Renzi’s face peered over the edge. “Tom?”
Kydd slumped, ashen with relief. He released Stallard, but the man’s head flopped back, his eyes staring open. He had been suffocated – and Kydd had killed him.
Kydd had taken the manner of Stallard’s death hard. “Nicholas?”
Renzi paused in bathing his friend’s healing back. “Yes?”
Kydd looked away. “I’m goin’ to run,” he said.
Renzi couldn’t believe it. Desertion could mean death – the majestic and brutal ceremony of being “flogged around the Fleet,” three hundred lashes on the cruel triangle set up in the boat, which few survived.
It was madness – and where could he desert to, here at sea, a dozen leagues off the French coast? Kydd had been unhinged by his experience, that was clear.
“I plan to be quit o’ the Navy within this sennight,” Kydd said, in a low voice. He looked up – there was only desolation in his eyes. “I’ll need help.”
“Of course, dear fellow.” Renzi felt a hundred questions crowding in – but before them all was the dawning devastation that he had lost his true friend, the only one he felt able to confide in. As a last service he would help Kydd the best way he could – help them to part, almost certainly forever. A lump began to form in his throat, for he knew that it was the end either way – Kydd would get away or he would be seized for punishment.
Kydd held out his hand. “I knew you would, my – dear friend.” Renzi gripped and held it.
Renzi slipped away quietly from the group of men in the waist. Those on deck now in the graveyard hours of the middle watch had little to do. The darkness was relieved by the cool glitter of a quarter moon and as he climbed the ladder to the fo’c’sle it was easy to make out Kydd’s lonely figure.
“Nicholas,” Kydd mumbled. He was fo’c’sle lookout, a concession to his still painful wounds.
They were quite alone. For a while they stood together, watching the endless moon-silvered waves march toward them from ahead, a hypnotic sight, the continuous lifting and soft crunching of the bow spreading white foam on each side to mark their passage.
“A pleasing scene,” Renzi ventured.
“Yes.”
Kydd’s wounds were healing, and he was able to wear his blue-striped shirt. An occasional cracking in the skin called for more goose grease, but soon he would be as fit as ever. The scar, however, he would carry for the rest of his life.
“You have your plans made now, I believe.”
Kydd was silent for a space. “Yes, I have.”
Renzi waited.
“I spoke t’ Dick Whaley.”
“And?”
“He said that every merchant ship has a hidey hole in the lower hold where they stow their best men from the press-gang, should they board. The powder brig will be with us very soon to replace our powder and shot. I will be aboard her when she returns to England.”
Renzi’s heart went cold. There would be no turning back.
“Nicholas – I have no right to ask it – ” The moonlight cast deep shadows on Kydd’s face.
“Ask, you looby.”
“I will need to sweeten the brig crew, you know, to – ”
“I understand. You shall have it.” He thought of the guineas sewn in his second waistcoat. Kydd would need them all to sustain him for whatever lay ahead.
“Thank you. I – we might meet again somewhere, y’ never know, in this poxy world.”
Two days later the brig arrived. It was a boisterous day and, as she lay alongside, an irritable boatswain had to rig, in addition to the main yard tackle, a stay end quarter tackle on fore and main to steady the big barrels as they were swayed aboard. It was not difficult to arrange assignments to the working party in the brig – most sailors had a reluctance to be in such proximity to tons of gunpowder.
At the noon meal break Kydd feigned fatigue, curling up in a corner as though stealing a nap. The brig’s crew looked at him curiously, then later invited him to share their victuals.
The Judith and Mary of Bristol was on charter to the Navy, a small, rotund but seaworthy vessel that had done the trip several times before. The crew quarters right in the eyes of the ship were tiny, but the men on each side of the table tucked into their meal with gusto. There was small beer to follow and Kydd drank it thirstily – it was no more than a few days old and was fresh and soft. He listened to the talk that followed. The Judith had reached her rendezvous late because she had sailed well out into the Atlantic to avoid any privateers at the entrance to the Channel. She was to supply Duke William and return to Devonport to de-store before going to Bristol for refit.
Kydd tried to hide his excitement – Bristol had no significant naval presence that he knew of. He took a deep breath. “Thanks for the scran. Might be I can return the favor.”
The nuggety seaman opposite grinned. “No need fer that at all, boyo!” he said, in a pleasant Welsh borders lilt.
“No – what I mean is, there’s maybe a bit o’ gold in it f’r you.”
The seamen looked at each other.
“How so, lad?”
For answer, Kydd stood up and, fixing them with blazing eyes, tore off his shirt to reveal the half-healed wounds, livid purple weals, some still weeping in places. “There’s ten guineas in it for you if I’m aboard when you sail,” he growled.
“An’ a berth in a King’s ship for us all if yer found,” another seaman muttered.
“What do y’ say?”
At first there was no response, and Kydd feared the worst.
Then the dark nuggety seaman stood up. “Name’s Finchett – Billy to you. Welcome aboard the Judith!”
Giddy with relief, Kydd sat down.
“We has a little, who shall say, accommodation in the hold we useta make our own before, when the press-gang’s out abroad. Ye’ll be safe enough there, boyo.” His palm came out, apologetically. “We needs to make other arrangements, you’ll unnerstand.”
The guineas chinked solemnly into the silence.
After the break, Kydd returned to the hold for work. Duke William required only half of Judith’s cargo of powder and soon they would cease their labor and return aboard.
Finchett clambered about over the top of the cargo as though checking their stowage.
There was much more light in the hold than there was on the old Duke William, but even so, there were dark recesses in the corners.
“Here you are, Tom,” Renzi whispered. He had noiselessly appeared at Kydd’s elbow with a shapeless piece of jute sacking. “Your gear – take it.”
Kydd grasped it, touched by his friend’s thoughtfulness.
“Last barrel, you men!” called down the boatswain.
Finchett gave Kydd a significant look and sauntered over to the after corner. Kydd followed, looking up through the hatch as though waiting for the can-hook to come plunging down again. His heart hammered. It was not too late to abandon the unknown, return to the warmth and safety of his mess – and his friends.
A bulky water barrel rested in the dark outer end of the lower hold. It had an old strop and toggle lying around it, and it looked just like the other sea stores. Finchett slipped the toggle and took the after chine in his fingers.
Checking around carefully, he lifted – the barrel split in two length-ways, hinging at the forward end. He let it fall again. “Get in when yer hears me shout ’n’ don’t come out till you hears a knock, two times two.”
Kydd wiped his clammy hands on his trousers and looked back. Renzi had come over to see the arrangement and now stood quietly.
“It seems that this is goodbye, my good friend,” Kydd whispered.
There was no answer. Renzi’s face was away from the dull light and it was difficult to read his expression.
From the opposite corner of the hold came the loud splintering of wood. “What the hell are youse doing, yer useless lubbers?” came Finchett’s shout. “Call yerselves seamen? I’ve seen better sailors in Mother Jones’s barnyard!”