These were set out under the tamarind tree. When he had finished, she turned to him with a timid smile and laid her hand on his arm. 'Thank you, Thomas. Shall we sit?' She guided him to the row of chairs in the front, which Kydd was uncomfortable to see was the only seating. Behind them the blacks squatted in the dust.
Caird took his position in the pulpit, looking stern and majestic. His voice boomed out 'Psalm eighty-four, the eleventh verse: "The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord God will give the grace and glory; no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly."' A warm roar of approbation and shrill cries of 'Hallelujah, Lord!' resounded, and the first hymn was announced: 'And Are We Yet Alive!'. It was sung with true feeling, in joyous counter-harmony.
As she sang, Beatrice's pale face under the muslin bonnet was pink with animation, her grey eyes sparkling as she glanced at Kydd. The hymn, despite the outlandish setting, brought back memories of Sundays in Guildford. His mother in her best clothes, he in his once-a-week coat and breeches next to his father. Kydd recalled staring dully at dust-motes held unstirring in shafts of sunlight coming from the freedom of the outside world into the utterly still church.
"That was well, Thomas. It is our pleasure to invite you to our Sunday dinner, should you be at leisure.' Caird had preached powerfully: his sermon was strong on duty, obedience, law and sin but sparing in the matter of joy.
The Sunday roast would not have shamed his mother's table, even if the potatoes had a subtly alien bitterness, the beef a certain dark sweetness. Once again opposite Beatrice, he tried to engage her in conversation. 'Thumpin' good singing, th' negroes,' he said hesitantly. Beatrice flicked a glance at him, but quickly lowered her eyes.
Caird interjected. 'They do so take joy in entering into the House of the Lord,' he said. 'Should an assembly in England take such a joy it would be gratifying.'
Kydd had been impressed with their spirit: his King's Negroes in comparison to those he had seen today were morose. Should he not be perceiving their better parts, appeal to their spirit? 'Y'r pardon, but I can't sort of... can't get close to 'em, if you know what I say .. .'
'Your concern does you credit, sir, and therefore I will speak directly.' Caird dabbed his lips and put down his napkin. 'It is easy for us to feel sorry for the negro, his condition, his lot in life, but we must not believe that in this way we are helping him.'
Kydd nodded, not really understanding.
'You will nevertheless find that I am the sworn enemy of any who ill-abuse their black people, who grind them to the dust and then discard them.' He fixed Kydd with a look of such fire that Kydd was forced to look down meekly at the tablecloth.
'But, Thomas, in my heart I cannot pretend that they are of the same blood as you or I — they are not!'
Kydd looked up in puzzlement.
'The Good Book itself tells us that they are an accursed people. Genesis, chapter the ninth, tells how Noah placed a curse on his son Ham and all his seed. From that day to this the black man is placed into subjection.
'And scientifical studies do show this: Edward Long, a vile, ranting fellow, nevertheless forces us to confront the fact that they are really another species of man, lacking vital parts that give us judgement and moral sensibility. Merely look upon them - they are not of our kind.'
Kydd sat silent.
'Therefore, my friend, you really should not look to their natures for the finer feelings. They are not possessed of any.' Caird looked down, then raised his face with a gentle, noble expression. 'For this it is my life's work to minister to them, to help them understand and be content in their duty and place in the world, to bear their burdens in patience and through God's Grace to aspire to His Kingdom.'
'Amen!' breathed Beatrice.
It made things much clearer. If they were a debased form of mankind, of course he was wrong to expect much in the way of feelings. But something still niggled. 'An' is slavery right?' Kydd asked stubbornly.
Caird looked at him fondly. 'It does seem hard, but you must understand that they need direction, discipline, to control the brutality that lies beneath. Slavery is a mercy. It provides a strong framework in which they may learn to curb their natures.' He paused and looked at Kydd directly. 'It is not the slavery which is evil, it is the manner in which some do enforce it.'
There was time to spare the following forenoon. The Blanche frigate was due in for repair, following a spectacular action against a heavier French frigate off Guadeloupe. Rumours flew about that her captain had been killed. Kydd was keen to hear the full story, remembering his own desperate battle in Artemis.
Blanche was delayed, so Kydd stood down his crew. Over at the boat-house, with Caird away in his office, he had nothing to do but watch the shipwrights at work. The craftsmen in the boat-house filled the space with the sound of their labour: the oddly musical thonk of a maul, the regular hiss of the try plane, the clatter of dropped planks. Steam billowed suddenly from a long chest, and a shipwright gingerly extracted a steaming plank, carrying it to a half-clad boat. Another took one end and they eased it around the tight curve of the bow, faying it to the plank below. Kydd could see that they were fitting it to at least three curves simultaneously — by eye alone.
All along the open side of the boat-house a spar rested on trestles, and Kydd marvelled at the mystery of mast-making: how was it possible to create a perfectly straight, perfectly round spar from a rough-hewn length of timber? It was all done by eye alone again, he noted. A straight-edged batten was nailed horizontally to one end; a pair of shipwrights worked together, and another batten was fixed the other end, sighted by eye to exactly the same level. Then mast-axe and adze were plied skilfully to produce a flat surface the whole length. Another pair of battens produced a flat opposite. By the time they progressed to the octagonal they had a true, workable approximation to a round. Kydd shook his head in wonder.
A sudden shout came from outside. Kydd ducked out and saw pointing arms. The Blanche had arrived. All work ceased, and men poured out to see the spectacle.
'See there, mates!' one man said, pointing out of the harbour to Freeman's Bay, where the broken masts of a substantial ship showed above the low-lying point of land. 'She has a thunderin' good prize!'
As Blanche came to anchor opposite, Kydd could see that she was sorely battered - a stump of mizzen, not much more of her mainmast. As she slowly swung to her anchor the stern came into view, blasted into gaping holes. The excited shouting died away at the sight, particularly at her huge battle ensign still floating from her foremast, but only half-way up.
Caird strode down from the direction of his office. 'Where is your crew, Kydd? And I'll need you two .. .' he pointed to two shipwrights working in the boat-house '.. . and the blue cutter in the water directly.'
With a chest of tools and the men, the cutter was crowded, but Kydd relished his luck in being able to see things at first-hand. He squinted under the loose-footed mainsail as Blanche grew nearer, and saw the frightful wounds of war: her sails were torn with holes, her sides pocked and battered by shot.
Caird led the way up the side of the frigate to the upper deck where they took in the results of a harrowing long-drawn-out grappling, a trial of fire that had tried her ship's company to the very limit. Subdued murmuring conveyed the essentials: indeed the Captain had been killed; there was a prize lying to seaward, which was in fact their opponent, a French frigate, a third bigger than themselves.
They clattered down the main-hatch. Caird needed to get a sight of the damage to the stern and any cannon-ball strikes between wind and water that might prove an immediate threat. Returning on deck they saw moaning wounded being swayed down into a boat, wrecked equipment dropped into another, and weary-eyed men staring at the shore. 'She comes alongside by sunset,' Caird said, to an officer with a bandaged head. 'I shall see the master attendant directly.'