Mutineer

by Sutherland, J. A.

  The muted sound of a bell interrupted her reverie and made her realize just how long she’d been lost in her own thoughts.

  “Another throw of the log, please,” she ordered.

  “Aye sir.”

  * * * * *

  Alexis bit her lip to keep from crying out in relief as the ship’s bell began to strike its distinctive ding-ding pattern and marked the end of the watch. Hermione’s second lieutenant, Williard, entered the quarterdeck and Alexis turned to face him, the time before the next bell seeming to stretch out unbearably. Finally the eighth bell rang out, eight bells of the Middle Watch, its end and four a.m., start of the Morning Watch.

  “I have the deck, Mister Carew,” Williard said, his look carrying more than a bit of sympathy it seemed to Alexis.

  “Aye sir. The deck is yours.” She slumped with relief and started for the hatchway, feet shuffling in fatigue. Just the thought of soon being able to fall into her cot and sleep was a comfort.

  “The captain wishes to see you in his cabin, Mister Carew,” Williard whispered.

  Alexis clenched her eyes shut. No, he wouldn’t be done with me yet, now would he?

  “Aye sir.” She slid the hatch open and made her way down the companionway to the captain’s cabin.

  The marine standing guard pounded on the hatch. “Midshipman Carew, sir!” he called out, nodding to her to enter at a call from within.

  Alexis entered and made her way to stand before the captain’s large dining table, which doubled as a desk. Captain Neals was well-awake and at his breakfast. He ignored Alexis, concentrating on his plate of eggs and bacon. Proper, real eggs, she saw, not from a powder rehydrated with ship’s water and tasting of the recyclers. The captain and other officers all brought their own stores aboard. Anything to supplement the poor ship’s rations of bread and beef. Beef grown in the purser’s nutrient vats and resembling nothing so much as a gelatinous pudding. Even the midshipmen could, but Alexis had stopped doing so — and it had been quite a long time since she’d had food that wasn’t the simple ship’s rations fed to the crew.

  Alexis felt her mouth fill as the scent hit her and she had to swallow. How long had it been since she’d had a real egg? How long since she’d tasted bacon, or any meat, for that matter, that hadn’t been grown in the ship’s vats? Two, no, three port calls ago … been that long since I was off this ship.

  Neals crumbled a bit of ship’s biscuit, the dry, hard bread the purser stocked for when the ship’s cook couldn’t take the time to bake fresh, over his plate and spread it around to soak into the runny yolks. He looked up at her and his lip curled in distaste.

  “Still in a vacsuit, Carew?”

  “Yes, sir,” Alexis said, fixing her eyes forward and not meeting his. Neals’ eyes were pale and hooded. Like a lizard, she thought. Cold and heartless as one, too. The bags under them, and the fleshiness of his face, did nothing to make him look kinder.

  “So unsure of your abilities that you’re afraid you’ll hole the ship while you’re on watch?”

  “I came on watch directly from the masthead, sir.”

  “Well you look disgusting, Carew. I expect you to be presentable when you’re on my quarterdeck, do you understand?”

  “Aye sir,” she said. There was nothing else to say. How she’d manage that if she came to the watch directly from the masthead again, which she was sure Neals would arrange, she didn’t know. Which is much the point, I’m sure.

  Neals returned his attention to his breakfast, scooping up a forkful of eggs and biscuit. The archaic aiguillette, a loop of gilt, braided rope, he wore at his shoulder, instead of the more modern gilt epaulet, swayed back and forth. Alexis found herself swaying in time with it, catching herself, she hoped, before Neals noticed.

  “Are you prepared to give me what I want, Carew?”

  Alexis ground her teeth together. She felt her nostrils flare despite trying to keep her face impassive. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

  “No, sir,” she said. This was something she didn’t have to acquiesce to, something he couldn’t order her to do. She could tell him no and there was nothing he could do about it. No, not nothing … he can make my life a hell until I give in to him.

  “Come now,” Neals said. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and smiled at her.

  Short, gray hair barely visible under his beret with the gold band of ship’s command. Neals was far older than she’d expect of a frigate captain — they were usually younger, more daring men. Frigates were the eyes and ears of the Fleet, sailing mostly independent commands, and the stepping stone to command of larger ships and eventual Flag rank. That Neals, at his age, was still in a Fifth Rate and not a ship of the line said something about his competence, she thought. But that he still held his command when frigates were so sought after for their independence and the opportunities for prize money spoke to some political connection.

  “Such a small thing to end all this unpleasantness, don’t you think?” Neals asked.

  “I will not, sir.”

  Neals stood and came around the desk. He stood close to her, almost touching but not quite. So close that she couldn’t see his face without looking up, which she wouldn’t do. She kept her eyes forward, struggling to keep her face from betraying her disgust with the captain.

  “But you will, you know,” Neals said. “I’ll have it from you eventually. You’ll even thank me in the end.”

  That wasn’t a question, so she wasn’t required to answer.

  Neals bent over and put his lips next to her ear.

  “Resign, Carew,” he whispered.

  “No, sir.”

  Neals stepped back from her, his face flushed and angry.

  “You have no place in my Navy, girl,” he said. “None!” He turned from her and began pacing the cabin. “I cannot imagine what that fool Grantham was thinking to sign you aboard.”

  Alexis caught her breath and held it, willing herself not to speak out. Captain Grantham, who’d taken her aboard his ship as a midshipman when she’d determined to leave Dalthus and seek some option other than marriage to make her way in the world, was the kindest, most honorable man she’d ever met. Certainly more so than Neals. But to say so, to say anything in contradiction to what Neals believed, would only garner more punishment.

  “What did you give him, I wonder?” Neals asked, turning to look at her. He ran his gaze up and down. “I can’t imagine him to be so desperate as to have a prurient motive, but one never knows.”

  Ah … it’s to be that one, then? Neals’ rants had become, if not predictable, at least identifiable. There was the women are too stupid and weak to serve rant, the woman’s place is on her back not in the Navy rant, the women are bad for discipline rant …

  “Was he, Carew? Desperate, I mean? Forge too much of a reputation on the planet with your wantonness and seize upon a lonely captain to make your way elsewhere, did you?”

  “No, sir.” And today would be the all women are slatterns rant, it seemed. When she’d first come aboard Hermione, she’d thought that Neals hated her specifically for some reason and wondered what she could possibly do to gain his good opinion. As the days went by, though, she’d come to realize that the man hated all women — why, she didn’t know, but he did. And most men, as well, if his treatment of the crew was any gauge. Hated, at least, those men who were not officers and willing to toady to him.

  “I know your kind,” Neals went on. “Spread your legs and lure good, honest men to do your bidding — well I’ll not have it aboard my ship, do you hear me?”

  “Aye sir.”

  “I find you’ve worked your disgusting ways with a decent officer aboard my ship and I’ll have you before a Court!”

  “Yes, sir.” First have to find a decent officer aboard this ship. Likelier there’ll be golden eggs on your plate come morning than that.

  “Oh, just resign, Carew,” Neals said, sounding almost kindly now. “I’ll turn the ship around and make for the nearest port. You coul
d be back home and underneath some idiot village boy in two months’ time.”

  The truth was she almost would — resign, that was. Life aboard Hermione was so much different than aboard Merlin. But if she did, if she resigned, she’d be giving in to Neals. She’d be letting him beat her, giving him what he wanted. She had to follow his orders in virtually everything, but not this, at least.

  “No, sir.”

  Curiously, he could dismiss her without cause but didn’t. As a midshipman, she held no commission from Admiralty, she served at the pleasure, laughable though the thought was, of her captain. They were locked into a struggle, Neals wanting to force her to resign and her refusing.

  Neals stared at her for a time.

  “You’ll stand watch-and-watch until we make Penduli Station again, Carew,” Neals said. “Perhaps that will change your mind.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Alexis staggered into her berth, sliding the hatch gently shut behind her. Her heavy boots clunked loudly on the deck as she braced herself with one hand on the top bunk. Thankfully she had the berth to herself. Timpson, the midshipman she shared it with, being up and about with the hands and she’d be able to get at least a little sleep. She stripped off her vacsuit and stored it neatly in her chest that sat under the lower bunk next to Timpson’s. She considered taking the time to go to the head and shower, but her exhaustion was too great. Instead, she stuffed her soiled jumpsuit and underthings into a bag for later washing and pulled on a fresh set of the loose undershorts and baggy shirt, then crawled into the upper bunk.

  She almost cried as the meager softness of the thin mattress cradled her body and she pulled the blanket over herself. She’d skip breakfast to have a few hours’ sleep, at least. She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. She did cry then.

  Watch-and-watch until Penduli? Seven or more days, then, of having to be up and on duty every other watch. She’d have a bare three hours sleep now, until the end of the Morning Watch, then back on her feet to serve the Forenoon? Four more hours sleep through the Afternoon, and then up again for the shortened First Dog Watch and a choice between supper or sleep in the Second Dog? A week or more of it on top of the exhaustion she felt now.

  She looked around the small space of the midshipman’s berth for a moment. A bare two meters square, with two bunks on the wall opposite the hatchway. Two triangular desks in the corners, now folded up flush against the bulkheads. So much the same as the berth she’d shared with Philip Easely aboard her first ship, H.M.S. Merlin.

  Not the same. She turned off the light and closed her eyes, feeling them burn with fatigue. At least that’s what she told herself the burning was. Nothing aboard this ship of the damned is the same.

  * * * * *

  Alexis speared another piece of the ship’s beef, grown in the purser’s vats from nutrient solution, and crammed it into her mouth, chewing rapidly to get it down with as little time tasting it as she could manage. She grasped her glass of wine to wash some of the taste away, though the wine was not much better than the beef, being the sweet and sharply alcoholic ship’s wine the spacers referred to as Miss Taylor. Though still preferable to the thick, syrupy port they called blackstrap. She’d prefer to have a more palatable wine, of course, along with a meal made of something other than ship’s stores, but she’d found that was simply not possible for her aboard Hermione.

  Bushby, the senior midshipman, filled his glass from one of the bottles on the table. Bottles that they’d bought in, not from the ship’s stores.

  “More wine, gentlemen?” he asked, refilling everyone’s glasses at their nods. Everyone’s but hers, she noted. Also at the gunroom’s table were two of Hermione’s other midshipmen, Timpson, her berthmate, and Canion. The sixth, Brattle, had the watch and would eat at the start of the Second Dog Watch. The midshipmen were alone, the junior warrant officers and others who shared the gunroom, such as the captain’s clerk, marine sergeants, and surgeon’s mates being busy with other duties and would join Brattle for dinner in the Second Dog.

  Bushby sat back in his chair, and brushed dark, unruly hair from his forehead. He shared a smirk with the other three at the table, before returning his gaze to Alexis. She followed his darting looks to the others, the little Ledyard, whose innocent face, she knew, hid a disturbing cruelty with the hands, Timpson, a fat, unpleasant boy of sixteen, and Canion, the oldest of the midshipmen at nineteen, but not the senior. That honor went to the absent Brattle. Alexis met Bushby’s eyes.

  “No bottle to share with us, Carew?” he asked.

  “None,” she answered.

  Alexis missed the comforting surroundings of her previous ship, Merlin. On the much smaller sloop, there had been no separate wardroom for the lieutenants and senior warrant officers as there was here on Hermione. Here, alone with the other midshipmen, she felt things sometimes got out of hand and the presence of senior officers would cut some of the barbs and slights. The marines’ presence, at least, would have put a bit of a damper on them, for Alexis had continued her habit of working out with the marines in an effort to improve her combat skills. Despite the traditional rivalry between the spacers and the marine complement, she felt oddly quite at home with them.

  Bushby cleared his throat and waited for silence. “Is no one curious?” he asked.

  “Is it good news, then?” Timpson asked.

  Bushby’s face broke into a wide grin. “Passed!” he announced to cheers and congratulations. Bushby had stood for lieutenant when last they’d stopped at Penduli Station, and news of the results must have reached him via the last packet ship they’d encountered.

  Alexis raised her glass in turn when toasts were called for, not because she felt glad for the young man, but because not doing so would leave her singled out again. In truth, she was a little glad for him, but only because his passing the lieutenant’s examination might see him promoted off of Hermione and some new midshipman brought aboard.

  Bushby waived their cheers down with what Alexis knew was false modesty. “Now, gentlemen, I’m only passed, not promoted. Have to find ourselves in-system with some ship needing a newly-made lieutenant before I can hope for that.” Until then, Bushby would remain a midshipman. But should Hermione encounter another ship that was short a lieutenant and had no midshipman aboard that her captain felt could act in the role, Bushby would likely be sent aboard. Or if one of Hermione’s lieutenants were killed in action, Bushby would find himself promoted without the need for Captain Neals to name him ‘acting’.

  “To a bloody war or a sickly season!” Ledyard called out cheerfully in the traditional gunroom toast naming the two things that most led to promotion.

  “We’ve the one, at least,” Canion said.

  Alexis closed her eyes and sighed. They were such … children. Parroting the toasts of the lieutenants without understanding their import. None of the midshipmen around the table had faced a real action, even with the war and Hermione’s role as a free-sailing frigate, tasked with seeking out the Hanoverese warships and merchants. Thus far, they’d engaged no warships and the only merchants they’d closed with had been much smaller, striking their colors and surrendering as soon as Hermione came into range.

  They’d, none of them save Alexis, stood on the gundeck while incoming fire struck the man next to them, burning straight through vacsuit and man to exit the other side. And won’t care one bit for the men when they do — only so long as they themselves aren’t harmed.

  “Yes,” Bushby said. “It won’t be long before I’m promoted to commander, and a ship of my own. Then a short hop to be made Post and my name on the Captains List.”

  “Then you’ve only to live long enough and you’ll be Admiral Bushby,” Canion said. He grinned and took a slow sip of his wine. “Of the Yellow, most like.”

  Bushby snorted and the other midshipmen shared a laugh at his expense. Alexis looked down at her plate, not wanting him to think she was joining in the laughter. When a captain reached the top of the Captains List and wa
s promoted to admiral, it was to the Fleet’s Blue Squadron, then to the White and Red Squadrons in time. To be ‘yellowed’, or promoted without distinction of squadron, was effectively to be retired — placed in a squadron that did not exist, with no ships, and left on half-pay.

  “Bugger,” Bushby muttered, but he shared a grin with the others.

  “Did you see we’ve gotten the latest Gazette from that last packet, gentlemen?” Canion asked.

  “Yes,” Bushby answered. “And loads of mail, as well.”

  “Did you get news from home, Carew?” Timpson asked. “Know you’ve been waiting for it.”

  “No,” Alexis admitted. She regretted having asked, after some weeks aboard with no messages, if any of them knew how long it would take for hers to catch up. Now, with so much more time passed and still nothing, she’d only given them something more to use against her.

  “That’s too bad,” Bushby said, a look of what she knew to be false sympathy on his face.

  “Do you think they’ve forgot about you?” Ledyard asked.

  “Mister Ledyard!” Timpson barked in mock outrage. “Your manners, sir.”

  Ledyard raised his glass to take a sip of wine, eyebrows raised in innocence. “Only meant, well, out of sight and out of mind, don’t you know?”

  Alexis clenched her jaw tight and returned to her meal. She was well aware that anything she said would only prolong their game and entertain them more. As it was, they’d be about it for a quarter hour or more — all of them cackling at each other’s latest riposte.

  “Well, she is quite forgettable,” Timpson said. “You may have a point after all.”

  “Perhaps the Navy’s come around and realized their mistake, Carew,” Bushby said, “and your family’s expecting you home any day?”