A Shot Rolling Ship

by David Donachie

  ‘Sure it matters not where he came from or where he got his coin,’ Michael interjected, ‘but he is not to be trusted, and that is a fact I have a mind to make plain.’

  Latimer nodded his deeply weather-beaten head. ‘Good to know that, mate. Not that I was inclined, but someone who knows the sod a’sayin’, well that’s better. I’ll pass the word if there’s no objection, cause that silver tongue of his will take in some with wood in place of brains.’

  ‘Tell the world, friend,’ Michael replied.

  ‘Sail ho.’ They all lifted their heads at the sound, though not with much in the way of interest, for it was common enough to spot a ship in these waters. They heard the stripling, Midshipman Bailey, call out in a squeaky voice, ‘Where away?’

  As the reply came down from the tops, the canvas screen at the rear of the deck was flung open and Lieutenant Colbourne, still chewing, hurried towards the companionway ladder.

  Latimer snorted. ‘Can’t even have his vittels in peace.’

  ‘There’s no panic surely?’ asked Pearce, who well knew by now that any sail sighted must be twenty miles away.

  Latimer grinned as Colbourne rushed past and up the ladder to the deck. ‘Believe me, mate, you would panic if you had to leave the deck to the likes of Bailey and Short. I ain’t ever come across such a pair of useless buggers.’

  Pearce was right about there being no need to panic, especially when the sail was identified as a British 74-gun warship. Back on deck, once she was close enough to make out her features with the naked eye, she was quickly identified by several of the crew who lined the side to watch her approach. Pearce was struck by the laxity with which Colbourne allowed the men to put aside all thoughts of work so that they could observe this event. Again it contrasted so much with Ralph Barclay’s style of captaincy – the crew of HMS Brilliant idly staring over the ship’s side would have sent him into a choleric rage.

  But there was another thing; a keen sense of anticipation in those eyeing the approaching warship, almost like a longing, which he put down to just being at sea, where the sight of another warship, especially a friendly one, was welcome.

  ‘That’s Billy Ruffian,’ called Sam, who had hauled himself up onto the bulwarks for a better view. ‘My brother Brad and I sailed on her as boys in the Spanish Armament.’

  ‘Billy Ruffian?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Bellerophon,’ Latimer added. ‘if’n yer callin’ proper.’

  ‘Slayer of the Chimaera.’ Pearce said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The chimaera.’

  ‘And what, in the name of creation, is a chimaera?’

  ‘A fire breathing monster, part lion, part serpent, part goat.’

  ‘Sounds like the bugger snoring next to me last night.’

  ‘The story is told by Homer in the Iliad.’ A reference to the great poetic saga of ancient Greece did nothing to remove the looks of ignorance from the faces nearby, but Pearce was aware that he had attracted attention; several of the sailors close to him had turned to look. ‘Bellerophon rejected the advances of Phaedra…’

  ‘Who’s he,’ Sam demanded?

  ‘She was the wife of the Proetus, King of Argos, a beautiful woman, but no better than she should be, while Bellerophon was young, handsome and brave.’

  ‘That’s what we all need mate,’ called Blubber, ‘a women no better than she should be.’

  Sam was quick, and got a laugh from the crew when he responded, ‘Happen you get one, Blubber, if you weren’t old, fat, ugly and shy as hell in a fight.’

  ‘Don’t call me old,’ Blubber replied with mock irritation.

  ‘Trouble was,’ Pearce continued, ‘Bellerophon rejected her advances, so she denounced him to her husband who determined to kill him in revenge.’

  Pearce had never actually seen a man shudder in the way Gherson did at those words – his whole frame shook from head to toe and the blood drained from his face. He could not know that it had been a cuckolded husband, or more truthfully some ruffians he had hired, who had chucked the man in the Thames with the full expectation that he would drown. He did not linger to wonder at the reasons for Gherson’s reaction, because it was clear that those watching the approaching ship with him wanted to hear the tale. On such a poky deck, with a steady but light breeze wafting Griffin along, it was impossible to speak in anything above a normal voice without being heard by nearly everyone, and he was aware that he had attracted lots of attention, including that of the two midshipmen. Colbourne was studiously looking through his telescope, but could not hide the impression he was listening too.

  So he carried on with the story, telling how Bellerophon was sent off by King Proetus to his father in law, a neighbouring King, with a written message demanding his death, but the neighbour declined just to kill him outright, it being impious, so he was given impossible tasks designed to ensure his demise, all of which he carried out and survived. There was a lot more he could have said, for it was a good story, about Bellerophon’s magic horse Pegasus, how he upset the Gods and was driven mad, and challenged to explain what made him say what he did at the end, Pearce could have only replied that it was instinct.

  ‘Which just goes to prove that you can’t trust kings and the like, because they might just be trying to get you killed for their pleasure as well as their purse. Daresay you’ve all met a captain or two of the same hue.’

  A few heads nodded, most looked confused and Colbourne finally spoke, his voice even, as if he had heard nothing untoward. ‘Mr Short, prepare the signal gun to fire a salute. The rest of you get about your duties. Mr Bailey, to the masthead and tell me if Bellerophon shows any sign of shortening sail.’

  An exchange of salutes followed as the 74-gun ship of the line bore down on them. Pearce had to admit she was a fine sight, with a full suit of pale brown sails set on three towering masts. Her black hull carved through the sunlit sea, slightly heeled over by the wind but making good speed.

  ‘Any sign, Mr Bailey?’ called Colbourne.

  ‘None, sir. Looks as though she going to sail right on by.’

  Colbourne, who had obviously been anxious, seemed to visibly relax, as he said to Short, ‘Take the deck while I finish my breakfast.’

  ‘Aye, aye sir.’

  ‘He seemed a bit tight,’ said Pearce.

  ‘Captain of that bugger is senior by a mile. Could strip out half the company and take them on board and there’s not much Colbourne could say to stop him, an’ it can’t cheer him to know there’s hardly a man jack aboard wouldn’t swap this smelly bugger for a 74 now that we know our chances of makin’ a bit of coin are low. At least there’s enough space aboard to sling your hammock for a proper night’s rest. An’ I know, come a blow, which I’d rather be on.’

  As if to back up his words, and for no apparent reason, the ship’s timbers emitted a loud crack. With the few seconds it took Latimer to say those words Pearce evolved the notion of a secondary course of action. If this was not a happy ship, what would happen if it became even less so? The idea was a compound of many things; the attitude of the men to being on a cramped and seemingly unsafe vessel, which had so far been unsuccessful in the duty to which it had been sent: Colbourne’s tolerant style of command, allied to the uselessness of the two midshipmen; but paramount was his own need to do something rather than just wait for opportunity to strike. Where it would lead he was unsure, but it was a fully formed notion by the time he had made his way below.

  Sailing a ship might be hard work for everyone aboard, but that still left time, provided the weather was not too foul, for yarning. Sailors, tale-tellers par excellence themselves, loved to listen to a story as well as relate one, which had Pearce searching his memory for tales to tell; be they fables, truths or legends of the ancients, that all had in common the themes of tyranny and betrayal. Having lived a couple of years in Paris, he was well versed in the crimes, real or imagined, of the late King Louis and his Bourbon ancestors.

  Being an entertaining sto
ryteller made it easy to hold the attention of his shipmates, and he was surprised to find that he had learned more of that skill from his father than he had realised. How and when to slightly raise his voice, the time to go deep and serious, as well as the need, regardless of the gravity of the tale, to make his listeners laugh, even if it was as often as not accompanied by a groan for a poorly executed pun. If proof were needed of the effectiveness of his method, it came from the rapt attention paid to him not only by strangers but by his fellow Pelicans.

  He alluded often to the slavery needed to build the Pyramids, of Pharaohs marrying or murdering their own siblings over the bones of countless slaves, somehow managing to make them the precursors of modern day naval captains. From Ancient Greece came the tales of heroes and capricious Gods, and in the human sphere of good men such as Alcibiades allowing fame and military success to go to their heads, until the Athenians threw a man aiming at tyranny out of the city – the moral being that even a seemingly good man could go bad. Robert the Bruce, even if he had been a King, was evoked from his native Scotland to show the virtue of patience in the face of seemingly insuperable odds, for he had triumphed over the greater despotism of Edward Ironside.

  Spartacus became a favourite – a story to be told more than once – for John Pearce relished the tale of the slave general who had taken on and beaten several Roman armies, a man with nothing making the mighty tremble. Even the fact that he lost in the end was put down to treachery rather than military weakness, but most compelling was the French Revolution, so recent that everyone aboard knew something of it, albeit that many of their recollections were skewed by falsehoods and exaggerations that had grown grotesque in passing through the triple loops of news journals, rumour and bias.

  Pearce knew more about that than most, having sometimes heard the truth from the lips of the very men who had carried out the overthrow of the monarchy, though he inclined it towards his own needs. His King Louis was not a weak, vacillating bankrupt, but a bloody oppressor; the twin estates of clergy and nobles were wholly instead of only partly corrupt, every lord and prelate determined to hang on to all their privileges and keep the poor and powerless in their place. Praise was heaped on the Parisian mob, a body Pearce detested consisting as it did of opportunist rioters, goaded by rabble rousers leading, in seemingly permanent revolt, the dregs of the French capital’s slums.

  The Paris he described was a land of milk and honey, of hot chocolate laced with cream to be enjoyed at the Caveau in the Rue Royale, instead of a place where the fear of denunciation had become prevalent and anything like a luxury hard to come by. He spoke of the happy inhabitants of the Faubourg St Antoine in glowing terms, of their honesty, friendliness and political stability, which was the diametric opposite of the truth; they were uncouth, lazy opportunists, the main constituent part of the rioting mob which had stormed the Tuileries Palace and brutally murdered the thousand strong Swiss Guard. Added to that, since it was recent enough for everyone to know the story, he speculated, as every sailing man had done, about what had happened to Fletcher Christian and the crew of the Bounty, the mutiny itself a tale known by all since Bligh’s account had been published only three years previously. Being about sailors, the story had rapidly spread through the naval and merchant fleets. If he started by doubting their survival, Pearce always ended by painting a picture of not only that but of a life of plenty in all the areas sailors cared about; food, drink and compliant women, never forgetting to add that in a France liberated from tyranny, and not too far off from the position in which they lay, all three of these commodities were freely available.

  Such stories, delivered quietly, could be just as effective as the best rabble-rousing speech of the kind for which his father was famous, especially when those listening were already dissatisfied, and not only inclined to listen but willing to be swayed. The cramped space between decks was an aid, creating a tight, dimly lit space where softly spoken words could be heard and where an atmosphere of conspiracy was easy to fabricate. He imagined Colbourne and the midshipmen, behind their screens, straining to hear his words, while wondering what effect they were having on the crew.

  It surprised even Pearce, the speed with which his line of thinking hit home – before a week was out he was sure of the effect he was having. It was helped by the steadily worsening weather; it did not take much on a ship like Griffin to make a life that was uncomfortable, nearly intolerable, and as the height of the waves and the strength of the wind steadily increased, so did the sense of deprivation. It was not terrible, the kind of blow that threatened the very existence of the ship, but Griffin was a cork on a calm sea, a ship that could not meet a wave without letting all aboard know of its existence. As the sea state deteriorated she pitched and yawed alarmingly, her groaning seams opened with the strain, leaking enough water to require the hard physical work of regular and continuous pumping, this while the men were deprived of hot food, for the cook was not going to ignite his coppers on heaving planking lest he set fire to the ship. Added to that they saw nothing but ships they were forbidden to touch. Stop them they could, so that Colbourne, following on from a wet and damned uncomfortable half hour in an open boat, could examine their papers. Hold or take them they could not, and each hull let loose again was the object of resentment from rowers soaked to the skin, as well as subject to a calculation of what she would have been worth had she been a prize.

  Jocularity, the staple of getting through hard toiling days, was replaced by endless moaning at whatever task the crew were asked to perform. The quiet acceptance which had existed when the Pelicans came aboard was replaced with sullen resentment, as Pearce acted on the existing natural grievances to make the whole seem like a plot by those in authority to do the men on HMS Griffin down, the execution of that conspiracy carried out by an uncaring Lieutenant Colbourne. It was made easier by the very fact the crew had gripes aplenty that had nothing to do with the ship on which they sailed: they applied to the whole Navy. Poor pay, slow to be delivered, that had stayed the same for over a hundred years, since the time of the second King Charles, food rotten in the cask served up as fresh, punishment seen as arbitrary and an Admiralty that was distant and uncaring. Every man aboard, being a volunteer and a previous member of the King’s Navy, had a story of some hard-horse captain who flogged for fun, or of a scheming purser who had robbed them blind. Pearce was quick on that, with Colbourne acting as his own purser, and he made sure the captain garnered to himself the opprobrium that always went with that office, till there was not a man aboard who trusted his scales or wondered at the size of their grog ration or the weight of their tobacco.

  Tale-telling on its own, Pearce knew, would not be enough. Dissent was usually sullen and inactive; he needed to ratchet that up, to test the lieutenant’s tolerance and force him into a reaction, to create a sense of unfair and arbitrary treatment on this ship that had existed on the last one. Colbourne being no friend to the lash helped, for Pearce would have been wary of baiting a captain who would flog him for his misdemeanours, for that would have meant a permanent station at the grating. At worst, according to those he quizzed regarding punishment, he faced the stoppage of his grog, or extra time on the pumps, while at the extreme he could be gagged or stapled to the deck, though none of the crew had suffered such a fate up till now. Yet the lieutenant seemed reluctant to even impose that sanction, despite the provocation.

  Being slow to obey an order was easy, even slower to acknowledge anyone’s rank with a sir, quite natural, but Pearce set himself to be a nuisance. Every time Colbourne tried to make his way to the deck when Pearce was off duty he found the man blocking his path, giving him a belligerent stare and taking time to move aside. If Pearce could collide with his commanding officer or jostle another into his side, not impossible on such a small deck, he did so, and Colbourne had to keep his wits about him when walking the deck to avoid the rope that might trip him or a bucket of water thrown to windward that would come straight back inboard.

 
The Pelicans became almost professionally cack-handed – in the case of Rufus Dommet it was natural – dropping things, failing to lash off the falls properly, spilling the lead based blacking on the deck and trying to ensure that any collective act like hauling on a rope was messy instead of smooth. After any such task, Pearce would look aft, only to see that Colbourne was paying him no attention whatsoever. It was frustrating the way the man failed to react, almost as if he knew what Pearce was about and refused to be drawn, and in truth what he was up against was petty rather than serious rebellion.

  The shot coming loose from its deck garland could be blamed on no one, yet it was odd that the only feet it threatened to damage as it rolled noisily over the planking were those of Colbourne and his mids. Pearce felt his best game was the night, a pitch black moonless one, when he sneaked one of the smaller cannon balls below with him, and having got his hammock rigged where he could get out of it on one side, he climbed the ladder, eased up the hatch cover, and let it go on the deck before dashing back to his cramped bed space. If he had been observed by the watch on duty, men who were dozing where they could, not a word was said, which was encouraging.

  This he had been told was the classic sign to the ship’s officers of impending mutiny. With no moon or stars, and only a dim stern lantern to give those on watch any light, it took them time to find it as it rolled across the deck, sounding like thunder before it thudded into the bulwarks, a second before the ship pitched and sent it rumbling again. By the time it was recovered every sailor below, off watch or on, a bunch who could slumber for the nation, was wide awake.

  As the days went by he became more and more aware of Gherson. The man, who had always been wary of him, now seemed never to take his eyes off Pearce, watching him wherever he went, with that suspicious look that was so habitual, making him feel he was being sized up for a coffin. If he was on deck, so was Gherson, the same below, indeed he was not sure that he was unobserved when he went to the heads to relieve himself. The mutual animosity between them was palpable, and had existed almost from the first day he had had words with him. Gherson was selfish, unscrupulous, a coward who found betrayal natural and he openly resented the natural leadership that Pearce exercised over the men he had been pressed with.