The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  What a strange man that one was. He must be an officer, but he was a fine, jolly, friendly little fellow, as unlike that small fair-haired villain and his squeaky friend as could be imagined. He had treated Thomas well, shown him every kindness, never once chid him for his sinful act in trying to jump overboard. Maybe it was the boys who were villains, then, and the men who were to be trusted?

  Thomas recalled the scene in the cabin and shivered. That grand little man with the big nose and the frightful eyes was the captain. He was no friend to be relied on. And then, when Thomas had gone below to seek a mess, the people themselves, his fellow-sufferers, his countrymen – they had robbed him and abused him. It was a puzzle.

  Jesse Broad, awakening with a groan, made Thomas turn his head. He smiled at the form in the darkness. There was the man he could trust. For Thomas was a simple soul. Although he had tried to end his life, he thanked this smuggler from the bottom of his heart for saving it. Remorse flooded him. In saving him, Broad had forfeited his liberty and been cruelly flogged.

  ‘Mr Broad,’ he whispered. ‘Are you awake?’

  Broad lay face down on the deck and winced as the pain swiftly brought him to life. The bones of his back had a deep ache in them which he had never before imagined. Each rib had an individual outline, a bigness, that throbbed. And that after only two dozen!

  ‘Mr Broad. Are you sleeping?’

  The whisper was clear enough, but he did not reply.

  Broad was weary, weary to the very marrow. The white-faced boy with the glittering eyes of tragedy was too much for him at the moment. He felt no resentment at the part Fox had played in his downfall, none. But he could not stand the misery, the hopelessness, that welled from him like a tide.

  The whisper was insistent.

  ‘Mr Broad! Are we at sea, Mr Broad? Do you feel better, Mr Broad?’ A pause. Then: ‘I am sorry for the trouble I have caused you, Mr Broad.’

  There was something in the voice that made him answer. The shepherd boy no longer sounded hopeless. He lifted his head, placing his cheek onto the straw pillow so that he could see across the sick-bay.

  ‘Do not call me Mister Broad, boy,’ he said. ‘We are messmates, you and I. My name is Jesse.’

  ‘Oh. Then – I hope you are better, Mr Jesse.’

  ‘Jesse.’

  ‘Yes. Jesse. I am truly sorry, sir, for the pain I have been the cause of. I would not for the world have… I… Oh sir, your poor back, I have seen it.’

  It did not matter to Broad much anymore. He thought about it for some moments. No, truly, it did not ache so badly.

  ‘There is a saying, Thomas Fox, used among seafarers. It is a joke of sorts and it is applicable. “Worse things happen at sea.” It is so. Think no more of my slight injuries, and I am heartily glad you are better.

  ‘You are better?’ he added. ‘You sound better, lad.’ The boy’s voice positively bubbled.

  ‘Indeed I am, Mr Jesse, I—’

  ‘Messmate, among seamen that would be taken as unfriendly.’

  ‘Well then…Jesse. I do feel better. I thought to have died, of sickness if nothing else. And I am not even sick!’ An anxious note crept into his voice. ‘We are at sea, are we not? The motion, the sounds…’

  Broad soaked up the familiar sounds and motions through the front of his body and his ears and senses. They were at sea all right. With the wind dead astern, near as damn it, and carrying just about everything she would hold. His heart sank. God knows the speed they were making, but at this rate they would be clear of the Channel in a twinkling. And this foolish boy, who last night had wished to die, sounding as though it was the very thing he had always wanted! Oh Mary, Mary, he thought, and slowly filled his lungs with air to let it escape in a long sigh.

  ‘Aye, Thomas,’ he said. ‘We are at sea. And if I am any judge, we have a fair wind and a hard one. Does that suit you?’

  There was a long silence between them – a sea silence, filled with creaking, rushing water, a constant vibrating drumming given to the wooden hull by the masts and cordage. At last Thomas spoke.

  ‘I cannot tell for certain, Jesse,’ he said. ‘And I am deeply ashamed for the trouble I have put you to. But… well, I have no power with words, but…’

  ‘At least you do not feel sick?’ suggested Broad with a laugh. Fox returned it; he sounded exhilarated.

  ‘Aye, I do not. I feel…I feel very well… And…and I feel as if… As if it were not so bad a thing after all. To be a shepherd lad… to live in the marsh of Portsea Island… Indeed, my cousin Silas… Oh – I feel as if… I feel…’

  The words tumbled, became confused. Broad did not prompt him. He listened in the half-darkness, his own pain forgotten. He even forgot his mental pain as he contemplated the simple soul of Thomas Fox. He did not ask – he did not care to remind – the boy about his parents, his home.

  He remembered the first time he had joined a lugger’s crew, much too young, against his father’s strict instructions. The heady wine of sail and sea, the joy when he first heard the strange tongue of the ‘colleagues’ off the French coast. He understood Thomas perfectly.

  But he wondered when his punishment would come, and what it would be. The idea was a sombre one. Swift had made some reference to the ‘crime’ – and Swift was not a captain one could expect to let any infringement of the rules, either man’s or God’s, pass by without punishment.

  He supposed that the severity of the punishment Fox would receive depended on his importance in the ship. He, Broad, had escaped lightly for reasons too obvious to dwell on.

  But exactly where did the boy fit into the scheme of things?

  Firstly, he was no seaman – and it was skill that Swift was short of, not landmen. Secondly, he was a boy, with a strong tang of country humbleness about him, and Swift was known as a man who had an unpredictable regard for those who would stand up to his tongue. Lastly, and the only point in Fox’s favour, were the beasts. Broad supposed he had been pressed because Swift required a husbandman. Was it then such a difficult job? He did not know. If it was, maybe the boy would benefit.

  Fox spoke again, suddenly, almost gleefully.

  ‘And did you not know, Jesse, that there is a piper on board? Peter told me when he brought dinner. You were asleep. Is that not fine?’

  ‘A piper? A music-piper?’

  ‘Aye. Peter says he was the finest thing as they hove up the anchor. He was seated on the…on the…’

  ‘Capstan?’

  ‘Aye, he was seated on the capstan and played a right fine tune, says Peter, as they hove up and sailed away. A bagpipe, says Peter, I would guess an elbow-pipe from the way he told it. And the man is Irish.’

  ‘You understand music then?’ Broad was amazed at the liveliness of Fox’s voice. He sounded like a lark.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Thomas. ‘I understand little enough ’tis true, friend Jesse, but I know music well. I make whistles by the score, aye and play them right prettily. Or so everyone says, and the sheep don’t seem to mind at all!’

  ‘Good,’ said Jesse Broad. ‘Yes, that’s good, Thomas. Music on board a ship is a pleasant thing, pleasant and delightful.’

  ‘Oh, do you think so?’ The boy sounded overjoyed.

  ‘Aye, I do. Perhaps you can talk to this piper, if he has the English tongue.’

  ‘Oh.’

  A pause.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It is sad, but Peter says he has no tongue at all. Nor eyes neither. He is dark, and the poor man is mute and all.’

  The conversation tailed off, and presently Fox slept, while Jesse lay and thought. Somehow the ship felt less happy now. She was biting deeper from time to time, and he felt an occasional shock through his belly as her bluff bows hit a steep sea. There were momentary pauses in the vibrating hum, that read to his seaman’s mind as if she were shaking herself like a wet dog, or spilling wind from sails she did not want. At times the deck juddered.

  A ray of hope entered his head. It was the only h
ope, or one of only two. If the weather worsened, if a gale ran up behind them, there was at least a chance. At least a stay of execution. If the frigate hit some dirty weather, she might not clear the Channel so damned quick. She had the crew for it! A good blow, some foul South Coast autumn weather, and most of her ‘hands’ would collapse like pricked bladders. There were precious few seamen on board.

  To his surprise, Broad caught himself praying. Not only for the stiff easterly to turn stiffer, to become a gale, to blow a bloody tempest, but for the wind to change altogether.

  Why not a westerly for good measure? Where were they now? Off Portland Bill? Start Point? The Rame Head? A westerly blow, and run for shelter. He could do it. One day, half a day, in any port on the English coast, any bay even, and he’d get ashore, he’d run. Sudden elation swept over Broad then. Rightly or wrongly as it might turn out, Thomas Fox would not be interested in joining him, or his Maker, this time; so no burden. Thomas Fox thought he was happy! But he, Jesse Broad, knew where his heart lay. Heart, soul, all!

  There was no doubt that the weather was worsening, and even if it refused to change to the west, that was something. Over the next hour the motion grew less steady, the plunging greater. She was beginning to feel it, beginning to feel more than a capful of wind. Hope stirred in Broad’s stomach.

  The other thing he prayed for, and he was praying without restraint, was a French ship. He was not, perhaps, asking too much. A full gale in the Channel at the beginning of winter was indeed reasonable, and a westerly or a south-westerly more reasonable still, although the change of direction needed would require a little more effort on Heaven’s part. And as for a French ship, well why not? There was a war on, the Channel was narrow. The men-of-war, by policy, tended not to leave harbour without good reason, but one never knew, and there were privateers aplenty. To meet a gallant Frenchman and to lose a spar or two! To lose a mast and put into harbour for repair! Jesse Broad went to the extreme length of rolling onto his raw and aching back to clasp his hands piously upon his chest.

  *

  It was not long afterwards that Mr Robinson decided to get the topgallants off her. He spent some little time explaining why he was going to make the move to William Bentley, who remained interested although he was very cold despite a waterproof. Mr Robinson talked of the way the ship was rolling, the difficulty she was beginning to experience in lifting her bows from steep troughs, the feeling that she was unhappy. None of the explanations was in any way specific, which annoyed William vaguely. He knew that things had changed, that the note from the rigging was deeper, that the gouts of spray that flew across the quarterdeck in cold and drenching sheets had become more frequent; but as for ‘feeling’, as for ‘experiencing’ – how could he tell what the ship knew?

  More interesting was the deep sensation of nausea that was growing in his belly. For more than two hours men had been being ill, and at first he had enjoyed the spectacle. He had been out in the Channel before, of course. That great grown sailormen should be stricken like boobies had amused him. Now he was not so sure. In fact, by the time hands were piped aloft to reef the upper sails, William watched them with an expression of pained fascination on his face. What was more, he could not really see them. His eyes were filled with a greenish mist, criss-crossed with cordage and wildly swaying masts, that etched awful patterns against the white and grey clouds racing across the lowering sky.

  When his uncle came on deck to speak to the master, William was like an iron man, a dummy, rooted to the spot. Their conversation came into his ears in a drone, as if from a great distance.

  ‘What goes on, Mr Robinson?’

  ‘We are in for a blow, sir, unless I am greatly mistaken,’ the master replied. ‘And the wind is veering again. We may end up with a westerly yet.’

  The first part of Jesse Broad’s prayer was apparently being answered.

  Eleven

  By the middle of the next day the Welfare was making heavy weather of it, and the quality of the people had become a problem that threatened her with danger. Not all the beating in the world, not all the starting by the boatswain and his men, could turn the scrapings of many a gutter, the scourings of many a jail, into seamen. Already they had lost one man over the side. He had dropped with a long scream from the fore topsail yard as the labouring ship had staggered drunkenly between two big seas. He had bobbed off almost slowly, his face clearly visible between the creaming grey crests, looking imploringly a t the struggling frigate.

  One of the helmsmen had allowed his eyes to stray for a moment to his lost shipmate, and a sail had almost been caught aback. Captain Swift, who had been hovering near the wheel, gave a snarl and punched the seaman full in the face, while the master and the other helmsman clawed the spokes up to get her off the wind once more.

  William Bentley, as befitted a young gentleman, was now on the quarterdeck and fighting his sickness manfully. He was not alone. Jack Evans was a vile green colour and Simon Allen, another mid, was as sick as a donkey. The youngest of the young gentlemen, James Finch, had gone below to the berth, which was a very bad move. Bentley was not officially on duty, but to skulk below in a storm, when the crew of scum had to be bullied, cajoled, and given example to, might damn him in Swift’s eyes forever.

  So William stood on the quarterdeck, muffled in his tarpaulin coat, soaked under it to the very skin in freezing water, and suffered in silence. His sickness was awful. He would have welcomed any way out of it. Every now and then, like the others, he vomited, violently, painfully. Then turned his eyes to sails and cordage, wind and sea, once more.

  The wind had hauled farther and farther round in the night, as it gained in power. The Welfare was now closehauled, under double-reefed topsails. Her lee rail was low, and green seas swept the deck every two or three minutes. The process of the gear stretching and working-in that Mr Robinson had explained to him the day before was unfortunately still going on. It was their main problem.

  William watched the boatswain with something approaching admiration. For a common man he showed an uncommon determination and endurance. The few really good seamen under his control worked like a team of fine animals, and even the gutter-rats could be made to pull, usually at the correct moment – the gutter-rats that were capable of moving, that is. The boatswain’s great strength had stood him in good stead. For he had been on deck for nearly twenty hours, fighting canvas and men. As he sheltered under the weather bulwarks for a moment the midshipman stared at him. His black beard was streaming, his body was like a great sponge – and he was laughing into the teeth of the gale. He did not even wear a tarpaulin jacket, merely a thick flannel shirt that had split almost to his belt. He was a giant.

  To windward, the prospect was bleak. The cloud was so low it almost skimmed the wave-tops. These were high, and creaming, and marched in never-ending succession that he found oddly frightening. There was no reason William could see why they should ever stop. Great, grey, cold mountains, that could bear down on the Welfare until she gave up the uneven struggle. He gritted his teeth. It was the sickness merely. That would go; that he would defeat. And his uncle, and Mr Robinson, and that mad boatswain – were they worried? Not a bit of it. Allgood was laughing.

  The sickness on deck was confined to the officers, because any man who succumbed in the waist or on the foredeck would have been washed overboard immediately. So the sick among the people were all below, all confined to their living quarters. The gunports were tightly battened down, as were the hatches; under them, in the reeking darkness, conditions were appalling. There was a dim, flickering light at intervals from swaying lanterns, but mostly the men suffered in near-total blindness. The master-at-arms and his corporals patrolled from time to time, but with little purpose, and in fact on his third round one corporal was caught off balance, thrown against a gun-truck, and broke his arm in two places. His screams of agony added a more ghoulish note to the groans of ship and men. The all-pervading smell of sewage that rose from the bilge water being thrown
around and stirred up deep below fought a constant and evil battle with the reek of vomit, fresh and stale. Even the livestock was vomiting.

  Jesse Broad was not sick, but the battering his body received from the deck he lay on hurt him badly. The sick-bay was up in the eyes of the Welfare, and the cool breeze that had come through the hawse holes the day before was now a dank, chilling blast. Water burst through the holes despite their plugging, and roared back along the deck, bubbling under the light partitions that formed the bay. Broad’s palliasse was a sink of dripping straw. Worst was the forward motion. As Welfare’s bow lifted over each sea and the wind drove her into the next, she would gather speed until her great flat bow buried itself, and Broad would be inched along, flat on his face, on his straw sledge.

  His prayer had been answered, half of it, and that with a vengeance. But so far it had meant only discomfort. There was no sign that the frigate was being much delayed yet, or might run for shelter. With each shock, with each fresh stagger, with each howl of wind through the hawse, he smiled grimly. Blow wind blow, he thought; blow like a bitch. Blow us back to England and to hell with it!

  He spent several hours trying to comfort Thomas Fox, whose terror, like his elation the day before, Broad found amazing. The shepherd boy was convinced that the ship was sinking, and he was equally convinced that Broad was lying when he said there was nothing to fear. It had been confirmed for him when the water started coming under the partition and sluicing across the deck. It had been a relief for Broad, although a nuisance because of the mess and stench, when the boy had become too ill to talk. Luckily Fox was still weak; he spent more time unconscious than most of the sick men on board.

  The climax of the storm cost three more lives, and came close to achieving what Broad hoped of it. He knew all about it, too, because sick man though he was, he was part of the team that saved the frigate.