Kydd

by Julian Stockwin

  “If it does not pain you.”

  “No, the pain is past.” He glanced at Kydd, feeling drawn to the intensity in the strong, open face.

  “However, be so good as to bear with me for a space . . .” He paused for a long moment, then continued, “For philosophical reasons, which appear sufficiently cogent to me, I am denied the felicity of the company of my peers. This is not the result of a criminal act, I hasten to assure you.”

  Kydd could see that Renzi was having difficulty speaking of his burden and wondered if it had anything to do with his peculiar beliefs. “Then, sir, I will not speak of it again.”

  Renzi said nothing but Kydd saw the pain in his eyes. The deeply lined face spoke of complexities of experience at which he could only guess.

  A silence fell between them. Sounds from the watch on deck faintly carried up to their eyrie.

  “I beg you will tell me more of this philosophy, er, Mr. Renzi,” Kydd said.

  “Upon a more suitable occasion, perhaps, Mr. Kydd.”

  “Tom.”

  “Nicholas.”

  The cutter went about around their stern and came smartly up into the wind bare yards away, the brailed-up mainsail flogging violently. A heav ing line shot up and was seized; canvas-covered despatches followed quickly. Mission performed, sail was shaken out again and the despatch cutter bore away.

  “All the haaands! Hands lay aft!” The pipe came within the hour — it did not need much imagination to guess that something was afoot.

  Salter was quite sure. “The Frogs have signed a peace, and we’re on our way home.”

  “Nah — pocky knaves like that, they want ter bring us down first. It’ll be the rest o’ the Fleet comin’ to help.”

  Stirk was more skeptical, but ready to listen. “Let the dog see the rabbit, Doggo,” he said, elbowing him to one side.

  The Captain stepped forward to the poop rail. “We have been entrusted with a mission.” He paused, looking around him, delicately touching his mouth with a fine handkerchief before replacing it in the sleeve of his heavy gold-laced coat. “A mission that could see the beginning of the end for that vile gang of regicides.”

  There was quiet. A mission did not sound like something that could end the war — that would take a great battle involving the rest of the Fleet — but anything that offered a break from the monotony of sailing up and down on blockade duty would be welcome.

  “We, together with Royal Albion and Tiberius, have won the opportunity to dart a lance into the very belly of the enemy. We are going to join with true Frenchmen who will rejoice to see their nation restored to its former glory — and make our landing together on the shores of France.

  “You will all have heard how the wretches murdered their officers and govern their affairs by citizens’ council. The rabble will retire in confusion under our disciplined advance. We will thrust deep into the heart of France, sweeping all before us, and bring to an end this squalid regime.”

  A restless muttering rippled through the men crowded on deck and in the lower rigging. An armed descent on the mainland of Europe?

  “Mr. Tyrell leads our contribution, which will be two hundred men. He will be assisted by Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Garrett. They will be protected by the marines, for we shall be landing four guns, complete with equipment. As I speak, a strong force of Royalists is marching from across the Cherbourg peninsula to join with us. Our objective will be to free the great old town of Rennes and, having established our position there, we will be reinforced for the big advance to Paris — and victory! But by then we will long be returned on board. You need have no fear that you will be turned into redcoats.

  “Now I am asking for volunteers — and might I add that they will certainly share in whatever spoils of war Providence brings.”

  Significant looks were exchanged. This was far more to the point than grand strategy.

  “Volunteers may approach the First Lieutenant after dinner. God save the King!”

  “Damn right I’m going. Not set foot ashore in eight months.” Whaley’s eyes gleamed.

  “Want to clap eyes on them French women — wouldn’t repel boarders should a saucy piece lay alongside!” declared Doud, his lewd gestures leaving no doubt as to his meaning.

  Claggett did not join in. “Might be things are different to what you thinks,” he said.

  Howell sniffed. “What d’ye mean?”

  Claggett leaned over. “I went in with the boats at Los Cayos and we suffered somethin’ cruel. Moskeeters, stinkin’ heat, an’ never a morsel o’ meat one day’s end to the next. Cruel, I tells yer — you’ll see.”

  Howell sneered. “Anyways, no chance o’ that where youse are going! Just goin’ to get yerselves separated from yer head by this here gillo-tin!”

  “What about you, Tom?” Whaley said, tapping a piece of hard tack.

  “Could do with a stretch o’ the legs,” Kydd said casually.

  “Ye’re all bloody mad,” said Howell. “Mantrap and Shaney Jack both — it’ll be seven bells of hell for all hands wi’ them two. I’m stayin’ aboard, where they won’t be at.”

  At supper, Kydd eased into place opposite Renzi. “We join up with the Fleet in the morning, I’ve heard,” Kydd said to him.

  Renzi responded slowly, “Yes, I believe we shall.”

  “You volunteered.” Kydd had been just as surprised as the others.

  “As did you.”

  Renzi looked away, then back. “In the dog-watch it is my pleasure to take a pipe of tobacco on the fo’c’sle, should the weather prove tolerable.”

  Kydd’s father smoked a long churchwarden pipe, but he had never taken up the habit. “I don’t take tobacco m’self, but were you to need company . . .”

  “Then I should be honored.”

  The fo’c’sle deck in the dog-watches was a place of sanctuary for the seamen. Out of sight of the quarterdeck, sailors chatted in ones or twos, spinning yarns and making merry. Some sat on the deck reading or sewing. Right at the forward end of the squared-off deck, before the massive carved work of the beakhead dropped away below, was a splendid place to be. On either side the busy wash of the bow-wave spread as the great bluff bow shouldered the waves arrogantly aside. Sliding aft, it rejoined the other side past the ornate stern to disappear into the distance in a ruler-straight line over the gray Atlantic. The jibboom thrust out ahead, the headsails soaring up to the tops and beyond, taut and eager. They dipped and rose with great dignity, it seemed to Kydd.

  The vista seemed to please Renzi too. “There is a certain harmony in some works of man which I cannot but find sublime,” he said, as they stood together above the beakhead. From inside his jacket he found his clay pipe, which he filled from an oilskin pouch.

  Kydd waited until Renzi had his pipe drawing well, using the flame of a lanthorn swinging in the shrouds. He settled on the deck next to him.

  “Have you thought, dear fellow, that tomorrow we could well be fighting for our lives?”

  Renzi spoke so quietly that Kydd thought at first he was talking to himself. “Er, not really, no. But I’m sure that His Majesty will triumph over his enemies,” Kydd added stiffly.

  “Of course. Have you ever seen a battle?” The pipe was giving Renzi much satisfaction — he held it delicately by the stem near the bowl, luxuriating in the acrid fragrance.

  “Not as one might say a battle,” Kydd answered. The excitement of the militia being turned out to quell an apprentices’ riot would probably not count.

  Renzi inspected his pipe. “Then pray do not wish it — a battle. It must be the most odious and disagreeable occupation of man known.” He caught something of Kydd’s suspicions, for he hastened to add, “Yet some must be accounted inevitable — desirable, even.”

  “Does this mean that you — do not —”

  “It does not. I will not seek glory in battle, but the rational course for personal survival is not to be found in turning one’s back. You will not find me shy, I think.”

 
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean —”

  “We are to haul guns, I find. There will be precious little chance for laurels in that.” He looked sideways at Kydd, with an amused expression.

  “You wished to confide some matter t’ me,” Kydd said abruptly.

  Renzi’s face set. “Perhaps,” he said.

  Kydd waited.

  After several more draws at the long clay pipe Renzi spoke. “I come from a family of landowners in Buckinghamshire. We were — are not wanting in the article of wealth, you may believe.” He paused, collecting his thoughts. “My education has been thorough and complete, and includes experiences which — of which I am no longer proud. I knew only the life of the indolent, the uncaring and unseeing — I confess, I knew no better. We have many tenant farmers, but my father was not content. His interest allowed him to see a Bill of Enclosure through Parliament that enabled him to increase his holdings. I conceive you know of enclosures?”

  “Yes,” said Kydd quietly, “I do. I share the name of Thomas Paine.”

  Renzi’s lips thinned. “Then you know with what misery they are enforced, what hardship and want they can cause. It did not stop my father from sequestrating lands that had been under careful cultivation for centuries. In particular one small cottager did break his heart at the prospect — it did not move my father one whit. But it was when the bailiffs marched in to seize the land that they found the man’s eldest and the hope of the family, whom I knew well, hanging by his neck in the barn.” Renzi went on slowly. “My beliefs — I will not bore you — include a devotion to the Rationalist cause. A young man died. Legally there is no blame, but in the moral sensibility, it is as if we had tied the noose with our own hand.”

  Kydd’s eyes narrowed.

  “My family disowned the consequences of their actions. Were I to do likewise, then I would share in the crime. But if I acknowledge it, then logic — and I am a friend to logic — owns that a penalty must be served. And in my case, as judge and jury, I did pronounce sentence — which is to be five years’ exile from home and hearth.” Renzi looked away and added, a little too lightly, “A small price for an eased conscience, I believe.”

  Kydd had no idea what subtleties could drive a man to such a conclusion, but he found himself respecting and admiring the action. “Do y’ not find the life — hard?” he said.

  “There are worse things to be borne, my friend.”

  “How long — I mean —”

  “It is but ten months of the first year.”

  Kydd had the insight to feel something of the bleakness of spirit that would have to be overcome, what it must have cost a cultivated man brutally to repress his finer feelings. He guessed that the reclusiveness would be part of Renzi’s defenses and was ashamed of his previous animosity. “Then, sir, you have my sincere admiration.” Kydd clapped him on the shoulder.

  Renzi’s hand briefly touched his, and Kydd was startled to see his eyes glisten. “Don’t concern yourself on my account, I beg,” Renzi said, drawing away. “It has just been an unconscionable long time.”

  In the morning, with the squadron wearing in succession and standing in for the French coast to the eastward, the enterprise had begun. They were under easy sail, for the transports from Plymouth would not reach them for another two days-but the time would not be wasted.

  “Let’s be seein’ you now. All move over to larb’d, clap your eyes on this ’ere fugleman.” The Master-at-Arms indicated a marine, rigid at attention with his musket.

  The men jostled over to leeward and faced the red-coated and pipeclayed marine with a mixture of distrust and interest. His sergeant glaring at him from one side and the Master-at-Arms on the other, he moved not a muscle.

  “This man is a-going to pro-ceed through the motions of loadin’ an’ dischargin’ a musket. You will pay stric’ attention ’cos afterward you will do it.” He paused and surveyed the restless seamen. “Anyone can’t do it perfick by six bells joins me awkward squad in the first dog. Issue weapons!”

  The gunner’s party opened an arms chest and passed out muskets.

  Curiously Kydd inspected the plain but heavy firelock. It seemed brutish compared to the handsome length and damascened elegance of the parson’s fowling piece; this one had dull, pockmarked wood, a black finished barrel and worn steel lockwork, more reminiscent of some industrial machine.

  “For them who haven’t seen one before, I’ll name th’ main parts.”

  Within a bare minute Kydd had the essentials: the frizzen covering the pan had to be struck by a piece of flint, which would send a spark to set off the priming in the pan and thence to the cartridge. He looked doubtfully at the muzzle — the thumb-sized bore meant a heavy ball, and this implied a hefty kick.

  “Right. We go through the motions first without a cartridge. First motion, half cock yer piece.”

  The fugleman briskly brought his musket across his breast and like clockwork brought it to half cock.

  The seamen of the gunner’s party went along the line, correcting and cursing by turns. The action of the recurved cock felt stiff and hostile to Kydd — but then it was necessary for a sea-service weapon to avoid delicate niceties.

  “Second motion, prime your piece.”

  Priming was not difficult to imagine. Brush the frizzen forward, shake in the priming, shut it again.

  “Third motion, charge your piece.”

  Take the remaining cartridge powder and ball, and insert it in the muzzle. Ram it down with the wooden rammer.

  “Present your weapon.”

  Lock to full cock. It took a moment to realize that the words meant to aim the musket — present the muzzle end to the enemy.

  “Fire!” The finger drawing at the trigger, never jerking — a satisfying metallic clack and momentary spark.

  “Rest.” The Master-at-Arms seemed content. “By numbers, one, half cock.”

  They went through the drill again and again until it was reflexive, the fugleman never varying in his brisk timing.

  Finally the order came. “Issue five rounds ball cartridge!”

  The cartridges felt ominously heavy, a dull lead ball with a wrapped parchment cartridge. Kydd put them in his pocket. Nervously he gripped his weapon and waited for the word to fire.

  “First six! You, to you with the red kerchief — step over here to wind’d.”

  Kydd stepped over as number three.

  “Face outboard — number one, load yer weapon.”

  The first man went through the drill. The man bit off the top of the cartridge and spat it out. The rammer did its work. A quarter gunner inspected his priming, making sure the powder grains covered the pan but no more, and the man looked at the Master-at-Arms.

  “At the ’orizon — present!”

  The musket rose and steadied.

  “Fire!”

  All within a fraction of a second — a click, fizz and bang. Gouts of whitish smoke propelled outward to be blown back over them all before clearing.

  Roars of laughter eased the tension. As the smoke cleared the man was to be seen picking himself up from the deck. He had not been prepared for the mule-like kick. Kydd resolved to do better.

  “Number two!” The man next to Kydd loaded his weapon. He was clearly nervous, and twice made blunders.

  “Present!”

  The barrel visibly trembled as it was trained, and the man unconsciously held the thick butt away from his shoulder, anticipating the recoil. Cruelly the Master-at-Arms affected not to notice.

  “Fire!”

  The musket slammed back and with undamped impetus caught the man’s shoulder a savage blow.

  With a cry of pain the man dropped his weapon, which clattered noisily to the deck.

  “Now you all knows to hold the butt tight into yer shoulder. Number three!”

  Kydd loaded his musket, carefully looking to the priming, ramming the ball vigorously down.

  “Present!”

  He raised the barrel and tucked the butt firmly into his s
houlder. The tiny crude foresight settled on the horizon, but without a backsight or other cues Kydd decided to ignore it.

  “Fire!”

  Leaning into it, he pressed the trigger. The ear-ringing blam of the discharge sounded peculiarly less for his own piece than it had when he was standing sideways from the others, he noted. The recoil was heavy, but under control, and he lowered the musket with a swelling satisfaction.

  The drill continued until every man had fired two rounds, after which half a dozen of them were called forward, the remainder relieved of their weapons.

  “These men will fire at the mark.”

  This would be a round cask end dangling from the fore yardarm and steadied with a guy. The men took position on the poop.

  “Number one, three rounds!”

  At a range of a couple of hundred feet it was not surprising that there were no hits. Disappointed, the man stepped down.

  “Number two!”

  His first ball took the target near its edge, and it kicked spectacularly. A buzz of excited comment, and the next shot. It missed — the man reloaded quickly, blank-faced. Carefully he brought the musket up and squinted down the barrel. He left it too long — the muzzle wavered with fatigue, and after the musket banged off, the cask end still hung innocently.

  There was a shout of derision and the man stepped down disconsolately.

  Kydd moved forward. There was an undercurrent of muttering and he guessed that wagers were being taken. He loaded, took position, and the chattering died away. He took a long look at the cask end and brought the musket up, sighting along the barrel. The three-feet-wide target seemed to have shrunk in the meantime, for the merest quiver set the muzzle off the mark. Kydd tried to make sense of the single foresight, then remembered his recent experience and abandoned it. The sighting picture blurred, but in an act of pure instinct, he focused only on the target and let his body point through the gun at the mark.

  He drew on the trigger — he heard the distant thock before the smoke cleared to reveal the target swaying from a solid hit. He was more surprised than elated.