Seaflower

Chapter 7

‘Mr Kydd, you said y' wanted ter see m' work this morning wi'out fail. An' here 'tis!' Luke held out his copy-book in the early light of morning, the pages filled with spidery, childish writing. 'I done it while you was .. . away last night,' he continued proudly.

He must have sat by the light of that single candle, scratching away at his worthy proverbs, right into the night, thought Kydd. In spite of his fragile condition he was touched by the lad's keenness. 'Show me,' he croaked. The letters swam and rotated in a nauseating spiral. 'Tha's well done, Luke,' Kydd gasped, and gave the book back. He had never before had to pay such a price for a night's carousing. He felt ill and helpless -and despised himself for it. It had been easy to be drawn into the wholehearted roystering of a sailor ashore, but he realised there was a real prospect of sliding into a devotion to the bottle that so many seemed to find an answer to hardship and toil.

Kydd levered himself up on one arm. To his shame he found himself still in last night's stained clothes. His resolve strengthened never to succumb again, and he swung into a sitting position. It was a mistake. His face flushed and a headache pounded relentlessly: it would be impossible to deal with the knowing looks of his crew, to think clearly enough to head off trouble, to face Caird ... 'Luke, m' boy,' he began. He looked up to see the lad's eyes on him, concerned, watchful. 'Feelin' a mite qualmish this mornin', think I'll scrub round the vittles.'

'Yes, Mr Kydd,' Luke replied quietly.

'Damn it! Doesn't mean you can't have any,' Kydd flared, then subsided in shame. 'Do ye go to Mr Caird an' present m' compliments 'n' tell him ... tell him I regrets but I can't attend on him this forenoon, as I... 'cos I has a gripin' in the guts, that's all.'

He collapsed back on to the bed and closed his eyes.

He woke from a fitful doze in the heat of the day and sat on the edge of the bed. The nausea was still there, and a ferocious dryness in the throat drove him to his feet in search of water. He swayed, and staggered drunkenly to the sideboard for the pitcher, which he drained thirstily. Slowly and painfully he stripped off his clothes, dropping them uncharacteristically on the floor. Then, thankfully, he curled up on the bed again.

In the afternoon no one came to commiserate, and Kydd knew that his story of 'sickness' had been received with the contempt it deserved. To be thought a common toss-pot cut deeply.

Luke arrived in the evening. Kydd had previously sent him away, not wanting to be seen, and now Luke crept about the lodging as though in the company of a bear. Kydd swore at him, and at the gruel he had thoughtfully brought. The evening dragged on: still no one enquired of him. Luke took to hiding. As the illness ebbed so Kydd's headache worsened under the lashing of his irritability. The night passed in a kaleidoscope of conflicting thoughts.

At last the light of dawn arrived to dispel the dark and its tedium. He felt hot, dizzy — he needed water. 'Luke!' he shouted petulantly. The sleepy boy appeared and, to Kydd's astonishment, his face contorted. A harsh cry pierced the air and Luke fell to his knees, sobbing loudly.

'What - if this is y'r joke ...' Kydd felt dread steal over him. 'What is it, younker?' he asked, fearing a reply.

Luke looked at him with swimming eyes. He ran out and returned with a mirror. 'S-see ...' he stuttered. Kydd looked into it. His face looked back at him. The hideous jaundiced hue of his skin was more frightening than anything he had seen in his life. It was the yellow fever.

They came for him at noon. By this time Kydd had vomited violently several times, as if his body were trying to rid itself of the invading fever. The fear of the dreaded vomito negro seized his thoughts and threw him into frozen horror: he had seen soldiers carried to their graves by it in their dozens, but in the way of youth he had always known it would be some other, never him. Luke sat by his bed, defying Kydd's orders to get away, not caring at the likelihood of contagion. Kydd's mind started to detach in and out of reality.

The bearers, expressionless and silent, lifted Kydd on to the stretcher. The naval hospital was full, and instead Kydd found himself at the door of the army hospital on Shirley Heights, its austere grey lines unmistakable even in his feverish state.

The interior of the hospital was dark, but gradually he could see rows of low beds, one or two orderlies moving among them. Some victims lay motionless, others thrashed and writhed. A foul stink lay on the close air, the putrescence of bodies giving up the fight. Moaning and weeping filled the consciousness, numbing Kydd's senses.

He was placed on the ground while a bed was prepared. A corpse was carried away in a blanket, the ragged palliasse flicked over, the top vivid with dried discolouring. He was transferred, the bearers never once betraying a flicker of interest. They left the blanket rolled untidily at the foot of the bed and departed.

An orderly saw Luke and ejected him irritably, so Kydd lay alone, staring up into the void, the pain, sickness and despair creeping in on him. It was here that he would meet his end, not in some glorious battle but in the squalor and degradation of disease, in this pit of terror. His mind wavered and floated. The wasted hours, the unfulfilled hopes — those who loved him, trusted him. Emotion choked him. Kydd waited in the gloom for it all to end.

Black faces. Jolting, moving. Harsh sunlight. Kydd tried to understand. The lift and bob of a boat — he cried at the poignant motion. Luke's face, looking down, anguished. He smiled up at him and was carried on into an airy space. A woman took charge and gently but firmly removed all his clothes. A clean smell of hyssop and soap; he felt himself laid carefully on a sheet and the woman began to wash him. He couldn't resist. Modesty had no more meaning and he drifted into a febrile no man's land.

He woke — how much later he had no idea — in a small room, clean and well appointed. Next to his bed a woman kept up a lazy fanning, smiling at him, and on the other side Luke sat, keeled over in slumber.

'Who - er, what d' ye ...'

'Now, sah, be still, youse in mah hands, Mr Kydd, sah,' the woman said happily. 'Sis' Mary.'

The talk woke Luke, who sat up, confused.

A shadow darkened the door. It was Beatrice. 'Mr Kydd?' she asked timidly.

'Aye,' said Kydd, with as much strength as he could.

'Thank the Lord!' she breathed, and stood hesitantly at the foot of the bed, holding a lace handkerchief to her face. 'When we heard you were sick, we never thought — er, that is to say, we were led to believe by false witnesses that your sickness . . . had other causes.' Her eyes dropped. 'My father thought it best that you are cared for in a private way — it is the usual thing, you know.' She spoke more strongly: 'Sister Mary has nursed many a soul to recovery.'

'Ye need money f'r this,' he said feebly.

Beatrice smiled. 'Let us hear no more about that, Mr Kydd. You are in the Lord's hands and He will provide for His faithful servants.' Her fingers twisted together. 'I do wish you well — it is not over yet.'

But Kydd could feel the fever diminishing and elation built at his escape. He was ready to seize life again with both hands.

Sister Mary took gentle care of him, seeming to know what he needed before he could express it. She had an unvarying bright and sunny manner, not bothered by the violence of his vomiting or Kydd's shameful need for a bed-pan. After each spasm she bathed his burning face, whispering comforting words he couldn't understand.

The fever faded, the vomiting grew less, and Kydd thankfully slipped into a sweet sleep. On the morrow he would be on the mend.

He woke in the darkness of the early hours, feeling strange and giddy. A sharp bout of vomiting had him leaning over the bed. He pulled back in, and felt a warm wetness exude from his nose. It stank, and he wiped at it uselessly. His hand came away dark-stained in the semi-darkness.

'Mary!' he croaked fearfully. She was asleep in a blanket on the floor and didn't hear at first. Kydd called again, in his night-time panic hoarsely shouting her name. When she came to him sleepily she saw his face, and at once trimmed the light to full illumination. She tore back the single sheet and stared at his lower body. There was no sunny banter.

Kydd looked down and saw, oozing from his body orifices, a slow, fetid black bleeding. He sank back. Sister Mary set to work, sponging him, insisting he sat up in bed, placing supports around him. His vomiting was shorter, sharper — but now it was discoloured, black and foul. Kydd's thoughts became confused. As the morning light strengthened he saw Mary's figure distort and swell. He screamed and whimpered.

At times lucidity came, a strange calm in which he could see and hear but not respond. He heard Luke's broken, desolate weeping and a regular mumbling — it took some minutes for his mind to register that it was Beatrice at a distance, praying. Caird's tall figure in its accustomed black loomed. He spoke to Kydd slowly but the words were gibberish, as if he were saying them backwards. His figure towered over Kydd, grim and foreboding, smelling of sin and death.

Deep inside, Kydd knew that he was dying, but no one had prepared him for this terror, this final process of separation from the world. It was so unfair — his was a young life that would live! That would fight and win! Obstinately, from deep within, he claimed the last of his strength, and in a final defiant act, he turned on that which was killing him: he struggled up, facing the whirling light patterns that were all that remained of his world, and screamed at it. Dimly aware that he had fallen out of bed, he flailed and fought, and at last stood swaying and victorious, shouting and cursing at the foul disease, challenging it, daring it to do its worst. Fire jetted into his body, and he exulted.

Images came into focus, the horrified faces of Mary, Luke, Beatrice staring at him. He laughed — strength came to him, he moved, staggered, fought. And won. His eyes clamped on the real world he would not yield up, and in a dignified motion he turned and collapsed again on the bed.

'I do declare, we feared we had lost you, Mr Kydd,' said Beatrice, dabbing her eyes.

Kydd grinned, levering himself to a better sitting position. 'D'ye get me another o' the lime cordials, I'd be grateful.' The fever broken, he was going to live — and with a bonus: having survived the yellow fever at its most virulent, with no lasting ill-effects, he now had lifelong immunity from its terrors.

He looked across at Sister Mary, quietly getting on with her work, and felt a warmth towards her that surprised him with its intensity. Her homely face was inexpressibly dear to him now. 'Has Luke been doin' his words?' he asked, in mock-rough tones.

'Indeed he has,' Beatrice answered primly. 'I have set him some improving verses, which he promises to complete for you this very night' Her eyes softened. 'And . .. welcome back, Thomas,' she said tenderly.

Weakness forced Kydd back into the pillow, but he was content. In a week or two he would be back in the world he knew.

'Lignum vitae - the hardest wood we know,' said Caird, stroking the piece of smooth, olive-green timber. 'You will see it as the sheave in every block aboard your ship and it grows right here in Antigua. There are some trees of that sort that we will see on our next Sunday mission,' he added, matter-of-factly.

The rain slackened its furious assault, but did not stop altogether, the steamy smell of vegetation heavy on the air. They would wait a little longer in the boat-house before going out to the new-captured French cutter. 'You might remark this heavy wood - it is from the mastwood tree, the one with the yellow flowers that the honey-bee favours so. And there, the large pieces in the corner, the Anteegans term it "Black Gregory" and we use it much for its endurance; the guns at the fort have their carriages wrought from its strength.'

Kydd nodded, his thoughts far from indigenous trees. His recent experience had thrown his perceptions of life and his place in it into a spin, and he longed hopelessly for Renzi to apply his logic to it all.

'Beatrice tells me you are progressing admirably with your servant's learning,' Caird said.

'Aye, the younker does try, that I'll grant,' said Kydd.

'I'd be obliged if you'd consider another matter,' Caird said, looking at him candidly.

'Sir?'

'In the matter of my stores. Peculation in a dockyard is an insidious evil, consuming its vitals, rendering the thief insensible to sin.' He paused, eyeing Kydd speculatively. 'I would be most grateful if you could do me a service that strikes at the heart of this abomination.' He went on, 'Take this key. It is to the stores office in the boat-house. Be so good as to enter it discreetly after work ceases and make a true copy of the day's proceedings. This will be compared to the one rendered to me directly.'

Kydd understood: this way it would be easy to detect where and how defalcations occurred in the dockyard. 'Yes, Mr Caird,' he replied, pocketing the heavy key.

It was a simple matter, just a couple of pages of short-form notes and figures. Kydd laid down the quill. Stretching, he gathered up the papers and stepped into the early evening. Crickets started up, and from somewhere on a nearby tree came the complacent wheek-wheek of a tree-frog.

As he turned on to the road to his lodging, he glanced up. A fine sunset was building, but as usual it was obscured by the close-in scrubby ridge overlooking the dockyard. Then something seized him. This time, he swore, he would take his fill of the sight. Scrabbling at the crumbling rocks he clambered through the bushes to the top of the ridge. There, the full beauty of the sunset was in view, only distant islands to include in the broad, breathtaking panorama of sea and sky.

A scattering of low clouds hung far away about the setting sun, tinged by the yellow gilding that radiated out. Kydd found a flat rock and sat to watch. The sun sank lower, the clouds progressed slowly from yellow to orange, and began to stretch in delicate tendrils half across the sky, the dying day converging on the central spectacle.

It held Kydd in a trance, the stark beauty entering his soul. An upwelling of emotion took hold, Ufting his spirit to soar free above the world. He had made a journey from death to life: he would not waste his existence on vain striving or useless repine. The surge of feeling brought a lump to his throat, but no focus or resolution. It left him ardent but confused. When the smoky violet dusk had settled and the horizon had assumed a hard blue-black line, he got up and stumbled back down the ridge.

The usual evening sights and sounds of Antigua dockyard met him, happy bedlam around the capstan house. It was Terrier sloop this time, after a successful cruise to San Domingo. Rather more genteel sounds of revelry came from the brightly lit officers' quarters ahead, from some sort of assembly in honour of the new major of Fort Berkeley. But to Kydd's intensified senses it was the loveliness of the scene that impacted the most. Lantern-light was not merely a dim flame, it was a wash of tawny gold; the darkness was not evening, it was a warm electric sensuousness. The dark shapes of vessels at anchor had tiny golden stars of light about them. This faraway land's dark-blue presence hinted at mystery — life and vitality tugged at him mercilessly.

A swell of hilarity came from the capstan house. Its open warmth held a strong appeal to Kydd, the warm-heartedness of company, of human interaction, and he felt a sudden, urgent need. Abruptly, he turned on his heel and hurried toward the boisterous gathering. Curious glances came his way at first, but the sailors quickly resumed their companionable roistering.

Kydd stood irresolute, doubts nagging at him, but they were swamped by one overriding thought: if he could not freely taste the delights of life, then what was life for? 'What cheer, mateys!' he said loudly. 'Do ye have a glass as will allow me t' hob-a-nob with th' Terriers?'

It was punch from a cauldron, a swirling mix of rum, pineapple and coconut. It slipped down easily, and as he had been unable to take strong drink for some time, it went speedily to his head. He looked round, savouring the energy, the vitality around him: this was what it was to seize life! Yet as the rum took hold he felt somehow unfulfilled, aimless, restless.

'How do, Massa Keed!' There was no mistaking the low purr. The woman fingered the polished dark bean she wore around her neck. It lay against the twin swell of her dark breasts, and a predatory gleam showed briefly in her eyes.

'Sukey,' Kydd said, feeling the impact of the lazy swing of her hips as she moved towards him. She came very close and her musky feminine odour invaded his senses as she slowly reached out, letting her hand slide down his arm to the tankard, which she silently detached from his grip with a teasing smile.

The colour, light and noise around him fell away as the centre of his vision was filled with one thing: a focus at last for the burning thoughts that took his reason.

She half turned. 'Doan like th' loft.' She pouted. 'Too many noise — yo have a lodgin' house or somewheres?'

Kydd's blood roared. 'Yes!' he said thickly. His drab rooms would now know something other than solitude. But then he remembered: Luke would be there, manfully at work with his quill and ink, loyally transcribing his improving words. Frustration built into a sweet but driving pain. There was no place in Antigua that offered the privacy he knew he needed to cover his deed. Sukey let her eyes drop and teased at his shirt.

Suddenly a thought exploded. 'Come on!' Kydd mouthed, pulling her away. She feigned reluctance, but her smile widened and they ran along the coral quay, past the deserted seamen's galley, the silent, two-storeyed canvas and cordage store, the low joiner's loft. The boat-house was still and somnolent. Kydd found the door to the office and fumbled for his key. Sukey snuggled up behind him, her hands sliding over his body, confident and direct in their purpose. The door creaked open into black stillness, and he jerked her inside. Just remembering to lock it he smiled savagely; they could be sure of their privacy now.

In the dusky light Sukey came to him, but when his responses grew fevered, impassioned, she pushed him away, avoiding his hands. He growled and she pouted, then began undoing his shirt, somehow contriving at the same time to lose her own red shift. Suddenly they were both naked. Their bodies slammed together. Giggling, Sukey pulled him to the floor, taunting him, guiding him. His smile turned to a snarl, his hands dug into her shoulders. Suddenly she froze, her eyes wide open staring at the door. Panting, Kydd stopped, baffled.

The lock turned, and into the office stepped an indistinct figure with a lantern. The room was filled with pitiless light that fell on their locked bodies. There was a sharp intake of breath, and the light trembled. 'Kydd!' came an outraged shout. It was Caird.

Sukey pushed Kydd off her, frightened and quaking, and scrabbled for her clothes, which she held against her nakedness. Kydd didn't know where to turn in the sickening wash of shame and horror.

With a terrible intensity, Caird bit off his words: 'May the Good Lord have mercy on your soul, sir — for I shall not!'

Kydd returned to his lodging, dreading the dawn. Luke retreated, shocked at his expression.

The next day was every bit as bad as he had feared. Caird was controlled, but it was with a cold ferocity that tore at Kydd's pride, his manhood, leaving him shaking and in no doubt of his worthlessness. He was told that his employment as a master was over in Antigua and, as of that moment, he was no longer required in the dockyard.

'And for your damnable depravity,' Caird concluded, 'your indulgence in lust to the hazard of your immortal soul, sir, I will see to it you go from this island. You shall depart on the first King's ship that chances by!' Pausing only to draw breath he stood and said, 'By some wicked means you have ensnared my daughter's affections. She is at this time undone in her sensibilities. You are a desperately wicked rascal, and will very soon come to the sordid end you deserve! Go, sir! Get you out of my sight! Go!’