Julian Stockwin - Seaflower

Kydd doffed his hat to the ladies, returned by the unsmiling Caird. Luke's hesitant touching of his forelock was ignored. A dray rumbled grittily round the corner, its load of what appeared to be furniture covered with an old sail. The grey-haired old woman at the reins bobbed her head in glee at the sight of Caird. 'Hallelujah! Glory be, oh, yest, Lord!'

'Amen to that, Hepzibah,' Caird said, in a strong voice. 'We have today, joining with us in joyful prayer,

Master Thomas Kydd and his servant.' Hepzibah beamed at Kydd.

'Then shall we proceed. This day we pass by the plantation of Mr Blackstone, beyond Falmouth town.' Caird handed up the ladies to the single front seat and climbed up, himself taking the reins. 'I would wish we had more commodious transport, Thomas. You will have to shift for yourself in the back, I fear.'

Kydd pulled Luke in after him and the dray moved off. As they clopped serenely through the dockyard Kydd was glad of the early start — there was nobody abroad to see him. He looked at the swaying backs of the Cairds and wondered at the wild contrasts in his life since he had taken to sailoring.

They wound out of the dockyard and were almost immediately in scrub and rocks over the higher ground behind. The dray ground along, Hepzibah breaking into joyful hymns that, of course, it would be unseemly to join. Scattered houses merged into a township, but the houses were mean — wattle and daub, small and mud-dusty. 'Falmouth,' said Caird, 'a negro village.' Past the town, the sea sparkling to their left, they wound up into cane-field country. The heat was noticeably stronger. As they topped the rise, the sound of singing floated to them on the hot breeze. Finally they stopped at a crossroads in the shade of a wild tamarind tree of considerable size and age, where people of every variety, free and slave, had gathered.

'Please to assist me, Thomas, in rigging the assembly,' Caird asked Kydd courteously.

Kydd complied, lifting down chairs and an ingenious portable pulpit, under the shy direction of Beatrice.

These were set out under the tamarind tree. When he had finished, she turned to him with a timid smile and laid her hand on his arm. 'Thank you, Thomas. Shall we sit?' She guided him to the row of chairs in the front, which Kydd was uncomfortable to see was the only seating. Behind them the blacks squatted in the dust.

Caird took his position in the pulpit, looking stern and majestic. His voice boomed out 'Psalm eighty-four, the eleventh verse: "The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord God will give the grace and glory; no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly."' A warm roar of approbation and shrill cries of 'Hallelujah, Lord!' resounded, and the first hymn was announced: 'And Are We Yet Alive!'. It was sung with true feeling, in joyous counter-harmony.

As she sang, Beatrice's pale face under the muslin bonnet was pink with animation, her grey eyes sparkling as she glanced at Kydd. The hymn, despite the outlandish setting, brought back memories of Sundays in Guildford. His mother in her best clothes, he in his once-a-week coat and breeches next to his father. Kydd recalled staring dully at dust-motes held unstirring in shafts of sunlight coming from the freedom of the outside world into the utterly still church.

"That was well, Thomas. It is our pleasure to invite you to our Sunday dinner, should you be at leisure.' Caird had preached powerfully: his sermon was strong on duty, obedience, law and sin but sparing in the matter of joy.

The Sunday roast would not have shamed his mother's table, even if the potatoes had a subtly alien bitterness, the beef a certain dark sweetness. Once again opposite Beatrice, he tried to engage her in conversation. 'Thumpin' good singing, th' negroes,' he said hesitantly. Beatrice flicked a glance at him, but quickly lowered her eyes.

Caird interjected. 'They do so take joy in entering into the House of the Lord,' he said. 'Should an assembly in England take such a joy it would be gratifying.'

Kydd had been impressed with their spirit: his King's Negroes in comparison to those he had seen today were morose. Should he not be perceiving their better parts, appeal to their spirit? 'Y'r pardon, but I can't sort of... can't get close to 'em, if you know what I say .. .'

'Your concern does you credit, sir, and therefore I will speak directly.' Caird dabbed his lips and put down his napkin. 'It is easy for us to feel sorry for the negro, his condition, his lot in life, but we must not believe that in this way we are helping him.'

Kydd nodded, not really understanding.

'You will nevertheless find that I am the sworn enemy of any who ill-abuse their black people, who grind them to the dust and then discard them.' He fixed Kydd with a look of such fire that Kydd was forced to look down meekly at the tablecloth.

'But, Thomas, in my heart I cannot pretend that they are of the same blood as you or I — they are not!'

Kydd looked up in puzzlement.

'The Good Book itself tells us that they are an accursed people. Genesis, chapter the ninth, tells how Noah placed a curse on his son Ham and all his seed. From that day to this the black man is placed into subjection.

'And scientifical studies do show this: Edward Long, a vile, ranting fellow, nevertheless forces us to confront the fact that they are really another species of man, lacking vital parts that give us judgement and moral sensibility. Merely look upon them - they are not of our kind.'

Kydd sat silent.

'Therefore, my friend, you really should not look to their natures for the finer feelings. They are not possessed of any.' Caird looked down, then raised his face with a gentle, noble expression. 'For this it is my life's work to minister to them, to help them understand and be content in their duty and place in the world, to bear their burdens in patience and through God's Grace to aspire to His Kingdom.'

'Amen!' breathed Beatrice.

It made things much clearer. If they were a debased form of mankind, of course he was wrong to expect much in the way of feelings. But something still niggled. 'An' is slavery right?' Kydd asked stubbornly.

Caird looked at him fondly. 'It does seem hard, but you must understand that they need direction, discipline, to control the brutality that lies beneath. Slavery is a mercy. It provides a strong framework in which they may learn to curb their natures.' He paused and looked at Kydd directly. 'It is not the slavery which is evil, it is the manner in which some do enforce it.'

There was time to spare the following forenoon. The Blanche frigate was due in for repair, following a spectacular action against a heavier French frigate off Guadeloupe. Rumours flew about that her captain had been killed. Kydd was keen to hear the full story, remembering his own desperate battle in Artemis.

Blanche was delayed, so Kydd stood down his crew. Over at the boat-house, with Caird away in his office, he had nothing to do but watch the shipwrights at work. The craftsmen in the boat-house filled the space with the sound of their labour: the oddly musical thonk of a maul, the regular hiss of the try plane, the clatter of dropped planks. Steam billowed suddenly from a long chest, and a shipwright gingerly extracted a steaming plank, carrying it to a half-clad boat. Another took one end and they eased it around the tight curve of the bow, faying it to the plank below. Kydd could see that they were fitting it to at least three curves simultaneously — by eye alone.

All along the open side of the boat-house a spar rested on trestles, and Kydd marvelled at the mystery of mast-making: how was it possible to create a perfectly straight, perfectly round spar from a rough-hewn length of timber? It was all done by eye alone again, he noted. A straight-edged batten was nailed horizontally to one end; a pair of shipwrights worked together, and another batten was fixed the other end, sighted by eye to exactly the same level. Then mast-axe and adze were plied skilfully to produce a flat surface the whole length. Another pair of battens produced a flat opposite. By the time they progressed to the octagonal they had a true, workable approximation to a round. Kydd shook his head in wonder.