Inferno

Chapter 2

The next day Kydd took coach in neat but anonymous gentleman’s dress.

After the near hopeless battle against three frigates and the following desperate days nursing a wounded Tyger to her refuge, he craved space to find himself again, to get away somewhere blessedly remote, where the ferocious wars of Napoleon Bonaparte were another world, and to feel something of the old times when the only concerns were the success of the harvests and the jollities of market day.

Tyger was under repair but had been given precedence by an Admiralty keen to show its intention of setting one of its most famous frigate captains at sea again as soon as may be. It had been classed a ‘small repair’, even though she’d suffered untold injuries, for, apart from a docking to replace the damaged strake between wind and water, there was nothing that would require taking down her hull. Nevertheless, an unknown number of weeks would pass until he could claim her.

Before he could let the benison of rest do its healing, Kydd needed to journey to Sheerness to visit the hospital where so many Tygers were paying the price for his triumph.

The last mile across the marshes from Queenborough brought back memories of the dark year of the great Nore mutiny where his destiny had changed irrevocably: from the prospect of a noose at the yard-arm to the felicity of treading the quarterdeck as a king’s officer.

It was humbling to be received joyfully by men with shattered limbs who would never again work a long splice or race aloft in the teeth of a gale for the honour of their ship. They would be turned ashore, the lucky ones to a berth in Greenwich Hospital, others to a sailor’s sad exile on land.

‘The gunner’s mate on your books,’ Kydd asked an orderly. ‘Tobias Stirk. Is he still here, by chance?’

‘Don’t rightly know. Gets these moods, like. Drifts off an’ no one knows where till he returns. Odd sort – and claims he won’t be bound by no long-shore coves tellin’ him what to do. I’ll see if ’n he’s about.’

He wasn’t, and Kydd felt the stir of unease for the hard and fearless seaman of old, now taken with phantoms of doubt and mortality and wandering abroad in a futile effort to lay them to rest. He couldn’t leave without at least wishing his old shipmate a good recovery.

There was a drawing room for the families of visitors and Kydd settled in a chair to wait. On the table were newspapers and old issues of the Gentleman’s Magazine. He flicked through one but when he saw his name in it he turned it face down, embarrassed, and picked up another.

From time to time, curious staff offered refreshments, with well-meant platitudes. Dusk drew in and a lamp was brought. He knew he should think about leaving: his continued presence would be causing awkwardness for the hospital. Should he write Stirk a note, perhaps a light touch about the time when they were both foremast hands in the old Duke William? Or not: he had remembered the man’s sense of pride and-

A figure appeared in the doorway, difficult to make out by the light of the single lamp.

‘Mr Stirk?’

‘Aye. They said y’ wanted t’ see me.’ The husky voice was defensive and Stirk removed his shapeless hat awkwardly.

‘Do come in and sit, Mr Stirk,’ Kydd said, wondering whether it had been such a mercy to seek the man out after all.

Stirk came forward into the light but remained standing. He was not in his usual comfortable seaman’s rig, instead wearing a shabby dark coat and a muffler. His eyes glittered in deep-sunken pits.

‘I – I came to see how you were, Mr Stirk,’ Kydd ventured. It sounded affected before the reality of the fine old seaman who stood before him.

‘Sir. Nothin’ that can’t be put right by a spell o’ canvas-backing.’ This was a sailor’s term for taking refuge in his hammock.

‘They’re saying you’re out and about a lot. Are you-’

‘Got no right t’ tell you that,’ Stirk grated. ‘Poxy bastards! Sir.’

It was ridiculous, Kydd thought, for him to be sitting at his ease in an armchair while a man he admired more than most stood before him like a felon. Kydd got to his feet. ‘Are you in want of anything, Mr Stirk? Prize money is a long time coming and-’

‘I’m right ’n’ tight, Mr Kydd,’ he replied flatly.

‘Well, then-’

‘An’ I thanks ye for the askin’ of it.’

Was that a glimmering of feeling in his voice? ‘So you’ll be off soon to see your folk, I’d guess,’ Kydd chanced.

‘I might.’

‘How are they all? Romney Marsh, isn’t it? A fine place this time of year.’

‘Cap’n. It was right dimber of ye to see me, an’ I’ll not keep ye any longer.’ His voice had dropped so low Kydd struggled to hear.

He wanted to reach out to Stirk but there seemed an unbridgeable gulf between them. The tough, indomitable figure was bearing the strain of something beyond his mastering but was trapped in the husk of his own iron-hard character.

‘Well, yes, time to leave,’ Kydd said. Then he paused as if contemplating a sudden idea. ‘To tell the truth, I’m off to seek a mort of quiet to settle my thoughts. I’m looking for a place to stay as is peaceful and out of the way. What do you say to Hythe by the Marsh?’

There was no response, merely a steady gaze from unblinking black eyes.

‘Stage to Maidstone, another to the coast, as I remember. Oh, and I’d be gratified should we travel together,’ he added casually. If he could just get Stirk to his family …

‘No.’

‘May I know why not?’ Was the distance between them too much?

‘’Cos we don’t live there any more.’

‘Where …?’

There was the slightest hesitation, then: ‘Scotland. Dunlochry.’

‘I’m not certain I’ve heard of it.’

‘Had to skin out o’ the Marsh. Revenoo took against m’ young bro. Had t’ quick find somewhere quiet, like.’

Kydd held silent for a moment. ‘Quiet? This Dunlochry sounds just the place to lay up for a while and hoist in some peace.’

‘You’d be going all the ways up there?’ Stirk said slowly, the sunken eyes never leaving his.

‘The barky’s in for some weeks. I’ve got the time.’

The moment hung.

‘It’s a wee place. They’ll realise you’re-’

‘I’ll go as plain Mr Thomas Paine, heading north with my old friend Tobias Stirk. No one to know else. Right?’