A Sea Unto Itself (12 page)

Harley: No, sir. I thought it must of been some kind of accident. Those things happens all the time.

Capt: At any time during the middle watch did you observe or hear anything out of place?.

Harley: No, sir. I were asleep in my hammock. I didn't see or hear nothing.

Capt: Do you have any personal feelings about the victim?.

Harley: Yes, sir. Dickie-boy Stimson was a little sh. . . , person what didn't know what was good for him or how to treat with his betters. (more in this vein, but irrelevant to inquiry).

All of the half-dozen able seamen Charles interviewed gave much the same story. Others of the crew, those known to be the man’s associates or mess mates, were called next. None could, or would, shed any light on the matter. None saw Stimson or anyone else go below to the hold, heard any commotion, heard any rumor of any commotion, or expressed anything but cautious respect for the deceased. Charles learned that his entire crew, at least on the word of those he interviewed, spent their nights in the undisturbed repose of the truly innocent and never stooped so low as to pry into the concerns of others or to indulge in idle gossip.

All except possibly one. Last, Charles called Jeremy Roberts—a harelip in his forties, covered in tattoos, with a lazy eye and wildly disheveled hair—who had found the body.

Captain Edgemont: When did you discover Stimson and where?.

Landsman Roberts: Don't know the time. It were dark. Might have been nighttime. I were in the 'old under the orlop.

Capt: Did you touch or move the body after you discovered it?.

Roberts: Oh, no, sir. I only tripped and fell on it like. I knew it were a man though, it were soft.

Capt: Didn't you have a light?.

Roberts: Of course not. A lanthorn scares away the spirits.

Capt: Spirits?.

Roberts: The spirit of John Trambor for one, sir. 'E’s got my wife in the hold, do you see, to 'ave 'is way with 'er. I search real quiet when I can. I’ll catch them at it yet.

Capt: Your wife?.

Roberts: Yes, Aggie. We been married these two hundred years and more, since the time of 'Enry the Eighth. She was married to 'im too. At first I thought she might have been fornicatin' with Stimson, but I told you he were soft, so I don’t think so now. She were always free with her favors. Bless 'er black 'eart.

Capt: King Henry the Eighth?.

Roberts: 'E were a lustful man, don't you know.

Capt: Yes, I do. Thank you Roberts, you’ve been most helpful.

Charles ordered that Stimson’s body be consigned to the deep immediately after the men’s dinner. The crew were called to stand in their divisions, the marines aligned on the quarterdeck, and a pulpit rigged by the mainmast for the ceremony. He watched carefully for signs of dissension as the men sorted themselves into their places. Some among the able seamen shouldered their way roughly past the younger men, receiving angry looks and words in return. Inevitably, one offended topman, younger and fitter, shoved back. The two men quickly faced off with supporters for each gathering around.

“Avast, there!” Charles shouted. “Belay that. Petty officers, you will keep order among your men, or I’ll know the reason. Get them into their places.” The sergeant at arms, the boatswain, and his mates waded into the knot, separated the antagonists, and pushed them along. An uneasy quiet settled.

Charles hurried through what was in any case to be a brief ceremony—a few lines from the Book of Common Prayer and a single sentence about departed shipmates. When he was done, the plank on which Stimson’s hammock-shrouded body lay was tilted toward the sea. The form slid down and over the side with a splash.

A single snicker sounded out from somewhere among the men in the waist. All heads turned, looking for the offender.

“Silence!” Bevan bellowed, already embarrassed by the earlier disorder on the deck and furious at the disruption. “I want that man’s name.” None of the petty officers had seen who’d done it, and no one else would admit to knowing.

Charles decided it was best to end the ceremony quickly. He did not think that it was the time for a speech on comradely shipmates. He did think he should say something. “There will be no further outbreaks or altercations on this ship. Any persons involved in quarreling or fighting will be answerable to me.” He knew it was a weak gesture. Some captains would have promptly selected a few possible ringleaders or persistent trouble makers and ordered each thirty lashes to set an example. Charles did not believe that minor pushing and shoving warranted laying a man’s backbone bare. “You may dismiss the men,” he said to Bevan.

The incident angered him. The whole situation with his crew was frustrating. On Louisa, his only other real command, there’d been little trouble, and now he felt himself ill prepared to deal with the problem. He would have to devise a plan to establish discipline, but he was damned if he knew what it should be. He watched the hands milling about on the deck below, some returning to their duties, others to go below. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the topman that had been involved in the pushing incident angling across the deck with two of his fellows just behind. As he watched, the younger man bumped intentionally against the back of the able seaman he had scuffled with before. The older man spun around. A fist was thrown, then a flurry. Additional men rushed to join in the growing brawl.

“Goddamnit to hell.”
 
Charles spat out the words as he raced past an astonished Bevan. He threw himself down the ladderway three steps at a time and ran across the deck, furious that the orders just given had so blatantly been ignored. “Get back,” he shouted at a man just entering the fray. He grabbed the man’s jacket and pulled him aside. “Stand down! Stop it!” He forced himself between two more men, pushing them apart. He saw the topman who had started it grappling with the able seaman at close range, exchanging blows. “You will cease fighting immediately,” he roared at them, grabbing the younger man by his wrist with one hand and pushing against the seaman’s shoulder with his other.

The two men paused, surprised at their captain’s appearance. “Stand back,” Charles snarled. “Stand back, or by God you’ll wish you had. Put your hands down and step back this instant.” The men grudgingly separated. Charles was aware that the marines from the quarterdeck were hurrying toward him, pushing men to one side or the other with the butts of their muskets. Ayres, Bevan, Winchester, Beechum, even Sykes had waded into the mass, pulling men apart.

“You, what’s your name?” Charles said to the topman.

“Andrew Nicols, sir,” he answered reluctantly.

“When I ordered that there be no further fighting, was that unclear to you?”

“No, sir.”

“Your spirits are stopped for one week. You will go below to your mess table to await Lieutenant Bevan’s displeasure. He will doubtless have further punishments.” Both Bevan and Ayres arrived to stand beside him.

“But, sir,” Nicols protested. “He murdered Stimson.”

Close up, Charles recognized the able seaman as Thomas Sherburne, one of the men he had interviewed earlier in the day. “Is this true?” he demanded.

“Not me, sir,” Sherburne answered indignantly. “This little shit . . .”

“Shut up,” Charles said. “You may speak only when spoken to, and then only a direct answer.” To Nicols he said, “Do you have any evidence of this?”

“Well, no, sir. But if it weren’t him it were one of his like.”

“I’ll not have any wild accusations of that kind. Go to your mess and stay there. Lieutenant Ayres,” he said, “send one of your men to accompany Nicols below and see that he stays put.” He turned on Sherburne. “Your spirits are stopped as well for starters. Go to your mess and wait until Lieutenant Bevan sends for you.”

“He bumped me on purpose, he did. Nicols started it.” Sherburne seemed genuinely aggrieved.

“The same as you did to him before the burial. I’ll not have it. I don’t hold with floggings unless they’re necessary, but by God, Sherburne, you’re pushing me. Now go below.” To Ayres, he ordered that another marine be sent to accompany him.

The remainder of the crew stood in a large circle, watching. “This must stop now,” he said in a loud voice, turning as he spoke to include all of them. “Do you hear me? If there is one further incident of fighting or provocation I’ll stop the entire ship’s company’s grog until we reach Cape Town. That’s two months at least. And I’ll put the offenders in irons on bread and water until we get there as well. If you don’t think I’ll do it, just try me.”

In the following days, Charles remained acutely aware that he commanded a tense, unhappy ship, riven with conflicts. Watch and work bills were adjusted to keep quarrel-prone men apart. The petty officers responsible for maintaining discipline were ordered in the strongest terms to prevent arguments and fisticuffs and to report offenders to the captain. He felt himself to be responsible. They should have been an experienced, capable crew. Instead, they were inattentive in their duties, sullen, and resentful toward one another and their officers, with frequent contemptuous looks and harsh words just short of coming to blows. Practice with the guns or aloft in the yards was equally unsatisfactory. The men walked through the evolutions with the barest minimum of effort, gibing at each other as they did so. Charles ordered that the guns be run in and out only; there was no point in wasting good powder and shot. He hoped upon hope that in time the situation would work itself out. So far it hadn’t.

His other concern was the overall shortage of men. This made for more work for each watch and undersized gun crews. He ordered an eye kept out for any passing merchantmen off of whom he might press additional hands, but the seas remained empty. He wrote in his report on Stimson’s death, that the seaman had been murdered by a person or persons unknown and left it at that. He would forward the document to the Admiralty when they reached Cape Town.

*****.

Charles lifted his sextant to one eye and leveled its scope on a clear stretch of horizon. He found the sun in its smoked mirrors and swung the index arm to bring the reflected image down until it exactly overlapped the line between sea and sky. He tightened the clamp screw on the arc. Satisfied, he lowered the device and glanced at its vernier scale. There had been a sea fog earlier in the morning which still lingered in patches, particularly to the north. The sky was overcast, though thinly so, and the sun shone through hazy and indistinct. These were not ideal conditions for a noon sighting, but it would be a good experience for his younger officers to practice under varying conditions.

Around him on the quarterdeck the others stood in a similar pose with similar instruments to their eyes, except for Mr. Cromley, who preferred to employ an older quadrant for his navigational sightings. Charles raised his instrument once more and saw that the sun’s reflection had separated from the horizon as it continued to rise. He loosened the screw and re-adjusted the arm to bring the points together again. He watched carefully for any further movement, but saw none as the light hung briefly motionless in place.

“There,” Winchester announced. “I make it to be noon.”

Charles re-tightened the clamp screw and lowered his sextant. He nodded to a master’s mate by the binnacle who immediately turned the half-hour glass then loudly rang the ship’s bell eight times to announce the official beginning of a new day. “Now, where are we?” he asked, looking at the others. In particular, he was interested in the progress of the three “young gentlemen”—his midshipmen—already busy studying their vernier readings and chalking calculations on their slates. Charles quickly made his own jottings to determine that Cassandra was at twenty-six degrees, forty-five and a half minutes latitude, which was about what he would have expected. At this time the day before, they had been approaching the Canaries, its westernmost island of La Palma almost indistinguishable on the horizon. In twenty-four hours they had gained about a hundred and fifty-five nautical miles southward in a moderate northeasterly breeze. That was about the same distance they had managed daily since departing Chatham dockyard three weeks before. It was a respectable distance, but it had become clear that Cassandra was not as fast as he might have hoped.

“May I see your computations, Mr. Sykes?” Charles said. Receiving the slate he saw that the mathematics were neatly and accurately done. Sykes’ result matched his own, close enough, at forty-five minutes even. “Very good,” he said. “I judge that to be acceptable. Mr. Hitch?”

Thomas Hitch held out his slate with a confident smile. “Here you are, sir,” he said. “I think you’ll find it satisfactory.”

Charles saw that the results were indeed satisfactory. Hitch had not only reached exactly the same result as Sykes, but the calculations had been made in an identical fashion down to the spacing of the figures on the board and a double underlining before the final expression of their latitude. He remembered that Hitch had been standing just behind Sykes as the work was done. He made no immediate comment on this.