Tacking, again and again in hopes of finding a more favourable wind, staggering along and making good one hundred and fifty miles in a day – a good day, that was. The surgeon was beset by gloom, his daily queue at the mainmast growing longer and longer as more men reported with ‘griping in the guts’ as he elegantly phrased the ailment.
“Rhubarb does not serve the purpose at all, sir,” he reported. “It has the desired effect upon the sufferers but does not aid their recovery in any way. I cannot come to grips with the plague that has taken them!”
“Plague?” Frederick howled in dismay.
“No, sir, not as such, sir, not the Black Death. I was speaking figuratively, one might say, sir, using a generic expression and perhaps a fraction loosely. There is a common disease running through them all, and I cannot place it, sir. A nasty, foreign infection from Africa’s shores, or even, long in the incubation, from the coasts of India. I know not what course to take. The midshipmen and master’s mates have found themselves to suffer, but fortunately, not the commission officers or senor warrants yet… And therein, sir, lies a clue! I should have twigged it before, sir, I have been remiss in my thought processes!”
Frederick looked wise, and tried to work out exactly what the surgeon had just spotted.
“The wardroom, sir, bought two sheep and a sow and piglets in Cape Town. They have been eating fresh meat, sir. The remainder of the crew are dining from the salt beef and pork from the hold!”
“All of it from Cape Town and, we must fear, the source of the illness.”
“Yes, sir. By smell and taste, the meat is good – none of the obvious signs of rot. Which leaves other possibilities, of course, sir. The pork we know was salted at Cape Town. Some or all of it may not have been boiled long enough before being steeped, or it may have spent time out in the sun… What may the results be, one asks oneself?”
“One does indeed, doctor! Tell me, what does one reply to oneself?”
Frederick had little patience with philosophical musings; he needed a crew of fit, strong men and had instead any number of pale-faced weaklings, more concerned with their belly-ache than with sailing his ship.
“Worms, sir! First and foremost, the common and rapacious tapeworm that leeches the goodness from the innards of the poor sufferer. I shall cut their evil capers short, see if I do not, sir! Ching’s Worm Lozenges, sir, both the Yellow and the Brown, that is the answer, sir, and, sir, I have in my little dispensary nearly two thousands of each, my predecessor having been an investor with the good Doctor Ching and having underwritten the cost of his manufacturing laboratory due to a fortuitous prize-taking. They are old, perhaps, but will still retain their virtue – calomel lasting for ever and a day and the scammony root being of the best Aleppo – none of this stuff from Smyrna! The Yellow to be swallowed at night, and the Brown next morning, before breakfast. With your good permission, sir, we shall call the men to Divisions and watch them to swallow their bolus. We can also comfort ourselves, sir, that should any of the men be starting in the syphilis then the calomel, being a mercurial, will give them an added benefit!”
“The crew are, as ever, in your hands, doctor. Mr Dalby! The crew to go to Divisions – before or after they eat their evening bite, doctor? Before? Very good.”
All was carried out, the men stood in their lines and handed their Yellow pills and required to swallow them in front of their petty officers and then to open their mouths to display that they were not holding them in their cheeks.
Frederick addressed them in his role as the indulgent shepherd of his men.
“There is a noxious ailment aboard, men, and the doctor, unceasing in his fight for your health, has discovered its nature and a first treatment. You will take tonight’s pill, and tomorrow’s, ignoring any transient discomforts that may result.”
He surveyed the hostile faces.
“And if any of you try to vomit them out, I shall flog you as ill-natured recalcitrants who will not take care of yourselves!”
The doctor smiled proudly as the crew returned to their duties or off-watch relaxations. The men scowled at him in response.
“What will the obvious effects of the pills be, doctor?”
“A certain purgation will occur, and the two substances combined will kill any worms present in their digestive tracts and cause them to be passed out of the system, sir. The heads may well be rather busy for the next day or so, sir.”
“Mr Dalby! Rig hoses to the heads, sir, and a party to the pumps to serve them, much as we would for a fire.”
Dalby wished to know whether the pills would definitely work; as to that the surgeon could not be sure, but he said that he had other anti-helminthics in his store, including Story’s Worm Cakes which had a very good name in the profession.
“I shall examine the heads for evidence of worms, sir. Finding them, then I shall be forced to condemn every barrel of pork taken at the Cape. It might be appropriate to enquire of the rest of the squadron, sir, of their experience with the men’s health.”
Frederick sat in long conference with the master, first lieutenant and the purser, calculating the effects of destroying all of their rations of pork, concluded that they would not be too much hampered, provided the beef was still good. They could see no reason why the beef, all sent out from England, should not be of normal quality.
“Four months of full rations, gentlemen, and another three of half-dibs of meat with an increase of biscuit and pease, even assuming that we can find nothing in South America. Provided we are not ordered into the Great South Sea, and in these ships that would be rather an unreasonable expectation, then we shall be safe.”
“Might we be ordered around Cape Horn, sir?”
“Highly unlikely, Mr Dalby, and you will see me hanged for mutiny first if you do set out on that fatal voyage. Even in the calmer seas of the southern summer, these old ships would not fare too well. But, of course, the whole navy is aging. Blockade is killing the ships and timber and gold to build more is less and less available. Five more years of war and we shall be like Shakespeare’s witches who set out to sea in a sieve!”
“Beg pardon, sir, but my mother’s brother is a banker,” Dalby said. “It is his opinion that five more years of war will see the whole of the City bankrupted, the country being so short of gold.”
“All the more reason why we must be successful in our present endeavour, gentlemen.”
The men took their Brown lozenge next morning, many with strained expressions as they stood in their lines, eying the heads with a degree of yearning.
“Shorten sail, Mr Dalby. Maintain way, no more. The men are in no case to tack this morning, and we do not want the topmen working above our heads today.”
The remainder of the squadron remained unaffected by the visitation of the worm, suggesting that only one batch of pork had been improperly salted, but there was no telling which batch – visual inspection of the meat was valueless, the worms being so tiny as to remain unseen until transported into the friendly environment of the men’s bellies.
The doctor reported triumphant next morning; he had examined the heads and recovered certain, incontrovertible evidence of the intestinal worm, he informed Frederick. He proposed to display his trophies but was dissuaded almost forcibly.
“Arrange a working party to dump the pork, Mr Dalby. Every barrel to be emptied over the side and washed out with sea water and thoroughly scoured before being broken down to staves and hoops to the cooper’s store.”
“That is no doubt a very wise precaution, sir, but my store of fine sand is not inexhaustible, sir, and the deck does need to be properly scrubbed of a morning.”
“Replenish the sand at next landfall, Mr Dalby. The barrels are more important than the deck for the while. Those staves will be made up into barrels again when they go ashore, and they will not contaminate another crew’s guts, sir!”
Dalby was heard to mutter that a deck, particularly one as aged of that of Endymion, once allowed to discolour
could never be brought back to a proper state again.
Frederick ignored him; he had been a first lieutenant himself, could remember the worries he had had.
A line of men passed the barrels up the companionways from the hold and along the main deck to the stern ports. The cooper and his crew carefully tapped the barrelheads open and a pair of men emptied the spoiled meat into the wake. The empty barrels were handed up to the open air of the waist and were then scrubbed out by a separate party. There were no complaints or attempts to filch pieces of meat for extras – the men had no love for the pig meat of the Cape and the pains it had caused them, both from the ailment and its cure.
“I was not sure that these were shark waters, sir – but we know now!”
The speeding dorsal fins showed almost immediately, just two at first, but extra appearing every minute as more distant fish were somehow attracted to the feast. Ten minutes and there was a cry from every man on deck as a huge white specimen appeared, rolling to show a great maw that engulfed a barrel load at a time.
“Four fathoms from nose to tail, sir, perhaps longer! These are no waters in which to take a swim, sir!”
“They are not, Mr Dalby. What is that damned fool of a Marine doing?”
The Marine lieutenant had appeared with a musket, was standing at the side.
“Mr Taylor! It is the worst of bad luck to shoot a shark! They must be taken by hook and line, sir! I can arrange for you to be given such, if you wish to catch him, sir!”
“Well thought, Mr Dalby! Damned fool of a man! What conceivable sense does it make to fire a musket ball into such a great beast of a fish?”
“Evidently as much sense as it takes to make a man a Marine, sir!”
“Call the doctor to the quarterdeck, if you please, Mr Dalby.”
The surgeon arrived and Frederick pointed to the sharks.
“An interesting sight, Mr Hardwick, for a natural philosopher.”
“Rare indeed, sir. I would dearly like to sail these waters again in six months or so, sir. Fishing for sharks, of course, to open them and discover whether the worm has infested them as well. A most intriguing enquiry, sir!”
“It would be indeed, doctor, but I hope not to return to the Cape. We may reasonably expect that the admiral will not be there to greet us, I believe, and his successor might not have a use for us. I presume you noted the condition of the admiral?”
“I did indeed, sir. His own practitioner spoke to me, in fact, and begged me to confirm his diagnosis and prognostications. He, too, believed the admiral’s further life span to be numbered in weeks rather even than in months.”
“Upon his own head be it, doctor! What of our people? They seem more sprightly on their feet today – one must assume your medication of them to have been attended by success.”
“The most of them, sir, feel far more the thing. The worms have passed from their systems and they will soon enjoy rude health once more.”
“Very good, sir! I notice you refer to ‘the most of them’. This implies that some have not benefitted to the full extent from their pills.”
The doctor shook his head, admitted that not all patients reacted in the same way to a given and proven medicament.
“What has happened to them, doctor?”
“Some, weak no doubt in the digestive process, have shown what may best be described as an adverse response to the lozenges. They are passing copious amounts of blood and may not actually survive the experience. No more than eight are, in my opinion, at death’s door, but another seven are more than a little weakened. All of those so affected come from the quotamen who joined in Portsmouth and I am inclined to the supposition that they were poorly fed for many a year before being taken up to serve at sea. The old seamen and the prisoners of war were used to plentiful even if coarse rations and are thus stronger in their constitutions.”
“I had not known the prisoners’ rations to be generous, doctor!”
“Inland, sir, I believe they are not. Transport by wagon and horses is costly and the authorities spend as little as they may. But Portchester has its own wharf and may take rations direct from the lighters plying Portsmouth Harbour, and as such the men were better looked after. Add to that, their guards are more visible to the naval people and thus less vicious in their habits with their charges.”
Frederick decided that he wished to hear no more on the topic; he did not want to be moved to indignation and perhaps be forced at some future time to raise his voice in protest against the inhumanity of the prison camps. A serving officer who embarrassed the government in such a way could expect to spend the remainder of his existence on half-pay.
“So, doctor. Seven to be buried and another eight who will be placed on light duty for some weeks?”
“Not quite, sir. I rather doubt that they will ever be of any great vigour again. Sweepers and polishers of the brasswork, perhaps, sir, but I do not believe they will earn the small amount of food they are able to eat. They will be discharged, I suspect, on reaching a home port.”
Frederick nodded his agreement, saying nothing. A spoken commitment would bind him to carrying these useless mouths to Portsmouth whereas he had every intention of putting them ashore at the next naval base they came to. They might be found work on land in the yard, or so he might hope, and could then be replaced by any seamen they could come across. There was no place for a passenger on a naval vessel, he feared.
Book Nine: The Duty
and Destiny Series
Chapter Five
The squadron found Bahia Blanca, but only after a search along the coast, the position on the charts transpiring to be an approximation, possibly the mean of the reports of distant passing merchantmen. There was a bay, an estuary in fact, and widespread salt deposits along the low shores, but a distinct absence of a settlement.
“Well, one can see why it is called ‘Blanca’; it is very white. But where is the harbour implied on our chart?”
Careful scanning of the whole shoreline disclosed a pair of fishing villages - small and very local, tiny huts of sticks and grass, rickety canoes on the beach - and nothing else. Frederick was dismissive of the place.
“No shipyard, no fort, no port, no warehouses; no whorehouses for that matter.”
“In fact, sir, no nothing!”
“The chart suggests a harbour, Mr Dalby. It cannot be hidden in a sheltered bay or lagoon, can it?”
“No hills, sir, nothing for it to be concealed by. I think, sir, that this may be a case of Spanish folie de grandeur.”
“May it indeed? Could you perhaps explain that conclusion, Mr Dalby?”
Dalby realised that he had erred; the lord and master had not understood the reference – he had forced him to conceal his ignorance, never a wise move on the part of a subordinate. He hurriedly made good.
“The Spanish no doubt saw a navigator’s journal that said this bay would make a good port in a useful place on the coast south of the Rio de la Plata. A cartographer translated that into the harbour that must grow there and placed it upon his chart, in expectation that it would soon be accurate, knowing that the great empire of Spain was always expanding. The Admiralty took a captured Spanish chart to be correct and made the entry on that assumption. The Spanish go to great lengths to keep their empire private, forbidding foreigners access when possible, so no correction has ever been made. We may be the first naval ships – real Navy, that is - ever to come visiting here, sir.”
Frederick nodded acceptance of the explanation made in clear naval English – folie de grandeur indeed!
“Order Warsash to enter the estuary and take soundings. There may be holding ground and we could shelter for a night or two while examining the salt deposits. Our pursers might thank us for the opportunity to pick up a barrel or two for free, assuming it is clean and accessible; if there are mud flats to smother the men then we may be discouraged.”
There was seven fathom water close inshore and stretching upriver further than Warsash ventured; a str
ong current scouring the muddy bottom, it seemed. The master made a detailed note in the journal that he would submit to the Hydrographer at the Admiralty; Bahia Blanca would be a safe anchorage in case of storm, would become known as such.
“A useful benefit to our presence, Mr Mason. Distressed ships may thank us in future. But, of course, of small value to us now. Mr Freeman to the Commodore, if you please, Mr Dalby.”
The captain of Warsash responded almost immediately, having kept his launch towing astern.
“Water, Mr Freeman. Did you reach fresh, potable water in your stretch upriver?”
“No, sir. I checked, sir, thinking it would be as well to know. Strongly brackish at three miles, sir, on the making tide, of course. Another league, sir, and taking on the ebb, and it might be possible to fill barrels, sir, but the shore seemed muddy still. It would not be easy to scrub the barrels and keep them clean, sir. Add to that, sir, there was what might have been smokes in the distance by a mile or two, a chance of a native village, I thought.”
“And less likelihood of clean water, as a result. Very good, Mr Freeman.”
The salt deposits were very white, until inspected at close range when they showed an interesting admixture of mud, weed and assorted bird droppings, feathers and bones. They were valueless.
They left Bahia Blanca after two days, not especially pleased with their visit. The midshipmen were the only members of the crews to be truly delighted; they had to produce journals, written accounts of their voyages, which were to be submitted to their promotion boards at the end of their six years. Bahia Blanca provided them with unknown shores to describe, a record of a safe port in a storm and drawings, more or less talented, of the unusual salt-white strand.
“Course for Montevideo, Mr Dalby, and let us trust that all may be well there.”
Admiral Stirling was in command at Montevideo; Home Popham had already sailed to England carrying more than a million sterling in treasure. Ingot silver, an amount of gold and gemstones made up the bulk of the cargo, supplemented by the contents of the warehouses of most of the merchant community, worth a hundred thousand at least and packed into the holds of the merchantmen they had prized in the harbour.
Far Foreign (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 9) Page 13