Command

the gangway and approached him. 'Now then, sir, ye can't—'

The man jerked to his feet in consternation and spun round.

It was Renzi.

'N-Nicholas!' Kydd gasped, shocked and delighted at the same time. Renzi was thin, sallow and painfully bent, but his sunken eyes burned with a feverish intensity. 'Why, dear friend, what does this mean? Do y' really—'

'Thomas. Mr Kydd, I did not think to see you . . .' He had difficulty continuing and Kydd heard an impatient Cuzens behind him.

'Y'r books, I believe?' he guessed. 'Yes,' Renzi said defiantly.

'Mr Cuzens, take this aboard and—and strike it down in m' cabin f'r now.' The mate ambled off, leaving them with the few remaining onlookers. 'Nicholas, if you—'

Renzi straightened and said carefully, 'This is my decision. I ask you will have the good grace to respect it.

'You may believe I have had time to think long and deeply about my situation and there were aspects of it that were distressing to me. It is now my avowed intention to find a fresh life—and cut myself off from a wasted past. There is a new land waiting, one where hard work and imagination will yield both self-respect and achievement.'

'Nicholas—you?' It was beyond belief that Renzi could— 'It is not a matter open to discussion. I have formally resigned my commission and am now a free agent, and therefore as a citizen whose passage money has been paid I believe I have a right to my privacy. Do you understand me?'

Kydd was lost for words, then stuttered, 'M' friend—' 'Mr Kydd. Our friendship is of long standing and I trust has been of service to us both, each in his own way. That friendship is now completed. I have . . . warm memories, which I will . . . treasure in my new existence. Yet I will have you know that as our paths have now irrevocably diverged I wish no longer to be reminded of a previous life and as such ask that I be addressed and treated as any other passenger.'

'Then, Nicholas . . . er, Mr Renzi, if there's anything I c'n do for you—is there anything at all?' But Renzi had turned on his heel and was painfully mounting the gangway.

Torn by happiness that his friend lived and anxieties about the ship, Kydd took his place near the wheel and tried to focus on the task in hand. Totnes Castle must be under weigh for New South Wales very shortly, but was Renzi in his right mind? Would he finally come to himself too late, far out on the ocean with no turning back? Or was he on a slow decline to madness?

Kydd bit his lip: the first part of his world-spanning voyage was going to be the most difficult, the winding route of the Thames to the open sea through the most crowded waterway on earth. An ignominious collision with a coal barge at the outset would be catastrophic, and although they would carry a pilot, the actual manoeuvring would be by his own orders. They would tide it out, a brisk ebb in theory carrying them the thirty-odd tortuous miles to the Isle of Sheppey and the open sea—but this had its own danger: while being carried forward with the press of water the rudder would find little bite. It did seem, however, that the south-westerly would hold and therefore their way was clear to cast off and put to sea at the top of the tide.

'Hands to y'r stations!' Apart from the huddled, tearful groups watching sadly, no one was interested in yet another vessel warping out to midstream for the age-old journey downriver. No taste of powder-smoke from grand salutes or streaming ensigns and brisk signals, just a nondescript barque flying the red-and-white pennant of a 'Bay ship with yet another cargo of heartbreak and misery.

Totnes Castle pulled slowly to mid-channel, slewing at the increasing effect of the tide. The taciturn pilot stood next to the wheel, arms folded, while Cuzens stood back, watching Kydd with a lazy smile. He must have done the trip dozens of times, thought Kydd, resentfully. On impulse he said quietly, 'Mr Cuzens, take her out, if y' please.'

The mate jerked in astonishment. 'You mean—'

'Aye, Mr Mate. Let's see what ye're made of.' Kydd stepped back. He was quite within his rights, for among the terms of his articles was an injunction to see that the first mate was 'instructed in his duties' as what amounted to deputy master.

Cuzens hesitated, then cupped his hands. 'Lay aloft, y' bastards.'

They made the depressing flat marshes of the estuary late in the afternoon and by nightfall had dropped the pilot and were making sail for open sea—and a land unimaginably remote.

The same south-westerly that had helped them to sea was now foul for the Channel. Kydd decided prudence was called for in the darkness and felt his way into the crowded anchorage of the Downs and let go anchor for the morning.

Now he had to face his human freight: they had been battened down for the run to the sea, but the nocturnal hours were not the time to be letting them roam the decks: they must remain under lock and key below.

With the guard leader, he went down the hatchway, rehearsing words of admonishment and encouragement. At the bottom of the ladder he turned—and the sight that met his eyes was closer to that of a medieval dungeon than a ship's 'tween decks. The fitful gleam of the lanthorn into the darkness forward revealed scores of bodies draped listlessly over every part of the hold, some on the shelf-bunks clutching thin blankets over four and even six, and still more wedged upright against the ship's side as if afraid to seek release in lying asleep. Moans, coughs, occasional mumbling and muttering mingled with the deep creaking from invisible waves passing beneath the hull in an endless counterpoint. A miasma rose to Kydd's nostrils of more than two hundred bodies and the unmistakable rankness of vomit. Even the movement of the slight seas round the Foreland had brought on spasms in some, which in the closeness of the prison hold had set others to retching. Along with the sour stink of the night-buckets, it was all Kydd could do to stop himself fleeing back on deck.

A few raised their heads at the light and disturbance. Kydd's words died in his throat: for the inmates, darkness was for sleep and enduring until morning. He turned to the guard who stolidly returned his gaze. What might be going through these poor wretches' minds was beyond imagining—half a year confined to this?

Shaken, Kydd clambered back to the blessed night air and stared out at the calm sea scene denied to those hidden under his feet: dozens of vessels placidly at rest with golden light dappling the sea under their stern windows, a half-hidden moon playing hide-and-seek in the clouds.