Then there were the officers. The mate Cuzens, a fat, blustering man, did not inspire Kydd; neither did the second mate, a sharp-featured Dane. The third was not yet appointed. In deep-sea three watches, if he sailed without one he would end up himself taking the deck. And the others: a sly boatswain, elderly carpenter and witless sailmaker, whose senseless muttering as he worked had got on Kydd's nerves when he had first come aboard. That left only the eighteen seamen and four boys—apprentices they were termed but they had the knowing look of the London dockside.
Kydd had so little time left. He had worked into the night, trying to get on top of the terrifyingly large number of matters needing his attention. Even the most familiar were subtly different; he was beginning to feel punch-drunk at the onslaught.
With a casual knock at his door Cuzens entered before Kydd could reply. "Y' papers, Mr Kydd," he said, slapping down a thick envelope on his table. He had the odd habit of seldom looking directly at people—his eyes roved about restlessly. "Hear tell they're comin' aboard when y' tips the wink," he grunted.
Totnes Castle was moored out in Galleon's Reach, within sight of both the Woolwich Royal Dockyard and Deptford, making ready to take aboard her cargo of criminals. The banging and screeching Kydd could hear was the carpenter and his crew preparing the 'tween decks for use as a prison.
"Thank ye, Mr Cuzens," Kydd said heavily. "That'll be all." With ill-natured muttering, the man left and Kydd spread out the contents.
One document of thicker quality than the others caught his eye: "The Transportation Register." He smoothed it open: columns of neatly inscribed names—and sentences. This was the reality of what was about to happen: the meaningless names were under sentence of law to be Transported to Parts Beyond the Seas for terms ranging from seven years to the heart-catching "term of his natural life"—and Kydd was under the duty of ensuring that this took place.
He pushed the papers away in a fit of misery. That he had been brought so low! To be master of a prison-ship and personal gaoler to these wretches. Their crimes were dispassionately listed: the theft of lodging-house furniture, probably sold for drink; a soft-witted footman pawning a master's plate that no doubt bore an incriminating crest; a cow-keeper thinking to add to his income by taking game in the woods at night. A pickpocket, a failed arsonist. It went on and on in a monotonous round of idiocy and venality. These, of course, were the lucky ones: there were others at this very moment in Newgate prison whose next dawn would be their last.
At another knock on the door, Kydd called wearily, "Come!"
He looked up dully as a stranger entered. "Mowlett," the man said quietly, and helped himself to Kydd's only armchair.
"Oh?" said Kydd, noting the deeply lined yet sensitive face.
"Dr Mowlett—your surgeon," he said, in a tone that was half casual, half defiant.
"Ah. I was told—"
"I would think it imprudent to be too credulous about what one is told in this business, Mr, er, Kydd," Mowlett said. "Do you object?" he added, taking out a slim case and selecting a cheroot.
"If ye must, sir," he said.
Mowlett considered for a space, then replaced the small cigar. "Are you in any wise ready to show me your preparations, sir?"
"My preparations?"
"Of course." Mowlett smiled. "In that as surgeon I am also, as of this voyage, your government superintendent. You are responsible for landing the prisoners in a good state of health—in accordance with your government contract, I hasten to add. Shall we inspect their quarters?"
Kydd had quickly made his acquaintance with Totnes Castle before. Her capacious hold was still being readied; the carpenter had done the job before and seemed to know what was needed. Kydd had simply let him get on with it.
He and Mowlett stepped gingerly through the half-constructed bulkhead, studded with heavy nails and with loopholes. Their entry was a small door, but it was more like a slit, requiring them to squeeze through sideways. At sea if the ship was holed this would be a hopeless death-trap.
With hatches off, the entire drab length of the space was illuminated pitilessly, a reeking grey-timbered cavity with iron bars fitted as a barrier at midships, another further forward. As soon as the convicts were aboard, the hatches would be battened down securely with gratings and this would change to a dank hole. The carpenter straightened and offered, "Men 'ere, females the next, an' the nippers right forrard."
Kydd had forgotten that he was to carry women and children as well; with a lurch of unreality he realised that nothing in his previous sea experience had prepared him for it. Mowlett moved over to the side of the ship where most of the work was going on. Two levels of berths were being fitted along the sides with a narrow central walkway. They were like shelves: four or more would be expected to sleep together. It was all a hideous travesty of sea-going and Kydd's gorge rose.
He glanced at Mowlett and saw his lips moving as he counted. The surgeon swivelled round to count on the other side, then turned to Kydd and drawled, "Upwards of two hundred human beings confined in here, for four, five months. All weathers, half the world over and in chains."
What was he expected to do? Kydd wanted to retort. The contract was for 214 convicts and the ship was being stored and victualled accordingly. Kydd stepped forward doggedly and checked the fore hatchway; the compartment led up the ladder to the foredeck, where pens for cattle and poultry were ready. Barricades had been erected at each end of the open deck with firing slits facing inwards, and everywhere bore evidence of the real purpose of the ship.
Four or five months at sea in this! It was inconceivable, and with not a soul aboard who could in any sense be called a friend to share with him the grievous assaults on his soul. He turned and tramped back to his cabin.
Glowering out through the salt-misted stern windows at the busy Thames, Kydd was startled by a light laugh behind him. It was Mowlett, who must have followed him in, now sitting at his ease in the armchair. "So you're Kydd, a victor of the Nile and now prison-ship master! What possessed you to take the post I can't possibly conceive."
Something in Kydd's look made him add, "Easy enough. An unusual name and I do read the Gazette sometimes." He went on offhandedly, "So we can take it that it's in your interest to land the convicts in Port Jackson fit and healthy at more than seventeen pounds a head, then."
"Aye," said Kydd, cautiously.
"No, it's not," retorted Mowlett, half smiling, "It's much more in your interest to have a sickly voyage with half the convicts shaking hands with Davy Jones. Claim their rations and sell it on in New South Wales—on that alone you'll make twice your figure for landing 'em healthy."
Kydd was speechless.
"But, then, of course you'll be venturing privately? A decent freight of baubles and trinkets will have all Sydney a-twittering. It's expected, you know, and if you come all that way without you have something, well, consider the disappointment." As captain, Kydd was free to arrange cargo stowage for any such speculation and it did not take much imagination to conjure the effect in the desperately isolated colony of the arrival of the latest London items of fashion. It would be a captive market.
"You are a man of the world, Mr Kydd, and you will know that this is not where the greatest profit lies—oh, no . . ."
"So then, what is—"
"Why, I'm astonished you confess ignorance! All the world knows the one cargo perfectly sure of a welcome, that will be snatched from your hands by free and bound alike, and that is— rum! Rivers of the stuff are thrown down throats daily to dull the pains of exile, to make brave the weak, to blind the eyes to squalor. I should think the whole colony will be safely comatose in a sodden, drunken stupor for at least three weeks after our arrival . . ."