HMS Aurora: A Charles Mullins Novel (Sea Command Book 3) (3 page)

There was no great rush to get Aurora fitted out. She was a badly-damaged, captured French corvette, which had initially been consigned to the reserve fleet in ordinary. At the time, there were doubts whether she would ever see the sea again. It was only a casual remark from the First Lord to one of his people, to the effect it would be fine if a ship could be found for young Commander Mullins. Lord Spencer was well aware of the efforts of Captain Mullins, and the lack of appreciation he had gained.

The lower echelon functionary who heard Spencer’s remark did not really know whether he was serious or not. Nevertheless, a stroke of his pen brought the much-battered former corvette out of ordinary and into the hands of the skilled workmen of the dockyard who would make her a living ship again.

Months later, after the sometimes desultory work of the dockyard had gone its course, Mullins had his meeting in the Admiralty and received the command. The original request by Spencer had long been forgotten, and Mullins’ acquisition of the command was now rather fortuitous.

At any rate, here he was, the captain of a fine ship with no real purpose. By now, Captain Mullins had gained a certain reputation. Granted, many good seamen lost life and limb under his command, but luckier ones made their fortunes from the prizes their captain took. With the unlikely prospect of Aurora going to sea soon to sort out the King’s enemies, the Impress Service saw little need to provide the ship with seamen.

Still, day by day, men aware of the prospects possible on a ship under Captain Mullins command found ways to come on board. One such man was Ephraim Hudson. A member of a religious sect denouncing the Church of England, Hudson had early on studied to become a minister of this sect. He had acquired a fine education, only to find he found he no longer had the will or desire to be a man of God.

Unable to make a living preaching the word of God, he had taken to performing odd jobs for those able to pay. On this day, Ephraim had undertaken to paint the outside of a seaside pub. Nearing dusk, he was nearly finished the task, when he learned the pub’s owner had left the vicinity, saying the work was not acceptable and he would not be paying.

Without funds to buy a simple meal, Hudson was at his wits end. Without food, he would find it difficult to find and perform work on the morrow.

Desperate, he went into the pub, offering to trade his day’s work for a simple meal from the kitchen. He was summarily evicted from the premises. As he lay there bruised in the filth of the street, a pair of seamen picked him up and dusted him off. After he explained himself, the two took him across the street to a competing pub and bought him a three-penny meal.

Better fed than he had been for weeks, he expressed his appreciation. The men admitted to being from a ship captained by the famous Captain Mullins. Ephraim was told every man aboard this ship was fed a ration of a gallon of beer, a pound of bread and two pounds of beef every day.

After expressing his disbelief, the men offered to ferry him out to the ship where he might see for himself this largess. Before boarding the launch, he was handed a silver shilling. He initially refused the coin since he did not like to receive charity. The men assured him the coin was only to assure the ship’s officers that he was not indeed penniless.

Of course, after coming on board, Ephraim met the new first officer and found he was now a lawful member of the ship’s company, having accepted the King’s shilling. Early on, at anchor as they were, the work for a landsman was not arduous, and the food, although not quite as described by his recruiters, was still much better than the sometimes disgusting scraps on which he had recently became accustomed to subsist every day.
 

Bob Archer. as a familiar of the captain, was seen as living in the lap of luxury, by the other hands. With few able to puzzle out the exact relationship between the two, Archer was given much latitude, escaping the usual hazing offered to new young men. It was only after the additional warrant and petty officers came aboard that matters became straightened out.

Archer was then assigned to a mess and required to perform the expected duties of a newly assigned landsman. Instead of dossing down in the cubby by the bread room, he was issued a hammock which he would hang in the crew’s mess deck. Unable now to spend time with Captain Mullins, he now lost much of the mystique he had acquired when he came aboard in the captain’s launch.

Mullins himself, was of two minds concerning the boy. He had seen enough of him during the winter in London to realize the lad had qualities which the Navy might be able to use. However, he was illiterate, thus not able to become a midshipman and start the long climb to officer’s rank. Without his letters, he would have to start out at the bottom and perhaps find a petty officer’s rating years later.

One morning, Mullins was walking the quarterdeck, when he saw one of the newly joined petty officers starting a hand with a rope’s end. He had already made known his opposition to this punishment as a general practice, so it was not often seen aboard Aurora. This petty officer was new, so perhaps he had not received the message.

After explaining that ‘starting’ was not a usual form of punishment on a ship he commanded, he asked the man to explain what was his purpose.

Bosun’s Mate Wells told him the man was awkward and ignorant, only able to read the books he had brought aboard. Nodding, Mullins told the petty officer there would be no more starting for this purpose.

When the ship’s first officer, Lieutenant Daley came up from his constitutional, Mullins questioned him. Daley had just come aboard himself, but he knew Ephraim Hudson. “Not worth the powder to blow him to hell”, the officer announced.

Intrigued, Mullins, after he became bored reading through the bales of correspondence the Admiralty sent him, decided it was his duty to inspect this unfortunate character. Ordering his marine sentry to pass the word for the individual, he at first became aware of the impression this man had made upon the ship’s company.

In the first instance, he spoke with an upper-class accent, although he was classed as a landsman, one of the lowest rates on the ship. Then too, he seemed to know nothing about the Navy or what it was he was supposed to be doing.

Standing in front of Mullin’s desk, the man was shaking in fear. His shipmates had explained to the gullible young man the various grotesque punishments liable to be imposed upon him for being such a useless hand. Unwilling to terrify the man further, Mullins quietly asked Hudson to tell him about himself. Hudson, after some false starts, explained his early idea of becoming a dissenting minister. After finishing his education however, he had changed course, and decided to give up the religious life. This enraged his father and the members of his community who had funded his education.

Mullins was intrigued by this well-educated lower deck hand. One of his recent trials was the lack of a ship’s clerk who could write a fair hand. His own writing probably brought many a smile to some admirals’ clerks.

As a test, he left a document he had been composing, detailing shortages in the lower deck’s provision supply, on his own desk, with a pen, paper and ink supply. Telling Hudson, he was going on deck for a bit, he should do his best to copy the text into a more legible form. When finished, he should notify the Marine sentry outside.

Once outside, leaning against the leeward quarterdeck rail, he watched the boys and young midshipmen disporting themselves in the rigging overhead. Some of the lads seemed to be of almost circus ability. One of the more ungainly was young Bob Archer, who was saved from a bone-shattering plunge to the deck below when Ned Onsley, a promising oldster, casually deflected the falling youth to the mizzen backstay.

Archer, rubbing his rope-burned hands, after his chilling slide to the deck on that stay, climbed onto the starboard mizzen chains and began scurrying up the ratlines, touching his forehead to his master and captain in passing. In seconds, the youth was back at the aerial gymnastics his new friends were playing at while Mullins was called back to duty by his Marine sentry.

Hudson was standing by the table, with the offending paperwork in one pile, and his neatly stacked trials in another. Glancing through the work, his captain was astonished by their perfection. Not a flaw or blot was to be seen on the otherwise perfect papers. Mullins directed Hudson to sit and explained the duties of a captain’s clerk, showing him the little cubby by the bread room where he would hang his hammock. He also assured the prospective clerk that he would make it known to the ship’s company, especially the various petty officers, that the captain’s clerk was exempt from many of the general duties aboard ship.

Hudson was silent after his captain’s offer and Mullins offered to allow the man to think about the offer for a day. “Speak with your friends of the job, see what they have to say,” offered Mullins.

Hudson then, with absolutely no friends aboard Aurora, immediately accepted and was told to collect his gear and transport it to his new berth.

Having swung at anchor in HMS Aurora for an extended period, her people were becoming concerned. It was not unprecedented for a ship, in similar circumstances, to suddenly receive orders to go back into ordinary, her crew and officers scattered to the winds, with her intended mission having seemingly evaporated.

There was some concern when a well-appointed boat from the flag approached and a smartly uniformed junior lieutenant came aboard and handed Lieutenant Daley a packet to be delivered to Captain Mullins. The Lieutenant refused an invitation to visit Aurora’s wardroom, where possibly the cause for this delay might be inveigled from him over a few bottles of wine. He left immediately to return to the flag.

The packet was carried by the duty midshipman to the cabin, guarded by a pair of senior petty officers, sure that this cack-handed mid would lose the papers over the side on the way. In minutes, the mid emerged, told the officer of the watch the captain needed his gig and boat crew to take him over to the flag at once. With this information passed down, the ship became a beehive as the boat received last minute polishes that should have been done last week, while her crew frantically tried to borrow articles of clothing to wear that would present them in a better light. While this was going on, Mister Daley approached the midshipman and casually asked what had transpired in the cabin.

Young Mister Green, who had delivered the packet to the cabin, was normally deathly afraid of the first officer, but the captain had warned him under no circumstances was he to disclose anything he saw or heard there. Besides, he had seen or heard nothing. After opening the packet and going through the contents, the captain had simply grunted, put the papers in his desk and locked its door.

Mullins, on his way to the flag, was in the same stage of nervous anticipation as the rest of the crew. Of course, the saving grace for him, was he knew he would find out soon enough. On boarding the flag, although he was greeted by the flag captain and the flag lieutenant, the admiral was nowhere to be seen.

To make matters more interesting, he was led to the wardroom where he saw a coterie of people dressed in civilian clothing around the wardroom table. After being shown to a seat, one of the Marines standing sentry at the door left his post and began serving wine to the visitors, while the other Marine made an ostensible display of opening the doors to the officer’s berths and making certain each was empty. With that fact demonstrated, the Marines were ordered to leave the room and take station outside.

With all extraneous personnel out of the wardroom, one of the people at the table arose and introduced himself. “I am Admiral Simmons, from the Admiralty. I was once an honest sailor like yourself, Captain Mullins. Now, I am one of those Whitehall functionaries who daily tries to ruin our Navy. My purpose here is to introduce these people with me. I do not know, nor do I wish to know what they will have you doing. You should know though these gentlemen are operating with the full support and knowledge of the First Lord of the Admiralty. Their orders and advice shall be followed as though they came from any other superior officer. Now, I will leave you to your peril. Goodbye, gentlemen!”

Simmons left through the wardroom door and was not seen by Mullins again for many years. One of the other men rose and went to the stern windows and flung one open. “This is a good place. Let’s do this by the window.”

The others migrated to the open window letting in the cold air of the harbor, as well as the typical harbor noises. The others also looked out, and the other window thrown open to allow more wind and harbor noise to enter the wardroom.

The seeming leader of the group turned to Mullins and announced, “We are, all of us, intelligence advisors to Whitehall. It is our function to gather information on what is happening across the Channel to deliver to various government agencies as needed. Some information has been gathered jointly, some separately, in an effort to maintain secrecy. At this late date, none of us know or can disclose the complete sum of the information we are about to pass on to you. Each of us will pass a packet of information to you before we leave. You will take these packets with you to your ship, where you will place them in a secure area, where they will not be capable of access by anyone other than yourself.

When you have done this, you will request permission to sail as you normally would, and do so when ordered. Once out of sight of land, you may open the compartment and read through the contents of the individual packets. You will be directed to a certain location where you will take on board a particular passenger. This passenger will identify himself by presenting you with a torn scrap of paper. This scrap will match with other such scraps you will have in your possession. In each of your packets you will find a similar torn scrap. These are simply for identification purposes and any information on them shall be considered irrelevant and disregarded.”