Beautiful, he thought? But so it was, astonishingly so. It had a brooding aspect, the black water snaking, bubbling along with enormous muscularity between the crowding, crouching town and the dark hulls below the massed spars and upper works even the most silent of them somehow full of purpose and intent. Sometimes, also, the dully filthy smell was cut by gentle breezes, aromatic zephyrs like veins of purity sent, he imagined, from fields and woods and water not far beyond the teeming southern riverside. He fell to imagining the lower reaches, beyond where they were heading this night. Once below the giant city near half a million of souls, so it was said there would be wide open empty spaces to the estuary, then the sea. He could hardly wait.
Near Deptford things were blacker, on the river and the shore, with areas of total darkness, flat shores bereft of human habitation or moored ships. As they raced down upon the area of the dockyard sparks of light appeared once more, and the loom of ships could be sensed and seen. There were fires in some places, and the smell of burning wood and melted pitch.
"Sam? It is the middle of the night. Are men working here?"
Holt laughed.
"Some say they never work at Deptford," he replied. "The shipwrights have their own disease, called "Wake me later". It will be fires set off in the day, most likely. Their business arms will be engaged in lifting pots if anything."
"What ship?" one of the boatmen grunted. It was the larboard man, a not un jovial type of forty years or so; who had not raised a smile, however, at Sam's pleasantry about the dock workers.
"Again?" said Sam, who had misheard.
"What ship? This is Deptford, in one minute. If we overshoot we must row back agin the tide, and that should cost you. What vessel are you seeking?"
"The Biter. She is a '
"I know the Biter. Jack Gunning's ship. So you are the Press."
Both men rested on their oars, despite no spoken signal. Bentley saw clear dislike in their expressions.
"Aye," said Sam Holt, clearly. "We are the Press and you are water men I paid you fares, not the Ring's bounty. No doubt you have protections, but we do not want to see 'em, ferrymen are not for us. She's over there, I see her. Beyond that pink."
Perhaps they had not been threatening, merely pausing to get their bearings on their target. Whatever, both fell to pulling straight away, to crab across the current. Bentley, vaguely relieved, studied the tiers ahead. Out of the darkness emerged a darkened ship, not long but bulky, with high bulwarks and high stern. No lights were apparent, but at her gangway two boats were moored, bumping gently against the high black side in the tideway. Still wordless, the boatmen spun their craft to head the flow, which pushed her sideways till they ranged beneath a boom rigged outboard from the gangway, with pennants hanging down.
"The watchman does his job, I see," Holt muttered. "She's like a grave, if not so welcoming."
The boat bumped gently, as the bow man seized a pennant to steady her. Moving forward, Sam grasped the boom and jerked himself up to sit on it, ignoring the ladder down the Biter's side. Now the ferryman did smile.
"There we be, masters," he said. "Go you up, sir, and I will pass your dunnage."
William, despite his tiredness and bruises, could still play the seaman, so he hoped, so swung himself up after Samuel, who by now was balanced upright on the boom and striding for the deck. Through the gangway in the bulwark, Sam turned to watch, then put his arms out to catch the soft bag as it flew. That dropped, he reached into a pocket and flipped a coin. Dark night, moving water; it was snapped out from the air like magic even as the boat crabbed sideways and astern.
"Goodnight to thee as well," said Sam ironically, as the silent men pulled off. They went for Deptford steps, he noted, in hope to get another fare, or maybe wait in a tavern till the hardest of the ebb eased off. William, beside him, felt live timber beneath his shoes, felt greater excitement, strange mixed sensations rise within him, his eyes only for inboard, the wherry and the river quite forgotten. The deck moved beneath him, and it was his deck. His eyes sought everything, as he became accustomed to the local dark. This was the Biter, this was his. What sort of ship would she turn out to be? And what sort of man her commander, so unloved?
That night, as Samuel had predicted, he was not to know. Sam shouldered his companion's bag, and picked his way with care across the Biter's waist. It was cluttered, filthy, strewn with half-cut wood, uncoiled rope, and spars. A topsail yard, it looked like, lying stripped of furniture, supported by the bulwark and by trestles, while from above loose cordage hung down in festoons, silent only by virtue of there was no wind to swing it. Bentley glanced aloft, and against the starlight saw confusion, yards akimbo, some sails but loosely stowed on them.
"Are we called to sail tomorrow, Sam? Surely not, it would be impossible."
"Hey!" Sam shouted, not loud but gruff and threatening. "You there! Are you the watch keeper?"
There was a noise ahead of them, not unlike a pig at trough. A jumble of deck gear transformed before Will's eyes into a sailor -nay, a shore man doubtless from the yard, a lanky, rheumy wretch well in his dotage, or possibly in drink. As he unrolled himself into an upright shape, a sweet unpleasant smell of body greeted nostrils. The man's eyes were ringed in pink, gleaming in a sallow, whiskered face. Good Christ, thought William, let's hope he's from the yard. I have seen too many sailor men like him.
"Do you know me?" barked Holt. "I am first officer here. You are asleep and drunk on duty. I will have you flogged."
If the threat had weight in it, the watchman failed to shrink with fear. He cleared his throat, and spat on to the deck an act that William found shocking. The gob of phlegm gleamed, uncomfortably near his shoe, ignored by its projector and by Samuel, as if it had no weight at all, not even as a gesture. Sam made a movement of impatience, solely at wasted time.
"Is the captain not on board?" he asked. "We are expected. Have the yard then done so little? It is extraordinary."
"Captain's in his crib," said the watchman. "Not yourn, though, master. Won't be pleased to see 'ee, neither."
"We'll see," Holt said, briskly. "Now get you to your post, you sot. I shall speak about this conduct to the yardmaster. Come, Will. Careful as you go."
As they moved aft, the watchman hardly stirred; till finally he merged into the dark from whence he'd come, seated beside a stack of lumber for a bottle or a sleep. Discipline, thought William, is unusual on this ship. Or then, mayhap the discipline he knew was the odd fish he must wait and see.
"Insolent old toad," said Samuel, easily. "The power of command, eh William? With Kaye on shore I am in charge here, don't you see? Which is why, doubtless, he trembled at my every word."
"But he said the captain's in his cabin."
"He said not "ourn", he said the master. Gunning. In Deptford, as in anywhere I guess, who pays the piper calls the tune. The master's in the captain's cabin, where he should not be. At the very least I must check what's afoot, Lieutenant Kaye is very stiff about his cabin, you will learn these little protocols. Catch hold your bag, I must not seem like a chapman, must I? Better still, let's leave it on the deck. John Watchman there will keep it safe from footpads!"