“Sir, those local princes – we no longer permit them their little, local wars, I believe – the only target for their aggression must be John Company.”
“And when they attack the Company, then the sepoys and the Army will defeat them and capture their artillery – which will be condemned and sold as scrap!”
Forshaw shook his head in disgust – he was still unused to the ways of England’s ruling political class.
“They never change, Mr Forshaw – we live and work and do our duty despite government, not with its aid; ‘twas always so, always will be.”
The dockyard was efficient, worked swiftly, all unbribed, sure proof of dishonesty, confirmation that they were making their money elsewhere. The Dutch had built a drydock, with windmills to pump out the water, which no doubt worked well when there was a wind; for the while it provided a calm enclosed berth under the massive sheerlegs, big enough to replace the mainmast of a third rate line of battle ship. The fished stumps of Nantes, fore and mizzen, were plucked vertically – very slowly – into the air and moved to the firewood pile, replaced by long, straight-grained, beautiful timbers from southern virgin forest land.
“Equal heights now, sir, all three masts,” Forshaw commented, “more common in merchantmen, I believe.”
“Very American, sir,” Ferrier added. “An interesting problem, sailing her – her balance will have changed utterly.”
“I had noticed that, Mr Ferrier,” Forshaw responded. “Shift ballast, bows to stern, and when she is bought in and outfitted with carronades, ensure that none go to the forecastle, would be my first thought.”
Ferrier was forced to agree, professionalism overcoming irritation.
Jackman, acting first of Charybdis, peered, noted, sweated, his scar-crossed face in its now habitual frown of concentration. He was rapidly becoming a highly effective premier, mainly because he was never convinced that he had done enough, that he had helped the young lieutenants who made up his quarterdeck sufficiently.
Until the admiral in Bombay gave his orders it was inappropriate to give acting rank to master’s mate or midshipman – if Forshaw came back as first then the unfortunate would be demoted, and would have to shift his dunnage out of the wardroom, mess again with his erstwhile subordinates, most uncomfortable for all parties. For the while, the officers were badly overworked, double watching, eight hours on deck and four off.
Charybdis swayed up her own new topmast using her own people, prize crew recovered temporarily. Tied up in a calm harbour it was a simple task, lifting a not too vast weight with neither roll nor pitch to contend with – at sea, performed as an evolution against the clock, shifting topmasts was a wicked, crippling chore, often a punishment for a laggardly crew.
The dockyard was open-handed, a new experience for Frederick and one he deeply mistrusted; only in the question of men did the admiral disappoint, but, to be fair, he had no men to give. They put to sea with two thinned crews spread watch and watch through the three ships, commissioned and warrant officers still double-watching.
Forshaw and Beeton stood alone on the quarterdeck of Nantes, parroting the captain’s words to each other.
“This will be most excellent experience, Mr Beeton.”
“We will become better officers as a result of this, sir.”
“But, fortunately, we are very good already.”
“Otherwise, sir, we would not be trusted to work ourselves to near exhaustion!”
Despite their exhaustion the crew of the Nantes still contrived to make her pretty in hope of increasing her price, and their prize-money. They scrubbed the deck white, new timbers almost indistinguishable; they painted all they could, polished the rest, blackened the deck-seams as well as might be. In the rigging they replaced every knot with a splice that would pass through the sheaves at need; the sails they patched tidily, replaced cloths where they had the material to hand. The heads, appallingly, were sluiced and the encrustations of years of French neglect were chipped away, extra rum rations for the hardy volunteers not begrudged by their mates who sat upwind of them.
As foreseen by all, the Nantes was bought into the service by the Port Admiral in Bombay, very politely making an elegantly turned speech the while; unexpected was his action in making Warren post into her, Forshaw Master and Commander in Cobra – the most Forshaw had hoped for was premier of the Nantes or Charybdis.
“Cholera, Captain Harris, struck at the end of the monsoon – half of my wardrooms are filled with boys who have yet to buy a razor. I lost all three of my young men, promising lieutenants picked out long since. You must name three of yours, if you can, one for you, two to Nantes.”
“Midshipmen Lee and Luscombe to Nantes, if you please, sir. Master’s mate Bruce to Charybdis.”
“Write their names in, Patel,” the Admiral commanded. “We lost so many dead I had the copying room write out commissions with blank spaces for the names. I made seven in a fortnight for Black Prince frigate! Take them with you, Captain Harris, do the honours. I will see the captains myself.”
“Separately, sir?”
The Admiral snorted. “Like that, is it? Which one?”
“Mr Forshaw is an outstandingly good seaman, sir and knows how to fight, but…”
“Know-it-all?”
“Yes, sir, and the problem is, most often, he does, and he is a very fine shot with a pistol. Comes from outside the service, his father an attorney-at-law, I believe, and has had some slight difficulties in fitting in, as it were. He is an intelligent man, and, in his way, learned – an excellent navigator – but he has never quite discovered how to get along with other people, tends to prate, perhaps.”
“But you can work with him?”
“He is obedient to command and wholly willing to do his utmost best – I could not ask for a man I would trust more out of my sight. He is the most reliable of subordinates, but he is also a real little shit otherwise, sir!”
“I met another one of those years ago, Captain Harris – he became quite famous, too, and distinguished himself recently at Camperdown, I read. Bligh, his name – brilliant seaman, detestable man!”
“That name, sir, brings to mind these mutinies we have been told of, sir, the whole fleet up, the red flag flying, all sorts of tales, sir, each wilder than the last!”
“At a guess, and at a great distance, Captain Harris, it feels like more show than substance – the foremast jacks kicked the government’s arse, and long overdue! I do not know the ins and outs, the rights and wrongs, but I do know that a really, truly mutinous seaman does not haul down the red flag one minute and go out to thrash a Dutch fleet the next!”
“Not the Dutch, sir! They have to be outsailed, outfought and then killed twice to make quite certain of them. Very strange, sir. Wholesale courts-martial and hangings, sir?”
“Almost none at the Nore or at Spithead, I am given to understand. No floggings round the fleet.”
“Very strange!” Frederick repeated. “The men are shockingly paid, badly rationed, poorly clothed. I hope some of these may be amended as a result, sir.”
“The word is that there will be some small improvement in all of these things, but not much – the war is too costly already. Not to worry, sir! We will do what we can, and while there is prize-money we can do a little ourselves, as you know. You may expect to receive orders next week, Captain Harris – if the soldiers and politicians will ever stop talking – may regard it as safe to allow shore leave over this next five days.”
“Very good, sir. I am short-handed, sir, lost too many skilled hands in the Papues.”
“You are at Bombay, Captain Harris! You can pick from a thousand Lascars, Malays, Chinese, Arabs and Africans; as well there will be European merchant seamen waking up in the brothels to find their ships sailed. Pass the word, sir, let your bos’n’s pick and choose as they will. By the bye, what is this I am told of your man?”
“Took a splinter, sir, in his left forearm. Both bones broken and exposed. He tied his shirt
round it, used the sleeves to knot off the bleeding, then took out his knife and cut the lower part off, as it was flopping about and being a nuisance and he still had work to do; he cut a neat flap while he was at it, saw the surgeon when all was done and Nantes was ours. Declared himself fit for duty when we refitted at Colombo, sir, says he will ship a hook to his own design when he has leisure.”
“’Ships of oak and men of iron’,” the Admiral quoted. “Name him in your Gazette letter, I beg of you, Captain Harris, there is little else we can do. The overland courier will set off at the end of the month and he will take your reports – I know that government is anxious for word of them and will be pleased indeed at your success. I understand that a man named Critchel – a politico of some sort – has mentioned you in his letters, more than once?”
“A family acquaintance, sir, he is known to my uncle who is a public man.”
It seemed to Frederick that there was little need to mention that Critchel was also known to him personally, seemed anxious in fact to draw Frederick into his nexus.
“Lord Alton, of course – I had forgotten you were one of those Harrises – it is like having a bishop in the family, is it not? Cannot be helped, is none of one’s own seeking, but casts a faint pall nonetheless.”
A warning that he was becoming too political in service eyes? Possibly, but there was very little he could do about it even so – it was too late now.
Pay tickets arrived for the crew, were followed by a paymaster so that they could exchange them at face value rather than selling at heavy discount to a shark, this being one of the great benefits of foreign service. In England a man could redeem his pay ticket only at his designated home port – he might join his ship at Chatham and be discharged, probably sick or disabled, years later at Plymouth or Harwich or Portsmouth, without a penny piece in his pocket and with no choice other than to sell his ticket for fifty or sixty per cent of its face value. Tentative enquiries were made about their payments for Star of the Carnatic and the other merchantmen and Marat and Nantes, but they were sternly informed by David LeGrys that the prizes would pay in Pompey and not before. As it stood the bulk of the men, having received no pay for some months before sailing, had about eight pounds in hand, in a port where a gin, or its equivalent, cost a penny and a woman tuppence; to spend their money in five days, watch and watch about ashore, would require unusual stamina, though no doubt most would try their best.
It was interesting to observe the men as they came offshore, to see who could not stand, who was fighting drunk, who stone-cold sober, and be amazed on occasion at the reversal of expectations.
The ship began to fill with parrots and macaws and minahs, always favourites. A pair of sad-eyed monkeys sat holding hands on the maintopmast yardarm, peering in horror until hunger forced them down to the noise and hurly-burly of the deck where biscuit soaked in grog proved too much for them to resist. The ship’s cat stalked too close in fascination, fled squalling, its tail thoroughly pulled; they declared truce on the third day, loftily ignoring each other and nursing scratches, bites and slaps in sullen silence.
They lost no men in that week, a rare record and one much commented on privately. Not one stabbing, drowning or desertion, in a port where a European seaman could always find a berth in a merchantman going to the States.
“Good men, and prize-money waiting in Pompey. The pox figures will be awful, though!”
But even the venereals were surprisingly low, probably because the men could afford sixpence rather than half a groat, were able to progress a couple of steps out of the gutter.
“Orders, Captain Harris – convoy duty for your three vessels, sir. The Twenty Fourth Foot have completed their seven years, are for England. You will escort them and such other merchantmen as wish to join to Cape Town and thence to England. Too many pirates out of Madagascar of late, and at least one privateer based on Mauritius, and there is always the offchance of Frog or Don in the Atlantic, so this season we convoy. We cannot afford to waste the soldiers – seasoned, experienced troops are rare in England and the fear of invasion is high again.”
Charybdis, Cobra and Nantes were used to working together, and the Port Admiral in Bombay would be obliged to return Cobra to Batavia if she remained in Indian waters. Frederick’s small squadron were extra to establishment, could be sent off, never to return in all probability, without reducing the forces ordinarily to hand at Bombay. Moreover, the convoy would require a senior captain in command, possibly appointed as Commodore for the half a year of the voyage, and the Admiral needed all of his senior men on station and did not wish to choose between his three possible candidates, losing one and disappointing, possibly souring, two. Better by far to send Captain Harris back home - with his political friends looking over his shoulder, reading his reports, much wiser he should be at a safe distance.
Six months of tedium to come, ideal for training his young officers and a year less than expected out of England, but he had still not achieved promotion for Jackman. Next commission probably, this success should lead to further employment almost immediately, he might even keep Charybdis with Jackman as his first. Without the cholera Jackman would probably have been superseded – he was young in his rank for premier of one of the larger frigates, but there was no man more senior available in Bombay, and six months of convoy would polish him in the rank.
Important matters – there were printing presses in Bombay and bookshops with volumes imported and local in every language, and convoy was reading time. Frederick bought indiscriminately – Spinoza and Daniel Defoe; Gulliver and Tom Jones sat next to The Prince and Homer; he read slowly, so thirty volumes sufficed, the more so because many of the books would require several readings.
Bosomtwi and Ablett descended on markets and shops to restock the captain’s pantry with spices and preserves; they appeared one forenoon in the company of a very small brown man, meek and undistinguished seeming.
“This, sir, is Sid. He can cook, isn’t it. He work for an English major, sir, but he die. He cook Army English and Army Indian and real Indian, sir, and he can learn anything. And he bakes cakes, and bread, and he can make rice taste like food, sir. And we need a proper cook on a long convoy where we got to give dinners and look good. “
“Yes.”
“His wage is eighteen pound a year, sir, and his keep. And he get sent back to Bombay if you turn him off, sir.”
“Welcome aboard, Sid.”
Sid saluted, made namaste, bowed, muttered and was led away. He cooked fish that evening on a bed of rice and green vegetables; Frederick called Bosomtwi to him after the meal, handed him twenty guineas.
“Take Sid ashore and buy him whatever he wants for the pantry. Then give him this extra five as a bonus to save or spend as he wishes. That was the best fish I have ever eaten. Did you have any?”
Bosomtwi was outraged – his sense of propriety did not permit him to eat from the master’s cooking pot. Ablett grinned, he had eaten his fill.
“Reports and letters, Mr LeGrys – all are ready?”
It was a formality, both knew that they were, but the forms sometimes had to be observed.
“Penned in duplicate, sir, in best, for the Admiral and the courier. Logs all made up, correspondence book copied in, statements of condition from each department, sir. Purser’s dockets, sir. All in folders and bound in tape, sir.”
“Good! Have you taken leave yet?”
“I’m going now, sir. Warren and Beeton and me are.”
“You have money?”
“Yes, thank you, sir, I have spent none as yet this year.”
Frederick waved the boy on his way, was escorted to the Admiral where he completed his business before walking quietly back to his lonely cabin.
Bosomtwi and Ablett had taken themselves ashore, sent off to amuse themselves for a few hours, a rare holiday which neither was comfortable with but had felt obliged to obey, and Frederick sat down in an absolute solitude, glancing over the paperwork passed through to
him by Jackman. There was no need to check it – the quarter bills would be correct, every gun crew balanced new men and steady hands, each mast equally served with able, ordinary and landsmen, forecastle hands carefully selected for strength and commonsense, boats crewed with reliable men who could be trusted away from the ship – the young man would have done the job thoroughly and then would have had Mr Ferrier check it through with him before David wrote it out in best.
“I know what young David’s doing – he was listening most carefully to the comparisons of the different cathouses last night.”
They had dined on shore, in the Mess of the Twenty Fourth, doing the polite, meeting the officers who would be their dinner guests at least once every week for the next six months. David had drunk little of their port but had been all ears when the conversation, inevitably, turned to bawdy.
“Good luck to the boy – he’s due some – I could almost wish to have done the same. Eighteen months is a long time – the child, what’s his name, Iain, that’s it – will be grown a bit – when do they stop being babies?”
Frederick sat through the next hour on his own feeling uncomfortably guilty as he realised that this was probably the first time he had thought of the boy – his own son – since his disastrous birth.
“Not his fault! He would have wanted a mother, especially with a father rarely to be seen. I wonder who he looks like, not too much of his mother, please God! Not an ever-present reminder. We never had her portrait taken, no time. I ought to buy him something, a present – he will have had two birthdays by the time I see him. What?”
“Is not before time, isn’t it, sir! You is bought him a big wood carve giraffe, what they Dutchies call ‘kameel’, in Cape Town. And in Batavia, you bought the skin of a tiger, sir. And a black wood elephant with real ivory tusks in Colombo. And a brass monkey here, because you got to buy a brass monkey in Bombay, isn’t it. And some silks, to make up for shirts, sir.”
The Fuzzy-Wuzzy Man (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 3) Page 10
