Fletcher's Fortune

by John Drake

  “Sir, I must ask you to make formal identification,” Pendennis said.

  “Aye aye sir,” said the Bosun. “That’s him: Lieutenant Spencer.”

  “Damn the French!” said Colonel Morris, stepping forward, and the Bosun blinked at him.

  “It is the Colonel’s view,” explained Pendennis, “that this is the work of French agents smuggled ashore to work mischief.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” said the Bosun.

  “What else can it be?” said Morris. He was one of the “light infantry” school, deeply impressed by the American wars and what could be achieved by initiative. He and the surgeon had examined the victim carefully.

  “See for yourself!” he said, pointing at the corpse. “These are not the wounds of honourable combat! They struck him a coward’s blow from behind to stun him, then cut his throat as he lay helpless on his back. Who but damned Frenchmen would do that?”

  “The body was found this morning, in the harbour,” said Pendennis. “Presumably they hoped to hide it.”

  “They shall not escape!” said Granby of the “Monitor”, “This foul deed has ignited the patriotism of our people!”

  “Aye aye, sir,” said the Bosun. He looked at his dead officer and sighed as he bade a last farewell to the guinea he’d been promised.

  9

  I joined Phiandra on 17th February when she was busy fitting out for a cruise. She had most of her crew aboard but was still awaiting her captain and it was not until the 27th that she finally sailed from Portsmouth so I had ten days to get used to the ship and my messmates in the easy conditions of riding at anchor in a harbour.

  I had accepted my lot for the moment, and was kept so busy with Lieutenant Williams driving us all to make ready for sea, that I had little time for pondering over my recent adventures. So I learned some of my duties as a member of number eight gun-crew and got to know my messmates as individuals. There were six of us: Sammy Bone, Thomas Slade, Jem Turner, Norris Polperro, myself, and Johnny Basford who came aboard the day after I did. Of the six, Norris and I were pressed men and the others volunteers. All were seasoned seamen except myself and Johnny.

  He was a strange creature, with round, silly eyes and an India-rubber face. He had been a farm hand before he ran off to sea to escape from his employer, one Farmer Basford of whom he had lived in terror. As they say in the countryside, “he had some holes in his thatch”. Quite a number of them in my opinion. He didn’t know his age or where he was born, or his proper name:

  “Name?” says Mr McFee, seated behind his table, when Johnny came before the receiving committee.

  “Johnny ... ” says Johnny.

  “Johnny what?” says the Purser.

  “He-he-he ... ” says Johnny nervously.

  “Hmm,” says McFee, looking at what was before him. I suspect he had dealt with the likes of Johnny before. The Navy had to take what was offered in 1793.

  “I see. Then where do you come from, my man?”

  “Farmer Basford do let I sleep in the barn, please your honour ... so please don’t you tell he ... ”

  “Yes, quite,” says McFee, scribbling away. “John Basford. I have entered you as John Basford. Do you understand?”

  “He-he-he ... ” says Johnny. He did understand and was hugely pleased. He had a proper name at last. He never did learn to hate McFee as much as the rest of us. He was happy as long as he was fed and watered and nobody was being actively cruel to him at that moment.

  Johnny and I, then, were the only landsmen in the mess. Norris, of course, had served before and was a fisherman by trade, and Sammy, Jem and Thomas were real old tarpaulins with a rolling bandy-legged walk and a pigtail worn doubled up all the week and long on Sundays. In fact, I say “old” but, Sammy apart, my mates were young. Norris was perhaps thirty and the others were all in their early twenties (though it was hard to tell with Johnny). This was typical of lower-deck hands. What with accidents, tropical fevers, the rheumatism and ruptures from the unending heavy lifting, sailormen did not last long. Some even managed to get themselves killed by the enemy, but that never was the main risk: ten men died of disease or mishap for every one who fell in action.

  Sammy was an exception. He said that since there was nothing more left of him than skin and bone, then there was nothing for a fever to fasten on to. He must have been well over fifty, for he’d served in the seven years war and sailed in the fleet that took Wolfe to Quebec, and he looked even older with his brown, wrinkled face and white hair.

  Normally such a man as Sammy would have been a Petty Officer, a Bosun perhaps, for his vast experience. But Sammy was Sammy and there was nobody like him. His own behaviour balked any attempt to promote him higher than gun-captain, though at that he excelled like no other man on God’s ocean. And he was different from all the others in his quickness of mind. For let me tell you, that nobody who hasn’t lived with them as I have, could ever believe the absolute stubborn ignorance of our lower-deck seamen.

  Now don’t misunderstand me. They knew the sea and ships all right. Put them on a twisting deck in a black night with icy water coming aboard by the wagon-load, and they’d instinctively run to the right rope among the spider-work of the rigging, and once there they’d haul it, splice it, belay it or whatever, in double-quick time. But that was all they knew or wanted to know.

  To begin with, I was the only member of our mess who could properly read or write. Norris could make a show of picking through the large print of a newspaper, but you wouldn’t have called him a scholar. The others were as ignorant of letters as an African savage, indeed they were ignorant of the whole world of mankind’s written knowledge. Instead they cherished superstitions that were rooted like mountains and beyond the reach of argument.

  My mates believed in an astonishing pantheon of wonders: ghosts, mermaids, the sea-serpent and the kraken. Norris thought that rocks could move to take out the bottom of a ship.

  “How can a rock move?” I asked. “It’s against the laws of nature.”

  “They bloody moves ’cos I seen ’em move!” says Norris, angrily. “I seen one move when we was driven in off Hore Stone in ’87, in my dad’s boat. The bugger moved under the old boat and broke her open and that was the end of my dad and two uncles! My own father! Now d’you see?”

  “Aye!” said all the others and I had the sense to hold my tongue. I had to live among these men and had no wish to be thought a fool.

  They believed in these things and many more, and believed with the faith of a Spanish Jesuit, except that I cannot really believe they were actually Christians in the real sense of the word. They were pagans, like the Greeks and Romans, believing in dozens of little gods and demons. They gave respect to our Chaplain’s sermons on Sunday because the Rev. Brown’s god was clearly a powerful one, but He was not God to them.

  But the best thing that I learned about them was their devotion to strong drink, and how this could be turned to my great advantage. Indeed, it was the very making of me as a seafarer. The ration of drink for seamen was either a gallon of beer, or a bottle of wine, or half a bottle of rum, per man, per day. It was the light of their lives and whatever else might fail, the Navy took damn good care that they got it every day, ’cos God help the Navy if they didn’t! We got it in two “whacks”, one at dinner time and one at tea time. The allowance was vastly too much for me, but the tars guzzled it down and begged for more.

  “Give us half your grog now, mate, and you can have all mine tomorrow ... ” was about the long and short of it. Here, all unexpected, was an opportunity for trading. At first I made little arrangements with my messmates. In exchange for grog, Sammy embroidered Phiandra on my hatband, as required by Lieutenant Williams for smartness, and which I could not do, and Norris made me a pair of nettles to sling my hammock by. But this was only a start, and soon I had other messes in my debt and was dealing on a large scale. Within a few days I was converting my credit into tobacco, a commodity which would keep, and which served as currency on the lowe
r deck.

  This won the approval of my messmates. They loved it and thought I was no end of a clever fellow, which was as well for they were a vital part of my business. Without their help I’d never have been able to collect my debts from the hardened, leathery characters I was dealing with. Fortunately, it was wonderful how persuasive my mates could be when gathered around a tar who was reluctant to part with his baccy ration. So I shared my profits with them and together we enjoyed more of life’s little comforts than any other mess in the ship.

  You’ll have noticed I used a very odd word just now: I said I shared. This was because in Sammy Bone’s mess there was no question of anyone having more or less than anyone else. Sammy’s attitude to this was simple. If he’d found six golden guineas he’d have thought — “Here’s a piece of luck! One for me and one for each of the lads” — It wasn’t that he’d have considered keeping the lot and then thought better of it, because the thought of keeping the lot would never have entered Sammy’s mind. Now it ain’t natural for me to give away what I’ve worked for, but I was lonely and I needed to be accepted. So as long as I was in Sammy’s mess, I shared my profits with my mates (enough to keep them happy, anyway).

  The result of all this was that my life took the most wonderful turn for the better. I had friends again and I had the respect of those around me. Sammy, in particular, took a great liking to me. The one person who didn’t like me was the Purser, Mr McFee. He still seemed to be cherishing the slight I’d given by choosing to be a seaman, and was directing his malice at my messmates as well as at me. Anything issued by him to our mess was the worst available. My business activities enabled us to keep ahead by buying from the other messes, but it was galling and I couldn’t see why he should have taken against me so strong.

  “What d’you expect, you daft bugger?” says Sammy when I mentioned this. “McFee paid £400 to the Victualling Board to get the Purser’s berth, and now here’s you setting up in opposition! Any road, what d’you expect from a Purser?” My mates laughed at this, for all seamen hated the Purser like poison. He wasn’t any sort of Sea Officer, but simply the ship’s monopolist tradesman who supplied their needs and stole the best of everything for himself. Long experience had taught Sammy to expect no better.

  But within a week of my joining Phiandra, McFee overdid it and even Sammy was annoyed. One dinner time, Norris came back from the galley with our boiled beef and biscuit in a pair of mess-kids. He was red-faced with anger.

  “That Smith!” says he, dumping his load on our table. “That greasy, back-door usher! He was in the galley with the cook, close as God’s curse to a whore’s arse and whispering in his ear. He’s done something with our dinner!”

  We leaned over the mess-kids and Sammy opened the first. Inside was as fine a selection of dense, ancient ship’s biscuit as could be imagined. Hand-picked every one, and flinty hard. Sammy took one on the flat of his left palm, and tried to break it by the usual method of hammering with the right elbow (nobody who valued his teeth tried to break a ship’s biscuit by biting it).

  “Sink me!” says he, looking at the invulnerable biscuit.

  He opened the second mess-kid and his face twisted ugly in anger. “Right!” says he. “That’s it now. Something’s got to be done.” We all peered in, and there floating on top of our meat, was a large, fresh rat, not five minutes dead, with its belly slit open and guts spilling out.

  “Jacob!” says Sammy. “You buy us a proper dinner and Norris heave this one over the side. It’s that bastard McFee. Smith don’t do nothing without he tells him.”

  We did as he said but had hardly sat down to our meal when McFee himself appeared. This was most unusual. When the hands were at dinner, with the Officers in the wardroom at the stern, McFee kept out of the way. He knew what the men thought of him and how little authority he had on his own. But here he came, along the deck with Smith waddling along behind. As they passed each mess, ribald remarks followed them like a wake. Meal time on the lower deck was never quiet, with two hundred seamen and thirty marines crammed into that narrow space, all shovelling and talking at once, but today the noise rose ever louder.

  McFee ignored this and pressed on towards our mess. Sammy nudged me in the ribs. “He’s come for a gloat. To see how we like boiled rat. Watch me lad and you’ll learn something!”

  Sammy was right. McFee slowed as he passed our table and he and Smith turned to us and sneered. This done, they continued towards the companionway leading to the gundeck above. I couldn’t believe the petty spite of it. That two grown men should do this.

  Then Sammy was on his feet and calling out.

  “Mr McFee, sir! Mr McFee!” The tone was urgent and pleading and I was surprised to see Sammy bobbing up and down and knuckling his brow with every sign of respectful deference. McFee affected to ignore him but Sammy continued.

  “Please sir, Mr McFee, sir, you’re a Bible-read man sir, can I ask your opinion on a matter of holy scripture?”

  Now that was clever. McFee considered himself pious and I’d seen him roaring out the hymns when the ship’s company were mustered for church. That hooked him fair and square and he stopped at the foot of the companionway. Smith, taken unawares, blundered into him and every eye turned to Sammy Bone.

  “Thing is, sir,” says he, indicating the assembled hands with a sweep of the arm, “these here lads, being none of ’em scholars, is unable to read the blessed scriptures for themselves and would be obliged for your advice on a matter of religion ... ” McFee was deadly cautious, but so convincing was Sammy’s earnest and open manner that he was held. Not only that but all around men were nodding as if disputes on scripture were the burning interests of the lower deck. The force of Sammy’s personality held the whole crowd of us in spellbound silence.

  “Well?” says McFee, squinting like a trapped weasel.

  “Thing is, sir,” says Sammy, “it seems as how Judas Iscariot, that damned heathen as betrayed our Lord, may he roast in hell ... it seems as how he fathered a love-child.” At this, McFee puffed up in all the superiority of his learning. He leered at Smith, who simpered like an old maid.

  “What a remarkable piece of scholarship!” says he with withering scorn and growing more confident by the second.

  “Aye, sir,” says Sammy, positively radiating humble respect. “And knowing you to be a learned man, sir ... ” McFee nodded wisely and struck a condescending attitude. “We was wondering if you could tell us whether it was Judas himself, or was it his bastard ... as was the Navy’s first Purser?”

  A moment’s silence then the roar of laughter hit McFee like a three-decker’s broadside. Men fell off their seats in convulsions and tears flowed down every face. They howled, bawled, cheered and thundered with their fists on the tables. All except Mr Smith, who by a mighty exercise of the toady’s art, kept a straight face, and Sammy who sat down in quiet content.

  I thought McFee would die of apoplexy. His face was white, his lips were black and froth spumed from the corners of his mouth. He stamped on his hat and shrieked about hangings, floggings and haulings under the keel. But not a man paid any heed for they were crowding in to thump Sammy’s back and offer him their grog.

  But common seamen do not humiliate warrant officers with impunity, not even Pursers, and Lieutenant Williams appeared with the other officers, to investigate what sounded to them like a riotous mutiny. The two Marine Lieutenants, Clerk and Howard, roused their men (laughing as they were, with all the rest) and sent them to support Mr Williams’s authority.

  McFee was so mad with anger that Smith had to lead him away, fussing and clucking like a hen with one chick. The Purser was still raving on about death and mutilation as he went. Lieutenant Williams looked around, guessed what had happened and pointed at Sammy.

  “That man!” says he yelling above the din. “Take him in charge!” And Sammy was taken off to be held in irons below. We laughed and cheered as he was taken but we didn’t laugh next morning when Lieutenant Williams mustered the w
hole crew for his judgement on Sammy. We stood before the quarterdeck rail with the officers looking down on us backed by the marines drawn up with a glittering hedge of fixed bayonets. Sammy stood to one side, bare-headed, between the Bosun and his mates.

  Lieutenant Williams stepped forward and raised a book, for all to see. It was his copy of the Articles of War. [This would be the George II, 1749 Articles of War: a list of thirty-six regulations forming the basis of Naval discipline, and consisting mainly of crimes and punishments. Some captains chose to read the whole list to their men each day, which practice can have done little to lift the spirits of the crew, since twenty of the regulations allowed the death penalty. S.P.]

  “Article nineteen,” says he, “deals with the uttering of seditious words. It says ... ‘if any person in, or belonging to, the Fleet shall utter any words of sedition or mutiny, he shall suffer Death or such other punishment as a Court Martial shall deem him to deserve.’” He paused to let this sink in. It meant quite simply that he could have Sammy Bone hanged if he felt so inclined. That was the price of Sammy’s triumph over a ship’s Officer. I looked at Sammy but could tell nothing from his expression. His life hung on Lieutenant Williams’s next words.

  After a dreadful silence prolonged to the last exquisite moment by Mr Williams, he spoke again.

  “Mr Bone!” says he.

  “Aye aye, sir,” says Sammy.

  “Mr Bone, you can either go forward for court martial ... or take my punishment now. Which shall it be?” The reply was obvious.

  “Your punishment, sir,” says Sammy.

  “So be it ... Mr Bosun! Rig the gratings and give him three dozen.”

  Instantly the Bosun and his mates lashed a pair of heavy gratings to the larboard quarterdeck ladder, to form a sort of giant easel. Sammy’s shirt was pulled off and he was secured to the upright grating, arms splayed out above his head. His back was thin and white and he looked very old.