by Jan Needle
‘I must go,’ he said.
Peter looked frightened now.
‘No, no, Thomas,’ he said imploringly. ‘Do not you go too! This is a nice ship. Do not you go. You’m drunk is all!’
Indeed, as Thomas ran, he might well have been. He banged his head on deck beams, he ran into the yielding shapes of hammocked men, he bruised his toes and barked his shins on ringbolts, stanchions, gun-trucks. He was making a new noise now, a hoarse grunting moan. He was crying aloud his longing to be free.
*
As the marine reached the forward side of the bitts on deck, Jesse Broad, with a daring born of naked desperation, left the after side. He stooped and tried to move silently, but this was merely done by reflex. If the marine had been looking, he must have seen him. A split-second later Broad was fulllength among the rough logs and half-shaped spars stowed on the deck. His breath was rasping, sweat blinded him, his limbs were shaking. But he had not been spotted.
There was no time, no purpose anyway, in drawing out each move. The quicker he got over the side the better. Any shadow on the whole length and breadth of the ship could be a man, every move he made, however cautious, might be seen. The marine had failed to spot him by good luck; so let him trust in his star and move.
Broad abandoned the idea of trying to free a log or spar to act as a float. His every nerve screamed to be in the water, to be off the ship. Fast, but still with deadly care, he wormed under the jolly boat, cleared the other side, and gathered his courage for the last few feet of exposed deck.
In a moment when the night’s blackness grew magically even blacker, when the noise of the wind and the waves slapping at the frigate’s sides reached a sudden crescendo, Jesse Broad rose to his feet, paced evenly across the deck, climbed nimbly over the bulwarks, and dropped neatly into the dark waters of St Helen’s Roads.
It was cold, but he had expected that. It was bone-achingly cold, but he had been ready for that. He fought and fought the chest-crushing cold, until he could fill his lungs and think. No shout, no alarm. Filled with an elation, a sense of crazy disbelief, Broad began to pull himself along the side of the frigate, grabbing at the fronds of weed. The waves picked him up and bounced him down, the barnacles and limpets sticking to her belly threatened to tear his flesh. But he wanted to stay in close, to get the shadow, the protection of that dense blackness, as the waves pushed him rapidly towards the stern. Beyond which, in the freezing dark, lay the Isle of Wight.
His exultation was short-lived. Even in the crashing water he heard the banshee wail. As he stared up the ship’s steep side, he saw a grey flash, like a dark comet, fly over his head. It was a screaming comet, and it was screaming his name.
When the scream was extinguished in a mighty splash, Jesse Broad did not hesitate.
It was fifteen minutes before the quarter boat picked them up, and by that time Thomas Fox was almost dead.
Eight
Next morning the wind had hauled round so that it blew almost due east. It had strengthened considerably, with tearing low cloud and biting cold. Flurries of rain occasionally tore into the ship. Below decks the fug was already being replaced by a damp chill, mainly from the solid blasts of air that howled through the hawse pipes, sometimes accompanied with gushes of icy water when a bigger sea smashed against the frigate’s snubby bow.
William Bentley, taking breakfast tea with his uncle as had become their custom, was exultant. The weather could not be better, nor from a better quarter. They would fly down-Channel like a charging army. Swift appeared to share his high good humour.
‘This wind is excellent, my boy. We shall bear all plain sail and go south-about round the island. By this evening we shall have shaken off the sloth that grips the people, for good and all.’
‘Will you address them now or when we are cleared away?’ asked William. It would be a pity, he thought, to waste even half an hour of this perfect wind. Captain Swift regarded him with his pale, bleak eyes.
‘We will sail after punishment,’ he said shortly.
William was surprised. Punishment usually took place just before noon.
‘But uncle. In four hours with this breeze…’ Swift waved his hand to silence the midshipman.
‘Punishment will, of course, be brought forward. It is irregular – good. I wish to instil in this rabble a decent sense of the uncertainty of their lives and deaths under my command. They must learn to obey and they must learn that retribution will follow with lightning inevitability. They are used to punishment in the late forenoon. Today they will finish their breakfasts to it.’
Half an hour later all hands were assembled to witness the flogging of Jesse Broad. The red-coated marines stood grim-faced and ready. The master-at-arms had a naked sword in his hand, dripping a mournful dew of cold rain from its ornamental guard. Captain Swift, his officers and young gentlemen, with Captain Craig of the marines, were wrapped in great cloaks, like so many damp vultures. Over all was the sound of the wind, raw and lean, with a deeper musical hum from the rigging.
Broad stood facing forward while the preparations were made. He wore the clothes he had lain in all night, still wet when he was brought on deck, now soaked. Among the sea of faces in front of him he read many things. Mostly they wore a sort of closed, unmoving look, which was always the safest to assume. Some flashes of pity; many downcast eyes. Some, he knew, were prepared to enjoy his ordeal. He made a strange figure, short and powerful, with dark, secret face and badly cropped and shaven head. He saw smirks of pleasure on a few faces, and these faces he stared at, unblinking. There were many shaved heads there, though none so recent as his own. Men from the receiving hulks moored up-harbour, towards Fareham and Portchester. He studied the company and drew little comfort from them. Old age, degradation, imbecility; all were represented.
The flogging was to take place at the gangway, and a high grating had been lashed there. To this, at an order, Jesse Broad was triced by the wrists and knees. But first his gaily striped shirt was pulled from off his back. It was bitterly cold. His nose began to run. The wind cut deep, he thought sombrely; how would the lash compare?
Captain Swift was in no great hurry. As he had explained to William, a punishment is very little more than wasted effort if it does not achieve a greater purpose than merely crippling a seaman. This one had fallen at an opportune moment. Its timing was almost theatrical. It would give the people a taste of the man and his method, and the lesson would be etched in blood. William had listened and learned. It would never have occurred to him that Broad’s attempt at running and the need to flog him for it were anything other than an inconvenience. When his uncle started addressing the people he cleared his mind of all else, determined to go on learning.
‘My lads,’ said Swift, in an easy, effortless voice that managed, however, to cut through all the many noises and be heard by every man on deck. ‘This is a solemn and glorious moment. For me, your captain, for your officers, and for each and every one of you, from the highest warrant to the humblest boy.’
William watched the seamen’s faces. They looked confused, shifty. As well they might, for his uncle’s words were peculiar enough, truly.
‘Yesterday, brave boys, we received our orders. And today we sail. We sail for a far country and for hot work. For each and every man, I say, it is a glorious time.’
The pale eyes glared out over the silent company. William wondered vaguely if he ought to lead a cheer. But those dripping, frozen wretches appeared incapable of taking it up.
‘For aeons,’ Swift went on, ‘we have lain in these damned uncomfortable roads, and you have had no opportunity for that exercise which is so necessary to all loyal British tars – seeking, finding and destroying Johnny Crapeau. Now my lads, the hunting will commence.’
This time a ragged noise did go up. But not a cheer, by no means a cheer. William sensed the tips of his ears grow pink. Swift went on regardless, in his vibrant, penetrating voice.
‘Prize-money too, my lads, prize-money in p
lenty. You know my luck, you know my reputation. Remember the Bonaventure, remember the Dona Maria, remember the Maitre. Prizes, boys, prizes for the picking.’
The men were warming to him, William thought. The cold grey faces had lightened. And it was true that his uncle had made some notable captures. But how degrading, that this rabble could respond to one thing and one thing only – the thought of plunder.
When he next spoke, Captain Swift had changed his tone.
‘A glorious moment for all, I said, lads. But I was wrong. For two of the ship’s company, today is a day of villainy, ignominy and retribution. Before you, you see one of the shaved-head scum. The other is skulking below.’
A confused sound. Broad, his teeth chattering, attempted a smile. God help them, he thought, they don’t know what to think; whether to be on my side or his.
‘This villain, as no doubt you all know, tried to run last night. His chances of survival, had he got clear of the ship, were nil. But as you are all aware, to get clear of this ship is impossible. He was back on board, humbled in the eyes of man and God, within minutes. Now he will be humbled in the eyes of his shipmates.’
Another confused noise. A kind of grumble, perhaps of sympathy, mixed with a few jeers. Broad was too cold to care. He stared out over the tumbling grey seas.
‘There is one circumstance that saves this villain from a more proper punishment than a summary whipping,’ said Swift. ‘And it is this. While in the water, and probably quite by accident, this man saved a miserable youth bent on a far more dastardly act than even the act of desertion from one of His Majesty’s ships. That youth was bent on committing the vile and detestable sin of self-destruction. He was prevented, and now lies in the sick-bay close to the death which Providence denied him. When he recovers, lads, rest assured that a suitable punishment will be wrought upon him. Let no man think he can escape the wrath of God. Or of Daniel Swift.’
This blasphemy produced the expected laugh. It was a trick Swift had got many years before from his first commanding officer, a martinet called Hector Maxwell. He raised his hand.
‘Because of the fortunate, if accidental, circumstance of saving the worthless life of this puling youth, the man you see before you will receive only two dozen. Let not my lenience on this occasion lull you into the dream that all may expect such softness. Witness this punishment, my friends, and think upon it.’ He turned slightly.
‘Mr Allgood, will you be so good as to direct your men to lay them on? And Mr Allgood,’ he added in a voice of chilling penetration. ‘If they do not lay on with all their might and main, I would point out that others might like to do so on their own backs.’
Just before Jesse Broad received the first lash, a strange thing happened. A gap in the torn grey cloud appeared and the sun burst through. It was an autumn sun, and the wind remained icy, but it was a hot sun. Within seconds, almost, the decks and all upon them began to steam. A brilliant shaft of light struck Eastney beach. Jesse thought of home.
He rested his cheek against the hard grating and watched the dancing waters of the Solent. Beyond that shingle beach, with creaming foam breaking ceaselessly along it, lay the creeks, the woods, the hamlet where he had lived out his life. It was a community quite distinct from the life of Portsmouth, although only a few miles distant. They were a tightly knit, self-contained people whose life revolved round the mudflats, marshes, secret creeks and savage tides of Langstone Harbour. They considered themselves a people apart – protected by the difficult waters on one side, and the wild and marshy hinterland on the other.
He stared at the beach, waiting for the first lash, with a hollow sense of loss growing in his stomach. Only yesterday he was to have attended the christening service at the tiny old church with his wife. He thought of her in something like despair. They had been friends, lovers, for years. Now she was a lifetime away. Six or seven miles, and a lifetime.
‘Right then, my boys!’ boomed the boatswain. ‘You will start, Jefferies, and lay it on hard. Silence among the hands there!’
William watched fascinated as Jefferies, a loose-limbed, shambling man with protruding teeth, left the knot of boatswain’s mates. He had seen many floggings, but the sight
of the long cat, with its red baize handle and its strangely evil thongs, lumpy and wicked, always made his mouth go dry and his stomach flutter. The boatswain’s mate stood a moment, judging his distance, feeling the weight of the cat, getting the balance right. Steam rose in clouds as his hair and shoulders dried. His legs, from the knees downwards, disappeared into the vapour that rose from the deck, as though he were a ghost in a marsh. The whole ship’s company, silent, tense, dwindled into the same mist. Only Broad was clear of it, lashed tightly to the vertical grating, shadowed by the main rigging.
Knowing that the first blow was about to fall, Broad relaxed the muscles in his back as far as he could. He made sure his teeth were clear of his tongue, and moved his head a little way off the grating, to avoid banging it. Suddenly he thought of his ‘protection’, and almost smiled. Ah well, he had to think of something while the punishment took place. He began to concentrate.
The boatswain’s mate, grinning with the effort, swung the cat from far behind him in a low, howling arc. It ended in a solid bang, and a gasp from many mouths. William Bentley, biting his own lip, studied the motionless form of Jesse Broad. What he could see of the brown, handsome face was paling visibly before his eyes. It was as though someone was letting the blood flow out of his body. Bentley flicked his eyes to the man’s back. Not yet, at any rate.
There was a broad red swathe across the white, interspersed with livid patches, but the skin was unbroken.
Jesse Broad opened his eyes and looked at the beach again. The pain had surprised him, but he was not too worried by it. He was strong, and young, and healthy. Two dozen lashes, at this rate, would do him no great damage.
‘Mr Allgood,’ said Captain Swift, in a queer nasal voice of great menace. ‘That man is trifling with me. Do you hear, sir!’
Allgood, the glowering bull, walked up to his mate. He was head and shoulders over him, his huge belly thrusting forward. His eyes glowed.
‘Jefferies, you scum,’ he spat. ‘I told you to lay it on there. Now jump to it!’
A dew of sweat burst out on Jefferies’ brow. Depending on Swift’s whim he might have the whole two dozen to administer, or maybe as few as six. But each must be delivered with the whole of his strength. His face was impassive as he drew back his arm once more. Just before he took his swing Swift spoke again.
‘Let him draw blood with this stroke if you please, Mr Allgood.’
‘Aye aye sir.’
The mate’s face contorted with effort as he moved his shoulders and trunk round with all his power. The howl as the thongs parted the air was higher and louder. The slapping bang as they bit home was like an axe striking into thick timber. This time there was no gasp from the company. Jefferies jerked the cat savagely to free the thongs that had stuck to Jesse Broad’s back. Three bright strings of blood appeared. They grew rounder, glossier, then trickled like tears towards his belt.
‘You have just saved yourself a flogging,’ said Swift drily.
After sixteen more lashes, the blood had reached the deck, and a third boatswain’s mate was weakening. At a signal from the boatswain he was relieved by a fourth, who carefully cleared the nine thongs, one at a time, of the thick blood and conglomerated skin and flesh that clogged them. Broad’s back was a strange sight now, what could be seen of it through the moving mask of blood. Black at the edges, from blossoming bruises, still streaked in white where the lash had not yet bitten, purple and violet in other parts.
Bentley stared at it, fascinated. This man had never been flogged before, he knew. But still, his flesh had flayed far more readily than most. It was perhaps a good job that he was to receive only another half-dozen. For the real reason his punishment was so small, of course, was not because he had saved Fox, but because he was too useful a seama
n to be laid up for long. At this rate, he would soon be crippled.
Broad saw Eastney beach only hazily now, through a mist of blood and pain. Somehow, without him knowing it, his lower lip had crept between his teeth and he had bitten it almost through. His eye was cut from the knocking it received against the grating as each lash struck home. It was a lot worse than he had expected. But he tried still to think of other things. Only six more strokes at any rate. He knew of men who had survived three hundred.
Yes, your protection, he thought, as though he was someone else, someone outside his battered, aching body. Well, it served you well enough for a long time. One cannot argue with Fate. And who knows, it might yet serve again. Broad’s protection, like that of so many of his fellows in the hamlets where they lived, was an ironic one. Not just that their skills and knowledge of the secret, dangerous waters more than matched the best endeavours of preventive men, but, in a subtler way, their very trade itself. The country needed—
But the nineteenth lash must have struck a nerve. He felt a pain so excruciating that he thought he could not stand it. His toes smashed into the grating, slippery with blood. His knees twitched and jerked, the flesh splitting against the thin twine that seized him in position. Through the roaring in his head he heard Swift’s voice, blurred but penetrating, a clogged saw-blade.
‘Good man, Jenkins! That, Mr Allgood, is an example to the lubberly swine you have so far chosen as mates.’
Before this new, sharper pain had died, another replaced it. His bones were being flayed. Tears washed the sweat from his eyes, the foam from his lips. Broad tried hard, so hard, to concentrate his mind once more.
But he could not think clearly. Vague images of brandy-barrels and nights at sea mingled with the next blows and surges of agony. Ah, that was it – the country needed brandy. Yes that was it. Strange as it may seem, when there was a war on, the country needed brandy. He and his fellows, he and his friends, were not expected to answer to anyone. They were the men of Langstone, wild and lawless. Lawless and tough. Protected by people in high places.