Seaflower - Kydd 03

by Julian Stockwin

  As Blanche came to anchor opposite, Kydd could see that she was sorely battered - a stump of mizzen, not much more of her mainmast. As she slowly swung to her anchor the stern came into view, blasted into gaping holes. The excited shouting died away at the sight, particularly at her huge battle ensign still floating from her foremast, but only half-way up.

  Caird strode down from the direction of his office. 'Where is your crew, Kydd? And I'll need you two .. .' he pointed to two shipwrights working in the boat-house '.. . and the blue cutter in the water directly.'

  With a chest of tools and the men, the cutter was crowded, but Kydd relished his luck in being able to see things at first-hand. He squinted under the loose-footed mainsail as Blanche grew nearer, and saw the frightful wounds of war: her sails were torn with holes, her sides pocked and battered by shot.

  Caird led the way up the side of the frigate to the upper deck where they took in the results of a harrowing long-drawn-out grappling, a trial of fire that had tried her ship's company to the very limit. Subdued murmuring conveyed the essentials: indeed the Captain had been killed; there was a prize lying to seaward, which was in fact their opponent, a French frigate, a third bigger than themselves.

  They clattered down the main-hatch. Caird needed to get a sight of the damage to the stern and any cannon-ball strikes between wind and water that might prove an immediate threat. Returning on deck they saw moaning wounded being swayed down into a boat, wrecked equipment dropped into another, and weary-eyed men staring at the shore. 'She comes alongside by sunset,' Caird said, to an officer with a bandaged head. 'I shall see the master attendant directly.'

  'Yer has the right of it, mates, Cap'n Faulknor, an' a right true sort 'e was, Gawd bless 'is memory,' said Kennet, a gunner's mate from the Blanche. Kydd dragged his upturned tub closer, the better to hear him over the din in the capstan house.

  'We wuz openin' Gron' Bay in Gwaddyloop, a-ready ter spy in the harbour in th' mornin' when we sees this thumpin' big French frigate a-comin' round the point.' He paused: a sea-professional audience could be relied on to get the picture. 'Now I asks yer, this can't be much after midnight, larbowlines 'as watch below 'n' in their 'ammocks, all peaceful like, an' then it's quarters, shipmates, 'n' as quick as yer like!'

  Kydd could visualise the scene all too clearly: drowsy watch on deck swapping yarns, easy in the mind at the prospect of a spree ashore at the end of the cruise, and then in a flash the reality of war and death in the balmy night.

  'Cap'n don't lose a minute — we goes at 'em, clearin' fer action as we go, an' it's all goin't' be in th' dark.' Kennet looked about to see if he had their attention before he went on. 'We pass the Frenchie - she's called Pique we finds later — on the opposite tack, an' we has a broadside at each other.' His voice lowered. 'An' that's when m' mate lost the number of 'is mess.'

  He stared into his grog. 'Sam Jones, second cap'n o' the foretop ...'

  Kydd stood up and gestured with his tankard. 'Here's t' Sam Jones, then, mates, an' if we don' remember him, he won't have anyone else will.' In the willing roar that this brought, Kydd drank deeply, remembering the emotions battering at him after his own battle experience, the faces that suddenly weren't there any more, the world's indifference that they had ever existed — but they would continue to live in men's memories just as long as they were brought to remembrance like this. He took another gulp.

  Kennet looked up at him, his grim face softening at Kydd's empathy, then continued, 'But then, we tacks about, but Pique, she's t' weather, an' wears ready to give us a rakin' broadside, but Cap'n Faulknor, he's wise to 'em, an' we continues on t' wear ourselves. So there we was, mates, broadside t' broadside fer two an' a half hours, thumpin' it inter each other.' The cruel smashing match in the darkness, dim battle-lanthorns inboard, leaping gun-flashes outboard, unseen horrors in the blackness — it held the circle of rough seamen spellbound.

  'But then we shoots ahead. Pique 'as taken a drubbin' and's at our mercy! We turn ter rake her an' finish it — when our mizzen an' mainmast both go by th' board. In a trice we runs afoul of her, an' she rakes us, then she goes f board, but we're ready an' send 'em screamin' inter the sea.'

  Kydd noticed that Kennet's eyes had gone glassy and his hand had a tremor: these terrible events could only have taken place less than a single day ago. 'Pot!' he shouted, against the hubbub, and personally topped up Kennet's can then added to his own. The rum had a potent fragrance.

  'So it's a stalemate, lads. We drifts, then runs aboard her agen by the bow — but Cap'n himself rushes for'ard an' puts a lashin' on our bowsprit t' hold on ter the Frenchman. But - an' it grieves me t' tell it - he takes a ball fr'm a musket, an' falls .. .'

  There was murmuring all round. Kennet waited for it to settle, then offered a toast to his captain, which Kydd could see was being repeated in other groups of seamen around him. He raised his tankard in salute, tears pricking at the bravery he had learned about that night.

  'Lashin' gives way, we drift off, firin' all the time, o' course. B' now it's comin' on daylight 'n' we're dog tired — bugger m' days but we was knackered!'

  Around him Kydd saw bodies topple in the capstan house, but whether from hard drinking or exhaustion he didn't know.

  'Wind drops, we fin' ourselves stern to, an' no guns what'll bear, 'cos we got no stern chasers, no gunports, even. So what does we do then?' Kydd couldn't think what — the rum was deepening his emotions but doing nothing for his concentration.

  'Well, lads, we heaves some twelve-pounders around in th' Great Cabin t' face astern, then after we puts men wi' firebuckets on ea' side .. .' he paused dramatically, holding their eyes one by one '. .. an' then we blasts our own gunports through the stern timbers!'

  There was no comment, only shocked faces.

  'We then has 'em! We pounds away wi' them pair o' guns, one hour, two. Not until we brings down their masts an' finishes more'n two-thirds o' their crew do they give up, an' then they strikes their flag.'

  A growl of satisfaction arose, but no cheers: too many sailors — on both sides — would never know another dawn.

  Kydd stood still. He couldn't return to his dark, silent lodging. He felt a surging need for the sea, the slam of excitement at the challenge of sudden peril, the close companionship after shared dangers — the kind of thing that had men rollicking ashore together. There was fire in his blood. The pot-boy hurried past, but Kydd stopped him and snatched a bottle, which quickly went gurgling into his tankard.

  He swung round and spied a couple of able seamen arguing together. 'That scurvy crew ahoy! Come drink with me t' the Blanche, mates, as trim a frigate as ever grac'd the seas — barrin' only th' brave Artemis!’

  Chapter 7

  ‘Mr Kydd, you said y' wanted ter see m' work this morning wi'out fail. An' here 'tis!' Luke held out his copy-book in the early light of morning, the pages filled with spidery, childish writing. 'I done it while you was .. . away last night,' he continued proudly.

  He must have sat by the light of that single candle, scratching away at his worthy proverbs, right into the night, thought Kydd. In spite of his fragile condition he was touched by the lad's keenness. 'Show me,' he croaked. The letters swam and rotated in a nauseating spiral. 'Tha's well done, Luke,' Kydd gasped, and gave the book back. He had never before had to pay such a price for a night's carousing. He felt ill and helpless -and despised himself for it. It had been easy to be drawn into the wholehearted roystering of a sailor ashore, but he realised there was a real prospect of sliding into a devotion to the bottle that so many seemed to find an answer to hardship and toil.

  Kydd levered himself up on one arm. To his shame he found himself still in last night's stained clothes. His resolve strengthened never to succumb again, and he swung into a sitting position. It was a mistake. His face flushed and a headache pounded relentlessly: it would be impossible to deal with the knowing looks of his crew, to think clearly enough to head off trouble, to face Caird ... 'Luke, m' boy,' he began. He looked up
to see the lad's eyes on him, concerned, watchful. 'Feelin' a mite qualmish this mornin', think I'll scrub round the vittles.'

  'Yes, Mr Kydd,' Luke replied quietly.

  'Damn it! Doesn't mean you can't have any,' Kydd flared, then subsided in shame. 'Do ye go to Mr Caird an' present m' compliments 'n' tell him ... tell him I regrets but I can't attend on him this forenoon, as I... 'cos I has a gripin' in the guts, that's all.'

  He collapsed back on to the bed and closed his eyes.

  He woke from a fitful doze in the heat of the day and sat on the edge of the bed. The nausea was still there, and a ferocious dryness in the throat drove him to his feet in search of water. He swayed, and staggered drunkenly to the sideboard for the pitcher, which he drained thirstily. Slowly and painfully he stripped off his clothes, dropping them uncharacteristically on the floor. Then, thankfully, he curled up on the bed again.

  In the afternoon no one came to commiserate, and Kydd knew that his story of 'sickness' had been received with the contempt it deserved. To be thought a common toss-pot cut deeply.

  Luke arrived in the evening. Kydd had previously sent him away, not wanting to be seen, and now Luke crept about the lodging as though in the company of a bear. Kydd swore at him, and at the gruel he had thoughtfully brought. The evening dragged on: still no one enquired of him. Luke took to hiding. As the illness ebbed so Kydd's headache worsened under the lashing of his irritability. The night passed in a kaleidoscope of conflicting thoughts.

  At last the light of dawn arrived to dispel the dark and its tedium. He felt hot, dizzy — he needed water. 'Luke!' he shouted petulantly. The sleepy boy appeared and, to Kydd's astonishment, his face contorted. A harsh cry pierced the air and Luke fell to his knees, sobbing loudly.

  'What - if this is y'r joke ...' Kydd felt dread steal over him. 'What is it, younker?' he asked, fearing a reply.

  Luke looked at him with swimming eyes. He ran out and returned with a mirror. 'S-see ...' he stuttered. Kydd looked into it. His face looked back at him. The hideous jaundiced hue of his skin was more frightening than anything he had seen in his life. It was the yellow fever.

  They came for him at noon. By this time Kydd had vomited violently several times, as if his body were trying to rid itself of the invading fever. The fear of the dreaded vomito negro seized his thoughts and threw him into frozen horror: he had seen soldiers carried to their graves by it in their dozens, but in the way of youth he had always known it would be some other, never him. Luke sat by his bed, defying Kydd's orders to get away, not caring at the likelihood of contagion. Kydd's mind started to detach in and out of reality.

  The bearers, expressionless and silent, lifted Kydd on to the stretcher. The naval hospital was full, and instead Kydd found himself at the door of the army hospital on Shirley Heights, its austere grey lines unmistakable even in his feverish state.

  The interior of the hospital was dark, but gradually he could see rows of low beds, one or two orderlies moving among them. Some victims lay motionless, others thrashed and writhed. A foul stink lay on the close air, the putrescence of bodies giving up the fight. Moaning and weeping filled the consciousness, numbing Kydd's senses.

  He was placed on the ground while a bed was prepared. A corpse was carried away in a blanket, the ragged palliasse flicked over, the top vivid with dried discolouring. He was transferred, the bearers never once betraying a flicker of interest. They left the blanket rolled untidily at the foot of the bed and departed.

  An orderly saw Luke and ejected him irritably, so Kydd lay alone, staring up into the void, the pain, sickness and despair creeping in on him. It was here that he would meet his end, not in some glorious battle but in the squalor and degradation of disease, in this pit of terror. His mind wavered and floated. The wasted hours, the unfulfilled hopes — those who loved him, trusted him. Emotion choked him. Kydd waited in the gloom for it all to end.

  Black faces. Jolting, moving. Harsh sunlight. Kydd tried to understand. The lift and bob of a boat — he cried at the poignant motion. Luke's face, looking down, anguished. He smiled up at him and was carried on into an airy space. A woman took charge and gently but firmly removed all his clothes. A clean smell of hyssop and soap; he felt himself laid carefully on a sheet and the woman began to wash him. He couldn't resist. Modesty had no more meaning and he drifted into a febrile no man's land.

  He woke — how much later he had no idea — in a small room, clean and well appointed. Next to his bed a woman kept up a lazy fanning, smiling at him, and on the other side Luke sat, keeled over in slumber.

  'Who - er, what d' ye ...'

  'Now, sah, be still, youse in mah hands, Mr Kydd, sah,' the woman said happily. 'Sis' Mary.'

  The talk woke Luke, who sat up, confused.

  A shadow darkened the door. It was Beatrice. 'Mr Kydd?' she asked timidly.

  'Aye,' said Kydd, with as much strength as he could.

  'Thank the Lord!' she breathed, and stood hesitantly at the foot of the bed, holding a lace handkerchief to her face. 'When we heard you were sick, we never thought — er, that is to say, we were led to believe by false witnesses that your sickness . . . had other causes.' Her eyes dropped. 'My father thought it best that you are cared for in a private way — it is the usual thing, you know.' She spoke more strongly: 'Sister Mary has nursed many a soul to recovery.'

  'Ye need money f'r this,' he said feebly.

  Beatrice smiled. 'Let us hear no more about that, Mr Kydd. You are in the Lord's hands and He will provide for His faithful servants.' Her fingers twisted together. 'I do wish you well — it is not over yet.'

  But Kydd could feel the fever diminishing and elation built at his escape. He was ready to seize life again with both hands.

  Sister Mary took gentle care of him, seeming to know what he needed before he could express it. She had an unvarying bright and sunny manner, not bothered by the violence of his vomiting or Kydd's shameful need for a bed-pan. After each spasm she bathed his burning face, whispering comforting words he couldn't understand.

  The fever faded, the vomiting grew less, and Kydd thankfully slipped into a sweet sleep. On the morrow he would be on the mend.

  He woke in the darkness of the early hours, feeling strange and giddy. A sharp bout of vomiting had him leaning over the bed. He pulled back in, and felt a warm wetness exude from his nose. It stank, and he wiped at it uselessly. His hand came away dark-stained in the semi-darkness.

  'Mary!' he croaked fearfully. She was asleep in a blanket on the floor and didn't hear at first. Kydd called again, in his night-time panic hoarsely shouting her name. When she came to him sleepily she saw his face, and at once trimmed the light to full illumination. She tore back the single sheet and stared at his lower body. There was no sunny banter.

  Kydd looked down and saw, oozing from his body orifices, a slow, fetid black bleeding. He sank back. Sister Mary set to work, sponging him, insisting he sat up in bed, placing supports around him. His vomiting was shorter, sharper — but now it was discoloured, black and foul. Kydd's thoughts became confused. As the morning light strengthened he saw Mary's figure distort and swell. He screamed and whimpered.

  At times lucidity came, a strange calm in which he could see and hear but not respond. He heard Luke's broken, desolate weeping and a regular mumbling — it took some minutes for his mind to register that it was Beatrice at a distance, praying. Caird's tall figure in its accustomed black loomed. He spoke to Kydd slowly but the words were gibberish, as if he were saying them backwards. His figure towered over Kydd, grim and foreboding, smelling of sin and death.

  Deep inside, Kydd knew that he was dying, but no one had prepared him for this terror, this final process of separation from the world. It was so unfair — his was a young life that would live! That would fight and win! Obstinately, from deep within, he claimed the last of his strength, and in a final defiant act, he turned on that which was killing him: he struggled up, facing the whirling light patterns that were all that remained of his world, and
screamed at it. Dimly aware that he had fallen out of bed, he flailed and fought, and at last stood swaying and victorious, shouting and cursing at the foul disease, challenging it, daring it to do its worst. Fire jetted into his body, and he exulted.

  Images came into focus, the horrified faces of Mary, Luke, Beatrice staring at him. He laughed — strength came to him, he moved, staggered, fought. And won. His eyes clamped on the real world he would not yield up, and in a dignified motion he turned and collapsed again on the bed.

  'I do declare, we feared we had lost you, Mr Kydd,' said Beatrice, dabbing her eyes.

  Kydd grinned, levering himself to a better sitting position. 'D'ye get me another o' the lime cordials, I'd be grateful.' The fever broken, he was going to live — and with a bonus: having survived the yellow fever at its most virulent, with no lasting ill-effects, he now had lifelong immunity from its terrors.

  He looked across at Sister Mary, quietly getting on with her work, and felt a warmth towards her that surprised him with its intensity. Her homely face was inexpressibly dear to him now. 'Has Luke been doin' his words?' he asked, in mock-rough tones.

  'Indeed he has,' Beatrice answered primly. 'I have set him some improving verses, which he promises to complete for you this very night' Her eyes softened. 'And . .. welcome back, Thomas,' she said tenderly.

  Weakness forced Kydd back into the pillow, but he was content. In a week or two he would be back in the world he knew.

  'Lignum vitae - the hardest wood we know,' said Caird, stroking the piece of smooth, olive-green timber. 'You will see it as the sheave in every block aboard your ship and it grows right here in Antigua. There are some trees of that sort that we will see on our next Sunday mission,' he added, matter-of-factly.