by Sara Fraser
The tune would die away and the mood abruptly change as someone would start to beat the rhythm of the rollicking ‘Girl I left behind me,’ or ‘The British Grenadiers,’ or ‘The Parliaments of England . . .’ Men hurled the words at the rafters and drank great gulps of ale and gin and kissed and mauled the women beside them; and the children watched, and wondered, and learned.
One or two of the younger girls, whose bodies were still firm and shapely enough to arouse any man’s lust, hoisted their petticoats above their knees when called on by the chair, and mounted upon the table top to dance a heel-tapping, dextrous-toed hornpipe, or high-kicking jig. The sight of full breasts bouncing, smooth haunches swaying, and well-formed calves and thighs peeping from under the froth of petticoats brought greedy hands stretching and reaching, and the dancing women laughed in delight and tormented the men even more with the soft promise of their bodies. The drink kept flowing and the songs and laughter, the jeers and kisses, and slaps and cuddles and promises went on and on.
One greyheaded old soldier, a one-time play actor, insisted continually on getting to his feet and quoting the ‘Crispin Day’ speech from Shakespeare’s Henry the Fifth. Each time he was overwhelmed by a torrent of good-natured abuse, and he would bow gracefully and give way before the storm, only to rise again at the next call by the chairman and start to declaim . . . ‘And gentlemen in England now abed, shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their . . .’ It was at this point, stupefied by drink, that he finally fell, crashing backwards from the bench, and was rolled under the table by his neighbours. He lay uncaring and unfeeling of the stamping feet, the gobs of tobacco juice and phlegm, and the rough hands of two of the older children who had crept under the benches and were now tugging at his clothing in search of money.
Drummer Morrison, Bertha’s husband, had been forced to leave the party to join the other drummers and fifers of the battalion in the Beating of the Retreat on the Grand Parade in Portsmouth. Bertha Morrison herself had been covertly watching Jethro Stanton for a considerable time. The gin she had drunk made her feel amorously inclined and the new recruit was a fine-bodied handsome young man, she thought lasciviously. She waited until Jethro rose from the table to go to the latrine sheds which were some distance behind the barrack blocks, and slipped out of the room after him. She hid in a darkly-shadowed corner of the perimeter walls near the sheds, and as the young man began to make his way back to the barracks she reached out and clasped his arm.
‘Come ’ere a minute, dearie,’ she whispered invitingly, and, in his surprise at this encounter, Jethro allowed himself to be drawn into the shadows. She pressed her body against him and crushed her wet-lipped mouth to his, whimpering in her hungry need. Jethro fuddled by the drink he had taken, found himself responding to her squirming body, and as her practised hands sought for and found his manhood, the long weeks of enforced celibacy caused him to forget all but the aching desire for a woman’s body. His hands lifted her skirts and caressed her hips and buttocks. She guided him into her moistness and they clung together panting and moaning softly as he urgently thrust her against the rough cold brickwork of the wall, and climaxed with almost unbearable pleasure. Spent, they remained tight-clutched in the shadows. She lifted her face from his neck and whispered, ‘That was nice, cully . . . Really nice.’
The young man’s fuddled senses began to clear rapidly and the fetid sourness of her breath in his nostrils sickened him. He pulled away from her and fastened his trousers, not looking at the woman, and felt a shamed self-disgust at his animal response to her. Bertha’s thin arms clung to his neck and again her lips came seeking his mouth. Jethro stepped back from her, and a quick sense of rejection caused her to curse.
‘What’s the marrer wi’ you, you bastard? You was hot enough for what I got a few minutes since?’
‘Aye, that’s true,’ Jethro replied, and tried to find words so that he would not hurt and offend her. ‘I’m sorry about it . . . I don’t know what came over me . . . It must have been the drink,’ he offered lamely.
‘It must ’ave bin the drink, he says!’ she aped his well-spoken accent with savage mimicry.
‘Now don’t be angry,’ he told her. ‘There’s no harm been done.’
‘Oh no! No harm at all!’ She tossed her matted, stringy hair indignantly. ‘Only that now you’se had what you wanted, you reckons you con treat a wench like a bit o’ dirt . . . Who does you reckon you be, Johnny Raw? Does you reckon that I opens me legs like a bleedin’ tanner-a-go whore for any bleeder that’s got a hard on?’ Her voice rose and her drunken rage became more apparent with every word she spoke.
Jethro cursed himself for drinking so much that he had lost control of his actions. His silence only increased her fury.
‘I ain’t good enough for you, you fancy-spoken barstard! Is that what you thinks?’
He cast about desperately for something he could do or say to calm her . . . ‘No, I don’t think that at all,’ he began, and she clutched at him again.
‘Then why wun’t you be nice to me, cully? I could give you a pleasurin’ whenever you wanted . . . I’se took a liking for you, my handsome, a big liking!’
He fended off her questing hands and tried again. ‘Listen, woman, it’s naught that’s wrong with you . . . But I’ve no wish to become involved with anyone; and there’s your husband as well. What would happen if he found out that you and I had done this?’
‘Him?’ she ejaculated scornfully. ‘He doon’t care a bugger about me, nor what I does . . . He’d not gi’ a damn even if he did find out, and he ain’t likely to do that anyway.’
‘No,’ Jethro said quietly, but very firmly. ‘I’m truly sorry for what happened between us. I blame myself for it. But it’ll not happen again.’ He turned from her and walked quickly towards the barracks, from whose dark bulk broken only by the flickering light coming from some of the windows, the faint sounds of revelry in Corporal Rourke’s room could still be heard.
Bertha Morrison leant back against the wall and a terrible hatred for Jethro Stanton took seed within her mind. Hardened as she had become to humiliation and degradation at the hands of men, yet she still possessed deep down, a conviction that she was still as desirable as she had undoubtedly once been as a girl. Sober, she would have shrugged off the rejection, only one of so many in her hard life. Drunk as she was now, the seeds of resentment and hatred that men had planted and caused to grow within her by their brutal mistreatment over the years, suddenly flourished and came to full flower. She glared after the receding figure of Jethro, and shook her fist.
‘I’ll get even wi’ you some day, you proud-stomached bastard!’ she vowed. ‘I’ll get even, I swears it!’
Chapter Nineteen
Crown hulk, February 1813
‘Eight bells! Eight bells! Lash up and stow! Lash up and stow!’ The shutters crashed open and the smoking steamy clouds of foul air belched out from the lower decks.
Captain Arthur Redmond of His Britannic Majesty’s prison ship, Crown, added his own coarse shout to the chorus of bellowed orders from the guards and answering curses from the prisoners.
‘Sergeant Belton?’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ The burly marine ran aft to report. ‘All portlights open, sir.’
The N.C.O. studied the face of his commanding officer closely.
Of late Arthur Redmond had been unusually mild-tempered and the marine, experienced in the ways of his naval superiors, was puzzled.
‘’Tain’t natural for the mad barstard to be so quiet and gentle,’ he thought to himself.
‘My thanks, Sergeant,’ the captain nodded pleasantly. ‘Have my boat lowered, sergeant. I’ve business ashore.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ The marine saluted smartly and, at the other’s gesture of dismissal, stamped away to carry out his orders. Arthur Redmond breathed deeply and with great satisfaction of the crisp morning air, and his mood grew increasingly festive as he thought of where he intended visiting once ashore. His hea
vy-browed square features under his black bicorn hat were placid, and he rubbed his fingers across the purple drink blotches on his nose and cheeks as he waited.
The boat dropped from its davits on the hulk’s stern and its six oarsmen brought it smartly to rest at the foot of the gangway. The white-crossbelted, scarlet-coated marine quarter guard, carrying muskets with fixed bayonets formed up at the head of the gangway, flanked by a drummer and a fifer.
Sergeant Belton’s bull voice sounded. ‘Honour Guard . . . Attention! Dress!’ Their cockaded top hats swivelled to the right and their boots stamped a broken riffle as the line straightened. ‘Eyes front! Shoulder arms!’ Muskets were thrown up smartly and hands slapped wood and iron in unison.
The sergeant, halberd rigid at his side about-turned, and as he also snapped to attention and saluted, the drummer beat a soft rhythm and the fife fluted the mournful notes of ‘Roslyn Castle’. Captain Redmond went down the gangway. The boat rocked under his weight and drew away towards the shore. Once he was sure that the captain was out of earshot, the sergeant growled,
‘Belay that bloody funeral march,’ to the musicians, and ordered the guard to fall out.
‘Has he gone for long, d’you think, Sarn’t?’ a lanky private asked.
‘Aye, we’ll not be seeing the captain back here this day, I reckon,’ Belton told the man. ‘Good riddance to the mad pig!’ his inner voice echoed.
‘What’s he gawn ashore for?’ the same private went on. ‘Is it a doxy he’s tailin’, d’you think?’
‘I think you’re heading straight for a few days in the Black Hole, Dibbins! That’s what I think!’ Belton roared at the man in sudden anger. ‘Who the ’ell does you think you’m atalkin’ to, you poxy lubber?’
The private quailed visibly. ‘I meant nothin’, Sar’nt,’ he stuttered.
‘Then be silent about your officers in future,’ Belton threatened. ‘You stinking-hided bilge rat . . . I’ll not stand any insolence from scum like you regarding your betters. Is that understood, dammee?’
‘Aye aye, Sar’nt,’ the private croaked, and inwardly prayed that something would intervene to deflect the wrath of the N.C.O. Something did. It was the approach of a broad-beamed barge, rowed by a motley collection of pig-tailed sailors and cropped-headed soldiers. At the stern next to the helmsman stood a pair of men wearing black-feathered cocked hats, and black-faced red coatees. The sergeant recognized who they were without needing to see the silver epaulets and buttons that were their distinguishing insignia.
‘Goddam and blast my bleedin’ eyes!’ he swore. ‘I’d forgot what day it was . . . Theer’s the bleedin’ purveyors acoming.’
The marines around him groaned audibly. The ration barge meant for them a lot of heavy toil, manhandling the casks of salted beef, herrings and small-beer inboard and storing them.
Sergeant Belton grinned wickedly. ‘Goo and get your slops on, my beauties . . . You’se got a bit o’ work ahead . . . That’ll keep you out o’ mischief, wun’t it?’
Below decks the hammocks had by now been lashed up and stowed away. Henri Chanteur, who was the orderly this week for his mess of six men, went to join the orderlies of the other messes at the hatchway that opened into the sentry walk. The weeks he had spent on the Crown had had their effect, and now he resembled all the other prisoners in his unshaven ragged dirtiness. At the hatch the men stood silent and morose. The first hour of the morning was always a bad time for each individual as he faced the grim reality of yet another day of seemingly endless captivity somehow to be survived. Henri had by now come to know the majority of the men on his deck by sight, if not by name, and he constantly marvelled at their polyglot nationalities and infinite variety of backgrounds. There were on the Crown alone, French, Dutch, Pomeranian, Danish, Swedish, Polish, Spanish, Italian, and American captives.
It was to one of his friends among the latter that Henri now spoke.
‘Good morning, Nathan. You slept well, I trust.’
Nathan Caldicott smiled at him.
‘Good morning, Henry. I slept extremely well. I thank you for inquiring.’ His tired eyes were faded to a light, indeterminate colour and his complexion very pale beneath the grime. ‘I wonder what gourmet’s delight these limejuicers have for us this morning . . . Some tasty little delicacy, I don’t doubt,’ the American mused whimsically, and Henri felt a glow of warmth for this redoubtable man suffering, as he was, from debilitating illness, yet whose dry humour never failed him.
‘I heard a rumour that they’re going to issue our beloved brethren from the Carolinas some black-eyed peas, because some of them are unaccountably becoming a mite homesick, and getting uppity about it . . . I do not, for the life of me, understand how any man cannot enjoy living here in England . . . I declare that I for one, have never been so content in mind and body, as since I’ve resided here on the dear old Crown,’ the New Englander joked mildly.
The Frenchman smiled. ‘There’s an easy remedy for the Carolinian’s malady, Nathan. The United States government should inform King George that the War of Independence was all a mistake, and that they want to become a colony of England once again. Then you Americans would go free.’
The tall man chuckled wryly. ‘I should not care to be at your side if you stated that opinion in Boston, my friend.’
The hatch bolts rattled as they were drawn and a voice ordered, ‘Come on. Let’s be having you.’
One by one the prisoners crouched to hands and knees and scrambled through the opening into the sentry chamber where they were searched rapidly and expertly by two sailors, while the loaded muskets of marines covered them; and then allowed up the ladders on to the top deck.
The crisp cold air tasted so exquisitely fresh as to be intoxicating, and Henri drank huge mouthfuls into his body until he felt giddy and exhilarated with it. On deck he never gazed with hungry longing at the town of Portsmouth, as did most of his fellows. Instead, Henri always turned towards the harbour mouth and the rolling greenness of the Isle of Wight. It was beyond that island barrier that his beloved Normandy lay, and he wished with all his heart that a second Conqueror’s ships would swarm from its harbours and inlets and bring his ordeal to an end.
The sounds of an altercation drew him back to the present. One of the housings built on deck was the prisoners’ cooking galley. Inside its crude wooden walls, was a row of huge iron cauldrons built into a brick oven. Under each cauldron a fire was lit with trays of wet sand placed beneath to catch any falling coals or sparks. To one side of these ovens some planks had been nailed across barrels to make a table, and on this table was bolted a tall, spring-loaded, metal weight scale. Nathan Caldicott was standing in front of this scale in hot dispute with one of the English cooks who prepared the prisoners’ food.
‘And I’m telling you, Limey, that you’re not going to cheat my mess outern our bread ration. I want eight pounds, and there’s nary but six here.’ The American’s bony chest rose and fell rapidly beneath the ragged orange-yellow jacket and his prominent Adam’s apple jumped up and down in his wasted throat as he continued indignantly, ‘Now, I don’t arsk any man for more than what is my due and proper portion. But Goddamm it! I will have what is mine and my friends’ by right.’
The cook, a fat, squat one-eyed London Cockney, sniffed long and loudly and dragged the back of his greasy hand across his wet mouth and nostrils.
‘Look ’ere, matey,’ he began, and pointed towards a pile of bulging jute sacks that were heaped on top of the table. ‘The bleedin’ ration barge ain’t got to us yet. And that there is all the bleedin’ bread we got to gi’ you, until the barge gets ’ere.’ He sniffed loudly and again wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘I’se got to gi’ each mess the same, ain’t I matey? And if I ain’t got sufficient to gi’ you eight pound apiece, then I cawn’t gi’ you eight pound apiece, can I?’
‘That’s not my concern,’ the New Englander told him. ‘My messmates will expect their proper apportionment.’
‘Wot’
s that mean?’ the Cockney’s fat face was suspicious.
‘What’s what mean?’ Caldicott demanded.
‘That wot you just said then . . . That larst word . . . Wot was it naow? Appo . . . or somefink?’
Henri was forced to hide a smile under his hand at the unconscious comedy of the dialogue between the two. The cook put his hands on his hips and pushed his belly forward.
‘Look matey, I’m a busy man and I’ve no time to argue the toss wiv you . . . Besides! You’se got a pot o’ burgoo for your breakfass as well, ain’t you? Fink yerself lucky I’m dishing out the bread naow. On the uvver bleedin’ ships they ’as to wait until their bleedin’ dinner afore they gets it . . . They ain’t all as bleedin’ soft-’earted as me, I’ll tell yer.’
Nathan Caldicott’s shiny bald pate flushed bright red. This was another peculiarity of the American’s that endeared him to Henri. When the New Englander grew angry, his face and neck remained corpse-pale, but the scalp of his bald head always crimsoned with temper.
He threw out his long stick-like arm and pointed tremblingly at the foul-smelling greyish liquid bubbling in the cauldrons.
‘Do you have the gall to call that goddamned piss, breakfast?’ his voice rose to a near screech on the last word. ‘My Gahd, Limey! Back home in Maine we wouldn’t feed that to the hogs. A man would feel too shamed to face the poor beasts if he fed them piss like that.’
The Cockney rocked on his heels in outrage. ‘’Ere, cully, you just watch your bleedin’ marf,’ he spluttered. ‘I’se bin makin’ burgoo for a good many years and that’s good stuff there. Four parts barley to one part o’ finest oatmeal, wi’ meat juice and spices and such . . . I’se never had no complaints afore about my burgoo, I’ll tell yer.’
By now the ever-increasing queue of waiting prisoners were impatient at the delay.
‘Scheissen! Was machst du hier?’ a Pomeranian shouted.
‘Oui, bien dit! Bouge ton cul, sale cochon d’un anglais!’ a Frenchman echoed the German’s complaint.