Inferno

Chapter 6

Stirk set off down the path with a fixed expression. Seeing his old messmate in such straits had disturbed him more than he cared to admit. Kydd had reached out to him. Was it to do with the stiff fight they’d all been through? He himself had taken a knock and since then had been plagued by nightmares of hours at the guns, going at it like a madman. Then whispers of fear stealing in. Was he was getting old, no longer carefree, not so spry on his feet when it came to the absolutes of combat to a lethal conclusion?

There were others coming on ready to take his place. War at sea, these days, was a young man’s game: the harsh conditions, constant threat, endless sea duty. However, in his very being Stirk was a deep-sea mariner and wanted no other life. The prospect of leaving it was impossible to contemplate.

His thoughts returned to Kydd. He could only dimly perceive that the lot of a captain was different. He’d known Kydd as a callow young sailor and even then had seen he was cut from broader cloth. In a way Stirk had secretly gloried in his advancement, first past himself and then across the near unbridgeable divide between fo’c’sle and quarterdeck.

He bore no resentment or jealousy because he took Kydd for what he was – a born seaman and leader of men – and had actively sought out his ships to join; he trusted him completely. Even in Tyger, which he’d known was in mutiny, he’d taken it for granted that Kydd would sort things out.

To be a captain, that was a rum thing to think on. True, they had all the honour and comforts going but he, as a gunner’s mate, would have no hesitation in passing a knotty problem up the tree to an officer – that was what they were paid for, wasn’t it?

He suspected that officers didn’t have the same close-knit intimacy born of danger and interdependence that seamen took for granted and could call upon at any time without shame. And a captain – he had no one. Kydd had taken Tyger into battle with not a soul to talk freely with, to offer suggestions, to argue with, or after the event to say he’d done the right thing – or not. Yes, before there was Mr Renzi, of course, but now he was a noble lord, tending his grand estate.

Tom Kydd would find his old messmate Stirk there when he needed him, and be buggered to what any cove made of that.

With that thought, he felt better.