His thoughts rushed on. Supposing he were to warn the quarterdeck right now? He would not be believed without evidence, and in any event his very being rebelled against betrayal. Should he wake Bowyer and ask him what to do? Easier said than done – all he knew was that Bowyer slung his hammock with the mizzen topmen, and they were lost somewhere in this vast city afloat.
Restlessly Kydd eased his aching limbs. The deep groans and creaks seemed to take on disturbing meaning in the claustrophobic dark. Perhaps Stallard was right: if the ship was a deathtrap, then indeed they had a case. The newspapers always seemed to carry reports of ships lost at sea for unknown reasons; it was easy to think of one now. But Stallard was a hothead, fomenting trouble to satisfy his craving for cheap adulation; he had no real idea of the consequences of his actions. This situation was different: there was nowhere to hide afterward and it was most certainly a hanging matter.
Time dragged on and Kydd began to feel drowsy. He would leave decisions to the morning, after he had spoken to Bowyer.
He was drifting off, hardly noticing the bumps and thuds on the hull, when he was jerked awake by the urgent squeal of boatswains’ calls and pandemonium everywhere. “Haaaands ahoy! All the haands! All hands on deck!”
There was groaning, curses and lanthorns waving about in the gloom. Kydd was jostled violently in the confusion. He tried to make sense of what was going on, and grabbed the arm of a boatswain’s mate.
“Haven’t you heard, mate? Captain’s returned aboard sudden-like, and it’s the French – they’re out! The Frogs are at sea!”
“What the stinkin’ hell are yer doin’ still here?” Elkins pulled Kydd round to face him. “Yer station for unmoorin’ ship is the main sheets – geddup there!” He knocked Kydd away from him and stormed about in the chaos, looking for the men of his division.
It was bedlam on the night-black lower deck, its hellish gloom lit fitfully by lanthorns – a struggling mass of men, white eyes rolling in the shadows, the occasional gleam of equipment. Kydd’s heart thudded. In a matter of hours he might be fighting for his life out there, somewhere. His mind flooded with images in which he could see himself cut down by maddened Frenchmen as they swarmed aboard after a fierce battle. He gulped and mounted the ladders for the upper deck.
On deck, the darkness was lifting, slowly, reluctantly. A dank, cold dawn began the day.
The decks themselves were unrecognizable – braces, sheets and halliards were off their belaying pins and led out along the decks for easy running. The upper yards were alive with men. Urgent shouts shattered the dawn.
Along the somber line of warships there was a similar bustle and lights began to appear all along the shore.
Bowyer was already there, but did not answer Kydd’s greeting, shoving a rope into his hand. “Clap on ter that and don’t move from there.”
The landmen were pushed into place, their slow incomprehension maddening the petty officers, who used their starters liberally on backs and shoulders, while the seamen moved far above them – on the tops, out along the yards and to the end of the jibboom.
The pace slowed, and Kydd saw a coalescing of groups about the officers. Tewsley paced deliberately, accompanied by Elkins, whose face wore a look of dedicated ferocity.
“Haaands to the braces!”
One by one, the massive lower yards were altered from their perfect cross-ship position to a starboard-farthest-forward angle, the better to catch the cold, steady breeze from the northwest.
On the fo’c’sle Kydd could see the men crowded around the anchor tackle, although he could not see what they were about. He knew that deep below him at that moment the capstan would be manned by every hand left over from duties on deck, and he was grateful to have his work out in the open.
The bustle subsided, and Kydd ventured a glance at Bowyer. He was looking up to the men waiting on the yards, and sniffing about for the precise direction of the wind.
He noticed Kydd and said quietly, “Easy enough – she’ll cast under topsails to larb’d, ’n’ then out going large. He shouldn’t have anythin’ to worry of.”
Bowyer was subdued; Kydd realized that he was probably thinking of the woman he was leaving. “Joe, d’you think there’ll be a battle?”
“Mebbe, and then again mebbe not. Who knows?” Bowyer looked away, and down to the rope he held. He let it drop and walked to the side of the ship facing Portsmouth and did something with a coiled line. There seemed no point in following.
“Grapple that buoy, damn it!” came faintly from forward, followed by a triumphant, “Man the cat! Walk away with it, you lead bellies!”
From the quarterdeck echoed a booming shout. “Make sail there! Lead along topsail sheets and halliards. Lay out and loose!”
Kydd saw sail suddenly blossom from the topsail yards. The men on deck worked furiously at the tacks and sheets.
“Lay aft the braces, you lubbers – larboard head, starboard main, and larboard your cro’jick!”
From having her head so steadfastly into the wind, tethered by her anchor, Duke William began to move ever so slightly astern. With counter-bracing on the fore, her bow paid off to leeward, faster and faster.
“Haul taut! Brace abox!”
Kydd was working too hard to watch, not really understanding what he was doing but determined to give it his best. The wind, more brisk than he remembered, had a salt tang to it.
“Starboard head braces! Brace around those headyards!”
There was a distinct lurch as the headsails took up at precisely the time Duke William ceased her sternward motion. Having curved around to take the northwester on her starboard cheeks, she now paused; the big courses were sheeted in and she straightened for the run south to St. Helens.
Portsmouth now lay astern, the little cluster of dwellings, tap-houses and Tudor forts dwindling into an anonymous blur. Kydd found that he had been too busy to think of the forlorn tiny scatter of women who were all that remained of those still hoping against hope at the Sally Port. They would know now that the only way they would see their menfolk would be in their dreaming.
Astern also was the fat bulk of the ninety-eight-gun Tiberius smoothly following in their wake, the whiteness of her new sails evidence of her recent docking. Ahead was Royal Albion, her stern galleries glittering before the salt stains of the open sea could dull them. A pair of frigates was even farther ahead, under a full press of sail, drawing away visibly on a course that would take them ranging far ahead out to sea.
The low dark green and black of the Isle of Wight slid by in the early morning, the busy little waves hustling inshore toward the far-off port, which Kydd knew would be waking to another dawn, another working day. He hoped that his duties would keep him on deck. He felt both exhilaration and fear; the altered perceptions that come from leaving land and committing body and spirit to the sea. In one sense he yearned for the certainties of life on land, the regularities that made up the day, the steady work and sleep, the warmth of being part of a wider community. But he was aware as well that, alone of his family, he was going to see great times, be part of a world event. Deep within he felt his spirit respond to the challenge – the young wig-maker of Guildford was fading into the past.