A shroud. The cloth she lay on was spread beneath her, its starkness setting off the browner whiteness of her skin, the devastating blackness of the curled and tangled hair. But above the thighs and softly bulging belly, just above the breasts, her neck and shoulders and her head were all cut off by it, it was draped over the upper part of her, and her arms were hidden in it as if in sleeves. It could have been a shroud, or a prioress's habit with the front pulled up to reveal her nakedness, then piled softly on her face, the arms laid down beside her, encased. She faced him with her soles, the angles of her spread limbs drew his eyes to the forest and the dark joining of her just below it, and her breasts lay placid on her ribs, the right one pointing directly upward, the left, weight eased by the slight twist of her attitude, pointing to the left, its nipple soft and almost pink. She faced him with a total surrender, masked and oblivious, and William could hardly bear to look, nor could he take his eyes away. She was lovely. Oh God, oh God, dear God. He found her loveliness itself.
He must have sat there twenty minutes, maybe more, unmoving, still as, fascinatingly, so was the maid. Flames of the candles moved, a breath of air from time to time blew over them, and patterns on her still flesh danced beneath dark lines of twisting smoke, but she lay as if asleep or dead. He knew she was not dead William had never, ever, in his years on earth before seen anything so full of life and he found her stasis extraordinary. After his first shock was past, he examined her, inch by inch, inch by loving inch, like a surveyor charting a new-found land. When the spell was broken, by one of the other men, he was shocked anew, quite horrifyingly.
The man approached him not the breather, and not with heavy tread while William was utterly absorbed in the soft curving glory of the round dome of the belly, crested by a tiny curl of hair around the umbilical dip. He spoke quietly, with his mouth not three inches from Will's ear, which made him jump so hard he nearly slipped from off his seat. His eyes jerked up and his hand, involuntarily, shut the peephole cover with a woody snap. The man's voice was thick with drink and scorn.
"You would think she'd move, though, wouldn't you?" he said. "All that to shake at us, and she just lies there. Christ, I've been watching you ten minutes past, like a moonstruck booby. You ain't seen her face, then? Now that'd be a sight to look at, and a half!"
William was on his feet, crouched forward, shaken. The man's breath, meaty and rich with wine, washed over him. He was a short, fattish person, in a sober coat and breeches, fairly gone in liquor. He stood facing him, a friend, a confidant, swaying comfortably, uncomfortably close. And smiling.
"She's beautiful, the maid, eh? Well, from the neck down she is, she is indeed. But you can't have her, see, because she's new in from the north! She come in here two days ago or so, and they cover up her physog because she's sold her teeth! So beautiful, so soft, so lusty and so fang less She's only been a day or two, but there's a list for kissing two mile long already, when she's healed!"
William's untouched glass of port went over as he got away. For the second time this maid had kicked him in the stomach, so it felt. He was sick with horror, with pity and revulsion. He did not know or care how, but it must be Cecily he had been staring at, ogling, falling half in love with on the craziest of grounds. The room in front of him was empty, the other ogler must have gone unnoticed, and behind him the meaty one was laughing, liquid in his throat.
"Aye, she'll be a lovely kisser won't she, if you've got a shilling and you like it like the French! No fangs, but tongue and gum aplenty! Hey! Do not forget to button up, young man! You meet some devils in a place like this!"
Oh Christ, poor Cecily, thought William as he ran. He ran down passageways, he stamped down stairs, he found blind corridors and locked doors, and then he found a door that opened and burst through it, dying for fresh air. It was a room, though, a kitchen and a parlour for the denizens, the maids, the whores. There was a cooking fire, and in front of it some women, old and young. One, in a shift only, threw up her hands and screeched, while another gasped as if transfixed. She had a cloth in front of her, and on the instant gathered it in both hands and conveyed it to her face to cover it. Too late, for he already knew her, as she knew him, and this third shock nearly took his heart from out his body. Her face was bruised and ruined, mouth torn and sore. Even the eyes he recognised, above the balled cloth pressed into her chin. Cecily, the maid who'd sold her teeth. So the maid upstairs, then? The naked, lovely maid? She'd also sold her teeth, and her face was covered, too. Deb. Who else but Deborah?
Twelve
The yard at Deptford, and John Gunning both, had suffered much in terms of denigration. The men were idle was the bottom of the gossip, idle, prone to disappearance into holds or holes, and dishonest in the great dockyard tradition. John Gunning owner, sailing master, drunk was praised in general only for his choice of whores. But by next morning, when William woke up, the ship was ready for a trip downriver, and Gunning was a man renewed.
William was aroused, in fact, by Samuel Holt, who shook him roughly from a drunken sleep. Light was Will's first sensation, arising from the depths, then pain as it flooded through his eyes. No time to groan, though. Samuel wanted him alive, and upright.
"Get on your feet, man! We are dropping down to Woolwich straight away! Look, Gunning's in control, and they're expecting us. There's a breeze to hoy us down the river but we need two kedges clearing, just in case. Your job; we're still short of a hand or two."
"But '
But Sam had gone. Will lay there, in the cot, for only seconds more, then dragged himself upright. He felt sick and dizzy, perhaps not sober still, but the noises up above, the crashings and the runnings, made him aware, for the first time since he'd come on board this ship, that there was a Navy way, and by some miracle it had arisen from the dead. His mind flashed over the last evening and the night, but he allowed it no space to grow. There was a Navy way of sleeping when you found a minute out of nowhere, there was a Navy way of clearing your mind of clutter for the job in hand. He remembered Robinson, the dour master of the Welfare, who had used to say to the midshipmen 'you may concentrate or die; the choice is yours," with his hating little smile. Even that strange, good man William now cleared out. He pulled his breeches on, splashed water on his face from out his canvas basin, and licked his teeth to get the taste from off them. Of last night's liquor, and debauchery.
On deck, to some extent, the Biter was transformed. The yards and canvas, newly rigged and overhauled after the ministrations of the dock yardmen were loosed off and ready, for hauling or for dropping from the yards. Men were up aloft, and the hands on deck had flaked and coiled halliards, braces, tacks and sheets. Compared with the ships that he had sailed on before, the men were few indeed he counted eight he knew by sight, excluding Holt and Gunning, who was standing by the wheel. But there were four or five he did not know Gunning's own, perhaps? and Kaye's boat's crew were not there for counting, either. Neither, he was taken by the realisation, was Lieutenant Kaye himself. What bizarre episode was this, to go to Woolwich to take on gunner's stores without a Navy officer in full command?
Mind clear again: Sam came to him with Jem Taylor, boatswain, to elucidate. They had split the people into their customary watches, and shore-based slackness was at an end. Taylor's watch had cleared anchors and mooring gear to a large extent, with a little detail left to oversee Will's task. Now his hands were put to pull-and-tailing, mostly, while others cleared and bailed the cutter and the yawl, ran in the boom from over side and overhauled the towing warps. The breeze was favourable and light, the tide unlikely to give them seizures, but towing would be inevitably necessary when they reached Biter's new berth, and might be so before if things went awkward. Mr. Bentley should work with Taylor, Mr. Holt suggested delicately, but with the proviso that if need be Jem would be over side like the proverbial, and the midshipman how grand, how grand! would be on his own. Except he'd have some hairy arses to control. The implication of course unspoken was that he might not be up to it, for whatever reason. Will knew Samuel expected him to make a statement, to set his stall out, as it were: the idea being, to let the people know his mettle. Mind clear, and working quickly, Will made his choices.