Harry Heron: Midshipman's Journey

by Patrick G Cox

  “Watch yer dirk, sor. Doan le’ it trip yer. There’s many gone in t’ drink through that.” The wherryman indicated the trailing hand ropes. “Easier an’ safer ter grip t’ battens ’til yer used to t’ motion, sor.” He steadied the boat as Harry clambered into position. “Good luck, sor.”

  “Thank you,” Harry responded, aware of the eyes on him from the quarterdeck and the entry port. Reaching upward, he gripped the highest batten he could reach, measured the distance carefully, and stepped from the middle of the boat onto the lowest batten. Taking a moment to adjust the dangling dirk clear of his legs, he began the climb, hoping the boatmen would take care of Ferghal and offer him the correct advice on boarding. As he stepped through the entry port, he raised his hat to the Lieutenant waiting to meet him. “Midshipman Nelson-Heron, sir, reporting as ordered.” He presented his orders, struggling to restrain his expression as the ship’s stench almost overwhelmed his already nervous stomach. Even London’s cesspits had not smelled quite like this. The ship stank of animals, men, tar and some indefinable overtones he could not identify. His stomach stirred uneasily.

  “So, Mister Heron, you have arrived. Welcome to our select band,” drawled the Lieutenant. “I am Mister Brydges, Third Lieutenant. I understand that you have with you a ship’s boy? A fellow countryman, I believe? Mister Runciman will show you to the Gunroom.” He called to a midshipman standing nearby. “Mister Runciman, be so good as to show Mister Heron to his berth, and send a to me immediately, please.”

  Harry found himself facing the Lieutenant’s back as that worthy moved away to direct a group of men moving a gun into position.

  A gangling youth appeared at Harry’s elbow. “Hello, I’m Runciman; follow me and I’ll show you to the cockpit we infest.”

  “Thank you,” responded Harry. “I’m Har…I mean Heron.” A memory stirred in Harry’s head. “The cockpit? Is that not right aft, below the lower gun deck?”

  “You have it.” Runciman grimaced. “Not the most pleasant of places to live, but at least it’s our space.” The youth grinned as he led Harry to the broad companionway to the lower gun deck. The clearance between the deck and the deck beams above was low enough to cause Harry to have to lower his head in order to avoid having his hat knocked from it. Being older and taller, his companion had to duck even lower. “I’m glad you’re here,” Runciman threw over his shoulder. “I was the junior in the gunroom mess; now the honour falls to you.” He laughed. “In some ships a hardship, but in this one, not so bad.”

  The smell, bad enough on deck, intensified as they went below, a foul mixture of tar, smoke from the galley stove right forward, coupled with the smell of unwashed humanity, the beasts in the pens on the deck above and an indefinable smell that seemed to emanate from the bilges themselves. This got worse as they descended further to the lowest deck and then aft to where a partition separated a small area at the aftermost end of this from the rest of the ship.

  “You’ll get used to our stink. The Billy is an old lady and has been worked hard. The older the ship, the worse she smells,” Runciman replied casually in response to Harry’s mention of it.

  Sweeping aside a curtain of sailcloth, Runciman pointed out a space where Harry’s chest would be lashed to the ringbolts set in the deck. “Your chest will be secured there, old chap. Henceforth becoming your seat, your desk and sometimes your only private space.”

  “What are the others like?”

  “We are fortunate. Our senior, Ramsay, is a good fellow, and the rest of our happy band are of similar demeanour. You will meet them later at dinner. Some ships have the misfortune to have some unpleasant fellows in the gunroom.” He pointed to a series of tiny cubicles along each side and across the after bulkhead. “We have our cots in there; yours is next to the boatswain. He, the carpenter and two s share this space with us. In battle our chests are usually moved and lashed together to make a table for the surgeon if he has many casualties to deal with.” He grimaced. “I hope I am never one of those at his mercy.”

  As they spoke, the curtain was brushed aside again, and a directed Ferghal and another youth to put Harry’s chest in place and secure it with lashings. He cast an eye over Harry and nodded. “Your chest, sir, with Mister Firebrace’s compliments. You are to report to him immediately.”

  “Best be off then,” exclaimed Runciman. “The first Lieutenant is not a man to keep waiting. Follow me.”

  Leading Harry back to the companionway, he raced up to the upper gun deck and then aft again to the wardroom and the first Lieutenant. This meeting was the start of the hardest three weeks Harry would experience in the next few years. Fortunately for him, he was quick to learn and naturally intelligent, and he was soon at home with the language of the navy and with the ship’s layout and stations. As the ship was newly out of the dock, she was still being restored and re-rigged, the perfect opportunity for a bright boy to learn at first hand the complex rigging and the equally difficult questions of stowage and stability.

  Harry soon settled into the shipboard routine, revelling in the activity and in each small triumph as he began to master his new profession.

  LIKE HARRY, FERGHAL HAD BEEN OVERWHELMED by the ship’s stench, but as the days passed, he found he noticed it less and less until it formed no more than a background to his busy life. To his delight, he was assigned as messman to the gunroom replacing an older boy who had been promoted to look after the wardroom. In addition, he was assigned duties looking after the livestock confined to open pens and coops on deck, and the source of fresh meat once the ship was at sea. Ferghal was attached to one of the messes near the galley and slung his hammock in the company right forward where all the boys had a small space to themselves. The smallest of these were the powder monkeys, boys who ran the powder charges from the magazines to the guns in battle, and the older ones who filled various tasks from cook’s mates to sail maker’s assistants and messmen.

  Always quick to learn, Ferghal soon showed his skill with the knots, lines and splices essential to a ship, and he found a place assisting the ship’s blacksmith making metal fittings for the rigging and repairing metalwork.

  Like all the boys and young seamen, he was required to help with a wide variety of tasks, but he revelled in boat work, soon showing skills he had acquired in Strangford Lough where he had learned to row and to scull using a single oar. Being a volunteer, he enjoyed a mite more freedom than would be accorded a pressed sailor and was frequently entrusted with the task of accompanying one of the s ashore to the dockyard on various errands. He was thus among the party sent to collect volunteers from the prison hulks and the local gaol when the ship was almost ready for sea and needed to replace the men lost while she had been in the dockyard. Some, a small number, had made a run for it; others had transferred to other ships; a smaller number had been discharged as unfit for further service.

  FOR HARRY, THE DAYS AND OFTEN THE NIGHTS were packed with new experiences. At first, he shadowed one of the older midshipmen, but once he’d demonstrated his grasp of something, was left to oversee some activities. He found himself learning the naval art of boat management as an officer. He learned knots, lines and splices, sail handling and the rudiments of navigation, a subject he revelled in, enjoying the challenge of the mathematics. More physically, he was instructed by a in identifying every line of the rigging, an apparently impossible task but an essential one.

  Their instructor in the art of navigation, the sailing master, a large jovial man in his late forties named Joshua Porter, took great pride in it. Harry struggled to cope with the motion of the deck, even in the river, while at the same time trying to “shoot the sun” using a sextant, a set of mirrors and lenses with a vernier scale, to bring the image of the sun down to the horizon so that the angle between the two points could be measured.

  Mister Porter was very encouraging in his instruction. “Place the eye piece to your best eye, Mister Heron. That’s the way. Now then, lad, allow yourself to move with
the ship. Don’t fight the motion; go with it. That’s the style, lad. Now then, catch the sun in the smoked lens, hold it there and bring it down gently. Have you done it?”

  “Yes, Mister Porter, I mean, aye, Master.” Harry lowered the sextant. “But I fear I lost it just before I had it on the mark,” he added in frustration.

  “Well, well, ye’ll get there, lad.” The sailing master patted his shoulder kindly. “Rome was never built in a day, you know. It takes practice and skill, and the two go with each other. You’ve done well to learn this much so quickly. Try it again. That’s the way,” he declared as Harry finally managed to hold the sun’s disc in the mirror and bring it to the point of intersection with the horizon. “Now then, let us see what can be done once we have the angle measured.” Turning away, he began to write a series of numbers on a slate.

  The calculations absorbed their attention as Harry and the rest of the midshipmen were drawn into the intricacies of the mathematics necessary to work out the ship’s position. Harry was in his element.

  Chapter 11

  Fitting Out, Fitting In

  Harry had little trouble settling into the overcrowded gunroom. The older midshipmen were condescending and aloof, but those closer to his own age were friendly and welcoming. The recent troubles in Ireland, the fate of the rebels, and in particular of Wolf Tone at first created a barrier, but Harry learned quickly not to rise to attempts to bait him on any of it. His natural agility provided him with an opportunity to shine early. He loved clambering about the rigging under the tutelage of the sailmaker, the riggers and the topmen.

  “Heron, you’ll break your neck or someone else’s!” protested one of his companions on an excursion throughout the rigging of the mainmast, topmast and royal mast.

  “I hope not,” he retorted. He remembered that his fellow midshipman on this task hated heights. “Oh, my apologies, Royce.” He clambered a little lower. “The halyard block is split. It will require a new one. Simply reeving a new halyard will not cure it.”

  Clinging to the very top of the royal mast, just beneath the button that crowned it, Harry laughed with carefree abandon. The view of Chatham and the cathedral spire of Rochester just around the bend in the river enthralled him. He made mental notes for a painting he’d do for inclusion in his next letter home. The gentle sway of the mast as the ship responded to the movement of the river was accentuated—a practical example of the principles he’d learned of levers and motion from the Reverend Mr. Carrigan, and now from the ship’s sailing master and their parson, who doubled as schoolmaster for the midshipmen’s education. The realisation of the forces in play made him forget, briefly, why he was here.

  His companion, white around the gills, looked relieved. “Then we’ll report it. It’s a task for the Boatswain then, not for us. Come on, let’s get down.” Without waiting for Harry’s agreement, he started downward.

  Harry lingered a moment longer, once again taking in the view, then started down. At least up here, he could escape the crowding and the constant hubbub of voices from the more than six hundred men crammed into the hull, not to mention the need to mind his tongue and his temper when he was the target of what some regarded as sport. His favourite place, when it was not too cold or raining, was in the foretop. Here he could be private, or at least have the illusion of it.

  Reaching the gangway at last, he joined Midshipman Royce. “Damme, Heron. I think Cruickshank’s latest cartoon has the right of it. You Irish fellows must have monkey in your ancestry. The best topmen aboard are Irish, and now you join and scamper about the rigging just like one.”

  Getting used to such comments had taken him a while. He’d learned not to attempt a refutation. “Having a tail would be useful aloft, but sadly I lack one.” He grinned as his companion stared in surprise at his retort. He shrugged. “I find it best just to confront any such task. After all, if an ordinary seaman can do it, I should be able to.”

  “WRITING AGAIN, HERON?” SAID MIDSHIPMAN RAMSEY, the gunroom senior, as he seated himself on the chest next to Harry’s. Idly he picked up the watercolour Harry had painted a few days earlier of the river scene and the dockyard. “I say, this is rather good. Did you have lessons in the schoolroom?”

  “Thank you. My sister’s governess taught me the rudiments. Miss Montgomery is a fine artist in this medium.”

  The older midshipman grunted. “A talent few of us possess, I can tell you.” Replacing the painting, he studied Harry, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You’ve a few talents, Harry, but take care you don’t show other fellows up—a man can make enemies that way.” He chuckled. “It does not sit well with one or two of our less talented company to have the First hold up your journal as the model we should all follow.”

  “I wish he would not. Tyler and Clark blame me for the drubbing he gave them over the lack of detail in theirs.”

  “I know, and they know they are at fault, but they cannot admit it.” Ramsay smiled. “I see you write to your parents daily. A journal for their benefit?”

  “Yes, I try to write a little each day so they may know how Ferghal and I go on.”

  “Sounds like a good habit to me. I must consider a similar system, but I fear my lack of artistic talent means I cannot include the pictorial embellishments you provide.” He watched as Harry carefully sanded and blotted his letter for the day. In common with some of the Lieutenants, he’d found this youngster a little enigmatic, young in age, but frequently capable of undertaking tasks and responsibilities far beyond his age or experience.

  Putting away his letter and the journal, Harry drew out the treatise on navigation he’d been given. “I must reread the passage on the calculation of longitude. Mister Porter explained it differently, and I think there may be an error in the book.”

  Ramsay stood. “I’m off, then; next you’ll ask me to explain it, and I’m struggling enough as it is.” Shaking his head, the older youth moved away. He’d never encountered anyone like Harry, so eager to learn that it challenged his teachers. He grinned as he mounted the ladder to the upper gun deck. The boy’s letters were already a topic of remark among the warrant officers, and his drawings of ship’s equipment and fittings were remarkable.

  “Ah, Mister Ramsay.” The third Lieutenant’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  “Sir?”

  “We’re to proceed as soon as we can work the ship downstream and clear. Ensure all is secure in the gunroom. We wait only on a westerly breeze and the tide.”

  The ship needed a south westerly to clear the river and the banks, and then something more northerly in the wind, or an easterly, to run down the Dover Straits. At this season, easterlies were the more common, but once clear of the Medway and the treacherous banks off Whitstable, Margate and the Foreland, any wind would do. As a Portsmouth ship, the Bellerophon was eager to return home.

  “We’re to proceed to Spithead, then await orders to join the Channel Fleet unless Bonaparte sues for peace,” the Captain told Mr. Firebrace and the midshipmen he had invited to breakfast with him. “In that event, we may all have fresh orders to consider.”

  THE HOPED FOR WIND ARRIVED THREE DAYS AFTER the ship received the final signatures of completion, though it came from the west, which was less than ideal for working a ship down the crowded waterway. The reach on which Chatham lays runs south to north with a dogleg to the east past St Mary’s Island, then the tortuous channels to reach Sheerness. At his post, assisting Midshipman Runciman in charge of signals, Harry listened as the sailing master and the Captain discussed the channels and the various problems of navigating to the sea. The ship seethed with activity.

  “Top of the tide in a quarter hour at most, sir.” The first Lieutenant touched his hat.

  “Thank you, Mister Firebrace. The wind is not ideal, but it will suffice. We shall sail as soon as we have the full tide. The light will go early, but we should be clear of the Nore by then. Hoist our request and prepare to clear the moorings if y
ou please.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” The first Lieutenant smiled, adding, “And not before time if I may say sir. I shall be glad to shake off the dockyard shackles.” He hurried forward bellowing for all hands. Pipes twittered, and the cry was passed on by the s. Men raced to their stations, the most recent additions, most of who had been “recruited” from the prison hulks, being pushed and pulled to where they were needed. Here and there, a boatswain’s mate used his ‘starter’ to encourage a tardy or confused man.

  Harry found himself busy at the signal halyards, selecting flags as his senior called for them. Three seamen bent on the flags as Harry called out the sequence from the signal book, running each hoist aloft with alacrity. Midshipman Runciman watched the dockyard signal station through the telescope, calling out the acknowledgements and replies. As he called out each number sequence, Harry looked them up and sang out the message.

  Slowly the ship came to life as the flood tide slackened. First her staysails and then her foresails were hoisted while her cables were released from the buoys and the ship began to move. Slowly at first, slowly enough for the buoy jumpers to clamber up the cables as those were hauled inboard to regain the safety of the ship, the Bellerophon drew out into the stream and moved steadily down the river. As a precaution, two of the ship’s larger launches had been manned and now followed under oars ready to take a hand should the wind or tide place the ship in danger.

  Clear of the moorings, the first Lieutenant had the spanker set and watched carefully as the ship cleared the narrowest part of the river. With that astern, he had the topsails spread, increasing her speed as the ebb began to run out.

  “Stand by to wear ship.” The Captain’s voice was calm and clear as he gave his order.

  “Channel marker abeam, sir.”

  “Up helm. Wear ship. Mister Firebrace, sheets and braces, sir.”

  Responding to the helm, the ship swung her head away from the wind, putting it astern, the heavy spanker booms swinging overhead as she turned across the wind.