"Y'r first duty, take the jolly-boat to th' customs house—I've an important message for a gentleman there . . ."
Teazer was rapidly assuming her final appearance: yards black against varnished masts, the very ends tipped in white to show up to men working out on the yardarm at night. On deck, the inside of the bulwarks was rousing scarlet against the tar-black of the standing rigging and the natural hempen pale of the working lines. The deck was not yet to a pristine salt-white finish but this would come, and with a lick of blue and gold on their figurehead the ship was handsome indeed.
Within two hours Mr Bonnici came aboard. A short, well-kept gentleman, he made heavy going of heaving himself across the bulwarks before presenting himself, puffing with exertion and supported by an ebony cane. In the plain black of a sailing master and wearing a three-cornered hat of a past age, he beamed at Kydd from a genially lined face.
"Sir, er, do I understand that you've served as master with us before?" Kydd asked, somewhat dismayed by the man's age. Could his old bones take service in a small but pugnacious man-o'-war?
Bonnici swept down in an elaborate bow, rising with an even wider smile. "In my time I had th' honour o' knowing Adm'ral Howe, sir."
"Admiral Howe, indeed!"
"As who should say—while I was master in Romulus I often 'mark this gentleman on his flagship quarterdeck a-pacing as we close wi' the enemy before Genoa, stuns'l abroad an—"
"And since then?"
Bonnici drew himself up, dignified. "An' since then, sir, consequen' upon the Royal Navy quit of the Mediterranean, I have been advisin' of the merchants abou' their shipping. You will know, sir, how difficult we have been wi' the French capture Malta, no one eat, our families—"
"Thank you, Mr Bonnici. Now, do ye have evidence o' this, Navy Board certificates of sea service possibly?" If the man could prove his service in a frigate Kydd would think about it, for without any master at all he was going nowhere.
"Sir."
Kydd took the papers. "These seem t' be in order, Mr Bonnici. Now, what do y' think o' Teazer? Do ye fancy a post as master in a brig after service in a frigate?"
Bonnici seemed to sense that the tide had turned and began to relax. However, Kydd still had doubts.
"Ah, well, sir, you names her Teazer, but she's Malta-built o' the Zammit yard, over yonder," he said. "For the sea service of the knights, o' course." He swept a glance along the line of deck. "Clean lines, some would say fuller in th' run but our shipwrights know our sea, which is short an' high. Sound timbers—Kyrenian, fr'm the Arsenale an' well seasoned these last two year—"
"That's as may be," Kydd said, with rising hope. "An' I'd like your judgement on Teazer's sailing qualities."
"Fast. Faster than y'r ship-rigged sloop, handy in stays—say ten, ten 'n' a half knots on a bowline—"
Kydd made up his mind. "I c'n offer you an acting appointment only, Mr Bonnici . . ."
Teazer's new master bowed once more, his manner reminding Kydd of his father's old-fashioned ways before a customer. He rose, and Kydd detected barely concealed relief. "I'm at your service this hour, Captain."
Their final suit of sails was due aboard shortly and Bonnici would need time to make professional acquaintance of his new ship. "Then I'll let ye get t' know y'r new master's mate. Mr Bowden! "
Kydd took one last appreciative look at the busy scene on deck, then went below. His pulse quickened: the moment had come to plan sea trials—HMS Teazer putting to sea for the first time! The last major items in her fitting out were waiting at the ordnance wharf—her guns—and then the tons of gunpowder would be brought out in lighters under a red flag that would finally make her the lethal fighting machine she had to be, as long as she could find her gunner.
Ellicott and Peck scratched away at Kydd's desk in the great cabin: every last item of stores brought aboard had to be entered in the ship's books and accounted for. Kydd took a seat in the middle and began on the pile of papers awaiting signature.
Dacres appeared. "Our gunner has arrived on board, sir," he said neutrally. "Baggage to follow."
At last! "Very well. Ask him t' present himself to me, if y' please."
The purser and clerk left the cabin, leaving Kydd alone behind the desk. He assumed a suitably grave expression.
"Come!" he said importantly, to a knock at the door.
There was a shuffling outside and a small, wiry man of indeterminate age entered. "Mr Duckitt, sir, Helby Duckitt," he said apologetically, his hat held defensively in his hands.
"I had thought t' see you before now, Mr Duckitt," Kydd said reprovingly.
"Aye, sir. We was delayed, see, the Gibraltar convoy havin' no escort and—"
"Can't be helped," Kydd said, eyeing his worn, shabby coat. "You've just got y'r warrant as gunner, I understand."
"Yes, sir."
"Then we'll get y'r gear aboard an' talk further at another time. Thank ye, Mr Duckitt, an' I mean to make y'r time in Teazer an active one," he finished meaningfully.
"Sir, by y' leave."
"Yes?"
"I thought it proper t' accept a share o' some hands in Gibraltar standin' idle. They was shipwrecked an' looking f'r a ship, as we might say. Three on 'em, good men all. Do ye want t' see 'em now?"
"Hmm." Kydd was taken with the man's craftiness in reporting for duty with a sweetener. "D' ye think there's a petty officer among 'em?"
"I'll tell 'em t' step inside, sir." Duckitt touched his forehead respectfully before leaving.
The first of the shipwrecked men padded in. Taken utterly by surprise, Kydd saw standing before him a man he had admired even from his first few days as a pressed man in the old Duke William, a mariner he had fought beside as a common seaman in the wild single frigate action that had preceded his famous voyage round the world and who had been such a figure in his adventures in the Caribbean.
"Be damned t' it—Toby Stirk!" blurted Kydd in delight, rising. "It's been s' long—let's see, Seaflower, th' Caribbean . . ." If anything, Stirk had hardened further: a leathery toughness now matched a ferocity that was almost visceral. "How are ye, cully?" Kydd said, unconsciously slipping back into foremast lingo.
Stirk hesitated, delight vying with shock at the meeting. Then impulsively he grasped Kydd's outstretched hand. "Right oragious t' see you, Tom." The well-remembered rasp had deepened with time. "Ah—that's t' say, sir." His face crinkled with pleasure.
Kydd resumed his seat. "I'm right glad t' see you, er, Mr Stirk. Y' have m' word on that," he added firmly. If Stirk, a gun captain of years and the hardest man Kydd knew, was to ship in Teazer, the temper of the whole gundeck would be transformed. "An' very glad to have ye aboard Teazer," he said carefully. "Can I ask, what was y'r rate in your last ship?" It was said as kindly as he could.
"Quarter gunner, sir," Stirk said easily, as though it was the most natural thing in the world for the young quartermaster's mate he had known to be a commander rating him for service in his own ship.
"I'd like ye to be gunner's mate—if I c'n square it with Mr Duckitt," Kydd said warmly. This was by no means a given: it was the gunner's prerogative to choose his mates. It would, however, go with Kydd's most significant recommendation and would put Stirk as the most senior petty officer gunner and the only one carried in Teazer.
"That's very kind in ye, Mr Kydd, but as y' knows, I don't have m' letters—"
"That's as may be," Kydd interrupted. "I doubt that'll trouble a gunner who's keen for his mates t' be as fine as you. You're rated gunner's mate fr'm this moment."
After he had dealt with the two others, memories washed over Kydd. Hard ones, full of violence and terror—but also those of the wonder and beauty of a voyage around the world, the fires of experience that had formed him as a seaman—and a world within a world that he had now left behind for ever.