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At my desk is a length of rope from the 74 gun ship-of-the-line HMS Invincible that two centuries ago struck on the sands off Selsey Bill. The rope still smells of sea and Stockholm tar. I have other relics, too; a seaman’s tankard, a gunlock flint – an Admiralty issue clerk’s writing kit – each one bringing that far-away world straight into my consciousness. This I value above all things – as the one thing that I would most like the reader to take away from my book is a perception of the reality of Kydd’s world. Some have asked how real are the incidents in Artemis. There is an untold wealth in the histories – but the gold is found in the letters home of a pressed man, the diary of a gunner in Antigua, the musings of retired seamen. What lies in the pages of my book is how it happened, as closely as I can render it for today’s readers. Sometimes the facts are more amazing than any fiction – Artemis's desperate battle is based on that of the Nymphe and Cleopatre of the time. Maillot’s (Mullon’s) gallant act did take place, but in fact it was the Captain’s own brother, Israel Pellew, who personally laid and fired the fatal carronade shot that turned the tide. Good fortune has played its part in allowing me to indulge my passion: the felicity of having a wife who can walk and talk the plot and characters with me, the enthusiasm of my publisher Hodder & Stoughton and the inspiration from Geoff Hunt’s art. With the wider world of a naval scholarship to call upon, how can I not sit down and immediately begin the next book? |
