Tide of War (20 page)

“I am not singling anyone out for criticism,” he had informed them, “nor do I say anything against the practice of flogging in general,”—it would not do for them to take him for a radical—”but there has been altogether too much of it on this voyage and it would be well if there was no more of it.”

The officers had taken it well on the whole—some of them even seemed to approve it—but it had made precious little difference to the attitude of the crew.

Perhaps it was too soon to tell. But he did not have much time. The
Virginie
might be waiting for them at Ship Island, a mere two days sailing to the southwest.

He thought about his officers. Pym he had not liked on their first meeting in the consul's house and he did not improve upon further acquaintance. Prim, prickly, pompous Mr. Pym. Mrs. Pym, as he called him privately, for he was more like a housekeeper than the first lieutenant of a ship of war. But, then, he was probably more like a great many first lieutenants. Sticklers for good order, obsessed with discipline and neatness and cleanliness. He could do nothing with Mrs. Pym. He just had to work around her.

Then there were the other two lieutenants—Webster and Maxwell. Both older than Nathan, if only by a few months. Webster was a clergyman's son from Dorset. Lanky, tow-haired, eager to please. Perhaps unfairly he reminded Nathan somewhat of a spaniel. Maxwell was from Norfolk farming stock, quiet in his manners, almost brooding, though he showed occasional flashes of dry humour. But for the most part he was as subdued as the midshipmen
and warrant officers, as if they were all wary of drawing attention to themselves. Strangely the only one who looked you straight in the eye and appeared reasonably cheerful was young Lamb, the youngest of them all. And he had taken Nathan's protégés in tow, though as the most junior in the midshipmen's berth it was hardly his job.

But altogether they were a sad, sorry-looking bunch. There was not a one of them Nathan could warm to. Except McLeish, the ship's doctor. Not that he knew the man, but he had an air of independence, of detached observation, that Nathan tended to admire in people.

Thinking of McLeish recalled him to his duties—for there had been a man seriously injured in the gun practice and he should enquire after his welfare. He took up his hat and made his way down to the sickbay.

He arrived as McLeish finished taking off the man's leg a little above the knee. The only reason he had not heard the shrieks was because the man had passed out at the first touch of the knife. One of the loblolly boys wrapped up the severed limb in a cloth and McLeish straightened up and wiped his bloody hands and saw Nathan standing there in the door.

“I am sorry I could not save it,” he said, “but it had been through the mangle.”

“I had not realised he was so badly hurt,” Nathan confessed, truly chastened.

“Yes, it is amazing what a ton or so of iron and timber will do if a body gets in the way of it,” the doctor remarked evenly.

Nathan looked at the poor wretch on the table. “And will he … recover?”

“Oh he will be right as rain in a week or two. May limp a bit, of course.”

“Dear God,” Nathan murmured, turning away to take his leave.

“I beg your pardon, sir.” The surgeon seemed genuinely contrite. “It is my damned dark sense of humour, if you can call it that. It is a butcher's trade that numbs the senses, I fear. Stay, if you will, and
have a glass with me. I need one, if you do not.”

He took off his blood-soaked apron and opened a cabinet where he kept his medicines—and several other objects that caused Nathan to stare somewhat.

“A little hobby of mine,” the doctor remarked, observing his expression. “I usually keep them in my cabin but it was removed for the practice at the great guns. I hope you do not mind.” He scrutinised Nathan's face which had lost a little more of its colour. “It is purely in the interests of medical science I do assure you.”

“But you cannot—surely they are not …”

“Oh. They are not human. No, I do not cut off men's heads. Only their limbs and such other of their extremities as they can shift without, at a pinch. No, they are simians, largely of the family
hominidae.
I am making a study of the similarities with the human skull, of which I have several in my study in Edinburgh though I thought better of bringing them to sea with me for fear it might offend those of a more tender disposition. How do you like your
usquebah,
straight or with water?”

“Straight if you please,” replied Nathan, who was not sure if he liked it at all never having sampled the stuff, whatever it was. “They appear very human.”

“Only in the shadows. If you look closely you will see that the elongated jaw and the narrow forehead are quite dissimilar from the human. At least in the majority of cases, though I have observed a few of our shipmates that might pass for a species of ape, especially when swinging through the rigging. And there is one there—over on the right—that you might very easily take for a human skull, being an infant of the genus
Pongo,
of Batavia, known by the natives of that region as the orang-utan which I am assured means ‘person of the forest.' Your very good health, sir, and my apologies once more for my foul temper. You would have thought I had cut off enough limbs by now not to mind but I find I do. Though not as much as the amputee, no doubt.”

Nathan cautiously tasted the amber liquid in the glass the doctor
had handed him. “It tastes very like whisky,” he confided.

“That is indeed gratifying as it is from the family distillery in Bladnoch and they try to make it as very like whisky as they can contrive, though as we are very close to the border, some of our rivals in more heathenish climes have been known to dispute it.”

“But you said …”

“Usquebah.
In the Gaelic: ‘the water of life.' I find it lifts the spirit a little even in the face of death. Now if you will excuse me I will away to my cabin, if it has been restored to me by the brutes that pulled it down, for I see that I have blood on my cuffs and must change my shirt before I join my fellows in the gunroom; they have been known to object if I come fresh from the slaughterhouse as it were. Or did you wish to speak with me?”

“No, no. I just came to see how you … your patient was doing,” he said. A groan from this individual in question indicated that he was coming to his senses. “But as it happens, I would appreciate a word in private. Indeed, if you would care to join me for dinner, I could repay your hospitality with a glass of wine.”

“That is very kind of you, sir, but if it is a consultation you require …”

“Oh no, no, it is nothing like that, I do assure you, nothing in the medical line. I would just appreciate your, well, your company as a matter of fact,” he finished shyly.

“Then I would be honoured to accept, sir, just as soon as I have made shift to change my shirt.”

Nathan's cabin had been put back together again and he had Gabriel set the table for two and bring up a couple of decent bottles from the late Captain Kerr's store of wines which he had decided to inherit.

“And what is there to eat?” he enquired anxiously.

“Which we have a fine pair of porgies to start with that was caught this morning before the practice at the great guns scared all the fish and fowl for miles around even if it would not have troubled the French.” Nathan scowled but Gabriel was a law unto himself and the gunnery would have disgusted him, as a former highwayman, as
much as it did his captain. “And a boned leg of lamb with anchovy sauce to follow and to follow that a Cuban bread pudding with raisins, if that pleases your honour.”

Gabriel's use of this title was always delivered with a faint irony, but then he had been privileged to know Nathan since he was five and had several times tanned his backside as a child, often deservedly.

“Thank you, Gabriel, that will do very well. And break out the
mariquitas
that were a present from the consul,” Nathan instructed him, conscious that he was playing host for the first time aboard his new command. Perhaps he should have invited the entire gunroom but he had not been in the best of tempers when the practice had ended and the atmosphere would have been dreadful. People would accuse him of favouritism in singling out the doctor but be damned to them—and it was better than if he had invited Tully.

“Ah doctor, come in, please, make yourself at home …” Nathan waved expansively at the great table in the stern window with places set for two and the reflections from the water dancing on the ceiling. “And what may I get you to drink, failing the usquebah?”

McLeish had changed—not only into a clean shirt but the new surgeon's uniform approved by the Navy Board. He looked around him as if it was the first time he had been here—and perhaps it was. Gilbert solved the question of what they would have to drink by bringing up a bottle of the late captain's Jerez with a plate of the consul's
mariquitas
—a form of fried plantain—and some stuffed olives. They had a bottle of Muscadet with the fish before moving on to a burgundy for the lamb: raising their glasses in turn to King George, the
Unicorn
and all who sailed in her, the union of England and Scotland, the confusion of their enemies, the poet Burns and then, as they became more light-hearted, the Clan McLeish, the genus
Pongo
and a young lady the doctor claimed to know in Kirkudbright called Catriona.

As they were well into the lamb and contemplating a second bottle of the red, Nathan remembered what it was that he had wished to discuss, or at least one of the things. “I read in the ship's log,” he
ventured, “or it may have been the captain's log, I forget which, some reference to a corpse that was discovered in the chain store shortly after leaving Kinsale and heading out into the Atlantic.”

“Oh aye, that would be our waif,” confided McLeish shaking his head.

“Your waif?”

“As in stray. Waif and stray. Our headless waif. Our ‘orfing' as the people call him. It was found during a rat hunt instigated by the midshipmen, the creatures having offended Mr. Holroyd by consuming the best part of a cheese his mother had given him and then pissing upon the plate.”

“The midshipmen?” queried Nathan, frowning, for he did not like to think of the young gentlemen behaving so ill-mannered, even before he had the command of them.

“The rats,” McLeish assured him, after giving him a look.

“Quite so.”

“ Well, it was practically a skeleton by then.”

“Excuse me, what was?”

“The waif, the ‘orfing,' that we were discussing.”

“Ah yes, the waif.” He was a little confused about the waif but comforted himself with the thought that enlightenment might be forthcoming if he let the narrative continue.

“I examined it at my leisure—what was left of it, for it was negligible to begin with and had been half eaten by rats—whereupon I ascertained that it was the body of a young male, an infant, of between six and nine years.”

“A boy?”

“A boy. Yes. What did you think it was?”

“I am sorry. Go on.”

“I was unable to ascertain the cause of death owing to the absence of the head, but my supposition was that it would be starvation and disease. I shudder to think that the rats played any part in it.”

“Indeed but …”

“You will want to know how it got there.”

“It was on my mind to enquire.”

“The theory was that he was on the run from a cruel parent or guardian and that he climbed into the chain store during the construction of the vessel in Chatham with a view to making his escape or possibly simply seeking a refuge.”

“A stowaway.”

“Indeed. I do not know why he did not make himself known when the ship was at sea, unless he was already dead or so weakened he could not bestir himself but alas, when he was eventually found he was at least a month gone.”

“And headless.”

“Ah yes. That was the most distressing part. And something of a mystery.”

“Perhaps … the rats?”

“That was a popular theory but I think not. Not to remove the whole skull without a trace. My own supposition was that it had been spirited away by certain dissident elements on the lower deck who wished to play upon the fears of the more susceptible among their brethren, but I may be speaking out of turn.”

“Not at all, doctor, please go on.”

“Well, it may have suited their purposes, do you see, in stirring up discontent. Certainly it proved an effective means of making mischief.”

“In what way?”

“Well, the waif was buried with full naval honours off the southern coast of Ireland but the absence of a head deprived the ceremony of dignity, as it were, or conviction, not to say, consolation.”

“I suppose it would. Though, after a battle I have seen worse.”

“People are inclined to be tolerant after a battle. And there were those who claimed that it could not put the spirit at rest, as it were, until the head was found.”

“Which was not achieved?”

“Alas it was not. And in the days and weeks to come, a number of the people claimed to have seen the ghost of the poor boy wandering
the lower decks in search of the missing part of his anatomy. Wailing most piteously the while.”

“Good God, McLeish.”

“Indeed. But they are more superstitious than a gaggle of girlies for the most part, your average seamen, and I fear that a great many of the ship's subsequent misfortunes have been laid at the door of this apparition.”

“So they fear the ship is cursed.”

“Cursed and doomed. And until the ghost is laid to rest they will continue to do so, in my humble opinion.”

“These dissident elements that you mentioned,” Nathan continued after a moment. “They were mainly Irish I understand.”