The captains of the Inshore Squadron looked at him wearily.
‘I have it. Another admiral’s inspection. Even more detail than the last. Right?’
The groans were loud and heartfelt.
Chapter 44
Kydd needed some fresh air after his hard morning’s duel with the purser’s paperwork and stumped up the ladder to the quarterdeck. To his surprise, nearly all the officers and not a few seamen were gazing down the line of ships, all pretence at work fled.
‘How’s this, nothing to do, you villains?’ Kydd called, frowning. Hardly a face turned his way.
‘Mr Bowden, what does this mean?’ he demanded, irritated.
Reluctantly his second lieutenant lifted his gaze. ‘An Admiralty aviso,’ was his bald explanation. ‘Attending on the flagship.’
These fast, secure packets were only used when their lordships had need of ready information from their far-flung squadrons – or had dispatches so urgent that justified the speed and expense of one.
‘Us?’ asked Brice.
‘No, we’re not to be noticed,’ Bray said authoritatively. ‘He’s made his number with Collingwood, who thinks the matter so pressing he’s sent him on to his rear admiral without delay.’
It was Kydd’s conclusion too. And there could be only one thing so important that it needed acting on with such speed. He joined them in their anticipation, all eyes now on the flagship.
When the signal came, it wasn’t the summons Kydd had expected. Instead it was the peremptory three-flag hoist: ‘All captains attend on commander-in-chief.’
This was cause for an instant hubbub: was it the rarely experienced call to a council-of-war on the eve of battle?
In minutes Kydd reappeared in full-dress uniform, the quarterdeck falling silent as he took boat for Ocean, trying to keep a countenance under the hundreds of eyes on him as he left to learn their fate.
The great cabin of Collingwood’s flagship was crowded and Kydd had to join the other frigate captains in standing along the bulkhead. Already Collingwood was in his chair, as mute and unspeaking as a sphinx, his two admirals at either end of the table, both as clearly baffled as their humble captains.
The last officer squeezed in and the flag-captain announced, ‘All present, sir.’
Nothing could be read from Collingwood’s face, a granite rigidity.
Word from England it must be, but what? A refusal to be sucked into an Iberian war? A complete distrust of a clutch of rebels with no realistic prospects?
It would be disastrous for Britain’s reputation to be associated with a wild revolt that was contemptuously defeated, even worse to be dragged into an endless land war in which she was outnumbered ten or a hundred to one far from her shores. Realistically it couldn’t be-
‘Gentlemen,’ Collingwood said softly. The cabin fell suddenly still.
‘It’s peace.’
As this was digested there were sharply drawn breaths.
‘I have received dispatches from my lords of the Admiralty and from the foreign secretary, both in the same tenor.’
He looked about him, then went on flatly, as though reciting, ‘Hostilities against the kingdom of Spain are to cease with immediate effect, a state of amity now existing between us. Every practicable aid shall be furnished and Great Britain proceeds on the principle that any nation of Europe with a determination to oppose the common enemy becomes thereby our essential ally.’
In the stunned silence he beckoned over the flag-captain and whispered something. The officer nodded and left.
‘What this means to us – to the world – is of immeasurable consequence. I would have you in no doubt of that.’
The flag-captain returned, ushering in stewards with trays of glasses. ‘At this point I believe it meet and right we should raise a glass to our news.’
The usual toasts – ‘Confusion to Boney’, ‘Damnation to the Tyrant’ and the like – seemed in some way inadequate to the occasion and a strange pall descended on this group of veteran sea officers. Too much had happened, and now their traditional foe of centuries was that no longer.
‘What’s to become of us, sir?’ Puget of Goliath, greatly daring, asked.
Collingwood looked up, suddenly weary, and Kydd was shocked at how drawn he appeared. A great man – but of another age.
‘Ah, yes. I’ve given this some thought in the event it fell out as it has. The Inshore Squadron before Cadiz will be no more, of course. Portugal remains in French hands and will require our attentions still, as will occupied Spain, by which I mean the northern and Mediterranean coasts. Therefore I’ve a mind to create an Iberian command of three flags, the north, Lisbon and south. Ships-of-the-line will be redistributed among them but frigates will probably be on roving commissions a-twixt and a-tween as needs must.’
‘And yourself, sir?’
‘To Minorca, I believe, now the Dons are our friends. A fine dockyard, an even finer climate for my old bones – and within a day of Toulon.’
A babble of incredulous speculation arose, which Collingwood interrupted quietly: ‘I would have you now return to your ships and inform your people. From this point forward all due marks of respect will be given and returned to Spanish officers and ships at sea. Detailed orders will follow as soon as I can manage it. Good day, gentlemen.’
Kydd left in an air of unreality. Almost his entire career had been pitted against Spaniards in one form or another, but from this day forward they were to be accounted comrades.
His boat surged along, his coxswain silent with the gravity of the occasion. When Kydd mounted the side of Tyger, nearly her entire ship’s company was looking down at him.
Just as soon as he made the deck and answered his first lieutenant’s polite enquiry, his brusque order was ‘Clear lower deck! Hands to muster aft.’
Standing next to the wheel he waited while the sudden scramble for places subsided. Seamen were hanging from the rigging, cross-legged on hatch gratings, pressed together, agog for news. There were youngsters squatted on the deck in front, open-eyed with wonder, and the marines forgetting decorum in their need not to miss a thing. Behind him the officers and warrant officers shuffled their feet in their eagerness to hear.
‘Tygers!’ Kydd roared. Silence was instant. ‘I’ll tell you as I got it from the commander-in-chief. In one – it’s peace. As of this moment we’re to treat the Dons as friends, our allies, give ’em all the help they ask for in their struggle to throw out the Mongseers and get their country back. And we’ll be doing our part like true British sailors. I haven’t detailed orders yet but I believe we’ll not be lacking entertainment. When we-’
Bray detached himself and came over, nudging him. He gave a significant glance over to the flagship, which had just hoisted a general signal.
Kydd recognised it instantly, but frowned in mock impatience, seeking out Maynard. ‘Well, sir – important signal from Flag. What does it say, pray?’
The flustered signal master’s mate found his book and, glancing again at the hoist, chanted, ‘Brace, sir, and … main. Mainbrace. And-’
‘Acknowledge, then, you looby. And it’s “splice the mainbrace”, I believe.’
No sooner had the order been obeyed than an even greater satisfaction was granted them. In the same aviso had been a precious cargo – mail, in stout canvas post-bags, with the ship’s name stencilled prominently. The routine was always the same, the anticipation never less. And for the space of a few minutes Dillon was the most important man in His Majesty’s Ship Tyger.
Taking the coach as his headquarters he upended the first bag and began his duty. To one side the seamen’s growing pile of letters from home, the gunroom officers’ in another, ship’s official business to the purser and clerk and, finally, the captain’s personal mail.
Kydd knew better than to hurry him but eventually it was presented. Rather more a fat package than a letter, on the outside was his name in an infinitely dear bold hand.
He was able to retire to the privacy of his cabin to savour the moment but the common sailor must share his with his messmates. Kydd knew how it would be: each man would in that time be an island, unreachable, wrapped in his own warm thoughts as a loved one reached across the gulf of miles to touch him – and him alone – with sentiments that were private to them both.