The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  In the sick-bay there were many men. Ulcers were the most common complaint, along with boils and general sores. Jesse Broad spent two days in there after a languidly swinging block had rendered him unconscious for twelve hours and affected his sight. The surgeon, as gay as ever, had treated him like an old friend, plied him with special stocks of brandy instead of the rotgut he doled out to other men. It was apparently his only real answer to the diseases he was faced with. His small stocks of garlic and other beneficial herbs had gone long before, he was no great believer in the effectiveness of bleeding (having seen it, he said, kill more than it had cured) and he had a fixed hatred of quackery. Broad got out as soon as he could see half-straight. He would rather risk death from double-vision and walking overboard than stay among the dirty, groaning men.

  Below decks it was bad enough, in the sick-bay it was dreadful. But aloft it was worse. Captain Swift, and his officers, and his young gentlemen, and his warrants, saw to that.

  Swift’s idea, apparently, was that now there were only light airs, every one of them should be made to work for the ship. What this really meant was that he wanted the men to work. If the devil truly made work for idle hands, Captain Swift was making damned sure there were no idle hands.

  Dead ones maybe; but not idle ones.

  He stood upon the quarterdeck, under an awning, and watched the sea like a hawk. He lifted his great nose at every air, however light, and studied every catspaw, however faint. At each and every one, he gave orders to the master or the boatswain. These were passed to the boatswain’s mates, then to the men. Canes whistled and thwacked, tired, aching, sweating men jumped to sheets and braces. Hour after hour the performance went on. The yards were braced this way and that, sheets were eased and hauled in, headsails were backed, filled, and changed. The Welfare lay sluggish in the blazing calm, rarely moving. When Swift was tired of it, he would hand over to Hagan, or Plumduff, or Higgins. Then he would sit under the awning, in his silken shirtsleeves, drinking lemonade.

  The yards were so hot, so slippery with sweat, that it was a miracle no one died. Swift ordered almost as many sail changes as he did manoeuvres. New sails were brought up from below, yards were lowered and the canvas replaced with lighter, the yards were swayed up again. Stunsails were repositioned, new methods of sheeting were devised. The topmen, dizzy with heat and fatigue, clenched the slimy, burning spars with their bellies. Some were ruptured, as many, even, as in heavy weather. Then they would be helped below to be fitted with a truss. Mr Adamson, mercifully enough, did not follow the practice of some of his fellow naval surgeons and hang hernia victims by their heels to ease the swelling.

  ‘The bastard will kill us all,’ Matthews said to Jesse, as they lay across the fore topgallant yard one morning.

  ‘Yes,’ said Broad, dully. ‘Do you know, Matthews, I truly think he will.’

  No time for any more, no time for thoughts. They were howled to the next task, slipping carelessly among the rigging with leaden limbs, clumsy fingers. Perhaps he would have welcomed the idea of death, had he been able to think clearly. But he was too tired.

  William Bentley and the other midshipmen entered into the spirit of the new regime with great gusto. They had discussed it the morning after the dinner, when the worst of their hangovers had evaporated, and agreed that the captain was right. What the people needed was a bit of grit, a bit of fizz, a bit of bounce.

  Jack Evans looked at the faces of his friends carefully as if he were going to say something of great importance.

  ‘Can I trust you lads?’ he asked, shiftily. ‘I do not want to end up on the fore yardarm in a hemp collar for this!’ James Finch was excited.

  ‘Are you planning a mutiny, Jack?’ he said.

  ‘Hush!’ said William. Mutiny was an uncomfortable word. A disturbing word. It was a word that only a silly child would utter except in the deepest seriousness. Finch went scarlet.

  ‘You are a foolish baby,’ Evans said, in as stern a manner as his shrill voice would allow. ‘No, but listen, lads, I must admit I thought the owner was going a little far at first.’

  ‘Over the matter of the marine?’ asked Simon Allen. ‘Aye, that certainly. I thought the fire-eater was coming it very hot. Why, to suggest the fellow was shirking!’

  ‘He looked desperate ill to me,’ put in Finch, glancing anxiously at them to make sure he wasn’t being silly again. ‘And after all, he did die!’

  Evans and Allen laughed. But William put in darkly: ‘It is amazing, to quote my Uncle Daniel, the lengths to which some people will go.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Evans. ‘I did not catch his meaning on that at first. But he is right, of course.’

  ‘You mean it is a plot?’ asked Finch incredulously. ‘How can that be, though? A man cannot die deliberately.’

  ‘The matter of the burial will cause trouble enough,’ said Simon Allen. ‘It could almost be seen as an excuse. A way for the damned dogs to start barking and showing their teeth.’

  Jimmy shook his head.

  ‘I still cannot get it,’ he confessed. ‘Jack, you said the owner went too far. Are you now saying—’

  ‘I said “at first”. I said I thought “at first” he went too far. Of course he did not. He has the measure of this scum.’

  ‘But surely…’

  ‘Oh stow it, Jimmy,’ Evans said. ‘You are too much of a child. What you cannot understand, for God’s sake keep your mouth shut on.’

  William had a sneaking sympathy for Finch’s position, because he wasn’t too sure of it all himself. Could the marine’s death really have been such a mystery? Judging by the confusion of the way they were discussing it, the others were as flummoxed as he was. Sometimes he felt they were all useless, stupid, himself as well. Mere snotty boys, as the people thought them. It embarrassed him, shamed him horribly. He went for the broad principle, to make the argument less a fatuous mess.

  ‘What I say,’ he told them, ‘is that Uncle Daniel is right. He knows his men better than anyone. It is uncanny. He sees right into the minds of these people. And he is right.’

  There was a chorus of relief. Whatever the ins and outs of it, the overall position was clear. They nodded eagerly, expecting him to drop more words of wisdom. William obliged.

  ‘What my uncle said, when all’s done, is that we have been too soft on them. The sunshine and the pleasant breezes have put us in a holiday mood. We have been failing in our duty.’

  ‘Not just us alone, Will,’ added Evans, ‘but the lieutenants and the warrants and petty officers too.’

  ‘No excuse, no excuse,’ said William. ‘Just because others have failed, does not make our failure better. Why, I freely admit my own lapses. I have seen men slacking and let it pass, when all I had to do was lift a finger and have a boatswain’s mate start them.’

  Another chorus, of confessions this time. All the mids had let men off in similar situations. They shook their heads in shame.

  ‘What have we done, indeed, to aid the discipline on board?’ asked William. ‘Tormented one old schoolmaster, and let the real villains run free. It is very bad in us, very bad.’

  A chorus of agreement. Then a long and detailed discussion as to how they could win back their self-respect. They decided that nothing should escape them from now on, not a dropped ropeyarn, not a raised eyebrow. They would show the people that they were young gentlemen, and officers born. They would sweep and scour the ship like a cleansing fire. They would provide the iron in the soul that Captain Swift said was what the Welfare lacked.

  *

  After the simple burial of the soldier, each of them provided a list to the master-at-arms of men and marines whose attitudes during the service had conveyed anything that smacked of discontent. There were several floggings on their behalf, and Captain Swift thanked them handsomely for their vigilance. On the decks the four became terrible, ranging and watching for the slightest lapse. And it was William himself who suggested to his uncle, some days later, a new way of keeping the p
eople busy.

  When it was first announced, Jesse Broad, who had been standing in the shade of the foremast awaiting the next unnecessary sail order, could hardly believe it. But it was true. Hands were being told off to the boats. He himself, singled out as an experienced and powerful oarsman, was detailed as stroke in one of the cutters.

  It was a long and exhausting business getting the bigger boats cleared away and into the water. Tackles were rigged to get them from their positions on the skids and over the side. In the water they leaked alarmingly from the shrinkage in the planks caused by the sunshine. Extra boys with bailing cans were put on board, then heavy warps were coiled into the sternsheets.

  Bentley stood on the quarterdeck, beside his uncle by special invitation, watching the operation with pride. Swift smiled, nodding his head in satisfaction.

  ‘By God, my boy,’ he said. ‘This will keep the scum on their toes. An excellent idea, excellent!’

  So now, throughout the hours of daylight, the killing sail-work was supplemented by an even more killing task. At each catspaw, at every tiny zephyr, Swift or one of his officers gave the order to pull. The exhausted seamen, blind with sweat, bent to the great ash oars. Slowly they would turn the Welfare’s head, slowly they would drag her great, weedy, yellow-hulled bulk towards the area where a little wind played with the gleaming surface of the sea. By the time they got there, always, the breeze would have gambolled off elsewhere, or just disappeared. If the latter, they would rest wearily on their oars, watching the figures on the quarterdeck with slow-burning hatred. If the former, they would swing the great yellow bow once more, to pull stolidly towards the elusive catspaw. And they prayed, they prayed for wind.

  *

  Thomas Fox prayed during this time, but not for wind. He prayed for deliverance. At every moment that he was not occupied by his tasks, his mind was filled with the terror of the gantlope. He saw visions of himself in the barrel, with blood running from his ears and mouth as the cruel blows rained on him. He saw the master-at-arms’ sword pressed to his throat, felt the sharp pain as it broke the tender skin there. He saw the faces of his shipmates, filled with fear and hatred, as they beat and beat him with the knotted ropes.

  The only person he told this to was Doyle, in their hours spent among the beasts. The blind man listened, his pipes answering the wild ramblings with an eerie sympathy. To the rest of the ship, even Broad, Thomas Fox said nothing. His question to Peter had been the last words he uttered for many days.

  He spoke again because he was forced to. The boatswain, Mr Allgood, came prowling along the gun-deck, stooped under the heavy beams, poking about and asking after the shepherd boy. Thomas clutched Padraig Doyle in desperation, then tried to hide himself among the sheep. It was no good.

  ‘Fox,’ said the deep voice of the boatswain. ‘You there, Irishman, dig the fellow out of there. I won’t eat him.’

  Thomas burrowed deeper into the soft dark warmth, but an iron hand gripped his shoulder.

  ‘Think I’ve come to punish you, eh boy?’ roared the boatswain. ‘Think I’ve come to have you flogged, eh, chicken-thief? Running the gantlope, that’s what the purser wants for you, do you know that?’

  He pulled Thomas from among the sheep, then tried to lower him to the deck. But the boy’s feet were drawn up to his stomach. He hung peculiarly, curled under the giant arm.

  ‘Put your legs down, boy,’ he boomed. ‘You’re a fine one to be at sea, by Christ you are! Put your legs down, damn you!’

  Thomas clenched his legs harder into his stomach.

  Suddenly the boatswain changed his grip, cradled him in his arms as he might a child. Then he took Thomas’s chin in his hand, turned his head, tried to look into the downcast eyes. His voice softened, became curiously gentle.

  ‘Ah boy,’ he said. ‘You are a poor little bastard, and no mistake. Tell me, do you know who stole those hens? Eh? Tell me boy, and I’ll see he’s punished for it.’

  Thomas lay in the great arms, cradled, silent. The boatswain’s breath was soft upon his cheek.

  ‘Come now, Thomas Fox,’ said Allgood gently. ‘I know you did not eat them. Was it friends, or was it enemies?’

  The dark musician turned his naked sockets to Allgood’s face. He touched the pipes and a low, melodious sigh came from them. In Fox’s head the thoughts raced round, darkly muddled, rats in a trap. The pipes sighed again, a calming, soothing note.

  ‘Old Butterbum,’ said the boatswain, ‘wants your blood, my bonny lad. He wants you flogged, or chained, or chivvied, or beaten black and blue. But you did not eat them, did you boy?’

  Slowly, desperately slowly, Thomas turned his face towards the giant cradling him. Slowly, with an immense effort, he lifted his eyes, made them travel up the broad shirt front, across the great black curly beard, the red full lips, the big flared nose. At last, and for the merest instant, he looked into Allgood’s eyes.

  ‘Please sir,’ he said. ‘They died, sir. They died in the storm, and I put them overboard. I was… I was…’

  His eyes dropped, his voice died away.

  ‘You was afeard to say,’ said the boatswain, quietly. ‘Good. Then Butterbum can go to hell, and welcome Old Nick is to him, to be sure. All right, my bonny boy? All right? You’re safe, do you hear? Not a hair on your head will anyone touch, do you hear? Butterbum can go to hell!’

  Thomas whispered: ‘Thank you, sir.’ A great relief grew in him, it washed him through. The boatswain ruffled his hair, laughed, and deposited him gently on the deck beside the Irishman, among the sheep. As he picked his way aft, he chuckled.

  *

  Although there were many on board who would have liked to have seen the shepherd boy running the gantlope, there was nothing to be done about it. The feud between the boatswain and the purser was well known, and there was no doubt that Captain Swift would support Allgood in any clash between them, despite the purser’s social superiority. To him, as to everyone on board, the purser was an evil they had to bear, a fat and ugly vulture who would be better off in a sailcloth shroud. The boatswain was a useful man, a vital man. If it pleased him to free Fox from a perfectly legitimate punishment, then so be it.

  William Bentley was particularly sorry that the boy had escaped unscathed. Of late he had come to almost hate him, so violently did he dislike his way of moving silently and miserably about the ship like some tragic ghost. He railed to the other mids about it later the same afternoon, and they all agreed that it was just the sort of thing that would undermine the general discipline once more, after all their care to build up a tautness among the people.

  ‘I shall keep an eye out for Mr Fox,’ William promised. ‘We have been too namby-pamby with him of late.’

  ‘He is a damned disgrace to the name of seaman or King’s Navy anyway,’ Jack Evans added. ‘He never looks one in the eye, even if you cuff him about the ears to do so. And he never says a word.’

  ‘He’s a damned mute, like his eerie friend,’ said Finch. ‘Now he, the Irishman, gives me the creeps. Those awful eyes!’

  Bentley saw his chance with Thomas a couple of afternoons later. And he took it with both hands.

  There had been an unaccustomed air of jollity on board that day, because the Welfare had picked up a breeze in the middle of the morning which had blown steadily, if not strongly, for several hours. The boats were in, the sails were trimmed, the heat had been made almost pleasant by the wind.

  On the foredeck Padraig Doyle had played many tunes, while Thomas had remained below putting the finishing touches to his whistle. He sat alone among the beasts, wielding a sharp knife with extreme care, and testing the whistle frequently for the exact pitch he wanted. At last, with a feeling almost of happiness, he blew steadily, played a couple of scales, then tried out, haltingly at first but with increasing confidence, a lilting tune. The pipe was perfect.

  He climbed the ladder to the foredeck with a lightness in his tread that had been missing for as long as he could remember. His friend sat in the
usual place, back resting against the fore-bitts, the bagpipe tucked under his arm, and Thomas went to him and sat at his feet. He did not speak, but when the tune finished he touched his hand with the whistle. The Irishman felt it, turned his blazing sockets, and smiled. They checked that they were in pitch, then without a stumble, took up an air together.

  All conversation on the foredeck stopped. The men gathered round and studied this new phenomenon. Thomas kept his eyes on Doyle’s fingers but he knew he was surrounded, knew he was being watched. He felt relaxed, confident. The pipe and the bagpipe merged, the air swelled with their pure music.

  William Bentley noticed the cluster of men from his position on the quarterdeck. He moved curiously forward until he was on the edge of them. When they became aware of his presence the seamen moved apart, touching their foreheads and mumbling. William looked down, at the man and the boy. A smile played about his lips. By the time the tune came to an end, most of the men had melted away to watch from a safe distance.

  The whistle ended on a high trill, the bagpipe on a low contrasting chord. As the notes died away, Bentley spoke. ‘By whose permission, Thomas Fox,’ he said. ‘Do you play that instrument?’

  Thomas looked up in shock, then down again. Dread swooped in his stomach, a great gush. The whistle slipped from his fingers and rolled across the deck towards Bentley’s feet.

  ‘By whose permission?’ repeated Bentley. ‘The blindman is musician here, and as such is on the books. Who said you might play?’

  Not a word came. Thomas stared at the deck with unseeing eyes.

  ‘One time more,’ said Bentley. ‘By whose permission do you play that pipe?’

  After a short pause, he lifted his foot as if he would crush the whistle that lay before him. There was a sudden movement, and Broad broke from a knot of seamen. He knelt quickly in front of the midshipman and picked up the whistle. He remained on one knee, gazing into the face of the boy. His lips were parted; he was panting slightly.