Griffiths appeared at that moment, weaving down the gangway in response to the ship’s roll. Clutched in one hand, a hat, in the other a small leather satchel. Griffiths’s face was pinched and pale and he glanced out at the rising sea with both animosity and dismay.
‘You could still send Mr Ariss, Doctor,’ Hayden suggested.
‘No, it is better I go myself.’ The surgeon watched the boat, now raised by tackles, as it tried to swing across the deck, poorly controlled by landsmen who were none too steady on the deck themselves. The experienced hands were aloft reducing sail at that moment, watching the antics on deck with ill-disguised amusement.
Griffiths was silent a moment, and then seemed to make a decision. ‘I must tell you, Captain, I found that clergyman down in my sick-berth this morning. Ariss had absented himself but a moment and the man stole in. How he knew when to come I do not know.’
‘Worthing? I forbade him entry to the sick-berth.’
‘He heard me say that McKee – from the Agnus – was in all likelihood dying and he slipped in with the intent of anointing the sick. Poor McKee would have none of it – he was horrified – but then he departed this life a few hours later. It has passed through the lower deck like consumption – the clergyman was in the sick-berth and a man died but a short time after. Who will come to me with their illnesses now? Did Worthing not comprehend the mischief he would effect?’
‘I’m certain he did. It was explained to him most explicitly.’ Hayden removed his hat and ran fingers back through his hair. ‘And what of this man McKee? Do you know what did for him?’
The doctor shook his head, face folding into a grimace. ‘Let us hope I do not find the answer aboard the Agnus.’
Childers had begun mustering his boat crew by the rail, and Hayden waved to him. ‘This sea is rising, Childers; take no green hands.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘If you judge it unwise to return, remain on the Agnus and I will have McIntosh carry you back later this day.’
Childers made a knuckle.
Gould appeared at Hayden’s elbow. ‘Excuse me, Captain. Is it not common to send a midshipman off with the boat?’
‘I am sending Madison.’
Gould looked so very serious as he asked, ‘Might I go in his place? I have asked and he will not mind. He told me so himself.’
Boys were always on the lookout for something resembling adventure. ‘Go on, then.’
Hayden glanced over at Childers, who, overhearing the exchange, nodded. He would keep the boy out of trouble.
The boat was finally put into the sea with only superficial damage to the topsides and to the cutter itself, and the doctor was quickly ferried over to McIntosh’s waiting schooner, where he and the crew were taken aboard. This vessel had not gone half a mile before the wind died away altogether.
‘It is going to come around, sir,’ Barthe pronounced. ‘Blasted, fucking sou’wester!’
‘Yes, I fear you are right, Mr Barthe. At least we made a little westing overnight. Our course will not be so very bad.’
Barthe waved a small hand toward the ships of the convoy. ‘With this lot in tow we shall be hove to by dinner, Captain Hayden. Just see if we aren’t.’
Gibraltar had never seemed so very far away as it did at that moment.
Hayden made his way forward, wondering what he would do with Worthing. The man had defied him and had caused Hayden and Griffiths a serious problem as a result. As he walked his eye played over every part of the ship. This was not a conscious act, but something he had been trained to do since his days as midshipman. The captains he had served had taught him that captains who missed no detail instilled high standards among their officers, who took pride in keeping up their parts of the ship to the captain’s requirements.
Hayden found some landsmen coiling down ropes on the forecastle – a simple task any landsman should be able to master.
‘These coils will not do!’ Hayden informed them. ‘You must be able to pull them off their pin and have them run free. You can endanger both the ship and crew if these ropes foul in a gale.’ Hayden looked away from the surprised landsmen, who had never had the captain speak to them before. ‘Tawney!’ Hayden called one of the foretopmen descending from the yards at that moment. ‘Show these men the proper manner of coiling down.’ Hayden turned back to the men. ‘You should have learned this your first days aboard. I expect better of you.’
Hayden turned to walk away as Tawney jogged forward but had not gone three paces when he heard one of the landsmen mutter, ‘… ing papist.’
He spun around in time to see Tawney stretch the man out with one blow, the landsman striking the deck so hard that his head bounced like a ball. For a moment no one moved, the man on the deck still as the dead, but then he moaned and squirmed a little, limbs writhing weakly. Blood flowed from his nose onto the dark planking. Tawney had turned white with rage, and then awareness.
‘I-I didn’t realize what I was about, Captain,’ he stammered. ‘Man called you a fu—… a papist, sir…’ His mouth opened but no more words would come.
‘Yes, and he shall be flogged for it, but it was not your place to punish him.’
‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘I am sure you are. Jump down and get a cot from the sick-berth, and tell the master-at-arms the man shall be in irons as soon as Mr Ariss has released him.’
‘Aye, sir.’ The topman started to turn away.
‘And Tawney…’
‘Aye, sir?’
‘No grog for these three days. Do you understand?’
‘I do, sir. Thank you, sir.’
Hayden was not about to flog the men who took his side, but Tawney could not go unpunished. A feud among the crew was the last thing he wanted.
Every man on deck stood transfixed – apprehensive and curious – as they gauged what this meant to them, to their place in the ship. As Hayden began to make his way aft along the gangway men shook themselves out of this and turned back to their duties with renewed energy. An angry captain was not to be provoked.
Reaching the quarterdeck he said to Madison, ‘Pass the word for Dr Worthing. I will be in my cabin.’
Once shut up in his cabin, Hayden paced quickly the width of the ship, containing the desire to strike one of the deck beams – an unfair battle if ever there was to be one. Just when he was about to send a second man to fetch the parson, he heard footsteps coming unhurriedly up the stair.
He ordered the sentry to let Worthing in and when the parson entered, Hayden stood with his arms crossed in the middle of the cabin. Worthing, not a man commonly attuned to the moods of others, took one look at Hayden and stopped sharply.
‘I am informed that you were in the sick-berth this very morning against my direct orders and I have just had a man call me a papist – within hearing!’ Hayden began, no attempt at politeness being made. ‘Have you no comprehension what undermining the captain will accomplish? I am what stands between this ship and utter calamity. All my years of training and experience are what keeps this ship from foundering in a storm or being taken by the French. Do you not realize that subverting my authority puts you and every soul aboard in mortal danger? And this is not to mention that Griffiths thinks we might have a contagion aboard and you have just ensured, with your presence in the sick-berth, that no man will come to him except he is too ill to conceal it!’
‘You have no right to speak to me thus!’ Worthing replied haughtily. ‘You who are not even a captain. Are you accusing me –’
But Hayden would have none of it, raising his voice over the clergyman’s. ‘Do you heed no voice but your own! This is a ship of war. We are crossing the Bay of Biscay – a sea plagued with privateers and French warships. I cannot, for a moment, tolerate dissension among my crew or allow any man to foster it. You, sir, for the duration of this voyage, are confined to your cabin. A marine guard will stand sentry outside your door. You shall be allowed out to eat your meals, use the heads, and to have one half-hour of
air twice daily – under guard. You may speak to no one and have no visitors but Mr Smosh. That is all, sir. You may leave.’
Worthing was positively twitching with rage, his face contorting and shivering. For a moment words eluded him and then in a high quavering voice began, ‘I am not some ignorant seaman you can call or dismiss at your whim!’
Hayden crossed the cabin in an instant, the clergyman stumbling back in trepidation. Opening the door Hayden confronted the surprised sentry. ‘Escort Dr Worthing to his cabin and stand guard outside his door until Mr Hawthorne has you relieved. Dr Worthing is not to leave or have visitors. Is that understood?’
‘I will not stand for it!’ Worthing stated, but it was outrage without conviction. Hayden had frightened him and his shyness was now revealed. ‘You cannot –’
‘Lead him off,’ Hayden said evenly, and then turned to Worthing. ‘You may proceed to your cabin with dignity, Dr Worthing, or be dragged. It matters not to me.’
Worthing stood his ground only an instant, and then went clopping out, stumbling, his shoes rushing to catch up his ungainly body. He fell on the steps and required a steadying hand from the marine. Hayden stood a moment, gazing down the gundeck, at the two lines of blackened cannon, then pulled his door closed, retreated inside, and slumped down on the bench before the gallery.
A moment later a knock sounded at his door.
‘Who is there?’ Hayden called out, not rising.
‘Hawthorne, Captain.’
‘Come in.’
The door opened a foot, and Hawthorne’s handsome face appeared. A moment he paused and then let himself in. ‘I have a raging clergyman shut up in his cabin and a confused sentry standing outside his door not allowing him out. Your orders, I collect?’
‘Entirely mine.’
‘Excellent. Bread and water? Floggings at dawn?’
‘He may take his meals with the gunroom mess, but is to have no visitors or to even speak to anyone but Smosh.’
‘Which of the two gentlemen are we punishing?’
‘It is not a matter for jest, Hawthorne.’
‘No. And it is past time that you took this step. I will see he preaches no more subversion among the crew. Leave it to me.’ Hawthorne paused a second. ‘Do you wonder how this might appear to the authorities when we reach Gibraltar?’
‘Deranged, I suspect. But what am I to do? The man is subverting my authority aboard my own ship. Spreading rumours that I am a papist. Telling utter lies, in fact. And this morning he went into the sick-berth against my orders. Never in this life have I met a man more prone to devilment – and I choose that word with intent. What ship will want such a parson aboard?’
‘Lord Hood’s Victory, I understand.’
‘Hood would be rid of the man in a week.’
‘So he would. I hear the crewman from the Agnus departed this life?’
‘Yes. God rest his soul.’
Hawthorne digested this a moment, then said quietly, ‘Do you think we have some plague aboard?’
It was a question Hayden did not even want to answer. ‘I pray not. The doctor has gone over to the Agnus to see if they have any others suffering fever.’
‘Griffiths has looked wholly distracted for more than a day. Distressed, even.’
‘Yes, he is concerned but I take hope from the fact that he is yet uncertain. If McKee had yellow jack or something like the doctor would have known immediately.’
‘Yes, certainly. Barthe tells me we are in for a gale and we have lost a transport?’
‘Both true, I regret to say. I have sent McIntosh to seek our misplaced ship.’
‘Have we a predator lurking near or did this ship merely slip beneath the waves from general lubberly negligence?’
‘I wish I knew, Mr Hawthorne, but I do now regret not looking more carefully into the sighting of what might have been a flare this night past.’ Hayden rose from his seat and fetched his hat.
He was still stiff and aching from being hurled across the deck. His ears rang – a high-pitched, relentless humming – and sitting for any length of time made him stiff again. Walking remained the best curative.
The wind was veering into the sou’west as Hayden took the deck, crests breaking ineffectually on a steel-dark sea. Saint-Denis had begun preparations for a gale. Top-gallant masts were being housed and yards sent efficiently down to the deck.
‘Saint-Denis? Have you doubled all the breechings on the guns?’
‘Archer is seeing to the gundeck, Captain,’ the lieutenant called loudly over the rising noise. ‘The weather glass has dropped like a whore’s unde—Pardon me, sir. The weather glass has fallen sharply.’
‘Yes, we are in for it, I fear.’ Hayden gazed out over the chaotic sea. All the ships within sight were reducing sail, sending down yards, and making the common preparations for foul weather.
McIntosh’s schooner had reached the Agnus, and Hayden saw the Themis’s cutter pulling over the mounting seas towards the transport. McIntosh had already reefed, and now set out to look for the missing ship, a task made doubly difficult, if not impossible, by the deteriorating weather.
‘It is a damned foolish business sending out a convoy this late in the season,’ Barthe said as he approached Hayden and Saint-Denis on the quarterdeck. The sailing master appeared pasty pale, a fragment of red hair, loose from his queue, wetly plastered to his forehead.
Hayden did not respond but nodded. He was examining the ships in his convoy with a glass, appalled at how slowly evolutions were effected.
‘Mr Hayden. Captain, I mean.’ It was Archer, still struggling to remember proper address.
‘Mr Archer?’
The lieutenant sounded out of sorts, his habitual ‘recently awakened’ manner thrust aside. ‘I have just sent Hale down to Mr Ariss. He was shaking with what I believed was fever, but professed himself to be perfectly well, sir.’
‘That loafer?’ Barthe sounded surprised. ‘He asks to put on the sick-and-hurt list if he can manufacture a sniffle.’
Hayden lowered his glass, and turned to Archer, who was very pensive, almost grim.
‘What did Mr Ariss say?’
‘Only that he hoped Dr Griffiths would return soon.’
‘Lieutenant,’ Hayden said to Saint-Denis. ‘Set a man to watch the Agnus. I fear this sea will become too great for our cutter to venture forth in and McIntosh might not return before nightfall. The moment the doctor appears on deck signal that we shall fetch him in the Themis.’
‘Aye, sir.’ Saint-Denis went quickly forward calling for a man and a glass. For not the first time Hayden had to admit that the man, for all his flaws, and they formed not an inconsiderable list, was a passable seaman and officer. Hayden had seen many worse.
Ariss popped out of the after companionway, looked quickly about, spotted Hayden and hurried towards him. The man’s face was dark, jaw tight, a deep furrow appearing between his brows.
‘How fares Hale?’ Hayden asked him.
‘That is why I have come, sir.’ He looked around at the listening men and fell silent.
‘Excuse us, Mr Barthe,’ Hayden said, and motioned for Ariss to follow him to the taffrail.
Once there Ariss pitched his voice low. ‘Certainly you will want Dr Griffiths’s more expert opinion, but I believe Hale has the same fever as the man from the Agnus – McKee – or so it appears to me.’ He lowered his voice even more. ‘And Pritchard, who has been in the sick-berth with a broken femur, is showing the same signs – high fever, sweats, aching joints, and his breathing is laboured and he has begun to cough up pink fluid, sir.’
Hayden tried to hide his alarm. ‘We will fetch Griffiths back immediately and I will hear his opinion, though I do not doubt you are right, Mr Ariss. I will send a marine down to stand sentry. No one is to enter or leave the sick-berth without the permission of Dr Griffiths or myself. I wonder how many more men are feeling ill but will not come forward now?’
‘I have wondered the same thing, Captain.’
Neither mentioned Dr Worthing, but he was clearly in their minds.
There was, at that moment, from among the men forward, something like a collective moan of apprehension or despair. Hayden and Ariss turned to look.
Freddy Madison came running back along the heaving deck. ‘If you please, Captain,’ Madison spoke from a respectful distance. ‘You wished to be informed the instant the doctor appeared on the Agnus? Our cutter is away, sir, under sail and tacking towards us.’ He paused, swallowing once. ‘And sir… the Agnus has just sent aloft the yellow jack.’
Raising his glass, Hayden found the Agnus wallowing upon a wind-driven sea. At her crosstrees shivered a yellow flag. For a moment Hayden stared, willing the banner to be some other signal… but it was not. He lowered his glass and took a long breath. Turning back to the surgeon’s mate he said softly. ‘Keep me informed of the state of Pritchard and Hale, Mr Ariss.’
‘Aye, sir,’ the man replied. He looked frightened, and that would not help settle the crew’s fears. Hayden could hear the whispering.
The wind had settled, sou-west by west, which gave the convoy a more favourable slant than Hayden had hoped – the one bright point of the day – but the ships were hard on the wind and most were not as weatherly as the Themis. Hayden wondered if the wind would not veer a little more and force them to heave to – luck was running that way.
‘Mr Barthe!’ Hayden called. ‘Let us bear off and take aboard our cutter.’ And then to the helmsman as Hayden made his way forward: ‘Prepare to shift your helm at Mr Barthe’s order.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Mr Saint-Denis,’ Hayden addressed his first lieutenant. ‘Let us get our cutter aboard before this sea gets up any more. This wind has not finished making.’
Saint-Denis nodded. ‘Aye, sir. It appears we have need of our doctor…’
A Battle Won Page 14
