Julian Stockwin - Seaflower

'My lord, you see that we have made landfall at an unknown point,' Renzi explained, 'and, should we be too far east, we will encounter the Dutch ...'

'Wi'out our longitude, sir, we cannot know,' Kydd added.

Cecilia was in no doubt. 'Yes, you can, and very easily!'

The men looked at her incredulously.

'So simple. You go *and ask where we are — from one of your natives.'

It was simple. The boat kissed the sand of the unknown land on a small rock-strewn beach, raw red cliffs leading up to a profusion of greenery alive with the noise of animals and birds. Cecilia and Lord Stanhope were helped out, staggering around at the change of sensation.

'And where, then, will we find an accommodating native of these parts?'

Renzi's answer came.from further up the beach, in the form of a barking dog belonging to a figure standing watching them.

'I shall speak with him,' said Lord Stanhope.

Kydd waved and hailed with a foretopsail-yard-ahoy bellow. 'Hoay — ahoooy there!' The man approached. As he moved a small boy hiding behind him became apparent, dressed almost as a miniature of himself, with a wide straw hat and a gaily coloured poncho.

Cecilia was entranced. 'I do believe he has never seen the English before.' His dark brown weathered features were a mask of uncertainty. The man's black eyes flicked from the boat to the two well-built seamen and then to Cecilia, the little boy clinging fearfully to his cloak.

'Buenos dias, senor.' The eyes swivelled to Lord Stanhope. 'Por favour puede informarnos donde nos encontramos. ..' The others waited impatiently while the exchange continued, at one point the man pointing along the line of foreshore to the right.

'Ah, that settles it,' said Stanhope. 'We are within Spanish territory, and Cuerda Grande lies just four milliaria beyond . . .'

The two sailors dived for the chart. "There!' exclaimed Kydd, his finger jabbing victoriously at the spot. The others came over, agog to hear the news. 'Hmm, quite a way further east than I thought,' said Kydd. 'See, this is Barranquilla, an' here we have your Hollanders,' he added, indicating islands not so very far away.

'Perhaps this man can say if war is declared,' Cecilia asked.

'He has no knowledge of any war,' Stanhope replied, 'but, then, I doubt he knows of much beyond his village - I cannot take the risk. We must confer, gentlemen.'

The men clustered around the chart; Cecilia sat down on a rock and luxuriously splashed her feet in the clear sea.

'Kindly show me the essentials of our position, if you please.'

'Aye, m' lord. Here we are, near half-way along th' Caribbean coast o' South America. Port Royal is here,' he indicated to the north-west of the chart, 'an' Barbados here to the east.'

'And how far to return to Port Royal?'

'In the longboat, m' lord?'

'If necessary.'

'Hmmm, this is not less'n five hundred miles, but with the nor'east trades a-beam . .. about three, four days.'

Stanhope was thoughtful. Renzi looked up with an apologetic smile. 'I will earn Cecilia's eternal loathing, but duty obliges me to point out that we are perhaps six days from Barbados if we continue, but if we return to Port Royal the vessel we take there must necessarily retrace our course, meaning a total time of around twelve days, even a fortnight. This—'

'We press on, I believe.'

'Yes, my lord. Might I suggest her brother be the one to inform Cecilia ... ?'

A jabbering from the little boy to his warily curious father brought attention back to the man. 'If we have coins, perhaps we can persuade him of some fruits,' Renzi suggested.

Cecilia was delighted with what was brought - not only fruits but corn bread, dried strips of meat and four eggs. 'We shall dine right royally before we face that odious sea again,' she vowed, and set Renzi to building a fire, claiming the boat baler as her cooking pot.

Kydd saw braiding in the sand along the beach and knew at that spot there would be water — the two barricoes would be full when they left, more than enough for a six-day voyage. As Cecilia's soup laid its irresistible fragrance on the air, he bent his mind to the job in hand. 'Nicholas, we need t' clear the Dutch islands, an' as well keep away fr'm the coast shipping. Do ye think we should run down the 14-degrees line o' latitude to the Wind'ard Islands?'

'I do, dear fellow, but I worry that we are sadly at risk if we cannot fix our longitude for the Barbadoes after passing through the islands. Should we ignorantly sail past, into the empty Atlantic .. .'

'Aye, you're in the right of it, m' friend, but I have an idea.' Kydd assembled his thoughts carefully. 'Do we not now have, at this moment, complete and certain knowledge of our position — our longitude, in fine?'

'Yes?'

'And when we sail, this is lost. But what if we conjure our own chronometer? Do y’ ask Lord Stanhope if we c'n borrow his fine watch. I take m' noon sighting right here in th' usual way, when the sun tells us it's exactly midday.' Kydd paused significantly. 'This is then our noon at this longitude, which we do know. An' if I am not mistaken in m' reasoning - I pray humbly I am not — then we know fr'm this the exac' time we are here ahead o' Greenwich noon.'

'At the rate of one hour for every fifteen degrees — you are, of course, completely right’

'So we subtract this time an' set th' watch to our Greenwich noon, and by this we have a chronometer — an' fr'm now on, the difference between our local noon and this watch gives out y'r exac' longitude.'

Renzi, who had seen it coming, nevertheless joined in the general applause. 'You are indeed in the character of a magician, right enough.' No matter that the watch was a poor substitute for the precision of a real chronometer, it would nevertheless put them well within sighting distance of their goal — and if it did that, then it was all they could desire.

Apart from some far-distant flecks of white there was no indication that they were crossing a major sea highway. In a world with privateers and pirates no ship would be inclined to indulge their curiosity and they sailed on unmolested into the empty seas of the central Caribbean.

Routine set in — the scrupulously doled-out rations, the morning square-away that Kydd insisted on, Doud's never-failing evening songs. And, most crucial, the noon sight. It seemed a fragile thing indeed to entrust their lives to a ticking watch. A frail artefact of man in the midst of effortless domination by nature, yet in itself a token of the precious intelligence that could make man the master of nature. It was the first thing to be stowed safely beneath the thwarts when the rain came down.

Thick, hammering, tropical rain. Tied to the tiller for hours at a time, unable to go to shelter, Kydd endured. The rain teemed down on his bowed head, his body, his entire being. The incessant heavy drops became a bruising torture after a while, and it took real courage to keep to his post. The others crouched together under the slacked-off awning, just the regular appearance of a hand sending a bright sheet of water from the baler over the side from under the lumpy canvas.

It was trying afterwards as well: from being comprehensively soaked to a brazen sun warming rapidly. The result was a clammy stickiness that had clothing tugging at the skin in a maddening clinging heaviness. Cecilia's appearance from under the old sail showed that she had not escaped. Patches of damp had her distracted, plucking at her sun-faded dress and trying to smooth her draggled hair; she was in no mood for conversation with the men.

Mile succeeded mile in a near-invisible wake that was a perfect straight line astern. The dying swell of the storm petered out into a flat royal-blue immensity of water, prettily textured by myriad dark ripples from the warm and pleasant breeze. Then the sun asserted itself — there was real bite in the endless sunshine now, a heat that was impossible to escape.