A Ship for The King (9 page)

She stared about her for a moment, seemingly tracing the thin ropes against the grey sky, before observing, ‘So that is what we are presently doing.'

‘Aye, ma'am. You see we are heading south,' he explained, waving his hand forward, ‘with the wind near west.' He swung his arm until it pointed a little forward of the starboard beam. ‘That is to say that we are near to being close-hauled on the wind and so our larboard, and therefore leeward, sheets are hauled aft and the larboard tacks are slack, whereas to starboard, it being the weather side, the tacks are hauled forward and the sheets are slack.'

The ship pitched and then struck a sea with a shudder. Her hand went out and he felt the pressure of her on his arm as she braced herself against him, and then, as the ship settled again and the shower of spray spattered on to the deck, she withdrew her hand. She took the slight contretemps in her stride and made no foolish allusion to it.

‘I see,' she said nodding slowly as she took in the information, and then, craning round and pointing at the two after masts, remarked: ‘These sails are a different shape, triangular . . .'

‘Indeed, Mistress Villiers, and you will be surprised to learn that we stole the idea from the Arabs. We call them lateen courses and their yards lie diagonally . . .'

‘Why did we steal them from the Arabs?'

‘Because they are a good idea, allowing us to lie in comfort in heavy weather, keeping our head up into the sea, and yet they add to the power of the ship and improve her ability to turn swiftly in action without burying her, as a large square sail would if carried this far aft.'

‘And we sail all night. Tell me, why do we not anchor?'

He laughed. ‘Our cables are too short and the sea so far from shore too boisterous. We are in deep, deep water here, my Lady, far deeper than our lead-line can reach . . .'

‘A depth without telling,' she said, a tone of awe in her voice, adding, ‘How thrilling.' She again touched him lightly on the arm and this time it was a gesture of shared intimacy.

‘I am glad you find it so.'

‘I do, but you are failing in your attentiveness. You have named but half a dozen ropes and yet I see many, many more. See how many are tied here at the foot of this mast! Why, there must be a score or so. Tell me their names . . .'

‘Haul-yards, buntlines, clewlines, clew-garnets, bowlines – more than one to every sail and each one carefully denominated so that a seaman knows every one, where it is and where to find it in the dark.'

‘And do you know all this?'

‘Aye, ma'am, I do. It is my business.'

‘It is the business of an officer to know all this detail?'

‘A good sea-officer must know all such matters. How can he not if he is to handle the ship efficiently.'

‘I'll wager there are some who do not,' she said slyly, and he caught her smile and laughingly shrugged.

‘It is not my place to know the faults of other men, ma'am . . .'

‘Oh, come Lieutenant Faulkner, you need not play the courtier with me. I'll warrant you do and your knowing will doubtless make their not knowing the worse for them.' And she pulled his arm playfully, smiling at him so that he saw her teeth and the wide curve of her mouth and knew what he wanted to do but dared not.

‘There is much else to tell you. Matters concerning anchors and navigation, and stowing the hold and manning the guns . . .'

‘Have you ever manned the guns, Lieutenant Faulkner?'

‘I have seen action, Mistress Villiers, in a merchantman against the Barbary pirates.'

‘Truly?' Her dark eyes widened.

‘Truly – but it was nothing. We drove them off . . .'

‘Otherwise you would have been enslaved and made to turn Mussulman. Is that not so?'

‘It is what they intend.'

‘Shall we see Barbary pirates?' she asked, suddenly serious.

He laughed. ‘I doubt it, but if we do they will not approach so large a fleet as this.' He gestured round the horizon where the other men-of-war wallowed, their hulls dashing aside the seas as they rose and fell under the press of their canvas.

‘I have heard talk among the ladies that there is a Spanish fleet at sea on the lookout for us. Is this true?'

‘I have heard the selfsame thing, but if it is I cannot think that we shall suffer, being so powerful a squadron. Besides,' Faulkner indicated the farthest distance beyond the bowsprit where two purple nicks spoilt the hard line of the horizon, ‘the two pinnaces lie ahead of us. If any should approach they will warn us.'

‘And then what?'

‘We will send the people to their stations for action at their guns, take post ourselves and the squadron will form line of battle.'

‘And what will happen to me – to us – those of the fairer sex?'

‘Why, ma'am, we shall require you to go below and seek shelter in the orlop out of harm's way.'

‘Why cannot I stand here and share the danger with you?'

‘Why, Mistress Villiers, you have no commission from the King obliging you to hold yourself in a post of danger and exposure.'

She frowned. ‘No, but I should like to share the danger and not like to be cooped up in the . . . where did you say?'

‘The orlop, below the waterline where no cannon shot can reach you.'

‘Great heavens, sir, I have been cooped up for days now. I should not wish to spend any further time sent into the bowels of the ship – danger or no danger!'

Faulkner chuckled. ‘I would hope that matters do not come to that pass, Mistress Villiers, most sincerely.'

‘I shall hold you responsible if they do, sir,' she said with mock severity.

‘Mr Faulkner!' Faulkner turned. Some paces behind them the Earl of Rutland and Sir Henry Mainwaring had come on deck, unnoticed by either himself or the girl. Faulkner whipped his hat off and bowed awkwardly as the ship gave a leeward lurch. He felt Katherine's hand swiftly withdrawn.

‘My Lord?' he said, straightening up, then, aware that he was compromising the young woman beside him, he bowed low and said in as loud a voice as he dared, ‘Mistress Villiers, if I can be of further service to you . . .' He let the sentence hang as she nodded.

‘I am much obliged to you, sir, you have been most kind and helpful.' And with a wide smile and a conspiratorial wink she withdrew, curtseying to Rutland as she passed and leaving Faulkner to approach the admiral.

‘I am not aware, Mr Faulkner, that any privilege has been granted you to undertake the nautical education of Mistress Villiers. In its absence I am surprised at you.' Rutland's voice rose and for the first time Faulkner sensed the extent of his impropriety. ‘It is not your place to address the young women of the court, let alone Mistress Villiers . . .' Faulkner bowed his head in submission, his face colouring at the public humiliation. Only now did he consider the others about the deck who had seen the animated conversation between the two of them and of which they themselves had been sublimely oblivious. Rutland seemed to have run out of words. ‘Have you nothing to say, sir?'

Faulkner avoided Mainwaring's eyes. ‘Only that if I have caused any offence, my Lord, I am abject. I merely responded to Mistress Villiers's request to be informed about the working of the ship.'

‘Did you indeed.'

‘My Lord . . .' He inclined his head again. This was awful; it ripped the delight out of the day and was like to the morning he had been kicked bodily out of the warehouse in Bristol for spending the night in its comparative warmth.

‘I'll have no tomcats on my ship, sir, d'you hear me? Eh? And you are a damned tomcat! By God, if you were a seaman I would have you flogged for your insolence!'

‘But he is not a seaman, my Lord,' said Mainwaring, his voice cool and self-possessed. ‘He is a gentleman and a King's sea-officer.'

Rutland was having none of it and turned archly upon his flag-captain. ‘He may be a sea-officer,
Sir
Henry, but what maketh that manner of man a gentleman, eh?' The earl lowered his voice. ‘Why, I am told that a man may be a sea-officer that hath been a pirate!'

Faulkner, who had kept his head low, could not resist looking up. Expecting fury from Mainwaring, he saw Sir Henry confront Rutland with a broad smile. ‘You are right, my Lord, but we shine best where we have learned our manners.' Then, as Rutland seemed uncertain as to whether to explode again, Mainwaring looked at Faulkner and with an abrupt movement of his head said, ‘Be off, Lieutenant, you are now a tomcat and no longer a rat. That is promotion and who knows where it will end.'

As Rutland asked Mainwaring what the devil he meant, Faulkner went below, entering his cabin and flinging himself into his wooden bunk. A few moments later Brenton came in, having seen what had happened, but eager to know precisely what had been said.

‘Damn it, Kit, the ship fair buzzes! You steal a march on every other lusty lad aboard and then get blown out of the water. I told you, you are playing a dangerous game, but hell's teeth, what on earth did old Mainwaring say that so discommoded Rutland?'

‘What?' Faulkner frowned. Brenton repeated the question while he, completely unaware that the admiral had been discommoded, was only grateful that Mainwaring had softened the admiral's blow – though that was little enough comfort.

‘Come on, tell Harry before Harry explodes with curiosity!'

Faulkner frowned. The remark about the rat becoming a tomcat would mean nothing to Brenton, nor was he eager to share it with a man who knew nothing of his humiliatingly humble origins. He could only repeat what he could recall of Mainwaring's remark about shining ‘where best we learned our manners'.

‘He said
what
?' Brenton gawped with astonishment. Still uncomprehending, Faulkner repeated himself. ‘Why, the old devil,' said Brenton, smacking his thigh in appreciation. ‘Sir Henry has a carelessness for his skin that I greatly admire!'

‘What the hell are you talking about, Harry? For the love of Christ I have been held up to ridicule and feel as though I am for the block, while you sit there burbling about Sir Henry's skin! He got me off the hook, that is all . . .'

‘The devil, it is, Kit,' Brenton said rubbing his hands with a kind of manic glee. ‘The devil it is . . .' He paused, realizing that Faulkner really had no idea what had transpired. ‘He did more than get you off the hook, he poked the hook in Rutland's eye!' But all Faulkner could do was stare at him. ‘A pun, Kit! A bloody pun. Not the greatest or wittiest pun ever made, I'll allow, but one which, improvised in pressing circumstances, will have given His Lordship more to think of than your little indiscretion with Mistress Villiers.'

‘What pun?' Faulkner asked, exasperated.

‘Why, manners, Kit, manners. Manners is Rutland's family name. You are a tomcat, Mainwaring is a pirate and by implication of his pun, Sir Henry attributed an ungentlemanly lack of manners on Francis Manners, Sixth Earl of Rutland and our beloved admiral!'

For a long moment this intelligence meant nothing to Faulkner. He was still shocked and humiliated by what had so publicly taken place on deck. Then it began to dawn upon him that something vaguely amusing had been said, a mere play upon words but sufficiently witty to make an impression, to defuse – or perhaps to ignite? – a powder train. He shook his head.

‘Such things are beyond me, Harry. By God I wish I were back aboard the
Swallow
. I'd rather be reefing her mainsail in a squall than stand another hour upon the deck of this, this . . .'

Brenton was laughing at him and holding out a glass of wine. ‘Rise above the petty anxieties of the day, Kit. Had you not picked up the gauntlet laid for you by pretty Mistress Villiers you would have shown a want of spirit which, lacking in a King's officer, would have condemned you. Why, Kit, if the whole Spanish Armada heaves in sight tomorrow, I'll lay my life that every man jack in this ship will follow you rather than that thin-blooded Rutland. Down that glass and have another, and let's drink to dark eyes and a beguiling smile! Here's to Mistress Villiers!'

A week later they came in sight of the Spanish coast some leagues to the westward of where they intended. The wind had begun to rise and it was under reduced sail that they coasted east, to enter the narrows at Santander on the 11th where the squadron came again to anchor.

Faulkner heard nothing more of the incident, but then he did not speak to Mainwaring, apart from making one report about the stowing of the mainsail. Happily he did not set eyes on Rutland until they were anchored. But then he saw nothing of Katherine either, and sensed that an atmosphere surrounded him. Ned Slessor was curt, though not unfriendly, Whiting ignored him and only Harry Brenton winked, cajoled and consoled him.

‘You are in love, Kit. Drown your sorrows, catch a Spanish whore in Santander and save the trouble of poxing yourself in a more complicated manner . . .' and at the use of that word, Brenton laughed again at his own wit. Faulkner himself rode out the storm; he had no alternative. The dalliance with Katherine was just that, and he was foolish to think any more of it. Besides, he was not certain that the ways of the court held any appeal for him. Mainwaring might have been a pirate, but he had been to Oxford University, had held the King's Commission as Lieutenant Governor of Dover and understood these things. He, on the other hand, was nothing more than a King's sea-officer by Mainwaring's grace and perhaps would not have to be that for very much longer.

As for now, well the
Prince Royal
had hardly anchored before great events were under way and the affair of Lieutenant Faulkner and the Earl of Rutland was forgotten. As Harry Brenton remarked a day or so later, it would have mattered if Faulkner had been nicknamed ‘Tom Cat', but he had not. Mainwaring's barb in the other direction seemed to have gone home and was better remembered.