By the Mast Divided

by David Donachie

  An anchorage that stretched five miles from the bottom of Pegwell Bay to Walmer Castle, with a width of three between the treacherous Goodwin Sands and the shingle of the Kent shore, should have had ample room to accommodate a frigate and Davidge Gould’s sloop, which was following in his wake. But with hundreds of merchant ships, the components of several convoys crowded in to that space, none of them showing any inclination towards regimentation in the way they anchored, it needed a strong nerve and a skilful crew to get a man-o’-war safely to the part of the waterfront reserved for the Royal Navy.

  Barclay certainly displayed a strong nerve, even though inside he was terrified of public disgrace. His ship, however, did not have the skilful crew it needed, so progress was not only slow, but hazardous, with the frigate forced to back topsails half a dozen times to avoid a collision with either a vessel or the taut anchor cable that kept it secure. And all the time his consort, Firefly, looked set to run him aboard across his stern. Several times Davidge Gould’s bowsprit came over Brilliant’s taffrail. Only exemplary seamanship from Gould in backing and filling, and good fortune for Barclay, saved both vessels from calamity.

  It was a blessing that the wind stayed light, for in any sort of blow, Barclay would have been forced to luff up and drop his best bower wherever he could. As it was, after a scary two hours of manoeuvring, in which he and his officers became hoarse with shouting, and his crew disgruntled once more at the delay to their dinner, Brilliant, with HMS Firefly in attendance, dropped anchor opposite Deal Castle, just south of the Navy Yard, in that part of the anchorage reserved for King’s ships, several of which, on the seaward side, rode at anchor nearby. No sooner had the metal fluke hit the water than the admiral commanding at the Downs sent up from his official residence an order for both captains to repair ashore immediately.

  Pearce, hauling on ropes, running here, there and everywhere on the frigate’s deck, had been praying for a collision as the sails were backed and reset, only to be backed again two minutes later. He saw all about him a chance to escape, for sometimes the frigate was a mere twenty feet from the side of another ship, and a hollering, angry and blasphemous voice telling them to sheer off. He was flabbergasted by the number of craft within view, from enormous vessels flying the flag of the Honourable East India Company that dwarfed the frigate, to craft that looked too small to brave the open sea.

  The mass of smaller boats bobbing around, transporting supplies or people from ship to shore was just as staggering, and it was not Pearce alone who looked hungrily at those returning from some errand without goods or passengers. And there, no more than a hundred yards distant, and plain to the naked eye was the Deal seafront, rows of tall, salt-streaked houses perched on the edge of the steep shingle beach, split by a series of enticing narrow alleyways that promised to take a running man out of sight. What lay beyond that he did not know – more obstacles no doubt – but since there was no way of foreseeing those he tried to put it out of his mind. More important was the way the waves hit the beach, leaving a thin strip of darker pebbles; the tide was making and would help carry a swimming man inshore.

  ‘Mr Roscoe,’ called Barclay, ‘muster book if you please, and my barge. Mr Sykes you will oblige me by getting the jolly boat in the water and squaring our yards. Also ensure that no other boat gets anywhere near my ship in the time I am ashore.’

  ‘Which is where we all want to be,’ hissed Charlie, ‘you black-hearted bastard.’

  He looked at Pearce then, a sort of hunger in his eyes that made the recipient uncomfortable. ‘This looks more promising than Sheerness, Charlie.’

  ‘For you, maybe,’ Taverner responded, with a look and an air that spoke volumes. For a man who could not swim the small boats slipping by, seemingly so close you could reach out and touch them, and that shingle beach, might as well have been a mile away.

  ‘If Corny has the right of it there will be boats right alongside before long.’

  Gherson glared at Pearce then, for the use of that nickname or for making public what he had only vouchsafed to him, Pearce couldn’t say. But those words made him respond to the enquiring looks from the others. ‘I have it on good authority.’

  ‘I wonder how you paid for that?’ said Charlie, smirking.

  Stung by that, Gherson replied sharply. ‘If I have the sense to seek help, and you do not, then that is your affair.’

  ‘Tell them what you learnt,’ said Pearce. Seeing the hesitation, he added, ‘Or would you rather I did?’

  Gherson obliged after the merest pause, becoming quite showy in the way he explained. ‘The crew will be given what wages are owing to them before we sail, it is the custom. After that, Barclay must allow the men some liberty to spend what they have been paid, and every trader and procurer in Deal will come alongside to secure their share. I have been told not to credit this notion of a swift departure, that he has been in the Navy too long to place much store by such orders.’

  Orders came to get on the capstan bars. Sidling closer to Pearce as they made their way down the companionway, he whispered, ‘Why did you speak so?’

  ‘It’s only fair that we all have a chance,’ Pearce lied. He wanted them looking at boats, not at him.

  ‘We must not jeopardise the possibility our letters will present, which will most certainly happen if any of those fools try to get aboard a boat.’

  As he pushed to lift the captain’s barge, then the jolly boat for the bosun, Pearce reprised in his mind, now that they were off Deal, the inherent flaws in placing any hope in a letter. Gherson’s, in plain English, could go straight to a local Justice who might choose to act with alacrity, but his could not. It was addressed to John Wilkes in London and would have to go by post with the man he hoped to help him having to pay for the delivery. Gherson might be right about the ship being delayed here, but surely not for the days it would need for his plea to arrive and be acted upon. The only thing it might achieve was to blacken Barclay’s name, which would be some comfort.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ he said to Gherson, who was moaning on about what Pearce had done. ‘Stupid of me. If any of them show an inclination to try, I must stop them. Best you keep an eye on them as well.’

  ‘Right, boats in the water,’ called a voice, as the rope leading from the capstan went slack. ‘Strike the bars.’

  As soon as the capstan bars were removed to their racks a bosun’s mate piped ‘up spirits’. Pearce watched as some of his mess, Gherson included, rushed off enthusiastically to get their ration of diluted rum. Pearce hung back, half torn for a second between the notion of trying to get off the ship now, or getting back to that store with something to break open the padlock.

  ‘You don’t seem in much of a rush, mate?’

  Pearce turned towards the voice, and found himself looking up into a scarred and unpleasant face with a well-thumped nose. Close to the prominent bumpy forehead were small dark brown eyes, the whole not made any more becoming by the man’s attempt at a smile.

  ‘Devenow’s the name, Sam to those I call friend.’ Pearce just nodded. ‘Best friends I have, and many. None be too partial to grog, so for a consideration they allows me to have what they don’t require.’

  With his mind so fixed on escape, the question to ask was obvious. ‘What kind of consideration?’

  ‘Different from one to another, mate,’ Devenow replied, putting a large hand round Pearce’s shoulder. The way he exerted pressure made it obvious this was no gesture of friendliness. ‘Some gift it out of kindness, some for a favour, like sorting some grass combing bugger aboard who is giving them grief. They know they can rely on Sam Devenow to put matters straight.’ The voice changed, becoming gruff, as the pressure on Pearce’s shoulder increased, bringing Devenow’s head closer, so close that Pearce caught a whiff of tobacco on his breath. ‘Then there are those who would wish to avoid upsetting me, ’cause I have it in me to be a bad bastard at times.’

  Pearce was aware that he was trembling slightly – his fists
had clenched, and his shoulders had stiffened – for he had been threatened with physical violence many times in his life and he could smell it a mile off. Devenow was telling him that to surrender his rum ration would save him from a beating. Maybe it was those squaring shoulders, or the way that Pearce moved a foot to enhance his balance and give himself room to swing, that alerted Devenow to the fact that this newcomer was not about to be browbeaten – that he would fight if he had to. The thought produced a smile in Devenow, but it was not a humorous one.

  ‘Happen you will have to wait, seeing as you’re a gamecock. If I don’t shift I won’t get my own grog, let alone yours. But we shall talk again, and that might just include a bit of a lesson.’

  Watching Devenow’s crouched back, looking at the huge shoulders and the height that prevented him from walking upright under the deck beams, Pearce was looking at a man who had an inch or two on Michael O’Hagan. The feeling he had in his gut, as he contemplated having to fight that giant was not one to reassure him. Fight he assuredly would if he could not get off this ship, because it was not in his nature to back down, but just as assuredly he knew that with nothing but his fists he would lose to a bruiser who had the advantage in height, weight and experience.

  Kemp’s voice, coming from the companionway he had been about to climb, broke that depressing train of thought, and the smirk on his face was evidence that he had a good notion of what had just taken place. With that sod watching him, he had no choice but to trail in Devenow’s wake.

  The queue had formed before the purser, the Master at Arms and the small keg from which the rum was being dispensed. Pearce recalled the exchange the Irishman had had the day before when on the capstan, of the look on both their faces, thinking that it was only a matter of time before that pair squared up to each other.

  Last in the queue, he saw that Devenow had got himself in behind Rufus Dommet, and was whispering in his ear, with not one of the sailors he had walked in front of protesting. He observed Rufus’s ginger head half turn, and fancied he saw fear in the profile. Clearly the man who had tried to bully him was working on the youngest of the Pelicans. Abel Scrivens was behind Rufus, and he would no doubt be next to be told ‘If you don’t want a beating, give me your grog ration.’

  ‘Rufus,’ he called, ‘come and join me. You too, Abel.’

  Rufus Dommet positively shot back at Pearce’s request. Scrivens was slower to react, but looking at Pearce, then following the direction of his gaze, which had him craning to look into the scarred face of Devenow, he soon did likewise.

  ‘Happen you and I will have to have words soon, mate,’ Devenow said, glaring at Pearce. ‘Very soon.’

  Every head between Devenow and the trio of Pelicans had turned to stare, with varying degrees of reaction – pity, a recognition of stupidity, the odd shake of the head, but more worrying the fact that by his action Devenow had made him an object of scrutiny just when he wished to be invisible. Last to be served with his grog, Pearce had little choice but to make his way towards his mess table, when an over his shoulder look from Charlie Taverner alerted him. Turning, expecting danger from Devenow, he was unprepared for Martin Dent skipping by, and a hand jammed under his jug that sent the contents flying all over the deck. His free hand just failed to catch the pest by the shirt as he doubled back towards the companionway and shot up to the upper deck.

  ‘You should have broken his damned neck, Pearce,’ said Charlie, who had left his seat too late to intervene, ‘not his nose.’

  The chance came suddenly, as Pearce had always suspected it would, an open gunport, no one in authority close by to intervene, with nearly all of the crew titivating themselves, shaving close, changing into clean clothes, greasing and re-doing pigtails, talking excitedly about the women they anticipated would soon be coming aboard and planning how to thwart the authority that would seek to stop them. Ducking down for a look showed him a clear run to the shore and a sea with waves of a height that would not hamper swimming. There was no time to think of money, coats, shoes or anyone else, only of the one person who was close to him.

  ‘I need your back again, Michael.’

  The Irishman asked nothing, even although he must have guessed what Pearce meant, for there was a look of longing on that broad ruddy face as he turned away. ‘Then you have it, and may the blessing of Jesus and the saints be upon you.’

  Pearce was halfway through the gunport, and had one leg over the lip before he spoke. ‘I will do my best for you all.’

  ‘For which I thank you.’

  Those parting words registered as Pearce’s head dipped below the level of the gunport. He hung there for a second, bent arms holding his weight, very aware of the rough planking through his shirt, looking up, relieved to see no head popping over the side, very aware of what he was risking. The drop to the water was the point at which he would be in the greatest danger – the noise of the splash would give him away. At that moment a gun boomed, and as its effect echoed around the anchorage Pearce straightened his arms and dropped, going under immediately then resurfacing to spit what felt like half a gallon of seawater out of his mouth.

  It could be fatal to wait and see if the cannon boom had covered his departure; registering only the heart stopping cold that stung his skin and the horrible taste of salt in his mouth, he struck out, shaking his dripping head to try and catch a glimpse of the shore, for in the lee of the ship there were no waves to tell him which direction in which to swim. Sure at any second that he would hear a shout behind him; that the water would zip by his ears with musket balls trying to kill him, he fixed his gaze on the top of one of the onshore houses, noting as he moved so it did, across his vision – the tide was carrying him not only inshore but to a point up the beach to his right. It mattered not – the shore was the thing.

  The feeling of intense cold eased as he stroked rhythmically through the water, lifted slightly every few seconds by a wave that helped propel him forward. Close enough to the shore to hear the swish of the waves rushing up the shingle beach he did not catch the sound of the oars behind him, nor the command to raise them as the jolly boat shot alongside and into his vision. The hand that grabbed his collar stopped him swimming – the oars dipped again were in front of him blocking his path, and the voice in his ear was as rough as the grip.

  ‘Damn you!’

  It was the bosun, Sykes, and Pearce tried to spin his body and use an arm to break the grip. A fist caught on his ear, stunning him slightly, as Sykes yelled at him.

  ‘Belay that you fool, you can’t get away now.’

  Treading water, his body lifted out of the water by those muscular arms, Pearce could see very clearly just how close he was to the water breaking over the shore. He tried, by raising his arms, to drop out of his shirt, but a second hand caught his hair, and even wet managed to hang on to it, while at the same time, Sykes who grabbed the tail of his shirt and hauled it tight in a way that rendered his arms useless.

  ‘Stop struggling you swab or I’ll fetch you a clout with a spike.’

  Pearce did not obey that command, he did not have to for he was done for, constrained by the material of his shirt as well as the hand holding his hair.

  ‘Now,’ Sykes growled, ‘we’s going to drag you inboard, and you’d best come easy. Ridley, give us a lift here. Costello, keep an eye on the ship and make sure nobody in a blue coat spots what we’re about.’

  ‘Still only that useless little bugger Burns on deck. There’s a party at the foc’stle, but I reckon them to be Truculence’s mates.’

  ‘Which be lucky for you,’ Sykes said, right in Pearce’s ear, as he hauled him over the gunwale, the wood of the boat’s side digging sharply into his stomach. It must have been Ridley who caught his legs and threw them over, for Pearce found himself in heap at the bottom of the boat, with a heavy foot firmly placed on his back, and Sykes saying, ‘Now bloody well stay there.’

  ‘Anyone paying notice, Costello?’

  ‘Not a blind bit Mr Sykes, not a
blind bit.’

  ‘Well, our friend here is lucky as well as stupid. Row us back to the ship.’ The voice became a growl as Sykes leant over to talk into Pearce’s ear. ‘’Cause if they wasn’t so busy aboard the barky, officers as well as hands, thinking of whores on their backs, you would have been spotted for certain.’

  ‘I must get ashore,’ Pearce said, his voice croaked as much through despair as the seawater he had swallowed.

  ‘Must you now?’ Sykes replied, his voice become more normal as he sat up. ‘Well, it ain’t going to be on this day. You stay low till we get alongside and set you back through a gunport. Thank your lucky stars that the captain ain’t aboard, ’cause he can smell a man trying to run, an’ his remedy is the lash. Bring us alongside, you two.’

  Pearce heard the slight bump of wood on wood as the ship and the boat met. Once more it was a strong grip on his collar, hauling him upright, and he found himself looking into the screwed-up face of Sykes. ‘Now me, I can see why a man might want to run, especial when he’s been had up in the wrong way. But that’s the way of things and it ain’t for alteration. You best pass that message on to all your mates.’

  ‘Please…’

  ‘Don’t even try to plead. Help him you two, while I hold the boat.’

  Ridley and Costello took his lower legs and lifted him, and Pearce found himself handing his body off the ship’s side as he was raised to look through a gunport at the face of Michael O’Hagan.

  ‘Would this be in the order of a resurrection, John-boy?’

  As the Irishman grabbed him, he heard Sykes call to the quarterdeck to say he was coming aboard. By the time that happened, Pearce was standing on the maindeck, dripping water on to the planking, looking into the disappointed faces of those with whom he shared a mess.

  Are they disappointed in me, Pearce was thinking, or the fact that I failed?