‘What will be for dinner? What indeed?’ said Mr Eliot, as they left the sick-bay. ‘Sea-pie, perhaps. That cook, old Maclean, is eighty-one, to my certain knowledge. Did you know that, Mr B? It is a comforting reflection, is it not? He makes an excellent sea-pie; an admirable sea-pie. There is no sea-pie like Maclean’s.’
Chapter Six
BLOOD, BLOOD in the scuppers, blood tinging the sea, blood all over the deck, blood everywhere, blood under the tropical sun. Buckets of blood. There had been four buckets full, to be exact, carefully filled and set aside until the next should be brimming and ready to join them: Mr Eliot made it a fixed rule to bleed all the men in his charge the moment they passed beneath the tropic of Cancer, and the operation was now taking place on the foc’s’le. There had been the usual number of faintings, and a carpenter’s mate called Mitchel, perhaps the most savage and vicious man aboard, had chosen to pass away into, upon and among the buckets that Mr Eliot and Tobias had preserved, for philosophical purposes: this accounted for the shocking appearance of the deck and for the look of vexation upon the surgeons’ faces. Some of the Wager’s people positively liked being bled, because they felt better after it; some did not mind it; but some, though reasonably courageous, manly and resolute, turned greenish-yellow at the sight of the instruments, and, without being touched, collapsed like so many maidens. And there were some who were terrified by the whole proceeding: Moses Lewis, Nicholas Griselham and George Bateman were discovered trying to hide themselves in a perfectly inadequate triangle of space between the cutter and the booms. They belonged to Jack’s watch and division, and he was responsible for their appearance; he adjured them ‘to come out of there as quick as they liked, the swabs', and then, less ferociously, he assured them ‘that it was nothing at all – did not hurt in the least – all over in a moment'. And to encourage them still further, he said that he would go along with them, although the officers were pierced in decent privacy.
‘Come along,’ he said, ‘and we shall all be bled together. You will see, there is nothing in it.’
As it happened, Jack did not know what he was talking about; although it was so common, he had never been bled and he had never seen the thing done. Now, standing there under the blazing sun and watching, he wondered how he had come to speak so lightly of it, and how people could say, with such indifference, ‘Was you let blood? – There is nothing like a little blood-letting, for the good of the system.’
Two stools were there, and the victims came in pairs, sometimes with unstudied calm, sometimes with ostentatious bravery, sometimes with reluctance bordering upon mutiny. Tobias took the larboard man, Mr Eliot the other; the patient sat and presented his arm, the surgeon turned a handkerchief tight about it, picked a vein and lanced it, while the loblolly-boy held a basin. Mr Eliot used a large horse-fleam, Tobias a thin lancet; but there was no difference in the grave, detached zeal of their approach. Jack wondered at it: there was something inhumanly authoritative about the way Tobias seized an arm, considered it and then with the utmost equanimity cut into the living flesh. Repulsively unfeeling, thought Jack, looking away. There was a great deal of joking between those who were standing about with their arms bent to close the vein and those who had not yet been done; Jack thought the laughter very much out of place.
He looked at other things, to divert his attention – the foresail hanging without enough air to round it, for the expected north-east trade wind failed them day after day. He looked at the glazed hat of the bo’sun, who, having quarrelled with the gunner and the carpenter, kept very much among the hands forward, trying to make himself popular; he was the only warrant-officer on the foc’s’le. Just beyond the bo’sun’s hat there was the sinister face of the man Sirett, who had escaped the gallows only by informing on his own brother – a face that was now turning horribly pale.
A reek of butchery rose upon the still, hot, damp air. Jack swallowed hard, gave Griselham, Lewis and Bateman a smile, a ghastly smile that was meant to keep their spirits up, and looked studiously away, far away, to the leeward.
There, wallowing along under the protection of the men-of-war, were the two victuallers, the Anna and the Industry, pinks that had been chartered to carry stores for the squadron as far as the tropic. They were merchantmen, of course, and by naval standards they sailed along in a very haphazard sort of way, as if they had their hands in their pockets, shabby, with washing hanging out in incongruous places; but they were always there, and sometimes they were in their proper stations. Jack fixed the Industry with his eyes: if he did not concentrate, something dreadful would happen.
The Industry was a family concern, from the West Country, and the family was a whiggish, nonconformist, Hanoverian sort of a family: most of the crew were called George or William.
‘What do ‘ee make ‘un, George?’ asked the swabber of the first mate.
‘But thirty-nine, I doubt,’ said the first mate, lowering his quadrant.
‘You’m not holding of ‘un right,’ said the cook, coming out of the galley and wringing a piece of wet salt pork as he spoke.
‘Now then, our George,’ cried the mate, quite vexed, ‘if so be you mind your pot as good as I mind my latitude …’
The captain of the Industry came out of the round-house, where he had been figuring on his slate. ‘What do ‘ee make ‘un, William?’ asked the swabber.
‘What’s five nines?’ asked the captain.
Here followed a very long, slow and ill-formed family wrangle, at the end of which the Industry decided that she had probably reached 23° 27’ N., that she had fulfilled her agreement, and that she would signal the commodore to that effect.
A flag mounted uncertainly on the Industry’s signal halliard: when it was broken out it proved to be upside down, and it stated, with great emphasis, I AM TAKING GUN POWDER ABOARD.
Jack saw this: he knew that the Wager should repeat the signal to the Centurion, and he knew that as soon as the look-out hailed the deck with the news of a signal flying, it would be his duty, as midshipman of the watch, to run aft and cope with the repetition. But the look-out was a morbid creature, fascinated by the scene below, and although he now and then looked at the Centurion (the only probable source of signals) and gazed around the horizon, he devoted most of his time to peering down through the rigging at the bloody deck.
‘Next,’ said Tobias, and to his horror Jack saw that there was nothing between himself and the stool, although indeed Nicholas Griselham stood beside him. ‘Go on, Griselham,’ he said; ‘go in and win’ – smiling very hypocritically.
He glared up at the masthead, and there was the look-out leering down at him instead of minding his duty: Jack shook his fist at the fellow, but it was no good. Griselham’s faint gasping shriek reached his ears, and Jack closed his eyes: then suddenly everybody was roaring out ‘Mr Byron, Mr Byron', and his neighbours were nudging him and saying ‘Quarter-deck, sir. Mr Bean is passing the word for you.’
Passing the word was a faint expression for the lieutenant’s clamour: he had seen the signal and he now wanted to know where the midshipman was; and Jack, with a speed and a devotion to duty rarely paralleled, raced aft to satisfy the lieutenant’s curiosity.
‘You may not like phlebotomy,’ said Tobias, ‘but where would you be without it?’
‘Where indeed?’ said Jack, rather vaguely, for his attention was taken up by the curious yawing of the Wager’s barge. The squadron was lying-to, taking in stores from the Industry, and the boats were plying to and fro over the still face of the sea: it looked very much as though the barge and the Gloucester’s longboat were going to collide, but at the last moment they ran past one another with their oars shipped and rude words flying free – Cozens’ voice came very loud and plain over the water, followed by a bellow of laughter from the barge.
‘When I went aboard the Centurion,’ continued Tobias, ‘their sick-bay was so full that the men’s hammocks were touching, and the other surgeons made the same report – fevers, calentures an
d agues, and scurvy, in every ship but the Wager. And we are the only ship to use phlebotomy. I really must insist upon opening your vein this afternoon: come, Jack, it is a very mere trifle.’
‘It is not your infernal splashing about in blood that makes the difference,’ said Jack, ‘it is that they cannot open their lower ports, and we can, being higher in the water. Did you not notice the vile rank smell as soon as you went below? Keppel says that there is some very extraordinary scheme afoot – some idea of making the men wash, every day. It will never do, however.’
‘I did notice the smell,’ admitted Tobias. He could scarcely have missed it: the Centurion had more than five hundred men aboard and most of them were crammed into the gun-deck, which (she being a two-decker) also had to find room for two dozen huge twenty-four pounders; she was so deeply laden, being victualled for a voyage no less than the circumnavigation of the whole world itself, that the sills of her lower gun-ports were nearly awash, and the gun-deck was therefore quite unventilated, although the heat down there was enough to make a man choke, whether he was used to the tropics or not. The heat also enabled vermin to breed very fast, and the Centurion was much infested; but she was not unique in that, by any means – every ship in the squadron had her cargo of parasites, and the Wager was amply supplied with fleas, bugs and lice.
‘But,’ continued Tobias, ‘they are to cut holes in the deck, to let in sweet air.’
‘Scuttles, Toby; surely it was scuttles? They could not have said holes.’
‘I had understood them to be holes, indeed: large square gaps, with canvas funnels leading down.’
‘Yes. Scuttles. I thought so.’
‘Are they not holes, then?’
‘Oh yes, they are holes, in their way. But we call them scuttles. Not holes.’
‘Very good. We are to have them too, and Mr Eliot is talking about the one for the sick-bay with the carpenter at this moment.’
‘The hands will not like it,’ said Jack. ‘Any change makes them uneasy. I tell you what, Toby,’ he added, moving along the rail to the shadow of the maintop. ‘I wish it would snow. Or blow. I do not give a rap for foul weather, so long as we are not on a lee-shore, but this sticky heat undoes me. I do not know how you can bear a coat – to say nothing of that vile hat,’ he said, looking with distaste at the yellowish-white woollen nightcap of Portuguese origin which Tobias had worn, upon philosophical principles, since latitude 25°N.
‘Was you to be blooded,’ said Tobias, fingering a small lancet in his pocket, ‘you would feel cooler directly.’
‘How you do go on,’ cried Jack, moving a little farther off. ‘You are exactly like a flaming horse-leech. Now there’s a fellow that needs your attention. Look at him. He’ll have the boat over if he carries on like that.’ Cozens was weaving the barge about in a very extraordinary manner: the Wager’s cutter was alongside unloading at that moment, and Cozens was profiting by the interval to hinder the progress of the other boats, in a most jovial and hilarious way.
The cutter, with Campbell in charge, lay hooked on at the mainchains, with a pyramid of barrels carefully arranged in it, and from the yard-arm swung a tackle. With mechanical regularity the tackle descended, raised a barrel, swung it inboard, lowered it into the main-hatch and reappeared empty; everyone who was not on duty watched this with close attention; all the heads followed the descending tackle down into the cutter, saw the two loops put about the barrel, heard the cry, saw the barrel rise vertically, rotating slowly, until the inhaul party drew it over the hatchway, and vanish to more cries of ‘Easy – handsomely now.’ The movements were all the same; the shouts never varied; the hot, still air was heavy with the smell of rum. It was rum and little else that they were taking out of the Industry – the remaining stores were to stay aboard the Anna pink, and she to keep in company while the Industry went off on her own occasions. No ship in the squadron could find space for any more flour, biscuit or beef, but they could all make just enough room for their full share of rum, although it meant great discomfort in the crowded ‘tween-decks; they would make sure of the rum, at any event.
Now the cutter had discharged its load and was pulling away for the pink again, and the barge took the cutter’s place. Cozens’ big red face was turned up to them as he sprawled in the stern-sheets; as a general rule it was not a very attractive face, being exceedingly coarse and somewhat hairy, and now its charm was further diminished by crimson blotches and a staring, almost lunatic expression. The redness was shared by the barge’s crew, and it was perfectly evident that they had all been getting at the rum. The steadier men in the barge were trying to cover up the midshipman’s state, but their efforts were spoilt by his activity: he would keep trying to fasten the tackle, and he would not be quiet – had not sense enough left to be quiet. Jack looked anxiously over his shoulder, but the officer of the watch, Mr Clerk, was at the fife-rail of the mainmast, shouting through the hatch to the deck below. Mr Bean was in his cabin, writing letters that the Industry was to carry over to the West Indies, and although Mr Hamilton, the senior marine lieutenant, was watching from the poop, he was a redcoat, and did not count. And the captain was aboard the commodore, so perhaps it would pass off well enough.
But Cozens had not had time to cut one more elephantine caper before the voice of the look-out floated down, quite conversational in the calm, ‘Deck oh! The yawl is pulling away.’ Captain Murray had left the Centurion, and in a few minutes he would be received aboard his own ship with the proper ceremony, the shrilling of bo’suns’ calls and the dutiful attendance of the officers: captains come up the starboard side, and it was on the starboard side that the barge was unloading. There was no possibility that Cozens’ state would remain unnoticed.
Already there were stirrings, the preparatory orders and hurrying about; the yawl was in sight, coming across the line of the bowsprit. Jack swung over the side into the chains; he stood there an instant, whispering to Tobias, ‘Get him below – anywhere below,’ and then jumped down into the boat. ‘Come on, now,’ he said to Cozens; ‘one arm in here, and one in there. Way oh; haul away. Roundly, there.’ Cozens, looking very stupid and aghast, rose in the air on the tackle.
Tobias, who was not devoid of mother-wit, pinned him as soon as his legs were above the rail and called out, ‘Stop. Belay. Avast. Pull no more, there. Let it go. Sunstroke – this is a very sudden sunstroke.’ They let him down with a run, and Cozens, still altogether amazed, squelched down on deck. ‘Carry him downstairs,’ cried Tobias, waving his opened lancet.
‘What is this? – Clear the way – get forward, the idlers – what is this?’ exclaimed the master, pushing through the crowd as two men of Cozens’ watch hurried him out of sight.
‘It is the effect of the sun, sir,’ said Tobias, ‘and I shall dose him below.’
‘The sun, Mr Barrow?’ said the master. ‘Mr Snow, clear me those men to the foc’s’le. When is the side to be dressed, bo’sun? We do not have all day.’
‘I suggest that hats should be ordered to be worn,’ said Tobias, plucking Mr Clerk’s coat to draw his attention. This was the first lie of his life, and he thought he might as well make the best of it. ‘Such a stroke, my dear sir,’ he said, leering at the master and nodding emphatically, ‘such a stroke would never have occurred without the head was too lightly covered, eh?’
Mr Clerk would have replied, but his words were cut off by the howling of calls as the captain came up the side; he composed his face to a suitable expression of complaisance and stepped forward, while Tobias nodded and becked behind him, with infinite enjoyment.
‘Who is the midshipman in the barge?’ asked the captain, after he had taken a turn on the quarter-deck with the lieutenant. He said it in a tone of considerable displeasure, and he answered it himself, for going to the side and leaning over, he looked into the boat. ‘Byron,’ he said, ‘I am surprised at him. There has been too much tom-foolery, Mr Bean: playing the merry-Andrew before the whole squadron. The barge has been making a Jack-Pudd
ing of itself. It will do that young man no harm to be brought down to his proper level, Mr Bean.’
When Jack next set foot on deck it was just before dinner-time; in fact the hands were being piped down as he made his appearance. For a long time he had heard this tuneless up-and-down shrieking before meals, and the result was that whenever he heard the piping-down he felt hungry; not to put too fine a point upon it, he slavered. But today his wreathed smiles of anticipation were wiped off very quickly. A most unexpectedly sour Mr Bean asked him what he thought he was doing on the quarter-deck in shirtsleeves and why he considered himself privileged to play the ape in the barge, making the Wager despicable in the eyes of the whole squadron, with merchantmen looking on, to make it even worse.
The answer to the first question would have involved a complicated explanation, and the second was not really answerable at all, so Jack bowed to the storm, looked meek, begged pardon – did not intend to offend – would do so no more – and hoped that it would soon be over. But it was not soon over; meekness was not enough, and presently Jack found himself on his way to the masthead.
He went aloft with the melancholy but calm philosophy of one who regrets his dinner but who knows that injustice is inseparable from human existence, and most particularly from the existence of mid-shipmen. He had not been mastheaded before on this voyage, partly because everyone who knew the difference between a sheet and a tack was too valuable on deck during the early days, partly because of the equable temper of the lieutenant, and partly because he had not transgressed the law. Not that the last had a great deal to do with it, for the young are often punished because their elders are peevish; as he climbed, Jack was inclined to attribute his fate to Mr Bean’s digestion. Rum, in hot weather, is as dangerous to handle as gun-powder, because of the fumes; for the last two days, therefore, the galley fires had been out – and cold victuals did not agree with Mr Bean.
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