Kydd

by Julian Stockwin

  “Monsieur, unfortunately I have not the Breton tongue,” he said in French.

  “Alors. Who are you, that you stink so much?” Pirou replied.

  “Tell ’im that we’re takin’ the boat now,” Piggott spat.

  His English gave the game away. “L’anglais!” Pirou gasped.

  “Get him!” Kydd said, seizing an arm.

  Pirou shouted desperately. They forced him to the ground, his frail old bones no match for the soldiers.

  “Mon brave, I would be desolated were I to be obliged to silence you,” Renzi said, hefting a rock significantly. The man subsided, but a fierce glint remained in his eyes. Renzi found a length of rope and they bound him.

  “He comes with us,” Kydd said shortly, knowing that it was too dangerous to leave him there. They carried him to the boat and lowered him inside.

  “You three on that side,” Kydd said sharply.

  “Shut it, mate! See these?” Piggott tapped the stripes on his arm. “Sergeant. I’m takin’ charge!” He walked around and stood menacingly over Kydd, who faced up to him, his eyes flaring.

  The corporal thrust forward. “Now, Toby, we’re goin’ on the sea. Let them take over fer now. Come on, mate, they’re sailors ’n’ knows wot they’re about.”

  Piggott glared, but eventually growled an acknowledgment.

  With five men, the boat lifted easily. They carried it down the sand and into the water. The waves swept in boisterously and Kydd’s heart lifted at the boat’s eager bob. Exhilaration filled him.

  Waves slapped the transom hard. “Bows to sea,” he warned.

  The soldiers clumsily obeyed and the boat rotated to seaward. They pushed it out knee deep, the waves surging in.

  “Right — in th’ boat,” Kydd ordered, holding it by the squared-off transom. Renzi got aboard first and helped the soldiers over the side and, with a kick backwards, Kydd finally heaved himself in.

  “Get down — only one man must be seen in the boat,” Kydd hissed at the soldiers. Without a word Renzi took the oars, pulling strongly through the shallows out toward the blessed horizon, the wonderful salt sea smell penetrating through the stink of dried pig sludge.

  After a while Kydd rolled on to his back and looked up at the blue sky and fluffy clouds. The boat bobbed and the water chuckled under the bow; the fishing gear smelled strongly but pleasantly and there was nothing more he could do but lie down and stare up dreamily.

  A lazy half hour later, Renzi’s long, comfortable strokes slowed and he stopped and boated the dripping oars. He stood up and, to Kydd’s amazement, stripped stark naked.

  “Come on in,” said Renzi, and made a neat dive overside.

  Kydd sat up. They were to seaward of a seaweed-strewn rocky islet. They would not be seen from the shore.

  Renzi surfaced, spluttering, at the boat’s side. “A mite cold for my taste,” he said, through chattering teeth, “but needs must.” He reached into the boat for his clothes and began to wash them in the sea.

  “My oath! That’s wot to do,” said Piggott.

  The mire dissolved into the clear green water, and five naked men shouted and laughed in the simple joy of being alive.

  “Let’s rig the sail.” Renzi rummaged over the tightly rolled canvas, lashed with its own rigging, and tried to make sense of it. Pirou glared at them balefully, and when asked about it spat over the side, remaining mute.

  The sail turned out to be a peculiar form of dipping lug, but it ran up the mast easily enough. The reason for the rig soon became clear: it could be maneuvered by one man at the tiller.

  They continued their voyage, Kydd at the tiller now, the small boat scudding along in the pleasant breeze as it took them out farther and farther. The sun increased in strength, benign and warm.

  The waves grew higher, the little boat swooping up hills of water, and down into valleys. Occasionally a boisterous roller would burst spray over them, and the soldiers started to look apprehensive.

  They untied the old man, who rubbed his arms accusingly. The corporal suddenly heaved and vomited over the side, bringing on the same in the little private. They hung limply over the gunwale.

  The sun rose higher. The distant land lost its distinctiveness, becoming an anonymous craggy coastline. A larger wave thumped the side and splashed them — the soldiers cried out in alarm.

  The water felt cold and disconcerting, and swilled in the bottom of the boat. Kydd held the tiller tightly.

  “We’re sinking!” A squawk of terror came from the private.

  Kydd hesitated. There was certainly a good deal of water in the bottom, and his face creased in anxiety. The boat felt sluggish somehow, not so willing.

  The water was gaining, that much was clear — but why? The soldiers bailed frantically with anything they could find, and seemed near panic. He sensed their fear and felt it wash up against himself. The swell surged higher, now appearing menacing and sinister — it was amazing how different it was to be in a little cockleshell instead of striding the decks of a man — o’-war.

  There was little that could be done to find the leak with the boat crowded as it was. The soldiers gabbled to each other in their terror, and cold dread crept over Kydd. To have got so far, and then to die by the very element he had yearned for! He gripped the tiller, his eyes searching for an answer.

  Then he caught the triumphant stare of the old man-and realized what had happened. “He’s pulled the bung! Get at it, Nicholas!”

  Renzi thrust past the old man and, sure enough, the water was gouting in. He prized the bung from the fisherman’s grasp and pushed it home.

  The effect was noticeable. As the bailed water flew over the side, the boat returned to its previous jaunty bob.

  “We must be out far enough,” Renzi said.

  The rocks and islands had fallen away astern and it looked a safe distance for a big ship to be traveling offshore. The vast seascape, however, seemed careless of their existence, exuberant rollers surging past, superimposed on a massive underlying swell that seemed to flex like mighty muscles moving under the surface of the ocean.

  Renzi doused the little sail and took position at the oars again, keeping the bows facing the oncoming rollers with occasional tugs. They waited.

  It had seemed a good idea, simply to wait for the blockading cruisers to happen by, but they had no idea of strategic naval movements and, as the day wore on, the idea lost its appeal and finally slipped toward fantasy. There must be over a thousand miles of coastline to blockade, and with how many ships? The chances that one would happen along just at this time were small, in fact vanishingly small.

  The seas were now relatively slight, the weather kind and sunny, but that would not last — it could change with terrifying speed, faster possibly than they could make it back to land. The boat could not take even a small deterioration in conditions.

  Kydd was aching with the fatigue that bracing against the constant jerking about was producing. It was a never-ending struggle to avoid being flung this way and that as the boat slammed to and fro. The corporal had lost his headgear and was touched by the sun. He was clearly suffering: weak from seasickness, he flopped about as the seas buffeted the tiny boat, his eyes rolling. The private was sunk in misery, facing outboard with both arms over the side. Piggott sat with his back to the mast, his eyes closed.

  What if a ship finally came and it was French? The thought stabbed at Renzi, but it was the more likely outcome, given that they were only a few miles from France. He decided not to speak of it, but furtively checked the horizon. It was empty.

  The sun lowered in the sky, and the breeze grew colder and strength ened. The sea took on a darker, more somber tint as the angle of the sun’s rays dipped.

  Renzi knew it would soon be decision time. It was inconceivable that they could survive the night. A tide set could carry them dangerously far down the coast, the weather might clamp in. The only option was to return.

  They would have to kill the old man. It was the only way to
be sure that he would not betray them. Then they could touch on one of the tiny beaches and hide for the night. He looked at the old fisherman, who sat near Kydd, looking back to the coast with a distant expression, his hands fidgeting — old, tough hands gnarled by the hard work of years.

  “We have to return,” Renzi said, and Kydd nodded. Renzi hoisted the sail, ignoring the old man’s exultant look. He reached up to dip the lug for the return passage, but as he did so his eyes caught a subliminal fleck of white somewhere out to seaward. The boat swayed alarmingly as he stood up, but he was heedless. The horizon remained a stippled line, still with no sign. He scanned until his eyes watered and suddenly caught the distant flash of white again before it disappeared. “Sail!” he screamed.

  Kydd leaped to his feet, the boat teetering over and just recovering. He dropped to the tiller and they altered course for the stranger.

  “What if it’s a Frenchie?” Kydd asked.

  Renzi looked at him and shrugged.

  The evening waves reared up higher, it seemed, dusky shadows in their wake, the beginnings of a sunset ahead. In a fever of excitement they saw the white fleck come in and out of existence, then remain steady.

  “If it’s a Frog, c’n we get away agin’?” the private wanted to know.

  “I’m afraid not,” Renzi replied. Almost anything afloat would outsail their little craft. There was no point in hiding the fact.

  The white grew in size, resolving into three distinct blobs, and Renzi could see that it was a ship-rigged vessel on a broad reach, cutting their course ahead. Her hull was obscured most of the time by the heave of the swell, but it was sufficient to note that she had but one gundeck, and therefore was not Duke William. The disappointment was hard yet he had no reason to think that it would be Duke William and he was angry with himself for the loose thinking.

  “Une frégate française, je crois!” the fisherman said, with great satisfaction.

  The masts altered their aspect, and it was apparent that the ship was turning to intercept. “He thinks it’s a French frigate,” Renzi told Kydd quietly.

  “Ce vaisseau-là c’est La Concorde de L’Orient,” the old man said definitively.

  “What’s he say?” Kydd said.

  “Says that’s La Concorde.”

  “You sure?” Kydd said, his voice unnaturally intense.

  “Yes.”

  “Ha!” Kydd shouted. He transfixed the old man with a look of triumph. “Tell the old bastard that it’s a French frigate, all right — but she was taken by us in the first week of the war! By Circe 32, if my memory serves aright!” He laughed.

  With a bone in her teeth the frigate came along in fine style — and, sure enough, above the yellow and black of her hull streamed out the white ensign of Admiral Howe’s fleet.

  The soldiers, roused from their stupor, capered insanely. The private tore off his red coat and waved it frantically over his head, screaming in delight.

  “God rot me! An’ what could yer do then, Tom?”

  Stirk’s interest encouraged Kydd to go on. He grinned at the circle of faces and said, “Well, what else could I do if I didn’t fancy spendin’ me days in a Frog chokey? It was over the fence and in with the pigs ’n’ all their shite.”

  There was a hissing of indrawn breath. The dog-watch was well under way, the off-duty watchmen taking a pipe of baccy on the fo’c’sle in the gentle glow of the lanthorns, others with their grog cans.

  “Hey now, Pedro! Yon Kydd — his pot has the mark of Moll Thompson upon it!”

  The Iberian started, then grimaced. “For a story li’ that, I give,” he said, filling Kydd’s empty tankard from a small beer tub.

  “Where is Renzi?” Claggett asked.

  Kydd looked at him levelly and said, “He’s got his reasons right enough, Samuel. We just leave him alone, should he want it that way.”

  “Didn’t mean ter be nosy, Tom, but yer must admit, he’s a queer fish, is Renzi.” Kydd said nothing, drinking his beer and still regarding Claggett steadily. “Yair, well, ’e’s yer friend an’ all,” Claggett said.

  “I were taken once, but it weren’t the Johnny Crapauds!” Doggo’s roughened voice cut into the silence, his features animated.

  “Well, ’oo was it, then?” said Jewkes.

  Doggo looked at him. “Why, it were in . . . let me see, year ’eighty-six, it were.” He scratched at his side. “I were waister in the Dainty sloop, ’n’ we took the ground one night on the Barbary coast. Not th’ best place ter be, yer’ll admit. Well, seas get up ’n’ next thing she’s a-poundin’ something cruel. Starts ter break up, so’s we gets thrown in the oggin all standin’. O’ course, we nearly all drowns. In fac’, it were just me left to tell yez the tale. Well, I gets dashed ashore ’n’ just manages ter crawl up the strand, when all these A-rabs on ’orses comes ridin’ up. I ’eard o’ these Bedoos before, see, they’re bad cess, but I can’t do anythin’ like I am. They ties me up ’n’ rides off with me ter their camp.”

  His ugly face grew solemn. “There, mates, it were right roaratorious, what wi’ me bein’ a white man ’n’ all. See, they wants me as their slave. ’N’ that’s what I was, sure enough — has to bow ’n’ scrape, all togged up in saucy gear wi’ turban ’n’ all — you’d ’ave ’ad a good laff should you’ve seen me! Yeah, seemed I were there ferever.”

  “Did yer get away, Doggo?” Jewkes asked, bringing on a general laugh at his question.

  There was a play at discovering his pot was empty. After it was filled again, Doggo continued. “Well, mates, seems an A-rab princess falls in love wi’ me, takes me fer her own. Sees me un’appy like, it breaks ’er heart. So she decides to put love before dooty ’n’ after a night o’ passion sees me off afore dawn on a fast horse, ’n’ here I is!”

  The whole fo’c’sle fell about in laughter.

  With the spreading warmth of the drink inside, the soft dusk and his shipmates about him, Kydd lay back happily, staring up at the stars just beginning to wink into existence in an ultramarine sky, and pondered at the extremes of experience that life could bring.

  It was sheer luck that Duke William and her escorting frigates had been passing at that particular time. She had been on passage back to her station after landing her evacuees in Plymouth, and at no time would ever have contemplated a blockade of their part of the coast. In the sick bay men writhed in pain, wretches who would have reason to curse the experience if they survived, but Kydd had — and without a scratch. And the old fisherman had been set free with his boat, but had fiercely scorned the couple of guineas offered him by the frigate captain and sailed off making obscene gestures.

  And, of course, the proud moment of being received in the great cabin by his captain to tell his story. “Remarkable!” Caldwell had said, making free with his scented handkerchief at certain points in the tale. Besides ordering a gratis issue of slops to replace their tattered and smelly clothes, he had courteously enquired if there was anything further he could do for Kydd.

  “To be rated seaman!” Kydd had replied immediately.

  Raising his eyebrows, the Captain had glanced at his clerk. “Should you satisfy the boatswain, by all means.”

  The tough old boatswain had been plain. It would not be easy. “Hand, reef and steer, that’s only the start of it, lad. Good seaman knows a mort more. But I’ll see as how you gets a proper chance to get it all under yer belt.”

  He was as good as his word. Paired off with Doud, Kydd found himself in every conceivable element of seamanship. From the tip of the jibboom to the royal yardarms, the cro’jack to the fore topsail stuns’l boom, sometimes frightened, always determined, he steadily made their personal acquaintance. Doud was a prime seaman, having been to sea since a boy; he was also an excellent choice as mentor. He challenged and cajoled Kydd unmercifully, but was always ready with a hand or an explanation.

  “We’ll take in a first reef in the topsails, I believe,” said Lieutenant Lockwood. His serious young face studied the gray scud o
verhead.

  “Way aloft, topmen — man topsail clewlines and buntlines! Weather topsail braces!”

  The watch on deck was mustered: some began their skyward climb to the tops while others at the braces heaved laboriously around the yards to lay them square to their marks. The sails, no longer taut and working, flapped noisily.

  It was Kydd’s first experience at laying out on the yardarm. It was one thing moving out on a steadily pulling set and drawing sail, as he had already done with Doud, and another to achieve something on a loose cloud of flogging canvas.

  The captain of the top was unsympathetic. “Weather yardarm, cully,” he ordered.

  “Where the sport is!” said Doud cheerfully — he would pass the weather earring, the most skilled job of all. Kydd just looked at him.

  A heavy creaking of sheaves, and the topsail yard began to lower. The spacious maintop seemed crowded with men, and Kydd took a sharp blow in the side from the men working the reef tackles, which, pulling up on the appropriate reef cringle, had to take the deadweight of the sail.Doud grinned at Kydd as they waited. “Be ready, mate,” he warned.

  “Trice up and lay out!”

  “Go!” Doud yelled, and swung onto the yard. The inboard iron of the stuns’l boom was disengaged and the boom tricer hoisted it clear. Doud moved out quickly to the farthest extremity of the yardarm and turned to straddle it facing inwards.

  With his heart in his mouth Kydd followed. As he had learned, he leaned his weight over the thick yard until his feet were firmly in the footrope, pushing down and back, and arms clinging to the yard inched his way outward. It was worse than he had expected. The increasing beam seas were causing a roll, which was magnified by height — over to one side, a sudden stop, then an acceleration back to the other in a dizzying arc. In front and beneath him, the hundred-foot width of topsail boisterously flapped and tugged, and he knew he was being watched from below.

  “Get movin’, you maudling old women!” the captain of the top shouted.

  Sailors were being held up by his slow movements, but he couldn’t help it. It was heart-stopping to be up there, with nothing but a thin footrope and the yard — and empty space beneath his feet to the deck far below. He knew that soon he would not even have the yard to cling to — both his hands would be needed for work.