Kydd

by Julian Stockwin

  By the thump of the Admiral’s evening gun Duke William had completed taking in stores. Kydd’s back was seizing up with fatigue after the unaccustomed hours of drudgery manning the tackle falls used to sway in the innumerable forms of stores. Supper was a cheerless meal, with Whaley away in the gunner’s party and Doud nursing a wrenched shoulder. The inevitable acid barbs from Howell went unheeded in the depressing quiet and even Wong slumped over his meal.

  Kydd noticed Bowyer’s set expression and, not liking to intrude, turned to Claggett. “We’s got good reason to feel aggrieved, lad. What yer don’t know is that Duke William’s been on the North Ameriky station for two years, ’n’ before that the Caribbee. She’s well due t’get a proper docking. When you’s at sea for years you gets druxy timber. See here . . .” He reached down and fumbled around in the gloomy recesses beneath the lashed muzzle of the gun. His hand came up with a dark substance. “This here is spirketting, believe it or not.” As far as Kydd could see it might have been so much forest mulch — a perfectly black piece of wood flecked with tiny white dots. Claggett squeezed it in his palm and a pool of brown-stained seawater formed on the table. “It runs fore ’n’ aft the whole ship. If you knows how a ship works at the seams in any kind of sea, you’d be powerful concerned ’s how even a First Rate’s goin’ to swim in the kinda blow you gets in Biscay in winter!” The seamed old face turned to Kydd. “You’ll’ve heard of what happened to the Royal George in the year ’eighty-two. A ship-o’-the-line same’s us, they didn’t see their way clear t’ givin’ her a good refit ’n’ the bottom fell clean outa her as she lay at her moorings, right here in Spithead.”

  Long-faced, Bowyer fidgeted but listened as well.

  “Admiralty says as how a land breeze overset her while heeled over fer a repair, but my cousin was cox’n’s mate aboard ’n’ he said as how there was a great loud cracking first, afore she went under.” His old eyes rested unseeingly on the ship’s side. “Took more’n a thousand souls with her, the women, the Admiral — they’re all down there together still, mate.”

  The somber mood cast a pall, and Kydd made his excuses. He rose and made his way to the companionway. There was an ugly edge to the messdeck talk and he was troubled by it. He went up to the next gundeck. An argument had developed into a fight. Inside a tight ring of onlookers two men smashed into each other in brutal silence — meaty thuds, gasps and panting. It was not a match of skills: the transient flaring hatreds of the blood-smeared antagonists demanded immediate release. What chilled Kydd was that instead of the cheery crowds to be seen around any fights ashore, here the watchers growled and muttered against a glowering, dangerous quiet, taking long pulls from their grog and no joy in the action. He moved quickly to the ladder.

  On the upper deck he saw that it was getting toward dusk, an overcast building overhead that brought with it a lowering, claustrophobic atmosphere. Lights were beginning to flicker ashore. The fitful offshore breeze carried out to him the scent of horses, mud and sea-coal smoke, the comfortable smells of land.

  He stared hungrily at the shoreline, as he gripped one of the myriad ropes coming down to the ship’s side; his foot rested on the low fife-rail of the fo’c’sle.

  His mind wandered across the small stretch of water to the odd few figures still waiting forlornly at the Sally Port. Farther along, washing fluttered among the tightly packed houses of Southsea and he could discern the ant-like movements of carts and people. Folk would be wending their way home now to a welcome by the hearth, and victuals worthy of a man. He remembered that at this time his mother would be at work on the Tuesday beef pie in the old kitchen at the back of the workshop. He and his father could always be sure of a fine hot meal, no matter how hard the day. In fact, he realized, if he were over there on the foreshore he could board the London stage. For a few silver coins he could be at the Angel post house in Guildford the same day, safe and sound, and telling his story.

  He tore his gaze away from the tantalizing sight of land. All around the ship boarding nettings had been rigged and the rowguard in the pinnace pulled slowly around the vessel. On deck close by was the bowed figure of Buddles. Kydd felt a sudden burst of fellow feeling for the man, who was taking his plight so desperately hard. He moved over to greet him, but Buddles jerked around, staring at him from swimming eyes. He turned away to shuffle below, without a backward glance.

  Kydd stared over the water. Who could say how long he would have to wait before he saw his family again? It was quite possible that his ignorance of the sea might cost him his life in some accident, or perhaps there would be a great battle . . . Emotion welled up. He clutched at the rope.

  “Why, Tom, you’re giving no mind to that cat-blash now, are ye?” Bowyer’s voice was gentle, and his hand came to rest on Kydd’s shoulder.

  Unable to speak, Kydd brushed aside the gesture and continued to stare obstinately out to shore.

  Bowyer held his ground. “Damn me eyes, I must be a sad dog not to see when a man’s suffering the blue devils. Do ye —”

  “I don’t give a tuppenny damn!” Kydd said thickly. “Go t’ hell for all I care!” He could not look at Bowyer. Shouts and harsh laughter floated up from the deck below, and Kydd burst out with a curse. As he tried to control himself, he felt an arm around his shoulders, just as his father had done not so very long ago. Then it had been in the matter of a worthless doxy, now it was an older seaman touched by his unhappiness.

  Kydd pulled himself together with a great effort. “There wasn’t need for that, Joe — I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right, me old shipmate,” Bowyer said.

  “But if I can get on land over there, I can post to Guildford in just one day!” he babbled, and saw a shadow pass over the sailor’s face. “That’s not to say . . .” He realized that whatever he said would be either empty or a lie.

  Bowyer laughed softly. “Yer folks still in Guildford, then?”

  Kydd nodded. “Where’s yourn, Joe?”

  Bowyer walked over to the gratings in the center of the deck. “Come on over the galley here, mate — it’s a mort warmer.” They sat companionably, well placed on the gratings above the warmth of the ovens from the decks below.

  “Your kin, Joe?”

  “Well, I’m one o’ Jonas Hanway’s boys,” Bowyer said simply. “Don’t rightly know m’ dad, ’n’ when I was a nipper m’ mum gave me up to Hanway’s Marine Society fer to go to sea.”

  “When was that?”

  “When I was eight — bin at sea since.”

  “And you’ve never lived on the land all that time?”

  “Never felt the need to.”

  Kydd felt a surge of bitterness. “Well, you c’n be infernal sure I feel the need. I didn’t ask to be part o’ this stinkin’ world. Being taken by the press like a common damn prigger, and thrown on board like —”

  “Hold hard, young ’un!” Bowyer’s forehead was uncharacteristically creased. “Way I sees it, you has just two things you c’n do about it — get yourself into a fret all the time over what can’t be undone, or do somethin’ about it. What I means is, there’s no chance you’ll get yourself back to Guildford any time soon, so you’ll be spendin’ all your time on board. You then has the choice — stay a landman and take all the shite going, or learn to be a sailorman and live a life!”

  Kydd did not answer.

  “There’s worse things to be — them poor bastards in red coats carryin’ a musket, why, no warm hammock to go to end of day, no reg’lar vittles of any kind, and marchin’ with a humpin’ great pack thing when they want ter go anywheres.” He watched Kydd looking moodily over the fast darkening stretch of water, the rowguard pinnace creeping unseen past his line of sight. “An’ we get the chance for prize money! Know the Flag and Anchor in Southsea? No? I’ll interdooce yer to the landlord. Taut hand o’ the watch, as was. When he was a younker he shipped as able seaman in Active when they took the Hermione, Spanish frigate — earned ’emselves more’n three hundred years’ pay
in one hour, that arternoon! Only a score of years old ’n’ he buys himself his own taphouse!” He knew he had Kydd’s attention now. “We don’t say as how it happens to all, but we get a good fight and it’s gun money an’ head money . . .” Bowyer allowed his eyes to gaze out dreamily. “’Cos it depends on yer rate, how much you get.” He made himself more comfortable, leaning on his elbow over the gratings to catch more warmth. “But then money ain’t all. For a man o’ character, why, he c’n learn more about the way of things from what he sees in foreign parts than ever he could in stayin’ by the fireside ’n’ readin’ books. Me, I’m just an old tarry-breeks, but me first voyage as able seaman was in Resolution in ’seventy-nine — Cap’n Cook that was. Voyage of discovery, Tom — the Great South Sea, ice islands in the Ar’tic, the women on O’Whyee. Their menfolk did for ’im, you know, on the strand, when he couldn’t git back to the longboat where we was at.”

  It was almost completely dark now, but somehow it fitted the mood. Light from the decks below came through the gratings, gently patterning Bowyer’s face in alternating squares of light and dark, a slight breeze whiffling his thinning hair.

  “You’re bred t’ the sea, Joe. I just know . . . how to make wigs.”

  “Don’t you pay no mind to that!” Bowyer said warmly. “A sailor has it inside, just a-waitin’ to have it woken up in him — I could tell, first time I clapped peepers on yer, Tom, you has the makin’s.” He gave a slow smile. “Like it’s said, ‘Begotten in the galley and born under a gun. Every hair a rope yarn, every finger a fishhook and ’is blood right good Stockholm tar!’ ”

  Kydd laughed.

  “Yeah — you’re quick on your feet, got a good headpiece on yer, ’n’ you keep your eyes open. And you’ve the build for it,” Bowyer said. “An’ you have an eddication — means a lot these modern days. I’d be gunner’s mate be now if I could figure them books.”

  Kydd sat back. There was some truth in Bowyer’s words. Clearly, if he was to be imprisoned aboard for some indefinite time it made sense to avoid staying at the bottom of the heap. But he was rated on board as the lowest form of life, a landman. Without an academy for sailoring how could he qualify upward?

  Bowyer seemed to sense his thoughts. “You make your own chances, cuffin. You show willin’, you’ll get yer start.” He smiled broadly. “Like this. Tomorrow forenoon, when it’s part-of-ship for priddying down, we goes together to the maintop — up there, Tom! First step is leavin’ the deck to the land toggies, and go where a sailor goes — aloft!”

  Kydd glanced up at the arrogant thrust of the great black masts and spars against the cold dusk clouds and his heart quailed.

  “Haaands turn to, part-of-ship! All the hands!”

  The afterguard part-of-ship in the form of Elkins was waiting for them the next morning, and under the eye of the boatswain and Lieutenant Tewsley he lost no time in dispatching the men in parties to their respective tasks.

  “Bowyer, brace pendants with Pinto,” he ordered.

  Glancing at Kydd, Bowyer said to Elkins mildly, “Be a chance to get Kydd aloft, learn some ropes — can I have him up there?”

  “No,” said Elkins shortly, “you’ve got Pinto. Kydd stays on the holystones.”

  Bowyer paused. “Then, Mr. Elkins, I’d be obliged if you’d allow me to join him.”

  Elkins looked at him, astonished. His jaw hardened. “You’re a clinking fool, Joe, always were, so get down on yer hunkers and get scrubbin’ with ’im, then.”

  Kydd looked up from rolling up his duck trousers to see Bowyer do the same next to him. “I thought . . .”

  “This life, you can’t always get what yer want — but you can learn to take it. Move over, mate.”

  Captain Caldwell had made it quite plain that he regarded efficiency and smartness to be equivalents. As First Lieutenant, Tyrell would be judged on appearances, and this would mean at the very least continual hard labor for all. The gunner’s party toiled at their pieces; each cannon would receive close attention from canvas and brickdust, then be blackened with a shining mixture of lampblack, beeswax and turpentine. This left little time for vital work on vent and bore, or even chipping roundshot.

  And, of course, there was the appearance of the decks. While the sea- men were aloft, the unskilled laborers of the sea rolled up their trousers, and with decks well a-swim from the wash-deck hose, and with sand liberally scattered over the planking, they began the soul-grinding misery of holystoning the decks. In a line the men moved from forward, on hands and knees and pushing a book-shaped piece of sandstone. Thomas Kydd was one of them. Twenty yards of the quarterdeck on, his knees were red and sore with the gritty sand and little splinters, but his chief suffering was the bitter pain from the icy water that pulsed relentlessly from the hoses carrying detritus to the scuppers. It was monotonous, painful and humiliating. It was only the uncomplaining presence of Bowyer that kept him going through the long morning.

  At four bells the job was at last complete to the satisfaction of Tyrell, but there was no relief. One by one the articles of running rigging — the operating machinery of the ship — needed to be checked for chafing and in many cases re-reeved, end for end. Nothing prepared Kydd for the effort this would take. Even the lightweight lines of the topgallants and royals were nevertheless hundreds of feet long and in themselves were an appreciable deadweight. The same with the blocks — the big pulleys through which ropes were hauled: these were unexpectedly immense when seen close to, on deck. One top block was so massive it took four men to lift it to its fall for hoisting. With agile topmen at the summit of the towering mast tending the sheaves of the blocks, it needed the humble laborers to manhaul ropes, seized to a girt-line, up the entire height of the mainmast.

  Unexpectedly, Elkins bellowed across the deck. “Bowyer — in the maintop, clew garnets.” He paused just long enough to be noticed. “Kydd — get up there with him.”

  “Come with me, Tom lad,” Bowyer said quietly, “and be sure and look where you want ter go, never back where you’ve been.”

  In one move, Kydd’s view of his place in the scheme of things was changed. After a lifetime of living and moving in two dimensions, he was now to join the select band of those who would know the third.

  He gulped and followed, aware of the eyes of his previous fellow laborers on him.

  Bowyer crossed to the side of the ship, seized the aftermost shroud and in a little half jump hoisted himself up on to the broad top of the bulwark. He swung down to the main channel on the outside of the hull, the true beginning of the tracery of rope ladder leading up aloft. “Let’s be havin’ yer!” he called.

  Kydd grabbed the same shroud and kicked his legs up. To his mortification he found that with feet correctly on the bulwark, he hung backwards over the deck from the inward-sloping shroud, unable to move around to the outer side.

  Bowyer’s hand reached for his collar and with surprising strength pulled Kydd upright and around. They stood together on the bulwark. Even these few feet of altitude were sufficient to alter forever his notion of the ship. Every man on deck now was lower than he; the deck itself was observably in plan, and he felt a curious pleasure at the satisfying curve of the deck-line as it swept far forward.

  “Right, now, Tom, you goes first, ’n’ I’ll be right behind you.”

  Bowyer stepped aside, and there was nothing now before Kydd but the main shrouds leading up to a final focus — the big platform of the main fighting top.

  He addressed himself to the venture. The thick shrouds soaring up had thin lines across them to form a ladder. He began to climb, feet feeling shakily for the thin rope, looking obediently upward.

  “Don’t put yer hands on the ratlines,” Bowyer called from below him, “use the shrouds — they’ll never give way on yer.”

  Kydd had a brief but intense picture of the thinner line snapping in his clutching hands, letting him hurtle backwards to his doom. Nervously he moved to grip tightly the thick black vertical shrouds, shiny with us
e.

  Despite himself, he became aware of his increasing height, the shrouds on the other side getting closer, the deck dropping away below. He continued upward, foot finding the next ratline above while he hung on grimly; a push upward and a pause at the new level while his other foot relocated; then moving his hands gingerly one by one.

  He knew he was not moving efficiently, but at least he was safe like that. His leg muscles burned with fatigue and he stopped for a moment to rest.

  The shrouds shivered and Bowyer appeared on the broad span of shrouds next to him.

  “I’m fine, Joe,” Kydd said.

  “Yeah — but watch that feller over there.” Bowyer was pointing to the opposite ratlines. A seaman was mounting the shrouds in a fast, economic swing. “See how he uses his hands to pull himself up, only rests his feet. Doesn’t go at it like he was climbin’ stairs.”

  Kydd watched the graceful continuity of the sailor’s movements; a fluid motion he could now sense was achieved by hauling forcefully on alternate hands, the feet just following. He tried it; the transfer of effort to the hands felt awkward at first, but he could feel the potential for a more connected movement. He persevered, his concentration on the required actions diverting his mind from his situation.

  The main top approached with a reality it never had from the deck, foursquare and solid, with a big lanthorn rearing up oddly from the after edge. His arms ached. He knew now where the best seamen got their deep chests. Stopping for a breather, he idly looked down.

  It was a mistake. What he saw was an ugly distortion — an impossibly narrow deck on which the people moving about it had become flattened, elongated disks, their feet blipping out in front of them like penguins’.

  But what was so hard to take was the sheer vertigo of being at a killing height while clinging halfway up a vertical surface. Animal instinct made him freeze, pinned helplessly somewhere between heaven and earth. He clung fiercely, his eyes closed.

  A shaking in the shrouds told him that Bowyer had arrived next to him. Whatever Bowyer said, Kydd vowed to himself that he would not release his hold. Perhaps Bowyer could work some rescue plan to lower him to the deck on a rope.