by David Starr
To my surprise Tom laughs. “Have no fear of that. The Army was looking for Duncan Scott, not John Stuart, and Duncan Scott is dead and long forgotten. As for the Royal Navy? We’re conscripts, you and I. If a regular sailor deserts, they’ll swing from the yardarm for sure, if caught. Pressed men? We may get a floggin’ from the cap’n for good measure, but then we’ll get thrown back into service until the ship sails back to London and we get paid off.”
Suddenly the loud shrill of a pipe echoes through the hold. “Ahoy! All hands!” a voice cries.
“The tide’s turned,” says Tom. “Time to head to sea. We’ve been refittin’ and victuallin’ the ship for the last several months. All we needed was a sufficient crew. And thanks to the press gang,” Tom says with some sympathy, “that need has been filled. Time to go above decks and say goodbye to England — at least for a little while.”
The crew of Cerberus lines up along the rails as we slip from the pier and out into the river. The current is strong, and coupled with the ebbing tide, we have no difficulty travelling quickly downstream.
As we drift down the Thames I take stock of Cerberus for the first time. She is the largest ship I’ve ever seen, let alone sailed on.
She is a three-masted frigate, with a black hull and a tan keel, a strong ship, made from British oak and elm. Her sails are furled tightly to the spars. With the current and tide taking us downstream, the quartermaster needs no wind. He stands the helm, steering the ship, keeping it expertly in the middle of the river. Standing next to the quartermaster is Lieutenant Murray, and another officer who Tom says is Captain Whitby, the undisputed commander of Cerberus.
I stand beside Tom, on the deck between the mainmast and the foremast. I look down to the water. The river doesn’t seem too far below me, certainly close enough for me to jump.
The bank is only thirty yards or so away, full of busy streets and buildings. There are a score of places to hide onshore. If I can make it. My mind races. I’m a good swimmer, perhaps I won’t have to wait several months to continue my search for Libby after all.
“Don’t even think about it, mate,” whispers Tom, as if he can read my mind. “You wouldn’t reach the bank. She don’t look it but the Thames is a treacherous river when the tide runs. Between the currents and the cold you wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Another pressed sailor who came on board with me last night, George something or other, doesn’t heed Tom’s warning. “To blazes with the Royal Navy!” he suddenly shouts, climbing up and over the bulwark. Before anyone can stop him, he launches himself over the side of the ship, hitting the brown water below with a splash.
“Man overboard!” cries a sailor. On the quarterdeck Lieutenant Murray looks over to Captain Whitby. The captain shakes his head slightly, the motion barely visible.
“Hold your course,” says Murray. “We couldn’t reach him in time, even if we wanted to. This man has chosen his fate, let him live or die with the consequences.”
George bobs helplessly on the river for a while then he slips underneath the surface, reappearing long enough to scream for assistance. “Help!” he begs, but as the Cerberus passes on, and he disappears under the water again, his cries are cut off. This time George doesn’t reappear.
“I told you the current’s too strong,” Tom says. “You’ll make it off this ship sure enough one day, but hopefully not like him.”
Chapter 10
The last river I sailed was the St. Lawrence, a very different waterway than the Thames. The Thames is a smaller, tamer river, a river of cities and commerce and, as it broadens into its own estuary, a river of small, tidy English farms and villages.
Vessels are everywhere. Barges carry their cargoes, small fishing smacks make their way to the English Channel and merchant ships are pulled up the river by rowboats. No matter who they are, all boats give wide berth to Cerberus.
The row of cannon that bristle from our sides, as well as the St. George’s Ensign, a red cross on a white background with the Union Jack in the top left corner that flies proudly from the stern, clearly mark us as a warship of the Royal Navy, and a source of national pride.
The most powerful force on earth, the Royal Navy is the only thing that stands between England and the conquering armies of Napoleon. No matter what the people of England think of their kings, queens and prime ministers, the Royal Navy is the force that keeps them safe, and its ships and sailors hold a special place in the hearts of every English man, woman and child. As a Scot, however? I hate the very sight of that flag.
On the riverbank, just past the town of Gravesend, a number of boys stop their playing and salute us as we pass. Captain Whitby, still standing beside the helmsman, smartly salutes back, much to the pleasure of both the boys and men on board. “God bless England!” a boy cries.
“Huzzah! Give Boney what-for!” shouts another as the crew on deck roars their approval.
A mile past Gravesend, and with the river widening rapidly, Lieutenant Murray gives the order the crew has been waiting for. “All hands! Make sail!”
“You watch the topmen climb,” says Tom. “I used to think I knew how to sail until I ended up in the Royal Navy. It’s nearly 200 feet from the waterline to the top of the mainmast, twice the height of the Sylph’s mast. The lads that go aloft are either the bravest or craziest men in the fleet.”
Within seconds, the spars and rigging high above the deck swarm with sailors. Massive canvas sails are quickly unfurled as the deck crew hauls on lines and lanyards, and in less time than I think possible, sails blossom like white clouds from the masts, and the Cerberus surges forward, east into the English Channel and the open sea.
“Welcome to the Royal Navy,” Tom says. “Wanted or not, you’re in for the adventure of a lifetime.”
Chapter 11
“Ahoy! Starboard watch! Rouse out there, you sleepers! Lash and carry!” At the barked command and the sharp whistle that precedes it, I tumble out of my hammock. Along with the other men stirred from sleep, I hurriedly stash my hammock into the storage netting, then scramble up the hatchway to the deck to begin my watch.
At four in the morning, sunrise is still an hour away, but that doesn’t prevent us from getting on with the day’s work. The pressed men are given the most menial of chores, jobs that require no skill whatsoever. They man the pumps to empty out the bilge, tend to the pigs that are kept in a small sty below decks and help the cooks.
Thanks to Tom I work on the deck instead of below in the hold. I get to breathe in the fresh air and watch the ship rise and fall on the waves. But even then I have no time to enjoy the sights. “Get scrubbing!” orders a boatswain’s mate as we fill the buckets and wash down the decking.
“I thought ye said I was about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.” The two of us are on our knees, large scrub brushes in our hands. “I’m naught but a scullery maid right now.”
“It’s hardly the most glamorous of duties, I give you that. At least we’re at four bells. Only another two hours until we rest and the other watch takes over.”
The crew is divided into two watches, named after the ship’s sides. Ours is the starboard watch. We’re on duty for four hours at a time. The ship’s bell rings every half an hour, marking time, gaining a ring each time until we reach eight bells — the welcome sound of the end of watch.
“Wash the deck, swab it dry, polish the brightwork,” I complain a week later. “Fer this Libby has to wait?”
“Gunnery practice tomorrow, though,” Tom says, trying to cheer me up. “That’s excitin’, ain’t it? Maybe even a chance to work in the rigging if you prove yourself.”
I scoff at the suggestion. “Prove myself to the English? They’re the reason my family died in the first place. I went halfway around the world to get away from the redcoats and now I’ve joined them.”
“You’re not a soldier; you’re a sailor, Duncan,” Tom corrects me, but the look on my face tells him I see little difference between the two.
“Th
ree years ago the British Army tried to kill me, chased me out of England, took me from the only family I had left. The Royal Navy has done the same as well. Soldiers, sailors, marines: it makes little difference to me the colour of the uniform.”
On board Cerberus, the sailors, both common man and officer, wear blue, but twenty others dress in the red coats I’ve come to despise, though I learn that they are not soldiers but instead members of the Royal Marines.
“You’re not the only one who don’t care for the Marines,” admits Tom. “Many of the lads think ’em a lazy lot, not help-in’ with the sailin’, just loungin’ about, waitin’ for action.”
“That’s because they are lounging about the ship, admiring themselves in their uniforms when we work like slaves,” I grouse. “And how many times does this damned deck need swabbing?”
“Maybe you’re right,” says Tom, “but when it comes to a battle we’ll be glad to have ’em in the fighting tops. Armed to the teeth they are, with their swords, flintlocks, pistols and grenades. One Marine is worth twenty regular sailors in a fight.”
“Grenade? A dinnae ken that word.”
“Grenades are a nasty bit of business,” Tom explains. “See that Marine there, with the bandolier across his chest? Those are grenades.”
The Marine Tom refers to is a tough-looking fellow standing watch on the deck. What Tom calls a bandolier is a belt he wears over his shoulder with several round metal objects, each about the size of a large apple attached to it. “What do they do?” I ask Tom.
“They’re bombs. Metal containers filled with gunpowder with fuses stickin’ out of the ends. Light the fuse, throw it at whatever or whoever you want to blow up then duck and cover.”
“They sound very dangerous for such small-looking things.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he says. “I’ve seen ’em in action. When the bullets and cannonballs start firin’, ain’t nobody I’d rather have at my back than a Royal Marine loaded up with grenades. When we find the Russians you’ll see what I mean soon enough.”
Chapter 12
Eight bells sound across the Cerberus as the starboard watch stands down. “Not exactly steak and egg is it?” says Dutch, as we sit down to eat on the gun deck. Our meal is a mush made of oatmeal and raisins, called burgoo.
We wash it down with Scotch coffee, which despite its name is not coffee at all, but a mixture of hot water, burned bread and sugar. “At least it ain’t mealy biscuits and salt pork yet,” says Little Fred. “They save that for the back half of the trip.”
Each watch is broken down into groups of eight men or so, called messes. In the week since I’ve been on board, the men in our mess have become close friends and have chosen Tom as our unelected leader.
There are only seven of us, each with a nickname. Tom is called Bull because of his size and strength. Morris and Little from Norwich were fishermen, friends before joining the Royal Navy. We call them Big Fred and Little Fred respectively: Morris because of his size, Fred because of his last name.
Samuel Akker, a young man with thin blond hair, is a Londoner, though his family comes from Amsterdam originally. His nickname, of course, is Dutch. Robert Adams, a fellow Scot from Edinburgh, is called Haggis.
The last man in our watch, William MacDonald, is from Halifax, in Nova Scotia. He’s a couple of years older than me but has been in the Royal Navy since he was fifteen. We call him Yankee Bill because even though he’s never been to the United States, Bill’s accent is flat, like Simon Fraser’s, in fact.
Then there’s me. I’m now called Trap. In the course of our conversations, I’ve told the men about my experiences in the wilds of North America with the North West Company. Yankee Bill in particular was most impressed. He knows all about Canada, the Nor’Westers and the fur trade, and has even been to Montreal.
“You think the topmen are crazy?” he says to the other lads. “The fur traders our new friend travelled with are absolutely mad. To go through those wild lands with little more than a flintlock for protection? Trap must have gone crazy himself out there!”
Our four hours of rest passes quickly, and our watch begins again. Reluctantly we climb up onto the deck, knowing full well what the next four hours will bring. There’s always wood to scrub and brass to clean, and then there is our sailing duty as well.
* * *
Cerberus is travelling north by northeast, but the winds blow from the northwest. We can’t sail in a straight line because of it and are required to tack, to sail in a zigzag manner against the wind. On this watch it is our turn to man the ship’s lines.
“Ready ho!” cries Second Lieutenant Wilson from the quarterdeck. The topmen high in the rigging stand ready to pull in sails while we are in the bow, working the lines on the foresails, ready to heave them in on command.
“Put the helm down!” orders the helmsman as the ship swings across the wind.
“Helm’s a’lee!” Wilson shouts.
“Mainsail haul!” cries the helmsman in response.
“Pull with all your might, lads,” says Tom. We wrench hard on the lines, hoisting the sails until the wind catches them and they billow, filled with fresh North Sea wind.
“Quick lads, be sharp with the lines,” Tom warns. “Puddin’s coming this way.”
Midshipman Benjamin Figg walks the forecastle imperiously, scowling down on us as if he was the Admiral of the Fleet. Figg is my age, perhaps a year younger. He’s a midshipman, a “young gentleman” as they’re called in the Royal Navy, a boy from a prominent family seeking a commission.
Midshipman Figg is also an unfortunate-looking person. It isn’t that he’s fat; it’s more that he has no shape, no firmness to his body at all. He’s soft, like a jellyfish or a pudding poured into a uniform, with thin brown hair, a prominent nose and no chin.
Second Lieutenant Wilson is in charge of the starboard watch, but he leaves much of the day-to-day tasks to Pudding — much to our regret. We called him Figgy Pudding at first, which quickly shortened to Pudding. Not to Figg’s face, of course. We’d have been tied to the mainmast and flogged in front of the entire crew for such an affront.
It was Dutch who’d come up with the name. “Pudding” fit perfectly, and soon the entire watch referred to Midshipman Figg as such. Even some of the junior officers call him that as well.
The benefit of their rank allows them to say it to his face, which absolutely infuriates Midshipman Figg, though there is nothing he could do about it. It has become his mission to discover the source, and somehow, quite correctly, Figg suspects us.
“Ahoy! You there, sailor!” Figg shouts. “Avast!”
“He’s talking to you, Trap,” says Yankee Bill apologetically. I have a line in my hand, and am pulling it tight, wrapping it around a cleat. I hold fast as Pudding approaches.
“What the blazes do you think you’re doing, sailor?” Pudding demands.
“I just wrapped the line around the cleat,” I say respectfully.
“You call these lines taut?” Pudding stares up the foremast. “Useless waisters, the lot of you.”
“I’m sorry, Sir, but I don’t see nothin’ wrong with the lines,” says Tom, coming to my defence. “We’ve left no slack, nor are any lines tangled.”
Tom is right, of course, but it doesn’t seem to satisfy Midshipman Figg. In fact, his face glows red at the nerve of Tom saying anything at all to him.
“You mind your cheek, sailor! Bosun Watson!” Figg commands.
The bosun is a warrant officer. He is not commissioned like the lieutenants or Captain Whitby but has earned his place through skill and merit. His job is to assign the deck crews our tasks and supervise us closely.
“Sir?” says Watson, saluting Figg crisply.
“These lubbers know nothing about seamanship, especially the large one with the big mouth. I want them both scrubbing the deck until the wood shines, their fingers bleed, and they learn to respect their betters. Do you hear me?”
“Aye, Sir. Very well, S
ir!” Watson replies. “You heard the midshipman! Brushes, buckets and swabs!”
With a smile on his face Figg takes his leave and returns to the quarterdeck. “The lines were fine,” I say, getting down on my knees, brush in hand. The deck is hard, my knees are bruised and cut from the hours I’ve spent scrubbing, and the water stings my blistered fingers. The last thing the deck — or I — need is more scrubbing.
“It ain’t about the lines,” Tom says. “Puddin’s just showing us he’s in charge. There’s a person like Figg on every ship in the Royal Navy. Stay out of his way and he won’t bother you. Besides, how much harm can one man really do?”
I remember my journey with Simon Fraser and La Malice. The murderous voyageur nearly killed me twice, caused a mutiny and almost killed the leader of our expedition. “More than ye may think, Bull. Trust me,” I say, “I ken firsthand how much harm one bad man can do.”
Chapter 13
“Run out the guns, and fire on my command,” says Warrant Officer Henry Rowe, chief gunner of the HMS Cerberus. Rowe is the senior warrant officer on board, a career sailor from Ipswich in charge of all of the ship’s guns, ammunition and powder.
My heart pounds with anticipation. We’ve been in the belly of the ship, on the gun deck for several hours now, doing dry runs with the twenty-six cannons. Now we are about to fire them for real. My messmates and I are in charge of the stern-most gun on the starboard side of the ship. Tom is our gun captain, while the rest of us have other duties.
“Why is the gun deck painted red?” I ask, taking my position beside the cannon.
“That’s to mask the sight of our blood,” says Yankee Bill. “The captain wouldn’t want us going all squeamish in the middle of the battle, would he?”
“Them buckets against the bulwarks, Trap. You see ’em?” adds Haggis.
“Aye, what of them?”
“Filled with sand, they are. When we go to war for real, we’ll spread it around the guns so we don’t slip in our own blood. We’ll also light the lanterns that hang above the guns when it comes to the real thing. Without them, when the twenty-six guns start firing you won’t see your hand in front of your face for all the smoke.”