On a Making Tide (8 page)

‘I had Mr Fort read it fer me,’ said Grandma Kidd. ‘Yer ma has found you a place in London.’

The old lady wasn’t happy about that either. It was in her voice, that tone of mixed anger and sadness that her green-eyed girl would be going away, just like her own daughter, leaving her in the Steps under the burden of her family without benefit of relief. Her manner forced Emma to moderate the excitement she felt. Like everyone, she had heard tales of the Great Wen, of a city so large it was unimaginable, the whole place so teeming with noise and people it was like another world.

More than anything, it was what she wanted. It wasn’t just that the Thomas family had taken against her, moving her from nursery maid to skivvy. She might have been the family governess and she would still have wanted to go south, to where everyone knew opportunity abounded. It hadn’t taken her long to discover there were few princes to catch in Cheshire, but the streets of the capital city, every girl knew, were crammed with them.

‘There’s a lot more, Emma,’ said her grandma. ‘You and your goings on have cost your mother a pretty penny, and I daresay she be set to scold you when she sees you.’

Money had been paid to Mr Honorius Leigh Thomas to release Emma from her bond to the family. More, no doubt, would have been expended on the household to which she was to go to, that of a London doctor called Budd, who owned an establishment run by one of her mother’s oldest
friends. That wasn’t a good thing. When they heard the lies that had caused the rift in her last employment, there would be scant chance of freedom.

In the days that followed, before she took a seat on the roof of the coach, Emma suppressed all thoughts of work and constraints. Instead, she filled her every waking hour, and a goodly portion of the sleeping ones, with dreams of luxury. There would be no fumbling in alleyways when she got to London. It was easy to see in her mind’s eye the shocked face of her mother when Emma presented her to the man she would marry, a man very much above their own station. There would be no more scolding after such a day!

If anything, rocking about on that coach roof, with a tarpaulin round her shoulders to keep out the rain, reinforced her flights of fancy. She watched the manners of speech and movement of those wealthy enough to pay for an interior seat, and practised them in the few moments she had alone on the week-long journey. And she lied to her fellow passengers with an ease that thrilled her. To them, she was no housemaid but a girl from a good family, fallen on times so hard she could no longer travel as she used to. In her enthusiasm to guy them it never occurred to her that no one believed a single word.

Then came that day of dreams, the thrill of her first sight of London. The coach always set off in the pre-dawn, to make maximum use of daylight, and that didn’t alter for proximity to the capital. From the top of Highgate Hill, the whole city was spread out beneath her in the orange glow of the morning light, a pall of smoke from the numerous fires drifting in the air above the mass of buildings.

The masts of hundreds of ships filled the river basin to the east, seemingly attached to a string of vessels with sails aloft, working their way towards the wider reaches of the river Thames and the open sea. Another fantasy filled Emma’s thoughts, of herself sailing away with some foreign beau, to a land of high turreted castles, where white horses pulled gilded carriages. Everyone on the coach roof, even those who had seen it before, was affected by the sight on such a clear morning. But Emma knew in her heart that none was as touched as she. This was like coming home.

The Thames pilot came aboard
Swanborough
at midnight, in good time to take advantage of the combination of dawn light and the ebb that accompanied it. With a whole day, barring a wind that was strong and foul, they would clear the Thames estuary at the North Foreland before dusk, which would allow him to bring another ship in on the morrow. He stood now by the binnacle, a swarthy face peering out from the high collar of his cloak, unsmiling, saying few words, and generally confirming the opinion that most sailors had of pilots; that they were miserable, stuck-up sods.

All hands were roused at four to man the capstan and haul close to the mooring buoy, with a fiddler on the top playing an encouraging tune. Nelson, who had hardly slept in an inferno of adult snoring, found himself on the end of a twelve-foot bar, cheek by jowl with the men who would be his messmates all the way to the West Indies.

Most had been in their hammocks by the time he made it to his berth, greeting him with no more than a curt nod. He had to sling his own in the confined space, aware that eyes were on his back, with their owners probably wondering what level of trust they should place in a lad who was invited to dine aft. The realisation of that made him curse Rathbone, as well as the clothes in which he had come aboard. Would he need to fight once more for acceptance?

These thoughts were still with him as he dug his bare feet into the planking. They heaved on command to shorten the cable, warping the ship closer to the buoy to which she was moored. Nelson strained as hard as anyone to get the inert mass of the ship moving, aware of round smooth wood in his hands, the naked backs in front of him, the shoulders either side of men who had not smiled, all this mingled with the overpowering smell of human sweat. A curse calling for more effort, right in his ear, made him close his eyes as he sought to increase his exertions. His previous excitement had evaporated, leaving him with just doubts. Was he right to be here? Would he find friends on a voyage that might last as long as a year?

Matters eased as the ship began to move, until he was walking round the capstan easily. Men slapped each other’s backs in shared achievement. Someone, he didn’t see who, patted him and that one act lifted the gloom
that had assailed him. Once she was in the desired position, with a boat standing by to unhitch, all hands went on deck, some going aloft to free the sails, others manning the falls, the ropes that controlled the positions in which they were set. Nelson obeyed every instruction he was given, aware that those issuing them were as careful to avoid eye contact as he was.

The early morning sun had risen in the east, an orange ball in a clear sky that tinted the sails and silhouetted the masts of the hundreds of ships that filled the greatest seaport in the known world. Eased out into the main channel under topsails, they joined a convoy of others using the same tide to make their way out to sea, each with a river pilot to take them round the treacherous shallows and sandbanks that dotted the river Thames. Ebbing quickly, with the sails used more to hold the course than provide steerageway, the river carried them downstream past the buildings of Greenwich Hospital, all trim lawns and Portland stone, on past the dockyards, wharves and boat builders’ docks of Blackwall Reach and Woolwich.

Horatio Nelson had never seen such a sight, and it made his heart swell with patriotic pride: so many ships, so much maritime activity that, for all the width of the great watercourse, the
Swanborough
was never more than a biscuit toss away from another merchant deck. The wind was steady in the north, the sky clear and bright because of it, the yards hauled round to take it. Even so, the pilot was obliged to call for slight adjustments as they encountered occasional gusts from a local breeze. New buildings, warehouses, homes and wharves were being built all the way down both banks of the river. Nelson could imagine a time when there would be no gap between the great city they had just left, and the naval anchorage they were approaching at the Nore.

‘Come on, young ’un,’ said a voice behind him. He turned to see a wiry individual he had heard called Judd smiling at him. He was not tall, with a thin crooked face, deep tanned from years of sea and wind. ‘Old Rattlebones will indulge you in yer dreaming, but Mr Verner has eyed your back and lifted off his black hat more’n once.’

There was something in Judd’s face that engendered trust, so Nelson spoke openly. ‘I was looking to see if I could spy my old ship.’

‘You’ll not see owt from here. Best go aloft.’

‘Can I?

‘You must ask Mr Verner, lad, that’s the proper way. And I must advise a bit of busy before you do that.’ Seeing the look of confusion on Nelson’s face, he grinned again. ‘Them falls by the weather shrouds is sheeted home well enough but they is all ahoo. Why don’t you and I tidy ’em, man o’ war fashion, which’ll please him. Then you can ask yer favour.’

‘Thank you, Judd,’ he replied, looking the man right in the eye and smiling, in a manner so open and natural that the older man seemed thrown.

‘Name’s John, but most aboard calls me Little Bitt,’ the sailor said, looking
away. He pointed to another of the hands, a great, barrel-chested fellow who was hauling a huge roll of canvas up through one of the hatches. ‘You’ll have spotted Eamon McGrath, who’s termed Big Bitt. We was named thus since we came down the gangplank together, an’ it’s stuck. You can call me by my true moniker, if you’d rather.’

‘My name’s Nelson.’ That was answered with a grunt. ‘My given name is Horatio but my family call me Horace.’

‘Ain’t much better to my mind, either one. But never fear, we’ve got no end of wits on the barky who’ll baptise you different in no time.’

Judd had taken hold of one of the ropes that fell from the end of the yards to the bulwarks, there to be lashed off taut in a figure of eight to a belaying pin. To pull the pin was to release the rope. Naturally there was an excess of untidy hemp and he had to haul it out so it was straight.

‘See, young ’un? You gets the kinks out first off, then you puts your foot to hold one end, and coils it thus.’

Nelson watched for a few seconds, as one coil was laid, with the second just inside before he took hold of a rope.

‘Now since you’re Navy, you’ll have seen how the falls end up on a man-o’-war deck. That’s how Mr Verner likes ’em, so we might as well give the bugger one happy day on a long cruise.’

As they worked Judd talked away about the ship and the voyage. Every time he used a nautical term, he raised his eyes to see if it registered, careful not to take too much notice of the slight flash of annoyance each time something had to be spelt out. He explained that a square rigger was the best ship afloat, seeing as how it had yards that were separate from the masts, and could be swung round to take the wind for near three quarters of the compass. ‘Deep keeled, see, so if the wind is coming in right on the beam, that be over the side of the barky, you can swing the yards round to take it.’

‘The ship won’t go sideways?’

‘No, lad. Keel’s too deep. It’ll trend away a bit, what with leeway an’ all. That’s the run of the sea. But stands to reason, though, if it won’t go sideways its got to go somewhere, and that somewhere is forwards if the wind ain’t dead foul. Ship might heel a bit, an’ look as though it’s set to tumble, but it ain’t. It just be goin’ on its way.’

Nelson was confused, and it must have shown.

‘It’ll come in time, lad,’ he said, aware that his young charge knew he was ignorant, and was angry with himself because of it. ‘How would you know what was in a kitchen grate if’n no one never told you? Imagine a black savage, just hauled out of the Bight of Benin, faced with a set of andirons. He wouldn’t no more ken their name or what they was for’n you do on a ship.’

Judd’s manner had sucked Nelson in, and it was with pleasure that he realised that many of his anxieties had evaporated. That is, until he saw the first mate move from his position by the binnacle.

‘Are you after something, Little Bitt?’ said Verner, making his way across the deck towards them. ‘I ain’t never seen you a-tidyin’ afore without being telt to attend to it.’

‘Young ’un’s idea, Mr Verner,’ Judd replied, looking up and grinning. ‘Said that’s the way of the Navy, and with you bein’ a fellow who’d taken the King’s shilling, that’s how you’d like it.’

‘Bollocks,’ Verner replied, without rancour.

‘Lad wants to go aloft as we pass the Nore Banks see if’in he can spy his old ship.’

Verner looked towards the wheel to where the pilot stood next to Captain Rathbone, his eyes darting left and right as he checked his landmarks on the Kent and Essex shores. ‘Shouldn’t make no odds for a bit, since we’ll hold to the Yantlet Channel. If you ask the Captain nice enough he might lend you a glass.’

Rathbone obliged and the boy ran for the mainmast shrouds, dashing aloft with the telescope tucked into his belt. The
Swanborough
couldn’t match the majesty of
Raisonable
’s
top hamper, and even on a clear morning he stood little chance of seeing a hull behind the low-lying Isle of Grain. But the masts were visible, especially those with senior officer’s pennants. Once he’d recognised the flagship, and placed
Raisonable
in relation to it, he found himself subject to a series of conflicting emotions. He should have been glad to be able to look at her topmasts, safe in the knowledge that not only was he at sea but also away from the trials that he had endured below those decks. Yet there was an inexplicable sadness too, a feeling of something lost.

Clearing the Thames past Margate and Ramsgate, they dropped round the North Foreland, then used the Brake Channel as a passage through the northern end of the treacherous Goodwin Sands. John Judd informed him that they were to anchor in the Downs, to complete their wood and water as well as take on twenty more hands, including another boy of Nelson’s age. There followed a riotous night ashore in the taverns of Deal, from which Rathbone was brought back in a local bum-boat, alternately cursing and singing, another boat to his rear carrying the extra hands.

For the first time Horatio Nelson was introduced to the pleasures of a proper seaport. Deal might lack a harbour, but with the Goodwin Sands acting like a great breakwater to stem the fury of the North Sea, and three castles bristling with cannon to protect it, the anchorage between sands and shore was one of the safest in England. It was home to hundreds of merchant ships, either returning from a voyage or setting out on one.

The town existed to provide for that, every second house a tavern of some sort, full of hard looking individuals in need of a berth. They had, as Judd informed him, spent every penny they possessed from their previous voyage, in the way of all sailors, on one continuous stream of
pleasure-seeking
: drink, dancing, singing and the comfort of one of the dozens of whores who lined the narrow streets. Nelson saw too much in one night to
register anything but the sense of near riot that attended the revels. Yet what he saw excited him greatly, even if it brought to mind his father’s warnings, which never failed to equate all matters nautical to sin.

At mid-morning the Deal pilot saw them out through the southern exit to the Goodwins and, with the jutting white cliffs of Dover on their starboard quarter, they raised more sail, heading for the English Channel and the open sea.

The new boy, Amos Cavell, was just as much a novice to the sea as Nelson. He was small, thin and pale, with thick dark hair that stood up straight from his head and dark eyes that were never still. After circling each other on the first day, mutual necessity turned them into companions. The crew were something less than pleasant during the first days of the voyage. Most were out of sorts, either beached so long that they had mislaid their skills, or still drunk from the last parting. A few were seasick, though they were sent aloft regardless.

When these sufferers had been exposed to a verbal drubbing or the back of Verner’s tarred hat, ship’s boys were easy targets. So, being nimble was the first requirement for Nelson and Amos Cavell. Proximity to an adult meant that one eye was always on them and when the thought of home, hearth and comfort became too much for the men to bear, their swipes at the nearest head whistled through thin air. Four eyes being better than two, the boys soon learnt to look out for each other’s welfare.

The hands brought aboard at Deal had to sort out their respective stations with the men who had brought the ship down from London. Mostly this was satisfied with mutual growling, issued but unfulfilled threats, and the occasional heavy nudge. But in the case of one it had to come to blows, at a point below decks where others, watching the hatchway, could make sure that neither Rathbone nor his mate knew anything about it.

Eamon McGrath saw himself as top dog below decks. An ugly hardcase called Streeter, who had come aboard at Deal, decided to challenge for that title. The pair stood toe to toe, rules agreed in advance, to trade telling punches, the prize no more than the right to be occasionally deferred to in the matter of a seat at the mess table or a place in the queue for some captain’s treat. Streeter was the better boxer, but McGrath, beetle-browed and seemingly insensitive to pain, wore down the newcomer with brute force instead of science. The fascination for a boy whose parson father had never let him near a boxing booth was tremendous, though when the bout was over and McGrath victorious, Amos Cavell pronounced it a poor affair, nothing like as exciting as he had seen on Walmer Green for a penny.

John Judd was a special friend of McGrath, which meant that he was afforded a respect out of all proportion to his own ability with his fists. And, either from his own inclination or under direct instruction, he had adopted the youngsters, taking it upon himself as though it was his sworn duty to ensure that the boys shouldn’t suffer too much in the way of casual
punishment, nor be left in ignorance of the knowledge needed to perform their duties.

‘There’s two things that you need to hold paramount to pass through this life,’ he said, supervising them as they prepared to collect their meal from the galley, his face serious in the light from the stove. ‘Whatever, think what you’re about afore you does it, ’cause more men die at sea from not minding to their task proper than ever went to disease or a gun.’