Artemis k-2

by Julian Stockwin

  Silent, they tramped back in the warm darkness, past fields of sleeping oxen and sheep, hayricks looming rickety and large. Kydd was aware that something untoward had occurred to trouble his friend. ‘Is anythin’ amiss, Nicholas?’ he asked in a low voice.

  Renzi did not answer at first, then said harshly, ‘Know that I must depart for Portsmouth these three days.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kydd softly. He had often wondered, over the last few weeks, how he would take the actuality of Renzi’s departure, the blankness in his life where his friend had been.

  ‘Then I shall not allude to it further,’ Renzi said, in an affected voice.

  Kydd felt a lump rising in his own throat, but knew that any display of emotion on his part would alienate Renzi. ‘O’ course,’ he said.

  They preserved silence the whole way back, finally reaching the schoolhouse. It was in darkness; the carriage must have long since passed them on the other road, and everyone would now be abed.

  ‘There is a light in the kitchen,’ Kydd said quietly. They climbed over the low garden fence and made their way to the back. A single candle lay on the kitchen table, and they entered, the door squeaking noisily. They tiptoed in, but they had been heard, and Cecilia appeared in a nightgown with a candle, her face alight with excitement. ‘Thomas — Nicholas,’ she whispered, as loudly as she could. ‘You’ll never guess what happened tonight.’

  Renzi’s face set like stone. Kydd frowned in bafflement. ‘What is it, sis?’ he asked.

  ‘No - really, the most wonderful news!’ she squealed.

  Kydd snorted impatiently. ‘What is it then, if we c’n ask?’

  She pouted prettily. ‘Then I won’t tell you, you horrid man.’

  There was a stirring next to Kydd. ‘Do I take it that we must offer our felicitations?’ Renzi said woodenly.

  Cecilia stared at him. ‘I — I don’t know what you mean, Nicholas,’ she said uncertainly.

  ‘The young man — he and you …’

  ‘Roger Partington, and you’d never conceive — tonight he confessed to me that it would make him the happiest man in the world if I could grant his dearest wish.’

  She turned to Kydd, oblivious of the look on Renzi’s face.

  ‘Thomas, he wishes so much to be a teacher, a scholar, and wanted me to intercede with Father in this. But then I thought, why should he not take your place, dear brother, and then you can go back to sea?’

  She watched, delighted, as her words rendered the two men equally thunderstruck. ‘Well, Thomas, can you bear after all not to be a teacher? Shall you pine after the grammar, yearn for your figuring again?’

  Kydd and Renzi stood frozen.

  ‘I shall return presently,’ Cecilia whispered, and swept up the stairs. In a few minutes she was back. At the stupid look on Kydd’s face she threw her arms about his neck. ‘You darling boy! You wonderful, silly brother — can you not see?’ Handing him a brown paper parcel she said, ‘I have saved your precious sailor rig for you. I hid it from Mother as I knew you would need it some day. You are a sailor, Tom, you’re different from we land folks.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘Go with Nicholas, Tom, you must. And may God bless you and keep you, and bring you safely back to us.’

  ‘God damn it!’ Kydd exploded. He was sitting on the grass verge of the road, shaking out yet another stone from his shoe. It was wonderful to be back in his loose-swinging sailor’s rig, but his feet were sore, they had not brought drink and the sun beat down on them.

  Renzi looked up resentfully. ‘If we had kept back just one …’ he began, in an uncharacteristically morose tone.

  ‘And if we had thought t’ ask the other … !’ Kydd snapped back. It was the fault of both and neither: in their plan to avoid the wounded looks of his mother they had, with Cecilia’s reluctant connivance, sneaked out before dawn for the journey south.

  Independently, they had emptied their pockets of their remaining money, leaving it as a peace-offering on the mantelpiece of the drawing room. The driver of the mail coach at the Angel had adequate experience of sailors and their prodigal habits ashore, and was scornful of their entreaties. The coach lurched off without them, down the high street and away with a splendid cracking of whips and deafening clatter of wheels on cobblestones. There was no way they could return home, not after Cecilia’s generous but stricken farewell.

  Kydd felt warm at the memory of her shyly producing his sea-clothes, sweet-smelling and neatly folded. He had stowed them in his sea-bag, together with the meaningful gift of an ingenious portable writing set: quills, ink-block and penknife in a polished wooden box.

  Renzi softened too — there had been a kiss for them both, for him the moist warmth had been placed rather closer to his mouth than was customary, and her head had not been averted sufficiently to avoid his chaste return peck landing perilously close to her own parted lips. Goethe’s Prometheus in the Hallstadt edition was her gift to him; its restless subjectivity was not altogether to his taste, but he would persevere for the sake of her kindness.

  A bishop’s carriage prepared to leave, and they gratefully accepted his patriotic offer. The kindly gentleman had taken them as far as Petworth, provided they rode outside and promised to behave themselves with sobriety and decorum.

  They were now on foot, six miles beyond on Duncton Hill and half-way to their goal of Chichester and the coast. There, they hoped the busy coastwise roads would provide transport.

  Renzi was only too aware that he was not as inured to walking as the country folk, who would quickly starve if they insisted on coaches wherever they went. On the road they met several who waved curiously at the exotic pair. He muttered under his breath, and humped his sea-bag once more, but a distant movement and dust haze on the winding road caught his eye. Some sort of empty hay wagon; there was a blotch of red in the front seat, unusual where faded fustian was more the rule.

  Seeing Renzi pause, Kydd glanced back. ‘You think … ?’ he said.

  ‘In our direction, and without a load,’ Renzi replied.

  Without discussion, they dropped their bundles and waited for the wagon to approach. The horses toiled listlessly up the hill, and it became clear that there were objects in the body of the wagon.

  ‘That’s a lobsterback!’ Kydd burst out. As the wagon approached they saw that the marine was a guard for the press-gang, the objects in the wagon his luckless catch.

  Kydd laughed. ‘If we don’t leg it smartly, we could fin’ ourselves pressed.’

  Renzi smiled wryly. They were in no danger — real deserters would be in disguise and heading away from the seaports.

  They waved down the wagon. The marine was dusty and bored, and saw no reason why they should not share a ride to Portsmouth. They clambered gratefully into the wagon with their bundles, and found themselves a place among the dozen or so victims of the press, who were handcuffed to the outside rail.

  There were two sailors also, members of the gang, comfortably wedged at the forward end, enjoying a bottle. They looked up in surprise as Kydd and Renzi boarded. ‘Yo ho, shipmates, what cheer,’ the older one said.

  ‘Artemis? Kydd said briefly, swelling with pride.

  The sailors sat up. ‘No flam! Then ye’ll need to clap on more sail, mates, should yer wanna be aboard afore she sails.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s sailin’, mate — another of yer vy’ges with a bag o’ gold fer yez all at the end,’ the younger said enviously.

  So her battle damage had been made good already; there must have been some ruffled feathers in the staid world of the dockyards. But would they make it in time?

  ‘She out o’ dock yet?’ Kydd asked.

  ‘Dunno — we’re Diadems at Spithead, mate, how would we know?’ The older man was short with them. Diadem was an old-fashioned and slow sixty-four-gun third rate, which could neither catch a frigate nor really keep the line of battle.

  The bottle was passed over as the wagon ground off, and as Kydd took a pull at the liquor he noticed
one or two resentful looks from the prisoners, who lolled pitifully, their hands clinking the iron cuffs that held them.

  There was one young man of an age with himself, sitting miserably with his head back. He stared up into the summer sky with an expression that spoke of homesickness, fear and helplessness. Kydd’s own dolorous journey as a pressed man was only a little more than six months before and so much had happened since — adventures that would have seemed terrifying if he had known of them beforehand.

  He flashed a comradely grin at the lad, who turned away in his misery, not wishing to talk. Kydd shrugged. There was an unbridgeable distance between them. He raised his bottle. The raw gin was heady but did nothing for his thirst. He wiped his mouth and passed it to Renzi.

  It was a serious matter if they missed Artemis. They would have no option but to ship out in another unknown vessel, which as volunteers they would have the privilege of choosing. But Kydd had been much looking forward to meeting his old shipmates again, and the frigate was of the first order as a fighting ship — lucky, too.

  The wagon swayed on, the wheels grinding monotonously as the hours passed, the heat tedious to bear without any shade. Finally they passed on to Portsea Island and began the final stretch to Portsmouth town. The gaiety and feverish celebrations of before were now well over, replaced by a purposeful wartime hurry.

  The downcast pressed men stirred when they realised their journey was concluding, and at the sight of the grim lines of ships at anchor a youngster began to whimper and the older ones turned grave.

  Kydd’s heart leapt, however, as his gaze took in the scene. His nostrils caught the fresh sea air breezing in, and he eagerly observed the ships at anchor - the bulk of Queen Charlotte, Admiral Howe’s flagship; the Royal Sovereign of equal ifize; and he thought he recognised old Duke William further down the line.

  The wagon stopped at the Sally Port - the prisoners would wait shackled until the boats came for them, but they were free to bid farewell and tramp up the well-remembered road across to the dockyard.

  The dock and the berth alongside were empty. There was no sign of Artemis, and Kydd’s heart sank. They were too late. Depressed, they hunkered down on the cobblestones as they thought about what to do. It was a keen loss, which Kydd perceived came from a sense of homelessness, when hearth and home now sheltered someone else.

  Renzi first spotted her. End on, she was over at the other side of the harbour, at Weevil Lake off the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard, taking in casks of salt beef and ship’s biscuit. But how were they to get out to her?

  Almost immediately they saw distantly a boat put off from the stern of Artemis. It slowly crossed the bright water towards their dockyard jetty, resolving into the Captain’s barge.

  ‘No way, Jack,’ the coxswain of the barge replied to their entreaties. ‘Cap’n’s orders,’ he said impatiently. ‘We ‘as a full crew, ‘n’ don’t need no more volunteers.’ He unshipped the rudder and heaved it into the boat, and came up to where they were standing. ‘Yer knows she’s goin’ foreign?’ he said, looking at them knowingly. The information would deter some. At the expression on their faces, the man softened. ‘Look, mates, tell yez now - barky closed books on ‘er ship’s company sennight since, ain’t taken a soul after. Sorry.’

  They didn’t speak, so the coxswain shrugged and left them to it.

  Lifting his sea-bag Kydd muttered, ‘We’ll need t’ find a ship, Nicholas, or we’re like t’ starve.’

  Renzi nodded agreement, and got slowly to his feet.

  ‘Oars!’ bellowed the coxswain. In the boat the men tossed their oars to the vertical and assumed a reverential dignity. ‘Bugger off,’ he whispered harshly.

  With his head bowed in concentration, Captain Powlett strode forcefully down to the jetty. A grey-haired lieutenant talked to him urgently until they reached the boat. The coxswain saluted, and took the Captain’s plain leather despatch case.

  Powlett began to descend the stone steps to the boat when Kydd pushed forward. ‘Sir!’ he called. Powlett looked up irritably, without pausing in his motions. ‘Sir — you remember me?’

  The Captain stopped and glanced up in surprise. ‘Ah, yes — one of the Royal Billys’ His eyebrows contracted in an effort of remembrance. ‘And one of the first boarders,’ he added, in satisfaction.

  ‘Sir, we want t’ ship with you.’

  There was a hiss of indrawn breath from the Captain’s coxswain.

  The moment hung. The pair’s travel-worn appearance and something about Kydd’s intensity moved Powlett. ‘Very well. Get forrard, then.’

  The scandalised coxswain glared, the bowman grinned and shifted over, but Kydd obstinately remained standing. ‘We both, sir.’

  Powlett glanced at Renzi. ‘The odd one, but quick with a blade — through the gunport, was it not?’ he asked. ‘Sir.’

  ‘Then we can find a place for them both, Mr Fairfax?’ Powlett said to the lieutenant, with an unmistakable edge. ‘Aye aye, sir,’ the man said.

  ‘So yez had enough o’ them ‘long shore ways,’ Petit rasped.

  ‘Couldn’t stomach the shoreside scran,’ grumbled Kydd, fighting down a grin.

  ‘A bag o’ guineas says yer did jus’ manage to get outside a dark ale or three.’ This was Billy Cundall. He had moved into their mess in place of Adam, who had decided for no special reason to move across to another mess.

  Kydd’s smile was broad and open, his white teeth showing in the dim gold light of the lanthorn above the table. He raised his grog can in salute and swallowed. While in port, the small beer was quite acceptable, brewed specially in the dockyard for the fleet. It was only after weeks at sea that the sourness and metallic aftertaste became apparent.

  Luke came with a mess kid of steaming pottage. He still had the hollow eyes and withdrawn air that he’d had since the battle.

  Quashee broke off his conversation with Petit. ‘What ho, Luke, is it to me exactin’ standard, or shall we have ter send it back?’ There was no answer from the boy, and Quashee glanced at Petit.

  ‘Leave ‘im be, mate,’ Petit muttered.

  Renzi made a characteristic deprecating gesture, and the mess knew that he had something to say, and waited expect-antiy. ‘We shall within this week be outward bound — to the far side of the world.’ He drew himself up and intoned

  ‘On burning coasts, or frozen seas, Alike in each extreme The gallant sailor’s ere at ease, But floats with fortune’s stream . .

  ‘Clap a stopper on it!’ ‘Avast th’ jabber, shipmate!’

  The good-natured chorus drowned Renzi’s attempts, and in mock disgust he drank noisily from his pot. ‘What’s y’r meaning, Nicholas?’ Kydd prodded.

  ‘Well, if you will allow me,’ he said, and leant back. ‘Get on with it, damn you for a shab!’ Kydd’s eyebrows contracted at Cundall’s ill-judged words to his friend.

  Renzi seemed not to have heard. ‘It will not have escaped your notice that the officers are laying in stores, a good deal. This voyage will not be a simple one.’ The table exchanged looks. It was widely believed that Renzi had second sight, such had been the accuracy of his predictions in the past.

  ‘What do ye mean?’ Petit said carefully.

  ‘That mayhap we should follow suit — in our little way, of course.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Can you conceive a span of six months at sea, nothing new, always the same food, the same company? We will rue it, I believe, were we not to take a precaution.’

  The thought had clearly not entered their heads.

  ‘Only one kinda stores we better ‘ave - an’ if the kegs run out, then it’ll have ter be bottles.’ Cundall had a handsome face: he took care to flare his side-whiskers to frame it.

  ‘Aye, but ye knows that in th’ Indies it’s like to be arrack - made outa rice. It’ll bowse up yer jib in a brace o’ shakes right enough, Billy boy.’ Eyes turned to Petit who leant back innocently.

  ‘Come on, mate, you’ve bin out there afore, ain’t yer?�
�� Quashee said.

  ‘Yair, but I wanta hear what Renzi is a-sayin’,’ Petit said.

  Renzi continued, ‘Only little things, I grant, but I have the feeling they will be deeply appreciated in the future. I say that we empower Quashee to step ashore to make purchases for the mess in general as he sees fit, some condiments, some—’

  ‘Some ‘oo?’ Cundall said.

  ‘Conweniences!’ said Quashee happily. ‘He means conweniences! A rub o’ ginger, dried ‘erbs, a jar o’ molasses, that’s the ticket.’

  ‘Just so,’ Renzi said. ‘But we also need amusements. I have made my preparations, but could I suggest it be taken under general consideration?’ The concept of preparing for recreation was a novel matter: it caused the table to go quiet.

  Pinto spoke up for the first time. ‘Padrino’ he said to Petit, ‘what you do, when you sail to the Indee?’

  Petit toyed with his pot. ‘Renzi’s right, o’ course. Three, four year back it was, if yer recollects, we went ter Batavia to pick up Bligh ‘n’ his crew ‘oo stayed with ‘im in the Bounty launch. Took ‘em back to Portsmouth.’ Kydd remembered reading about it in the news; it had a different meaning now.

  Petit had their attention and carried on with his yarn. ‘Ill-tempered sod, was Bligh — noo his rights as a grunter, did he, ‘n’ him only a jumped-up master’s mate. Useta strut up ‘n’ down the quarterdeck, never goin’ forrard, ever.’

  There was a stirring around the table. Opinions in the Navy were divided between admiration for Bligh’s undoubted feat of seamanship - four thousand miles in an open boat without losing a man - and contempt for his equally undoubted senseless brutality to his men. ‘Long v’yage, yair, but don’t recollect we ‘ad troubles findin’ things to do,’ he ruminated.

  ‘Well, what did y’ do in th’ dog-watches each night?’ prompted Kydd.

  ‘Usual kinda things. Yarns, dice, fancy work with th’ rope. Oh, yeah, makin’ things!’ He fumbled and pulled out his seaman’s knife. ‘Like this I done.’ The handle was beautifully carved, the hand-filling curve of a leaping dolphin in ebony.