By the Mast Divided (29 page)

‘Now this, lads, is when a gun is at its most dangerous. For when it fires it shoots back damned quick on what we call the recoil, and is out of control, with some of the wheels jumping the deck. So the men with the levers must be ready to get them under those wheels, for if they do not, 
the gun will roll forward again and crush the men waiting to swab, load and ram.’

Digby smiled. For all his misgivings the first attempt on both guns had gone smoothly. ‘Now, let us try the whole procedure again.’

In the great cabin, Emily Barclay was aware and grateful for the fact that the weather seemed to be improving, for she had had an uncomfortable time. Her husband’s predictions of days without proper hot food or comfort had been truly borne out and she had learnt that in stormy weather the simplest task went from molehill to mountain. Merely to move from one side of the cabin to another required forethought and calculation, not least to time the movement to avoid the large amount of filthy seawater swilling about on the floor.

Even sitting down it was impossible to do anything – sewing was a series of endless skin punctures leading to abandonment, reading by salt streaked cabin windows or by a constantly swaying lantern, with one hand fixed to some object for security, feet raised to keep them dry, was unedifying in the extreme. Husband Ralph, when he wasn’t on deck, showed her great concern, obviously worried that she might be seasick, equally showing pride that she did not succumb. Worst was the fact that because of the weather and the amount of work needed to keep the ship operable, the deck was barred to her, which meant no fresh air. Indeed the cabin had become rank from closed casements and constant human occupation, a situation not aided by the leavings of the hen-coop being washed astern. The only place of comfort was their matrimonial cot, slung so that while the ship moved it remained still, with the caveat that a moving room was like to make her stomach churn, even though all it contained was ship’s biscuit and soup.

And now, not only had the ship’s motion eased, there was the prospect of action – there had been alarm and commotion, a change of course, the beating of a drum instead of the wail of pipes. A French privateer had been sighted, and she was stuck in this place.

‘Shenton!’ The steward took his time in replying, hanging on to the jamb of the door, exaggerating, Emily thought, the difficulty of keeping his balance. ‘Are we about to have a battle?’

‘We might, ma’am, but it’ll be a right while yet.’

‘My cloak, and please take a request to my husband.’

Vaguely aware of the training going on to windward, Ralph Barclay was thinking that his ship was not sailing at anything like her best. Looking 
at the sail plan he had the notion that there was too great a press aloft on the main and mizzen, and that the weight of the wind on that excess canvas was forcing the ship’s leeward head into the water.

‘Sir,’ said Barclay’s steward, who had come up to whisper in his ear. ‘Your wife wonders if she might be allowed to come on deck, since she has been informed that there is as yet no danger.’

Barclay nodded, for Emily was right. At the present rate of sailing it would be an hour before they could engage, and that would only be if the Frenchman held his course, ‘Which he will not do my dear,’ Barclay explained, ‘for he would be a fool to engage a frigate.’

‘Yet you tell me he sails on?’ Emily asked. ‘He has not turned to run from us?’

‘To see what mischief he can create, my dear. I have told Gould to hold his position to draw him on.’ He led her over to the mizzen ratlines on the windward side. ‘Now, if you take station here and use a rope to steady yourself, you will be able to observe all that happens, and’ – the smile was paternal, indulgent – ‘not be in the way.’ Then he called to no one in particular, ‘A piece of tow for Mrs Barclay’s hand. I would not wish my wife’s palm to be covered in tar.’

‘Aye, aye, sir,’ came the response, as every midshipman rushed to obey.

‘Mr Collins,’ he called to the master, as he resumed his position by the wheel, half-aware that he was showing off to Emily, and enjoying the fact that he was doing so. ‘I require that a reef be let out on the forecourse and that the maincourse be goose-winged to allow the wind some play on it.’

Collins had a remarkably vacuous countenance at the best of times, all puffed cheeks and sloth eyes, and hesitation did nothing to aid his appearance. It seemed an age before he responded and gave the orders that Barclay suggested. The topmen, too slow for the captain’s liking, let out the forecourse one reef. Meanwhile those on the mainmast lifted one corner of the maincourse to windward so no longer blocked the wind from the sail in front. The effect was immediate and satisfying; the way on the ship smoothed and Barclay was certain they had achieved a discernible increase in speed.

‘Aloft there,’ Barclay called. ‘Does the Frenchman show any sign of changing course?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Mr Collins, return the sails to their previous configuration. But I want the men standing by to reverse the procedure again, but this time 
with some alacrity.’ He continued in a voice loud enough to ensure that his wife heard, saying words that, had she not been present he would have kept to himself. ‘Let the fellow come on, judging our speed by what he has already seen. Then we shall give him a fright.’

Half an hour went by with the pressed men of the afterguard toiling away at the cannon, till they had got the action smooth enough to satisfy Lieutenant Digby. Once that had been achieved and he had discerned that Captain Barclay’s attention lay elsewhere, he had them secure the weapon, then sent them off the quarterdeck to await orders on the leeward gangway. The volunteer who had worked with them on their gun moved away to join his own mates, clearly not wishing to associate with pressed men.

‘God, my hands,’ said Gherson, looking at his red and raw palms, his young face creased with torment. ‘Is there nothing aboard a ship that does not require a rope?’

‘You’re just soft, Corny,’ said O’Hagan.

‘Don’t call me by that name!’

‘I can think of one or two others you deserve,’ hooted Charlie.

That produced the pout with which they were all familiar. Gherson was outside the group – it was in his face and the way he held his body. And it was also plain that he liked it that way, below decks happier in the company of sailors than mess number twelve.

It was Pearce who gave the opinion that they were all soft, because he, in his life had been no more of a worker than bumptious Cornelius Gherson. Reading books, practising rhetoric, expounding philosophical texts, intermingled with occasional practice with an épée, and sometimes riding a horse was scant grounding for this. As for the others, the life of the Liberties, the odd job loading and unloading boats had not prepared them for such endless, heavy toil.

‘You feeling any better, Rufus?’ he asked quietly.

Although he nodded, it was hard for Rufus Dommet, with his pale freckled skin, to look anything but unhealthy. But the underlying pallor brought on by seasickness seemed to have finally abated, and since the breeze had eased and the new course of the frigate had put her less at the mercy of the cross-sea, he was in a fair way to be wind dried as well. Looking at his messmates, Pearce felt a tinge of amiability, for they had ceased to be strangers. Friends, no, though he would be happy to afford that title to Michael O’Hagan. But Gherson aside, they had begun to act collectively, a melding created by Martin Dent that had carried over into their everyday existence. He also thought that, though they looked 
rough, they also looked better than they had for days.

‘Who was the fool that suggested we linger in the Pelican?’ murmured Charlie Taverner.

‘Why, I recall,’ crowed Ben Walker, producing a bitter-free laugh for the first time in days, ‘that it was you, wagering that you could get a drink out of John Pearce here.’

‘And did I not get it?’ Charlie insisted, then smiling at Pearce he added. ‘You was easy meat, John.’

Pearce, who suspected Charlie might be right, smiled back. But he also signalled that they should keep their voices down – even if Kemp was no longer shadowing them there were more like him aboard who would take as much pleasure as he did in checking them.

‘So it’s your fault,’ said Rufus, softly, looking at Pearce with a wan grin to cover his temerity, in not only having such a thought, but expressing it.

‘Odd,’ Charlie added, ‘when you came in I said to Abel you was hunted-looking. You were running, John, were you not, though you’ve yet to confide what from?’

‘Does it matter now?’ Pearce replied, glancing at O’Hagan, who responded by looking skywards. ‘I don’t recall Ben there telling why he was taking refuge in the Savoy.’

‘That I’ll keep close yet, if you don’t mind,’ Walker whispered, but Pearce’s words clearly reminded him of the cause, for a look of pain crossed his features.

‘By Jesus, it matters not to me,’ said O’Hagan, scowling, ‘for either of you. We’re here now, and all that is past is past. What we got to do is find a way to make this life more easy.’

‘What about getting free?’ demanded Gherson, querulously.

Charlie Taverner answered that with a jeer. ‘Such a thing, Corny, needs dry land, and I doubt you, or any of your chancy mates, could see any of that even from the tops.’

Pearce looked at his messmates again, but this time with a sense of objectivity. If he was stuck aboard this ship he was also stuck with them; who he liked and disliked made no odds. Michael had his Irish ways; Charlie Taverner, who looked more weak and foolish now than the rascal he had first thought him to be. At least he could always be counted on to conjure up a jest, and that was something. Rufus had quite gone off the notion of life as a seaman, unlike Ben Walker. He had suffered as much as anyone but managed to bear up as soon as a chance to relax had been gifted to him. Gherson was pouting because of the way Charlie had put him down as a pest, but by Christ he was a handsome one. The general 
opinion, voiced when he wasn’t around, was that he was deep in some kind of ordure, and it was no wonder to all that his bumptious nature had got him into trouble.

Freedom? Easy to talk about, damned hard to find in this service and this place. He pointed out to the others how the malignance of the crew, especially after Michael’s bout with Devenow, was already easing into acceptance, and if there were a way of escape, then these men bred to the sea would know of it. The smug look on Gherson’s face stopped him from going further on that tack.

‘Until then,’ Pearce hissed, ‘we are stuck on this damn ship, for as long as it takes to get a sight of land and a chance to get ourselves ashore, and I say being useless will not aid that. We should look, listen and learn, which is what I shall do.’

Looking back at the quarterdeck, he observed Barclay, swaying easily with the motion of the ship, hands behind his back like a caricature. Pearce had listened to him giving orders and had found himself interested in both the way they were issued and the result. Was Barclay a competent sailor and a doughty fighter? The fact that he wanted him to be neither, wanted him to be a coward he could despise, would not make the man so, any more than wishing he were ashore would put him on dry land.

‘What I am saying is that I agree with Michael here,’ Pearce added, ignoring the frown on Charlie Taverner’s face. ‘We have to make a fist of what we’ve got, for as sure as the devil resides in hell, if we don’t we will go under.’

‘Don’t say that,’ moaned Cornelius Gherson.

‘Mr Roscoe,’ said Ralph Barclay, loudly enough to be heard all along the deck. ‘I think we may clear for action.’

Number Twelve Mess was set to work again, as labourers, watching as more experienced men knocked out the wedges that held the bulkhead walls of the wardroom in place, before being detailed to take away the small individual panels and the frame that held the door. Going below, they were joined by those carrying the interior walls to the captain’s cabin, and followed by others bearing furniture; wine cooler, leaved dining table, chairs and chests, a mirror glass wrapped in canvas, the double cot, brass wall lamps that lit the cabins, all carefully stacked by a petty officer in a way that protected each object from damage.

They returned to a maindeck already sanded so that bare feet would not slip, bare from stem to stern and with the guns run out through open ports. The men who had been with them moved swiftly to their allotted
positions, while a harrying voice to the rear ordered them aloft, back to the weapon on which they had been practising, to a deck and sea view in which not much seemed to have changed. Captain Ralph Barclay was still standing swaying amidships, hands clasped behind him, surrounded by his fawning officers and midshipmen. Mrs Barclay was still by the weather ratlines, looking in the same direction as everyone else, towards the French barque that was still holding the same course. The number of marines on the poop had thinned, and, looking around and up, Pearce saw that some of them had clambered up to the main and foremast caps. Kemp had moved close again and was glaring at any pressed man or volunteer landsman who caught his eye.

‘Mr Digby.’

The shout made Pearce look round, only to see that the puce-faced captain was pointing right at him. Although alarmed, Pearce registered that the captain’s wife had turned also, to follow that accusing finger, and he could not help but look at her face, pink from the crisp air, eyes staring at him with what he thought was curiosity, as though she was truly wondering, as he was himself, how he had got here.

‘Start that man. He is not here to stare over the rail, he is here to work the guns.’

‘Sir,’ Digby responded, before insisting quietly. ‘Move, man, before you earn the rattan.’

Kemp managed to get round Digby and give Pearce a swipe, followed by a defiant look at the lieutenant and another at Pearce that was virtually an invitation to retaliate. He had to fight the temptation to oblige.

‘I will not have passengers, Mr Digby,’ Barclay added, a comment that endorsed the action of the snivelling bosun’s mate, and cut off whatever it was Digby had intended to say to him.