By the Mast Divided (25 page)

With water, there was no problem, any barrel would suffice, but the packed meat was numbered and dated with the time of its butchering, salting and sealing. In a perfect world, the casks would have come out 
of the hold in the exact reverse of the way they had gone in. But the ship had victualled in a hurry, and since the purser was adamant about which casks he wanted – those with the longest provenance, the ones most likely to be corrupted if left – a great deal of shifting and stacking was required.

After quarter of an hour in the hold, Pearce was feeling slightly nauseous as he laboured to transfer casks from one pile to another. Each one moved for temporary storage had to be secured by wedges and ropes, for the motion on the ship was such that they could easily begin to roll, and it had been made plain by the purser before they came below, and was now repeated like a chant from his position above the hatch, that any loss through smashed staves would be laid against the name and pay of the offender.

Given the weighty nature of the task, Michael O’Hagan was the greatest asset, for, although they were too heavy to lift, provided one cask rested against another he could hold the whole weight of one on his own. He, Pearce and Scrivens were working together, the former two making sure that impatient members of the crew did not bully Scrivens for his ineptitude, for added to his natural weaknesses he was still suffering from seasickness. Charlie Taverner, Rufus and Ben Walker, all three a bit green at the gills as well, formed another working trio, all six cursing Gherson who had managed to get himself a job easing the casks up on the main tackle, a position where he was required to do no lifting, merely tasked to manoeuvre lashed and weightless casks. And, being right under the open hatch, the bastard had proper air to breathe.

‘Abel,’ gasped Michael, arms outstretched to hold a moved cask. ‘Two wedges under this bugger.’

Scrivens moved slowly, and his use of the mallet was so weak that the wedges were not driven home. In fact one dropped into the gap between the two barrels on which the men were standing. Michael went to a
one-handed
hold and moved Scrivens to where his other hand had been, coaching him with scant equanimity on how to hold the cask.

‘Stand there and get both hands on the thing. Right, now stretch right out until your feet are wedged and your arms are straight. As long as you stay like that, it will not budge.’

Michael dropped to his knees to find the fallen wedge, not easy for no light penetrated down there, leaving Pearce and Scrivens restraining the cask. The sudden increase in weight was partly due to the dip of the frigate, but Pearce had experienced that more than once already, and he knew that provided they had enough pressure on the cask they 
were holding it would not move. This was different – as he and Scrivens pushed hard to hold their position it seemed that the cask had doubled in weight, and was actually pressing down to crush them. Pearce felt his bare feet slip on greasy wood – the barrel had moved and was continuing to do so. What faint light there was showed Abel Scrivens begin to bend, his thin and already aching back rising to take the rigidity out of his body, and Pearce knew that whatever was exerting pressure on the cask was rendering it too heavy to hold.

He yelled to the Irishman, who was on his hands and knees scrabbling about. ‘Michael, get out!’ There was no hesitation from a man who had worked on tunnelling and ditch digging – when a cry like that came you shifted without looking and he was clear on hands and knees within a second. ‘You too, Scrivens, for we cannot hold it!’

His shouts brought men to try and aid them, but they were too far away and Pearce, the veins in his neck feeling fit to burst, called to Scrivens, who was at the end farthest from safety, to save himself. He never knew whether the push Scrivens gave him was motivated by a desire to help or sheer blind panic. There was not much weight in the push, but Pearce, already under pressure, was sent flying out from under the barrel, the rear end of which had already begun to fall. It caught Scrivens, who was stationary, rolling on to his body in an action that seemed to last an age, yet only took a second. The scream that came from Scrivens’ throat was cut off as the heavy wooden cask crushed the air he needed out of him. In the glim of the guttering candles in the lanterns – carried by the sailors too late to help, Scrivens’ face looked like something from engravings Pearce had seen of a soul entering hell.

The silence lasted for another second; then the air was full of the cries of men trying to effect a rescue. The sling was there quick, a rope attached to it and flung under the end of the cask. Pearce was on his knees beside Michael, both cursing as they tried, in the gap created by Scrivens’ crushed body, to get enough purchase to ease the weight.

‘Bring more light, for Christ’s sake,’ one sailor called, while two more cursed endlessly as they tried to get a line under the cask. ‘And the surgeon.’

A quick knot was tied to the sling and the order given to haul away easy. Slowly the cask began to lift, and there was enough light to see how badly hurt the poor sod was. The light picked up the blood streaming out from about three different parts of his body, his eyes were closed and he was beyond the point of feeling any pain. 

‘Hang on, Abel,’ Pearce said uselessly, while Michael, who had crossed himself, was praying in a whisper. ‘For Christ’s sake hang on.’ Looking up, as if to the heavens and a God in which he did not believe, Pearce looked into the faces of Abel Scrivens’ friends. Charlie Taverner had his head in his hands, Rufus had tears in his eyes; Ben Walker was on his knees, face anxious, bird-like eyes fixed on the old man, calling down words of encouragement.

‘Stand aside.’

Lutyens pushed Pearce and Michael out of the way and knelt down to touch Scrivens’ neck, then lower to search for breath. ‘There is life still. We need a sling to lift him out, for I cannot attend to him here.’

More shouts brought a hammock, and Pearce was vaguely aware of the men on the main hoist adding ropes to make a different kind of sling and the voice of Lieutenant Digby enquiring what had happened. Lifting Scrivens’ body was not easy – for all that he was a featherweight, the position in which he lay was awkward, and all who had hands on him knew that they could damage him more than help him. Scrivens’ body twitched several times as they moved him, evidence of the deep pain that was penetrating his unconscious state. Slowly, having been placed in the hammock, he was eased out and upwards, to the sound of raised voices.

‘Get that party out of there,’ said Digby.

‘The cook needs those casks out for the men’s dinner,’ protested the purser.

‘The men have been down there long enough, sir,’ Digby insisted. ‘Apply to Mr Roscoe for another party to complete the task.’

It was easy for Pearce to imagine the fat little purser puffing out his toad chest then. ‘I think you exceed your authority, sir.’

Digby’s response was icy. ‘Since I have some, sir, and you have none, I think my opinion is the one that will count.’

‘The captain will hear of this.’

Digby shouted then, his voice every bit as unforgiving as Barclay’s. ‘The captain might be too busy overseeing a burial to listen.’

Pearce and Michael climbed out to find the two faces close to each other, Digby, red faced and angry, towering over the purser, who was relenting. ‘I am merely trying to do my duty, Lieutenant Digby. There is no need to adopt so high a tone.’

They were by the steps leading up to the orlop deck when Pearce looked back to the officer and the purser, who were now engaged in mutual apologies. He saw Martin Dent slip out through the hatchway, throwing an alarmed look at him, before scurrying away, leaving Pearce 
with the certain knowledge of where the extra weight on that cask had come from.

‘I suggest,’ said Michael O’Hagan, when Pearce told him, ‘that you kill that boy before he kills you.’

Lutyens knew that he was going to lose his patient as soon as he got him on to the table in the sick bay. Probing fingers felt ribs so crushed that internal damage was inevitable, likewise the hips, while the heavy bleeding implied damage to the spleen. It was the loss of blood that took him, for Lutyens, try as he might could not stem it in time, because there was no obvious place to put either a ligature or a tourniquet. He was aware of the men behind him, the big Irishman and the one entered as Truculence, and he saw the flash of hate in those eyes when he indicated, by a shake of the head and a request for one of them to fetch Lieutenant Digby, that his patient was slipping away.

Scrivens died before Digby made his appearance, the life going from his inert body without even a last gasp of air. Barclay was informed, and ordered that the body be prepared for burial. Then he consulted his Bible for an appropriate lesson to read out at what would be the first, but certainly not the last burial service of this commission.

‘I think it would reassure the men to see me attend, Captain Barclay,’ Emily said, firmly. ‘I would not want them to think me heartless.’

‘As I say, my dear, the choice is yours. No funeral is pleasant, even that of some low creature without much hope of salvation in his life.’

That angered Emily, for whoever this Scrivens was he was the possessor of a soul. ‘Did you not say, husband, we are all God’s creatures, when you advised me that some of your volunteers may succumb.’ The emphasis on the word volunteers was unmistakable.

‘I did, my dear,’ Barclay replied, guardedly.

‘Then I think that makes us all equal in his eyes, does it not? The poor man is as welcome in heaven as the prince.’

Ralph Barclay responded in a hurt tone, well aware that if anyone else had chosen to speak to him in such a manner he would have bitten their head off. ‘I cannot help but feel Mrs Barclay that there is a tone of chastisement in your voice.’

‘Not chastisement, husband, but pity that you seem to see the man just deceased as somehow unworthy. However,’ she added quickly, to the shocked look on his face, ‘I am sure I have misunderstood you, and that it is only the experience of so much death in your profession that makes you sound callous.’ 

‘Callous?’

‘Perhaps inured is a better word.’

The men gathered in their divisions, officers in dress uniform, under a grey sky, to bury a man few of them knew, and less than half a dozen had cared about when he was alive. But they were solemn, all of them, for in a profession where the risk of death was a commonplace, it was tempting providence to show anything other than respect. Sown in canvas, lying on a hatch cover, with a piece of roundshot to weight down his shroud, Scrivens was not visible to the burial party, so all could imagine him as somehow a better specimen, a bigger and fitter man, perhaps even a younger one, than he had in fact been.

‘He was good,’ sniffled Rufus, ‘even if he did get on at me, it was well meant.’

‘Never would have survived on the Thames bank without him,’ added Charlie Taverner.

‘Amen to that,’ added Ben.

‘Silence there,’ said Lieutenant Digby, a command that was soft enough to respect their grief.

Barclay read the burial service, watched by his wife, in a sonorous voice, and Emily was pleased at the mood he struck, mournful but also hopeful, the certainty that the man being buried was going to a better place. She searched the faces of the crew, pleased to see that in the main, by the expressions of piety they wore, they seemed to agree with their captain; that man was born into nothing and left this earth with nothing, that an all-seeing God would be there to greet him at the gates of eternity to count his virtues and his failings. This poor creature, obviously unsuited to a life at sea judging by his behaviour in climbing the shrouds, would go to a better place.

She could not help but look for John Pearce, for he was an educated man in the midst of a high degree of ignorance, stood between the big curly haired fellow, who had his head bowed in prayer, a man who crossed himself frequently in the Papist manner, and a handsome youth who looked to be crying from the way he dabbed at his eyes. Pearce was doing neither – he was staring straight ahead at her husband and the bible in his hand, with a look that could only be described as malevolent. There was no piety in that countenance and the thought that surfaced then was unwelcome.

Her husband had pressed these men – his so-called volunteers – they were here against their will. Was there a woman somewhere, a mother, 
sister or sweetheart who would mourn the man’s passing? Would they ever know how he died, or where he died? Abel Scrivens should not have been aboard this ship, and if he had not been he would still be alive. Instinctively, Emily Barclay knew what Pearce was thinking – that Captain Ralph Barclay had as good as murdered Scrivens, and the real problem she had was that she could not disagree with such a thought.

‘And so, we commit the body of…’ There was a pause then, as Ralph Barclay had to look at the flyleaf of his Bible, where he had noted in pencil the name of the deceased ‘…Abel Scrivens to the deep.’ The hatch cover had been picked up, taken to the side, and one end laid on the bulwark. As Ralph Barclay intoned the final words of the burial service, the cover was lifted and with a hiss followed by a splash, the shroud slid into the sea.

‘And may God have mercy on his soul.’

Emily Barclay had her eyes tight shut, as she sought to submerge the words that filled her brain. ‘And yours, husband, and yours.’

Pearce had no intention of killing Martin Dent, yet he knew the boy had to be stopped. But how? An appeal to bury the hatchet would be more likely to be taken as an invitation to stick an axe in his head. Would a word to Lieutenant Digby work, or even, God forbid, Barclay? He didn’t know, and he sought out the only person he thought he could ask.

‘We aw’ know wee Martin,’ said Dysart, grinning. ‘A right tyke he is, though liked by the crew, for he will as like as no, provide a laugh as much as mischief.’

‘He’s trying to kill me.’

‘Och! Away man,’ Dysart cried. ‘Has yer imagination got the better of ye?’