Claggett did not join in. “Might be things are different to what you thinks,” he said.

Howell sniffed. “What d’ye mean?”

Claggett leaned over. “I went in with the boats at Los Cayos and we suffered somethin’ cruel. Moskeeters, stinkin’ heat, an’ never a morsel o’ meat one day’s end to the next. Cruel, I tells yer – you’ll see.”

Howell sneered. “Anyways, no chance o’ that where youse are going! Just goin’ to get yerselves separated from yer head by this here gillo-tin!”

“What about you, Tom?” Whaley said, tapping a piece of hard tack.

“Could do with a stretch o’ the legs,” Kydd said casually.

“Ye’re all bloody mad,” said Howell. “Mantrap and Shaney Jack both – it’ll be seven bells of hell for all hands wi’ them two. I’m stayin’ aboard, where they won’t be at.”

At supper, Kydd eased into place opposite Renzi. “We join up with the Fleet in the morning, I’ve heard,” Kydd said to him.

Renzi responded slowly, “Yes, I believe we shall.”

“You volunteered.” Kydd had been just as surprised as the others.

“As did you.”

Renzi looked away, then back. “In the dog-watch it is my pleasure to take a pipe of tobacco on the fo’c’sle, should the weather prove tolerable.”

Kydd’s father smoked a long churchwarden pipe, but he had never taken up the habit. “I don’t take tobacco m’self, but were you to need company…”

“Then I should be honored.”

The fo’c’sle deck in the dog-watches was a place of sanctuary for the seamen. Out of sight of the quarterdeck, sailors chatted in ones or twos, spinning yarns and making merry. Some sat on the deck reading or sewing. Right at the forward end of the squared-off deck, before the massive carved work of the beakhead dropped away below, was a splendid place to be. On either side the busy wash of the bow-wave spread as the great bluff bow shouldered the waves arrogantly aside. Sliding aft, it rejoined the other side past the ornate stern to disappear into the distance in a ruler-straight line over the gray Atlantic. The jibboom thrust out ahead, the headsails soaring up to the tops and beyond, taut and eager. They dipped and rose with great dignity, it seemed to Kydd.

The vista seemed to please Renzi too. “There is a certain harmony in some works of man which I cannot but find sublime,” he said, as they stood together above the beakhead. From inside his jacket he found his clay pipe, which he filled from an oilskin pouch.

Kydd waited until Renzi had his pipe drawing well, using the flame of a lanthorn swinging in the shrouds. He settled on the deck next to him.

“Have you thought, dear fellow, that tomorrow we could well be fighting for our lives?”

Renzi spoke so quietly that Kydd thought at first he was talking to himself. “Er, not really, no. But I’m sure that His Majesty will triumph over his enemies,” Kydd added stiffly.

“Of course. Have you ever seen a battle?” The pipe was giving Renzi much satisfaction – he held it delicately by the stem near the bowl, luxuriating in the acrid fragrance.

“Not as one might say a battle,” Kydd answered. The excitement of the militia being turned out to quell an apprentices’ riot would probably not count.

Renzi inspected his pipe. “Then pray do not wish it – a battle. It must be the most odious and disagreeable occupation of man known.” He caught something of Kydd’s suspicions, for he hastened to add, “Yet some must be accounted inevitable – desirable, even.”

“Does this mean that you – do not -”

“It does not. I will not seek glory in battle, but the rational course for personal survival is not to be found in turning one’s back. You will not find me shy, I think.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean -”

“We are to haul guns, I find. There will be precious little chance for laurels in that.” He looked sideways at Kydd, with an amused expression.

“You wished to confide some matter t’ me,” Kydd said abruptly.

Renzi’s face set. “Perhaps,” he said.

Kydd waited.

After several more draws at the long clay pipe Renzi spoke. “I come from a family of landowners in Buckinghamshire. We were – are not wanting in the article of wealth, you may believe.” He paused, collecting his thoughts. “My education has been thorough and complete, and includes experiences which – of which I am no longer proud. I knew only the life of the indolent, the uncaring and unseeing – I confess, I knew no better. We have many tenant farmers, but my father was not content. His interest allowed him to see a Bill of Enclosure through Parliament that enabled him to increase his holdings. I conceive you know of enclosures?”

“Yes,” said Kydd quietly, “I do. I share the name of Thomas Paine.”

Renzi’s lips thinned. “Then you know with what misery they are enforced, what hardship and want they can cause. It did not stop my father from sequestrating lands that had been under careful cultivation for centuries. In particular one small cottager did break his heart at the prospect – it did not move my father one whit. But it was when the bailiffs marched in to seize the land that they found the man’s eldest and the hope of the family, whom I knew well, hanging by his neck in the barn.” Renzi went on slowly. “My beliefs – I will not bore you – include a devotion to the Rationalist cause. A young man died. Legally there is no blame, but in the moral sensibility, it is as if we had tied the noose with our own hand.”

Kydd’s eyes narrowed.

“My family disowned the consequences of their actions. Were I to do likewise, then I would share in the crime. But if I acknowledge it, then logic – and I am a friend to logic – owns that a penalty must be served. And in my case, as judge and jury, I did pronounce sentence – which is to be five years’ exile from home and hearth.” Renzi looked away and added, a little too lightly, “A small price for an eased conscience, I believe.”

Kydd had no idea what subtleties could drive a man to such a conclusion, but he found himself respecting and admiring the action. “Do y’ not find the life – hard?” he said.

“There are worse things to be borne, my friend.”

“How long – I mean -”

“It is but ten months of the first year.”

Kydd had the insight to feel something of the bleakness of spirit that would have to be overcome, what it must have cost a cultivated man brutally to repress his finer feelings. He guessed that the reclusiveness would be part of Renzi’s defenses and was ashamed of his previous animosity. “Then, sir, you have my sincere admiration.” Kydd clapped him on the shoulder.

Renzi’s hand briefly touched his, and Kydd was startled to see his eyes glisten. “Don’t concern yourself on my account, I beg,” Renzi said, drawing away. “It has just been an unconscionable long time.”

In the morning, with the squadron wearing in succession and standing in for the French coast to the eastward, the enterprise had begun. They were under easy sail, for the transports from Plymouth would not reach them for another two days-but the time would not be wasted.

“Let’s be seein’ you now. All move over to larb’d, clap your eyes on this ’ere fugleman.” The Master-at-Arms indicated a marine, rigid at attention with his musket.

The men jostled over to leeward and faced the red-coated and pipeclayed marine with a mixture of distrust and interest. His sergeant glaring at him from one side and the Master-at-Arms on the other, he moved not a muscle.

“This man is a-going to pro-ceed through the motions of loadin’ an’ dischargin’ a musket. You will pay stric’ attention ’cos afterward you will do it.” He paused and surveyed the restless seamen. “Anyone can’t do it perfick by six bells joins me awkward squad in the first dog. Issue weapons!”

The gunner’s party opened an arms chest and passed out muskets.

Curiously Kydd inspected the plain but heavy firelock. It seemed brutish compared to the handsome length and damascened elegance of the parson’s fowling piece; this one had dull, pockmarked wood, a black finished barrel and worn steel lockwork, more reminiscent of some industrial machine.