Julian Stockwin - Seaflower

Afterwards, the master, as was his duty, took Cole aside to examine his reckoning and drill him in the essentials. Kydd hovered to listen. 'Now, every point of half th' surface of the earth is projected fr'm the centre on to a tangent plane at some point, call'd its point o' contact — but th' plane o' the equator when projected fr'm the centre on to a tangent plane itself becomes a straight line . ..'

While the worried Cole tried to commit the words, Jarman turned to Kydd. 'Now, what we have there is a great circle. Nobody sails a great circle - we only steer straight or th' quartermaster-o'-the-watch would be vexed. What we really does is alter course a mort the same way once in a watch or so, an' that way we c'n approximate y'r circle.'

There was more, and unavoidably it needed books: Renzi took an immediate interest. 'To snatch meaning from the celestial orb — to gather intelligence of our mortal striving from heavenly bodies of unimaginable distance and splendour. Now that is in pursuit of a philosophy so sublime . . .'

With Hispaniola to larboard, they took a south-easterly slant across the width of the Caribbean, the trade winds comfortably abeam and, in accordance with Kydd's shaky workings shadowing the real ones, raised the island of St Lucia and its passage through to the open

Atlantic ocean. The Windward Island of Barbados lay beyond.

Kydd's shipmates accepted his privileged treatment with respect. He was one of their own, daring to reach for the one thing that set officers apart from seamen. It was a rare but not unknown thing for a foremast hand to take part in the noon reckoning, although in the usual way all officers' results were brought together for consensus while those of lesser beings were ignored.

The rule-of-thumb principles used in the real world, informed by Jarman's utilitarian merchant service experience, Kydd absorbed readily enough — it was really only the looking up of tables. What was more difficult was the bodily technique of using the heavy old octant to shoot the sun against the exuberance of Sea/lower's sea motion. A combination of tucking in the left elbow, lowering the body to make the legs a pair of damping springs and leaning into it, and Kydd soon had the sun neatly brought down to the horizon with a sure swing of the arm.

The underpinning of mathematics was beyond him, though. Renzi had the sense to refrain from pressing the issue. There would be time and more in the lazy dog-watches to make intellectual discoveries, and Kydd would benefit by the more relaxed explorations. Besides which, it was only the hapless Cole who was under pressure: he would take his qualifying examination for lieutenant within the year.

Off Cape Moule to the south of the island the boatswain shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun on the calm blue seas — the wind had dropped to a fluky zephyr. 'Have ye news of St Lucia, sir?' he asked.

The island changed hands with the regularity of a clock, and the green and brown slopes could now be hostile territory, around the point an enemy cruiser lurking.

Farrell grunted, swinging his glass in a wide sweep over the hummocky island, across the glittering sea of the passage to the massive dark grey island of St Vincent just fifteen miles to the south. 'I don't think it signifies,' he said finally. 'We will be past and gone shortly.'

In the light airs, Seaflower rippled ahead towards an offshore island and then the open sea. Kydd watched the course carefully: the tiny breeze was dropping and their progress slowed. The big foresail shivered and flapped, and the bow began to fall away. 'Watch y' head!' he growled to the man at the tiller.

'Can't 'old 'er,' the pigtailed seaman grunted, his thigh stolidly pressuring the tiller hard over.

'We lost steerage way, sir,' Kydd told Farrell. With the wind so light the heat clamped in, a clammy, all-pervasive breathlessness. Seaflower's sails hung lifeless, idle movements in the odd cat's-paw of breeze. Blocks clacked against the mast aimlessly and running rigging sagged. Kydd looked over the side. Without a wake the sea was glassy clear, and he could see deep down into the blue-green immensity, sunlight shafting down in cathedral-like coruscations.

Jarman broke the dull silence. 'We have a contrary current hereabouts, sir,' he said heavily. Seaflower lay motionless in the calm — but the whole body of water was pressing inexorably into the Caribbean, carrying the vessel slowly but surely back whence she came. "T would be one 'n' a half, two knots.' That was the speed of a man walking, and even within the short time they had lain becalmed they had slid back significantly against the land. A bare hour later they were back at the point where they had begun their passage.

A few welcome puffs shook out the sails, died, then picked up again. A tiny chuckle of water at her forefoot and Seaflower resumed her course, heading once more for the offshore islet. Once more the fluky wind betrayed them, and they were carried back again. 'T' the south?' asked the boatswain.

'No,' said Jarman, moodily watching the coast slip back. 'Can't beat to weather in this, an' if we goes south we have t' claw back t' Barbados after.' Unspoken was the knowledge that a French lookout post might be telegraphing their presence even now to Port Castries and any man-o'-war that lay there; any improvement in the wind later could bring a voracious enemy with it.

A darkling shadow moving on the sea's surface reached Seaflower, and the welcome coolness of a breeze touched Kydd's face - and stayed constant. Again, the cutter moved into the passage but this time the land slipped by until they had made the open ocean and were set to pass the little islet. 'I believe we may now bear away for Barbados,' Farrell said, with satisfaction, but his words were overlaid by an urgent shout from the crosstrees.

'Saaail hoooo!; There was no need for a bearing. By chance occluded by the islet at the same rate as their advance, the sails of a square-rigger slid into view, heading to cross their path.

'Brig-o'-war!' snarled Merrick. There would be little chance against such a vessel and, with the wind gathering, the further they made the open sea, it favoured the larger craft.

Farrell's telescope went up and steadied. 'I think not, Mr Merrick — to quarters this minute.'

But the merchant brig was not ready for a fight and struck immediately — to the savage delight of Seaflower's company. They entered Bridgetown with a prize in tow, sweet medicine indeed.

To muted grumbles Seaflower was ordered to sea immediately: the niceties of adjudicating shares in prize money between the Admiral whose flag Seaflower wore and the Admiral in whose waters the capture took place would have to be resolved before the sailors saw any, and in any case the Vice Admiralty Court would have to sit first.

As they put to sea again after storing, busy calculations were taking place in a hypothetical but blissful review of personal wealth. 'Merchantmen — so we don' see head money,' Petit grumbled.

Farthing pulled up a cask to sit on. 'An' gun money neither.'

Kydd arrived down the hatchway and joined in. 'Ye're forgettin' that a merchant packet has cargo - that's t' be included, y' loobies.' Gun money and head money were inducements to take on an enemy man-o'-war but the value of a merchant-ship cargo would normally far exceed it.

He paused for effect. 'D'ye know, we return to Port Royal, but if we fall in wi' the Corbeau privateer, we're t' take her?' As a privateer counted as neither a merchant ship nor a man-o'-war, there was no real profit in an action; and even if they did encounter her, a privateer was crammed with men and would make a fierce opponent. 'Could never meet up wi' her, y' never knows,' Kydd said cheerfully, collecting his rain slick and going back on deck. It was a maddening combination of sun and sheeting rain, and Farrell would be on deck shortly to set the course.