Persephone

Book 18: Thomas Kydd

by Julian Stockwin

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

1807: An old passion is reawakened when Captain Sir Thomas Kydd meets Persephone Lockwood, a beautiful and determined admiral's daughter from his past. To win her hand, he must enter the highest echelons of London society. Mixing with aristocracy and royalty brings other responsibilities. The Prince of Wales asks him to take temporary command of the Royal Yacht. Sailing to Yarmouth, Kydd realises they are being stalked by French privateers. The terrible threat sees Kydd call on daring seamanship of the highest order.

Release date: May 18, 2017

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

I pen each Author’s Note last of all, somewhat wistfully because another Kydd tale has been finished and I must move on to the next. As a writer you get quite attached to a book, especially if there is a strong emotional content, as in this one.

As always, this story is firmly based on the historical record. The flight of the royal family and the entire government of the nation of Portugal was an unprecedented event. Behind it lay the secret treaty of Fontainebleau, enacted between Bonaparte and the treacherous Spanish minister Godoy. In it, the corpse of Portugal was to be shared between them, and Britain’s last and oldest ally would disappear from the pages of history. That Godoy was comprehensively fooled by Napoleon is quite another story but certainly the Portuguese navy of fourteen battleships and eleven frigates added to the forces arrayed against England would have been a catastrophic reversal. As it was they sailed with the Regent of Portugal to Brazil where the world was treated to the sight for all of thirteen years of a mother country ruled by its colony.

The village of Ivybridge slumbers on. The London Inn is there still, under another name, its stables and cobbled courtyards now housing craft workshops. The modest mansion Corinthia remains and is in fact where your author has the good fortune to dwell now. It nestles in the beautiful Erme valley, which winds on up to the moors, a place so idyllic it lured Turner, Rowlandson and many others from London to capture its loveliness in paintings.

Quite at another extreme is the Pentland Firth. This is truly a fearful place when out of temper and is strewn with wrecks beyond number. The concentration of currents and races is probably the worst in the world, certainly for a navigable seaway. Twelve-to-fifteen-knot sustained tidal streams are common, which, to put it into perspective, is about five times walking speed. In the only passage I’ve ever come across in this vein, The Admiralty Pilot breaks out of its normally weighty and restrained prose to declare, ‘With smooth water and a commanding breeze, the firth is divested of its dangers, but when a swell is opposed to the tidal stream, a sea is raised which can scarcely be imagined by those who have never experienced it.’ This is by no means an overstatement: even as recently as 2006 the 73,000-ton supertanker FR8 Venture lost two seamen killed on her decks while in transit.

Iceland is one of those places that are truly unique in the world and is quite unforgettable for the adventurous visitor, the stark black offshore skerries possibly the most frightful sea sight I’ve experienced.

One of the most fascinating characters from real life in this book is the Dane Jørgen Jørgensen, the King of Iceland. As an able seaman convicted of mutiny at the Cape of Good Hope, he joined the crew of the tiny Lady Nelson, making her way to Port Jackson to figure later in a voyage of exploration to Van Diemen’s Land. Today, a splendid replica under full sail can be seen where once she sailed.

A mariner under the British flag, Jørgensen then plied the seas until caught up in the bombardment of Copenhagen after which he was made a (Danish) privateer captain, having the misfortune to be caught by a frigate and taken in chains to England. Improbably, even as an enemy alien, he talked his way into the command of a pioneering trading voyage to Iceland under licence.

The outcome for the King of Iceland of his removal to England by the sorely vexed captain of the frigate Talbot was to be imprisoned on the dubious charge of having broken his parole as a prisoner-of-war. For Iceland it was a better result. Touched by stories of hardship and isolation, Sir Joseph Banks led a movement to annex Iceland to the Crown but the British government compromised: the country, while still enemy territory, was granted extraordinary trading privileges, which greatly relieved the situation.

For Jørgensen, his release saw him just as implausibly move on to become a paid British spy on the continent in the desperate years before Bonaparte’s downfall, but after the war he took to drink and gambling. Taken in petty theft, he was transported to Van Diemen’s Land, which he’d last seen as an explorer. After his sentence, he elected to stay, entertaining tavern visitors to enthralling stories. He died in a hospital on the site of the very one in which, a century and a half later, my wife Kathy drew her first breath.

My research trips as always have been greatly assisted by those on the spot, and in Lisbon I was particularly helped by two eminent maritime historians: former commander of the Portuguese Navy’s magnificent square-rigger Sagres, Malhão Pereira, who pointed me in the right direction with various primary and secondary sources, and Professor Adolfo Silveira Martins, who opened my eyes in the splendid Museu da Marinha to the extraordinary seafaring heritage of Portugal. And in the pretty town of Oporto, long-time Kydd reader Paolo Meireles and his wife Carla so delightfully furthered my education in things Portuguese.

I must also mention retired merchant service captain Gudjon Jonsson, who in Iceland went out of his way to drive Kathy and myself to secret haunts and sights of his remarkable country, including the reconstruction at Eyrarbakki of the turf homes of Persephone’s time there.

As usual, my sincere appreciation of their efforts goes to my editor at Hodder & Stoughton Oliver Johnson and his team – and my wife and literary partner Kathy.

It is of great sadness to me that my agent of over fifteen years Carole Blake will not see this book in print as she passed away in October 2016. She is sorely missed.

In the captain’s cabin of HMS Tyger, Edward Dillon delicately plucked off his opponent’s stones and placed them with the others in the centre of the backgammon board. He paused for a moment, then bore off one of his own for the second time in a row, murmuring apologetically, ‘I’m persuaded my distinguished commander may be distracted.’

‘Oh, forgive me, dear chap,’ Captain Sir Thomas Kydd replied distantly to his confidential secretary, staring out through the stern-windows at the crowded Yarmouth Roads where the rest of the ships that had seized the Danish fleet lay at anchor.

Newly returned from their Baltic deployment with Gambier’s expedition from the North Sea Squadron, Tyger gently heaved at the swell from the east, and with her company on liberty ashore, the ship was quiet.

While Copenhagen had suffered under a cruel bombardment, the Danish gunboats throwing themselves heroically at the great British fleet and Wellesley decisively beating their army in the field, Tyger had been engaged in the most important job of all – sealing off the scene from any prospect of outside intervention. Now, victualled and watered, she waited for new orders.

‘Shall we remain with the squadron do you think?’ Dillon enquired, as Kydd’s manservant Tysoe brought in sherry and biscuits.

‘Probably not,’ Kydd murmured. ‘Matters are now resolved – pro tem – in these waters.’

With the exception of Portugal and Sweden, the entire seaboard of Europe from end to end was now in Bonaparte’s hands but the ruthless action of the British had not only saved the crucial Baltic trade but had robbed the tyrant of the Danish fleet to use against England.

An uneasy calm lay upon the world while Napoleon Bonaparte contemplated his next move.

‘I’m sanguine His Lordship will be grateful to lay his head down in peace at his estate,’ Dillon offered.

‘Still more his countess,’ Kydd added.

Lord Farndon, Kydd’s closest friend, and his wife, who also happened to be Kydd’s sister – had been rescued from the inferno of Copenhagen and carried to England in Tyger but he’d seen them leave with a pang of envy. There was no question in his mind that he, commander of the tautest frigate in His Majesty’s Navy, was blessed, but the intimacy of their happiness had stirred something in him that left him restless.

It was ludicrous, of course, for as one of the golden frigate captains of the age he had but to step ashore and graciously accept the adulation, lauded as a god of the sea. Yet …

A breathless midshipman appeared at the door, whipping off his round hat. ‘Sir, respects from Mr Maynard an’ the flagship’s mail boat is approaching.’

‘Thank you,’ Kydd acknowledged. ‘Carry on, please,’ he added, as the lad stood irresolute. The youngster blinked, then scurried off.

There had been no need to inform the captain but Kydd knew the reason for it. Any one of the twice-daily deliveries of mail distributed by the fleet post office could bear their orders from the Board of Admiralty, and every man aboard had an interest in what they contained – it could see them halfway across the globe, to the frigid monotony of the Nova Scotia station, the deadly paradise of the Caribbean or cruising athwart lucrative trade routes.

Kydd heard the muffled cry of the hail to the boat, then sensed the bumping of the vessel alongside.

The officer-of-the-watch himself brought down the much-awaited communication.

As soon as he took it Kydd knew by its thin, single-folded appearance, with no enclosures, that this was no stirring call to a far station. Although signed for, they were not sealed secret orders and almost certainly implied a workaday and unexciting assignment.

‘Shall I?’ Dillon rose to afford Kydd privacy. Maynard remained wordlessly at the door, waiting.

‘No, I shall attend to this later. We’ll finish the game.’

At their crestfallen looks Kydd relented and, with a grin, slit the letter open and read quickly. ‘Ah.’

‘Sir?’ The two voices spoke in unison.

‘Portsmouth for orders.’

It was odd that there was no mention of a flag – the Downs Squadron, Channel Fleet or other. It smacked of a temporary shift of some sort.

‘We’re under sailing orders. I’ll have the Blue Peter aloft if you please, Mr Maynard.’

It was a hard beat into the teeth of an early winter westerly. They raised St Helens on a grey morning and, taking his pick of the empty Spithead anchorage, Kydd had his barge quickly in the water manned by a boat’s crew in yellow and black striped jerseys, Tyger’s colours.

Vice-admiral Montagu had served as far back as the American war, and as an admiral under Howe in the early days of the French wars when Kydd had been a common seaman. He rose to greet Kydd in old-fashioned dress coat and silver stick. ‘So Boney’s in confusion after Copenhagen,’ he remarked amiably.

‘At cruel cost to the Danes,’ Kydd replied.

‘Yes, well, that’s all over. You’re under my command now. Refreshment?’

This was unusual, not to say puzzling. Rather than an interim holding, it appeared to be a formal placement under this admiral’s flag. A port admiral had few men-o’-war of his own and they only for immediate defence of the port, and while these included a pair of frigates, why the famed Tyger?

‘Thank you, sir. Er, in the article of activity against the enemy, what might we expect here as it were?’

‘Sir Thomas, your zeal is a caution to us all. I see that you’ve not yet smoked why you’re here.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Then let me be open with you. Unless the Downs Squadron finds itself in a moil there are no actions anticipated in these waters.’

‘But—’

‘Your appointing is at the gracious behest of their lordships to afford you and your stout ship some belated respite from the rigours of your recent hard-fought encounters. I do advise that you take satisfaction and joy from this notice of their approbation, old chap. Oh, and you have my leave to sleep out of your ship, of course.’

Kydd saw through it. The Tory government was no doubt under pressure following the contentious Copenhagen expedition and found it convenient to flourish a public hero. It would blow over in time and then he’d be back at sea where he belonged. ‘I’m flattered at such attentions, sir. Perhaps I shall go up to London for a mending of the spirit.’ The sooner he did his duty in the way they wanted, the sooner he’d be back aboard.

‘Do so, old fellow, with my blessing. Oh – your ship is stored and watered still?’

‘Sir.’

‘Good. For there’s a little matter that needs attending to before you go to your rest. Bonaparte is much discomfited by our actions in Denmark and is now rattling his sabre, threatening he’ll march on Portugal. We’ve sent a squadron of some force to lie off Lisbon to show everyone which way the wind blows – it’s doubtful this will take more than a week or two and then you’ll be back. My contribution to the cause, as it were.’

This implied a special squadron, one created for a particular service and under direct Admiralty control rather than a station detachment and therefore, its object completed, his early return was assured.

‘Sail at once, sir?’

‘If you would. Just to put in an appearance, is all.’

The five-hundred-foot heights of the Cabo da Roca firmed out of the morning mist: the extreme westernmost point of the continent and an unmissable sea-mark of centuries past for the port of Lisbon some few miles further on. And beyond – a British squadron of nine sail-of-the-line under easy canvas squarely across the mouth of the Tagus. The 120-gun Hibernia was an unmistakable bulk in the centre and she flew her colours at the mizzen top-gallant masthead signifying a rear-admiral. After acknowledging Tyger’s salute the flagship hung out the squadron signal to heave to.

Kydd stepped aboard through Hibernia’s ornamented side port. A slightly built, sensitive-featured and fastidiously dressed admiral waited to greet him.

Kydd recognised the gifted and bafflingly contrary Sir Sidney Smith immediately. He’d first encountered him commanding at the epic struggle at Acre, which had seen Smith pitted face to face against Napoleon Bonaparte himself in a land battle, the first and last English commander to do so. He had prevailed and Bonaparte, abandoning his army, had fled to France.

They’d met again at the inglorious action a year ago before Constantinople when his genius for irritating his superiors had nearly cost him his flag.

‘A warm action in the Baltic I’ve heard,’ he said distantly, offering his hand with practised hauteur. Kydd was aware that his own knighthood was impeccably English while Smith had not yet been so honoured, instead affecting an earlier Swedish award.

‘As would keep you tolerably entertained in my place, sir,’ Kydd replied evenly.

‘Yes. Well, I won’t pretend that your presence is anything but gratifying but there’s much you need to know before I can let you loose. Come – we haven’t much time.’

The admiral’s quarters were palatial and characteristically in Oriental style with hangings, framed sayings in Arab script and a rich carpet in place of the stern chequerboard deck and polished mahogany of the usual flag-officer cabin.

Settled in a Persian chair, Kydd waited. There was a stately sway as Hibernia took up again on her slow sweep across the Tagus.

‘What is your conceiving of why we’re here, pray?’ Smith asked.

‘Sir. To make motions off the port of Lisbon that shall cause Bonaparte to reflect on his position.’

‘Wrong in general, wrong in the particulars,’ Smith said crisply. ‘Like all Gambier’s crew you think that Copenhagen has put a stopper on the man’s ambitions. I’ve certain knowledge that he’s made pact with Spain to bring about an end to Portugal as the only nation left in Europe defying him. He’s brought an army from France and means to invade, dividing the spoils with the Spanish.’

‘As I said—’

‘And you were wrong. Here we have your Copenhagen over again. A neutral country with a mad ruler caught between two greater powers – and which possesses a battle fleet that is the greatest prize of all to both. Do we demand of this demented queen she hands over her fleet into our protection before Boney can lay hands on it, or do we set ashore our siege engines for a bombardment and seize it? The country wouldn’t stand for it, of course.’

‘You’re – we’re to see they don’t sail.’

‘Bravo! Our task is to keep watch until Regent Dom João shows his hand. Failing we receive a satisfactory pledge of surety, it will be our melancholy and desperate duty to destroy the fleet where it lies.’

The Tagus was notorious for its sandbanks and currents – this would be no closing under a press of sail in line-of-battle: it could only be fire-ships and boats sent in against ships-of-the-line.

‘A desperate measure indeed, sir.’ Kydd was appalled by the prospect.

‘It shouldn’t be long,’ Smith went on, with a bored expression. ‘General Junot is at Bayonne and has probably marched by now. Dom João must choose his fate very soon.’

Tyger took her place in the line and prepared as best she could. This would be no fleet action, and until the fire-ships and mortar sloops arrived, there was no clear plan to neutralise the Portuguese fleet.

A day later word came that Junot was poised at the border with an army of twenty-five thousand men, cavalry and infantry with three Spanish divisions as well marching to join.

Would Bonaparte violate the neutrality of a sovereign nation? Later the same day the answer came: the invasion had begun. Junot was striking direct for Lisbon, taking the shorter but more difficult direct route along the valley of the Tagus. Goaded by an impatient emperor, French soldiery could be expected at the gates in days rather than weeks.

From the deck of Tyger Kydd watched scores, then hundreds of vessels make for the open sea as the news spread. This was very different from Copenhagen – there was no sea girdling Lisbon that the navy could take for its own to deny the enemy passage; it was only a matter of time before Lisbon would see Bonaparte’s legions.

Hibernia signalled, ‘Heave to and all captains.’

Sidney Smith was a cunning and resourceful commander, who had wreaked great destruction on the trapped French fleet in Toulon early in the war. What was he planning for this much more dangerous and urgent mission?

Three charts lay face down before the admiral, who waited with a slight smile as the nine captains filed in and sat around the big table.

‘Gentlemen. In the matter of the Portuguee navy I have—’

A lieutenant appeared at the door. ‘Sir – the ambassador is alongside.’

‘Be damned to it. Send him in.’

In respect the captains rose as a fine-drawn, red-headed young dandy entered in sheer pearl silk jacket and elegant cravat.

‘Lord Strangford. I’m sensible of the honour of your visit, but at this moment am in conclave with my captains to consider how to deny Bonaparte the Portuguese fleet.’

‘Then it’s as well they hear what I have to inform you.’ The voice was high-pitched and peevish.

‘My lord, please go on,’ Smith said heavily.

‘Then it is this. The Regent Dom João has this day made statement that he intends to accede to the “continental cause” by which is meant that he moves Portugal to Bonaparte’s side. I have demanded my passport and am here to seek asylum in your good ship.’

‘Dear God. Is it war, then?’

‘Not yet. He responds to the tyrant’s demands, which are to cleave to his continental system of economic warfare against Great Britain. He believes by declaring this he might yet stem the emperor’s wrath and retain his throne.’

‘You have remonstrated with the man.’

‘I have – his response is to send orders to arrest on sight all British citizens and seize their goods.’

There was a rustle of dismay about the table.

‘I can land above a thousand armed seamen and marines should you believe it necessary for security,’ Smith said curtly.

‘I can’t think that a good idea, Admiral. The city is in a ferment and the partido francés, the French interest, would make much of it. No, there is another way.’

‘Do tell, sir.’

‘On my instigation a secret convention has been agreed in London, which provides for British support for any move by the Portuguese to transfer their monarchy and seat of government to the Brazils, thereby putting out of reach the legitimate head of state, whatever puppet Bonaparte finds to inhabit the Mafra Palace.’

‘Then?’

‘His Highness does not see fit to avail himself of this convention, believing the French want merely to deny Lisbon and its trade to the English, which is what he undertakes to do at once.’

‘My lord, you have just tied my hands in the matter tighter than those of a topman aloft in a blow. If I proceed against their fleet it will be in the character of an assassin, for I must act before Junot arrives and puts Dom João’s words to the blush. The fool must be made to see the folly of grovelling to Boney before it is too late.’

‘Quite. Yet the man must be accounted obtuse and of little understanding of the world. You will understand that for autocracy and benightedness this kingdom is hard to beat. He will not hear me and I fear the end must not be long delayed.’

Smith bit his lip. ‘You may have a cabin aboard this ship. Your followers must berth on the mess-decks ‒ we’re not an Indiaman. Now, you tell me the British are hunted down and—’

‘I didn’t say that. Dom João has to satisfy the French spies he’s doing something, and to this end he’s rounding up stragglers and confiscating the odd cargo in a half-hearted sort of way. Do recollect Portugal is our oldest ally.’

‘So gratified to hear this.’

Strangford pursed his lips. ‘Admiral, I shall be recommending to the government that—’

‘Recommend away, my lord. I shall be steering a more direct course.’

Kydd hid a smile. This was more the Sidney Smith he knew.

‘Which is, might I ask?’ Strangford wanted to know.

‘As of this hour there is a close blockade clamped on the port of Lisbon.’

‘And what, pray, do you conceive this might achieve?’

Smith’s contempt was barely concealed. ‘By this your sainted Dom João may see for himself at the first hand the consequences of his siding with the tyrant. An instant ceasing of trade – no Customs revenue, taxes. No imports, exports – need I go on?’

‘This is an illegal act!’

‘If it were formally declared, yes. But it will not be. We are protecting our national interests in accordance with our own orders-in-council issued to counter the French Milan decree. Namely, that we may stop and search whatsoever ships we will for contraband, which they will discover is to be a monstrously long-protracted delay.’

‘It will—’

‘It will demonstrate to the meanest wits that siding with the French now or in the future will have catastrophic consequences that we are quite able to enforce.’

‘Very well,’ Strangford reluctantly conceded. ‘But what of the British residents and citizens trapped ashore? Should you not make provision for them to flee before the French arrive?’

‘If I open the floodgates every species of Portuguee riff-raff will clamour for passage.’ Smith reflected for a moment and went on, ‘So I’ll flag a transport or two for their extricating should these prove to be bona fide subjects of His Majesty.’

‘How will you know this?’

‘Ah. I shall set up a rendezvous ashore that shall make examination of those desiring passage, manned by one of my commanders.’

Smith looked about the table before fixing on Kydd with a genial smile. ‘I believe Sir Thomas Kydd would best be suited to calm their fears.’

Kydd gave a tight nod. The admiral’s reason for his selection was unanswerable: a frigate would have little role in any operations leading up to the neutralising of the Portuguese fleet other than keeping watch on the seaward approaches, a task quite within the powers of his first lieutenant. Was this merely a ploy to put a popular hero in his place? It had happened before with Smith, he recollected, in those fevered last days in Egypt.

His orders were brief to the point of rudeness: the establishing of a rendezvous for the purpose of substantiating the claims of British citizens to passage out in a government-chartered transport. How he did this was entirely up to him, always provided he was able to furnish a thrice-daily report of the number and boarding details of successful applicants for planning purposes.

There was no question that he had the authority needed to deal with any complications – but it was hardly a job for a warrior.

Leaving the evocative Drake-era Belém Tower to larboard, Tyger’s boat sailed the remaining five miles or so to the old town of Lisbon, left in ruins after an earthquake in 1755, but now a great trading city again. Kydd had no strong interest in the sights and history but Dillon, seated next to him, looked out eagerly. The coxswain, the big Swede Halgren, was as imperturbable as usual, while the boat’s crew knew better than to rejoice in their release from ship’s routine.

One, however, sat trying to hide a smile as his gaze almost caressed the shoreline. Fernando da Mesouta Pinto, quartermaster aboard Tyger, had been with Kydd in his first ship. Then a young sailor, now a grizzled mariner, he was stepping ashore in his birthplace for the first time in many years. He had a bundle stowed under a thwart, which Kydd was careful to ignore. Inseparable friend of gunner’s mate Stirk, he’d been included as guide and translator.

It was surprising how much shipping was still crowding the channels – and across the opposite side were the dense-packed lines of Portuguese battleships in their anchorage. Kydd noted with surprise they had no sail bent on the yards and therefore were not about to put to sea for some time.

He’d given some thought to the situation after conferring with Strangford before he left. There could be no question of taking an armed marine escort with him as this was not a lawful act in a neutral country. However, he was assured that a Portuguese colonel named by the ambassador would in his own interest provide any protection needed.

For the screening process Kydd had nothing to go. . .