Seaflower

looked at him fondly. 'It does seem hard, but you must understand that they need direction, discipline, to control the brutality that lies beneath. Slavery is a mercy. It provides a strong framework in which they may learn to curb their natures.' He paused and looked at Kydd directly. 'It is not the slavery which is evil, it is the manner in which some do enforce it.'

There was time to spare the following forenoon. The Blanche frigate was due in for repair, following a spectacular action against a heavier French frigate off Guadeloupe. Rumours flew about that her captain had been killed. Kydd was keen to hear the full story, remembering his own desperate battle in Artemis.

Blanche was delayed, so Kydd stood down his crew. Over at the boat-house, with Caird away in his office, he had nothing to do but watch the shipwrights at work. The craftsmen in the boat-house filled the space with the sound of their labour: the oddly musical thonk of a maul, the regular hiss of the try plane, the clatter of dropped planks. Steam billowed suddenly from a long chest, and a shipwright gingerly extracted a steaming plank, carrying it to a half-clad boat. Another took one end and they eased it around the tight curve of the bow, faying it to the plank below. Kydd could see that they were fitting it to at least three curves simultaneously — by eye alone.

All along the open side of the boat-house a spar rested on trestles, and Kydd marvelled at the mystery of mast-making: how was it possible to create a perfectly straight, perfectly round spar from a rough-hewn length of timber? It was all done by eye alone again, he noted. A straight-edged batten was nailed horizontally to one end; a pair of shipwrights worked together, and another batten was fixed the other end, sighted by eye to exactly the same level. Then mast-axe and adze were plied skilfully to produce a flat surface the whole length. Another pair of battens produced a flat opposite. By the time they progressed to the octagonal they had a true, workable approximation to a round. Kydd shook his head in wonder.

A sudden shout came from outside. Kydd ducked out and saw pointing arms. The Blanche had arrived. All work ceased, and men poured out to see the spectacle.

'See there, mates!' one man said, pointing out of the harbour to Freeman's Bay, where the broken masts of a substantial ship showed above the low-lying point of land. 'She has a thunderin' good prize!'

As Blanche came to anchor opposite, Kydd could see that she was sorely battered - a stump of mizzen, not much more of her mainmast. As she slowly swung to her anchor the stern came into view, blasted into gaping holes. The excited shouting died away at the sight, particularly at her huge battle ensign still floating from her foremast, but only half-way up.

Caird strode down from the direction of his office. 'Where is your crew, Kydd? And I'll need you two .. .' he pointed to two shipwrights working in the boat-house '.. . and the blue cutter in the water directly.'

With a chest of tools and the men, the cutter was crowded, but Kydd relished his luck in being able to see things at first-hand. He squinted under the loose-footed mainsail as Blanche grew nearer, and saw the frightful wounds of war: her sails were torn with holes, her sides pocked and battered by shot.

Caird led the way up the side of the frigate to the upper deck where they took in the results of a harrowing long-drawn-out grappling, a trial of fire that had tried her ship's company to the very limit. Subdued murmuring conveyed the essentials: indeed the Captain had been killed; there was a prize lying to seaward, which was in fact their opponent, a French frigate, a third bigger than themselves.

They clattered down the main-hatch. Caird needed to get a sight of the damage to the stern and any cannon-ball strikes between wind and water that might prove an immediate threat. Returning on deck they saw moaning wounded being swayed down into a boat, wrecked equipment dropped into another, and weary-eyed men staring at the shore. 'She comes alongside by sunset,' Caird said, to an officer with a bandaged head. 'I shall see the master attendant directly.'

'Yer has the right of it, mates, Cap'n Faulknor, an' a right true sort 'e was, Gawd bless 'is memory,' said Kennet, a gunner's mate from the Blanche. Kydd dragged his upturned tub closer, the better to hear him over the din in the capstan house.

'We wuz openin' Gron' Bay in Gwaddyloop, a-ready ter spy in the harbour in th' mornin' when we sees this thumpin' big French frigate a-comin' round the point.' He paused: a sea-professional audience could be relied on to get the picture. 'Now I asks yer, this can't be much after midnight, larbowlines 'as watch below 'n' in their 'ammocks, all peaceful like, an' then it's quarters, shipmates, 'n' as quick as yer like!'

Kydd could visualise the scene all too clearly: drowsy watch on deck swapping yarns, easy in the mind at the prospect of a spree ashore at the end of the cruise, and then in a flash the reality of war and death in the balmy night.

'Cap'n