Kydd’s face burned.
“Gun has fired. Denison ’n’ Cullen with Jewkes on the trainin’ tackle fer now.”
With the cannon’s recoil they would need no training tackle for the real thing.
The long black gun rumbled inboard, helped by the inclined deck and the training tackle fixed to the rear. Fully run in, its massive size, chest high to Kydd, was overawing.
A brief image of the parson and his gun — there had been a spiteful crack from a barrel not much bigger than his little finger: what kind of earth-splitting sound would come from a gaping maw nearly the size of his head, Kydd wondered. His palms began to sweat.
“Yours now, Lofty. Let me see some speed.” The man was good at the task. Taking advantage of the gunport, he sinuously arced out of the port to face inboard, plying his sheepskin-tipped stave into the muzzle at the same time. Three twists to the left going in, three to the right coming out. “Let’s be ’avin you, then, Cullen. Where’s yer powder?”
A doleful-looking sailor went through the motions of going to the midline of the vessel, where a grinning ship’s boy pretended elaborately to give him a cartridge from a long covered container.
“Load with cartridge!” Stirk ordered.
The invisible cartridge was stuffed down the muzzle to Cullen’s armpit. He whipped out his arm, by which time the Iberian had advanced with his rammer. Thrusting forcefully several times, he leaped back, the action like a dance movement.
“Wait for it, Pedro — me priming wire ’as to feel the cartridge, ’n’ then I signals an’ that’s when you carry on.” He gave a wintry smile. “But that was smartly done, cully. Shot yer gun.”
An imaginary wad was slapped into the muzzle as two men bent to the shot rack, pretending to heave a shot on to the cradle. It would need two to carry the great thirty-two-pound shot to the muzzle, where the cradle would tilt the ball in.
“Pedro?”
But the dark-eyed man was already there, plunging the rammer down. “Wad!” he shouted before Stirk could speak.
A “wad” was passed into the muzzle, more plunges with the rammer and they stood back.
“Good. Now we does it in one. Run out the gun!”
The exercise warmed Kydd, and he tore off his jacket and waistcoat. It was not hard to learn the motions; the difficult part was to learn to pull together with the others and to stop his muscles trembling at the unaccustomed effort.
Ahead of him on the tackle, others were finding it hard as well, with panting and feverish mopping of foreheads. Doggo had doffed his shirt altogether, the feral hair over his neck and shoulders glistening with sweat. “Now, lads, yer needs to get low into it, like this,” he said, leaning into the line of the rope.
The young lieutenant appeared distracted. “Cease exercise. Stand down.”
Stirk sat on the rear of the gun carriage, looking at them with a sardonic smile. A desultory chatter drifted around.
“What’re we waitin’ for, then?” Jewkes said, peevish.
Bull Lynch snorted. “Why — yer goin’ anywhere?”
“Let’s jus’ get the exercise over. Need to get me head down fer a caulk.”
The lieutenant reappeared, looking apprehensive. He raised his speaking trumpet. “Pay attention, the gundeck. The Captain means to exercise the great guns today with the discharge of one round from each gun.”
He hesitated, then ordered, “All guns, load with cartridge!”
Kydd’s heart quickened: he would hear the guns speak now.
Stirk rose. “C’mere, nipper,” he said, to their ship’s boy. “Now run along an’ get me pouch from the gunner’s mate.”
Kydd had noticed the ship’s boys stationed at each gun, some no more than ten years old, and had been touched by their youthful high spirits. He could not help but wonder how they could possibly endure in a great sea battle.
“You, Denison, match tub — and, Cullen, yer knows yer sponge’ll need water.” Stirk checked carefully around, then went to the gunlock atop the breech of the gun. Carefully removing the lead apron, he attached a lanyard to the mechanism. Cocking it, he watched closely as it clicked a fat spark. Satisfied, he straightened. “Thanks, younker,” he said to the panting boy waiting behind with the pouch. He smiled at the lad. “So where’s yer ear tackle, then?”
The boy brought out a grubby white rag, which Stirk fastened with mock roughness around his head. It was in the form of two circlets that went around the head, intersecting at the ears where there were large pads.
The others began tying their kerchiefs and bandannas over their ears as well. Kydd felt awkward and apprehensive as he followed suit.
Slinging the powder horn over his shoulder, Stirk waited for the loading process to complete. This time, there was a real cartridge — a lightgray cylinder with coarse stitching, which held Kydd with a horrifying fascination. It went in, bottom end first, seam downward.
“Slow time, lads. We get it right first.”
More carefully than before, the dark Spaniard plied his rammer. This time Stirk had his thumb on the touchhole to tell by the escaping air when the charge was seated.
A wad and then the iron ball itself. To Kydd, it looked huge. Stirk noticed his interest. “Right ship-smasher, that. Go through two feet o’ solid oak at a mile, that ’un will.”
The cradle tilted and the cannon ball disappeared into the gun. Another wad would be needed to keep it hard up against the cartridge against the roll of the ship.
“Run out!”
In a sudden bout of nervous energy, Kydd hauled mightily on the tackle.
Stirk took his priming wire, more an iron spike, and by piercing the cartridge through the vent hole ensured that naked powder was waiting for the jet of flame from the quill tube. The gunlock pan was filled with bruised gunpowder from the powder horn, and Stirk raised his hand. “Stand by to fire!”
A flurry of clicks echoed along the gundeck as the gunlocks were cocked. Gun captains stood behind their weapons, lanyard in hand, and kept their eyes on the lieutenant, who plainly was waiting for word from the quarterdeck far above.
The ship heaved slightly, muffled creaks startling in the silence. The morning wind was strengthening and buffeting those closest to the gunport. Kydd caught a glimpse of a lone seabird wheeling low over the sea.
Still the waiting. The tension became unbearable.
Kydd stole a look at Stirk, who was calm but poised. He wiped moist hands on his trousers.
A distant shouting and a face appeared at the forehatch. “Stand by. Number-one gun — fire!”
In a split second, Kydd saw it all. At the first gun, only two guns forward, the gun captain tugged hard at the lanyard. After the briefest delay came the stupefying din, the visceral push of the blast. It left him stunned. Then a vast, enveloping mass of smoke roiled out for a hundred yards or more before it was blown back in again. It swirled around them, briefly hiding the waiting gun crews.
“Number-two gun — fire!”
Kydd knew what to expect and closed his eyes. The cannon was nearer and there was a vicious iron ring to the blast. He flinched; a trembling started in his knees.
Now it was their turn. Stirk stepped back to the full length of the lanyard and waited for the order, a peculiar grin playing on his lips.
“Number-three gun — fire!”
A series of images was split by violence — the stabbing tongue of fire at the muzzle instantly replaced by acrid gunsmoke, the maddened plunge of the great cannon past Kydd to the rear, the frantic whipping of the side tackle until the gun came up to its breeching with a bass twang, the artistic arching of Stirk’s body to allow the cannon to charge past as if he were in a bullring.
And then it was over.
CHAPTER 5
* * *
As Kydd came on watch in the afternoon, it was clear that the weather was on the change. The wind had backed from a previously favorable light northerly, and was now more in the west — and strengthening. It moved forward of the be
am and the old battleship had to thrash along close to the wind instead of a comfortable full and bye. Her bluff bow met the increasingly steep but still relatively short waves of the Channel head on in a series of smashes that sent cold spray sheeting into the air, then stinging straight aft. Overhead, the lowering cloudbase had turned into a dull, racing overcast. Combers started to appear, vivid white in the unrelieved green-gray.
By three bells the wind had increased and it became necessary to shorten sail. In came the topgallants and the main and mizzen topgallant staysails; to balance this the small jib was set. Kydd found it increasingly unpleasant. In weather that on land would have people reaching for thick coats and scurrying thankfully for shelter he found himself standing waiting on the upper deck as each sail maneuver called for more hauling, then more inactivity. His suffering increased when drifts of light rain bore down in curtains of misty drizzle. The rain suddenly got harder, then stopped, leaving him shivering in the keen wind.
The others on watch did not offer sympathy — to them it was an inevitable part of being a sailor, to be endured quietly and with resignation. Some pulled on foul weather gear — shapeless woolen monmouth caps and lengths of tarred canvas that hung down like aprons, mainly used by those going aloft. Luckier ones had a grego, a rough, thick coat, and over it a layered tarpaulin surcoat.
Kydd had none of these. His short jacket over the waistcoat had soon become sodden and his trousers kept up a steady stream of water into his purser’s-issue light black shoes. Cold crept remorselessly inwards to his vitals.
It seemed an age before the watch was over and Kydd was able to make his way down to the mess. The warm fetor of the gundeck, its buzz of talk, was welcoming. Supper was beginning, and the grog monkey swam dark with rum.
Kydd sat in his wet gear, letting the rum and the surrounding fug do their work.
Bowyer stripped off his old tarpaulin overcoat, but underneath he seemed just as damp as Kydd. “Grievous wet, Joe,” Kydd said.
“Well, if you takes it ter heart every wet shirt yer gets, why, yer’ll fret yourself into a stew. O’ course, if you has yer sealskin warmers — wear ’em under the waistcoat yer does — but I guess you’ll want tarpauling gear o’ sorts. Have to see ol’ Nipcheese about that.”
He seemed to find the grog as acceptable as Kydd. Draining his tankard regretfully, he said, “I’ll see yer right on that, mate, don’t you worry. Can’t be havin’ you die o’ cold before we makes a topman of ye, now, can we?”
Kydd looked at Bowyer, in his faded seaman’s rig, and felt a surge of warmth toward the man. He gulped at his grog, sighed and smiled, looking around at his new friends, then rested his eyes on the stout side of the ship. As usual condensation was running over age-blackened timber, but strangely, it slowly transformed, from a harsh confining prison wall into a sturdy barrier protecting him against the unknown vastness of the ocean outside.
Suddenly the ship gave a bump out of sequence, followed by a pitch of considerable vertical distance. The sudden movement caught Kydd unawares, and his grog spilled down his front.
“Gets a mort worse afore it gets better,” Howell said, watching Kydd over his pot.
Doud ignored him. “What’s the chance of a real blow, Sam?” he asked Claggett.
“Depends on what you calls a real blow.” Claggett stared moodily into the distance. “We’ll have Portland comin’ abeam b’ six bells. If it doesn’t back even more to th’ west we can do it on this board, if that’s what yer mean.” Doud waited patiently. “But if we don’t make our westin’ soon, why, then we’ll be hook down ridin’ it out in Torbay or somewheres. You know how it’ll be, Ned.”
Kydd broke in. “What about the Frogs?”
They looked at him with surprise. “Why, the buggers can’t move with this westerly,” said Whaley. “Bailed up in harbor, they be, can’t sail against a foul wind, see.”
A deeper lurch came. Kydd could swear he felt the unseen wave pass all the way down the ship, the bows first rising to it, then as the wave reached midpoint, falling off down the other side.
Bowyer grinned. “Let’s get yer foulies, then, Tom. Yer on fer the last dog-watch.”
Dusk drew in, but there was no easing in the weather. The wind by the hour swung west, strengthening as it did so, a hard, continuous blow in place of gusts and buffets. Scud raced overhead, ragged and low, and the ship labored heavily.
“There goes our run!” said Corrie, one of the watch. He pulled viciously at a line. “Couldn’t have stayed in the north for just another day, oh, no! Now we’ll be floggin’ about all over the oggin, lookin’ for a slant.”
It was clear that Duke William was unable to keep as close to the wind as the other two vessels. She sailed as near as possible but she sagged sadly away to leeward of the newer ships, the line of three becoming a gaggle.
From the main top of the Royal Albion ahead a solitary flicker of light appeared. Kydd glanced up: their own maintop lanthorn produced its fitful beam for Tiberius astern.
He gazed at the three-decker ahead, working her way through the seas in a welter of foam, rising and falling in a foreshortened bobbing, clawing at the wind. As he watched, the vessel altered her perspective, changing tack to conform to Duke William’s labored course, the line now whole again.
“That’ll please the buggers. Now nobody’s goin’ to fetch Start Point on this tack,” Corrie said. A cluster of signal flags made its way in jerks up Royal Albion’s rigging, the bunting stiff to the wind. “That’ll be night orders, ’n’ welcome to it,” he added, with a sniff. “Like as not, it’ll come on a real muzzler tonight, an’ then what’s the use o’ orders?”
The rain had stopped, but the wind steadily increased. Inside his new tarpaulins Kydd shivered, the slapping of the cape-like folds feeling awkward and uncomfortable. The odor of tarred canvas was strong and penetrating.
A bulky figure in old, rain-slick foul weather gear stumped along the deck in the gathering darkness. It was the boatswain, accompanied by his mates, going about on a last checking of gear before it was too dark to do so. He passed Kydd without recognition, then stopped and came back. “Gettin’ your sea legs, then?” he rumbled. “One thing about foul weather, soon sorts out th’ sailors from the lubbers.”
Then there was the familiar round of trimming — the tightening, easing, bracing and other motions deemed necessary by the officer on watch on assuming the deck, after which the men huddled beneath the weather bulwarks. The binnacle lamp was lit, and extra men sent to the wheel. The small group on the quarterdeck paced abjectly in the dirty weather, wet streaming from their foul weather gear. The night drew in.
Kydd pulled his tarpaulins close, imitating the others who, sitting with their backs to the bulwark, had wrapped a weird assortment of gear around them.
“O’ course, it could all end for us in an hour, yer know,” said Corrie.
“How so?”
“Jus’ think, here we is, thrashin’ along with the wind shiftin’ all the time, who’s to say where we’ll be at the end of the watch in the dark?” There was no answer, so he went on, “Frenchy coast only thirty mile or so off hereabouts, ’n’ it’s sure enough iron-bound — worst part o’ the whole coast, is that. What if we gets to tack south when the wind heads us? We’ll be piled up afore we know it.”
Bowyer grunted, “Leave him be, Scrufty. You knows they keeps a proper reckonin’ on the quarterdeck. An’ we must have passed this way no more’n half a hundred times.”
“Ah, yes, but we’re talkin’ about a bit of a blow, at night, tide set ’n’ all, and a cap’n who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow about shiphandlin’.
“Don’t forget, we gotta weather the Shambles first — ever seen ’em under a tide-fall? Nasty, black, ’n’ ready to tear the heart outa a good ship afore yer knows it,” he said.
“But —” began Kydd.
“An’ by me calc’lation they’re just about here. Could be right in our course, mates, only a half a mile ahead ’n’ j
us’ waitin’.”
Kydd couldn’t help it. He stuck his head above the bulwark and peered into the dark sea fret ahead, the Royal Albion’s lanthorn light long since disappeared into the thick murk. In his imagination he could see only too vividly the black rocks rearing up to smash and splinter their way into their vessel, the victorious sea close behind.
At the end of the watch they wearily slung their hammocks.
“I’d keep me gear handy if I was you, mate! Somethin’ ’appens, an’ it’s ‘Turn up the hands,’ ” came a voice from the darkness. Kydd peeled off his clothes, still damp from before, and wearily swung himself in. The ship was moving more — less of a roll, more of an uncomfortable jerky pitching which the hammock, slung fore and aft, could not easily absorb.
He drifted off to sleep, and a disjointed dream arose, troubling and frightening, of himself borne away unwilling on the back of a huge wild bull, thundering unstoppably toward a great precipice that somehow he knew lay ahead.
Waking with a start, he was confused, disoriented. Lanthorns swayed and flickered in the musty gloom, voices murmured and turned querulous; he struggled to make meaning of it all. Thumping his feet on deck, he felt the motion of the ship markedly more irregular and violent.
“Starbowlines! All the starbowlines! Out or down! Out or down, you farmer’s sons, rouse out!”
The boatswain’s mates moved about quickly, urgently. There was no time to lose. Warm and pink, Kydd stumbled into his damp clothes, then the awkward tarpaulins. He found himself losing his balance and crashing into cursing men half glimpsed in the dimness.
Still befuddled with sleep, he emerged up the main companionway to the open deck. As soon as his head topped the coaming he was into the full force of the gale, a turbulent streaming wind hammering and lashing at him, wild and fearful. In the darkness he could see by the light of the binnacle that now there were four men on the wheel, leaning into it hard, grappling, straining. Spray whipped past in spiteful blasts as he staggered in the hammering wind to the binnacle, where an unknown figure shouted in his ear, jabbing with a finger.
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