The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  Thirty

  Morale remained high as the Welfare plunged towards the Horn through green and pleasant seas. The sun shone, the living accommodation and men’s clothes dried out, they made good speed. The rum ration was no worse than it had been, the amount of food allowed was actually increased, and because of the kindly weather, the work was not excessive. When men were not on watch they could do as they liked – no more holystoning the decks until they shone, no more polishing brasswork until the fingernails bled. Above all, no daily punishment. It was a great weight off the minds of the people. In fact, at Broad’s suggestion, every cat, every rattan cane, was flung over the side. Minor acts of indiscipline were infrequent; drunkenness was still the only real problem, and flogging had never solved that anyway. In general it was a sunny, pleasant time.

  After a few days, Matthews and Broad called Allgood aft and tried to recruit him to their side. He sat in the cabin sipping a glass of wine, a cowed giant. Matthews had agreed that Broad should do the talking.

  ‘Mr Allgood,’ said Broad, at last. ‘It is time for you to come in with us. We need your help.’

  The huge head turned towards him. The full lips no longer wore their sensuous smile.

  ‘Why? You have no problems now. She is running well, the people are in good spirits, tractable. For God’s sake, leave me be.’

  ‘Look, man,’ said Broad brutally, ‘you must come out of this. I know your feelings, and I share them in great part. Mutiny is an awful crime, not just in the punishment but in the act. To you it was a blasphemy, I well know. To many others too, believe me, even of the most degraded. You are not the only man on board with finer feelings than a pig.’

  For a moment, something like the old light came into Allgood’s eyes. He lifted his head.

  ‘Some men went,’ he muttered. ‘Some men went with Swift. Risked their lives to keep within the…’

  ‘Within the law?’ asked Broad harshly. ‘Come you, Jack Allgood, the law never bothered that brute. And damn well you know, man, he’d have spat in your face if you had asked to go with him.’

  The former boatswain gazed at the deck. ‘I feel I started it.’ His voice was very soft.

  ‘You did not start it, man, it was inevitable. It was inevitable from the time he sent that poor defenceless child to freeze to death.’ He paused. ‘That child you loved.’

  Allgood turned startled eyes on him. Broad stared back. ‘I loved him too,’ he said. ‘And little Peter in my mess. And the blind man, Doyle. He killed them all, my friend. You know it.’

  The wide, hairy face remained startled. Allgood was looking inwards, digesting the naked thrust that Broad had offered him. He shook his head.

  ‘I cannot join the mutiny,’ he said. ‘I am a boatswain. I hold the warrant. I cannot join these scum, it is impossible.’

  ‘Then do not join them. Join us. They hate you anyway, unless their memories are short. For why should anyone among the people care for you, when all is said? Were you not a vicious rogue? Were you not a man of iron, who would maim a seaman on a triviality? Ned Rogers had two broken arms off you, and one of them is quite useless now, bent like an anchor fluke.’

  ‘Not vicious, never!’ flashed Allgood. ‘It was discipline, discipline! The people are like cattle, they need to be firmly led. I never was a cruel man!’

  Matthews laughed quietly.

  ‘Mr Allgood,’ he said, without a trace of irony, ‘I do fully believe it, and so does Jesse Broad. That is why we want you with us. No, let us be frank. We need you, Mr Allgood. The people need you too, if we are to survive. When things get worse again, if they do, when men like Joyce and his louts find the going hard, this ship will not pull through unless we have some iron in its soul.’

  ‘Think about it, please,’ said Broad. ‘In the eyes of the law you may be a mutineer, but in your eyes, in ours, you are not. You are fully justified. We all were. Let us get away, and find a place of safety, and who knows what might not happen? Think about it.’

  Later on that day, Allgood sought them out and took up an appointment as third in line, and the announcement was passed around the crew. Old Grandfather Fulman, who had become Broad’s ears and eyes among the people, said it had gone down pretty well. Many men had hated Allgood in the old regime, but he was always reckoned fair, if dangerous. Most important, he was a mighty seaman, and could keep the mad dogs down. The mad dogs, Fulman reported, were not so keen. I would warn Mr Allgood, he said, to keep a weather eye on Henry and his boys, for they will kill him surely if they get the chance. Jesse doubted if the warning needed passing on.

  The persuading of the boatswain gave William Bentley much food for thought. He had never before had to consider such details as whether or not the lower orders on board had feelings, or whether a man like Allgood, whom he was sure loathed him, was in his turn seen by others as an object of fear or hatred. Certainly it had not occurred to him that such a coarse and brutal man could be worried, almost destroyed, by the idea of having taken part in an uprising. A sense of duty in such a great beast? A sense of shame at having betrayed a sacred trust? He cast his mind back to all the times that Allgood had treated him with barely concealed insolence, including the incident of the ‘twice-dead sheep’. He had assumed, had been certain, that the boatswain had been an instigator of mutiny, had been the leader of a ring of plotters. So how did this fit in? And what was he to make of the talk of Thomas Fox? And love?

  He had been feverish and ill for several days, lying in a curtained sick-cot in the captain’s cabin, and it was Broad who tended him. This circumstance also added to his confusion, for each time he saw the gentle, smiling face he summoned up a vivid picture, much against his will, of that same face dripping with his own spittle. It seared him with shame, shame that was almost a physical pain. And filled him with confusion that this man, this mutineer, this victim of his childish, vicious, arrogance, should be kind to him, should nurse him, should indeed have saved his life.

  Broad made no reference to the past, but after many hours brooding, Bentley decided to bring the matter up. When Broad had mopped his face one afternoon, and given him a drink, and made his aching neck and shoulder more comfortable, he spoke.

  ‘Do you remember, Mr Broad,’ he said, ‘that one day in the dogwatch I spat at you?’

  Jesse Broad gave half a smile.

  ‘Hush boy,’ he replied. ‘You will upset yourself. Settle down and try to sleep, or I will hand you over to Mr Adamson and his brandy bottle treatment.’

  Bentley smiled back. That had become something of a joke between them. His head ached constantly; the blow had done more damage than could have been imagined. The thought of spirits as an anodyne revolted him.

  ‘No, please,’ he said. ‘I must speak of it. I wish to say I am sorry. And also…to ask.’

  ‘Well, ask away then,’ said Broad. ‘Although I am just a common man, so you will not get much sense out of me. But as to the spitting – you are forgiven. It is past, forgotten.’

  ‘Why, though? That is what I want to ask. Why is it forgiven? Why do you show me such kindness? Why?’

  For a long time, Broad did not speak. His lips half formed words, then rejected them. When he did, it was to ask a question. ‘You ask me why I do not hate you? But for what? What, after all, is a spit? A face full of dribble such as my child might give me, a dozen times a day. Why not rather talk of Thomas Fox? He is dead, you know.’

  The pulsing headache became instantly worse. Bentley gasped. It was his turn to be silent, his face contorted with mental agony. At last he forced words out.

  ‘All right then. Thomas Fox. Oh Christ, I am not forgiven! Oh Christ, I cannot be!’

  There was a long silence, saving always for the creaking timbers, the rushing sea, the low moaning of the wind.

  ‘Yes,’ said Broad. His voice was deep, slightly husky. ‘You are forgiven, I suppose. You could not see the harm. You do not know. You are a stupid, blinded child. You could not know. God will forgive you, I suppose.�
��

  ‘But you?’ cried Bentley. Tears flowed down his face. ‘Do you forgive me, Mr Broad?’

  Another pause, a shorter one.

  ‘Aye, I forgive you, boy. Much good that that may do you! But go to sleep, you are not well.’

  William Bentley smiled through his tears, with gratitude. It was immensely important to him, this man’s forgiveness. Much more so than God’s. He went to sleep.

  *

  In later days, feeling fitter although too weak to stand, he asked a question that had loomed large in his mind, awaiting its moment.

  ‘You said, sir, some days ago… You said you had a child. I did not know that.’

  Broad was seated near the berth, sewing a shirt. He paused in his work, and his face clouded. He had not thought of home, or wife, or child, for a long time except fleetingly. It was the only way, to crush the thoughts as they formed. It was a painful wound, somewhere deep in the blackness of his skull; an area that he avoided, sometimes almost desperately.

  ‘I cannot talk of that,’ he said. ‘Forgive me, it is impossible. Do not ask.’

  Bentley said slowly: ‘I never thought, that is all. It never occurred to me.’

  Broad spoke harsh and fast.

  ‘I am thirty-odd years old. I live in a village near Portsmouth, next the sea. I am well-to-do and not unhandsome. I have a wife called Mary and a baby boy. I was returning from a night of honest work to see my baby christened when I was taken. By you, William Bentley, by you! Do you forget so blessed easy! And I shall never see them again.’

  He ran from the cabin, the grey old shirt left draggled on the deck. The boy closed his eyes, his burden of shame renewed. And yet; and yet…

  He pondered deeply, he pondered until his brain sang, hour after weary hour. It was all too hard, too complex, complicated. A country at war against a deadly enemy; the necessity of the press; the need for discipline; the dreadful rabble that served as crew; his uncle’s…cruelty. And men like Broad. Fine men, good men, somehow noble men.

  Yet a smuggler. A smuggler! Actually in trade with France, while the war raged on!

  They spoke of many things in the time before Bentley was fit enough to take up his democratic appointment as cleaner of the heads, and slowly some of his attitudes cleared. He listened to Broad for hours, learned things that made him disbelieve his ears. Learned, for instance, that this man loved the French, and spoke their language fluently, and visited there often. Was, moreover, godfather to four French children, and saw his profession of smuggler as a useful and an honourable thing. He prodded, gently, at William’s memories on the subject; and yes, true it was that at his father’s estate near Petersfield, and those of his relatives, and at all the houses in London he had visited, including several admirals’, French brandy was in good supply, and brandy of the finest. Broad talked too of the causes of the mutiny, not in an angry way, or a dogmatic one, but with a sense of inquiry. The character of Daniel Swift was mulled over, and even he was not hated or condemned quite out of hand. Many of the things that had impressed Bentley most, early on, about his uncle, crumbled under the keen attention that Broad meted them. He laughed, for instance, at the boy’s timid mention of how well the captain knew his crew, recognised the latent rebellion, kept them guessing at his every move.

  ‘He was in the dark, you see,’ said Broad. ‘He was in the dark. At every turn he searched around for something new to fox us with, but it was foolish, the panic moves of a man quite in the dark.’

  ‘But surely,’ Bentley said, ‘the matter of the sports and all? That made them happy, did it not?’

  ‘Happy? Well, in this respect it did: that for a moment he had ended all that killing work. But do you not understand, young man, he was not keeping us in the dark so much as himself. He never knew exactly what would happen. And when it happened wrong – and viz the sports for that, young bucko, or have you forgot that too? – he blundered on with some other great new scheme. And still was in the dark.’

  Bentley did remember the sports, too well, so said nothing.

  Broad went on reflectively: ‘You see, your uncle lacked the art of… he could not tell… he could not guess the minds of other men. He thought – thinks – that all men’s minds are simple, like his own. But of course, the men, the people, were also merely…cattle, to be treated rough. Only he did not know how rough to treat us. He dreamed up splendid schemes to keep us up to mark, but could not see how each man would respond. Look at Henry Joyce, now. The man is an animal, a sort of innocent poor wild beast. You cannot break his spirit with a lash, but merely make him obstinate. Swift could not see such things; it was his tragedy.’

  Again the acceptance, again the compassion. There was no note of rancour in Broad’s voice, no hint of hatred.

  ‘Good God, Jesse Broad,’ William burst out. ‘Do you even forgive my uncle!? And see some good in Henry Joyce?’ Broad smiled.

  ‘Forgive is the wrong word, do you see? There is nothing to forgive. Much to regret, maybe. Yes, certainly much to regret. In both of them. In all of us caught in this sorry ship. You must see the other side as well; Allgood is not alone in hating mutiny. Not a man-jack on this sorry, sorry ship who does not wish it had not happened. It is a vile, degrading thing for a loyal Briton to do, a crime of deepest dye. But it is hard: the life is hard, the food and drink are vile, the conditions degrading, the discipline… And back we come to Daniel Swift! A man who did his duty as he saw it.’

  The boy said slowly: ‘There seems no hope. So much hatred in such a little vessel. The people, the officers, even the marines – all against each other, all at loggerheads. There seems no hope.’

  ‘You are one-sided again. Even marines are human, you know! It was a marine who fired the first shot, that set the whole thing on wheels. He may have been related to Thomas Fox. A cousin.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Bentley. He blinked. ‘Thomas Fox had a cousin on board here? On the Welfare? A marine?’

  ‘Ah well,’ Broad sighed. ‘Probably not, it seems unlikely. At any rate, we shall never know. The man who fired that shot, who killed Captain Craig, did not live for many minutes more himself.’

  And that in itself, mused Bentley, is a crying shame, to have killed the captain of marines. For he sensed at last that Craig had been with the angels. Perhaps had had that vital imagination that his uncle lacked.

  By the time he was fit to go on deck, William Bentley knew he would see things through different eyes. His gratitude to Jesse Broad was boundless, and he tentatively hoped that the relationship they had built up might somehow, one day, be truly that of friends. He called the man by his first name – with permission – and had asked him to return the compliment. Broad had merely smiled; and called him nothing. But that, hoped Bentley, perhaps was shyness. The seaman had some regard for him, obviously. Because he watched for him – and exhorted him more time than once to take good care around the deck, to nothing take for granted.

  The deck was beautiful in Bentley’s hungry eyes, and so was the Welfare. The grey-white straining canvas, the bounding, rolling sea, the bracing wind. He filled his lungs and spread his arms in joy. It was wonderful to be about again. Nothing seemed changed, although the decks had taken on a darker hue, lost the gleaming whiteness induced by hours daily with sandstone and water. They were not dirty though. The ship was clean, and well-rigged, with all plain sail set and drawing.

  Men lounged around in comfort, taking the sun, and even this no longer struck him as odd. He returned their stares with what he thought of as a cautious smile, and one or two responded. His heart began to sing for what a teacher Broad had proved. The men were different. They had different faces, different attitudes. They were not sullen apes:, they were not hate-filled animals. They were men, human men, and he thought he understood them.

  Even the filthy task that had been assigned to him was accepted with something not too far from pleasure. He knew it would be hard, but he was not afraid of hard work. He knew it would lay him open to jeers and abus
e from the sailors, but that no longer worried him. His attitude was different; they could not shame him now. He deserved abuse, he would expect no mercy. But he would show them, however long it took, that he was worthy of regard. He had been harsh with many of them in the past, part of a system of repression that he was still sorting out, but recognised as having mighty faults. Now, shown the way by his mentor, he would in turn show these sailors that he could play the man, that he was not just a mindless, petty tyrant.

  William collected his equipment – mop, pail and safety rope – from the stores, and went smartly forward. Along the length of the deck he received the same stares, returned the same cautious smile. Sometimes he got a stab of loneliness at the bitterness reflected in men’s eyes. At others he was warmed by a look of friendliness. Of course they do not know how to react, he reasoned. The first time on deck of the infamous boy, who had last been seen, conscious, with a pair of pistols in his hands threatening to blast their mutiny to blazes! What did he expect? But at least there were no cat-calls, at least nobody spat. He was confident, truly confident. He understood them.

  It was a false dawn. Standing in the beakhead, his shoulder resting against the trembling bulk of the bowsprit, wielding the heavy mop with his weakened arms and fighting nausea at the reek of excrement and urine, he was arrested by a hoarse cry. The bulkhead door was open, and two or three men were blocking it. He looked up, uncertainly, fear flooding his stomach. Inevitably, one was Henry Joyce, but he stood in the background. The two men who came forward were only vaguely familiar, just two of the mass of seamen the Welfare had once had as crew. He could not remember ever having dealt with them, or having had them punished, or anything. Just two of the mass. But there was murder in their eyes.

  They came forward quickly. William let out a scream and flung the bucket. It emptied over the first man, checking him in his tracks. William screamed louder, letting his terror rip out of him like a stuck pig. The man came on again, and he held a belaying pin in his fist. William saw the second seaman reach for the safety line with his knife. A third scream ripped the air, bubbling with fear. His eyes closed, and all the images of blood, the nightmare memories of the reign of terror, rushed in upon him. Then there was a vicious jerk on the lifeline round his waist, and an exploding crash on the side of his head.