Under Enemy Colors

by S. thomas Russell

Hayden crouched down, trying to get a glimpse of the boy’s face. The lad lolled to one side and would have slid limply to the deck, but Hayden and Wickham caught him and supported his ample weight. The doctor appeared then, fetched from his charges by Mr Archer.

  Griffiths bent over the boy and felt for the carotid pulse. “What happened?” he asked.

  “He fell from the mizzen top,” Hayden reported, “but managed to catch hold of a shroud or he would have come to much harm.”

  “He didn’t fall to the deck, then?” the doctor asked.

  “No. He slid down the shroud,” Wickham said, “but then turned ashen and light-headed.”

  “Got the vapours,” one of the crew whispered and the men laughed.

  “Well, he’ll come round in a moment, I’ll venture,” Griffiths said, and the boy did move at that instant, one eye slitting open. “There you are, Giles. All of a piece, I see. Nothing broken, no severed arteries, not even a modest contusion. I think you’ll live. No, don’t try to sit up. Lay still a moment and let the blood find its natural level.” Griffiths looked up at Hayden and nodded. “He’ll be perfectly hale in a moment. Saved the deck a nasty bashing, I should think.”

  Hayden retreated with Wickham in his wake, and a servant called them for the midday meal.

  “That was a bit of luck that he saved himself that way,” Hayden said, as they reached the top of the companionway. “You know him, do you?”

  Wickham nodded. “I do, sir. We are the same age but for three days.”

  Hayden must have shown his surprise.

  “He has great size for his years, doesn’t he?” Wickham stated.

  “For any tally of years, I would venture.”

  Wickham looked around rather furtively and then leaned closer to Hayden, pitching his voice low. “Did you hear the men whispering, sir? saying that Giles didn’t fall?”

  “What did they mean, he didn’t fall? We saw him come tumbl—” But then he realized what was meant. “They believed it was not an accident?”

  “That’s what I assume, sir.”

  Hayden pressed a palm against his forehead, appalled. “Did anyone see what happened? Did they see someone push the boy?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Send young Giles down to me.”

  A moment later Giles descended the companionway stair and Hayden met him outside the gunroom. Not being captain, he did not have a cabin suitable for private interviews, so he led the boy down to the orlop and ranged forward of the sick-berth—the nearest thing to privacy they would find at that time of day. Giles’ big, simple face could not hide the apprehension he felt, and Hayden wondered how much of that was just being young and called by a superior officer.

  “Feeling better, Giles? No harm done?”

  “I’m perfectly hale, Mr Hayden.”

  Hayden fixed his gaze on the boy-man, trying to read his doughy, rather inexpressive face. “Tell me honestly, Giles, did you fall from the mizzen top, or were you pushed?”

  A small flare of alarm, open to interpretation. “Pushed, sir?! Why, Mr Hayden…” but his sentence devolved into incoherency. Finally, in a small voice, he managed, “I lost me balance and tumbled, sir. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

  “You are certain?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hayden eyed him a moment more, but the boy’s gaze slid down to the deck. “Who was on the mizzen top with you? I did not notice.”

  “Why, I hardly remember…Cole, I think. And that Dutchman van De…They call him The Demon, sir, but I don’t know his right name. Oh, and Smithers, though he’d shinnied up the mast a bit by then.”

  “And no one bumped you or collided with you in any way?”

  “No, sir. Just born awkward, that’s all.”

  “All right. You may go.”

  Hayden followed the boy up the stairs, where he encountered Wickham outside the midshipmen’s berth, clearly waiting for him. His eyes followed Giles up to the gun-deck, his footsteps heard retreating across the planking.

  “Giles assured me it was an accident,” Hayden observed in response to the midshipman’s raised eyebrow, “but I am not convinced he told me the truth. Do you know Cole, a Dutchman they call The Demon—”

  “Van Damon, sir.”

  “—and Smithers?”

  “Harry Smithers I know well enough, Mr Hayden. He is a bit slow-witted but of good character, I think. Van Damon and Cole came aboard from the Hunter when she was decommissioned. I’ve never had any cause to think ill of them. Cole is a good seaman.”

  “Thank you, Mr Wickham.”

  “Not at all, sir.” The midshipman turned to go, but then stopped. “There are some good men in the crew, sir.”

  This brought Hayden up short and he paused with his hand on the gunroom door. “I have no doubt of it. But what made you say such a thing?”

  Wickham appeared suddenly reticent. “I don’t know, sir. I suppose it’s because of the ship’s reputation…”

  “And what reputation is that?”

  “Well, you know, Mr Hayden; that the crew are all shy and don’t know their business.”

  “Is that the character we’ve been given? Well, we’ll have to change it, won’t we?”

  Wickham nodded, suddenly animated. “I should like nothing better, sir.” The boy touched his hat and turned to go into the midshipmen’s berth, but then turned back a second time. “Oh. Stuckey asked me what he might do to get back into your good graces, Mr Hayden.”

  “Next time I give him an order, he can answer ‘Aye, sir’ and then get to it. And if he doesn’t know how the job is to be done, he should speak up and I will find someone to show him. Tell him to come to me after I’ve eaten and we will begin his education as a seaman.”

  When he returned to the deck, much fortified, the landsman, Stuckey, approached, made a knuckle, and stood with his eyes cast down.

  “So, I am told you’d like to become a sailor. Is that correct, Stuckey?”

  “If you please, sir.”

  “I am pleased. I’ll put you to work with Aldrich. But if I find you are not learning your duties or are not applying yourself with a will, Stuckey, you shall wish you had not wasted this opportunity.”

  “I shan’t waste it, sir,” he promised.

  “Then be about your duties.”

  The man went quickly off, but Hayden was sure that there were many harder cases aboard this ship than Stuckey, and he did not think Stuckey had been born anew. The man would cause him trouble yet, unless Hayden’s judgement had abandoned him.

  Griffiths emerged, pale-faced, from his sick-berth, down in the depths of the ship.

  “And how fares Tawney?” Hayden asked the doctor, who appeared to have no other purpose but to take in a little air and expose his chalky skin to the sunlight.

  Griffiths looked a bit confused by the question, his mind clearly elsewhere, but then his focus returned. “He is in an odd state—conscious but not sensible, if you take my meaning. Not a word has he spoken, but he watches every move of my assistant and myself as though we might at any point turn and attack him. But, odd to say, this state is an improvement over last night’s. I think he shall come around, by and by.”

  The day flew by, and so did the next. Hayden wrote to the Victualling Yard about stores, and to the Ordnance Board, begging powder. The lieutenant also wrote his first letter to Philip Stephens—or, rather, to Mr Thomas Banks Esq. at the address the First Secretary had provided. It was a task he dreaded and every word was set down with the ink of resentment. Hayden had agreed to send these reports to Stephens, so felt honour-bound to a dishonourable task. How to write anything resembling the truth without appearing to undermine Captain Hart, who after all was not aboard ship, was near to impossible—but then he expected Stephens would not much mind if Hart came off poorly.

  My dear Mr Banks:

  I am pleased to say that I arrived safely at Plymouth on the 23rd day of July, and am aboard my new ship, HMS Themis, the frigate we spo
ke of when last we met. Captain Hart is not aboard, nor is he expected much before we sail. In his absence, the ship, I am dismayed to tell, was in a state of dreadful disarray. Two of her masts had been lifted out and new masts left lying on her deck, with no attempt being made to get them in. Preparations for sea were not under way, though Captain Hart had left orders that the ship was to be ready upon his return. The vessel was rather overrun with women of a certain type, and the officers seemed barely in control. In the captain’s absence, I have assumed command and reinstituted order. We are presently refitting for sea.

  Perhaps the most distressing thing I have learned since coming aboard is that many of the officers and warrant officers believe a man named McBride was falsely convicted for the murder of another seaman and subsequently hanged for it. A terrible miscarriage of justice, if true.

  I hope all is well with you, and that your endeavours proceed apace.

  I remain, sir, your humble servant,

  Lieutenant Charles Hayden

  Seven

  Tom Worth lay in the swaying darkness, hammock gently moving in a small harbour swell. The seeping stench of his fellows he seldom noticed, now—no more than the two dozen other foul odours that infected HMS Themis—so it hadn’t been that that had wakened him. Then he heard the low, urgent whispering. They were at it again—the same damned arguments.

  “You’re all being led to a flogging…” the deep voice of Bill Stuckey intoned, “those that aren’t hanged. You’d do well to remember McBride being hauled aloft by the neck…Signing that petition could be signing your own death warrants. That’s the truth. I’ll never sign, that’s certain.”

  “You’ve changed your story, Bill,” another whispered. “I’ve a memory of you cursing the captain with more passion than any.”

  “I haven’t changed a word. I say Hart is a coward, a tyrant, and not fit to command, but no petition or even a refusal to sail will see him replaced; any who believe otherwise are deceived. The Lords Commissioners love their blue-eyed son too dearly. Being flogged or hanged will not rid us of that whoreson, but I do not hate him less.”

  “Nor England,” one of the men muttered.

  “I am as loyal an Englishman as any, Pierce, but the English way of governing is near its end. That’s as sure as old age and a shrivelled cock. The Americans and the French are but a few years ahead of us in their pursuit of liberty.”

  “Aye, let us have government in the French manner—government by the mob…That’ll suit us.”

  “A few necks might have to be severed to bring us the liberty we deserve.”

  “Severed? We’ve already had a man with a severed finger lost overboard, another hanged—and if there was ever a less likely murderer than Mick McBride I’d like to hear his name. Now Tawney’s beaten bloody, and Giles takes a little tumble from the mizzen top. I think we’ve suffered enough and got no liberty for it.”

  “Liberty is not so easily bought, Mr Pierce. The Americans signed a Declaration of Independence, not a fucking petition.”

  “If we don’t sign the petition or refuse to sail, than what is left us, Mr Stuckey? Will you tell us that? A daily serving of Hart’s beatings while he flies from every transport that ships a six-pound gun?”

  “Sentry…” the lookout hissed, and the men scurried into their hammocks.

  The sheer-hulk finally appeared and lifted the main mast into place, more than doubling the riggers’ work, though Hayden knew it would go more quickly as the men grew confident of their skills, especially the bosun, who appeared to have been just waiting to learn his trade but had never had the opportunity.

  As they were in port, the mail arrived regularly, and Hayden was surprised to find one day a package, carefully wrapped, come from London. Upon opening the mysterious bundle, he discovered a copy of Motteux’s translation of Don Quixote, accompanied by a short letter from Mrs Hertle.

  My dear Lieutenant Hayden:

  This rather substantial volume was sent me by Miss Henrietta Carthew with the request that it be passed on to you when next we met. As I have no way of knowing when such a meeting might occur, and fear it might be later rather than sooner, I am sending the book along to you in the post. With it come my fond wishes that such a gift will give you much pleasure, as much for the spirit in which it was given as from the many hours of delight that reading such a prodigious book must provide.

  Mrs Robert Hertle

  It was, admittedly, a somewhat aged volume. Hayden took it up, running his fingers over the cover. There was no inscription, to his disappointment, but a leather placemark stood proud, and he opened the book to it. Someone had tooled a small image of a mounted knight with a lance facing what might have been a windmill—it was difficult to be certain. For some reason, he began to read at the open page, and in a few lines found this:

  That’s the nature of women…not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.

  Hayden shut the book with a dusty “clap,” and stared at the faded cover. Had Henrietta meant him to read this, or was it merely coincidence? Perhaps there was a message here from the long-dead Cervantes—or from his hapless hero. “Don Quixote of the Sea” she had named him, but then he had the impression that she was fond of the Quixotic in men. He decided he would take the book as Mrs Hertle seemed to suggest he should—as a sign of favour. As encouragement. The fact that he was rather easily encouraged he would not give much credence this day.

  Some weeks after Hayden found his way aboard the Themis, Lieutenant Landry received a letter from Captain Hart stating that he would arrive three weeks hence, and expected the ship to be ready for sea. To manage all that was to be done the workday was lengthened and Hayden oversaw the rigging crew, spending much time teaching the arts of the sailor to landsmen.

  “How is it,” he asked Landry as they took a meal in the gunroom, “that we have so few seamen aboard this ship? I’ve never seen the like.”

  Landry shrugged. “We take what the impress gangs turn up, Mr Hayden. Prime seamen are in short supply.”

  They were certainly in short supply aboard the Themis, Hayden was sure of that. After dinner, as Hayden was about to mount the stair to the quarterdeck, he heard young Wickham above. “I’ve learned more from Mr Hayden in a few weeks than I’ve learned the entire last year in the service. He’s a thorough sea-going officer, our Mr Hayden. Don’t you think, Mr Barthe?”

  “The captain’ll soon take that out of him,” the master growled.

  Weeks passed, carrying summer away, and Hayden was pleased to see improvement in some fraction of the crew. It was not, by any means, a majority, but there were some who appeared to be gaining a measure of pride from all that they accomplished and in the smartness of the ship. These men went to work with a will and strove always to deliver their best. No more “accidents” occurred nor were any men found beaten—at least none of whom Hayden was aware. Tawney had returned to duty, though Hayden thought him dull-eyed and hesitant. The seaman’s claims that he remembered nothing of the night he was beaten were believed by the doctor, but Hayden thought the man appeared always cowed and fearful.

  Topmasts and yards were swayed up and the rigging completed. The ship was scraped and painted, and sections of deck suspected of leaking were repitched (time would, no doubt, prove their notions wrong in this—deck leaks were devilishly tricky to track down). The ship was gradually put in order, victuals stored by the master and the holders, and the ship watered. September saw the days shrink, but summer appeared determined not to be banished that autumn and the days remained warm late into the month, the fall rains delayed.

  As the sails were being bent one such afternoon, the powder hoy came alongside, her people calling for all fires to be extinguished. The unsettling business of loading and storing powder took longer than one would imagine, for all the care put into it. There was, aboard, a peevish disquiet readily discernable among the men until the barrels were all safely stowed in the plaster-lined magazines. Then the crew began to breathe
again, smiles appeared, and all hands went back to their business in the usual way.

  “All the powder is stowed, Mr Barthe?” The two officers and Wickham stood watching the crew of the powder hoy cast off their lines.

  “That was the last barrel, Mr Hayden.”

  “Well, I am glad of it. I don’t know why, given that we handle powder almost daily, but the loading of powder unsettles me. I never get past it.”

  “I feel much the same, and think it just as odd.”

  Hayden reached into a pocket for a handkerchief to wipe his sweating brow, but found, instead, a folded square of paper. Opening the sheet revealed a crude drawing—a caricature, really—of a sailor with a quill, signing the name “Jack Tar” to a long sheet of paper entitled “Petition,” but at the same time, another, identified by the label “Lord Commissioner,” was crossing out the word “Petition” and writing above, “Death Warrant.”

  Hayden stared at the sketch for a moment.

  “Is something the matter, Mr Hayden?” the master asked.

  “I have just found this in my jacket, though I am certain it was not there when I first donned my coat this morning, for I placed my handkerchief in this very pocket.” He passed the drawing to Barthe, who became suddenly grave.

  Wickham tried not to appear intrigued, but let his gaze stray toward the sketch. Barthe returned it to the lieutenant, who passed it to Wickham.

  “What does it mean?” Wickham wondered. “I mean, that it was in your coat?”

  “It means someone very sly slipped it in my pocket, but why? that is the question. Do either of you have any knowledge of a petition being circulated—either among our own people or among the fleet?”

  Both shook their heads but Barthe appeared very out of sorts, his hands suddenly agitated, a blush creeping over his face.

  “Gather the officers and young gentlemen in the gunroom, if you please, Mr Barthe.”

  The master touched his hat and hurried off, leaving the lieutenant and the midshipman alone at the rail. Hayden began to search his memory for any man who might have been close enough to him that morning to slip something into his pocket, though he could still hardly believe it might be done without his knowing.