Richard Bolitho Midshipman

by Alexander Kent

  He pushed open a small cabin door and stooped to enter. It was so low beneath the deck beams that he had to shuffle in the darkness like a hunchback, his hands groping to stop the ship from throwing him off balance.

  His fingers touched a lantern before his face. It was ice-cold.

  At that moment a tiny hatch was flung open over head and a previously concealed skylight wrenched aside. Framed in the blinding glare, Tregorren's massive head peered down at him.

  `What the hell are you doing, Mr Bolitho?'

  He fell silent, and when Bolitho turned to follow his stare he saw why.

  Sprawled in one corner of the cabin was a man, or all there was left of him.

  He had received a terrible head wound from cutlass or axe and had taken several more thrusts in chest and side. In the shaft of sunlight his gaze seemed to be slitted against the brightness, his eyes terrified as they fixed on Bolitho.

  Tregorren said at length, `God Almighty!' Then as Bolitho remained stockstill beside the corpse he added roughly, `On deck with you!'

  In the bright sunlight again Bolitho found that his hands were shaking badly, although when he looked at them they seemed as before.

  Tregorren ordered, `Put a hand on the wheel, Thorne. Mr Dancer, take your men to the main hold and search it. The rest of you begin to take in these damned sails!'

  He turned as Dancer called, 'Gorgon's under way again, sir.'

  `Yes.' The lieutenant was frowning with the effort of thinking. `She'll be dropping down within hailing distance. By that time I want some answers.'

  It was like putting together parts of a torn and dismembered book. Dancer's search of the barquen

  tine's main hold revealed that she had been carrying spirits, mostly rum, but the hold, apart from a few broken and upended casks, was empty. By the starboard rail on the poop, and again on the compass box, they found dried blood and the burn marks from discharged pistols.

  The solitary corpse in the cabin must have been the vessel's master, running below to arm himself, to save some valuables or merely to hide. It was not clear. What was certain was that he had been brutally murdered.

  Bolitho heard Tregorren say to the boatswain's

  mate, `Must've been a mutiny and the devils made off after killing the loyal seamen.'

  But both of the barquentine's boats were still hoisted inboard and secured.

  Then, when Gorgon's great pyramid of sails was running slowly across the vessel's quarter, Heather, one of Dancer's party, discovered something else. Just aft of the main hold a ball had smashed into the timbers, and when the hull dipped across a deep trough it was possible to see where it had struck the outside of the ship. By leaning out from the shrouds Bolitho saw it shining from its jagged socket like a malevolent black eye.

  Tregorren said heavily, `Must have been a pirate of some sort. Put a shot into her when she failed to heave-to and then boarded her.' He ticked off the points on his spatulate fingers. `Then butchered the hands and pitched 'em overboard. There are sharks a'plenty hereabouts. Then they swayed out the cargo to their pwn ship and cast off.'

  He looked round irritably as Dancer asked, `But why not seize the ship too, sir?'

  `I was coming to that,' he replied angrily. But he did not explain further. Instead, he cupped his hands and began to bellow some of his news towards the Gorgon.

  Across the narrowing stretch of water Bolitho heard Verling's voice through his speaking trumpet.

  `Continue the search and remain under our lee.'

  That was probably to give the captain time to examine his own logs and documents about local shipping. The City of Athens was obviously not a new vessel, and was probably familiar on the rum trade from the West Indies.

  Bolitho shivered, imagining himself alone and suddenly faced with a rush of savage, stabbing boarders.

  Tregorren said shortly, `Down aft again.' He strode to the companion with Bolitho at his heels.

  Even though he knew what he would see it was still a shock. Bolitho tried not to look at the dead man's face as Tregorren, after a brief hesitation, began to search his pockets. The City of Athens' log and charts had vanished, probably overboard, but in a corner of the littered cabin, almost hidden under a bunk, Tregorren found a canvas envelope. It was empty, but had the vessel's agent's name in Martinique clearly printed on it. It was better than nothing.

  The lieutenant righted an upended chair and sat on it heavily, his head still almost brushing the deck beams. He remained in the same position for several minutes, staring at the corpse, his face dark with concentration.

  Bolitho said, `I believe there was a third vessel, sir. That the attackers or pirates saw her sail and decided to make a run for it, knowing that this one would attract first attention.'

  For an instant he thought Tregorren had not heard.

  Then the lieutenant said softly, `When I require aid from you, Mr Bolitho, I will ask for it.' He looked up, his eyes in shadow. `You may be a postcaptain's son, and the grandson of a flag officer, but to me you are a midshipman, less than nothing in my book!'

  'I - I'm sorry.' Bolitho felt himself tense with anger. `I meant no offence.'

  `Oh yes, I know your family.' Tregorren's chest was lifting with exertion and suppressed fury. `I've seen the fine house, the tablets on the church wall ! Well, I had no safe background to help me, and by God I'll see you get no favours in my ship, understood?' He swung away, controlling his voice with obvious effort. `Now tell someone to cast down a line and haul that corpse on deck. Then have 'em clean up the cabin, it stinks like a gallow's-tip down here!'

  He touched the_ leg of his chair. There was dried blood on it, black in the filtered sunlight.

  Almost to himself he muttered, `Probably yesterday. Otherwise the rats would have found their way in here.'

  He jammed on his salt-stained hat and ducked out of the cabin.

  Later, while Bolitho and Dancer waited by the

  bulwark and watched the lieutenant being pulled across to Gorgon's side to make his report, Bolitho told his friend something of what had happened between them.

  Dancer eyed him sadly. `I'll wager he intends to put your ideas to the captain, Dick. It would be just like him.'

  Bolitho touched his arm, recalling Tregorren's last words before he had dropped into the boat.

  `Keep steerage way until told what to do, and send a good lookout aloft.' He had pointed at the corpse by the wheel. `And throw that overboard. It's how some of you'll end up, I shouldn't wonder.'

  Bolitho looked now at the empty space where the unknown man had lain. Callous and senseless.

  He said, `I've a few more ideas yet.' He smiled, trying to forget his anger. `At least I know why he

  dislikes me.'

  Dancer followed his mood. `Remember that poor cripple in the Blue Posts, Dick?' He gestured around the deck and at the handful of seamen. `He said we would both be captains, and, by God, we have a ship of our own already!'

  4

  `Clear for Action!'

  THE Gorgon's wardroom, situated directly below the captain's great cabin, and which was approximately the same size, was packed with figures from bulkhead to stern windows. It was lined with small, whitepainted cabins and used as a home and dining-space by the lieutenants, the master, the marine officers and Laidlaw, the surgeon.

  But in the pink glow of sunset through the stern windows and beneath several spiralling lanterns, the wardroom was filled with almost everyone above the rank of petty officer, except those needed to work the ship.

  Bolitho and Dancer found themselves a space on the larboard side by an open window and looked round hopefully for some refreshments. But if the wardroom was required to donate its space for a conference it was not apparently inclined to make its guests welcome.

  For most of the day, while Gorgon and her small consort had ghosted along under reduced canvas,

  Bolitho and Dancer had fretted and speculated about what was going to happen, and what their part would be. A boat had event
ually been sent for them to rejoin Gorgon, the boatswain's mate, Thorne, saying with as much sarcasm as he dared, `I think I can manage to take charge till you young gennlemen get back, sir.' He had served ten years with the fleet.

  Now, as they waited with the other midshipmen, ignored by the lieutenants and marine officers, Bolitho and his friend watched the screen door by the trunk of the mizzen mast which pinioned the ship from poop to keel. It was like being in a theatre waiting for the principal actor to appear, or for an Assize judge to take his place and begin a trial.

  Bolitho glanced around the wardroom, not for the first time. Different again from the spacious cabin overhead, it was nevertheless a palace after the midshipmen's berth and gunroom. Even the little cabin doors which left the occupants barely more room than a cupboard suggested privacy and something personal. A table and some good chairs were scattered amongst the standing figures and not jammed together against the curved and often dripping side of the orlop.

  He turned and leaned over the sill, seeing the froth from the rudder very pink in the sunset, the million dancing mirrors which streamed down from the horizon. It was hard to think of murder and danger, a man being hacked to death in the trim barquentine which sailed under Gorgon's lee.

  Another two years and he would share a wardroom like this, Bolitho thought. One more step up the ladder.

  He heard feet shuffling around him and Dancer's quick, `Here they come!'

  Verling entered first, holding the screen door aside so that Captain Beves Conway could move aft without taking his hands from behind his back.

  When he reached the table Conway said, `They may sit down if they wish.'

  Bolitho watched him, fascinated. Hemmed in by his lieutenants, the warrant officers and midshipmen, he still managed to appear quite removed from all of them. He was wearing a well-pressed blue coat, its white lapels and gilt buttons as fresh as from any London tailor. Breeches and stockings equally clean and neat, and his hair was tied to the nape of his neck with a fresh twist of ribbon. Most of the midshipmen saved their ribbons for special occasions. Bolitho, for instance, had his long black hair tied above his collar with a piece of codline.

  Verling said briefly, `Pay attention. The captain wishes to address you.'

  The wardroom seemed to be holding its breath, so that the sigh of sea and wind, the irregular creak of the rudder-head beneath the stern windows intruded forcefully, and Bolitho marvelled at the fact that they had sailed all four thousand miles without any real knowledge of why they were doing it.

  The captain said quietly, `I have brought you all here together to save time. You will return to your messes or your divisions when I have finished and tell the people what we are about, in your own way. Far better than a fine speech from the quarterdeck, I think.' He cleared his throat and looked at their expectant faces. `My orders were to bring this ship to the west coast of Africa and carry out a patrol, and if necessary land seamen and marines to further those orders. In the last few years there has been a growing menace of piracy along these shores, and many fine ships have been fired on or have disappeared.'

  He was speaking without emotion or excitement, and Bolitho wondered how such outward calm was possible. All these miles, with many more yet to sail, with the health and management of a raw company to deal with, the uncertainties of what he might find at the end of each voyage. It could not be so easy to command as he had imagined.

  Conway added, `Information came to the Admiralty some months ago that some of these pirates had made their base on the coast of Senegal.' For a moment his eyes settled on the untidy cluster of midshipmen. `Which now lies less than thirty miles to lee'rd, Mr Turnbull assures me.'

  The ruddy-faced sailing master smiled grimly and nodded. `Near as dammit, sir.'

  `So be it.' The brief touch of humour had gone. `It is my duty to discover this hiding place, and my intention is then to destroy it and punish all responsible for these crimes.'

  Bolitho shivered, despite the oppressive heat in the wardroom, remembering the withered corpses of some captured pirates dangling in irons outside his own town of Falmouth.

  The captain said wryly, `Naturally their lordships, in all their wisdom, chose a seventy-four for the task.'

  Richard Bolitho y- Midshipman

  The master and several of the older men nodded and grinned as he continued, `A ship too deephulled to work close inshore and too slow to catch a pirate vessel on the high seas ! However, we do now have the barquentine, which Mr Tregorren has now put into fair shape for use in the King's name.'

  Several heads turned to peer at the massive lieutenant as Conway added, `He has informed me of his observations concerning the vessel's fate, and has suggested that the attackers may have been frightened off by the appearance of another ship. As it was likely this happened yesterday, it may have been our topgallants which the pirates saw. If it was near this time, and allowing for wind and current, the City of Athens may well have been cloaked in dusk while we still held the sunset as we do now.'

  He shrugged, as if tired of speculation. `Be that as it may, they robbed a peaceful merchantman and no doubt threw the crew to the sharks, or so terrified the survivors that they will hang with their captors when we take them, as take them we must!'

  Verling took the hint and asked, `Questions?'

  Dewar, the major of marines, asked bluntly, `What sort of opposition may we expect, sir?'

  The captain eyed him for several seconds. `There is a small island off the coast which was first discovered about four hundred years ago and which has been occupied by the Dutch, the French, even ourselves for most of the time. It is well sited for defence from the shore. About a mile or so out in sharkinfested waters -' He paused, his eyes impatient. 'Well?'

  Hope, the fifth lieutenant, asked lamely, `Why from the shore, sir?'

  Surprisingly, Captain Conway offered a small smile. `A good question, Mr Hope, I am glad someone was paying attention.' He ignored Hope's flush of pleasure and Tregorren's scowl. `The reason is simple. The island has always been used for gathering slaves for sale and shipment to the Americas.' He sensed the sudden uneasiness amongst his officers and snapped, `It is a foul trade but not illegal. The slavers assemble their victims for the captivery, and any who do not measure up to the traders' needs are disposed of to the sharks. This "convenience" also prevents friends or relations from saving the wretches from a living hell elsewhere.'

  Major Dewar eyed his marine lieutenant and muttered fiercely, `By God, we'll show 'em, eh? I don't care a fig about slavery one way or t'other, but any pirate is vermin as far as I'm concerned.'

  Dancer said softly, `My father has often said that slavery and piracy go hand in hand. The one section preys on the other, or they work together against authority when it suits them.'

  Little Eden murmured excitedly, `Wait t-till they see the Gorgon c-coming for them, eh?' He rubbed his hands. Jjust you w-wait!'

  Verling barked, `Silence there!'

  The captain glanced around the wardroom. `We will lie-to and then close the land tomorrow. It is a dangerous coastline, and I have no desire to leave the keel on some reef or other. Our new consort will lead the approach, and landing parties will be detailed at

  first light.' He moved towards the door. `Carry on, Mr Verling.'

  The first lieutenant waited for the door to shut and said, `Return to your messes.' He sought out a master's mate. `Mr Ivey, you are to take charge of the City of Athens for the night. I suggest you call away a boat immediately.'

  Dancer sighed. 'Tregorren steals your ideas, Dick, and now they've taken our first command.' He grinned. `But I think I feel a mite safer in this fat old lady!'

  Eden grinned. `I can s-smell f-food !' He hurried from the wardroom, his feet guided by his stomach.

  `We may as well go too, Dick.'

  They both turned as Tregorren's voice followed them to the gundeck. `Belay that! I've work for you two. Get aloft to the fore t'ga'n's'l yard and examine the splicing those lazy devils
were supposed to be doing there while we were aboard the prize.' He regarded them calmly. `Not too dark for you, is it? Or too dangerous mebbee?'

  Dancer opened his mouth to answer but Bolitho said, `Aye, aye, sir.'

  The lieutenant called after them, `No skimping now!'

  On the darkening gangway by the weather shrouds Bolitho said quietly, `I wonder if I'm always to be cursed by a fear of heights?'

  They stood looking up at the black criss-cross of rigging, the braced foretopsail yard, and the one above it, deep pink in the dying light which had already gone from the decks below.

  Dancer said, `I'll go, Dick. He'll never know.'

  Bolitho smiled grimly. `He'll know, Martyn. It would be just what he wanted.' He removed his coat and hat and wedged them under a rack of boarding pikes. `Let's be about it then. At least it will give us an appetite!'

  Aft by the big double wheel the helmsmen watched the flickering compass light and eased the spokes very slightly, their bare feet planted on the deck as if they were part of it.

  The officer of the watch moved restlessly along the weather side, glancing occasionally to the opposite beam where the barquentine's solitary lantern made a small glow on the sea's face.

  From beneath the poop Captain Conway strode past the wheel, his hands behind him, his body angled to the deck.

  The senior helmsman nudged his mate and called, `Steady as she goes, sir! Sou'-east by south!'

  The captain nodded and waited for the lieutenant on watch to hurry discreetly to the lee side and leave him the privacy he needed for his nightly walk.

  Up and down the weather side, his shoes tapping on the smooth planking. Once he paused to glance through the mainmast rigging to two shadowy figures high up on the foretopgallant yard, like birds on a perch.

  But he soon forgot them as he continued pacing and thinking of tomorrow.