Free Quarterdeck by Julian Stockwin Page A

ying the Blue Peter at the fore masthead. She was outward bound to foreign parts, to mysterious worlds across the oceans, while they remained at home.
    Kydd stood easy on the fo’c’sle, waiting with his party to bring the anchors to fi nal sea stowage. Decks below, in the fetid gloom, the capstans would be manned and the fearsome job of winning her anchors would be acted out. Thankfully, this was not his concern.
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Julian Stockwin
    The soft green of the land held a tinge of melancholy: how long before he would see these shores again? What adventures lay waiting? Just a brief stop in Falmouth to pick up the convoy, then he might be looking on his native England for the last time—deaths by disease and accident far exceeded those from enemy action.
    Kydd’s thoughts were interrupted by a swirl of muttering from his men as they watched a fi shing-boat putting out from the shore.
    Under every stitch of sail, and heeled to her gunwales, it was making directly for Tenacious. Kydd went to the deck-edge and saw it come to clumsily at the side-steps. A redcoat stood up, swaying, and started waving and shouting.
    The man obviously wished to board, but the side-ropes were no longer rigged. Kydd could hear shouting as a number of sailors gathered at the ship’s side. A rope was fl ung down, knocking the man to his knees. The fi shermen fashioned a bowline on a bight and passed it under the man’s arms and, to barely muffl ed laughter, he was hoisted spinning and kicking aboard Tenacious. His baggage followed quickly. This would be the long-expected jun ior marine offi cer, Kydd guessed, but when he looked next, both marine and baggage had disappeared.
    He glanced up. The men aloft were at their place—the cast would be to larboard, and his men deployed accordingly. Bampton waited at the gangway, watching Kydd with disdain. But with a clear hawse and the tide not yet on the make, Kydd was confi dent he knew what to do.
    Over the bow, the starboard cable curved down into the grey-brown sea, the anchor buoy bobbing jauntily seventy feet ahead.
    From the low hawse hole the twenty-two-inch cable gradually tautened, a heavy shuddering settling to a steady passing inboard.
    Checking yet again that the cat and fi sh falls were led properly along the deck, Kydd watched the anchor buoy inching towards

Quarterdeck
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    the ship until the buoy boat grappled it. The process grew slower the steeper the angle of cable, until at last it was up and down.
    “Short stay,” he growled at a seaman, who whipped up a white fl ag. The quarterdeck at the other end of the ship now knew that the anchor was ready to be tripped from the sea-bed.
    It would be essential to loose sail the instant this happened, the ship under way and therefore under control immediately; otherwise she would simply drift with the wind.
    All waited in a tense silence. Kydd looked over the fat beakhead. The cable had stopped passing in, and he could imagine the savage struggle taking place at the capstan.
    Suddenly the cable resumed its movement and Kydd sensed the ship feel her freedom. “She’s a-trip,” he snapped. The man’s arm came down. With anchor aweigh Tenacious was now no longer tethered to the land. She was at sea.
    Houghton’s voice sounded through the speaking trumpet.
    Sail dropped from yards and staysails jerked aloft. He was taking a chance that the remainder of the cable would be heaved in and the anchor duly catted by the powerful tackle before the ship got too much way on. Kydd looked over his shoulder down the deck; when he saw Houghton’s challenging fi gure, he knew he must not fail.
    The fi rst ripple of water appeared about the stem at the same time as the inches-thick anchor ring broke surface. “Stoppers!”
    roared Kydd. It was now a race to uncouple the anchor from the cable and heave it clear of the water before the wake of the ship established itself. “Hook on!” He leaned over the side to see.
    Men were furiously passing the stoppers