CHAPTER TEN
Ralph Barclay came back on board a hour later with a fair quantity of the admiral’s claret in his stomach, not drunk exactly, but certainly light-headed. Faithful Hale followed behind him as he made his way from his barge up the side of the ship, doing what a good coxswain should to ensure that if his captain missed his footing, or failed to clap on to the manropes, he would not get his shoes and stockings wet.
‘We weigh an hour after the men receive their pay, Mr Roscoe,’ said Barclay in a pleasant tone. ‘We will take up station to cruise off Dover and ensure that when our charges weigh at first light no rascal from the French shore is tempted out to attack them.’
‘The men will be paid when, sir?’
‘This very afternoon, of course,’ Barclay replied, ‘but be warned, before any clerks arrive with their money I want the anchor hove short, and we will weigh as soon as possible after they depart. The longer we stay the worse matters will become. I have no intention of turning this ship into Paddy’s Market for the benefit of the sharps and whores of Deal.’
Implementing what he wanted would not be easy – the very necessary act of paying the men before they sailed for the Mediterranean would bring out from the East Kent shore boats by the dozen selling everything from trinkets through sexual congress to spirituous liquor, even if, with the men new to the service, there was not much in the way of coin to be distributed.
‘I will want the gangway up as soon as the clerics go,’ Barclay continued, ‘and marines posted to make sure that neither whores nor drink get aboard.’
He knew Roscoe reckoned him too strict in the article of women on board. The Premier had already loudly declared at a wardroom dinner that he had served in ships where they were so prevalent as to almost count as part of the crew, and under captains who saw nothing wrong in taking a goodly number to sea, and to hell with regulations. Even if the harpies fought amongst themselves, at least if the crew’s animal passions were contained there was less fighting between the men. And they performed other useful tasks, even, if the ship was in extremis, hauling on ropes to get the vessel clear. What captain, he had demanded, granting the hands that privilege, could deny some license in the article of women to his officers? Overheard by the wardroom servants, the conversation had been relayed to Shenton and Barclay’s steward took pleasure each morning as he shaved his master, in passing on such gossip.
‘Did you hear what I said, Mr Roscoe?’
‘I did, sir,’ Roscoe replied quickly. ‘No women.’
‘Quite. The men may trade through designated gun ports only, all on the shore side and all with a marine guard. Any traders between us and the Goodwin Sands, well, you have my permission to take out the bottom of their boat with a dropped round shot.’
Barclay looked at Roscoe then, wondering if he would protest, knowing he was asking for the impossible. No Navy ship ever left for a deep-sea voyage in anything other than Barbary order – the men got their outstanding pay, and did whatever it took to spend it. It was not uncommon for a ship of the line to be held up for days before the vessel could be cleared of unofficial visitors and even then it was never a clean sweep. Ralph Barclay fully expected he would find himself discharging more than a couple of whores when they were at sea – which might occasion the despatch of a boat to get them ashore again. And if the imbibing got out of hand, because too much drink had come aboard, he would have to rig the grating before Brilliant cleared the South Foreland.
He might know every trick in the canon, as would Roscoe – they had, as midshipmen, employed every tactic that would be in use this day – but that did not mean they would see the line dropped over the side with a purse on the way down and a flagon on the way back up. Nor would they see the bribe or threat to one of the red-coated lobsters guarding the gun ports that would have it open just long enough for a strumpet, with leggings under her skirts full of liquor, to slip through. The purser might prowl in the hope of stopping the purchase of tobacco, which, because he was the shipboard supplier would eat into his profits, but he would do so in vain.
Having issued his orders, Barclay made his way none too steadily to his cabin. With his mouth beginning to taste like bilge his first request, after greeting his wife, was that Shenton break out some wine, which the steward was happy to do, seeing it as his duty to take a good taste before serving, to ensure that it was not corked.
‘Admiral Wood was most obliging, my dear, but, I fear, in a terrible rush to get us to sea, so my intention to have him dine aboard and perhaps take you ashore for a return of the compliment will not now be possible.’
Emily had seen him like this before, just as she had seen her own father. She reminded herself that she must be tolerant, for men were weak in the article of wine. ‘That is a great pity, husband.’
‘Only thing he would not do, damn him, begging your indulgence my dear, was loosen my orders a trifle, can’t think why.’
‘Did he not vouchsafe you his reasons?’
‘Oh yes. He’s not going to risk upsetting the Admiralty.’ It was clear on his wife’s face that she did not understand. ‘Convoy duty is a bloody swine!’
The reply was firm, and made without prior thought. ‘I fear your meeting with the admiral has rendered your language a trifle salty, Captain Barclay.’
That sent his eyebrows up, just as it sent her eyes down, for Emily had never, as far as he could recall, even come close to chastising him. But she had now, and in a circumstance that made it very difficult to object. Drink had caused him to blaspheme, and his wife had every right to remind him that it was unacceptable behaviour. That did not make it pleasant, so his admission, ‘You are perfectly right, my dear,’ was rather forced. ‘I shall explain,’ he grumbled.
‘Please do,’ Emily replied, giving him a look of deep interest that mollified him somewhat.
‘I am obliged, by standing Admiralty orders, to avoid losing sight of the convoy of which I have charge, so I am tied by apron strings to a bunch of lubberly sods.’ His hand was up quickly. ‘I apologise again, my dear, but if you have ever seen the behaviour of merchant captains you too would have cause to cuss.’
Ralph Barclay rambled on, moaning about merchant captains – that they were a contrary lot who could never keep their station, always sailed with the minimum of crew so that they were laggardly, especially at night when they would shorten sail in spite of any order he gave not to; that those apron strings would preclude him chasing any potential prize, and that his request to Wood, Port Admiral at Deal, to write some orders allowing him a touch of leeway had been denied.
‘Yes, Mr Burns,’ he said, as the midshipman knocked and entered, eyes fixed rigidly ahead, avoiding both Emily’s eyes and her welcoming smile.
‘Mr Roscoe’s compliments, and can he have the muster book back as the clerks from the Pay Office are about to come alongside.’
‘Some of your uniform, Mr Burns,’ said Emily, her eye on the coat and breeches, which were clearly too big for the boy, ‘could do with a touch of adjustment.’
‘Mama said I would grow into it,’ Burns replied, in a hesitant voice and with a bit of a blush, eyes moving between his cousin and his captain, fearing that he might get a rebuke.
Emily’s response was to stand up and place herself in front of him. ‘I’m sure you will cousin, just as I am sure, like me, she would have you as smart as you can be.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
It was virtually impossible not to sigh at the formality, but Emily smiled nevertheless. ‘If you have spare clothes, as I am sure you must have, bring them to me and I will do what I can to make them fit you a little better.’
Burns was about to say that if his cousin wanted his spare clothes, she had better ask his fellow midshipmen where they had gone, but Ralph Barclay’s impatient cough killed the notion, obliging Emily to stand aside so both he and Burns could leave.
‘That boy is not happy,’ she said, softly, to herself.
Barclay appeared on deck, book un
der his arm, and looked over the side, happy to see that his orders had been obeyed – that the bumboats full of the Deal contingent of whores, panders and gimcrack traders were standing off his ship. Once the men were paid he would allow an hour’s indulgence – not one second more – then he would weigh, and sling off the ship anyone who should not be aboard.
‘Mr Hale,’ he called to his coxswain, whispering an order in his ear as he came close. Then he spoke to Roscoe. ‘Line the men up.’
‘Down to the orlop with you lot,’ barked Hale. A dispirited Pearce, still damp, sat at the back and so excited no attention. ‘Captain Barclay’s express orders, an’ you are to stay there till we weigh.’
‘What about our pay?’ asked Rufus, pointing to the men making their way to the upper deck.
Hale shifted his quid of baccy, tipped back his tarred hat, snorted like a hungry pig and pointed to the scantlings. ‘You could turn and ask the plank of wood at your back and it’d have the answer, but plainly you are thicker than that in the article of brains. The Navy don’t pay out on a day an’ a bit, an’ any bounty you had is now held on the purser’s books. Now move. Or do I have to get a file of marines down here to force you?’
Pearce felt a wave of despair sweep over him. Barclay had made a shrewd move, alert, as Sykes had said he was, to any attempt that his pressed men might make to slip ashore in one of the boats being fended off the frigate’s side. The Pelicans were shepherded down the companionway, to sit in the gloom of the orlop under the supervision of a less than pleased marine, their spirits of the same order, watching sights that in normal times would have amused, for the three hours between the crew being paid and weighing the anchor were pure mayhem, officers shouting, marines being sent hither and thither, sailors, clearly drunk on illicit rum being chased, while others searched for a corner, not necessarily a quiet one, in which to rut with some whore they had smuggled through a gunport.
Barclay could be heard all over the ship, cursing, swearing and damning individuals including his own inferior officers for their laxity, threatening the midshipmen, who, instead of impeding the crew, seemed more inclined to aid, abet and emulate them. They would, he promised, ‘kiss the gunner’s daughter before they saw the French coast’. That was when he was not ordering that some woman or trinket-trader be chucked over the side.
Put to the capstan to finally haul HMS Brilliant over her anchor, it seemed that the Pelicans were the only sober group on the ship. Aloft, top-men too inebriated to properly perform their duties made a poor fist of setting the topsails, so that the frigate departed the Downs in the fading daylight like a lubberly merchant vessel with a crew of cack-handed scrape jacks aboard. There was some consolation that Davidge Gould was having the same difficulties in HMS Firefly, but none at all from the jeering hoots which came from the deck of every other naval ship in the anchorage.
There was a tense moment as they shaved the shingle off Walmer Castle, watched by a whole regiment of redcoats who filled the beach with their fires, behind them a tented encampment that filled the surrounding fields, quite enough in numbers to render futile another attempt to swim ashore. A bleary-eyed Barclay was to be heard screaming a change of course to a helmsman who was, like the others, well under the influence. With the Pelicans now on deck hauling on ropes, under instructions from petty officers made extra crabbed by the effects of drink wearing off, they finally cleared the southern end of the Goodwin Sands. HMS Brilliant made deep water, where, cruising back and forth in the choppy Channel water, with a strengthening wind, a full half of the people aboard were sick.
The convoy emerged at first light; a long string of some fifty vessels stretched out over several miles that took hours to get into any form of order. The air was full of endless banging guns, as both frigate and sloop were obliged to sail hither and thither in steadily deteriorating conditions to deliver verbal instructions and threats to merchant skippers, each one of whom saw it as his bounden duty to annoy the captain of HMS Brilliant – not difficult as the mere presence of several hundred sailors he was absolutely forbidden to press, manning those ships, was enough to make him exceedingly irascible. That they took as long as they liked to comply with his orders, only added grist to that mill. An angry captain on the deck, and officers who took the brunt of his strictures with barely disguised hostility, combined with hangovers and endless orders, naturally meant little contentment t’ween decks, as the misery worked its way down to the lowest on the ship.
Martin Dent brought matters to a head, for like a thief who has stolen a couple of times and got away with his crime, he would not leave John Pearce in peace. The Pelicans were working in the holds, fetching out more supplies for the cook – water and casks of meat – in a sea that was far from calm. They were grateful to be below for there was now a wind blowing that was strong enough to sting the eyes. HMS Brilliant was pitching and rolling quite markedly, and although this might be less obvious below than on deck, they had to take extra care.
At the very bottom of the hold, the casks rested in the shingle ballast used to weight and keep steady the hull. Those on top nestled in the space between the two below and the entire weight pressed down to ensure no movement, with wedges malleted into any point where a barrel could come loose. Being at the beginning of a commission, the holds were full, and the confined space was difficult to work in, especially given the foul miasma created by bilge water, rotting wood, the gases given off by imperfectly sealed meat casks, and the general corruption of a dark airless compartment that never saw daylight and where rodents ruled rather than men.
There were seamen leading the party, who knew how to cradle each numbered cask in the sling, how to use pulleys to lift and move it without damage to a point where the main lifting tackle could hoist it right up through the hatch. Careful as they were, however, they were also forced to work at some pace, because to stay in the hold too long, with lanterns guttering and flickering from too little oxygen to burn, was to risk passing out from the lack of anything to breathe.
With water, there was no problem, any barrel would suffice, but the packed meat was numbered and dated with the time of its butchering, salting and sealing. In a perfect world, the casks would have come out of the hold in the exact reverse of the way they had gone in. But the ship had victualled in a hurry, and since the purser was adamant about which casks he wanted – those with the longest provenance, the ones most likely to be corrupted if left – a great deal of shifting and stacking was required.
After quarter of an hour in the hold, Pearce was feeling slightly nauseous as he laboured to transfer casks from one pile to another. Each one moved for temporary storage had to be secured by wedges and ropes, for the motion on the ship was such that they could easily begin to roll, and it had been made plain by the purser before they came below, and was now repeated like a chant from his position above the hatch, that any loss through smashed staves would be laid against the name and pay of the offender.
Given the weighty nature of the task, Michael O’Hagan was the greatest asset, for, although they were too heavy to lift, provided one cask rested against another he could hold the whole weight of one on his own. He, Pearce and Scrivens were working together, the former two making sure that impatient members of the crew did not bully Scrivens for his ineptitude, for added to his natural weaknesses he was still suffering from seasickness. Charlie Taverner, Rufus and Ben Walker, all three a bit green at the gills as well, formed another working trio, all six cursing Gherson who had managed to get himself a job easing the casks up on the main tackle, a position where he was required to do no lifting, merely tasked to manoeuvre lashed and weightless casks. And, being right under the open hatch, the bastard had proper air to breathe.
‘Abel,’ gasped Michael, arms outstretched to hold a moved cask. ‘Two wedges under this bugger.’
Scrivens moved slowly, and his use of the mallet was so weak that the wedges were not driven home. In fact one dropped into the gap between the two barrels on which the men wer
e standing. Michael went to a one-handed hold and moved Scrivens to where his other hand had been, coaching him with scant equanimity on how to hold the cask.
‘Stand there and get both hands on the thing. Right, now stretch right out until your feet are wedged and your arms are straight. As long as you stay like that, it will not budge.’
Michael dropped to his knees to find the fallen wedge, not easy for no light penetrated down there, leaving Pearce and Scrivens restraining the cask. The sudden increase in weight was partly due to the dip of the frigate, but Pearce had experienced that more than once already, and he knew that provided they had enough pressure on the cask they were holding it would not move. This was different – as he and Scrivens pushed hard to hold their position it seemed that the cask had doubled in weight, and was actually pressing down to crush them. Pearce felt his bare feet slip on greasy wood – the barrel had moved and was continuing to do so. What faint light there was showed Abel Scrivens begin to bend, his thin and already aching back rising to take the rigidity out of his body, and Pearce knew that whatever was exerting pressure on the cask was rendering it too heavy to hold.
He yelled to the Irishman, who was on his hands and knees scrabbling about. ‘Michael, get out!’ There was no hesitation from a man who had worked on tunnelling and ditch digging – when a cry like that came you shifted without looking and he was clear on hands and knees within a second. ‘You too, Scrivens, for we cannot hold it!’
His shouts brought men to try and aid them, but they were too far away and Pearce, the veins in his neck feeling fit to burst, called to Scrivens, who was at the end farthest from safety, to save himself. He never knew whether the push Scrivens gave him was motivated by a desire to help or sheer blind panic. There was not much weight in the push, but Pearce, already under pressure, was sent flying out from under the barrel, the rear end of which had already begun to fall. It caught Scrivens, who was stationary, rolling on to his body in an action that seemed to last an age, yet only took a second. The scream that came from Scrivens’ throat was cut off as the heavy wooden cask crushed the air he needed out of him. In the glim of the guttering candles in the lanterns – carried by the sailors too late to help, Scrivens’ face looked like something from engravings Pearce had seen of a soul entering hell.
By the Mast Divided Page 22