Richard Bolitho Midshipman

by Alexander Kent

  But now, as he listened to Conway's calm, unhurried voice, the mention of some four thousand miles to be sailed, the most profitable courses to be used, food, fresh water, and above all the training and efficiency of the company, he could only marvel.

  In this cabin, which for a few moments he had regarded as the height of luxury, the captain fought his own private battles. He could share his anxieties with nobody, could divide his responsibility not at all. Bolitho shivered. The great cabin could become a.prison for any man who lost his way in doubt.

  He recalled his own childhood when he had visited his father's ship on those rare and privileged occasions when she had anchored at Falmouth. How different it had been. His father's officers smiling and friendly, some almost subservient in his presence. Rather different from his later introduction as a midshipman, when lieutenants had appeared bad tempered and intolerant.

  Scroggs was at his side again.

  `Take this message to the boatswain and come back immediately.' He thrust a folded piece of paper

  into his hand.

  Bolitho picked up his hat and hurried past the big desk. He was almost through the screen door when the captain's voice halted him in his tracks.

  `What did you say your name was?'

  `Bolitho, Sir.'

  `Very well. Be off with you, and mark what I said.' Conway looked down at his papers and waited for the door to close.

  When he glanced up again at the surgeon he said shortly, `No better way to inform the people of what we are about than to let a new midshipman overhear.'

  The surgeon regarded him gravely. `I think I know that boy's family, sir. His grandfather was with Wolfe at Quebec.'

  `Really.' Conway was already studying the next paper.

  The surgeon added softly, `He was a rear-admiral, sir.'

  But Conway was elsewhere in his thoughts, his features set in a small frown.

  The surgeon sighed. Captains were quite unreachable.

  3

  The City of Athens

  SOUTH-WEST and then south, day in day out, with barely a pause from backbreaking work. While the Gorgon thrust her heavy bulk clear of the English Channel and headed down towards the notorious Bay of Biscay, Bolitho and his new companions drew closer together, as if to use their combined strength against the ship and the sea.

  He had heard Turnbull, the master, say that the weather was as bad as he could recall for the time of year, and for someone who had seen some thirty winters in the Navy it was a statement to be taken seriously. Especially now that Bolitho had lost his temporary work in the great cabin. When Marrack had returned to duty after injuring his arm in the first storm, Bolitho had joined Dancer at the foremast whenever the call to make or shorten sail had been piped.

  If he found a moment to consider his progress in his new ship, which was not often, Bolitho thought more of his physical than his mental state. He was always hungry, and every muscle and bone seemed to ache from constant climbs aloft or the other demands of gun drill on the lower batteries of thirtytwo-pounders. When the sea and wind moderated, and Gorgon headed south under almost a full set of canvas, the ship's company went to quarters to learn, exercise and sweat blood over the heavy and cumbersome tiers of guns. On the lower deck it was made doubly difficult by the lieutenant in charge.

  Grenfell, the senior midshipman, had already warned Bolitho about him, and as long days ran into longer weeks, while the ship pushed her beakhead between the Madeiran Islands and the coast of Morocco, all invisible even to the masthead lookouts, the name of Mr Piers Tregorren, the fourth lieutenant and the master of Gorgon's twenty-eight heaviest cannon, took on new importance.

  The fourth lieutenant was a massive figure, with the swarthy skin and lank hair more suitable to Spaniard or gypsy than a sea officer. The beams of the shadowy gundeck were so low that Tregorren had to duck and rise between them as he strode forward or aft to supervise the practice loading and running-out of each weapon. Big, belligerent and impatient, he was a hard man to serve.

  Even Dancer, who was usually so busy keeping out of trouble that he saved his strength for eating and sleeping, had noticed that Tregorren seemed to have taken a dislike to Bolitho. It was strange, Bolitho thought, for Tregorren was a fellow Cornishman, and usually that -was one bond which survived even the cuts and bruises of discipline.

  Because of this animosity Bolitho had received three lots of extra duty, and on another occasion had been sent to the foremast crosstrees in a savage wind until ordered by the officer of the watch to descend. Harsh, unfair, it certainly was, but the punishment brought other sides of shiplife into the open. Young Eden produced a pot of honey which his mother had given him, and which he had been saving for some suitable occasion. Tom Jehan, the gunner, a really unsympathetic warrant officer, who messed beyond the screen and rarely deigned to speak with lowly midshipmen, brought a large mug of brandy from his private stock to restore some life to Bolitho's frozen body.

  The endless, unrelenting training on sail and gun took other tolls, too.

  Before they had even passed Gibraltar two men were lost overboard, and another died after falling from the mainyard and breaking his back on an eighteen-pounder. He was buried at a brief, but to the new men, moving ceremony, his corpse sewn in a hammock and dropped overboard weighted with roundshot, while the Gorgon titled steeply to a brisk north-easterly.

  Further strains showed themselves like cracks in metal. Arguments broke out amongst the seamen, some trivial, some less so. A man turned on a boatswain's mate who had ordered him aloft for the third time in a watch to splice some worn rigging and was consequently taken aft to be awarded punishment.

  Bolitho had seen his first flogging at the age of twelve and a half. He had never grown used to it, but he knew what to expect. The newer and younger midshipmen did not.

  First came the pipe, `All hands lay aft to witness punishment!' Next the rigging of a grating on one of the gangways, while the marines trooped athwartships across the poop, their scarlet coats and white crossbelts very clear against the dull, overcast sky. The ship's company seemed to swell out of every hatchway and hiding place, until the decks, shrouds and even the boat tier were crammed with silently watching figures.

  And then the little procession wended its way to the rigged grating. Hoggett, the boatswain, and his two mates, Beedle, the unsmiling master-at-arms, Bunn, the ship's corporal, with the prisoner and Laidlaw, the surgeon, bringing up the rear. On the quarterdeck, its pale planking dappled with droplets of spume and spray, the officers and warrant officers took their places in order of seniority and importance. By the lee side the midshipmen, all twelve of them, made two short ranks on their own.

  The prisoner was stripped and then seized up on the grating, his muscled back pale against the scrubbed wood, his face hidden as he listened to the captain's austere voice as he read the relevant Articles of War before finishing with, `Two dozen, Mr Hoggett.'

  And so, between the staccato roll of a solitary marine drummer boy, who kept his eyes fixed on the mainyard above his head throughout the flogging, the punishment was carried out. The boatswain's mate who actually used the cat-o'-nine-tails was not a brutal man by nature. But he was powerfully built and had an arm like the branch of an oak. Also, he was well aware that to show leniency would probably invite his changing places with the luckless offender. After eight strokes the seaman's back was a mass of blood. After a dozen it was barely recognizable as human. And so it went on. The roll of the drum and the immediate crack of the lash across the naked back.

  The youngest midshipman, Eden, fainted, and the second youngest, a pale-faced youth called Knibb, burst into tears, while the rest and not a few of the watching seamen were stiff-faced with horror.

  After what seemed like an age Hoggett called hoarsely, `Two dozen, sir!'

  Bolitho made himself breathe in and out very slowly as he watched the man being cut down from the grating. His back was torn as if mauled by some beast, the skin quite black from the force and w
eight of the lash. At no time had he cried out, and for a moment Bolitho imagined he had died under punishment. But the surgeon looked up at the quarterdeck as he prised the leather strap from between the man's teeth and reported, `He's fainted, sir.' Then he beckoned his assistants to carry the man below to the sick-bay. The blood was swabbed from the deck, the grating removed, and as the drummer and two other young marines with fifes struck up a lively jig the company slowly returned to normal life once again.

  Bolitho glanced quickly at the captain. He was expressionless, his fingers tapping a little tattoo on his sword-hilt as if in time with the jig.

  Dancer exclaimed fiercely, `What a foul way to treat a man P

  The old sailing master overheard him and rumbled, `Wait till you've seen a flogging round th' fleet, m'lad, then you will have something to puke on !'

  And yet, when the hands went for their mid-meal of salt beef and iron-hard biscuits, washed down with a pint of coarse red wine, Bolitho heard no word of complaint or anger from anyone. It seemed that as in his last ship the rule of the lower deck was that if you got caught you were punished. The fault was being found out.

  This acceptance was even showing itself in the midshipmen's berth. The first anxiety and awe at not knowing what to do, and when to do it, had given way to a new unity, a toughness which had touched even Eden.

  Food and comfort were paramount, and the uncertainty of the voyage, what they were being ordered to do, took on less importance.

  The small compartment which nestled against the ship's curved side had become their home, the space between the white screen door and their heavy chests an area where they ate their crude meals, shared their confidences and fears and learned from one another with each succeeding day.

  Apart from the sighting of a few murky islands and two distant ships, Gorgon seemed to have the ocean to herself. Daily the midshipmen gathered aft for instruction in navigation under Turnbull's watchful eye. The sun and the stars took on new meaning to some of them, while to the older ones the reality of promotion to lieutenant seemed not so distant and improbable.

  After a particularly bad gun drill with the thirtytwo-pounders Dancer said angrily, `That man Tregorren has the devil in him!'

  Little Eden surprised all of them by saying, `He has the g-gout, if that is the d-devil, Martyn.'

  They all stared at him as he added in his thin, piping voice, `My f-father is an apothecary in B-Bristol. He is often c-called to t-treat such cases.' He nodded firmly. `Mr Tregorren t-takes too much b-brandy for his own g-good.'

  With this new knowledge at their disposal they were able to watch the fourth lieutenant's behaviour with more interest. Tregorren would lurch beneath the low deck beams, his shadow crossing the gunports like a massive spectre, while at each great cannon the crew would wait for the order to load and run out, to train or elevate as the lieutenant ordered.

  Each gun weighed three tons and had a crew of fifteen hands to control it and its opposite number on the other side of the deck. Every man had to know exactly what to do, and to keep doing it no matter what. As Tregorren had shouted on many occasions, `I'll make you bleed a bit, but it's nothing to what an enemy will do, so move yourselves!'

  Bolitho was sitting at the slung table in the midshipmen's berth, a candle flickering in an old oyster shell to add some light to that which filtered from a nearby companionway, and writing a letter to his mother. He had no idea when, if ever, she would read it, but it gave him comfort to retain a link with his home.

  From what he had gathered from his privileged position of aiding Turnbull with the navigation lessons, and his daily scrutiny of the master's charts, he knew that the first part of their passage was almost over. Four thousand miles, the captain had said, and as he had studied the wavering lines of the charts, the daily positions fixed by shooting the sun and the usual calculations on speed and course, he knew all the old excitement of an approaching landfall. Six weeks since weighing anchor at Spithead. Changing tack and constantly reducing or making sail. The ship's track wavered over the charts like an injured beetle. A speedy frigate would have covered the distance and been on her way back to England long since, he thought bitterly.

  . He paused, his pen in mid-air, as he heard muffled shouts from two decks above. He doused the glim and carefully placed it in the chest, and laid the unfinished letter under his next clean shirt.

  He reached the upper deck and climbed swiftly to the larboard gangway where Dancer and Grenfell were clinging to the nettings, peering towards the glittering horizon.

  Bolitho asked, `Is it land?'

  `No, Dick, a ship!' Dancer grinned at him, his face tanned and alert in the bright sunshine.

  It was hard to remember the rain and bitter cold, Bolitho thought. The sea was as blue as the sky, and the crisp wind lacking in bite or menace. High above the decks the topsails and topgallants shone like pale shells, while the masthead pendant licked out towards the larboard bow like a long scarlet lance.

  `Deck thar!' They all peered up at the tiny black shape of the masthead lookout. `She bain't answerin', sir !'

  It was then Bolitho realized that this was no ordinary encounter. The captain was by the quarterdeck rail, arms folded, his face in shadow, and nearby Midshipman Marrack and his signalling party were watching their halliards and the bright hoist of flags at the mainyard.

  What ship?

  Bolitho craned over the nettings and felt the spray touching his face and lips from the wash below. Then he saw the other vessel, a black-hulled barquentine, her sails in disarray against the blinding horizon, her masts swaying steeply in the swell.

  Bolitho moved further aft and heard Mr Hope, who had the watch, exclaim, `By God, sir, if he don't answer our signal he must be up to no good, I say!'

  Verling turned towards him, his beaky nose displaying his scorn.

  `If he wanted, Mr Hope, he could fly with the wind and leave us far astern within the hour.'

  `Aye, sir.' Hope sounded downcast.

  The captain ignored both of them.

  He said, `Pass the word to the gunner, if you please. To run out a bow chaser and fire one ball as near as he can. They're either drunk or asleep over there.'

  But the solitary crash of a forward nine-pounder brought nothing more than a rush of seamen from below decks in the Gorgon herself. The idling barquentine continued to drift, her forward sails almost aback, her big fore-and-aft canvas on main and mizzen shivering in a heat haze.

  The captain snapped, `Shorten sail and heave-to, Mr Verling ! And send away the quarter boat. I am uneasy about this one.'

  Calls shrilled and twittered along the maindeck, and within minutes of the captain's order Gorgon was going about, swinging her heavy hull round into the wind with every sail and shroud quivering and banging in confusion.

  Dancer went aft to join Bolitho beneath the hammock nettings.

  'D'you think -'

  He stopped as Bolitho whispered, `Keep quiet and stay here.'

  Bolitho watched the boatswain mustering a boat's crew on the opposite side of the deck. With Gorgon hove-to and groaning into the wind Hoggett, the boatswain, was preparing the quarter boat to be hauled from astern and manhandled alongside.

  The captain was speaking to Verling, his words lost in the sullen boom of flapping canvas. Then the first lieutenant turned abruptly, his nose swinging across the quarterdeck like a swivel gun.

  `Pass the word ! Mr Tregorren lay aft to take boarding party away!' His nose continued to move as his order was yelled forward along the maindeck.

  `You two midshipmen! Arm yourselves and accompany

  the fourth lieutenant!'

  Bolitho touched his hat. `Aye, aye, sir!' He nudged Dancer. `I knew he would pick the nearest.'

  Dancer grinned, the excitement bright in his eyes. `It's good to be doing something different!'

  Down by the entry port the hastily assembled oarsmen and armed seamen crowded above the blue water, their eyes outboard towards the other vessel which had drifted
almost abeam and now lay about half a mile distant.

  Mr Hope called, `I can read her name, sir!' He sounded cautious after Verling's earlier sarcasm.

  `She's the City of Athens!' He was swaying back and

  forth in the uncomfortable swell, a big telescope held to his eye. `No sign of life aboard!'

  Lieutenant Tregorren arrived at the entry port, his frame seeming larger and more forceful without the low-beamed gundeck to restrain it. His eyes flashed across his boarding party.

  He said bluntly, `Let no man loose off a pistol or musket by error. Be ready for anything.' His gaze settled on Bolitho and he added, `As for you -'

  He broke off as the captain's voice called from the quarterdeck rail, `Man your boat, Mr Tregorren.' His eyes were like glass in the bright glare. `If it's fever aboard I want no part of it. Do what you can and be lively with it.'

  Bolitho watched him gravely. He did not know the captain, other than at a distance or seeing him at work with his officers. And yet he was almost certain that Captain Conway was on edge, anxious enough to speak severely to one of his lieutenants in front of the people. He flushed as the cold eyes settled on him.

  But there was no sound other than sea noises and the dismal creak of the unattended wheel.

  Tregorren looked at Bolitho. `Down you go.' He seized his wrist and added fiercely,. `Well, attend to your pistol, damn you!'

  Bolitho drew the heavy weapon from his belt and stared at it.

  The lieutenant said, `And don't turn your back as. you go down the ladder!'

  Bolitho slid over the coaming and paused to allow

  his eyes to become used to the gloom between decks.

  Once below the poop he heard other shipboard sounds, and he had to tell himself they were quite normal. The sluice of water against the hull, the creak and clatter of loose gear. He could smell candle-grease and damp air, the more rancid stenches of bilge and stale food.

  He heard a man yell from above, `Nothing forrard, sir!' and relaxed very slightly. On the planks above, muffled but recognizable, Tregorren was moving this way and that, probably wondering what to do next. But he remembered Tregorren's haste to send him below first and without aid. If he was concerned about this strange, deserted vessel he was certainly indifferent to his midshipman's safety.