The monkeys perhaps remembered Frederick, were certainly aware of the significance of his uniform and recognised his authority. They stood as he approached, held hands and stared anxiously at him, relaxing as he greeted them by name and produced an apple which he cut into two equal and carefully scrutinised halves.
“There’s for you, Hairy Jack, and for you, Fearless Fred. Eat them now.”
Thus adjured they sat down in their blankets in the galley, made a neat and tidy meal of their unexpected treat. Another half an hour saw them exploring their new domain and peering very suspiciously at the new ship’s cat. The cat, black, evil and intelligent for a feline, peered back and offered truce, rubbing its head against their legs and walking with them a distance. That night they found the cat warm in their blankets, made a somewhat displeased best of the situation. The crew, observing the new friendship, thought it sweet, even the hardest-shelled finding an affection for the animals.
They moved off the wharf to anchor in Spithead, the presence of the gaol-delivery men making it the wiser course, made their final preparations and checks, ticked off their stores for the last time.
Young Mr Fox joined and was found to be fat, spotty and bright, very willing to learn; he was competent in sums and had, he said, ‘a little Latin and French’. Besides and, more importantly, he brought with him a cheese and two great plum cakes which he passed to LeGrys for the mess, giving him instant, if conditional, acceptance. He was introduced to ‘Mankiller’ McGregor and was immediately consumed by a desire to earn his own nickname. Fearless Fred, all knew; Backscratcher Backham was obvious enough; ‘One Hand Dick’, the bos’n, was simple – he demanded the provenance of ‘Mankiller’ and was told of McGregor’s deeds on Djerba, became very thoughtful. Possibly his own glory could wait till he was somewhat larger, but he exercised every day with his cutlass.
“Eleven years of age and has never left his Mama’s side, Mr Backham.”
“He will learn, sir. He has already been sent to the bos’n to collect a skyhook and has seen the purser for a long wait. Left-handed hammer from Chips tomorrow, I doubt not!”
“It will do him no harm – precious little good that I ever saw, either, but not to worry! You and Mr Nias have turned away four young gentlemen who would have been master’s mates, I see.”
“Passed for lieutenant, all four, sir, and in their twenties – none made and a long, long war.”
Frederick nodded – no more need be said – other captains had obviously found them unfit and Trident had no need to risk them.
“Mr Nias has talked with other masters, sir, and will speak to another pair of young men, well recommended, this afternoon.”
Nias produced his chosen men two hours later, Greener and Davidson, the former late of the merchant service and wishing to take a master’s warrant, Davidson passed his board a fortnight before and wanting only employment, regular meals and a hope of prize-money to assist his curate father and five sisters.
“Both very capable, sir, according to report from men I trust. Greener is a seaman, through and through, not shy, but not a fighting officer, will make master of a first rate, sir. Davidson will be fit to command, sir.”
“Watch-keeping?”
“Not until I am, personally, happy with them, sir.”
It was the answer Frederick had wanted to hear, told him much that was good of Nias.
“Three watch the officers, I presume, Mr Backham?”
“All seem more than competent, sir. Meritt with Davidson, Archbold and Greener, Bennet with the master initially, senior midshipman as soon as we are happy with him as a watchkeeper, the other midshipmen to work their boats and masts, and understudy an officer as seems good. I will not be on watch but will always be at call, stepping into the shoes of casualties or prize-masters as necessary.”
“What have you in mind for the guns?”
“Meritt fore, Archbold aft, Bennett to the forecastle carronades and chasers. Midshipmen as may be appropriate over time, Kent and Fox to be my runners in the first instance.”
“Good, Bennett has experience of a long nine, knows his guns. I want to be live firing within the day of sailing, Mr Backham. We have a good set of gunners from Charybdis and they will make the step from eighteens to twenty fours easily enough, but will have to learn the ways of working back to back on Trident.”
“Aye aye, sir. We are working up the masts at the moment, as the first need, can set to the guns, dumb show, in the forenoon. The new landsmen can begin to work up on the carronades under experienced gun captains and the gaol-deliveries can show if they are any use as well.”
Bosomtwi and Ablett had both commented on the Sussex farm boys’ unwillingness to mix with the crew, their slowness to learn. Frederick had assumed it to be agricultural insularity and conservatism at first, wondered now if it might be something more.
“Is it stupidity, or are they unwilling, Mr Backham? Is it a disciplinary thing, think you?”
“I cannot lay my finger on anything, sir, but there is a whiff of sedition, I suspect - a surliness, a feeling that they are considering refusal, a dumb insolence.”
“Have they a leader? What does Mr Cheek say?”
“I have not discussed the matter with him, sir.”
Frederick raised an eyebrow. Backham knew better than that, the boatswain had to be his closest subordinate, fully in his confidence, or the ship could not run day-to-day.
“I find him a hard man to talk to, sir,” Backham admitted. “There is a reserve to him, one that I have not overcome.”
“He is a very quiet man, Mr Backham, not one for casual chat, but if you go to him you will find that he will respond and he will not take advantage of any familiarity. If I might advise, he is immensely proud of his Presentation Call – a request to see it will always be well received, will serve to break the ice, one might say.”
“I have heard of it, of course, sir. Did he truly cut his own arm off?”
“He thought the Doctor might be busy with men who were badly wounded, I understand, did not wish to disturb him, and in any case he still had work to do.”
“Jesus!”
They sailed to time, two days later, held defaulters on the Tuesday following, the day set aside for that routine, so distinguishing it from Sunday Divisions, Thursday First Lieutenant’s Inspection and Friday Laundry. A number of minor offenders were brought forward, most guilty more of ignorance than malice, brought to the Captain’s Table simply to show that they must learn, to frighten them a little – none received more than admonition, heads cleaning or stoppage of beer for a week. Then Backham produced Alfred Steyning, landsman. Frederick noticed the nudges amongst the watching lines of seamen, heard the buzz, the murmurs of ‘that’s ‘im!’ Steyning was a fraction plumper than the other goal-delivery men, better fed over a number of years; his face and skin was paler, had not been exposed to all weathers on the land; he was somewhat older, in his late twenties perhaps, was otherwise very ordinary in appearance – medium height, medium handsome, medium intelligent.
“Was at gun drill, sir, and was bidden to put his back into his work, sir, when running out his carronade, and did turn on Mr Bennett, said he was ‘a bloody tyrant who should look to France and see what the ordinary folk had done to his ilk there’. Told to mind his mouth and his duty he then said he was ‘followed by twenty good boys, sons of the soil, honest lads who would not see a good man put down’.”
The seamen in their lines shook their heads and pursed their lips, stared pointedly at the double rank of gaol-delivery men. The other landsmen shuffled away from their side, left a gap between themselves and the pariahs.
“Well, Steyning? What have you to say now?”
“I spoke against tyranny and ever shall! And for the sake of my good boys I shall never be silenced! I speak for the oppressed and downtrodden!”
“Sir!” Cheek growled.
“Well, ‘e don’t speak for I no more, sir, big mouth bugger that ‘e is! ‘tis ‘acos of ‘e
that I’s ‘ere, sir, not none of me own doin’. Beg pardon for openin’ me mouth when I shouldn’t, sir, not ‘ere, but ‘e’s got I in enough shit already!”
The speaker ostentatiously stepped back from the group of gaol-deliveries. They with one accord looked first at the educated Steyning, then towards their own mate, known all their lives, then took their own step back to his side in spontaneous unity that drew giggles from the crew.
Steyning was amazed, horrified, “but, lads, I tell you…”
“You tell the bishop, mate,” an anonymous voice advised in a half-whisper.
“F**k the bishop, isn’t it!” came the automatic response of fifty or more Charybdises, followed by a horrified tooth-sucking silence.
Backham stared in outrage and amaze, Archbold, Meritt and the Marine officers at his shoulder, open-mouthed. The Charybdises fought for straight faces, none helped by the sight of their captain’s shoulders shaking.
“Case held over for one hour while I take advice.”
Consultation with Backham, explanation, Bosomtwi in the cabin polishing and suddenly interested in the deckhead, the view across the Channel, anything other than the First Lieutenant. Backham chuckled, eventually, said he had heard the words before, had thought nothing of them. He wished he might have been present at Port Mahon, it would have been entertaining.
“What do you know of Steyning, Mr Backham?”
“Almost nothing, sir – I had seen him to be educated a little more than most, was not surprised to see him hanging back, would do nothing for the first week or two, sir, for these clerks and ushers commonly have very soft hands, are so blistered that they cannot pull their weight, however willing they might be.”
“Good point, Mr Backham, one I had not considered.”
“Neither Archbold nor Bennett had noticed him before and Mr Cheek says he knew he had ‘a bit of a mouth on him’, but so have half the other men on the ship, after all.”
“Fool, idealist or bully? Concerned for the poor or trying to play politics with them? Which, I wonder? I shall not send him to court-martial, Mr Backham, but we cannot afford to ignore his behaviour.”
They reconvened, restated the case, listened to the impassioned declaration Steyning had spent the last hour composing, Frederick’s inclinations to mercy evaporating in face of the histrionics.
“Two dozen!”
The grating was rigged and the boatswain’s mates appeared, deposited a pair of red-baize bags apiece on the deck. Steyning was triced up, the leather apron tied to protect his kidneys, Doctor Morris present to observe, and the Marine drummer-boy made a first attempt at a rafale and failed miserably, retired bright red in the face to much quiet laughter.
Six laid on by the right-handed mate, six from the left, change cats and repeat, the nine tails, unknotted, for he was not a thief, drawing blood but not skinning Steyning. He gritted his teeth, held back the cries until the buckets of freezing-cold salt water were thrown on, released a single moan then.
Frederick stood forward, stared at the landsmen.
“Steyning could have gone to court-martial, where, if he had not hanged, the penalty would have been flogging round the fleet, if fleet there was at anchor, two dozen at every ship. If there was no fleet then he would be given five hundred or even a thousand at the prison triangle. He is new to the service, may, possibly, not have understood his own wickedness, so I have chosen to be merciful. I try to give every man his chance – once!”
They nodded gravely, took on board the concept that two dozen lashes was an act of mercy, dispersed silently.
“Messing, Mr Backham?”
“They are to be split up, sir – I have been remiss there.”
“We all make mistakes, Mr Backham.”
“But not twice, sir. Please accept my apologies.”
“If apology was needed I would always accept it from you, Mr Backham, but I assure you that I do not have any blame for you at all.”
Trident’s course lay to Gibraltar in the first instance, working up, exercising the people all day, every day – they might meet a Frenchman at any time, could not offer the excuse that they weren’t quite ready yet, please to come back next week. They started and ended every day at the guns, in between times it was drill: fire drill, boats drill, man overboard, raise topgallants, lower topgallants, single reef, double reef, triple reef, furl sail, set sail again. Backham paced the ship, watch in hand, his two midshipman dogsbodies at his heels, a frown on his forbidding face. The men were tired, the officers exhausted, but the ship was becoming efficient, and the landsmen were bedding in, the farm boys rapidly becoming a part of the whole, no longer a separate clique.
They came to anchor quietly in Gibraltar – a bare minimum of orders, sails stripped simultaneously on each mast, boats launched, yards squared and harbour watch set, all with the barest minimum of fuss.
“Excellent, Mr Backham, just what I want – none of this gimcrack flashery and starting and whistling and shouting – simple, quiet and workmanlike. Let the West Indians play their games if they must – we shall merely be content with being the fiercest fighting ship on whatever station we may find ourselves.”
The West Indies station was renowned in peacetime as the home of drill and ostentation: gold leaf and flogging, perfect white decks and no gunnery. Trident’s deck would never be spotless because the iron gun trucks bruised the deals, left brown trails scarred into the wood and impossible to remove; in the same way the powder smoke dulled the paintwork; even when scrubbed off, as it always was, the high gloss could never be regained. Ships in the West Indies were known to throw cartridge over the side rather than spoil their appearance with practice firing and it was rumoured that some blockaders did the same.
“Sir Frederick, a pleasure to meet you, sir!” The Port Admiral was affability itself, soon disclosed that his wife was a Paget. “We had passengers for Mahon, but in the circumstances they can wait.”
Frederick looked his puzzlement; the Admiral grinned and said that they were chaplains.
“The chickens do come home to roost, sir,” Frederick responded.
“Charybdis made port here half a dozen times during the last couple of years, her libertymen forever shouting out ‘the bishop’.”
“No escaping it still, sir, for three parts of them were transferred to Trident when Charybdis came into the dockyard.”
“It will be escaped this time, Sir Frederick, because you will have no time for liberty, I presume?”
“I intend to sail on the next tide, with your permission, sir.”
“I would be obliged if you would delay till the forenoon, Sir Frederick, so as to escort the three stores you see to Mahon. It is a nuisance, but I am most unwilling to send them, two of them at least, on their own, and I have none of my own sloops or frigates due in for at least three weeks, and the yard at Mahon is desperate for cordage and spars.”
“Sold all their own, have they, sir?”
The Admiral was not amused – related or not – for he had tried to clean up the worst excesses of the yard in Gibraltar and the sole result had been an intimation that he could forget about a knighthood on his forthcoming retirement to half-pay – he had offended too many politicians’ indigent younger brothers.
“That is the way of our world, Sir Frederick, and mere sailormen must put up with it!”
Frederick looked out over the harbour, identified the three merchantmen – an American, two masted but rigged as a snow, he wondered why it was so popular in New England, extremes of storm winds, perhaps, he must ask Nias. Two round-bowed, wallowing East Coast tubs, ship-rigged but ancient, worn-out, tired-looking; probably undermanned as well.
“I will convoy them, of course, sir, no question of that. Are they transports or mere merchants, sir?”
Transports were hired vessels, under discipline and commanded by a superannuated lieutenant or master’s mate, and were normally amenable to orders.
“Merchant service, Sir Frederick, the American owned by her
master, and kept in good condition. The ships are both owned by Mr Jardine, who trades more normally to Riga and Africa out of the Pool of London.”
The name meant nothing to Frederick but the flag lieutenant, courteously escorting him to his boat, was forthcoming, primed to give the unofficial word.
“Jardine has connections, Sir Frederick. He is an Alderman of the City of London and has the money to be Lord Mayor in his turn. He is heavily into the West African trade, running out of Liverpool as well as London.”
Slavery was still legal in British colonies, but British bottoms were forbidden to carry slaves – a law that was hardly policed as yet, was effectively meaningless, but slave-trading was beginning to carry a stigma and an otherwise respectable merchant indulging in the trade would have the connections to suppress any mention of his name – he would, in other words, be politically dangerous. The Triangular Trade had made many a fortune, more than one of the larger banks and the new companies into chocolate and sugar had made their initial capital from black ivory. They tended now to be very tender of their dignity, very willing to bully and break sailors who did not know their place.
“Mr Backham, we are to convoy the three merchants to Mahon. Send a boat to beg the honour of their masters’ company for this afternoon at eight bells. We will, with their agreement, sail on the tide, soon after dawn.”
Two welcoming glasses of sherry apiece – proper glasses, not these silly thimbles used in drawing rooms – and some shore-bought cakes, brought the three masters into a receptive frame of mind, and they pledged themselves to keep together, not to straggle and never to scatter, to mind signals and to keep a good look-out. The ships felt they might be a little slow, six knots under the best of conditions, five more likely, they were afraid. The snow, faster, better crewed, was nonetheless pleased to be convoyed, did not like her proximity to the Barbary ports and was always happy to be escorted at the British tax-payer’s expense.
“Mr Backham, Mr Nias, I would be most embarrassed was one of our young men to lose the convoy of a night – so easily done with the moon obscured, a wind whipping up the short Mediterranean seas, the frigate outrunning the merchants all unawares.”
Britannia’s Son (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 4) Page 17