"Kydd" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stockwin Julian)

CHAPTER 4

At a somber dinner Kydd pushed away his wooden platter. It was not possible to eat after the scenes he had witnessed.

“Some says as how you’re not a real sailorman till you’ve got your red-checked shirt at the gangway,” said Bowyer.

Nobody laughed.

“Pat should never’ve got more’n half a dozen,” Doud said, playing with his hard tack. Various growled comments supported him, although Renzi sat in his usual, watchful silence.

“How the bloody hell can y’ take it like this?” Kydd flared. “Are we animals t’ be whipped? Even a pig farmer takes better care o’ his stock. What lunatic way is this?”

“Yer right enough, lad,” Claggett replied. “But yer have ter understand our sea ways too. See, we’re different to youse ashore where you hang a man for stealin’ a handkerchief or clap him in a bridewell fer bein’ half slewed in the street.”

“Me brother was transported ter Botany Bay fer twitchin’ just two squiddy cock pheasants,” Whaley agreed.

Claggett nodded. “Well, what I means to say is that if we chokes off everyone on board what does somethin’ wrong, why, soon we’d have no one left to man the barky. Besides which, makes no sense to bang anyone up in irons doing nothin’ fer too long, or we’d soon be gettin’ shorthanded. An’ that makes no sense if we meets a blow, or comes up with an enemy.” He finished his grog. “So everythin’ we does is short and sharp, and back on course again, yardarms square, ’n’ all a-taunto!”

In a low voice Bowyer added, “But there was no call for Tyrell to come the hard horse like that. Pat’s a right good hand. Has a short fuse only.”

Kydd brought up the subject again when the two returned to the maintop. Bowyer was working on one of the many blocks. His keen-edged knife split the frayed strapping, which pulled away from the deep score around the wooden shell of the block. He began a short splice on a new length of rope to create a circular shape.

“Joe, you really think floggin’ a man is right?”

“It’s one way o’ discipline, we do hold with that, but there’s them what makes too free with it, and that’s demeanin’ to our honor,” Bowyer said seriously, twisting the splice to make it lie more easily. His marline spike had an eye, a length of twine secured it to his belt and Kydd guessed that this was to prevent it from falling on the heads of those below.

“Here, clap on to this,” Bowyer said.

Kydd did as he was told, extending the circle so Bowyer could ply his wooden serving mallet to apply a tight spun yarn covering continuously around.

“It’s important to us – that is to say, we.” Bowyer smiled at Kydd. “A sailor has pride, ’n’ so he should. There’s none can hold a candle to us in the article o’ skill. I’d like to see one of them there circus akrybats step out on a topsail yard, take in a stuns’l when it comes on to blow. Or one of yer book-learned lawyers know the half of how to cat and fish a bower anchor.”

The covering finished, Bowyer put the serving mallet aside and flexed the stiff circle. He settled it over the scored part and offered the block to Kydd. “Hold it in place here, mate,” he said, and prepared to apply a stout round seizing at the base of the block to bowse the strap close in. “You see, Tom, when we gets a thunderin’ squall comes up and we has to get aloft and get in sail, we don’t want no misgivin’s about the jack next to yer on the yardarm. In the short of it, I’m saying we has our loyalty, and it’s to our mates, our ship and the Navy.” He seemed uncomfortable with expressing sentiment, but finished firmly, “But we expects it back, shipmate.” The seizing was finished with riding turns and crossed. “There you are, Tom – take pride in yer work ’n’ you can be sure it’ll return the compliment ’n’ look after you, just when yer come t’ need it.” Bowyer carefully gathered up the odd bits of twine and stranded rope, and put them in his leather belt pouch. “Ned, keep a weather eye for that toggled lift coming up, mate,” he told Doud. “Kydd is goin’ to be a-learnin’ some bends ’n’ hitches.”

He reached for a light jigger tackle belayed to a cleat and helped himself to its end. “Now, Tom, this could save yer life one day. It’s called the bowline, an’ it’s the only one you c’n tie one-handed.”

Bowyer was a good teacher, patient and with a vast fund of salty asides to give meaning to what was being done. He made Kydd practice each action until it was instinctive. “Middle of a gale o’ wind ain’t no time to be puzzlin’ over which way to bend on a line – your mates relying on yer an’ all.”

Kydd descended from the tops to the lower world with a twinge of regret. Something of Bowyer’s simple contentment at the exercise of his sea skills was attractive to him, especially when contrasted with the harsh imperatives of life on the lower deck. He imagined wistfully what it would be like to be a true son of the sea.

Toward evening one or two boats were still circling the ship, forlornly hoping for a change of heart, but whenever they closed on the Duke William they were menaced with the threat of a cold shot hove through their bottom. Eyes aboard the old ship watched hungrily, but it was common knowledge that Tyrell had told the Master-at-Arms that if any came aboard, then he himself would be turned before the mast as a common seaman. Even so, shoreside grog somehow found its way on board and before the end of the dog-watches there were eight men in irons – long bars along which iron shackles slid, seizing them by their legs as securely as the stocks ashore.

At supper there was little avoiding the topic.

“It’s fair burstin’ me balls just watching them trugs in the boats!” Whaley tried to laugh, but a cloud of depression hung about him.

Howell leered at him. “Like as not, boy, we’re goin’ to ground on our own beef bones waiting for somethin’ to happen, and no steppin’ ashore in the meantime, not with our hellfire jack of a first luff! So best you get used to the idea, cully!”

Kydd tried not to notice Bowyer’s downcast silence. He looked over at Wong. The man’s forehead glistened, but otherwise his bearing gave nothing away, and therefore Kydd almost missed the slight movement of his hands. His pale stubby fingers held a tankard, and as if of its own tiredness, the pewter slowly crumpled into a shapeless ball, the rest of Wong’s body remaining quite motionless.

“And so say us all, that so, mate?” Doud’s attempt to draw in Buddles failed, the man’s misery was so deep.

Doud got to his feet. “Gotta see a man about a dog,” he said, and hurried off, but not before receiving an approving wink from Claggett.

“Hear tell as how you’re skylarkin’ in the tops now, Tom.” Whaley looked at Kydd with interest: for a landman only days aboard to have made it aloft so soon must indicate something of his mettle.

Kydd flushed with pleasure. He was being included in the general conversation for the first time in this mess, and felt pleased that it was Whaley, the born seaman, who had done so. “Couldn’t help it – Joe would’ve given me a quiltin’ with a rope’s end, else,” he said, a wide smile firmly in place.

Howell stirred with irritation. “Said before, younker, you’re a land-man ’n’ not bred to the sea. Ye’ll take a tumble off a yard first blow we gets and -”

“Clap a stopper on it, Jonas. Man wants t’ be a sailor, is all.”

Doud arrived back, and Kydd recognized what was going on in the play with the jacket and Buddles’s pot.

Doud pushed across the pot with its dark mahogany contents. “Get this in yer, cuffin,” he said quietly. “Things’ll look different after, you’ll see.”

Buddles stared at him, then took a good swallow, sputtering his thanks. No one seemed to know quite what to say to him, and stared at the table or looked pensively at each other.

The conversation turned to other subjects over the greasy boiled salt pork, which followed.

When all was eaten, Bowyer spoke. “Tip us your ‘Dick Lovelace,’ Ned, I have a hankerin’ after somethin’ sad, mate.”

Doud gave a pleased smile. “Upon the usual terms, Joe, me old shell-back.”

“You shall have it, Ned.”

There was a general movement up from the table, and Kydd followed them up to the fo’c’sle just as the evening began to draw in. Warmed by his grog and pleasure at their company, he joined the others at the fore bitts. He found himself grinning benignly at total strangers.

Lanthorns were hung in the rigging, their golden pools of light more tawny than bright. Over the darkling sea he could see points of light appearing in the other ships also, and gradually he felt his open, cheerful attitude to life begin to return.

Another group of men were in a circle on the other side of the deck. A fiddler perched on the carronade began executing a neat but intricate air. A regular thumping resolved itself into a sailor in a white double-breasted waistcoat with brass buttons and blue and white striped trousers, dancing alone inside a rope circle. Kydd went across to watch. The sailor remained in the same spot, dancing a complex measure that involved the lower part of his body alone. With no expression whatsoever, arms folded immovably across his chest and rigid above the waist, he danced, feet pointing as they kicked, slapped and rose in time with the fiddler.

“Dancin’ heel ’n’ toe? Why, ’tis the hornpipe, matey!”

Kydd glanced back. Doud was making play of downing his due libation, and prepared to sing. This attracted the others, who very soon made themselves his adoring audience, finding places on the deck and fiferail. Kydd settled down among them.

“Well, I’m blessed, lads, see who’s come to join us!”

From up the ladder appeared Buddles, looking confused. Kydd tried to include him in the cheerful group, but the man did not seem to hear his words.

“Leave him be, Tom,” Claggett said.

The hornpipe crew finished, and the fiddler came over to sit crosslegged on the fore gratings. He tuned his fiddle carefully, experimentally plucking at the catgut.

More sailors arrived, some hanging back in the outer shadows. Even with his face obscured, Kydd could recognize Renzi. He was an enigma, a mysterious figure who made Kydd feel uneasy.

Theatrically Doud gargled a few trills, which brought the gathering to a quiet. They waited expectantly. “The tale of Dick Lovelace, shipmates, who in the character of foretopman in the Mermaid is carried off to the Spanish Main, away from his true love and on to his fatal destiny.”

The fiddler drew a long, low chord that split in two, leaving a single high note hanging. Doud stood on the grating next to him, legs akimbo, and sang. His voice was every bit as pure and clear as Kydd remembered from his experience at the maintop, and the clean, sparing accompaniment on the violin complemented it well. They all sat enraptured as the melancholy song continued, the chorus always the same:

Turn to thy love and take a kiss

This gold about thy wrist I’ll tie

And always when thou look’st on this

Think on thy love and cry.

The song finished and there was a stillness, each man allowing his thoughts to steal away to secret places and treasured times, faces softening at intimate memories.

Buddles, it seemed, was bent on destroying the mood. He faltered unsteadily forward, pushing through the men toward the forward end of the fo’c’sle. Cradled in front of him was a twelve-pounder cannon ball.

“What’re yer doing, you stupid great oaf? Holy Christ! Can’t you steer straight, you useless farmer?”

One seaman leaped to his feet and scruffed Buddles’s shirt. “Look, whoever you are, mate, get outa here before I douse yer glims!”

Buddles looked at him in bewilderment. “It’s Mary!” he said thickly.

The seaman dropped his hands in astonishment. “Wha -”

“No – please let me pass!” Buddles resumed his shamble forward. No one stopped him. He reached the larboard carronade and stopped, breathing heavily, for he had reached the farthest he could go forward. He stood bewildered.

“What’s he doing? Shies that over the side ’n’ Mantrap’ll be down on us like thunder!”

“He’s brainsick, poor lubber!”

“Let him go, he’s harmless. How about ‘Black Eyed Susan,’ Ned?”

Buddles didn’t move, standing irresolute.

Attention quickly returned to Doud, who took another pull at his grog in preparation. The fiddler produced a gay introductory elaboration in the right key and prepared for Doud’s entry note.

“Stop him, you fools! Stop him – blast you!” Tewsley, carrying a glass of wine, stepped out into the lanthorn light in his ruffled evening shirt. He gestured sharply forward with his glass.

Buddles had mounted the low fife-rail and from there was shuffling out along the projecting cathead, still cradling the cannon ball.

Some of the quicker-witted reached out, trying to seize his jacket. Buddles looked back, a look of utter contentment on his cadaverous face. “I have to go to Mary now,” he said quietly, as though comforting a child, and embracing the heavy iron shot closer, stepped out into the void.

There was a rush to the side. A lanthorn was brought, but all that could be seen on the glitter of oily black water was a continuing stream of bubbles.

“Rowguard!” roared Tewsley, but the boat was half a ship’s length away, and all Kydd could do was stare at the diminishing popple of bubbles and think in cold horror of the man’s life ending in so many fathoms of dark water below them.

He stumbled away from the excited crowd, needing to be alone. He brushed against someone. It was Renzi, standing back from the others.

“You – you,” Kydd gasped, “get out o’ my way.” He made instinctively for the ladder to the deck below. There he turned and lurched to an open gunport, retched into the darkness and hung there, weak and trembling, despising himself for his weakness.

It took a while for him to register what he was hearing from the tight group of men sitting farther forward. They spoke very quietly, but there was no mistaking Stallard’s urgent, hectoring tones. “For fuck’s sake, you can do somethin’! Why do yer stand for it? Never heard of any being made to eat shite like on board this boat!”

Kydd heard a growled reply too soft to distinguish, then, “O’ course! That’s what they think yer worth. Meanest lobsterback gets a whole shillin’ a day.”

There was more rumbling. “Ah, now that’s where you’re dead wrong. If you ain’t been paid, then law’s on your side – and my bloody oath, yer don’t have to work until you have, see. And I oughta know – tell yer about it one day, I will.

“So we finds somewhere we can talk. Just don’t want to hear any more low cackle about lyin’ down and takin’ anything they wants to dish out.”

The voices died away, and Kydd could hear no more. When he pulled himself back inboard they had gone. He drifted listlessly back down to the lower deck, listening without interest to the desultory chatter, and was glad when the end of the dog-watch brought the hammocks down.

He lay back trying vainly to keep the misery-etched face of Buddles out of his mind. The violent contrasts of the day had left him empty and sick. It was no good: sleep was beyond him and he determined on activity as the only alternative.

He eased himself to the deck in the blackness, grateful that his hammock was so close to the main hatch. Careful not to disturb the sleepers whom he could hear breathing, snoring and grunting, he shuffled along on hands and knees. It was only when he got to the hatchway that he stopped to consider where he would go. The next deck above would be the same as this, full of sleeping bodies, and indeed the one above it, for all the time in port there would be no need to maintain a full watch on deck of half the men. Then he remembered the orlop deck below where he had spent his first night aboard, courtesy of the boatswain. The long walkway around the periphery – that would do.

The orlop had a pair of lanthorns at the after end. The men in irons lay sprawled asleep on the deck, a marine sentry suspiciously glassy-eyed against a door. The rest of the orlop forward was in blackness, and Kydd began pacing around the walkway.

He was totally unprepared for the sudden attack. An iron-hard pair of hands gripped him by the throat and dragged him choking and helpless across the deck to the gratings of the main hatch. “Shall I croak ’im?” his attacker whispered hoarsely. Kydd was forced to his knees.

“Wait – we’ll find out what he knows first,” returned an urgent whisper.

A tiny light, a purser’s glim – a reed in an iron saucer burning rancid fat – was uncovered, and in its sputtering light Stallard’s face appeared, devilish and delighted. “Well, if it ain’t me old royster, Tom Kydd.” There was just enough luminosity to reveal about half a dozen other figures among the shadows.

The pressure on his throat eased and he dropped to the deck, heaving burning breaths in spasms. A hand grabbed his hair and forced his head back. “Just we needs to know why you’re creepin’ around down here, Kydd. Stands to reason you’re not here for the sake of yer health,” Stallard said.

Kydd gulped air and tried to order his thoughts against the roaring in his ears and the savage adrenaline rush. “Couldn’t sleep – needed to -”

His hair was jerked savagely back, and a meaty hand gripped his throat. “You gull us ’n’ you’re shark bait, matey.”

“No – he’s square, I know him from a-ways back.” Stallard’s look became speculative. “See, me ’n’ me friends here don’t think it right we should have to go out to sea in this leaky old boat and drown like rats, so we’re goin’ to take action.” He looked around for confirmation, which he got. “The committee has to meet here, ’cos you know why, and we voted we stand for our rights as human beings, not poxy slaves.

“We’re now goin’ to organize the whole crew, and when those fuckin’ whistles blow to force us to sea, we’re just goin’ to refuse to sail.”

Kydd’s reply was left unsaid at the sight of Stallard’s wolfish grin.

“And that means we ain’t a-goin’ anywhere! Like to see their faces when we stands up for the first time and demands our rights. Fair stonkered, they’ll be! They can’t do a bloody thing if we’re all together in this.” He nudged Kydd. “And that’s why we wants to know where you stand in all this, me old mate.”

Kydd said nothing.

“Don’t forget, Kydd, you make a noise, someone finds us, you’ll be seen right here with us all, so you may as well come in now and do somethin’ useful.” Stallard rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Yeah – for some reason, people like you, they’ll listen to what yer say, and we’re gonna need leaders when we makes our stand.” He stood up. “We starts work tomorrow, Tom, ’n’ first meeting at the tables at noon. See you then, mate.” Stallard held out his hand, and Kydd knew that if he didn’t take it he would never leave the orlop alive.

In the blackness he couldn’t find his way back to his hammock. Not that sleep was possible – his mind was racing. He crawled over to the side of the ship and sat with his back to the hull and his head in his hands. There would only be one end to such madness: mutiny in the Navy could never be allowed to succeed, whatever the provocation – even he could see that. According to a local penny broadsheet, even after four years they were still ranging the Great South Sea for the remaining mutineers of the Bounty. Tyrell would have no compunction against sending armed men against them instantly, leaving no time for discussion or negotiation. There would be bloodshed, and if he did not show on the right side Stallard would be too desperate to allow him the luxury of time to decide.

His thoughts rushed on. Supposing he were to warn the quarterdeck right now? He would not be believed without evidence, and in any event his very being rebelled against betrayal. Should he wake Bowyer and ask him what to do? Easier said than done – all he knew was that Bowyer slung his hammock with the mizzen topmen, and they were lost somewhere in this vast city afloat.

Restlessly Kydd eased his aching limbs. The deep groans and creaks seemed to take on disturbing meaning in the claustrophobic dark. Perhaps Stallard was right: if the ship was a deathtrap, then indeed they had a case. The newspapers always seemed to carry reports of ships lost at sea for unknown reasons; it was easy to think of one now. But Stallard was a hothead, fomenting trouble to satisfy his craving for cheap adulation; he had no real idea of the consequences of his actions. This situation was different: there was nowhere to hide afterward and it was most certainly a hanging matter.

Time dragged on and Kydd began to feel drowsy. He would leave decisions to the morning, after he had spoken to Bowyer.

He was drifting off, hardly noticing the bumps and thuds on the hull, when he was jerked awake by the urgent squeal of boatswains’ calls and pandemonium everywhere. “Haaaands ahoy! All the haands! All hands on deck!”

There was groaning, curses and lanthorns waving about in the gloom. Kydd was jostled violently in the confusion. He tried to make sense of what was going on, and grabbed the arm of a boatswain’s mate.

“Haven’t you heard, mate? Captain’s returned aboard sudden-like, and it’s the French – they’re out! The Frogs are at sea!”

“What the stinkin’ hell are yer doin’ still here?” Elkins pulled Kydd round to face him. “Yer station for unmoorin’ ship is the main sheets – geddup there!” He knocked Kydd away from him and stormed about in the chaos, looking for the men of his division.

It was bedlam on the night-black lower deck, its hellish gloom lit fitfully by lanthorns – a struggling mass of men, white eyes rolling in the shadows, the occasional gleam of equipment. Kydd’s heart thudded. In a matter of hours he might be fighting for his life out there, somewhere. His mind flooded with images in which he could see himself cut down by maddened Frenchmen as they swarmed aboard after a fierce battle. He gulped and mounted the ladders for the upper deck.

On deck, the darkness was lifting, slowly, reluctantly. A dank, cold dawn began the day.

The decks themselves were unrecognizable – braces, sheets and halliards were off their belaying pins and led out along the decks for easy running. The upper yards were alive with men. Urgent shouts shattered the dawn.

Along the somber line of warships there was a similar bustle and lights began to appear all along the shore.

Bowyer was already there, but did not answer Kydd’s greeting, shoving a rope into his hand. “Clap on ter that and don’t move from there.”

The landmen were pushed into place, their slow incomprehension maddening the petty officers, who used their starters liberally on backs and shoulders, while the seamen moved far above them – on the tops, out along the yards and to the end of the jibboom.

The pace slowed, and Kydd saw a coalescing of groups about the officers. Tewsley paced deliberately, accompanied by Elkins, whose face wore a look of dedicated ferocity.

“Haaands to the braces!”

One by one, the massive lower yards were altered from their perfect cross-ship position to a starboard-farthest-forward angle, the better to catch the cold, steady breeze from the northwest.

On the fo’c’sle Kydd could see the men crowded around the anchor tackle, although he could not see what they were about. He knew that deep below him at that moment the capstan would be manned by every hand left over from duties on deck, and he was grateful to have his work out in the open.

The bustle subsided, and Kydd ventured a glance at Bowyer. He was looking up to the men waiting on the yards, and sniffing about for the precise direction of the wind.

He noticed Kydd and said quietly, “Easy enough – she’ll cast under topsails to larb’d, ’n’ then out going large. He shouldn’t have anythin’ to worry of.”

Bowyer was subdued; Kydd realized that he was probably thinking of the woman he was leaving. “Joe, d’you think there’ll be a battle?”

“Mebbe, and then again mebbe not. Who knows?” Bowyer looked away, and down to the rope he held. He let it drop and walked to the side of the ship facing Portsmouth and did something with a coiled line. There seemed no point in following.

“Grapple that buoy, damn it!” came faintly from forward, followed by a triumphant, “Man the cat! Walk away with it, you lead bellies!”

From the quarterdeck echoed a booming shout. “Make sail there! Lead along topsail sheets and halliards. Lay out and loose!”

Kydd saw sail suddenly blossom from the topsail yards. The men on deck worked furiously at the tacks and sheets.

“Lay aft the braces, you lubbers – larboard head, starboard main, and larboard your cro’jick!”

From having her head so steadfastly into the wind, tethered by her anchor, Duke William began to move ever so slightly astern. With counter-bracing on the fore, her bow paid off to leeward, faster and faster.

“Haul taut! Brace abox!”

Kydd was working too hard to watch, not really understanding what he was doing but determined to give it his best. The wind, more brisk than he remembered, had a salt tang to it.

“Starboard head braces! Brace around those headyards!”

There was a distinct lurch as the headsails took up at precisely the time Duke William ceased her sternward motion. Having curved around to take the northwester on her starboard cheeks, she now paused; the big courses were sheeted in and she straightened for the run south to St. Helens.

Portsmouth now lay astern, the little cluster of dwellings, tap-houses and Tudor forts dwindling into an anonymous blur. Kydd found that he had been too busy to think of the forlorn tiny scatter of women who were all that remained of those still hoping against hope at the Sally Port. They would know now that the only way they would see their menfolk would be in their dreaming.

Astern also was the fat bulk of the ninety-eight-gun Tiberius smoothly following in their wake, the whiteness of her new sails evidence of her recent docking. Ahead was Royal Albion, her stern galleries glittering before the salt stains of the open sea could dull them. A pair of frigates was even farther ahead, under a full press of sail, drawing away visibly on a course that would take them ranging far ahead out to sea.

The low dark green and black of the Isle of Wight slid by in the early morning, the busy little waves hustling inshore toward the far-off port, which Kydd knew would be waking to another dawn, another working day. He hoped that his duties would keep him on deck. He felt both exhilaration and fear; the altered perceptions that come from leaving land and committing body and spirit to the sea. In one sense he yearned for the certainties of life on land, the regularities that made up the day, the steady work and sleep, the warmth of being part of a wider community. But he was aware as well that, alone of his family, he was going to see great times, be part of a world event. Deep within he felt his spirit respond to the challenge – the young wig-maker of Guildford was fading into the past.

They passed St. Helens and shaped course more westerly for the Channel. Portsmouth finally slipped out of sight behind the Foreland and they steadily forged ahead down the coast for Ventnor and the last of the land. The breeze freshened and at nine knots Duke William was sailing about as fast as she ever would. The sea hissed along her sides at an astonishing rate. Kydd doubted that even a horse at a fast trot would find it possible to keep up.

They reached St. Catherine’s Point, and beyond the prominence ahead in grand fashion Royal Albion reared up, then fell in a broad swash of white. Then it was their turn, the first sea sent in earnest by the broad Atlantic, sending their bow with its great jibboom spearing up to the sky, then to crash down in a stomach-stopping smother of foam.

“Aye, see how she curtsies to Neptune when she reaches his kingdom,” Bowyer said, smiling.

Sails bellied out and hardened as the regular winds of the open sea predominated. In place of the fluky, changeable airs of inshore there was a steadiness, an assertion of the primacy of sea over land.

Kydd’s exhilaration began to ebb. The familiar outline of hills, fields and towns was now an anonymous green and black line becoming more insignificant each time he looked. To a countryman like him it was deeply disturbing to relate only to a wilderness of water, with nothing that could remotely be termed a fixed object.

The ship was now very much alive. She rose and fell with vigor to the waves, forcing Kydd to move from one handhold to another, too afraid to trust his feet. Bowyer didn’t even notice, securing the lines into seamanlike hanks at the belaying pins, his movements sure and precise. “Fair wind at the moment – should make soundings in a day or so if there’s no more westing in it,” he said, after a considered look at the ragged sky.

“And then we’ll face up with the French – the enemy?” Kydd tried not to sound fearful.

“The Mongseers? No, mate, with this wind they’re away off out of it,” Bowyer said. “Won’t come up against them till we weather Ushant, ’n’ then only if they wants to come our way.” He smiled briefly. “They may be out, but it won’t be this way they’re coming. Off to the Caribbee or somewhere, my guess. Anyhow, our job’s to put a stopper on any Frog that wants to get to sea from now on.”

Kydd hung on as he took this in. So there would be no battle soon – he didn’t question Bowyer’s judgment. He looked up at the masts. Now clothed with sails, they gave an impression of a certain clean beauty and grim purpose. He tried a few paces and hung on. There was definitely a rhythm: as he watched, the line of the deck forward lifted, hung and settled, and lifted again. He tried a few more steps and looked back at Bowyer, who grinned at him. Boldly he crossed the deck to the windward side and grabbed a shroud, the wind in his teeth. Playfully, the wind plucked his hat and sent it spinning over the deck and out to leeward.

“Don’t worry, cuffin, I’ll find you another – but promise me next time you rigs yer chin-stay when you’re on deck,” Bowyer said.

There was never a definite time. Never an exact defining instant at which England finally vanished. One moment the far line of the land was there, only just, and the next time Kydd remembered to look, there was nothing but a horizon innocent of anything but the rimming seascape. It should have been a special moment, leaving his native country astern, but he only felt a curious separation, one in which England carried on with its own cares, duties and pleasures down one line of existence, while Kydd and his watery world went another.

At breakfast on the lower deck Kydd kept quiet. There was just too much to take in. Between decks there were new sounds: creaks, groans and random cracks that gradually resolved into a regular sequence – a long-drawn-out deep-throated shudder, followed by a volley of creaks, before a descending sigh of minor sounds. It was also a strange feeling ’tween-decks when there was no horizon visible to act as cue; body perceptions said that the entire structure was rearing up and plunging down, but the eyes just as firmly insisted that everything was solidly unmoving.

No sooner had they completed breakfast than Kydd was startled by the sound of a drum, loud in the confined space of the lower deck. Cutting through the hubbub in rhythmic rolls, its martial sound volleyed irresistibly, an urgent beating, on and on. Instantly there was turmoil. It was clear that this was nothing ordinary – the concentrated look on men’s faces told him that. With thumping heart it dawned on him that this must be the call to arms, a clarion call to duty. If this was battle he could not be more unready. His anxiety turned to fear that he would let his shipmates down, that by his act others would suffer. He stumbled through the welter of activity.

“Bear a fist, then, you useless lubber!” yelled an unknown figure, passing over a detached mess table.

He joined the stream of men striking the tables, mess traps and all their homely articles into the hold below.

The guns were being readied. Where before they had been mere background features of the living spaces, much the same as the old oak sideboard in the living room in Guildford, now they seemed to come alive, to crouch like beasts in Kydd’s sharpened imagination.

“Kydd – is that you?” A young lieutenant with a frown looked at him.

“Yes, sir!”

“Number-three gun, then,” the lieutenant said irritably, more interested in his piece of paper. He moved on.

Kydd moved smartly to the gun indicated. It seemed enormous. Around it was a crowd of men casting it loose and taking up positions. The gun captain acknowledged his presence with a surly nod, busy checking his equipment.

The lower deck was crowded with men, even though only one side of guns was in operation, on the weather, and therefore higher, side. With shrill squeals gunport lids were raised on pulleys, allowing natural light to flood in and giving a close view of the sea outside. It suddenly dawned on Kydd why the inside of the ports and timbers around the guns were painted in so bright a scarlet. The wind streamed straight in through the gunports, making him shiver but bringing a welcome clean sea tang. He wondered what else might be out there, and ducked down to look out.

The sea, bright after the gloom, slid past only a few feet down, individual flecks and flurries in perfect clarity. But of the enemy there was nothing, just endless marching waves, looking much closer and more alive than on deck. It was surprising to feel the calming effect of the horizon. He had made his first vital discovery of the sea: that in a world where every single thing seemed to be in motion, here was something that was fixed and solid, could be relied on – the line of the horizon. Straightening, he dared a look at the man next to him. He was thin and ugly, and wore a beaver hat as shapeless as it was characterful.

The man glanced around and caught Kydd staring at him. He was very ugly, his face foreshortened like a monkey, the forehead disappearing too quickly into a stubble of hair. “You lookin’ for a souse in the chops, cock?” he croaked, in a grog-ravaged voice.

Kydd mumbled something and tried to give his attention to his opposite number, an Iberian by appearance. The man saw him, but looked away in contempt, probably because he was a landman.

The gun captain straightened, and held up his arm. The man was all muscle, and with his striped shirt and red bandanna closely tied over his hair, resembled a pirate. His eyes were hard and took in everything.

“Silence! Silence, fore and aft!” It was the young lieutenant, shrill with anxiety, pacing down the midline of the ship. “The Captain desires me to inform you all that it is his intention to exercise the great guns every morning without fail.”

So much for the enemy and mortal combat, thought Kydd, not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

It seemed the officer did not know whether to keep his black-japanned speaking trumpet behind his back or ready in front of him. “We have the heaviest guns in the ship, and therefore the most decisive weapons in battle. If we can hit harder, faster, then we will win. Otherwise we will lose. So we are going to practice and practice until we are good enough – and then we practice some more until we are the best. Mark my words, any man who hangs back will be dealt with instantly.”

The seamen waiting by their guns watched him tight-faced or warily as their experience told them.

“Gun captains, prove crews in your own time! Carry on.”

The man in the red bandanna spat on his hands. “Me name’s Stirk.” He fixed them with his fierce eyes. “Now, there’s them what don’t know me methods yet” – he took in several of them with his glance -“and there’s them what do. Ain’t that right, Doggo?”

He was addressing the ugly man next to Kydd, who grinned a gaptoothed acknowledgment. “Yer has yer ways, is the right of it, Toby.”

“Then let’s get to it. Slow time it is. Cast loose, Jewkes.”

The gun was lashed by its muzzle into docile obedience like an ox by its nose. Jewkes, a nervous, slightly built man, pulled himself astride it and cast off the lashing, which he coiled neatly on the eyebolt.

“Watch yer arse,” another said, and paid out the side tackles in long fakes, while others passed over the implements of gunnery – crow, handspike, sponge.

“Level guns!”

Once the quoins were slammed in place, the cocked-up appearance of the massive piece took on a more straight-eyed and businesslike appearance.

“Tompion!”

The muzzle gaped open.

Stirk stood back and looked appraisingly at them all. “Right, let’s ’ave a few changes. Bull, I want you on the crow – yeah, take it, then. Pedro, we’ll ’ave you on the rammer this time.”

A barrel-chested man with a near bald head pushed out and grabbed the crow from unresisting hands. The Iberian sauntered across to claim a long stave tipped with a cup-shaped piece of wood. Tension was reflected in his glittering dark eyes.

“Doggo, I want you to lead on the left tackle, ’n’ you, whassername, join ’im.”

Kydd moved across and found himself in a line of men at the tackle fall. He placed himself unobtrusively at the end.

Stirk considered. “Well, that’ll do fer now. Remember, you doesn’t pull yer weight, I comes down on yer hard, as yez know.” He took his position at the breech of the gun. “Now, ye know me method – we gets it straight afore we gets it fast. So we go through the drill, b’ order. Stand by!” He glared at his gun crew one by one. “Run out th’ gun!”

While those with implements watched, Kydd and the others tugged at the tackle. The monster gun sullenly ground a foot or two toward the port. On this point of sailing the deck was canted, so the work was all uphill.

“Stap me,” marveled Stirk, “but you’re a useless pawky lot! Let’s ’ave some real ’eavy in it, then.”

The gun moved out faster, but Kydd was dismayed at the effort required to shift the three tons of cold iron.

“That’s better! Now, come on, gemmun, remember yer drill! Youse – clear the breechin’ from the truck. You ’n’ you fakes out the tackle falls nice ’n’ neat. Yer don’t want me remindin’ yer all the time, now, do yer? So – prime! We doesn’t take action here. Point yer gun!”

He looked at Jewkes, standing by nervously. “Look, mate,” he said, “keep yer trainin’ tackle close up-bight yer fall after she fires, ’cos side tackles’ll be runnin’ out quick ’n’ they don’t want it foulin’. Handspike. I want youse right here ’n’ watchin’ me all the time – t’ain’t no good admirin’ the view. Now the piece is ready to fire. Hey! Put that gun tackle down, you, Kydd! Gun goes orf, it’ll fly out ’n’ take you with it!”

Kydd’s face burned.

“Gun has fired. Denison ’n’ Cullen with Jewkes on the trainin’ tackle fer now.”

With the cannon’s recoil they would need no training tackle for the real thing.

The long black gun rumbled inboard, helped by the inclined deck and the training tackle fixed to the rear. Fully run in, its massive size, chest high to Kydd, was overawing.

A brief image of the parson and his gun – there had been a spiteful crack from a barrel not much bigger than his little finger: what kind of earth-splitting sound would come from a gaping maw nearly the size of his head, Kydd wondered. His palms began to sweat.

“Yours now, Lofty. Let me see some speed.” The man was good at the task. Taking advantage of the gunport, he sinuously arced out of the port to face inboard, plying his sheepskin-tipped stave into the muzzle at the same time. Three twists to the left going in, three to the right coming out. “Let’s be ’avin you, then, Cullen. Where’s yer powder?”

A doleful-looking sailor went through the motions of going to the midline of the vessel, where a grinning ship’s boy pretended elaborately to give him a cartridge from a long covered container.

“Load with cartridge!” Stirk ordered.

The invisible cartridge was stuffed down the muzzle to Cullen’s armpit. He whipped out his arm, by which time the Iberian had advanced with his rammer. Thrusting forcefully several times, he leaped back, the action like a dance movement.

“Wait for it, Pedro – me priming wire ’as to feel the cartridge, ’n’ then I signals an’ that’s when you carry on.” He gave a wintry smile. “But that was smartly done, cully. Shot yer gun.”

An imaginary wad was slapped into the muzzle as two men bent to the shot rack, pretending to heave a shot on to the cradle. It would need two to carry the great thirty-two-pound shot to the muzzle, where the cradle would tilt the ball in.

“Pedro?”

But the dark-eyed man was already there, plunging the rammer down. “Wad!” he shouted before Stirk could speak.

A “wad” was passed into the muzzle, more plunges with the rammer and they stood back.

“Good. Now we does it in one. Run out the gun!”

The exercise warmed Kydd, and he tore off his jacket and waistcoat. It was not hard to learn the motions; the difficult part was to learn to pull together with the others and to stop his muscles trembling at the unaccustomed effort.

Ahead of him on the tackle, others were finding it hard as well, with panting and feverish mopping of foreheads. Doggo had doffed his shirt altogether, the feral hair over his neck and shoulders glistening with sweat. “Now, lads, yer needs to get low into it, like this,” he said, leaning into the line of the rope.

The young lieutenant appeared distracted. “Cease exercise. Stand down.”

Stirk sat on the rear of the gun carriage, looking at them with a sardonic smile. A desultory chatter drifted around.

“What’re we waitin’ for, then?” Jewkes said, peevish.

Bull Lynch snorted. “Why – yer goin’ anywhere?”

“Let’s jus’ get the exercise over. Need to get me head down fer a caulk.”

The lieutenant reappeared, looking apprehensive. He raised his speaking trumpet. “Pay attention, the gundeck. The Captain means to exercise the great guns today with the discharge of one round from each gun.”

He hesitated, then ordered, “All guns, load with cartridge!”

Kydd’s heart quickened: he would hear the guns speak now.

Stirk rose. “C’mere, nipper,” he said, to their ship’s boy. “Now run along an’ get me pouch from the gunner’s mate.”

Kydd had noticed the ship’s boys stationed at each gun, some no more than ten years old, and had been touched by their youthful high spirits. He could not help but wonder how they could possibly endure in a great sea battle.

“You, Denison, match tub – and, Cullen, yer knows yer sponge’ll need water.” Stirk checked carefully around, then went to the gunlock atop the breech of the gun. Carefully removing the lead apron, he attached a lanyard to the mechanism. Cocking it, he watched closely as it clicked a fat spark. Satisfied, he straightened. “Thanks, younker,” he said to the panting boy waiting behind with the pouch. He smiled at the lad. “So where’s yer ear tackle, then?”

The boy brought out a grubby white rag, which Stirk fastened with mock roughness around his head. It was in the form of two circlets that went around the head, intersecting at the ears where there were large pads.

The others began tying their kerchiefs and bandannas over their ears as well. Kydd felt awkward and apprehensive as he followed suit.

Slinging the powder horn over his shoulder, Stirk waited for the loading process to complete. This time, there was a real cartridge – a lightgray cylinder with coarse stitching, which held Kydd with a horrifying fascination. It went in, bottom end first, seam downward.

“Slow time, lads. We get it right first.”

More carefully than before, the dark Spaniard plied his rammer. This time Stirk had his thumb on the touchhole to tell by the escaping air when the charge was seated.

A wad and then the iron ball itself. To Kydd, it looked huge. Stirk noticed his interest. “Right ship-smasher, that. Go through two feet o’ solid oak at a mile, that ’un will.”

The cradle tilted and the cannon ball disappeared into the gun. Another wad would be needed to keep it hard up against the cartridge against the roll of the ship.

“Run out!”

In a sudden bout of nervous energy, Kydd hauled mightily on the tackle.

Stirk took his priming wire, more an iron spike, and by piercing the cartridge through the vent hole ensured that naked powder was waiting for the jet of flame from the quill tube. The gunlock pan was filled with bruised gunpowder from the powder horn, and Stirk raised his hand. “Stand by to fire!”

A flurry of clicks echoed along the gundeck as the gunlocks were cocked. Gun captains stood behind their weapons, lanyard in hand, and kept their eyes on the lieutenant, who plainly was waiting for word from the quarterdeck far above.

The ship heaved slightly, muffled creaks startling in the silence. The morning wind was strengthening and buffeting those closest to the gunport. Kydd caught a glimpse of a lone seabird wheeling low over the sea.

Still the waiting. The tension became unbearable.

Kydd stole a look at Stirk, who was calm but poised. He wiped moist hands on his trousers.

A distant shouting and a face appeared at the forehatch. “Stand by. Number-one gun – fire!”

In a split second, Kydd saw it all. At the first gun, only two guns forward, the gun captain tugged hard at the lanyard. After the briefest delay came the stupefying din, the visceral push of the blast. It left him stunned. Then a vast, enveloping mass of smoke roiled out for a hundred yards or more before it was blown back in again. It swirled around them, briefly hiding the waiting gun crews.

“Number-two gun – fire!”

Kydd knew what to expect and closed his eyes. The cannon was nearer and there was a vicious iron ring to the blast. He flinched; a trembling started in his knees.

Now it was their turn. Stirk stepped back to the full length of the lanyard and waited for the order, a peculiar grin playing on his lips.

“Number-three gun – fire!”

A series of images was split by violence – the stabbing tongue of fire at the muzzle instantly replaced by acrid gunsmoke, the maddened plunge of the great cannon past Kydd to the rear, the frantic whipping of the side tackle until the gun came up to its breeching with a bass twang, the artistic arching of Stirk’s body to allow the cannon to charge past as if he were in a bullring.

And then it was over.