The pace slowed, and Kydd saw a coalescing of groups about the officers. Tewsley paced deliberately, accompanied by Elkins, whose face wore a look of dedicated ferocity.
“Haaands to the braces!”
One by one, the massive lower yards were altered from their perfect cross-ship position to a starboard-farthest-forward angle, the better to catch the cold, steady breeze from the northwest.
On the fo’c’sle Kydd could see the men crowded around the anchor tackle, although he could not see what they were about. He knew that deep below him at that moment the capstan would be manned by every hand left over from duties on deck, and he was grateful to have his work out in the open.
The bustle subsided, and Kydd ventured a glance at Bowyer. He was looking up to the men waiting on the yards, and sniffing about for the precise direction of the wind.
He noticed Kydd and said quietly, “Easy enough — she’ll cast under topsails to larb’d, ’n’ then out going large. He shouldn’t have anythin’ to worry of.”
Bowyer was subdued; Kydd realized that he was probably thinking of the woman he was leaving. “Joe, d’you think there’ll be a battle?”
“Mebbe, and then again mebbe not. Who knows?” Bowyer looked away, and down to the rope he held. He let it drop and walked to the side of the ship facing Portsmouth and did something with a coiled line. There seemed no point in following.
“Grapple that buoy, damn it!” came faintly from forward, followed by a triumphant, “Man the cat! Walk away with it, you lead bellies!”
From the quarterdeck echoed a booming shout. “Make sail there! Lead along topsail sheets and halliards. Lay out and loose!”
Kydd saw sail suddenly blossom from the topsail yards. The men on deck worked furiously at the tacks and sheets.
“Lay aft the braces, you lubbers — larboard head, starboard main, and larboard your cro’jick!”
From having her head so steadfastly into the wind, tethered by her anchor, Duke William began to move ever so slightly astern. With counter-bracing on the fore, her bow paid off to leeward, faster and faster.
“Haul taut! Brace abox!”
Kydd was working too hard to watch, not really understanding what he was doing but determined to give it his best. The wind, more brisk than he remembered, had a salt tang to it.
“Starboard head braces! Brace around those headyards!”
There was a distinct lurch as the headsails took up at precisely the time Duke William ceased her sternward motion. Having curved around to take the northwester on her starboard cheeks, she now paused; the big courses were sheeted in and she straightened for the run south to St. Helens.
Portsmouth now lay astern, the little cluster of dwellings, tap-houses and Tudor forts dwindling into an anonymous blur. Kydd found that he had been too busy to think of the forlorn tiny scatter of women who were all that remained of those still hoping against hope at the Sally Port. They would know now that the only way they would see their menfolk would be in their dreaming.
Astern also was the fat bulk of the ninety-eight-gun Tiberius smoothly following in their wake, the whiteness of her new sails evidence of her recent docking. Ahead was Royal Albion, her stern galleries glittering before the salt stains of the open sea could dull them. A pair of frigates was even farther ahead, under a full press of sail, drawing away visibly on a course that would take them ranging far ahead out to sea.
The low dark green and black of the Isle of Wight slid by in the early morning, the busy little waves hustling inshore toward the far-off port, which Kydd knew would be waking to another dawn, another working day. He hoped that his duties would keep him on deck. He felt both exhilaration and fear; the altered perceptions that come from leaving land and committing body and spirit to the sea. In one sense he yearned for the certainties of life on land, the regularities that made up the day, the steady work and sleep, the warmth of being part of a wider community. But he was aware as well that, alone of his family, he was going to see great times, be part of a world event. Deep within he felt his spirit respond to the challenge — the young wig-maker of Guildford was fading into the past.
They passed St. Helens and shaped course more westerly for the Channel. Portsmouth finally slipped out of sight behind the Foreland and they steadily forged ahead down the coast for Ventnor and the last of the land. The breeze freshened and at nine knots Duke William was sailing about as fast as she ever would. The sea hissed along her sides at an astonishing rate. Kydd doubted that even a horse at a fast trot would find it possible to keep up.
They reached St. Catherine’s Point, and beyond the prominence ahead in grand fashion Royal Albion reared up, then fell in a broad swash of white. Then it was their turn, the first sea sent in earnest by the broad Atlantic, sending their bow with its great jibboom spearing up to the sky, then to crash down in a stomach-stopping smother of foam.