‘Not just them folk, it seems,’ said Mudge. ‘I reckon I’ve just been every part as unjust as any of them types, rattling on about negros with no learning. Sad to say, I thought you were naught but a savage when I first clapped eyes on you, but I own now that I got you all wrong, Able Sedgwick. An’ there be my hand to say how sorry I be.’
‘Well then, isn’t this is the touching scene, to be sure,’ said O’Malley, once the two sailors had shaken hands. ‘Now we’re all fecking lovers again, where are our vittles?’
‘It be a coming, Sean,’ said Trevan, arriving at the end of the table with several tubs of steaming food. ‘Pork and pease today, lads, what with it being a Thursday.’
‘Ladle it on then, Adam,’ urged Evans, holding out his square wooden plate. ‘I could eat a bleeding horse.’
‘I dare say you’ll be hungry an’ all, Larcum,’ said O’Malley. ‘They do say killing gives a man a fecking appetite.’
‘I ain’t sure about that,’ said the sailor. ‘I do feel proper raw over him, lads. Turned out he be one of ours as had joined the Frogs.’
‘Got what he bleeding deserved, then, didn’t he?’ said Evans, through a mouthful of food. ‘Filthy turncoat! If you hadn’t stuck a ball in his nut, he’d have been hanged. You probably did him a kindness.’ There was nodding agreement at this from the others, more concerned with eating than talking. The exception was Sedgwick, who toyed with his food.
‘But what were he doing on a Frog privateer?’ he asked, laying aside his spoon.
‘How do you mean, Able,’ said Mudge.
‘Ain’t it strange for a deserter to choose such a calling?’ said the coxswain. ‘You’d be certain to cross paths with the navy afore long. I heard he even had tattoos and a pigtail to mark him as a man-of-war’s man. It don’t make no sense, to my way of thinking.’
‘Desperate fecker, then,’ said O’Malley. ‘To chance such hazards?’
‘Maybe, so,’ mused Sedgwick. ‘An’ what drove him to that pass, I wonder?’
O’Malley looked about him to check that they were not being overheard, and then gestured to the others to come close.
‘You’ll recall how that old gossip Harte an’ I share a twist of backy, hard by the galley of an evening?’
‘You an’ Pipe’s steward?’ said Mudge. ‘That be bleeding handy!’
‘Too fecking right!’ enthused the Irishman. ‘So, he was after polishing the lamp in Pipe’s sleeping quarters the other day, an’ his ear chanced to stray close to the bulkhead, so it did.’ The other sailors chuckled at this, and leant a little closer.
‘Now, he did make me swear not to tell a soul, on the grave of my mother,’ cautioned O’Malley, with a solemnly raised finger. ‘But as I’ve no fecking notion where that might be, I am sure it will do no harm if I tells you lads. He was after telling Old Man Taylor that we’re to hunt the Caribee for that sloop what fecking mutinied last year.’
‘The one in all them bleeding posters as were going up in Plymouth?’ queried Evans. ‘The Pelican? Or were it the Pigeon?’
‘The Peregrine?’ offered Mudge.
‘Aye, that were it!’ confirmed the Londoner. ‘I knew it were some manner of fowl.’
‘Listen up, now,’ continued O’Malley, ‘Might this here turncoat as Larcum shot be one of them feckers?’
‘What made you say …’ began Mudge.
‘Easy lads,’ hissed O’Malley, urging caution. He motioned to a group of younger sailors who were coming in their direction, as if summoned by the indiscretion. ‘Not a word! Harte told me all that on the fecking quiet!’
The sailors arrived in a shuffling group at the end of the table. ‘Evening shipmates,’ said their leader.
‘An’ what is the fecking meaning of this, Peter Hobbs?’ demanded O’Malley. ‘Sneaking up on folk all underhand like, to earwig on the talk of your betters.’
‘I didn’t mean nothing by it, Sean,’ said the young man. ‘Nor did I hear aught.’
‘Of course not,’ said the Irishman, hastily. ‘What with there being nothing of import to fecking hear … about mutineers … an’ retaking ships, and the like.’ There was a pause while the new arrivals absorbed this. Sedgwick clapped his bowed forehead into his open hand.
‘You be talking about how we be off to recapture that there Peregrine from them Frogs?’ queried one of the others.
‘How … how … how do you feckers know that?’ spluttered O’Malley.
‘You know Josh Andrews, that new boatswain’s mate as joined just afore we left Plymouth,’ said Hobbs, jerking a thumb towards where the petty officers messed. ‘He were saying how he served on her a few years back, an’ how he’s come on board to help smoke her if the Frogs have made her look all weird.’
‘Your man should know better than to fecking gossip about such things,’ said the Irishman, folding his arms. ‘Him a petty officer an’ all. So what were you lads after, anyways? Apart from the shameless spreading of tittle-tattle.’
‘I was thinking on how we ain’t had the occasion for no dancing this voyage,’ said Hobbs. ‘If you’ve finished your vittles, perhaps you might play for us, like? You being the best fiddler on the barky, an’ all.’
‘Is it flattery, you’re after trying?’ said O’Malley, secretly pleased with the description. He was comfortably the frigate’s best musician, at least in his own opinion. ‘But what will we do for a drummer, now that Fergus O’Leary has passed on?’
‘What became of him?’ asked Mudge.
‘Hacked down by a brace of Danish feckers at Copenhagen, the hounds,’ said the Irishman. ‘’Twas an awful shame, he being the finest stickman outside of Kerry.’
‘If you have a drum, I can play it passing well,’ offered Mudge.
‘Don’t be taking offence at all, Larcum,’ said O’Malley holding up a hand. ‘I am sure you can strike out a beat as grand as the next fecker, but Irish drumming comes from the soul. None as aren’t from across the water can do it right.’
In answer Mudge pulled the empty mess tub towards him, flipped it over and picked up a pair of wooden spoons. They vanished into a blur, like the wings of an insect, and a rapid beat rattled out, the tone rising and falling as he moved the point of contact across the base of the tub. With a final flourish the sailor came to a stop.
‘Bleeding hell, that were good,’ remarked Evans.
‘I daresay your grandma might have been Irish,’ conceded O’Malley.
‘I doubt that, Sean,’ smiled Mudge. ‘But we do drum a little in Suffolk too, you know, when we be wassailing in the springtime. In truth I’m out of practice. Weren’t much call for dancing on my last ship.’
‘That be right?’ queried Trevan. ‘We always enjoyed a bit of a hornpipe back on the old Emilia, but maybe Yankee whalers be different?’
‘Eh, that be right Adam,’ confirmed Mudge. ‘New Bedford captains be dreadful old puritans to a man.’
‘So, we going to have ourselves a dance then,’ asked Hobbs, who had been patiently waiting during the audition.
‘Aye, very well,’ said the Irishman, unwrapping his fiddle. ‘Give your man a fecking drum, and let us hope he’ll not play too ill.’
But O’Malley need not have worried. A wide stretch of planking was cleared close to the fore ladderway, where there was better headroom. Some of the deck’s lamps were brought over and set down in a ring to illuminate the space. Then those who were going to dance arranged themselves in two loose lines, self-consciously pulling at their waist bands, or tweaking at their shirt sleeves under the gaze of those around the edge of the circle. More and more sailors gathered, either to wait their turn, or just to enjoy the skill of those performing. Off to one side sat Mudge on a stool facing O’Malley and watching the fiddler intently. On his lap was a small drum with a Celtic knot painted across the skin.
‘The Black Almain,’ announced the Irishman. He stamped his foot on the deck a few times to set the rhythm, Mudge took it up, and O’Malley began to play. The sailors wer
e familiar with the tune, and immediately began to dance. Soon there were a dozen men twirling and stamping to the music that flowed from the two players. In the glow of the oil lamps they sent shadows flickering across the faces of those watching.
Sedgwick stood towards the back of the crowd, a strange, sad look in his eyes. It was many years since he had been dragged away from his burning village and into the West African night, but still the combination of bare dancing feet and the sound of a drum could pull him back. The flickering motion of the dancers seemed to conjure up the ghosts of his long-dead family from among the deep shadows of the lower deck. The men of his tribe had been dancing in the firelight that night too, his father and uncles prominent among them, until the village dogs had suddenly started to bark.
He felt an arm around his shoulder, and he turned to find Trevan beside him, a look of concern on his face. ‘Why doesn’t you and I go an’ watch the moonrise, Able lad,’ he said. ‘It’ll be a fine sight, on a clear night such as this.’
The two men slipped away, unnoticed by the others, and made their way up onto the forecastle. The flow of the music followed them, drifted up through the gratings, but it was muffled a little by the two intervening decks. With a final flourish from O’Malley, the dance ended amid a loud burst of approval. Moments later came a fresh tune, and the sound of a new dance starting. The two friends moved away, across to the rail at the very front of the ship. The wind that ruffled their shirts was deliciously cool and fresh after the stuffy lower deck. The bow of the frigate sliced through the water amid a tumble of foam beneath them, and the dark sea stretched out all around, empty as a desert beneath the stars.
‘That dancing gets you every time, don’t it, Able lad,’ commented Trevan.
‘Aye, that it does,’ agreed Sedgwick. ‘But it was a deal worse the first hornpipe I saw, so that be progress of a sort. I daresay it will fade, in time.’
‘That be a comfort,’ said his friend. ‘They do say as thinking upon something else can serve to shift recollections as is too painful.’ Sedgwick obediently shut his eyes and tried to clear his head of thoughts of home. Sure enough, a fresh image formed in his mind.
‘What do you reckon of our new messmate?’ he asked.
‘Larcum?’ said the Cornishman. ‘I likes him well enough, although I hear he were cheeking you earlier about your race, while I was away fetching our scoff.’
‘That be true enough, but he ain’t exactly the first to do that, nor will he be the last,’ said the coxswain. ‘An’ he begged my pardon, handsomely enough.’
‘That be good,’ agreed Trevan. ‘For my part, I hold him to be a decent shipmate, an’ he be a proper sailor. Shame about him killing that jack, but if the bugger was about to stick him, that be fair enough. He certainly knows his whaling.’
‘He knows his way about a king’s ship, an’ all,’ said his friend. ‘I reckon he’s served on a few before he reached the Griffin.’
‘That must be true of many a tar,’ said Trevan, ‘after all these years of war.’
‘Aye, and most are content to yarn about it, with a good few as can barely be stopped,’ said the coxswain. ‘But not him. Have you marked how he’s yet to mention a single man-of-war he’s served on? Strange, that, don’t you think?’
*****
A week later, the Griffin left the blustery Atlantic, and was advancing over the dazzling blue of the Caribbean towards the southern coast of Antigua. The island was close, lying across the horizon and filling Clay’s view with forest-covered slopes that rose to the bare tops of Sage Hill and Boggy Peak, off to his left. The blue sea flashed into dazzling white where the surf pounded against the rocky shore. Coming out from the island towards the frigate was a line of three graceful schooners. With their long hulls and delicate spars, they seemed as elegant as greyhounds when compared with the heavy masts and solid build of the Griffin, but as they passed close to leeward Clay noticed how shabby they looked. Their bright paintwork was battered, and their sails heavily patched. The nearest one had a long vertical stripe of new white canvas running through the middle of its yellowing mainsail. He acknowledged the friendly wave from the barefoot man at the tiller as the ships passed.
‘They may be nothing much to look at, but schooners command the inter-island trade in these waters, sir,’ said Taylor. ‘Both legitimate and otherwise. The Excise would need a swift cutter to catch one of those three on a dark night.’
‘What do they chiefly carry?’
‘Food, rum, stores, sir,’ explained the first lieutenant. ‘Slaves on occasion, from islands with a surplus to where they are required. And sugar, of course. That is the white gold of the West Indies.’
Clay watched the line of schooners for a moment, as they ran away to the south, and wondered if any of their crews might be from the Peregrine. He had noticed that a couple of the hands had busied themselves at coiling ropes while the shadow of the big frigate loomed over them. Then he returned his attention to the approaching island. Remember what Earl St Vincent said, he reminded himself. Catching the mutineers would be taken care of by others. He had a ship to find.
They reduced sail to just a single topsail as the tricky approach to the entrance to English Harbour opened in the coast ahead of him. As Antigua grew closer, he began to see where swathes of destruction had been torn across the hillsides. The bright green of new saplings could be seen, busily rising from among fallen tree trunks.
‘I collect they were badly struck by a hurricane last year, sir,’ commented Taylor.
‘I believe so,’ said Clay, thinking of what good fortune that had been for the mutineers, able to make their way across a stormy but empty sea.
‘I can see the entrance now, sir,’ said Armstrong, who had his telescope to his eye. ‘Just appearing off the bow. You can see the flag above the fort on Pigeon Point.’
Clay followed where the sailing master had indicated. There were low brown cliffs with trailing creepers dangling down them, topped by a little stone fort that guarded the narrow entrance. Beyond an inlet twisted its way inland, with more stone fortifications, and the roofs of a settlement. Behind the breakwater guarding the inner harbour were plenty of masts, including one with a blue ensign at its mizzen.
‘Take us in, Mr Armstrong, if you please,’ ordered Clay, closing his telescope. ‘Mr Taylor, the admiral is in harbour. Kindly prepare to salute his flag, and have my barge ready to launch. I suppose I had best shift into my best coat and scrapper.’ He eyed the fierce sun overhead, and enjoyed the cool sea air for a last moment, before he went down to his cabin to change.
When Clay returned to the deck, dressed in his heavy broadcloth coat, the Griffin was deep into English Harbour. The cliffs and slopes that surrounded them seemed to magnify the hot sun, and reflect it up on him from the surface of the water. He felt the first trickle of sweat forming beneath his linen shirt. The hills seemed to have sheltered the inlet from the hurricane. Tall palm trees with feathery fronds lined the shore, and the grey stone buildings of the dockyard bustled with life. In the port were several more schooners and two other warships. Clay’s heart soared as he recognised the sloop of his friend John Sutton lying above her reflection.
‘We shall be mooring directly sir,’ said Taylor, pointing to the forecastle where Hutchinson was barking orders to his men.
‘The other ships are the Echo, eighteen-gun sloop of war, Captain Sutton, and the Stirling, sixty-four, flagship of Rear Admiral Sir George Montague. Captain Thompson commanding,’ announced the signal midshipman.
‘Thank you, Mr Russell,’ said Clay. Below him Sedgwick was inspecting the crew of the captain’s barge. Each man was dressed in clean white duck trousers, matching green shirts of the same shade as their boat’s hull and oar blades, and straw hats decorated with the ship’s name. He returned his attention to the frigate as it drifted on. There was a cry from Hutchinson in the bow, and she rounded to, neatly picking up her mooring buoy. A torrent of sailors poured aloft, and the frigate’s topsail vani
shed. The moment the sail had gone, the first gun of the salute crashed out, returned from high on the two-decked flagship.
‘That was handsomely done, Mr Taylor,’ said his captain. ‘You have achieved a great deal with the new hands in the last few weeks.’
Thank you, sir,’ smiled the older man. ‘They are not quite the seamen I would like yet, and their gunnery leaves much to be desired, but I believe in time they may bring a little credit on the ship.’
‘The flagship is signalling, sir,’ said Russell, as the last bang of the salute echoed back off a nearby cliff. ‘Flag to Griffin. Captain to repair on board.’
‘Get the barge in the water, there!’ roared Taylor. ‘Handsomely, I say!’ Clay slid a hand into his coat to check that his report was there, together with the dispatches he had brought with him from London.
‘Kindly have the squadron’s mail sacks placed in the boat, if you please, Mr Taylor.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
*****
‘Boat ahoy!’ came a hail from the quarterdeck of the admiral’s flagship. Clay glanced that way, and saw a line of faces peering inquisitively down at the approaching barge. Among them was the smartly dressed midshipman who had called to them, the brass speaking trumpet in his hand shining like burnished gold in the sunlight.
‘Griffin!’ yelled Sedgwick, holding up three fingers to show that a senior post captain was coming aboard, and then, in a softer growl towards the barge crew. ‘Easy there. Oars in, larboard side.’ He pushed the tiller across, and they turned in a long, sweeping curve towards the side of the Stirling.
‘Mind the paintwork, Darky,’ called a voice from above, but there was no need for concern. The boat came to a halt, barely kissing the side, adjacent to the flight of steps that led upwards. Although she was one of the navy’s smaller ships of the line, the Stirling still towered over the boat. From above came the stamp of marines being dressed into line, and the urgent hiss of orders. Clay waited in the stern sheets for the sound of preparations to fade. Beside him in the clear water the curved bulk of the flagship’s hull continued below the surface, the copper sheaving gleaming in the sunlight close to, becoming mysterious and dark lower down. Shoals of small fish darted about in the shadow cast by the warship.
Larcum Mudge (Alexander Clay Series Book 8) Page 5