‘He means no harm,’ they said, and they hoped it was true, because the captain of a man-of-war is a man with extraordinary powers; if he cannot make life at sea a perpetual picnic (the elements stand rather in the way) he can at least make it into a lively imitation of hell – he can flog, starve and hang at his own sweet will.
‘He probably does not mean it,’ said Morris nervously, picking at his biscuit.
‘He had better not,’ cried Cozens, with a devil-may-care expression. They were standing out of the bay – a light wind, though fair, and a cold grey forenoon – and the remembered heights behind the harbour were sinking into their accustomed solitude. Captain Cheap had signalised their departure by a harangue in which he had compared the Wagers unfavourably with the men of the Tryall, and had assured them that he would improve their speed in setting the topsails even if he had to rip out the living heart of every man aboard. He had also rebuked Mr Bean in public; he had ordered three hands for punishment for a fault in catting the anchor; and he had sworn that Morris would be disrated before he got round the Horn.
A midshipman is an officer only by courtesy; he has no commission until he is made a lieutenant. His legal status is that of a man appointed, or rated, by the captain – he is rated a midshipman on the ship’s books, just as he might be rated a sailmaker or a butcher, and he is in fact no more than a petty officer. He is below the warrant officers such as the gunner, the carpenter or the bo’sun, who were at that time appointed by the Navy Office, and he can be disrated, or transformed into an ordinary seaman, at the captain’s pleasure. And once he has been turned before the mast he can be flogged or punished in the same way as the rest of the lower-deck – a terrifying threat in a captain’s mouth at any time, and even more so when there is the prospect of a very long voyage still to come. Morris was an inadequate midshipman, a lazy and ignorant fellow who was too stupid to try to improve himself, but on this occasion he had not really been at fault. He had been sent aloft to improve the appearance of a piece of chafing-gear – a piece of seal’s skin wrapped round a rope that was likely to be frayed by another – and by the time he came down the seal’s skin was hanging in disgraceful ribbons. A chimango, a bird something between a kite and a vulture but more passionately disagreeable than either, had ripped off the strong leather and had flown away with the greater part of it. This is the sort of unfortunate thing that can happen to anyone in the high southern latitudes, and in some circumstances it is best borne with a sigh and no more. But Morris was no judge of time and place, and he answered in a pertinacious, foolish manner. Nothing could have been more unwise, unless perhaps it was Toby’s gratuitous intervention: hearing Morris’s stuttering explanation about a bird, a sort of large yellow bird, and seeing that it gained no credit, he had stepped forward, and laying his hand on the captain’s sleeve at once to calm him and to attract his attention, had assured him that there were indeed such fowls – had often watched them – probably of the polyborus family and not connected at all with the kites, though deceptively like them – destructive birds. Mr Eliot had walked him off before the end of his remarks, but not before Captain Cheap had recognised him and had said, with an ugly, sinister look, ‘I shall look after you, my friend.’
Mr Cheap had the highest possible notion of the rights and dignity of a captain; but even if he had been as mild and sweet-tempered as Captain Murray he would not have relished being addressed with such freedom by a midshipman and a surgeon’s mate, least of all on his own quarter-deck. As it was, he seemed to think that there had been a deliberate attempt at making game of him, and consequently of the essential discipline of the Navy. It was all most unfortunate, and it cast a heavy gloom over the present meal. Cozens was fairly talkative still, and he said, with many variations, that he would not stand for being pushed about, no, not by anyone – let them try. And he said that it was a cursed thing to have changed everything that they were used to: the new captain had ordered the ship back to the system of two watches. Morris was too uneasy about his fate to eat: Jack was plunged in thought – he ate silently, whistling at intervals and staring into vacancy while he chewed: Tobias was feeling too queasy even to look at the table, and he only sat there to keep Jack company. He was always seasick when it was rough, and even when the sea was calm, as it was now, he would be disastrously ill if he had spent even a few hours on shore. Campbell was on deck: but he had early given it as his opinion that Captain Cheap was the best seaman in the squadron, that it would do the hands a world of good to have less southern softness and feeding with silver spoons, and that if there were more like him in the Navy it would be a far better service. Furthermore, Captain Cheap was of a fine respeckit family of Gowk in Wee sums, well known both to Campbell and to Mr Hamilton of the marines, wi’ mony and mony a guid elder of the Kirk to his kin.
It so happened that Campbell and Captain Cheap suited one another, for as well as being acquainted and from the same part of the world, they were both devoid of humour, touchy, suspicious of insult or encroachment, deadly serious, hard and conscientious; each recognised the virtues of the other and ignored the vices; and Campbell, therefore, was satisfied with the change. But his satisfaction was not very widely spread aboard the Wager, and when Tobias, the dismal meal being done, went forward to the carpenter’s cabin, he found the gunner there, in the act of expressing very strong views about it all.
‘… I keep my watch and navigate, the same as Bean, and should be treated equal,’ he was saying, in a high, querulous voice, ‘and if this Cheap …’ He broke off as Tobias came in, and stood about for some moments, balancing to and fro with the motion of the ship, as if wondering whether it was safe to go on; evidently he concluded that it was not, for he went away without finishing his sentence; and Tobias was glad to see him go. Mr Bulkeley was not a man Tobias could like; yet Mr Cummins, the carpenter, was particularly attached to him, and here was one of the contradictions that happen so often in life, for Tobias esteemed the carpenter highly, and was happy to be in his company. This, however, was not a social call, but a visit in the line of duty. The warrant officers were not required to present themselves at the foremast when they were sick, far from it: they were important beings, and they were treated in their cabins. Mr Cummins was a large, fat, pale man, apparently phlegmatic but in fact nervous and easily upset; he was the most skilful ship’s carpenter in the squadron, and he had been much in demand during the recent re-fitting of the Tryall’s masts, so much so that he had quite worn himself out, working too long and too late, and he had finished by giving himself an ugly great gash with an adze.
Mr Cummins was one of those who preferred smoking his tobacco to chewing it, and as his enforced idleness called for more tobacco than usual, he could scarcely be seen through the unbreathable air. Tobias dressed the wound, and peered hard at it through the fog. ‘The gash is coming along very prettily, Mr Cummins, very prettily indeed. Laudable pus, proud flesh, everything that could be desired. If there are not many sick, I shall come in the forenoon and take out the tent.’
‘Tomorrow? Tomorrow, Mr B?’ Tobias nodded, and the carpenter shook his head. ‘Not tomorrow, you won’t, Mr B,’ he said, ‘not if you have any bowels of compassion. Don’t you know there is sixteen men ordered for flogging, in consequence of the remarks passed about the penguin? The penguin served out instead of pork? Said, “Damn the purser and damn his old penguins; they wanted their pork as they had a right to, by law.” Ain’t you never heard of it?’
‘I did not think the captain meant it,’ said Tobias.
‘Well, he did,’ said the carpenter. ‘And if you have the bowels of a Jew, you will spend your forenoon patching of ‘em up again, poor souls. And Mr B, I hope you will look to young Oram. You know young Oram, one of my crew? He is ordered up for answering saucy, though I put in my good word and said he was only a poor young fellow from the colonies, where they speak so strange, meaning no wrong.’
‘Yes, I know him. But he told me he came from Philadelphia.’
&
nbsp; ‘That’s right.’
‘In Asia Minor.’
‘No, in the colonies – our colonies.’
‘Oh. That is why he look so concerned when I asked him whether he was a Cilician or a Lydian, and spoke to him in Greek. So there is a colony called Philadelphia, Mr Cummins? In the New World, I presume?’
‘Yes, indeed: though rightly speaking I think it may be a village in the colony, as who should say Piddinghoe in Sussex, Sussex being the county, and not Piddinghoe, if you take my meaning. Nay, for that it may be quite a town – I recollect my uncle Jones speaking of several houses in a row: made of mud and branches, no doubt, but quite a town for those parts. We must not expect a great deal from the colonies, Mr Barrow.’
‘Must we not, Mr Cummins?’
‘Poor barren things, I fear; and they can never come to good. And why is this, Mr B? Because was they other than poor barren things, would we have found nothing but a parcel of naked savages creeping about in the first place? No: there would have been reasonable people going about their occasions in fields, and dressed suitable, as is right and proper. But what did we find, Mr B? A parcel of naked savages, as before mentioned: which proves that nothing is to be expected from the colonies. Take poor Oram, for example: he has contracted such a rum way of speaking, what with running about with the heathen of those parts – for they are heathens there, I am sorry to say – that now he is ordered to be flogged, along with Execution Dock and John Hart, which makes three of my men in one day.’
‘Why do they call him Execution Dock?’
‘Mitchel? Why, because he was a pirate, in course. We always call pirates Execution Dock, or Black Flag, or the like, by way of allusion, as I may say, to their trade.’
‘But is it not very monstrous to have a pirate aboard?’
‘Oh,’ said the carpenter mildly, ‘you have to take what you can get, do you see: and if the man knows enough of the sea to reef and hand and steer, so much the better, let alone if he has enough of his craft to be carpenter’s crew. Execution Dock was carpenter’s mate in the Bloody Mary – turned King’s evidence, said he was forced to it – which is all my eye,’ said the carpenter, dragging down his lower eyelid with one finger, in a very hideous manner, by way of showing his disbelief, ‘– and so saved his neck, as many of ‘em do. But as for its being monstrous to have him aboard, why, was I a commander, I should press Beelzebub into the service directly, if I thought he could hale upon a rope. Have you any clear view of the shape and abilities of Beelzebub, Mr Barrow?’
‘Yes,’ replied Tobias, ‘a thick grey-skinned being, covered with coarse, translucent yellowish-red hair or bristles – a variable number of small thick limbs – unformed, amorphous, bulky trunk, gross and heavy – an almost human face. The head and face are almost human, Mr Carpenter.’
‘Not unlike the purser, Mr B?’
‘Very like the purser, Mr Cummins.’
In the long, long history of the Royal Navy there may have been a popular purser; but Mr Hervey was not this sport of nature. Pursers, at that time, regularly cheated the men in the amount and quality of their rations, in the price of the slops that the men were obliged to buy from them, and they had a way of embezzling any money that was not actually nailed down: their rapacity was so general and widespread that even the Centurion whose company was chosen with particular care, had a sad knave aboard – he was found to have appropriated a hogshead of tobacco and an unbelievable quantity of biscuit, when the ship was in longitude 80° W, and it was too late to do anything about it by a thousand miles and more. But to these little failings Mr Hervey added a greasy obsequiousness to those above him and an insulting haughtiness to those below, which made him quite actively disliked: he was at present currying favour with Captain Cheap, and he was said to be very thick with Plastow, the captain’s steward, who had brought a fine reputation as a tale-bearer with him from the Tryall.
In the pause that followed their remarks about the purser the carpenter gazed at Tobias; he sighed and shook his head behind the smoke, but he said nothing.
‘Apart from the tent,’ said Tobias, returning to the matter in hand, ‘there is nothing else to do: but you should take no beef or mutton, Mr Cummins, until this day week; and seeing that this is leap-year, that will be March the fourth – no beef or mutton until March the fourth, if you please.’
Tobias, leaving the carpenter, with mutual expressions of civility and good will, turned upwards at the break of the foc’s’le and came out on to the gangway. Jack, Mr Eliot, Mr Jones (a very kindly master’s mate) and several other friends had all strongly advised him to keep below and out of the captain’s sight for a while, but the prodigious density of the atmosphere in the carpenter’s cabin had made fresh air more important than anything else. Fresh air, thought Tobias, might keep him from being actively sick; and besides, there was a great deal of canvas between him and the poop, the breeze being so light – he would not be noticed.
He bumped straight into John Duck, who, with a delighted grin, pointed over the side. Tobias looked, and in an instant his nausea was forgotten: the sea was crimson, almost scarlet, as far as the eye could see, a lake of blood.
The squadron had not yet worked out of the great bay: low on the starboard the land lay black; far ahead a remote dark cape ran out into the crimson water, and close-hauled to weather this cape the squadron stood to the south through a sea in which their very wakes were red. It was an astonishing sight, and the strangeness of it was enhanced by the silence on deck – nothing but the quiet wind in the rigging, the faint creaking of the gear, and the solemn voice of the leadsman in the chains – ‘By the deep four. By the deep four. Five fathom.’
The squadron was skirting the edge of shoal water, and the Wager, never a weatherly ship, had dropped away to the lee, as usual, where the water was shallower still: there was a very strong likelihood of her running aground, and everybody on deck paid the closest attention to the man with the lead – everybody except John Duck, who was hopelessly volatile, and Tobias, who did not know what was afoot and whose whole being was taken up with the spectacle of millions of millions of shrimps, incalculable myriads of shrimps, that were staining the sea, shrimps as red as if they had been boiled.
‘By the mark three,’ called the man in the chains.
‘All hands – turn up all hands to bring the ship to an anchor,’ ordered Captain Cheap, and the cry ran instantly through the Wager – all hands, all hands on deck, all hands to bring the ship to an anchor.
‘Are the anchors clear?’ said the captain.
‘All clear.’
‘What water have you in the chains?’
‘Shrimps’ exclaimed Tobias, who had just realised what they were.
‘Silence, there. What water have you in the chains?’
‘Eight, half nine.’
‘Keep fast the anchors till I call you, Mr Bean.’
‘Aye-aye, sir; all fast.’
‘No ground with this line,’ called the leadsman.
‘Pass along the deep-sea line.’
‘Aye-aye, sir.’
‘Are you ready there? Damn you, are you ready there, with the deep-sea line?’
‘All ready, sir.’
‘Heave away, watch, watch, bear away, veer away.’
‘No ground, sir, with a hundred fathom.’
The ship seemed to let out her breath; it had been an anxious, a very anxious quarter of an hour, and now it was over people turned and smiled at one another: but the smiles were quickly abolished by a furious roaring from the poop – a calling out to know who that was who had presumed to cry ‘Shrimps’ and a demand that he should come, or be brought, without the loss of a moment. But even in such a scratch crew as the Wager’s, with an unfair proportion of fools and evil men, there was no one to deliver up the criminal, and fortunately a change in the breeze, with the necessity for trimming sail, diverted the current of the captain’s mind. Tobias felt an oppressive weight of guilt, however; he hurried away, bent inhumanly
low, with his eyes partially closed, by way of making himself invisible; and by various cunning detours he reached the shelter of the cabin undetected. He knew that he had cut it pretty fine, as Jack would say; and by way of conciliating fate he sat down to write up the sick-bay accounts in a fair hand, taking the utmost pains to make them neat.
‘There you are,’ cried Jack, in a loud, accusing voice, when he came below at the end of the watch. ‘You are cutting it pretty fine, Toby, I can tell you, with your prancing about all over the ship, roaring out “Shrimps” like any infernal old fish-wife. Shrimps, forsooth. It will be cockles and mussels next. What were you thinking of, to make such a horrible din, at such a time?’
‘I was amazed by the shrimps,’ said Tobias. ‘Had I reflected, I would not have called out: but you will admit that it was an extraordinary sight.’
‘Prodigious,’ agreed Jack gloomily, ‘and a very pretty omen, I am sure. We set sail on a Friday, which is a very cheerful sort of a beginning, and we sail straight into a blood-red sea. If the commodore had asked my advice, we should not have sailed until tomorrow.’
Most of the people under Mr Anson’s command would have given him the same advice, in the likely event of his asking them; and it is possible that the great man himself would not willingly have put to sea on a Friday (if only because of the despondency it spread among his more superstitious shipmates) had the urgency of his mission not pressed him so, and the lateness of the season. Superstition was a weakness from which Tobias was totally free – he was devoid of poetry, poor soul, but he was devoid of its dark, perverted shadow too – and he at once fell to proving that there was no connexion between shrimps and Friday, and none between Friday and misfortune.
‘My dear Jack,’ he said, ‘do but consider how illiberal, how unphilosophic it is to suppose …’
The Unknown Shore Page 16