A Shot Rolling Ship Page 6

  The smell of the forward maindeck, sweat, unwashed clothing, the animals in the manger, with trapped flatulence added to the stench of the bilge water, was one Emily knew she would never get used to; not even the nosegay she pressed to her face could overcome it. The odour grew overpowering as she made her way down to the white-painted orlop deck, to where there was barely enough air to keep lit the flickering flames in the lanterns. The surgeon’s sick bay was a screened-off space only big enough for a cot and a stool to sit on, the lantern slung close to both providing the only illumination.

  Lieutenant Roscoe lay there covered by a blanket, pale of face, eyes closed, breathing slowly but regularly. He had suffered from an affliction of the face before being wounded, which gave him, because of half his features being immobile, a palsied look. He had also expressed himself in an abrasive manner, though that was in part due to the poor relationship he had had with her husband. In repose, hovering between life and death, that had disappeared, to be replaced by a look of serenity, and it was possible to see the child he had once been.

  But she could never look on his face without recalling the cockpit on the night of that raid on Lézardrieux. So many wounded had come back, and she had elected to aid the surgeon and the gunner’s wife in treating them. Emily was no stranger to death; in the company of her mother she had visited enough blighted hovels in her native part of Somerset – a duty imposed on her by her station in life – to be upset by the sight of a cadaver. In her time, she had seen innumerable dead bodies; women expired in childbirth, or parents prematurely aged by toil and deprivation, and had come to look on them, if not without emotion, as least with some sense of equanimity. Children were harder; little wasted bodies, some yet to reach a first birthday, always evoked tears.

  But the cockpit had not been like that, had not been silent grieving. It had been blood-soaked and noisy, with men screaming in pain, and the surgeon Lutyens shouting to the sailors holding them to get a grip as he set to with razor sharp knife and toothed saw to amputate a limb, an act he was able to carry out in under a minute, be it a shattered leg or an arm. More quietly he had worked on those, like Lieutenant Roscoe, who had been wounded by musketry, picking gently at the cloth taken into the wound by the ball, using a clear spirit which smelt of herbs to cleanse the wound. It was only an interlude, for even a comatose body reacted to the long probe he inserted to seek and remove the lead, with Emily required to keep the hole clear of the flowing blood so that he could see what he was about.

  The world of quiet prayer over a deceased soul had no connection to such mayhem, yet it was pain and death just as it was in a household struck by cholera or the misery of a still birth. As ever, before she began to read, Emily said a quiet prayer for the recovery of the man on the cot.

  ‘Mrs Barclay, you are here again, your sainted self.’

  ‘Hardly that, Mr Lutyens, just a captain’s wife doing what she sees as her duty.’

  ‘May I offer you some coffee?’

  ‘That would be most appreciated.’

  Lutyens exited, to instruct his assistant, the loblolly boy, to have made and fetch back some coffee from the gunroom, then re-entered his sickbay, looking down with an acute degree of concentration on the lovely face of Emily Barclay. Unlike everyone else aboard, his interest was not carnal; he had a lively curiosity about most things, but most particularly about the project which had brought him aboard the vessel; his desire to study sailors in conditions of both normality and extreme stress, to discern the motives by which they lived and accepted the privations of the service, their attitude to death and discomfort, in short to compile a survey on what made sailors the kind of people they were.

  Unlike most medically trained men, he found the physical side of his occupation dull, one amputation much like another, a dose of pox cured repetitive, the wrenching of a tooth boring. What interested Lutyens was the mind, to him the seat of all activity and emotion. He had come aboard this frigate because the size made close observation possible. In his coat was the book, one of a number, in which he scribbled what he saw, every detail of shipboard life and how each member of the crew felt, what they said, and how their words differed from their true emotions. There were notes on Captain Barclay and his officers, and there were observations on Emily Barclay too; the way she had interceded on behalf of the pressed seaman Pearce, caring little for her husband’s wrath. What had caused that; was it a sense of justice or something more primal? He longed to know, but he was astute enough to be aware that asking would get him no information. Not that it mattered; Lutyens worked on a different set of principles, believing that human beings often told you more by what they omitted to say, than by the words they uttered.

  ‘Captain Barclay is regaling Captain Gould with the story of the recent action.’

  ‘I daresay it is already embellished,’ Lutyens replied. The frown that engendered pleased him, for it was not entirely disapproval, more an acknowledgement that what he said was bound to be true. ‘You did not wish to stay and hear it told?’

  Emily looked at her book, to avoid the probing eyes of the surgeon, made uncomfortable by his all too obvious scrutiny. ‘I daresay I shall have ample time in my life to hear it.’

  ‘I cannot help but feel the role of Pearce and his fellows will diminish in direct proportion to those of others aboard the ship.’

  He meant her husband, but did not say so, and was pleased at the almost infinitesimal reaction, a tiny jerk in her frame at the mention of John Pearce, for he had suspected he had seen her, on the first day she could have observed him, openly admiring him. What would happen if he told her what he knew about the man, the secrets regarding his parentage which Pearce had spilled when drugged with laudanum, of the letter he had written to aid his cause once he landed in England? It was tempting to speculate, but that was all it could be, for the oaths of his profession bound him to silence. The arrival of coffee broke the mood, and as he poured for her he observed the look of pity that she gave to the still comatose Roscoe.

  ‘I believe your father is a chaplain to the Royal Family?’ Lutyens let her change the subject; doing so confirmed how uncomfortable she found the previous one. ‘He is, but only in the Lutheran faith, which the Queen, being German born, is wont to practise more than His Majesty. Even if he were to desire it otherwise he must be seen as the committed Anglican.’

  ‘Surely there is not much to choose between them?’

  ‘You’re right, but do not ask me to enumerate what those differences are. I’m afraid I find the whole subject of religiosity and its variations baffling.’

  ‘Would you think me too bold if I said that many wonder at your being aboard such a ship as HMS Brilliant.’

  Lutyens smiled, well aware of the curiosity his presence had engendered. ‘You mean with my connections?’

  ‘Not many surgeons can boast of proximity to royalty.’ She looked at Roscoe again. ‘I’m sure he would be grateful if he knew.’

  ‘Perhaps, though I think the notions of a King’s power to heal untenable, and my connections too tenuous to be worth much.’

  ‘Will he live?’

  ‘The longer he stays as he is, the better his prospects.’ Then Lutyens tapped his head. ‘But really the answer lies here.’

  ‘Surely the answer lies in his heart, not his mind. How can it be when he is comatose?’

  ‘Are you a student of Rousseau, then?’ the surgeon asked, his countenance amused.

  ‘Not a student, Mr Lutyens, but I have read him. I judge from the way you posed the question that you have too, and that you do not agree with him.’

  Lutyens just smiled; to explain, to dispute Rousseau’s romantic twaddle and site other philosophers in his arguments would mean advancing too many of his own personal theories, and that in turn might alert this lady to the area of his interest.

  Ralph Barclay perused the log of HMS Firefly with a growing sense of gloom, and thanked the Lord that he had sent a well-oiled Gould back without them in his own ba
rge – he had insisted that his junior finish the port – so that he was not obliged to have the author sitting opposite him as he read. Where Barclay wanted equivocation there was clarity, but at least, even if he had raised questions about the business of the Lady Harrington the man had not actually damned him outright in ink. Notes were made so that his own log would bear some relation to what he was reading, for just as he had a right to demand Gould’s log, Ralph Barclay would face the same demand from the admiral commanding at any station where he dropped anchor.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HMS Griffin, on deck, was little different from below; there always seemed to be too many bodies for the available space, made more so by the rigid division that the quarterdeck was the preserve of the ship’s officers, the only exception being the men at the wheel. To give such a grand name to such a pocket handkerchief of space, and to determine it as the dividing line between officers and men, was a joke.

  ‘We needs the numbers,’ Latimer explained, ‘’cause the buggers we come up against have likely got even more aboard. Hangin’ off the gunnels when they set forth, light on stores, an’ never out for more’n a two week, looking for easy pickin’s. Best time to catch ’em is when they have taken a few, for having crewed a capture or two they are down to bare bones thesselves.’

  Latimer, being right chatty, was a source of useful information, so Pearce sought as often as possible to work alongside him. Engaged in blacking the largest cannon balls allowed time for talking, and the sound of others chipping the rust off those being made ready to paint made such a conversation discreet. ‘Dozens of the sod there are, weighing from the likes of Dunkirk and St Malo.’

  ‘And they make enough captures?’

  ‘Must do, mate. Stands to reason or they would give it up. I ain’t sayin’ that sometimes they don’t return home empty bellied, but this stretch of water be the busiest in creation what with the number of deep hulls a’carryin’ trade up to London, an’ the Navy only has so many barkys like Griffin to try and stop ’em. And they ain’t fussy about neutrals neither. They’ll heave the crew into a boat and tell them to whistle for any redress, the buggers. Ain’t like us, hamstrung from the outset, wi’ the captain liable to be had up for layin’ a finger on a ship that ain’t French.’

  Pearce did not want to hear about that. ‘Must be chancy then, if you come up on the privateers well manned.’

  Latimer paused in his blacking to grin at Pearce, using one hand to pat the squat cannon by which they were standing. ‘They ain’t got what we’ve got, mate. Pop guns is what they carry, like most of the cannon we has aboard. But this here beauty and the other three like her, are serious meat an’ no error.’

  Pearce looked under Latimer’s hand at the squat weapon. The carriage was fixed to the deck and the trunnion had runners for the recoil instead of wheels, the whole turned sideways on to the bulwarks to increase the deck space. The short barrel and bulbous shape made the whole assembly look innocuous.

  ‘Our friend here is called a carronade. She don’t fire a ball very far, but as you will see by what you has in your hand they be big buggers, and of a weight that can tear the guts out of anyone we encounter. Not that we want to rip them asunder mind, not much in the way of prize money to be had from a ruined hull. Let us get close enough is all I ask, and one shot from this bugger, placed right in a spot that does for the riggin’ or a nice slice of bulwark, will see them cut down their flag damn quick.’

  Gently, trying not to be too obvious, Pearce steered the conversation to time spent at sea, the home port and what lay beyond it. Latimer answered his questions without seeming in any way to discern the reasons Pearce had for asking them, that was until the last one, when having provided the information, the sailor added, ‘So now you know all you need to run, I reckon.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Join the rest of the crew, mate. We all has thoughts of that from time to time, never met a tar who didn’t, and nowt that has happened on this commission has gone a way to rooting them away.’

  ‘Bosun,’ called Colbourne from his precious few feet of quarterdeck, ‘pipe the hands to dinner.’

  ‘So John boy,’ asked Michael O’Hagan, ‘how are we faring?’

  This was said as he squeezed an elbow past Pearce to get at the food on his plate, a question, the import of which, the man on the receiving end well understood. The others lent forward eagerly, but a flick of Pearce’s eyebrows indicated Littlejohn. He was too much of an unknown quantity to talk in front of openly, so Pearce waited until he had finished his dinner, at which point he moved away to find the more congenial company of proper seamen. Gherson, bored by the continued silence, followed in his wake, forcing his way into another conversation.

  ‘Notice anything about the food we’ve been eating?’

  ‘It’s good,’ replied Rufus, a youth who seemingly had no palate, quantity being his sole criterion for satisfaction.

  At least the Navy could not be faulted on that!

  ‘Not good,’ snorted a more discerning Charlie Taverner, ‘but at least it’s fresh. The bread is yet to go mouldy green.’

  ‘This tub has been out of harbour less than a week.’

  ‘So?’ demanded Michael, with palpable impatience. It was one of the traits in Pearce he least appreciated, the way he strung out his answers to simple questions, and he allied that to the honesty to say so. ‘Will you give over with the flippin’ teasing?’

  Pearce was not to be rushed, for he was thinking as well as talking. ‘What room do they have aboard for storage, Michael?’

  ‘Precious little,’ the Irishman replied, using a powerful elbow again to ease himself some space, ‘seeing as they don’t have room for us. Sure it’s a ship for leprechauns.’

  ‘No manger, either, no chicken coop on deck, and no real depth in the holds, that with a crew that is twice the number this ship would carry in a time of peace, which added together means they cannot stay at sea for any great time with so many mouths to feed.’

  ‘How long?’ asked Charlie, quick to see the logic.

  ‘According to Latimer three weeks out will put us on short commons,’ Pearce replied, moving forward to whisper.

  ‘Where do we touch land to revictual?’

  ‘Place called Lymington. It is a port at the bottom end of the New Forest.’

  The blank stares that greeted that remark reminded Pearce that none of his fellows had led the truly vagabond life that he had endured, trailing around with his father. Michael had travelled a bit, digging canals and the like, but Rufus knew only his native Litchfield and the bits of the capital he had seen as an apprentice leather worker and an absconding one. Charlie had never been outside the parts of London were he had made his living on the edge of legality – the rookeries of the city and the string of roads that led west to the Strand and Charing Cross, where the chances of finding a flat were greatest, a country bumpkin who could be parted from his money.

  From what he knew of the South Hampshire forest, which was not a great deal, it was pretty barren and uninhabited, a place that lived mainly off its timber and provided space for hunting. That was what Pearce had been thinking about as he talked; a wooded expanse sparse of people that, given the very nature of its resources would have shelters in which woodcutters and hunters could lay up, and game in abundance to feed their bellies, as well as the kindling to cook it. He could only hope that once they were away from the shore they would be safe and he did know for certain that the forest stretched north to a main road between the west and London. There was a double attraction; it was a place he could possibly part company from this trio, somewhere they would be safe, and allow him, alone, to go about his own affairs.

  Quietly, in a whisper that could not be heard outside their tight little circle, he explained all this, before concluding, ‘It wouldn’t be easy to get there but I think once deep in the forest we would be hard to find.’

  ‘You’re hugger-mugger ain’t you?’

  Latimer stood, or rathe
r stooped, over their table. Pearce felt a flash of annoyance and he knew the others shared it, for this was an unwelcome intrusion, but the sailor was smiling, and the words he used took the sting out of the mess tables’ resentment.

  ‘Mind if I sit with you, ’cause I can’t stand any more of that Gherson cove. Had to come away.’

  ‘Take a seat,’ said Pearce.

  ‘Where does that lad get off with his tale tellin’?’ Latimer asked, as he perched on the barrel that Littlejohn had vacated. ‘Anyone would have him for a prince if they were to believe half what he says. Friend to this great man an’ that, an’ even closer to their wives, with a purse so bulging he would struggle to close it tight. Now I is for story tellin’ misself, an’ I ain’t too fussy about it being right true, as long as it satisfies in the article of amusement or interest, but that Gherson’s tales are too tall to be borne.’

  ‘Did he tell you how he came to be pressed?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘He did not, though he insists it be an error that will be put right as soon as someone in authority gets to hear of it.’

  ‘He was chucked off London Bridge.’

  ‘Now you be tellin’ tales.’

  Rufus nodded. ‘You don’t know that for certain, Charlie.’

  ‘He did come from the bridge.’ Pearce added, ‘and he was lucky to land by the boat, because he can’t swim.’

  Charlie was quite indignant at his honesty being put in question, the usual defence of a practised deceiver. ‘Who needs to be certain when a fellow comes flying off the bridge, without his shoes or coat, in nothing but a shirt long enough to hide his shame? That’s my part of the world, Rufus. Someone chucked him, and knowing as I do the nature of the bugger it were no robbery. More’n like it was someone he’d dunned settling a score. If he ever had a full purse, as he said, it was never come by honest.’