Battle Fleet (2007) (19 page)

I looked around. Still no one could see us. He lay slumped forward and I drew my pistol and placed it on the back of his head.

Taking a deep breath I muttered, ‘God forgive me,’ and pulled the trigger.

The pistol shot echoed around the alleys and he slumped forward. It was a painless way to go.

The noise brought the marines running. ‘Wretch tried to kill me with my own pistol when I restrained him,’ I said. They accepted that explanation without question, picked him up and dragged him back to the dockyard.

‘He’ll be going into the drink with very little ceremony,’ said one.

I found a supply boat easily enough. I had plenty of time to think about what to say when I got back to the ship. I told them Trellis had died of his wounds when the dockyard marines had fired on him.

That night the events of the day weighed heavy on my conscience. Had I done the right thing? Had he dared me to shoot him because he thought I was too soft to actually do it? Did other seamen think I was weak too, or other midshipmen even? Why did I shoot him? To prove I was tougher than he thought? No. I badly wanted to believe I remained true to myself and my own sense of what was right and wrong.

One way or another Trellis was dead. I had helped him on his way, without pain, without the torture of a lethal flogging. But I had also killed him in cold blood. That didn’t make me a murderer, did it?

Lord Nelson came aboard on 14th September. The ship was transformed by his presence. Hardy was a stern captain and the crew feared him. But the men adored Nelson. You could see it in their eyes when he walked among them.

We sailed early the next day. I had been nearly a month aboard this huge warship and was now becoming familiar with it. Was there a more extraordinary machine in existence? There were close to a thousand sailors and marines on board and enough cannons and gunpowder to destroy a city. Staring up at the acres of canvas in the
towering masts, I thought it quite ingenious that mankind could build something so massive and sail it from sea to sea.

Although I fretted about my ability to perform as a midshipman, I enjoyed the privileges that came with the rank. My days were luxurious compared to how I had lived as an ordinary sailor. We were woken at half past seven, and given half an hour to wash, clean our shoes and prepare our clothes. Then we had a leisurely hour for breakfast – cocoa, fresh eggs from the hens kept on the weather deck, even fresh bread while we were close to shore, what the middies called ‘soft tommy’. It all seemed unreal. Yet some of my young comrades thought the food appalling.

I was astonished to see how easily the midshipmen broke rules the ordinary seamen were expected to observe on pain of death. Some would organise ‘cutting out expeditions’ to the Purser’s stores, to steal cheese and bread, when our own stocks ran low. An ordinary seaman would be flogged for doing that. The midshipmen often stole from each other too, especially clothes. I had known seamen made to run the gauntlet for stealing trinkets from their comrades, and then throw themselves overboard in shame.

Our privileges extended to every area of the ship. While most of the crew made do with the ship’s heads, in full view of anyone on the fo’c’sle, the midshipmen
were provided with ‘roundhouses’. These closets offered privacy and protection from the wind and waves.

The midshipmen’s day was divided into three watches, with two watches off to each one we were expected on duty. The ordinary seamen were expected to work an exhausting four hours on and four hours off throughout each day.

Some of the midshipmen’s perks I found uncomfortable. The middies all had a sailor who was their ‘hammock man’. He would clean their hammock every week in exchange for a glass of grog on Saturday night. Some of these men would clean clothes too, in exchange for more grog. It seemed demeaning to ask them to do this, but I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to clean my own clothes or hammock. ‘It’s not a job for young gentlemen. You’ll be cleaning the heads next,’ hissed a lieutenant when he spotted me cleaning my hammock. I found a toothless old salt named Joshua Benedict, who was grateful for his extra ration. But when Saturday night came round, I always felt like a man giving a dog a biscuit.

From nine until noon every day I had to attend the midshipmen’s school. Most of my fellow pupils were much younger than me. The older middies called them ‘squeakers’ due to their high voices. My schoolmates were a mixed bunch. Several were still smooth-skinned
boys, one of whom sucked his thumb. The rest, their faces ravaged by puberty, reminded me of Robert when I had first met him five years before on the
Miranda
.

They made life hell for the ship’s schoolmaster, a mild-mannered fellow called Mr Furnish. They would put shot in his blankets, or loosen the stays on his hammock so he crashed to the deck in the middle of the night. It was a wonder he never broke his neck.

He was a bumbler though, and I found his lessons so badly taught I had to go through everything with Robert again afterwards. He was happy to help me catch up and was determined I should master the sea sciences. I often reflected on how lucky I was to have such a friend.

Being one of Furnish’s pupils I spent a lot of my time with these younger boys and some began to look on me as a sympathetic older brother. James Patrick, who had been packed off straight from his Mayfair mansion, confessed that he had expected to find ‘a palace with guns’ and was distraught to discover how squalid the inside of a warship actually was. When the boys complained about their lot, I tried to be patient with them. I did not want to turn into one of those intolerant old salts I had been frightened of when I first went to sea.

Stephen Rider, a likeable lad of sixteen, was closest to my age in the class. He had none of the snobbery
or high-handedness of some of the other middies. The son of a wine merchant, he told me he’d been taken on to his first ship a year ago, as a favour to his father who had agreed to cancel the Captain’s account. Rider’s family were not wealthy, and he had been sent to sea with a uniform he was intended to grow into. The sleeves were far too long on his jacket, and he sometimes wondered aloud when he was going to grow sufficiently to fit his clothes. He was the butt of some of the crueller midshipmen’s jokes. William Duffy, who had welcomed us aboard, sneered, ‘Rider, you look like you’ve been swallowed by a whale and thrown up again.’ Rider blushed, and I cursed myself for not being able to think of a witty retort to support him.

‘Duffy isn’t one of Eton’s finest,’ Robert said to me later. ‘The greatest thing he did at school was lock a wild boar in the Headmaster’s study. They expelled him for it, of course, but the Navy had no qualms about taking him. On his last ship, I heard, he would make a habit of standing on a cannon and calling over the biggest, roughest-looking tar and have him stand there whilst he punched and kicked him.’

I was aghast. ‘And didn’t anyone do anything about it?’

‘They didn’t care, was what I heard. And the man knew if he complained that would be considered mutiny. Duffy’s father is Lord Holland. He’s one of the
richest men in Kent. That probably has something to do with it.’

Not only was Duffy a snob, he was a boaster too, regaling us with talk of all the ladies he’d ravished and the fun he had at his club. I wasn’t going to tolerate his bullying. At mealtimes he began to make a habit of stealing food from James Patrick’s plate. The lad was too frightened to object. I thought drastic action was called for and plunged my knife into Duffy’s sleeve, pinning it to the table. ‘If you want to steal food, steal it from someone your own size,’ I said to him, as quietly and calmly as I could. Duffy could hear the anger in my voice and he wasn’t going to be challenged without a quarrel.

He spoke sharply: ‘Mark my words, Witchall, I know people who’d slit your throat for five guineas.’ I stared him in the face and borrowed a line from Bel. ‘And I know people who’d slit your throat for nothing. Take any more food from Patrick and it’ll be your wrist that gets pinned to the table rather than your sleeve.’

After the incident, Duffy became a constant, sneering presence, and I grew to hate his languid drawl. He also had a crony in Edward Randal, a midshipman in his late twenties. Randal had passed for lieutenant when he was twenty-one, and was a perfectly able officer, but he had no patron to champion him, and had remained a
midshipman. Eight years on, he had still not had a posting and was growing bitter. When he realised Robert and his family were my friends, he could hardly conceal his envy. ‘That country bumpkin who still goes to school with the squeakers,’ I once overheard him say, ‘even he’ll be a lieutenant before me.’

Duffy and Randal would imitate my Norfolk accent whenever I spoke to them and I felt a constant need to be on my guard. At night I always checked my hammock in case the ropes had been tampered with. On more than one occasion I noticed strands had been cut, so that they would snap in the night and send me crashing to the deck. I felt only mild contempt for such schoolboy pranks. I had survived much worse.

After we’d been at sea a week, Robert and I and a couple of the other new midshipmen were invited to dine with the Captain. We were all nervous as we prepared for the evening, dressing in our best clothes and blacking our boots.

It was just my luck to be seated next to Captain Hardy. Aside from his lofty position on the ship, here was a man who was a close friend to Britain’s greatest hero. I tried to bring this up in conversation: ‘Might I ask when you first met Lord Nelson, sir?’ I said as we spooned down our soup.

Hardy ignored my question entirely. Instead he
said, ‘I’m interested in you, Witchall. Not many of our midshipmen come from the lower deck. Viscount Neville has told me about you. I know you have the benefit of his patronage, but he wouldn’t back you if you were no good. What makes you tick, Witchall? What is it about you that will make you a good midshipman?’

I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. Was he expecting me to boast about my great perspicacity, my formidable courage, my unwavering determination? Or should I affect modesty, or patriotism?

‘Damn it boy, you must know why you’re training to be an officer?’ He was trying to sound good natured, but the stern Captain feared by the crew was lurking just below the surface.

‘To lead men, sir.’ It was the best I could offer. I’d already got the job, why was he talking to me as if I were applying for it?

‘But what sort of fellow are you?’

I took my courage in my hands and gave it my best shot. ‘I’m a lucky fellow, sir. My father is a schoolmaster and a shopkeeper. He taught me to read and write, and from him I gained a curiosity about the world. That’s what took me to sea. I was pressed but I found myself serving with people who became loyal friends.’

I expected him to have become bored, but he was
scrutinising me closely.

‘And is curiosity an asset to an officer?’ he said.

‘I would suppose curiosity was an asset to anyone, sir.’

He didn’t respond. Instead he asked another question.

‘You seem like a sensitive fellow, Witchall. Someone who would consider what the other fellow was thinking. Is that a fair assessment?’

I didn’t like the direction this conversation was going, but I sensed Hardy was not a man who just expected his underlings to merely agree with everything he said. I said, ‘Sensitivity is often seen as one step away from weakness, sir. And many would say a Navy man-o’-war is no place for sensitivity. But I would say that knowing how others think is an essential step in knowing how to command them well.’

Conversation around the table had died. Everyone was looking at me. I felt embarrassed. Hardy sensed this too and turned to his fellow diners. ‘Carry on, carry on,’ he waved his hand at them impatiently.

Then he put a hand on my shoulder and spoke quietly. ‘Inquisitiveness and sensitivity are fine human qualities, Witchall, but more suited to men of science than midshipmen. What the Navy requires is toughness and an unthinking faith in giving orders. They are rough men you are commanding, Witchall. You of all people must know that. They should fear, admire and
believe in you as their leader. Keep your human qualities, Witchall, but build a carapace over them, otherwise you will never survive in the bear pit that is a man-o’-war.’

This was advice to take to heart. I knew he meant well.

Apart from the Captain, the officer I was most wary of was the flag officer Lieutenant Pasco. Robert and I had both been assigned battle stations with him on the poop deck. Our chief duty here involved fetching and unfurling flags from the flag locker at the very stern of the ship, and then folding and returning them to their rightful place.

Pasco was a cold fish. But what Robert told me, from gossip heard from other middies, offered an explanation. The Lieutenant, a darkly handsome man of thirty or so, had been First Lieutenant on the
Victory
– second in rank only to the Captain. His record was formidable. Sent to sea at nine years old, he had served aboard fifteen ships before arriving on the
Victory
two years previously. With Nelson during the blockade of Toulon, he had also sailed across the Atlantic in search of the Combined Fleet.