A Private Revenge

by Richard Woodman

  And unbeknown to anyone, even his helpless catamite, Morris plotted the southward progress of the convoy on a chart of his own.

  CHAPTER 11

  Blood and Rain

  January 1809

  'One!'

  Spread-eagled against the triced-up grating the man's body jerked in reflexive response to the first stroke of the cat. The flesh of the back was surprisingly pale, turning bronze at the nape of the neck. As he watched, his face a grim mask, Drinkwater saw the red weals begin to streak the skin . . .

  'Two!'

  As the second weals emerged beneath the unruptured skin, the first were rising in sharp relief. Drinkwater watched the man's face, the mouth distorted by the leather pad upon which he bit. The deserter had his eyes screwed tight-shut and Drinkwater knew he was bracing himself for the dreadful assault upon his body ...

  'Three!'

  The stretched skin, pressed upwards from below by the bleeding tissues beneath, began to break. At first the stretched pores exuded suppurations of blood and plasma, giving the impression of a rosy sweat that spread in bands across the man's back ...

  'Four!'

  Was this better than hanging? Was this man's life confined in the wooden bulwarks of His Britannic Majesty's frigate Patrician, in which even the ship's very name emphasised the subordination of her company, better than a swift and final agony at the end of a yard-rope? Was there, Drinkwater wondered as the bosun's mate laid on the tailed whip again, not one sublime second of freedom before the awful darkness of oblivion? One infinitesimal fragment of time and space where the spirit was free of obligation, of duty, of subservience?

  'Six!'

  His own freedom to think such thoughts suddenly overcame him. He wanted to ask whether, in that conjectural moment, a man would be free too of the awful obligation to have another man whipped; as if, in some way, the recipient of those lacerations should feel grateful to him for the moderation of the punishment his crime had merited. Drinkwater's eyes flickered to the mass of the ship's company gathered in the waist. Were they, could they fail to be aware of the condign nature of this thrashing? Did they not see in it a spirit of leniency, of sympathy, almost? Or did they see in it a weakness in himself, a weakness, perhaps, to be exploited?

  They watched without expression. They had watched such punishments before and those that were intelligent enough to realise knew he had been lenient. Three dozen lashes was more than he normally administered, but it was downright soft on four bloody fools who had run in a place like China and had then been discovered in the very convoy the bloody ship was escorting!

  'Twelve!'

  Mr Comley intoned the strokes like those of a bell. The bosun's mate stopped and handed over the cat to another that the thrasher might not ease the violence of his stripes through fatigue. Their Lordships thought of everything ...

  'Thirteen!'

  Old Tregembo watched, sensing the mood of his fellows as vaguely contemptuous of the four men for having been caught so easily. Quilhampton watched full of the knowledge that Drinkwater had agonised over the decision and confident that he had come to the right, the only decision open to a reasonable man. Fraser, the cares of first lieutenant weighing upon him, felt a stirring of disapproval. He would have preferred the matter handed over to the admiral at Madras, or Calcutta or wherever he was, removing the stigma of it from the ship. Sometimes he envied Drinkwater's impeccable, irreproachable acceptance of his responsibilities, sometimes he disapproved of it. Like every second-in-command in history, Fraser knew what he would have done in the circumstances, and that it would have been diametrically opposite to what was now happening ...

  'Twenty!'

  It never occurred to Fraser that he would have handed the matter over through weakness, for there were half a dozen good reasons why, in his heart, he felt his own decision would have been the right one. Nor did it occur to him that Drinkwater had given more than the most superficial consideration to the matter.

  'Twenty-four!'

  The bosun's mates changed again for the last dozen. The man's back was laid open now. The cat bit into one vast bruise that had burst into a flayed mass of dark, bloody flesh. Lallo, the surgeon, stared at it, only half seeing more toil for him and his mates, his eyes fixed with a greater calculation on the men amidships, computing, or attempting to compute, how many had already taken the infection of the yaws ...

  'Thirty!'

  He had heard someone mutter the words 'humane punishment' as they had assembled on the quarterdeck in response to the cry for all hands to muster. It seemed a sophisticated conceit to run words like that together in justification of so barbaric a ritual. Not that Lallo condemned the flogging from any lofty principle; he was too old to think the world would ever set itself to rights, but to talk of 'humane punishment' was almost as stupid a thing to do as to run away from a man-o'-war; almost deserving of the same treatment too, he thought morosely ...

  'Thirty-one!'

  Derrick made himself watch, though revulsion rose in his throat on hardly suppressed upwellings of bile. He had seen this evil so often now, perpetrated on the whim of a man he both liked and respected. Intellectually he understood all Drinkwater's motives, both official and unofficial. But the inherent brutalising of them all he condemned as utterly evil. It reaffirmed his pacifism, revived his faith, for without war there would not be this grim, so-called necessity ...

  'Thirty-two!'

  The deserter was hanging by his wrist lashings now, unconscious like some early martyr. Blood ran down to the deck and trickled from his mouth where the leather pad had become dislodged. Senseless he hung there in the sunshine upon the golden, scrubbed timber of the grating so that Midshipman Chirkov was reminded of an icon, the glittering uniforms of the marines an encrustation of rubies, the naval officers a semicircle of sapphires. Fumes of opium still whirled in his brain, enhancing his hearing so that he heard the involuntary exhalations of the man's lungs as the sodden cat thrashed its final strokes upon the rib-cage. Chirkov felt nothing for the victim. All sensations were inwards. The flogging did not even remind him of his own humiliation. He saw only the strange beauty of the agonised body.

  'Thirty-five!'

  Midshipman Belchambers waited to faint. To his eternal shame he had fainted several times when witnessing punishment and, although he had since that humiliating period seen action and distinguished himself, he still feared that irresistible loss of control ...

  'Thirty-six! Water! Cut him down!'

  The man's body twitched as the green-white water slopped not ungently over his bloodied back, but he was unconscious as the bosun's mates sliced the lashings at his wrists and dragged him to one side where his messmates took him. Midshipman Belchambers took a deep breath. He was rather pleased with himself ...

  'Next!'

  Like Chirkov, Morris's hearing was acute. A pipe of opium made it so and the sounds from the quarterdeck revived old, old memories in Morris's mind, memories that the drug uncoiled in lascivious scrolls drawn in graphically slow motion across the mind's eye.

  He fondled the boy's ear, realising that these were days of sublime happiness. Not only was he basking in the anticipation of personal success, but that was heightened by the unexpected bonus of encompassing the ruin of a man he had once attempted to love. To the expectation of revenge he now found added the knowledge that that youthful paragon had been brought low in the world, low enough to have his delicate nature sullied by the grim necessity of ordering floggings.

  'Ah, my fine friend, how has the bloom withered upon the stalk, eh?' He chuckled, pleased, seeing in his mind's eye that it was Drinkwater's back that received the thrashing of the cat.

  His grip suddenly tightened on the boy's ear, turning the puckish face towards his own bloated and puffy flesh.

  'Tonight! Tonight we will do it. It will have to be tonight. And then, my little imp, we shall see, oh, yes, we shall see ...'

  The boy grunted, the spittle in his throat, his mouth opening.
/>   But Morris had averted his own hooded eyes, for above his head he heard more noises of punishment ...

  'One! Two!'

  And he smiled.

  Despite his conviction of the rightness of Drinkwater's decision to mete out swift and humane justice to the deserters, Lieutenant Quilhampton did not share the captain's analysis of the people's collective attitude. For one thing he was less accustomed than Drinkwater to thinking of the ship's company as one amorphous mass. Rather, to him they were a sum of many separate parts, some of whom, those who fulfilled their duties in his division, were well known to him. But part of this disagreement was attributable to his own involvement in the stilling of their mutinous spirit in the Baltic. He knew that for a while he had sat on a powder keg and alone had snuffed out an already sputtering fuse. He was, therefore, upon his guard in the hours following the floggings. Loyalty, this apprehension about the explosive mood of the hands and his eager longing to return home, stopped him from sleeping, and men nudged each other from mess-table to mess-table and hammock to hammock, as Quilhampton prowled about the ship on one pretext or another.

  But the mood of the ship was not threatening, for with that swift change that occurs at sea like the lifting of cloud shadows or a shift in the wind, the reported sight of blue islands to the south of them set their minds on a new tack, dispelling the gloom of the morning and setting their imaginations on anticipation of arrival at Prince of Wales Island, Pulo Penang, first stage on their homeward track.

  'Where away?' asked Drinkwater with boyish eagerness, glad of some image to feast on after the shambolic succession of raw backs that had imprinted itself on his consciousness.

  'Three points to larboard, sir. The Natunas,' replied Ballantyne confidently. The Dutch name alerted Drinkwater to the possibility of the presence of Dutch cruisers. He swung round and examined the convoy: still in good order, only one ship a trifle too far to leeward.

  'Make to Hindoostan, "Keep better station".'

  'The Carnatic's run a little ahead of her station, sir,' offered Ballantyne helpfully.

  'No matter. She's in the grain of the convoy and another pair of eyes up ahead saves us a little trouble.'

  'We may encounter a Dutchman or two, sir.'

  'Yes,' Drinkwater said shortly, still peering through his glass, once more levelled at the serried blue summits of the Natuna Islands. He would almost welcome an action with the enemy, welcome it as being his proper business, as purging to his blood and cathartic to his ship. And if he died during it he could hug the satisfaction of duty well done to his crushed bosom as he enjoyed that vital, sparking moment of ineffable knowledge of freedom ...

  Bloody stupid thought!

  He snapped the Dollond glass shut. 'Very well, Mr Ballantyne. Send the men to quarters, we'll exercise the great guns!'

  Drinkwater stayed on deck long after they had resecured their brutish artillery and the men, delighted with their exertions and the pulverising they had given the three beflagged casks, raced aloft and made sail to catch up with the convoy from which they had become separated in their manoeuvring. They had resumed their station long before the red sun reached down and touched the green horizon on its strange, tropical setting. It seemed quenched by the lambent rim of the visible world, cutting the sun in two so that a lenticular fragment of it lingered, gradually changing from fire to ice and then facing and etiolating the sky in the suddenness of the tropic night.

  There was a magic in the moment and Drinkwater lingered to savour it, so unlike the attenuated twilight of the grey northern seas with which he was more familiar. One by one the heavily brilliant stars began to appear, those near the horizon coruscating with sudden apparent changes of fiery colour so that he fell into the simple game of identification, cudgelling his wits to remember their names and sad that command removed him from the daily necessity of knowing what he had once been adept at.

  Beside him Ballantyne performed the mysteries of navigation, grunting figures to Midshipman Dutfield who read the corresponding times on the chronometer and noted the altitudes on a tablet. Drinkwater indulged his game and noted the disappearance of Canopus, halfalarmed that a squall would reach treacherously down and strike them.

  'Wind's falling away, sir,' Acting Lieutenant Frey remarked as he took over the deck for the first watch.

  'Yes.'

  Having regained their station they were snugged down under easy sail, watching over the convoy as they had since leaving the Pearl River. One was tempted to call it an uneventful passage, setting aside the intrusion of Morris; but even that seemed contained since his judicious move to the master's cabin.

  'I shall be below if you require me, Mr Frey.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  He read for a little, but the cabin was stuffily hot despite the wind-sails rigged amidships. He turned to his journal but the threat of megrims brought on by over-long introspection on the morning's floggings led him to conclude the task in as concise a form as decency allowed. In the end he amused himself with a letter to Elizabeth. If they were not sent home from Prince of Wales Island then he could forward the letter and, in any case, it was better written now, while his mood was light, than when he learned, pledges to his men notwithstanding, that Patrician formed a welcome addition to the East Indies squadron.

  He must have dozed, for he found himself shaken awake with no idea of the time and the candle burnt low. He blew it out and, in his shirt-sleeves, went on deck.

  The watch were busy, attentive to the shouts of Frey and his subordinate petty officers as they braced round the slatting sails. It was not a strong squall, but it had struck them from out of nowhere and the topsails and their blocks were flogging wildly.

  'Lively there, damn it!' Frey cannoned into him. 'Get out of my ... Oh! Beg pardon, sir!' Frey drew back, hand to hat barely perceptible in the sudden impenetrable blackness. 'Taken aback, sir, damned squall hit us without warning.'

  'It's uncommon dark,' replied Drinkwater. 'Have a mind for the convoy, Mr Frey.'

  'Aye, sir.'

  Frey turned and bawled for Mr Belchambers, sending him forward with the night-glass to keep a sharp lookout.

  Drinkwater scrambled up the heaving deck to the starboard hance, went to fish in his pocket for his glass and then realised he was coatless. Not only was the night dark, it was damnably warm too.

  'Only to be expected in four degrees north, I suppose ...'

  'Beg pardon, sir?' It was Frey again, looming up and staring forward at men working at the midships pinrail. Drinkwater was not conscious of having spoken and the revelation of talking to himself startled him.

  'Black as the Earl of Hell's riding boots.'

  'Yes, sir.' Drinkwater heard the grin in Frey's voice. 'There're the lights of the convoy, sir, fine to starboard ... see?'

  Drinkwater stared. Yes, he could see the faint glimmer of stern lanterns to the southward. And Patrician was steadying on course now, her yards braced round as the wind picked up, suddenly cold. Seconds later they were leaning to the pressure of it and rushing through the water at a rate of knots. Then with an equally bewildering suddenness the night was riven by lightning, a flash of intense brilliance that showed the dark spots of the convoy ahead and to starboard of them, leaving an almost indelible image on the retina so that it seemed nature had obliged them with a brief spectral revelation to ease their anxieties.

  The next minute they were soaking from the deluge of rain that poured upon them, blotting out all but a narrow silver-slashed circle of sea around them, their heads split with the thunderous assault of the exploding cloud above them.

  In the confusion of steadying on their course Drinkwater bumped into another body. It recoiled, half apologetically, and in a further, less brilliant flash of lightning which seemed to strike the sea with a sizzling alongside them, he recognised the startled face of Midshipman Chirkov.

  'What happens if lightning strikes the ship, sir?' asked Frey anxiously, the cocks of his hat spewing water like gutter-pipes, hi
s face a pale gash in the darkness.

  'I should think it'd consume our masts ... possibly set us on fire

  Drinkwater tried to think. He had heard of such a thing, surely? But there was nothing they could do to avert it. 'Steady on south by west, Mr Frey,' he said coolly. It was the only thing to do in this shivering cold. The rain fell so heavily that he felt the weight of its volume upon his head and shoulders.

  'Binnacle light's out, sir ...' he heard one of the helmsmen report.

  'Well get below and fetch a light,' Frey snapped.

  'Keep her full and bye, Mr Frey. Steer by the luff of the main tops'l.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  A note of weary tolerance had crept into Frey's voice. Drinkwater peered upwards, water pouring into his eyes. The main topsail was a pale, almost imperceptible ghost seen as through a rain-beaten window.

  'Do your best, Mr Frey,' he said with asperity.

  In the hiatus that followed, as they waited for the rekindled light for the binnacle that, to judge by the curses muttered from the companionway, was extinguished as soon as it reached the deck, Drinkwater remembered Chirkov.

  'Was that Mr Chirkov on deck?' he asked Frey in a more intimate, conversational tone.

  'Chirkov? Oh, yes, sir, I expect so. He's taken to coming on deck. Ballantyne says he's interested in the navigation of the ship.'

  'Well keep the lubber below after dark. You know my orders.'

  Aye, aye, sir,' replied Frey, thoroughly peeved, and ready to shoot Chirkov any moment the Russian gave him opportunity.

  Going below, Drinkwater found the ship in a state of disruption. The two Chinese pigs kept in the manger forward of the breakwater were terrified by the over-charged atmosphere and had begun squealing. Men below in the berth-deck were grumbling and Corporal Grice had turned out some of his men, so that a foot patrol in cross-belts and drawers had emerged from the orlop deck and were just then going below again to the hoots and jeers of those able to see the fools they had made of themselves. There was something chaotic about the ridiculous scene as it met Drinkwater's eyes, reminding him of one of the seditious drawings he had seen by Mr Gillray. For, at the foot of the ladder, a little pool of light was formed by half a dozen purser's glims from which an obscenely swearing quartermaster was trying to relight the binnacle lamp. It was this bizarre source of illumination that drew attention to Corporal Grice's folly. Drinkwater stepped over the hunched and cursing backs, leaving them to their task without his presence being known. Rain was streaming over the coaming of the companionway and he was chilled to shuddering by it.