“Well, one evenin’ he fell down in the pothouse, kickin’ ’n’ twisting ’n’ scarin’ the daylights out of us all until they took him off ter the bed-lam.”
Kydd snorted into the gloom. “Bloody rot! You’re talkin’ of the falling sickness. Poor juggins to have you as his friend. It’s a kind of fit. An’ what I saw this afternoon wasn’t the fallin’ sickness.”
Another voice challenged, nearer. “So what was it, Mr. Sawbones?”
Conscious that he had attracted attention to himself, Kydd could only answer lamely, “Well, it wasn’t, that’s all.”
The exchange drifted into an inconclusive silence.
The edge of an unseen sail fluttered sharply and quietened, and an occasional muffled crunch of waves came from forward, in time with a slight pitch of the bows. Kydd shifted his position. He heard Bowyer from farther away: “Can’t blame the skipper, Lofty. He’s new, ’n’ he’s had to take over the barky from Halifax without the smell of a dockin’, poor lady.”
“That’s all gammon, ’n’ you know it, Joe.”
“No — what I’m a-saying is that, as bloody usual, in this war we’ve been caught all aback ’n’ all in a pelt — skipper’s got to get the ship out to meet the Frogs ’n’ ’e’s cuttin’ corners.”
The man grunted loudly. “Pig-shite! You always were simple, Joe. What we ’ave is a Jonah! Seen ’em before. They doesn’t know it even but they ’as the mark! An’ it’s evil luck that comes aboard any hooker what ships a Jonah, as well you know, mate.”
The murmurs died away, and Kydd shivered at the turn in the conversation. He took refuge in the continual run of shipboard noises — the ceaseless background of anonymous sounds that assured him his new world was continuing as usual.
There were a few coughs before a deep voice announced, “When we makes Spithead tomorrer, I’m goin’ no farther than yon Keppel’s Head — get me a good sea coal fire ahead, a muzzler of stingo under m’ lee and I’ll not see daylight until we fronts back aboard.”
“Stow that!” someone whooped. “I’ve got a year’s pay says there’s no fubsy wench in Portsmouth Point’s goin’ unsatisfied while I’ve got the legs to get me ashore.”
The babble of voices was broken by one of the older men. “Presumin’ we get to step off.”
“Course we will! On the North Ameriky station for near two years — stands to reason we dock first to set the old girl to rights afore we join the Fleet. Gonna take at least half a year — we’re forty years old, mate, and you know she spits oakum in any sort of sea!”
“Yeah, that’s right! We had thirteen months ashore off of Billy Ruffian in ’eighty-eight, an’ she was in better shape than we by a long haul.”
“Jus’ let me get alongside my Polly — she’s been a-waitin’ for me ’n’ my tackle since St. Geoffrey’s Day.”
The excited chatter ebbed and flowed around Kydd, until it crossed his mind that if the others went ashore, then there might be a chance for him to slip away. A few days’ tramp along the London Road and he’d be back, God be praised, in the rural tranquillity of Guildford. Distant bells sounded from forward. A hand on his arm broke into these happy thoughts. “Stir yerself, Tom. Now we can get our heads down until mornin’,” said Bowyer.
Their way lit by a lanthorn carried by a ship’s corporal, they passed down to the lower deck. Shadowy figures, the last of the larbowlines, hurried past.
After the cold dankness of the open air, the heat and fug of the broad space, full of slowly swaying hammocks, was prodigious. The air was thick with the musty odor of many men in a confined space and the creeping fetor of bilge smells. With fatigue closing in on him in waves, Kydd stumbled over to his hammock. Stripping off his outer clothes, he followed the example of the others and rolled them into a pillow. He then addressed himself to the task of getting in. It took only two tries before he was aboard, agreeably enfolded by the canvas sides. Some cautious wriggles and he found that the hammock was remarkably stable and, in fact, astonishingly comfortable. The meager “mattress” conformed to his shape and the single coarse blanket was hardly needed, with the heat of so much humanity.
Lying there, too exhausted to sleep, he let his eyes wander restlessly over the scene — the loom of hammocks all around, the dark closeness of the deckhead above and the last few moving figures. Then the lanthorns were removed, and he was left alone with his thoughts in utter blackness.