Kydd(7)

“Take the strain, heave ’round!” The distant cry was instantly taken up.

Following the motions of the others, Kydd leaned his chest against the capstan bar, his hands clasping up from underneath. For a moment nothing happened, then the bar began to revolve at a slow walk. A fiddler started up in the shadows on one side, a fife picking up with a perky trill opposite.

“Heave around — cheerly, lads!”

It was hard, bruising work. In the gloom and mustiness, sweating bodies labored; thunderous creaks and sharp wooden squeals answered with deep-throated shudders as the cable started taking up. The muscles on the back of Kydd’s legs ached at the unaccustomed strain.

“Well enough — fleet the messenger!”

A precious respite. Kydd lay panting against the bar, body bowed. Looking up, he caught in the obscurity of the outer shadows the eyes of a boatswain’s mate watching him. The man padded back and forth like a leopard, the rope’s end held on his side flicking spasmodically. “Heave ’round!”

Again the monotonous trudge. The atmosphere was hot and fetid, the rhythmic clank of the pawls and the ever-changing, ever-same scenery as the capstan rotated became hypnotic.

The pace slowed. “Heave and a pawl! Get your backs into it! Heave and a pawl!”

Suddenly a pungent sea smell permeated the close air, and Kydd noticed that the cable disappearing below was well slimed with light blue-gray mud. A few more reluctant clanks, then motion ceased.

“One more pawl! Give it all you can, men!” The officer’s young voice cracked with urgency.

Kydd’s muscles burned, but there would be no relief until the anchor was won, so he joined with the others in a heavy straining effort. All that resulted was a single, sullen clank. He felt his eyes bulge with effort, and his sweat dropped in dark splodges on the deck beneath him.

It was an impasse. Their best efforts had not tripped the anchor. Along the bars men hung, panting heavily.

There was a clatter at the ladder and an officer appeared. Kydd thought he recognized him. The man next to him tensed.

Garrett strode to the center of the deck. “Why the hell have we stopped, Mr. Lockwood? Get your men to work immediately, the lazy scum!” The high voice was spiteful, malicious.

Lockwood’s eyes flickered and he turned his back on Garrett. “Now, lads, it’s the heavy heave and the anchor’s a-trip. Fresh and dry nippers for the heavy heave!”

Kydd was exhausted. His muscles trembled and he felt light-headed. His bitterness at his fate had retreated into a tiny ball glowing deep inside.

“Now, come on, men — heave away for your lives!” Lockwood yelled.

The men threw themselves at the bar in a furious assault. The heavy cable lifted from the deck and thrummed in a line direct from the hawse. Nothing moved.

“Avast heaving!” Garrett screamed.

The men collapsed at the bars, panting uncontrollably.

Garrett sidled up behind Lockwood, whose pale face remained turned away. “You have here a parcel of lubbers who don’t know the meaning of the word work,” he said. “There’s only one way to wake these rogues up to their duty, you’ll find.” He moved forward and glared at the men contemptuously. Only one side of his face was illuminated, adding to its demonic quality.

His chin lifted. “Boatswain’s mates, start those men!”

Unbelieving murmurs arose as the petty officers hefted their rope’s ends and closed in.

“Silence!” Garrett shrieked. “Any man questions my orders I swear will get a dozen at the gangway tomorrow!”

“Heave ’round!” Lockwood called loudly, but with a lack of conviction.

The men bent to their task, but their eyes were on the circling boatswain’s mates. There was no movement at the capstan. A vicious smack and a gasp sounded. Then more. Still no displacement of the thick cable, which was now so tight that it rained muddy seawater on the deck. The blows continued mercilessly.

Kydd heard the whup a fraction before the blow landed, drawing a line of fire across his shoulders. The buried resentment exploded, but a tiny edge of reason kept him from a cry of rage or worse.

There could be no possible escape. While that anchor was so fiercely gripped by the mud they would remain at their Calvary.

“’Vast heaving!” The bull-like roar of the boatswain broke into the agonized gasping of the men. He was not contradicted by the two lieutenants.

“All the idlers to the bars — that means all you boatswain’s mates, and you, the fiddler!” He tore off his own faded plain black coat and went to the capstan. “Shove along, matey!” he said, to an astonished marine.

“And it’s one, two, six an’ a tigerrrr!” he roared. “Heeeeave!”