Seaflower

Chapter 11

English Harbour shimmered under the noon-day heat it was quite the same as Kydd remembered — the beauty, the rank effluvia, the calm solidity of spacious stone buildings. Here it was that he had nearly ended his existence on earth, here it was ...

Seaflower came to anchor a few hundred yards off. There were hardly any ships in harbour, only a small sloop alongside at the capstan house without her upper masts. Signal flags mounted Seaflower's main topgallant peak. Kydd knew what they were asking and determined to be elsewhere when Caird came aboard for his survey.

Uncaring of the still, clammy heat building below decks in the absence of a clean sea-breeze, the boatswain ordered the platforms in the crew space overlaying the hold taken up. Kydd as quartermaster had the task of re-stowing their stores — firkins of butter, barrels of salt beef, hogsheads of water — over to one side of Seaflower in order that the damaged strake could be lifted clear for repair.