Julian Stockwin - Mutiny

'There! Now we shall see!' Emily selected a broad brush and mixed a quantity of pale blue from the squares of colour in the ingenious wooden box. She soon had a colour wash in place, and set to with finer brushes on his coasts. Her cunning use of ochre and light purple had his pencil hatching underneath take on a sinister, distant quality, which undeniably brought a dramatic quality to the original.

Engrossed, she persevered at the fine work, her dainty hands perfect for the task. Kydd cast a glance at Letitia, still at her picture; their eyes met, but there was no answering smile.

At last, Emily leaned back and gazed critically at the result. 'There!' she said, and stared at it, motionless, for a space. She turned and looked up at Kydd with large eyes and said seriously, 'It's really very good, is it not, Thomas? We make quite a pair, I believe.'

Kydd felt heat rising, but before he could speak, Emily had snapped shut the box and stood. 'I think we have earned our picnic, don't you?'

'God blast ye, Mr Kydd, what d'you think you're about? You've not overhauled y'r clewlines.' The master was choleric: the times for the topsail setting evolution were sadly delayed by Kydd's failure to see that the clewlines were loosened at his mizzen-mast at the same rate as the sheets were hauled in.

It seemed everyone was in a state of enervation. Attempts to stir the ship's company to life with harbour exercises were met with sullen lethargy. The Achilles of the Caribbean was becoming a fading memory, the cruises to sweep the seas of the enemy, the landings to wrest yet another rich island from the French all in the past. Below, mess-decks were aligning themselves between the real seamen and the unfortunates of the quota.

Kydd could feel the resentment — and the broken-down pride. To be left to rot in port was hard for a good seaman to take, especially when England was menaced by as great a danger as she had ever been.

Evening drew in and, with it, more tiresome carping in the gunroom and petty quarrelling on the lower deck. Kydd made up his mind to take a turn along the streets of Gibraltar to get away.

It was impossible to avoid the wine shops at the lower levels of the town, and Kydd pushed past hurriedly, but at one angry shouts climaxed with the ejection of a thick-set seaman, who skidded angrily in the dust then staggered to his feet. It was a common sight and Kydd moved to go round the spectacle - but something about the build of the man made him hesitate.

It was Crow - Isaac Crow of the Artemis, the hard and fearless captain of the maintop who had been so much a part of Kydd's past — become a wine-soaked travesty of his former self. Kydd steadied him and leaned him against a wall. 'Isaac, where—'

'What - well, if it ain't me ol' shipma' Tom Kydd!' Crow chortled. His clothes were musty and ragged, probably all he had left after selling the rest for cheap drink, Kydd guessed.

His expression changed. In an instant his overly cheery features grew pinched, suspicious. 'A master's mate, our Tom Kydd, doin' well fer 'isself. Still know yer frien's, then?' He pushed away Kydd's steadying hand and drew himself up. 'Th' blackstrap they sells 'ere is worse'n goat's piss.'

'What ship, Isaac?'

Crow looked at him for a moment.' Weazle brig-o'-war.' It was an unrated minor warship, in Gibraltar for lengthy repair. 'Gunner's mate, but broke fer fightin' out o' turn.'

So now he was a common seaman, disrated no doubt for a frustrated flaring on the mess-decks while his ship was interminably delayed.

Crow stared at Kydd, his face hardening into contempt. 'It's gone ter rats — the whole fuckin' navy's gone t' rats. Shite off th' streets is gettin' seventy pound ter be a sailor, while we gets the same less'n a shillin' a day the buggers got back in King Charles's day. What sort o' life is it ter offer a younker t' go to sea?'

There was no answer to that, or to the unspoken loathing of professional seamen with pride in themselves having to share a mess room with the kind of men Kydd had seen. 'Isaac, mate, y' knows that a ship o' war can't be sailed b' the likes o' those shabs. It takes real seamen — like us!' Kydd felt the rise of anger. 'They'll always need us, an' just when are they going t' wake up to it?'

Crow turned on him slowly. 'Yer messin' aft wi' the grunters — why should yer worry yerself about us foremast jacks?' He held Kydd with his hard black eyes, then swayed back into the pot-house.

Kydd was taken aback by his words. He wandered for a time, then made his way back aboard before evening gun. Cockburn looked at him curiously, but Kydd did not feel like confiding in him: his origin was as a volunteer and midshipman and presumably, in the fullness of time, he would attract interest and gain a commission as an officer; he had never slung his hammock with the men, and could not be expected to know their true worth and particular strengths. It was something that he would give much to reflect on with Renzi: he could bring things to order in fine style.

Brought on deck by a general rush, Kydd saw from out of the early morning haze the 38-gun frigate La Minerve sailing into the anchorage.

Even the arrival of a single frigate was a noteworthy event, and there were few in Achilles who weren't on deck and interested in the smart ship coming to anchor. As she glided in, sharp eyes picked up a most unusual state of affairs: this frigate was wearing the swallow-tail broad pennant of a commodore, Royal Navy, in place of the usual sinuous length of a commissioning pennant, placing her notionally senior to Achilles.

The first lieutenant's telescope was steadily trained on the frigate's quarterdeck. 'I see him — Commodore Nelson! A firebrand if ever I heard of one.'

Another lieutenant gave a bleak smile. 'I know him -cares only to add to his reputation at the cannon's mouth whatever the cost to others, a vain soul, very vain.'

The master's stern face relaxed slighdy as he murmured, 'Aye, but he cares f'r his men as few does.'

The frigate's anchor splashed down and the vessel glided to a stop close enough for them to see every detail aboard, the sails vanishing from the yards in moments, the disciplined rush to each point of activity. The sharp orders and crisp flourishes of the boatswain's calls carried over the water. Even as the admiral's barge pulled strongly shoreward, a-glitter with gold and blue in the sternsheets, the launch and cutter were not far behind.

'Seems in an almighty pelt.' Cockburn grinned. It was in stark contrast to their own indolence. Recently Kydd had noticed the first green shimmer of weed below the waterline of Achilles also appearing on the anchor cable. But that didn't concern him today: Emily had offered to show him the top of the Rock.

It was donkeys again, but this time the party consisted only of Emily, Kydd and the quiet but watchful Letitia. They wound up a long path set at an incline to the face of the Rock. Emily kept up a pratde about the view and the history, all of which enabled Kydd to take his fill of her looks without pretence.

From the top, a rocky spine and smooth parts, the view was every bit as breathtaking as claimed — at this height the ships were models, the town buildings miniatures, but Kydd was more aware of the rosy flush on Emily's cheeks as she pointed out the sights. 'Ah, look there, Thomas!' Far below, Nelson's frigate was getting under way, her commodore's pennant lifting in the fluky breeze and with all sail set. 'What a picture it is, to be sure.' Impulsively, she laid her arm on his.

The frigate was smart in her actions, but was having a hard time in the uncertain wind eddies in the lee of the Rock, paying off in the light airs but nevertheless slowly gaining ground to the northwards.

'And are the others coming, too?' Emily added innocently, taking out her dainty ladies' pocket telescope.