by Jan Needle
Shortly afterwards, William was aware that the sentry of marines on ship-time duty had approached him from behind. He knew the time to the minute, but he let the soldier wait for some seconds before he turned. He said nothing, raising his eyebrows in enquiry. Everything must be deliberate; everything must be correct. That way the Welfare would become a taut ship.
The marine, stiff to attention despite the still considerable movement of the ship, told him that it was fifteen minutes past seven a.m. William, the midshipman of the watch, acknowledged with a nod. As the sentry returned to the hatchway, he stepped up to the first lieutenant and inclined his head.
‘The quarter, sir.’
‘Thank you, Mr Bentley.’
William repeated his half-bow and withdrew. The first lieutenant raised his eyebrows at the boatswain. Mr Allgood, also without speaking, passed on the order. The calls shrilled; hands were piped to breakfast.
Thomas went with Peter, who had been designated mess cook that week, to the galley up forward. As they reached it, he realised how hungry he was. As they stood with the crowds of other men, one from each mess, his knees went weak at the smell of the hot oatmeal broth, and it occurred to him that he had not eaten for days. His hands shook as they carried back the messkid, and the burgoo was split up amongst them. He could not wait to fill his mouth with the scalding, soupy food, and his friends behaved much as he did. Within a couple of minutes the platters were licked clean. They sat about for a while, belching noisily, drinking deep draughts of beer. Peter was watching Thomas’s face with his button eyes shining.
‘Well well, Thomas,’ he said. ‘Ain’t you going to have a sup?’ Thomas was. He had been savouring it, for he liked beer. But when he filled his mouth he almost gagged. The others laughed.
‘Not like mother brews ’un, I’ll warrant me,’ said Grandfather Fulman. ‘That’s purser’s ale, young Thomas, and bad already. And it gets worse as we gets further from land!’
Peter looked eagerly at him.
‘If you finds him too sour, Tommy,’ he said, ‘I’ll finish him for you. For I’ve a stomach of iron, and can drink beer that’s stood three month or more!’
Everyone laughed again. Thomas closed his eyes and gulped. It was sour and thin. But it was beer.
‘Beg pardon, Peter,’ he said. ‘But I’ll manage by myself, thankee.’
After their half-hour was up, it was hands to scrubbing once more. At the end of another two, even Peter was silenced. Thomas felt as though his arms would drop off, and his knees were both bleeding. Many other men’s knees left bloody blotches – you could tell the old hands by the thickness of the calluses on knees and elbows – so the oldsters who walked ahead with the buckets took a turn behind every so often to mop up the new stains. It was deadly work.
*
Broad was busy too, but he considered himself luckier than his messmates, except Matthews, who was at least as useful in some of the finer details of the seaman’s craft. They and the other able men were set to overhauling cordage, and sails that had strained or carried away. The mizzen topsail had torn along a reef band during the night, so the first main job after the fore topgallant mast, was to get it off her and bend a new one on. As before, the normal divisions were ignored. The boatswain and the sailmaker worked in unison, directing the gangs of men to each new task, whether on ‘their’ mast or not.
Far out along the mizzen topsail yard, Jesse struggled with a feeling that was almost joy. It frightened him that he should feel it, despite the end of all hopes for salvation, but he could not deny it. His ears were filled with a musical, deep-toned thrumming. The ship, under a heavy press of canvas, was flying along, each rope and spar trembling, alive. His eyes were filled with a world of sparkling brilliance, exceeded in beauty only by the Welfare herself. She reminded him of a bird, a great, beautiful, vibrant bird. The cold wind seemed to clear all the degradation and unpleasantness of the past days away from him. His tiredness had vanished. He was a seaman at sea; God help me, he thought ruefully, it is my life.
Down below him the sailors on the bright deck looked small and insignificant. They were scrubbing hammocks and clothes in the afternoon sunshine. What a strange gang, so many old men, so many boys. He tried to crush the feeling that he was better, but in truth he felt it. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, here was life, up here, in control, in command, of cord and canvas. Aft he could see the man at the wheel; and envied only him.
When his gaze travelled farther aft, and caught the small figure of Daniel Swift, stern and upright in his bright blue coat, a cloud passed over the sun of his happiness. He had spoken to Fulman no more about him yet, but the captain was making his presence and his spirit known quite rapidly enough. His reputation, which Broad had been prepared to water down despite his own treatment, was fast being confirmed by events.
At the turn of the morning, the air of rejoicing that had somehow pervaded the ship had come to an abrupt end.
Not, thought Broad, that many had much to rejoice about, himself included. But there it was; rational or not, the end of the storms, the cleaning of the foulness from the quarters, a hot meal, if only of burgoo, had brought a new feeling to the people. A lightness,. in some cases almost a jollity. The cloud had fallen when the marine drummer beat all hands to witness punishment. Matthews and Broad, who had been working together setting up a shroud, had looked at each other, puzzled. Other men, too. Because punishment had been forgotten while the weather prevented it, and now the weather had made them feel happy. Punishment was in no one’s mind.
They guessed it was to be Henry Joyce, the man who had been arrested after the episode of running from the Frenchman. The arrest had stilled the wagging tongues instantly, and no one had spoken anything about the matter since. It bade fair to be a savage punishment, for Swift would hardly take kindly to such talk.
But it was another man. The man, in fact, Thomas had seen in the sick-bay with the knife wound. When his shirt was stripped off and he was triced to the grating, the wound was clearly visible, closed and healing well. Ten minutes later it was open, and hidden in a welter of blood from many other slashes. And when the man had been released, he had stared with black and hate-filled eyes at the unmoving figure of Captain Swift, until he had been beaten below by Allgood’s mates. The ‘mutineer’, Joyce, was said to be still in irons. God knew what Swift had in mind for him.
After the punishment, which the captain prefaced with another of his bitter homilies on discipline, they were served with a good dinner, including fresh vegetables, then the rum ration. Broad had secreted some of his, because he knew he would be working aloft all afternoon and feared a muggy head. But many of the company did get drunk, as how could they not on the great can of fiery spirit, on top of all the beer they had been served? In the course of the next hour, two were arrested and were now below. Perhaps there was to be a flogging every day. Or perhaps Swift might dream up other punishments.
Now below him, the waisters worked at scrubbing hammocks, the officers strutted, the purser sold slops.
Another thought came into his mind. That strange man Allgood. He could not make him out. Only yesterday he had terrified poor Thomas half to death on the foredeck, and today he had treated him like a lamb. He had taken him to the purser, Grandfather Fulman had related, and rigged him out in new gear. When the purser had tried to rook him, Allgood had intimidated that worthy to such an extent that the boy ended up with shirt, blouse, trousers and tarpaulin at a fairer price than any man on board could boast. The purser had said nothing, but given sour looks; it was, after all, his God-given right to cheat poor sailors. No man would dare rob Thomas again, or take his clothes off his back as they had done, now that Allgood had shown this interest.
But still there remained the day before. True the boatswain had been under orders to make the boy clean the heads, mad as that order was. But he had filled the lad with some sort of terror, that much had been clear. He had become nervous to a degree, trembled when approached, cast his
eyes always downwards to the deck. Broad felt an odd protectiveness towards him; he was concerned.
He thought of the purser again. He did not know him, but had seen him and heard his reputation. He was a short, fat, slimy-looking man who rejoiced in the nickname ‘Butterbum’. His power on board was equal to Allgood’s in his own field; in the field, that is, of robbing seamen or making their lives miserable in many crafty ways. God help Thomas Fox if Mr Purser took it upon himself to seek revenge for the manner in which the boatswain had dealt with him. God help Thomas Fox.
As always, new orders ended coherent thoughts.
Seconds later Jesse was racing hand over hand towards the deck, racing to the next task, which was on the fore topgallant yard. As he dodged the rattans on the deck, and darted between outstretched, dripping hammocks, he had only time to envy the men who had the knack of sliding down the stays. It was an art he would have to acquire if he was to be a fast hand.
Sixteen
The good weather continued, much to everyone’s surprise and delight, and the Welfare was soon far out into the Atlantic. William Bentley and the other young gentlemen were required to take a noon sight with the master, who also delivered dry lectures on the Trade winds and various other nautical matters. William found him very vexing, very hard to follow. He sometimes suspected, in fact, that Mr Robinson enjoyed confusing the midshipmen, who were not of his own class and who sometimes showed their resentment at the power the ugly, uncouth little man held over the mysteries of the sun, the stars, the sea. He dared to mention it to his uncle over tea one morning, but not in any direct fashion. Captain Swift merely laughed, and reiterated that Robinson was the best seaman-navigator he had ever known.
‘He has saved my life before this, that good man,’ he said. ‘Ill-favoured, ugly, and cantankerous. I gave him his preferment. And that is no light thing.’
A man they resented far more was the schoolmaster, Mr Marner. One bad consequence of the reasonable weather was that this old worthy emerged from his hole like a hedgehog in spring and began to torment them. All the boys hated and despised him, but Captain Swift was unapproachable on this score too; his young gentlemen were young gentlemen, and they would behave and be taught as such. When William had tried, in a roundabout way, to get himself excused, the pale eyes had turned on him and grown paler. William wished he had not spoken, for he had certainly angered his uncle. And it was ridiculous, for Marner was a drunk, and a fool, and knew nothing.
Jack Evans had grumbled: ‘It is just like being at home, chaps, that’s the fact of the matter. I once had a German tutor, a great sausage of a man with an accent like a drain. I soon got rid of him, I can tell you!’
The other mids, lounging about the berth sharing a bottle of rather fine wine Simon Allen had pulled out of his chest, laughed.
‘How did you do it then, Jack?’ asked little James Finch. His eyes were glowing and his face was flushed. Drunk, in fact. He was very young and could not yet control the effect of a few glasses.
Evans twirled the wine round in the light from a lantern before he answered.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I merely made his life unbearable.
I complained to Mama about everything he did, and I absolutely refused to learn to talk the damned language. In the end, I threw a plate of mutton at him during a formal dinner.’
They rolled about, gulping wine and air in equal quantities.
‘Did your father whip you?’ asked Simon. ‘Mine would have thrashed me like a dog.’
‘No,’ said Jack. ‘That’s the best of it. My mother wanted to have him flogged, for upsetting me! The old father would not allow that, unfortunately, but the fellow was sent packing, of course.’
‘I once had a French governess,’ James said shyly. ‘Some men from the village followed her home one night. They...they made…suggestions, I believe.’
He blushed deeply as the others roared with laughter. ‘They were flogged from the parish,’ he ended lamely. All the boys had memories of various schoolmasters, tutors, governesses, and they flowed fast and free. Bentley, whose family lived on a large estate near Petersfield, on the London road in Hampshire, had been taught by a succession of men of all types. The earnest young variety had displeased him most, and there had been several of them. They invariably claimed to be from great houses, sadly fallen into decay through no fault of their own. He despised their fawning attitudes, and treated them as they deserved.
He had once reduced a young man of about twenty-three to tears in front of his sisters, which had been considered quite a feat for a boy of only nine. The older men in general had more dignity. One fellow, who must have been in his sixties, had packed his bags and disappeared into the night when he could bear the torment no longer. Had not even claimed his wages, so William’s father reported to the amazed family circle. A dignified act if a rather foolish one, coming on winter as it had been.
Mr Marner, they all agreed, was incapable of such dignity, and incapable of anything else either. At least some of the earnest young men had known the rudiments of arithmetic, and Evans claimed to have learned some interesting things from a young Frenchwoman once employed on his father’s estate. It was Simon Allen who at last suggested they should play a ‘stunt’ on the Welfare’s schoolmaster.
Before they went into the suggestion they made sure the berth was clear of the older midshipmen. Most of them were on deck working, and Dolby, who had been cleaning boots and mending a torn shirt of James Finch’s to earn a few pence, was soon sent on a fool’s errand. The schoolmaster himself might have been there, for he was officially a midshipman and received the same meagre pay as Finch, the youngest – although unlike James, of course, he did not have a hugely wealthy father back in England. Simon went into the corner where Marner slept and kicked at the pile of blankets, but there was nobody hidden among them.
‘What sort of stunt should we play?’ Finch asked Bentley. The others looked at him too, and William felt a glow of pleasure. Jack Evans was bigger and a fair bit older than he, and Simon Allen was older. But his bearing, as well as his position on board, had naturally marked him out as the smartest young gentleman.
He yawned behind his hand, affected boredom with the whole affair.
‘Are we really sure it’s such a good idea?’ he replied. ‘Is not the thing a little tedious?’
They were having none of it. Allen had brought out more wine and their faces were all flushed. They were enjoying themselves immensely.
‘No no!’ shouted little James. ‘Let us catch the old devil properly. Let’s tar and feather him!’
‘We could empty his ink bottles over the side,’ Evans suggested.
‘I have it – let us fill his brandy bottles with ink instead!’
‘And drink the brandy ourselves!’ said Simon. ‘I suppose he drinks reasonable spirit, as he spends all his money on it at least!’
In the end they agreed that a more open stunt was needed. Somehow they had to make Mr Marner look foolish in front of the ship’s officers, even the people if possible. William secretly felt it would be better if his uncle were not to get wind of it, but he did not say anything. However, he did try to tone down the idea.
‘We must not, of course, do anything that would really hurt the fellow,’ he said. ‘After all, he has done us no real harm.’
They howled him down. How could he say such a thing! The mere presence of the man was harm enough, let alone when he opened his futile damned books. William allowed himself to be persuaded. He doubted if Uncle Daniel would mind a little pranking, as long as it did not actually damage the schoolmaster beyond repair. He considered hard; there must be a suitable scheme somewhere. Drink would be the key to it; for Mr Marner was very old, and drink rendered him quite helpless. He considered hard.
At dinner that day in Broad and Fox’s mess, Matthews, as usual, ate in silence. But when he had finished, he announced that he was changing messes.
This came as something of a shock, for although he talked little
and did not enter into the normal friendlinesses the others shared, he had seemed quite content. Grandfather Fulman, as the oldest hand, took his cue to ask the questions.
‘Have we not been good enough shipmates to you, Mr Matthews? Is it that we have offended in any way?’ he asked.
Matthews smiled his slow, long-faced smile.
‘My friends,’ he said. ‘Let me set your minds at ease. There is a man on board that I knew many years ago. An old shipmate. We sailed on the northern routes together many times, and yesterday I met him again by chance. Mr Allgood has obtained leave from the first lieutenant for me to shift, that is all. There is no tension between me and any one of you, and I am grateful to have been allowed to share here.’
This was a very handsome speech, especially from so silent a man.
Thomas felt quite proud. The others were pleased as well, he noted. Fulman blew down his unsmoked clay noisily, like another man would perhaps blow his nose, say, to cover a shyness. Jesse was more practical, however.
‘What sort of a messmate are we to get in your place, Mr Matthews?’ he said evenly. ‘Are you displacing any other man? Or are the numbers not made up?’
Matthews looked at him levelly for several seconds. ‘I will bring him,’ he said at last. ‘You can say yea or nay to his face.’
As he strode across the deck, they glanced at each other in silence. This was all a little strange. Thomas knew that men were permitted to change messes, but he was not sure whether they themselves had the right to refuse a ‘replacement’. He did not like to ask.
A gasp went up as Matthews returned. He was leading someone by the hand. The dark musician.
Matthews stood before them, his hand on the blind man’s shoulder. He smiled sardonically.
‘May I present Mr Padraig Doyle,’ he said. ‘Leastways, that is how the boatswain claims he is called. You will find him a quiet messmate, although more than willing to give you a tune should you desire it. Well, what do you say?’