Infernal Revolutions (11 page)

‘You're wanting one of the ships?'

I turned to see a tall sunburned sailor with a bag of belongings slung over his shoulder. He was calmly puffing his pipe, and regarding me with a look of amused detachment.

‘Yes, the scurvy
Twinkle
,' I answered angrily, infuriated at the contrast between our emotional states, ‘I'll miss it if I don't get through soon. Now, if you'll excuse me.' Rolling my sleeves up, I launched myself once more at the backs of the hatted crowd with a battlecry of ‘Move, ye dogs!'

‘You'll never get through that way,' the stranger observed simply, as I rebounded off another wall of brawn. ‘Follow me instead.'

Realizing with shame that I was yet again in the pocket of someone with more strength and
savoir-faire
than myself, I meekly obeyed, and fell into line behind the sailor with all the gratitude of an adopted dog. Strolling nonchalantly, whistling, he led me to a point parallel with the bow of the
Twinkle
, then turned to make his way through the crowd. A few minor scuffles later and we were safely inside a narrow military cordon specially set up for the benefit of stragglers.

‘Come on, lads, get a move on,' said a pleasant tough, as we sauntered to the gangplank, ‘We've got a fight at six with the Devonport boys.'

I nodded affably, but the sailor took offence, and stopped to hold up a giant fist in front of the tough's nose.

‘You'll have a fight before that if you tell me what to do again.'

The fist captured all attention: an enormous slab of bone and muscle, it looked as though it could punch a hole in the side of the thickest man o' war. Combined with the imperturbability of the sailor brandishing it, the overall effect was most impressive.

The tough twitched with anger but did nothing. Awkwardly, we proceeded up the gangplank, though as I passed I attempted to calm ruffled feathers by wishing the tough well in his six o'clock fight. For some reason this only seemed to irritate him, and I was subjected to a barrage of verbal abuse for my pains. Tutting, glad after all that he had been humiliated, I hurried up the gangplank to the safety of the
Twinkle
. I was just about to turn and retaliate in kind when a hand was clamped on my shoulder.

‘Good of you to join us, Oysterman.'

I looked round to see Sergeant Mycock glaring down at me. No sooner had I registered the appropriate degree of fright than Pubescent Pete stepped forward to intervene.

‘I'll take care of this, Sergeant. You may return to your other duties.'

I smiled broadly at this blatant display of protectionism, and I was about to punch Pete playfully in the shoulder when I realized I had misjudged the mood of the situation.

‘You find it amusing?' Pete demanded, his bright red face glowering up at me. He really did appear to be apoplectic with rage, and I wondered if this was the same boy I'd seen tumbling down the hillside squealing with delight. Even Hartley had donned an expression of heavy foreboding. Then I saw the reason why: behind him stood a red and blue reception committee of army and navy staff officers, all of whom wore the same depressing look of outraged officialdom. Individually, it mattered not a jot to them that I was late; collectively, each with an eye on the others' reactions, ‘twas supposed to be the most heinous crime on earth.

‘Stand to attention!'

‘Oh shut up,' I heard the sailor mutter as he strode off to his quarters, seemingly answerable to no-one. ‘Leave him alone and let's weigh anchor.'

Grateful for any support going, I watched the sailor disappear down a companionway with something akin to love. Spirits boosted accordingly, I stood to attention with a great deal more confidence than I would have displayed otherwise. ‘Where is the rest of your uni****?' continued Pete in a rough approximation of normal speech; for on
rest
his voice quivered ominously, and on what was probably meant to be
uniform
it shot off the scale completely. It would not be long now before Pete was a man.

‘My uniform, Sir? Left on quayside with Mr Lickley, Sir. Presume Mr Lickley now has it about his person, Sir.'

‘And where have you been that your uniform was such a disgrace to wear?'

I squirmed, and attempted to deflect his impertinent questioning.

‘Just into town, Sir. Then got lost in town, Sir. Hence late now, Sir.'

‘Did anyone give you permission to go into town?'

‘No, Sir.'

‘Then you should not have gone, should you?'

‘No, Sir.'

‘Who did you go into town to see?'

‘A friend, Sir.'

‘Are your fellow soldiers not friends enough?

‘Yes, Sir.'

‘Wander off like that in America, Oysterman, and you will be dead before you can say George Washington.'

Deeply touched at his concern, I scutinized Pete's eyes for a conspiratorial wink, proof that this was a performance purely for his masters' benefit. All I saw, however, was a gaze focused at infinity, and shimmers of fright playing across it.

‘AND WE CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE MEN UNNECESSARILY OUT THERE,' he unexpectedly blurted out, before controlling himself and explaining why. ‘Current estimates indicate that we outnumber the Rebel army by two to one, but their recruiting capability is far greater than ours…' Pete seemed to be wandering off the point, and getting above his station in the process, but who could blame him? A discussion of the strategy of the American War was far more interesting than the examination of my petty offence. Oblivious to the shuffles and murmurs of the bigwigs behind him, Pete blundered on, ‘…Intelligence also tells us that their weaponry includes the latest French and German ordnance, such as the fearful….'

A spluttering cough from one of the watching dignitaries tightened the rein on Pete's mad gallop into hot water. A new wash of red swept over Pete's face, and he instinctively put his arm round Hartley's head for support.

Almost there, lad
, was the message I tried to convey to Pete with my eyes, aware that he was suffering a far greater trial than I.
Compose yourself and let's get it over with.

‘But anyway,' he went on. ‘Heed well this, er, warning not to act without orders again. If you do – act without orders I mean, not, er, heed well – then the punishment will be, er, severe. Dismissed.'

A groan of disappointment swept the deck as Pete ran off with Hartley to his quarters. His rockyfaced elders, clearly expecting a keelhauling at least, chuntered amongst themselves about Pete's lenience and lack of authority. His cards were being marked already as a Man Who Is Afraid Of Administering Punishment, and we had not even set sail yet. All this Pete knew, for the poor lad was openly blubbing when I sneaked into his cramped cabin half an hour later to offer my condolences. His sword was sticking horizontally out of a wooden beam, and his hat lay upturned on the floor, desolate.

‘Really, Pete,' I said, doing a sort of tap dance across the boards as the ship lurched horribly, ‘I would not have minded being given a couple of lashes. Quite an honour, really, to be whipped before even setting sail.'

I made as if to pat his back, but only succeeded in arousing Hartley's jealousy. The hound's jaws clamped together like a gintrap not half an inch from my hand.

‘I wanted to Harry, I really did. But how could I order the flogging of someone who is friendly with Burnley Axelrod? My hands were tied.'

Some of my sympathy for Pete ebbed away, but still I was affected most sensibly by the youngster's plight.

‘My career is over,' he choked. ‘Over, over, over.'

‘No, it isn't, Pete. You have plenty of time to redeem yourself; assuming you did make an error of judgement in the first place.'

‘Of course I did. I should have had you keelhauled. I know that now ‘tis too late.'

‘Just because you did not please the crowd does not mean that you were wrong. Something you will learn when you grow up is just how wrong the crowd – even though it be composed of supposed gentlemen – can be.'

‘I wish I were grown up now, Harry.'

‘No. Don't ever wish that. You do not understand what you're saying. Adulthood is just problem after problem, interlaced with boredom and disappointment, made bearable only by regular shots of liquor and opium. Promise me you will never say that again.'

‘I promise, Harry. But adolescence is not all wine and roses, you know. Look at these blackheads, listen to this voice. I despair of ever being taken seriously.'

‘That's because you are operating in a world of men. You're a precocious wretch, Pete, and by rights you should not be here at all. Most boys of your age are helping their fathers on their farms, and going out at night supping and drabbing. You shouldn't have responsibilities of any sort at your age, let alone responsibilities over men's lives. ‘Tis only natural for you to make mistakes, or at least make decisions that go against the grain.'

‘My father is no simple farmer, though,' said Pete haughtily. ‘He's the great judge Sir Walter Wriggle, famous for the strictness with which he carries out enclosure legislation. With a father like that I've a lot to live up to.'

He was too young to appreciate that the chances against his hallowed father being in reality anything but an arrogant whorenotching slob were too small to be easily calculable. I knew this because my mother had entertained numerous such figures in her time, and they were all the same – fat, redfaced, loud, lecherous and crude. Even as a child I was aware how waferthin was the ice on which the respectable all skated, and I had no doubts that Pete's father had crashed through long ago; how else to cope with the mindnumbing tedium of reading an Enclosure Act, let alone enforcing it? But I kept my thoughts on the matter to myself, considering it undesirable to burden Pete with too much ambiguity in his hour of distress. If he thought his father was a great man for enforcing acts that reduced thousands of people to a state of beggary, then, for now, let him; he couldn't have many more such years of untroubled ignorance left to him.

Soothed perhaps by the memory of his great father, Pete began to pull himself together. He blew his nose with his handkerchief then swayed over to the washbasin – Hartley at his heels, solicitous – to dab his eyes clean. Once done, he loosened his stock, and began shooting glances in the direction of the wooden cot hanging from the deck beams. Obviously wanting rest, and perhaps fearing further embarrassment if I saw him trying to climb into it, he became desirous for my departure.

‘For you, Harry,' he pronounced, awkwardly offering me a shilling piece drawn out of his pocket.

‘You insult me, Pete. I'm not your servant.'

Pete looked hurt, and I was afraid I was setting him off again.

‘As you wish. But you won't tell anyone about what's happened, will you? If people know I've been crying I may as well kill myself now.'

I assured him his only-too-human lapse was safe with me.

‘Good. Thank you, Harry. Now, I must rest, and think of ways to restore my reputation. If you do want to see me again, perhaps ‘tis best to make a discreet appointment first, for appearance's sake. I should not really be mixing with you lot at all, you know. But you're the only friends I have.'

‘You will soon make friends among the other officers, then you will be stroking us every five minutes.'

‘Oh no, I'm not that ambitious.'

Pete seemed to reflect on these words for a moment, then a sort of
Or am I?
frown raced across his brow. He started to wheedle. ‘But you did say you would not mind being whipped slightly, did you not? Perhaps if I'm called upon again to instil discipline you, er, would not mind being a scapegoat….for my sake.'

‘Friendship is one thing, Pete; stupidity quite another.'

‘But you said…'

‘I was referring to this afternoon's incident, not giving you
carte blanche
to flog me whenever you felt like it.'

‘But you said…'

‘Look, Pete, forget what I said. Whatever it was I've changed my mind. I do not want to be flogged to further your career. Besides, Mr Axelrod would not be pleased if he found out.'

This shut the youth up. So, leaving him cursing the perfidy of adults, I surreptitiously groped my way back to my own cramped quarters on the middle gun deck. As I did so, I decided to brave a peek out to
starboard
, as it pleased the sailors to call the right-hand-side of the ship. Instantly I wished I hadn't, for the vast heaving expanse of sea that had opened up between land and the
Twinkle
shot a spasm of queasiness through me. Now experienced in matters of the stomach, I knew pretty well what this would lead to, but as for the moment my head was still clear I took the opportunity to ruminate about Pete's predicament while I could. How curious were the interactions of daily life and the motivating factors that made people do what they did! The theme, the longer I thought about it, was pure
Night Thoughts
gold, and my pen hand began to itch accordingly. But alas, as I had already discovered to my no great surprise, the
Twinkle
was no more the place for cool composition than the
Martyr
, and frustration burned within me once again. At this rate, I would be thirty and past it before I could lay my masterpiece at the altar of English Literature, and what good would Fame be to me then? Probably better anyway was the transient version of it I was now experiencing belowdecks, where I was relating in ever more imaginative instalments a fairy tale about my conquest of Nutmeg Nell. There an eager audience awaited me, not an invisible readership, and I could see them relishing every lying word I was telling them. Indeed, I could understand their enjoyment, for I was almost one of them myself, knowing little more than they did of what would happen next. Suddenly cheered at the prospect of entertaining an appreciative platoon of redcoats, I hurried to my performance with renewed nimbleness. I only hoped I could get a chapter out before I spewed all over them.