Quintspinner

by Dianne Greenlay

  Smith shook his head in exasperation, still surprised by William’s introduction of the wounded man, then sighed in resignation. Grasping William’s outstretched hand, he pulled him to his feet. The two of them hoisted the elder Taylor up by the shoulders and propped him between them, staggering under his weight as he struggled to stay upright.

  “Take a step or two now,” William encouraged his father. His father only slumped more heavily on the support of the two of them.

  “I’m tellin’ ya’,” Smith repeated, “They’re gonna’ dump him. Sure as hell they will. If he can’t walk, he’ll have to go. An’ fer God’s sakes, don’t be tellin’ anyone he’s yer father, or they’ll find some excuse to make both yer lives short but miserable.”

  “John Robert!” William pleaded, his voice cracking with desperation, “Do you hear what he says? I thought I’d lost you already! You’re all I have left! Now walk, damn you! Walk! You got to try!”

  And with that, John Robert stepped down hard, locking one knee back, and with enormous effort, he lifted his other leg forward in a first wobbly step.

  The next few weeks were a blur for William. Fear of the unknown was soon replaced by the dull comfort of routine. Each shift began with tending of the goats, whose milk sweetened the officers’ breakfast porridge. Egg gathering from the crated hens followed.

  Not so different from life back on land, in that respect, William reminisced as he cleared the planking of the animals’ dung, scooping it into the shitpot and lugging the foul bucket up onto the main deck to empty it over the side of the ship.

  He kept a small tin cup buried under the straw bedding in the goats’ pen, and at each milking, secretly filled it with fresh milk for his father. When there appeared to be enough eggs at any one gathering so that one would not be missed, he would break one open and add it into the cup for extra nourishment, delivering this contraband to his father in sick bay. Once there, he carted the man’s shitpot up to the main deck to empty, before returning to the galley to help Cook prepare each day’s tedious meals for the nearly seventy crew and officers aboard the HMS Argus.

  A thin porridge was standard fare for breakfast, along with a serving of either salted beef or pork and a thick slab of cheese. Noon and evening meals included boiled potatoes and turnips, and always, hard tack biscuits. William found the biscuits dry, tasteless, and loaded with weevils, which the experienced sailors just knocked out by tapping the biscuits on the tables. Some of the more squeamish preferred to eat biscuits only at the evening meal when the light was so poor that the insects were not readily noticed. Once or twice a week, if the seas had been calm enough for the crew to have been lucky with their fishing lines and nets, there would be fried fish or the occasional turtle served up as well.

  “Flounder’s too skinny fer the eatin’ plates,” Cook had declared, sorting through the various fish on his table. “But they’ve a better use in the barrels.

  “Split the flounders open like this,” he demonstrated, “and place the raw fish along the bottoms of the biscuit barrels. Leave them overnight, and then take them out.” The weevils much preferred the juiciness of the soft fish flesh to that of the hard tack, and once they had had time enough to infest the fish strips, it fell to William to remove the bug infested fish slices, placing the hard tack back into fresh barrels.

  The fish pieces in the barrels are disgusting. He could hardly bring himself to pick them up. They were practically moving on their own. The chickens, however, had no such compunctions about having weevils served to them and they fell to greedily pecking upon the loaded fish strips with a fierce, hungry intensity. Nothing ever went to waste aboard a ship.

  Besides the food, monotonous but plentiful as it was, each crew member received his daily portion of grog–eight pints–and a large serving of straight rum at the end of his shift. Fresh water stored in barrels on board quickly went stale, and if consumed in any large amounts often made a sailor’s guts cramp and bowels run. It was no wonder then, that men of the ships viewed water with a great deal of suspicion.

  Grog, on the other hand was doled out quite freely. As Cook’s helper, it fell into William’s line of duty to mix up a steady supply of the stuff. Each man’s mealtime portion consisted of a large ladle of the liquid which had been prepared by mixing together one measure of rum, three measures of hot water, lime juice while the supplies lasted, and enough sugar to make it palatable. William was amazed at the sailors’ tolerance for the fiery liquids, as the taste was, at times, far less than pleasant.

  Officers, on the other hand, were supplied with French brandy and a variety of wines with which to wash their mealtime fare down. William was expected to serve each shift of messmates at the narrow tables, as well as deliver food to the patient in sick bay. He felt himself fortunate to be in such a position as to easily slip a better cut of meat or an additional serving into the sick bay bowl.

  One morning William was astonished to see his father sitting at the low table in sick bay. John Robert slowly rose to his feet and lurched over to William. Even the rocking of the boat, which was by now much more intense than on any of the previous mornings, did not seem to hinder his father’s steps much. William grinned. He would have hugged his father out of sheer relief had a sharp voice not caught him off guard.

  “You there, Shit Boy!” The pendulous stomach preceded the rest of him by a split second as the surgeon suddenly advanced towards them into the lantern light; he seemed to have come out of nowhere. “Take the Gimp here and be on your way!”

  “The Gimp–?” William’s inquiry was cut off.

  “We know not his name. He has suffered a head wound of such kind that he has lost the capacity for speech and is slow of movement as well, except for the fits which now overtake him. But he’ll unfortunately live, so perhaps he can be trained to do something useful to earn his existence on board. If you were to be relieved of the shitpots, your own two hands might be put to better use, seeing as how we did set sail desperately undermanned for such a voyage. I shall present such suggestion of duty allotment to Captain Crowell myself.”

  Dismissing them with a flutter of his fat hand, he turned and continued to muse out loud to himself. “What should happen if calamity of any kind were to befall us or the Mary Jane that sails alongside us, I can only imagine. Even the bravest among this crew are presently ill at ease, but the Captain appears not to notice. I myself feel compelled daily to squash such worries with a tot of the officers’ good brandy, but this crew, bless them, have only their miserable grog with which to fortify their courage.” And doing an about-face, he tottered back in the direction from which he had appeared.

  It was less than a full shift later that Smith found William and delivered to him the news that the Gimp was officially on shitpot duty while William had been assigned the added chores of attending to repairs with the ship’s carpenter, in between his continued duties in the cooking galley.

  “It seems Cook’s taken a bit of likin’ to ya’, an’ he don’t like many,” Smith confided. “Ya’ see, most cooks aren’t cooks by choice,” he explained. “They be a bluecoat or a marine what’s been injured an’ can’t be a fighter no more. Take Cook’s leg, fer instance. Without it, he canna’ board another ship during battles nor even help too well with the loadin’ of the guns, but a life at sea’s the only thing he knows, ya’ see, so he cooks. An’ every day he’s resentin’ those who can go on fightin’. They remind him just by bein’ whole, of what he’s lost. And that makes him as miserable an’ unpredictable as a freshly knackered bull.”

  With his father cleaning up after the animals, William adjusted his own chore schedule so that he gathered the eggs at the same time. John Robert’s previous experience in animal care was apparent, and the three goats quickly showed a fondness for him. The shaggy billy was smelly and aggressive but he could do little harm from the confines of his sling. A well placed head butt from him had sent William sprawling forward on more than one occasion, but John Robert’s touch seemed to pl
ease the scraggly animal, especially when it was a playful scratch along the goat’s neck or around his ears.

  The doe, too, welcomed John Robert with an excited bleat, and often stretched her neck out in an invitation to be rubbed. But it was the kid, a tiny she-goat, for whom John Robert reserved most of his attention. Not yet entirely weaned and needing to reach her mother’s teats, the dark little doeling had not been put into a sling, and was allowed to frolic in the thin hay bed at her mother’s feet.

  William took to calling the kid ‘Gerta’ and his father grinned in agreement when William called to her. The little animal soon came to recognize her name, and would be waiting at the rungs of the goats’ small corral, her inquisitive nose poking through the slats, her soft ears flapping sideways in an excited welcoming gesture. Her curiosity and frank interest in her keepers’ movements were in sharp contrast to the attitudes of the humans on board.

  Conversations with his father were still one sided, other than the few guttural grunts that Da’ could manage, and it pained William to see his father struggle with most basic functions. Frequently, his father dropped the shitpot scoop, splashing the muck over the decking and on himself. Carrying the full pot up the companion-way was a laborious task for him as well, and William could see that each step up the wooden ladder was an effort.

  He’s getting stronger, though, William frequently told himself, and he doesn’t fall as often. He’s gonna’ make it. We’re both gonna’ make it and one day soon, we’ll be free of this goddamn ship! We just need to carry on for a bit longer, that’s all. This voyage won’t last forever. It’s tolerable for a couple more weeks. I’ve heard the others say maybe one month more till we land. We can do this. We’ve been lucky to have had no trouble from anyone so far. It will be alright. And it was.

  Until the day the shitpot was lost overboard.

  It was a very bad sign, Smith said. Nothing good could come from the loss of a bucket overboard, just horrible bad luck to the ship and all on board, the crew said. And three dozen lashes for the Gimp, for such inattentiveness, Captain Crowell said.

  “But he can’t help it!” William’s terror at what was about to befall his father fueled a reckless courage within him. “Captain Crowell, Sir! Please! It fell from his hands as he was overcome with a fit, Sir! He didn’t do it on purpose!”

  Steely blue eyes locked onto William’s own. “Do you dare address me on the Gimp’s behalf, Mr. Taylor?” Captain Crowell asked.

  “Yes, Sir, I do.” William replied. “He has no speech–”

  “And you feel compelled to be personal champion for all of the deformed and the demented and the shit-stained simpletons in life?”

  His father was none of those! William felt his cheeks go hot with rage.

  “It’s the frigging Navy’s fault!” he yelled. “It was the Navy’s press gang’s attack on him that robbed him of his speech! It was your need that destroyed his life!” William spat it out, all of his pent-up anger delivered with each word. The accusation left him breathless even as he heard the collective intake of breath from the stunned crew members.

  They understood standing up for a fellow crew member – they lived their lives by such an unspoken creed – but to defy the Captain? And all for the lowly Gimp at that? Most shook their heads in disbelief, unable to decide if what they were seeing was a new level of raw courage and seaman’s loyalty that would put the rest of them to shame, or a display of unbelievable stupidity.

  Silence hung thickly in the air for the few seconds before Captain Crowell spoke. “Very well, then, Mr. Taylor. If you feel that the man is undeserving of and should somehow be relieved of his pronounced punishment, I will offer to you this fair exchange: your back for his own. And let this be a lesson for your impudent mouth, lest your apparent disrespect for my authority bring your short life to its conclusion. Mr. Rogers, the gunner’s daughter for Mr. Taylor, if you please.”

  The gunner’s daughter? William was bewildered as his arms were grabbed and he was dragged over to the nearest cannon. The linen shirt he wore was quickly stripped from his torso and he was forced to lay face forward over the cannon. Within seconds, his hands were lashed to his feet. Kissing the gunner’s daughter! Smith’s scars! At that moment, William understood, with great clarity, the meaning of the seaman’s term.

  The first crack of the whip sent a searing pain down the length of his back. William nearly fainted with the shock of its intensity. The second lash was worse. In spite of clenching his teeth together, William cried out with each slash of the whip across his shoulders and back. He lost count of the lashes and concentrated instead on keeping his head bent low, his eyes out of reach, he hoped, from the skin-splitting force of the whip’s knotted ends. The pain was unbearable, as the lash landed again and again. William felt himself beginning to black out, and his screams became muffled and distant to his own ears.

  Somewhere, from the hazy side of reality, angry voices rose and mixed together. William was doused with a bucket of cold sea water, the salt searing every exposed nerve ending in his fresh wounds. Mother of God! Merciful unconsciousness was going to be denied to him.

  “There’s the first dozen fer ya’!” Mr. Rogers shouted.

  Smith’s words came back to William. Do ya’ want to die at the end of a cat whip, boy? Well, do ya’?

  “I’ll stand in fer the next shift.” It was Smith’s voice, alright, but William thought his mind must be making up the conversation at this point. Suddenly, the ropes were loosened from his hands and feet, and William was roughly pulled from the cannon. He crumpled to the deck and struggled to stay conscious. Raising his head, he stared dumbly at the scene in front of him.

  Samuel Smith was now bent over and tied to the cannon in William’s place, and Mr. Rogers drew the whip back for the first lash. Only a pained grunt escaped Smith’s lips as the whip tore into his flesh.

  “ What are you doing?” William screamed.

  “’He’s takin’ the lash on yer behalf, he is,” the sailor next to William stated.

  “What?”

  “It’s any man’s option, if he chooses to stand in fer his mate.” The sailor looked down at William, half in pity for his bleeding wounds, half in amusement at his confusion. “Ye’d probably not have survived much more, without a break, it bein’ yer first time an’ all ….” He saw slow understanding begin to show on William’s face. “Ye’ve got another shift comin’, anyhow. That’s his twelve about done with now.”

  William struggled up onto his feet and staggered forward towards Smith.

  No one knew for sure who arrived at the cannon’s side first, but in the days and years to come when the story would be recounted for the amazed amusement of others who had not been there to witness it first hand, it would be told that there seemed to be a crush of bodies all vying for a spot at the cannon. William dropped to Smith’s feet, intending to untie him, while at the same time, two others pulled Smith off the cannon and tried to lay themselves face first over it, each jostling and shoving the other out of the way.

  “Goddamn ya’, get the hell outta’ the way, ya’ scupperlout! I’m takin’ the boy’s next shift!”

  “Naaagh!”

  William jerked his head up. His mouth dropped open in astonishment. Right above him, his father and Cook pushed and punched at each other.

  “By God above and the devil’s twisted tail below, I swear I will break ya’ in two, ya’ damned dunderhead, see if I don’t!” Cook roared, executing a wild swing of his fist toward John Robert’s face. The momentum of the effort threw him off balance and as he fell, several pairs of hands snaked out to catch and right him back up on his leg, just as John Robert’s slow motion punch arrived, connecting squarely with Cook’s chin and sending him immediately backwards into the crowd again. Hoots of laughter exploded from the gathered group of crewmen. It was apparent that they were very much enjoying this unexpected change in entertainment.

  John Robert threw himself towards Cook and the fisticuff continued, muc
h to the glee of the gathered crew. Even the outraged shouts from First Mate Rogers to stop, were drowned out by the cheers and calls of the crew as they surrounded the two fighters–Cook hopping recklessly on his remaining leg, and John Robert swaying in slow motion on both of his.

  As Mr. Rogers stepped forward, Cook reached out and snatched the whip from his hand, bringing it down instead with a crack across John Robert’s shoulder. Spurred on by pain and anger, John Robert wrestled it from Cook’s grasp and brought the handle smashing down across Cook’s ribs. The two men struggled fiercely, each striking the other when he gained possession of the whip. With each blow landing, the crew grew more boisterous and raucous laughter rang out loudly above the general cheering.

  “Enough!” The command was punctuated by a single gunshot into the air. The effect on the brawlers and spectators alike was immediate. Voices hushed as the men shuffled backwards, opening their circle to reveal John Robert and Cook bloodied and entangled, lying on the deck with limbs entwined and hands at each other’s throat. All faces turned to look up and stare at the captain as he stood glaring down at them from the quarter deck, his pistol calmly raised and aimed in the direction of the men.

  “It would seem, oddly enough, that enduring a lashing is the choice event of the morning. And therefore, as peculiar as that is to me, I will have the remaining twelve lashes divided equally among the four of you, without favorite.” A slow smile spread across his face as a thought took hold. “In fact, I will have three lashes administered to each and every one of you present, so as to remove any feelings of a man being left out! Mr. Rogers, begin with the crew and leave those four until last.”

  Monitored under the watchful eye of the captain and his pistol, the crew lined up to receive their lashes without complaint. William was grateful that the captain had decided to leave the four of them until last. By that time, even Mr. Rogers’ bulky arms were playing out and the force of the remaining lashes upon their backs was nothing more than a sharp slap.