Kite nodded, but not like he blamed her.
34
Offshore, Cadiz, 1805
Everything had smelled of paint and turpentine that afternoon. They were repainting the hulls. The Belleisle was even having to redo the rings around her masts in yellow instead of black. Kite swapped his jacket for a brush and a can. He liked painting. It was simple, and it was obvious when it was finished.
Suspended on a rope swing below the furled sails, he could feel a tiny breeze that didn’t reach the deck, where the heat haze swam. Other people on other ships had noticed too and the masts swung with men on ropes, which gave the fleet a festive look, as if it were made of dangerously high carousels. Like he had done every five minutes, despite always promising himself he wasn’t going to look again for at least another hour, he glanced at the flagship. It was conspicuous for not flying any flags. No supply orders, no post, no invitation to cross between ships.
The golden dome of the cathedral at Cadiz showed, just. He had been trying not to stare at it as much as he’d been trying not to stare at the flagless masts of the Royal Sovereign. As of this morning, he hadn’t been ashore for twenty months and two days. He had never wanted to with any particular exigency, but Cadiz was different. It wasn’t home; he’d moved too often to have a home except wherever the majority of his clothes were, but it was a place he liked, and whenever he did look, he wondered if the same priests were there. He had started, since getting here, to want to go to a real Mass again, in a real church instead of the bleak grey English ones with their boneless English parsons. There was something off-putting about faith with no backbone and only just enough teeth to get through a cucumber sandwich.
Just around the arm of the bay was the French fleet. They had been there for thirty days. They hadn’t moved once, not even to scout. They weren’t bothering to fire on the English frigates that scudded up to look at them. Their officers’ wives had even taken to climbing down to see the English officers’ wives as they rowed out to go shopping in Cadiz. It was a weird little piece of friendliness in the middle of what was otherwise a strict blockade. If a single man had been on one of those boats, it would have been blown out the water. But everyone had decided that there had to be a line, and that line was pissing off the women.
Above him, the two sailors filling in the next stripe up were muttering that it was nothing but a way to pass the time. He flicked paint at them.
‘Get on with it.’
‘Yes, sir,’ one of them said quickly.
Usually the trouble officers had was making the men listen. Kite would have liked it if they’d listened less. He had never done anything noteworthy; they had no reason to be afraid of him. The point wasn’t inherently sensible either. They were painting because all Nelson really wanted – and Kite could never decide if he found it dandy or endearing – was that nice checkerboard effect that came of having black hulls with yellow stripes. When the gun ports opened, they hinged black squares into the yellow, and he liked the masts to match.
Tom mooched up from the cabin, in gallant disarray in the heat, and slouched forward against the taffrail just opposite Kite’s swing. He must have stood in the same way at another rail before this one, because his waistcoat crumpled into already established creases.
‘Afternoon,’ he said. ‘Why is … why?’ He waved his hand at Kite’s paint can. ‘Have we not sailors, lieutenant? Have you not that paperwork I made up earlier?’
‘I was tired of waving at the Orion, sir,’ Kite said, and there was an assenting mumble above him. Something under his chest turned unhappily. Jem had waved back early that morning from the other deck. They could only make each other out properly with telescopes. It had been a relief to see that Jem was alive and with all the right limbs, but it was a short-lived relief.
‘So we’re painting,’ Tom concluded. He seemed to search for something constructive to add. He didn’t find anything.
Kite caught himself rubbing at the tattoo under his sleeve, full to splitting with the need to say something to Jem. It was getting so urgent he was willing to try smoke signals.
‘Captain, may we not—’ one of the sailors began.
Tom looked up. ‘May we not go across to other ships even though there is no signal flag on the Royal Sovereign suggesting that we might be permitted to ship visit?’
‘The ladies are doing it,’ the sailor said hopefully.
‘Not any more. Banned since Tuesday,’ Tom sighed. Not far from them, the Royal Sovereign rode a bump in the sea and swayed. ‘For God’s sake, what does Lord Collingwood do all day? I’ve known barnacles with a greater need for society. It’s all very well saying we must be in a state of readiness instead of cluttered about on boats between ships, but three weeks not talking to anyone? He’s either got a very amusing dog or an exceptionally beautiful cabin boy.’
‘It must be the dog, he’d have to speak to a person,’ Kite said. The usual rule about keeping your opinions of senior officers to yourself had eroded around the time the sugar had run out.
One of the sailors made a small annoyed sound as he strayed outside the lines for the paint. Kite passed up the jar of turpentine. His fingers felt sticky when he let go. The open sea shouldn’t have been stuffy, but the air felt just as close out here as it did in tiny baking alleyways. The sailors had even given up on fishing off the guns. There was nothing to catch; the only things that ever passed through here were jellyfish, which put off everything else. Across on the Orion, someone had stretched a washing line between four open gun ports. He could see the shirts pegged on it. The sea was too calm to spray them.
Down on the deck, the sailors were doing decent work of keeping busy, but everyone had slowed down almost to nothing. The heat was rippling and most of them had their shirts tied round their waists. The black men were tanned so dark their tattoos were lost, and the white ones were burning. The bosun, with exactly nothing to do even though he was on watch, was propped against the base of the mast with his rifle, in case there were any birds to take a shot at, but there weren’t. Trying to get rid of the lethargy that had been creeping over him all afternoon, Kite let himself down beside him, even though he had nothing particular to say. He was starting to feel like it was better to be silent in company, at least. The bosun glanced at him and they knocked their knuckles together. Kite made scissors and the bosun made paper. Rock, scissors. Rock, rock. The bosun kicked his ankle.
Across from them, the Agamemnon creaked unpromisingly. The bosun glanced that way too and they both sank into a more depressed silence. It was obvious even from here that it was rigged badly, but there was nothing to do about it. You couldn’t signal across to someone else and complain. It wouldn’t have helped, anyway. Agamemnon was a horrible piece of shipwrighting. It wasn’t old, but whenever Kite saw it, new bits of it were falling apart.
Although Kite didn’t know till much later, the shameful state of the Agamemnon was why its captain hadn’t asked many questions of the six peculiarly well-qualified men who’d signed on two years ago in Portsmouth, when usually he couldn’t get anyone better than the local drunks. It was why he hadn’t cared that they had no real references, and why he’d believed them when they said they’d deserted from the French navy because they just didn’t believe in Napoleon any more. Qualified hands were qualified hands.