Kydd (7 page)

The chill wind fluttered Kydd’s jacket and made him shudder. By mutual consent they passed down the ladder to the deck below. It was mainly enclosed, but open to the sky for a distance between foremast and mainmast, here crossed by thick skid beams on which the ship’s boats were stowed.

They passed the open area to go aft. The big main hatches were here below it, a passage deep into the bowels of the vessel, and garlanded with cannon balls like lethal strands of black pearls. Past the imposing bulk of the mainmast was a final ladderway down, but across the whole width of the deck aft, their way was now barred by a darkly polished bulkhead with doors each side.

“There’s where the Admiral lives, Tom — an’ like a prince!” Bowyer moved closer and spoke reverently. “And that’s where they plan out the battles ’n’ such.” His mouth twitched. “’Twas also the place where Jemmy Boyes and his mates went afore a court-martial. Mutiny, they called it, although it were really them only talkin’ wry — the year ’eighty-seven that was.” He looked forward, his mouth compressed to a hard line. “It were our own fore yardarm where they was turned off, God save ’em.”

For a moment he stood, then went over to the ladder and looked down. “We have two more decks of guns below us, ’n’ then it’s the water-line.”

“And where were we at the purser’s?”

“Well, I didn’t say we had no more decks under the waterline,” Bowyer said. “In fact, me old gullion, we have the orlop under the lower gundeck, and that was where you was before.”

He cracked his knuckles. “Interestin’ place, the orlop. Right forrard you get the boatswain and Chips. They both have their cabin and their stores. But turn round and right aft you get the sawbones, the purser and
their
stores — and not forgettin’ the midshipmen’s berth.”

He looked down, as though the deck were transparent. “And all the middle bit is where the anchor cables are laid out in tiers, and where yer go down inside the gun magazines. Lots o’ dark, rummy places about, down in the orlop. Wouldn’t advise rovin’ about down there without
yer’ve got a friend.” He swung round with a grin. “And then all that’s left below is the hold. But I guess yer know all about that — it’s where the pressed men go afore we sails. It’s where all the water and vittles are stowed, and when we clears for action all the gear gets sent down there.” Bowyer punched him on the shoulder. “So now you knows all the decks, we’ll go visit ’em!”

There was no hanging back, and for the remainder of the watch Kydd found himself plunging after Bowyer — down ladders, along rows of huge guns, on gratings out above the sea and, in fact, to places it was impossible to believe might belong on a ship of war. A cookhouse with monstrous cauldrons simmering over an iron-hearted fire. A manger, complete with goats and chickens. A cockpit — but no cocks that Kydd could detect. And many — multitudes — of objects and places that Bowyer clearly thought important, but had no meaning to Kydd.

They happened to be under the boats when four double strikes sounded from the belfry just above. “Know what that means, Tom? It’s ‘up spirits’ and then supper, me old griff!”

In a whirlpool of impressions Kydd followed Bowyer down to the lower gundeck and the welcome fug of the mess. Howell looked up sourly. “You tryin’ to make Kydd a jolly Jack Tar, then, Joe?”

“You sayin’ he shouldn’t be?” Bowyer snapped.

“I’m sayin’ as how he don’t know what he’s a-comin’ to. He’s not bred to the sea, he’s a landlubber, don’t belong.” He became heated. “Can you see him out on the yard in a gale of wind, doin’ real sailorin’? Nah. All his days he’s gonna be on his knees and arse up with a holystone — that is, when he’s not huckin’ out the heads or swiggin’ off on the braces!” He leaned forward and told Bowyer earnestly, “’S not right fer you to fill his head with grand ideas — he’s never going to be a sailorman. Sooner he knows it, better for him.”

Pointedly ignoring him, Bowyer took down their mess traps. “We’ve got first dog-watch straight after, so we takes a bit o’ ballast aboard now, Tom, mate!”

It was still light on deck, showing up the swarm of small vessels around them, which were seizing the opportunity to slip down Channel with an unofficial escort of such unchallengeable might.

Kydd followed Bowyer closely, apprehensive because this was to be
his first sea watch, and gingerly joined the waiting group near the main-mast.

“You! Yeah — the cow-handed sod with Bowyer!” Elkins’s grating shout broke into his thoughts. There was an animal ferocity in the hard face and Kydd froze. “Come here, you useless grass-combin’ bastard.” Elkins thrust his face forward. “If ever you makes a sawney o’ me afore the quarterdeck again, you’re fishmeat, cully!”

Kydd felt defiance rising, but he kept silent, trying to withstand the assault of the man’s glare.

Abruptly, Elkins seized his jacket savagely in both hands at the throat and pulled him to his toes. Speaking softly and slowly, but with infinite menace, he said, “A lumpin’ great lobcock like you would do well to know where he stands afore he thinks to get uppity — you scavey?”

The hard, colorless eyes seemed to impale Kydd’s soul. The thin lips curled. “O’ course yer do, cully,” he said. “You’re a Johnny Raw, new caught, who’s goin’ to learn his place right quick — ain’t that the case?”

He released Kydd slowly, keeping him transfixed.

Bowyer’s troubled voice came in from behind Kydd. “No call fer that, Mr. Elkins,” he said.

Elkins turned on him.

“I’ll be lookin’ out for Kydd, don’t you worry, Mr. Elkins.” He grabbed Kydd’s arm and steered him back to the mainmast. A young officer watched, frowning.

“Don’t do to cross Elkins’s bows, shipmate,” Bowyer muttered, pretending to test the tension of a line at the bitts.

Kydd had never backed down from anyone in his life — even the raw-boned squire’s son treated him with care. But this was another situation, filled with unknowns.

“See there, Tom” — Bowyer was trying to engage his attention —“we’re bending on the new mizzen t’gallant.” Kydd allowed his interest to be directed to the second farthest yard upward at the mizzen. Men were spreading out along the yard, that side that he could see past the large triangular staysails soaring up between the two masts. “You’ll remember we saw Mr. Clough and his mates sewing in the tabling for the t’gallant bolt-rope?”

Kydd recalled his curiosity as they stepped around the cross-legged men busily plying their needles. Those were no delicate darning nee
dles: instead they were long and heavy, three-sided implements, which they drove through the stout canvas using a leather device strapped to their palms.

“Clap on here, mate,” said Bowyer. “We’re sending up yer sail now to fix on to its yard.” A long sausage of canvas had made its way on deck, and an astonishing amount of rope lay in long coils next to it. “We uses the buntlines to haul it up for bending, but it being a t’gallant and all, the line is too short to come from aloft, so we bends on some extra.”

Kydd let it all wash over him. It was beyond his powers to retain, but he was sure that Bowyer would be on hand later to explain. At the present moment he urgently needed to find his bearings and, indeed, himself.

The watch passed quickly in a flurry of hauling, belaying and repeating this on other ropes in sequence with events, the canvas sausage making its way up the mast to its final glory as a trim, smartly set sail. Dusk was well and truly drawing in when the pealing of boatswains’ calls erupted forward. “There yer go, Tom, the Spithead nightingales are singin’. Larbowlines are on deck now, ’n’ we can go below — but first we’ve somethin’ to do, brother.”

Kydd followed him down to the lanthorn-lit forward end of the main deck. It was crowded with men, gathered closely around a quartermaster’s mate standing just abaft the foremast, and next to a small pile of clothing and other gear. Lieutenant Tewsley was there, hat held informally in his hand and his seamed face somber.

Bowyer coughed self-consciously. “This is what we do for them what goes over the standin’ part of the foresheet.”

At Kydd’s look of incomprehension he said, “That is to say, them which tops their boom dies at sea — like Ollie Higgins did this forenoon off the mainyard.”

Kydd felt a stab of guilt at the stark memory of the man cartwheeling into the sea, knowing that it had been buried in the avalanche of images and experiences to which he had been subjected since.

Bowyer continued, in a low voice, “We gets into Spithead tomorrow, so we holds an auction on his clobber now. If we c’n find a little silver for ’is widow, well, it’s somethin’.”

The auction proceeded, low shouts as bids were cast and clothing fingered in quiet remembrance. Noticing Bowyer involved in the bidding,
Kydd wondered what to do. There were only pennies left of what he had had in his pocket when pressed, and only volunteers received the bounty.

“’Ere you are, Tom,” Bowyer said, and passed over a well-worn sea-man’s knife and sheath. “Ollie was a topman, and you can trust ’is steel to be the best.” Kydd hesitated. “Go on, mate, take it — he won’t be needin’ it now, and he’d be happy it’s still goin’ to do its dooty.”

Kydd’s helpless fumbling at his pocket made Bowyer touch his arm. “Don’t worry about that, mate. You’ll find nobody cares about us — we ’as to look to ourselves. Yer’ll not see a penny o’ yer pay for half a year or more, so we’ll square yardarms some other time.”

Self-consciously, Kydd undid his broad belt and strapped on the knife, settling the sheath into place on the flat of his right buttock as Bowyer had his.

Bowyer paid over several more silver coins and was handed a crackling bundle of olive-gray skins. “This is what yer’ll reckon best, Tom, out on the yard in a winter nor’easter — an honest sealskin warmer under your jacket. Keeps out the cold like a hero.”

Outside the purser’s store on the orlop Kydd tried again. “Look, Joe, you don’t have to —”

“Leave it be, Tom!” Bowyer said, gruffly.

Kydd drew his issue hammocks and meager bedding. Bowyer fingered it doubtfully. “Listen, mate, only way yer goin’ to get a good kip in a hammacoe is if I tells yer how. So let’s be at it — we’re on watch right after hammocks are piped down. I’ll give yer a hand.” Bowyer clicked his tongue at the haphazard bundle of stiff new canvas and bedclothing and deftly rolled them tightly together, securing them with half hitches. He threw the result over his shoulder. Thrusting his way aft, he found Kydd’s numbered position. “You’ll be slingin’ yer ’mick here, being as you’re afterguard. Part-of-ship stays together so’s yer can be found in the dark for a shake — yer oppo’s alongside yer, o’ course.”

Seeing Kydd’s look, he explained, “The man who does the same job as you but in t’other watch.”

Kydd nodded, but he was overwhelmed. An unbelievable number of men were moving about in the dim lower gundeck, all busily slinging hammocks, and it seemed inconceivable that they could fit into so limited a space.

With the ease of long practice, Bowyer secured one rope to a batten fastened on the deck beams overhead. “Watch this, Tom — can’t show yer twice, have me own ’mick to sling.” He teased out the parallel knittle lines at the ends of the hammock, then extended the canvas, taking the opposite end to another batten. “Guess you’ll want to try it low, first up,” Bowyer murmured, and Kydd could see that there was a method in the madness about him. To maximize space, adjacent hammocks were slung clear, either high or low. Bowyer had eased the lines so that Kydd would be in the lowest of them.

The hammocks also overlapped to the canvas in a fore and aft direction. It became clear that this had an additional benefit when Bowyer invited Kydd to climb into his hammock for the first time.

The seasoned sailor chuckled at the inevitable result — like a skittish horse, the hammock skipped out of reach every time Kydd lifted a leg to lever himself in, quickly finding himself dumped smartly on deck the other side.

“Yer gets aboard only like this,” Bowyer said, and with one lithe movement, he grasped in both hands an overlapping hammock clew overhead, and this taking his weight, his first leg positioned the hammock for the other leg to thump in alongside.

Reversing the movement, Bowyer dropped to the deck. “Now you, mate.”

I
n the light night winds, sailing easily full and bye on the starboard tack, there was little for the watch on deck to do. Keyed up to expect hours of toil, Kydd was surprised to find how relaxed the watch before midnight could be. After an initial fuss at the braces, tacks and sheets, the sails were finally trimmed to the satisfaction of Warren, the officer of the watch, who then reluctantly stood the men down, save those about the binnacle.

One thing, however, Kydd found disconcerting. Where the mess decks were gloomy, lanthorn-lit caverns, on deck it was positively tomb-like. A low overcast obscured the night sky and his eyes strained in the winter night to distinguish main features, let alone the dozens of ropes, ringbolts and sharp edges that lay invisibly in wait. It was quite impossible to make out the faces of the others. They were phantoms in the darkness: their voices had the curious quality of being overloud when close, and too distant when farther away. Only moving shadows against the dim whiteness of the deck disclosed their presence.

Kydd stayed close to Bowyer as they went down the ladder to the main deck. There, in the waist of the ship, they would be on instant call, but could shelter from the spray and keen wind. It didn’t escape Kydd that they would also be out of sight of Warren and the others on the quarterdeck. They hunkered down, backs to the bulwark, the old hands among them coming together in companionable groups to converse in low tones and while away the watch. Kydd sat on the periphery of Bowyer’s group, content to listen.

The hiss of the ship’s wash out in the darkness was hypnotic. Sitting on the deck, leaning against a gun carriage in the anonymity of the
night, Kydd felt a creeping unreality, that stage of tiredness when a floating light-headedness bears the spirit on in a timeless, wondering void.

Disembodied voices rose and fell. His mind drifted, but returned to hear what they were saying.