‘Under any other circumstances, Captain Cole, I would never take such a risk, but my crew will only grow weaker. Our ability to fight will be continually diminished. Better we confront the French now, when we have surprise on our side, rather than later at a time of their choosing and in broad daylight.’
He saw Cole nod in the darkness. ‘Which of us shall play the killdeer, then?’
‘Killdeer?’
‘A kind of plover, sir. It will drop a wing so that it appears injured, unable to fly, and then draw any creatures that might threaten its young away from the nest. Very clever, sir. It has a cry that sounds like “killdeer”.’
‘Ah. I’ve seen such a bird in Canada. Gravelot à double collier, the French call it.’
‘That would be it – a double black band about its throat. I think it should be my ship that plays lame, sir. If I can draw them to me you can come out of the dark and take them by stealth.’
‘The Themis will claim that role. Better the heavier ship be attacked – our eighteen pounders will be more of a match for the French. I’m sure you will come to our aid with all speed.’
‘You may count on it.’
Hayden watched Cole go over the side, thinking that he was trusting the lives of his crew to a man who accused him of not coming to his aid in time to save Bradley. Cole might resent him but Hayden believed he was an honourable man. He would not abandon them if he could avoid it. No, Cole was the least of his worries. A seventy-four-gun ship lurking in the dark and pestilence aboard his own ship were on his mind now. Even contentious clergymen had been sent to the back of the ranks when it came to his concerns.
The coughing, liquid and suffocating, like men being throttled, could be heard through the thin deal-board walls that delineated the quarantine berth. The men who made up the watch below had gathered as distant from this little wooden cell as the confines of the lower deck would allow. When the door opened, Hayden peered into the dimly lit hell: men swinging in their cots, coverings cast off, skin a burnished rose, lips swollen purple. He clapped the vinegar-soaked cloth over his mouth and nose, inhaled and choked on the fumes. For a moment he hesitated, eyes watering, but then gathered his resolve, pushed past the sentry and entered the inferno. The fetor penetrated his protective veil even beyond the fumes of vinegar. For a moment Hayden thought he would retch. The men swayed in their cots, neat rows penduluming back and forth together, marking time. Some were still, drugged to sleep, Hayden thought, or at least insensate, though now and then one would choke, writhe briefly, perhaps prop up on an elbow, a confused, hopeless look upon his fevered face, and then sink back down. Gould perched on a stool, and wiped a man’s forehead with a cloth, leaving a smear of shiny liquid glistening on the skin. Nearby, in a bowl chocked off on a small shelf, Hayden saw crimson liquid washing back and forth in time with the rocking cots. Ariss had been bleeding the sick.
‘Sit him up! Sit him up!’ a horrible voice rasped. ‘He’ll choke if you leave him like that.’
At the end of the berth Hayden found Griffiths in a cot, eyes bulging and fevered. He waved a hand limply at one of the sick, barking irritable instructions at his mate.
‘Mr Ariss,’ Hayden said as the mate caught sight of him. He was trying to prop a limp man up to half-sitting position, arranging some bedding behind him with one hand, but the man was resisting, weakly. Hayden went to his aid, taking hold of the man’s shoulder with one hand. He could feel the terrible, unnatural heat of his body through the palm of his hand.
‘He is burning,’ Hayden whispered before he realized he should not.
‘They’re all burning, sir,’ Ariss replied sadly.
Griffiths sat up in his cot, swinging his legs over the side, but then he sat there, shoulders bent, gasping.
‘You should not be up, Doctor,’ Ariss protested.
Griffiths only shook his head stubbornly. Hayden went over to him.
‘You told Ariss to confine you to your berth when it became necessary, Doctor. I believe you should listen to him now.’
‘But there is much to do.’ Griffiths hissed. ‘We must give them all a dose of… of…’ The doctor’s eyes, shining with fever, lost focus. He looked plaintively at Hayden. ‘There is some… thing…’
Hayden helped Griffiths back down into his cot, where he stared up at the deck head somewhat fearfully.
‘Mr Hayden?’ he rasped.
‘Yes, Doctor.’
Griffiths waved a limp, long-fingered hand. ‘I believe Pritchard has departed this life. His earthly remains should be slipped over the side without delay.’
Hayden was not sure if the doctor was in his right mind, but when he went to Pritchard’s cot he found the doctor was almost certainly right.
‘Mr Ariss, when you have a moment…’ Hayden said softly.
Ariss glanced up, nodded, and when he was finished with his charge crossed immediately to Pritchard. A quick search for a pulse, and then a small signal with his hand to Gould. The midshipman went to the door, spoke quietly with the sentry and a moment later two frightened seamen came in, took Pritchard’s cot down, tied the sides and ends firmly about its occupant, and then bore the dead man out. His cot, bedding and clothing would all go over the side with him for fear of contagion. Only a few of the sick men took notice of this procession, but those watched in silent horror.
Five men, Hayden thought. This pestilence had claimed five men.
‘Is there anything you might need, Mr Ariss?’ Hayden asked.
‘Cots, sir. I don’t think any of the sick should be in hammocks, as it only makes breathing more difficult to lie bent in half. We have used all we could find.’
‘I’ll have Chettle and Germain make some up immediately.’
‘Thank you, sir. That would be most helpful.’
‘And how fare you, Mr Gould?’
The boy, Hayden guessed, was terribly distressed but managing to keep it in check. ‘Well, sir. I follow the directions of Mr Ariss, or the doctor when he is lucid, and some of the men are on the mend, I think.’
‘You said the same of bloody Pritchard,’ one of the sick men muttered.
‘He did rally for a bit,’ Gould said softly, ‘but it did not last, God rest his soul.’
‘God rest his soul,’ Hayden echoed. ‘Send word if there is anything that you require.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
As Hayden turned to go he spotted Saint-Denis, hunkered down in his cot as though he hid. The man was clearly more wretched and unnerved than any other.
‘Mr Saint-Denis,’ Hayden greeted him. ‘I am very sorry to find you among the sick, sir.’
‘I was not sick in the least,’ the lieutenant whispered. ‘But Griffiths put me in here with the afflicted, and now it has hold of me, just as he planned.’
‘I am quite certain you were fevered, sir. Griffiths would never make such a mistake.’
‘Mistake! It was no mistake! He wanted to do for me. But God saw what he was about. And look! Griffiths is taken with the fever. Now we will see who will live and who will be slipped over the side.’ This seemed to exhaust him and he fell silent, panting. Delirium had overwhelmed his mind – Hayden had seen fever do the same to many men.
‘Mr Ariss will see you recovered, I am quite certain.’ Hayden nodded to the man, and retreated from the cabin, pausing at the door to glance back into the dimly lit room, utterly relieved that this duty was done. The pale, sailcloth cots acquired an ominous, death shroud aspect, in the warm light, like canvas coffins swaying slowly forth and back, rocked by some invisible force. Death was so present in the room that Hayden though it could almost take shape, rise up and devour the sick. He pulled the door quickly shut, nodded to the saluting sentry and hurried up the ladder to the gundeck, where the air seemed almost fresh and clean by comparison.
Hayden threw open his jacket and drew in great breaths of cold air. The quarantine berth had been so close that he felt fevered from just that brief exposure. For a moment he stood on the empty deck, lean
ing against the cascabel of an eighteen-pounder gun, mastering an almost overwhelming feeling that he had been touched by death.
As his breath calmed and his nerves soothed, Hayden heard a small sound – a tiny sneeze, and then simpering. Stealthily he made his way down the gundeck, until, in the shadow of a great gun, he discovered one of the ship’s boys, huddled with his knees drawn up and face hidden in the little square of his bent arms.
‘Mick?’ Hayden said gently.
The boy started, looked up fearfully, and sneezed three times, a pathetic little sound. He then began to weep like the earth’s most wretched creature and hid his face again.
Hayden crouched down, observing the boy a moment. Not being a father he was a bit out of his depth in such situations.
‘What seems to be the trouble, here?’ Hayden enquired. ‘Has someone been ballyragging you?’
The boy shook his head, though he kept his face buried in the angular intersection of arms and narrow knees.
‘I am the ship’s captain, Mick, and when I ask you a question you are obliged to answer. Did you know that?’
The mass of hair nodded.
‘Then what is the trouble here?’
The boy controlled his weeping with effort and half raised his head, revealing crimson face and runny eyes. ‘I… I think I ’ave the fever, sir.’ His face disappeared again and he commenced weeping, shoulders convulsing, his misery complete.
Hayden put out a hand awkwardly and stroked the boy’s shoulder. He let the boy’s fury subside a little before he spoke.
‘Have you the cough, then?’ Hayden asked, trying to sound reassuring.
‘No, sir, but I’m sneezing something awful.’
‘Ah. Well, we should have Mr Ariss look at you, but I am of the opinion that you have a cold. Just such a complaint came away with us from Plymouth and has been visiting one man after another. Your mate, David, had it not a sennight past and his mate Paul has only just recovered. So I think you are preserved from the influenza. Let us go down to Mr Ariss and see if that isn’t the case.’ Hayden patted him on the back. ‘Up we get, then.’
He took the child’s delicately boned hand and gentled him to his feet. The boy would not look at him, but wiped his nose on a shiny sleeve and came meekly along. As they walked Hayden thought how frightening this must be to a child – he himself had been unnerved by it for a moment. How frightening this whole way of life.
In a moment they were down the ladder and Hayden asked Ariss to come out and see to the boy, not wanting the child to view the inside of the sick-berth unless there were no choice. Ariss pronounced him free of the influenza, which he referred to as ‘our new friend’, and sent the boy off to his hammock to rest.
Hayden climbed up to his cabin, thinking how easily men were reduced to children in times of great distress.
By six bells the wind had moderated to a wholesome topsail breeze and Hayden gave the order to drop back into the lee of the convoy.
‘Do you think we are distant enough to fire our signal gun, sir?’ Archer enquired. He seemed to be neither intimidated nor pleased to be acting first lieutenant, as though it mattered not at all.
The officers had all gathered on the quarterdeck, where they stared into the dark night. The fear that a seventy-four-gun ship might suddenly appear kept pressing into their musings, but so far no such calamity had befallen them.
‘Seven bells will be soon enough,’ Hayden replied. ‘I wish to be distant enough from the convoy that we will appear beyond aid. Can you make out the Syren, Wickham?’
‘I thought I saw her a moment ago, sir,’ the acting lieutenant answered from his position by the rail, ‘but it is difficult to be certain on such a night.’
Cole’s ship was somewhere off their starboard beam, awaiting the appearance of enemy vessels, or so Hayden dearly hoped.
‘At least we shall be able to open our gunports,’ Hawthorne observed.
‘So will the enemy, Mr Hawthorne,’ Barthe chided him gently.
‘It would not be sporting otherwise,’ Hawthorne replied.
Low chuckles greeted this. Hawthorne was known for his wit in tight situations, and his remarks were often repeated at table. Hayden thought the marine had something of a reputation to preserve now.
Hayden took a quick tour of the deck, speaking quietly to the men who waited silently by their guns on the quarterdeck. As he made his way along the gangway, he heard someone on the forecastle speaking very low, and was about to upbraid the man when he realized it was Mr Smosh.
‘Ah, Captain Hayden,’ the parson said when he realized who drew near in the dark. ‘I was just reassuring the men that influenza quickly burns itself out. I have seen it before. In a few days we shall be free of it. Is that not so?’
‘It does not cling to a ship the way the yellow jack does, that is certain. A few days, as you say. Certainly we should be free of it by the time we reach Gibraltar.’ Hayden made a small motion with his hand, perhaps invisible in the dark. ‘Mr Smosh, could I ask you to accompany me? I have a matter on which I would seek your advice.’
‘Most certainly, Captain.’ Smosh excused himself graciously from his flock and walked beside Hayden.
When they reached the gangway, and were beyond hearing of the forecastle, Hayden said. ‘Mr Smosh, although I appreciate your desire to give comfort to the crew at this trying time it is our custom to preserve silence on the deck so that officers might be heard.’
‘I do apologize, Captain. I am unfamiliar with naval custom, as you can see.’
‘Do not apologize. Your efforts with the men are a great help to me, but we are in the midst of an action, or hope to be. Silence is the rule.’
‘Which I shall observe with all devotion in future.’ Hayden was about to take his leave of the clergyman when Smosh spoke again.
‘Forgive me, Captain, I have a request, if I may?’
Did the man not realize this was not the time for favours?
Hayden struggled to keep his tone moderate. ‘By all means, Mr Smosh.’
‘I do believe that Mr Ariss and young Gould have more sick than they can possibly minister to on their own… I have been speaking with the men, sir, and after much discussion, I believe that if I were to remove my collar and forswear my duties – that is to say, I should not act as a clergyman in any regard – it would be acceptable to the men that I assist Mr Ariss in this time of need.’
Hayden was utterly surprised and felt immediate remorse for thinking the man an annoyance. ‘I cannot begin to express my appreciation for this offer, Mr Smosh, but I do fear that the hands would not accept a priest in the quarantine-berth.’
‘Forgive me, again, Captain. I requested Mr Madison to enquire among the men, and begging your pardon, it seems they are quite prepared to allow me into the quarantine-berth in a medical role. I am told that some parsons assist the surgeons in the cockpit during action? Is that not the case?’
‘It is the case, but…’ Hayden did not quite know what his next argument would be. ‘Would you allow me to speak to Mr Madison?’
‘Indeed. Thank you, Captain.’
As Hayden took his leave of Smosh and returned to the quarterdeck, a dark form stumbled out of a hatch and slumped down on the deck.
‘Mr Ariss?’ Hayden asked.
‘Yes, sir, Captain,’ the man scrambled to his feet and made a quick knuckle. ‘I was in need of a breath of air, sir. I hope that meets with your approval, sir.’
‘By all means. No one deserves it more.’ Hayden stopped when he was two yards distant. ‘How fare you, Mr Ariss?’
The surgeon’s mate sounded utterly spent, his voice devoid of emotion, and scraping from exhaustion.
‘I will manage, sir. It is only that the men keep falling ill. If there are any more, sir, I shall have to ask that the quarantine-berth be made greater.’
‘How many do they number, now?’
‘Twenty-two, sir.’ Ariss lowered his voice. ‘I must inform you, Captain Hayden, that the do
ctor is not faring well.’
Hayden reached out and put a balancing hand on the capstan. ‘That is the worst possible news. Will he pull through, do you think?’
The mate hesitated. ‘I dearly hope so, Captain.’ But his hesitation said more than he professed.
‘You have bled him, no doubt?’
‘I have, sir, but it had little effect, which is highly uncommon in my experience.’
Hayden was so distressed by this news that he wanted to slump down upon the deck himself.
Madison hurried over to him at that moment. ‘Captain Hayden!’ came the boy’s voice out of the dark. ‘Mr Wickham believes he has seen a ship to leeward.’
Hayden wanted to tear himself away but did not. ‘Mr Madison, tell me quickly: have you enquired among the hands about Mr Smosh serving in the sick-berth?’
‘I have, sir. I believe the men will accept it, Captain, as long as he is not there in his capacity as parson.’
‘Then he is yours, Mr Ariss. Excuse me.’ Hayden took a step, then stopped and said to Ariss, ‘Please do everything within your power for Dr Griffiths.’
‘I will, sir.’
Hayden walked briskly back to the taffrail where the officers had gathered.
‘No, no,’ Wickham was saying. ‘A point east of that.’
No one spoke or made any sound as they all stared fixedly into the night.
‘Are you certain, Mr Wickham?’ Hayden asked.
‘There is something out there, sir, I have no doubt of that.’
‘A frigate, do you think?’
‘I could not say, Captain. It was just a mass of lesser darkness moving, perhaps, a little east.’
Hayden turned to the first lieutenant. ‘Fire the signal gun, Mr Archer, then light the lanterns aloft.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Almost immediately a gun was fired to leeward, and the signal lanterns lit on the frame aloft. A green flare was also ignited and cast a lurid glow over the deck.
‘Certainly only a blind man could miss that,’ Hawthorne said.
A Battle Won Page 17
