Free On a Making Tide by David Donachie Page A

for all the world as though he hadn’t a care. Not much bigger than the boy to whom he had spoken, he’d been one of those in the mid’s berth who had not seen the need to take this new arrival down a peg or two: the escapade with the pissing competition had been prompted by humour rather than dislike. This had caused Nelson to wonder if he, too, had been an unwilling victim of Rivers’s attentions. Laughter – young and high-pitched mixed with the gruff older sounds – floated from the quarterdeck to his ears as Foley joined his peers, leaving Nelson to wonder what he’d said to them to make them laugh.
    Tentatively, Nelson put his foot on the first rung, feeling it dip beneath his weight as he looked up at the long, rising stretch of square knotted ropes; the shrouds, which ran like a hempen ladder from the ship’s side, all the way up to the wide platform he thought was named the foremast top.
    ‘Clap on with one hand,’ he repeated to himself, as, taking a deep breath, he began to ascend.
    Though the ropes moved, seeming to have a life of their own, he was pleasantly surprised at the ease of ascent, the strands of hemp being easy to grip. On a relatively windless day, they sloped in at an angle, so when he paused gravity laid him safely on the rope surface. The admonishment not to look down was one he knew from climbing trees, so he kept his eyes fixed upwards on his destination. This was the point at which the narrowing ropes passed the mainforemast yard, and touched the wood of the top, right by the lubber’s hole that would take him on to the wide fighting platform.
    He was followed by hoots of derision that were quickly silenced by whatever authority was on deck. The top, over fifteen feet across, felt secure in these inland waters, where the roll of the ship was slight, and that was made even easier as Raisonable snubbed gently at her cables. The edge had no barrier except the next set of shrouds. Stepping out on to the exterior of those reprised all his fears and imaginings. This was a much narrower avenue, the roll more exaggerated as the height increased. The smaller upper foremast cap felt less secure, three connecting beams barely big enough for two men to stand on together. But he reached it, hooked his arm through a taut, convenient stay, then looked down gratefully and began to consider his position.
    The way down was simple, the requirement being that he tell his uncle the truth. This was something he could not do, regardless of the consequences. After only two full days in the berth, he had formed an opinion about all his fellows; socially, morally and sexually. But what he had learnt was as secret as the fumblings in the holds. Recalling that, andthe smell of rot that pervaded the bottom of the hull, bilge water that no amount of vinegar and burning sulphur could make sweet, nearly made him gag.
    To distract himself he spent the rest of the morning looking at the flat marshes that surrounded the anchorage, at the warships still anchored, with fishing smacks, bum boats and yachts either still in the water or racing for some unspecified destination. From this height he could see over the low marshes and the Kentish coast to the great watercourse of the river Thames. Upriver he imagined he saw the haze that covered London, smoke from a hundred thousand fires that filled the atmosphere of that great city, a noxious brew that had amazed a country boy from deepest Norfolk.
    ‘Mr Nelson.’ He looked down, to see the premier standing on forepeak. ‘You may return to the deck.’
    ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ he replied, putting a foot over the edge to search for the first ratline rung of the shrouds.
    ‘What kind of lubber are you, sir?’ Fonthill yelled, in a voice that the boy imagined could be heard on land. ‘Do you not know to use the windward side?’
    ‘Sorry, sir,’ Nelson yelled back.
    He crossed the platform to come down on to the weather side wondering as he descended whom he could ask to