Gentleman Captain

by J. D. Davies

  Ah. Of course.' I nodded with as much gravity as I could muster, feeling Cornish eyes upon me. 'Permission granted, Mister Penbaron. Go to it at once, for God's sake, man.'

  And go to it Penbaron did. He may have been a prince among dullards, but he knew his job. Barely a minute had passed before his crew brought up from below two long pieces of wood, somewhat akin to river punts with their ends cut away. They lifted one into place at the front of the mast, over the great crack, and matched it with the other at the back. The cooper brought up spare hoops, and within but a few minutes more Penbaron's men were bolting the hoops onto both the wooden supports and the mast itself. There was a cry for woolding, and great coils of rope were wound around the mast, pulled taut by a crew of some of the strongest men on the ship–among them, strangely, the minute father of twins, John Tremar. The whole matter took less time than the turn of a glass.

  'Great difficulties, Captain,' said a voice by my ear. It was Landon. His voice was quiet but his look contained more than a challenge. 'Obstructions and danger. The charts never speak falsely.'

  There was that twisted grimace again. A smile–just as he had smiled moments after the swinging block very nearly killed me. Pleasure born of satisfaction when one is proved right. No doubt my death would have been an even more conclusive proof of the perils of Mars' malicious quadrate, and a satisfactory conclusion to the business.

  'Hardly great difficulties, surely, Mister Landon?' I said, as lightly as I could. 'Penbaron and his crew seem to have fished the mizzen quite easily.'

  'Fished the mizzen– O Grandfather, sailing the eternal ocean above (or, more likely, below), art thou not proud?

  Landon's look was wild and cruel. 'Aye, the mizzen is well fished indeed, Captain. But it's the whipstaff, sir. It's jammed. See how our head turns eastward? Polzeath's the strongest helmsman on the ship, but not even he could keep hold of it when the mizzen sprang, and now it's jammed. If it can't be freed, we'll drive up the Channel on the gale, sir.' His eyes bulged as he turned from me. 'Doom, as the charts foretold. The domus mortis itself, that's where we are!'

  Landon's unshakeable faith in his celestial charts tested my own belief in their worthlessness. The horror of another wreck swept over me–but only for the briefest moment. My mind found its antidote in a strange place: in the image of an ineffably ugly creature, far away in a warm and comfortable Oxford study. This was my Uncle Tristram, he who had spent so much of his life dabbling in the practices of astrologers and alchemists. He would have had no difficulty with Landon's talk of the domus mortis, and of malicious quadrates. No difficulty at all, for I remembered the conclusion to a conversation that he, Charles and I had at Ravensden Abbey, not long after the Restoration, when the court was much consumed by talk of comets, and the happy auguries that had made the king's return inevitable. Near forty years I've searched the heavens and plotted the stars, said Tristram Quinton. ' Your grandfather laid great store by such things, and would never set out on a voyage without casting his charts, so I was bred up reckoning there must be truth in them. Forty years, then, of drawing up charts, and measuring them against the realities of this world. And you know the conclusion I've come to? After all that work, and all those charts? It's all naught, boys. There's nothing in the heavens. You may as well cast about in Ravensden pond to learn your futures, for you won't find the answers in the stars.

  No. I would not follow Landon down the road to despair. I would take the more practical course. Leaving Kit on the quarterdeck, I went to examine the matter for myself. Quite what good I could do, Heaven alone knew, but after my folly over the mast-fishing, I sought both redemption and a refuge from the contemptuous stares of my crew.

  Below, the steerage resembled a funeral party; the sort of funeral party that takes place on a seesaw, with its members flung from one side to the other at frequent intervals, all of them shouting and cursing. Penbaron and two of his mates were circling the whipstaff, which was fixed at a sharp angle to starboard. Every so often, one of them would attempt delicately to push it to larboard.

  I called to Penbaron for his verdict. He explained that he had a man down below, on the orlop, who was attempting to free the rowle and goose-neck mechanism directly beneath the deck on which we stood. This connected the whipstaff to the tiller which, in turn, controlled the troublesome rudder at our stern. My first thought was that Penbaron was a ship's carpenter of many years' standing and knew his trade. I stepped back a moment–but then I recalled the closeness of the lee shore. I remembered also that I had bestowed similar deference upon John Aldred. That diffidence had cost the lives of several score. Then I remembered Cornelia's favourite maxim, that experience was merely the accumulation of a lifetime's mistakes. And lastly I thought that perhaps I was not entirely ignorant in this matter. This mechanism did not sound too different in principle to that which drove Ravensden Mill, and as a child I had watched Hillard, the miller, carry out frequent impromptu repairs. Moreover, during my exile I had whiled away many days inspecting van der Eide windmills and their machinery on behalf of my father-in-law. It did not seem to me then that much of this sort of gentle pushing and pulling went on. It was more a question of applying as much force as possible to rid the mechanism of its blockage.

  'With your permission, Mister Penbaron,' I called out. He turned to me and fixed me with a look of amazement. 'We have no time for this. Please alert your man below to stay clear of the tiller. Carvell, Polzeath, Monsieur Le Blanc–to me, if you will.'

  I grasped the whipstaff and heaved on it, as hard as I could. Musk went to the other side, and pushed. Le Blanc, Polzeath and Carvell looked at each other in confusion, then stepped to the whipstaff.

  'All of us, together, on my count of three. One–two—three!'

  Despite an ominous grinding sound from below, the ash-wood whipstaff remained obdurate. Musk swore.

  'Christ, Captain, I'm too old for such games! And your brother won't thank you if you kill off his steward. Damn, think it's already given me a hernia.'

  Penbaron clasped his hands in agony and implored me to desist. From above came the cries and shouts of the men on deck. I felt my tenuous authority waning, but would not give up. I called in two more men from the main deck just beyond the opening of the steerage. One was a brutish Devonian whose name I did not know, the other the tiny John Tremar. On a second count of three, we seven men heaved for all we were worth...

  ...and flew headlong into the larboard cabins as the whipstaff freed itself.

  I was the first to recover my balance, and as the men cried out to each other and set at once about their business I took hold of the whipstaff, pulling it back until it was almost vertical. Polzeath staggered up and stretched his hand to take it from me, but I waved him away. For the first time in my life, I felt the thrill of the ship itself in my hands. Through the small windows in the bulkhead that separated the steerage from the deck, I could see our main and fore courses swing as they responded to the righting of the whipstaff. I could feel the motion of the sea against the rudder at the stern, and felt the force of the gale itself, pushing the ship toward the east; a motion Polzeath quietly told me to resist by moving the whipstaff to point the Jupiter's head in the opposite direction. It was hard work, and work that was below an earl's brother, as Musk proclaimed to all and sundry. I knew myself a spectacle there, as the men looked on, some in approval and some in confusion. But rarely have I felt such a strange exhilaration as I did on that stormy April evening in the year of grace 1662, when the Honourable Matthew Quinton first took the helm of a vessel upon the waters.

  Kit Farrell came down to the steerage at that moment, then stopped, his face a picture of astonishment.

  'Mister Farrell,' I shouted, 'please inform Mister Landon that the whipstaff is obedient once more, and that the helmsman requests a course to steer.'

  Kit smiled. 'Sir, I was bringing that very order down, but did not expect to find at the helm the one man on this ship who can receive no orders! Our course is north-nor
th-west. Port the helm, sir!'

  I studied the compass in its binnacle, and hauled on the great wooden pole. The needle swung at once far too far to the left. 'A little strong, sir,' said Polzeath. 'Make it gentle. Slow and gentle, as much as possible.'

  Julian Carvell laughed. 'Like taking a woman, Cap'n. Slow and gentle is best, I've always found. At any rate, until you feel the need for fast and rough!'

  It was at that moment that Lieutenant James Vyvyan emerged from his cabin. He took in the scene in the steerage without his usual cold and contemptuous glance. For the first time in our acquaintance, he looked like what he truly was: a confused young lad with too much drink in his belly.

  'Mister Vyvyan!' I called. 'Good evening to you, sir. Please take over the watch. Our bearing is north-north-west. Three bells of the second dog and all's well, Lieutenant!'

  Chapter Ten

  My exertions at the whipstaff induced a sound slumber, unaffected by the endless pitching and rolling, Landon's forebodings of doom, or my very narrow escape from doom's airborne wooden manifestation. My sleep was just beginning to be made memorable by a particularly energetic dream of my Cornelia when I was woken by cries of murder. I was already perched on the side of my sea-bed, reaching for my sword, when a bedraggled Musk burst in.

  'Lieutenant's servant's tried to kill the purser,' he said excitedly. 'Should have helped him, I suppose. Any rate, they're all setting up for a hanging court.'

  Outside was dimly lit by just two lanterns swinging from hooks on the bulkhead, but I hardly needed to see my way for I could easily follow the sound of the rumpus to its source. The steerage on a Fifth Rate is but a murky, low place, with the tiny makeshift cabins of the officers, six feet by five, at either side. The whipstaff lay at its forward end, with its own lantern to light the compass in its binnacle.

  I found young Andrewartha struggling against the restraint of Monkley, a haggard, one-eyed boatswain's mate. Monkley had the terrified lad in an armlock, while Stafford Peverell, ruddy and hysterical, was screaming abuse into the crying child's face. James Vyvyan, who should have been on watch, was in turn screaming at Peverell, and only Boatswain Ap's firm grip prevented him from drawing his sword. Ahead of them stood the helmsman, mute but clearly all agog, moving the great lever of the whipstaff every now and then to keep us on our course. My heat sank, and I prayed for just a little of my brother's unfailing composure in times of crisis; either that or another storm to divert us all to our duties. But although the wind was still strong enough to make balance difficult in that dark, confined space, it was abating slowly, and only one duty lay before me.

  At my appearance, Vyvyan and the boatswain stiffened into salute, but the purser was oblivious, continuing his ferocious tirade against the barefooted boy.

  'Mister Peverell!' I shouted. 'You are disturbing the peace of my ship, sir!'

  He turned toward me and blinked, aware of me for the first time. He was breathless and sweating, and it was a struggle for him to get out a coherent sentence.

  'Quinton,' he stuttered, quite forgetting himself. 'This boy attacked me. With a knife. Intent on murder, he was, nothing less.' The spittle flew from his snarling lips and he turned and stabbed the boy in the chest with his bony finger. 'I demand justice, sir. I demand summary judgement. I demand he be flogged raw, sir. I demand a court martial on that little—'

  James Vyvyan interrupted vehemently, his face as red as a cannon-of-seven at the moment of firing. 'Sir, Andrewartha was only defending himself against the attentions of this–this creature.'

  'He killed Captain Harker!' piped up young Andrewartha, swallowing his sobs and pointing at Peverell. 'Mister Vyvyan says so!'

  'What a deplorable rogue you are, sir,' said the purser, turning furiously upon Vyvyan who had the good grace to flush. 'A fantasy, in God's name! What would I gain by Harker's death, when that might have brought the abandonment of our voyage and the end of my employment? Answer me that, Lieutenant!'

  The wind howled, and a great wave drove us all to starboard. Vyvyan twisted himself free of the boatswain's grasp and stepped menacingly towards the purser. I reached out and held his arm.

  'Now, gentlemen,' I said. 'First, keep your voices low. I'll not have my ship's officers bawling like Billingsgate fishwives. I will not tolerate that on my ship. Second, Mister Peverell, no man demands anything in the presence of a king's captain.' The purser scowled at me, and he and Vyvyan glowered at each other, but both seemed to accept the point. The helmsman's presence guaranteed that tales of the scandal would fly like swifts through the lower deck the moment he went off watch; in the meantime I had no desire to attract a larger audience and the sleeping men's hammocks were but inches away beneath our feet. I relieved the helm, and ordered Monkley to release the boy and take the whipstaff.

  'Now,' I said calmly, 'before there's any talk of judgements or floggings, we need evidence, and we need witnesses. So now, gentlemen, calmly and openly if you will, answer me this question. Who witnessed the lad attack the purser?'

  'I did,' said Musk, reluctantly, for he had come to hate Peverell with the passion that he normally reserved for London lawyers.

  'I too,' said Monkley, turning briefly from his new duty at the whipstaff.

  'And I, God help me,' admitted Vyvyan. 'But it's true what he says–I'd gone from your table, sir, and as you know, I continued in drink, to my shame. Thus I missed the call for all hands, and that drove me into a darker temper still. I drank more, and thought more, and then I raged more. I denounced the purser as a murderer, before the boy. I passed into sleep once more, and he must have taken my knife, and made for the purser's cabin. When I woke, I went after him, and saw him lunge for Peverell.'

  I contemplated my penitent lieutenant with fury. I saw nothing but nightmares ahead, for thanks to his lack of self-control I could envisage three courts-martial: one for Andrewartha, one for Peverell, and one for Vyvyan himself. Christ alone knew what the king and the Duke of York would make of a captain who permitted such riot and ill discipline among his own officers. Perhaps there would be room for a fourth court-martial: my own, the second of my career, and no officer's reputation could survive two. God, how I prayed in that moment to wake and find that this entire voyage had been but a nightmare, and that in truth I was safe with my Cornelia and a commission in the Guards! But no waking came, and I still stood on that rocking deck.

  Of them all, Andrewartha's case was by far the worst. Three eyewitnesses, including his own master, had testified against him for attempting to murder one of his superior officers, a man of breeding who held the Navy Board's warrant for his place on the ship. Despite his youth, that would suffice to condemn Andrewartha to enough lashes to rip all the flesh from his back, followed by a hanging from the yardarm.

  I turned to him, and said as gently as I could manage, 'What have you to say for yourself, lad?'

  Andrewartha was shivering. How many times in his short life had he stood in line with his fellows to hear the Articles of War read aloud by their captain? He would have thought on the thirty-second, perhaps; but he was certainly now thinking on the twenty-first, which specified that assaulting a superior officer, like so many other crimes, was punishable by death.

  'G-got to his cabin, sir,' he stammered. 'He ... he thought I'd come for the same reason as before. Came at me, he did.'

  Peverell began to protest but I silenced him with a look. As captain of a king's ship, duly commissioned by the Lord High Admiral, I was judge and jury in one at that moment.

  'Are there any witnesses to this?' I asked the company, in a low voice. 'Did anyone see an assault by the purser upon the boy, at any time?'

  The silence that followed my words was interrupted only by Peverell, protesting his innocence in a low, vicious voice. He warned that even the imputation of this was an almighty slur on his reputation, and on the honour and good name of the Peverells, and that his unnamed mighty friends would make us all regret this indignity. The boy should pay the highest price for his insole
nce and abominable falsehoods. So he continued as the ship rolled and pitched and the steerage lanterns swung manically upon their hooks. And as Peverell spat and hissed his venom, the rest of us in that crowded space looked at one another. None spoke; none had witnessed an assault by the purser on the boy, even though none doubted the man's cruelty. It was Andrewartha's word against Peverell's. The purser would survive, and by the full force of the state, the lad would be put to an agonizing death.

  'Perhaps someone did,' said a new voice. The Reverend Francis Gale had emerged from his cabin. The chaplain was barefoot, and wore only a stained shirt and breeches. Even from a distance of some yards, I could smell the stench of drink on his breath and in his sweat. Yet his speech was sober enough, and his cold eyes were clear.

  Peverell snorted. He, too, had recognized the strength of his position and had regained his customary arrogance. 'You, Gale? Belike you were insensible, as always.' He turned his malevolent gaze to me. 'Captain, I was merely attempting to instruct the lad in the ancient truths of the Roman Church. He's an inquisitive boy, quick to learn. Almost as quick as he is to show violence to an officer.'

  Andrewartha shook his head miserably, but in such a way that I suspected there was some half-truth to the purser's story. Gale, though, simply stared at Peverell with unconcealed contempt.

  'Who knows what I've seen when the rest of you have been looking the other way?' he said, in a steady, terrible voice. 'That's the thing with my discourses with my friends, the bottles. I can be asleep all through a storm, yet awake and roam the decks when all the rest of you are asleep.' He took a step closer. 'Who knows how many times I may have witnessed you buggering that boy, Peverell, when you assumed I was far gone in drink?'

  I glanced at the faces of Phineas Musk and James Vyvyan, both ghostly in the dancing lantern-light. All the men in that circle of misery and accusation looked grim; all of them feared the public exposure of this most awful and intimate of acts. Peverell's face was a mask of horror. 'You lie—'