By the Mast Divided (28 page)

Having beaten Devenow, who was on light duties now with his broken jaw, the Irishman was acknowledged as the hard man of the ship – but the men of this crew had soon worked out that he was nothing 
like his late opponent. O’Hagan might be a pest when drunk, but sober he had to have a reason to fight, and hated to be thought of as a bully. Devenow had beaten up others for pleasure, when he was not doing so to steal their grog.

‘We’d be obliged if you would make way, lads,’ Pearce said to a sea of bland faces.

‘Hear that, boys, Truculence has spoken.’

‘Don’t you mean the dolphin?’ said a voice from the rear. ‘I hear tell he swims like one.’

‘Damn near pierced my ears, Truculence did,’ called one wag, making very obvious that, hardly surprisingly, his true name was common knowledge. Not that it mattered; they were too far from the English shore now.

‘Sounds like a bleedin’ officer,’ said another voice, before adding a mordant, ‘beggin’ your pardon, Mr Burns.’

‘Sure as God made trees grow that little bugger don’t sound like one.’

‘Sounds like a rat, looks like a runt,’ called the jester from the back.

Voices came from both sides, the owners hidden by their mates, as Pearce pushed into the mass of bodies, to be greeted by a steady stream of coy, salacious remarks, and a hand that, in the press of swaying bodies, goosed his backside. He could hear O’Hagan behind him growling at his tormentors, who knew just how far to take the joshing before backing off. On the other side of the crowd they were faced with the cook, red as usual from the heat of the fire underneath his coppers. Burns was eagerly supping from one of the wooden mess kids they had come to collect. He blushed, as Pearce looked at him hard.

‘For the men, I think, Mr Burns.’

‘Carry on,’ Burns slurped, making it obvious that he had no intention of returning with them, preferring to stay with the heat and the prospect of more food. Pearce took the rope handle of one of the small wooden buckets, passed the other to O’Hagan, and they turned to retrace their steps. Michael O’Hagan stopped before the throng that barred their passage. He passed his kid of steaming soup back to Pearce.

‘Right mates,’ he said, ‘if I swing for it, I’ll belt the first bastard to lay a hand on those there kids. My mates are beyond, freezing, cold and wet and in need of food, and so help me I don’t care a tinker’s curse what anyone says.’

The crowd parted like the Red Sea in the time of Moses.

‘All hands on deck, at the double.’

The men responded to that command with a speed that surprised 
Pearce and O’Hagan. Within seconds all the lines that had held damp clothes were empty. What was less obvious was what they were to do themselves, which was not helped by Burns skipping by, and knocking half the contents of one kid onto the deck.

‘Get on deck, you pair of slow arses,’ called Coyle, who was coming along the maindeck repeating the command for ‘all hands’. He tried to grab the full kid from John, who pulled it out of his reach. ‘Don’t you know an order when you hears one? Put those bloody mess kids down and get on deck.’

‘Lieutenant Digby told us to fetch these.’

The red face went a deeper shade. ‘Christ Almighty, if I had a starter now you’d feel it.’

The cook intervened, stomping over to push Coyle on his way and get about his duties, before he turned his sweating face to Pearce. ‘All hands, you stupid half-brick means what it says. Everyone on deck, at the double, ’cause the captain apprehends danger. Do yourself a favour and fill your mouths, but if you don’t want the cat skinnin’ your backs, move your arse.’

‘We’ll take them with us,’ said Pearce.

‘You ain’t even half a brick,’ shouted the cook at their retreating backs.

They were the last on deck, and they found the others already hauling on the falls to the leeward side of the quarterdeck. Rising and falling twenty feet on each wave, bare feet slipping on the planking, they were seeking to bring the yards round to take more wind, which earned them many a curse from their shipmates. All was confusion, and, taking advantage of that, Pearce, followed by O’Hagan, walked along the line of heaving men and lifted the heavy wooden kid to each pair of lips.

‘A good idea, Pearce,’ shouted Digby from the rear. ‘Make sure every man has something and if they refuse force it down their throats.’

He made his way down the line, feeding Taverner and Ben Walker in turn. Gherson tried to refuse, and got a slap round the head from Pearce, who was in no mood to accept a refusal. Rufus Dommet, his hair dark red from spray, his face gaunt from four days of being sick, needed O’Hagan to hold his head to obey. And in truth by the time they got to him the soup was getting cold and had within it a goodly dose of salt water. It was only when they had finished that both the providers realised that they had left nothing for themselves.

‘Mr Digby,’ shouted Barclay, from beside the wheel, ‘would you oblige 
me with some notion of what you are about. I am informed that you are feeding the hands on deck.’

‘So that they will fight better, sir,’ Digby shouted back, then in a quieter voice, ‘Get rid of those kids, damn you.’

‘British sailors, Mr Digby,’ replied Barclay, as the small wooden buckets disappeared over the side, ‘will fight on an empty belly if needs must.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

Finally accepting that the yards on the course and topsails could be hauled round no more, Barclay ordered them to be sheeted home. As the falls were securely lashed off to a belaying pin the men who had been hauling on them relaxed, some just to lean, others to collapse – that was until a quiet word from their divisional officer reminded them that they must stand up, especially here close to the quarterdeck, within plain view of the captain.

If Pearce had learnt anything this last awful week it was the division that the mainmast provided. Astern of that great round timber, the height of two men in diameter, was the preserve of the officers, termed the quarterdeck for no reason that he could discern. He was allowed to cross the divide to carry out any task allotted – scrubbing the decks, hauling on the falls – but he was not permitted to linger or address anyone unbidden, and that was a stricture that applied to the whole crew of seamen, regardless of their rating.

No social division pointed out to him on land by his father – and there had been plenty – had ever been so clearly defined. It was like an invisible wall that separated officers from men; those who held or, like midshipmen, anticipated commissions, from those whose task it was to carry out whatever orders such people dealt out. Whether they made sense or not, were issued with kindness or malice, the most depressing aspect about the system was the way the men on the ship accepted this divide and respected it. Sovereign of the quarterdeck was the captain – that was where he was deferred to most, his rank acknowledged in endless lifting of hats, barks of ‘aye, aye, sir’ and obsequious looks meant to convey to him just what a puissant personage he was. Each time he thought on it, or witnessed the sight of what to him appeared mere grovelling, Pearce felt himself sickened.

Ralph Barclay, unaware of the stare of malevolence aimed in his direction, was running a mass of facts through his mind – the accumulation of his own years at sea and the teachings of those who had preceded him. Was the wind easing, and with it the swell? The sky 
was certainly clearing, the heavy cloud cover lifting. How was
Brilliant
handling, had her holds been stowed right; were her masts taking the strain or labouring; how much sail could she carry on this heading, into the wind but twenty points free, on a course that he hoped would put him between the Frenchman and his home shore?

‘Topgallants, Mr Roscoe.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

Half an hour later Ralph Barclay was wondering if he should clear for action, knocking out the bulkheads and striking below everything not required, but that was a disruption to the ship that was best avoided. Against that, it was an exercise the crew had not yet had time to practise, so it was likely to be a slow and laborious affair if he had to order it done. And what would happen if they saw action? With the lack of time and foul weather he had not been able to get in some exercise on the great guns, or even a bit of practice with small arms.

With all these worries to contend with, there was some satisfaction to be gained from the knowledge that the crew, despite failing to act as the unit it would one day become, would already have carried out certain tasks. Mess tables would have been lashed off to the deckbeams, all extraneous articles secured, and the gun crews, even if the order had not come, would be close to their weapons. Behind him, the marines were lined up on the poop, muskets at the ready, prepared to act wherever he sent them, and the topgallants were being rigged, if not at pace, with efficiency.

‘Deck there. Chase in sight.’

‘Mr Roscoe, orders to the gunner. Please ensure that we have enough cartridges for a prolonged action. And send someone to alert my steward to get the cabin furniture below. I require that my wife be moved also to a place of safety.’

‘Aye, aye, sir,’ Roscoe replied, managing, even with only half a face, to look exasperated.

‘And, since the hands have had no breakfast, I suggest that the Master at Arms be sent to the purser to request an extra ration of grog to keep their spirits up.’

Information was shared with the whole ship as each new fact was called down to the deck. The chase was a two-masted barque of seven guns a side, flush decked and wearing a tricolour at the main, facts which made sense to most of the crew, but remained a mystery to the pressed men of the afterguard. The fact that she was likely to be ‘nippy’ in stays 
meant even less to the Pelicans than the speculation that she would be fast on a bowline. But that she would be a ‘right fine prize’ and ‘sure to be bought in if taken’ was enough to raise the spirits of Gherson, who understood quicker than the others that every member of the crew had a money share in any reward for a capture.

‘Mr Digby,’ called Barclay, ‘I require you to cast off a pair of the quarterdeck guns, and teach some of these new fellows how to handle them. We cannot go into a fight short of men to man our armaments.’

‘Will the maindeck guns not suffice, sir?’

To Digby, that made perfect sense. The ship they might fight, being only a flush-decked barque and lightly armed, could not match the calibre of
Brilliant
’s main armament. To man every gun, especially in this sea, was gilding the lily.

‘It was customary,’ Barclay replied, with deep irony, ‘in the Navy in which I was raised, for lieutenants to obey an order from their captain.’

‘Sir.’

What Barclay was asking for was plain daft. To teach totally inexperienced men how to handle an eighteen-pounder cannon required a calm sea, a flat deck, and time. A pitching deck was more dangerous to the trainee gunners than the gun could ever be to the enemy.

‘I would request the aid of two experienced gun captains, sir.’

‘Mr Burns, double below and ask Mr Thrale for the loan of two of his best gunners.’

‘And we require flintlocks,’ Digby added, responding to Barclay’s raised eyebrow with, ‘for verisimilitude, sir.’

As Burns disappeared, Digby was tallying off two groups of six men, while admonishing the rest to listen and observe. Then he tapped the black painted barrel of a cannon bowsed tight up against a gun port.

‘Be warned, this is near two tons of metal and wood with a mind of its own. There are lines to control her and you must never let go of them. Once she is cast loose, those on the breechings and levers have to act together, for if you do not, a man could lose his leg, if not his life.’

Then he picked up a ball from one of the rope-garlands that kept it from rolling around the canting deck.

‘This ball is eighteen pounds in weight, hence the gun is an
eighteen-pounder
. From what we know of our quarry she will be light in her scantlings, that is her side timbers, so any well-aimed shot will go through and make mincemeat of any flesh it finds on deck. This is not the case with a ship of our own size or greater, so when aiming, the gun captain will lever the muzzle of the weapon up with that quoin under the barrel 
and fire into the rigging, hoping to hit a mast or dislodge a yard.’

Whether what he was telling the two crews detailed to man the pair of guns was making sense was hard for Digby to know. The blank wet faces that greeted his instructions seemed indifferent or too tired to take it in. After flintlocks had been fitted by a gunner’s mate, he was glad to see two experienced gun captains arrive, for he had no desire to be too close himself the first time these men tried to control that weight. It was obvious from the faces of the two newcomers that they shared his opinion of the exercise – they both looked as though someone had pinched their extra grog.

Assigned to a gun, Michael O’Hagan and Charlie Taverner were allotted to the ropes on one side that ran through blocks lashed to the bulwarks, while Rufus Dommet and John Pearce took those on the other. Being compact and looking nimble, Ben Walker was given the swab, while a volunteer landsman whose name they did not know was allotted the rammer. Digby sent for two buckets of water and these were placed between the guns. One, he explained, for the swabber to wash the sheepskin head on his pole, the other had a ladle out of which the men could drink, for, manning a gun was ‘damned warm work’.

‘First you must cast off the breechings.’ This they did, and the cannon rolled back on the swell, Digby shouting at the rope men to ‘hold her steady, and ease her back until the lines were taut’. While the gun port was opened, the two front men, O’Hagan and Pearce, were ordered to take up the levers and jam them under the front wheels of the carriage. The reason was obvious – as the angle of the deck altered, the levers acted as brakes. This allowed the gun captain to bring forward the cartridge and the wad, and behind him Ben Walker had the black painted balls, none of which, since this was all to be in dumb show, were actually placed in the barrel. Digby had both swab and rammer employed as though the gun had been fired, then on the gun captain’s command, all six men hauled on the breechings to pull the weapon up to its firing position, which put the muzzle well beyond the side of the ship. Still in pretence, the gun captain pulled the flintlock and created the spark that, in real life, would fire the powder pricked onto the touchhole, which in turn would explode the cartridge rammed into the barrel, sending the ball towards its target.