The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  A shout went up from ahead of them, and the Welfare began the fast, deep plunge into the monster sea that had arisen to weather of her. Broad watched its rise out of the corner of his eye as he reached for a secure handhold.

  ‘Grip hard, lad,’ said Fulman.

  There was a strange momentary lull before the sea hit them, as the height of it deflected the savage wind above her sails. Then the wall rose in a great black surge over the bow and the weather rail.

  In the confusion that followed, with loose timbers careering about the waist and men coughing water from their lungs and stomachs, Broad noticed that the midshipman had gone from the foredeck.

  ‘Grandfather!’ he said urgently. ‘We’ve lost that mid!’

  The old fellow was a sorry sight himself. He was red with fury and wetter than a drowned cat. He had bitten hard at his pipe to save it, but the weight of water had carried away the bowl. He turned his face to the foredeck in a flash.

  ‘Damn me, I think you’re right!’ he said excitedly. ‘Now there’s cause to rejoice!’

  Jesse Broad was shocked.

  ‘Hold hard, Fulman,’ he said. ‘It is only a boy!’ Grandfather Fulman spat.

  ‘See that, Broad,’ he said viciously. ‘I have spat on the deck. My mouth is full of salt and dottle from me pipe. And anyway, I’m an old man, entitled to spitting. Six months ago I spat like that, on a night as black as hell, and over the side, not on the deck, and young master Bentley caught me at it. I wore the spitkid for a week. And was lucky, quoth he, not to be flogged. I shall not mourn the nephew of the uncle.’

  The ship was wallowing in the aftermath of the sea.

  There were loose spars to be seized, secured, restowed. The boatswain’s mates, as wet as anyone, were venting their fury on any back within reach. Before he jumped to stop a partly-adzed yard from rolling overside, Broad saw that Bentley had rejoined Thomas Fox and Allgood. He was relieved, despite what Fulman had said.

  After an hour of heavy, wet work, the pair were sheltering once more. The old man was panting painfully, the darkened pipe-stem still gripped in the side of his toothless mouth. Broad said nothing to him, so as not to increase his distress by having to reply. He looked into the eye of the wind, then up at the masts, then at the quarterdeck, where the slight form of Mr Robinson was huddled in a cloak.

  ‘You’ll be needing that breath soon, old fellow,’ he told Fulman with a smile. ‘We’ll be setting more sail before much longer, unless I’m not the seaman I used to be. It’s falling lighter all the time; aye, and fairer too. I’ll wager we’ll have back that easterly we lost yesterday. And we’ll get it before we get a hot meal!’

  After a bit he added: ‘What is this of a spitkid, that you were telling me? It cannot be enough to wish the child drowned, whatever.’

  Fulman panted for a few minutes longer before answering.

  ‘You have a lot to learn about the Navy,’ he said. ‘For instance, you probably do not know that on this ship we could incur the wrath of any officer, or snotty little boy even, by merely talking like this. When on deck, on watch, we should be silent. Your eyes are too still, Jesse. You should keep them moving more.’

  It was true that Fulman’s own hooded eyes never stopped roaming. Even here on the bleak, roaring deck he spoke in whispers, and watched like a hawk everyone who moved.

  ‘The spitkid now,’ he went on. ‘It weighed a great deal for a man of my years, and was full of tobacco juice and spittle and other vilenesses. That young fellow, whose miserable hide you value so much, had one of Allgood’s mates lash it round my neck like the feedbag of a beast. I wore it for six days.’

  Broad shook his head. The punishments on board these ships seemed hardly to be borne.

  ‘And young master Bentley made damned sure that it was kept in use,’ said Fulman bitterly. He noted Broad’s look. ‘Aye, that shakes you, eh? He made sure that any man who wished to spit did it in “Grandfather’s spitkid”. Now are you so keen on the boy?

  ‘And for another thing,’ he added, curiously. ‘Did he not aid your own taking? Did he not kill your friend? And why do you think young Thomas Fox is suffering under Allgood’s lash, the poor simple boy?’

  Broad’s eyes flinched at the mention of Hardman.

  The hours of work and hardship had cleared his mind of thoughts of friends, home, wife and family. A vivid picture leapt into his mind. The wherry racing through the waves to the christening; Hardman talking of the French girl, Louise. The sudden shock, the sight of sword and pistol, the flash of powder and the blow on his head. But he remembered one thing. It was the oafish third lieutenant, Higgins, who had killed Hardman, not William Bentley.

  In many ways it helped, the way each and every conversation, each and every activity, was interrupted on the ship. He hoped he would never have the time to brood, to grow a seed of hatred inside him, if the weather should turn good. He dreaded what might happen if the sea and the wind became kindly, and there was too much time to think.

  Now the call was to go about, which would be followed, for a guinea, by the setting of more sail. The wind was backing south and east so fast, that on their present tack they would soon be going in the wrong direction. It was still blowing very fresh, but it was easing. He made for his assigned position at the main brace with a sense of relief. He would have to hear more of the old man’s tales, he would have to think about the sort of society fate had landed him in; but not now, thank the Lord. Now there was the simple necessity of forcing his weary arms and legs to handle the damp and slippery ropes, to force his aching brain to sort out and interpret the orders which he still found complicated. He was learning to be a deep-sea man. It was enough…

  *

  In the red-painted fug of the midshipmen’s berth, the nephew of the uncle, William Bentley, was stretched across two sea chests, his face twisted, while the surgeon tried to put back his dislocated shoulder. The other midshipmen, both young gentlemen and the older hands whose title and berth they shared, were ranged about the makeshift table trying to give Mr Adamson some assistance, physical and moral.

  ‘Trouble is you see, young Bentley,’ the tiny surgeon chirped, ‘is that I’m so blessed puny. It is said that a rearing horse frightened me into the world before my time, and I never made up for the lost growth!’

  William bared his teeth in his sweat-glistening white face, in what he hoped was a smile. Dolby, the senior midshipman in terms of years if nothing else, tutted as if disapprovingly. Jack Evans laughed obligingly, while the two other young mids, Simon Allen and James Finch, said nothing. Finch, indeed, was prostrate on a large chest. He was only just twelve and had been terribly ill.

  ‘Come on now,’ continued the surgeon. ‘You, Mr Dolby, sit on his legs, that’s the ticket. Now, you, what’s your name, Evans. You and him grab that arm you see sticking out to the side.’

  William was in agony. He lay on his back, staring at the deckhead. He was stripped to the waist, with sweat pouring in runnels down his chest and sides. Evans and Simon latched hold of the arm as the surgeon indicated, while he himself moved to the other side of the table. On his way round he bobbed his head close to peer into William’s eyes.

  ‘Not looking too good, young chappie,’ he said brightly. ‘Mouth all cut up, too. Drop more brandy, eh?’

  William smiled again, but shook his head. The trouble with Mr Adamson was that his surgery sometimes left men dead drunk, if not dead.

  ‘It’s a bad sight right enough,’ said Adamson. ‘Arm stuck out like a semaphore. How did you manage it?’

  William wished he would stop talking and get on with it, but he tried to answer to take his mind off the pain.

  ‘A big sea,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you felt it.’ The surgeon screeched with laughter.

  ‘Oh aye, I felt it, Mr Bentley, I felt it. It kept me very busy for a while in the sick-bay did that.’ He paused. ‘Else I would have been here sooner.’

  ‘No matter for that, sir,’ said William. ‘It almost did for me, that s
ea. I was knocked clear across the foredeck, and fetched up in the chains.’

  Jack Evans’s high-pitched voice made him turn his head.

  ‘And very lucky you were too, Will. I was aft and saw you go. I squeaked so loud I got sent below for my pains.’

  William felt a burst of irritation as the colour rose in his friend’s cheeks. That was much as one would expect from Jack. It was not the place of a young gentleman to behave in that manner. There was an example to be upheld, always an example.

  Evans went on: ‘You took it very well too, all upon the quarterdeck could note that. You walked back aft calm as you please, although how you managed it with your arm like that I cannot imagine. Why Will, it sticks out two points to starboard now, but then it was quite flat at your side.’

  Well that, thought William, was something. It had cost him a great deal not to let the boatswain know he had been hurt. It was pain enough to have been caught unawares by the sea. One hand for yourself, one hand for the ship was one golden rule, and always to keep a weather eye out was another. He had done neither, which was gross stupidity on the foredeck in a gale. Allgood knew it, and William hated the blandness of his face, his remarks that reeked of hidden insolence. His apology for not singing out earlier was a case in point; how could one define the subtlety of the insult?

  ‘I suppose it was the seventh wave,’ said old Dolby quietly, from his seat on William’s legs. ‘They say every seventh wave is a big ’un, right enough.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, Dolby,’ he snarled. ‘Did we ship every seventh sea like that? In the whole time did we meet a sea like that?’ Dolby’s colour deepened.

  ‘That may be, sir,’ he said. ‘But when you’ve been at sea as long—’

  ‘Shut up!’ snapped Bentley.

  And: ‘Hey-up!’ chirruped the surgeon, throwing his weight across the table.

  The suddenness of it forced a cry from William’s lips. A sharp pain across the chest, a definite meaty click, and his shoulder was back. Relief and irritation mingled within him.

  ‘Punishment taken like a man,’ sang out Mr Adamson. ‘Or a young gentleman, to be sure!’

  The boy closed his eyes and muttered his ungracious thanks. Oh hell, he thought, the people on this ship are so low, so near to cowards all. It was vile, always to have to be an example for their better behaviour.

  Fifteen

  When the larboard watch was piped on deck next morning, Broad knew at once that all the slim chances he had been praying for had passed. The sky was high and blue, with a few streaks of white wind-cloud. The sea was deep green, with occasional whitecaps, and much longer and easier than it had been. During the four hours he had been asleep below, Welfare had spread her wings. All plain sail was set and drawing on the main and mizzen masts, and during his watch the task of setting up a new fore topgallant mast, to replace the one that had carried away, was completed.

  Stunsails were rigged on the lower yards to drive her along at her very best speed. High up in the rigging, he stared over the stem towards England. But there was nothing to be seen.

  All spare hands were set to clean ship. The hatches were unbattened and a vile reek rose from them, to be blown briskly away over the bow. Thomas Fox was put to tending his beasts, which had suffered miserably during the bad weather. He was glad of the task, for the others had the far worse one of clearing the filth off the decks. Pumps were rigged and manned, buckets ran in chains, water splashed and gurgled everywhere. The portlids were lashed open, making the deck light once more. For an hour Thomas kept his head buried in the smell of the animals, as being sweeter than that from the gun-deck. But gradually the vomit and excrement was sluiced away – much of it into the bilges, true, and the ship became a cleaner, more bearable thing.

  After the sluicing came the scrubbing. Thomas had finished mucking out the beasts, so had to join the others with holystone and prayer book. He needed to give the animals more attention; three hens had already died and others were weak, a pig was looking sick indeed, two poor sheep had injured legs; but he could not bear to say so. The sight of a boatswain’s mate, after his ordeal, made his eyes seek the deck. When Jefferies walked by six feet away he began to tremble.

  So he knelt with the rest, the heavy sandstone block in front of him, his trousers rolled high, scrubbing for his life.

  The work, like all work on the frigate, was meant to be done in silence. But Thomas was beside Peter. Peter talked.

  ‘Every day we do this, young Tommy,’ he said. ‘Every morning, some afternoons, and not a few night-times.’

  Thomas said nothing. The deck beneath him was dark, stained. The boatswain’s mates kept yelling ‘White – white and glaring till it blinds the eyes out of you!’ He had no reason to suppose they did not mean it. He scrubbed harder.

  ‘It is the worst part of all, I suppose,’ Peter went on. ‘What I hates about it is, on an empty stomach it hurts worse than it need. If they would only wait until after breakfast!’

  Grandfather Fulman and the other greybeard in the mess sloshed more water from a bucket, followed by two handfuls of sand.

  ‘Then again,’ said Peter, ‘it do hurt the knees so. But if you keeps your breeches rolled down – why then, soon you has no breeches worth speaking of!’

  On they scrubbed. The pain in his arms and knees was getting worse. But the planking was coming up whiter, in one place at least.

  A boatswain’s mate roared: ‘Harder, you lousy scum! Harder! If I can’t blind my bleeding eyes on that deck there, I’ll see you flayed alive!’

  The deck was a mass of men, on their knees, moving rhythmically up and down as if praying to some Eastern god. In front of each knot others walked backwards with buckets. Decrepit old fellows as a rule, or sick men, or cripples.

  ‘Damn his own eyes,’ hissed Peter. ‘Oh, this be a terrible service to be in Tommy, terrible.

  ‘Why,’ he went on, not pausing for a second in his scrubbing, although his voice had become quite dreamy, ‘why, if I was still on shore now, I’d have had me breakfast inside me, piping hot, and would be sitting like a lord on a bolt of hay, smoking a pipe and supping a can of ale.’

  Slosh, went Fulman’s bucket, followed by a patter of sand. Peter shook his red hair from his eyes, laughing.

  ‘What a fool I am though!’ he said. ‘’Tis all lies, Thomas, all lies. I never came by so much kindness on shore as I do now, and as for hot breakfasts! Well, not long now, my dear messmate, and breakfast will be piped – and piping hot too! Did you ever come by a hot breakfast on shore, Thomas? I’ll wager you did not!’

  Thomas said nothing. He scrubbed and scrubbed, and thanked God for his strong arms. At least he could make his patch of deck as white as the next boy’s, although he doubted he’d ever have a sailor’s power; fine muscular men some of them were. He did not answer Peter’s question, not even in his own mind. He could not think of breakfast at home, nor yet dinner nor supper. Home was a bright red spot deep in his head, not to be touched on.

  When the worst of the stench was gone, there was still much more scrubbing to be done. Peter explained that this was not usual; but that such sickness and filth was not either. Today, he reckoned, they’d be at scrub and clean till dinner. But first there were hammocks to stow and breakfast to be had.

  In all his time on board, Thomas had not yet attempted to sleep in a hammock, far less to lash one ready for stowing. In his time below he had been in the sick-bay, or too tired and ill to know or care where he slept. When the order to lash up came, Grandfather Fulman and Peter took him under their wings. The long unwieldy canvas with its nettles and lines was like a self-willed animal to him. But Peter’s dexterity was amazing, and Fulman promised he would teach him more slowly when the occasion arose. Thomas was anxious to learn; to learn anything, because he feared the consequences of making a mistake, however small.

  Despite Peter’s dexterity, despite the bent old man’s encouragement, Thomas was afraid he would never get the hang of it. His fingers had
always been a countryman’s – clumsy and blunt. Only in making and playing musical instruments did they work delicately and well. He was afraid.

  At the order ‘Up hammocks and stow!’ there was a mad dash for the ladders. He was jostled, punched and kicked, although Peter kept close to him and held his arm; a strange bodyguard, more than a foot shorter than his charge. But Peter was a sailor born, of a different breed from Thomas. He would bite, kick, punch with the worst of them if need be. Or wield steel, Thomas guessed. He reminded him of a small ginger stoat, and he was glad to be in his ‘family’ and not against it.

  William Bentley watched the outpouring of men from his position on the quarterdeck. They reminded him of so many cattle, blundering about, jostling each other as they sought their places at the hammock nettings. One big, dark man stopped and looked about him. William shouted to a boatswain’s mate.

  ‘Ahoy! Boatswain’s mate there! Start that dog, if you please!’

  The mate obligingly swung his rope’s end, a knobbly affair of Turk’s heads and fancy work. The sailor yelped, and jumped towards the nettings. William turned his attention to the others. Stragglers must be punished. Discipline must be instilled. He glanced at the first lieutenant, who had the watch, but Hagan was studying the set of the canvas, not apparently interested in the demeanour of the men. It irritated him; Hagan was too easy-going. He wondered why his uncle, who was a stickler for discipline, had landed himself with such a weak sort of fellow. At that moment,

  Hagan dropped his eyes from the sails. They met William’s, and the first lieutenant smiled. William looked away, although not as abruptly as he would have liked to. The first lieutenant was, after all, still the first lieutenant.

  ‘Set fair at last, Mr Bentley, I should think,’ he remarked. ‘I think we can perhaps have the people scrub out their hammocks this afternoon.’

  ‘Aye aye sir,’ William replied smartly. He made a mental note of it. The first lieutenant was, after all, still the first lieutenant.