Julian Stockwin - Seaflower

The foremast now stood alone, its wound clearly visible as a long bone-coloured fracture under the capstan bars, which had been splinted around it. 'Kydd, y'r cross spar!' the boatswain called impatiently.

Kydd had been too interested in the proceedings and was caught unawares but he swiftly rounded on Juba. 'Cross spar!' he snapped, stepping towards the sheers. He looked fearlessly at the man, who hesitated just a moment, looking into Kydd's eyes, then moved into action. In low tones he called to the other negroes, in words incomprehensible to Kydd. The men split into two parties and slid the fore topgallant yard athwartships, then up against the splayed end of the sheers. They stopped and Juba looked up slowly. Kydd turned to the men at the cross-piece of the sheers and told them to pass the seizing.

'Like a throat-seizing an' not too taut,' the boatswain suggested.

'Aye,' said Kydd, happy with a new-found realisation: no matter how complex and technical the task, it could be rendered down to a series of known seamanlike evolutions.

The sheers were duly canted, tilted up so the guys could get an angle to sway the sheer-legs aloft. At the same time tackles at their feet held them firmly in place. It was almost an anti-climax, knocking aside the mast wedges, freeing the partners and hearing the massive tackle creak as it strained in a vertical pull up on the mast, which gave in a sudden and alarming jerk upwards.

There was suddenly nothing to do as the freed mast was angled and slowly lowered over the ship's side to be floated ashore, a fearsome thing that could spear the heart out of the frigate if it was accidentally let go. Kydd glanced at the motionless Juba, intrigued by the man's self-possession. Unexpectedly Juba allowed a brief smile to appear. Kydd smiled back, and pretended to follow the progress of the mast over the side.

The softness of a Caribbean evening was stealing over the waters when Kydd was finally able to return to the dockyard.

The replacement foremast had needed work. Awkwardly placed along the deck of the frigate it had had to be held securely on trestles while shipwrights went to work with adze and angled mast axe. As the chips flew, the craftsmen held Kydd in awe at their skill with such awkward tools. He now knew a good deal more than he had at break of day, and he felt happier than he had at any time since he had left Trajan: this was better than being a spare hand to whatever ship would claim him.

Closer in to the dockyard, he could hear the cries and laughter of the ship's company of Avenger, a ship-sloop whose bulbous, naked hull was heaved right over for careening on the other side of the water. These men would be accommodated ashore while their ship was in such a condition, and were making the most of the relaxing of discipline, taking their evening grog around the shore galley near the capstan house with raucous frivolity. Kydd eased into a grin at the familiar antics.

The injured mast could wait in the water off the mast-house for the morning and he could now dismiss his crew and get some supper. 'Well done, m' lads,' he said, unconsciously regarding them in the same way as a party of seamen after a hard day. Too late the thought came that possibly he should treat slaves in some other way, more at a distance, perhaps. However, they did not respond, and padded off silently together, he couldn't help wondering where.

The shore galley manned, Luke was able to get a hearty platter for him, complete with leaves of some mysterious local vegetable, and he tucked in with a will. It was hard to eat alone, though, with nothing but a candle and circling moths for company.

The conviviality flowing from the capstan house was hard to resist, and Kydd found himself strolling in the warm dark of the evening towards the sounds of merriment. The open frontage of the low building, with its three great capstans, was a favourite place to gather in the growing soft darkness. The lanthorns hung along the beams welcomed him in with splashes of golden light. Men lolled about, taking a clay pipe of tobacco or drinking deep from their pots, in time-honoured sailor fashion outdoing each other in sea yarns and remembrances.

Kydd knew none of them, but could recognise the types even though they were of another ship: the hard, confident petty officers in short blue jackets with brass buttons that glittered in the light of the lanthorns; young seamen bred to the sea, with an easy laugh and a tarry queue unclubbed so its plaited length hung a foot or more down their backs; the lined old shellbacks, whose sea wisdom it would be folly to question.

A man hauled himself up to sit on one of the capstan heads and his fiddle was passed up to him. After a few flourishes he nodded to a handsome seaman with side-whiskers next to him. The man stepped forward and sang in a resonant tenor:

'Oh! Life is the Ocean, and Man is the Boat

That over its surface is destin'd to float;

And joy is a cargo so easily stor'd

That he is a fool who takes sorrow on board!'

The well-known chorus drowned the singer, who affected vexation, stumping around the capstan in high dudgeon. Kydd laughed heartily with the rest, and raised his wooden tankard in salute.

Sensing the mood, the singer stalked to the front of the capstan, and stood akimbo, arms folded, glaring at his audience. The chatter died away expectantly.

A movement on the opposite side caught Kydd's eye. One of the seamen had a woman under his arm, a black woman. Kydd shifted his gaze back to the singer, who leaned forward as though in confidence, and there launched into the racy, driving strains of 'The Saucy Arethusa':

'Come all ye jolly sailors bold

Whose hearts are cast in honour's mould

While English glory I unfold

On board of the Arethusa'

The sailors burst into song, and Kydd felt his cheeks glow with pleasure. The singer bowed and accepted a dripping tankard. Kydd looked about him with a grin.

'Clinkin' good singer, is our Dansey!' A seasoned petty officer grinned back at Kydd.

‘Rattlin' fine voice!' agreed Kydd. 'Are ye Avengers, then?'

'Aye — Ben Kittoe, gunner's mate,' the man replied, taking a pull from his blackjack, a dark tarred leather tankard.

'Kydd, Tom Kydd, quartermaster's mate o' Trajan as was,' he said.

'D'ye mean ... ?'

'T be knackered, poor ol' lady,' Kydd said, and finished his pot.

'Bad cess. So where are yez now?' 'Got m'self a berth as master.' 'What?'

'Master o' the King's Negroes, that is.' Kydd laughed. At the other's curiosity he continued, 'Seem well enough at th' work, but wouldn't trust 'em on their own.'

The numbers at the capstan house had diminished, the galley had closed its hatches, but Kydd felt in no mind to break the mood. Kittoe stood up and waved his blackjack expansively. 'Come wi' us fer a quick noggin, mate.'

The two walked back along the stone quay and into the copper and lumber house. Kydd remembered that it was here that the crews of ships being careened were quartered. Above the locked and darkened store-rooms was the loft where copper plating for the underwater hull was pricked out to shape. 'We got a good sort as Owner,'

Kittoe grunted, as they mounted the exterior iron stairs. 'Sees us right in the article of grog an' such.' They entered: one end of the loft was agreeably illuminated with lanthorns, the light rapidly falling off into darkness at the other end of the broad expanse.

'Here, mate, take a muzzier o' this.' He reached for a dark green bottle from his sea-chest and upended it in Kydd's pot. The cloying aroma of prime West Indian rum eddied up.

'To Trajan - but f'r our hurricanoe, she'd be out crestin' the briny b' now,' Kydd said.