Julian Stockwin - Kydd

The repulsive food restored his energy, and Kydd’s spirits rose. He finished his meal and looked up, aware that he had been too hungry to pay attention to his duties as a guest at table. “Er, where are we going, d’ y’ reckon?” he asked. It was still a matter of amazement to him that their busy world was traveling along while they sat down to table.

“Give it no mind, lad, it’s not our job to know the answer t’ that.” Phelps sniffed and leaned over to the grog tub. He waved his pot at the old man. “Light along a can for my frien’ here, Crooky.”

Kydd gingerly took a pull at his tankard. It was small beer, somewhat rank with an elusive herb-like bitterness, but he nearly drained it in one.

“I thought sailors only had rum,” he said, without thinking.

Phelps grinned. “We does, but only when the swipes runs out.” He pursed his lips. “You sayin’ as you want to try some?” he said, in mock innocence.

Kydd looked around, but the others did not seem to notice; they were all comfortably in conversation. “Are you offering?” he said.

“Wait there,” said Phelps, and lurched heavily to his feet. He went forward out of sight and returned with his jacket clutched tight around him as though against the cold. He resumed his seat. “Give us yer pot, mate,” he instructed. Kydd did as he was told and caught the flash of a black bottle under the table. Then his tankard was returned.

He waited casually, then lifted it. It caught him by surprise. In the dull pewter of his tankard was a deep, almost opaque mahogany-brown liquor. Its pungent fumes wafted up with a lazy potency, which dared him to go further.

The buzz of conversation swirled around him. He took a swallow. This was not issue three-water grog, but neat spirit, and its burning progress to his stomach took his breath away. He surfaced with a grin. “A right true drop!”

Phelps’s eyebrows lifted. “You’ll not get that sorta stingo usually, cully, but if yer play your cards right with Dan Phelps” – he tapped the side of his nose – “yer mebbe could see more of it.”

Kydd raised his pot again. This time he was prepared for the spreading fire, and gloried in the flood of satisfaction it released. His whirling anxieties subsided and his natural cheerfulness began to reassert itself. He finished the last of the rum with regret.

The piercing squeal of the boatswain’s call abruptly cut through the din. “Be damned. Starbowlines – that’s us. Fust dog-watch.” Phelps lurched to his feet and disappeared into the throng.

The mess traps were cleared away rapidly and Kydd found himself the only one still seated. “Move yer arse, mate,” he was told, and once more found himself alone in the midst of many.

Instinctively he turned to follow Phelps, who, he remembered, his head swimming, had left with the others up the main hatch ladder. It led to an almost identical gundeck from the one he had left, so he continued on up the next ladderway, muscles alive with discomfort, emerging into darkness. The night had already fallen.

Overhead, past the hulking shadows of the boats on their skids above him, he saw the paleness of huge sails in regular towers, each at the same angle and each taut and trim. Nearby, but invisible, he could hear the regular plash and sibilance of the sea, and as he stood he became aware of a background of sounds meshing together. It was a continuous and oddly comforting interplay of creaks, dings, slattings and all manner of unfamiliar mutterings.

Out into the starless night on either hand the darkness was broken only occasionally by the flash of a white wave. He felt rather than saw that they were traveling steadily through the water, a hypnotizing, unchanging sliding which gave no impression of headlong speed, and he marveled once again.

He was still comfortably warm from the rum, and ambled along, won dering at the vast mystery of the ship with all its unfathomable shapes, sounds and implied dangers. The sights above disappeared abruptly as he passed under a deck, the unmistakable outline of a bell in its belfry silhouetted briefly against the pallid fore course.

Loath to return between decks, he noticed a short ladder leading upward. He mounted, and found himself directly under the sails, the downdraft from them buffeting him with a deluge of cold air. He looked about quickly. Forward there was nothing but darkness, but aft he could make out men standing together, eerily illuminated by lights coming up from a low angle.

He moved toward them along the gangway next to the boats.

“Where you off to, matey?” A sailor had him by the arm. It was too dark even to make out his face.

“Lay aft, that man!” Garrett’s high-pitched voice came from among the cluster around the lights.

There was no point in hiding, he had done nothing wrong.

“At the run!” Garrett screamed. Tortured muscles burned as Kydd staggered over to the group. They were around the ship’s wheel and the light from the binnacle was shining up into their faces.

Garrett stalked up to Kydd and peered into his face. “When I say move, you fly! Stand at attention, you scurvy rogue. Who the devil do you think you are that you can just stroll about my quarterdeck under cover of night?” Garrett leaned forward, jutting his face at Kydd, who flinched. A stale smell of brandy hung about the officer.

Kydd stood rigid, all traces of the rum falling away. He had no idea what offense, if any, he had committed.

“Nothing to say?” Garrett asked dangerously. “Nothing to say? You know you’re caught out, and you know I’m going to punish you.” Garrett swayed forward, looking closely at Kydd’s shore clothing. His head jerked up. “Ah. So you must be one of that sorry-looking crew the press brought aboard today.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you’ll have to learn that common seamen don’t just wander about on the quarterdeck when it suits them. It is reserved for officers only – for your betters.” He rocked on his heels and cocked his head skyward as if looking for inspiration.

“I’ve a mind to give you a spell in the bilboes to help you remember.” His gaze snapped back to Kydd. A vicious look, and then a saintly smile spread. “But I’m too soft. I’ll let it go – just this once. But if it happens again” – the voice rose to a biting crescendo – “by Harry, I’ll make you rue the day you ever set foot in this vessel!”

Somewhere high above a sail started a fretful slapping. The man at the wheel eased a spoke or two and the noise stopped.

“Get below – now!”

Kydd turned wordlessly and made his escape. He hadn’t asked to be part of this. He was a wig maker of Guildford and belonged there, not in this alien company.

He plunged down the ladders. He was friendless and unknown here, cut off from normal life as completely as it was possible to be. Not a soul aboard cared if he lived or died; even Phelps must regard him as a form of street beggar deserving of charity.

At the end of the last dog-watch, hammocks were piped down and Kydd was tersely advised to be elsewhere. Once hammocks were slung, every conceivable space was occupied. “Get the softest plank you can find and kip out on that,” was the best advice he was offered. These men would be relieving the watch on deck at midnight and had little sympathy for a lost soul overlooked by the system.

Worn out by the trials and challenges of the day, he was driven by some instinct to seek surcease in the deepest part of the ship. He found himself in the lowest deck of all, stumbling along a narrow dark passage past the foul-smelling anchor cable, laid out in massive elongated coils.

Kydd felt desperately tired. A lump rose in his throat and raw emotion stung his eyes. Despair clamped in. He staggered around a corner, and just at that moment the lights of a cabin spilled out as a door opened. It was the boatswain, who looked at him in surprise. “Got yourself lost, then?” he said.