Kydd and Renzi waited until the first light of dawn before entering the town. The river lay to their left, an easy signpost to the plaza they had left just days before. There were no more Bourbon lilies on display, no more white banners. Instead, the flag of revolution hung everywhere around them.
The town was silent, a curfew obviously in force. They removed their shoes and crept noiselessly toward the square, keeping well in to the side of the street. In the silence the measured tread of approaching sentries gave them adequate warning.
On one side of the square stood a tall structure in the dark. “Guillotine!” Renzi whispered.
Kydd shivered – the smell of blood hung in the air.
A sentry paced slowly by the guillotine. He was militia, dressed raggedly. His Phrygian cap had a tricolor cockade, just as the patriotic prints had it in the shops in England.
Timing their movements, Kydd and Renzi worked their way round toward a once grand house, which, as it was the only white building off the square, had to be their destination. The sky was lightening noticeably in the east when they reached it.
“Shy a pebble at th’ window,” Kydd whispered.
“You,” Renzi hissed, sure that Kydd would do it better.
Kydd picked up a light stone, judged the distance carefully and caught the pane. It rattled and the stone fell.
Nothing. The first rays of morning were appearing; the gray dawn was fast disappearing in the promise of another fine day. Kydd tried again. Still nothing. The window remained shut. By now they would be easily visible to anyone chancing along the street. Kydd picked up another stone.
The door opened suddenly and noiselessly. They were yanked roughly inside. A sharp-faced woman glared at them. She had papers in her hair and wore a floor-length chemise and faded slippers. “You fools!” she said bitterly in English. “Do you beg to be caught?”
“Madame Dahouet?” Renzi enquired, with the utmost politeness, making an elegant leg.
Surprised, the woman bobbed in return. Then suspicion returned to pinch her face.
“Madame, might I be permitted to present my compliments and those of Madame Marie Pleneuf, who wishes to be remembered to you.” He spoke in the flowery French of the old regime.
She fingered his dirty seaman’s jacket doubtfully.
“I am, as you see, necessarily in disguise, Madame.”
“Ah!” she said, satisfied. “Your French is very good, Monsieur.” She went to the heavily curtained window and peeped outside, checking carefully. She spoke in English for Kydd’s benefit. “It is not safe here, but I have a hiding place prepared…”
The hiding place was an ancient pigsty – still very much in use.
They looked at it in dismay. Fat pink and black pigs lay in a sea of mud and dung and on the far side of them was a rickety old wooden construction.
“No!” blurted Kydd.
“No cochon of a brave revolutionary would soil himself in that place. You are safe there.”
“We can’t – ” Kydd felt sick at the thought.
The woman’s eyes darted back across the yard fearfully, and she stamped her foot in exasperation.
Hastily, Renzi agreed. “Yes, Madame, you are right. This will prove an excellent hiding place – we thank you most heartily.”
He lifted his leg over the low palings and plopped it down into the sty. The nearest pig rolled over to peer up at him. He brought the other leg over – the mud was ankle deep. As he began to wade over to the low entrance of the shed, the pigs scrambled to their feet, squealing and snuffling. Renzi, certainly no farmer, felt alarm at their huge presence.
“They won’t bother you – go on, Monsieur,” Madame Dahouet said to Kydd, who followed Renzi into the mire.
Renzi reached the entrance, bent down – and recoiled. But there was no avoiding it: he went down on his hands and knees in the muck and shuffled in.
Kydd held his breath and followed. It was utterly black inside, despite the few tiny chinks of daylight that showed between age-distorted boards. The floor was a little more firm, but it was strewn with rancid straw, which made his eyes water.
“Well, now, look ’oo’s come to visit.” The deep-chested voice startled them.
“Who -?”
A bass laugh followed. “Sar’nt Piggott, Private Sawkins ’n’ Corporal Daryton, at yer service, gemmun!” His fruity chuckle subsided.
The darkness lessened: it was possible to make out three forms leaning up against the back side of the shed. Inside it was steamy hot and close.
“Renzi and Kydd, seamen in Duke William. Delighted to make your acquaintance.”
“Ooh – lah-de-dah! ’N’ who’s yer lady’s maid, then?” the bass voice rejoined. “Yer’ll find we’re no frien’s of the Navy – yer chums jus’ sailed off leavin’ us, ’n’ there we was, fightin’ rearguard while they offs to save their skins.”
“Well, you soldiers didn’t do so bloody well keepin’ the Frogs off our backs when we was pullin’ your guns!” Kydd retorted bitterly. A fly buzzed and settled. Kydd slapped at it, but it evaded him and circled to land on him somewhere else. More flies swarmed and settled.
He squelched over to the side wall and sat with his head down. He smacked viciously at the flies, which rose in clouds and returned immediately to the fresh muck now spread over most of his clothes.
A different voice piped up. “Yer gets to leave ’em be, else yer like ter go mad.”
“Shut yer face, Weasel!” the deep voice said.
Renzi heaved himself up beside Kydd, saying nothing.
Kydd fidgeted, trying to scrape away some of the slime, and waved at the flies. “How long?” He groaned quietly.
There was no reply for a long time.
“I do think, my friend, that we may be here for some considerable time,” Renzi answered. “We must wait for things to die down, and then… and then…” He tailed off.
“Nah! Yer ’aven’t got a clue, ’ave yer? Well, we ’ave, see, ’n’ if yez wants ter come in wiv us, yer learns a bit o’ respeck first!”
“Give over, Toby, it ain’t the fault o’ they sailors we’re ’ere, now, is it?” the third voice said. “Never mind ’im, ’e doesn’t mean ter be pernickety. Wot we’re goin’ to do is – after it goes quiet like, o’ course – is ter break out t’ the south. We march b’ night ’n’ sleeps b’ day, till we gets ter Spain. See?”
“Have you any idea at all how far it is to Spain?” Renzi said quietly.
“Well, I reckons we can do it in five days’ march – I mean nights – ’n’ in the 93rd th’ quick march means a hunnerd and forty paces a minute, it is.”
Renzi sighed. “If it were possible to go in a straight line, which I doubt, it’s close to four hundred miles. That’s near sixteen days – or nights,” he added.
“How do yer know that, then, me old cock?” The bass voice came from Sergeant Piggott, Kydd noted, the grimy stripes now just visible under the dried muck on the big man’s arm.
The day dragged on. The stench, the filth, the flies. Occasionally, the pigs would wallow and squabble and try to enter the shed, and were pushed away, squealing in protest.
“We have to steal a boat – there must be a fishin’ boat or somethin’,” Kydd burst out.
“Yeah! That’s it!” the third man exclaimed.
“All the boats will be well guarded, and in any case in a small boat we wouldn’t stand a chance in the open sea,” Renzi said, in a level tone.
“We don’t get to the open sea! We lie offshore an’ wait for our ships on blockade to come t’ us!”
“And the boat?”
“We get Madame to spy one out f’r us, and nobble the sentry – there’s five o’ us!”
The talk of escape died away as they waited hungrily for the evening food. This took the form of cheese between bread, wrapped in a napkin. Madame was not encouraging. “I will see. There are three sentries on the quay and the police barracks is nearby. But I will do my best.”
Dusk fell. Then nightfall. The private whimpered in his fitful sleep and Kydd cursed listlessly at the cold filth covering everything.
They could not be allowed into the house, the stench hanging on the air would give the game away, and in any case it would be too much to bear, to clean up only to re-immerse themselves in this hellish stew. The corporal had turned over in his sleep and his face had become slimed; his attempts to scrape it off had spread it further. The sergeant snored like a rusty saw. Kydd leaned his head back and stared into the blackness.
It was not long before dawn when he heard the rapid tap of the woman’s footsteps approaching across the yard. Kydd jerked upright. He and Renzi crawled to the entrance.
“Listen to me!” she called. “There is a beach not far from here. From it Monsieur Pirou goes to find the – how do you say it? – the crémaillère for the-curse this language! Les langoustes.”
“He goes to lift the lobster pots,” said Renzi.
“Yes, it is only a small boat, but it may be sufficient for you sailors-I do not know these things.”
Kydd’s expression was eager.
“But, attention, Monsieur Pirou, if he is there, is not to be harmed! Do you understand? He does not sympathize but I will not have him harmed. He – he is an old man and a friend and – ”
“We understand, Madame. Pray do not fear for Monsieur Pirou.”
She studied Renzi’s face. “Very well. Now, this is what you must do. The voiture puisard – the cart of the night, I think you say – passes by this house on its way to the country. Its odor, may I declare, will hide yours. I will stop it and you will get underneath and hang on. Get off at the first hill – you understand? The first hill. The beach is there.”
“Excellent, Madame. A wonderful plan. It does credit to your intelligence.”
Her face broke into a cold smile. “Eh, bien! In the last war my husband was a corsair, and much esteemed – you English have reason to remember his name, I believe.”
Renzi laughed. “And our thanks are yours, Madame. No words can express our gratitude to you.”
Her face hardened. “If you can do something to topple those… crapules, les salauds, I will be content! But attend! If you are taken up when you attempt your escape, I can do nothing! I must disown you. It will be understood that you hid in the sty without my knowledge. Understood?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“Then here is a wineskin – of water,” she added quickly. “You will perhaps need this on that sea.” Her eyes rested on Kydd for a moment. “I wish you well, Englishmen.”
It was easy. Crouching behind the front door, they heard the cart rumble closer. The sickly smell of the cesspit wreathed the air. The cart ground past.
Madame Dahouet flung open the door and ran out to the horse. “Hélas! Mon pauvre chat! Monsieur – have you seen my cat on your rounds? Merde! He has been gone all this night, I am so distracted!”
The fugitives looked hurriedly down the street, deserted in the cold dawn, then slunk quietly under the cart. Sure enough, under the giant tank there was a framework and sacks, which they pulled over themselves in the cramped, stinking space.
“Out of my way, Madame! No, I have not seen your cat. Now let me get on before your neighbors complain.”
The cart trundled on. They felt it turn and straighten until all sense of direction was lost.
Kydd did not dare to peep out, and could only hope the others would be as careful. The cart swung once more, and the quickened pace of the horse meant that they would be on a road out of town.
There! A definite lift. The cart creaked and the horse’s gait shortened – it was definitely a hill. He felt someone jab him in the ribs. He peered out cautiously: the country road passed beneath and in the bright early morning there was no one in sight.
He wriggled to the back of the framework and, like the others, dropped to the ground. The cart continued, its driver not looking back.
A track wound down to a tiny beach, overhung by trees. They slipped closer.
Drawn up above the high-water mark was a boat with a single mast. Sitting on the sand next to it in the early morning sun was a fisherman.
“Only one! This is gonna be easy meat!” Piggott crowed.
“He’s not to be touched!” Renzi said quietly, turning to face Piggott.
The sergeant was thick-set and pugnacious, and leered aggressively. “It’s ’im or us, simple as that. We has to go ’im – but you Jack Tars wouldn’t unnerstand anythin’ about that.”
Kydd pulled Piggott round. “If y’ lay a hand on ’im…”
Piggott hesitated. He noted Kydd’s dangerous eyes and wiry strength. “Temper, temper! All right, ’e don’t get touched. But tell me this, Mr. Fire Eater, ’ow do you think we’re goin’ to get the boat, then?”
“Like this,” Kydd said, and advanced down the sand. The others followed. He had gambled that the fisherman would not be alarmed if they came normally, and he was right.
The man looked up as they approached, and his eyes widened at their appearance. He had an oaken, seamed old face and a neat beard. He dropped the net and scrambled to his feet. He spoke, but not in any French that Renzi knew. His voice was high and fluting, querulous.
“He’s speaking Breton,” Renzi muttered.
“Monsieur, unfortunately I have not the Breton tongue,” he said in French.
“Alors. Who are you, that you stink so much?” Pirou replied.
“Tell ’im that we’re takin’ the boat now,” Piggott spat.
His English gave the game away. “L’anglais!” Pirou gasped.
“Get him!” Kydd said, seizing an arm.
Pirou shouted desperately. They forced him to the ground, his frail old bones no match for the soldiers.
“Mon brave, I would be desolated were I to be obliged to silence you,” Renzi said, hefting a rock significantly. The man subsided, but a fierce glint remained in his eyes. Renzi found a length of rope and they bound him.
“He comes with us,” Kydd said shortly, knowing that it was too dangerous to leave him there. They carried him to the boat and lowered him inside.
“You three on that side,” Kydd said sharply.
“Shut it, mate! See these?” Piggott tapped the stripes on his arm. “Sergeant. I’m takin’ charge!” He walked around and stood menacingly over Kydd, who faced up to him, his eyes flaring.
The corporal thrust forward. “Now, Toby, we’re goin’ on the sea. Let them take over fer now. Come on, mate, they’re sailors ’n’ knows wot they’re about.”
Piggott glared, but eventually growled an acknowledgment.
With five men, the boat lifted easily. They carried it down the sand and into the water. The waves swept in boisterously and Kydd’s heart lifted at the boat’s eager bob. Exhilaration filled him.
Waves slapped the transom hard. “Bows to sea,” he warned.
The soldiers clumsily obeyed and the boat rotated to seaward. They pushed it out knee deep, the waves surging in.
“Right – in th’ boat,” Kydd ordered, holding it by the squared-off transom. Renzi got aboard first and helped the soldiers over the side and, with a kick backwards, Kydd finally heaved himself in.
“Get down – only one man must be seen in the boat,” Kydd hissed at the soldiers. Without a word Renzi took the oars, pulling strongly through the shallows out toward the blessed horizon, the wonderful salt sea smell penetrating through the stink of dried pig sludge.
After a while Kydd rolled on to his back and looked up at the blue sky and fluffy clouds. The boat bobbed and the water chuckled under the bow; the fishing gear smelled strongly but pleasantly and there was nothing more he could do but lie down and stare up dreamily.
A lazy half hour later, Renzi’s long, comfortable strokes slowed and he stopped and boated the dripping oars. He stood up and, to Kydd’s amazement, stripped stark naked.
“Come on in,” said Renzi, and made a neat dive overside.
Kydd sat up. They were to seaward of a seaweed-strewn rocky islet. They would not be seen from the shore.
Renzi surfaced, spluttering, at the boat’s side. “A mite cold for my taste,” he said, through chattering teeth, “but needs must.” He reached into the boat for his clothes and began to wash them in the sea.
“My oath! That’s wot to do,” said Piggott.
The mire dissolved into the clear green water, and five naked men shouted and laughed in the simple joy of being alive.
“Let’s rig the sail.” Renzi rummaged over the tightly rolled canvas, lashed with its own rigging, and tried to make sense of it. Pirou glared at them balefully, and when asked about it spat over the side, remaining mute.
The sail turned out to be a peculiar form of dipping lug, but it ran up the mast easily enough. The reason for the rig soon became clear: it could be maneuvered by one man at the tiller.
They continued their voyage, Kydd at the tiller now, the small boat scudding along in the pleasant breeze as it took them out farther and farther. The sun increased in strength, benign and warm.
The waves grew higher, the little boat swooping up hills of water, and down into valleys. Occasionally a boisterous roller would burst spray over them, and the soldiers started to look apprehensive.
They untied the old man, who rubbed his arms accusingly. The corporal suddenly heaved and vomited over the side, bringing on the same in the little private. They hung limply over the gunwale.
The sun rose higher. The distant land lost its distinctiveness, becoming an anonymous craggy coastline. A larger wave thumped the side and splashed them – the soldiers cried out in alarm.
The water felt cold and disconcerting, and swilled in the bottom of the boat. Kydd held the tiller tightly.
“We’re sinking!” A squawk of terror came from the private.
Kydd hesitated. There was certainly a good deal of water in the bottom, and his face creased in anxiety. The boat felt sluggish somehow, not so willing.
The water was gaining, that much was clear – but why? The soldiers bailed frantically with anything they could find, and seemed near panic. He sensed their fear and felt it wash up against himself. The swell surged higher, now appearing menacing and sinister – it was amazing how different it was to be in a little cockleshell instead of striding the decks of a man – o’-war.
There was little that could be done to find the leak with the boat crowded as it was. The soldiers gabbled to each other in their terror, and cold dread crept over Kydd. To have got so far, and then to die by the very element he had yearned for! He gripped the tiller, his eyes searching for an answer.
Then he caught the triumphant stare of the old man-and realized what had happened. “He’s pulled the bung! Get at it, Nicholas!”
Renzi thrust past the old man and, sure enough, the water was gouting in. He prized the bung from the fisherman’s grasp and pushed it home.
The effect was noticeable. As the bailed water flew over the side, the boat returned to its previous jaunty bob.
“We must be out far enough,” Renzi said.
The rocks and islands had fallen away astern and it looked a safe distance for a big ship to be traveling offshore. The vast seascape, however, seemed careless of their existence, exuberant rollers surging past, superimposed on a massive underlying swell that seemed to flex like mighty muscles moving under the surface of the ocean.
Renzi doused the little sail and took position at the oars again, keeping the bows facing the oncoming rollers with occasional tugs. They waited.
It had seemed a good idea, simply to wait for the blockading cruisers to happen by, but they had no idea of strategic naval movements and, as the day wore on, the idea lost its appeal and finally slipped toward fantasy. There must be over a thousand miles of coastline to blockade, and with how many ships? The chances that one would happen along just at this time were small, in fact vanishingly small.
The seas were now relatively slight, the weather kind and sunny, but that would not last – it could change with terrifying speed, faster possibly than they could make it back to land. The boat could not take even a small deterioration in conditions.
Kydd was aching with the fatigue that bracing against the constant jerking about was producing. It was a never-ending struggle to avoid being flung this way and that as the boat slammed to and fro. The corporal had lost his headgear and was touched by the sun. He was clearly suffering: weak from seasickness, he flopped about as the seas buffeted the tiny boat, his eyes rolling. The private was sunk in misery, facing outboard with both arms over the side. Piggott sat with his back to the mast, his eyes closed.
What if a ship finally came and it was French? The thought stabbed at Renzi, but it was the more likely outcome, given that they were only a few miles from France. He decided not to speak of it, but furtively checked the horizon. It was empty.
The sun lowered in the sky, and the breeze grew colder and strength ened. The sea took on a darker, more somber tint as the angle of the sun’s rays dipped.
Renzi knew it would soon be decision time. It was inconceivable that they could survive the night. A tide set could carry them dangerously far down the coast, the weather might clamp in. The only option was to return.
They would have to kill the old man. It was the only way to be sure that he would not betray them. Then they could touch on one of the tiny beaches and hide for the night. He looked at the old fisherman, who sat near Kydd, looking back to the coast with a distant expression, his hands fidgeting – old, tough hands gnarled by the hard work of years.
“We have to return,” Renzi said, and Kydd nodded. Renzi hoisted the sail, ignoring the old man’s exultant look. He reached up to dip the lug for the return passage, but as he did so his eyes caught a subliminal fleck of white somewhere out to seaward. The boat swayed alarmingly as he stood up, but he was heedless. The horizon remained a stippled line, still with no sign. He scanned until his eyes watered and suddenly caught the distant flash of white again before it disappeared. “Sail!” he screamed.
Kydd leaped to his feet, the boat teetering over and just recovering. He dropped to the tiller and they altered course for the stranger.
“What if it’s a Frenchie?” Kydd asked.
Renzi looked at him and shrugged.
The evening waves reared up higher, it seemed, dusky shadows in their wake, the beginnings of a sunset ahead. In a fever of excitement they saw the white fleck come in and out of existence, then remain steady.
“If it’s a Frog, c’n we get away agin’?” the private wanted to know.
“I’m afraid not,” Renzi replied. Almost anything afloat would outsail their little craft. There was no point in hiding the fact.
The white grew in size, resolving into three distinct blobs, and Renzi could see that it was a ship-rigged vessel on a broad reach, cutting their course ahead. Her hull was obscured most of the time by the heave of the swell, but it was sufficient to note that she had but one gundeck, and therefore was not Duke William. The disappointment was hard yet he had no reason to think that it would be Duke William and he was angry with himself for the loose thinking.
“Une frégate française, je crois!” the fisherman said, with great satisfaction.
The masts altered their aspect, and it was apparent that the ship was turning to intercept. “He thinks it’s a French frigate,” Renzi told Kydd quietly.
“Ce vaisseau-là c’est La Concorde de L’Orient,” the old man said definitively.
“What’s he say?” Kydd said.
“Says that’s La Concorde.”
“You sure?” Kydd said, his voice unnaturally intense.
“Yes.”
“Ha!” Kydd shouted. He transfixed the old man with a look of triumph. “Tell the old bastard that it’s a French frigate, all right – but she was taken by us in the first week of the war! By Circe 32, if my memory serves aright!” He laughed.
With a bone in her teeth the frigate came along in fine style – and, sure enough, above the yellow and black of her hull streamed out the white ensign of Admiral Howe’s fleet.
The soldiers, roused from their stupor, capered insanely. The private tore off his red coat and waved it frantically over his head, screaming in delight.
“God rot me! An’ what could yer do then, Tom?”
Stirk’s interest encouraged Kydd to go on. He grinned at the circle of faces and said, “Well, what else could I do if I didn’t fancy spendin’ me days in a Frog chokey? It was over the fence and in with the pigs ’n’ all their shite.”
There was a hissing of indrawn breath. The dog-watch was well under way, the off-duty watchmen taking a pipe of baccy on the fo’c’sle in the gentle glow of the lanthorns, others with their grog cans.
“Hey now, Pedro! Yon Kydd – his pot has the mark of Moll Thompson upon it!”
The Iberian started, then grimaced. “For a story li’ that, I give,” he said, filling Kydd’s empty tankard from a small beer tub.
“Where is Renzi?” Claggett asked.
Kydd looked at him levelly and said, “He’s got his reasons right enough, Samuel. We just leave him alone, should he want it that way.”
“Didn’t mean ter be nosy, Tom, but yer must admit, he’s a queer fish, is Renzi.” Kydd said nothing, drinking his beer and still regarding Claggett steadily. “Yair, well, ’e’s yer friend an’ all,” Claggett said.
“I were taken once, but it weren’t the Johnny Crapauds!” Doggo’s roughened voice cut into the silence, his features animated.
“Well, ’oo was it, then?” said Jewkes.
Doggo looked at him. “Why, it were in… let me see, year ’eighty-six, it were.” He scratched at his side. “I were waister in the Dainty sloop, ’n’ we took the ground one night on the Barbary coast. Not th’ best place ter be, yer’ll admit. Well, seas get up ’n’ next thing she’s a-poundin’ something cruel. Starts ter break up, so’s we gets thrown in the oggin all standin’. O’ course, we nearly all drowns. In fac’, it were just me left to tell yez the tale. Well, I gets dashed ashore ’n’ just manages ter crawl up the strand, when all these A-rabs on ’orses comes ridin’ up. I ’eard o’ these Bedoos before, see, they’re bad cess, but I can’t do anythin’ like I am. They ties me up ’n’ rides off with me ter their camp.”
His ugly face grew solemn. “There, mates, it were right roaratorious, what wi’ me bein’ a white man ’n’ all. See, they wants me as their slave. ’N’ that’s what I was, sure enough – has to bow ’n’ scrape, all togged up in saucy gear wi’ turban ’n’ all – you’d ’ave ’ad a good laff should you’ve seen me! Yeah, seemed I were there ferever.”
“Did yer get away, Doggo?” Jewkes asked, bringing on a general laugh at his question.
There was a play at discovering his pot was empty. After it was filled again, Doggo continued. “Well, mates, seems an A-rab princess falls in love wi’ me, takes me fer her own. Sees me un’appy like, it breaks ’er heart. So she decides to put love before dooty ’n’ after a night o’ passion sees me off afore dawn on a fast horse, ’n’ here I is!”
The whole fo’c’sle fell about in laughter.
With the spreading warmth of the drink inside, the soft dusk and his shipmates about him, Kydd lay back happily, staring up at the stars just beginning to wink into existence in an ultramarine sky, and pondered at the extremes of experience that life could bring.
It was sheer luck that Duke William and her escorting frigates had been passing at that particular time. She had been on passage back to her station after landing her evacuees in Plymouth, and at no time would ever have contemplated a blockade of their part of the coast. In the sick bay men writhed in pain, wretches who would have reason to curse the experience if they survived, but Kydd had – and without a scratch. And the old fisherman had been set free with his boat, but had fiercely scorned the couple of guineas offered him by the frigate captain and sailed off making obscene gestures.
And, of course, the proud moment of being received in the great cabin by his captain to tell his story. “Remarkable!” Caldwell had said, making free with his scented handkerchief at certain points in the tale. Besides ordering a gratis issue of slops to replace their tattered and smelly clothes, he had courteously enquired if there was anything further he could do for Kydd.
“To be rated seaman!” Kydd had replied immediately.
Raising his eyebrows, the Captain had glanced at his clerk. “Should you satisfy the boatswain, by all means.”
The tough old boatswain had been plain. It would not be easy. “Hand, reef and steer, that’s only the start of it, lad. Good seaman knows a mort more. But I’ll see as how you gets a proper chance to get it all under yer belt.”
He was as good as his word. Paired off with Doud, Kydd found himself in every conceivable element of seamanship. From the tip of the jibboom to the royal yardarms, the cro’jack to the fore topsail stuns’l boom, sometimes frightened, always determined, he steadily made their personal acquaintance. Doud was a prime seaman, having been to sea since a boy; he was also an excellent choice as mentor. He challenged and cajoled Kydd unmercifully, but was always ready with a hand or an explanation.
“We’ll take in a first reef in the topsails, I believe,” said Lieutenant Lockwood. His serious young face studied the gray scud overhead.
“Way aloft, topmen – man topsail clewlines and buntlines! Weather topsail braces!”
The watch on deck was mustered: some began their skyward climb to the tops while others at the braces heaved laboriously around the yards to lay them square to their marks. The sails, no longer taut and working, flapped noisily.
It was Kydd’s first experience at laying out on the yardarm. It was one thing moving out on a steadily pulling set and drawing sail, as he had already done with Doud, and another to achieve something on a loose cloud of flogging canvas.
The captain of the top was unsympathetic. “Weather yardarm, cully,” he ordered.
“Where the sport is!” said Doud cheerfully – he would pass the weather earring, the most skilled job of all. Kydd just looked at him.
A heavy creaking of sheaves, and the topsail yard began to lower. The spacious maintop seemed crowded with men, and Kydd took a sharp blow in the side from the men working the reef tackles, which, pulling up on the appropriate reef cringle, had to take the deadweight of the sail.Doud grinned at Kydd as they waited. “Be ready, mate,” he warned.
“Trice up and lay out!”
“Go!” Doud yelled, and swung onto the yard. The inboard iron of the stuns’l boom was disengaged and the boom tricer hoisted it clear. Doud moved out quickly to the farthest extremity of the yardarm and turned to straddle it facing inwards.
With his heart in his mouth Kydd followed. As he had learned, he leaned his weight over the thick yard until his feet were firmly in the footrope, pushing down and back, and arms clinging to the yard inched his way outward. It was worse than he had expected. The increasing beam seas were causing a roll, which was magnified by height – over to one side, a sudden stop, then an acceleration back to the other in a dizzying arc. In front and beneath him, the hundred-foot width of topsail boisterously flapped and tugged, and he knew he was being watched from below.
“Get movin’, you maudling old women!” the captain of the top shouted.
Sailors were being held up by his slow movements, but he couldn’t help it. It was heart-stopping to be up there, with nothing but a thin footrope and the yard – and empty space beneath his feet to the deck far below. He knew that soon he would not even have the yard to cling to – both his hands would be needed for work.
He looked down at the deck and the sea sliding past below, so foreshortened at the height of a church steeple.
This was how Bowyer had met his death.
“Haul out to windward!”
The men inclined to leeward and leaned over the yard, bracing against the footrope. Seizing one of the reef points, they heaved the sail bodily over toward Doud at the end. Kydd had no option but to follow suit. It needed all his courage to let go his hold on the yard and balance precariously forward, elbows clamping, and grab one of the points.
“Heave, yer buggers – let’s see some tiger!”
It took three pulls and Doud had his turns over the cleat and through the earring on the sail in its new, reefed position. Inclining the opposite way, they hauled out again, achieving the same thing on the lee yardarm. Seized at its ends, the sail’s central bulge was now slack and ready for reefing.
Kydd glanced at the men next to him. They worked calmly, industriously, thumping the sail into folds on top of the yard; first small, then larger, pinning them in place with their chests while they leaned down to get another, fisting and slapping the milling sea-worn canvas into place.
There was not much science in Kydd’s efforts, but at least he did not let his reef escape. It was with real satisfaction that, holding it in place with the forward reef point, he brought the other up and secured it with an eponymous reef knot.
“Lay in, you lazy swabs!”
He joined the others on the maintop, and met Doud with a grin that could only be described as smug.
The carpenter pursed his lips. It wasn’t a bad leak as far as it went, but it was in an awkward place. They were standing in the carpenter’s walk, a cramped tunnel of sorts that went round the sides of the orlop, giving access to the area between wind and water in times of battle. It was an eerie sensation, to feel rather than hear the underwater gurgling rush on the outside of the hull. Kydd struggled along behind the carpenter’s mate, with a bag of heavy shipwright’s tools.
The carpenter bent to take a closer look. His mate obligingly held the lanthorn lower, into the black recesses behind a hanging knee. Water glistened against the blackened timbers of the ship’s side.
“Maul,” the carpenter said, after a moment. Kydd handed him the weighty tool. A couple of sharp blows at an ancient bolt started it from its seating. Kneeling down, the carpenter gave it a vigorous twist.
A furious half-inch-thick jet of water spurted in, catching Kydd squarely.
“Devil bolt!” the carpenter said. The bolt might have looked sound from the outside, but inside, there was nothing but falsework, crafty peculators at the dockyard having made off with the interior of the long copper bolt. “You’d better get down to the hold and take a squint, Nathan. This won’t be the only beggar,” he told his mate.
The deck grating was lifted clear, and the man dropped down into the blackness of the hold. The lanthorn was passed down to him.
They could hear him moving about, but then there was silence.
“See anything?” the carpenter called. He was driving an octagonal oak treenail into the gushing bolt hole with accurate smashing hits, the water cutting off to a trickle, then nothing.
There was no reply. “Nathan?” he called again, kneeling down to look into the hold. He was pushed out of the way abruptly by the carpenter’s mate. His eyes were staring, his face was white, and he was trembling.
“What’s to do, mate?” the carpenter asked softly.
The man gulped and turned to face him. “I s-seen a g-ghost! Somethin’ down there – it’s ’orrible. I gotta get out’ve it!”
The carpenter clicked his tongue. “Well, here’s a to-do.” He hesitated for a moment and said, weakly, “Now, Kydd lad, you go below and sort it out for us, my boy.”
Kydd sensed the man’s fear and felt an answering apprehension. There was nothing wrong with being afraid of ghosts, it stood to reason. He looked at the hole where the grating had been, then back at the carpenter.
“Go on, I’ll come if you hails!” the carpenter mumbled.
With the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, Kydd cautiously dropped down on top of the casks. He looked around fearfully.
There was nothing. He accepted the lanthorn, but its light was lost in the pervasive blackness and he could see little. The stench was unspeakable.
Nervously he moved away from the access hole and crept toward the edge of the casks. Before he reached them he became aware of a sudden discontinuity in the blackness on his left.
It took all his willpower to turn and confront it. It was a dim but defi nite ghostly blue-green glow, there at the edge of his vision, shapeless, direful. He froze. The light seemed to flicker in the dark of the farthest reaches of the hold but it didn’t come closer. His eyes strained. The light strengthened, still wavering and indistinct. Something made him move forward. He reached the edge of the casks.
“Is all well, lad?” came an anxious call from the grating.
A muffled acknowledgment was all Kydd could manage.
The glow was still far off, down there in the shingle. There was no alternative. He slid over the edge and landed with a crash of stones. He looked up. The light was at a different angle now and seemed to be hovering, uncertain.
Heart hammering, Kydd crunched cautiously toward it. The source of the light lengthened and grew in definition, nearer, and the light of the lanthorn reached it, swamped it. The sickly sweet stench was overpowering, and he gasped with horror. The ghost was a dead body, what was left of Eakin, the cooper’s mate, his putrefying remains luminescing in the blackness.
With Tiberius a speck on the horizon, a soldier’s wind and Mr. Tewsley having the deck, it was time to take the wheel.
“Kydd on the wheel, sir?” said Doud, whose trick at the helm it was.
“Certainly,” Tewsley said, and nodded at the quartermaster, the petty officer in direct charge of the wheel. The man looked dubious, but stood back.
The easy breeze meant that only one helmsman was needed at the man-high wheel, but Doud directed Kydd over to the lee position on the other side. “Jus’ follow me. You’re lee helmsman now, and while I watches the sails ’n’ compass, you watches me. Ready?”
Kydd nodded, stepped up to the wheel and firmly grasped the spokes.
“Like this, mate,” Doud said.
Kydd saw that the hand on Doud’s inboard side was on an upper spoke while the outer hand was down on a lower spoke. He shifted his position and watched carefully. To his surprise the wheel felt alive – the little vibrations and jerks transmitted to him were a direct communication from the ship herself. He clasped the spokes tighter, watching Doud for his cues. He noticed that Doud’s chief interest seemed to be not the compass, but somewhere up aloft.
“That’s ’cos I’m watching the weather leech o’ the main course – it’ll start to shake if I goes too high into the wind. You gets a much quicker notice from the sails if you’re off course, much better’n the compass.”
It was very much a skilled job, much more so than Kydd had realized. It appeared that orders to the helm could take a bewildering number of forms – just to alter course away might be “hard a-starboard,” “bear up,” “helm a-weather” or “up helm,” each with its shades of meaning. But what Kydd found hardest was the simple sea convention that to starboard the helm would make the ship turn to port. It wasn’t until Doud mentioned that all helm orders had come unchanged down the years from the time when tillers were used to steer ships that he was able to make the mental adjustment.
“Right, mate, about time you took the barky yourself.”
Nervous, but thrilled, Kydd took over, Doud right behind him.
“Steady, mate! She’s carrying two spokes of weather helm – that means from the midships spoke, the one with the brass tip, you need two o’ the spokes a-weather.”
The wheel, as high as himself, felt huge at first, but to his great relief there was no sudden swing of the ship. The feel of the helm was a firm pressure to one direction, which he held steadily against, sensing the rush and vibration of the ship through the water coming straight to him. His confidence increased.
He peered down at the compass in the binnacle in front. The card hung lazily, the lubber’s line at south-sou’-west by a point west – he had spent a whole dog-watch boxing the compass to prepare for this moment. Then he squinted up at the main course, uncertain what the quartermaster meant when he growled, “Keep your luff!”
Doud helped from behind, with an “Up helm a spoke!” or “Ease her!”
Kydd looked forward, at the sweet curve of the deck under the sails going right forward to where the bows came together at the distant bowsprit, the whole dipping and rising majestically as it obediently followed his course ahead. Under his hands was a living thing, responding to his touch, his coaxing. He sensed that the slight quartering swell needed meeting with the helm as approaching waves varied their pressure on the rudder. Odd flaws and inconsistencies in the wind, which he hadn’t noticed before, now needed careful handling. A tiny flutter on the edge of the sail – up with the helm a couple of spokes and the flutter eased and disappeared. A lurch to leeward and over with the helm a-lee and back again – too much, the leech of the course started its restless flutter again; Kydd spun the wheel back – a bigger lurch, and bigger correction.
“Doud!” snapped the quartermaster.
Half gratefully, half reluctantly,Kydd surrendered the wheel to Doud, who killed the oscillation. “Nip over to the lee side, mate,” Doud invited, and Kydd spent the remainder of the trick as lee helmsman, absorbing the art and reflecting on the wonder of it all.