Girl on the Orlop Deck (7 page)

‘I suppose Nelson’ll leave us now he’s got a proper flagship,’ she said. ‘I mean, he won’t stay aboard a frigate when he can have a man ’a war, now, will he? Stand ter reason.’

‘Well, as to that,’ Johnny said, leaning towards her confidentially and speaking right into her ear, ’twill be fine thing fer us if he does, for then there’ll be a cabin to spare for my old mate the carpenter, what I means to make use of.’ And he suddenly put his head into her neck and kissed it.

She was caught up in such a confusion of feelings she didn’t know what to say – shock at his boldness, embarrassment in case someone was watching, fear because he
did
know and there was no gainsaying it now, horror that he was treating her so when she hadn’t given him any reason, but, over and above them all, an instant and undeniable pleasure. She was still shaken by it when he lifted his head, looked straight into her eyes and winked, and then she felt herself blushing and had to turn away to try and hide the tell-tale colour. It didn’t work.

‘There y’are, my lubber,’ he said, hugging her about the waist – only briefly and more of a tug than a hug but that stirred her too. ‘’Twill be a fine ol’ thing. You mark my words. A bit a’ pleasure in our lives.’

She found her tongue as he walked away. ‘No,’ she said. ‘’Tis out the question …’ But he was striding off towards the companionway and wasn’t listening.

My dear heart alive, she thought, now what am I going to do? I can’t take a lover. It en’t possible an’ anyway I en’t that sort. I’m a good respectable woman, that’s what I am, an’ married to Jem, what I been searchin’ for all this time, an’ I don’t belong to no one else. He shouldn’t ha’ come after me like that. An’ specially on board ship. ’Tis too dangerous altogether. What if we was caught? ’Twould be a floggin’ matter. Anyways I don’t want a lover. I got enough to do looking for Jem without that. But, try as she might, she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t tempted. He’d stirred her as much as Jem had done on that distant wedding day. And that wasn’t right, but that was the truth of it. Oh my dear heart alive.

Orders were being piped. There were sails to furl, an anchor to drop. No time to think or worry. The great ships were gathering about their Lord Admiral. Soon longboats were being put out and rowed across bearing messages and mail, to return a few minutes later with invitations to the captains to dine that evening. The ship was hot with activity as fowls were caught and killed and a goat was slaughtered, leaving a pool of blood to be scrubbed clean by the ship’s boys, and below decks, pies and puddings were baked in the great oven, to the usual accompaniment of roars and shouts and a great deal of clanging and banging. It was all wonderfully exciting, even to someone as troubled as Marianne.

Supper was rushed because the watch had to be prepared and ready to pipe the guests aboard. Johnny Galley grumbled about it all through the meal. ‘We shall be sick as dogs, you mark my words, boltin’ our food. ’T’en’t wholesome took so quick.’ But Marianne enjoyed the commotion and the sight of all those fine uniforms climbing aboard lifted her spirits like sunshine. It was as good as being back in town when the gentry were taking the air. She knew there was no hope of finding Jem on any of the ships in this squadron because they’d all been in the Mediterranean long before he’d left Portsmouth. But the sight of them riding the waves around her gave her hope that sooner or later they would meet up with Nelson’s fleet again and then she
would
find him. She hadn’t solved the problem of what she was going to do about Johnny Galley’s advances, but she
would
find Jem. Meantime she’d just have to keep out of Johnny’s way as well as she could and hope that Nelson would stay aboard.

Had she known it, that was precisely what the great admiral was telling his guests at that very moment.

It was always a pleasure to him to entertain his captains, especially when so many of them were old and trusted colleagues, like Hardy and Sir Richard and Captain Keats, and especially when they came bearing news of the thorough search they’d been undertaking. The French fleet was thought to be in Toulon and frigates had been sent to San Fiorenzo, Genoa and Leghorn to test the truth of the reports and to discover how many French troops were there and how they were being deployed. Others had been despatched to look out for an enemy squadron rumoured to be approaching the Mediterranean either from the West Indies or from Brest.

‘We are not very superior in point of numbers,’ Nelson told his captains, ‘so we must keep a good look-out, both here and off Brest. If I
have the means I shall try and fight one party or the other before they form a junction. Is your squadron in good repair?’

‘The
Agincourt
has sprung a leak,’ Sir Richard told him, ‘so she will have to return to Valetta for repairs, but otherwise we are sea-worthy.’

‘Are you well provisioned?’

‘We need fresh water and meat and fruit.’

‘We will send the sloops to the Bay of Rosia and Barcelona,’ Nelson decided, ‘to buy bullocks and oranges and lemons and such fresh greens as they can find. What news of the
Victory
?’

‘She is in the Mediterranean,’ Sir Richard said, ‘but more than that we cannot say.’

Nelson made his final decision of the evening. ‘If that is the case, it is clear she is returning to join us,’ he said. ‘I shall, therefore, stay aboard the
Amphion
with Captain Hardy until such time as we meet with her. More wine, gentlemen?’

The news that their admiral was staying aboard spread around the
Amphion
at breakfast the next morning. Marianne, watching Johnny Galley out of the corner of her eye, was very relieved. It would give her a few more days to think what to do about him. Her friends on the other hand, knowing nothing of his advances and nothing of her indecision, told her exactly what she had to do and urged her to do it at once.

‘You must finish that letter to your ma,’ Moll said. ‘An’ get it all signed and sealed an’ give it to the purser. There’ll be a packet boat sent, you mark my words an’ if you don’t look sharp, you’ll miss it.’

It was good advice, so she took it as soon as she could, crouched by the gun in the half light with her pen clenched tightly in her fist and her tongue between her teeth. At first she couldn’t think what to say. She couldn’t tell her mother she’d got a suitor – she’d be horrified – and it would be cruel to say they were heading for a battle, that would just upset her and all to no purpose because it could all be over by the time the letter arrived. In the end she simply said they’d met up with another fleet, that the oranges in Italy were as big as a pig’s bladder ‘
an that sweet you woudden beleave
’ and that she hadn’t found Jem yet. ‘
Howsomever I shall go on a-trying, you may depend on it
.’ Then she signed her name with a pretty flourish, wrote her mother’s address in bold letters, used her sealing wax for the first time and took her missive to the purser, who promised to put it in the mail sack, ‘this moment as ever is.’

 Then there was nothing for any of them to do but wait and see what would happen next.

They waited for three weeks, while the admiral grew visibly more impatient, pacing the decks with his telescope to his good eye scanning the horizon for the first flicker of a sail. It was the end of the month before one appeared but to everybody’s great relief – except for Marianne – it
was
the
Victory
and following behind her was the rest of the fleet.

There was an instant surge of activity. The admiral’s sea-trunk had to be packed and ready by three bells in the first dog watch, and so had Captain Hardy’s because it appeared that he was going to take command of the
Victory
. A new master arrived to take his place on the
Amphion
and to dine with Captain Hardy and the Admiral at the end of the forenoon watch. Instructions were sent out to the fleet at regular
intervals
throughout the day. Two frigates were given orders to watch Toulon, the
Sirius
was sent to escort Captain Keats to Naples, a sloop was sent to carry the mail to the packet boat. The sea frothed with activity. By 5.30 that afternoon, the Admiral was packed and gone and minutes later his old flagship gave him a nine-gun salute to mark his return.

‘I never know’d a man so quick,’ Moll observed, as the guns roared their welcome. ‘When he’s set his mind to a thing ’tis all you can do to keep up with ’un.’

But Marianne was wondering about the carpenter and his cabin. There seemed to be a lot of activity in the direction of the wardroom. What if he really
was
going to get a cabin? And what if he let Johnny Galley have the use of it? What would she say if he asked her again? And, more to the point, what would she do? She was surrounded by ships of the line and Jem was bound to be on one or other of them so she ought to have been thinking about how she could get ashore and ask after him, but her mind was stuck in the dilemma like a wasp in treacle and couldn’t move on or out to anything else. My dear heart alive, she thought, what am I a-goin’ to do?  

I
T WAS A
bright calm day when the
Sirius
arrived in Naples and the long curved bay was still as a millpond and blue as the sky.

‘Nelson’s love nest is that,’ Tom said to Jem, as the two of them stood by the rail chewing a quid of tobacco and enjoying the scenery. The ship was at anchor, sails furled and under orders to stay in the bay and show the flag, so for once there was little to do. ‘And that there mountain’s a volcano, name of Vesuvius, what spits fire and rock all over you, if you so much as look at it.’

Jem was impressed. ‘I hope it won’t go spittin’ fire while we’m
hereabouts
,’ he said. The mountain looked peaceful enough under the blue sky, but he’d heard enough stories about the power of a volcano to view it with respect and was surprised to see that there was a pink and white building nestling against the lower slopes. ‘People live there seemingly,’ he said.

‘That’s there’s a monastery, so they say,’ Tom told him, spitting his own stream of fiery tobacco into the blue water below them. ‘Monks d’you see, an’ there’s no accountin’ for monks.’

The water lapped against the hull, rhythmically, soothingly, as gentle as a lullaby, lick, lick, lick. The two men turned their heads to spit in unison and returned to their chewing, ruminatively and with
considerable
contentment. ‘This is the life, eh, shipmate?’ Tom said.

‘’Tis a curious place,’ Jem said. ‘I’d like to go ashore.’

‘No chance a’ that,’ his friend told him. ‘You heard what the
lieutenant
said. We’re to stand prepared at all times. ’Tis a fearful place fer fightin’ seemingly.’

It certainly looked it, for there was an ancient fortress beside the harbour made of stone with round tessellated towers and arrow split windows, and along the bay the houses looked like fortifications too, as.
though they’d been built into a cliff face. They were pitted with cavernous doors and windows, black against the sulphurous yellow of the stones, and strung about with rickety balconies, where the washing was hung out to dry and old women sat in the sun, smoking their pipes.

‘That there,’ Tom said, pointing to a grand red villa facing the bay, ‘is where Emma Hamilton lives, what is Nelson’s light a’ love, an’ a saucy baggage by all accounts. That there’s his love nest. He had a palace of his own somewhere hereabouts, I couldn’t tell you where, but that there is his love nest.’

All this talk about love nests was stirring some unexpected emotions in Jem Templeman. It was making him remember his own love nest for a start, that he’d paid for fair and square, and furnished so handsomely. The memory of it was so sharp it was making him yearn to see it again. And yet he’d walked off and left it without a second thought. He couldn’t think how he’d come to be so foolish. Even if she
had
scolded him – which she had, there was no denying that – he didn’t have to run away and join the navy. That was a coward’s trick and, now that he had time to consider it, he could see it. I lost my rag, he thought. That was the trouble. There was no patience in me in them days. And now here he was, miles from home standing by a ship’s rail feeling homesick. Because that’s what he was feeling. Homesick and ashamed of himself for being so stupid.

That evening when supper was over he was at a loss to know what to do. He couldn’t just sit about and mope. That would be foolish and he’d been foolish enough for one lifetime. Eventually he decided to join Tom along with the rest of the watch as they gathered round Old Amos, the story-teller. At least a tale would pass the time.

‘Did ’ee ever hear tell of that ol’ admiral what Lord Nelson hanged?’ Amos said. And when heads were shaken and lips licked in anticipation, he beamed around at them and settled to entertain them. ‘Neapolitan prince he was,’ he said, ‘’asides bein’ admiral, name a’ Prince Carry
Cho-lo
, or some such. Anyways, he were a prince an’ an admiral, like Oi said, an’ he come a-fightin’ the King and Queen a’ Naples what were personal friends of our Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton, what Oi don’t doubt you’ve heard of. An’ ol Admiral Nelson he weren’t havin’ none a’ that. No, sir, not he. So what do he do, moi hearties? Why he sets straight out to capture the man. What he done in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, bein’ the best admiral what ever sailed the high seas. So what happened then, moi lubbers?’

They didn’t know and said so.

‘So what happened then was he put this Carry Cho-lo on trial for treason, tha’s what he done, an’ he found the beggar guilty in no time at all. An’ that afternoon, that very afternoon mind, he put out to sea and he hung the beggar on board his own ship, swung him from his own yardarm so he did, until he was good an’ dead. Tha’s what he done. An’ after that they cut him down an’ put stones in his pockets an’ threw him overboard into the bay an’ watched him sink. An’ they all said that was the end of him an’ a good riddance to bad rubbish.’ Then he paused for a few seconds to let the drama of the story sink in.

‘Now,’ he went on, in a confidential tone, ‘you might think that was the end of the matter. Most men would. Stands to reason. But if they did, moi lubbers, they’d be wrong. Oh my dear life. They
would
be wrong. So what happened next? you ask. Well I’ll tell you. A few days later Lord Nelson was a-givin’ one of those there parties of his, what he gives for all the lords and big-wigs an’ all, out here in the bay on his flagship. An’ they’d just about come to the puddin’ and they was all half seas over an’ laughin’ an’ enjoyin’ theirselves when a great cry went up. Oh a fearsome hullabaloo. Yellin’ an’ shriekin’ an’ all sorts. So they rushed out on deck to see what it was – as anyone would. An’ there was the fleet hung about with sailors, all up in the riggin’ like monkeys they was an’ all pointin’ at the sea an’ yelling and shriekin’ fit to make yer blood run cold. An’ there, out in the bay, standin’ bolt upright in the water and movin’ straight towards them, was that ol’ Prince Carry Cho-lo, dead as a doornail with his eyes open and his long hair a-trailin’ in the water, looking straight at Lord Nelson like an avengin’ spirit come back for justice. Now what do ’ee think to that, moi hearties? Like an avengin’ spirit, he was, come back for to haunt Lord Nelson with his eyes open an’ his long hair a-flowin’ on the tide.’

‘My dear heart alive!’ Tom said. ‘I wouldn’t ha’ liked to ha’ been Lord Nelson.’

‘Nor me neither, moi hearty,’ Amos said. ‘For ’twas an omen a’ bad luck whichever which way you looks at it. What Oi hopes we shan’t have cause to regret when we comes to fightin’ the Frenchies.’

Several of his hearers crossed themselves and said ‘Amen!’ Fighting the Frenchies would be bad enough without having a curse on you.

‘I didn’t like the sound a’ that at all,’ Tom said to Jem when the group dispersed. ‘Do you think it really was an omen?’

‘No, I do not,’ Jem told him. ‘I don’t believe in omens. I think we makes our own fortunes with our own behaviour.’ And he should know.

‘But you can’t tell, can ’ee?’ Tom said sombrely. ‘I means for to say, there’s some uncommon strange things happen at sea. Downright unnat’ral some of ’em. There’s a feller aboard seen a mermaid once, so he says. Singin’ to him she was, right out at sea, with long green hair an’ everythin’.’

‘You don’t believe
that
, surely?’ Jem said. A drifting corpse was one thing, a mermaid quite another.

‘You never knows, my ol’ lubber,’ Tom said. ‘You never knows.’ Then he laughed. ‘’Twould be a rare ol’ thing to write home about.’

His words stirred Jem’s conscience for the second time that day. He hadn’t sent a single letter home since he enlisted and he knew he should have done. ’Twas just that writing was such a fearful thing, all that struggle with pens and ink and such, and not knowing what to say nor how to spell it. Anyway they’ll’ve forgot all about me by now, he thought, trying to quell his conscience and failing. I’ll write tomorrow. That’s what I’ll do. Tomorrow as ever is.

Marianne’s letter was delivered to her mother’s house on a warm easy morning in September. It wasn’t exactly an undivided blessing. To start with, it took far too long to scrape together sufficient money to pay for it, and then, when it was finally put into her hands, there was no one around who could read it for her and that was an anguish that made her chest ache. She’d waited so long for this promised letter and now here it was and it was useless. She put it on the kitchen table and stared at it for a very long time, but apart from the signature and the word ‘pig’, which didn’t seem at all likely, the handwriting remained inscrutable despite her most earnest scrutiny. Eventually she picked it up and took it down the street to Lizzie Templeman’s to see what she could make of it.

‘Well, now,’ Lizzie said, pursing her lips and assuming a learned expression, ‘I en’t exactly what you might call a scholar, not in the true meanin’ a’ the word, not in the way a scholar might take meanin’ from it, but I’ll see what I can make out. ’Twon’t be all of it, mind, there bein’ a parlous lot a’ writing.’ She paused and studied the letter, narrowing her eyes in order to see it better. ‘That there is
I am well
,’ she said, pointing at the words. ‘That there is an
I
and that says
well
and that there says
fine
ship
, what you would expect a-comin’ from a sailor, what she is now if you comes to think about it.’

‘What’s that great long word in the middle?’ Mary said, pointing at
Meddytranium
.

‘That’ll be where she is, like enough,’ Lizzie said, ‘but don’t ask me to pronounce it. I can’t be doin’ with foreign words. English is bad enough in all conscience without that.’

‘That word there is
Jem
,’ Mary said, suddenly discovering it. ‘What does she say about
him
? Can you read that bit?’

‘
I en
’
t found Jem yet
,’ Lizzie read, surprising them both by her fluency. ‘Well, that don’t surprise me. I never thought she would, not in the middle of an ocean.’

‘If anyone can find him she will,’ Mary told her stoutly. ‘You can depend on it, Lizzie. She’s made up her mind to it.’

‘I’m sure she will if she can,’ Lizzie said. ‘She’s a good gel. Always was. I hope they’re looking out for her on that ship of hers. My Jem can look arter hisself, great lummox that he is, but she’s jest a slip of a gel.’

‘Only they don’t know that, do they?’ Mary pointed out. ‘They think she’s a boy so she’ll be treated accordin’.’ Her face was crumpling with distress, tears dropping from her eyes. ‘There en’t a day goes by I don’t think of her, wonderin’ how she is an’ if they’re treatin’ her fair. Not a single day. I looks on her weddin’ ring and I thinks and thinks.’

‘Don’t take on so, my lover,’ Lizzie said, putting a comforting arm round her friend’s bowed shoulders. ‘She’s writ you a good long letter, which you got to admit, shows she’s thinkin’ of ’ee, which is a sight more than Jem’s ever done for me. Don’t fret. She’ll be home in no time at all, you see if she en’t, with a poll-parrot on her shoulder most likely.’

But Mary’s long control had been breeched and she had too many tears to shed to be comforted. ‘Treated like a boy,’ she wept, ‘and she was always such a dear, good gel. Treated like a boy. And they say there’s a great sea battle a-coming. What if she’s caught up in that? She could be killed.’

‘There’s no point thinking about battles,’ Lizzie said practically. ‘If ’tis to come, ’twill come and there’s nothing we can do about it. Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. That’s my way a’ thinking.’

‘Treated like a boy,’ Mary wept. ‘My Marianne, all on her own in some horrible sea at the ends of the earth, an’ treated like a boy.’

It would have surprised them both to know that the
boy
was being treated very well. The
boy
was being courted.

Johnny Galley set about his courtship in his usual way and after careful preparation. First, he helped his old shipmate Mr Ferguson to move back into his cabin, and praised him for a first-rate carpenter who should never have been moved out of it in the first place, then he threw out hints that he might like to make use of it ‘now an’ then like if occasion were to arise, if you was agreeable’, and to his great delight he’d been given permission, after being told he was a dog, ‘damn my eyes if you ain’t’. After that, everything being in order, he set about enticing his ladylove.

At first he tried larger portions of skillygalee, plum duff and spotted dog because he knew she was partial to them. Then he suggested to the cook that he’d found a fine lad to help out in the galley ‘from time to time like’ and, after waiting for a day when a north-west wind was blowing fit to chill her bones, he took her to work there for part of her watch. It pleased him to help her into one of the privileged positions on board and he felt protective to be taking her out of the teeth of a gale – but better than both those things, it would give her an excuse to be somewhere else in case her mates took to wondering where she was once their affair was underway. However, being wily in the arts of seduction he didn’t say anything nor make any advances yet awhile for fear of alarming her. Steady as she goes, he said to himself, as he watched her scoffing her skillygalee, smiling as she lifted the spoon to her mouth. She’ll come round to it. They allus do.

Meantime, pushed on by Nelson’s determination, the fleet was hunting the French and since the
Amphion
was no longer his flagship, she was back on duty as a frigate and had plenty to do. They were continually on the move, to Rosia bay to buy citrus fruit and fresh meat, to various watering holes to fill the leagers, to Toulon because the French fleet were rumoured to be lurking there and, whenever the weather allowed it, round and round the islands of Minorca, Majorca, Sardinia and Corsica keeping a sharp look-out from dawn to sunset and never seeing anything beyond fishing boats and other ships of the line. The weather was bad that autumn and often against them. There were days when they worked the ship hard from sunrise to sunset and made so little progress it wasn’t worth the effort and worse ones when they couldn’t move at all but had to furl sails and sit it out until the storm blew over.