The boatswain arrived from below, puffing like a grampus. He stood at the rail, gathering his breath, and watched the line of native labourers. 'That slivey dog,' he said to Kydd. 'No, t'other one - mark his motions. Lazy fellow thinks to take it easy, an' he so well fed.'
The lascar indicated was indeed better nourished than the others. Instead of the sculpted angular ridges of hardness, there was a definite rounding of flesh; possibly the man was of superior caste.
'Hey, you, the serang? the boatswain shouted across at the overseer. 'Jowla, jowla — him!' he ordered, pointing at the offending individual.
The serang looked at him doubtfully, and raising his rattan gently rapped the man over his naked shoulders.
'Good Christ!' the boatswain said in astonishment. 'That wouldn't wake a sleepin' dog.' He snorted in disgust and stumped off below again.
Curiously Kydd watched the lascar trudge to the barge, lift a bale of dry goods awkwardly to his shoulders and turn to trace his steps over the gangplank and back aboard. As the man came over the bulwark he saw Kydd, and stumbled on a ring-bolt. The bale came down, bouncing along the deck, fetching up against the hatch coaming. Their eyes met - and Kydd saw real fear.
Kydd got to his feet. 'You savvy - no one hurtee you, this ship,' he said loudly. The man looked at him, then seized the bale and dragged it over.
'Thank Chroist!' the lascar said. 'Oi'm bleedin' well at t'end of me senses.'
Snatching up a rope's end, Kydd slashed him over the shoulders. 'Wha—' the lascar cried piteously.
'Shut up 'n' move!' Kydd hissed. Driving the man down the fore-companion to the gundeck, he pushed him past the canvas screening that concealed the sick quarters in the bow — he knew the three sick had been landed and the space was clear.
He spun the man round savagely. 'I've heard o' men doin' things t' run, but this is the first I heard someone wantin' so bad to get 'emselves aboard a King's ship!'
Crumpling to his knees, the man's voice caught in a sob. 'S' help me, frien', oi don' know how t' thank ye!' His brimming eyes looked up at Kydd. Taking a gulp, he continued, 'Fort William - 'tis a hell-hole loike yer worst dreams. Oi joined t' foller the colours an' a shillin' a day, not sweat in this black stink-pit.'
His face worked in a sudden paroxysm. 'This now's the cool o' the seasons — while yer wait fer the monsoon t' break, whoi, it's hotter 'n a griddle in hell — an' full uniform on parade or Sar'n't Askins'll 'ave yer!' His head dropped, and he stared hopelessly at the deck.
Kydd thought quickly. 'We sails soon, need t' get ye out o' sight.' His eyes strayed over the man's dark skin. How would it be possible to conceal such a colour? 'No idea where we're bound, but y' can get ashore easy enough — we got no pressed men aboard.'
The man caught Kydd's look. 'Ah, me dark skin. Walnut juice.'
Kydd smiled. 'Wait here.'
'Look, Oi know this looks bad, but ye've got t' unnerstan' what it's loike—'
Clapping him on the arm, Kydd stepped outside. He cannoned into a lascar waiting there, who had obviously followed them down. He gestured at the fore ladder. 'Up! You gettee up there!'
"Eard what yer said ter Ralf,' began the lascar.
Kydd groaned. 'Not you as well!' He should have known by the pale eyes, incongruous in the dark brown face.
'Well, yeah, but only the pair o' us, mate - Ralf Bunce and me, Scrufty Weems,' the man said.
'Get in there with y' chuckle-headed frien',' Kydd told him, and shoved him forward.
* * *
To his credit, Renzi only hesitated a moment when Kydd told him. Aiding a deserter was a Botany Bay offence in England; here it might be worse. There was no way the soldiers could mix in with the two hundred odd of the ship's company, for every face was familiar after the long voyage. They would have to be found a hidey-hole until they made port. 'The orlop,' Renzi suggested.
'No - mate o' the hold checks every forenoon, bound t' find anything askew.' Kydd remembered his hiding place from King Neptune's bears. 'The forepeak?'
'In this heat? Have mercy, Tom!'
However, even for this, the soldiers proved pathetically grateful and dropped down the tiny hatch into the malodorous darkness without a word.
Storing complete, the ship's company looked forward to liberty ashore, but instead they were set to scraping and scrubbing, painting and prettying in a senseless round of work that sorely tried their patience. Tales of shoreside in India grew in the telling, but Parry gave not an inch. The ship was to gleam and that was that.
Kydd and Renzi knew it was impossible to keep their secret from their shipmates. The others found it amusing that deserters from the Army thought they could find sanctuary in a man-o'-war, but in the generous way of sailors, they made their guests welcome.
Immured in the forepeak during the day, they could creep up to the fo'c'sle under cover of dark and join the sailors in a grog or two. They talked about the boredom and heat, the dust and disease of a cantonment on the plains of India. They told also of their struggle to the coast and their final bribing of the serang — and his confusion when told to beat a white man.