Nelson: The Poisoned River (6 page)

Twelve

That night Hastie shared a tent with a lieutenant of the 89th, and got three hours sleep. The noises through the thin flax walls, he thought, would mean no sleep at all, and his companion’s snoring was not even part of it.

Tim,
as he saw it, had done far less work than most of his fellows, but he felt as if he had never worked so hard before. His first plunge into the water had shocked him more from fear than change of temperature, but thoughts of sudden death had then been chased away by the realisation that his journal book, his precious notes constructed for his love, lay in his tunic pocket. He let go of his balls then, gripped the gunwale with both hands, hauled himself clear of the surface. And got shouted at.

‘Get
them bloody feet upon the ground! Push, you bloody lubber you! Get this bloody cutter floating, man!’

It
was the sailor at the tiller, safe and dry on board and spitting fury. Tim Hastie looked around the well for Nelson, for support, for succour. And found his head beside his own, almost ear to ear.

‘Christ,
sir, you’re in the water! Beg pardon, sir! My journal!’

Nelson
was grinning like a schoolboy at a fair. He thrust a hand out, thumb and fingers touching.

‘Give
it here, you booby Tim. Here! Hoick it out your pocket. Then do some pully-hauly, do!’

After
five seconds scrabbling the book sprang clear, and Hastie waved it helplessly above his head.

‘You’re
like a maid!’ the cox said. ‘He’m like a maid, sir, captain. So give it here, boy, do.’

The
book was snatched and pocketed, and Hastie’s feet dropped back and found the mud. It was soft and squelchy and his feet began to slide.

‘Two-six!’
shouted Nelson. ‘Together now! Two-six and handsomely!’

The
ways of seamen were mysterious, but Tim was quick enough to learn. All along both sides the cutter’s men were in the river, some waist-deep, some beyond. At the chant they threw their weights together. After two big swings the cutter slid astern.

‘Now
back on board!’ piped Nelson. His voice was light, and full of pleasure and amusement, and he shot back inboard with a wriggle like an eel. Tim Hastie, not so agile, was too long about it, and earned a laugh. And even a helping hand from this frail man, this invalid.

‘Now,’
said Nelson to the steersman. ‘Over that way, that panga there. She needs a pull. Forrard! Pass us back a towline!’

All
around them were seamen, and soldiers, blacks and Indians floundering and whooping in the water. The Indians, the Mosquitoes, were the leaders in all things noisy, aware from years of practice that splashing and activity put off the creatures of the river. They lifted more water than a cataract or waterfall, and when their boats were floating, kept up the battering of the water with their paddle-blades.

Hastie
was fascinated not just by the activity, but by the working of the sun. Nelson, dripping mud and ooze as if his finery had been mauled by dogs, began steaming within an instant, as did Tim himself. It was strangely comfortable. The drying cloth was warm and friendly, the speed with which it dried phenomenal. He realised suddenly that he was enjoying it. He thought that it was capital indeed.

‘Your
uniform, sir—’ he started.

‘Your
face!’ said Nelson. ‘Are you all such milksops up in Liverpool? Look, the man there has your pocket book. Keep it safer this time. I will want to read your musings later. It strikes me as a very fine idea.’

Tim
took the proffered notebook, but there was no time for more talk, because other men were shouting for assistance. The cutter nosed among the native craft and dories, separating the deep draft from the shallow, exhorting those that were too heavy to find a shore or sandbank and offload and lighten. After a while he was hailed by Colonel Polson, and they rested on their oars to parley.

‘We
can’t go on, sir,’ Polson said. ‘We have hardly made two miles. There is not a vessel in this fleet that has not been on the bottom. What say you, sir? We stop.’

A
question of command arose here, but Nelson was careful to make nothing of it. His mobile face was like a picture, though, which Tim was reading like a book.

‘I
would say we’ve managed three,’ he said. ‘Three miles or maybe four. Certainly a good tally for the very first attempt, sir. Stop, sir? What for? By all means for a conference and restowing of the boats. Some of them aren’t fit to go across a pleasure pond.’

Before
the colonel could respond, Nelson bellowed orders, to his own boat and to others within earshot.

‘That
bank looks likely! When all boats are clear we head for that. Haul up as far as each hull can, then unload your heavy stuff. This time we do it navy fashion!’

In
twenty more minutes all boats were ashore, except the bigger craft, which were stuck fast way out in the river. Canoes were directed to lighten them and bring the surplus to the bank. Very soon the piles of lumber were growing up like man-made mountains.

Nelson
gathered up his boatswains and their mates, Captain Despard joined them, a Lieutenant called James Mounsey, and finally the colonel.

‘It
is now gone four o’clock,’ Polson began. ‘Which means the dark comes soon. I fear we must go back down river for this night.’

Before
anyone could respond there was a sharp scream from the treeline. A flash of yellow, then more yells, and then, belatedly, a shot.

‘By
God, did you see that! A bloody tiger! It has got that man!’

‘They
call them jaguars round here,’ said Captain Despard, laconically. ‘Sometimes mountain lions. Tigers come from very far away.’

‘In
India,’ responded Nelson. ‘I have seen them, sir. In any way, if it got that man, the fellow seems quite well on it. Just see him run!’

‘And
time is running also,’ snapped Polson. ‘We must leave a guard on all this stuff and run back with the current to the town.’

‘What
if the guard gets eaten, though?’ suggested Despard. His Irish brogue was unnaturally pronounced. He was making fun, thought Hastie.

So
did Polson, but Nelson nipped further conflict in the bud.

‘Here
is what we’ll do,’ he said. ‘With your agreement, Colonel Polson. We will unload further, then half the boats can continue upstream with the residue. The other half will hurry downstream empty, and explain the problem of shoals and shallow draft. They will share out the contents of the boats waiting at Greytown, and set off in the morning to rejoin us here. The heavy transports, grounded now, can stay and act as guardships. When we have a constant chain moving upriver, we can unload them till they’re light enough to move. That way, nothing is lost.’

Everyone
but Polson was nodding. His face was dour.

‘And
tonight?’ he said. ‘I suppose you think we stand here on the beach and wave our handkerchiefs?’

Nelson
chuckled.

‘I
like your humour, sir,’ he said. ‘That is very droll. But for myself I propose to have a tent erected. Good God, sir, why be in the navy if your men can’t rig a shelter?’ His smile broadened. ‘Or the army too, for that matter. I’m looking forward to it, sir. I have much of the child about me still, I fear.’

The
job was done, the poison drawn from Polson’s temper. Tim caught him with a smile upon his face, half hidden, and felt his own heart lighten.

Although,
he told himself two hours later, I’m damned if I know why. I’m lying here in a tent much hotter than an oven, pitch-pitchy black and only half past six at night, with a sweaty bastard stretched beside me snoring like a sow. And outside the tent it’s ten times noisier, at least. Are those birds screaming? Do alligators roar? Will the hungry puma come back for his interrupted meal?

I
want to write my journal down for you, he thought. My Sarah,
cariad
. For you will not believe me if I leave it till long, you will say I made it up to frighten you. But I can’t write, though, because I have no light, and tomorrow I must surely be too busy.

And
there’s a new noise now, and it’s getting louder than the snoring and the howls of the monkeys in the trees. I know this noise though, and I hate it, for I fear it’s going to kill Horatio.

The
mosquitos. They start at dusk, go on till closing midnight as far as I can tell, and then the cold comes down, or up out of the ground, the cold, and mist, and running, running dew.

Our
official medical
supremo
, Dr Moseley, who did not dare to join us on the expedition, and his pupil Dr Dancer who did, both insist the mosquitos have naught to do with the vile disease, malaria.

But
Sarah, I am telling you. They’re wrong.

As
he drifted off to sleep, still scratching, still smacking at his skin, still worrying, he had at last one thought that made him smile.

At
least I’ve got my bollocks still. The fishes didn’t bite them off…

Thirteen

There appear to be no humans on this river, Hastie thought when he emerged not long after sun-up the next morning, but there might be some supermen. Or one, at least – Horatio Nelson.

He
saw it as his duty, having not slept beside him, to check him out as soon as possible, and monitor his health, and feed him any necessary potions. But when he crawled out into the thick and noisome mist that lay on shore and river, he found the captain was already gone.

Despard
hailed a greeting.

‘Mr
Hastie. You look displaced, sir. Did someone creep into your tent and inflict indignity upon you?’

He
laughed as heartily as if he was in a four-ale tavern. He was bedraggled, as was Tim and every other fellow. The night had gone from hot to freezing, and the morning soup was burning off before their eyes. As the dank mist faded, the heat rose like a wild horse on the leap.

‘Where
is my captain, sir? Is he still sleeping? That would be good news indeed.’

Despard
coughed, and spat on to the mud.

‘The
devil he is. He was up and out of here an hour since. Damn near trod on my face in getting out of doors. Or tent flaps, rather. He has taken pitpans down to Greytown. More stores, more organising. That man is like a firecracker, sir. He dines on farts and gunpowder.’

‘Oh,’
said Hastie. ‘Oh. And was he…? How did his health seem, sir?’

‘Nelson
is busy,’ Despard said. ‘Nelson is well, therefore. And I am busy now, because he says there are tasks that only I can do. He did not mention you, so come with me and complete the destruction of your uniform if you wish! Liverpool Blue, eh? Liverpool gooseshit green, more like.’

Tim
Hastie, on a whim, agreed to go with Despard. The Irishman was strong and funny, and as lively as ten crickets in a bag. And Nelson was up and jolly, which, Tim hoped, was all he needed for recovery. To be busy, and away from Dr Dancer.

The
task was simple (for a man like Despard, who had trained in bush fighting against the rebels of America), and a hundred times better than crawling up the river humping stores and dragging boats off mud. Hastie recovered his small belongings from the lieutenant’s tent, washed his mouth out from his water bottle, and hurried to the water’s edge. Then into the water, shouting, for Despard’s Indians had already set off.

‘Sir!
Captain! Wait for me!’

He
was up to his upper thighs before he caught the cockleshell, and the Mosquitos joined in Despard’s merriment. But they handled their paddles to the manner born, and the vessel went up river like an arrow. Within five minutes he was handing instruments and pencils, chart-blanks and cartridge paper, to the captain. And aiding in a survey of the banks.

‘Note
that,’ said the officer at one point. ‘If worst comes to worst, that could be our camp tonight. We made six miles last evening by the end, despite old Polson’s grumbling, and although it’s not enough it’s not disastrous. There’s a good savannah there, good cover from the trees, good driftwood just begging to be fired. Note the shape of that rock there. That can be our marker.’

By
the time they turned about they had found two more stopping sites, and mapped the deeps and shallows on all the river bends between. It was well into afternoon that they met the Nelson vanguard pushing hard upstream, and both sides rested on their oars and paddles.

‘Well
met!’ cried Nelson. ‘And Timothy indeed, that’s a relief. I figured you had been took by a cayman for his luncheon.’

‘I
beg your pardon, sir. I was—’

‘Bored,
I hope, and quite right too. But Despard, if Tim was a help to you, you cannot have him, sir! I saw him first, and like his funny accent!’

Which
coming from you, thought Timothy, is rich indeed.

‘I
hope, sir,’ he said however, on a sudden whim, ‘I hope that Captain Despard will let me aid him at the writing table. He says he must do reports, and fill in maps and all sorts. You might tell him, sir, that I am always scribbling.’

‘Good
man!’ said Despard. ‘I have a folding table in my tent. Captain Nelson takes up rather too much room for you to squeeze in also, but you can bivouac hard by, for certainty. Good man!’

That
evening, the camp went much as previous. Men who had been rowing, and hauling, and wading, and lifting gear from one hull to another were too fatigued in general to do more than hit the ground and sleep. There was some bickering over precedence among the junior officers, and some arguing over discipline. But before anything like a fight could break, the squabbles slipped to snoring.

There
were factions developing, however, which Nelson, Polson and Despard had little control over. The regular men, the men in proper regiments, were watched like hawks for drinking in particular, and two or three were threatened with a whipping for it. But the irregulars, the Jamaica Volunteers, the slaves and free blacks, and more particularly the Mosquito men, did not like camp discipline, and could see no need for it.

Some
of the Indians indeed, to men newly from England like Hastie and his fellows, were impossible to believe or understand. Their headmen rejoiced in names Tim found amazing, and was certain Sarah would take as jests. One called himself an Admiral, and insisted that his title should be used. Another of the chiefs was General Tempest, whose uniform consisted of some feathers and a cloth. But when Nelson caught Tim laughing at it, he had his ears pinned back.

‘Do
not show your ignorance, Mr Hastie,’ the captain said. ‘Without these savages, as you care to think them, this expedition is lost. Our pilot Mr Hanna, between you and me, is ten times worse than useless, but the admiral and the general will whisk us up this river in fine order. Just wait until you meet the King!’

As
so often, Hastie was thrown aback. Nelson could seem so grave and formal, could hand out punishment without fear or favour, and then slip into humour that was hard to read or fathom. Was this a jest, or real?

‘Sir?’
he said, weakly. ‘The King?’

Bright
eyes in pale and sweating face. Nelson nodded.

‘There
is a Duke of York as well. Fine men, the lot of ’em, and under no circumstances to be mocked. They may well yet save all our useless lives.’

The
problem was, though, that the Indians hated the English style of conduct. They hated the rations they were expected to eat, they hated taking orders from men they thought hopeless on their land, they did not want to sleep at certain hours, they did not want to be silent after dark. And they loved to drink.

As
did the soldiers, too, especially the irregulars. The navy men were not more harshly ruled, but they obeyed more readily. Nelson said it was because the sea was unforgiving. Hastie thought it was their shipmates who controlled them, for the common good.

But
by the third day there was danger in the air, not just from crocodiles and puma. As the men got more accustomed to the killing labour, they retained more energy for drinking and for argument.

Tim
Hastie noted in his journal: ‘It is like a bear garden. We need an enemy, and quick. Despard, tonight, sent out Indians to go upstream as far as maybe. I pray, my dear, they bring news of a fight.’

It
was the Duke of York’s men who obliged. They slipped back into camp just before next dawn, and reported men at arms ahead. There was an outpost.