“Why, Tom, you’re giving no mind to that cat-blash now, are ye?” Bowyer’s voice was gentle, and his hand came to rest on Kydd’s shoulder.
Unable to speak, Kydd brushed aside the gesture and continued to stare obstinately out to shore.
Bowyer held his ground. “Damn me eyes, I must be a sad dog not to see when a man’s suffering the blue devils. Do ye —”
“I don’t give a tuppenny damn!” Kydd said thickly. “Go t’ hell for all I care!” He could not look at Bowyer. Shouts and harsh laughter floated up from the deck below, and Kydd burst out with a curse. As he tried to control himself, he felt an arm around his shoulders, just as his father had done not so very long ago. Then it had been in the matter of a worthless doxy, now it was an older seaman touched by his unhappiness.
Kydd pulled himself together with a great effort. “There wasn’t need for that, Joe — I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right, me old shipmate,” Bowyer said.
“But if I can get on land over there, I can post to Guildford in just one day!” he babbled, and saw a shadow pass over the sailor’s face. “That’s not to say …” He realized that whatever he said would be either empty or a lie.
Bowyer laughed softly. “Yer folks still in Guildford, then?”
Kydd nodded. “Where’s yourn, Joe?”
Bowyer walked over to the gratings in the center of the deck. “Come on over the galley here, mate — it’s a mort warmer.” They sat companionably, well placed on the gratings above the warmth of the ovens from the decks below.
“Your kin, Joe?”
“Well, I’m one o’ Jonas Hanway’s boys,” Bowyer said simply. “Don’t rightly know m’ dad, ’n’ when I was a nipper m’ mum gave me up to Hanway’s Marine Society fer to go to sea.”
“When was that?”
“When I was eight — bin at sea since.”
“And you’ve never lived on the land all that time?”
“Never felt the need to.”
Kydd felt a surge of bitterness. “Well, you c’n be infernal sure I feel the need. I didn’t ask to be part o’ this stinkin’ world. Being taken by the press like a common damn prigger, and thrown on board like —”
“Hold hard, young ’un!” Bowyer’s forehead was uncharacteristically creased. “Way I sees it, you has just two things you c’n do about it — get yourself into a fret all the time over what can’t be undone, or do somethin’ about it. What I means is, there’s no chance you’ll get yourself back to Guildford any time soon, so you’ll be spendin’ all your time on board. You then has the choice — stay a landman and take all the shite going, or learn to be a sailorman and live a life!”
Kydd did not answer.
“There’s worse things to be — them poor bastards in red coats carryin’ a musket, why, no warm hammock to go to end of day, no reg’lar vittles of any kind, and marchin’ with a humpin’ great pack thing when they want ter go anywheres.” He watched Kydd looking moodily over the fast darkening stretch of water, the rowguard pinnace creeping unseen past his line of sight. “An’ we get the chance for prize money! Know the Flag and Anchor in Southsea? No? I’ll interdooce yer to the landlord. Taut hand o’ the watch, as was. When he was a younker he shipped as able seaman in Active when they took the Hermione, Spanish frigate — earned ’emselves more’n three hundred years’ pay in one hour, that arternoon! Only a score of years old ’n’ he buys himself his own taphouse!” He knew he had Kydd’s attention now. “We don’t say as how it happens to all, but we get a good fight and it’s gun money an’ head money …” Bowyer allowed his eyes to gaze out dreamily. “’Cos it depends on yer rate, how much you get.” He made himself more comfortable, leaning on his elbow over the gratings to catch more warmth. “But then money ain’t all. For a man o’ character, why, he c’n learn more about the way of things from what he sees in foreign parts than ever he could in stayin’ by the fireside ’n’ readin’ books. Me, I’m just an old tarry-breeks, but me first voyage as able seaman was in Resolution in ’seventy-nine — Cap’n Cook that was. Voyage of discovery, Tom — the Great South Sea, ice islands in the Ar’tic, the women on O’Whyee. Their menfolk did for ’im, you know, on the strand, when he couldn’t git back to the longboat where we was at.”