JULIAN STOCKWIN
Seaflower
CORONET BOOKS Hodder & Stoughton
Copyright © 2003 by Julian Stockwin
First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Hodder and Stoughton This edition published in 2004 by Hodder and Stoughton A division of Hodder Headline
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All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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isbn o 340 79478 x
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'To the wind that blows a ship that goes and the lass that loves a sailor*
Sea Toast
The low thud of a court-martial gun echoed over Portsmouth in the calm early-summer morning, the grim sound telling the world of the naval drama about to take place. Its ominous portent also stilled the conversation on the fore lower-deck of the old receiving ship lying further into the harbour. There, Thomas Kydd's pigtail was being reclubbed by his closest friend and shipmate, Nicholas Renzi.
'I wish in m' bowels it were you,' Kydd said, in a low voice. He was dressed in odd-fitting but clean seaman's gear. Like Renzi, he was a shipwrecked mariner and his clothes were borrowed. A court-martial would try the sole surviving officer, and Kydd, who had been on watch at the helm at the time, was a principal witness.
There was a muffled hail at the fore hatchway. Kydd made a hasty farewell, and clattered up the broad ladder to muster at the ship's side. The larboard cutter bobbed alongside to embark the apprehensive witnesses. In the curious way of the Navy, Kydd joined diffidently with the petty officers, even though with the death of his ship his acting rate had been removed and therefore he was borne on the books of the receiving ship as an able seaman. His testimony, however, would be given as a petty officer, his rate at the time.
The pleasant boat trip to the dockyard was not appreciated by Kydd, who gulped at the thought of crusty, gold-laced admirals and captains glaring at him as he gave his evidence, which might well be challenged by other hostile officers.
In fact recently it had not in any way been a pleasant time for Kydd and Renzi. Their return as shipwrecked sailors to the land of their birth had been met
