Powder Monkey (16 page)

But Edmund was in full flow. ‘Worst of all is the death of a child. By 'eck, I've seen grown men collapse ont' floor and bawl their hearts out when news o' that reaches them.'

My excitement began to evaporate.

That afternoon we gathered around the bosun, whose job it was to hand out the post. Thanks to Edmund I just felt jittery – like we were drawing straws to decide who was to be flogged.

When the bosun called out my name I rushed to the front of the crowd and he handed over five letters. Two were from my father, and I read them quickly. He'd had a toothache, and had his tooth removed by a frail seventy-year-old called Mr Eade, who always pulled teeth in the village . . . and our two pigs had got drunk when a broken beer cask had been left outside our garden. They had snorted and slurped at the stream that leaked out, and had got so befuddled they could barely stand up . . .

The other three letters were from Rosie, which I kept
until a private moment when I could read them at leisure. I was not disappointed. Two had been written to me whilst I served in the
Franklyn
, and had been sent on. The first, written soon after I had gone to sea, was quite polite and formal. The second, a reply to a letter from me just before I was pressed, was much warmer. The third, written a week or so after she received news of my pressing, was a delight. She had drenched the envelope in rose water, although by the time it arrived this had turned to a faint, sickly-sour tang. I read this one over and over, smiling at her jokes, and feeling breathless and excited by her flirtatiousness.

In one passage she wrote:

Papa took me to Norwich last week, and as we walked through the market I spotted a dark-haired boy in the distance who I was sure was you. Of course I ran over, wanting to throw my arms around you, and when I caught up and grabbed the arm of this lad, he turned round with a look of complete surprise on his face. I was so sad, and felt such a fool when I realised it wasn't you
.

When we got home that evening, I went for a long walk on my own down by the seashore. I wished that you were there with me, but my fairy godmother didn't answer me. I've obviously not been quite as good a girl as I ought to be
.

She signed off with a heartfelt plea for me to look after myself:

If any of those Frenchmen attack your ship, head for the hold, and stay there until it's all over. Tell your captain I said it was all right to do it. Don't be a hero. I've no use for a dead hero. Come back to me soon, Your dear friend Rosie xxxxxx

I folded up the letter and placed it in my shirt pocket next to my heart. This will be my keepsake and lucky charm, I thought. As long as I don't lose it, it will keep me from danger and see me through until we return to England. I reread it so many times it became frayed around the creases, and soon I could recall every word when I lay in my hammock at night.

Although I was beginning to think that Captain Mandeville was not quite as much of an ogre as I had first thought, I still made every effort to keep as far away from him as my lowly position allowed. Haughty, aloof and with a face perpetually hovering on the brink of a sneer or a scowl, he was clearly a man who had no need to be loved by either his officers or men. I would guess his age was perhaps thirty, and his wiry, bushy hair was already beginning to recede around the temples. I suppose
his thin, pointed nose would be judged by some to make him quite handsome, but for me, it just added to his air of disdain. He was the most intimidating man I had ever met. Ruthless determination seemed to seep out of him like static electricity.

So I was horrified when I was summoned to Lieutenant Middlewych and told that the Captain had decreed I was to wait on his table that day. ‘Captain's a man down, Witchall, after that business with Hartley. All you have to do is bring food to the table, and take it away when you're asked. Most of the time you have to stand very still, right at the back of the cabin, and pretend you're part of the furniture.'

Seeing me looking so anxious, the Lieutenant gave a brisk smile. ‘Don't worry. You won't be on the menu. Buckley will be helping out too. He's done it before and he'll tell you what to do.'

Richard, I discovered, had already been briefed. Mandeville was entertaining the Governor of Gibraltar Sir George Beverly, an admiral with a civil post, who still had an active interest and influence in naval affairs. Beverly was bringing his wife, and his three daughters. Also present would be the frigate's three lieutenants. A pig from the ship's manger had been slaughtered that morning, and the Captain's cook was busy preparing it. Even as we spoke, the sweet smell of roasting pork wafted by. It was mouth-watering, and I'm sure it
tormented the whole crew, whose daily nourishment was much the same as the pig's.

Richard had a conspiratorial air about him, and he leaned close to tell me, ‘Gossip has it that Mandeville has a sweet spot for one of the Admiral's daughters. Miss Beverly, I believe. She's the eldest. We don't know whether it's a real sweet spot, or whether he thinks it'll get him another promotion.

‘Look and learn, Sam. See how Mandeville tries to solicit the Admiral's favour. But watch out. The people you'll see tonight will regard you with the same indifference as they would a sparrow come to perch at their window.

‘Hey! One last thing,' he said. ‘Don't catch my eye, or I'll start to giggle. If we both start they'll tie us by the wrist to a barrel hoop, and have us flog each other on the backsides.'

The hours before the meal crawled, and Ben and Tom seemed most amused by the ordeal I was facing. I was summoned by the Captain's steward just before one o'clock and he told me to change into fresh clothing and wash.

‘We have some fine young ladies coming aboard,' he told me. ‘We've got to look presentable.'

I returned, as instructed, at half past two, and was directed into the Captain's cabin. Like the officers' gunroom,
the Great Cabin was another world. The long mahogany table had been covered with a linen cloth and the tabletop gleamed with silver cutlery, candlesticks and cut-glass goblets.

The Admiral and his family arrived at the quayside just after three o'clock. Piped aboard by the bosun, who saluted with great dignity, they were ushered to the Captain's cabin. Richard and I were standing smartly to attention at the back of the cabin, ready to be summoned when we were needed. The rest of the Captain's guests were all wearing their most formal uniform – cleaned and polished to perfection. As they waited, Mandeville's lieutenants seemed uneasy in his company, but had the social grace to pass the time making small talk about the weather. Mandeville seemed his supremely confident self, and I was amazed how a man could flog to death a servant one day and entertain with such assurance the next.

I was grateful to Richard for the talk we'd had earlier. What I heard that afternoon was quite extraordinary. In Norfolk those of a higher station, such as the Reverend Chatham, or the gentleman farmers with estates close to the village, had behaved with courtesy to their congregation or labourers. Although they took their own higher station for granted, they made it clear that they had responsibilities too. The people who dined with Captain Mandeville were cut from a different cloth.

The Admiral entered first – a great tall fellow, who seemed to stoop even in the high ceiling of the cabin. He was stout too – obviously fond of beef and Burgundy. He seemed to have a matter-of-fact air about him, which was to contrast quite noticeably with the haughty opinions of his wife and daughters. The Admiral's wife, Lady Beverly, swept in immediately after, and all attention turned to her. She was a small, thin woman – undoubtedly pretty, but with a sour, impatient look on her face.

Then the three daughters came into the cabin. Each looked quite dazzling, in long, high-waist dresses, with silk shawls draped around their shoulders. Introduced by their father from eldest to youngest, as Miss Beverly, Miss Louisa and Miss Anne, they all curtsied and smiled primly at the lieutenants. Miss Beverly was tall, like her father, but was as slender as her mother. Louisa was shorter and quite buxom, Anne was a slip of a girl, around my own age.

Miss Beverly carried a small basket, out of which popped a tiny ginger and white cat, barely out of kitten-hood. This, she announced, was a gift from her family to the Captain.

‘His name is Bouncer, and he comes from a very fine line of ratters.'

Bouncer took one look at Mandeville and hissed, which made me like him immediately.

‘He's a game little puss,' said the Captain, but I could tell he and Bouncer were not going to be friends. ‘Back in his box with him,' he said, ‘we'll find him a berth later!'

I stood there, silent and still as a statue, watching with a detached fascination. It was Miss Beverly who captivated Mandeville and his lieutenants. And me too. She had a wonderful halo of curly brown hair, held with a red-silk ribbon that matched her dress. Her hair was cut to above her shoulder, all the better to show off her slender neck. Had her face been perhaps a little less broad, and her eyes a little larger, she would have been exquisite. But she was pretty, though, and graceful in her manner and movement. Her younger sister Louisa was the real beauty of the family – she had skin as smooth and white as alabaster, which set off her white muslin dress. Her pale grey eyes had long dark lashes, and her hair was black as the night sky. But Louisa seemed to lack Miss Beverly's natural grace. She laughed too loudly, and ate with too great enthusiasm. Her mother gave her the occasional flinty-eyed glance of disapproval, and she would compose herself rather obviously. Still, the two young lieutenants either side of her seemed desperately eager to engage her in conversation. Anne was seated opposite her mother and had her back to me. I wondered if this was her first grown-up party.

Watching them, I realised how much I longed to talk
to a girl, to spend some time in female company. I enjoyed the companionship I'd found at sea, but now I was part of a world where beautiful young women were alien visitors. Seeing the lieutenants fawning away, it occurred to me that they were enjoying the novelty as well. They too were uneasy with the gentle sex.

With the ring of a bell, the Captain's steward announced the soup course. Richard and I sprang into action. Standing close to both Miss Beverly and Lady Beverly, I became aware of the perfume they wore. A flowery scent – rich and intoxicating, and miles away from the tar, stale sweat and sulphur that usually filled my nostrils on the
Miranda
. As I leaned over Miss Beverly to collect her empty plate, I noticed too the freckles and down on her bare, slender arms, and the soft swelling of her breast in the low neckline of her dress. Even though I had cleaned myself up, I felt like a homeless beggar, with three months of dirt and sweat seeped into my skin.

I noted, when I placed the soup dishes before the dinner guests, how only the Admiral made any acknowledgement of my presence, and that was just an amiable nod. To the other visitors I might as well have been invisible. It was exactly how Richard had predicted. And as evening fell, and the wine flowed, their table talk began to astound me.

Most of the conversation was about London ‘society'.
When they said, ‘The whole of London is talking about it,' they meant, of course, the very select few – and by implication, the people they knew.

Then Lady Beverly, I suspect in an attempt to rile either her husband or the Captain, said, ‘I hear that some of our captains are entertaining the notion that tea should be given to the lower deck' – by that she meant ordinary seamen – ‘instead of their grog or Scotch Coffee.'

‘That is indeed the case, Lady Beverly,' said Mandeville, with as much grace as I ever heard him talk to anyone. He certainly was out to impress tonight.

‘But,' said Lady Beverly, ‘tea is well known for its refining properties. Surely, such a degree of refinement would be incompatible with the character and calling of our seamen?'

‘Quite so, ma'am,' replied the Captain. ‘Which is why I rarely supply my crew with it. Refinement is not a virtue in the human material from which our Navy is formed. Our Jack Tars need to be as hard as granite. If they were made of less stern stuff, then the empire we command would not be ours for much longer.'

‘Refinement!' The Admiral snorted. He clearly thought this conversation was ridiculous. ‘There's no danger of refinement in the men of the lower deck. A greater set of rascals you'd never meet. Most are, in truth, the sweepings of our gaols. Most of them mix
their words and oaths in near-equal proportion, unless they've the stern eye of a bosun's mate overlooking them. If you see them on land, they commonly indulge in drunkenness and foul language, and render themselves easy prey to the harpies that wait in all our ports. And yet,' here the Admiral really got into his stride, perhaps wishing to make amends for these observations for those of us present he was so roundly abusing, ‘our gallant sons of the waves have stood fast against the united powers of Europe. These bold fighting fellows are buffeted by the oceans day in and day out, they are baked alive in Antigua, or turned to icicles in Hudson Bay. Yet there's rarely a ship where the captain would say there was not a man or officer among his crew he'd wish to change.'

‘Hurrah, hurrah,' went the lieutenants – the toadies – and raised their glasses.

Then conversation turned to America where, Lady Beverly lamented, there was ‘a most disgusting equality'. She went on to condemn the Americans as traitors fit only to be hung, drawn and quartered. Here Miss Beverly piped up, complaining of ‘the barbarous use of English'.

‘I hear they call any wide street an avenue,' she continued, ‘regardless of whether there are trees either side of it or not. Cousin Henry has recently returned from New England, and was pained by how rarely one hears
a sentence correctly pronounced.'