Kydd lifted his pot to drink, but as it tilted he saw over the rim that Renzi’s glowering, intense eyes were on him. Disconcerted, he gave a weak smile and took a long pull at his grog. The eyes were still on him, and he noticed the unusual depth of the lines incised at each side of Renzi’s mouth.
“Where’s that useless Doud? We’ll die of hunger else,” Howell demanded. The others ignored him.
“Hey-ho, mates, and it’s pease pudding and Irish horse!” A wiry, perky young man arrived and swung a pair of wooden kids under the end of the table.
“About time, damn you for a shab!” Howell’s sneer in no way discommoded Doud, whose broad grin seemed to light up the entire mess.
“Come on, Ned, we’re near gutfoundered,” said Whaley, rubbing his hands in anticipation. The lids came off the food, and the bread barge was filled and placed on the table. Mess traps were brought down from their racks and the meal could begin.
After his previous experience Kydd had no expectations. On his plate the pease pudding was gray-green, flecked with darker spots, and clearly thickened with some other substance. The beef was unrecognizable, gray and gristly. Kydd couldn’t hide his disgust at the taste.
Bowyer saw his expression and gave a mirthless chuckle. “That there’s fresh beef, Tom. Wait till we’re at sea awhile – the salt horse’ll make you yearn after this’n!”
He slid the bread barge across to Kydd. Lying disconsolate on a mess of ship’s biscuit were the stale remnants of the “soft tommy” taken aboard in Sheerness.
Kydd passed on the bread and gingerly took some hard tack. He fastened his teeth on the crude biscuit, but could make no impression.
“Not like that, mate,” Bowyer said. “Like this!” Cupping the biscuit in his palm, he brought his opposite elbow sharply down on it and revealed the fragments resulting. “This is yer hard tack, lad. We calls it bread at sea – best you learns a taste for it.”
As they ate, Kydd was struck by the small concessions necessary because of the confined space: the wooden plates were square rather than round and therefore gave optimum area for holding food. Eating movements were curiously neat and careful: no cutlery waved in the air, and elbows seemed fixed to the side of the body. It was in quite a degree of contrast to the spreading coarseness of the town ordinary where tradesmen would take their cheap victuals together.
The last of his grog made the food more palatable, and when he had finished, Kydd let his eyes wander out of the pool of lanthorn light to the other mess tables, each a similar haven of sociability.
He remembered his piece of paper. “Joe, what does all this mean?” he said, passing over his watch and station details.
“Let’s see.” Bowyer studied the paper in the dim light. “It says here you’re in the first part of the starboard watch – with me, mate. And your part of ship is afterguard, so you report there to Mr. Tewsley for your place o’ duty.” He paused and looked affectionately at the others. “And the other is the number of yer mess. You’re messmates with us here now, and on the purser’s books for vittlin’ and grog under that number. Not that you’ll get fair do’s from Mansel, that bloody Nipcheese.” Bowyer smiled viciously. “Yeah – those duds you’ve just got, you’ll be working them off a guinea t’ the poun’ for six months yet. And with a purser’s pound at fourteen ounces you’ll not be overfed, mate.”
He looked again at the paper. “You’re in Mr. Tewsley’s division, o’ course, so yer accountable to him to be smart ’n’ togged out in proper rig, and once yer’ve got yer hammock, it says here you’ll be getting your head down right aft on this deck. Show yer where at pipe-down tonight.” He returned the paper. “That’s all ye need to know fer now. All this other lot are yer stations – where yer have to be when we go ‘hands ter unmoor ship,’ ‘send down topmast’ an’ that. You’ll get a chance to take it all aboard when we exercises.”
Kydd needed more. “What’s this about a gun, then?”
“That’s your post at quarters. We get ourselves into an action, you go to number-three gun lower deck” – he pointed to it -“but I doubts we’ll get much o’ that unless the Frogs want ter be beat again.” Taking another pull at his grog, Bowyer grinned.
But Kydd wasn’t about to let go. “When do I have t’ climb the mast, Joe?”
Bowyer’s laugh stilled the table’s conversation for a moment. He leaned forward. “Tom, me old shipmate, you’re a landman. That means nobody expects you to do anything more’n pull on a rope and swab the uppers all day. Me, I’m an able seaman, I c’n hand, reef and steer, so we gets to go aloft, you don’t.” Finishing his grog, he looked across at Kydd, his guileless gray eyes, clubbed pigtail and sun-bleached seaman’s gear making him the picture of a deep-sea mariner. He smiled good-humoredly. “That’s not ter say you’ll be a landman for ever. What say we take a stroll around the barky? Starbowlines are off watch this afternoon ’n’ yer could be learnin’ something.”
They came out by the big fore hatch onto the upper deck. Up a short ladder and they were on a deck space at the foot of the foremast, beneath its sails and rigging. The wind was raw and cutting, and the odd fleck of spray driven up by the bows bit at the skin.
“Now, Tom, this ’ere raised part is the fo’c’sle deck, an’ at the other end of the hooker is another, and it’s the quarterdeck, and we move between the two parts by means of them there gangways each side. Gives a pleasin’ sweep o’ deck, fore ’n’ aft.”
Kydd nodded. “So is this then the upper deck?” he asked.
“It’s not, mate. The upper deck is the top one of all that can run continuous the whole length, so it’s the one next under us. We often calls it the main deck, and this one the spar deck, ’cos we useta keep the spare spars handy here.”
Looking about, Kydd tried not to be awkward. “But I see one more deck above this, right at the end.”
“Aye, that’s the poop deck – important on a smaller ship keepin’ waves from comin’ aboard when we’ve got a following sea, but all it really is are the Captain’s cabins all raised up off the quarterdeck – the coach, we calls it.” Bowyer looked meaningfully at Kydd. “You should know, Tom, that the fo’c’sle is the place fer common sailors.” He turned and looked aft. “And the quarterdeck is fer officers. If you’re not on dooty you don’t go there or -”
“I know,” said Kydd.
“It’s a kind of holy ground – same even fer the officers,” Bowyer said seriously, “and they ’n’ you should pay respec’ when crossin’ on to it.”
Kydd’s quizzical look did not bring an explanation.
Bowyer tilted his head to gaze up at the complex array of masts, yards, sails and rigging with something that closely resembled affection. “Now, lookee there, Tom. Any ship-rigged packet has three masts, fore, main and mizzen, and the names of the yards and sails are nearly the same on all of ’em, so you need learn only one. And the ropes an’ all – they take their names from the masts and sails they work, so they’re the same.”
Kydd tried to adopt a nonchalant pose, holding on to a substantial-looking rope. Bowyer winced. “Be careful now, Tom – we scratches a backstay to get a wind, and we don’t want ter tempt fate, now, do we?” He moved on quickly. “And we rate our ships depending on ’ow many guns we ’ave. This one ’as three decks of guns, the most of any, near enough, so we’re the biggest, a line-of-battle ship.” The guns on the fo’c’sle glistened blackly with damp. “We’ve got near one hunnerd o’ the great guns, the biggest down low, where we lives. We can take on anything afloat, me lad. You pity the poor bastard that finds ’imself lookin’ down the eyes o’ these beauties.”
The chill wind fluttered Kydd’s jacket and made him shudder. By mutual consent they passed down the ladder to the deck below. It was mainly enclosed, but open to the sky for a distance between foremast and mainmast, here crossed by thick skid beams on which the ship’s boats were stowed.
They passed the open area to go aft. The big main hatches were here below it, a passage deep into the bowels of the vessel, and garlanded with cannon balls like lethal strands of black pearls. Past the imposing bulk of the mainmast was a final ladderway down, but across the whole width of the deck aft, their way was now barred by a darkly polished bulkhead with doors each side.
“There’s where the Admiral lives, Tom – an’ like a prince!” Bowyer moved closer and spoke reverently. “And that’s where they plan out the battles ’n’ such.” His mouth twitched. “’Twas also the place where Jemmy Boyes and his mates went afore a court-martial. Mutiny, they called it, although it were really them only talkin’ wry – the year ’eighty-seven that was.” He looked forward, his mouth compressed to a hard line. “It were our own fore yardarm where they was turned off, God save ’em.”
For a moment he stood, then went over to the ladder and looked down. “We have two more decks of guns below us, ’n’ then it’s the water-line.”
