Nelson: The Poisoned River

by Needle, Jan

  The officer next to him snorted, quietly. It was delicate, because the young man was the captain’s nephew. How far should one go in reasonable contempt?

  He had not gone far enough, it seemed.

  ‘You are too soft,’ said Captain Maxwell. ‘It is blows he needs, Lieutenant Swift, not farmyard noises. This youth is the fruit of my sister’s loins, and he is too much like her. Too much like her and her milksop of a husband.’ An infinitesimal pause. ‘God rest his soul.’

  The midshipman, despite himself, gave a deep-rooted shudder, manfully suppressed. A noise escaped his throat, which might have been a half a sob.

  ‘For the devil’s sake!’ the captain shouted. ‘If you are sick here I will have you flogged! I will flog you myself, and throw you overboard! Pull yourself together, man. You shame yourself and us!’

  The first lieutenant, stolid soul, signalled to a servant, who looked on in concern as he slid the mutton trencher on the table.

  ‘The young gentleman may need a bowl, perhaps?’ he asked. ‘Have I the liberty…’

  The words died in his mouth. He was from the captain’s Sussex home and household. No other servant would have dared to say such words.

  ‘It’s a bucket of water he needs, on his shitty head!’ roared Maxwell. ‘You boy, Charles Raven! Craven, more like it! One speck of vomit from your lips and you are overboard! My sister should be flogged for sending you!’

  Even Stewart showed signs of mild discomfort. He pulled the platter more firmly onto the table as the Pointer gave a reeling lurch, and reached out a helping hand. But Lieutenant Bullen got there first, and gripped the midshipman as he tried to stand. Lieutenant Swift, by contrast, moved smartly back from Raven, who had gone from green to white, a glaring white with large and round black eyes.

  ‘Look out!’ he said. ‘By God sir, I fear he will defy you!’

  The servant, a big man called Winterson, did what none of his masters cared or dared to do. He threw an arm round Raven’s neck and shoulders, lifted him from his chair, and in the fluid movement of a seaman, rolled to the stateroom door and through it. Above the sudden clamour of the Channel squall, all heard the burst of retches that tore from out of Raven’s guts and chest.

  ‘By Christ,’ snapped Captain Maxwell. ‘And now I suppose I have to carve my own damned butcher-meat!’

  Smooth as a dancer, Daniel Swift reached for the trencher, and the knife and steel. With great dexterity the mutton was uncovered, the blade clashed along the steel, the slices severed as by the hand of a French chef. Bullen watched him with a strange contempt, while the first lieutenant’s face remained unreadable. Captain Hector Maxwell speared two great hunks on the point of his own knife and slapped them on his plate.

  ‘Potatoes and kale,’ he said. ‘Fit for a king. Good Christ, who gives a man such poltroons as Charlie Raven to have on board their ship? How dare their lordships force such bastards on me? It would try the patience of a greater saint that me!’

  Despite himself, Daniel Swift caught Lieutenant Bullen’s eye. Taking the youth on board had been Maxwell’s own choice, a fact known well to both of them. It serves you damn well right, thought Swift, but it is your place and pleasure now to knock him into shape, so stop your griping, man.

  ‘It is indeed a trial for you, sir,’ he said. ‘I know he is your family, but surely… Well, before God, no man can choose his relatives; and that is more the pity.’

  The look on Bullen’s face became more complex. You are a stuck-up prig, thought Swift. I think that I must watch you, like a hawk.

  ‘I think that he is rather young, sir,’ Bullen said. ‘Perhaps it is a pity the service takes them in so tender. But he will surely rise under your tutelage. He is from your stock, sir. Depend on it, he will turn out a seaman born.’

  The first lieutenant, Stewart, belched gently once again, which seemed to Swift to hide a sneer. The captain jammed more meat into his mouth and chewed.

  ‘If one sick craven is the worst I bear today, I suppose the case is not so bad,’ he said. ‘We are well down Channel, and may come upon those Frogs within not very long. Please God we fall on them as a great surprise, like wolves on a pen of bleating lambs. It is time the dear Lord smiled on me. The bugger’s not dished out much luck so far.’

  Even Swift felt a tremor of discomfort at this speech. They needed all the luck that they could get to bring this expedition off in the time intelligence had said that they might have, and Maxwell’s casual blasphemy was an awful hostage to on high. He made a noise in his throat. A non-committal noise.

  Lieutenant Bullen went further.

  ‘In terms of wind,’ he said, ‘His mercy in the last two days has been extreme. Easterly, and strong, and steady, and a blessed boon. I cannot see we could have made it in this time without such smiling providence.’

  ‘Aye,’ muttered Stewart, into his chin. ‘But will it last, that’s all?’

  Did he know something? Did he feel a change of movement in the flying hull? For within two minutes, the sailing master put his head into the cabin, without even a knock. Nobody else, perhaps, would have dared.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir,’ he told Hector Maxwell. ‘Unless I’m very much mistook this wind is falling light. It is dying, sir, and fastish. Perhaps you’d care to come and have a look?’

  Three stomachs round the table fell. To catch and kill these Frenchmen was a make or break for Captain Maxwell. It was a prize he had to win, and every last minute to do it in was precious.

  He stood and left the stateroom without another word.