“Duty helmsman to the wheel,” Kydd rapped.
With the ship reverted to the sea watch, he went to the boatswain. “I mean to put the ship to the test, Mr Dawes. What do you say to sending down a topmast at all?”
“Sir, could be tricksy dos, the seas bein’ up as they is.” The eyes pleaded with him.
“Well, shifting one of the great guns from fore to aft-that’ll need cross-tackles and preventers, don’t you think?”
“Ah, Cap’n Parker, we never done that, not at all, Mr Kydd.”
“You can’t conceive any need to mount stern-chasers aft in a hurry? Come, come, sir, this is what you must expect in a prime frigate like Tyger.”
“Aye, sir.” There was resignation and dull resentment in the reply.
Kydd knew Dawes had to go but a boatswain was appointed to a ship by Admiralty warrant and could not be turned out by his captain. He had to be made to leave the ship of his own accord. “Then we’ll think of something else to stretch our stout crew,” he added.
Out of the corner of his eye Kydd saw Bowden watching with a tight face. He shifted his gaze deliberately to his second lieutenant, who looked away bleakly.
Kydd turned to his third lieutenant: “Mr Brice. I desire to exercise the people at putting the ship about. Both watches on deck, to work sail, first one, then the other.”
“Sir.” Standing tense and wary, his expression was unreadable.
“Ready your men. Start with the starb’d watch and they’re to go about on the larb’d tack at my word. I shall be timing them.”
“Aye aye, sir.” He turned away. “Hands to stations to stay ship,” he blared.
Kydd pointedly withdrew his fob watch and held it prominently. “Carry on, please.”
Even under pressure it was as he’d seen before. Slow and deliberate, cautious. The other watch of the hands was the same. The time was not disgraceful but neither was it outstanding.
“We’ll have ’em handing sail now. Each mast separately to furl its tops’l then set it again. Begin with the fore.”
This time he could see each individual seaman at work. He didn’t yet know names but he had faces. He watched intently; the character of each couldn’t be hidden and now he was building a true picture of Tyger’s ship’s company, its strengths and weaknesses.
“Mr Hollis.”
The first lieutenant came over to the weather side of the quarterdeck, guarded and defensive.
“At the mainmast. What do you think of ’em?”
They were trying hard, the young petty officer of main-top going like a demon, flinging himself out on the yard at the front of his men in his eagerness.
“Doing well, I should have thought, sir.”
“You don’t see anything wrong, who’s to say, a failing?”
Hollis looked up, shading his eyes and answered woodenly, “They appear to be succeeding, sir.”
“I’m not satisfied,” Kydd said flatly.
“Sir?”
“The captain of the top. He means well but he’s no leader. It’s not for him to be going out on the yardarm with his men, he should stay in the tops and take charge from there. How can he see if his men are all of them pulling their weight? What if the order is countermanded under stress of battle and he needs to regroup?”
The lieutenant continued to gaze up obstinately.
“No, Mr Hollis. This man is keen but inexperienced. Better an older hand. Do you know of any such?”
Hollis glowered but did not answer.
“And the man passing the earring, do you not feel-”
“Sir! If you feel my watch and station bill is-”
“I’m saying it were well you knew your men better, Mr Hollis.”
The morning wore on. He took to asking each officer in charge names for Dillon to take down in his notebook. That knowing old salt who always tailed on to a line last so he could take it easy out of sight of his shipmates. The young and nimble lad out on the yard who was a born top-man. The petty officer at the fore-topmast stay-sail who for some reason was hanging back from driving his men.
As they laboured Kydd sensed antagonism rising, the dull animus of men driven hard beyond the normal-but he was not going to let up with the sceptre of defeat hanging over Tyger.
He was rapidly getting to grips with it, throwing Tyger into all points of sailing, feeling her strength and power, her breeding. There was nothing like L’Aurore’s delicacy in light winds but very little to complain about, and running large she hadn’t that lurching long roll and for that he was grateful. He sensed she would be at her best in hard winds: a fresh gale would have her joyously breasting the combers and he looked forward to matching her up to some of the blows he’d experienced in his last command.
All in all he was more than satisfied-especially with her striking manoeuvrability. Sweet and sure in going about and lightning sharp to answer the helm in any circumstance, this was something to be treasured-only if the sail-handling could match it. He would make sure it did.
At midday he stood the hands down for dinner.
The afternoon generally would see one watch go below, but not today. These were the only precious days of independence away from the fleet he could count on.
“The men are going to smell powder now, Mr Hollis. Both watches, gun by gun.” He’d taken the precaution of consulting with the gunner about their practice allowance. As he’d suspected, there had been no expenditure for months while Parker had struggled to keep his hold on the ship.
He could feel the lieutenant’s hostility.
“We’ll start with a little dry practice. Mr Bowden?”
Among the waiting gun-crews there was a stillness, a naked loathing that radiated out.
“Carry on.”
He let them go for three “rounds,” then casually ordered, “Sail trimmers to stand clear.”
The gun numbers detailed for going aloft in an action stood back, bewildered. To the remaining crew he rapped, “Run out your guns!”
It brought gasps of dismay for the cold iron of the big guns was a preposterous mass for the reduced men at the tackle falls.
He waited with a grim smile to let them feel the impossibility, then stepped forward. “You’ve never seen close action, you lubbers, have you? Let me tell you that calling away sail trimmers is no excuse for standing about idle while the enemy pounds us. When they go aloft it’s every man on the falls, gun-captain included, and only after the gun’s close up do they go back to their place. Let’s have it done, Mr Bowden.”
Next he would see what an eighteen-pounder could do after L’Aurore’s twelves, a good one-third smaller weight of metal.
A target was knocked up: an empty barrel with a pole nailed to the side bearing a large red flag.
It went over the side, rapidly left bobbing jauntily astern until it was a tiny red blob on the face of the ocean.
“Larboard first, start from forward. Lay us to weather of the mark, four cables distant,” Kydd snapped at the sailing master, an unnaturally subdued Joyce.
He clattered down to the gun-deck and hurried forward to where the gun-captain of the first was making preparation. These long eighteens were a byword in the navy for accuracy at a distance, if served well, and had the weight to make themselves felt.
The gun-crew readied.
“In your own time, two rounds at your target.”
Kydd saw that Bowden was leaving the loading and pointing entirely to the gun-captains and silently approved, even if the young man was doing his best to ignore him.
These eighteens were big beasts, half as high as a man and over a dozen feet long and now the skills would turn from backbone and sinew to hand and eye … and of one man, the gun-captain.
Kydd, however, turned his attention away from the gun-captains-Bowden could be relied on to pick up shortcomings in working the gun. He was interested in the results, out there where the speck of red in the distance nodded cheekily to leeward.
The first gun banged out, the slam of concussion and then the reek of powder-smoke briefly enfolding him. It was a fair shot, twenty feet to one side but reasonable for elevation, and Kydd was impressed. Not with the marksmanship but the fact that these long eighteens had such a flat arc of fire-the white plume of first-strike was close to the target even at this range.