“About time, damn you for a shab!” Howell’s sneer in no way discommoded Doud, whose broad grin seemed to light up the entire mess.
“Come on, Ned, we’re near gutfoundered,” said Whaley, rubbing his hands in anticipation. The lids came off the food, and the bread barge was filled and placed on the table. Mess traps were brought down from their racks and the meal could begin.
After his previous experience Kydd had no expectations. On his plate the pease pudding was gray-green, flecked with darker spots, and clearly thickened with some other substance. The beef was unrecognizable, gray and gristly. Kydd couldn’t hide his disgust at the taste.
Bowyer saw his expression and gave a mirthless chuckle. “That there’s fresh beef, Tom. Wait till we’re at sea awhile — the salt horse’ll make you yearn after this’n!”
He slid the bread barge across to Kydd. Lying disconsolate on a mess of ship’s biscuit were the stale remnants of the “soft tommy” taken aboard in Sheerness.
Kydd passed on the bread and gingerly took some hard tack. He fastened his teeth on the crude biscuit, but could make no impression.
“Not like that, mate,” Bowyer said. “Like this!” Cupping the biscuit in his palm, he brought his opposite elbow sharply down on it and revealed the fragments resulting. “This is yer hard tack, lad. We calls it bread at sea — best you learns a taste for it.”
As they ate, Kydd was struck by the small concessions necessary because of the confined space: the wooden plates were square rather than round and therefore gave optimum area for holding food. Eating movements were curiously neat and careful: no cutlery waved in the air, and elbows seemed fixed to the side of the body. It was in quite a degree of contrast to the spreading coarseness of the town ordinary where tradesmen would take their cheap victuals together.
The last of his grog made the food more palatable, and when he had finished, Kydd let his eyes wander out of the pool of lanthorn light to the other mess tables, each a similar haven of sociability.
He remembered his piece of paper. “Joe, what does all this mean?” he said, passing over his watch and station details.
“Let’s see.” Bowyer studied the paper in the dim light. “It says here you’re in the first part of the starboard watch — with me, mate. And your part of ship is afterguard, so you report there to Mr. Tewsley for your place o’ duty.” He paused and looked affectionately at the others. “And the other is the number of yer mess. You’re messmates with us here now, and on the purser’s books for vittlin’ and grog under that number. Not that you’ll get fair do’s from Mansel, that bloody Nipcheese.” Bowyer smiled viciously. “Yeah — those duds you’ve just got, you’ll be working them off a guinea t’ the poun’ for six months yet. And with a purser’s pound at fourteen ounces you’ll not be overfed, mate.”
He looked again at the paper. “You’re in Mr. Tewsley’s division, o’ course, so yer accountable to him to be smart ’n’ togged out in proper rig, and once yer’ve got yer hammock, it says here you’ll be getting your head down right aft on this deck. Show yer where at pipe-down tonight.” He returned the paper. “That’s all ye need to know fer now. All this other lot are yer stations — where yer have to be when we go ‘hands ter unmoor ship,’ ‘send down topmast’ an’ that. You’ll get a chance to take it all aboard when we exercises.”
Kydd needed more. “What’s this about a gun, then?”
“That’s your post at quarters. We get ourselves into an action, you go to number-three gun lower deck” — he pointed to it —“but I doubts we’ll get much o’ that unless the Frogs want ter be beat again.” Taking another pull at his grog, Bowyer grinned.
But Kydd wasn’t about to let go. “When do I have t’ climb the mast, Joe?”
Bowyer’s laugh stilled the table’s conversation for a moment. He leaned forward. “Tom, me old shipmate, you’re a landman. That means nobody expects you to do anything more’n pull on a rope and swab the uppers all day. Me, I’m an able seaman, I c’n hand, reef and steer, so we gets to go aloft, you don’t.” Finishing his grog, he looked across at Kydd, his guileless gray eyes, clubbed pigtail and sun-bleached seaman’s gear making him the picture of a deep-sea mariner. He smiled good-humoredly. “That’s not ter say you’ll be a landman for ever. What say we take a stroll around the barky? Starbowlines are off watch this afternoon ’n’ yer could be learnin’ something.”