Secrets of the Fearless

by Elizabeth Laird

  ‘You ’old your tongue, Tom Todd,’ growled Jabez, who had approached the boys’ table unseen from the other side, where Mr Tawse and his crew were eating at another table. ‘Eat your vittles and bide quiet.’

  Tom subsided, but when Jabez had returned to his dinner he looked at John with shining eyes.

  ‘You don’t need to be scared, John. There’s no need at all. It’s grand up there. They’ll only let you go half the way up anyway, until you’re strong enough to pull in the sail. I’m to be one of the topmen. You’ve seen them, haven’t you? They’re the only ones who may wear the scarlet waistcoats on the ship. They work right up high in the topgallant sails. The topmen are the best. Everyone respects them. They . . .’

  His enthusiastic voice ran on, but John was no longer listening. The rise and fall of the ship, the stuffiness and stench overlaid with the smell of the food were combining to horrible effect. He stood up from the table, holding his hand to his mouth and just made it to the nearest gun port, from where he vomited his dinner down into the sea.

  Chapter Thirteen

  John’s first short bout of sea-sickness was over almost as soon as it had started. By the time the ship’s bell had announced the end of the break, and the hundreds of men aboard the Fearless had hoisted their tables up to the beams again and begun their afternoon duties, he was feeling less nauseous, though he was still battered and bruised all over from the blows of Mr Higgins’s rattan cane.

  ‘Boys,’ said Jabez, ‘’Tis cutlass inspection this afternoon. Cleaning and sharpening is what they do need. Kit, when you’ve finished a-cleaning Mr Tawse’s shoes, fetch out the long cases by the bulkhead there, so Mr Tawse can cast his eyes across them. No, John, not you. You’re to come with me. Take your shoes off and leave them here. They’ll be naught but a hindrance where you’re going. Now, lads –’ he jerked his thumb towards the low bar that ran across the room, on which his parrot was perched – ‘keep an eye on ’Orace. Out of zorts ’e is today. Tweaked my nose sharp this morning, and now he’s sulking.’

  John followed Jabez up to the deck above. The ship was sailing fast. The coast of Midlothian was slipping past, and Edinburgh was already far behind. Soon they would have left the sheltered waters of the Firth of Forth and be heading out to sea.

  ‘Zee over there?’ said Jabez, leaning on the hammock nets and pointing towards a huge black rock that reared up out of the sea nearby. ‘I seen a great whale there once. Monsters there are, in Scottish waters. Things unearthly that no mortal should know of. Now lay aloft. Get up them ratlines.’

  The command came with no change of tone or expression and for a moment John didn’t understand. Jabez jerked his chin upwards. Beside him the ratlines, rope ladders with rope rungs, ran upwards to a horrible height, ending at a platform halfway up the dizzyingly high mast.

  John felt the blood drain from his face.

  ‘Only one way to learn ’ow to get aloft,’ Jabez said calmly, ‘and that’s to get on and do it. ’Ere, your face is the colour of old pea soup. You ain’t going to be sick again? I seen you cast your dinner overboard.’

  ‘No, I’m not sick now. It’s just that I’m . . .’

  ‘Fearful. ’Orrible fearful. As is only sensible, seeing as ’ow you ain’t never been up no rigging in your young life before. Climbed trees, did you, back ’ome?’

  ‘Yes. All the time. But . . .’

  ‘’Tis the same, only excepting that trees has a nice little ’abit of staying still, while a ship, she ’overs and she bucks and she skips and she dances like a demented ’orse. But you’ll get used to it. Up you go. The wind’s against your back here on the larboard side, pressing you into the ratlines. You couldn’t fall if you tried. Get going, John. Growl you may, but go you must.’

  John looked up at the rigging and back at the gunner’s mate. Jabez’s eyes were kind, but his mouth was set in a firm line. There was no help for it, John could see that. And it would be a hundred times better to go aloft for the first time with Jabez Barton than to be bullied and beaten up at the end of Mr Higgins’s cane.

  He took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then made a grab at the ratlines. The tarry ropes felt reasonably strong and solid. He stood for a moment on the hammock netting, learning the shape of the rungs under his hands and feeling the rise and fall of the ship on the swell, then he began to climb.

  It’s only a ladder. I’m only climbing a ladder, he told himself. I mustn’t look down. Don’t look down. Look at the ratlines. Look at my hands.

  He was a long way up, and his breath was beginning to shorten with the effort, when he felt a tugging on the ropes beneath his hands and feet as the wind veered round to the south and the masts and sails took the strain. The ratlines seemed to lurch and shiver in his grasp. Whistles and muffled shouted commands came from below. Sailors were running about on the deck, working the ropes, loosening and tightening, manoeuvring the sails to catch the best of the wind. They seemed miles below, horribly far down. The wind had freshened and was plucking at his clothes, tearing the tails of his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers. He was hit by a blast of fear that turned his knees to water and made his head spin. He clung tightly to the ratlines, unable to move.

  Then, from just beneath him, came Jabez’s rich, Devon voice, raised in song.

  ‘Oh, a sailor’s life is a merry life

  They rob young girls of their heart’s delight . . .’

  He broke off.

  ‘Ain’t the moment for star-gazing, young John. The zun’s still got a ways to go before ’e goes to bed. ’Twon’t be till then that the stars pop out.’

  ‘I . . . I can’t go on,’ whispered John.

  But Jabez had started singing again.

  ‘Leaving them behind to sigh and mourn,

  They never know when we will return.’

  Jabez had climbed a little closer. His voice was now coming from directly below John’s feet. Its calmness steadied him, and he felt his courage creeping back. Almost without realizing, he began to climb again.

  He was out of breath when at last he reached the platform. This was large enough to hold several men, and there was one standing on it already.

  ‘Oof!’ panted Jabez, stepping up on to the platform behind him.

  The other man, who looked no more than eighteen or nineteen years old, and who was wearing a bright scarlet waistcoat, laughed.

  ‘We don’t often see you up here in these lofty parts, Mr Barton.’

  ‘I should think not,’ said Jabez, recovering his breath. ‘Used to climb about like a monkey I did, when first I came to sea, but now I’m a gunner’s mate, which is a fine respectable thing to be, and I leave the monkey business to the likes of you. This young lad John is what brings me up aloft. I’m showing him the way. Now, John, this gentleman is the captain of the maintop, and since we’ve been on the subject of monkeys, I would venture to state that there’s not an animal in Africa as could run about the rigging more handily than him.’

  As if someone aloft had heard, a shout came from above, and a moment later the young seaman was racing up the next set of ratlines. He was lost to view for a while behind the sail’s billowing canvas, but then John saw a flash of red from almost the highest point of the mast. Men were still working right up there, spread along the yard of the topmost sail. To his horror, John saw the young maintop captain take off along the yard from which the highest sail hung. He was balancing on the swaying spar of wood as the ship lurched beneath him, with nothing for his hands to hold on to. When he reached the very tip he dropped down to straddle the yard and began to work at some invisible arrangement of ropes.

  The sight of him had made John shudder, but it had done him good, too. The platform where he was standing, which a minute ago had seemed so horribly high and exposed, now seemed quite low down and safe.

  ‘Mr Barton, sir,’ said a familiar voice. Kit had appeared, swinging himself up round the outside of the platform with all the agility of a squirrel. ‘Mr Ta
wse’s compliments, and would you oblige him by returning immediately. Two of the cutlass cases have shipped water, and the cutlasses are in a shocking condition, Mr Tawse says.’ He put his head one side. ‘“Done all to blazes,”’ he said, in imitation of Mr Tawse’s voice, ‘“and the devil’s to pay.”’

  ‘Oh, here’s trouble.’ Jabez’s broad forehead was creased now with a worried frown. He appeared not to have noticed Kit’s play-acting. ‘Rusting cutlasses!’ He had already taken hold of the ratlines and was starting to go down. ‘Get down below, you two lads, as quick as you can. ’Twill be all hands to cleaning and polishing. Rusting cutlasses! Very nasty.’

  Kit had started to follow Jabez, but he looked up and saw John’s face. At the thought of climbing down, paralysing fear had gripped John again. The ratlines looked horribly loose and insubstantial seen from above. The distance down to the deck seemed immense. The swell was rising and the ship was moving unpredictably, rolling as she came further round into the ever strengthening wind.

  Kit scrambled back up again and stood beside John on the platform. He took hold of John’s arm and shook it.

  ‘I know how you are feeling,’ he said. ‘I felt it too, the first time, and many times after. Now I can go up and down like a monkey. You have to be like a monkey too.’

  He pushed his tongue into his lower lip to make a monkey face, and looked so funny that John couldn’t help smiling. ‘I’ll manage it,’ he managed to say. ‘It’s just this bit, the first bit. Stepping out into . . . nothing – to get on to the ratlines.’

  ‘Yes.’ Kit nodded. ‘I will guide you, hand by hand, foot by foot. Look. You do like this – your right hand here, right foot so, left hand takes hold of this one.’

  John, watching carefully, noticed for the first time how small and delicate Kit’s hands were, and how slim his wrists and ankles.

  ‘Like that you will be fine,’ Kit went on. ‘There. You have done the worst bit. Now you just go down. Step by step. It’s easy now.’

  It was easy. John felt the safety of the deck come nearer and nearer and he jumped down the last few steps, bouncing triumphantly on the balls of his feet.

  ‘I never thought I could do that. I never thought I’d get up there, or get down again,’ he said, following Kit along the deck. ‘You helped me. You really did.’

  ‘It was nothing. You will be good at climbing, I’m sure of it. You only need to practise. The aptitude is there.’

  John looked at him curiously. Kit had dropped his joking tone and sounded for a moment almost like an adult, a teacher talking to a pupil.

  ‘How old are you, Kit?’ he asked curiously.

  To his surprise a vivid blush spread over Kit’s cheeks.

  ‘Thirteen,’ he said. ‘Come, John, we must hurry. Mr Tawse is in a temper already. He will be angry if we delay.’

  PART TWO

  APRIL 1808

  THE BORDEAUX BLOCKADE

  Chapter Fourteen

  Anyone who had known John as the miserable, scrawny, twelve-year-old boy who had so unwillingly joined the crew of the Fearless would have hardly recognized him six months later. The thatch of straw-coloured hair that had stuck out in such an unruly way all over his head had grown long and thick and was now tied at the nape of his neck in a neat sailor’s pigtail. He had passed his thirteenth birthday before Christmas and had grown hugely, both in inches and in weight. Hard work had developed the beginnings of fine muscles on his shoulders, arms and chest. His hands, as well as his feet, which were always bare, were knotted with calluses, and stained black with the tarry ropes he constantly handled. Without knowing it, he walked the decks with a sailor’s roll and spoke in a sailor’s jargon.

  The Fearless, whose task it was to keep close guard on the mouth of the river Gironde, to prevent any French ships from entering or leaving, had spent the long months criss-crossing the river mouth, buffeted by the violent winds and sudden storms that blew across the Bay of Biscay. John had been vilely seasick at first, but that had soon passed.

  He had learned quickly. With Kit’s help he had soon mastered the ropes (even to Mr Higgins’s grudging satisfaction). A few weeks later, he could tie all the knots and splice a rope. By the end of the next month he could sew his own clothes and had proved himself a quick learner in the complex skills of gunnery.

  The iron routine was soon drummed into him. Like the rest of the ship’s company, he sprang to obey each order, knowing the harsh discipline that would fall upon him if he delayed by an instant. He scrubbed and washed, blacked the guns with tar and water and polished brass with brick dust. He was constantly bruised and buffeted, sometimes falling with an unexpected roll of the ship, sometimes receiving an irritated blow from Mr Tawse, or a much harsher thwack from Mr Higgins’s rattan cane. He was used to the pain and discomfort, inured to the bitter cold and constant damp, and even relished the plain, often unpalatable food.

  He was well acquainted now with those working closest to him. Mr Tawse, the master gunner, was strict, but fair. He watched over the great ship’s weapons like an anxious groom over his thoroughbred horses, and any careless damage that came to them put him in a towering rage. He demanded obedience and respect, but he listened to both sides of an argument, and the boys had learned exactly how far they could go in tickling his sense of humour. John had learned to trust Mr Tawse and wanted his good opinion. He was afraid of him only when the grog took hold. The fumes of rum and water seemed to inflame the master gunner’s temper, and he’d lash out over every small annoyance.

  Mr Tawse was a man to respect, but John had learned to love Jabez Barton, with his kindliness and slow Devon speech. He learned far more from one hour of Jabez’s quiet, patient teaching than from a day under the lash of Mr Higgins.

  There were moments each day when he was almost happy. These usually came after supper, when the ship’s work was done, and from the tables nestling between the guns came the sounds of men at ease, sitting over their grog, telling stories, whittling at sticks, singing songs and reliving old battles, while the boys invented games and teased each other and wrestled.

  But there were many more times when he was miserably sad. The sight of a seagull flying free towards the land, or a Scottish seaman’s voice ringing out from among the great variety of English ones, would set off an aching homesickness. Then, every bit of him would long for Luckstone and his father. An empty, hollow feeling would settle inside him, a terrible loneliness, and not even Tom’s banter, Davey’s clumsy friendliness or Kit’s quiet sympathy could reach him. The damp, crowded ship seemed like a cruel, floating prison. The permanent stench and complete lack of privacy made him seethe with disgust and frustration.

  Often he was afraid. He had become used to going up aloft, faster than he would have thought possible. Shinning up the ratlines was nothing to him now, although sidling out on the ropes along the yards still made his stomach lurch in alarm, especially in the storms of winter, when the wind blew hard and the ship rolled and pitched on the swell. His first gale, when the ship was well out in the Bay of Biscay, had tested the nerves of every man on board. For two days the hatches had been battened down, huge waves had washed over the sides, soaking the hammocks, the decks had been fouled as every man had been sick, and as the ship had plunged down and reared up again John had thought time and again that his last hour had come.

  The storm had been bad enough, but a jolt of even sharper fear shot through him every time he caught sight of the round, shiny, black hat of Mr Higgins, and saw the malice in the man’s cold eyes.

  Gradually, alongside all the other feelings that crowded in upon him, a sense of pride had found its place too. The Fearless might be engaged only in the unglamorous, routine work of patrolling backwards and forwards along the coast of France, but she was a great ship, a famous ship. She had fought under Nelson at the Nile and Trafalgar. She was a ship of the line. A man-o’-war. And he was a man-o’-war’s boy now. He belonged to the Fearless. She was his ship.

  But always, in the b
ack of John’s mind, especially after gun drill, was the knowledge that one day the Fearless would go into battle. One day a French ship would attempt to break the blockade and slip out from the mouth of the river, or would try to approach from the sea and batter her way past the Fearless to reach Bordeaux. Then her great guns would not boom out across an empty ocean, but would blast their deadly load of hot metal into the sides of an enemy ship, ripping away her masts and rigging, and the enemy would respond in kind. When that moment came, many would die. More would be injured. Limbs would be shot away, faces scarred for life . . .

  I’m not sure I’m brave enough, he would whisper to himself, a sick feeling in his stomach. I’ll want to run down and hide in the hold. But I mustn’t. I mustn’t even think of it.

  ‘I can’t wait, I just can’t, to get another pop at the Frenchies,’ Tom Todd said one day, as they all sat down to dinner. He was pointing an imaginary musket at an invisible target, making the others duck as he swung it round the table. ‘When we took the St Colombe a year ago it was the best fun. Oh, John, you ought to have been there. You’d have loved it right enough, I know you would.’

  ‘You’ve told him all about it before, Tom,’ murmured Kit.

  Tom ignored him, and swept his invisible musket round again.

  ‘We closed in on her off Brest, passed her to windward, shortened sails and hove to. Then – crash! – our guns gave her a broadside, and a broadside from the Fearless is something no one will ever forget! She came back with answering fire, of course, and – phew! But it was awful close! A cannonball came that near to taking my head right off my shoulders! And then we boarded her, and . . .’