The Black Ship

by Dudley Pope

  ‘Foreshaw, you bugger,’ he cried, ‘are you not overboard yet? Overboard you must go, and overboard you shall go!’

  At that moment Farrel lashed at Foreshaw with a tomahawk, cutting off one of his hands at the wrist. He and Nash then seized the shrieking officer and dragged him up the ladder to the lee gangway, where they pushed him over the side and watched his body splash into the water. For the moment the first bout of slaughter was over, and the death roll so far was Captain Pigot, Lieutenants Foreshaw and Douglas, and Midshipman Smith.

  15

  THE DEAD AND THE DRUNK

  * * *

  MIDSHIPMAN CASEY, after going back to his hammock for the first time on the advice of Farrel and Phillips, found that ‘several of the crew at different times shook my hammock in a noisy manner and wishing to know who I was… after some little consultation among themselves they told me to lay still, as they did not wish to hurt me. Some of them wished that I would either go on deck or go into some more secure place that I might not be murdered.’

  A few minutes after seeing first Douglas and then Midshipman Smith attacked and dragged away, Thomas Nash had told him he had better get dressed and go on deck ‘as I would be much safer than lying in my hammock as probably by continuing there I might be put to death’.

  Casey took this advice and went up on deck, but ‘seeing them in great confusion and not thinking myself safe, I again went down to my hammock. I was again visited by a number of people, one of whom was Nash, who insisted that I should drink with him.

  ‘I was talking to the Boatswain for a short time, who was then in his cabin, during which time Thomas Nash pressed me very much to join in the mutiny and told me the ship’s company were determined to appoint me their lieutenant, which I refused. He made answer, “Suppose we make you do it: how can you help yourself?”

  ‘I told him if they insisted on it, it could not then be helped, but begged he would desist from anything of the kind. He said no more to me at the time.’

  Casey was in a dangerous position: if he refused the mutineers’ demands they would probably kill him; yet if he agreed he became a mutineer himself. His choice was whether he should risk being murdered in the King’s name, a loyal officer, or executed later in the name of the King, a traitorous officer. If he refused to join the mutineers, nearly every man’s hand in the Hermione would be against him—and almost every hand held a tomahawk or cutlass. If he did join the mutineers, then outside the Hermione every British hand would be turned against him, holding a noose.

  Meanwhile Nash and Richard Redman, unworried by the practical difficulties of remaining loyal to the King and yet remaining alive, had gone up to the quarterdeck where the Master’s Mate, William Turner, who so far had not been active in the mutiny, apart from refusing to obey Foreshaw’s order to go down to Pigot’s cabin, was continuing on watch as though nothing had happened.

  Redman, however, now went to him and said, in the hearing of Pigot’s steward, ‘Officer, here you are,’ as if giving him command of the ship.

  Leech, John Elliott and Farrel were already on the quarterdeck, and after a discussion with Nash and Redman they decided for the time being to turn south—Osborn was still steering the ship on the northerly course. No leader had yet come forward, but Nash was slowly emerging as the man taking most of the decisions: he told Thomas Jay, his fellow Boatswain’s Mate, to pipe the order, and Jay went through the ship crying ‘Every man to his station: about ship’.

  This order was one of the most decisive given: up to then only about forty out of the ship’s company of more than 150 had been active mutineers: the rest had kept out of the way, either through loyalty or because they were frightened or confused.

  Now, however, a familiar order was being shouted by a familiar voice and the bewildered men’s natural reaction was to obey, without realizing that once they lifted so much as a finger in answer to the order, they too became mutineers. Technically they had all broken the 20th Article of War, since they had failed to use their ‘utmost endeavours’ to suppress mutiny or sedition.

  With all the men at their stations, Turner gave the necessary orders, and the Hermione turned southwards, away from the Diligence, to run before the wind down the Mona Passage. There was much to occupy the ringleaders’ attention: much drinking to be done, many decisions to be taken and, as far as some of them were concerned, several more people yet to be murdered.

  Leaving Thomas Jay and James Bell in charge on the quarterdeck, sixteen mutineers then went down to Captain Pigot’s cabin for a meeting. These eighteen men now emerging as ringleaders (and listed in Appendix D, page 338) were a curious cross-section of the ship’s company. Eight of them had been handpicked by Pigot and brought over from the Success. Of the remaining ten, Nash and Michael Whatman had served in the Hermione for four and a half years; a topman, William Clarke, for four and Turner for three years. The birthplaces of all but two of the eighteen are known: nine were English (five from Kent), two Irish, three Scottish, another Danish and there was one American.

  Pigot’s cabin, in the light of their lanterns, was a macabre sight: chairs were smashed, the cot torn to pieces, and the couch and deck soaked in blood. The gaping hole in one of the stern windows was a reminder of the recent fate of the cabin’s rightful owner. It was an appropriate setting for the major decision the men had to take. It was on the face of it a fairly simple one: should they kill the rest of the officers and warrant officers? There were ten—Lt Reed, Mr Southcott, Sansum the Surgeon, Pacey the Purser, Searle the Gunner, Price the Carpenter, Martin the Boatswain, Midshipman Casey and, for good measure, Manning, the Captain’s Clerk, and McIntosh, the Marine Lieutenant, who was dying anyway.

  The discussion ended without a clear cut decision being made. From their subsequent actions it seems Richard Redman had spoken against more killing (with, as we shall see, one possible exception); Forester was for killing them all; and Nash was at that time in agreement but wanted to spare Midshipman Casey.

  Yet they seem to have been in no hurry. After talking and arguing some returned to the quarterdeck and others wandered through the ship. Redman went up to the quarterdeck, but then he said he was going below and would leave the charge of the deck to Turner and Farrel.

  While the sixteen men had been arguing in Pigot’s cabin, most of the men whose lives were under discussion were in their cabins round the gunroom on the deck below, unaware of the debate but convinced their last hour had come. Each faced the prospect in a different way.

  John Mason, the Belfast-born Carpenter’s Mate who had come to the Hermione from the Success, claimed that he had been in his hammock when woken by ‘a terrible noise of hurrahing’. Swinging out of his hammock in the darkness (‘there were no lights to be seen’) he felt his way up the ladder to the main deck, but someone pushed him down again, so he went to the Gunner’s cabin. His reason, he explained later, was that ‘I was frightened and wanted to get out of the way’.

  But he found little in the cabin to reassure him; both the Gunner, who was sitting naked on his cot, and Mason’s superior officer, Richard Price, the Carpenter, were weeping. According to Mason, the three men had stayed in the cabin while outside the blood-chilling chorus of both the murderers and their victims was punctuated by strident cries of ‘Hand them up!’

  Southcott, in the meantime, had been lying in his cot listening first to the search for and then the savage attacks on Lt Douglas and Midshipman Smith. He had heard their desperate pleas for mercy; he had recognized—and remembered—the voices of several of their attackers. He had assumed he would be the next to be killed, but the mutineers had left the gunroom, returning some minutes later to search through the cabins again. They saw Southcott and some cried out, ‘Here’s the Master!’ while others shouted ‘Don’t harm him!’

  When several came into his cabin and saw by the light of their lanterns that his head was bloodstained, they asked who had been responsible, and tried to reassure him that he would not be hurt. But as an indication
that there was little or no control or agreement among the mutineers, they appointed four of their number—including John Elliott, who had just helped to murder Captain Pigot—to guard Southcott: not to prevent him escaping, but simply to stop their own people from killing him. They then sent for the Surgeon to bandage him.

  Sansum had already been busy patching up Lt Reed, the victim of Joe Montell’s attack. When Redman visited the gunroom later and saw that Reed had been hurt, he went over to him and shook him by the hand, saying, according to the Carpenter, that he ‘was sorry the Lieutenant was hurt, for they did not intend to hurt him, who never hurt them’.

  Southcott received more news when Sansum was brought to his cabin under an escort of mutineers. ‘He informed me,’ Southcott said, ‘that the First Lieutenant was wounded and his head was cut open in two or three places with a tomahawk, and he had been sewing it up.’

  Just after Sansum, in the Master’s own words, had ‘put a plaister on my face’, a mob of men streamed into the gunroom once again and started shouting at Southcott’s door that they would kill him. While the four sentries refused to let them in, more mutineers appeared at the skylight overhead and added to the confusion by yelling down that no one else was to be killed.

  The mutineers in the gunroom—heeding the shouts from overhead—now ordered Sansum, Pacey and Lt Reed to sit in chairs by the mizenmast, which passed through the cabin just abaft the table and skylight. William Clarke who had been one of the sixteen meeting in Pigot’s cabin, stood over them as sentry. The three prisoners were then joined by the Gunner and the Carpenter, both still weeping. That meant that all the officers and warrant officers were now in the gunroom with the exception of the dying Marine Lieutenant, Midshipman Casey, who had returned to his hammock, Martin, the Boatswain, who was still in his cabin with his wife, and Manning, the Clerk, who was next door.

  The majority of the ringleaders then went up to the quarterdeck. The Hermione was completely under their control, although their fellow mutineers were certainly not. All the officers and warrant officers were either dead or under guard, with the exception of Turner, the Master’s Mate, and Midshipman Wiltshire, who had both joined the mutiny.

  Leech, Elliott (who had handed over his task of guarding South-cott to someone else) and William Turner, then went down to search through Pigot’s possessions. They could not open the bureau in which Pigot kept his papers, so they sent for Steward Jones, who arrived in the cabin nervous and apprehensive.

  ‘What money had the Captain got?’ demanded Leech. ‘And where are the keys?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Jones. ‘He kept the keys and his money himself in his waistcoat pocket.’

  ‘Damn the keys,’ said Leech, ‘we’ll let everything stand till tomorrow morning and clap a couple of sentries on the door.’

  With that they left the cabin to go below, warning the sentry, Walter Brooks, not to let anyone else in. Leech told Jones, ‘You are to attend the gentlemen [“That is, the officers that were to be,” Jones later explained] and get dinner tomorrow as usual.’

  A few minutes later Jones heard Redman calling his name. ‘I went to Redman’, said Jones. ‘He still had a sword drawn in his hand. He called me a bugger and asked me for some of the Captain’s wine. I told him if he would allow me I would go and fetch the keys, and he bid me follow him down to the store-room.’

  The store-room was on the orlop deck, below the gunroom. Pigot naturally had a well-stocked wine store and Jones said, ‘I unlocked the door and [Redman] told me to give him some of the best wine. I told him there were different sorts and it was all good, and he told me to hand out a bottle of any sort.

  ‘I gave him a bottle of Madeira. He knocked off the head of it with his sword and drunk about half a pint or more, and gave it to some more men who were at the door. He told me to give him two bottles more of Madeira, which he took up with him to the Boatswain’s cabin.’

  Once there he poured some wine and water into a mug and carried it through to Southcott, the mug in one hand and the remains of Pigot’s sword (he had broken it earlier when he hit it against the bulkhead of Southcott’s cabin) in the other. Southcott, thankful for the wine, had no difficulty in recognizing the sword by its large silver guard.

  By the time Jones had locked the wine store and returned to the lower deck he was in time to hear Redman, Nash and Farrel once more ‘disputing whether they should save the lives of the Doctor and Purser. They all swore as Hughie (meaning the Captain) was overboard they should all go, adding that they might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.’

  Midshipman Casey wanted to join the rest of the officers, and went to the door, begging the sentry ‘to allow me to go into the gunroom’, which he did. ‘After having spoken to most of the officers who were there, [I] was going to sit down at their request, when Thomas Nash came in, making use of very bad language, and desired the Purser and Surgeon to prepare themselves for death against the next morning, for the ship’s company were determined against letting them live.

  ‘During the time I was at the Boatswain’s cabin door,’ continued Casey, ‘Nash had frequently said that the ship’s company were determined to put the Purser and Surgeon to death. Finding Nash was a friend of mine and wished to save me, I remonstrated with him and endeavoured to save their lives, but he told me they were determined to put them to death.’

  There was now a brief lull in all activities except drinking. Several men went back to the fo’c’sle to finish off the bucket of stolen rum, as well as various bottles they had later found in the gunroom. Richard Redman, who had sunk a good deal of the Captain’s Madeira, was half drunk and beginning to feel lecherous. This boded ill for Martin, the Boatswain, because apparently Redman had been thinking about Martin’s wife while arguing with Nash and Farrel whether or not the Purser and Surgeon should be killed.

  Soon John Holmes, a young seaman from Lambeth, London, arrived outside the gunroom door and told the sentry that a seaman suffering from scurvy, John Evans, was very ill, and asked for the Surgeon.

  The mutineers agreed to let Sansum attend Evans and three men formed themselves into an escort: Holmes, armed with a tomahawk, William Crawley, who helped kill Midshipman Smith and had found a cutlass to replace the tomahawk he had smashed on Lt Douglas’s head, and William Marsh, who so far had not been an active killer—an omission he was soon to make good.

  Thus escorted, Sansum left the gunroom, where he had just been sentenced to death, to help save a life. On his way he saw another seaman lying ill in his hammock and recognized him as William Bower (so Bower claimed afterwards) and asked how he was. Bower told him, and Sansum commented that he was himself about to die.

  ‘What for?’ exclaimed Bower.

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ interjected Marsh, and Crawley warned Bower: ‘Hold your tongue, or we’ll serve you the same way!

  Sansum went on to see Evans, did what he could for him, and was then marched back to the gunroom. Lt Reed had in the meantime been allowed to lie in his cot because he was feeling faint from his head wound.

  By then a large number of men had, in the absence of any sort of discipline, gone below and broken into the spirit room where, stowed in squat puncheons, hogsheads and barrels, were nearly a thousand gallons of rum. The men lost little time in knocking in the bungs and serving the raw spirit in buckets, mess kits, mugs and any other receptacle handed to them.

  But the men drinking the greatest quantities and getting viciously besotted were not the original group of mutineers. These—numbering some forty or fifty men, according to an estimate by Midshipman Casey—were staying comparatively sober because they had work to do. The men getting really drunk were those who knew nothing of the mutiny until it burst on them and had then, through caution or confusion, hesitated until it was clear the mutiny had succeeded. Then, filling themselves with liquid bravado, they set out to prove to the ringleaders that they too were true mutineers. Like most converts, they were to display more zeal than the origin
al protagonists.

  And, coinciding with all this, a new and powerful figure was about to come on to the scene: a man who so far had stayed in the shadows but whose smooth tongue and revolutionary talk may well have stirred the ringleaders into starting the mutiny. He was a man whom Captain Pigot had, within a day or so of taking over command, promoted from able seaman to Surgeon’s Mate. He might not have known much about nostrums or surgery, but he seems to have had a demagogue’s flair for striking at the psychological moment.

  16

  ‘KILL THEM ALL’

  * * *

  THE SURGEON’S MATE of the Hermione was Lawrence Cronin, an Irishman born in Belfast thirty-five years earlier. He owed his presence in the frigate to the unfortunate coincidence in June, 1795, which brought the merchant ship in which he had been serving and the Hermione together in Port Royal. Cronin was taken on board the frigate and although marked down in the Muster Book as a volunteer, he was almost certainly pressed but, as was usual, given the chance of ‘volunteering’ to qualify for the bounty. Since Cronin was rated an able seaman, this amounted to £5

  He remained an able seaman for the next twenty months; then the day after Pigot took over command of the Hermione he made Cronin the Surgeon’s Mate. This was a considerable promotion—his pay rose from £1 4s. a month to £2 10s. but, what was almost more important, it allowed him to shift his hammock from the forward end of the lowerdeck, where he had the regulation width of fourteen inches in which to sling it, to the comparative comfort of the midshipmen’s berth. It was there that Midshipman Casey got to know him well, and after spending more than seven months with him, gave his verdict that Cronin was ‘a treacherous, drunken, infamous character; he was in many instances worse than the worst of the mutineers’.