The Captain's Nephew

by Philip K Allan

  ‘Quarterdeck ahoy! Man overboard!’ The shout seemed to come from the forecastle. Clay blew his whistle again to gain everyone’s attention on the main deck.

  ‘Secure the guns and stow your kit. Mr Preston, take charge for me here, if you please.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Clay ran up the companion ladder to the quarterdeck, to find Windham staring over the gunwale as a figure thrashing in the water slid past the ship. Clay took in the situation in an instant, and quickly issued a string of orders.

  ‘Quartermaster, bring her into the wind. Mr Knight! Jolly boat away! Afterguard – get a life buoy in the water.’ In the sudden burst of activity that followed, Clay rounded on the unfortunate officer of the watch.

  ‘Mr Windham, there is a member of this crew overboard. Why did you not hove the ship to and launch a boat the moment you heard the hail?’ There was no disguising Clay’s fury at the incompetence of his second lieutenant.

  ‘I... I... wasn’t sure what to do. It all happened so quickly... ’ he stuttered.

  ‘You should fully understand your duties as an officer of this ship! It is to you that the men look to for decisive action in a crisis.’ Windham took Clay’s anger without protest. Clay thought again how very young he was to have been promoted to lieutenant, doubtless through the intervention of his uncle, and probably with a falsified record of his sea time. Here he was, thrown into an unexpected crisis with little idea how to react.

  ‘Oh get below, you disgust me,’ snarled Clay, in reality revolted by the system that had put Windham in charge. Windham bridled at the way Clay had addressed him, but faced with a direct order had to go. He gave Clay a perfunctory salute, a look of naked anger in his eyes. As he left the quarterdeck, the captain arrived.

  ‘What is going on here, Clay? Why is the ship hove to?’ he demanded.

  ‘Man overboard, sir. The jolly boat has been launched, but I am afraid whichever hand it is will have been in the water for some time.’ They both looked across to where the boat pulled hard towards what now looked like a bundle of flotsam on the surface of the sea. Whoever it was had long since stopped struggling. As the boat neared the spot the bundle rolled with a wave and slipped from view. Clay could see the bowman reach down into the sea with his long boat hook, but when he pulled it up there was nothing attached.

  ‘Oh dear,’ sighed Follett. ‘Come and see me when the boat has returned and we are back on course, Mr Clay.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ Clay replied. Out at sea the bowman tried again, leaning right out from the boat and probing the sea, but each time the hook came up with no trace of the crewman.

  *****

  ‘It was able seaman Hansen, sir, one of the Danes in the starboard watch,’ explained Clay. ‘He was working on the main reef tackle when he fell from the yard and into the sea alongside. The boat was unable to save him and has not been able to recover his body.’

  ‘Hansen, you say,’ pondered Follett. ‘A good man, I collect?’

  ‘Indeed, sir,’ said Clay. ‘He was one of the two hands I brought to your attention after the storm in the Bay of Biscay – the ones who went over the side to help secure the anchor that had worked loose?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Well, that is very unfortunate,’ said Follett. ‘Risk is a natural part of a seaman’s lot, but to have survived that night on the forecastle only to fall overboard after a moment’s inattention... most tragic. I will hold a service for him tonight. Kindly make the necessary arrangements please, Mr Clay.’

  ‘I will sir,’ replied Clay. ‘I am not sure that the loss of Hansen can be attributed solely to inattention on his part. Would now be an appropriate time to discus Mr Windham’s role in this affair?’

  ‘Ah yes, Mr Windham,’ said the captain, making a steeple with his fingers. ‘He was waiting to see me when I came below deck. I understand that you felt the need to relieve him from his duties. Can you explain why?’

  ‘I was on the main deck conducting my gun drill when I heard the hail,’ explained Clay. ‘I immediately ordered the guns to be secured, and made my way up onto the quarterdeck. When I arrived, I found that in spite of the gravity of the situation, and the requirement for prompt and decisive action, Mr Windham had issued no orders at all to address matters. I then took control of the ship from him. I issued the order for the ship to heave to, and it was also I that ordered the boat launched. I am convinced that had the appropriate actions been taken with decision by Mr Windham, Hansen might well have been saved.’

  Follett held his gaze for a long moment before speaking.

  ‘What action would you recommend that I should take with Mr Windham, then?’

  ‘I believe he should receive a strong reprimand from you, and that your censure should be recorded in the ship’s record,’ Clay said. ‘I have no particular animosity towards Mr Windham, but I find his want of experience troubling. He is unable to provide me with the support that I should be able to expect of a second lieutenant. I do not understand how Mr Windham came to be promoted to his current rank. From my observations of his conduct over many months, as well as his role in this unfortunate affair, I am of the opinion that his elevation to the position of lieutenant may have been premature.’

  ‘I see, Mr Clay. I am surprised that you claim to have no animosity towards Mr Windham. He informs me that you addressed him in a warm and insulting way just prior to dismissing him from the quarterdeck. Is that the case?’ asked the captain. Clay thought for a moment, trying to recall what he had actually said to Windham.

  ‘I believe that may be correct,’ he conceded. ‘I may well have addressed him with some heat during the moment of crisis. If I have caused offense to him by the mode of my address, I am willing to withdraw any such remarks. My general censure of his conduct, however, I stand by.’

  ‘Very noble of you, I am sure Mr Clay,’ said Follett. ‘You seem to be quite the disciplinarian where my nephew is concerned. I have spoken with Mr Windham, and his version of events is somewhat at variance with yours. He tells me that he had heard the hail, and was considering the situation prior to issuing his orders when you arrived to countermand his actions. He also considered the way that you addressed him in front of the hands to have been both insulting and undermining of his authority. What have you to say now?’

  ‘Sir, this is... this is... insupportable!’ said Clay, utterly frustrated. ‘His version of events can bear no proper scrutiny. How can you entertain your nephew’s account, when a man has been killed through his incompetence? I am frankly amazed that this can somehow be twisted such that it is my actions that are the ones being questioned! I will not have it! I insist that you take the correct action in this case.’

  Follett became angry in his turn.

  ‘Mr Clay, you may have become heated with Mr Windham, but you will not take that tone with me. I am trying to arbitrate between two of my officers.’ Follett struggled to regain his temper. After a few moments he continued, his tone icy.

  ‘Let us get some of the facts clear in this matter. You are wrong to imply that Mr Windham was wholly responsible for this man’s death. It is clear to me that in falling from the yardarm Hansen was at least partially responsible himself. I am sure you are also aware it was on my recommendation that Mr Windham received his commission. I resent the casual way that you question my judgement for having sought his promotion. With regard to your suggestion that Mr Windham’s censure should be one of official record, I do not agree with you. In all justice, I have had my disagreements with you over the last few months, but I have not made my view of your conduct official in the way you now wish me to do with Mr Windham.’

  ‘I apologise if my mode of address to you was overbearing,’ said Clay, ‘but I must insist that you back me in this, sir. I am first lieutenant of this ship, charged with its efficient running. Whatever our disagreements, I need to know that I have your support with the officers and men.’ Captain Follett calmed down a little, and considered matters.

  ‘Very well, Mr C
lay. I will speak to Mr Windham about the promptness with which he reacted to the situation, both because it was tardy and for the sake of your authority in this ship. I will not make my reprimand formal however. I would not want to blot a young man’s record so early in his career. I cannot in all consciousness say fairer than that.’

  ‘Sir, I beg you to consider the gravity of this incident,’ said Clay. He could feel his hands trembling with emotion. ‘We expect the men to endure a certain degree of hardship and risk, the least they should be able to expect is to be certain that they will receive prompt aid when it is required. I urge you to consider the effect on the crew. Are you sure that you have not allowed your natural ties of kinship to Mr Windham effect your judgement in this regard?’

  ‘Mr Clay, you go too far!’ shouted Follett, his anger breaking through at last. ‘I strongly resent this constant questioning of my authority. You must desist from doing so. With regard to Mr Windham I have told you of my decision, and I will not entertain further discussion on the subject.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ Clay replied, using the formal response to mask the anger he felt inside at being forced into another frustrating capitulation in the face of his intransigent captain.

  When the door of the cabin closed behind Clay, Captain Follett leapt to his feet and strode up and down the line of stern windows. His face was flushed beyond what might be expected even for a man in the tropics dressed largely in wool and as he paced he found that he was ranting to himself. Why must Clay be so damned sanctimonious? he asked angrily, even though he knew the answer to his own question.

  He paused for a moment and looked out through the stern windows. He found some comfort as he stared at the churned wake, boiling up like an ever renewing mill stream below his feet and stretching in a long white line, growing faint with distance as it ran towards the horizon. Once he was calm again he turned his back on the sea and faced towards his problems aboard once more.

  ‘Pass the word for Mr Windham!’ he bellowed at the closed cabin door. As if in a cave, he heard his call as an echo diminishing through the ship as first the marine sentry outside his door, followed by unseen others bore the message on. After an interval there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come!’ he shouted.

  ‘Drink?’ said Follett to his nephew, decanter poised, as he entered the cabin. ‘God knows, I need one, even if you do not, Nicholas.’

  ‘Yes please, Uncle Percy,’ said Windham, taking a seat in front of his uncle’s desk without being asked. Follett’s face began to redden afresh, but he chose to let it pass. He sat down himself, and took a long pull on his drink.

  ‘Well now, Nicholas,’ he began. ‘I have placed your version of events before Mr Clay, who it is fair to say is somewhat angered by the implication that you were not solely at fault for the unfortunate death of Hansen. He is of the view that as officer of the watch you should have acted sooner, and had you done so the ship would not have lost the services of a very competent able seaman. He is all for having you officially reprimanded.’

  ‘What is it that Clay finds so provoking in my character?’ Windham said. ‘I perform my duties tolerably well, yet he is always finding me to be at fault.’

  ‘I honestly do not believe that he does have any issue with your character, but with your actions,’ replied Follett. ‘Nicholas, this is a matter of your competence. As first lieutenant of this ship it is Mr Clay’s duty to see that the Agrius operates as tightly and efficiently as may be possible.’

  ‘What about the insulting way he addressed me?’ said Windham, a hint of petulance in his manner.

  ‘Actually, Nicholas, I found him to be quite reasonable on that matter,’ continued the captain. ‘He regrets the offence and considered that on reflection he was wrong to have addressed remarks to you in such a heated manner. He expressed a wish to withdraw them, which he doubtless will do soon in person.’

  ‘Well that at least is something, Uncle,’ said Windham, a little mollified. ‘Thank you for forcing him to recant.’

  ‘Forcing him to recant?’ repeated the captain. ‘Nicholas, you do not seem to understand that Clay is in the right in this matter. You have made a bloody shambles of this situation, and a man is dead in consequence. Do you know that Clay believes you have been promoted too young to your current position?’

  ‘But I am the same age as cousin Jack was when he was promoted with your help,’ said Windham. ‘The impertinence of the man, to question your judgement in this fashion.’

  ‘That may be mathematically correct,’ said Follett, ‘but let any further comparison end there. My son would never have made such a sad hash of a similar emergency at sea.’ His face grew sterner as he thought of his lost child and the poor substitute before him.

  ‘You need to attend to your duties with more diligence, Nicholas,’ he urged. ‘If you truly have any aspiration to be an officer of some value to your country, I would urge you to look on Lieutenant Clay as a model to follow, rather than an enemy to be shunned.’

  Windham looked at Follett in surprise at his unexpected endorsement of Clay.

  ‘Uncle,’ he said, ‘I do try my hardest, but you must understand that I never chose the navy for a career. It may be that I have a want of talent for it, and that I will never be as good a sailor as poor cousin Jack.’

  ‘Let me be clear once more, Nicholas,’ said Follett, fixing his nephew with a cold gaze. ‘You will not inherit well. You have too many older brothers to lay much claim upon your family’s estates. You will not be left the parish. A sound marriage should bring you some security; however, you must supplement your position by improving your own place in the world. Because of our connections, it is in the navy that the family is best placed to advance you. The preferment I might have reserved for my son I may now use to bring you forward. But for that to happen you will still need to have reached a basic level of competence as an officer. I urge you again, try and learn from your brother officers, not least from Alexander Clay.’

  Chapter 9

  Atlantic

  Early Sunday afternoon in the tropics, and the Agrius still headed south. The weather was very hot now and the sun shone down from high above the mastheads on to the deck below. The ship sailed on at the centre of a vast disc of deep blue ocean with an endless empty sky above. Sunday was a make and mend day for the crew, with most of them excused from duty. In consequence the foremast rigging was alive with a massed bunting of recently washed clothes flapping in the warm sea breeze. Spread below the clothes on the forecastle, sat many of their owners, solitary or in small groups. Some worked at scrimshaw or added yet more embroidery to their shore-going clothes. Others simply enjoyed the company of their messmates in what patches of shade they could find.

  ‘How comes you’re still scratching away, Rosie? Ain’t you finished yet?’ asked Trevan, as he sat cross-legged on the deck, his head held stiff and immobile as he gazed out towards the horizon. He sat like this so that O’Malley, his tie mate of long standing, could plait his recently washed hair back into its pig tail. At the moment it was a long sleek rope of gold that O’Malley had twisted to squeeze out the last of the water. Rosso looked up from the board he used to lean on and thought again of how many women would envy the Cornishman his hair. Most of the other sailors drying their hair on the forecastle had thick, coarse manes like hags, that billowed out around them in the tropical breeze.

  ‘I expect I shall be writing till dusk, Adam,’ replied Rosso with a sigh. ‘This is all your doing, you know. It is because my letter to your Molly was so successful. Half of the larboard watch now seem to think that if I write a letter it cannot fail. This one is for Drinkwater, to a daughter he once had out of wedlock. I fear it will never arrive, for it is very ill directed. The only address he has is care of the bawdy house in Portsmouth where he met her mother some twenty years ago.’

  ‘Well, just tell ’em no!’ advised O’Malley. He was still in considerable pain from the injuries he had suffered in the brawl. Fortunately none
were life threatening, but most still contrived to make him bad tempered. ‘You can’t be after spending all of your make and mend time fecking scribbling away.’ He pulled Trevan’s hair into equal sized portions with unnecessary savagery and started to plait them.

  ‘Easy there, shipmate,’ said Trevan, rubbing at the back of his neck.

  ‘He’s right, Rosie,’ said Evans, from his position sitting with his back against the foremast. ‘And you did promise you would show me how to tie one of them monkey’s fists.’

  Rosso sighed again and looked down at the half-finished letter. The others were right; he shouldn’t spend all his precious leisure time writing futile letters for his fellow crew. At times it seemed that he had never left his Bristol shipping office.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Let me at least finish this letter, and then you shall have your monkey’s fist, Sam.’ He returned to the letter, but he struggled to concentrate on it. The gentle sway of the ship to each successive wave sent a triangle of brilliant sunlight dancing backwards and forwards across the page. He wondered for a moment how it had managed to penetrate all of the sails and rigging above him to reach his knees down here on the deck. With an effort he returned to the letter, but fresh distraction was all about him. Trevan, his pigtail restored once more, was noisily summoned away by some fellow Cornish sailors in their strange guttural language. O’Malley went off to find his fiddle, his services required by some of the hands who wanted to practice a hornpipe, in spite of the heat. He scribbled off the last of the letter, blotted the ink, and looked up to find that for once Evans and he were alone on their patch of deck.

  ‘Alright Sam,’ Rosso said, ‘let’s see if I can show you this knot, then.’ The two men sat hunched together at the base of the mast. Rosso paused with the length of rope loose on his lap, and regarded Evans’ hands with a frown.