The Mountain of Gold (25 page)

Kit saluted and smiled knowingly.

With that, I turned on my heel and retired to my half-cabin, where I shivered, sweated, and retched long and hard.

Fourteen

The
Seraph
and
Jersey
were thirty-eight days out of the Downs and seven days south-west of the Lizard. This unconscionable delay in getting from one end of the English Channel to the other was caused by weather as foul as only an English winter can bring: a dirty storm, followed by dense fog, followed by a still dirtier storm before the whole process began anew. We hove to repeatedly, bringing down our yards and topmasts; this would not always have been necessary for warships, but we had to defer to the lesser sailing qualities of the
Prospect of Blakeney.
Cooped up between decks for so long, arguments and fights between Bristolians and Cornishmen broke out almost every watch, so Boatswain Farrell and his mates were kept fully occupied. The little fleet spent Christmas Day hove to and soaked to the skin in Saint Helen's Bay off the Isle of Wight, praying for the slightest glimmer of seasonal cheer and goodwill to all men. It never came. Of course, we did our best, in the true old traditions of the navy: the trumpeters came round the ship at four in the morning, playing a greeting at every officer's cabin despite being flung across the deck and into bulkheads after almost every note; Francis Gale preached on Zechariah Chapter Nine, Verse Nine, despite having to do so below decks with two men holding him relatively steady as he read from Holy Scripture; and we ate Bradbury's cremated Christmas repast of beef, plum puddings and mince pies, each man cutting his food as hastily as he could while his neighbour held his goblet steady, then each returning the favour to the other. As I stood on the quarterdeck that Christmas afternoon, watching through biting rain as the shore of Wight rose and fell crazily, I wished I was sitting with Cornelia in front of the great log fire in the library at Ravensden. Yet again, I wondered what insane urge had made me turn down my King's offer of a safe commission in the army. His Majesty's horse guards would be warm and dry in barracks. His Majesty's horse guards would not be voyaging to a land of oblivion in search of a 'mountain of gold' that did not exist. His Majesty's horse guards would...

All voyages have these moments when it seems that the weather will never alter and one will never be dry again. But alter it will, and a man's mood alters with it. Thus it was that on a January day, when England would be shivering under a blanket of frost and snow, the
Seraph
had most of her sail aloft on a truly glorious day, with sun glinting upon the waves and a steady, warming breeze from West North West.

Alas, the weather is not the only thing that can alter a man's mood. In that moment, Brian Doyle O'Dwyer came on deck.

'A very good morning to you, Captain Quinton!' he cried with unwonted good humour. 'You slept well, I trust?'

'Indeed, sir.' This was a loose translation of my rather franker private opinion:
No I did not, you foul renegade, partly because of your unearthly snoring, partly because of your very presence but a few feet from my own.
Such were but two of the unwelcome consequences of the presence of our guest aboard the
Seraph;
but there were others, not all so personal to me. The dinners of the officers of a king's ship should be occasions for boundless good cheer engendered by the fellowship of the sea. They should be times when men talk freely, delight in each others' company and raise toasts to wives, friends or kings. They should not make the guts churn with foreboding. But that is what every single meal partaken of by the officers of the
Seraph
became. It was as though a company of good fellows had invited a last guest unknown to all of them, and suddenly discovered he was the Antichrist.

Of course, O'Dwyer ignored it all, or affected to. He talked. And talked. Then he talked some more. He had experience and opinions on every matter under the sun. He advised Mister Shish on ways of remedying his problematic chain pumps. He spoke authoritatively to Lindman about the relative merits of sakers and minions, and to Negus on the tides of the Straits of Gibraltar. But above all, he talked with Francis Gale; and Francis, being Francis, at least presented an appearance of being interested in the man's words. They spoke of theology and the holy book of the Prophet, although O'Dwyer seemed to have abandoned that book's precepts as readily as he had thrown off the identity of Omar Ibrahim, judging by the way in which he consumed all the wine, sack and punch that could be placed before him. They talked of the thousands of white slaves held hostage in Algier and the other Barbary regencies—O'Dwyer admitting a little too flippantly that he had been responsible for the capture of some hundreds of them—and of the pitiful, half-hearted gestures at redeeming them made by every European nation, England included. So it went on, day after day.

Yet little by little, I started to pay more heed to what the man said: he talked well, and had knowledge and interests far beyond those of the stolid tarpaulins at the table. At first, though, he conversed very little with me when we ate, and the same was true also of Lieutenant Castle. But then, we were the two officers on the
Seraph
who had also been aboard
Wessex,
and had thus seen O'Dwyer as he was before he reinvented himself. We had witnessed his Moorish self, and his humiliation. I wondered, too, whether his distance from me was due to the fact that unlike almost all of the others, I knew that despite all his bravado, O'Dwyer was truly as a fox in a hunt, with Montnoir as relentless in his pursuit of his quarry as old Actaeon himself.

On this particular morning, O'Dwyer seemed to have no thoughts of Montnoir, nor of the mountain of gold. He looked about with interest at the work of the ship; we were making excellent time, averaging some forty to fifty leagues a day by the log, but even so, we were making ready to put up our spritsail topmast as well. Thus men were busy on the forecastle, securing ropes and blocks—garnet-tackles, they seemed to be called—to guy-ropes slung between foremast and bowsprit preparatory to the hauling out of the small mast to the very front of the ship. Such activities had been sublime mysteries to me until very recently, but now I was beginning to understand the reasoning behind placing
that
tackle at
that
point, where it could take the strain when
those
men hauled upon it.

O'Dwyer watched for some minutes, then turned to me and said, 'So much more complicated than a galley, Captain! So many moving parts. So much more that can go wrong. And, of course, of no use at all in a flat calm.'

'Well then, Colonel,' I said, 'if you're missing your galleys so much, perhaps you will seek the command of one again ere long. Or are the Barbary regents not as forgiving as our King?'

The Irishman laughed. Ah, Captain, now why should I seek to return to my former employers, when King Charles has been so much more mightily generous to me? Being a colonel for him suits me well enough, I think. And a ship captain's cabin is markedly more comfortable than that on a galley. Even half a cabin,' he said, mischievously.

William Castle came to my rescue, announcing that we were ready to commence the hoisting of the topmast into position. I nodded my acquiescence, though I was aware that my role in such an affair was still that of a cipher. Castle went forward to supervise the exercise, and I watched with O'Dwyer as a party containing Polzeath, Macferran, Treninnick and three of the Bristol men began to manhandle the short mast toward the bowsprit. There seemed to be some altercation among the men—Castle moved toward them, growling a warning—Upon a sudden, Macferran let go of the mast and let fly at one of the Bristolians, his young Scots fists pummelling the man about the chest and head. Two other Bristol men and a couple of Londoners joined the fray at once. Polzeath, Carvell and a couple of Cornishmen retaliated in the same instant, leaving the mast dangling forlornly. I had feared something of the sort since the early days of our voyage; some of the London and Bristol drafts were very rogues, Kit had reported much bickering in the messes, and I had already been forced to order punishments for such offences as lying and excessive drunkenness.

'What curious discipline,' said O'Dwyer, with insufferable sarcasm.

But discipline was already on its way. It came in the shape of Kit Farrell, striking men vigorously with his rattan cane, and two of his mates, who physically pulled the combatants apart. The two instigators, Macferran and the Bristol villain—a bearded creature named Russell—were manhandled away from the throng and hauled before the quarterdeck. Kit reported to me formally, saluting upon his approach, and requested to know my pleasure.

Now, this business was hardly a court-martial affair—if every brawl on every ship of war reached a court, the navy would spend its whole time doing nothing else. But in a sense, that made the matter more difficult for me. It was the sort of case that was left solely to the discretion of the captain, and that presented me with a terrible dilemma. I would order Russell flogged without a moment's hesitation; he probably deserved it for a dozen other crimes that had escaped even Kit's rigorous attention to detail. But Macferran was one of my own following, one of that heroic band who had fought alongside me in the life-or-death battle aboard the
Jupiter
off his native isle in Scotland. I liked Macferran, and although he was not Cornish himself, my Cornish coterie had adopted him as one of their own. I could hear the whispers among the Bristolians and the Londoners: 'One of Quinton's favourites. You watch. He'll get nothing, and Russell will get the lash.' Cornishmen scowled at the whisperers, but the expressions of many of them suggested that they were hoping for exactly that outcome.

I leaned upon the quarterdeck rail. 'I will not have this brawling!' I shouted. 'This is a king's ship, not some tavern, and every man on this ship is bound by the king's discipline!
Every
man!' I emphasised that, and for some reason, I glanced at O'Dwyer as I said it. 'Very well,' I continued. 'I have witnessed the incident. I do not need to hear depositions, or the justifications of the two men before me. You—Russell. Five lashes. You—Macferran. You were the original instigator. Whatever Russell said to you, no man can doubt that you were the first to use your fists. I witnessed it. So did we all. Eight lashes. Now!'

There was an audible gasp from the Cornish, and not a little muttering from the other contingents in the crew. Kit and his mates led the two reprobates forward to the capstan. Russell was the first to be stripped of his shirt and tied to the capstan spokes. His back provided clear evidence that this was not his first flogging; far from it, indeed.

Pegg, the best of the boatswain's mates, took the whip, and waited for my signal.

I nodded.

The whip lashed across Russell's back, immediately bringing up a great bloody welt. Pegg laid the next stroke across the first, making the form of a cross. The rogue made no cry.
Three—four—five.
At the last, Russell was cut loose from the capstan and given back his shirt. He donned it with apparent unconcern, shrugging off the solicitation of Surgeon Humphrey.

It was Macferran's turn. He was brave enough as they secured him to the capstan, but the first stroke from Pegg brought forth a pitiful hiss from the young Scot. His back, unused to the lash, was streaming with blood by the third stroke. Every human instinct within me demanded that I order an end to this, there and then; but on such a public stage, young Matt Quinton had to give way to Captain the Honourable Matthew Quinton, and the duty of the latter was beyond doubt.

Macferran was a brave fellow, but the lash has a way of probing to the very limits of a man's bravery. On the fifth stroke he screamed, and Kit stepped forward with a gag. The last three lashes were delivered onto a body heaving with sobs and soaked in blood. When it was done, Carvell, Polzeath and some others ran forward to hold Macferran upright, and Surgeon Humphrey stepped forward to administer salt to the wounds.

'Well done, sir,' murmured Lieutenant Castle, 'I know that was not easy.'

But I did not reply to him; instead, I addressed O'Dwyer. 'I trust you now find our discipline less curious, Colonel?'

The Irishman merely inclined his head a little, and smiled. I went below in rank bad temper.

In truth, of course, my concern to appear even-handed meant that I had been remarkably harsh by the standards of those times. Then, men rarely received more than half-a-dozen lashes; even the most brutal court-martial judging the most heinous crime never prescribed more than a few dozen strokes. Now we live in a more brutal age. The other day, for example, I heard of a court-martial imposing a sentence of five hundred lashes on a man. I have met many quite distinguished officers who opine that today's sailors are a more iniquitous crew than the saints who served in Good King Charles' golden days, and that these modern rascals can only be taught the essentials of naval discipline by imposing ever harsher punishments. Well, I am probably the only man left alive who can make a comparison on that score, and it seems to me that sailors are no better or no worse than they were sixty years ago; so if we managed our ships successfully in those not-so-golden days by ordering far fewer strokes of the lash (and having far fewer flogging lieutenants, midshipmen and the like, come to that), then what does it say for these modern times, and these modern officers?

The captaincy of a king's ship confers many burdens that a man would ordinarily seek to shirk. Flogging a good and loyal soul is one such; another is the inevitability that, sooner or later, the captain will have to give a private dinner to a passenger, especially if that passenger holds a rank superior to his own. Thus whatever the nature of Matt Quinton's private opinions on the matter, on the day following the flogging the captain of the King's ship
Seraph
found himself entertaining Lieutenant-Colonel Brian Doyle O'Dwyer in the half-cabin that remained to him. This was an uncomfortable affair on many levels. There was physical discomfort: there was no space to set out a proper table, which meant we ate on a strange contraption devised by Musk and executed by Shish that straddled the demi-culverin, providing a very nearly level surface on which to lay our pewter plates. There was discomfort of the stomach: such was the consequence of Bradbury providing prodigiously charred fare, even by his extraordinary standards. Far worse than either of these, though, was the discomfort of the mind that attended the prospect of any lengthy discourse with the Irishman.