Kydd (17 page)

“Nor’-westerly like this can go on fer days,” Howell muttered, staring at the ship’s side.

Claggett glanced up. “An’ what else can you expect in Biscay of an Eastertide, Jonas?” he said.

Kydd put down his tankard and turned to Claggett. “So this is y’r storm?” He grabbed for the table edge as a roll turned into an unexpected lurch.

“Not as who would say a storm, mate,” Claggett replied. “More of what we’d call a fresh gale, is all.” He took another pull at his grog and glanced at Bowyer. “A storm is somethin’ that makes yer very ’umble,
like — it’s when the hooker has ter give up goin’ ter where it wants ter go and she lies to, or scuds, only where the storm wants ter send ’er.”

Bowyer grimaced softly. “He’s right, cuffin. A real blow can be very awesome, makes yer right fearful when yer comes down to it, like.” He stared through Kydd. “Comes a time when yer knows that there’s a chance that yer might not live — sea jus’ tears at the barky like it was an animal, no mercy a-tall. That’s when yer remembers yer mother an’ yer sins.”

Claggett nodded slowly. “It’s when yer finds out if yer ship is well found ’n’ you can trust yer life to ’er. Or not.”

Kydd took another swallow of his rum and listened.

Bowyer stirred uncomfortably. “Fer me, I feels pertic’lar for the merchant jacks in foul weather — ship’s gen’rally small ’n’ always the crew is less’n it should be, owners being so horse-cockle mean ’n’ all. Poor bastards, they might fight fer their lives, but it’s for nothing — that size in wild weather they got no chance a-tall.”

With a crash from forward and a rumble of gear along the side,
Duke William
rolled before an unseen rogue wave, seawater spurting from the caulking around the lee gunports to add to the swill on deck.

Kydd was no longer a prey to seasickness. He had quickly developed a feel for the ocean’s rhythms, and he could sense the shape and timing of the seas that rolled under
Duke William
’s keel, learning how to move with rather than fight against the motion. And after his experiences in the hoy at the Nore he knew enough to be grateful for this. He refused to join in the cruel taunting of those seasick unfortunates in the waist, helpless in their misery.

Pinto arrived with the noon meal. In the absence of a galley fire it was poor stuff — chunks of cheese so hard it needed real effort to carve at it, even with sharp seamen’s blades. Kydd’s gorge rose when he noticed long red worms squirming at the cut, but raw hunger griped at him.

“Saw bosun at the fore shrouds lookin’ wry,” Doud said. “Chucks’ll have us rackin’ at them lee lanyards this afternoon, I guess.” He chewed hungrily at his hard tack.

Whaley gave a short laugh. “Seen the weather brace o’ the fore topsail? Bin so many times end for end it’s naught but shakin’s waitin’ to be damned!”

“An’ the bowsprit gammonin’,” Doud added. “Bobstay’s loose, ’n’ in this blow the spar’s workin’ somethin’ cruel.”

Howell’s lips curled in a sneer. “Goes ter show, barky is rotten in the riggin’ and the deadwork as well. Ship only keeps afloat by the maggots holdin’ hands. Be a bloody miracle if we ever makes port agen, I says.”

Pumping began at three bells, and Kydd was sent to the chain pump in the second half-hour spell. The massive crank, worked by twenty men, could send the endless chain clattering around vigorously — two tons of water an hour could clear the pump well in a watch.

It was hard work; in the confined space of the lower deck the rotating crank handle needed a wide range of movement, the weight of the column of bilge water and the resistance of dozens of leather disks a deadweight to be heaved against in a tedious round of movement. The clanking, rattling boredom went on and on, Kydd’s back taking the worst of the strain, and it was an intense relief to hear the “Spell-oh!” at the end of his trick. He stretched and stumped up the ladders to rejoin his watch, sure that the blast of wind that met him as he emerged on deck was wilder than before.

“
Haaaands
to shorten sail!”

Bowyer came up, his hair plastered to his skull and water streaming from his tarpaulin cape. He bent forward to shout to Kydd: “We’re going ter play safe ’n’ close reef topsails, then bend on the fore storm staysail — but none o’ yer tricks now, mate, it’s too chancy.”

The sea was now smoking at its crests, a continuous horizontal sleeting of fine spume covering the surface like a ground mist. The wind held real force, its sound a continuous low roar as it passed through the taut rigging, and Kydd held grimly to the fore and aft rigged lifelines.

The watch gathered forward-the fo’c’sle was a frightening place to be. Ahead, the bowsprit out to the flying jibboom rose skywards as though to spear the racing dark clouds before swooping down to smash into the waves ahead in a violent paroxysm of white. It stayed under for long seconds before rising, streaming water. At times a rampaging comber would thump violently against the weather bow, sending solid water sheeting over the little group, making Kydd gasp afterward at the cruel cold of the wind blasting against his sodden clothing.

Kydd felt a hand on his arm. It was Corrie. “Now yer can see why they calls it the widder-maker,” he yelled, pointing at the bowsprit. “Some cove’s gotta get out there jus’ because they left it late.”

“Stir yerself, Corrie!” Bowyer growled. “Yer got work to do.”

With lifelines around their waists paid out slowly, the two, with three others, timed their move out onto the gangboard gratings of the bowsprit to the horse, a single footrope dangling in space under the big spar. The bows plunged — the men dropped to the bowsprit and clung. Kydd watched dismayed as white seas closed viciously over them. The onrushing wave then exploded against the beakhead in sheets of spray, which fell heavily on him. By the time he had cleared his eyes the bowsprit was emerging with dark dripping figures still clinging.

In short, hasty jerks the fore topmast staysail came down and was gathered in. Bowyer climbed to the top of the broad spar, his arm around the forestay, fisting the wildly flogging staysail. His eyes, however, did not miss the next wave, which seethed in, leaving his head and shoulders clear. When the wave receded Kydd saw that Bowyer’s tarpaulins had been stripped off, hanging loose. He kicked them away and continued in his shirt. The storm staysail was an easier matter. The long cylinder of canvas was passed out and bent on the forestay with beckets, Bowyer’s nimble fingers quickly passing the toggles as the canvas mounted the stay.It was the sharpest sea lesson that Kydd had received yet: only skill, bravery and the ignoring of personal discomfort would give a man any kind of chance in these conditions. Any less and he would be eliminated.

“See that? Lightnin’! We’re in for it now, mates!” Corrie was staring out at the Stygian cloud mass to the southwest. Another soundless flash low down on the horizon to leeward, but no thunder, any distant sound impossible to hear against the storm noise.

“No, it ain’t, that’s gunflash, that is,” Doud said.

“Don’t talk such flam. Who’d be fightin’ a war in this?” Corrie countered.

Bowyer frowned. “Them’s distress guns!”

As if in confirmation,
Duke William
eased around and bore away toward. The alteration, of course, had the waves coming in at an awkward angle astern and her movement changed into a nasty cross motion, which soon had some of the hands looking thoughtful.

Low in the water, the merchant ship was in a sorry way. She was a small brig with an old-fashioned look about her. Her foremast had
snapped off some eight feet clear of the deck and the entire rigging structure forward was snarled into hopeless ruin on her foredeck. All she could do was scud before the wind under bare poles. A few figures could be made out on her low poop, waving vigorously.

“Guess we must seem as some sort o’ miracle,” Kydd said to Bowyer. They were sheltering in the half deck, behind the men at the wheel. He pictured
Duke William
, bluff and grand, appearing out of the wildness and making straight for them.

Bowyer stared pensively over and did not reply.

The officer of the watch had his telescope trained on the unfortunate vessel and clicked his tongue. “She’s not going to last for much longer unless they can get the water out of her,” he said.

“Poor beggars at the pumps are prob’ly beat — or somethin’ else,” Bowyer said cryptically.

“Mr. Warren!” The Captain’s voice came suddenly from behind them. “What’s the situation?” The watch politely made room for him under the half deck overhang.

“Merchant brig, sir. Lost her foremast, seems to be taking in water. Can’t see more than a few men on deck, could be shorthanded.” He raised his telescope again. “Can’t see any colors, but she’s probably ours.”

“Very well. Heave to, if you please, Mr. Warren. Least we can do is make a lee for them.” Caldwell’s face was set and pitying.

“Then?”

“No, Mr. Warren, no boat can swim in this.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. We can do nothing more — they must take their chances.”

Kydd could hardly believe his ears. There were human beings, sailors, just a short distance away and they could do nothing?

“Was there when
Montrose
was lost off the Canaries,” said the Master, to no one in particular. “Near two hunnerd soldiers there was, with we standing by. Went down in the night, they did. Heard their screams when it was they drowned. Cruel hard it were, we could do nothing for ’em.”

Warren turned to the Captain and said urgently, “Sir, if we could come alongside to wind’d of them, and get a line across we —”

“No,” Caldwell said flatly. “We drift at different rates, there is danger we would fall foul of each other. I cannot risk this valuable ship in such
a venture. We’ll stand by them until nightfall but then we must resume our station. That is our duty.”

To that there could be no reply.

It was clear that the small ship’s end would not be long delayed. She did not rise readily with the waves, which swept her decks like a half-tide rock, each one adding to the deadweight of water in her. Crippled as she was, there was no way she could achieve any kind of steerage way and she rolled and wallowed at the mercy of the sea, surging and snubbing at some sort of sea-anchor out over her plain stern.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, sir,” said Bowyer, knuckling his forehead awkwardly.

Caldwell looked around in surprise. “Yes, er, Bowyer, isn’t it?”

“Aye, sir. Well, when I was foretopman in
Diana
frigate we had to lie off a sloop in this sorta blow, ’n’ we had to get men aboard. An’ what we did, sir, was t’ stream off a raft to loo’ard, with the men lashed on it.” He shuffled his feet. “What I’m a-sayin’, sir, is that if you sees your way clear to sendin’ a raft, why, I’ll be on it, sir.”

Caldwell looked at him doubtfully. “That vessel will surely founder soon,” he said.

“If we can fish a spar to the stump o’ the foremast, we show some steadyin’ canvas, fresh men at the pumps, she has a chance, sir.”

“It will need more than one man.”

Warren stepped forward. “I’ll go, sir — give me another three men, and we’ll do the job,” he said.

Caldwell paused. “You do understand that, if you go, I must leave you to your own resources and return to station. You will have to make rendezvous with me when the weather moderates.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Then I must ask you now to consider carefully the risks. This is a very dangerous enterprise and may result in the loss of you and your party. You will do well to reconsider.”

Warren looked at Bowyer and then at the doomed brig. “We’ll go, sir.”

T
he raft was complete: two spare stuns’l booms connected a pair of main hatch gratings, supported by an empty cask at each end. Each man lashed himself on twice, once under the arms and again around the waist. Bowyer himself checked Kydd’s lashings, with Doud and Wong attending to themselves.

The boatswain looked dubious as he personally secured the streaming line and attended to the hoisting out of raft and men. It was a vertiginous experience, buffeted by the wind blast while suspended from the main yard tackle, then swaying perilously above the violent seas before dropping toward the maelstrom. Kydd wondered wildly why he had volunteered, but he knew that he would always stand by Bowyer.

They neared the hissing seas and suddenly a large wave shot upward toward them and they were sent spluttering and choking into the sea. Bowyer threw the hooked block clear and they spun crazily until the line paid out by the team on the fo’c’sle took up.

There was little difference at the sea surface between solid water and flying spume, and Kydd choked and swallowed seawater helplessly until he thought to hold his head downwind. The sea felt almost warm in contrast to the wind-chilled air, but it was impossible to see anything of the larger picture. Spreadeagled on the grating, he felt the raft following the shape of the waves exactly; angling steeply up the fore side of the wave coming from behind, becoming briefly buried in its foaming crest before sliding at less of an angle down the other side. It went on insanely, riding the seas like a piece of debris, hurtling up and down on the waves but always on top like a cork and never overcome.

With a jerk the line tautened and Kydd rubbed his eyes to see the
bulking mass of the merchant vessel very close. A rope slapped across his back. He grabbed it and found a bowline-on-a-bight already formed at the end, through which he put his head and arms before fumbling at his lashings.

He was pulled up, bumping on the weatherworn old sides as he reached the top, before being hauled in bodily, falling on Doud, who was crawling out of the way.

There were only two men on deck, both in old oilskins. They had gray, exhausted faces and moved slowly. “Lieutenant James Warren, His Majesty’s Ship
Duke William
.” Warren’s words were carried away by the wind.

One of the men gestured to the single companionway in the center of the flush deck, and they descended to a tiny cabin flat. “In here,” he said, in a hoarse croak.

They entered the small stern cabin, which was in disorder. “Lost our foremast a day ago, takin’ in water fast, and —”