Mean Sun (The Diaries of Daniel Wren, Privateer Book 1)

by Gerry Garibaldi

  Before starting up the plank I shot a word to the scoundrel, who was still standing alongside the cart.

  “You, sir, I will see again,” I said bitterly through tears. “That I promise.”

  “When you see me again, you will be a man,” replied he. “And much will have altered. Best wishes on your voyage, Mr. Wren.”

  The marine extended his blade against my kidney and sharply prodded me along.

  The moment we passed the deck rail the order was given to prepare to slip the cables and block the gangplank to all visitations.

  All was chaos and bloody confusion on the decks of the ship as the crew reported to their stations and made ready for open sea. My ears were stunned by the peal of a score of boatswains’ whistles blasting out all about me, and the shouting, swearing, and crying of orders. There was no refuge from it. Many of the men appeared as decrepit as their vessel. For the next quarter hour I was jostled and cursed and shunted aside by sailors, officers and idlers alike. Not one could direct me to this fellow Grimmel. I roamed the upper deck, but found no one resembling the creature described. All the passages to the lower decks were dark and jammed with clashing, shoving, grousing sailors. I found myself stumbling and skipping over numberless ropes, tackle, winches and blocks. I was lost.

  At one point my foot caught in a cord and I fell against one of the winches. Before I could find my feet, a burly, bare-chested bear of a man cracked me violently on the head, and glared down at me.

  “’Ave we a fool or a traitor ‘ere?” he bellowed. “Loose that cannon and there be hell to pay, man.”

  He seemed to be deciding on a second blow when a young lieutenant in a smart blue uniform intruded.

  “What’s your business?” he demanded.

  “I am to find Mr. Grimmel,” said I.

  The officer’s name I would learn later was Joseph Brooks. His uniform, and those of the others, meant little to me in terms of rank or stature. He took me by my hair and gave me a vicious tug.

  “Address me as lieutenant,” he hissed. “What is your name?”

  “Daniel Wren, Lieutenant,” I stammered.

  “I see you have been impressed, Daniel Wren. Well, you are in my line, mister. Remember yourself. You’ll find Grimmel on the upper deck by the wheel.”

  I backed away and retraced my steps to the upper deck with great alacrity. The clear air above was a prodigious relief. Every man seemed to wait in great anticipation for the arrival of Jacob Hearne. Every snippet of conversation I could overhear was about this man who had been newly assigned to the ship.

  I picked my way carefully along until I noticed a man of noteworthy appearance not three yards from me. He stood full sixteen hands high from foot to crown. Though perhaps sixty years, the lean muscularity and vigor of his body suggested a much younger man. His uniform was tight and grimy. I noticed his larboard eye was an open pearl. The most remarkable part of his furniture, however, was a greasy periwig that sat delicately atop his naked head, high above the watermark, giving him a curious air of priggish refinement.

  I was about to sing out my horror when Grimmel turned and reconnoitered me.

  “I am Daniel Wren, Lieutenant, sir,” declared I. “I was ordered to report to you by Mr. Whitehead.”

  Grimmel lined me up in his sights with his wick eye. He noted the lump on my head and the blood running from it. He wiped it with his great thumb and scrutinized me more closely.

  “I am not a lieutenant, mister,” said he, dryly. “I am the ship’s quartermaster. Can ye read?”

  “I can, sir, and write, too.”

  “We shall see,” said he. His aspect was decidedly reserved in his judgment of me. “Wren. Well, Wren, those weeds you wear must be swapped out. See the purser, name is Riley, on the lower by the mizzen. Tell ‘im I send you.” Given my recent encounters below, I stood there, hoping he would draw the most direct course, when he took hold of my arm and pointed to each of the jutting masts of the ship. “Fore! Main! Mizzen! Now off with you!”

  “The lower deck, sir?”

  “Lowest deck, just above the hold. You’ll smell gunpowder.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The proper response is “Aye, aye,” said Grimmel. “That means understood and acknowledged.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” I retorted.

  Thus, the first profit I saw from this wretched day was a set of plain togs, which were coarse and bilgy. Mr. Riley, a plump, pale fellow who resembled an oyster out of its shell, informed me in a sympathetic tone that my mess number would be nineteen, that I had to stake my own hammock, and that Mr. Grimmel’s first watch was at six and twelve bells. His words were a bosh to me.

  “When do we depart?” I asked Mr. Riley.

  “When the captain gives the order,” said he, dryly, extending a fistful of receipts I was to initial. “Only he hasn’t arrived yet. Coming from London, where he stood before the Admiralty Court on charges of profiteering. Not the first time either.”

  “How long will we be away, sir?”

  “Two year, maybe three,” answered Riley. “Maybe five. Who’s to know? You have a bit of luck.”

  “Luck?”

  “Old Grimmel is not a bad sort, roughhewn as he is,” said Riley. “Must mean you read and write.”

  “I do.”

  “There’s some advantage there,” he remarked. “Lighter duty.”

  Then a voice came singing out from somewhere above: “All ‘ands on deck!”

  “You’ll be wanting to go, lad,” said Mr. Riley. “Top deck. Make haste. I expect the captain has arrived.”

  I made my way up to the lower deck and was immediately swept up in a current of noisy seamen rushing up to the main deck. We poured into the bright sunlight and fresh air. The naval officers in their glistening uniforms were arrayed along the poop deck. Below them on the quarterdeck, in their motley red uniforms, were the marines. The ship’s musicians struck up a whistling tune. It was then at the rail that I caught my first glimpse of Captain Jacob Hearne as he swept past me.

  What an extraordinarily hard face it was! The very soul of this man was impressed upon it. He was a slight gentleman; so very low in stature that the dark, richly embroidered cape he wore made a shell about him. Poking out beneath were a pair of handsome shoes adorned with amber stones. Atop this somber elegance his face glowed like a tallow candle, blemished and brindled with age. His lips were set in a deformed grimace that exposed a fence of yellowed teeth with all the boards on both sides angled sharply toward the center; its chief property was suspicion.

  With little more than a curt nod to only the most senior officers, Hearne shoved through their ranks and quickly disappeared into the gallery and his cabin. The band’s compliment was concluded, and an instant later the order came to cast off.

  The ship listed slightly and soon the Sovereign was swept into the skittish, chattering currents of Bristol Channel. I turned to catch sight of my last view of Bristol. Though not a single cheering voice on that dock was there for me, as I beheld that sea of upturned faces and felt their cries washing over me, the significance of the voyage I was about to make suddenly took hold, for a moment sweeping aside the maelstrom of events that had befallen me.

  We had left Avon mouth and were soon in open sea. All about us ships were converged together, hundreds and hundreds of them, five, six, perhaps seven hundred, cast like apple blossoms. Their profiles spanned the entire ocean and rolled off into the horizon. This was the great convoy to the new world I had heard tell about.

  Our ship reached the furthest edge of this assembly. Before us was flat, empty sea. Both our sails were furled and the Sovereign waded to a rest. A nagging object, glistening in the distance off our starboard perhaps a league away, diverted my attention. I turned my head and saw beside us the Vanguard in a lustrous golden cloud—not a ship but a king’s crown set upon a watery brow.

  “What is that ship?” I inquired of the young sailor beside me.

  “The Vanguard,” said he. “Launche
d but a year ago. What a pretty lady she is. But we were aboard her instead of this old cow.”

  With this, the first officer gave the order to sound the cannons of our signal battery and a thundering, pounding, booming, thudding chorus of explosions followed. Every timber of the ship shuddered from the violence of it. The Vanguard answered our signal with her own volley of all her one hundred guns, engulfing that golden crown in a billowy wreath.

  Chapter 2

  Learning the Ropes

  My first days aboard ship nearly resulted in my starvation, for I soon learned that new crewmembers were told nothing about the daily schedules and routines of the day. My first watch began at four in the morning, in the black before dawn. I was instructed by Grimmel to report to the wheel where I was given sundry tasks, little of which had to do with Mr. Grimmel himself, who took no notice of me whatsoever. Indeed, I discovered that no sailor was ever idle, for if there was not oakum to be picked, rust to be scraped, sails to rove, rigging to inspect, overhaul and repair, varnishing, greasing, oiling, painting, tarring, hauling, climbing and knotting to be done, there were rats in the hold to kill or the round house to be swabbed, and all navigation instruments kept groomed and accounted for.

  If there was an elite among the crew, it was petty officers, those men who had the knowledge of raising the sails aloft, reefing and furling, for without them the ship could not sail or be maneuvered on the high seas. The naval officers showed high regard for these men and saw to it that their orders were promptly obeyed.

  Lieutenant Brooks was good to his word. On my first afternoon he approached with a sailor toting a large clumsy bucket. The man’s burden was so great it caused him to groan and grunt, with his pink tongue sticking out.

  “We need a holystone on deck,” Brooks barked. “Work the taffrail, Wren.”

  “‘Old out yer ‘and, yer lordship,” said the sailor, “and I’ll give ye a prize.”

  The man slapped a large wet stone in my hand about the size of a Bible.

  “The taffrail,” he instructed, “is at the stern on the poop. Get along now.”

  For hours hence I toiled on my hands and knees beneath the hot sun, scrubbing the deck about the taffrail. The heat and work soon left me with a frightful pain in my head. My hands and fingernails bled from a hundred tiny scuffs and cuts which the lye and salt water turned to fire. All was done in silence and under the watchful eye of Brooks and other officers.

  At eight bells I was famished and approached Brooks with great deference to inquire about the schedule of meals.

  “Your meal?” laughed the gentleman. “Why your mess has already eaten. There’ll be none more ‘till the ‘morrow.”

  When nightfall came on my second day, which was a repeat of the first, I found one of the young men who had been pressed with me, William Beal, collecting his hammock. He was the one among us who had not been suffered a drubbing, but now appeared as fatigued as myself. Leaning close he inquired:

  “Where do you sleep the first night?”

  “In a bloody coil of ropes,” I answered. “Have you eaten yet, William?”

  “Aye,” he whispered. “Our mess is served on the sixth watch. Listen for it.”

  “I am most grateful to you,” I replied. “What of the others?”

  “I see little of them,” he said. “Desmond and Flowers are on cannons fourteen and twenty. Jacob Flowers has been beaten by one of the warrant officers.”

  “For what offense?”

  “Talking while at his post.” Beal lowered his voice to barely an urgent whisper. “They say there are rumors we will engage.”

  “I’ve never seen fighting, have you?”

  William Beal shook his head.

  “How do ye fare, Daniel?” he asked, keeping a sharp eye out for officers.

  “I believe I would rather die than suffer this cruelty any longer,” I responded with bitter misery. “I will escape the moment I can.”

  “What do you make of Mr. Brooks there?” he asked nodding discreetly at that gentleman.

  “I despise the man,” I said.

  At this, William wordlessly handed me one of the hammocks. On those first days William Beal was my only sympathetic ear, particularly on the subject of Mr. Brooks.

  I found a place in the coolness of the lower deck to hang my hammock. This, however, was where the stenches of the ship’s deposits were stored. They drifted through the darkness like the oily skein of a dead pond; the mawkish grey-green of the ship’s bilge, the fetid blues of mold and rot, the acrid yellow of vermin, and, of course, the damp purple of decades of human cargo.

  With not a small amount of dexterity I pulled myself into my hammock, which was coarse and musty. Once in, the sides enveloped me, so that my liberty of movement was restricted. My right ankle was exposed below my pant leg and this caused me considerable discomfort, as my naked anklebone chaffed against the canvas until it became bloody raw and burned like a hot coal had touched it. All about me I was visited by the cranky sounds of ship. Beams cracked and groaned, unnamed pings, snaps and thuds resounded everywhere. The busy feet of sailors drumming down the steps lasted throughout the watch.

  Still, on that second night were the first moments I had to consider my plight. Time and all the swirling crosscurrents of my life had come to rest in this gloomy chamber. I welcomed the comforting glow of the single candle near Mr. Riley’s store. A vision of my uncle’s and aunt’s faces rose before me. I saw them wandering the docks searching for me, along with my sister, my dear sister. What agony must poison their expectations of ever finding me? I held up the measure of my affection to them to the daily torment they would endure. Death would be a better repose than this canvas sack. Tears streamed down my cheeks. To drain away those melancholy images, each night for weeks I thought of Joseph Brooks and savored my hatred of him. It became so that the hard labor of my days was light duty against the toiling strain of my reflections.

  Two days hence, I thought my connection to Grimmel had all but dissolved. He had approached me one time and tested my ability to read and write by dictating paragraphs from a book while I wrote them down. He read at first at a temperate pace, but then faster and faster as I struggled to keep up with him. He gave me no indication how I fared, but simply closed the book, took up the writing implements and disappeared.

  That night, I felt a hand gently shaking me awake. The visage of Grimmel, lantern in hand, hovered above me like a ghastly bloom.

  “Wake, Wren,” said he. “We have business to attend.”

  Up the gangway I went close on Grimmel’s heels. Grimmel took great, leaping strides, which caused the light from the lantern to dance crazily about.

  “Sailors’ shifts are four on duty and four off,” said he over his shoulder. “You shall lose one rest shift, beginning with the dog-watch. I’m obliged to teach you something of piloting. It’s peaceful then. Those hours you will read and study. At the end of that shift you will attend Captain’s morning briefing.”

  “Briefing, sir?”

  “Aye,” continued Grimmel, “I assured the captain that you had skills to keep a record. You will record the minutes of each daily report.” He slowed on the upper deck and turned to me. “I ‘ave observed your mettle, mister. You are not what I might ‘ave chosen. I advise you to be circumspect in whom you confide. Do you understand?”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” I said.

  Grimmel paused to look me directly in the eye.

  “Rumors and gossip is all the theatre a sailor knows,” said he. “Never answer a question until you ‘ave seasoned it dry.”

  “Aye, aye, Mr. Grimmel, sir.”

  “And do not make the fool of me with the captain, for I have promoted your abilities highly.”

  Grimmel led me up to the forecastle deck where a lovely breeze awaited us. The heavens above, black as a witch’s cauldron, poured out a shower of stars all about us. Onto the water’s surface they flew, dancing insanely. They shone in the fittings, streaked across rails and glinted in ou
r eyes. It made me drunk with pleasure to take them in.

  Grimmel lit his clay pipe and puffed. When it was blazing to his contentment, he swept off both hat and wig and glimpsed up at the shimmering firmament.

  “How many stars do ye see, Mister Wren?”

  I stared up; I could not know. Grimmel made a sweeping circle with the stem of his pipe.

  “Out of all of it, there are only fifty-seven stars that will guide you true. With those are four planets, the sun and the moon.” He aimed the stem of his pipe again. “There, she’s Vega, that’s Spica; the bright one, she’s Regulus. That pretty one, straight up, she’s Aries. She’s my favorite. There’s been many ‘o time, through cloud and fog, when that kind lady has taken my hand.

  “The sun, well, he’s strong, but he moves too fast across the sky. And the moon wanders.” Here he leaned close to me. “The first rule of being a good pilot is ne’er forget where you are. We are but the smallest of flies in this great place, but we can figure.”

  Grimmel removed what appeared to be in the dim light a small, tattered cloth-bound book, which he handed to me. I was utterly perplexed.

  “This ‘ere will teach you on navigation principals, written by our own Admiral Forester. From it you’ll learn seasons, tides, phases of the moon, speed, the operation of a quadrant. The trickiest, and the most important, you’ll learn by me. That’s Time. She tells how far you ‘ave traveled, east to west. Out ‘ere there is no true time, for no clock works on a pitching sea…” He saw my blank expression, and tapped the book. “Commit it to memory. I’ll see ye in the quarter galleries, next watch.”

  He handed me the lantern and departed. I did not know what to make of the man. There was a severe, sullen wariness about him, too, like a stone fence around a rocky pasture. I espied, I thought, something of an obdurate integrity about the man that reminded me of my uncle. Try as I might to leaven our exchanges with friendly conversation, however, Grimmel each time seemed braced for this eventuality and to them gently pulled the gate closed and slipped the catch.