An Eye of the Fleet (8 page)

Later that night the wind freshened. At 4 a.m. Drinkwater was called to go on watch. Stumbling forward to the companionway he was aware that once more
Cyclops
was pitching and tossing. ‘They'll shorten sail soon,' he muttered to himself struggling into his tarpaulin as he emerged on deck. The night was black and chilly. A patter of spray came aboard, stinging his face. He relieved Beale who gave him a friendly grin.

At a quarter after four the order came to double reef the topsails. Drinkwater went aloft. He thought little of it now, nimbly working his way out to the place of honour at the yardarm. After ten minutes the huge sail was reduced and the men were making their way to the backstays, disappearing into the darkness as they returned to the deck. As he came in from the yardarm and transferred his weight to a backstay a hand gripped his wrist.

‘What the hell . . . ?' He nearly fell. Then a face appeared out of the windtorn blackness. It was the good-looking topman from the main top and there was a wild appeal in his eyes.

‘Sir! For Christ's sake help me!' Drinkwater, swaying a hundred feet above
Cyclops
's heaving deck, yet felt revulsion at the man's touch. But even in the gloom he saw the tears in the other's eyes. He tried to withdraw his hand but his precarious situation prevented it.

‘I'm not one of them, sir, honest. They make me do it . . . they force me into it, sir. If I don't they . . . kick me, sir . . .'

Drinkwater felt the nausea subside. ‘Kick you? What d'ye mean?' He could hardly hear the man now as the wind whipped the shouted confidences away to leeward.

‘The bollocks, sir . . .' he sobbed, ‘For Christ's sake help me . . .'

The grip relaxed. Drinkwater tore himself away and descended to the deck. For the remainder of the watch as dawn lit the east and daylight spread over the sea he pondered the problem. He could see no solution. If he told an officer about Morris would he be believed? And it was a serious allegation. Had he not heard Captain Hope read the 29th Article of War? For the crime of sodomy the punishment was death . . . it was a serious, a terrible allegation to make against a man and Drinkwater quailed from the possibility of being instrumental in having a man hanged . . . and Morris was evil, of that he was certain, evil beyond his own perversion, for Morris was allied to the huge physical bulk of Able-Seaman Threddle and what would Threddle not stop at?

Drinkwater remained in an agony of fear for himself and helplessness at his inability to aid the topman. He felt he was failing his first test as an officer . . . Who could he turn to?

Then he remembered Tregembo's remark. What was it he had said? He dredged the sentence out of the recesses of his memory: ‘It shouldn't have to come to that.' To what? What had Tregembo said before his final remark . . .'

‘You don't have to worry.' That was it.

Meaning that he, Drinkwater, did not have to worry. But another doubt seized him. He had only expressed regret that the seaman had been flogged for fighting. Then he realised the truth. Tregembo had been flogged for fighting Threddle and had said the midshipman did not have to worry. Tregembo must, therefore know something of what had gone on. ‘It'
should not have to come to Drinkwater himself worrying? Would the lower deck carry out its own rough justice? Had it already passed sentence on and executed Humphries?

Then Drinkwater realised that he had known all along. Threddle's eyes had blamed his flogging on Nathaniel and subconsciously Drinkwater had acknowledged his responsibility for Tregembo's pain.

He resolved that he would consult Tregembo . . .

It was the second dog watch before he got Tregembo to one side on the pretext of overhauling the log for Mr Blackmore.

‘Tregembo,' he began cautiously, ‘why did you fight Threddle?' Tregembo was silent for a while. Then he sighed and said, ‘Now why would you'm be axing that, zur?'

Drinkwater took a deep breath. ‘Because if it was ove what I believe it to have been then it touches the midshipmen as well as the lower deck . . .' He watched Tregembo's puzzled frown smooth out in comprehension.

‘I know, zur,' he said quietly and, looking directly at Drinkwater, added ‘I saw what they'm did to you in Gib, zur . . .' It was Tregembo's turn to be embarrassed.

‘I kind of took to 'ee, zur,' he flushed, then resumed with a candid simplicity, ‘that's why I did fur 'Umphries.'

Drinkwater was shocked: ‘You murdered Humphries?'

‘ 'E slipped and I 'elped 'im a bit.' Tregembo shrugged. ‘Off'n the jibboom, zur. 'E ent the fust,' he said to alleviate Drinkwater's obvious horror. The midshipman absorbed the knowledge slowly. The burden he had borne was doubled, not halved as he had hoped. The respect for the law engendered by his upbringing was suffering a further assault. Tregembo's lawless, smuggling, devil-may-care attitude was a phenomena new to him. His face betrayed his concern.

‘Doan ye worry yerself, Mr Drinkwater. We're used to buggers and their ways. Most ships 'ave 'em but we doan like it when they doan keep it to 'emselves . . .' He indicated the handsome seaman coiling a rope amidships. He looked up at them. There was appeal and desperation in his eyes, as though he knew the substance of a conversation taking place sixty feet away.

‘Yon Sharples is a good topm'n but 'e's scared of 'em, see. I doan wonder if ye'd seen what they done to 'im . . .' Tregembo reached into a pocket and slipped a quid of tobacco
into his mouth.

‘ 'E won't 'ave owerlong to wait,' he concluded ruminatively.

Drinkwater stared sharply at Tregembo. ‘The lower deck'll look after it's own, zur, but Mr Morris as a cockpit problem. Cockpits usually 'ave their own justice, zur.' Tregembo paused sensing Drinkwater's sense of physical inadequacy.

‘You'd easy outnumber 'im, zur, wouldn't 'e?'

The log line was neatly coiled in its basket and Tregembo rose. He walked forward knuckling his forehead to the first lieutenant as he passed. Drinkwater remained aft at the taffrail staring astern unseeing. He felt no shame at the suggestion that he was alone unable to thrash Morris . . . yet it saddened him to think that Morris could terrorise not just him and his fellow midshipmen but the less fortunate Sharples . . . There was so much in the world that he did not comprehend, that was at variance with the picture books and learning had given to his mind's eye . . . perhaps . . . but no it was not possible . . .

He turned to walk forward. The whole of
Cyclops
lay before him. Devaux and Blackmore were at the foot of the mizen mast. The boom and spanker overhead. She was a thing of great beauty, this ship, this product of man's ingenuity and resolve to conquer. For mankind went onwards, following an undirected destiny at no matter what cost to himself. And in the echo of that resolve, exemplified by the frigate, he cast about for the will to do what he thought was right.

His Britannic Majesty's frigates
Meteor
and
Cyclops
saw their charges into Spithead in the last week of May 1780. News had just come in from the West Indies that Admiral Rodney had fought a fleet action with De Guichen off Martinique on 17th April. But the battle had not been decisive and there were disturbing rumours that Rodney was courtmartialling his captains for disobedience.

The news, though vital to the progress of the war, was of secondary importance to the ship's company of
Cyclops
. All the weary voyage from the Mediterranean the ship had buzzed as every mess speculated on the likely value of the prize.

There was not a man in the entire crew who did not imagine himself in some state of luxury or gross debauch as a result of the purchase of
Santa Teresa
into the Royal Navy. For Henry Hope it meant security in old age; for Devaux the means of re-entering society and, hopefully, contracting an advantageous marriage. To men like Morris, Tregembo and O'Malley fantasies of splendid proportions rose in their imaginations as they prepared to make obeisance at the temples of Bacchus and Aphrodite.

But as the two frigates and their empty convoy sailed northward the initial excitement passed. Arguments broke out as to how much hard money was involved and, more important, how much each man would receive. Rumour, speculation and conjecture rippled through the ship like wind through standing corn. A chance remark made by an officer, overheard by a quartermaster and passed along the lower deck, sparked off fresh waves of debate based on no single thread of fact but by mountains of wishful thinking. Only the previous year frigates like
Cyclops
had taken the annual treasure fleet from the Spanish Indies. It had made their captains fabulously wealthy; even able seamen had received the sum of
£
182. But it was not always visions of untold wealth that occupied the imaginations of her people. As the frigate drew north other rumours gained currency. Perhaps
Santa Teresa
had been retaken by the
Spaniards who were once again besieging Gibraltar. Or sunk by shell-fire, or burned by fireships . . .

If the Spanish could not take her would they not have made an attempt to redress their honour by destroying at least some of the prizes in Gibraltar Bay?

Gloom spread throughout
Cyclops
and as the days passed the talk of prize money occurred less and less frequently. By the time
Cyclops
sighted the Lizard all discussions on the subject had become taboo. A strange superstition had seized the hands, including the officers. A feeling that if the subject were mentioned their greed would raise the ire of the fate that ruled their lives with such arbitrary harshness. No seaman, irrespective of his class or station, could admit the philosophical contention that Atropos, Lachesis or Clotho and their elemental agents acted with impartiality. His own experience continually proved the contrary.

Gales, battles, leaks, dismastings, disease and death; Acts of God, Acts of My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty and all the other factors which combined to cause maritime discomfort, seemed to direct the whole weight of their malice at Jack Tar. Hardship was a necessary function of existence and the brief appearance of a golden ladder to a haven of wealth and ease became regarded with the deepest suspicion.

When
Cyclops
's cable rumbled through the hawse and she brought up to her bower at Spithead no man dared mention
Santa Teresa
. But when the first lieutenant called away the captain's gig there was not a soul on board whose heartbeat did not quicken.

Hope was absent from the ship for three hours.

Even when he returned to the boat lying at King's Stairs the gig's crew were unable to read anything from his facial expression. Drinkwater was coxswain of the gig and set himself the task of conning her through the maze of small craft that thronged Portsmouth Harbour. In fact Drinkwater had thought less than most about the prize money. Money was something he had no experience of. There had been enough, barely enough, in his home and in his interest in his new profession had both prevented him from dwelling on the subject of poverty or from realising how little he had. As yet the disturbance of lust had been a confused experience in which the romantic concepts imparted by a rudimentary education were
at sharp variance with the world he found around him. He had not yet realised the power of money to purchase pleasure and his adolescent view of the opposite sex was one of total ambivalence. Besides, whilst there were no other distractions, he found the business of a sea-officer vastly more interesting and he had changed significantly since his first boat trip on the waters of Spithead. Although he had added little to his girth and height his body had hardened. His muscles were lean and strong, his formerly delicate hands sinewy with hard labour. His features remained fine drawn but there was now a touch of firmness, of authority about the mouth that had banished the feminine cast to his face. A dark shadow was forcing him to shave occasionally and his former pallor was replaced by a weathered complexion.

There remained, however, the bright eagerness that had attracted Devaux's notice so that he used Drinkwater when he wanted a difficult task undertaken by one of the ‘young gentlemen'. The first lieutenant had placed Drinkwater in a post of honour as coxswain of the captain's gig. If he could afford no fancy ribbons about his boat's crew at least Hope could have a keen young middy to swagger, dirk at his side, in the stern sheets.

Blackmore too considered the youth the aptest of his pupils and, had it not been for the spectre of Nemesis in the form of Morris, the approbation of his seniors would have brought the keenest pleasure to Nathaniel.

The gig danced over the water. Next to Drinkwater Hope sat in stony silence, digesting the facts that the admiral's secretary had told him.
Santa Teresa
had been purchased as a prize. The court had been assembled under the authority of Rear-Admiral Kempenfelt whose purpose it was to examine the findings of Duncan's preliminary hearing at Gibraltar. Kempenfelt and his prize court had decided that she was a very fine frigate indeed and had purchased her into the Service for the sum of
£
15,750. Captain Hope's share would amount to
£
3,937. 10 shillings. After years of grinding service with little glory and no material rewards beyond a meagre and delayed salary, fate had smiled upon him. He could hardly believe his luck and regarded it with a seaman's cynicism which accounted for his stony visage.