Alan staggered toward her quickly, backing her against one of the plastics vats and bracing himself against it with one arm. “Have’ter be an officer noticin’,” he said quietly. “An’ you ain’t no officer. Just a girl. Little bit of a girl.” He laughed again and Alexis could smell the raw alcohol on his breath.
Alexis pressed herself back hard against the vat, trying to avoid contact with him. “Stand back, Alan,” she ordered coldly.
Instead, he edged closer. “Nah. Me mates lef’ us all alone. Shame t’ waste that, don’ ya think?” He raised his free hand to brush her cheek and she tried to bat it away, but surprisingly quick, he caught her wrist and forced her arm back to her side. “None o’ that,” he whispered.
“Alan,” Alexis said, hoping to penetrate his alcoholic haze. “You don’t want to do this. It’s time to back off now.”
“Two months.” He moved closer, pinning her against the side of the vat with his body and bent to put his mouth near her ear. Alexis could feel the heat of his breath on her as he spoke. “Two bloody months we’re in this ship and no liberty. No station in this poxed system, neither. Ship na’ even out o’ discipline fer a bloody day? Ain’t right.”
Alexis twisted her arm painfully, but managed to break his grip and shove him away. She darted past him, but he was quickly after her and dragged her back. Alan’s arms wrapped around her, pinning her arms to her sides. He straightened and lifted her off the deck. Alexis threw her head back, hoping to connect with his face, but missed.
“Ain’t right!” he insisted.
Alexis’ mind raced. She was no stranger to a physical fight, having grown up wrestling with the boys from the village, but this was quite a different thing. She remembered some advice her grandfather’s foreman had given her as she’d grown older and begun visiting the working camps alone. “Most of the lads are decent,” Brandon had told her. “But there’s some as aren’t and others might not remember to be when they’ve been in the drink, so you remember this, Miss Alexis. If it comes down to you or him and he’s not listening, then, well, just hurt him. However it takes and however bad it needs to be, don’t you worry about it — not about him being dead nor maimed nor if he’ll put the law on you, just hurt him.”
Alexis raised both her legs high, thighs tucked against her midsection, then straightened them hard. Her right foot grazed Alan’s thigh, deflected to the side, but her left heel struck his kneecap squarely, forcing it down with a loud pop, barely audible over his sudden shriek of pain. Alan released her to clutch at his knee and Alexis fell forward to land on all fours on the deck. Without thinking, she lashed out again, driving her foot backward and feeling her heavy boot connect with something that drew another shriek from the man.
She caught her balance and prepared to run, but thought about the twisting maze of compartments, vats and pallets of goods that made up the hold, unsure if she’d be able to find her way and certain the spacer knew the hold far better than she. The rest of Brandon’s advice echoed in her head. “Once he’s hurt, though, if you can’t get away clean — sure and clear to you, bet your life on it, clean away — well then, you hurt him more. For sure as he catches you, he’ll have learned his lesson and you’ll not get another chance.”
Alexis tucked her right fist into her left palm and holding both near her chin, she spun around, elbow swinging in a short, vicious arc that connected with the crouching man’s face. Alexis felt a sharp pain lance up her elbow and Alan spun around, his head impacting the bulkhead with a dull thwonk.
Alexis leapt to her feet, breath ragged and heart pounding as she prepared to run.
“What’s all this about, then?”
Alexis glanced toward the voice and saw the bosun rushing toward them, face red and furious. He took in Alexis’ wide eyes and disheveled state, her beret and tablet dropped to the deck, and he paled. “Are you all right, Mister Carew? Are you hurt?”
Alexis took a deep breath. “No, Mister Kinsley. I’m not hurt.” She took a moment to steady herself.
“Alan, you sorry bastard,” the bosun muttered darkly, stalking past Alexis. He grabbed the spacer by the collar and dragged him to his feet, paying no attention to the man’s shriek of pain as his knee straightened. He slammed him against the bulkhead and pinned him there. “Drunk,” he affirmed, smelling the man’s breath. He glanced at Alexis. “And worse. I knew I’d see you hang, and you’ll swing for this for certain, Alan.” The spacer’s eyes went wide and he opened his mouth to speak, but the bosun slammed him back against the bulkhead again.
“Hang, Mister Kinsley?” Alexis asked, not sure if she’d heard correctly.
“Aye, fer assault on an officer and worse, when the captain’s done with him. Gone too far this time, the bastard has.”
Alexis was shocked. Would they really hang the man?
“It were the drink, sir!” Alan said desperately, clearly sobering as his situation became clear to him.
The bosun shoved him hard against the bulkhead again. “And who was it forced the drink on you?” he asked with disgust. “It’ll make no difference and shouldn’t.”
“Please, sir!” Alan begged, eyes wide and pleading.
Alexis hesitated, eyes darting back and forth between the two men. She knew she’d been lucky in her encounter with Alan. It was only his drunkenness and luck in striking his knee with her first blow that had allowed her to get loose, but did she want to see the man die for it? And surely, the rest of the crew would think ill of such an outcome. She made a sudden decision, hoping it wasn’t a mistake.
“I’m afraid you’ve mistaken the situation, Mister Kinsley.” She took a deep breath. “The man is drunk, certainly, but that’s all. There was no assault.”
The bosun turned to her in shock. “But …”
Alexis bent to retrieve her beret and tablet from the deck. “Drunk alone, Mister Kinsley.”
“Thank you, sir!” Alan said. “Thank you!”
“Mister Carew! And what of the man’s leg and face?”
Alexis regarded the spacer, his knee already swollen to the point that his jumpsuit was stretched tightly around it and blood streaming down his chin. She took a deep breath and regarded the bosun levelly.
“He fell, Mister Kinsley.”
“Fell?”
Alexis nodded. “Quite a bad fall, it seems.” She looked Alan in the eye. “Lucky the damage wasn’t worse, I imagine.”
“A fall?” the bosun asked as Alan nodded his head vigorously, drops of blood flying from his nose.
“Lucky an’ I won’t forget it, sir, I won’t!” Alan nodded his head rapidly.
“Shut up, you!” the bosun said, shaking Alan again and ignoring his cry of pain. “This is a mistake, sir. The man’s been trouble since he come aboard, and his hanging’d be no more than his due. No loss at all.”
Alexis regarded the two for a moment. “Surely any man’s death is a great loss, Mister Kinsley?”
* * *
Alexis spent the next two days dreading the upcoming Captain’s Mast where the captain dealt with the crew’s offenses aboard ship. Alan would be brought before Captain Grantham on charges of drunkenness, but would the bosun say anything about what he suspected had really happened? And what would Alexis do if the captain questioned her about it?
When the time came, the sound of the bosun’s pipes trilled through the ship’s speakers, calling the hands to assemble on the gundeck. Alexis took her place beside the captain and the other officers near the aft companionway.
Captain Grantham quickly dealt with a handful of other, more minor, offenses, ordering punishments ranging from stoppage of pay to extra duties and confinement to quarters when not on watch, leaving Alan’s offense the last to be heard.
The spacer made his way to the open space in front of the officers and hung his head. His knee and forearm were in braces supplied by the ship’s surgeon and his eyes blackened from the blow to his nose.
Captain Grantham looked from his tablet to Alan then at the bo
sun. “Drunk?”
“Aye, captain, very drunk, he was,” the bosun answered.
Alexis looked from one to the other, her heart pounding and palms slick with sweat.
Grantham raised his eyebrows. “You came upon him alone in the hold, Mister Carew? You cannot identify the others who were drinking with him?”
“Yes sir, alone,” she answered, swallowing hard. “I wouldn’t know who else was with him before I came along, sir.”
Grantham stared at Alan for a moment and the spacer shifted nervously, wincing whenever he put weight on his injured leg. “And the injuries?”
Alexis licked her lips and glanced at Alan again. What was the right thing to do? And what would the bosun say? The bosun cleared his throat and she looked at him. He glared at her for a moment, then sighed and looked away. She glanced back at Alan, who had raised his head to look back at her, eyes wide and pleading. No, she couldn’t let the man hang — she might happily have killed him herself in the moment, but not after the fact. She’d made her decision in the hold, and she’d stand by it.
“He fell, sir.”
Grantham raised an eyebrow again and looked back to his tablet as the bosun let out a snort of disgust. “Fell?”
“Yes, sir.”
“According to Mister Comerford’s report, I’ve lost a topman for at least two weeks, due to a …” He paused to review his tablet. “… fractured ulna, a dislocated kneecap and a broken nose.” He stared levelly at Alexis. “From a fall, Mister Carew?”
Alexis swallowed heavily and bit her lip. Beside her, she heard the bosun sigh.
“It were a bad fall, sir,” he said.
“No doubt, Mister Kinsley, no doubt. And you witnessed the fall, Mister Carew?”
Right after I put my elbow into the bastard’s face. “I did, sir. It was quite a dire fall.”
“A humbling bad fall, if I’m any judge, sir,” the bosun added with a glare at Alan.
Grantham nodded. “And what have you to say for yourself, Alan?”
Alan looked up with wide eyes. “I fell, sir?”
“Yes, Misters Carew and Kinsley have quite established that, I believe. And the drunkeness?”
Alan hesitated. “I were drunk, sir?”
Grantham sighed. “And have you anything to say about that?”
The spacer looked over at Alexis and then down at the deck again. “Not good in the drink, I’m not, sir. Real sorry fer the … fall,” he finished weakly.
The captain was silent for a moment, regarding Alexis levelly. “Is there anything else about this incident I should be made aware of, Mister Carew?”
She took a deep breath. “No sir. Nothing you should take notice of.”
Grantham narrowed his eyes but nodded. “Very well, then.” He referred to his tablet again. “Not the first time you’ve been before me for drunkeness, Alan. Nor the first it’s gotten you into serious trouble, is it?”
“No sir.”
“Well, there’ll be some work for you and your cat out of this, Mister Kinsley,” Grantham said. “Six lashes and we’ll have the grating rigged instanter.”
“Aye sir.” The bosun jerked his head at one of his mates who rushed off. Two others seized up one of the deck panels that gave greater access to the hold and f, lplaced it upright against a support column
The assembled spacers crowded to the sides of the gundeck. Captain Grantham stepped forward and raised his tablet, carefully reading out the Articles of War with particular emphasis on the second Article. “All flag officers and all persons in or belonging to Her Majesty's ships or vessels of war, being guilty of profane oaths, cursings, execrations, drunkenness, uncleanness or other scandalous actions, in derogation of the Queen's Honor, and corruption of good manners, shall incur such punishment as a court martial shall think fit to impose, and as the nature and degree of their offense shall deserve,” then stepped back and nodded to the bosun.
“Seize him up, lads,” the bosun said, nodding to two master’s mates, but Alan stepped forward before they could approach him, unsealing his jumpsuit to the waist and shrugging out of it before pulling his undershirt over his head. He stepped up to the grating and grasped the corners.
Alexis gasped as she saw that his back was covered in a lattice of thin white scars.
The bosun’s mate who’d hurried off returned and handed the bosun a red bag. He reached inside to pull out a long, thin-corded length of ship’s line. The line had been unraveled until half its length was made up of nine strands, each knotted in several places to add weight. He stepped up to Alan’s side and said something to the man that Alexis couldn’t hear, but she could see the cold look in Alan’s eye as he responded. Then the bosun stepped back and shook his arm, loosening the strands of the cat.
He drew back his arm and swung it forward, laying the cat’s lashes against the spacer’s back. Alexis gasped again as red lines of blood appeared. The bosun drew back his arm again and she looked away, unable to bear the sight.
“Eyes front, Mister Carew,” Lieutenant Caruthers whispered. “Officers are required to witness the punishment.”
Reluctantly, she looked back, seeing the fourth stroke land across Alan’s back, drawing more blood and a grunt of pain from him. The fifth and sixth strokes were quickly delivered, drawing more blood and then it was over.
Alan released the corners of the grating and stepped back, shrugging his shoulders. He picked up his undershirt and followed the surgeon off without a backward glance.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alexis sat on her bunk, elbows resting on her knees and near tears, trying to make sense of what she’d just witnessed. The blood and brutality of the beating were completely at odds with what she’d learned and seen aboard ship thus far. From what she’d observed, Captain Grantham and Lieutenant Caruthers truly cared about the men, so she couldn’t understand how they could order such a horrid, barbaric punishment. There was a soft tap at the hatch and she rose to slide it open.
“Hello, Acker.”
“Mister Carew.” The spacer looked uncomfortable, eyes downcast to the deck instead of meeting her eyes. “Was wondering, I was, if yer uniforms were holding up all right? The stitching and all?”
Alexis was confused, it had been weeks since he’d finished altering them and she’d had no problems. “Yes, they’re all quite fine. Thank you again.”
Acker nodded, but made no move to leave. “Begging yer pardon, sir, but couldn’t help noticing you seemed put off by the punishment. Was wondering if you were all right — not my place, I know, but … I’ve a daughter your age and wouldn’t want her to see such, I wouldn’t.”
Alexis resumed her seat on the bunk and Acker stepped into the compartment, leaving the door open.
“It was quite … shocking, I must admit,” she said. “I had not expected such cruelty aboard ship.”
“Shocking, no doubt, but ‘tweren’t cruel, sir. No more than he deserved. Captain’s got to maintain discipline.”
Alexis looked up at him, eyes widening.
“How can you say that? Surely there are better ways?”
“And what else’s he to do then?”
“Well … as he did with the others, I suppose. Stop their pay, their daily rum, confine them to quarters.”
“Those was fer minor things, sir. Talking back a mite, shoving a mate and such.”
“But…”
Acker looked away for a moment, then squatted on his heels to look her in the eye. “Merlin sails a month and more between ports that has Admiralty offices, sir. Three or more months, a’times. And some of the crew’re hard men — straight from the gaols, some, as that Alan were. What’s the captain to do when a man like that gets so out of line?”
“There’re cells in the marine berth, I know, he could be locked up.”
“And for how long? With the ship short-handed as it is, and him doing no work and needing guarding and feeding all the time?” He shook his head. “No, the cat’s best, fer now it’s over and done and th
ere’s no more to be said about it … least fer the captain to say, anyways. A man takes his punishment and that’s the end o’ the matter.”
Alexis considered this for a moment. “Do the men truly feel that way?”
Acker shrugged. “Most know it fer what it is. Don’t like it, mind you, but see it’s needful and some’ll not be moved by aught else.”
“Have you ever been flogged?” Acker looked away, jaw tight. “I’m sorry,” Alexis added quickly. “Is that not something one asks?”
“Not on Merlin,” Acker said finally. “She’s a happy ship and Captain Grantham’s no tartar.” His eyes narrowed. “Not all’s that way, though.”
“Thank you, Acker. You’ve given me much to consider.”
Acker stood and went to the hatchway. “I’d hoped to, sir … and, begging your pardon for saying so, Alan’ll likely be hearing from some of the lads on this as well.” His face hardened. “There’s most none too happy with him and his … fall. Even his mates’re put out by it.”
Alexis bit her lip as he turned to go. “Acker.”
He stopped and turned back. “Sir?”
“You said, ‘over and done and no more said about it’, yes?”
“Well …”
“I think it would be best if that were the case. His injuries from the fall and the flogging, then no more said about it.”
“Are you sure, sir?”
Alexis nodded. “An end to the matter as you said.”
* * *
The sergeant of marines cocked his head to one side and raised an eyebrow. “And you' re sure of this, you are, Mister Carew?”
“I feel I must be, Sergeant Hodgeman. I’m a decent shot and I’ve played at wrestling some, but … if there’s ever a boarding, or some other reason, I’ll need more than that.”
Hodgeman nodded. He was a short, stocky man, only a little taller than Alexis, but considerably wider, seemingly all of it hardened muscle, especially, as now, when the marines had dragged heavy mats over the aft half the gunroom deck and were hard at work practicing unarmed combat.
Into the Dark (Alexis Carew Book 1) Page 12
