Read Kydd for Free Online Page A

plates, pewter cutlery and bowls. Selfconsciously Kydd added his new canvas ditty bag to the others hanging up along the ship’s side. Each bag had an access hole halfway up the side, which was a practical means of keeping clothing and personal effects ready for use. Even in the dimness the impression he had was of extreme neatness and order, a Spartan blend of lived-in domesticity and uncompromising dedication to war. The whole purpose of the ship’s existence was as an engine of destruction to be aimed at the mortal enemies of his country.
    He emerged warily on deck to slate-colored skies and fretful seas. The sails were braced round at an angle to the northerly, and there away to starboard, from where the wind blew, was a mottled coastline, all in greens and nondescript browns. There was no way of telling where this was. To Kydd it might be England or a hostile foreign shore. It was entirely different from what he could remember of the rolling greensward of the North Downs.
    “Damn you, sir! Do you think this is a cruise, that you are a passenger on my fo’c’sle?”
    Kydd had not noticed the officer standing among the men at the foot of the foremast. In confusion he faced him and attempted to address him.
    “Respects to the officer when you speaks to him, lad,” a petty officer said testily.
    Kydd hesitated.
    Exasperated, the petty officer said more forcefully, “You salutes him, you lubber.” Seeing Kydd’s continued puzzlement, he knuckled his forehead in an exaggerated way. “Like this, see.”
    Kydd complied — it was no different from when he had to address the squire at home. “Kydd, sir, first part of starboard watch.”
    “Never mind your watch, what part-of-ship are you?” the officer asked tartly.
    The question left Kydd at a loss. He saw the great bowsprit with its rearing headsails soaring out over the sea ahead. “Th’ front part, sir?”
    The men broke into open laughter and the officer’s eyes glittered dangerously. Kydd’s face burned.
    A petty officer took his paper. “Ah, he’s afterguard, sir, new joined.”
    “Then he’d better explain to Mr. Tewsley at the forebrace bitts why he is absent when parts-of-ship for exercise has been piped!” The officer turned his back and inspected the clouds of sail above.
    “Get cracking, son!” the petty officer snapped. “You’ll find ’em just abaft the mainmast — that’s the big stick in the middle.”
    Kydd balled his fists as he set off in the direction indicated. He had not been treated like this since he was a child.
    Around the mainmast there were scores of men, each in defined groups. They were all still, and tension hung in the air. A group of officers stood together in the center, so he approached the most ornate and saluted. “Kydd, first part of starboard watch, and afterguard,” he reported.
    The officer’s eyebrows rose in haughty astonishment, and he looked sideways in interrogation at the young officer at his side.
    “One of the new pressed men, I think, sir,” the officer replied, and turned to Kydd. “Report to Mr. Tewsley at the forebrace bitts — over there,” he added, pointing impatiently to the square frame at the base of the massive mainmast. Kydd did so, feeling every eye on him.
    “Thank you, Kydd,” a lined, middle-aged lieutenant replied, looking at Kydd’s paper. “Bowyer, your mess,” he told a seaman with iron-gray hair, standing near the maze of belayed ropes hanging from their pins at the square framing of the bitts.
    “Aye, sir,” the man replied. “Over here, mate. Jus’ do what I tells youto, when I does,” he muttered. The group of officers in the center of the deck conferred, the rest of the ship waiting.
    Bowyer leaned forward. “That was the Cap’n you spoke to, cully. Don’t you do that again, ’less you’ve got special reason.”
    The discussion among the officers grew heated in the inactivity, the Captain standing passive.
    Bowyer looked curiously at Kydd and said in a