There was a hard gaiety on the air: women sported martial cockades and children strutted about, every gentleman wore his sword. The markets were thronged, and the street cries, as lusty as ever, suggested that none in this town was about to be affected by the awful forces gathering just a few leagues across the water.
The cheerful hustle lifted his spirits. Restored, he threw a coin to a begging child and returned to the seafront. The view from the shore was impressive: the crowding ships in the Downs and, just visible on the horizon, a sable-brown line that was the Goodwin Sands.
Reluctant to quit his view of the sea he strolled along in the warm sunshine and pondered the peculiar difference to be had in perspectives of it: from the rock-still shore, the land-bound saw the line of white waves acting as a boundary between the two worlds, and beyond, the sea's mystery, with ships disappearing so quickly from man's ken over the horizon to far and unknowable regions.
A sailor's prospect, however, was of being borne along on a constantly moving live quintessence without limit, the land an occasional encounter in the endless oceanic immensity.
His steps took him past the King's Naval Yard and on to Deal Castle. Part of a coastal chain put in place by Henry VIII, under much the same invasion threat, the battlements were small, round and squat. They were from an era when cannon had been changing the rules of war but even today they were manned by redcoats and ready for service.
At the top of the shingle, scores of Deal luggers were drawn up before humble cottages and huts, each of which had a capstan to the front with men working on them or just sitting in the sun with a comfortable pipe and baccy. Kydd wandered up. Every tiny sea-place on England's coasts had its own peculiarities and he was curious to see how the unusual steep shingle landings had influenced the boats' construction.
They were all substantial craft, few less than forty feet long and fifteen broad, long-yarded with a square-headed dipping lug sail and handy mizzen, and remarkably high-waisted. Most had an iron skeg with an eye at the turn of the forefoot to assist in hauling up, and all were bright-sided, the varnish work on them as winsome as a new-fallen horse chestnut.
Eyes turned suspiciously on Kydd as he crunched through the shingle to take in the bluff lines of one, the Kentish Maid. He bent double to catch the rise of bilge. As he suspected, the high gunwale was matched by a broad, flat bottom, ideally suited to coming ashore on a steep beach in anything of a sea.
He peeped over the gunwale. It was simply equipped with a small shelter forepeak; it was easy to sense great strength. The boat stank richly of its sea gear. Caressing the sturdy sides in admiration he was startled when a shrill voice challenged him. "Oi! Th' young man yonder! I seen ye—what are y' doing wi' that boat?"
A wizened but bright-eyed old man sitting on a pair of shipwreck timbers shook a knobby stick at him. Kydd chuckled and went over to him. "Why, sir, I'm taking m' pleasure in the sight of as fine a barky as ever I've seen. Elm-built, is she?"
The man squinted at him. "Then who are ye, then?"
"M' name is Thomas Kydd. May I know . . . ?"
"Tickle—William Tickle—an' ye hasn't said as why ye're so taken wi' th' Maid."
Kydd had passed an ancient tap-house on the way. "Sir, if you'd tell me more o' these I'd be honoured t' stand you a glass o' the true sort in the tavern."
"No."
"Well—"
"I likes th' prospects here," Tickle said, waving his stick at the boats drawn up. "Go to y' tavern an' get me a jorum of ale an' I'll tell ye all there is t' know."
Kydd returned with a potboy and, leather tankards a-flow with dark beer, he learned from the Deal boatman.
"A hard life, t' be sure," Tickle began. "Hovellin' an' foyin' is all we got, isn't it? That an' the other."
"The other?"
"Gift o' the sea. Free tradin', like."
Smuggling.
"Er, tell me of your foying, Mr. Tickle."
"Aye, well, it's naught but plyin' for trade wi' the merchant jacks out in th' Roads as wants fresh wegetables, dry provisions, y' knows."
Kydd nodded. There would be many a blue-water merchantman inbound from a lengthy voyage who would be more than willing to pay over the odds for fresh victuals.
"And we'm Channel Pilots o' the Cinque Ports—Trinity lot gives best t' us, any which wants t' try th' Goodwins in a fog."
"Hovelling—can't say as I've heard of it afore," Kydd said.
"Then I guess ye haven't been t' sea much. Where ye from?"
"Um, Guildford, Mr. Tickle. The hovelling . . . ?"
It turned out to be as colourful and dangerous a sea trade as any he had heard of in his years of voyaging. Thoroughly at home around the treacherous Goodwins, on fine-weather days the hovellers would hoist their distinctive blood-red sails and occupy themselves sweeping the seabed close to the great banks for anchors and ground tackle lost in storms. They would sweat to recover them by art and sea craft and either bring them aboard or sling them beneath and return, storing them in an anchor field close to the King's Naval Yard.
On foul-weather days they would keep close watch on the edge of the Goodwins for signs that a ship was dragging her anchors or had lost one and was nervously eyeing the remainder. A stout Deal lugger would then be launched into the violence to take out a complete anchor, weighing tons, along with heavy coils of cable, and offer it to the anxious captain for a handsome fee. It was seldom refused.
That explained the high-sided construction and generous scantlings of these hardy boats. Kydd could only imagine the fearful effort required to set the boats to sea with such a load.
"Why, thank 'ee, Mr. Tickle," he said, happily back to his old self. "You've quite explained it all for me. I'm much obliged." He doffed his hat politely and required the old seaman to accept a small contribution in token of the time he had spent.
"How goes it, Mr. Purchet?" Kydd asked, looking doubtfully at the cluttered larboard deck. The King's Naval Yard had done well to have five shipwrights and their sidesmen out to them within two days and their clunking and chipping had sounded ever since throughout the daylight hours.
"Main fine, sir."
It seemed that their primary concern, the slide on which the car-ronades recoiled, was simple enough to repair, the design being nothing more than a sliding bed on a longer one and secured by a thick pin. The quarterman shipwright was therefore sanguine that Teazer's armament would be whole again within the week. The bulwarks were another matter, seasoned timber of such length apparently not in ready supply and . . .
Kydd promised to take better care of his command in the future and, in the meantime, offered an earnest by which it would appear the timbers would be more expeditiously acquired. It would be a frustrating wait. but in Deal, rooms were to be had for sea officers at the genteel end of Middle Street, and Kydd established a presence ashore, where Renzi's valuable work on his treatise could be kept in a place of safety.
"Yes, Mr. Hallum?" Kydd said, about to step ashore one morning.
"I'm truly sorry to have to report that a midshipman has not returned from leave."
Calloway, in the Navy since childhood and as loyal as it was possible to be? Or could it be their first-voyage new reefer Tawse, unable to face another bloody action?
"Who is it?"
"Calloway, sir."
"He's to wait on me the instant he returns on board." Kydd swore under his breath. There was no possibility of going ashore until this had been resolved, and when Calloway did return an hour later his captain was is no mood for trifling.
The young man stood before him, pale-faced but defiant. "I'm sorry, Mr. Kydd. It's . . . I overslept, is all."