Without warning, a shape launched itself straight at him. He opened his mouth to scream, but with a low “miaow” a large cat was on his lap, circling contentedly. Kydd stroked it gently and the animal purred in ecstasy, then stretched out comfortably and settled down. Kydd crushed the animal to him. First one tear, then another fell onto its fur.
CHAPTER 2
It was the cruelest journey, from the womb-like escape of sleep and a gentle dream of home – the musty little shop, his mother watching him as he stitched dutifully at a periwig, the sun splashing in through the thick windows – back to this waking nightmare.
Then came a vigorous shaking. “Rouse yourself – you’re wanted on deck!” The boatswain’s distinctive voice brought Kydd to his senses. “On deck. First Lieutenant means to muster all pressed men.” The light from the lanthorn he carried deepened the lines in his face and sent a glow into the far corners of the sail room. “You’ll get the number of your mess then. And your watch ’n’ station.”
Kydd struggled to his feet. “Thank ’ee, sir, I’m -”
“Get going – ask y’r way to the quarterdeck, abaft the mainmast.”
In the cold gray of dawn, the pathetic line of pressed men shuffled miserably.
Kydd recognized the homespun and weatherworn old felt coat of a peddler, the patterned stockings, soft bonnet and greatcoat of a sedanchair man, the leather knee breeches and smock of an agricultural laborer. They looked out of place here.
The wind off the sea was raw and blustery. Kydd’s plain broadcloth coat gave little protection and he shivered.
The sea dominated in every direction, winter-hard, blue-gray, its vastness amazing to someone whose only experience of great waters had been the Thames at Weybridge. A slight breeze flurried the surface, but Kydd’s eyes kept returning to the metallic line of the horizon. The ship slipped through the sea in a continuous, unvarying motion. Day and night they would be moving like this, much faster than he could run, eating up the countless miles without ever stopping. And over the line of horizon was the outer world – that plane of existence containing the dangers and fables that were part of the folklore of his society. Where previously it could be marveled at or ignored, now it was advancing to meet him, both threatening and beguiling.
The man at the wheel stood braced impassively, occasionally looking up at the weather leech of the main course, easing a spoke or two if it appeared to be on the point of shivering in the useful quartering breeze. Nearby, the officer of the watch paced slowly, his telescope of office under his arm.
High up the mighty mainmast nearly overhead, on the sturdy platform of the main fighting top, figures could be seen preparing for some maneuver. As Kydd watched, one man swung out and appeared to hang down from the main yard. He moved out, the men in the top paying out a rope as he made his way along the hundred-foot spread of the yard. Even at this distance Kydd could see that the sailor was disdaining to cling on, instead balancing between the tiny footrope he stood on while leaning familiarly against the big spar.
Kydd watched in awe. Then there was movement and the Master-at-Arms growled, “To yer front!”
The First Lieutenant strode briskly out from the cabin spaces aft, accompanied by a junior officer. His clerk hurried after him with books and paper, quill and ink. Two men set up a table at which Tyrell and the clerk then sat.
Tyrell looked up at them from under his bushy eyebrows and nodded to the lieutenant, who touched his hat and went over to the pressed men to address them. “Pay attention! You will now be assigned your watch and station. This is very important. It will tell you your duty for every motion of this vessel, be it by the actions of the sea or the malice of the enemy. You will present yourself at your place of duty immediately when you are called by the boatswain’s mates or any other in lawful authority over you.” The men stared at him with attitudes ranging from dumb resentment to outright fear. “And if not found at your post, you will answer for it at your peril!”
The proceedings were efficient and rapid. In a short while Kydd was left standing holding a piece of paper bearing terse details of his future existence aboard Duke William. It appeared that the officer of his division, a Lieutenant Tewsley, and his deputy, Mr. Lacey, master’s mate, would also have these details to hand. Possession of these particulars seemed to Kydd a mark of finality. With them he could no longer claim, even to himself, that he was a temporary, unwilling visitor to their world. He was now unarguably an official part of it, and therefore subject to the most solemn penalties under the Articles of War.
A tendril of his dream brushed briefly over his mind and he felt lonely, vulnerable and frightened. Apart from the hotheaded Stallard, there was not a soul aboard whom he knew, someone he could trust, to whom he could reveal all his present fears and anxieties. One thing was sure: from now on he could rely only on himself, his own strength of mind and will. Blinking, he focused his attention on the First Lieutenant.
Tyrell finished scrawling in the margins of the book and rose. For a long moment he paused, his deep-set eyes fixed on the disconsolate group. Then he turned to the junior officer and snapped, “For God’s sake, arrange an issue of slops immediately. I’ll not have this ship looking like a dago doss-house!”
The bird-like purser’s assistant held up a blue and white striped opennecked shirt. “Here’s a fine rig for a sailor,” he said. With it were some white duck trousers and a wide black leather belt.
Kydd took them. The material was strong but coarse; it would never do in Guildford, but he could see that here its robustness would serve its purpose. He couldn’t help noticing how soft and pale his fingers were, and he wondered how long they would take to become brown and tough like a sailor’s. There was no escaping it – soon he would be a very different person from the one he was now.
The assistant rummaged about and produced a short dark blue jacket adorned with plain anchor buttons and with it a glossy black tarpaulin hat and other seaman-like gear, and added them to the small pile. “Try them on.”
It felt like dressing up, but it was plain that the short jacket and loosebottomed trousers gave a great deal of freedom for movement. There was need, perhaps, for a bit of work with needle and thread to smarten them up, but they would do.
Trousers – these free-swinging garments were peculiar to the sea profession, and they felt loose and strange. Kydd had been in “kicks” – tight knee breeches – all his life, and so had everyone else of his acquaintance, high and low. He put on his glossy tarpaulin hat at a rakish angle and chuckled grimly at the sheer incongruity of it all.
“So you’ll not be wanting these again,” the assistant said, disdainfully holding up Kydd’s sorry-looking country clothes. Without waiting for a reply he stuffed them into a sack.
A ship’s boy led the way up the ladder for several of the group who had mess numbers on the lower gundeck. It was deserted, and at a point where the bows began their curve in, forward on the starboard side, Kydd took a long hard look at the place that would be his home in his new life.
It was the space between two monster long guns, now with their fat muzzles lashed upward against the ship’s side. As he had seen the previous night, there was a table that could be lowered, revealing neat racks for the mess traps – wooden plates, pewter cutlery and bowls. Selfconsciously Kydd added his new canvas ditty bag to the others hanging up along the ship’s side. Each bag had an access hole halfway up the side, which was a practical means of keeping clothing and personal effects ready for use. Even in the dimness the impression he had was of extreme neatness and order, a Spartan blend of lived-in domesticity and uncompromising dedication to war. The whole purpose of the ship’s existence was as an engine of destruction to be aimed at the mortal enemies of his country.