By the Mast Divided (19 page)

‘Give me your letter,’ Gherson insisted. Pearce took it out of his shirt and handed it over and Gherson darted quickly to the table where Molly sat. The sailor moved to let him sit down, and, watching, Pearce wondered how it was that Gherson alone could not see the nudges such an association produced. Then he had to consider that Gherson could see as well as the next man and, as he put his head within an inch of Molly’s, that he didn’t care.

‘Another letter?’ Molly asked, with a worried look.

‘Does that make any difference?’ Gherson said, slipping Pearce’s missive into an unwilling hand. ‘I would have thought the risk was the same.’

‘Two letters,’ said Molly, thinking quickly, ‘be best to look for two different carriers, rather than the one.’

‘You are so clever,’ cooed Gherson. ‘Why did I not think of that?’

Molly tapped his head. ‘You need a tar’s head for such matters, and one a mite older than that you bear on your shoulders, boy. You leave it with me, and let’s hope by the time we’s due to weigh that there’s a writ to be served that will get you back on shore.’

‘I will always be grateful, I hope you know that.’

Molly put a hand on Gherson’s knee and squeezed. ‘Why lad, what decent soul would not aid a brother?’

Emily Barclay sat by the slightly open door, embroidery ring on her lap, listening with only half an ear to her husband’s coxswain reporting back to him. Hale had been sent off to look over the men he called volunteers, and was now imparting to his captain, in his rolling Hampshire accent, what he had learnt. Emily felt a tinge of guilt at listening in to a conversation that was supposedly private, but then it was almost impossible not to eavesdrop in such a confined area, with only thin wooden panels separating the two cabins. Besides, if she was going to learn anything about shipboard life this appeared to be the only way, since her husband seemed disinclined or too busy to educate her.

‘Dim is the word I would use for the most of them, your honour,’ Hale said. ‘They will rail for a while, but I reckon them to settle once they have seen there is now’t else for it.’

‘But not all?’

‘No. There’s the odd touch of sense, that mouthy fellow Gherson has a brain, and seems a dab hand at suckin’ up to certain members of the crew.’ Hale gave his captain a knowing look then, which was all the explanation Ralph Barclay required. ‘’Sides that there are one or two it would be an idea to keep an eye on.’

‘Names.’

‘The big Paddy will like as not fight for his place, but I reckon there’s enough aboard to put him down. Devenow for one, for the talk is they’s already had words and Sam is lookin’ to sort him out.’

That made Ralph Barclay frown. Devenow was a volunteer who had served with him in the Caribbean, and, no doubt strapped for a living ashore, had hurried aboard HMS
Brilliant
as soon as he heard his old captain had a ship. The presence was not one that Barclay was entirely keen on – the man was a mixed blessing, a hardcase who ruled the lower deck with his fists, handy in a scrap but a damned nuisance when he got drunk and unruly, which he did at every opportunity. Devenow saved his own grog and either bullied or bought others out of theirs, then downed the whole lot after Divine Service on a Sunday. Someone in authority would, inevitably, find him comatose, which meant a round dozen at the grating on a Monday morning. At least the man was honest in his
dealings, taking his punishment without murmur as the price he had to pay for his liquid pleasures.

‘Make sure if it happens that there is someone to restrain Devenow, for he will kill if he is free to, and God forbid we should have to hang him.’

That was a curious thing to say, thought Emily, almost as if her husband was prepared to condone violence as long as it suited his ends.

‘The one listed as John Truculence,’ Hale added, ‘I heard him called John Pearce by another. The Bosun reckons he heard the same so it is likely true.’

Barclay wheezed a slight laugh, the habitual one his wife found trying. ‘At least we had the right of it on the first name.’ Barclay was not about to admit that he had singled out Truculence himself, nor did he make the obvious comment that a man who refused to give his real name must have a reason. He merely enquired, ‘Why him?’

‘He’s trouble on his own I reckon, your honour. But more’n that he is a man to dominate his mess, an’ maybe a mite beyond the confines of that. He had a look about him that bodes nuisance. When I last saw him he was busy writing a letter.’

Ralph Barclay did not pose any more questions, which Emily again found curious, for Hale seemed to be warning her husband against a potential troublemaker. She could not know that when it came to below decks, Ralph Barclay had great confidence in his own ability to command men. He trusted Lemuel Hale, who had served with him for years: not only to spot trouble, but either to nip it in the bud himself or sound the alert to a higher authority. But at root he trusted his own judgement more.

She heard the coxswain depart, and Shenton tell her husband that their supper was served. When she entered the front half of the cabin it was to find a table set with the best of the presents they had received at their wedding, the centrepiece an eight-branch silver candelabra from Garrards that had, until very recently, been in pawn. The flames threw a warm and flickering light over the panelled walls, making even the great guns, black and menacing, bowsed to the ship’s side, so ugly in daylight, look benign. There was a basket of wine bottles on the floor and a steaming tureen of soup on the table, and as well as Shenton, a couple of seamen in their best clothes standing by to serve them.

‘Our first proper meal aboard, my dear,’ said Ralph Barclay, handing her to a chair, with a smile and an exaggerated bow. ‘The first of many.’

Emily bobbed a response. ‘You are too kind, my dear.’ 

‘Our dinner was such a perfunctory affair, I felt supper should be special.’

Emily had been grateful for the fact that getting the ship to sea had taken priority over food, for dinner at three in the afternoon, a good two hours before the accustomed time ashore, was something she was going to have to struggle to get used to.

‘I cannot say they will all be as elegant as this,’ Ralph Barclay added, ‘but while we are in calm water, let us indulge ourselves. Let us see this as yet another celebration of our union.’

The undertone of that remark, and the look with which it was delivered, a direct stare under lowered eyebrows, was designed to tell Emily Barclay that he wished the first test of the double cot to be tonight. Not wishing to dwell on such a thought, she snapped open her napkin and said, ‘You must, my dear, tell me about your day.’

His first thought was, I’m damned if I’ll tell you I was ripped off a strip by the Commodore. Instead he answered her question with one of his own. ‘What is there to tell you that you have not already witnessed?’

That imposed an uncomfortable silence, for the first thing she had observed had been her husband cuffing a man for merely looking at her. Temporary refuge was found in a spoonful of soup. ‘There are so many things I do not know, husband, that I fear to speak lest I reveal my ignorance. And I readily admit to leading a sheltered life compared to that of a sailor.’

‘They are, I grant you, very different,’ Ralph Barclay replied, ‘and I am glad you have alluded to it, my dear, for I must tell you that sea service is harsh, for both officers and men.’ He dropped his voice then, to a more intimate tone. ‘Though it will, by every effort of those aboard, be made as comfortable for you as possible.’

‘I would not ask for partiality.’

‘My dear,’ Ralph Barclay positively crooned, ‘your beauty and our station demand nothing less, but,’ the voice changed, becoming more businesslike, ‘there is a requirement aboard ship for order that can hardly be said to exist elsewhere, so you may witness things for which your refined upbringing leaves you ill prepared.’

The tone in his voice was that of a father talking to a dim child, which lent a certain piquancy to her reply. ‘I think I have already observed a degree of difference.’

‘Quite.’

‘Yet who could doubt the charm of this,’ Emily replied brightly, for her husband, she knew, could become morose, and that she did not want. 

Her wish was not granted. If not morose, there was a touch of gloom in his response. ‘Do not be deceived by the comfort we now enjoy, of a good dinner with the best of our wedding gifts illuminating the table, for once out of the Thames Estuary that would be too risky an item to set out.’ Seeing a look which he interpreted as regret, he added hastily, with as jocular a tone as he could muster, ‘It would never do to set light to the ship. I fear their lordships would not forgive me for that.’

‘Then it will be all the better,’ Emily insisted, ‘when we can lay it out, for imparting a sense of occasion.’

Ralph Barclay, she knew, was a serious man, more obviously so now than at the time of their betrothal or even after their wedding. He seemed to be caught, as he often was, between wishing to make her happy, and desiring her to have some knowledge of the obverse side of life’s coin.

‘There will be, my dear, many a day when we will want for any kind of hot food. Every sailor prays for a calm voyage, well aware as he wins his anchor that such a thing is hardly to be expected.’

‘How will your latest recruits fare?’

Emily knew it was a maladroit question long before the frown creased her husband’s face, yet it was the one she had been dying to ask.

‘You mean my volunteers?’

There was a moment’s hesitation, a split second when she contemplated challenging him by saying, ‘Were they not pressed?’ The boy with the bleeding nose had all but confirmed that impression. But that was certain to fracture the mood completely. ‘As you say, the volunteers.’

‘Some will suffer, it is not unknown for one or two even to succumb.’

‘Succumb?’

Ralph Barclay wanted to tell her the truth unvarnished. That men pressed to service brought aboard with them the diseases of their life ashore, fevers and the like that could prove fatal when combined with seasickness. He wanted also to say that during training, which of necessity must be swift, there was no guarantee that a man sent aloft for the first time could cope with the height and the motion of the ship, which in foul weather could be dramatic. Nor could any captain be sure that a new recruit would have the sense always to keep his feet, his body and his hands in a position that would render him safe. If trained hands could fall from the rigging, anyone could and only the good fortune of a heavy heel on the ship would allow a falling man to miss the deck. But that same heel usually meant foul weather, so it was a mute point which was worse; instant oblivion or a slow death from drowning in a sea that precluded the launching of a rescue boat. Unwilling to discuss loss of life 
in any form, when his mind was more on the possibility of procreation, Barclay took refuge in a platitude.

‘We are all God’s creatures, my dear, and no one, from the highest to the lowest on this ship, knows when they will be called.’ He then added quickly, ‘We must write to my dear sisters tonight, to ensure that they know how happy we are.’

Somerset dominated the rest of the meal – family, friends, local politics in the form of dastardly Tories, for Ralph Barclay was a confirmed Whig, the gossip of the county. It was a conversation which, for all the world, they could have had in their own house in Frome. If Emily still felt disquiet about shipboard matters she fought to hide it, and while not encouraging her husband too much, let him know that she was ready to grant him those favours that came to him by right. She would have been less happy to hear the words of the men who had served at table once they returned to the lower deck.

‘A double bowline in your hammock knots tonight, lads, for old Barclay will be a’rutting.’

‘Like a dog round a bitch’s arse he was,’ cooed another, stripping off his best shirt, ‘and her musk weren’t too secret either. Strikes me as a hot one.’

Shenton had cleared the table, and was busy drinking a bottle of his captain’s claret, sure that a man in his state would be too busy remembering his pleasure to recall how many corks had been pulled at dinner. The laughter was loud enough to penetrate the thin bulkheads, which made the steward smile, he being as aware as the others regarding what was taking place.

‘So John Pearce,’ asked Michael O’Hagan, softly, ‘just who are you?’ Seeing the hesitation the Irishman added, ‘It is very hard to be close to a man who will not trust you.’

‘Trust,’ Pearce responded, to gain time to think, and time to look around to ensure that for once they were not under observation or close enough to anyone to be overheard. He and Michael were sitting at the mess table, the first moment since coming aboard when they had time on their hands. The others had gone to watch the dancing, which was taking place to the sound of a scraping fiddle.

‘You should not be here.’

‘None of us should be here!’

‘That I will grant you, but you more than most. I am a labourer, no more, you are something very different.’ 

‘Am I so different?’

‘Your speech and your manner make me think so. And I am curious to know why you will not give them your true name, though I fear it is no secret now.’

‘I was unwise to blurt it out to you; I did so without thought. Charlie Taverner heard it and let his tongue run away with him.’

‘For which I think he was sorry.’

‘He has said as much himself.’

‘They reckon a Paddy to be slow in the head.’

That got a grin and a shake of the head, for Michael O’Hagan was far from that; in fact Pearce reckoned he was a classic example of what his father despaired over, a fellow that was only barred from fulfilment by a society that denied him an education. More worryingly, given the look with which he was favouring his fellow victim of Barclay’s press he was also a fellow who was not going to be content to be fobbed off.

‘I do not reckon you or your race to be that, Michael, and there are enough Irishmen of repute as proof, the playwright Sheridan and Edmund Burke to name but two.’

O’Hagan looked perplexed. ‘These men I do not know.’

Without saying so, the Irishman had told Pearce that as well as being unable to write, he had no ability to read either, for the two names he had mentioned were often in the newspapers. He had to stop himself from enlightening O’Hagan, telling him of men like Sheridan who satirised the society Adam Pearce despised, and of Burke, the brilliant orator who used politics and a savage wit to uphold it.

‘What would you gain from knowing that which I wish kept hidden, Michael?’

‘I say again, you are not like me.’ O’Hagan gestured towards the rest of the Pelicans, ten feet away, backs to the table, eyes concentrated forward as a cocky topman twirled a complex hornpipe, mere spectators, not part of what was going on. ‘Nor,’ Michael added, ‘are you like those others.’

Pearce smiled. ‘Not even Gherson, who claims to be a bit of a nabob?’

‘Sure, above all, not him.’

‘What do you make of Corny?’

‘He’s lazy and untrustworthy, a man who would betray you, me or anyone else without conscience.’

Pearce thought about the letter, and his promise of money to pay for delivery. ‘The rest on our table?’ he asked.