“And so say us all, that so, mate?” Doud’s attempt to draw in Buddles failed, the man’s misery was so deep.

Doud got to his feet. “Gotta see a man about a dog,” he said, and hurried off, but not before receiving an approving wink from Claggett.

“Hear tell as how you’re skylarkin’ in the tops now, Tom.” Whaley looked at Kydd with interest: for a landman only days aboard to have made it aloft so soon must indicate something of his mettle.

Kydd flushed with pleasure. He was being included in the general conversation for the first time in this mess, and felt pleased that it was Whaley, the born seaman, who had done so. “Couldn’t help it – Joe would’ve given me a quiltin’ with a rope’s end, else,” he said, a wide smile firmly in place.

Howell stirred with irritation. “Said before, younker, you’re a land-man ’n’ not bred to the sea. Ye’ll take a tumble off a yard first blow we gets and -”

“Clap a stopper on it, Jonas. Man wants t’ be a sailor, is all.”

Doud arrived back, and Kydd recognized what was going on in the play with the jacket and Buddles’s pot.

Doud pushed across the pot with its dark mahogany contents. “Get this in yer, cuffin,” he said quietly. “Things’ll look different after, you’ll see.”

Buddles stared at him, then took a good swallow, sputtering his thanks. No one seemed to know quite what to say to him, and stared at the table or looked pensively at each other.

The conversation turned to other subjects over the greasy boiled salt pork, which followed.

When all was eaten, Bowyer spoke. “Tip us your ‘Dick Lovelace,’ Ned, I have a hankerin’ after somethin’ sad, mate.”

Doud gave a pleased smile. “Upon the usual terms, Joe, me old shell-back.”

“You shall have it, Ned.”

There was a general movement up from the table, and Kydd followed them up to the fo’c’sle just as the evening began to draw in. Warmed by his grog and pleasure at their company, he joined the others at the fore bitts. He found himself grinning benignly at total strangers.

Lanthorns were hung in the rigging, their golden pools of light more tawny than bright. Over the darkling sea he could see points of light appearing in the other ships also, and gradually he felt his open, cheerful attitude to life begin to return.

Another group of men were in a circle on the other side of the deck. A fiddler perched on the carronade began executing a neat but intricate air. A regular thumping resolved itself into a sailor in a white double-breasted waistcoat with brass buttons and blue and white striped trousers, dancing alone inside a rope circle. Kydd went across to watch. The sailor remained in the same spot, dancing a complex measure that involved the lower part of his body alone. With no expression whatsoever, arms folded immovably across his chest and rigid above the waist, he danced, feet pointing as they kicked, slapped and rose in time with the fiddler.

“Dancin’ heel ’n’ toe? Why, ’tis the hornpipe, matey!”

Kydd glanced back. Doud was making play of downing his due libation, and prepared to sing. This attracted the others, who very soon made themselves his adoring audience, finding places on the deck and fiferail. Kydd settled down among them.

“Well, I’m blessed, lads, see who’s come to join us!”

From up the ladder appeared Buddles, looking confused. Kydd tried to include him in the cheerful group, but the man did not seem to hear his words.

“Leave him be, Tom,” Claggett said.

The hornpipe crew finished, and the fiddler came over to sit crosslegged on the fore gratings. He tuned his fiddle carefully, experimentally plucking at the catgut.

More sailors arrived, some hanging back in the outer shadows. Even with his face obscured, Kydd could recognize Renzi. He was an enigma, a mysterious figure who made Kydd feel uneasy.

Theatrically Doud gargled a few trills, which brought the gathering to a quiet. They waited expectantly. “The tale of Dick Lovelace, shipmates, who in the character of foretopman in the Mermaid is carried off to the Spanish Main, away from his true love and on to his fatal destiny.”

The fiddler drew a long, low chord that split in two, leaving a single high note hanging. Doud stood on the grating next to him, legs akimbo, and sang. His voice was every bit as pure and clear as Kydd remembered from his experience at the maintop, and the clean, sparing accompaniment on the violin complemented it well. They all sat enraptured as the melancholy song continued, the chorus always the same:

Turn to thy love and take a kiss

This gold about thy wrist I’ll tie

And always when thou look’st on this

Think on thy love and cry.

The song finished and there was a stillness, each man allowing his thoughts to steal away to secret places and treasured times, faces softening at intimate memories.

Buddles, it seemed, was bent on destroying the mood. He faltered unsteadily forward, pushing through the men toward the forward end of the fo’c’sle. Cradled in front of him was a twelve-pounder cannon ball.

“What’re yer doing, you stupid great oaf? Holy Christ! Can’t you steer straight, you useless farmer?”

One seaman leaped to his feet and scruffed Buddles’s shirt. “Look, whoever you are, mate, get outa here before I douse yer glims!”

Buddles looked at him in bewilderment. “It’s Mary!” he said thickly.

The seaman dropped his hands in astonishment. “Wha -”

“No – please let me pass!” Buddles resumed his shamble forward. No one stopped him. He reached the larboard carronade and stopped, breathing heavily, for he had reached the farthest he could go forward. He stood bewildered.

“What’s he doing? Shies that over the side ’n’ Mantrap’ll be down on us like thunder!”

“He’s brainsick, poor lubber!”

“Let him go, he’s harmless. How about ‘Black Eyed Susan,’ Ned?”

Buddles didn’t move, standing irresolute.

Attention quickly returned to Doud, who took another pull at his grog in preparation. The fiddler produced a gay introductory elaboration in the right key and prepared for Doud’s entry note.

“Stop him, you fools! Stop him – blast you!” Tewsley, carrying a glass of wine, stepped out into the lanthorn light in his ruffled evening shirt. He gestured sharply forward with his glass.

Buddles had mounted the low fife-rail and from there was shuffling out along the projecting cathead, still cradling the cannon ball.

Some of the quicker-witted reached out, trying to seize his jacket. Buddles looked back, a look of utter contentment on his cadaverous face. “I have to go to Mary now,” he said quietly, as though comforting a child, and embracing the heavy iron shot closer, stepped out into the void.

There was a rush to the side. A lanthorn was brought, but all that could be seen on the glitter of oily black water was a continuing stream of bubbles.

“Rowguard!” roared Tewsley, but the boat was half a ship’s length away, and all Kydd could do was stare at the diminishing popple of bubbles and think in cold horror of the man’s life ending in so many fathoms of dark water below them.

He stumbled away from the excited crowd, needing to be alone. He brushed against someone. It was Renzi, standing back from the others.

“You – you,” Kydd gasped, “get out o’ my way.” He made instinctively for the ladder to the deck below. There he turned and lurched to an open gunport, retched into the darkness and hung there, weak and trembling, despising himself for his weakness.

It took a while for him to register what he was hearing from the tight group of men sitting farther forward. They spoke very quietly, but there was no mistaking Stallard’s urgent, hectoring tones. “For fuck’s sake, you can do somethin’! Why do yer stand for it? Never heard of any being made to eat shite like on board this boat!”

Kydd heard a growled reply too soft to distinguish, then, “O’ course! That’s what they think yer worth. Meanest lobsterback gets a whole shillin’ a day.”