Old Glory

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘Aye,’Sally McGann said. ‘You need the time to cool, Harry.’

  ‘We owe you a debt of gratitude for your help, Mr Bartlett,’ Seamus McGann said.

  ‘Think nothing of it, sir. I owe you more than that,’ Bartlett insisted. ‘For my Lizzie. And Josiah Bartlett always settles a debt. Besides, am I not going to be the one in profit, with your son to haul a rope for me? I’ll send him back, safe and sound, and with money in his pockets. You’ve my word on that, sir. And I’m a man of my word. We sail tomorrow morning, Master McGann. Right after midnight. Find yourself in Waterford by then, and all will be well.’

  CHAPTER 2 – The Atlantic 1769

  A fine ship. Harry could believe that. In the beginning it was difficult to decide which could possibly be the Spirit of the West, in the darkness and amongst the myriad masts that crowded the Waterford dockside. He was no stranger to ocean going ships, and he could have been happy to sail on any one of these. But the actual vessel was the finest to be seen, at a glance, a three masted barque, she was square rigged on main and foremast, with a fore and aft rigged mizen mast in the stern. Her top-sides gleamed with fresh paint and varnish, her sails were neatly furled, and her decks were a bustle of activity as she prepared for sea.

  ‘You could sail around the world on that,’ Charlie McGann said, breathlessly. He had accompanied his brother to lead back the horses.

  ‘The Atlantic, or the world, ’tis all one,’ Harry agreed.

  He was wildly excited, had been, indeed, since the previous afternoon. As everyone had noted, but especially Bridget. Yet even Bridget had accepted that only half of Harry McGann would ever belong to her — the remainder would belong to the sea he loved with an equal fervour. She was wrong, of course, he hoped and prayed. He rejected utterly the notion that he might love the sea more than any woman, and even more, the possibility that the sea could be made the more attractive by the presence of Elizabeth Bartlett. But six weeks, which was the estimated time it would take them to reach New York, in the company of such a beauty, and on the lonely expanses which were the ocean … He had never been at sea, with a woman, before. There were so many special intimacies which necessarily had to do with ships and the solitude they engendered … but there was betrayal again, even if only in his mind. It was the sea which mattered, and the experience … and then the return, to hold Bridget once again in his arms, as he had done last night, and know that within hours, perhaps days, of that moment she would be his wife.

  The excitement of it precluded thought, and grief. And that was what it had to do until he ceased seeing Boru’s panting death every time he closed his eyes.

  ‘Begone with you,’ he snapped at the half dozen young women who had attached themselves to the company of his brother and himself. ‘I’m to ship.’

  ‘We can see that, my darling,’ said one girl. ‘And it’ll be a long, cold season for your prick, saving you warm it in some seamate’s ass, and that’s not half so much fun as my cunt. You’ve time for a cuddle. And the necessary cash, I’ll be bound.’

  ‘Get off, or it’s your ass will be the more painful,’ Harry growled, aiming a playful kick at her.

  The girls squealed with laughter and retreated.

  ‘We’ll say goodbye here,’ Harry decided, taking down his carryall.

  ‘I’d like to see aboard the ship,’ Charlie objected.

  ‘And then you’d be weeping all over me.’

  ‘I will not,’ the younger boy declared hotly.

  ‘Glad to see me gone, is that it?’ Harry chided. ‘Well, then, I’d likely be weeping all over you. Now listen to me well. Take the horses and go straight back to Tramore. If you linger with those harpies, they’ll not only have the shirt off your back, but they’ll likely give you a right dose of the clap to replace it. Take my word for it.’ He squeezed his brother’s hand tightly. ‘September.’

  Charlie McGann hesitated, then squeezed the huge fingers in turn. He took after his mother and was only half the size of his brother. ‘September,’ he said, and led the horses back towards the turnpike, the girls clustering at his heels.

  Harry watched him for a moment, then shrugged; the boy — Charlie was only seventeen — had to grow up sometime. He shouldered his carryall, turned towards the gangway.

  ‘You’ve business?’ asked a man, well enough dressed, but with a thin face to match his thin body.

  ‘I’m to ship with Mr Bartlett,’ Harry said.

  The thin-faced man looked him up and down. ‘You’ll be the Irish giant, McGann,’ he said.

  ‘That’s my name,’ Harry agreed.

  ‘Christ, I doubt we’ve a hammock to fit,’ the man said. ‘All right, McGann, we’ve been expecting you. Cut it fine, you did; we sail in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘There were matters to attend to,’ Harry explained.

  ‘You’ll call me “sir”’, the man told him. ‘I’m first mate of this ship, see? Peter Bird, not at your service, Mr McGann. You’ll call me “sir”, and when I whistle, you’ll jump.’

  Harry nodded. ‘I’ll do that, Mr Bird. After I’ve made my number with Mr Bartlett.’

  ‘He gave us your name,’ Bird said. ‘A right Irish rogue is what he called you, and I can see he was right. He’ll not want to speak with the likes of you in middle of the night.’ He looked at Harry’s bandaged left hand. ‘Fighting, is it?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, sir.’

  ‘There’ll be none of that aboard this ship, boy. Remember that, or it’ll be the worse for you. Now get aboard. Bo’sun, this here’s the new man, McGann.’

  ‘Aye, aye, Mr Bird.’ The boatswain was a small man, with a happily monkey-like face. ‘Christ …’ he echoed the officer. ‘He’s a big ’un.’

  ‘So we’ll set him up in place of the capstan,’ Bird suggested. ‘On board, McGann.’

  Harry touched his woollen cap — there was no point in taking offence at the man’s ideas of humour — and made his way up the gangplank, stepping down on to the deck.

  ‘Step easy,’ the boatswain said. ‘You’ll have us capsized. Where in the name of hell did the owner find you?’ Then he answered his own question. ‘Saved his daughter from drowning, eh?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ Harry agreed. The boatswain stared at him. ‘You’ve some things to learn, McGann,’ he said. ‘Like how to address me. Bowler’s the name. You call me mister, got that?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Bowler,’ Harry said.

  ‘You’ll stow your gear forward. Then be back on deck in five minutes. We’ve a tide to catch.’ He looked Harry up and down again. ‘You been to sea before?’ It was not really a question.

  ‘Some … Mr Bowler.’

  ‘Aye. Well, you’ll have to prove it here. Now get with it.’

  ‘Aye-aye, Mr Bowler.’

  Harry went forward, ignoring the comments of the various crew members he passed. Somehow it had not occurred to him that he would be sent to mess forward; he had regarded himself as a friend of the Bartlett family. As indeed he was. The fault was his own for arriving so late, well after Josiah and his daughter had gone to bed — and they had gone to bed, no doubt, fully convinced that he had changed his mind and was not joining them after all.

  It had been so very difficult to get away from Tramore. Word had very rapidly spread as to what he was doing, and almost the entire village had appeared to wish him Godspeed and good fortune. Apart from his own family, there had been Brian O’More, and Pollock, and Calhoun, sad that they were losing, even temporarily, their best friend, and when he had gone to the church to confess, as he always did before putting to sea, Father O’More had turned it into an impromptu mass at which prayers were said for the safekeeping of his soul and his speedy return to Tramore.

  Then there had been Bridget, tearfully seeking a last hour alone with him — as if he had wanted an hour alone with anyone, with the loom of romance and adventure just over the horizon, as it were. Yet would he return to her, having adventured, and make her the happiest woman in the worl
d. And put an end to dreams, because he would have lived a dream, at least for a while.

  In every sense?

  But first he had to prove his worth, as Bowler had said, and that meant no resentment or backsliding. He went down the ladder, surveyed the forecastle, which was lit by a single lantern suspended from a deck beam, while the beams themselves were so low Harry had to bend almost double when standing erect. It smelt of humanity, and bilgewater, and tar — but then so did the after-cabin, the only cabin, on board the Bonaventure during a voyage. He surveyed the hammocks, chose the only one which did not have any gear wrapped in it, and placed his carryall inside, then returned to the deck, where the activity was growing every minute.

  ‘Forward there,’ shouted Mr Bird. ‘You great Irish hulk. Forward there.’

  The mooring lines were about to be cast off; the ship’s boat was already in the water, fully manned, brawny arms straining at the oars to pull the ship’s bows away from the dock.

  The lines were dropped.

  ‘Deck watch aloft,’ came the command from the poop, a different voice from any Harry had previously heard, and he guessed that the captain himself was now in command. As he had not been assigned a watch, he remained standing where he was, while half of the sailors clambered into the rigging to reach the spars and unfurl the sails.

  ‘Watch below, attend the boat,’ came the order, and the remaining seamen ran to the starboard waist to attach the falls — the ropes which would hoist it — to the longboat, whose crew now came swarming on board.

  ‘Who is that man?’ the voice asked.

  ‘New hand, McGann, sir,’ Mr Bird told him, climbing the ladder to stand beside him on the poop deck.

  ‘Get to it, McGann,’ the captain said. ‘Man those falls.’

  ‘Aye-aye, sir,’ Harry said, and seized the nearest, coiling it hand over while the longboat rose from the water.

  ‘Holy Jesus,’ said one of the three men manning the other fall. ‘He’s a mountain.’

  Harry grinned at him, made the rope fast as the longboat hung above them, to be manhandled inboard; the falls were slackened to lower her on to her chocks amidships, between the mainmast and the poop, where she was securely tied down.

  ‘McGann,’ said the captain, standing immediately above him at the break of the poop.

  Harry stood straight. ‘That’s my name, Captain.’

  ‘Aye. Mr Bartlett mentioned it to me. You’ll take the port watch, McGann. That’ll give you four hours to stow your gear and get some rest.’

  ‘Aye-aye, Captain. And thank you.’

  ‘You’ll call me “sir” the captain told him, and turned away to stand beside the helmsman. ‘Port a point,’ he said.

  For the Spirit of the West was gathering way as her sails were stretched and filling; the Waterford docks were already several hundred yards astern, and in front of the ship there was only the broad Atlantic. Allowing for the fact that Tramore was several miles west of the town, and that therefore he had sailed approximately this course before, it was yet the first time Harry had done so without preparing to make harbour, rather than face several weeks at sea. He felt a tremendous stirring within him, as if he had never lived before. It took quite an effort to tear himself away and join his shipmates below, where the lantern swayed to and fro above their heads.

  They turned to watch him, as he slung his hammock, and unpacked his gear. Not a word was spoken for several minutes. Then someone said, ‘Irish, are you?’

  ‘Aye,’ he agreed.

  ‘What’s that you wear at your neck?’ asked another man.

  ‘A crucifix.’

  ‘You’re a be-Jesus papist,’ said another man.

  ‘And I keep my religious opinions to myself,’ Harry said evenly, looking from face to face. ‘I’m a seaman.’

  ‘Aye, you can pull an oar, maybe.’

  ‘I’d keep that opinion to yourself as well,’ Harry suggested.

  ‘You’re the new hand,’ said one of the older men. ‘And you’re just a boy. Mind we don’t tan your ass and pickle your prick for you.’

  Once again Harry looked from face to face. ‘One at a time, or all together now?’ he inquired softly. ‘It’d be a shame to leave the ship so short handed all of a sudden, now, wouldn’t it?’

  They stared at him for several seconds, then turned away, and ignored him. He grinned. Establishing himself here was going to be no more difficult than establishing himself anywhere else, he reckoned.

  *

  Harry had not expected to sleep, but in fact immediately fell into the deepest slumber, from which he was awakened, it seemed only a few moments later, by the call to watch. The incoming hands were prepared to resume the chaff, but his own watch warned them off with the remark that he was ‘a bleeding Papist’. Obviously there were going to be some difficult times ahead, and he was already feeling the loneliness of lacking the camaraderie of true friendship, such as he had known on the Bonaventure, but he anticipated a change in his situation when Josiah Bartlett discovered that he was actually on board, much less when Elizabeth did so. And he had no difficulty with his duty. He might never have sailed on a square-rigged ship before, but a mast was a mast, and for all his size he had climbed the mast of the Bonaventure often enough.

  ‘He’s a likely lad, Mr Crombie,’ he heard Mr Bird remark to the Second Mate, after he had returned to the deck from helping to set the topsails, as the wind had steadied now the ship was away from the shelter of the land.

  ‘Maybe. But never trust a deckhand what’s bigger than you, is my motto,’ the Second Mate opined.

  ‘Why, there’s a sensible point,’ Bird agreed. ‘But unfortunate for that young giant; he’ll never be trusted by anyone.’

  ‘I’ll keep my eye on him,’ Crombie promised, and Bird went below. But in fact, once the topsails were filling to his satisfaction, there was little for the watch to do, save fifteen minutes a time as lookout; Harry would have loved to be given the opportunity to helm the barque, but that duty was shared between the two senior members of the watch, and he was the very junior. For the rest, his shipmates seemed an easy going lot, although they studiously ignored him. For which he was perfectly grateful. If he had come to sea to do some thinking, that was because there was a great deal of thinking to be done. His brain still reeled at the sudden change, less in his fortune, he considered, than in his actual physical situation. At midnight last night he had been walking up Tramore High Street with his arm round Bridget O’More, and with not a care in the world; and here he was, hardly more than twenty-four hours later, virtually a fugitive, and for no crime whatsoever. Had he side-stepped that runaway trap, now, and watched the two girls hurled out on to the road, he’d be sleeping in his own bed this minute.

  But, could he snap his fingers and restore the world to twenty-four hours ago, would he do so? He doubted that. It was more than the adventure of it. He had the strangest feeling that some supernatural power had set his feet on a path he had never considered before, but from which he could not now turn back even if he wished. He had never been quite so exhilarated in his life.

  Which was not to say that path should not be made as easy as possible. It was dawn before the watch ended, and the moment he saw Josiah Bartlett appear on the poop he made his way aft. No one attempted to stop him, although the sailors cast glances at him and exchanged whispered comments.

  He stood at the foot of the ladder to the upper deck. ‘Good morning to you, Mr Bartlett,’ he said.

  Josiah looked down in surprise. ‘Why, bless my soul,’ he said. ‘’Tis young McGann. You joined us after all, then?’

  ‘I apologise for being late, sir.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. Now that you’re here.’

  The Second Mate approached. ‘Insubordination, Mr Bartlett?’

  ‘No, no. This is the young fellow I told you about last night,’ Josiah explained. ‘He has a spirit to match his size.’

  ‘I’m sure he has, Mr Bartlett,’ Crombie agreed. ‘But you’
ll remember he’s a deckhand now, if you will, sir. We can’t have them all coming aft to wish your worship a good day. And they will do that if they see this one get away with it.’

  ‘Oh, quite,’ Josiah agreed. ‘You understand the situation, McGann. You’re working your passage. Come New York now …’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Harry agreed, swallowing his disappointment. ‘I but wished to inquire after the health of Miss Elizabeth. She twisted her ankle.’

  ‘Indeed she did. She’s mending well. But she’ll keep to her bunk for a few days yet. She always does. Sea sickness, you understand.’

  ‘Enough of this pleasantry,’ the Mate said. ‘Get forward, McGann. And stay there from now on, or I’ll have the hide from your ass.’

  Harry gazed at him, the touched his forehead. ‘Aye-aye, sir,’ he said, and went forward.

  ‘Friend of the owner, then?’ one of the other hands remarked.

  ‘We’ve met,’ Harry said.

  ‘Tight fisted bastard,’ said another man.

  ‘Keep a civil tongue in your head,’ Harry suggested.

  ‘And that big-titted daughter of his,’ said another. ‘Christ, I’d like to split her cunt for her, that I would.’

  Harry reached out a giant hand and wrapped it in the man’s shirt front. ‘You make a remark like that again, friend … you even think it … and I’ll split your ass for you, right up to your neck.’

  The man goggled at him, and retreated to his mates when Harry let him go.

  ‘Fighting,’ said the boatswain, coming forward. ‘That’s a serious offence, that is.’

  ‘I’d not fight with the likes of them, Mr Bowler,’ Harry said. ‘I’ve better things to do.’

  *

  The weather held fair, with the wind unfailingly astern, and for the next two days the Spirit of the West ran westward, logging, Harry estimated, not less than two hundred miles a day. She was, as Bartlett had promised, a well-found ship, and a well-handled one too. Captain Passmore and his officers knew their business, and knew also the business of keeping their people happy — the food was both good and plentiful, even in the forecastle. While the sailors themselves seemed able fellows, vulgar and coarse, like all of their kind, but sensible enough to know the danger of baiting the Irishman too far, even as they were professional enough to recognise that he belonged to their fraternity. They did not like him, that was obvious, but they contented themselves with remarks which he was intended to overhear, but at which he could not take offence, as they were not directed to him.