The Friendly Sea (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 1)

by Andrew Wareham

  Short handed as they were a little confusion was inevitable, but they bodged through creditably and anchored tidily next to their pair of prizes, yellow fever flag flying until the Port Medical Officer came out in the Pratique boat and confirmed that they had only had the swamp ague, not the yellow, spotted or goal fever or the dreadful cholera morbus.

  Book One: The Duty and Destiny Series

  Chapter Four

  The Admiral was sympathetic – the captain of the Athene had been wise to cut his cruise short, the loss and absence of nearly half of his officers could have resulted in disaster. Had he been on convoy or blockade, a different matter, but on a cruise, common sense must prevail over commerce raiding. The Admiral’s mind was busily converting his eighth – ten tons of sugar and fifty of tobacco, plus the hulls, much depending on the quality of the tobacco, mere pipe smoking or best snuff could vary by one hundred per cent, but a fair minimum would be two thousands, an extra hundred acres on the estate he would buy on his return to England. Captain Atkinson was to be commended, caressed, looked after – he should have another cruise later in the year.

  “There is a most deserving young man on the Trojan, Captain Atkinson, one who should be given some real sea time. He is a midshipman who passed for lieutenant a month ago.”

  Atkinson smiled gratefully, so pleased to have been specially picked out for this young fellow, a gentleman who had passed his board here in the West Indies rather than at home in front of captains who did not know him and owed no particular duty to his admiral and, presumably, patron.

  “A pleasure to take a young man so well recommended, sir.”

  “Mr Stewart will report on board Athene today, as soon as I have written out his commission, Captain Atkinson. He is by way of being a cousin of my wife, I should mention, but this is not to be a source of favouritism to him.”

  Of course it was not, Atkinson reflected: far from it, but the young man must be put in the way of early promotion, given his chance, deserving or not, whoever’s nose it put out of joint.

  “A master’s mate, sir?”

  “Not so simple, I fear me. With so many fevers this year it has been easy enough to get a berth for any shipwrecked soul or the half-dozen exchanges we have had – there are none on shore awaiting a ship. My clerk will bear the matter in mind, and I shall actively seek a solution.”

  “Thank you, sir, I had feared it to be so when none appeared on board begging my kindness. I have a young man aboard, was apprentice on a John Company merchantman in Canton but fell into bad company and ended up missing his ship – from what I am told he has learnt his lesson and rues his one lapse most sincerely. As Master and Commander, sir, I am loth to rate him midshipman without your approval.”

  “Quite right, Captain Atkinson – ye have the authority to do so, yet it is only a courtesy to consult with me; even so, one that some fail in. Rate the young man by all means, and, if I may advise ye, quietly remind him that what you make, you can unmake quite equally.”

  “Thank you, sir. I shall do so. I suppose, sir, that it is of little use to ask of seamen?”

  “None whatsoever! I quite simply have none, nor landsmen, either.”

  “Custom of the service, sir, is to free slaves taken by our ships.”

  “So it is! Should any of them be too old to serve at sea, then send them to me, I can always use a servant or two, would not see them cast ashore to starve.”

  They would have to be on their last legs before he refused them, Atkinson reflected, whilst applauding the Admiral’s humane nature.

  Frederick escorted Arkwright to the great cabin, presented him formally to Atkinson.

  “Well, Arkwright,” Atkinson at his avuncular best, sitting back and smiling encouragingly at the twitching wreck in front of him, both aware that this was probably the boy’s last chance. “Let me see! I am told that you are of some education and have served with the Honourable East India Company?”

  “Yes, sir. Dame school, sir, and then I had two years of Latin and mathematical school at Greenwich until I was twelve. Then I was three years at sea, sir, to Bombay and home, and then to Canton, as apprentice. I can use my sextant, sir, and work my tables to a few seconds, and I had learned something of the sea and watchkeeping, though not in proper naval fashion, of course, sir.”

  “Good.” Atkinson stood, face suddenly harsh. “I am told as well, sir, that you lost your place due to the disgusting vice of inebriation, to common, guttersnipe drunkenness, no less!”

  “Yes, sir. Shore leave with the others, sir. I did not realise it was so strong, sir, their liquor – it tasted like English beer and I thought it was no more than that.” Arkwright hung his head, muttered almost inaudibly. “And there was a young woman, sir, she smiled at me and filled my glass up. I had twenty guineas in my purse, sir, and I opened it to pay for my round, sir, and, later, sir, she took me into an upstairs room…”

  “It was empty when you woke?”

  “Yes, sir, nearly two days later. My chest was at the factor’s office; the comprador gave it me, told me I was discharged, pointed me to the frigate, sir.”

  “You were lucky to live, Arkwright – many a man has been found floating face-down in Canton’s river, or never found at all. Maybe she liked you enough to let you stay alive.”

  Atkinson grinned companionably as he sat again. “It’s not the end of the world, Mr Arkwright – so long as you learn from your mistake. You are only seventeen, after all. What is Arkwright’s record on Athene, Mr Harris?”

  “Uniformly good, sir. He is well disciplined, a reliable man – not a boy – one who can be given a task and left to complete it; never a slugabed needing to be cut down from his hammock; never, ever, the worse for his beer or rum, sir.”

  “With respect, sir,” Arkwright interposed, “I give most of the rum to others in the mess, for knowing what the drink did to me once.”

  “Wise man! I knew I had not seen you before me at defaulters, Mr Arkwright. I wish you to become one of my officers, will rate you midshipman with three years served, if you desire to take the responsibility. You may still become a commissioned officer before you reach your majority, sir. Mr Woodgate is dead and I would wish to appoint a man in his place. Will you accept the rating, sir?”

  “Yes please, sir, very much indeed, sir.”

  “Then you must take uniforms from the possessions of Mr Horley and Mr Richards and make them over to fit you. The purser will arrange to charge them against you at a fair rate. Shift your dunnage and go on watch with the Master in the forenoon.”

  They cut Arkwright’s delight, thanks and protestations of virtuous intent ruthlessly short, for it was clear that once begun he was at a loss to stop sensibly, and sent him off to penetrate the gunroom, to make himself known in his new persona to Rowell, Gleeson and Ball.

  “Read in our dozen passengers, Mr Harris.”

  “With pleasure, sir. In pairs to six messes, sir?”

  “How ever you wish, Mr Harris – it is your responsibility entirely.”

  The before the mast hands, the crew apart from the waisters and the petty officers, ate in nine messes physically demarcated by their guns. As was possible they worked together, served their guns, slung their hammocks in the same grouping, gave their loyalty first to their messmates and secondly to the ship. It was vital to the efficient working of the Athene to ease new crewmen into their messes with a minimum of disruption; a dozen French patois speaking black men presented a potential problem. So far the freed slaves had eaten separately, being in effect passengers; now it was necessary to bring them into the complement.

  A discussion with Porson was the first essential – he was the source of the ship’s informal discipline, dealt with the many problems the Articles ignored or which the men preferred the authorities to be officially unaware of. The enforcement of debts – in rum, tobacco and favours, rarely in cash – was particularly important, because they were almost all unlawfully acquired in any strict sense. Porson had explained that s
ome men were particularly handy with a needle and would alter purser’s slops to a respectable fit – at a price; others, like Arkwright, with a weak head for alcohol, would swap their beer or rum for tobacco; some men carved buttons from beef bones; one, at least, knitted woolly hats and vests, much prized in winter. The network of barter had to be policed, for not all men were virtuous, and, as it did not officially exist, the boatswain in most ships took a gentle subfusc course, a cross between village elder and parish constable. Not all chose to fit in, but the seas were wide and the nights dark, and everyone knew of bad men who had gone to the heads before dawn and had never been seen again. The boatswain’s law was generally respected and his was the final word when it came to disputes in the messes.

  “All twelve, do you say, sir? Very ‘andy, indeed! There’s four o’ they what’s the strongest blokes I ever see, sir, like brick-built shithouses they are, about five foot tall and six foot across the shoulders, brothers or cousins, I reckon, tailor-made for the foc’sle party, coiling in they old cables when we weighs anchor and shifting out they butts and puncheons in the hold. Three of they’s young and lightweight and smart-seeming, will make topmen, and t’other five will just be landsmen, but two of them seems clever and Mr Thomas do still want a couple down in the magazine, so ‘e do say. Messing ain’t no problem – don’t put ‘em near number eight, because the starboard is all blue-light, prayer book on Sunday and arse’ole the rest of the week – but, otherwise, as you might say, they’ll be welcome so long as they be’aves themselves like your Bosomtwi do – good man, that.”

  “Starboard part of number eight, who are they, now?” Frederick knew he should be able to name every man aboard, bring his face to mind and place him in his part of ship; he could with almost all.

  “Ah, yes. Welsh – Thomas One, Thomas Two, Thomas Three and John Thomas; Dai Davies, Taff Davies and Davy Davies; Griffiths and Griff Griffiths; David Evans, Dewi Evans and Evans-To-Goodness; Smith; Brown; Trenerry. Coal miners from the Assizes: riotous assembly, arson and criminal damage to the tune of more than forty shillings – could all have hanged, given the sea as an alternative. What’s blue-light about that lot, Mr Porson?”

  “T’aint so much what they done as why, sir. They’s all some kind of Bush Baptist – Born Again Ebenezers, you knows, sir, that sort o’ thing. Well, sir, a bunch o’ Paddies comes out of Ireland to find work for a few years, the way they always ‘as, sir, and take a few pounds ‘ome again, if they don’t piss it all up against the wall, sir. Well, come Eastertide, they’s busy being Papist and doing whatever it is they does, only, in public, like. Next thing you knows, the Taffies is all a-hollering ‘AntiChrist’ and they sets to bashing each other up and down the ‘Igh Street, and knocking over oil lanterns as they goes, it being eventide. Takes the militia to end it.”

  “So, we got some of the Protestants. I suppose they kept them apart, did they, Mr Porson? Sent the Irish somewhere else?”

  “Well, sir, you could say that – they ‘anged the Paddies, sir, the judge knowing which side ‘e was on and not abiding Popery at no price.”

  Frederick shook his head in disgust – a waste of good fighting men, sorely needed in Army or Navy. To be fair, though, it was less than fifty years since the Papists tried to put Charles Stuart on the throne and two more threats in the years since – they had to be kept down, were self-proclaimed traitors and enemies of the established order. King George, poor old gentleman, wasn’t much of a king, but he was better than a Papist puppet whose strings were pulled by France and Spain. If that meant hanging a few dozen Irish now and again, well, it was a small price to pay for a nation’s freedom – and they were only Paddy bog-trotters when all was said and done!

  “Two of the black men, messes one to six?”

  “I’ll do that, sir, make sure they’s a couple of mates together so it’ll be easier all round.”

  “Thank you, Mr Porson. You do that and I’ll write them in on the mess rolls and inform the Purser. How are they clothed?”

  “As good as any of the men, sir. Good, strong trousers and canvas smock shirts for working. I’ll see they gets summat fit to wear ashore when they gets leave, which won’t be till I’m good and sure they ain’t thinking of running.”

  Porson ambled off, looking ridiculously like the middle-aged cowman on the Harris Home Farm – all he needed was a straw to chew.

  Mess bill, watch bill, purser’s dockets, roll for pay, entry to the Greenwich Hospital Chest, rum issue, tobacco issue – did any of them abstain? A note to check, the captain had arranged that cocoa would be made in addition to the normal breakfast issue, quart-jacks of it for those who abjured the demon. Perhaps Captain Atkinson was a secret Methody, concealing the aberration for his career’s sake, or, possibly, he had simply served with too many drunks, the Lord knew, there were enough in the service, Horley merely one of many.

  “Bloody Horley!” Frederick snarled; he had had no sleep the previous night, sat up with the purser and the mass of papers found stuffed away in the expensive travelling desk in Horley’s – now Frederick’s – cabin. The man had ignored the paperwork, dumped it unread, untouched, and they had had to invent four month’s worth of entries – no easy task when each ledger had to reconcile with the next and all, eventually, would fall into the hands of the bloody-minded reptiles in the Admiralty, paper-chasers whose sole intent in life was to put every sea-officer in front of a court martial. Every sea-going officer knew that the aim of the land-bound was to achieve a navy without any inconvenient ships or sailors to make things untidy – drawings on pieces of paper on their desks of the ships they would plan to build one day, that was the extent of their nautical ambition, everything neatly filed and tucked up in its cabinet each night, never sinking, consuming stores, employing hands, offending foreigners or making war. The meanwhile, forced in the short run to put up with an actual fleet, the clerks sought their revenge in petty persecution – a mere hurricane was no excuse for not underruling the date in the correct colour ink!

  He cleared the mess table, his only office space, checked his harbour uniform in the little mirror – the premier was obliged to set an example, he felt – paced gravely out on deck to see that all was well in the one hundred feet of his kingdom.

  Smells of paint, tar, turpentine, soft soap, polish. The sailmaker in the waist with his party, turning out his store, setting the sails to dry, scrubbing at the first signs of mildew – tropical heat played havoc with canvas in a wet ship. The boatswain was aloft with a party in the mizzen, inspecting the running rigging and all of the blocks, patiently watching as the men checked each thoroughly, explaining the how and why time and again until even the dullest knew what to do. A gun’s crew was working up on the forecastle, Stewart teaching two of the new men how to serve a chase gun, fitting them in with the experienced hands. Midshipman Ball with his hands in his pockets, whistling - he was available against need with the jolly boat; a week of watch and watch, no harbour leave, would assist him to remember his duty.

  The waisters and one watch visible, all more or less busy; the watch off duty mostly below, curled up asleep, the majority. The afternoon would see a minimum harbour watch again, all those who possibly could be released on liberty to make a nuisance of themselves ashore. They would not be too outrageous because the prize court had not sat yet and their pay tickets were late so most had little or no money. Equally, they had been ashore in the French fishing village, had boarded two prizes and would certainly have picked up a number of small, portable items that would sell on land, enough to get most of them fairly well drunk on at least one occasion, and they would be another fortnight in harbour it seemed, waiting on a convoy from England to arrive and be broken into its component parts to be escorted to their various destinations. Useful, having the time spare to ease Stewart and Arkwright into their functions – not that either seemed likely to be a problem.

  Stewart, despite his youth, was, so far, competent in his duties – guns, boarders and foremast in success
ion to Frederick. His pink cheeks rarely called for the services of a razor, but he was fair-haired and his voice was thoroughly broken, and if Frederick suspected him to be no more than fifteen, well, that was not necessarily a problem, certainly not with his patron smiling benevolently on his flagship not a cable distant. Arkwright was settling in well, his boat in hand and contributing to his duties on the mainmast, the mizzen obviously inappropriate; Paston said that he could already find their position reasonably quickly and accurately and knew the theory at least of setting a course. Perhaps there was something to be said for John Company’s way of training its youngsters, its use of classrooms and colleges. Frederick would suspend judgement until the boy was tested by storm or action, something out of the commercial way.

  Time before dinner to sit down to his letter to Miss Marianne; there was a fast merchantman in harbour who intended to run alone, unescorted, ahead of the next convoy, to gain the higher prices of being the sole seller of sugar in port – worth the risk, the master felt, being part-owner himself. Now, where was he, finger running down the pages, point by point, day by day – ah, yes, he had buried Horley in yesterday’s instalment – into the perils of brandy and then to the good news of his own promotion, earlier than he had dared hope by a year – easy writing today, signed with his affectionate good wishes, sufficiently milk-and-water to keep Squire happy!

  “Convoy, Mr Harris, eight stores to Halifax, Canada. Army supplies – tobacco, rum, sugar; powder and small arms; a battery of field guns - five six pounders and a howitzer, and a pair of fortress guns, twenty four pounders on iron carriages. A valuable consignment.”

  “Very much so, sir. Why?”

  Atkinson smiled sweetly. “The Jonathans, Mr Harris, wish to offer the peoples of Canada the virtues of the Republic and are threatening bloody invasion, again.”