Powder Monkey (12 page)

Spencer turned on the bosun's mate. ‘Mr Tuck, why are you bothering me with this schoolboy scrap?'

Tuck began to look flustered. ‘I don't think we can count on Witchall's word, sir. I think we ought to search his hammock and his ditty-bag.'

‘You couldn't count your balls and get the same answer twice,' said Silas under his breath.

‘What was that?' said Tuck, and hit Silas on the back with his rope.

‘I said the boy couldn't count on Trellis to answer truthfully, Mr Tuck.'

Tuck looked unconvinced. I had to stifle a huge grin. Silas was really sailing close to the wind with that one.

Spencer had heard enough. ‘Mr Tuck. Have these boys clapped in irons for the night. Fighting between seamen will not be tolerated. And you,' he turned to Silas, ‘can join them for talking out of turn.'

Tuck and four marines marched us to the gun deck. Close to the main hatchway several shackles had been fitted to the floor, and we were forced to sit on the deck right next to each other while an iron bar was placed around each left leg. When this was done, Tuck gave Silas another belt with his rope and said, ‘You can all stay there till the morning watch. And you, Witchall, if I catch you fighting again, you'll be in serious trouble.'

I knew there was no point arguing, and besides, I was uncomfortably close to Michael Trellis. Tuck left, and a single marine brandishing a bayonet stood over us. Trellis started his ‘Thief' taunt again, right in my ear, but the marine kicked him hard in the back.

‘And that'll go for any one of you who feels like making conversation,' he said.

Spending eleven hours on a draughty wooden deck with one leg locked tightly in irons was a miserable experience, but it was not a flogging. In the dead of night I even managed to snatch some sleep. When we were released at four the next morning, I found I could barely walk for the next few minutes, and my leg ached for days afterwards where it had been held by the iron. But whenever I began to feel sorry for myself I thought of Silas's remark to Tuck and smiled.

At breakfast I told Ben what had happened.

‘Trellis and his mates seem to have it in for me, and
Tuck. I've been doing my best to keep out of trouble, and get on with everybody, so I can't understand it.'

‘There's no sense in it,' said Ben. ‘Maybe Trellis doesn't like you because you've got a mother and father who looked after you? Maybe it's because you can read and write? Lads like him, they've had a rough life, and they're little more than beasts, Sam. I'd keep out of his way if you can help it. As for Tuck – maybe he's got his eye on you because you're a friend of Silas, and he's got him down as a troublemaker.'

The day got worse. When I was out on the upper deck, Lieutenant Spencer beckoned me over.

‘You should make more of an effort to keep out of trouble, Witchall,' he said mysteriously. ‘Report to the Captain's cabin tomorrow at eleven o'clock.'

I began to shiver, although I did not know whether it was from cold or fear. Did Spencer think I was a thief after all? I felt sick with worry. The morning dragged terribly before I could pour out my fears to Ben over dinner. He was quite calm about it.

‘He can't think you're the thief, so you can stop worrying about that.'

Edmund had overheard. ‘I wouldn't be so sure. Maybe someone's pointing the finger at you. Maybe the officers just want a culprit and they don't care whether he's guilty or not. If they think it's you, you'll be flogged for sure.'

Ben kicked Edmund under the table. ‘Shut it, and stop worrying the lad. I'll tell yer what I think. I think they've found out about your false address.'

That must be it, I told myself. I had written letters to Rosie and my parents during the voyage, and on the previous day the ship's post had been passed over to a homebound British frigate that had crossed our path.

‘Don't look too pleased with yerself,' said Edmund. ‘Y' can be flogged for lyin' too.'

I spent the rest of the day worrying about what would happen to me, and slept barely a wink that night. Eleven o'clock came round, and I duly reported to the Captain's cabin. Spencer was there, and the Captain, and one of the bosun's mates, who was carrying a rope, broom and shovel. I thought they were going to hang me, and the blood drained from my face.

Mandeville looked at me sternly. ‘Why does your parents' address in the muster book not tally with the address on the letters you write to them?'

I stammered an apology, although I tried to keep my dignity. ‘I'm sorry, sir. I was confused. It won't happen again.'

‘It won't,' said Mandeville plainly. ‘There's no more to be said here, Mr Spencer. I'll leave you to deal with the boy.'

I looked at the rope and could imagine it tightening
around my neck. My legs began to tremble and I had to strain every muscle to walk as I was brusquely marched out of the cabin. Spencer told me sternly I was to be hoisted up to the main yard with the rope tied around my waist, and the broom and shovel tied to my back.

‘My waist?' I blurted out. ‘You mean I'm not going to be hanged?'

Spencer looked at me with some irritation. ‘Don't be stupid, Witchall.'

So half an hour before the noon sighting I was hoisted up the mainmast with the rope around my chest. There I was left to dangle for half an hour, whilst anyone passing by was obliged to shout ‘Liar, liar' at me. It was cold, and my arms began to ache after ten minutes, but, as I had told myself when I was clapped in irons, at least it wasn't a flogging. In fact, there was more flogging going on beneath me. Most of the ship's crew could not be bothered to shout ‘Liar, liar' at me, and a bosun's mate was placed beneath to beat any man with his rope if he did not shout as he passed. When I came down, I was told that this punishment had a second part. I was to clean the heads every day for a fortnight.

‘It was probably Spencer that spotted your address,' Ben told me. ‘The miserable sod should have let it be. He could have just changed the record, but you must have caught him on a bad day. Probably his piles playing up, I shouldn't wonder.' Ben picked up all sorts of
scurrilous information from the officers' servants, which he would occasionally drop into the conversation with us.

Despite having to clean the heads, I was keenly aware I'd got off lightly, not least because Mandeville had a reputation among the crew for being cruel. The previous Sunday evening, two men from the starboard watch had drunk more grog than was good for them, and were arguing loudly about the merits of various loose women in Portsmouth. Mandeville ordered both men to be gagged and tied in the mizzen rigging, faces to the wind. There they spent the next two hours in the teeth of a freezing autumn gale, an iron bit tied tightly across their mouths with a piece of dirty canvas. I thought it an horrendous thing. But Ben pointed out that the Captain could have had both men flogged. They were, after all, clearly drunk.

Silas wasn't having that. ‘Listen to God's representative on Earth,' he sneered. ‘Is there anything Mandeville would do that you wouldn't excuse him for?'

Ben bristled with anger. He didn't like to have his judgement challenged – especially not in front of the rest of his gun crew. ‘What would you know about it, y' lanky streak of piss?' he hissed. ‘You're heading for a sticky end, mate. The bosun's mates and the officers have already got you down as a troublemaker, and they're just itching for an excuse to have you flogged.'

This stopped Silas in his tracks. Ben went on, trying to justify himself. ‘I don't like Mandeville any more than any other men on our ship. All I'm saying is I've seen far worse.'

We expected random cruelties from the officers. Because they came from a different world than ours we almost accepted it as their natural right. Not so the bosun's mates. They were the most openly despised men on board the
Miranda
, because they were ordinary men like us. We always tensed up when we saw one of them coming. Lewis Tuck was the worst. If he were dimmer I would have said he reminded me of a fairground boxer – the sort who fight allcomers for money, and whose chosen profession has knocked what little sense he had in the first place clean out of his head. But Lewis Tuck was brighter than that, and ambitious. He was young enough to believe he might catch the Captain's eye, and win promotion. But as he could neither read nor write we all knew this was unlikely.

He made it clear he had a special dislike of me. Ben was right. Like Michael Trellis, he seemed to resent the fact that I could read and write. One late afternoon, when I was sitting with a book on the deck, he crept up to me, and gave me a stinging whack with his knotted rope.

‘Aren't you a clever boy,' he sneered.

The next morning, when I was making repairs to the deck planking, I accidentally spilled some tar on the deck. As I cursed and began to scrape it off I caught sight of Tuck staring right over at me. His eyes narrowed and he sauntered up to me with a humourless smile upon his lips.

‘My dear fellow,' he said, with a mock gentility no doubt inspired by Lieutenant Middlewych, ‘permit me to point out that you are spilling tar upon His Majesty's quarterdeck.'

I said nothing in my defence. There was no point enraging him further. I could guess what was coming. Most of the ratings aboard had heard this routine before, and my body started to tense up. I could feel my legs beginning to shake and I fought hard to stop this happening. I was determined not to let him see how afraid I was. He carried on with his speech, looking around with a smirk to see whether or not he was gathering an audience. A few of the crew had indeed stopped to watch. Some were laughing with him.

‘This is a deck, I may venture to observe, which has been scrubbed spotless not an hour before.' As he spoke, his voice began to rise in both volume and fury. ‘And now, you worthless lubberly dog, I am obliged to do my duty with as much attention as you have failed to do yours.' With that I felt the sharp sting of his rope on my back. Three times he hit me hard. On the third stroke I
fell to my knees with the force of the blow. ‘Damn you to hell!' he bellowed. ‘If I catch you spilling tar again, I'll slice you starboard to larboard with my cutlass!'

When he'd gone, tears flowed down my face. It wasn't the pain of the beating that had upset me, but Tuck's sheer malice. Ben came over and spoke sharply to me.

‘Come on, Sam. Y' can't let a brute like that upset you. You'll just encourage him. Dry them tears quick and try to look like you don't care.' Then he started to help scrape up the tar, and his voice softened. ‘You don't need other people thinking you're an easy target either, Sam. Plenty o' men on this ship'll make y' life a misery, just to make themselves feel a bit better than you.' I thought of those few others who had stopped to snigger at my plight, and knew he was right.

That night, round the mess table, we talked of Lewis Tuck in hushed voices. Tom Shepherd, as ever, seemed to have the measure of the man.

‘He's ambitious, all right, but I'll bet he knows he's going to be a bosun's mate for the rest of his Navy life. There's a bright man and a thug inside Tuck, and the thug always wins.'

Ben butted in. ‘He's bound to get his promotion. Mandeville needs men like him to run his ship.'

But Tom was sure of his ground. ‘No, the Captain's too smart. Like him or not, Mandeville always punishes a man for a good reason, and with clear intention. Not
Tuck. He takes too much pleasure in handing out his thrashings. If you made him a midshipman or an officer, you'd have a mutiny on your hands before you could say “Bligh and the
Bounty
”.'

A few days after Tuck had beaten me, Richard came running up with momentous news.

‘They've caught the thief! It's Joshua Leverick, one of the starboard forecastle men. Caught him red-handed!'

‘What's going to happen to him?' I said.

‘I dread to think,' said Richard, and he was off.

We found out soon enough. The whole crew were summoned on deck to watch Leverick run the gauntlet. All thirty or so of the forecastle men lined up facing each other. Each carried a length of frayed rope, with the loose ends tied in little knots. In among the line were Lewis Tuck and another bosun's mate, each carrying a cat-o'-nine-tails. When Joshua was brought out on deck, with a marine clutching him tight by the arm on either side, he looked terrified. Unlike some men who faced punishment, there was no pretence of courage or contempt. Another bosun's mate ripped his shirt from his back with sadistic relish. At this moment I began to suspect that all the bosun's mates were as loathsome as Lewis Tuck. Every last one of them seemed to enjoy the cruelty in their work.

The bosun's mate who had ripped off Joshua's shirt
took a cutlass from his belt and held it, at arm's length, to his chest. At first I thought they were going to kill him, but Silas told me it was to stop him running down the line too quickly. Then, on the command of the Captain, the two of them – mate and victim – began to walk slowly down this row of men. As the punishment began, the whole crew, and especially the men in the line, started to jeer and hiss like a crowd booing a pantomime villain. The mate walked so slowly that each man in the line landed several heavy blows before Joshua was able to move on. When he passed the first bosun's mate with the cat, I winced as it cracked on his back. This was a blow too many. He collapsed, and the jeering line waited for him to recover and stagger to his feet.

By now Joshua could hardly stand. His face was contorted in pain, his body was covered in cruel weals, and his chest was bleeding from cuts inflicted by the mate's cutlass. He staggered towards the end of the line, but quailed when he saw Lewis Tuck waiting for him with another cat. That blow was the final one. He fell down on the deck, and did not move. ‘Throw a bucket over him,' commanded the bosun. Joshua was drenched with stinging saltwater. This did not stir him, so a second bucket quickly followed. His hands began to clench and he tried to stand. Two men came forward and carried him off.