The motion was alarming, a soaring through the airy firmament before a whipping stop and surge the other way. The pole mast was only a few inches thick and he locked his legs around it securely before transferring his grip and hauling himself upwards. Not daring to look down he watched the truck come closer - nearer, and then it was within his reach. Something rattled on the far side of the mast. He followed it up and saw that it was a stout chain clamped to the round of the truck. A new-fangled lightning conductor. On a crazy impulse he transferred his hands to the chain and drew himself up to the truck itself. A strong copper rod continued in the thin air beyond the truck.
It was the work of moments to heave himself up and past the cap - and then he was standing erect on the bird-slimed truck, trembling with fatigue and exhilaration and holding the lightning rod in a death grip. He flung up an arm to indicate his position, but before starting his descent he snatched a look at the panorama. Every part of the vessel was now at a level below him, decks, masts, sails. Not a single thing intruded to spoil the totality of his three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view.
Carefully lowering himself back down the mast, he slid the few feet down to the royal backstay. Transferring his grip from mast to stay he soared hand over hand down the backstay to the deck again.
'I do confess I am at a stand. It's no parcel of lubberly landmen we have here, Mr Spershott,' Powlett said to the lean officer next to him.
It took a moment or two for Kydd to realise why the mess deck was so different. There were the same mess tables and ship's side racks for cutlery and mess traps, but here there were no massive cannon regularly spaced along the sides. Aboard the battleship Kydd was used to having his living space between a pair of massive thirty-two-pounder long guns, sharing his domestics with the smoke and blast of broadsides, but here there was only a single function.
It was noon and the berth deck was alive with gossip and laughter after the issue of grog. A ship's boy had shown them to their new mess, half the party to a starboard mess, the other to larboard. They stood awkwardly.
'Hear tell they's promising ter send us some real man-o'-war hands,' said a thin-looking older man at the ship's side. Kydd knew enough about unwritten mess etiquette to realise that this was the senior hand of the mess. Like the others, he deliberately chose not to notice the newcomers.
A handsome, well-groomed sailor replied, 'As long as they're not ship-of-the-line jacks is all I asks. Them big-ship ways — no room fer marching up an' down in this little barky.'
The older man snorted. 'Nor all that there flags an' buntin' all th' time. An' yer've gotta be slow in th' wits to be big ships, else yer intellects rot, waitin' while the ship wants ter tack about.'
'Has t' be a big ship,' came back the other, 'all them pressed men - why, they has to batten 'em down when they makes port, else they'll think to ramble off home, like.'
The older man started, as though seeing the arrivals for the first time. 'Well, look who it ain't. A parcel o' Royal Billys! Sit yerselves down then — grog's up.'
Self-consciously Kydd edged over and sat next to a neat, slightly built sailor who held out his hand with a pleasant smile. 'Guess we have t' take ye aboard, we being grievous short-handed 'n' all!' he said. 'Adam - Nathan Adam.'
'Kydd, Tom Kydd.' He flushed with pleasure, quite unconscious of the striking figure of a seaman he now made. His dark, strong features were well set off by the short blue jacket, white duck trousers, and a red kerchief knotted carelessly over a blue striped waistcoat. His ebony hair gleamed in a tight clubbed pigtail, his tanned, open face bore a broad white smile.
Sliding in easily next to Kydd, Renzi sat opposite. Curious looks met his from around the table, for he was most definitely at variance with the usual man-o'-war's man with his careful, intelligent dark eyes and a face with incised lines of character suggesting dangerous mystery. Renzi's black hair, short to the point of monasticism, also hinted at an inner discipline quite unlike the carefree sailor's.
He was next to a well-muscled black man, who turned to greet him. 'Never bin in a ship-o'-the-line, meself,' he said. 'Guess there's plenty more room in them big ships.'
'Know where I'd rather be,' Kydd said.
The senior hand interrupted. 'Got yer traps?' Kydd fished around in his ditty bag and drew out his tankard, an old brass-strapped wooden one that had once belonged to a close shipmate, now dead.
'Me apologies about the blackstrap,' the man said, upending a bottle into the tankard. 'Cap'n thinks to give us this'n instead o' the right sort.' He shrugged. 'Took a thousan' off a Frenchy last week.'
Renzi's eyes widened. He picked up the bottle eagerly and stared at the label. 'My God!' he said. 'Haut Brion, premier cru, the seventy-nine no less!' His beautifully modulated patrician tones took them aback quite as much as his words, but in the age-old custom of the sea, no obvious notice was taken of a character quirk.