by Mark Keating
Confidence comes with daylight, bright June daylight, like the first Day, and suddenly Englishmen forget that they ever had a winter and months of damp clothes and cloying sea-coal fires.
Joy and a conquering spirit comes with bacon, poached eggs and a mug of hot brandy and milk hippocras, the Ship Inn’s kitchen not stretching to tea or coffee.
He made his way to Portsmouth harbour, a fair stroll from the Point but a soul-enriching walk for a seaman, poet, or painter as dozens of ships stretched along the walls and even more sat out in the harbour mouth. The giants lay there, the ninety-fours sitting and waiting. Waiting to lumber out again when the Spanish or perennial French thought their cards stacked well enough and Englishmen would yawn and roll up their sleeves and get on with it as always.
But along the harbour jostled the smaller ships, latent promise in their furled sails, the oak straining at the bit as men tended to the seams and yards with mallet and caulk, slapping tar like whitewash, and over it all a cacophony of whistles and curses in equal measure oft from the same mouth in a single breath.
Blocks squealed like piglets from the derricks and shrouds and the smaller dories and barges milled around the mother ships like ducklings as goods passed from shoulder to rope, to ship’s hold or deck. Curses and thanks.
This the best part of the venture, always. The shine of it. The coming home and the pulling out. The happy blushing wives and the shy children of men they had not seen for a year. Some toy made of wood or painted shell pushed into their chubby fingers. The weary returner looking for a still bed, and the laughing voyager about to leave, one month from knowing and wishing better.
Coxon inhaled it all, the colour of the goods, the noise and the endless tramp of backs and urgent feet. This he had missed. If he could draw it he would, if he could write it down that would be better. But to live it was the keepsake of envy.
He touched his cockade in reply to a couple of boat-cloaks saluting him. No uniform to ascertain the navy man but he had wet and brushed the dust off his old silk cockade and attached it to his hat with a pin asked from the buxom landlady of the Ship Inn.
The cockade was more green than black, aged, but perhaps that was to the good. It had aged with him, along with the pitted sword, its gold wire beginning to fray. He should have made to get it repaired. Never mind. A man on board surely had some skill that did not belong at sea. Over the years he had seen men with tremendous gentleness at quite the most delicate arts. They carved monkeys and seal pups, cut silhouettes, collected images of birds and treasured them like children and pontificated about beaks and wing-tips to anyone who would listen and Coxon had listened to them all, could remember their faces and names. Distant or dead sons now.
‘Captain Coxon? Will you give me the honour of carrying your bag for you, Captain?’
The voice startled him out of his musings. He braced at the pale face of a striking youth – no – a man, but the boyish face topped with coppery hair now revealed as he whisked off his modest hat.
His dress was wonderfully new but not extravagant, perfectly perfunctory for the work ahead, less to polish, to be brushed rather than cleaned. Coxon had yet to locate his ship. The familiarity required to be recognised had thrown him.
‘Do you know me, sir?’
The man grinned. ‘It is I, Captain. You may yet recall.’ He stepped back, as if the act would move him back in time and stature to be remembered like an etching in a book.
His voice chimed like a bell. ‘Thomas Howard, sir. Lieutenant Thomas Howard I should say. At your service and proud to serve.’ His grin faded but the eyes carried it still. ‘I was on the Starling, Captain. Midshipman. I acted Lieutenant . . . for the day.’ The eyes dropped. ‘On The Island, Captain.’
Coxon had grey hair now amid the black but it darkened as he brushed memories away from his eyes like dust from a painting’s glass and he saw again the mottled, nervous-brave face of Midshipman Howard, sixteen once again and handing him his quarter-bill for the hour against the pirate. A tearful child recounting how he had found the murdered body of Edward Talton. The first act of betrayal from Lt Guinneys, who did not live to see the end of the day. But Howard had survived. One of the pirates had protected him when the demons had boarded and killed. The yellow-coated barber-surgeon had shown some compassion – to Coxon’s mind just to save his own hide if all went wrong. The pirate doctor had hugged Howard close to his chest, surely to protect himself, and had stared down the axes and cutlasses that swung across the faces of Coxon’s crew. Perhaps some sodomite plan for the boy that was never realised.
So Thomas Howard had sailed back to England with the crippled Starling and Coxon. Howard had been there, fought there, and the officer’s reticence left Coxon as he dropped his sack and clasped the man’s shoulders and laughed at the new height and breadth of him.
‘Bless my soul! It is Thomas Howard so it is! Lieutenant Howard now, is it?’
‘It is, Captain,’ Howard glowed and picked up the hemp sack without demur. ‘When I heard of your return I begged myself from my Bristol packet to see you proper. Especially when I heard of your purpose.’
He put out a hand for them to continue and they walked abreast; the carriages and their passing click-clack over cobbles and the discord of the dock were unable to drown their words, not when seaman can throw their voices like ropes when they wish.
‘So it is the pirate then? That is true?’ Howard asked.
‘Aye,’ Coxon tugged at his nose. ‘But chasing after the Swallow and the Weymouth first. There is a man, a Roberts, who is more vital since I was called.’
‘Ah,’ Howard sighed. ‘The pirate Roberts is doing terrible harm to the right people. Thank the Lord that the Royal African Company keeps us all in her debt so we may keep busy.’ Howard stopped, pointed out into the bay.
‘There she is!’
Coxon followed the arm as Howard drew his head in close to his captain’s.
‘The Standard,’ Howard declared and Coxon walked to the edge of the seawall so his toes peered over; nothing but a straight line of sea between the tips of his shoes and the black freeboard.
‘Mister Howard,’ he called behind, ‘what of her? She is a two-decker?’
The Standard. Of the 1706 Establishment, Howard informed. That would make her the youngest ship Coxon had ever sailed. A fifth-rate frigate. She would have had some use in the Mediterranean during the Spanish war, a victualler or guardship perhaps. Forty guns, almost twice as many as the pirate, if Devlin had kept to the same ship.
Twenty twelve-pounders on the lower and twenty six-pounders on the upper, according to Howard, but none on the fo’c’sle or quarterdeck.
Coxon had never commanded a separate gundeck and they were heading to Africa in June, in the rains. He had heard many bemoan that rough water kept the lower deck ports closed, a whole battery ineffective. It depended on the wind and the rain; more often a heavy downpour could be gracious, and smooth the water like glass; then the gundeck’s portholes could be used for sweeps, long-oars, to speed her along. He asked Howard if she carried a complement of such. Howard confirmed.
They continued to the gig awaiting them. ‘And oil, Thomas? Does she have plenty hogs of whale oil also?’
Howard was surprised at the seriousness of Coxon’s face at what seemed like the dullest factors of a supercargo’s mind.
‘Some, sir. For lamps, grease and such. We should carry more?’
Coxon spied their man with his red oars and slops, surely theirs, the only gig not loaded and a man not impatient to be so.
‘Oh, no concern. We will meet many tides. We are entering the coasts during the wrong season, that is all.’ His words were too cryptic for Howard to follow and you only questioned your captain once.
‘But I should like to know how much oil she carries by and by, Thomas. And what you have been up to these past years. You will dine with me tonight?’
‘Of course, sir. Thank you, sir.’
They found steps and clamber
ed into the gig, with the tightest-lipped greeting from Coxon to the man of whiskers and Monmouth cap who rowed them off.
‘Did my man find his way aboard, Thomas?’ Twenty more minutes and the familiarity would drop. It would be Mister Howard again until supper.
‘Your man, sir?’
This had been the first test for Walter Kennedy. He had coached down to Portsmouth with Coxon but had been sent to find the ship and go aboard alone. It raised a level of trust that Coxon would need if the mission were to go well; but after seeing the Marshalsea he had confidence that Kennedy stroked his neck carefully at every deliberation.
Howard settled Coxon’s doubts just so.
‘Oh, yes! Scruffy fellow with darting eyes, kept his head low. Used to a ship. Good man, Captain?’
‘I’m very much afraid not, Thomas,’ and he leaned back to relish the bright morning, the sounds of life drifting off behind, the lap of waves at the gunwale and the mesmerising stroke of the oars drawing the frigate closer. Thomas Howard felt sure that his captain’s utterances were hieroglyphics that only needed experience to decipher and a nod of the head to at least acknowledge that one had heard.
One turn of the glass later, the final grains tapped loose by a black fingernail, and the tang-tang of the bell coincidently marked Coxon pulling himself through the entry port. He forsook any introductions or piping; the ship was busy, and noon, for their departure, only two hours off. Taking his bag he gave Howard his muster instruction that he would address the ship ten minutes before the noon bell but that he would like to see his First Lieutenant, Christopher Manvell, in his cabin as soon as he was free from his duty. Coxon ducked beneath the quarterdeck and went to his coach, to his new command. His first for very near three years.
He gave a brief study of the wine cradled in the rope beckets just inside the door and a twelve-pounder at his left knee and another just past his cot. A breath of his cot: clean, no trace of powder, an emery starchiness to the sheets, a compass set into the wood above for him to read on his back. He slung his sack and entered the cabin. Dry, beeswax-scented air was just overpowered by the coffee pot sitting in its gimbal on the table and squeaking to and fro with the tide.
He tossed his hat beside it and stared out the slanted windows to the grey horizon and a picture of the crosstrees and furled sails of a dozen ships in the pool as if painted on the walls of a child’s bedroom.
He was home.
Even the sound of feet overhead and the hammering from the fore was comforting. The crash of the man stumbling through the coach shattered Coxon’s reverie, the reparation coming before Coxon could scowl.
‘My apologies, Captain,’ the young man made to salute, instinct over sense, forgetting that his hands were full.
His hat was under his arm amongst a large parallel rule and rolled-up charts sticking out from every angle like spines on a porcupine. The salute precipitated the clanging fall of brass instruments and notebooks and another profuse apology as the man bent to gather his detritus.
‘Most sorry, sir!’ More metallic pieces of him seemed to fall off like a clock flying open as it tumbled down a staircase.
‘I am most dreadfully sorry, sir.’
He bundled some of the tools and charts to the table with his hat which collided with Coxon’s and the coffee pot, agitating it across the table. He slapped his hand on it just in time for the save and just in time to scald his palm, which he now blew on and shook before handing it out to his captain.
‘Lieutenant Christopher Manvell, Captain! At your service, sir!’
Coxon looked down at the hand and watched it slowly withdraw as he left it hanging.
‘You are my appointed First?’ Coxon’s eyes dragged up the slender body of the man. A handsome if somewhat chalky face under queued auburn hair the shine and thinness of which gave the man a feminine appearance to Coxon’s mind, although it probably merely contrasted with his own coarse grey. The thick long eyebrows were dark and raised giving a permanently astonished look to the man’s face.
‘I am,’ Manvell said seriously. ‘Please forgive my brusque entrance, Captain.’
‘You did not knock, Lieutenant.’
‘No. Unquestionably I did not. For my innocence I did not expect you to be here, Captain, so soon. I had hoped to set up my charts in anticipation of your arrival.’
‘You are clumsy, sir!’
‘Indeed. But I am blessedly thin which has limited my propensity to disturb I find.’ He smiled and then pulled it back behind his lips as Coxon glared.
Coxon moved away to the window lockers, turned his back. ‘Take up your hat, Mister Manvell. Leave and enter again. Correctly if you please.’
Manvell backed from the room, sliding his hat from the table along with a divider which clanged like a dropped anvil behind Coxon’s back.
Moments later Coxon heard the faint rap and bid enter. Manvell slunk into the room; Coxon watched his first lieutenant’s dejected reflection in the diamond shaped panes.
‘Come in, man.’
Manvell stepped forward. ‘Lieutenant Christopher Manvell, Captain. Reporting for duty.’
Another rap from the other outer coach door, the official entrance for visitors where a cot lay for gentlemen not of the crew, botanists or political advisers and such, and where a stool and marine and a hanging lighted lantern indicated that the captain was within.
Coxon held up a hand for Manvell to be silent and called the party in. Thomas Howard swept through the door, his hat already neatly under his arm. His voice stalled as he saw Manvell.
‘What is it, Mister Howard?’ Coxon asked.
Howard looked between them both.
‘I . . . I merely wished to inform the Standard that I could not find Lieutenant Manvell, sir.’
Coxon introduced the lieutenant with an open palm.
‘It seems I have found him myself, Mister Howard. That will be all.’
‘Very good, sir.’ Howard clicked his heels and spun around out of the room, glad at that moment that he was not the First after the sight of Manvell’s flushed face and the mess of instruments and papers on the floor.
Coxon scratched his hair, smoothing it forward as he spoke, his concentration on the polish of his floor.
‘Now, Mister Manvell,’ his eyes flashed upwards again and Manvell jerked as if shot. ‘You wished to set up your charts for some account? Explain, if you please.’
Manvell gingerly bent to the remainder of the papers and brass and began to gather them up.
‘Yes, sir. I had hoped—’ he stopped as Coxon came down to help. ‘I had hoped that I might demonstrate my diligence to my duties to the Standard by comparison of notes of her previous endeavours and—’ He rose with Coxon, who passed back pencils, rules and an ivory compass card with a kindly look as if handing a dropped handkerchief to a blushing housemaid in the street.
‘You know, you may find that if you took the purchase of a barber-surgeon’s etui, such for the storing of probes, you might find your tools less liable to jump from your arms, Mister Manvell.’
‘Of course, sir. Very good, sir.’ Manvell carefully set the instruments down. ‘I believe I did have such an item but . . . made loss of it and since—’
‘Made a good splash did it?’
‘Quite, sir . . . and since such event I have found it generously sensible to lose only one card at a time rather than the whole suit, as it were.’
Coxon went for the coffee.
‘Sound reasoning. But perhaps you can explain to me why you need such a compendium?’
Coxon poured then held out the pot for Manvell, waiting for him to notice that there was only the captain’s cup at the captain’s table.
‘Well, man? Do you expect me to pour it over your hands! Fetch a cup!’
‘Of course, sir. Very good, sir.’
Manvell found a decanter and glasses behind a brass guard above the writing desk. Coxon grimaced as he measured a small shot of coffee into a port glass.
‘So
what is all this?’ He waved over the sprawl of tools. ‘You are more mathematician than seaman, is that it?’
‘Oh no, sir, but accuracy in all things is the measure of how men’s lives are saved.’
Coxon bowed to that with his cup as it went to his lips.
‘But we are on an easy run to Cape Coast Castle, land in sight all the way. Are we not?’
The old instinct in Coxon scratched at his collar as he studied Manvell over the cup. It should be only Coxon’s knowledge of the pirate hunt; beyond the traversing to Cape Castle to resupply General Phipps with victuals and deliver post, all the crew should be ignorant. He trusted Howard; the boy had bled with him and that counted enough, but after feeling William Guinneys coil like a snake around him on The Island those years ago when Guinneys’ orders had differed, Coxon now preferred to sniff his food well before he ate. He had more officers to meet. He would test them one by one.
Manvell bowed. ‘Of course, sir. Perhaps I just wished to show off apace. I am aware that I appear unimpressive at first sight, Captain.’ Manvell gingerly passed the scalding glass of coffee from hand to hand and finally placed it down to cool.
‘Modesty and duty impresses me more, Mister Manvell. I am more taken by a horse of the field than one of the course.’ He passed his cup arm over the table. ‘You have two compasses here. Why?’ Coxon could indulge the young man a little.
Manvell picked up one wooden and brass box.
‘For variation of the compass, Captain. I mark one compass “A” the other “B”.’ He picked up the other compass and demonstrated the etched ‘B’ on its base to his captain, who had been at sea for over thirty years.
‘At the binnacle I compare the readings for all three and allow for the true north. I then take my reading of the vane outside on the chains – to allow for minimal disturbance from the movement of the ship and to be as low to the earth as possible – and take a reading for both sides of the vane so that there will be two observations for both compasses. After which I am able to ascertain that any fault that may be in the construction of the compasses can be eliminated and a true bearing calculated.’ He paused for some compliment from Coxon but he only refilled his cup with eyes more firmly on the pot than the instruction.