Powder Monkey (10 page)

A month into the voyage, I was coming up the companionway from the gun deck to the upper deck when a novel thought entered my head. I liked it up here. To go from the enclosed, stifling world of the mess deck and out into the salty sea air and sunshine was one of life's pleasures. It also dawned on me that I was no longer in a state of constant anxiety. True, at any moment the
Miranda
could be called to quarters, and I could never be certain when I woke that I would live to see the evening, but I had at least begun to master the duties required of me and adjust
to the ship's exhausting routine.

When off duty I could walk freely on the forward part of the upper deck, along the waist with its ship's boats, spare masts and yards lain over the opening above the gun deck, but I quickly learned that the quarterdeck was forbidden territory to ordinary seamen who had no business being there.

Whenever I made my way to the upper deck I would marvel at the agility of the topmen – those of us in the ship's crew who worked up in the sails. They seemed to revel in the danger of their work – running along the narrow lengths of the yardarms, and dropping down to the thin foot rope beneath the yard, which was all that lay between them and the dizzying drop to the deck. They would swing from one mast to another on the stays, and slide down to the deck on the halyards. They seemed as confident in the rigging as a squirrel running through the branches of a horse chestnut. Topmen had something of the flair of circus acrobats – we called their antics ‘skylarking'. I once heard Lieutenant Middlewych remark with some pride to a midshipman that he was sure people would pay money to watch our topmen perform.

Occasionally, I would be called upon to set or furl a sail. It was here that I first met a mizzentopman called Joseph Neil. Almost exactly my age, Joseph was from Yorkshire and walked with a cocky swagger. I'd grown
increasingly unsure of myself up among the rigging. Joseph noticed this when I first went up with him, and chided me.

‘Come on, y' big jellyfish,' he sneered, then winked to take the sting from his taunt. Seeing I was shaky, he drew level with me and said, ‘One hand for the Navy. One hand for yourself. That's how to make sure y' don't fall off.'

Like me he had joined a merchant ship. He sailed out of Scarborough but had been pressed into the Navy. As I got to know him better, I helped him write home. Sometimes when we talked he would drop his cocksure front, and I started to like him.

‘Course it's terrifying up there,' he admitted to me once. ‘Especially in a storm, with a gale pushing and pulling you to and fro, and all you've got between you and your maker is a wet slippery rope to hold on to. Last year I had to go up to the main topgallant through a freezing fog. Ice on the rigging! My hands just went numb. You always know when you go up that you'll come down – but you never know whether it'll be the hard or the easy way.'

Joseph picked up his swagger from the other men in his watch. They were an evil lot, who could shame the devil with their curses. I'd occasionally sit with Joseph and them on a Sunday afternoon, and they would often talk about what they would do when we ran into a
French or Spanish ship. They seemed to revel in the violence they would inflict on Johnny Foreigner, and their humour often left me wondering when I was supposed to laugh.

They were equally merciless with their own kind, and spoke with scorn of any comrade who had fallen from the rigging. ‘Remember that pipsqueak the press gang picked up last year?' said one of the lads. ‘Him from Dorset that fell off the fore topgallant.' Another of them adopted an expression of sheer terror, and flailed his arms like a windmill in a gale, and they all began to laugh.

These were men who would joke about their own execution, and believe me, it was a racing certainty that some of them would end their life dangling from a yardarm. They seemed to have a pact between them that even on the gallows they would try to outdo each other in devil-may-care japery. ‘When Stephen and George were hanged together,' said another of the topmen, ‘after that carry on with Lieutenant Fisher, they had a little bet about who would be the last to piss himself when they were swinging from the yardarm.' At this point Joseph filled me in – explaining that men who are hung lose control of their bladders, usually at the point of death.

At first I thought them a crude and cruel bunch, but I knew enough to keep my feelings hidden. Living so
close to death they turned their plight into an endless amusement – where even their own execution could be turned into some laddish stunt to outdo each other. Even their curses began to amuse me. One evening, I was up with one of Joseph's watch in the mizzen topsail. ‘Stay tied, you buggering lopsided dog!' he said, in disgust at a disintegrating rope he was using to furl the sail.

Although I was intrigued by these rough and ready men, I felt more comfortable with my own gun crew. They seemed a more easy-going bunch. As I got to know them, I discovered that all my messmates had a special keepsake or charm they hoped would bring them luck. They kept them hidden in their wooden trunks and canvas ditty-bags. There, alongside the sewing needles, spools of thread, buttons, letters and spare clothes, lay these small tokens of life away from our uncertain world. Sometimes after supper, one of them would bring out their keepsake and tell us the story that went with it.

Tom had a horn beaker with the face of an eagle carefully carved into the side. ‘Brought that back from New York. Red Indian, it is, though I don't know which tribe.'

James had a small ivory locket with the words ‘Not lost but gone before' inlaid around the edge. It had a hinged lid with a compartment containing a short strand of braided hair tied at each end with a sliver of red
cotton. One evening, when he had drunk a little more than was wise, he got out the braid and laid it over the palm of his hand. ‘There's three strands there. Me, me missus and our Kate.' I looked hard and there they were. One fair like James, one dark and the other brown. ‘That's all that's left of her, that strand of brown hair. Carried away by scarlatina, she was. Eight years old . . . We both watched her breathe her last . . .' That was all he said. We all felt the weight of his sadness.

After a while, Ben sought to change the mood by showing us what he kept with him. It was a small double-heart brooch, inlaid with garnets.

‘My missus gave us that on our wedding day. It was her grandma's. She says it'll keep me safe, and it's worked so far.'

‘All these keepsakes – some of them are quite valuable, aren't they?' I said to Ben.

‘No, I don't think so,' he said. ‘Most of them aren't worth much, to be honest. But there's a lot of faith invested in them. And for the man who has one . . . well, you couldn't put a price on it.'

Richard and me were quietly amused by how superstitious these hardened seamen were. We were certainly careful to say nothing when the men talked about the
Flying Dutchman
– at least three had claimed to have seen it – or mermaids.

‘Right up to the ship they came,' said Ben lasciviously.

‘I saw 'em bobbing up and down, in the wake of the stern. Real beauty, one of 'em. And not a stitch on her, save for a seaweed necklace.'

After these discussions Richard would take me to one side and mimic the older men's wide-eyed superstition or lechery. ‘We've got to get out while we're young, Sam,' he'd say. I liked his cynicism for all things supernatural, although here he was almost alone among us ordinary seamen. Practically every man aboard could claim he had seen a ghost on the ship. When night fell aboard the
Miranda
, most of us feared the flickering shadows, and staircases that vanished into the dark pool of the hold. The ship was a man-o'-war, and a lot of terrible things had happened aboard her. Men had fallen from the rigging, been crushed by their cannon, flogged to death, and torn apart in battle. I sometimes wondered if there was any one spot on the ship that, at one time or another, had not been the scene of some hellish torment.

Although life at sea was made up of myriad everyday trials and dangers, I learned to appreciate its pleasures too, especially when we took our rest before bed or on a Sunday afternoon. Sometimes a man would sing or play a fiddle or whistle – a gentle lament or lullaby for the dimming day. Colm played a lovely melody called ‘Wexford Bay'. The tune moved me. Music at this time of day was always quiet. But on Sunday afternoons,
which we had to ourselves if we were not taking the afternoon watch, it would be more raucous. Then, some of the men would dance and sing.

One of the most enthusiastic dancers was a fellow I had noticed on my first night on the
Miranda
, who had the crucifixion depicted on his back, among other tattoos. Most of these were Biblical quotations of an unforgiving nature – ‘Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe' and ‘With the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men'. I discovered his name was Vincent Thomas and I always thought of him as ‘Vengeful Tattoos'. As I tried to decipher some of the smaller quotations as he spun around, he caught my eye and dragged me up to dance. ‘My, but you've got a pretty mouth,' he whispered as he whirled me around. I took care not to look at him too closely after that.

As September turned to October we were blessed with a final spell of mild weather. Richard and I made the most of it by sitting up on the forecastle during our rest time between watches, although we were always careful what we said when officers and bosun's mates were within earshot.

Sometimes Richard told me about his country. It was, he said, a land of broad rivers and endless meadows and woodland. He told me about the Red Indians of America, and the troubled relationship they had with the European settlers. The names of their tribes –
Cherokee, Arapaho, Conestoga – spoke of an alien yet fascinating world.

‘So how long have your family been in America?' said Tom Shepherd, who sometimes joined us.

‘Forty, fifty years. My ma and pa both came to Boston when they were babes in arms. My ma was born in Bristol, my pa in Liverpool. Grandpa Buckley still considers himself a loyal British citizen. He loved it when I enlisted for this game. “Get some Frenchmen for me boy!” That was the last thing he said when I left.' Then Richard lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned close to me. ‘Can't say I've got anything against the French, myself – especially as they helped us win our independence – no offence meant to you fellows. Grandpa still feels quite distressed about the revolution, and gets maudlin when he's had a few slugs of whisky. But he's done well for himself in Boston, and he's too set in his ways to think about going back to England.'

Although Richard was careful not to show it openly, he had a particular dislike for the
Miranda
's officers, especially the Captain and his lieutenants, and the way they regarded themselves as superior beings. ‘You hear them talking,' he said to me when we were alone, ‘and the worse thing is, most of you English go along with it. You believe they are better than you!'

Sitting in the sun on the forecastle on one such an afternoon, we started chatting to Joseph Neil, a
mizzenmast topman. Joseph liked to boast, and he was keen to talk about a girlfriend he had back home. He produced a lock of blonde plaited hair, tied in a blue ribbon, which he carried in the top pocket of his shirt. ‘Ower lass', he called her. She was from Scarborough, he said, and the two had known each other since they could walk.

Richard seemed surprised that a boy so young should have a girlfriend. ‘Can't say I've much time for girls,' he said nonchalantly.

Joseph took his indifference as a cue for sympathy. ‘Never you mind, Richard,' he said. ‘There's plenty of fish int' sea.'

‘Who wants to court a fish?' said Richard.

‘And 'ow about you, Sam. D'you have a girl at 'ome?'

I wasn't going to be outdone. ‘She's called Rosie. Last I saw of her was in the spring, but as soon as we get off this ship, I'm going straight up to Yarmouth to see her again.'

‘She'll be an old maid by the time you get off this ship, Sam,' teased Richard, ‘or married with five snotty-nosed brats.' They both began to badger me for more details. Then Peter Lyons, one of the starboard forecastle men, came to sit with us. He had a face like thunder.

‘We've got a thief on board, lads,' he said to no one in particular. ‘Someone's stealing. A painted egg cup here, an ivory box there. One of the fellas has even had a brass
button stolen. It's barely worth a penny, but it came from an old shipmate who saved his life . . . There'll be hell to pay if we ever find the bastard who did this.'

‘How d'you know it's just one man? What if it's several people?' said Richard.

Lyons was sure of himself. ‘I've been on three men-o'-war in my time, and no one steals from their fellow seamen. It's not right and it's not wise . . . It's got to be one man. We'll find him in the end, and then he'll wish he'd never been born.'

It was a sour end to what had been a pleasant conversation. When we returned to our duties I wondered briefly who would be stupid enough to steal from his fellows.

News of the thief spread rapidly. In the mess that night the crew talked of little else. It was trinkets that were being stolen – mainly keepsakes from wives or sweethearts. From what we could make out, three of the victims at least were from the starboard watch, stationed in the forecastle. Among Ben's gun crew those who had anything small of value took to carrying it around in a pocket or on a string around their neck.

That night, as I settled down in my hammock, I thought about the lie I had told my shipmates. Rosie was my friend, it was true, but she wasn't what you'd call a girlfriend. I had last seen her in Great Yarmouth, the night
before I joined the
Franklyn
. My father had taken me to stay with his old friend Benjamin Hooke, who lived on the edge of the town, close by the sea. Our family had known Benjamin's family for years, and I had always liked his daughter Rosie. She and I were almost the same age and played happily together – one moment crimson pirates, the next mermaid and merman frolicking in the surf on the nearby beach.