Morgan’s Run (49 page)

Thin though he was, Richard was well. So too were his cot mates and the four others in Ike’s cot. Willy Dring and Joe Robinson had abandoned below deck entirely, which left three others (they had lost a man outside Portsmouth) to spread out in a space designed for six at twenty inches apiece. The cot belonging to Tommy Crowder and Aaron Davis had such a good thing going with Sergeant Knight that they lived very comfortably. Despite these good indications, Richard’s instincts told him that the new outbreak of disease was going to be a bad one.

“Save for whoever is nursing Ike, we move onto the deck and we catch as much rain-water for ourselves as we can,” he ordered.

Jimmy Price and Job Hollister began to whimper, Joey Long to howl; the rest looked mutinous.

“We would rather stay below,” said Bill Whiting.

“If ye do, ye’ll catch the fever.”

“You said it yourself, Richard,” Neddy Perrott snapped. “As long as we filter our water and keep everything clean, we will live. So no deck. ’Tis fine for you with your skin, but I burn.”

“I will come up,” said Taffy Edmunds, gathering a few things. “You and I have to practice for the concert. We cannot let our ship be the only one unable to get a concert together. Look at Scarborough. She has a concert every week. Corporal Flannery says that some of the acts are so polished they have to be seen to be believed.”

“Scarborough,” said Will Connelly, “might have more convicts than we do these days, but the reason they are well is because they are spread between the lower deck and the orlop. We’re jammed in half the space Scarborough has because we’re carrying cargo too.”

“Well, I for one am very glad that Alexander has cargo in her orlop,” said Richard, giving up the fight, which he could see was pointless. “Look what happened to the marines when they were one deck farther down. Scarborough’s bilge pumps work. It all goes back to the master. They have Captain Marshall, we have Esmeralda, who don’t care if his bilge pumps work as long as his table groans. Alexander’s bilges are absolutely fouled.”

By the 4th of July another man had died and there were thirty men on the hospital platforms. It was, thought Surgeon Balmain, as if the whole of Alexander’s hull was packed solid with corpses in the worst stage of decomposition. How could these unfortunate wretches
live
amid the putrescence?

The next day two orders came from Sirius. The first said that John Power was to come out of his irons; the moment he was unlocked he was back to report to Mr. Bones, nothing having been said to forbid his working. The second order displeased Lieutenants Johnstone and Shairp hugely. The water ration for every man in the fleet (women and children got less) was to go from four pints to three pints, be he sailor, marine or convict. One pint was to be issued at dawn to all convicts, two pints in mid afternoon. A detail to be under the supervision of a marine officer, with two marine subordinates and two convicts as witnesses; the marines and convicts were to be changed each and every time to prevent cheating or collusion. The holds were to be locked, the water tun in use locked and kept under strict guard. Custody of the keys went to the officers. Additional water for the coppers and kettles was to be issued in the morning, together with water for the animals. Animals drank copiously; cattle and horses got through ten gallons per day per head.

Three days later the calms and storms vanished and the southeast trades began to blow. This despite the fact that the ships had not yet crossed the Equator. Spirits picked up immediately, though the fleet was hard-pressed to maintain its course in terms of real miles, which were less than 100 a day. Alexander ploughed into a huge head swell, her rigging creaking, parallel as usual with Scarborough the concert ship, Sirius and Supply not far behind, Friendship out in front, the swell over her bows in masses of spray she shook off as a dog does water.

When the silver buttons on Johnstone’s and Shairp’s scarlet coats began to blacken and the smell was pervading the quarterdeck almost as badly as below deck, the two lieutenants and Surgeon Balmain went as a deputation to see the captain, who received them and dismissed their complaints as nonsense. What concerned him was that the convicts were stealing his bread and ought to be flogged within an inch of their lives.

“You ought,” said Johnstone tartly, “to thank your stars that they are not stealing your rum!”

The dirty teeth showed in a smile of pure pleasure. “Other ships may have trouble with their rum, sirs, but my ship does not. Now go away and leave me alone. I have given the starboard bilge pump to Chips to fix, it is not working properly. That, no doubt, accounts for the state of the bilges.”

“How,” said Balmain through his teeth, “can a carpenter fix an object whose capacity to work depends upon metal and leather?”

“Ye had better pray he can. Now go away.”

Balmain had
had enough. He flagged Sirius and received permission to take a boat to Charlotte and the Surgeon-General, John White. With Lieutenant Shairp in command, the longboat headed away into the swell; Charlotte, a heavy sailer, was lagging far behind. The trip back to Alexander was frightful, even for Shairp, who never turned a hair in the worst seas. So when Surgeon White clambered up Alexander’s ladder he was not in a good mood.

“You Bristol men, ye’re wanted,” said Stephen Donovan. “In steerage with Mr. White and Mr. Balmain.”

Strictly speaking, thought Richard, who had learned a lot about pumps during the time he had spent with the absconding Mr. Thomas Latimer, Alexander’s pumps should have been down a deck to reduce the height of the column of bilge water they had to lift, but she was a slaver and her owners did not like low holes in the hull; the truth was that no one had ever worried much about the bilges between dry-dockings for careening.

There were two cisterns in the marines’ steerage compartment, one larboard and one starboard, each equipped with an ordinary suction pump owning an up-and-down handle. A pipe led from each cistern and emptied through a valve into the sea. The starboard pump had been dismantled; the larboard one refused to budge.

“Down we go,” said Surgeon White, face ashen. “How does a man exist in this place? Your men, Lieutenant Johnstone, are to be commended for their forbearance.”

Richard and Will Connelly took up the hatch and reeled. The hold below was in utter darkness, but the sound of liquid slopping around the water tuns was audible to the rest, hanging back.

“I need some lamps,” said White, tying a handkerchief over his face. “One of us is going to have to go down there.”

“Sir,” said Richard courteously, “I would not put a flame in there. The air itself would burn.”

“But I must see!”

“There is no need, sir, truly. We can all hear what is going on. The bilges have overflowed into the hold. That means they are completely fouled. Neither pump is working and may never have worked—the last time we were in here we cleared the bilges by bucket. We have had this problem since Gallion’s Reach.”

“What is your name?” asked White through his mask.

“Richard Morgan, sir, late of Bristol.” He grinned. “We men of Bristol are used to fugs, so they always put us on bilge duty. Though cleaning them by bucket will not remedy anything. They have to be pumped, and pumped every day. But not with suction pumps like these. They take a week to evacuate a ton of water, even when they are working properly.”

“Is the carpenter capable of fixing them, Mr. Johnstone?”

Johnstone shrugged. “Ask Morgan, sir. He seems to know. I confess I know nothing about pumps.”

“Is the carpenter capable of fixing them, Morgan?”

“Nay, sir. There are so many solids in the bilge that pipes and cylinders of this size will block at every lift. What this ship needs are chain pumps.”

“What does a chain pump do that these cannot?” White asked.

“Cope with what is down there, sir. It is a simple wooden box of much larger internal size than these cylinders. The lifting is done by means of a flat brass chain strung over wooden sprockets at the top and a wooden drum at the bottom. Wooden shelves are linked to the chain so that on the way down they flop flat, then unfold on the way up and exert suction. A good chips can build everything except the chain—it is so simple a device that two men turning its sprocketed drum can lift a ton of water in a minute.”

“Then Alexander must be fitted with chain pumps. Is there any of the chain aboard?”

“I doubt that, sir, but Sirius has just undergone a refitting, so she is bound to have chain pumps. I imagine she will have chain to spare. If she does not, some of the other ships might.”

White turned to Balmain, Johnstone and Shairp. “Very well, I am off to Sirius to report this to the Governor. In the meantime the hold and bilges will have to be baled out. Every marine and convict who is not sick will take his turn, I will not have these Bristol men forced to do it all,” he said to Johnstone. He turned then to glare at Balmain. “Why, Mr. Balmain, did ye not report the situation a great deal earlier, if it has been going on for over seven months? The captain of this vessel is a slug, he could not move out of his own way if the mizzen fell on his roundhouse. As surgeon, it is your clear duty to preserve the health of every man on board, including convicts. Ye have not done that, and so I will tell the Governor, rest assured.”

William Balmain stood flying a scarlet flag in each cheek, his handsome countenance rigid with shock and anger. A Scotchman, he was six years younger than the Irishman White and they had not taken to each other upon meeting. To be dressed down in front of two marines and four convicts was disgraceful—that was the kind of thing Major Ross did to feckless subordinates. Now was not the time to have it out with White, but Balmain promised himself that after the fleet reached Botany Bay he would have satisfaction. His large eyes passed from one convict face to another in search of mirth or derision, but found none. He knew this lot for the oddest of reasons: they were never sick.

At which moment Major Robert Ross arrived at the bottom of the steps, curiosity stirred because Shairp had been gallivanting all over the ocean again. One sniff was sufficient to acquaint him with the problem; Balmain withdrew stiffly to his cabin to sulk and plot revenge while White explained what was going on.

“Ah yes,” said Ross, staring at Richard intently. “Ye’re the clean head man, I remember ye well. So ye’re an expert on pumps and the like, are ye, Morgan?”

“I know enough to be sure Alexander is in sore need of chain pumps, sir.”

“I agree. Mr. White, I will convey ye to Sirius and then on to Charlotte. Mr. Johnstone and Mr. Shairp, get everybody onto baling out the bilges. And cut two holes in the hull lower than the ports so the men can tip the stuff straight into the sea.”

Lieutenant Philip Gidley King, arriving with Major Ross and Surgeon-General White the next day, took one look at the larboard pump Richard had removed and dismantled, and gave vent to a noise of derisive disgust. “That thing could not suck semen out of a satyr’s prick! This ship is to be fitted out with chain pumps. Where is the carpenter?”

English meticulousness combined with Celtic enthusiasm worked wonders. Royal Navy and therefore senior in rank to a marine lieutenant, King remained on board long enough to be sure that Chips understood exactly what he was to do—and was capable of doing it—then left to report to the Commodore that in future Alexander ought to be a far healthier ship.

But the poison was in her timbers, so Alexander never was a truly healthy ship. The gaseous effluvia which had lain everywhere below gradually dissipated, however. Living inside her became more bearable. And was Esmeralda Sinclair pleased that his bilge problem had been solved at no cost to Walton & Co.? Definitely not. Who the hell, he demanded from his poop perch (Trimmings had inspected and reported), had cut two fucken holes in his ship?

The fleet
crossed the Equator during the night between the 15th and 16th of July. On the following day the ships ran into their first roaring gale since leaving Portsmouth; the hatches were battened down and the convicts plunged into utter darkness. To those like Richard who spent all their time on deck it was a nightmare alleviated only by the fact that the worst of the stench had gone. The sea was running off the larboard bow, so Alexander was pitching more than rolling, an extraordinary sensation alternating between crushing pressure and weightlessness as she reared into the air and slammed with a noise like a huge explosion back into the sea. At right angles to the motion, they rolled from the bulkhead to the partition. Seasickness, deemed a thing of the past, erupted again; Ike suffered terribly.

Too terribly. As the fleet emerged from the storm with its rain butts filled sufficiently to permit ordinary water rations again, it became clear to everyone, even the desolate Joey Long, that Isaac Rogers was not going to live.

He asked to see Richard, who crouched opposite Joey, cradling Ike’s head and shoulders on his lap.