Girl on the Orlop Deck (13 page)

‘Look chearly, you lazy lumps,’ he shouted. ‘We ain’t got all day.’

They gave him a mocking cheer and went stumbling after him towards the warehouses and at that Peg glanced across at her silent friend and indicated with a toss of her head that she was to get off quickly in the opposite direction.

It was time and Marianne knew it, even though she also knew it would be impossible for her to run. But it was time just the same. Her shipmates were all on the move and there was a huge cart passing to give her cover, so she had to make the effort. She gathered her strength, took a sustaining breath and walked off as quickly as she could, across the bumpy discomfort of the cobbles and away from the quayside, pushing through the crowds into a narrow alley between two rows of dusty
buildings
, heading off blindly without the least idea where she was going.

The heat of the sun was making her feel dizzy, and the crush of so many strange people exhausted her and there were flies everywhere, crawling on her arms and clouding about her face. When the next pain began to grip she had to stop and lean against the nearest wall or she would have fallen to the ground. She wanted to lie down somewhere quiet, where there wasn’t anybody about, to stop walking and just give in to the pain, but she knew she daren’t do it and that she had to keep on walking. She wiped the sweat out of her eyes and made another straining effort, dragging one foot after the other, moving almost without will, panting and exhausted, pausing while the pains gripped and then struggling on again.

Presently she stopped to catch her breath and realized that she’d left the crowds and stalls and dusty houses behind and was standing on a narrow pathway with wooden shacks on one side of her and a field full of huge stalked plants on the other. There was nobody about except for
a group of small brown solemn children, who were standing very close together, watching her and whispering to one another. Should she walk into the field and lie down there? No, the crop was too thick and
forbidding
. Should she go to one of the huts? No, not that either, for what could she say, and what would she do if they turned her away? She gazed about her, bleary eyed with pain, and caught a glimpse of a tall stone building some way off in the field. It had a rounded top and looked like a windmill. Maybe she could hide there, somewhere behind the building, where no one would see her. She stumbled on, panting and gasping in the hot dusty air.

It
was
a windmill and it stood in a sizeable clearing but there were so many workmen coming and going that she stayed where she was, hidden by the huge stalks of the crop. They were formidable-looking men,
barefooted
and naked to the waist and wearing trousers that were so stained and tatty they were more earth than cloth. Their brown backs streamed with sweat and they were walking beside wooden carts piled high with the mounded stalks of the crop and pulled by pairs of oxen. How could she possibly sneak past such a crew? And yet she had to lie down. Dear God she
had
to lie down.

Several men came out of the mill together, and then another laden cart arrived that would give her cover, and for a few seconds there was a scurry of activity and nobody was looking her way. She half walked, half ran until she was alone behind the mill. Then she had no more strength left and sank to her knees on the dry earth. Whatever was to happen to her now, there was nothing she could do but endure it. The next pain was so strong she lay on the ground and groaned under the pressure of it.

Pains and minutes passed, the sun beat down on her sweating head, the flies crawled all over her face and up her arms, she could hear the workmen talking in their sing-song way and a bird giving a harsh croaking call, over and over again. I’m at the end of the world, she thought, and there’s no one to help me. Now there was no time and no place, only the pain and the heat. When a brown face moved into focus a few inches from her eyes she registered that it was there but couldn’t find the strength or will to speak to it.

There was a voice speaking somewhere nearby. ‘He a ship boy.’

‘She no he,’ the first face said. The voice was low and gentle. ‘She a wo-man. She birthin’a baby.’ Then it spoke directly to Marianne. ‘Don’ you worry, chil’. We here for you. We look out for you.’

Hands were lifting her; she was being eased out of her breeches; someone was wiping the sweat out of her eyes; she knew she was lying on a cloth of some kind and that it was much softer than the baked earth. She tried to find the words to thank them but the next pain was so bad she could barely breathe and speech was impossible.

‘You wantin’ to push now, honey?’ the face said.

‘Push?’ Marianne said, wondering what she was talking about – but even as she wondered she knew she
did
want to push and she wanted it badly.

Such effort, such heat, such pain, and that calm face coming and going, murmuring encouragement. ‘You doin’ well, honey. I see de head. You push good.’

And then a rush and a slither and she knew that the child was out in the air and she could catch her breath and stop pushing. She was so totally exhausted she couldn’t move. It was over and that was enough. She lay with her hand on the cloth and her eyes shut, limp with relief, as the flies flicked against her face and the strange bird tore the air with its harsh foreign call. She was too tired even to look at the baby.

Presently the kindly face reappeared and asked if she was ready to push again. She pushed obligingly, feeling glad that there was so little pain this time but puzzled because the child was born, surely, so there shouldn’t have been any need to push. Then she came to herself and remembered that she hadn’t seen this child nor heard it cry and she stirred herself to sit up and look for it.

It was lying on a rush mat some distance away from her and it was a small pale baby boy lying perfectly still with his eyes shut. There were two women crouching on their haunches beside him, looking at him but not touching him. ‘Please,’ she called, ‘let me see him.’

They picked up the mat between them and carried the baby over to her, moving gently but not speaking. The familiar face bent towards her as they laid the child, mat and all, across her belly.

‘De life ain’ come to he,’ she said sadly.

The words were so chilling that Marianne couldn’t bear to understand them. She put out a hand to stroke the baby’s head. Oh such a small, vulnerable head. ‘Open your little eyes,’ she begged. ‘Look at me.’ But the baby’s eyes were too tightly shut and she knew with her reason that he would never see anything. She looked up at the kindly face above her. ‘He en’t dead,’ she said. ‘Please say he en’t dead. He can’t be dead. I onny just birthed ’un.’

‘I sorry, chil’,’ the woman said. ‘De life ain’ come to he.’

Marianne put one finger into the baby’s white, curled, limp hand. She was crying now, the tears rolling down her cheeks and dripping off her nose. ‘He en’t dead,’ she wept. ‘He en’t. I only just birthed ’un.’

It was growing dark in that abrupt and total way she had come to expect in this part of the world and the field was rustling. The two women stood up and lifted Marianne to her feet, supporting her one on either side. It upset her to realize how feeble she felt.

‘You come sleep now,’ the second woman said to her. ‘We look after he.’

They were leading her into the darkness through the great field. She could smell dust and sweat and the sickly sweet smell of the crop and above her head the sky was full of sharp bright stars. Everything was unfamiliar and unreal as though she was walking in a dream. I shall never sleep, she thought. Not after all this. But they’d reached a round hut and were ducking through the entrance into a room with an earth floor. It was lit by two smoking rush lights and there were several straw pallets on the floor. They led her to the nearest one, smiling at her, and she was glad to lie down on it.

I shan’t sleep, she thought, and slept at once.

Nelson’s state room aboard the
Victory
was golden with light because all the wax candles had been lit. The Admiral was entertaining the two most important men in the island, Admiral Cochrane, who was an old friend and whose flagship the
Northumberland
was lying in Carlisle Bay, and Sir William Myers, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army at Barbados. The three men had dined well and now it was time for Cochrane and Sir William to report.

‘Your arrival is timely, m’lord,’ Sir William said, ‘for I received letters only last night from General Brereton at St Lucia and he sends the most specific news. He has seen the Spanish fleet. It passed Gros Islet on 28 May during the night, heading south.’

The news was disconcerting to Admiral Nelson. Before he left the Mediterranean, all his most reliable informants had assured him that the French were heading for their own island of Martinique. But this new information had to be taken seriously. Brererton was an old friend and a reliable one, what’s more, and if he said the French were heading south then there could well have been a change of plan. ‘How many sail?’ he asked.

‘Twenty-eight.’

It was a formidable force but it could prove unwieldly. ‘A very pretty fiddle,’ Nelson said, smiling at them, ‘although I don’t believe that either Gravina or Villeneuve will know how to play upon it. And heading south, you say.’

‘Aye, sir. He supposed their destination to be either Barbados or Trinidad but as there is no sign of them hereabouts it seems more likely that they are headed for Trinidad and Tobago.’

That was Admiral Cochrane’s opinion of it too.

Nelson gave it thought, resting his chin in the palm of his hand.

‘I have two thousand troops at Carlisle Bay,’ the general told him, ‘all primed and ready to embark.’

The decision was made. ‘We will take sail for Carlisle Bay tonight,’ Nelson said, ‘and embark your troops tomorrow, General. Then, with God’s grace, we shall head south and find our quarry.’

T
HE SUN WAS
blazing through the doorway of the hut, as hot and hard as noonday. Marianne had no idea what time it was nor how long she’d been asleep, but that was of little consequence because her waking mind was instantly full of anguish for her poor dead baby. She lay on her back grieving and aching and feeling totally bereft. Yesterday morning she’d been making plans to birth the little thing, she’d had his gown ready for him and everything, and now he was gone. It didn’t seem possible or right, not after carrying him for so long and labouring so hard to bring him into the world.

After a while she realized that she was lying under a rough blanket and that she was naked except for a thick clout tied between her legs. She was wondering what had happened to her clothes when a shadow made her look up at the door and there was her friend of the previous day, bearing a wooden tray with a wooden mug and a wooden bowl on it full of something hot and steaming.

‘How you feelin’ dis morning?’ she said.

So it was morning. ‘I don’t know,’ Marianne said, and began to cry again.

The woman took her hand and rubbed it. ‘You eat, chil’,’ she said, ‘you feel better when you eat.’

That’s exactly what Ma would have said, Marianne thought, and she picked up a spoonful of whatever it was and ate it cautiously. It was a sort of porridge but thicker than she had at home and eating it made her aware that she was actually quite hungry.

‘You eat up every las’ mout’ful,’ the woman said. ‘Build you strengt’.’

‘What is your name, ma’am?’ Marianne asked, lifting another spoonful to her mouth.

‘Looma,’ the woman told her. ‘Looma MacKenzie.’

‘My name is Marianne. Thank ’ee for what you done for me an’ the baby.’ It seemed odd to be so formal with one another but Looma was pleased.

‘I birth all de babbies,’ she said and added with pride, ‘I don’ work in de fiel’s. No, sir. I ain’ no fiel’ hand. No, sir. I birth de babbies an’ I look after de sick an’ I lays out de dead.’

She’s the midwife, Marianne thought, returning to her porridge. Like old Mother Catty. And she had a sudden yearning vision of her room in Mrs Catty’s boarding-house and felt miserably homesick.

‘Now you mus’ drink dis,’ Looma said, picking up the mug and holding it out towards her.

Marianne peered at the mixture in it. It looked rather peculiar. ‘What is it?’

‘Is to tek away de milk,’ Looma said, ‘then you don’ get de fever. You don’t want de fever. I tell you dat. You drink it down real deep.’

Marianne did as she was told, grimacing against the taste, but her wits were returning to her now and she was remembering the ship. ‘Where are my clothes?’ she said.

‘I get dem for you, by an’ by,’ Loona told her. ‘Don’ you worry ’bout dem. Dey been wash’ all nice an’ clean an’ dey been a – lyin’ in de sun since daybreak.’

They’re so kind, Marianne thought, and she felt she ought to explain. ‘I must get back to my ship,’ she said, ‘or she’ll sail without me.’

‘De ship gone,’ Loona said, in her calm way. ‘All de ship.’

The news took Marianne’s breath away. ‘Gone?’

‘Las’ night,’ Loona said. ‘Dere ain’ a ship lef’ in de harbour. Dey all up an’ sail away.’

They can’t have done, Marianne thought. She must have got it wrong. They can’t all have gone. Not as quick as this. I’ll go down to that quay and see for myself. It en’t far.

She set out as soon as she was dressed, walking back along the same dusty path towards the distant streets of the town. They couldn’t be gone. They just couldn’t. But the town was changed. There was no doubt about that. There were no stalls and the narrow alley where she’d
struggled
against the crowds was deserted except for an old man squatting on his haunches smoking a foul smelling pipe, and when she emerged into the strong sunlight on the quay she saw at once that her new friend had been right. There wasn’t a single ship of the line in harbour. Not a single
solitary one. There were two fishing boats heading out to sea across the glittering water but the fleet had gone. The shock of it was so dreadful she felt as though she was being crushed under a great weight and sat on the nearest bollard, just as she’d done in Portsmouth all those months ago, to gather her thoughts. She’d lost her husband, what she’d never see again, and her baby, what never deserved for to die poor little thing, and her ship and her friends and she was miles from home and all on her own in a foreign country. The sun was hot on her black hat and strong on her idle hands. She couldn’t begin to think what would become of her.

In fact, the fleet was anchored in Carlisle Bay, just along the coast and a few miles south-east of where she was sitting and the husband she was so sure she would never see again, was watching as Sir William Myers’ troops were being embarked on all the sail of the line.

‘We’re in for it now,’ he said to Tom. The sight of so many uniformed men clambering up the wooden sides of those great ships was making his skin tingle with excitement. It was going to be a mighty battle.

‘Looks likely,’ Tom agreed, watching as the muskets glinted in the sun. There was certainly enough tension aboard the
Sirius
to justify their opinion. Most of the gun crews had made up their minds that the battle was only hours away.

‘I’d best go below an’ check the bungs,’ Jem said. In seas as placid as these they weren’t likely to be holed below the water-line but it was better to be safe than sorry.

‘Aye. You’d best,’ Tom agreed, still watching. ‘Once he gives that ol’ signal we shan’t have time to breathe.’ And he stroked his new beard.

Nelson was watching the embarkation from the quarter-deck of the
Victory
. He and his secretary Mr Scott had been up since daybreak and all the necessary letters had been written and were ready to be dispatched, to the Governor of Dominica, to Tobago and Trinidad. Now they were three bells into the forenoon watch and he was eager to be off and on the hunt again. There was no time to be lost. A search through all the islands between Barbados and Trinidad would take all his
navigational
skill and use every frigate and sloop he had at his disposal and the sooner they got on with it, the better. 

In the frigate
Amphion
the crew were being dosed with quinine. The captain had given the order for it as soon his lieutenant had reported that one of the ship’s boys had been taken with a fever and left behind in Bridgetown.

‘What sort of fever?’ he asked.

‘That I couldn’t say, sir,’ the lieutenant said. ‘He was in a muck sweat as we were rowing ashore, but then he slunk off somewhere and
disappeared
.’

The captain scowled. ‘I trust you made a thorough search?’

‘High and low sir,’ the lieutenant lied. ‘Couldn’t see hide nor hair of him.’ In fact, he hadn’t noticed the boy’s absence until they’d been rowing back to the ship and he’d realized that he was an oar down but he certainly wasn’t going to admit that.

‘Quinine for all hands,’ the captain decided. ‘Tell the bosun.’

Johnny Galley was most aggrieved to be dosed for no reason. ‘I ain’t afeard a’ bein’ took with a fever,’ he said. ‘Leastwise not the sort a’ fever that young shaver’s took.’

His shipmates mocked him. ‘Since when was you appointed surgeon, Johnny?’ they said. ‘Shame on ’ee for a booby. Take your physic like a man!’

He couldn’t very well explain how he knew the fever was no threat to them, so he had to swallow the quinine and put up with it. He was caught in his own trap, to Peg and Moll’s grinning delight.

Fortunately the troops were now embarked and the order to sail was being given so he was saved from further teasing by a flurry of orders, but he was growling and surly as he went off to obey them.

‘Serve him right, lecherous ol’ varmint,’ Peg said, when she and Moll were in the rigging and safely out of earshot of their mates. ‘If it’ud been up to me, he’d have had a double dose an’ been as sick as a dog.’

‘I wonder how she’s gettin’ on,’ Moll said, busy with the knots.

‘We ain’t like to hear from her now,’ Peg told her, shaking out the sail. ‘She’m stuck on the island, poor soul.’

‘True enough,’ Moll said, gazing back at it. It looked very beautiful from a distance, with those white sands and that blue-green sea and the mountains such a rich green and so luscious. She watched it for some seconds, saddened to think that there was going to be a battle in such a gorgeous place.

‘We allus said we’d jump ship if the battle came,’ she said to Peg, ‘and now look at us, sailin’ right into it.’

‘No chance a’ jumpin’ now,’ Peg said. ‘We just got to get on with it. Our fevered friend had the right idea, if you ask me.’

‘Aye, she had,’ Moll agreed, shaking out the last sail. ‘We might a’ left her behind with the baby an’ all, but least she won’t be blowed to Kingdom Come and that’s something to be thankful for.’

‘I shall miss her,’ Peg said.

But there was no more time for talk, because the lieutenant was shouting at them to look lively, and there was work to do.

Marianne wasn’t concerned about the coming battle at all. She had only one thought in her head and one need in her heart and that was to get back on board a ship of the line and sail home to Portsmouth. But how that was to be done when they’d cut off and left her was a mighty problem. She walked slowly back to Looma’s hut feeling unexpectedly tired but churning the matter over in her mind. Bridgetown was a big harbour. A very big one. There was no doubt of that. So sooner or later ships would put in there either to take on water or provisions or to get out of a storm. That was what harbours were for. Very well then, sooner or later there would be a ship for her to board. All she had to do was watch out for it. I’ll dress in my slops, she decided, and I’ll go down there every single day, twice if I have to, and I’ll take the first ship what’ll take me. I shall have to prove to ’em that I en’t jumped ship, or I shall be flogged round the fleet an’ I don’t want that. But that’s what I’ll do. There’s plenty a’ ships in the sea an’ I only wants the one.

Somewhere to the right of her, the raucous bird was calling again
kaa, kaa, kaa
as though it was mocking her.

‘Never you mind kaa, kaa, kaa,’ she shouted at it. ‘I shall do it. You see if I don’t.’

Nelson spent the whole of that day sailing through the Leeward Islands, watching the seas for the French and keeping his own ships in a state of constant activity. He’d given the general order ‘Prepare for battle’ as soon as they left the harbour and now he was sending out his messengers, Captain Bettesworth to Tobago in the brig
Curieux
, Colonel Shipley of the Engineers to the nearest post on Trinidad, the
Sirius
to Dominica.

The news the captain and the colonel brought back was puzzling. They’d seen no sign of the French, but the
Curieux
had met up with an
American merchant ship whose captain told them he’d been boarded by a French ship just off Grenada so they were obviously in the area.

As usual, Nelson made a rapid decision. They would proceed to the Bay of Paria in Trinidad. If his enemy was not to be found at sea then he would be lurking in a harbour and, as his informants had told him that Trinidad was where the French fleet was headed, the Bay of Paria was the most probable. He was aggrieved and disappointed when they arrived late that evening to find it calm and completely empty.

‘We were misinformed,’ he said to Captain Hardy, scowling his annoyance. ‘We have wasted time and effort on a wild goose chase. I should have trusted my instincts and sailed north. One French ship off Grenada may well have boarded the merchantman, that I will allow, but one ship does not make a fleet. We will overnight here and head for Dominica at first light. The governor there may well have better information and he should have received my letter by now.’

It was evening when the
Sirius
sailed towards Dominica and the setting sun was a huge blinding disk, bright gold in a fiery red and orange sky. Beside its magnificence the island slept in a grey haze, shrouded and mysterious and silent. Jem Templeman was bewitched by it. There was something magical about it, something dreamlike and otherworldly, as if the sky was on fire and the island was a living breathing creature crouching beneath it, lurking and quiet but exuding the strong sweet smell of spices that drifted out to him across the water. Everything about the scene was a lift to his senses. Flocks of small birds rose from the mist and flew like black darts across the blazing sky. The sea around him was speckled with golden lights, as if it too had been sprinkled with fire, although in the shadow of their sails it was the colour of ink and deep as death. He recognized it as a place where amazing things could happen and knew that the pull of it was as strong as a magnet.

‘Imagine living in a place like this,’ he said to Tom. ‘All this colour an’ all.’

‘’Tis a deal too hot for me,’ Tom said, practically, ‘an’ a deal too full of fever. ’Twill look different to ’ee come the morning. Mark my words.’

But the morning revealed the full impact of the great rain forests that covered the hills with their heavy foliage, steaming in the first heat of the day and now Jem could see that there was a little town alongside the harbour. Far from diminishing, the pull of the island was even more
powerful than it had been the night before and it was much too strong to be denied.

‘I’m goin’ ashore to see the sights,’ he decided.

‘You won’t find any,’ Tom warned. ‘There’s only savages lives
hereabouts
. I’ve seen ’em afore.’

‘Very well then,’ Jem grinned. ‘I shall go ashore an’ see the savages.’

‘Madness,’ Tom said, but Jem was already on his way to the longboat. It was as if this island was something he’d been waiting for and if there was a letter being taken ashore he was going with it.

So much had happened to him in the last two years that there were private moments when he felt he was being dragged along from one event to the next as if he had no will or purpose of his own. Life aboard ship was good, there was no denying that. He ate well and slept well and there was plenty of work to do, which was praised and appreciated by his shipmates, and he’d certainly seen the world, but he couldn’t help feeling that there ought to be more to life than food and sleep and work and travel. Something extra and better. Something that would give it all some purpose. He didn’t know what it was but he was sure he could find it if he only had time to sit down and think for a minute. And wasn’t this just the place to do it?