by Jan Needle
Welfare’s mizzenmast had gone by the board. It was hanging overside, still firmly attached to her by the rigging. It had taken the mainyard and main topsail with it, so the ship was miraculously back on something like her old course, being dragged slowly downwind by her reefed fore topsail, her headsails flapping uselessly.
There was no one at the wheel, and the scene on deck was very much as it had been before. Broad studied it.
Judging by the fact that three of the guns were still run out, only the three he had noted could have fired. Judging further by the amount of noise there had been, he reckoned only three or four of the eighteen-pounders below could have gone off. So. He looked at the adversary, terrifyingly close-to. There was not a mark upon her. Not a yarn of rope had been damaged, not a speck of paint scratched. He licked his lips, looking at Matthews. Six or seven guns at point-blank range. And not a hit.
Joyce was back on deck. He and Madesly were shouting at the gun-crews, trying to make them reload and run out.
Joyce was cutting the air with a cutlass, dancing in a kind of frenzy. The gun-crews stared back stupidly. One man played idly with a swab, throwing it from one hand to the other. Nobody made so much as a gesture towards a gun.
All the others on the deck were looking at the frigate, only yards ahead now. If she opened fire at this range she would tear the life out of the Welfare. She was still athwart their course, still heading the wind. Broad saw an officer in blue move towards the helm. An order was clearly passed.
As the Welfare drew level with the ship, it became obvious what the order was. The helm was up. The ship was moving off the wind, turning on her heel to bring herself parallel with the cripple.
Parallel, and close enough to throw a line. Broad wondered if that was their intention, to throw a line. Not in this sea, surely? It would be too dangerous to lie alongside. They would grind each other badly.
Their intention became clear very quickly. As the ships ranged side by side, gunport to gunport, the captains of the visible guns took up their stances to fire.
Joyce was still dancing, the idler was still playing with his swab, the bulk of the people stood about in their ugly, stolid daze. The crippled Welfare wallowed on, dragging her mizzenmast clumsily. Broad breathed evenly, unmoved despite the awful cruelty of it all, the terrible, desperate cruelty.
The point at which she fired was lost. An incredible bang, a searing flash, a biting, filthy, burning smell. The Welfare staggered, trembled, shook. Everything disappeared, completely, in a choking mass of smoke. For seconds, minutes, a time that could have been an age, Jesse Broad was lost. Deaf, blind and agonised, neither alive nor dead.
When the smoke cleared away, when he could hear and see again, the Welfare was a wreck. The foremast was a fifteen-foot stump, the larboard main shrouds had gone, and debris from above was piled about the decks as in a dockyard. It was difficult to take it in. The expanse of clear deck had gone. Everywhere broken spars, and blackened canvas, piles of twisted cordage. And smoke. Smoke hanging about in mounds, twirling and melting, blowing from one ragged heap to the next.
For a little while all seemed silent, save for the rhythmic ringing in his ears. Silent and still. He could not see a man, except for Matthews, knelt beside him. Then a moaning started, the moaning of the wind. Then another moaning, of men. Then slowly, building slowly up, came screams, of fear and agony and horror. From the littered deck shapes rose up. Some were bloody, some were not.
Some were blackened, some were ghastly pale. Some had arms and legs, some were missing limbs, or bits of torso. As they stood there, more climbed up hatchways from the gundeck, some hardly able to crawl; it was not only the Welfare’s upper deck that had been shattered.
The triumphant ship had dropped astern, to sit proudly, spilling wind, to wait and see. To see if the Welfare wanted any more. Broad looked at her. As she dropped into a trough, he saw men making for the boats, clearing them for lowering. There was not any doubt, when it came to it. The Welfare had had enough.
‘She will not come alongside,’ said Matthews quietly. ‘Thank God we prevented the issuing of arms. There are some blessings in this sorry world.’
‘Will she sink, the Welfare? Will she go down after all this punishment?’
‘That, my friend, is no longer our concern.’ He laughed. ‘I doubt it though. She’s a fine powerful boat. They’ll jury rig her and put on a crew. They’ll get her safe to Cape Town.’
‘Thank God I won’t be on board her,’ Broad said. ‘Hang I will, if hang I must. But dear God, my friend, I think I could die happy so long I’m off this ship.’
The Welfare was wallowing. Wallowing in the cold southern ocean, her decks littered with gear and men. Confused men, weeping men, injured men, dead and dying men. The first boat from the frigate was neatly launched.
The other boarding parties were drawn up, quiet and well-armed. The first boat slipped her falls, and began to struggle through the cold and lumpy sea. From behind a pile of jumbled debris near the mainmast, Joyce and Madesly came into view. With them were two other men. They picked their way towards the stern. They carried cutlasses.
It did not occur to Broad and Matthews for some time what was up. Kneeling in the clutter, they watched the four come aft. The faces, dirty and blackened, one badly cut, were intent. Despite the chaos, they moved fast. Their eyes were firmly fixed; they had a purpose. Broad grabbed Matthews by the arm, horrified.
‘The boy,’ he said.
Matthews cottoned on immediately. He gave a grunt, and they rose to their feet as one. Joyce, seeing them, stopped.
‘So,’ he shouted. ‘Hiding like bugs in the woodwork. Stand, you bastards, stand, or we cut you down.’
Broad and Matthews did not wait to argue. They set out at a stumbling run. Joyce snarled with fury, and his party started running too. It was laughable in a way, the six men stumbling, panting, racing for the after hatchway.
Matthews got there first, with Broad a pace or two behind. Madesly hauled out a pistol, which misfired. Another of them tried with his. It ignited, and a ball clipped Matthews on the shoulder, making him lose his grip. He half fell down the ladder, but looked up to see if Jesse was all right. Madesly, frustrated, threw his pistol at Broad. It struck him on the temple, but only a glancing blow. As he tumbled down the steps the attackers were on his heels, snorting like pigs with rage and exertion.
The two ran into the cabin pell-mell. Broad tried to slam the door, ram home the bolt, but it was too late. As it swung to, the four dashed themselves against it, knocking him backwards. He banged his hip against the table, lost his pistol far across the deck, fell heavily and nearly broke his wrist. By the time he had got himself half upright, the cabin was full of men. Matthews was to the right, his pistol and cutlass raised. As Jesse watched, the hammer of the pistol fell. A flash around the action, but no bang. He hurled it down, disgusted.
Joyce’s pistol was now ready. He aimed it at Matthews and pulled the trigger. But this misfired, too. The last of the four looked almost comical as he raised his; he really had no hope of it.
There was a bang, however. The man, instead of wearing triumph on his face, showed horror, and a look of pained surprise. A wound beneath his arm began to gush blood, then he fell. William Bentley, who had fired the shot, was half slumped across a chair, exhausted by his efforts to get out of bed and dressed during the last ten minutes. The musket-kick banged painfully against his ribs. He was gasping, feeling giddy and sick. He had not known his lungs had grown so weak.
The three assassins were bemused for a moment.
Matthews gave a loud, glad cry and lunged himself towards them. He led with the point of his cutlass, which was his downfall. It ran easily into the body of Arthur Madesly, who screeched, coughed blood across the deck, then fell.
But the weight of him was on the blade. It bent, but did not break. As Matthews, frantic, white with knowledge, hauled on it to get it free, Joyce aimed an enormous swing at him with his own cutlass. There
was a bang as it hit the bone, a crunch as it broke through it, and his left arm was ruined. His blade freed itself from Madesly then, and Matthews staggered back. He still had speed and strength enough to parry Joyce’s second blow.
Broad was on his feet, and moving to the unengaged man. Bentley, gasping in his chair, a cutlass beside him that he could barely lift, watched the bloody fight. In the confined space it was ghastly; the deckhead much too low for high-raised blades, the mess of blood from Madesly’s punctured stomach making the deck untenable. The four men slipped and slid, grunted and spat. As he watched it, Matthews’ face grew pale, only a mighty determination enabling him to ward off Joyce’s swinging, violent blows for a dwindling while.
Bentley wished he could have stopped it somehow, this final loss of blood. But even if he’d cut his throat, as Joyce had come to do, he knew it would have passed unnoticed. He was forced to sit and watch, wheezing painfully, a prematurely aged young man. They had come to make a sacrifice, they had come to drive out some demon with his blood. And he would gladly have spilt it, gladly. But there he sat, helpless, to watch his friends protect him.
Matthews died next, as much of exhaustion, it seemed, as anything else. He raised his cutlass too wearily to fend off a thrust, and it drove deeply into him beneath his guard. Before Joyce could drag his buried blade away, his companion, fighting Broad, was run through the stomach, and fell gurgling.
There was a strange pause. It would have been a silence if that had been possible. It sounded like a silence to William Bentley. The two surviving men faced each other, panting, their shoulders heaving, black and soaked with blood. There was blood everywhere, they were framed in it, shrouded in it, wallowing in it. They faced each other, the half-mad giant and the small, strong man. They faced each other.
Then slowly, trembling with fatigue, they both drew back their arms.
‘And now I’ll kill you, Jesse Broad,’ said Joyce.
It was then that Daniel Swift arrived. He appeared in the doorway, behind and to one side of them; slightly to one side. Bentley saw him, and his mouth dropped open. He could not say a word. His uncle looked ill. Gaunt, ill and terrible, with a long pistol in his hand. He looked desperate ill.
For a long moment everything was still. The tired men, their rasping breath awful in the silence, prepared to fight to death. Bentley watched his uncle, his mouth gaping helplessly. His uncle watched the men, who had not seen him there.
He was stooped, his powerful frame oddly less powerful. His face was hollow-cheeked and ulcerated, his eyes a shining pale. Only the great beak was the same, and he lifted it like a scythe.
As Joyce and Broad pulled back their cutlasses, Swift spoke. The two men jumped, the voice was such a shock. It was low, and penetrating, and terrifyingly vibrant. It was throbbing with hate.
‘Put down your cutlasses, bastards, or I shoot you where you stand.’
Henry Joyce’s face changed in front of Jesse’s eyes. He saw the look of shock, of horror, of incomprehension. The pig-like eyes flickered, dropped, moved sideways over his shoulder. A bubbling noise came from Joyce’s throat; he swallowed.
As he swallowed, as he turned to look at Daniel Swift, he lowered his cutlass. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his great, knotted, muscular throat. The bubbling noise came once more.
A veil of red fell over Jesse’s eyes. A black, horrific, nauseated violence burst in his stomach, deep inside his guts. His arm knotted, struck out with a force that almost made him lose his balance. As his cutlass bit deep, deep into Joyce’s neck, he raised his head and howled, a deep, throbbing, aching roar.
As he stood trembling over Joyce’s body, the cutlass dangling in his hand, Daniel Swift levelled the pistol and shot him in the chest. Broad fell, without another sound.
Thirty-Four
The last thing Bentley remembered of the scene, the last picture that lived on in his head, was of the few seconds after Broad had fallen. His uncle was framed in the doorway, his head emerging from a cloud of smoke. His face was sick but triumphant, the ulcerated features twisted in a smile.
Already William felt a numbness sweeping over him.
His uncle made a gesture with the gun, a meaningless movement of his arm, and stepped into the cabin, placing his feet carefully among the pools of blood.
‘Ah William,’ he said. ‘Thank God I’ve saved you, my boy. Thank God.’
He became unconscious then, or thought he did. Afterwards it occurred to William that perhaps he had not. But some sort of blackness came. He blotted out all thought, he closed his eyes to make his uncle disappear. Yes, in the event he must have lost consciousness, for it was many hours before he was aware again.
For days afterwards he stayed in this blissful state.
Whenever he awoke, and thoughts came flooding back to him, the curtain followed close upon their heels. Perhaps he was drugged, perhaps had had a relapse. But he lay in a well-appointed cabin in the frigate Wentworth, hardly eating, hardly drinking, acknowledging nobody in his periods awake. All he wanted to do was to remain unaware. The surgeon made a lot of him, did his very best, and William was grateful; for the Wentworth’s man was no Mr Adamson. Bleeding, not brandy, was his cure-all, so the boy got progressively weaker and nearer death. Arrived at Cape Town he was feverish, emaciated, and able to spend twenty hours a day or more in limbo. From the way they treated him on shore, he knew he was not expected to live. Which suited him exactly.
The turning point, ironically, came some weeks later, when a Navy ship homeward bound for England – the Wentworth having sailed on belatedly to India – embarked the prisoners and the remnants of the Welfare’s crew. It was not considered, at first, that William was fit enough to undertake the voyage. His uncle saw him in a lucid moment, and tested out the idea of his staying. The way he put it, of course, was that the boy should make his recovery in the pleasant climate here among the kindly Dutch, and travel later, when he was fit again. William listened without opening his eyes. He still had the memory burning on them. He could not bear to look on Daniel Swift.
‘In any case, my boy,’ the man said gently, ‘it will be an uncomfortable voyage enough. The ship is not so large, and we must run her as a prison in the main. I doubt you want to spend your sickness cooped up with such scum as Jesse Broad.’
The voice, made hearty for the jest, caused a great lurch inside his stomach. A dizziness descended in his head, coupled with a sick excitement. Bentley spoke a sentence for the first time in days.
‘Broad? Is Jesse Broad alive?’ Swift laughed with pleasure.
‘He speaks! Ah, that’s much better, my boy, much better! By God, you’ll pull through yet, I must inform the doctors.’ Bentley was panting, impatient.
‘Is he? Is Jesse Broad..?’
‘Bless your heart, yes,’ said Swift. ‘But never fear, boy, not for long.’ He spoke more soberly. ‘I hope he can survive the journey. It is in doubt, he is so very sick.’ He brightened. ‘Well, live in hope eh? God willing he’ll live to be strung up.’
‘There will…there will be a trial? In Portsmouth, I suppose?’
‘Aye, once we have sorted out the innocent from the guilty. You would be of great assistance there, of course, as you were forced to stay on board the Welfare. But there is no doubt in that man’s case, at all.’
William was too tired to talk on; knew, in any case, there was no point in trying to contradict. His uncle left him, and he lapsed into a musing dream. Jesse Broad alive. It had simply not occurred to him. He felt elation, felt new energy running in his blood. It was the turning point. There was no doubt any more; he must go back, he must recover. Not just to see Broad, but to save him. He day-dreamed, half delirious. He had made a pledge and he would keep it. He had a vision of Broad set free, a vindicated man. He saw them smile together.
It was three days before they were embarked, during which time he made enough progress to surprise the doctors. They still shook their heads at the idea of him going, but it was no longer in question. Ev
eryone was going back, except for some few able-bodied mutineers who had escaped into the hinterland to risk their fates among the Hottentots, and he was not going to be left. During this time, too, he learnt a little of the background to the rescue.
He allowed his uncle to sit with him and talk, reluctant as he was to see the man. He always kept his eyes closed, and responded in grunts. But he wanted to hear.
The story was simple, and Swift did not embellish it.
The voyage in the boats was hellish, several men had died. When they had been picked up, the illness rate was getting serious, the weather worsening, the chances of survival slim. It had not taken him long to persuade the captain of the Wentworth what their course should be. A combination of bitter rage, invincible courage, and connections with the highest echelons of the service carried the matter. He had not expected to be so quickly lucky, but he had never had a doubt as to the final outcome; he would have followed the Welfare three times to hell and back. It had also been largely his battle when they came on her. Again his great connections alone would save him from the consequences of the decision to fire that point-blank broadside into one of His Majesty’s expensive and much-needed ships; for the Welfare had been so badly damaged that she had had to be beached. In Table Bay, in this season, whatever decision might be made in London as to her future, her fate in ultimate was likely sealed already.
Throughout the long voyage to Britain, Bentley maintained the status quo. He was recovering, but the rate was very slow. He found it hard to breathe, he ate and drank very little, he was never strong enough to stand for many minutes. Every time they hit cold weather his lungs reacted badly, things got worse. During the fine spells, when the sun was strong and hot, when the winds were soft and gentle, he would be carried to the quarterdeck and left to his devices. For he conveyed it pretty quickly to the quality on board that he was not to be approached. The young gentlemen tried to make friends, but not for long. He behaved rather like an old and ill-tempered cripple, snarling weakly at any who addressed him. Swift lost patience very early on; stopped talking heartily of how many villains they would hang. Bentley never contradicted him on this, never betrayed a hint as to what he thought. He just sat quietly, face hunched on sunken chest, and grunted with a total lack of interest. He observed the length of the decks morosely, thinking one day to see Jesse Broad. But the prisoners never came on deck, none of them. They were shackled far below, on the orlop deck, where for exercise they shook their manacles. The others of the Welfare’s people, the loyal men, were put to work. They would not have dared acknowledge him, in any case.
