By the Mast Divided (20 page)

‘Charlie Taverner I could tolerate, though I think if I were drunk he would live off my purse and be gone when I sobered. Ben Walker is deeper than you if that is possible. Rufus is too young to be anything other than foolish, Scrivens I have concern for, I reckon him doubly
ill-suited
to this life.’ O’Hagan crossed himself swiftly, as he added, ‘As we are all, and may God in all his guises get us out of it. But Scrivens is of little interest to me.’

‘And I am?’

O’Hagan shrugged. ‘I admit to prying. If you do not wish me to do that, sure, just say so plain, for a man has a right to his own tale. But in my life I have moved many times, to work on the shovel in different places with sundry gangs, and not all Irish. I have toiled all over England, sometimes spending a day in one place, at others more than a season, when the job was the digging of a canal.’ O’Hagan held up a hand, massive and gnarled. ‘But always with these. Now it stands to reason for such a life a man needs a sound body. But he must also have a quick eye to see those on who he can turn his back, and those who he must always face. If I was to say I would not fear turn my back on you, unless it was to aid you?’

‘Ah yes,’ Pearce replied, responding as Michael reminded him of the help he had rendered, to let Pearce slip away from crowd outside the purser’s store.

The pause that followed the acknowledgement annoyed the Irishman. ‘You do not see fit to tell me what you were about?’

‘I went to look for the storeroom where my coat and shoes are stored.’ Faced with silence, Pearce was forced to add, ‘Yours also. What I found was a padlock big enough to keep safe the Crown of England.’

‘This ship will have its share of thieves, like any other.’

‘Would that I was one of them, Michael, with the ability to pick a lock.’

‘And having picked it, what then?’

‘Which part of Ireland are you from?’ asked Pearce, prevaricating.

‘The West, Mayo,’ O’Hagan replied, his voice a touch wistful. ‘It is the poorest part of the green isle, which makes us good at digging, for the soil we have to work is thin and unforgiving. But that is of no consequence to the moment.’

‘What is?’

‘Let us say that for all the soil is poor I would rather be there than here. Where you would care to be I do not know.’ Michael favoured Pearce with a wide grin. ‘Not here I do know, and I confess here’s me 
hoping that if you have some scheme to leave this ship you would not be thinking of going off alone.’

Pearce, aware from the beginning it was leading up to this, was at a loss to know what to say – that he wanted the freedom, should an opportunity present itself, to act alone or in tandem, to use the combined muscle of all of the Pelicans or none. He was not responsible for any of them, as much as they might wish such a thing upon him. Just as they seemed to think he had some kind of plan, when what he only had was a desire to escape and an acute eye for the chance to fulfil that desire, for which he had made a point of keeping his own counsel.

Of them all, he felt in his bones that he could trust Michael O’Hagan, but that did not mean he could easily open up to him, for he was guarded by nature – his vagabond upbringing had made him so. Every few weeks Pearce’s father would move to a new town, to a new audience not tired of paying to hear him speak. That left his son, who carried round the collecting hat, little time for friendships – more for fights with local boys who smelt and disliked a stranger. There were better times, though few, when Adam Pearce found a patron willing to house and feed him, and support his work. That meant schooling and new companions for John, but still he was the outsider, which meant more fights to make his mark. Yet there had been friendships too. Faces swam before Pearce’s eyes of boys he had loved. But he also remembered those he had allowed himself to trust who had been less than truly faithful. He was sure of only one thing, when it came to such an emotion certainty was not possible.

Getting off the ship would not be easy and Michael must know that. If what he had overheard was correct about the ship’s orders, now that they had weighed from Sheerness, then a short stay at Deal would be the only chance, and that had to be a slim one. The Navy was well versed in keeping what it had taken, and just being on dry land was no guarantee of safety. Stories abounded of crimps who did nothing else in wartime than hunt deserters for a bounty. There was much to be said for being alone in any bid for freedom – the security that comes from relying only on yourself. But what if a great deal of muscle was required? If it was, here was the very man. Pearce felt a sudden tinge of guilt at cutting the others out of his thinking; the men who had judged him distressed in the Pelican and had the charity to offer him a bed. Logic might see them as an encumbrance, but that was a poor justification.

Such thoughts were pointless anyway. Right now he did not even know if he would be gifted a chance. If he was, he would have to move swiftly, and if that move needed the help of Michael’s muscle then he 
would, at that point, have to trust him. Would Michael respond as he had previously, asking no questions? The thought that he might not weighed a great deal, but asked, he would never have been able to say why he decided to trust the Irishman now – it was instinct, no more, and perhaps, like other men, he sometimes felt the need to unburden himself was too great to bear.

‘I must request that what I tell you goes no further.’

Michael frowned. ‘Would a man not have to accept that before saying a word?’

He would, of course, and Pearce knew it well. Looking right into those green, unblinking Irish eyes he observed no guile or treachery and the way Michael held his gaze was reassuring.

‘If you would like me to swear on the Holy Father or the Blessed Virgin I will do so.’

Pearce shook his head, smiled, and laid a hand on the other man’s shoulder. ‘I have known men, Michael, claiming piety, who could lie with their hand on a piece of the True Cross.’

‘I have known men like that too, John-boy.’

‘Yet I think you’re not one of them.’ That comment was answered with a nod so emphatic that Pearce found himself speaking almost without realising it. ‘Have you ever heard Michael, of a man called Adam Pearce?’ Michael shook his head. ‘There was a time his name seemed to be on the lips of everyone in the two kingdoms.’

Pearce smiled as he recalled the nickname Old Adam hated, but one by which he might be more easily recognised. ‘He is my father, who is also known to some as the Edinburgh Ranter.’

That meant nothing either. ‘And what would this man, your Da, be ranting about?’

‘At its simplest, Michael, this: if you dug a ship canal from an inland town to the coast, then you should be part owner of what you have created. Every time a vessel sailed that water, you should be paid. If you dug a sewer, the same.’

‘A notion that appeals,’ Michael replied, grinning broadly, ‘though I will pass on what revenues I might get from a sewer.’

‘Three years ago my father wrote some pamphlets, that brought on his head a charge of seditious libel.’ It was clear Michael didn’t understand what that meant, so John added; ‘Billy Pitt and his government fear my father’s ideas so much that he faces arrest if he sets foot in Britain.’

Pearce described the life he and his father had led – the time before the turmoil in France when life had been rough for what often seemed a lone 
voice crying in the wilderness: food scarce, barns to sleep in not rooms, occasionally the need to work to pay for a bed. He skipped over the hell of their stay in prison; to describe that too deeply would serve no purpose. Instead he went on to how life had changed following that incarceration, as Correspondence Clubs and Debating Societies sprung up all over the land on news of the Revolution. Adam Pearce went from being a pariah, a nuisance and a felon to a sought-after luminary, a hopeful beacon for the downtrodden of England. But he had also been dogged by government agents – men who wanted nothing more than to put him back behind bars. Every word he spoke was noted and reported, every disturbance caused by his inflammatory remarks held against his name. He had written much before, and it was moot if the pamphlet that brought forth a second King’s Bench warrant was any more provocative than any that had preceded it. But the ground had shifted, disenchantment was rife regarding affairs in France and a government that had, up till then, been too frightened to act, took advantage of that.

‘He had to flee the country – it was that or a return to the Bridewell – first to Holland and then to Paris. That’s where he is now, Michael. Old, unwell, in danger of arrest there too, and for much the same cause – those in power do not like his views and he will not be silent. Indeed, he may well be in a French gaol now for speaking out about the excesses taking place, and I must tell you he lacks the strength to withstand it. I came back in the hope of getting that warrant lifted, for he has friends who might achieve such a thing, so he can come home.’

Pearce could not avoid putting his head in his hands then, assailed once more by the feeling that he had selfishly abandoned Old Adam for fear of what might happen to him, mixed with the deeper fear that his father might not be in prison, but dead.

‘And you?’

‘I fear I risk arrest too, just for being his son, or for aiding and abetting his writing or his escape from England, I know not which. The men who would arrest him tried to do the same to me yesterday. In running from them I chose the Pelican as a refuge.’

That produced a wry smile from the Irishman. ‘And that is why you will not give your name.’

‘I have no notion of how potent that name now is,’ said Pearce, looking at the deck beams above his head, ‘nor how public is the desire to apprehend him. All I know is I cannot help him from a prison cell, though this ship can hardly be said to be better.’

‘You are sure you would go to prison?’ 

‘No, but I could not risk it. What if my father and I are seen as one?’ Pearce sighed, and produced a sad smile, wondering what had happened to that blind faith he had carried until only a few years ago, the certainty that everything his father believed in was right.

‘One question for you, Michael.’

‘Which is?’

‘Can you swim?’

The Irishman responded with a rueful smile. ‘I cannot, so if you get a chance John-boy, to jump overboard and make the shore, think nothing of Michael O’Hagan. Just do it, and if I can come between you and those who would try to stop you, I will.’

‘Thank you for that,’ Pearce said, again laying a hand on Michael’s shoulder, adding, more from wishful thinking than any sense of anticipation, ‘So let’s hope for a boat.’

The Bosun’s whistle blew again, and that was translated for the Pelicans as ‘down hammocks’. Many had forgotten what they had learnt earlier about hammock-rigging and to avoid a repeat of the earlier hilarity, Pearce found himself helping several people, including Michael and Scrivens, to rig their hammocks. Once in he now found that Dysart’s idea of being snug really meant a hammock slung so close to his neighbour either side that movement was barely possible. But he knew it to be comfortable.

‘Ship’s company, fire and lights out.’

The guttering candles that had illuminated the maindeck were extinguished, leaving only a glim from the lanterns left at the foot of the companionway and around the mess tables of those on watch. Pearce lay there, still thinking, still running over in his mind, and discarding, ideas for escape, trying and failing to convince his teeming brain that there was nothing he could do till morning and that sleep was now necessary. He heard Michael begin to snore beside him, but that was not singular, half the maindeck resounded to a veritable symphony of nasal notes – that, mingled with a stream of noisy farts. It was with the thought that he had slept in worse places than this, and the more troubling one that he might do so in the future, that mixed with the hope that the morrow and daylight might gift him the chance he needed, that the exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours overtook him.

The sense of falling was like part of a dream until his body crashed into the deck, shoulder first, sending a shaft of pain through his elbow that was quickly overborne as his head thudded into the same planking. The cry that came from another throat failed to penetrate at first, because 
he was momentarily stunned. But as he rolled his body to get up he saw, by the silhouette of those lanterns still lit, that Charlie Taverner was in similar distress, his hammock hanging down from one line, he in a heap cursing and swearing. Pearce was also sure that he saw a pair of legs scurrying away, belonging to a body that was small enough to slip under the slung hammocks.

He had to crawl over to Charlie Taverner, who had landed head first, on the same spot that the surgeon had treated that day. He was hurt worse than Pearce, dazed and confused and touching his wound Pearce felt damp, which told him it had begun to bleed again. Pearce himself felt on his head the beginnings of a substantial lump and his elbow was painful. But having fallen in slumber he had been relaxed at the point of contact and reckoned the damage slight. He lifted the end of Charlie’s hammock rope, holding it up the frayed end. Obviously it had been sliced through with a knife.

‘What bastard…?’ swore Charlie, in a thick voice, as Pearce tried to help him to his knees.

‘The marine boy from the Pelican,’ Pearce replied, as he set about trying to tie up Taverner’s hammock with what little rope was left. ‘The one they call Martin. I broke his nose last night, and this morning you gave it an elbow. I think he wants his revenge.’

Sleep was fitful after that – the level of snoring was stentorian, the lack of air, with so many bodies packed tight, was suffocating. Besides those constraints Pearce could not rule out a second attempt by the boy, and it was with relief that he heard the sound of Coyle moving through the packed hammocks shouting, ‘Show a leg there’, and ‘Up or down’, with the thud of a falling body for those who did not heed the last, as they found the lashing of their hammocks cut away.

A series of whistles blew, and the whole crew began to roll their hammocks. Lashing and stowing them, easy for the seamen, was another farce for the newcomers as none of their attempts at bundle would pass through the hoop help by a swarthy bosun’s mate who had, even for a sailor, a rare line in foul abuse. But this time the crew were willing to assist and show them the way – Charlie Taverner found the attitude was not caused by kindness, but by the fact that any delay was likely to interfere with the crew getting their breakfast. Once lashed the hammocks were taken on deck to be stowed in nettings along the side of the ship, or in a rack of similar design at the front of the quarterdeck.