“Bit of a hard beat to wind’d, first time aloft,” Bowyer mused. “Um, ever you gets in the situation you needs yer bearings fast. What I does, I looks at where I’m at first.” He waited. “These here shrouds, Tom, very curious ropes. See here, they’ve got four strands, not yer usual three. And they’re laid up with the sun, not like your anchor cable, which you may’ve noticed is laid up agin the sun.”
Kydd allowed his eyes to slit open. Inches before his eyes was one of the shrouds, ordinary enough in itself, a stout rope several inches thick. It was tarred but this close he could see every microscopic detail of where it had been whitened by the weather. On impulse, he pressed his face to it, feeling its sturdy roughness against his skin and smelling the rich odor of tar and sea salt.
“’N’ up there, you gets a good view of the catharpins. You c’n see there, Tom, how we use ’em to bowse in the shrouds — keeps the lee rigging well in when yer ship rolls.”
Taking no chances, Kydd moved his gaze slowly upward, following the line of shrouds to where they disappeared into a large hole in the black underneath of the top.
“Get a move on, you heavy-arsed dogs!” Elkins’s impatient bawl carried up clearly. It only served to make Kydd hold on tighter.
“Shall we go a bit farther, matey?” Bowyer said, inching a little higher.
Kydd willed the movement, but it stalled in a backwash of fear.
At that moment into his consciousness seeped an awareness of angels. It was a pure sound that enveloped his soul. He listened, enraptured. It was a light tenor, and it soared so sweetly that he could swear it belonged to the upper celestial regions.
Life is chequr’d-toil and pleasure
Fill one up the various measure;
Hark! the crew with sunburnt faces
Chanting Black-eyed Susan’s graces . . .
Bowyer chuckled. “That’ll be Ned Doud. Quite th’ songbird is our Ned. Let’s go visit, Tom.”
The spell had been broken. With his heart in his mouth, Kydd followed Bowyer up.
They passed under the shadow of the great fighting top, then up through the large aperture next to the mast and its complexity of massive jeer blocks and heavy rope seizings, to emerge onto the platform of the top itself.
“Well, Joe,” said Doud happily, “never thought to see you come up by the lubber’s hole.” He was sitting cross-legged, making a plaited bunt gasket using his own fox yarns.
“Came up to see what the noise was, did we not, shipmate?” Bowyer said, but Kydd had taken a deep breath and was looking about him in giddy exhilaration.
The maintop was impressive — it could take twenty men comfortably on its decked surface, and was bounded at the after end by a rail and nettings, and on both sides by the next stage of shrouds stretching up to the topmast.
Cautiously Kydd got to his feet and went to the edge. Although it was only some seventy feet above the deck, it felt like a separate world, one of peace and solitude. Farther out there were more ships at anchor, and beyond a noticeable increase in the depth of the countryside.
“Bear a fist, will you, Ned, reevin’ the clewgarnet,” Bowyer asked.
He slipped out of sight over the side. Kydd went over to see him pass from a downward hanging position on the futtock shrouds to drop to the main yard, with the dull white canvas of the course carefully furled in a fine harbor stow above it. Bowyer lay over the yard before swinging down, his feet finding the footrope, and moved outward to where the clewgarnet blocks hung below the yard.
“Watch yer back, sailor!” Doud said, pushing past Kydd. He was watching the clewgarnet rise from below, suspended on a fly block next to the mainmast as it was hauled up by the laborers on deck. Feeling like a yokel on his first trip to town, Kydd admired the skill and cool assurance of the two as they worked, thoroughly at home in this unfathomable complication of spars and cordage.
At one point when Doud and Bowyer were both out on the yard they asked him to pass the clewgarnet down to its second stoppering on the hauling line, out to the blocks. This involved the team sharing the task of passing it along, right out to the end of the yard where the clew of the furled course now was, and bringing it back again to where it was clinched to the mainyard.
Kydd’s part was not onerous, but he had to move about the top and give his full attention to the whole picture. He sensed that this was no special task, but when they finally stepped down from the shrouds to the deck at last, he was elated. Nothing could have stopped his foolish laugh and the casual swagger.
Elkins was waiting. “So you knows a bit o’ sailorin’, then, Kydd — get below, my respects t’ the boatswain, and we needs a sky hook to sway up the kelson.”
Concentrating on the message, Kydd turned to go. “Where —?”
“Forrard on the orlop, you grass-combin’ bugger. Get goin’, sharpish like, we got work to do.”
The boatswain pursed his lips. “The sky hook, eh? Well, lad, that’s going to be difficult.” His hand rasped on his dark-shadowed chin. “I gave it out, as I recollects, to Mr. Walker for to raise a mousing. If you finds Matthew Walker, you’ll find your sky hook, lad.”
Nobody seemed to know how to find Matthew Walker and even appeared to find his search entertaining. Remembering Elkins’s sharp orders, Kydd hurried on. It was Dan Phelps who finally came to the rescue.
“They’re gullin’ yer, matey — the cook, he’s yer Matthew Walker!” Gratefully Kydd accepted directions to the galley.
The cook scowled. He was a big man, seeming not to notice the absence of a lower leg, which, with the grievous black ingrained wound on the side of his face, was legacy of a bursting gun, terrible pain and a saw on the cockpit table.
“What the hell are you two a-grinnin’ at?” he snarled at his mates, who were deep inside the colossal copper vats, sanding and sniggering. He turned back to Kydd. “See ’ere, me old Jack Tar, you tell yer Mr. Elkins as how I’ve a sea pie to raise for damn near eight hunnerd men, and how does he expect me to do that without yon sky hook?”
Kydd toiled up the fore companionway, aware that the seven bells striking meant that it was a half-hour to noon, and therefore soon dinnertime. From nowhere a boatswain’s mate appeared at the head of the ladder above, blocking Kydd’s progress. He grinned evilly at Kydd before raising his silver call and emitting an appalling blast of sound. “All the haaands! Hands lay aft to witness punishment!” he bellowed at Kydd, then mock doffed his hat with its Duke William picked out in gold and red, and clattered past to the next deck.
Joining the streaming throng, Kydd found himself in the familiar area of the quarterdeck between the ship’s wheel and the mainmast. He had been jostled to the front of the assembled company so his view of the proceedings would be immediate.
The marines were formed up across the poop, but the officers were in a group before the break of the poop facing the men. A clear area existed between them.
The Master-at-Arms and his corporals flanked two seamen, one of whom Kydd recognized as one of the fighters of the previous evening. He had bloodshot eyes but carried himself watchful and erect. The other he did not recognize, a slight gray vole of a man whose darting eyes were his only concession to fear.
Kydd searched about, looking for Bowyer, but could not see him. With the oppressive tension draining his newly won reserves of confidence, he needed some other to share his disquiet. The only one he knew was next to the ship’s side, arms folded and with an impregnable air of detachment. Renzi.
Transferring his attention back to the little group near the wheel, he was in time to see Tyrell appear from the cabin spaces. The officer stumped to the center of the clear area, looking sharply about him. “Rig the gratings,” he growled.
A brace of carpenter’s mates pushed through the crowd of seamen behind Kydd, dragging two of the main hatch gratings aft. One was placed upright against the poop railings and lashed tightly. The other served as a scaffold for the victim to stand upon.
A boatswain’s mate touched hi
s forehead to Tyrell. “Gratings rigged, sir”.
Tyrell glared around at the men and without referring to his paper snapped, “Caleb Larkin, cooper’s mate.”
The gray man shuffled forward. He blinked and looked sideways at Tyrell, but said nothing.
Tyrell nodded at the Master-at-Arms.
“Was found drunk and incapable, sir; did piss in the waist under cover of dark, sir.” The piggy eyes looked at the man without particular expression.
There was a ripple of movements, a few murmurs. The tall boatswain’s mate at the side of the gratings stroked his long red bag.
Larkin seemed resigned, and continued his odd sideways stare at Tyrell.
“An unspeakable act, you ill-looking dog! Have you anything to say?”
The man thought for a moment, then mutely shook his head.
Tyrell let the moment hang. “One week’s stoppage of grog, Master-at-Arms’ black list one month.”
Larkin’s head rose in astonishment. His shoulders twitched as if throwing off the evil threat of the lash, and dared a triumphant look forward at his friends. Astonished looks showed that his incredible escape was not lost on anyone.
The murmuring died away as Tyrell consulted his paper. “Patrick Donnelly, quarter gunner.” He looked up and waited for absolute silence before nodding crisply at the Master-at-Arms.
“Fighting when off watch, sir.”
There were louder mutters this time. The going tariff for fighting would be a spell in the bilboes or a lengthy mastheading in this cold weather. The tall boatswain’s mate would be disappointed of his prey.
“How long have you been quarter gunner, Donnelly?” Tyrell began mildly.
Unsure how to play it, Donnelly muttered something.
“Speak up, man!” Tyrell snapped.
“Two year, near enough,” Donnelly repeated. He had the unfortunate quirk of appearing surly when being questioned in public.
“Two years — a petty officer for two years, so you know well enough that a petty officer does not engage in brawling. Disrated. You’re turned before the mast and will shift your hammock tonight.”
Donnelly’s dogged look created a wave of barely concealed muttering. This was hard. The reason for the aimless flaring and fisticuffs was well known: Donnelly had a sweetheart in Portsmouth.
Tyrell watched the men. His hard face gave no quarter. “Collaby!”
His clerk hurried over with a thin black leatherbound book. Tyrell took it.
“Articles of War!” he thundered.
“Off hats!” the Master-at-Arms bellowed. In a flurry of movement the entire assembly removed their headgear — the officers’ cocked hats, the round hats of the petty officers and the amazing variety of the seamen’s head coverings, ranging from shapeless raw woolen articles to the stout traditional tarpaulin hats.
In grim stillness all stood to hear the strict law of the Service. The sea breeze plucked the hair on hundreds of bare heads.
The words were flung out savagely. “‘Article twenty-three. If any person in the Fleet shall quarrel or fight with any other person in the Fleet, or use reproachful or provoking speech or gestures’ and so on and so forth, as well you know, ‘shall suffer such punishment as the offense shall deserve, and a court-martial shall impose.’ ”
He slammed the book shut.
“On hats!”
“You shall have a court-martial, should you wish it. Have you anything to say?”
Donnelly looked stupefied. This was no choice at all — a court-martial could lead anywhere, from admonishment to a noose at the yardarm.
“No? Then it’s half a dozen for fighting.”
A fleeting smile appeared on the boatswain’s mate’s face, and he lifted his bag.
A wave of unrest went through the mass of men like wind through a cornfield. This was ferocious justice.
Tyrell waited, with a terrible patience. “And another dozen for the utter disgrace you have brought on your position, you damned rogue!”
Donnelly’s head whipped round — apart from the fact that eighteen lashes was far above the usual, his “offense” had no standing in law, however useless it would be to argue.
“Strip!” There was a chilling finality in the order.
Donnelly stared at Tyrell, his eyes wild. He stripped to the waist in deliberate, fierce movements, throwing the garments to the deck, stalked over to the gratings and spreadeagled himself against the upright one, his face pressed to the wooden checkerboard.
“Seize him up!”
The quartermasters tied his hands to the grating with lengths of spun yarn and retired. The boatswain’s mate advanced, taking the cat-o’-nine-tails from the bag. He took position a full eight feet away to one side and drew the long deadly lashes through his fingers, experimentally sweeping it back to ensure that there was enough clear space to swing it.
Kydd stared across the few yards of empty deck to the man’s pale, helpless body. His eyes strayed over to Renzi, who still stood impassive and with his arms folded. His anger rose at the man’s lack of simple compassion and when he looked back at Donnelly he tried despairingly to communicate the sympathy he felt.
“Do your duty!”
Kydd was startled by the sudden furious beating of a marine drum on the poop. It volleyed and rattled frantically as the boatswain’s mate drew back the cat in a full arm sweep. At the instant it flew downward the drum beat stopped, so the sickening smack of the blow came loud and clear.
Donnelly did not cry out, but his gasp was high and choked. The nine tails had not only left long bruised weals where they landed, but at every point where the tail ended, blood began to seep.
“One!” called the Master-at-Arms.
The drum began its fierce noise again; Donnelly turned his head to the side and fixed Tyrell with a look of such hatred that several of the officers started.
Again the whipping blow swept down. It brought a grunt that seemed to Kydd to have been dragged from the very depths of the man’s being.
“Two!”
Even two blows was sufficient to make the man’s back a raw striping of bloody welts, the animal force of the blows visibly as violent as a kick from a horse, slamming the body against the grating.
“Three!”
Donnelly did not shift his gaze or his expression from Tyrell’s face. Blood appeared at his mouth where he had bitten his lip in agony, trickling slowly down in two thin streams.
“Four!”
The horror of Donnelly’s torment tore at Kydd. It went on and on in endless sequence; the lower grating was now spattered with blood, and when the boatswain’s mate drew back the cat for the next stroke, combing his fingers through the tails, bloody gobbets dropped from them.
Donnelly’s eyes flickered now at each blow and started rolling upward, his grunts turning to smothered animal cries. His back was in places a roiling mess like a butcher’s cut of raw liver.
“Twelve!” The Master-at-Arms looked questioningly over to Tyrell.
“Quentin!” Tyrell snapped, utterly unmoved.
The tall boatswain’s mate surrendered his position and cat to Quentin, who was left-handed — this would enable the stripes to be crossed.
Before he could begin his grisly work, Donnelly’s eyes rolled entirely out of sight with a soft despairing groan, and he hung down.
The surgeon thrust over and examined him. Donnelly was semiconscious, occasionally rolling his head about and issuing tiny childlike whimpers.
“Sir, this man’s —”
“Souse him!”
“Sir, I must insist! There is —”
“Then get below if you must. I will not have my discipline questioned. Carry on, Quentin.”
A fire bucket of seawater bearing the cipher of King George was produced. Measuring his distance, Quentin dashed the full contents against the man’s back.
Donnelly shrieked just once and hung senseless.
A midshipman crumpled to the deck.
Tyrell scowled. “
Cut him down,” he grunted.
CHAPTER 4
* * *
At a somber dinner Kydd pushed away his wooden platter. It was not possible to eat after the scenes he had witnessed.
“Some says as how you’re not a real sailorman till you’ve got your red-checked shirt at the gangway,” said Bowyer.
Nobody laughed.
“Pat should never’ve got more’n half a dozen,” Doud said, playing with his hard tack. Various growled comments supported him, although Renzi sat in his usual, watchful silence.
“How the bloody hell can y’ take it like this?” Kydd flared. “Are we animals t’ be whipped? Even a pig farmer takes better care o’ his stock. What lunatic way is this?”
“Yer right enough, lad,” Claggett replied. “But yer have ter understand our sea ways too. See, we’re different to youse ashore where you hang a man for stealin’ a handkerchief or clap him in a bridewell fer bein’ half slewed in the street.”
“Me brother was transported ter Botany Bay fer twitchin’ just two squiddy cock pheasants,” Whaley agreed.
Claggett nodded. “Well, what I means to say is that if we chokes off everyone on board what does somethin’ wrong, why, soon we’d have no one left to man the barky. Besides which, makes no sense to bang anyone up in irons doing nothin’ fer too long, or we’d soon be gettin’ shorthanded. An’ that makes no sense if we meets a blow, or comes up with an enemy.” He finished his grog. “So everythin’ we does is short and sharp, and back on course again, yardarms square, ’n’ all a-taunto!”
In a low voice Bowyer added, “But there was no call for Tyrell to come the hard horse like that. Pat’s a right good hand. Has a short fuse only.”
Kydd brought up the subject again when the two returned to the maintop. Bowyer was working on one of the many blocks. His keen-edged knife split the frayed strapping, which pulled away from the deep score around the wooden shell of the block. He began a short splice on a new length of rope to create a circular shape.
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