“As you are new men, I will commence by mentioning the weapons you may be called upon to employ. First, we have the boarding pike.” He moved over to the mainmast and selected one from the circle set around the base of the mast. “It is only used to repel boarders, but it is remarkably effective in that role.” Lockwood passed it over. He had a cool, detached manner, which only added to the menace of what he said.
The pike passed from hand to hand, and Kydd gripped it nervously. Slender but strong, it had at its tip a concentrated forged and ground spike. It was seven feet long, and he could not help but wonder what he would do if called away as a boarder to be faced with these pointing at him from the enemy decks.
“And this is a tomahawk,” Lockwood continued, holding up a vicious-looking small axe with a blade on one side and a spike on the other. “You will find that this is actually quite useful also in dealing with cordage, grappling irons and other impedimenta.” He passed it over too. “When boarding an enemy ship you will have two pistols. These are useless” – he fixed the men with a meaningful look -“at more than a few feet range. If you decide to fire, discharge the pistol into the face of your opponent. The piece is then useless – you will certainly have no time to reload – but then you are possessed of a fine club.” Nobody laughed. “Or throw it away.” He reached behind him and produced a bundle of equipment.
The restless stirring died down, each man detecting a change in Lockwood’s manner.
“But this is your main weapon. It is the boarder’s best friend and you will practice its use constantly from now on until it can be relied upon in mortal combat to save your life, and therefore to take your enemy’s.”
Kydd watched, hypnotized, as Lockwood slipped on the equipment. There was a belt around the waist and a cross-belt over the shoulders. A scabbard hung on his left side from which, with a steely hiss, he drew a deadly-looking implement. “The sea-service cutlass!”
An arms chest lay on the gratings, and each man was told to take one. There were no scabbards, so Kydd stood with the weapon awkwardly in his hand. The cutlass was heavy, the wide working blade of dull speckled steel with a thin shine of oil, sharp on one side and coming to a robust point. The ropework hilt was almost enclosed with a black guard, which was plain and workmanlike. Kydd wondered whose blood the weapon had already tasted.
“If there is one lesson that I want to teach you, it is this one,” and Lockwood called to an assisting seaman. The man came at him in slow motion. He raised his cutlass to deal a devastating slash down on the officer’s unprotected head.
They both paused for a count of two.
“Watch!” commanded Lockwood.
They resumed their motions, but as the sailor’s blow descended, Lockwood simply extended his arm and the tip of his cutlass rested on the breast of the seaman well before the man could connect with his own blade.
“This man deals the heavier blow – but now he is dead!” Lockwood said dramatically. “Thrust with the point always, never slash the blade. It only needs one inch of steel to decide the issue.”
The advice seared itself into Kydd’s mind.
“So, bearing that in mind, let us begin our drill. Robbard?”
Lockwood’s seaman took position sideways on and flourished his blade.
“First position.”
Robbard stood facing to his right, feet together, inviting attack.
“Right prove distance!”
He swung the cutlass warily out to his right.
“Front prove distance!”
The cutlass swept forward, the point weaving menacingly.
“Second position.”
Bending his knees, Robbard slammed his foot a pace forward; from this he was able to demonstrate how he could both attack and retreat rapidly without moving his feet.
There were four body postures, and they practiced them all.
The cutlass positions were more difficult; some out to the side but covering the upper body, some hanging vertically down; in all, seven possible moves. Lockwood himself demonstrated them.
After an hour’s work, he was able to bark a position and they could instantly assume it. “Guard – inside half hanger! Assault! St. George!”
Kydd could see how they fitted into a web of defensive and offensive moves – an outside guard, for instance, could well be the thing to ward off an assault, but in this he would wait and see. The main point seemed to be that for every act of offense there was a corresponding defensive move.
The cutlass felt less of a deadweight in his hands, but he knew that he would need much practice before he could feel confident – it would almost certainly save his life one day.
“Stand down – secure arms.”
Reluctantly Kydd handed in his cutlass and prepared to go below.
“Hold!” Lockwood called. “Prince o’ the poop!”
The seaman who had acted as his assistant grinned – then, snarling like a pirate, swarmed up the quarterdeck ladder to the poop deck. There he snatched up a wooden sword and flourishing it in the approved first position prepared to take on all comers. Lockwood smiled widely. “Robbard is defending, and is prince o’ the poop for now – but any man may challenge him for the title, if they dare!”
There were cheers and catcalls.
“The man who is in possession of the poop at eight bells receives from me a fine bottle of claret,” Lockwood declared.
The first man up was treated mercifully. Robbard circled him and tried a point. The man parried with an inside guard, which he tried to turn into an extended point of his own. Robbard saw it and swayed inside, tapping the man none too gently on the head. His opponent swore and started a furious assault, which Robbard met like a rock, his sword flicking this way and that in a monotonous clack, clok. The man tired and drew back, at which Robbard gave point and pierced the man’s hurried St. George while he was off balance.
Roars of appreciation greeted the defeated challenger ruefully descending the ladder. Rudely pushing him aside was the next man, an experienced able seaman with a tarry queue and thick-set body, who bounded up the ladder.
“Have at yer, Sharkey mate!” he shouted.
Robbard chuckled and came to guard.
They were well matched, and Kydd watched fascinated. They drove forward and back over the whole deck, their eyes holding each other unblinking as they thrust and parried.
Once Kydd had delivered an elaborate wig to the small fencing school in Chapel Street. He had stayed to watch, gripped by the deadly swordplay, the glitter of rapier blade, the slither and clash of steel on steel. The combatants had worn wire masks and the lethal questing of the blades as they probed and parried was carried out in chill silence, a ballet of death.
Here the pair grinned or stared ferociously by turns – Kydd guessed they would look different when boarding a hostile deck.
Kydd felt an elbow in his ribs and turned to see Whaley offering him a tankard. He accepted it gratefully and noticed that a crowd of appreciative onlookers had gathered. He turned back to the combat in time to see the two grappling – Robbard’s guard being slowly overborne by his adversary’s head stroke, pressing down. Their eyes were inches apart as they forced against each other, when suddenly Robbard let rip with a raucous raspberry. The other man jerked in surprise, and Robbard’s sweeping half-circle would have laid open the man’s ribs – according to the umpire.
“Damn me eyes, ’n’ I’ll challenge ye again!” shouted the man. It took a pot of grog to persuade him to yield the deck.
Robbard strutted about on the poop, whirling his wooden sword in the air and crowing, the crowd cheering him on. The easy sail left little for the watch on deck to do and they joined the spectacle. Over to the westward the spreading red of a sunset tinged the scene and its players a ruddy color.