On a Making Tide (21 page)

But silently he was trying and failing to press down his glee. A question that had troubled him since his first days in the Navy was now resolved. He could take carnal pleasure from the company of a woman.

On Nelson’s return to the ship Colbourne’s Indian servant was waiting for him, at the foot of the gangplank, protected by two tall retainers, carrying a casket of coins, as well as a receipt that he required to be signed. Refusing to come aboard, the servant ensured that the payment of the gambling debt was made in public, the money counted out to the young man before the eyes of his shipmates.

Instead of feeling elated though, Nelson felt somewhat indisposed. He had a sore head and his mouth tasted of metal. His friends failed to lift his spirits with their jokes about where he had been, and the new nickname, the Nabob, that referred to his good fortune at the table. He wasn’t sure that it had been good fortune, since he had felt increasingly unwell since he had exchanged Colbourne’s promissory notes for golden guineas. He was sweating excessively, even given the heat, and lassitude made every physical act a chore.

Everyone aboard seemed to know precisely where he had been. Worse, most of the mids wanted a blow-by-blow account of his adventures. As a senior in the mess he could, and did, demand privacy, his growls chasing away the prepubescent, whose curiosity far outweighed that of his contemporaries. Gratefully, even in the fetid heat of the mid’s berth, he lay on his cot, his mind filled with whirring images of God, devils, sea battles and naked dark skinned whores disguised as mermaids. He fell into the first serious bout of the fever, thinking he was sinking into a refreshing sleep.

‘Malaria, no doubt about it.’

The disembodied voices seemed like part of the troubled dream. Yet through half-open eyes Nelson could make out the vague shape of the master. Surridge was holding a lantern above his head and another shape was looking into his face, lamenting, ‘Your young men will gad about the place as if it were part of England. I have said time and again that a warning should be issued. I’ll wager that not one of those who went on a picnic bothered to ascertain if their chosen site was in any proximity to a swamp.’

‘Surely the damaging vapours are confined?’ asked Surridge.

‘They are clearly not, sir,’ the other voice responded angrily, ‘as this young man in his cot testifies. The malodorous airs are on the winds, infecting all those in their path, even healthy young fellows eating cold collations on a sandy riverside beach. It is my belief that they take on an extra strength as the sun dips, the cool of the approaching evening giving
them vigour. Have you not noted it, sir? The wind abates in the heat of the day, only to rise and stir as evening approaches.’

‘I am a ship’s master, Mr Underwood,’ said Surridge, coldly. ‘It is my trade to know such things.’

The name registered. Underwood was the chief surgeon of HMS
Ramilles,
a man noted for the forthrightness of his views, medical or not, a fractious, argumentative fellow who was a sore trial at the dinner table. This was true even to the Commodore, which Nelson had noted on his one visit to the flagship’s dining cabin.

It was as though Underwood hadn’t heard Surridge speak. ‘The shore hospital is full of them, men who swore that alive to the risk, they had never exposed themselves. And I daresay my sickbay will follow on this commission, just as it did when I was surgeon to the
Dreadnought
on the Windward Islands station.’

‘What can we expect?’

‘A crisis in the fever, which this fellow—’

‘Mr Nelson,’ Surridge interjected.

‘I know his name and it will not save him, Mr Surridge. He will either expire and go to meet his Maker, this within two days, or he will recover for a while. After that, it will be as God wills.’

‘There is no release.’

It wasn’t a question, and it wasn’t treated as such. ‘It will be with him for life, and if another affliction does not carry him off, I daresay it will do for the young man in the end.’

‘Is there aught we can do?’

‘First we must wait to see how he fares, and that, I fear, will depend on his own vital spark.’

‘He’s a robust young man.’

‘That is of little account. I’ve seen physical giants go down in a twelve-hour bout and others who would not qualify to be called a yard and a half of piss survive to see old bones. It is the inner being that matters in these affairs – dare I call it the soul. But if he’s still with us at the end of the week we must do something to get him away from this deadly climate. A second malady is not impossible, and that will surely kill him. Get him to sea. Not even the strongest breeze can carry the disease out to the oceans. No man in any ship I have served on has fallen foul of the malarial disease unless close to an evil shore.’

Nelson closed his eyes as the cool wet cloth touched his forehead, which brought back memories of that narrow cubicle and the girl with whom he had shared it. An hour later, when they moved him, he was delirious, the sweat running off his body in rivulets, hardly able to drink the water that Mallory insisted he take, despite protests from the loblolly boy, who ran this sickbay, that it hadn’t been prescribed by the surgeon.

‘There’s water pouring out of him,’ Mallory insisted. ‘Stands to reason
that if he leaks like dried-out planking, the only thing to tighten up his seams is more of the same. Too much loss and he’ll peg out for certain.’

‘You gone soft, Mallory?’ asked one of his shipmates, a pigtailed young topman, hovering to observe his ministrations.

‘Just returning a favour, mate.’

‘Or seeking to grasp hold of an easy duty,’ added another. That earned the speaker a hard look, which was returned in full measure. ‘You was overheard, mate, asking for the care of the lad.’

‘That’s my duty,’ squeaked the loblolly boy, an emaciated individual with a high, squeaky voice. He had no medical training and had only been given the job because he was utterly useless anywhere else. One of the visiting sailors poked him in the ribs.

‘Mallory here reckons Nellie’s got more chance with the Grim Reaper than he has with you.’

‘Then I’ve got to keep him mortal to prove it, ain’t I?’ Mallory snarled. ‘Now, fuck off out of here, the lot of you, and give the poor bugger some air.’

The next forty-eight hours were harder to watch than to live, since the patient had no idea of his condition. Mallory tended him constantly, relieved from his other duties for the purpose, stuck in stifling heat that seemed increased to furnace level ’tween decks, which frayed his temper.

So did the attention of the officers, midshipmen and the master, who vexed the able seaman with their questions as to the youngster’s condition. The surgeon Mr Underwood was welcomed, though irritated himself as Mallory pressed forward, asking questions, suggesting remedies and
interfering
in the examination. No one else was well received, though Captain George Farmer and the premier, Mr Stemp, had to be indulged. They rated a rise to the feet and a touch of the forelock; other officers along with Mr Surridge, justified elevation to a half crouch and a nod, with enough gruff in the voice to denote displeasure. All the mids got was a stream of blasphemy, especially if they woke Mallory from one of his frequent catnaps. The loblolly boy was confined to fetching buckets of cool water.

It was three days before Nelson opened an eye. Mallory had strict instructions to inform his superiors at the first sight of improvement, but he hesitated, bathing the face till both eyes opened, the drooped lids showing just a hint of the blue-grey eyes.

‘There you are now, Nellie, back with us after a visit to the other side.’

‘Where am I?’ Nelson croaked.

‘Below decks, still berthed on Calcutta shore.’ Gently Mallory raised his head and allowed him to sip some water. ‘You’ve been right ill, you have, scaring the whole ship.’

‘Ill?’

‘A fever that’s laid you low these three days past, with half your berth wondering if your card winnings were to be shared if you pegged out or taken home to your family.’

The pale damp head, hair plastered to the scalp, shook slowly, the eyes flickering as Mallory told him about the card game and his winnings, as well as the place where he had spent the night. That started a babble of remorse, with more pleas for forgiveness to his Maker and his parents, and an insistence that his condition resulted directly from his sin.

‘Hell’s teeth,’ Mallory said, easing him back and bathing his head again. ‘Don’t you go fretting o’er that. What you did were nowt but natural. God wouldn’t have much to concern hisself with if men and women didn’t get together, now, would he? And it strikes me, the way one man dies and another lives, with no rhyme or reason to it, he might be a dab hand with the old dice in that lair of his.’

The response was a stream of mingled prayers and psalms, snatches of one well-known verse mixed with another, none making any sense. Mallory shouted till one of his shipmates arrived and pulled back the cloth.

‘Double up to tell the Captain Mr Nelson’s a-showing signs of coming round.’

‘Double up? Who the fuck do you think you are, Mallory? Double up, you order me, and you not even warranted let alone commissioned.’

Mallory raised his knobbled fist. ‘This be better than either, if you don’t shift your arse.’

‘It has been represented to me by the surgeons that for you to remain on this station carries a grave risk.’

Seated in his dining cabin, Captain Farmer appeared a lot less imposing than he did on the quarterdeck, both in voice and manner more like a slightly forgetful uncle than a Tartar of a commander. He would have described the youngster before him as wasted, with his skin so pallid and his bones so prominent. Only the eyes still had power, which could be laid at the door of his recurring fever.

‘Nevertheless, sir I would wish it so.’

‘You have been under the burden of this for near a month, Mr Nelson. Every slight improvement brings a fresh bout of debilitation in its wake.’

‘With God’s help, I will fully recover.’

‘I cannot indulge you, Mr Nelson. Your pleas have swayed me once already, and I feel I have been foolish to comply. It is my natural instinct to support a brave face but in this I have been mistaken.’

Hardened as he was by his years of command, even George Farmer was touched by the look of loss that swept across the young man’s face. But he knew he must hold firm. He had relented to that look once already, and that in the face of Surgeon Underwood’s contrary advice, only to regret it.

‘You must not see it as a stain, young fellow. The log of the ship will show that you made every effort to remain at your duties. No want of character can be attached to your name.’

Nelson heard the words, but not the sentiments. He was being discharged as unfit for duty, and that before he had even acquired a lieutenant’s
commission. Tears pricked his eyes as his thoughts turned to the sins he had committed, and the punishment and retribution that seemed so harsh. Had his transgressions really deserved this?

‘HMS
Dolphin
has orders to sail for England,’ Farmer continued. ‘Captain Pigot has agreed to take you aboard and give you passage home. It is my earnest wish that you are fully recovered when you make that happy return. The service needs men of your stamp, Mr Nelson. God knows they are few enough in number.’

As Farmer spoke, the young man before him seemed to shrink into a uniform coat that was already too big. It was as though the glue that had held him upright was melting. His look of despair was obvious and Farmer had to look away.

Horatio Nelson was thinking of death, which at this moment he would have preferred to discharge. Somehow the small panes of the cabin’s casement windows dissolved into the faces of his family, his sisters Susanna, Anne and Catherine smiling sweetly, as they would over a childish misdeed. His brothers’ faces held a look of triumph, as if happy to see their bumptious brother brought low. He shut his eyes rather than gaze on the images of his parents.

‘Mallory!’ Farmer called. The able seaman stepped through the door, touching his forehead. ‘Help Mr Nelson back to his sick bed. You will then undertake the packing of his sea chest, Mr Troubridge to assist. Take care that his books and journals are secure in there. He will need them to pass for lieutenant.’

That one word returned enough strength to Nelson for him to sit upright. He had held out for a month when even the most confident of his shipmates had despaired. He would hold out longer, and show them all that he was the better man, including all those upstarts who would condescend to his parentage and upbringing, wherever they might be. With a peremptory gesture he waved Mallory back, which caused him immediate regret.

‘You can do it Mr Nelson, I know you can,’ the sailor said.

The smile they exchanged heartened him more than any words or terrors he could conjure up. ‘You never gave up on me, did you, Mallory?’

‘Wouldn’t be right, your honour, seeing as how you never did for me.’

Farmer coughed then, since the exchange of affection between the two men threatened to get out of hand. Nelson got to his feet and grasped Mallory’s hand and gave it a vigorous shake. ‘I would take it as an honour, Mallory, if you would count me as your friend, and that you would call upon me when you are next in England.’

He bowed to a shocked Captain Farmer, and walked stiff-legged out of the cabin. Mallory sniffed loudly, then followed him.

‘Not that you’ll get as far as England,’ Farmer said softly, to himself. ‘I wager you won’t even raise the Cape.’

James Pigot was a fine sailor, as well as a deeply religious man respected by his crew, a group honed over years of service and careful transfers to reflect their captain’s piety. Men addicted to gambling, drinking and pursuits of the flesh had been sent into less scrupulous vessels. Not all those who remained, after three years in the East, had white skin, but the men who replaced those who had died on the commission had their own binding faiths, which Pigot was careful to honour. Thus the
Dolphin
carried everything from Catholics, through high and low church Anglicans, to freethinking Anabaptists and Hindus.