Midshipman Bolitho

by Alexander Kent

  Bolitho had made it his business to learn something about his next appointment. Seventy-fours, as these sturdy two-deckers were nicknamed, made up the bulk of the fleet. In any big sea battle they were always predominant in the line where the fighting was hardest. And yet he knew from experience, and what he had heard old sailors say, that each one was as different from the other as salt from molasses.

  While the oarsmen pulled the boat over each angry crest he kept his attention on the ship, seeing the towering masts and crossed yards, the shining black and buff hull with its lines of closed gunports, the scarlet ensign at her high stern and the jack at her bows making patches of colour against the background of grey sea and sky. The oarsmen were getting tired from their hard efforts, and it took the repeated stroke from the coxswain and several threats from the red-faced lieutenant to keep them working in unison.

  Around and under the long bowsprit and jib-boom, beneath which the brightly gilded figurehead seemed to stare down at the silent midshipmen with something like hatred. It was a splendid if frightening example of a wood-carver’s art. The Gorgon’s figurehead was a mass of writhing serpents, the face below set in a fierce glare, the eyes very large and edged with red paint to give an added effect of menace.

  And then, panting and scrabbling, they were being pushed, hauled and bundled unceremoniously up the ship’s side, so that when they arrived on the broad quarterdeck it seemed almost sheltered and calm by comparison.

  Bolitho said, “She looks smart enough, Martyn.”

  He ran his eyes quickly along the neat lines of the quarterdeck nine-pounders, their black barrels gleaming in the rain, the trucks freshly painted, every piece of tackle neat and carefully stowed.

  Seamen were working aloft on the yards and along the gangways on either beam which joined quarterdeck to forecastle. Beneath the gangways, at the same regular intervals, were the upper deck batteries of eighteen-pounders, while on the deck below them were the ship’s main armament of powerful thirtytwo-pounders. When required, Gorgon could and would speak with loud authority.

  The lieutenant shouted, “Over here!”

  The midshipmen hurried to obey, some fearful and already lost. Others wary and careful to watch what was required of them.

  “In a moment you will go to your quarters.” The lieutenant had to raise his voice above the hiss of rain, the persistent din of wind through rigging and furled sails. “I just want to tell you that you are now appointed to one of the finest ships in His Majesty’s Navy, one with high standards and no tolerance of laggards. There are twelve midshipmen all told aboard Gorgon, including yourselves, so the mothers’ boys had best work doubly hard to avoid trouble. You will be given postings to gun decks and other parts of ship until you are able to work with the people without making a poor example to them.”

  Bolitho turned as some men hurried past under the control of a tough-looking boatswain’s mate. Fresh from the land by the cut of them, he thought. Taken from debtors’ prisons and from the Assize Courts where but for the need of men for the fleet they would be held until transportation to the American colonies. The Navy’s appetite for men was never satisfied, and with the country at peace it was even harder to supply its needs. As he watched the hurrying party of men Bolitho thought it hardly made sense of what the lieutenant had just said. Not only the midshipmen were new and untrained. Many of the ship’s company were little better.

  As he slitted his eyes against the rain he found time to marvel at the way a ship like this could swallow such a force of human beings. Gorgon, he knew, contained a company of some six hundred officers, seamen and marines in her fat, seventeenhundred-ton hull, and yet to look along her upper deck it was hard to see more than thirty or so at any one time.

  “You.”

  Bolitho turned as the lieutenant’s voice cut into his thoughts.

  “I hope I am not boring you?”

  Bolitho replied, “I am sorry, sir.”

  “I will be watching you.”

  The lieutenant stiffened as another officer approached from the poop.

  Bolitho guessed the newcomer to be the first lieutenant. Mr Verling was tall and thin, with an expression so dour that he could have been a judge about to pass sentence of death rather than offering welcome to some new officers. He had a protruding, beaked nose which thrust from beneath his cocked hat as if to seek out some new crime in his ship, and his eyes, as they wandered along the swaying line of midshipmen, were devoid of pity or warmth.

  He said, “I am the senior in this ship.” Even his tone was clipped, with all the compassion honed out of it. “Whilst on board you will attend to your various duties at all times. You will become so involved with your training and preparation for examination as lieutenants that you will eventually put it before all else, and any sort of leisure will be seen even by you as both selfish and pointless.” He nodded to the other officer. “Mr Hope is the fifth lieutenant and will be keeping an eye on you until you are settled in your allocated watches. Mr Turnbull, the master, will of course expect a high standard in navigational studies and the general working of the ship at sea.”

  His gimlet eyes fastened on the smallest figure at the end of the line, the one who had been violently sick in the longboat, and who looked as if he was about to repeat it.

  “And what is your name?”

  “Eden, s-sir.”

  Age?“The word was like a knife cut.

  “T-twelve, s-sir.”

  Hope said, “He has a stutter, sir.” Even his earlier belligerence had faded in the presence of his superior.

  “Has he indeed. I am certain the boatswain will take care of that before he reaches thirteen years, if he lasts that long!”

  Verling seemed to tire of the encounter. “Dismiss them, Mr Hope. We will weigh tomorrow if the wind stays with us. There is much to do.” He strode away without another glance.

  Hope said wearily, “Mr Grenfell will take you below.”

  Grenfell, it turned out, was the senior midshipman. A thickset, unsmiling young man of about seventeen, he relaxed as soon as Hope had disappeared.

  He said, “Follow me. Mr Hope is a fair man, but he is worried about his promotion.”

  Bolitho smiled. In a ship of the line promotion was always difficult, especially without a war to thin the ranks. As fifth lieutenant Hope had only one officer junior to himself in the wardroom, and unless the lieutenants above him were promoted, sent into other ships or killed he was hard put to find advancement.

  Dancer whispered, “In the flagship we had a sixth lieutenant who was so desperate that he learned to play the flute merely because the admiral’s wife liked it!”

  They fell silent as they followed the senior midshipman down the first companion ladder to the deck below, and the deck below that. The deeper they went into the hull the more confined it seemed to become. They were surrounded by shadowy figures, faceless and unreal in the half-darkness, their heads bowed beneath deck beams and the carefully slung equipment for each tethered cannon. The smells too seemed to rise to meet them. Salt beef and tar, bilge and packed humanity, while all around them the massive hull creaked and groaned like a live thing, the deckhead lanterns spiralling and throwing shapes across the great timbers and seamen alike, as in part of a vast painting.

  The midshipmen’s berth was on the orlop deck. Beneath the lower gun deck, and indeed lower than the waterline itself, it had no light other than from the hatches and the swaying lanterns.

  Grenfell said offhandedly, “This is it. We share it with the senior master’s mates.” He grimaced towards a white-painted screen. “Although they choose to stay aloof from us.”

  Bolitho looked at his companions. Without difficulty he could imagine what they were feeling. He could recall how he had endured the first hours, how he would have given anything for a friendly word when it was most needed.

  He said, “It looks fine. Better than my last ship.”

  The boy called Eden asked, “Really?”

  Grenfell
smiled. “It’s what you make it.” He swung round as a diminutive figure scrambled past the screen door. “This is your servant. His name is Starr, but he doesn’t say much. Just tell him what you need and I’ll arrange it with the purser.”

  Starr was even younger than Eden. Probably about ten, and small for his age. He had the pinched features of a child from the slums, and his arms were so thin they were like sticks.

  Bolitho asked quietly, “Where are you from?”

  The boy eyed him warily. “Newcastle, sir. Me dad was a miner there. He was killed in a fall.” His voice was toneless, as if he was speaking of another world.

  “I’ll damn well kill you if you treat my shirts like this one!”

  Bolitho turned as another midshipman, flushed from the wind and rain, strode beneath the low beams. With Grenfell he was obviously one of the ship’s three midshipmen remaining from the last commission, and like Grenfell too, still awaiting the chance to sit an examination for lieutenant.

  He was in ill humour, and had the sullen good looks of one bred to authority.

  Grenfell said, “Easy, Samuel. The new boys are with us.”

  The other one seemed to realize he was surrounded with awkward looking newcomers and snapped, “I’m Samuel Marrack. Signals midshipman and captain’s messenger.”

  Dancer said, “It sounds important.”

  Marrack stared at him. “It is. And when you appear before our illustrious captain it is best to do it in a clean shirt!” He lashed out at the small servant with his hat and added, “So remember that in future, you hound!”

  He threw himself on to a chest. “Get me some wine. I’m as dry as dust.”

  Bolitho sat down beside Dancer and watched the others opening and shutting their chests like blind men. He had hoped to be appointed to a frigate like his brother. Free of the fleet’s heavy authority, able to cover great distances in a third of the time it would take the ponderous Gorgon, and with all the possibilities of adventure he had so often dreamed of.

  But Gorgon was his new home, and he would have to make the best of her for as long as the Navy dictated. A ship of the line.

  2

  OUTWARD BOUND

  ALL HANDS! All hands aloft to reef tops’ls.!”

  Like the insistent voice in a nightmare the order was piped and repeated along the Gorgon’s decks until the ship quivered to the thud of feet as the watch below dashed to their stations to be mustered.

  Bolitho shook Dancer roughly by the shoulder until he almost fell from his hammock.

  “Come on, Martyn! We’re shortening sail again!”

  He waited as Dancer dragged on his shoes and coat and then together they ran for the nearest ladder. Three, no, nearly four days it had gone on like this. From the moment the seventy-four had weighed anchor and started her passage down-channel towards the Atlantic it had been an endless turmoil of re-setting sails, of dragging weary bodies up the shrouds to the vibrating yards, and all the while harried and driven by the first lieutenant’s voice from the quarterdeck. Even that had been part of the nightmare, for to make his orders heard above the roar of sea and wind Verling had had to use his speaking trumpet, making his sharp voice a ceaseless goad for the gasping midshipmen.

  For the new hands it was always worse, of course. A midshipman had very little status in a King’s ship. The common seaman had none at all.

  Bolitho knew that to allow any break in discipline at a moment like changing a ship’s tack in a heavy wind could be disastrous, but he was sickened to see unnecessary violence used on a man who was perhaps too terrified by working high above the deck to understand what was required of him.

  It was no different from the last time. Not yet dawn, but there was a paler hint of grey showing itself in the low clouds, and precious little else to light a way to the shrouds. Lieutenants fretted impatiently as petty officers and master’s mates checked their lists of names at the foot of each mast. The marines clumped aft to the mizzen braces, their boots skidding on wet planking, and by the quarterdeck rail the first lieutenant bobbed and pointed, waving his speaking trumpet to emphasize some point or other.

  Bolitho peered aft to the big double wheel. Four helmsmen were clinging to the spokes so that he guessed there was still a big swell running to test the thrust of sails and rudder. Beside them he could see old Turnbull, the sailing master, shapeless in his heavy coat, his fists like red crabs as he gestured to his quartermaster.

  Quite alone by the weather nettings was the captain. He was wrapped in a long boat-cloak, but his hair blew in the wind while he peered up at the reefed topsails, which with the jib were the only canvas they were able to carry in such a gale.

  Bolitho had got no nearer than this to his captain since he had come aboard. In the distance he looked very cool and dignified, apparently untouched by the confusion of hurrying seamen and bawling petty officers.

  Dancer gritted his teeth. “God, I’m near frozen.”

  Lieutenant Hope, who was responsible for the foremast, yelled, “Take ‘em aloft, Mr Bolitho! And I want the time cut by minutes before I’m satisfied!”

  A whistle shrilled and it all started again. The nimble-footed topmen racing each other up the ratlines while the new hands and less confident followed behind them pursued by threats and not a few blows from the petty officers’ rattans to hurry them along.

  And above it all Verling’s voice, distorted and inhuman through his trumpet, controlling and steering everyone.

  “Another pull on the weather forebrace! Mr Tregorren, there’s a man in your division who needs starting, damn your eyes, sir! Two more hands aft to the mizzen braces!” He never stopped.

  Up those rough, shaking ratlines and around the futtock shrouds, hanging out and down above the hull and creaming sea below, clinging with fingers and toes to keep from falling. Then breathless on to the foretop, with men already scrambling further still to the topsail yard, swarming out on either beam like monkeys, clawing and fisting the thick, half-frozen canvas to control it, to take in another reef while each billowing section did its best to knock the men from their perches and hurl them aside. Curses and sobs, men swearing terrible oaths as fingernails were torn out by the rough heavy-weather canvas; or they fought off their more frightened companions who clung to them for support.

  Bolitho gripped a backstay and watched the scene on the other masts. It was almost done, and the ship was answering to the lesser thrust in her sails. Far below, foreshortened like dwarfs, he saw the quarterdeck officers and the afterguard who were securing their halliards and braces. Still by the weather side, the captain was watching the yards. Was he worried? Bolitho wondered. He certainly did not look it.

  “Secure, Mr Hope!” Verling could not resist adding, “You seem to have some cripples in your division! I suggest extra sail drill in the forenoon!”

  Bolitho and Dancer slid to the deck on a backstay to find Mr Hope fuming again.

  “God damn it, I shall swing for that one!” Hope recovered himself and added, “And for you too, if you don’t drive the people harder!”

  As Hope strode aft Bolitho said, “His bark is worse than his bite. Come on, Martyn, let us see what young Starr has saved us for breakfast. There is no point in climbing into a hammock now. They will call the hands directly.”

  They found a reedy, severe-looking man in a plain blue coat waiting in the midshipmen’s berth when they hurried breathlessly into its damp security. Bolitho already knew his name was Henry Scroggs, the captain’s clerk, who messed with their neighbours, the master’s mates.

  Scroggs snapped, “Bolitho, is it not?” He did not wait for an answer. “Report to the captain. Mr Marrack has injured his arm and Mr Grenfell has the morning watch.” He waited, his face impassive. “Well, sir, jump to it, if you wish to draw breath again!”

  Bolitho stared at him, recalling what Marrack had said about clean shirts, conscious of his own dishevelled appearance.

  Dancer offered, “Here, let me help you get dressed.”

&nb
sp; The clerk snapped, “No time. Next to Grenfell and Marrack, you are senior, Bolitho. The captain is very definite about such matters.” He swayed as the ship tilted steeply and sent the sea boiling loudly over the upper deck. “I suggest you make a move!”

  Bolitho reached for his hat and said ruefully, “Very well.” Then ducking beneath the low deck beams he made his way aft.

  Bolitho stood breathing hard outside a white-painted screen door beneath the poop. After the crowded quarters between decks, the shadowy figures of the seamen returning from the work on the yards, it seemed very quiet. Beside the door, standing rigidly in a pool of light from a deckhead lantern, a marine sentry regarded him coldly before calling, “Signal midshipman, sir!” He further emphasized the introduction by banging the butt of his musket smartly on the deck.

  The door opened, and Bolitho saw the captain’s servant beckoning him urgently, holding the door open just sufficiently to allow him to enter. Like a footman in a fine house who is not sure of an unwelcome visitor.

  “If you would wait’ere,” pause, “sir.”

  Bolitho waited. It was a fine lobby which opened on to the captain’s dining room and which ran the whole breadth of the hull. Glass tinkled quietly in a large mahogany cabinet, while above the long polished table a circular tray of bottles and decanters swung evenly to the ship’s motion. The deck was covered in canvas, wellpainted in black and white squares, and the nine-pounder cannon on either side of the cabin were discreetly hidden under chintz covers.

  The door in a further screen opened and the servant said, “This way, sir.” He was watching Bolitho with something like despair.