Heart of Oak (18 page)

Despite all those present it seemed unusually quiet, only the sounds of cordage and canvas, the creak of timber or spar, breaking the stillness.

The midshipmen were crowded together by one of the quarterdeck carronades, opposite the gangway where a grating had been rigged upright. Close by, but separated by years and experience, the warrant officers had already assembled. The backbone in every man-of-war: no ship would sail, fight or even survive without them. Tobias Julyan, as sailing master, had grown to know them in the long months since
Onward
’s commissioning. In their faces now he saw resignation, even impatience, as might be expected from men who had seen almost every aspect of a sailor’s life.

From where he stood Julyan could hear the occasional creak of the wheel, beyond some of the hands on watch, and saw the helmsman in his mind’s eye, a good man, not the sort to let his attention stray from the compass.

He looked at the rigged grating and felt his mouth go dry, and glanced at the midshipmen. Youngsters, full of hope. They looked to
him
now. That other memory should have died, with so many others. But at times like these…

Over twenty years ago. He had been as young as the seaman at the wheel. Some of the older hands still yarned about the Great Mutiny in the fleet at the Nore and Spithead. France was poised to invade, and the horror of the guillotine and the fear of revolution was stark and very real.

Reason had triumphed eventually, and guilt been admitted by both factions, quarterdeck and forecastle. Julyan remembered one captain who had ordered a man flogged because he was slow to obey an order:
showing disrespect to an officer
, he had claimed. And there had been others…maybe there had always been others…who would treat a pressed man like scum, even though he had been torn bodily from the arms of his family or lover and dragged aboard.

One mutineer had been sentenced to four hundred lashes, and to be flogged through the fleet. Julyan could see it now. Hear it. The procession of boats, crewed by witnesses from each vessel at anchor that day, pausing at each rated ship while a proportion of the punishment was awarded alongside. Four hundred lashes. How could that
thing
have survived?

Some movement made him turn his head and he saw that one of the midshipmen had crouched down behind the carronade. The youngest, who was always being sick. He had heard them joking about it.
Even if the ship was in dry dock!
The youngster next to him had leaned over and put his hand on the boy’s heaving shoulder. It was Napier, the one who had survived
Audacity.
Sponsored by the Captain. Somehow it was seemly…

“Attention on the upper deck!”

Like a little parade. Rowlatt, the master-at-arms, and the ship’s corporal, with the prisoner lurching between them. Two boatswain’s mates, one carrying the tell-tale red baize bag which contained the cat. Lastly Murray, the surgeon, to ensure that the prisoner did not lose consciousness.

The surgeons must have been deaf and blind that other, terrible day.

High above them some one called out: a topman needing assistance from his mate. Nobody looked up.

Adam Bolitho walked to the quarterdeck rail, his coat heavy in the heat and already clinging to his shoulders. Would he never become hardened to the demands and the doubts? He was no longer that young and often unsure commander in his first ship, the one he had evoked for Lowenna during their last waterfront stroll in Falmouth. Would she believe him if she could see him now?

Vincent was making his report, but his back was to the sun, his face in shadow and impossible to read.

Adam looked the length of the ship, at the upturned faces and the figures in the shrouds, silhouetted against the sea and sky. Some were still strangers, others emerged from obscurity with names and voices, a living force.

He looked down at the prisoner for the first time.

“John Dimmock, you are accused of neglect of duty, that you were asleep on watch.” He sounded hoarse, and wanted to clear his throat. Some of the silent onlookers would not be able to hear him. “…and that you showed contempt to a superior officer.”

Dimmock was staring up at him intently, his eyes red-rimmed as if from heavy drinking. Smuggled rum from messmates, despite the risk of discovery.

“Have you anything to say?”

Dimmock seemed to straighten his back. “Nuthin’!”

The master-at-arms gripping his wrist hissed, “Nothin’,
sir!
”

Adam stepped back slightly and said, “Carry on.”

Behind him he heard some one take a deep breath. It was Luke Jago. Always the same, every time he saw or heard the ritual of punishment. Jago had been flogged in error. The officer responsible had been court-martialled and dismissed the service in disgrace, and Jago had received a written apology from an admiral and a sum of cash which had amounted to a year’s pay. But he would carry the scars of the cat to his grave.

“Seized up, sir!”

Adam felt the Articles of War pressing against his side, against the old sword. Jago’s way of telling him. Of sharing it.

He removed his hat, and knew others were following his example. Dimmock was stripped to the waist and pinioned against the grating. There was a tattoo of some kind on his right shoulder, faded now and probably acquired when he had been a much younger man, as was the habit of landsmen and raw recruits, as an act of bravado or when awash with too much rum. It was usually regretted afterwards.

Adam took the Articles of War from Jago and spread the final page: Article number thirty-six. He had heard it read aloud often enough, and could remember reading these same words for the first time.

“All crimes not capital, committed by any person or persons in the Fleet
…”
Once he felt the deck tilt more steeply, with the responding slap of canvas. The wind was dropping, or had shifted slightly due to the nearness of land. But his voice remained level, unhurried.
“…
shall be punished according to the Laws and Customs of such cases used at sea.
”
He closed the folder. “One dozen lashes.”

One of the boatswain’s mates had pulled the cat-o’-nine-tails from its bag and shook it so that the tails fell free, but his eyes were on the captain, not the prisoner.

Adam replaced his hat.

“Do your duty.”

The man’s arm swung out to its full extent and the cat struck Dimmock’s bare back with a sickening crack.

“One.”
The master-at-arms had begun to count, his voice matter-of-fact.

Jago had been watching a strange, dark-winged seabird he did not recognize as it swooped past the foretop, but felt his eyes drawn relentlessly to the gangway and the figure tied to the grating. Under a spell, unable to escape, like the prisoner. He could feel it like that day, the force of the blows driving the breath from his lungs, his body unable to move or to yield against the grating. And then the pain. Like nothing you could believe or describe.

“Two.”

There was blood now, the force of the lash opening the flesh as if by the claws of a beast. Jago could recall the blood nearly choking him. He had bitten through his lip or tongue. The surgeon had stopped the flogging to examine him, but only briefly, and the ordeal had continued. He remembered his own half-mad sense of triumph when the last blow had fallen across his torn and blackened body. Hatred had saved him then, and for countless days afterwards.

“Three.”

Jago saw the captain’s fingers on the hilt of his sword. His hand was tanned, but the knuckles were white from the force of his grip. Jago had known captains who would order two or three dozen lashes merely for spitting on the deck.

“Four.”

The boatswain’s mate faltered, the cat swinging in mid-air and blood spattering his arm, while Rowlatt twisted round, mouth open and ready for the next count.

An explosion, like distant thunder, echoing and re-echoing across the unbroken water. But sharper, and drowned by the shouts and confusion as men stared outboard or at each other, then, inevitably, to the figure in blue with one hand on his sword.

Adam leaned over the rail and tried to see beyond the starboard bow, but the headsails made it impossible.
Nautilus
should be in sight. Otherwise…

He saw Vincent striding to join him, his face alive with questions.

Adam said, “Marchand’s emergency signal. Pipe the hands aloft and get the courses on her. The wind’s dropping, so let’s use what we have!”

He heard a groan from the gangway. It helped to focus his thoughts.

“Cut down the prisoner and have him taken below.”

The master-at-arms called, “What about the punishment, sir?” Confused, even indignant. “Less than half, sir!”

Adam stared up at the masthead pendant.
Not much. But enough.
As if he were telling the ship, or himself.

“Send some good eyes aloft, Mr Vincent. The best you can muster. Give him a glass, mine if it saves time.” He knew he was speaking too fast, and why. He looked at Rowlatt, who was still standing by the blood-splashed grating. “
Ended!
We have work to do.”

Jago saw his face as he made his way to the companion.

Preparing himself for whatever lay ahead. But Jago had known him longer than any one else aboard, and was gripped by what he had just witnessed. Like Dimmock, the prisoner, the Captain had been cut free.

M
IDSHIPMAN
D
AVID
N
APIER
climbed steadily up the foremast ratlines, his hands and feet working in unison, the deck already far below him. He felt the sun on his neck and shoulders as the foretop loomed over him, and he arched his back to swing out and around it. He could still remember all those first attempts, when he had scrambled up the shrouds with the other boys and midshipmen. The sailor’s way, around the futtock shrouds, all toes and fingers like a monkey. It still made him hold his breath until he was up and reaching for the next challenge.

The deck was angled beneath him, less crowded, only the duty watch standing by the braces and trimming the freshly set courses.

The first lieutenant had told him to join the masthead lookout. “And don’t drop that glass, or you need not come down again!”

To break the tension, perhaps in the only way he knew.

The grating had been lowered, and two men were scrubbing it clean. The prisoner who had been flogged had already vanished below.

Napier had heard a marine say in an undertone, “His lucky day, I reckon.”

He gripped the barricade of the foretop and stared across the blue water. The land appeared sharper now, with shadows marking inlets, and the harder wedge of headland beyond.

And he saw the
Nautilus
, apparently hove to, sails loose and aback, poised above her own shadow.

He recalled hearing the third lieutenant, Monteith, remark, “This is where we part company, and good riddance!”

He took a deep breath and pulled himself on to the next stretch of ratlines.
Don’t look down. Don’t count every step.
It helped expunge the sound of the lash from his memory. The gasps of agony. He had witnessed floggings before, had sensed the hostility of those around him.
Us and them.
And it was still there: he had just passed a seaman coiling some halliards. The man had deliberately looked away.

He felt his ankle twist, his foot jerk sharply from the ratline. He had almost forgotten the pain, the numbing shock that seemed to burn into his leg like fire, or the surgeon’s knife.

His shirt was plastered to his back. Sweat, fear. Some one called out, but he could not speak or breathe.

“You all right down there?” Then again, more sharply, “Don’t move! Don’t even blink! I’m coming!”

He lost track of time; maybe he had fainted. He was lying on his back with some one kneeling beside him. Naked to the waist, skin tanned like leather: one of the topmen. He could see the heavy scabbard at his belt, the sort favoured by professional seamen for knife and marline spike. He felt him gripping his breeches, the cloth tearing like paper.

“
Jesus!
What did this to you?”

He had turned slightly, and Napier saw his face, young and open, in his twenties; he had been in the navy since he was twelve. Napier struggled to sit up, to clear his throat.

“
Tucker.
I thought for a minute…”

“That’s me.” He had his arm around his shoulders. “I’ll fetch help.”

Napier shook his head. “Not yet, David. I have to look at something.” It was like a fog lifting from his mind. They had first met when Tucker had asked him if he would read a letter he had received, as he could neither read nor write, and they had discovered they shared the same Christian name. Little enough, but it had been a bridge between the
us
and
them.

Napier had written two or three letters for him after that, and in exchange Tucker had taught him the finer points of ropework and splicing. But most of all, they had talked. Tucker was an orphan, and had been signed into the navy by a relative of some kind. The easy escape. Something else they shared.

He was on his feet, gripping Tucker’s arm, swaying with him like two drunks after a run ashore.

He said, “I must use the glass. Now, before it happens again!”

Tucker watched him doubtfully. “If you say so. Sir.”

He glanced down to the foretop again: the other seaman had gone. He looked back at Tucker, who was unfastening the telescope. Would it have made a difference?

Tucker said, “Fine piece of work,” and rolled it expertly in strong fingers. “What’s this writing say?” and when Napier told him, “God Almighty, the same name as the Captain!”

“It belonged to his uncle. Did you know him?”

Tucker smiled, but there was sadness in it.

“Who didn’t?”

Napier steadied himself against the barricade. “The Frenchman fired a signal, hove to for a rendezvous. We’re standing by in case of any local disputes.” He sucked in his breath; the pain was coming again. “That was how it was explained to us.”