retreat to the gunroom. The midshipman's berth was, however, only too near and it would be a noisy night.
Cockburn came on deck early: harbour watches were a trial for him, the necessary relaxation of discipline and boisterous behaviour of the seamen hard on his strait-laced Scottish soul.
'What cheer, Tarn? Need t' step ashore? Cap'n wants t' get a demand on the dockyard delivered b' hand f'r a new wash-deck pump. Ship's business, o' course, gets you off the ship f'r an hour.'
'In Sheerness?' Cockburn retorted scornfully. Kydd was looking forward to getting ashore and seeing something of the local colour, but Cockburn remained glum.
'Join me in a turn around below-decks afore I hand over the watch,' he said to the young man, trying to draw him out of himself. 'Younker, stand by on the quarterdeck,' he threw at the bored duty midshipman. The rest of the watch were together around the mizzen-mast swapping yarns, a token number compared to the full half of the ship's company closed up at sea.
They strode off forward, along the gangways each side of the boat space. 'Clear 'em off forrard,' Kydd said, to a duty petty officer following, who duly noted in his notebook that the wizened crone and the young child selling cheap jewellery on a frayed velvet cloth should be moved forward to clear the gangways.
The foredeck was alive with cheerful noise. Traders, expert in wheedling, had set out their portable tables and were reluctandy parting with gimcrack brass telescopes, scarlet neckcloths, clay pipes and other knick-knacks that were five times their price ashore.
By the cathead another basket of fresh bread was being hauled up from a boat. Teamed with a paper pat of farmhouse butter and a draught from a stone cask of ale, it was selling fast to hungry seamen.
A cobbler industriously tapped his last, producing before their very eyes a pair of the long-quartered shoes favoured by seamen going ashore, and a tailor's arms flew as a smart blue jacket with white seams and silver buttons appeared.
All appeared shipshape forward, and Kydd grunted in satisfaction. Beyond the broad netting, the bare bowsprit speared ahead to the rest of the ships at anchor.
Cockburn indicated the old three-decker battleship moored further inshore, 'ifo'll never see open water again.' Stripped of her topmasts and running rigging, her timbers were dark with age and neglect; her old-fashioned stern gallery showed little evidence of gold leaf, and green weed was noticeable at her waterline.
'Aye, Sandwich — she's th' receiving ship only,' Kydd answered. Too old for any other work, she acted as a floating prison for pressed men and others.
'Do you know then who's the captain of the sixty-four over there?' Cockburn asked.
'Director} No, Tarn, you tell me!'
'None else than your Cap'n 'Breadfruit' Bligh, these five years avenged of his mutiny.' He paused impressively.
Kydd did not reply: in his eyes Bligh should have been better known for his great feat of seamanship in bringing his men through a heroic open-boat voyage without the loss of a single one. He turned abruptly and clattered down the ladder to the open boat-space on the upper-deck.
Sitting cross-legged on the fore-hatch gratings, a fiddler sawed away, his time being gaily marked by a capering ship's boy with a tambourine weaving in and out of the whirling pairs of sailors and their lasses. Some of the women wore ribbons, which the men took and threaded into their own jackets and hats.
Groups gathered near the fore-mast playing dice, perched on mess-tubs; others tried to read or write letters. The whole was a babble of conviviality and careless gaiety.
Kydd looked about: there was drink, mainly dark Kent beer but not hard spirits. So far there was no sign of real drunkenness - that would come later, no doubt. Groups of men, probably from other ships, were in snug conversation at mess tables further aft. Ship-visiting was a humane custom of the service and even if liberty ashore was stopped acquaintances with former shipmates could be pleasantly renewed.
But as he moved towards them, the talk stopped and the men turned towards him warily. 'Lofty.' He nodded to Webb, a carpenter's mate.
The man looked at him, then the others. 'Tom,' he said carefully.
