Seaflower

Chapter 5

The deck of a ship at dawn was the most beautiful sight he could think of, Kydd decided. Even the swish and slop of the men swabbing the deck did not intrude. The easy, domestic sounds in the cool of the early morning were balm to his troubled soul.

The quality of the dawn light on the anchored ship was of a gossamer hesitancy, a soft emerging of colour through grey; the tropical sea began its transition from dark grey-blue anonymity to its usual striking transparent greens and deep-water blue. Within the hour it would bear the hard glitter of the sun, and this magical time would be dismissed into memory. A sigh forced itself on him. The land with all its brutal ways could now be relinquished for the sea — the pure, stern, manly sea. A smile broke through. Renzi had not yet returned to Trajan from the brig of refugees, but they would have much to talk about when he did.

The line of men had nearly reached the half-deck. The men on the poop had finished and were stowing wash-deck gear. Stirk sauntered over to Kydd. 'D'ye fancy ter step ashore agen, cully?' he said, nodding to the palm-studded coast not a mile away, the sun's light playing stronger on the mass of deep greens and dark ravines of the interior.

'Wish t' hell I could, Toby,' Kydd said lightly. 'Had m'self a thunderin' good time ashore, the women an' all. ..'

Stirk kept his smile, but his eyes searched Kydd's face. 'Did 'ear 'twas bad cess, them Crapauds, a-killin' their own kind like they did.'

Kydd's tone changed. 'If they does, only leaves less f'r us.' His hands whitened on the rope he held, and his face turned seawards. 'Bolderin' weather to the nor'east'd,' he said firmly. From the direction of the reliable north-east trade winds the clouds were piling up, more than the usual wet-season rain squalls. It would mean soaked shirts for all again that afternoon.

'Haaaands to unmoor ship!'

At last! Out to sea, away from the nightmarish memories. From his position in the mizzen-top Kydd could see both accompanying frigates weigh and proceed, a satisfying picture in the trade winds of the open sea. Trajan cast to starboard when she had won her anchor and followed in their wake.

When he came on deck after the midday meal for his watch at the conn, the weather was clamping in. On the quarterdeck, Kydd took position next to the helm, and noticed Auberon's set expression. He was gazing at the easterly horizon, at the growing darkness — a peculiar darkness in the clouds, which had an ugly copper tinge. There was also a swell that was out of keeping with the wave patterning, a deepening, driven swell that told of a mighty storm somewhere, raging and lashing. And it was from the north-east.

Auberon rounded on the duty midshipman. 'M'duty to the Captain, and I would be happy to see him join me on deck,' he snapped.

Bomford did not waste time, appearing in his shirtsleeves and without his hat. Auberon merely indicated. 'Sir.'

Bomford paused for only seconds. 'Pass the word for Mr Quist,' he said quietly. The sailing master knew these waters well.

The warrant officer deliberated for long minutes. 'In my opinion, sir, it looks very like a hurricanoe.' He used a telescope to traverse the front of the approaching storm. 'I cannot be sure o' more, 'cepting we must shape a more southerly course an' run.'

Bomford looked at him sharply. 'Why southerly, if you please?'

'Sir, in these parts, if y' faces into the wind then ye'll find the centre of the storm nine, ten points on y'r right hand — an' this means we needs t' be athwart it directly.'

There was no denying the quiet authority in the man's voice. This was a man who had prevailed in the devastating hurricane that had decimated Rodney's fleet in these very waters less than a dozen years earlier. The master lifted an eyebrow and looked at the Captain. 'We can't outrun it — whether we're a-swim on the morrow or no depends squarely on the winds, gentlemen. In the next few hours, if the wind backs, with God's protection we're safe — mauled an' bedundered but we'll live. If th' wind veers . ..'

'Very well,' Bomford said. A moment's flash of uncertainty shadowed his face. Then he turned to Auberon. 'Do you bear away to the south'ard, and pipe the starbowlines on deck. I believe we will clear away and batten down.'

There had been other times, in other ships, when Kydd had worked to snug a vessel down for dirty weather but this was different: an apprehensive urgency was building, a knowledge that their very lives could depend on the tightness of a splice, the strength of a preventer. Details now were a matter of life or death.

As quartermaster's mate Kydd held allegiance in the first instance to the sailing master. Quist was calm but firm. There would be nothing left to chance that could conceivably be met by forethought and diligence. For the first time Kydd saw extreme measures being taken at sea, and he absorbed it all.

Quist's first care was to the rudder. If it carried away under stress of weather they could easily broach to, broadside to the deadly combers, and the result would be inevitable — they would be rolled over to their doom. The little party made its way below to the wardroom flat, aft on the gundeck. There, the true origin of control of the rudder lay: the mighty twenty-six-foot length of a tiller, high up just under the deckhead, connected by tackle and an endless rope up through the decks to the wheel-drum. As Kydd watched, it creaked and moved with the motions of the unseen helmsman high above, with its powerful leverage ready to sweep from one side of the deck to the other.

Three seamen arrived with a spare tiller to lay along the deck. Kydd's arms ached as he held up one side of the relieving tackles to be reeved. If the tiller-ropes parted in furious seas, these tackles would do no less than save the ship.

'Ask th' boatswain t' kindly step over, lad,' Quist told his messenger, a solemn midshipman, when they had regained the deck. The boy darted off. As master, Quist was senior to the boatswain, who arrived without delay. 'C'n we have rudder tackles rigged, d'ye think, Nathan?'

There were chains leading up each side of the rudder from its trailing part. They were unshackled and taken to the channel of the mizzen shrouds. A strong luff tackle was applied, its fall led into a gunport, and the chain becketed up under the counter. This was pure seamanship and Kydd looked down thoughtfully while he worked above the noisy foaming around the rudder — he had voyaged around Cape Horn and knew what heavy seas could do.

Back at the wheel, Quist paused as a portable compass was lashed in place near the binnacle. Nodding approval, he said, 'And we'll have a quartermaster on th' wheel, and his lee helmsman's going t' be his mate.' Kydd would be experiencing his first hurricane from the helm, mate to Capple.

'And we'll have weather cloths in the shrouds.' Quist was considerate as well as competent: these old sails stretched along the shrouds to weather would take some of the brutal sting out of the spindrift and blast coming in on the helmsman.

While they laboured Kydd kept his eye on the ominous build-up to their larboard. They were crossing the path of the storm rather than trying to outrun it, a rationale that made sense to the master - he would ask about the reasoning afterwards. If there was an afterwards ...

Rolling tackles were clapped on to the big lower yards. Vicious rolling could have the heavy yards moving out of synchrony with the hull, tearing sail and rigging; the whipping movement would be damped with the tackles. At the same time, at the ends of the yards where the big braces pulled them round to meet the wind, preventer lines were applied. If the braces parted and the yard swung back it would probably take the mast with it like a felled tree.

It was hard, continuous work, but there would be no complaints. Double tacks and sheets rove, storm canvas roused out; fore, main and mizzen storm staysails were cleared away and baggywrinkle mats seized on everywhere. In the complexity of rigging there was a danger that cordage madly flogging in the bluster of the storm would chafe to destruction.

Kydd took a last look at the vast storm before going below for his meal. It stretched now across half the sky and, labouring at her best speed as she was, Trajan was not going to escape. The frigates were nearly out of sight ahead and would probably get away with a battering, but the old ship-of-the-line would be facing the full force of the hurricane.

There was no chatter at the mess-table. All the petty officers knew the odds, could bear witness to tempests around the world. There was nothing to be said. Kydd met Stirk's eye: there was an imperceptible lift to his eyebrow but beyond that the hard-featured quarter gunner seemed unruffled. He had been with Kydd in Artemis when the vessel had been racked to pieces on an Atlantic rock and lived through many other dire times that he had never discussed. Kydd felt claustrophobic. The hatches were sealed with tarpaulin over the gratings, which were secured with nailed battens along the sides. Thus battened down there was no air movement and he felt breathless.

With a terrifying creaking along the whole length of the gundeck there was a massive unseen lurch to leeward. "Ere she comes, mates,' Stirk said, and got up. Kydd rose also; he had an urgent need to be out on deck.

The pealing of the silver calls of the boatswain's mates met him on the way up. 'All haaaands All the hands ahoy! All haaaands on deck! Haaands to shorten sail!'

There was now no point in trying to get away. Like a fleeing animal, Trajan could no longer run and had to turn, confront her pursuer, then fight to survive. Reduced to topsails and staysails, the Captain wanted more. First the topgallant and next the topmasts were struck on deck, the lack of high canvas resulting in a different kind of movement, an ugly, whipping roll that felt sullen and resentful. The sight of the truncated masts, only reaching up to the fighting tops, added to Kydd's unease.

The reliable trade winds fell away, then returned, but in gusts. The energetic waves were falling over themselves and the first rain drove in, coming in fretful squalls, chill and spiteful. Capple screwed up his eyes at the onslaught and took up position at the weather side of the wheel, motioning Kydd to the lee side. 'Capple at th' helm, Kydd to loo'ard,' he called to the knot of officers on the quarterdeck, looking gravely out to the spreading darkness in the north-east. The wheel kicked under Kydd's hands — the vigour in the seas was a reality - and he watched Capple closely as in turn the seaman watched the leech of the reefed topsail aloft. It would be hours before he saw his mess again.

'Dyce — no higher.' Quist appeared from behind them, studying the bellying canvas. Far forward, the bows lifted and smashed down in a broad swash of foam as she came round, now going more before the increasingly blustery winds, which Kydd gauged were already at gale strength.

Men moved carefully about the decks, the motion making it more of a controlled stagger. There was still more to be done, and Kydd watched the carpenter at the base of each mast check the wedges for play, the boatswain and his men stropping the anchors with extra painters to hold them securely against the tearing pull of the sea as the vessel's heavy downward roll buried them once again in a roaring mass of foam.

Braced against the wheel, Kydd's muscles bunched and gave with the effort of keeping the rudder straight under the impact of the seas coming in from astern. The shock of the impacts came regularly and massively, and it was difficult to time their movements.

The first seas came over the bulwarks to flood the decks just as the horizon faded in white froth and spume torn from wave-crests, but with a thrill Kydd saw from the binnacle that the streaming blast of air was now from the north, tending north-westerly — it was backing! As long as they could keep the seas then, according to the master, they would pass safely through this chaos of sea and air. He looked across the deck to where Quist stood alone, buffeted by the still-increasing gale, his old dark tarpaulins plastered to his body. He felt an upwelling of feeling for the man, who held in his mind so much cool knowledge about this raging of nature, and who—

Under his feet Kydd sensed a sudden rupture, a rending crack - and he fell to the deck, the wheel spinning uselessly above him. Stunned, he heard Capple shout something about the helm before his wits returned and he realised the tiller-ropes must have parted. The ship began to fall away, but Auberon's voice came instantly, bullying over the dull roar of the storm down the main hatchway. Tlelieving tackles — get going, y' lubbers!'

A bigger pitch than usual forced the bows at an angle to the sea and a comber crowded aboard in a mad welter of white, crashing, invading. From up the hatchway came an indistinct shouting. Quist emerged, grabbed Kydd's shoulder and hurled him down the ladder, yelling that the tiller had broken in the rudder-head. Capple clattered down behind him.

They raced to the wardroom where a group of men stood staring at a wreckage of broken timber, blocks and a mess of rope. The whites of their eyes showed as the huge rudder thudded sideways, uncontrolled against the counter, and a thump of white spray shot up the rudder casing. The deck canted steeply, then reared up the other way, sending men stumbling and gear sliding. Kydd hesitated — but Capple thrust forward. 'Clear that shitde for'ard,' he roared, his finger stabbing towards two of the nearest men, who jerked into action. He pushed through the others to look at the rudder. 'Get th' fuckin' chocks,' he snapped at Kydd.

The carpenter appeared, panting. 'Chocks,' he agreed quickly, and together, the deck bucking like a horse, he and Kydd eased the first shaped piece of timber into the octagonal opening down which the massive rudder creaked and groaned. 'Th' easy bit,' grunted the carpenter. 'Hold it there, cully, an' I'll scrag ye if y' lets it go.'

Kydd held the timber wedge as if his life depended on it. Through the opening he could see the terrifying white-torn confusion of seas hurtling up, tilting, then dropping like a stone. The rudder stock swung over ponderously, thumping and grinding into the rough chock under his hand with an appalling creaking. Capple and the carpenter tried to stuff the remaining chock into the other side, but the rudder spat it out and swung back to thud against the ship's stern. Kydd knew to keep his chock steady in place, but his hands were perilously close to where he knew the rudder stock would return. It narrowly missed crushing his fingers, and this time the other chock slammed in, true.

'Out of it!' gasped the carpenter, and Kydd pulled aside as he swung a big iron-bound mallet in accurate, crashing hits. Miraculously, the rudder had now been jammed into its central position. On deck they could use a trysail aft to bring the bows back on course. The immediate danger was over.

'Spare tiller, Chips?' Capple asked.

'Aye,' said the carpenter, and inspected the immobile rudder head where the tiller had broken off inside. 'Second mortice,' he said decisively.

With relief, Kydd saw that the spare tiller could be fitted in a lower mortice and, without being told, he had the men hastily ranging the tiller-rope and relieving tackles. When the spare tiller had been shipped, these tackles were clapped on, and they had a fully working rudder once more. It was amazing how quickly a neat, seamanlike scene could turn into a picture of utter despair — bedraggled ropes and anonymous timbers and wreckage — and how quickly return to a shipshape condition merely by getting to the heart of the circumstance and doing what was needed. He had seen Capple do just that and acknowledged the lesson.

On deck again, and at the wheel, Kydd saw that the winds had grown marginally less frantic, were definitely more in the west. There was no change in the vista of white-streaked water, horizontal clouds of spume flying over the surface. Huge waves crested, tumbled and were blown downwind to spindrift. The master paced down the deck past Kydd, who flashed him a grin.

Quist stopped, as if surprised in his thoughts. 'Good lad,' he said, against the wind noise, 'an' if it stays as is, we're thrown clear o' the blow betimes.' He smiled amiably and paced on.

So, it was only a matter of time. The old ship-of-the-line plunged on before the relentless wind. The hours passed. Kydd remembered Quist's words earlier. He mentally faced into the westerly wind and worked out that at nine points on his right hand, the centre of the storm was passing somewhere out there in the wildness to the north.

He was relieved at noon, and took the lee helm again for the last dog-watch with Capple, wind to the south-west. By now his eyes were red-sore with salt and his body ached for rest; it seemed to Kydd a malicious cruelty of the fates when the dread cry passed aft, TLand hooo — I see breakers aheeeaaad!’

Lookouts forward had sighted land in their path. Large or small it was an appalling hazard for a vessel barely under control, flying before the wind as she was. Images of the death of his lovely Artemis crept remorselessly into Kydd's skull. He shook his head and beat them back. Now Trajan needed him.

'Wear ship - we wear this instant!' Auberon bawled.

Kydd and Capple threw up the helm, and the vessel answered grudgingly. It would be difficult to wear around with only the reefed course and staysails, but it would have to be done. The storm jib was thrown out at just the right moment and, with violent rolling, Trajan turned about.

'Lie to, Mr Quist,' Auberon ordered, as the Captain appeared, driven by the sudden change in motion.

Tying to, sir,' Auberon reported, while Bomford studied the ugly dark line extending across the horizon. 'We'll never claw off, you know,' he said quietly, gazing at the endless barrier of land ahead. Trajan lay over crazily as the low sails took the wind from nearly abeam.

Bomford staggered but continued to observe, then snapped his glass shut. 'Clear away both bowers. We anchor!'

The veering crew in the cable tiers needed no telling; the cables would go to their fullest extent, and in the stink and dread of the near darkness in the bowels of the vessel they readied the cable. At the cathead in the bow the conditions for the seamen working to free the anchor for casting were frightful too. Kydd's heart wrung at the white fury of the seas coming inboard, receding to reveal the black figures of men resuming their fight.

First one anchor let go, then the other. The dead weight of the hempen cables, even before the great anchors could touch the sea-bed, heaved Trajan's bows around, head to sea. The effect was immediate. Taking the seas directly on the bow, she pitched like a frightened stallion, at one moment her bare bowsprit stabbing the sky, then a fearful onrush of seas down her sides, before a heart-stopping drop downwards, ending in a mighty crunch and explosion of spray at her bows.

Kydd stood ineffective: Trajan was now held by her anchor cables, meeting the hurricane head-on, and therefore his duty at the helm held no more purpose. It gave him time to look back at the line of land, which was nearer than he had thought. The constant mist of spume on the sea's surface had obscured the lower half of the band of hard black, and he quailed.

A perceptible yank and quiver: untold fathoms below, the iron claws of an anchor had come to rest in the sea-bed. The motion changed: the high soaring of the bows was the same, but after the lurch downwards, in the hesitation before the swoop up, the ship snubbed to her cable — a disorienting arrest of the wild movement for a big ship.

'Off yer go, then, cock, get somethin' ter eat, an' I'll see yer in an hour,' Capple said. Kydd flashed him a grateful smile. He had not had anything since daybreak: with both hands on the wheel there was no way he could bolt the dry rations on offer.

Stretching his aching muscles he followed the life-line forward and fell as much as stepped down the hatchway. Tween-decks was a noisy bedlam of swilling sea-water, squealing of guns against their breeching and a pungent gloom. His mess was deserted, the canvas screens not rigged, so he peeled off his wet shirt and helped himself to another from his ditty-bag, which hung and bumped against the ship's side. Condensation and leakage had soaked into the canvas bag and it was a sodden garment that he had to drag over his body. He shivered but gave it no more thought.

In the mess-racks he fumbled around and came up with some sea-biscuits. He pocketed three, then found a hard lump of cheese that he supposed had been left out for him. Munching the hard-tack, he glanced forward to where the patchy light of a clutch of violently swinging lanthorns played on dozens of huddled bodies. He assumed they were marines and landmen, hiding in the depths of the ship in the extremity of fear and exhaustion, racked by panic and sea-sickness.

Kydd felt a warmth of sympathy. They were better off where they were, out of sight of the heart-chilling insanity of the storm. He would go to them and try to say something encouraging, the least he could do. Holding on to anything to hand, Kydd made his way forward in the noisome obscurity.

But then his senses slammed in. The ponderous wrench at the beginning of the scend had disappeared, and a comparatively smooth rise completed the movement. There could only be one interpretation. With a constriction of his stomach Kydd knew that an empty cable was running now from the hawse. As if in confirmation, Trajan gave a fish-like wriggle as she careered astern. Kydd spun round. He hurried as fast as he could to make the upper deck, pulling along hand over hand. As he got to the base of the ladderway, a combined twist and jerk told him that Trajan had come up to her second anchor. 'Clear away th' sheet anchor!' Kydd heard the boatswain howl into the violence, as he breasted the coaming and came out into the turmoil.

Capple stared fiercely ahead to the foredeck where men fought and struggled. At every plunge they disappeared from view under an avalanche of white water. He noticed Kydd. 'Coral bottom!' he shouted. Coral was a deadly menace: it snarled and cut thick cables with razor-sharp edges and normally was never chosen for an anchorage.

A few yards forward Kydd saw Quist. He was yelling something indistinct, but ended by stabbing a finger at Kydd, then pointing forward. Kydd grabbed the wet hairiness of the midships life-line and hauled himself along the bucking deck to the starboard fore-chains, joining the men at the sheet anchor.

There was no immediate need for this last anchor they had, but they could leave nothing to chance. Kydd drew near and was nearly knocked off his feet by the green water sluicing aft. A cable to the sheet anchor had already been bent and seized in storm preparations, but anchoring in coral had not been foreseen.

'Keckling — get goin', Kydd,' the boatswain yelled. A coil of three-inch line was thrown at him; it thumped heavily into his chest. The seas roared against the side, burying the channel, the broad base of the shrouds fitted to the outside of the ship. Kydd caught his breath: he knew they were telling him to climb over the bulwarks and down on to that channel, to work at the stowed black mass of the sheet anchor and its cable.

He looked back resentfully at the row of men, who looked gravely back at him. They were older and more experienced but would be able to remain safely inboard. Then he understood: he had been chosen for this job because he was a better seaman than they.

The realisation warmed him, proofed him against the elements and, with-a jaunty wave, he swung over the bulwarks and dropped to the channel. It had crossed his mind to bend on a life-line around his waist, but if he was swept away then the sudden jerk at the end of the line might cut him in half. In any case the light line would get in the way.

The sea-glistening sides of the ship dipped slowly, and Kydd hung on grimly to the tarry shrouds. The expected seas came, first his feet, thighs, and then above his waist. A rushing torrent bullying and jostling, tearing at his hold on life. It seethed around the lower rigging and fittings with a deep hissing and roaring - then began to recede.

Kydd snatched a glance at the situation. His task was to apply keckling to the last yards of the cable as it came from the sheet anchor, wrapping his lighter line, and stout strips of canvas handed down to him, tightly about the strands of the cable. It was their only chance, the keckling their sole means to protect this last anchor from the deadly sharp coral and keep the ship from driving ashore.

The sheet anchor was lashed outside the shrouds, outside the channel, and Kydd was exposed to the seas. Edging around the aftermost shroud he stood on the iron curve of the flukes of the big anchor, then swung to the channel and shuffled along. Trajan rolled, the seas rose and battered and tugged at him. He held the thick shrouds in a death grip, pressing his face to their rough surfaces, feeling their sturdy strength.

The seas fell away as the ship began a laborious roll upwards. It was time to get to work. Kydd moved outboard of the anchor to the big ring beyond the stock. He waited for the surging seas to return and subside, then bent to begin. The rope had a mind of its own, snarling and writhing, but Kydd forced it round. More seas, but his work held, and when the dripping cable appeared, his keckling was still there. He worked feverishly, his arm hooked about the cable, but such was his concentration that when the next sea came it took him unawares -a momentary vision of the water within inches, then he was submerged, buffeted by giant forces while he hugged the cable, a maelstrom of roaring in his ears.

He emerged, bruised and gasping, his eyes stinging, a salty burning in his throat, but he went on grimly. His first sea friend, Bowyer, a deep-sea mariner of the very best kind, came to mind, and memories of lessons in the sea crafts, and he responded. Every working of cordage and cable would be the best he could manage.

Unexpectedly he felt a tug on his shoulder from above. Stirk's hand came out, and Kydd was hoisted bodily over the bulwarks. He sank to all fours with exhaustion, hearing Stirk's murmured words of encouragement — then noticed buckled shoes and silk stockings. He looked up to see- the Captain gazing down at him, then his slow nod of approval.

* * *

The second bower anchor gave way within the watch. It was terrifying to see the speed with which they were carried downwind towards the hard line of the shore. The sheet anchor, however, was ready and plunged into the sea almost immediately.

Now down to her last big anchor, Trajan's company were left with the bleak knowledge that if it parted then the ship would drive ashore — not on a sandy beach, but on the fringing reef a quarter of a mile offshore, its presence betrayed by wild breakers slamming high into the air. The vessel would break up fast on the massive coral heads, and when men struck out for their lives they would be slashed to ribbons in the breakers.

The daylight ebbed and the deck filled with silent men staring across the seas to their last sight of the land. Kydd went below to find something to eat, to bring strength to his weary body. It was sheltered below, the manic howl of the wind muted, its wearisome plucking and battering no longer worrying at his body.

The mess was deserted again, except for a small figure, head bowed, sitting alone at their mess-table. Puzzled, Kydd approached. It was Luke, a picture of misery. He did not look up as Kydd drew near.

'Hey now, skinker — light along some clacker f'r a starvin' mariner,' Kydd said breezily. Luke didn't respond.

'How's this? Messman f'r the petty officers, an' can't find 'em some vittles?' Kydd came to sit next to him. The bass rumble of some loose gear slamming against the hull forward sounded ominous and loud.

Luke said something in a low voice that Kydd was unable to catch. He leaned closer and saw that the boy had been crying. He hesitated, then put his arm round the lad's shoulders. Luke tensed then swayed and rested his head against Kydd.

'How's this? Pipin' the eye?' Kydd said kindly. 'Not as would be fittin' f'r a sailor, you'll agree, cuffin.'

Luke's muffled voice was certain. 'Mr Kydd, t'night I will be in hell.'

At a loss for words, Kydd could only squeeze his shoulders.

'I ain't been t' church much - an' that was only 'cos m' mother made me,' he continued, in stricken tones. 'An' - an' I lied t' her! See, I said as I'd go off t' work fer Uncle Jonathan away in Hounslow, an' I didn't. I ran off t' sea.'

Kydd saw with guilty clarity an image of a dusty church, a droning sermon and fiery words of sin, sentence and torment. Luke lifted his face, bright with tears, and blurted, 'I don't mean t' be wicked. When Mr Stirk gave me a grog, I didn't drink it, Mr Kydd, I threw it away — God's honour I did!'

A moment's hesitation, and Kydd withdrew his arm. 'You are indeed a wicked dog, and will probably have t' answer for it,' he said, thumping his fist on the table. Luke stared piteously at him. 'But not this night.' He paused dramatically. 'How dare ye have doubts about y'r ship? Is she dismasted? Is the mainstay in strands? D'ye see the Captain in despair? What sort o' jabberknowl is it, says we're on our way t' Davy Jones?'

Luke's face brightened. 'But we has one anchor out only, an'—'

Kydd's voice turned to thunder. 'So now y' questions m' seaman's skills? Y’ say that I can't pass a keckling without it falls off? I should take a strap to ye, younker!'

A hesitant smile appeared and Kydd pressed on: ‘First light an' the wind’ll have shifted two, three points, an' then we'll up hook 'n' make our offing.' He fisted Luke lightly on the arm. "Then it'll go hard on any as were seen afore not havin' trust in their ship.'

A sniff, a shamefaced smile, and Luke's cloud passed. 'There ain't much t' eat, Mr Kydd,' he said, but I'll find y' some - fr'm them shonky lubbers who don't want any,' he added, waving at the helpless landmen forward.

Kydd grinned. 'I thank ye, but I'll take a turn about the uppers first.' He felt a guilty stab at the hero-worship he saw in Luke's face, stuffed his pockets with anything he could find, and returned to the upper deck.

In the last of the light he saw tossing white breakers, the anonymous grey coast behind. And then a desolate night clamped in. He hunkered down in the lee of the bulwarks, his feet braced against the loudly creaking carriage of a gun, and pulled his jacket around himself. The subliminal jerk of the anchor cable transmitted itself to him, and he thought of the keckling deep in the sea, his work the only thing standing between the ship's company and their end in the loneliness of the night. He worried for a minute whether the canvas parcelling under the keckling was sufficient, but then decided that nothing was to be gained by that, and drifted into a fitful doze.

'On yer feet, matey.' A boatswain's mate with a dark-lanthorn was shaking him, but not unkindly. 'Larbowlines t' muster.'

Aching in every part of his body, Kydd staggered to his feet and lurched toward the quarterdeck, almost invisible in the darkness. There was no diminution in the wind-blast and the fierce motion of the sea was the same.

The officer-of-the-watch had his orders: the hawse rounding would be inspected hourly, the mate-of-the-watch would make his rounds half-hourly and the quartermaster-of-the-watch and his mate would check the hold for stores broken loose. The rest would remain on deck, on immediate call to the pumps.

As they opened up the forward hold in the orlop, Kydd noticed by the light of their lanthorn that Capple's eyes were red, his face lined. He wondered whether he himself looked as bad as he pulled aside the grating and dropped on to the casks immediately below. He reached up for the lanthorn and held it while Capple joined him. The dim gold light reached out into the stinking gloom, the noise of the hull working in the storm a deafening chorus of shattering cracks and deep-throated creaking. As far as could be seen, the stowage was unbroken. Kydd leaned over the side of the mound of casks to the ground tier in their bed of shingle, and saw the sheen of water in the shadows, then heard the hiss of water movement, much like a pebble beach.

'Takin' in a lot o' water,' Kydd called back. 'Hope Chips's got a weather eye on't.' The pumps had been at work for an hour every watch, he knew, but that would be the seawater flooding the decks making its way to the bilges. The red pinprick flash of eyes caught his attention at the periphery of his vision. *Rats're gettin' restless,' he muttered. In a heavy blow at sea, rats usually found somewhere quiet to sit it out; these were on the move. Kydd didn't know why, but felt the beginning of fear.

'I'm gettin' another lanthorn, Tom, mate,' Capple said. 'We're goin' to take a good look.'

It was dangerous work: the massive barrels over which they clambered moved at every violent roll, opening a vicious cleft between them that would certainly mean crushed fingers or worse if they were trapped. They worked their way down the ancient, blackened timbers of the ship's side, noting the weeping of seams, the visible working of frames and planking. There was nothing.

Up the other side. There did not appear to be anything they could report, but Kydd felt that all was not well in the old ship's bowels. They returned to anchor watch on the foredeck, feeling as much as seeing the catenary curve of the thick cable into the white-streaked dark ahead, and were soaked each time the thump of a breaker against the bows signalled another deluge.

At six bells, an hour before the end of Kydd's watch, they heard that the chain-pump, capable of moving tons of water an hour, was now being manned continuously. This was serious. There must be a near disastrous ingress of water somewhere, but the ship's company was numb after hours of hanging by their sole anchor, and the news had little impact. All hopes were centred on the morning.

Kydd could not go below. At the end of his watch he crouched below the bulwarks again, straining against the darkness to catch the first hint of light. The anchor was holding — that was all that counted. At any moment it might silently give way and then, after a few despairing minutes, it would all be over for every soul aboard. At any moment! But the thought gradually lost its reality and therefore the power to terrorise him.

Cold, aching, stupefied by the hammering wind, Kydd slowly realised that he could see as far aft as the hulking shapes of the boats on their skids. He stood stiffly and looked out to sea.

'What is it, mate?' Stirk said. He had shared Kydd's vigil on the foredeck.

Kydd turned to him. 'Dawn,' he said. A smile transformed his face. They gripped a rope and gazed out, waiting for the wan daylight to spread. Across the wind-torn seascape the land finally emerged — but implausibly it ranged away at an angle.

'We got a chance now, me ol’ griff,' said Stirk, his eyes dark-shadowed, his face hollow.

'Show some canvas, why, we'll claw off in a brace o' shakes,' agreed Kydd. During the night the wind had backed. Now no longer a dead muzzier, there was a fighting chance that they could use the shift in wind to sail themselves out close-hauled. And in this way, they would no longer be reliant on the single anchor - they would be once more in the open sea.

The light of day spread. It was now possible to see a jagged horizon, which had been invisible the previous day, and Kydd knew that the weather was moderating.

'All haaands . . .' The rest was impossible to make out. But it was clear what was required. Hands to stations to set sail; Kydd went aft to the helm to await his orders.

Bomford spoke briefly to his first lieutenant. From all parts-of-ship came the officers and petty officers in charge of their stations, from the fighting tops, the fo'c'sle, the mainmast. They were the ones who would hear what must be done — and make it so.

The Captain stood in the centre of the deck, his officers straining to hear, the petty officers about them. 'You will know of the peril in which we stand — I will not refer to it again,' Bomford said. His voice had a hard, resolute edge that cut through the buffeting roar of the wind.

'We will cast to larb'd and proceed under close-reefed main, double-reefed storm jib and driver.' He looked keenly at the group. 'You will see that this is very like a club-haul, the latter part - and by this you will know that there is no going back, there is but one chance . . .'

Kydd had never seen a club-haul, a manoeuvre reserved for the most desperate situations, but he had heard of it. A vessel caught on a lee coast would let go her anchor, then continue to be blown ashore only to pivot around her anchor to face out to sea again. It was a brutal manoeuvre but the sting was in what Bomford was saying: there was only one chance, because when the vessel found herself headed back out to sea, she had no choice — the anchor cable had to be cut to enable the escape.

'I will crowd on her all sail she will take,' Bomford said, ‘by my sign to each in turn ...' he specified which signal would apply to which sail for shouted orders were useless '. .. and I apprehend the chief peril to be if the main course is .taken aback.'

The Captain finished, and looked gravely at each man. He then spoke gently but firmly: 'I do believe before we go to put our lives at hazard, it will not go amiss if we put our hopes and trust before He who disposes of all things.' A scatter of shapeless tarpaulin head coverings disappeared and, bare-headed, the men of HMS Trajan came together in prayer. For a long moment, there was silence as every man's thoughts soared to his loved ones, and the chance of ever seeing them again.

Kydd's eyes lifted from the deck. 'To your stations, if you please,' said Bomford quietly. The light had strengthened: it was possible to see well ahead to the open sea, the yearned-for goal, but the line of coast was growing in clarity.

Capple stood at the wheel, his arms folded, ready. His was without doubt the single most vital task. Kydd snatched a glance. If Capple felt the pressure on him he gave no sign of it, his eyes slitted against the wind, watching the sails bent on, gaskets loosened, men gathering to hoist — or dowse.

It was time. One by one the stations waved an acknowledgement, the men standing by in fearful anticipation. Out of sight on the deck below the boatswain would be standing with his foot on the cable as it left the hawse — he would feel its live thrumming, the tension in a direct line to the sea-bed. When the ship had sail on, had speed sufficient not only to meet the seas and beat them but to make real way, then the boatswain would feel the vibration die away, the cable deaden, relaxed at last as the ship came up on the anchor. Then would be the time for the carpenter to step forward with his razor-sharp mast axe and cut the cable.

'Helm!' the Captain warned. Capple gripped the wheel. Kydd would follow every movement at the lee side, his eyes fixed on the quartermaster. The Captain moved to the forward end of the quarterdeck and gave one last glance aloft. Then he acted: the signal went out. It was the storm jib to hoist, and forward a tiny triangle of sail inched up hesitantly, the white faces of the fo'c'sle party clearly visible as they looked back at the Captain, ready for an immediate countermand. The wheel spun as the helm was put hard over. They would use the effect of the seas seething past to help achieve a cast to larb'd.

Higher it rose, flapping and beating with the wind dead ahead. Suddenly it took the wind, board taut: the strong sail in an instant had the bows dipping and the ship shying like a nervous horse. This was the time of greatest danger, before any speed through the water was achieved, sheering across the wind and putting intolerable strain on their anchor.

Another signal, this time aft: the driver, a fore and aft sail on the mizzen, makeshift reefing to show the smallest possible area. Kydd held his breath - the sail flapped and banged, then caught.

Braced right around, the main-yard was slung low in its jeers, but the lee clew of the course appeared. It grew, and the first square sail was set, a tiny corner on one side of the yard, but yet a driving force.

Nervously Kydd snatched a glimpse at the white seas raging past. The ship began to rear: there was an uneasy screwing motion. The Captain was as rigid as a statue, gripping a stay and staring fiercely ahead. Bomford gestured — more sail showed at the main. Kydd could not be sure, but felt that the motion was growing less jerky. Could it be that they were advancing on their anchor?

Raising his arm, Bomford looked all about him. Then, the signal to cut the cable, to launch themselves into eternity — or sweet safety.

Kydd tensed, and in the time it took the carpenter to hack through the great cable Bomford strode quickly back to the helm. Suddenly the ship's bow fell away from the wind. No longer tethered she dropped away to leeward. A massive roll sent men skittering across the deck. A cross sea intervened and the ship lurched sickeningly. Kydd snatched a look astern — they were drifting down on the land. His hands gripped the wheel convulsively. A growl from Capple brought his attention to it. They fought the wheel round together, hard over to try to bring the bows back up to the wind.

The Captain stood unmoving and Kydd felt a pressure on the helm, a strengthening, glorious force that told of power and movement through the water. He determined not to look behind at the land, but couldn't help a prickling in his neck as he remembered the fringing reef, which must be close now.

The bowsprit reared and plunged but it sawed a path in the sky that was unmistakable: Trajan was answering her helm. Kydd dared to hope. A little more of the goosewinged main and the old ship heeled obediently in response, the seas meeting her bow with energy and purpose. Minute by agonising minute, yard by yard, Trajan clawed her way out to sea, until at last there could be no more doubt. They had won through.

All eyes were on the thick-set carpenter as he emerged on deck to report. The pumps had been at work for some time, but it seemed that he had not found any specific leakage.

'Sir, the barky is strained in her foreparts, on account o' the anchorin' pulling and tearin' at the riding bitts and clinches. I can't say as I c'n be sure how long afore she opens up aroun' the cant frames, she bein' so mouldy deep in an' all.'

It would be the cruellest fortune to founder just as they had found life. Kydd felt resentment flare and wondered bitterly what Renzi would make of it, what philosophical edge might make it palatable. There was talk of frapping, putting turns of rope right round the hull and bowsing tight, but this was impossible while the hurricane lasted. The wind had backed further and as the hours wore on there was a discernible lessening of the violence, a descent into merely a fresh gale, but not enough.

Just before Kydd's watch finished, lookouts on the foreyard sighted sail, far off and storm-tossed, but it quickly resolved into a frigate, an English one as far as anyone could tell, scudding before the outer edge of the hurricane.

'Show 'em our colours,' snapped Auberon. In reply a blue ensign jerked up the mast in the frigate, proving her one of Admiral Jervis's Leeward Islands Squadron.

Bomford wasted no time. 'Signal her to lie to, and attend on us when the storm abates,' he ordered, and went below.

'All the haaaands! All haaands on deck — lay aft!'

Shafts of sun glittered on the grey seas, the wind nearly back in the north-east, warmth beginning to spread, the insanity of the past slipping away. The men mustered on the upper deck to hear the Captain again.

'I will be brief,' Bomford began. It was clear he had much on his mind, and he spoke curdy. 'I am proud of this ship - I am proud of you all, that you have done your duty so nobly. If you stand as valiantly against the enemy as you did against the might of the hurricane then we have no fear of any foe.' Bomford seemed to have difficulty in choosing his words. 'Trajan will proceed now to Antigua for survey and repair at the dockyard, a bare day or two's sail away.' He waited for the indistinct murmuring to die away. 'But I have to tell you that we as a ship's company will be transported in the frigate back to Barbados while this is done.' This time there were mutters of appreciation - the small island of Antigua could not bear the effort of keeping hundreds of seamen idle ashore for an extended period, and therefore they would return to the main base with all its lures. 'Yet I would ask for volunteers to form a skeleton crew to sail Trajan to her well-earned rest. May the first lieutenant see the hands of those volunteering?'

A tiny scatter of hands rose. It was no contest: Antigua had nothing to offer that compared with the punch shops and entertainments of Bridgetown. Anger rose in Kydd: Trajan was now to be deserted by those she had borne so uncomplainingly through her time of trial. He glanced about. Stony faces met his: they were not going to give up their chance of a frolic. Kydd threw up his hand — he at least would remember the old lady.

The. volunteers were mustered on the quarterdeck. His eyes resentfully on the deserting seamen, Kydd didn't notice Bomford approach.

'Kydd, it did not escape me, the contribution you made to this ship and her preservation.' Bomford had piercing eyes and Kydd stiffened. 'This was in the very best traditions of the Service, and show you to be an exceptional seaman. I look forward to when we renew our acquaintance as a ship's company — and while I cannot promise in the particulars, I have it in mind to recognise your worth with an advancement. Good luck, and thank you.'

Chapter 6

Trajan ghosted over a shimmering sea, her sail reduced so that without an anchor she could back topsails and heave to in plenty of time. The low, pretty island of Antigua lay ahead, basking in tropical sunshine, a long sandy beach visible between two rocky points. The dark stone of a fort stood at a height to the right, and another one extended low down along a point to the left, dashes of red along a crenellated wall obviously soldiers. The sea was a deep royal blue, so calm that only a slight swell marred its flat, glittering expanse.

A boat under sail emerged round the point and turned towards them, her bow-wave white and sparkling. On taking in the last of her sails, Trajan ceased her live motion and drifted. The boat arrived and a deeply sun-tanned officer clambered up the side. It took little time for the essence of the matter to be conveyed: the ship would be prepared to enter English Harbour.

It was out of the question to sail into the confines of the harbour: the compact space that made it a first-class hurricane haven made it impossible for a large ship to manoeuvre. Trajan would be warped in. Ropes were taken ashore by boat and secured to strong moorings embedded at strategic points, and all hands of the skeleton crew manned the capstan.

The land came in on both sides, but around the point it opened up. At a prominence further down in the long harbour a cluster of buildings announced the location of a naval dockyard. Trajan was not alone. The bulbous hull of a vessel careening dominated the other side, and everywhere there were brigs, schooners, packets and a swarm of small fry. But the 74-gun Trajan was easily the biggest vessel, her grim sides towering above them all.

They hauled themselves further into the harbour. The dockyard was to larboard, and on a flat area to the fore a lofty mast bore a Union Flag that streamed gaily to the breeze. As her commissioning pennant was not in evidence, there were no naval ceremonies and within the hour Trajan was alongside a dusky brown coral-stone wharf.

Kydd looked ashore. The little dockyard town boasted imposing, veranda-clad two-storey edifices along well-made roads. At the root of the tiny peninsula was a long pillared structure with open sides topped with a wide roof — a boat being floated inside revealed it as a shipwright's boat-house.

Springs and breast-ropes applied, Trajan had officially arrived. It was hot and dusty, but the north-east trade winds resumed their cool streaming from over the surrounding hills. All the same, Kydd felt grateful to be wearing a thin working shirt rather than the soldiers' heavy clothing. From Trajan's upper deck, he could see into the busy dockyard. Black men considerably outnumbered others, plodding along economically with their burdens. A number of ducks and geese were fluttering and strutting about.

'Ain't much,' Stirk said, mopping his brow with his red kerchief. 'We goin' rollickin' ashore, 'n' not a sight of a regular-goin' pothouse anywheres.' The close-packed dockyard buildings quickly fell away along what could be seen of the road meandering into the interior. The cane-fields over the surrounding hills, apart from the occasional windmill, were innocent of anything man-made.

'Heard tell th't what y* sees is all there is,' Kydd said, remembering the derisive talk in Trajan when he had volunteered. 'Seems the Navy is all in th' north o' the island, an' here just y'r dockyard an' the redcoats.' Stirk gave a grunt of dissatisfaction, and Kydd hoped that they would not be long delayed. A week or two to refit, enough to cross the Atlantic for a full docking in England — then, at last, he would be able to go home.

There was a coming and going of officers and dockyard functionaries up the side-steps from the quay, but nothing to say what their future would be. The young lieutenant in temporary command was not going to risk his situation by letting his men leave the ship. They stayed aboard, moodily watching the shore.

At four in the afternoon, as the midday heat lessened, a small party approached. It was led by a man in austere black, and as he stepped down on the upper deck Kydd was struck by the nobility in his bearing, the calm certainty in his features. The party disappeared below.

'Who's that?' Kydd asked.

'Why, that's Zachary Caird, yer master shipwright come ter survey,' said a local craftsman. 'Second only ter the commissioner in the dockyard, is 'e.'

One of the party reappeared on deck, his working clothes marking him as a shipwright. He brushed aside questions, slipping over the side and into the dockyard. He returned with a long, cylindrical section auger, and vanished below.

Darkness was drawing in by the time the party came on deck again. From their grave expressions Kydd guessed that the repair would be a lengthy one. 'Any word, sir?' he asked the young lieutenant, after he had shepherded the survey team over the bulwarks.

'Yes,' said the officer offhandedly, 'and we are to be condemned, I believe.'

Kydd stared. 'We . . .'

'We are strained and leaking in the hull, and it is outside the powers of this dockyard to get us seaworthy enough to make passage back to England.' He removed his cocked hat and wiped his forehead. 'As they have no dry dock here for a great repair, we are finished. It was being at anchor in a hurricane, the strain and working at the bow, too much for the ironsick old vessel.' He gazed away.

'But—'

'It's subject to confirmation by others, but, well, you now know as much as I.'

Stirk had no doubts about their future. 'The Trajans are no more, cully! We'se goin' ter be sent quicksmart t' Barbados an' the Loo'ard Island fleet, or it's the Jamaica Squadron. Either way we gets no say a-tall which barky we're goin' ter ship out on.'

Kydd's spirits sank. It was hard to take. Renzi would probably not even know which ship he had been assigned to, all his friends would be scattered and he would not see them again. There was one other thing to add to his dejection. He was now a quartermaster's mate, a petty officer: in a strange ship he would have to work his way up all over again. Captain Bomford's promise of advancement meant nothing.

The next day, Trajan was warped deeper into the harbour, well clear of other vessels, and prepared for de-storing. After the formality of a second opinion her guns would be removed and the process of hulking her would begin.

A large detachment of seamen was soon taken off for immediate passage to Barbados. A brig-sloop took another six, an armed schooner three. A last-minute call from a passing 64-gun vessel took the majority of the remainder to Jamaica, leaving a silent, echoing ship and a handful of men.

'Kydd!' the lieutenant called. 'Mr Caird has asked if I can spare a good hand to work with him ashore. I told him we can. Get your gear, the dockyard boat will be calling for you at six bells.'

The dockyard? Kydd's thoughts jostled and his first instinct was to object - but, then, perhaps it would be interesting, learning the internal secrets of so many different kinds of vessel. He found himself responding positively.

But there was one left aboard to whom he must say farewell. Luke was stricken at the news. 'B-but, Mr Kydd — you ...'

Touched by his grief Kydd fumbled for words, knowing the dockyard boat would be alongside soon. 'Shall miss ye too, skinker,' he said, ruffling the lad's hair, 'but we does our duty, an' without gripin'.' Luke stared at him but didn't move as Kydd turned and left.

The dockyard hoy was taking advantage of the trip by loading mounds of sails, awnings, cordage and other materials from Trajan for return to stores. Kydd found himself wedged in with these as he settled down for the short trip.

The boat hoisted sail. As they made their way to the dockyard landing place, Kydd looked back on Trajan, his ship: her age-darkened sides, the ugly truncation of topmasts, the secrets of twenty years and the unknown thousands who had sailed in her. He felt a lump build in his throat as she fell astern. She slowly transfigured into yet another feature of the harbour, an anonymous vessel in the distance with all reality of having been his home now faded. He wrenched away his gaze. A different kind of life was starting for him now.

The boat nosed in to the coral-rock quay, ending up neatly under a stout wooden crane where the single sail was dowsed. 'Where's Mr Caird?' Kydd asked the crew. It seemed that he could be found at the boat-house. Kydd heaved out his sea-bag and started to head in the direction they had indicated.

Then incredulous shouts came from the hoy. He looked back and saw Luke clambering out from under old sails. 'Be damned! You're a wicked rascal, to think on desertin' y'r ship like this,' Kydd said hotly. 'Y’r goin' straight back aboard.'

'Not wi' us, he ain't - we got other work t'do,' came a swift rejoinder from one of the hoy's crew.

'Well, how c'n he . . .'

'Not our problem, mate.'

Kydd swore, but saw the appeal in Luke's big eyes, his little bundle of belongings over his shoulder, and knew that, if he insisted, he would be condemning the lad. He swore again. 'Follow me, y' ill-lookin' swab,' he growled, and set out for the boat-house. Obediently Luke fell into step behind.

The boat-house consisted of an extensive loft rested on lines of tall stone pillars. Below, boats were floated inside, then hoisted to the workshop floor. The resinous aroma of timber lay strongly on the breeze that played through the pillars, a clean, welcome scent in the overall reek of a harbour. Mr Caird stepped out from the store-room at the back. Kydd recognised him at once as the master shipwright who had surveyed Trajan.

"Thomas Kydd, who's been sent fr'm Trajan for service ashore.'

Caird looked at him keenly. 'What was your rate aboard?'

Again Kydd was struck by the calm gaze, the certainty in his manner. 'Quartermaster's mate, sir.'

Caird nodded. 'If I may observe, you're young for the rate, are you not?' A series of flat thumps with a mallet sounded to one side.

Kydd returned his look defiantly.

'But, of course, you will have earned it,' Caird added quickly. 'You may need it. Have you had experience of men of colour?'

Taken aback by the question Kydd paused. There were no slaves in England, and the only black men he had seen at sea were all free, as he was. 'Not as y' might say,' he said cautiously.

'I have it in mind to employ you as a Master of the King's Negroes - to take my shipwright's sidesmen in charge.'

'Aye, sir,' Kydd said carefully.

'To see they're mustered at work each morning, that they're not in want of what they need - but ye need to know, I'll not have them abused, sir.'

Thoughts racing, Kydd murmured assent. This was utterly beyond his expectations. Caird regarded him thoughtfully, then his gaze slipped to Luke, who smiled up at him uncertainly.

'And this is — your servant?' Caird said. 'You are entitled, of course, as a master, but we have our own, you know.'

Caught off-balance, Kydd stuttered an acknowledgement.

Caird's eyebrows rose. 'Well, if you insist — but he will have to share servants' quarters.'

"Th-thank you,' Kydd said, not daring to look at Luke.

'Hercules will show you to your lodgings. I will see you at my office at four o'clock, if you please.'

Kydd followed the black man along the road, past workshops and sawpits, Luke walking silently behind with his bundle. They went through the dockyard gate and stopped at one of a row of small but neat two-storey houses. 'In dis house — youse in de top floor, massa.'

Kydd opened the little wicket gate and stepped inside: there was an external flight of stairs to the top storey. The man looked once more at him, then touched his forehead and left.

At the top of the stairs the door held a key: Kydd turned it and entered. The small room smelt stuffy and unused. There was a low bed, a side dresser with a jug, and little else. Kydd crossed the room and opened one of two doors to a tiny sitting room with armchair and table. The other led to a snug veranda overlooking the hills beyond. 'Hey, now,' Kydd said, with satisfaction. 'So I'm t' be a master, an' live in a house.'

By late afternoon Kydd had the place in order. On the lower floor, it seemed, was the chief caulker, now absent. He would pay his respects later.

'Where do I go, Mr Kydd?' said Luke, overawed by events.

'Why, with th' other servants, o' course.' Kydd chuckled. Luke's face fell. Kydd couldn't keep it up. 'But then again, I c'd have ye close at hand, see t' my wants at any time. Oh, yes! So I decides I want you to doss down here, younker, but mark you, mind has proper respect f'r yer master.'

'Yes, an' I will, Mr Kydd,' said Luke, seriously.

The office of the master shipwright was with the master attendant and commissioner, right at the far end, but the dockyard was compact and well laid out. Kydd was shown into the airy office. Caird sat at his desk, his quill scratching busily. He glanced up as Kydd approached. 'A minute, if you please.'

The room was extremely clean, furniture well polished, and ornamented only with a series of charts and half-breadth shipyard models. A Christian devotional etching hung in the centre of one wall.

Caird swivelled round. 'Please be seated, Mr Kydd,' he said, motioning to a cane chair on one side. 'I am the master shipwright here, as you know, and my responsibilities are extensive. It would be gratifying if I could rely on those the good Lord sees fit to set under me.' He paused, looking intently at Kydd. 'This is not always the case, I am grieved to say.'

The interview continued with a clear and unequivocal setting-out of Kydd's new duties, which were also carefully written down for him. It concluded with a stern warning on conduct. 'Do you mark my words, Mr Kydd, I will suffer no man in my charge to corrupt himself by yielding up his body to drink and carnality. Should he so dishonour me, I shall cast him out without mercy.'

Kydd was by no means a tippler: he disliked the surrender of will involved in drunkenness, and as to carnality, he had not seen a female of any age anywhere. 'Aye, sir, ye need have no fears of me,' he said positively.

'Ah, that is good. Your predecessor did grievously disappoint in this. I wish you well for the future, and we may expect your presence on the morrow at the boat-house.'

Later, in the privacy of his room, Kydd studied the paper containing full details of his duties. The King's Negroes were slaves, but superior slaves, it seemed, for not only did they have considerable skills but, to Kydd's surprise, some even had slaves of their own. He would have a driver, a foreman, who would be responsible to him for the others, and a line of responsibility to the yard boatswain.

'Y'r pardon, Mr Kydd,' said Luke anxiously. He stood at the door respectfully. 'I c'n have yer scran alongside, should yer want it now.'

Kydd felt abashed: he had not really meant it when he told Luke he was a servant. Now the lad was taking him at his word. On reflection, however, he realised that, given the circumstances, it might be the best thing. 'Thank ye, Luke, I will.'

Kydd returned to his paper. The King's Negroes' chief employment was as a skilled crew to assist shipwrights and riggers in major operations, such as in heaving down ships for underwater repairs or replacing whole masts. His would be the first party to board men-o'-war entering harbour having been wounded in battle or savaged by a hurricane.

Luke spread a small tablecloth on the sitting-room table. Without looking up, he carefully laid a single place with pewter plate and knife, and withdrew.

Kydd finished the paper, smiling to himself at the strictures on keeping his men sober and diligent.

The cool of the morning showed Antigua in its best light: delicate tints, clarity of air, and everywhere the sparkling translucence of the sea.

On the flat grassy area next to the boat-house Kydd surveyed the King's Negroes. They returned his contemplation with stony indifference, or looked away with disinterest. Big, well-muscled and hard-looking, they were dressed in canvas trousers and buttoned waistcoat over naked skin. Some wore old-fashioned three-cornered cocked hats, others a bandanna. Unusually for slaves, all carried a sheathed seaman's knife.

'An' who's the driver?' Kydd asked, in even tones. The men kept silent, staring back at him. Kydd tried to sense their feelings, but there was a barrier.

'The driver!' he snapped. If it was going to be this way, so be it, but then the hardest-looking of them pulled himself up slowly and confronted Kydd. The driver,' he said, his voice deep and strong. He regarded Kydd impassively from under hooded black eyes, his arms folded.

Kydd looked at the others. There was no feeling in their expressions. They existed in stasis, much like beasts of the field, it appeared. 'I'm Kydd, and I'm th' new master,' he said. There was no response, no interest. 'What's y'r name?' he demanded of the driver.

'Juba,' he said.

'What are their names?' said Kydd. 'They are t' tell me themselves,' he added.

A flicker of curiosity showed in their faces. 'Nero,' grunted an older one. Kydd nodded, and prompted the man next to him.

'Quamino.'

'An' you?' Kydd went on. 'Ben Bobstay.'

One by one, he had a name from each. He hesitated over whether to make a strict speech of introduction, but thought better of it. 'If ye does y'r duty, ye'll have nothing t' fear fr'm me,' he said firmly, and turned to greet Caird, who had just arrived.

'I see you have mustered your crew already,' Caird said. 'Fort Shirley has signalled that Rose frigate will be here this morning — she has a sprung foremast, which we shall in course replace.' He stopped to take a sheaf of lists from a waiting shipwright and scanned them quickly. 'Where are your roves, sir?' he asked impatiently. 'Were you thinking to secure with nails?' His forehead creased, and the shipwright cringed. Caird turned to Kydd again. 'We shall not need the sheer hulk — the boatswain of the yard will rig sheers on her foredeck.'

Kydd had no experience of such skilled work, and if he was expected to take charge . ..

'The boatswain will be overseer,' said Caird, as if sensing Kydd's thoughts. 'It only requires that you tell your driver the task — he has done this work, and you may feel sure that he knows what to do.'

The 28-gun frigate Rose sailed in without warping, even with minimal sail at the fore, a fine piece of seamanship in the exuberant late-summer breezes. She had suffered at the hands of the hurricane — sea-whitened timbers and ropes leached of their tar, stoppers seized at places in her rigging, the patchy wooden paleness of new repairs showing here and there. But she rounded to, and her sails came in smartly, as if her company were conscious of their fortune in being spared by the fates.

The boatswain of the yard, sitting in the stern-sheets of the dockyard boat with Kydd, stared idly ahead. The rowers pulled heavily, towing two massive sheer-legs in the water.

To Kydd, it was strangely affecting to step over the bulwarks and be in a sea world belonging to others.

While the boatswain talked to the Captain, his eyes strayed to little things that would be embedded in the consciousness of the ship's company - the dog-vane to point the direction of the wind and fashioned into a red-petalled rose, the binnacle finished with a varnished bolt-rope, the smart black japanned speaking trumpet also with a painted rose - all these would be the familiar images of daily life at sea,

Rose's seamen looked at him curiously, his small band of black men at his back. 'What cheer, mate?' said one. 'Where's to go on th' ran-tan?'

Spared from having to answer by the boatswain's hail from forward, Kydd reported himself and his men. 'You, Kydd, get y'r men out o' the way fer now, but I'll want 'em on the cross spar afore we cants the sheers,' the boatswain said, and turned to his own crew.

Kydd stared at the scene with some anxiety. The fo'c'sle was a maze of ropes and blocks laid out along the deck each side from when the topmast had been struck. How it was possible to pluck the feet-thick foremast, like a tooth, straight out from where it ended morticed into its step on the keel he had no idea. Juba did not volunteer a word. He stood aside, watching with a patience that seemed limitless and at the same time detached.

The boatswain's men ranged mighty three-fold purchases. The sheaved blocks were each nearly double the size of a man's head, the falls coiled in fakes yards long. Lesser tackles were made fast to knightheads and kevels, and all was ready to bring aboard the sheers. But then the boatswain stepped back, his arms folded. Kydd saw why: in a nice division of responsibilities, it was men of the Rose who manned the jeer capstan to take the weight, then lower the heavy seventy-five-foot width of the foreyard, indecently shorn of its usual complexity of buntlines and halliards.

The foremast now stood alone, its wound clearly visible as a long bone-coloured fracture under the capstan bars, which had been splinted around it. 'Kydd, y'r cross spar!' the boatswain called impatiently.

Kydd had been too interested in the proceedings and was caught unawares but he swiftly rounded on Juba. 'Cross spar!' he snapped, stepping towards the sheers. He looked fearlessly at the man, who hesitated just a moment, looking into Kydd's eyes, then moved into action. In low tones he called to the other negroes, in words incomprehensible to Kydd. The men split into two parties and slid the fore topgallant yard athwartships, then up against the splayed end of the sheers. They stopped and Juba looked up slowly. Kydd turned to the men at the cross-piece of the sheers and told them to pass the seizing.

'Like a throat-seizing an' not too taut,' the boatswain suggested.

'Aye,' said Kydd, happy with a new-found realisation: no matter how complex and technical the task, it could be rendered down to a series of known seamanlike evolutions.

The sheers were duly canted, tilted up so the guys could get an angle to sway the sheer-legs aloft. At the same time tackles at their feet held them firmly in place. It was almost an anti-climax, knocking aside the mast wedges, freeing the partners and hearing the massive tackle creak as it strained in a vertical pull up on the mast, which gave in a sudden and alarming jerk upwards.

There was suddenly nothing to do as the freed mast was angled and slowly lowered over the ship's side to be floated ashore, a fearsome thing that could spear the heart out of the frigate if it was accidentally let go. Kydd glanced at the motionless Juba, intrigued by the man's self-possession. Unexpectedly Juba allowed a brief smile to appear. Kydd smiled back, and pretended to follow the progress of the mast over the side.

The softness of a Caribbean evening was stealing over the waters when Kydd was finally able to return to the dockyard.

The replacement foremast had needed work. Awkwardly placed along the deck of the frigate it had had to be held securely on trestles while shipwrights went to work with adze and angled mast axe. As the chips flew, the craftsmen held Kydd in awe at their skill with such awkward tools. He now knew a good deal more than he had at break of day, and he felt happier than he had at any time since he had left Trajan: this was better than being a spare hand to whatever ship would claim him.

Closer in to the dockyard, he could hear the cries and laughter of the ship's company of Avenger, a ship-sloop whose bulbous, naked hull was heaved right over for careening on the other side of the water. These men would be accommodated ashore while their ship was in such a condition, and were making the most of the relaxing of discipline, taking their evening grog around the shore galley near the capstan house with raucous frivolity. Kydd eased into a grin at the familiar antics.

The injured mast could wait in the water off the mast-house for the morning and he could now dismiss his crew and get some supper. 'Well done, m' lads,' he said, unconsciously regarding them in the same way as a party of seamen after a hard day. Too late the thought came that possibly he should treat slaves in some other way, more at a distance, perhaps. However, they did not respond, and padded off silently together, he couldn't help wondering where.

The shore galley manned, Luke was able to get a hearty platter for him, complete with leaves of some mysterious local vegetable, and he tucked in with a will. It was hard to eat alone, though, with nothing but a candle and circling moths for company.

The conviviality flowing from the capstan house was hard to resist, and Kydd found himself strolling in the warm dark of the evening towards the sounds of merriment. The open frontage of the low building, with its three great capstans, was a favourite place to gather in the growing soft darkness. The lanthorns hung along the beams welcomed him in with splashes of golden light. Men lolled about, taking a clay pipe of tobacco or drinking deep from their pots, in time-honoured sailor fashion outdoing each other in sea yarns and remembrances.

Kydd knew none of them, but could recognise the types even though they were of another ship: the hard, confident petty officers in short blue jackets with brass buttons that glittered in the light of the lanthorns; young seamen bred to the sea, with an easy laugh and a tarry queue unclubbed so its plaited length hung a foot or more down their backs; the lined old shellbacks, whose sea wisdom it would be folly to question.

A man hauled himself up to sit on one of the capstan heads and his fiddle was passed up to him. After a few flourishes he nodded to a handsome seaman with side-whiskers next to him. The man stepped forward and sang in a resonant tenor:

'Oh! Life is the Ocean, and Man is the Boat

That over its surface is destin'd to float;

And joy is a cargo so easily stor'd

That he is a fool who takes sorrow on board!'

The well-known chorus drowned the singer, who affected vexation, stumping around the capstan in high dudgeon. Kydd laughed heartily with the rest, and raised his wooden tankard in salute.

Sensing the mood, the singer stalked to the front of the capstan, and stood akimbo, arms folded, glaring at his audience. The chatter died away expectantly.

A movement on the opposite side caught Kydd's eye. One of the seamen had a woman under his arm, a black woman. Kydd shifted his gaze back to the singer, who leaned forward as though in confidence, and there launched into the racy, driving strains of 'The Saucy Arethusa':

'Come all ye jolly sailors bold

Whose hearts are cast in honour's mould

While English glory I unfold

On board of the Arethusa'

The sailors burst into song, and Kydd felt his cheeks glow with pleasure. The singer bowed and accepted a dripping tankard. Kydd looked about him with a grin.

'Clinkin' good singer, is our Dansey!' A seasoned petty officer grinned back at Kydd.

‘Rattlin' fine voice!' agreed Kydd. 'Are ye Avengers, then?'

'Aye — Ben Kittoe, gunner's mate,' the man replied, taking a pull from his blackjack, a dark tarred leather tankard.

'Kydd, Tom Kydd, quartermaster's mate o' Trajan as was,' he said.

'D'ye mean ... ?'

'T be knackered, poor ol' lady,' Kydd said, and finished his pot.

'Bad cess. So where are yez now?' 'Got m'self a berth as master.' 'What?'

'Master o' the King's Negroes, that is.' Kydd laughed. At the other's curiosity he continued, 'Seem well enough at th' work, but wouldn't trust 'em on their own.'

The numbers at the capstan house had diminished, the galley had closed its hatches, but Kydd felt in no mind to break the mood. Kittoe stood up and waved his blackjack expansively. 'Come wi' us fer a quick noggin, mate.'

The two walked back along the stone quay and into the copper and lumber house. Kydd remembered that it was here that the crews of ships being careened were quartered. Above the locked and darkened store-rooms was the loft where copper plating for the underwater hull was pricked out to shape. 'We got a good sort as Owner,'

Kittoe grunted, as they mounted the exterior iron stairs. 'Sees us right in the article of grog an' such.' They entered: one end of the loft was agreeably illuminated with lanthorns, the light rapidly falling off into darkness at the other end of the broad expanse.

'Here, mate, take a muzzier o' this.' He reached for a dark green bottle from his sea-chest and upended it in Kydd's pot. The cloying aroma of prime West Indian rum eddied up.

'To Trajan - but f'r our hurricanoe, she'd be out crestin' the briny b' now,' Kydd said.

Harsh laughter bayed from a group of sailors at their end of the loft. They were seated around an upended tub, playing cards and swigging hard from bottles. Kittoe allowed his face to go grave. 'Yeah, to a barky as any haul-bowlings c'n feel proud ter own to!' They drank together. Kydd let the rum just burn his lips: the evening might develop.

'Ye come fr'm England?' Kydd asked.

'Nah. Avenger is taken fr'm the Crapauds at Martinico,' Kittoe said briefly. It was the way of it - some clash at arms in these seas .. .

A tall woman appeared, dressed loosely in colourful red. She moved behind Kittoe and slid her arms down his chest. 'Come, Kittoe man, youse an' me make jig-a-jig,' she purred, but her eyes were on Kydd, wide and lambent.

'Away wi' ye, Sukey,' said Kittoe, but with a smile. 'We're talkin' together, yer silly biddy!'

The woman's hair was drawn back and had a hard sheen in the light. A large, polished mahogany-coloured jungle seed hung around her neck. She fingered it, regarding Kydd speculatively. Grunts and cries from the darkness beyond left little doubt about what was going on, and Kydd's senses prickled. 'Hey, youse kooner-man!' she said, her voice low and throaty.

Kittoe took up the bottle again and went to top up Kydd's tankard, but only a few drops of rum emerged. He snorted. 'Pot-boy! Look sharp, we're a-thirst!' A figure hurried over from the other side to attend them and came to a sudden halt.

'Luke!' Kydd cried. 'What're y' doing here?' It was not hard to guess — here he could earn a few coppers. The boy dropped his head as Kydd laid into him. 'You little rascal, this's not the place t' find a fine young gennelman, damn me if it is!'

Obstinately, Luke raised his eyes and said, 'Then what 're you here for, Mr Kydd?'

There was a chortling from Kittoe, but Kydd stood up, face burning. 'None o' y'r business! Now you get y’self back aboard — I mean, return t' our lodgings — this instant, y' swab!'

At the stubborn look on Luke's face Kydd knew there was no other course. 'We return now, y' blaggard! I'll have no servant o' mine corruptin' himself with drink 'n' carnality!' Kydd pushed him out into the darkness and followed. He cursed and swore under his breath. He had had no intention of being saddled with the moral responsibility for another, but in Luke's case he felt a certain obligation.

'Show more canvas, younker!' Kydd growled. An idea took shape — he shied from it at first, but it would meet the case splendidly. He sighed. He'd thought he'd left all of that behind in another life ...

As they opened the little gate he rounded on Luke: 'Have y' made up m' accounts yet?'

Luke's face dropped. 'Mr Kydd, y' know I haven't m' letters.'

'Damme! I f'got,' said Kydd, with heat. "This means I have t' spend my valuable time a-copyin' and figurin' — may have t' get a proper servant, me havin' such responsibility now.' Kydd turned his gaze from Luke's pitiable expression, and frowned grimly. 'An' that ain't going to be easy hereabouts.'

They went up the stairs. Then Kydd stopped, as though struck with a sudden thought. 'There maybe is a way ...'

'Mr Kydd?' said Luke eagerly.

'Perhaps not. You're a lazy rascal, an' won't—'

'I will so, I swear.'

'Right, me hearty! We starts tomorrow. Y' hoists aboard yer letters at last.'

'Yes, Mr Kydd,' Luke said meekly.

Just before noon, a rain squall stopped all work. Kydd and his crew hurried into the shelter of the boat-house while the downpour hammered into the ground and set a thousand rivulets starting towards the brown waters of the harbour.

'I have been hearing good reports of you, Thomas,' said Caird.

Kydd looked around in surprise. 'Mr Caird?' 'You have been teaching your servant his letters.' Kydd's face eased into a smile. 'Aye, keeps him out o' trouble betimes, the scamp.'

Caird's voice softened. 'That is what I thought. It is the Lord's work you are doing, Thomas, never forget it.'

Embarrassed, Kydd mumbled something, but was interrupted. 'If you are at leisure, perhaps you may wish to dine this evening at my house - we eat at six promptly.' Noting Kydd's hesitation he went on, 'I can well comprehend the godless depravity you are sparing the boy, and confess from the start, I had my hopes of your conduct.'

'The salt, if you please, my dear,' Caird said to the arid lady at the other end of the table, who, Kydd now knew, was his sister Isadore. She nodded graciously, with something suspiciously like a simper.

It was hard on Kydd; bad enough the enervating warmth, but worse the starched tablecloth, precise manners and formidable air of rectitude. He searched for some conversation. 'Luke's not a shab, really, it's just that—'

Isadore broke in unctuously, 'And as a sapling is trained, so does the tree grow.' She helped herself liberally to the cream sauce.

Opposite Kydd sat the delicate, timid Beatrice. Each time he looked at her she averted her eyes quickly, disconcerting him. She was a slight figure in filmy grey, which added to her air of unworldliness. She had been introduced as Caird's daughter, her mother long departed for a better world.

'Another akee, Beatrice,' Caird said, his voice tender.

'Thank you, no more, Father,' came her small voice. Caird nodded to the hovering servant who gracefully removed her plates.

'I see Rose has her foremast a-taunt now,' ventured Kydd.

Caird's eyebrows lowered. 'In deference to the ladies, Thomas, I make it a practice never to discuss at table matters they cannot be expected to know.'

'Oh - er, I mean—'

'It is Friday, my friend. On the Sabbath, Beatrice and I go about the good Lord's business in this country, ministering to his children. Do you not feel that it would lift your heart to accompany us?'

Struck dumb by the assumption of his godliness, he noticed Beatrice beaming across at him. 'Please do, Mr Kydd,' she said, meeting his eyes for the first time.

'Splendid!' said Caird. 'We shall call for you - and your servant, of course — at six on Sunday.'

When he returned to his little house, the lower part showed the light of candles: the occupant was at home. He started to climb the steps to his room, but a throaty hail stopped him. 'Avast there, cock! Come 'n' show yerself!' It was the chief caulker, his beefy frame seeming to fill the room. He was slumped in a chair holding a bottle. A black woman flitted about with a bowl.

'Has th' mullygrubs,' he said, burping. 'What's yer name, mate?'

'Thomas Kydd, Master o' the King's Negroes.'

'Savin' y’r presence, yez a young one fer a master. How'd yer come by it?'

'I had th' rate o' petty officer in Trajan, 'n' when she was let go—'

'A cryin' shame,' rumbled the man.

'—I was taken up b' Mr Caird,' he finished.

'Are ye a goddammed blue-light sailor, then?' demanded the chief caulker.

'I never take th' Lord's Name in vain, brother,' Kydd said, holding his hands in a prayerful attitude and hoping that his humble tone passed muster.

'B' gob, I never said - God rest ye, mate, an' all that!'

Kydd smiled beatifically, and made his exit, pleased at his escape from future bibulous demands. Then he remembered his mother's firm and steely Methodism, the hours of boredom in church — and winced.

Sunday morning saw them both in best attire—Luke with hair slicked back and shirt painfully buttoned up, Kydd in his best step-ashore rig, feeling utterly out of place. They waited outside the master shipwright's house. Broad, square, imposing, built of stone, the house reflected the importance of its chief inhabitant.

The Misses Caird emerged into the early sunlight, closely followed by Caird, forbidding in black — entirely black, from old-fashioned three-comer hat to severe black breeches and stockings, the whole relieved only by a plain white cravat.

Kydd doffed his hat to the ladies, returned by the unsmiling Caird. Luke's hesitant touching of his forelock was ignored. A dray rumbled grittily round the corner, its load of what appeared to be furniture covered with an old sail. The grey-haired old woman at the reins bobbed her head in glee at the sight of Caird. 'Hallelujah! Glory be, oh, yest, Lord!'

'Amen to that, Hepzibah,' Caird said, in a strong voice. 'We have today, joining with us in joyful prayer,

Master Thomas Kydd and his servant.' Hepzibah beamed at Kydd.

'Then shall we proceed. This day we pass by the plantation of Mr Blackstone, beyond Falmouth town.' Caird handed up the ladies to the single front seat and climbed up, himself taking the reins. 'I would wish we had more commodious transport, Thomas. You will have to shift for yourself in the back, I fear.'

Kydd pulled Luke in after him and the dray moved off. As they clopped serenely through the dockyard Kydd was glad of the early start — there was nobody abroad to see him. He looked at the swaying backs of the Cairds and wondered at the wild contrasts in his life since he had taken to sailoring.

They wound out of the dockyard and were almost immediately in scrub and rocks over the higher ground behind. The dray ground along, Hepzibah breaking into joyful hymns that, of course, it would be unseemly to join. Scattered houses merged into a township, but the houses were mean — wattle and daub, small and mud-dusty. 'Falmouth,' said Caird, 'a negro village.' Past the town, the sea sparkling to their left, they wound up into cane-field country. The heat was noticeably stronger. As they topped the rise, the sound of singing floated to them on the hot breeze. Finally they stopped at a crossroads in the shade of a wild tamarind tree of considerable size and age, where people of every variety, free and slave, had gathered.

'Please to assist me, Thomas, in rigging the assembly,' Caird asked Kydd courteously.

Kydd complied, lifting down chairs and an ingenious portable pulpit, under the shy direction of Beatrice.

These were set out under the tamarind tree. When he had finished, she turned to him with a timid smile and laid her hand on his arm. 'Thank you, Thomas. Shall we sit?' She guided him to the row of chairs in the front, which Kydd was uncomfortable to see was the only seating. Behind them the blacks squatted in the dust.

Caird took his position in the pulpit, looking stern and majestic. His voice boomed out 'Psalm eighty-four, the eleventh verse: "The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord God will give the grace and glory; no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly."' A warm roar of approbation and shrill cries of 'Hallelujah, Lord!' resounded, and the first hymn was announced: 'And Are We Yet Alive!'. It was sung with true feeling, in joyous counter-harmony.

As she sang, Beatrice's pale face under the muslin bonnet was pink with animation, her grey eyes sparkling as she glanced at Kydd. The hymn, despite the outlandish setting, brought back memories of Sundays in Guildford. His mother in her best clothes, he in his once-a-week coat and breeches next to his father. Kydd recalled staring dully at dust-motes held unstirring in shafts of sunlight coming from the freedom of the outside world into the utterly still church.

"That was well, Thomas. It is our pleasure to invite you to our Sunday dinner, should you be at leisure.' Caird had preached powerfully: his sermon was strong on duty, obedience, law and sin but sparing in the matter of joy.

The Sunday roast would not have shamed his mother's table, even if the potatoes had a subtly alien bitterness, the beef a certain dark sweetness. Once again opposite Beatrice, he tried to engage her in conversation. 'Thumpin' good singing, th' negroes,' he said hesitantly. Beatrice flicked a glance at him, but quickly lowered her eyes.

Caird interjected. 'They do so take joy in entering into the House of the Lord,' he said. 'Should an assembly in England take such a joy it would be gratifying.'

Kydd had been impressed with their spirit: his King's Negroes in comparison to those he had seen today were morose. Should he not be perceiving their better parts, appeal to their spirit? 'Y'r pardon, but I can't sort of... can't get close to 'em, if you know what I say .. .'

'Your concern does you credit, sir, and therefore I will speak directly.' Caird dabbed his lips and put down his napkin. 'It is easy for us to feel sorry for the negro, his condition, his lot in life, but we must not believe that in this way we are helping him.'

Kydd nodded, not really understanding.

'You will nevertheless find that I am the sworn enemy of any who ill-abuse their black people, who grind them to the dust and then discard them.' He fixed Kydd with a look of such fire that Kydd was forced to look down meekly at the tablecloth.

'But, Thomas, in my heart I cannot pretend that they are of the same blood as you or I — they are not!'

Kydd looked up in puzzlement.

'The Good Book itself tells us that they are an accursed people. Genesis, chapter the ninth, tells how Noah placed a curse on his son Ham and all his seed. From that day to this the black man is placed into subjection.

'And scientifical studies do show this: Edward Long, a vile, ranting fellow, nevertheless forces us to confront the fact that they are really another species of man, lacking vital parts that give us judgement and moral sensibility. Merely look upon them - they are not of our kind.'

Kydd sat silent.

'Therefore, my friend, you really should not look to their natures for the finer feelings. They are not possessed of any.' Caird looked down, then raised his face with a gentle, noble expression. 'For this it is my life's work to minister to them, to help them understand and be content in their duty and place in the world, to bear their burdens in patience and through God's Grace to aspire to His Kingdom.'

'Amen!' breathed Beatrice.

It made things much clearer. If they were a debased form of mankind, of course he was wrong to expect much in the way of feelings. But something still niggled. 'An' is slavery right?' Kydd asked stubbornly.

Caird looked at him fondly. 'It does seem hard, but you must understand that they need direction, discipline, to control the brutality that lies beneath. Slavery is a mercy. It provides a strong framework in which they may learn to curb their natures.' He paused and looked at Kydd directly. 'It is not the slavery which is evil, it is the manner in which some do enforce it.'

There was time to spare the following forenoon. The Blanche frigate was due in for repair, following a spectacular action against a heavier French frigate off Guadeloupe. Rumours flew about that her captain had been killed. Kydd was keen to hear the full story, remembering his own desperate battle in Artemis.

Blanche was delayed, so Kydd stood down his crew. Over at the boat-house, with Caird away in his office, he had nothing to do but watch the shipwrights at work. The craftsmen in the boat-house filled the space with the sound of their labour: the oddly musical thonk of a maul, the regular hiss of the try plane, the clatter of dropped planks. Steam billowed suddenly from a long chest, and a shipwright gingerly extracted a steaming plank, carrying it to a half-clad boat. Another took one end and they eased it around the tight curve of the bow, faying it to the plank below. Kydd could see that they were fitting it to at least three curves simultaneously — by eye alone.

All along the open side of the boat-house a spar rested on trestles, and Kydd marvelled at the mystery of mast-making: how was it possible to create a perfectly straight, perfectly round spar from a rough-hewn length of timber? It was all done by eye alone again, he noted. A straight-edged batten was nailed horizontally to one end; a pair of shipwrights worked together, and another batten was fixed the other end, sighted by eye to exactly the same level. Then mast-axe and adze were plied skilfully to produce a flat surface the whole length. Another pair of battens produced a flat opposite. By the time they progressed to the octagonal they had a true, workable approximation to a round. Kydd shook his head in wonder.

A sudden shout came from outside. Kydd ducked out and saw pointing arms. The Blanche had arrived. All work ceased, and men poured out to see the spectacle.

'See there, mates!' one man said, pointing out of the harbour to Freeman's Bay, where the broken masts of a substantial ship showed above the low-lying point of land. 'She has a thunderin' good prize!'

As Blanche came to anchor opposite, Kydd could see that she was sorely battered - a stump of mizzen, not much more of her mainmast. As she slowly swung to her anchor the stern came into view, blasted into gaping holes. The excited shouting died away at the sight, particularly at her huge battle ensign still floating from her foremast, but only half-way up.

Caird strode down from the direction of his office. 'Where is your crew, Kydd? And I'll need you two .. .' he pointed to two shipwrights working in the boat-house '.. . and the blue cutter in the water directly.'

With a chest of tools and the men, the cutter was crowded, but Kydd relished his luck in being able to see things at first-hand. He squinted under the loose-footed mainsail as Blanche grew nearer, and saw the frightful wounds of war: her sails were torn with holes, her sides pocked and battered by shot.

Caird led the way up the side of the frigate to the upper deck where they took in the results of a harrowing long-drawn-out grappling, a trial of fire that had tried her ship's company to the very limit. Subdued murmuring conveyed the essentials: indeed the Captain had been killed; there was a prize lying to seaward, which was in fact their opponent, a French frigate, a third bigger than themselves.

They clattered down the main-hatch. Caird needed to get a sight of the damage to the stern and any cannon-ball strikes between wind and water that might prove an immediate threat. Returning on deck they saw moaning wounded being swayed down into a boat, wrecked equipment dropped into another, and weary-eyed men staring at the shore. 'She comes alongside by sunset,' Caird said, to an officer with a bandaged head. 'I shall see the master attendant directly.'

'Yer has the right of it, mates, Cap'n Faulknor, an' a right true sort 'e was, Gawd bless 'is memory,' said Kennet, a gunner's mate from the Blanche. Kydd dragged his upturned tub closer, the better to hear him over the din in the capstan house.

'We wuz openin' Gron' Bay in Gwaddyloop, a-ready ter spy in the harbour in th' mornin' when we sees this thumpin' big French frigate a-comin' round the point.' He paused: a sea-professional audience could be relied on to get the picture. 'Now I asks yer, this can't be much after midnight, larbowlines 'as watch below 'n' in their 'ammocks, all peaceful like, an' then it's quarters, shipmates, 'n' as quick as yer like!'

Kydd could visualise the scene all too clearly: drowsy watch on deck swapping yarns, easy in the mind at the prospect of a spree ashore at the end of the cruise, and then in a flash the reality of war and death in the balmy night.

'Cap'n don't lose a minute — we goes at 'em, clearin' fer action as we go, an' it's all goin't' be in th' dark.' Kennet looked about to see if he had their attention before he went on. 'We pass the Frenchie - she's called Pique we finds later — on the opposite tack, an' we has a broadside at each other.' His voice lowered. 'An' that's when m' mate lost the number of 'is mess.'

He stared into his grog. 'Sam Jones, second cap'n o' the foretop ...'

Kydd stood up and gestured with his tankard. 'Here's t' Sam Jones, then, mates, an' if we don' remember him, he won't have anyone else will.' In the willing roar that this brought, Kydd drank deeply, remembering the emotions battering at him after his own battle experience, the faces that suddenly weren't there any more, the world's indifference that they had ever existed — but they would continue to live in men's memories just as long as they were brought to remembrance like this. He took another gulp.

Kennet looked up at him, his grim face softening at Kydd's empathy, then continued, 'But then, we tacks about, but Pique, she's t' weather, an' wears ready to give us a rakin' broadside, but Cap'n Faulknor, he's wise to 'em, an' we continues on t' wear ourselves. So there we was, mates, broadside t' broadside fer two an' a half hours, thumpin' it inter each other.' The cruel smashing match in the darkness, dim battle-lanthorns inboard, leaping gun-flashes outboard, unseen horrors in the blackness — it held the circle of rough seamen spellbound.

'But then we shoots ahead. Pique 'as taken a drubbin' and's at our mercy! We turn ter rake her an' finish it — when our mizzen an' mainmast both go by th' board. In a trice we runs afoul of her, an' she rakes us, then she goes f board, but we're ready an' send 'em screamin' inter the sea.'

Kydd noticed that Kennet's eyes had gone glassy and his hand had a tremor: these terrible events could only have taken place less than a single day ago. 'Pot!' he shouted, against the hubbub, and personally topped up Kennet's can then added to his own. The rum had a potent fragrance.

'So it's a stalemate, lads. We drifts, then runs aboard her agen by the bow — but Cap'n himself rushes for'ard an' puts a lashin' on our bowsprit t' hold on ter the Frenchman. But - an' it grieves me t' tell it - he takes a ball fr'm a musket, an' falls .. .'

There was murmuring all round. Kennet waited for it to settle, then offered a toast to his captain, which Kydd could see was being repeated in other groups of seamen around him. He raised his tankard in salute, tears pricking at the bravery he had learned about that night.

'Lashin' gives way, we drift off, firin' all the time, o' course. B' now it's comin' on daylight 'n' we're dog tired — bugger m' days but we was knackered!'

Around him Kydd saw bodies topple in the capstan house, but whether from hard drinking or exhaustion he didn't know.

'Wind drops, we fin' ourselves stern to, an' no guns what'll bear, 'cos we got no stern chasers, no gunports, even. So what does we do then?' Kydd couldn't think what — the rum was deepening his emotions but doing nothing for his concentration.

'Well, lads, we heaves some twelve-pounders around in th' Great Cabin t' face astern, then after we puts men wi' firebuckets on ea' side .. .' he paused dramatically, holding their eyes one by one '. .. an' then we blasts our own gunports through the stern timbers!'

There was no comment, only shocked faces.

'We then has 'em! We pounds away wi' them pair o' guns, one hour, two. Not until we brings down their masts an' finishes more'n two-thirds o' their crew do they give up, an' then they strikes their flag.'

A growl of satisfaction arose, but no cheers: too many sailors — on both sides — would never know another dawn.

Kydd stood still. He couldn't return to his dark, silent lodging. He felt a surging need for the sea, the slam of excitement at the challenge of sudden peril, the close companionship after shared dangers — the kind of thing that had men rollicking ashore together. There was fire in his blood. The pot-boy hurried past, but Kydd stopped him and snatched a bottle, which quickly went gurgling into his tankard.

He swung round and spied a couple of able seamen arguing together. 'That scurvy crew ahoy! Come drink with me t' the Blanche, mates, as trim a frigate as ever grac'd the seas — barrin' only th' brave Artemis!’