Kydd (13 page)

Doud gave a pleased smile. “Upon the usual terms, Joe, me old shell-back.”

“You shall have it, Ned.”

There was a general movement up from the table, and Kydd followed them up to the fo’c’sle just as the evening began to draw in. Warmed by
his grog and pleasure at their company, he joined the others at the fore bitts. He found himself grinning benignly at total strangers.

Lanthorns were hung in the rigging, their golden pools of light more tawny than bright. Over the darkling sea he could see points of light appearing in the other ships also, and gradually he felt his open, cheerful attitude to life begin to return.

Another group of men were in a circle on the other side of the deck. A fiddler perched on the carronade began executing a neat but intricate air. A regular thumping resolved itself into a sailor in a white double-breasted waistcoat with brass buttons and blue and white striped trousers, dancing alone inside a rope circle. Kydd went across to watch. The sailor remained in the same spot, dancing a complex measure that involved the lower part of his body alone. With no expression whatsoever, arms folded immovably across his chest and rigid above the waist, he danced, feet pointing as they kicked, slapped and rose in time with the fiddler.

“Dancin’ heel ’n’ toe? Why, ’tis the hornpipe, matey!”

Kydd glanced back. Doud was making play of downing his due libation, and prepared to sing. This attracted the others, who very soon made themselves his adoring audience, finding places on the deck and fiferail. Kydd settled down among them.

“Well, I’m blessed, lads, see who’s come to join us!”

From up the ladder appeared Buddles, looking confused. Kydd tried to include him in the cheerful group, but the man did not seem to hear his words.

“Leave him be, Tom,” Claggett said.

The hornpipe crew finished, and the fiddler came over to sit crosslegged on the fore gratings. He tuned his fiddle carefully, experimentally plucking at the catgut.

More sailors arrived, some hanging back in the outer shadows. Even with his face obscured, Kydd could recognize Renzi. He was an enigma, a mysterious figure who made Kydd feel uneasy.

Theatrically Doud gargled a few trills, which brought the gathering to a quiet. They waited expectantly. “The tale of Dick Lovelace, shipmates, who in the character of foretopman in the
Mermaid
is carried off to the Spanish Main, away from his true love and on to his fatal destiny.”

The fiddler drew a long, low chord that split in two, leaving a single high note hanging. Doud stood on the grating next to him, legs akimbo, and sang. His voice was every bit as pure and clear as Kydd remembered from his experience at the maintop, and the clean, sparing accompaniment on the violin complemented it well. They all sat enraptured as the melancholy song continued, the chorus always the same:

The song finished and there was a stillness, each man allowing his thoughts to steal away to secret places and treasured times, faces softening at intimate memories.

Buddles, it seemed, was bent on destroying the mood. He faltered unsteadily forward, pushing through the men toward the forward end of the fo’c’sle. Cradled in front of him was a twelve-pounder cannon ball.

“What’re yer doing, you stupid great oaf? Holy Christ! Can’t you steer straight, you useless farmer?”

One seaman leaped to his feet and scruffed Buddles’s shirt. “Look, whoever you are, mate, get outa here before I douse yer glims!”

Buddles looked at him in bewilderment. “It’s Mary!” he said thickly.

The seaman dropped his hands in astonishment. “Wha —”

“No — please let me pass!” Buddles resumed his shamble forward. No one stopped him. He reached the larboard carronade and stopped, breathing heavily, for he had reached the farthest he could go forward. He stood bewildered.

“What’s he doing? Shies that over the side ’n’ Mantrap’ll be down on us like thunder!”

“He’s brainsick, poor lubber!”

“Let him go, he’s harmless. How about ‘Black Eyed Susan,’ Ned?”

Buddles didn’t move, standing irresolute.

Attention quickly returned to Doud, who took another pull at his grog in preparation. The fiddler produced a gay introductory elaboration in the right key and prepared for Doud’s entry note.

“Stop him, you fools! Stop him — blast you!” Tewsley, carrying a glass of wine, stepped out into the lanthorn light in his ruffled evening shirt. He gestured sharply forward with his glass.

Buddles had mounted the low fife-rail and from there was shuffling out along the projecting cathead, still cradling the cannon ball.

Some of the quicker-witted reached out, trying to seize his jacket. Buddles looked back, a look of utter contentment on his cadaverous face. “I have to go to Mary now,” he said quietly, as though comforting a child, and embracing the heavy iron shot closer, stepped out into the void.

There was a rush to the side. A lanthorn was brought, but all that could be seen on the glitter of oily black water was a continuing stream of bubbles.

“Rowguard!” roared Tewsley, but the boat was half a ship’s length away, and all Kydd could do was stare at the diminishing popple of bubbles and think in cold horror of the man’s life ending in so many fathoms of dark water below them.

He stumbled away from the excited crowd, needing to be alone. He brushed against someone. It was Renzi, standing back from the others.

“You — you,” Kydd gasped, “get out o’ my way.” He made instinctively for the ladder to the deck below. There he turned and lurched to an open gunport, retched into the darkness and hung there, weak and trembling, despising himself for his weakness.

It took a while for him to register what he was hearing from the tight group of men sitting farther forward. They spoke very quietly, but there was no mistaking Stallard’s urgent, hectoring tones. “For fuck’s sake, you can do somethin’! Why do yer stand for it? Never heard of any being made to eat shite like on board this boat!”

Kydd heard a growled reply too soft to distinguish, then, “O’ course! That’s what they think yer worth. Meanest lobsterback gets a whole shillin’ a day.”

There was more rumbling. “Ah, now that’s where you’re dead wrong. If you ain’t been paid, then law’s on your side — and my bloody oath, yer don’t have to work until you have, see. And I oughta know — tell yer about it one day, I will.

“So we finds somewhere we can talk. Just don’t want to hear any more low cackle about lyin’ down and takin’ anything they wants to dish out.”

The voices died away, and Kydd could hear no more. When he pulled himself back inboard they had gone. He drifted listlessly back down to the lower deck, listening without interest to the desultory chatter, and was glad when the end of the dog-watch brought the hammocks down.

He lay back trying vainly to keep the misery-etched face of Buddles out of his mind. The violent contrasts of the day had left him empty and sick. It was no good: sleep was beyond him and he determined on activity as the only alternative.

He eased himself to the deck in the blackness, grateful that his hammock was so close to the main hatch. Careful not to disturb the sleepers whom he could hear breathing, snoring and grunting, he shuffled along on hands and knees. It was only when he got to the hatchway that he stopped to consider where he would go. The next deck above would be the same as this, full of sleeping bodies, and indeed the one above it, for all the time in port there would be no need to maintain a full watch on deck of half the men. Then he remembered the orlop deck below where he had spent his first night aboard, courtesy of the boatswain. The long walkway around the periphery — that would do.

The orlop had a pair of lanthorns at the after end. The men in irons lay sprawled asleep on the deck, a marine sentry suspiciously glassy-eyed against a door. The rest of the orlop forward was in blackness, and Kydd began pacing around the walkway.

He was totally unprepared for the sudden attack. An iron-hard pair of hands gripped him by the throat and dragged him choking and helpless across the deck to the gratings of the main hatch. “Shall I croak ’im?” his attacker whispered hoarsely. Kydd was forced to his knees.

“Wait — we’ll find out what he knows first,” returned an urgent whisper.

A tiny light, a purser’s glim — a reed in an iron saucer burning rancid fat — was uncovered, and in its sputtering light Stallard’s face appeared, devilish and delighted. “Well, if it ain’t me old royster, Tom Kydd.” There was just enough luminosity to reveal about half a dozen other figures among the shadows.

The pressure on his throat eased and he dropped to the deck, heaving burning breaths in spasms. A hand grabbed his hair and forced his head back. “Just we needs to know why you’re creepin’ around down here, Kydd. Stands to reason you’re not here for the sake of yer health,” Stallard said.

Kydd gulped air and tried to order his thoughts against the roaring in his ears and the savage adrenaline rush. “Couldn’t sleep — needed to —”

His hair was jerked savagely back, and a meaty hand gripped his throat. “You gull us ’n’ you’re shark bait, matey.”

“No — he’s square, I know him from a-ways back.” Stallard’s look became speculative. “See, me ’n’ me friends here don’t think it right we should have to go out to sea in this leaky old boat and drown like rats, so we’re goin’ to take action.” He looked around for confirmation, which he got. “The committee has to meet here, ’cos you know why, and we voted we stand for our rights as human beings, not poxy slaves.

“We’re now goin’ to organize the whole crew, and when those fuckin’ whistles blow to force us to sea, we’re just goin’ to refuse to sail.”

Kydd’s reply was left unsaid at the sight of Stallard’s wolfish grin.

“And that means we ain’t a-goin’ anywhere! Like to see their faces when we stands up for the first time and demands our rights. Fair stonkered, they’ll be! They can’t do a bloody thing if we’re all together in this.” He nudged Kydd. “And that’s why we wants to know where you stand in all this, me old mate.”

Kydd said nothing.

“Don’t forget, Kydd, you make a noise, someone finds us, you’ll be seen right here with us all, so you may as well come in now and do somethin’ useful.” Stallard rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Yeah — for some reason, people like you, they’ll listen to what yer say, and we’re gonna need leaders when we makes our stand.” He stood up. “We starts work tomorrow, Tom, ’n’ first meeting at the tables at noon. See you then, mate.” Stallard held out his hand, and Kydd knew that if he didn’t take it he would never leave the orlop alive.

In the blackness he couldn’t find his way back to his hammock. Not that sleep was possible — his mind was racing. He crawled over to the side of the ship and sat with his back to the hull and his head in his hands. There would only be one end to such madness: mutiny in the Navy could never be allowed to succeed, whatever the provocation — even he could see that. According to a local penny broadsheet, even after four years they were still ranging the Great South Sea for the remaining mutineers of the
Bounty
. Tyrell would have no compunction against sending armed men against them instantly, leaving no time for discussion or negotiation. There would be bloodshed, and if he did not
show on the right side Stallard would be too desperate to allow him the luxury of time to decide.

His thoughts rushed on. Supposing he were to warn the quarterdeck right now? He would not be believed without evidence, and in any event his very being rebelled against betrayal. Should he wake Bowyer and ask him what to do? Easier said than done — all he knew was that Bowyer slung his hammock with the mizzen topmen, and they were lost somewhere in this vast city afloat.

Restlessly Kydd eased his aching limbs. The deep groans and creaks seemed to take on disturbing meaning in the claustrophobic dark. Perhaps Stallard was right: if the ship was a deathtrap, then indeed they had a case. The newspapers always seemed to carry reports of ships lost at sea for unknown reasons; it was easy to think of one now. But Stallard was a hothead, fomenting trouble to satisfy his craving for cheap adulation; he had no real idea of the consequences of his actions. This situation was different: there was nowhere to hide afterward and it was most certainly a hanging matter.

Time dragged on and Kydd began to feel drowsy. He would leave decisions to the morning, after he had spoken to Bowyer.

He was drifting off, hardly noticing the bumps and thuds on the hull, when he was jerked awake by the urgent squeal of boatswains’ calls and pandemonium everywhere. “
Haaaands ahoy
! All the
haands
! All hands on deck!”

There was groaning, curses and lanthorns waving about in the gloom. Kydd was jostled violently in the confusion. He tried to make sense of what was going on, and grabbed the arm of a boatswain’s mate.

“Haven’t you heard, mate? Captain’s returned aboard sudden-like, and it’s the French — they’re out! The Frogs are at sea!”

“What the stinkin’ hell are yer doin’ still here?” Elkins pulled Kydd round to face him. “Yer station for unmoorin’ ship is the main sheets — geddup there!” He knocked Kydd away from him and stormed about in the chaos, looking for the men of his division.

It was bedlam on the night-black lower deck, its hellish gloom lit fitfully by lanthorns — a struggling mass of men, white eyes rolling in the shadows, the occasional gleam of equipment. Kydd’s heart thudded. In a matter of hours he might be fighting for his life out there, somewhere. His mind flooded with images in which he could see himself cut down
by maddened Frenchmen as they swarmed aboard after a fierce battle. He gulped and mounted the ladders for the upper deck.

On deck, the darkness was lifting, slowly, reluctantly. A dank, cold dawn began the day.

The decks themselves were unrecognizable — braces, sheets and halliards were off their belaying pins and led out along the decks for easy running. The upper yards were alive with men. Urgent shouts shattered the dawn.