first ship as captain had been no thanks to Rowley.
There was the same hauteur, the patrician disdain – even if the cheeks were now flabby and the body rotund. And still the faultlessly cut uniform, the peep of lace at the cuff, the thinning but elaborately coiffed hair dyed to an improbable black.
As he nodded a greeting around the table there was no trace of recognition, and for that Kydd was thankful. He had no wish to acknowledge their earlier association. Far too much had passed for him to feel anything but contempt for the man.
‘I say, Sir T, weren’t you third of Tenacious in the last war?’ It was a fresh-faced, willowy officer to his right. ‘As did something right clever when we took Minorca?’
Kydd brightened. ‘A signalling scheme only, atop Mount Toro, but nothing as will stand against Captain Popham’s patent system, I’m persuaded.’
‘Not as I heard – oh, Hayward, fourth of Leviathan, as was there on the quarterdeck when your intelligence was sending Gen’ral Stuart into an apoplexy.’
‘And now?’
‘Owner of Vigilant frigate, on station these last eight months. Something of a bore. But then again I heard that our new Flags is out to make his mark, his service to this date being a mite south of conspicuous,’ he added, in an odd tone.
Kydd kept his silence. Rowley had no doubt used his influence to find himself a sea command as admiral when so many better men were languishing at a lesser elevation. And unless he was, God forbid, a fleet-attached frigate with all the tedium that that implied, he would be with the Inshore Squadron and under him.
‘Some years since I was on this station. Quiet, at all?’ he asked lightly.
‘Not as who should say. Now, with Boney taking Lisbon and all Portugal, we have the whole coast in arms against us. Makes it easier, o’ course – near every sail an enemy, as it were.’ He grinned, then in sudden respect added, ‘But nothing as could offer diversion to one of your talents, Sir T.’
That Collingwood was keeping the seas off Cadiz instead of Toulon or Sicily was a measure of how the commander-in-chief saw the importance of the largest port the Spanish possessed.
The dinner passed agreeably for Kydd, shadowed only by Rowley’s presence and that of Mason of Riposte – by his graceless manner their recent antagonism off Bornholt clearly not forgotten. Still, of the twenty or thirty present, there were just those two he didn’t warm to.
The cloth drawn, amiable groups formed for brandy and cigars and Kydd joined in the easy banter of those who knew each other from long acquaintance and whose yarns were received with as much acclamation as his own. But despite the camaraderie of the gathering one particular thought was unspoken. Who knew whether they would find themselves on blockade for many more years to come?
Chapter 16
It was odd that Rowley, as squadron admiral, did not send for Kydd in the usual way to make face-to-face familiarity, ease the formality of remote command and set a tone, as had been the case with every other fleet commander Kydd had served under. Was he deliberately shunning Kydd? Peeved that a reminder of his past had again crossed his path?
Instead, the signal ‘send a lieutenant’ was thrown out and Brice returned with a signed-for order book containing the squadron’s new Fighting Instructions and signal variants that would govern the conduct of the Inshore Squadron under Admiral Rowley.
There were few surprises: it was little more than a repetition of Collingwood’s sparing prose and additions of detail that, no doubt, were intended to add a degree of individuality. Kydd passed it to Brice for the signals, commended it to his other officers and waited for some form of activity to be signalled.
Not until the third day was there movement, and that turned out to be the issuing of an order pack. Kydd allowed that Rowley and Collingwood had probably been in deep colloquy over operations and opened the oilskin package with anticipation, expecting an initial order of battle, a deploying against the tasks and challenges, but instead he saw that Admiral Rowley was taking the squadron to sea – for exercises. Flag in Conqueror, with his only other sail-of-the-line, Thunder and Spartiate, with his nine frigates. Sloops and unrated to remain on station.
Unbelieving, Kydd leafed through the orders.
The Inshore Squadron largely comprised lighter, shallower draught vessels, speedy and capable of deep reconnaissance – frigates, with captains of daring, initiative and individual reliability, who could be left to their own resources to achieve their objectives. Never to act together as a fleet!
Yet it was Kydd’s duty to obey. As an admiral, Rowley had every latitude to handle his fleet in whatever way he wished and if this was to take it to sea to detect strengths and weaknesses or for any other reason then Kydd and Tyger must do their part.
On the day following, the squadron stood out for the Atlantic, in order of sailing as specified, the three sail-o’-the-line in the centre, three frigates in the van, four in the rear and repeating frigates, one each to leeward and windward.
It looked an imposing show but to what purpose? Frigates would never be placed in the line of battle.
‘Sir. Our pennant and “Assume the van”.’
Accordingly Tyger fell out of the line to leeward and began the long process of overhauling, from her station in the rear element, the entire line of ships ahead to reach the foremost, a senseless manoeuvre in Kydd’s eyes.
The line stood on close-hauled, speed undiminished, as Tyger spread as much canvas as she could to obey the order, but as she came into the wind-shadow of each vessel she sagged away more and more to leeward until she was half a mile downwind before she picked up a steady breeze.
It took over an hour to get up with the first and Kydd to begin the evolution of taking the lead, but before he could do so there was another signal.
‘Sir – our pennant, negative and “Assume the van”.’
What the devil? Presumably this was countermanding the first and, if this was so, he had to find his old place in the line and ease back in, a dangerous procedure at the best of times. Fuming, he gave the order to spill wind and slacken speed but close with the line again. Was this an attempt to show him up before the others?
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the repeating frigate busy again and saw that another ship was being ordered to assume the van, the light frigate Jason, also from the rear element. He could only imagine the conversation taking place on her quarterdeck at the foolishness.
The line made whole again it was the old but taxing order of tack into line.
This required the line-ahead formation to go about onto the other tack all together to assume a new heading. It was a woundingly difficult manoeuvre for ships-of-the-line, each taking their time from the next ahead when every ship had different sailing characteristics from the others.
With frigates included in the mix, it was a sailing master’s nightmare. How to slow the reactions of a fast frigate to keep with the ponderous turns of a battleship? It was near impossible, and the inevitable happened: kept in irons to wait for the bigger ships to come around, they gathered a sternboard and swung in reverse of the last helm order, others missed stays altogether and fell away in confusion and still more paid off to leeward to avoid a collision.