Command a King's Ship

by Alexander Kent

  Every mile sailed would have its separate challenge. He smiled quietly. And reward. He paused in the doorway and. stared at the bustling people and carriages. Open sea instead of noise and dirt. A ship, a living, vital being instead of dull, pretentious buildings.

  A hand touched his arm, and he turned to see a young man in a shabby blue coat studying him anxiously.

  `What is it?'

  The man said quickly, `I'm Chatterton, Captain. I was once second lieutenant in the Warrior, seventy-four.' He hesitated; watching Bolitho's grave face. `I heard you were commissioning, sir, I was wondering ...'

  `I'm sorry, Mr. Chatterton. I have a full wardroom.'

  `Yes, sir, I had guessed as much.' He swallowed. `I could sign as master's mate perhaps?'

  Bolitho shook his head. `It is only seamen I lack, I'm afraid.'

  He saw the disappointment clouding the man's face. The old Warrior had been in the thick of it. She was rarely absent from any battle, and men had spoken her name with pride. Now her second lieutenant was waiting like a beggar.

  He said quietly, `If I can help.' He thrust his hand into his pocket. `Tide you over awhile.'

  `Thank you, no, sir.' He forced a grin. `Not yet anyway.' He pulled up his coat collar. As he walked away he called, `Good luck, Captain!'

  Bolitho watched him until he was out of sight. It might have been Herrick, he thought. Any of us.

  His Majesty's frigate Undine tugged resentfully at her cable as a stiffening south-easterly wind ripped the Solent into a mass of vicious whitecaps.

  Lieutenant Thomas Herrick turned up the collar of his heavy watchcoat and took another stroll across the quarterdeck, his eyess slitted against a mixture of rain and spray which made the taut rigging shine in the poor light like black glass.

  Despite the weather there was still plenty of activity on deck and alongside in the pitching store boats and water lighters. Here and there on the gangways and right forward in the eyes of the ship the red coats of watchful marines made a pleasant change from the mixtures of dull grey elsewhere. The marines were supposed to ensure that the traffic in provisions and lastmoment equipment was one way, and none was escaping through an open port as barter for cheap drink or other favours with friends ashore.

  Herrick grinned and stamped his feet on the wet planking. They had done a lot of work in the month since he had joined the ship. Others might curse the weather, the uncertainties offered by a long voyage, the prospect of hardship from sea and wind, but not he. The past year had been far more of a burden for him, and he was glad, no thankful, to be back aboard a King's ship. He had entered the Navy when he was still a few weeks short of twelve years old, and these last long months following the signing of peace with France and the recognition of American independence had been his first experience of being away from the one life he understood and trusted.

  Unlike many of his contemporaries, Herrick had nothing but his own resources to sustain him. He came of a poor family, his father being a clerk in their home town of Rochester in Kent. When lie had gone there after paying off the Phalarope and saying his farewell to Bolitho, he had discovered things to be even worse than he had expected. His father's health had deteriorated, and he seemed to be coughing his life away, day in, day out. Herrick's only sister was a cripple and incapable of doing much but help her mother about the house, so his homecoming was seen in rather different ways from his own sense of rejection. A friend of his father's employer had gained him an appointment as mate in a small brig which earned a living carrying general cargo up and down the east coast and occasionally across the channel to Holland. The owner was a miserly man who kept the brig so shorthanded that there were barely enough men to work ship, let along handle cargo, load lighters and keep the vessel in good repair.

  When he had received Bolitho's letter, accompanied by his commission from the Admiralty charging him to report on board Undine, he had been almost too stunned to realise his good fortune. He had not seen Bolitho since that one last visit to his home in Falmouth, and perhaps deep inside he had believed that their friendship, which had strengthened in storm and under bloody broadsides, would be no match for peace.

  Their worlds were, after all, too far apart. Bolitho's great stone house had seemed like a palace to Herrick. His background, his ancestry of seafaring officers, put him in a different sphere entirely. Herrick was the first in his family to go to sea, and that was the least of their differences.

  But Bolitho had not changed. When they had met on this same quarterdeck a month ago he had known it with that first glance. It was still there, The quiet sadness, which could give way to something like boyish excitement in the twinkling of an eye.

  Above all, Bolitho too was pleased to be back, keen to test himself and his new ship whenever a chance offered itself.

  A midshipman scuttled over the deck and touched his hat.

  `Cutter's returning, sir.'

  He was small, pinched with cold. He had been aboard just three weeks.

  `Thank you, Mr. Penn. That'll be some new hands, I hope.' He eyed the boy unsympathetically. `Now smarten yourself, the captain may be returning today.'

  He continued his pacing.

  Bolitho had been in London for five days. It would be good to hear his news, to get the order to sail from this bitter Solent.

  He watched the cutter lifting and plunging across the whitecaps, the oars moving sluggishly despite the efforts of the boat's coxswain. He saw the cocked hat of John Soames, the third lieutenant, in the sternsheets, and wondered if he had had any luck with recruits.

  In the Phalarope Herrick had begun his commission as third lieutenant, rising to Bolitho's second-in-command as those above him died in combat. He wondered briefly if Soames was already thinking of his own prospects in the months ahead. He was a giant of a man and in his thirtieth year, three years older than Herrick, He had got his commission as lieutenant very late in life, and by a roundabout route, mostly, as far as Herrick could gather, in the merchant service and later as master's mate in a King's ship. Tough, self-taught, he was hard to know. A suspicious man.

  Quite different from Villiers Davy, the second lieutenant. As his name suggested, he was of good family, with the money and proud looks to back up his quicksilver wit. Herrick was not sure of him either, but told himself that any dislike he might harbour was because Davy reminded him of an arrogant midshipman they had carried in Phalarope.

  Feet thumped on deck and he turned to see Triphook, the purser, crouching through the drizzle, a bulky ledger under his coat.

  The purser grimaced.. `Evil day, Mr. Herrick.' He gestured to the boats alongside. `God damn those thieves. They'd rob a blind man, so they would.'

  Herrick chuckled. `Not like you pursers, eh?'

  Triphook eyed him severely. He was stooped and very thin, with large yellow teeth like a mournful horse.

  `I hope that was not seriously meant, sir?'

  Herrick craned over the dripping nettings to watch the cutter hooking on to the chains. God, their oarsmanship was bad. Bolitho would expect far better, and before too long.

  He snapped, `Easy, Mr. Triphook. But I was merely reminding you. I recall we had a purser in my last ship. A man called Evans. He lined his pockets at the people's expense. Gave them foul food when they had much to trouble them in other directions.'

  Triphook watched him doubtfully. `What happened?'

  `Captain Bolitho made him pay for fresh meat from his own purse. Cask for cask with each that was rotten.' He grinned. `So be warned, my friend!'

  `He'll have no cause to fault me, Mr. Herrick.' He walked away, his voice lacking conviction as he added, `You can be certain of that.'

  Lieutenant Soames came aft, touching his hat and scowling at the deck as he reported, `Five hands, sir. I've been on the road all day, I'm fair hoarse from calling the tune of those handbills.'

  Herrick nodded. He could sympathise. He had done it often enough himself. Five hands. They still needed thirty. Even then it would not allow
for death and injury to be expected on any long voyage.

  Soames asked thickly, `Any more news?'

  ‘None. Just that we are to sail for Madras. But I think it will be soon now.'

  Soames said, `Good riddance to the land, I say. Streets full of drunken men, prime hands we could well do with.' He hesitated. `With your permission I might take a boat away tonight and catch a few as they reel from their damn ale houses, eh?'

  They turned as a shriek of laughter echoed up from the gun deck, and a woman, her breasts bare to the rain, ran from beneath the larboard gangway. She was pursued by two seamen, both obviously the worse for drink, who left little to the imagination as to their intentions.

  Herrick barked, `Tell that slut to get below! Or I'll have her thrown over the side!' He saw the astonished midshipman watching the spectacle with wide-eyed wonder and added harshly, `Mr. Penn! Jump to it, I say!'

  Soames showed a rare grin. `Offend your feelings, Mr. Herrick?'

  Herrick shrugged. `I know it is supposed to be the proper thing to allow our people women and drink in harbour.' He thought of his sister. Anchored in that damned chair. What he would give to see her running free like that Portsmouth trollop. `But it never fails to sicken me.'

  Soames sighed. `Half the bastards would desert otherwise, signed on or not. The romance of Madras soon wears off when the rum goes short.'

  Herrick said, `What you asked earlier. I cannot agree. It would be a bad beginning. Men taken in such a way would harbour plenty of grievances. One rotten apple can sour a full barrel.'

  Soames eyes him calmly. `It seems to me that this ship is almost full of bad apples. The volunteers are probably on the run from debt, or the hangman himself. Some are aboard just to see what they can lay their fingers on when we are many miles from proper authority.'

  Herrick replied, `Captain Bolitho will have sufficient authority, Mr. Soames.'

  `I forgot. You were in the same ship. There was a mutiny.' It sounded like an accusation.

  `Not of his making.' He turned on him angrily. `Be so good as to have the new men fed and issued with slop clothing.'

  He waited, watching the resentment in the big man's eyes.

  He added, `Another of our captain's requirements. I suggest you acquaint yourself with his demands. Life will be easier for you.'

  Soames strode away and Herrick relaxed. He must not let him get into his skin so easily. But any criticism, or even hint of it, always affected him. To Herrick, Bolitho represented all the things he would like to be. The fact he also knew some of his secret faults as well made him doubly sure of his loyalty. He shook his head. It was stronger even than that.

  He peered over the nettings towards the shore, seeing the walls of the harbour battery glinting like lead in the rain. Beyond Portsmouth Point the land was almost hidden in murk. It would be good to get away. His pay would mount up, and go towards helping out at home. With his share of prize money which he gained under Bolitho in the West Indies he had been able to buy several small luxuries to make their lot easier until his next return. And when might that be? Two years? It was better never to contemplate such matters.

  He saw a ship's boy duck into the rain to turn the hour-glass beside the deserted wheel, and waited for him to chime the hour on the bell. Time to send the working part of the watch below. He grimaced. The wardroom might be little better. Soames under a cloud of inner thought. Davy probing his guard with some new, smart jest or other. Giles Bellairs, the captain of marines, well on the way to intoxication by this time, knowing his hefty sergeant could deal with the affairs of his small detachment. Triphook probably brooding over the issue of clothing to the new men. Typical of the purser. He could face the prospect of a great sea voyage, with each league measured in salt pork and beef, iron-hard biscuit, juice to prevent scurvy, beer and spirits to supplement fresh water which would soon be alive in its casks, and all the thousand other items under his control, with equanimity. But one small issue of clothing, while they still wore what they had come aboard in, was too much for his sense of values. He would learn. He grinned into the cold wind. They all would, once Bolitho brought the ship alive.

  More shouts from alongside, and Penn, the midshipman, called anxiously, `Beg pardon, sir, but I fear the surgeon is in difficulties.'

  Herrick frowned. The surgeon's name was Charles Whitmarsh. A man of culture, but one with something troubling him. Most ship's surgeons, in Herrick's experience, had been butchers. Nobody else would go to sea and face the horrors of mangled men screaming and dying after a savage battle with the enemy. In peacetime he had expected it might be different.

  Whitmarsh was a drunkard. As Herrick peered down at the jolly boat as it bobbed and curtsied at the chains, he saw a boatswain's mate and two seamen struggling to fit the surgeon into a bowline to assist his passage up the side. He was a big man, almost as large as Soames, and in the grey light his features shone with all the brightness of a marine's coat.

  Herrick snapped, `Have a cargo net lowered, Mr. Penn. It is not dignified, but neither is this, by God!'

  Whitmarsh landed eventually on the gun deck, his hair awry, his face set in a great beaming smile. One of his assistants and two marines lifted him bodily and took him aft below the quarterdeck. He would sleep in his small sickbay for a few hours, and then begin again.

  Penn asked nervously, `Is he unwell, sir?'

  Herrick looked at the youth gravely. `A thought tipsy, lad, but well enough to remove a limb or two, I daresay.' He relented and touched his shoulder. `Go below. Your relief will be up soon.'

  He watched him hurry away and grinned. It was hard to recall that he had been like Penn. Unsure, frightened, with each hour presenting some new sight and sound to break his boy's illusions.

  A marine yelled, 'Guardboat shovin' off from the sallyport, Sir!'

  Herrick nodded. `Very well.'

  That would mean orders for the Undine. He let his gaze move forward between the tall, spiralling masts with their taut maze of shrouds and rigging, the neatly furled canvas and to the bowsprit, below which Undine's beautiful, full-breasted figurehead of a water-nymph stared impassively to every horizon. It also meant that Bolitho would be returning. Today.

  And for Thomas Herrick that was more than enough.

  2

  Free of the Land

  Captain Richard Bolitho stood in the shelter of the stone wall beside the sallyport and peered through the chilling drizzle. It was afternoon, but with the sky so overcast by low cloud it could have been much later.

  He was tired and stiff from the long coach ride, and the journey had been made especially irritating by his two jovial companions. Businessmen from the City of London, they had become more loud-voiced after each stop for change of horses and refreshment at the many inns down the Portsmouth road. They were off to France in a packet ship, to contact new agencies there, and so, with luck, expand their trade. To Bolitho it was still hard to accept. Just a year back the Channel had been the only barrier between this country and their common enemy. The moat. The last ditch, as some news-sheet had described it. Now it seemed as if it was all forgotten by such men as his travelling companions. It had become merely an irritating delay which made their journey just so much longer.

  He shrugged his shoulders deeper inside his boat-cloak, suddenly impatient for the last moments to pass, so that he could get back to the ship. The cloak was new, from a good London tailor. Rear Admiral Winslade's friend had taken him there, and managed to do so without making Bolitho feel the complete ignoramus. He smiled to himself despite his other uncertainties. He would never get used to London. Too large, too busy, where nobody had time to draw breath. And noisy. No wonder the rich houses around St. James's Square had sent servants out every few hours to spread fresh straw on the roadway. The grinding roar of carriage wheels was enough to wake the dead. It had been a beautiful house, his hosts charming, if slightly amused by his questions. Even now, he was still unsure of their strange ways. It was not just enough to live in that
fine, fashionable residence, with its splendid spiral staircase and huge chandeliers. To be right, you had to live on the best side of the square, the east side. Winslade's friends lived there. Bolitho smiled again. They would.

  Bolitho had met several very influential people, and his hosts had given two dinner parties with that in mind. He knew well enough from past experience that without their help it would have been impossible. Aboard ship a captain was next only to God. In London society he hardly registered at ail.

  But that was behind him now. He was back. His orders would be waiting, and only the actual time of weighing anchor was left to conjecture.

  He peered round the wall once more, feeling the wind on his face like a whip. The signal tower had informed Undine of his arrival, and very soon now a boat would arrive at the wooden pier below the wall. He wondered how his coxswain, Allday, was managing. His first ship as captain's coxswain, but Bolitho understood him well enough to know there was little to fear on his behalf. It would be good to see him, too. Something familiar. A face to hold on to.

  He glanced up the narrow street to where some servants from the George Inn, where the coach had finally come to rest, were guarding his pile of luggage. He thought of the personal purchases he had made. Maybe London had got some hold on him after all.

  When Bolitho had got his first command of the sloop Sparrow during the American Revolution, he had had little time to acquaint himself with luxuries. But in London, with the remains of his prize money, he had made up for it. New shirts, and some comfortable shoes. This great boat-cloak, which the tailor had assured him would keep out even the heaviest downpour. It had been partly Winslade's doing, he was certain of that. His host had casually mentioned that Bolitho's mission in Undine required not merely a competent captain, but one who would look the part, no matter what sort of government official he might meet. There was, he had added gently, a matter of wine.

  Together they had gone to a low-beamed shop in St. James's Street. It was not a bit what Bolitho might have imagined. It had the sign of a coffee mill outside its door, and the owners' names, Pickering and Clarke, painted in gold leaf above. It was a friendly place, even intimate. It could almost have been Falmouth.