On a Lee Shore (21 page)

“Why didn’t you call for me?” he demanded. “You could have shouted. You could have shouted to Lewis. You could have—you should have obeyed my orders and stayed on the Africa. Damn you, Kit. You’ve put me in a terrible position.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Kit said, his apprehension growing. “I didn’t think there was time. Wigram was smothering her. I…I just…did what I thought best.”

“Dear God.” Griffin drained his glass and looked at Kit, his expression bleak. “If I had gotten there first, or Protheroe, or any of the others, we’d have flung the door open and bellowed for help, and with Wigram caught with his hand up her skirt I’d have been able to deal with him. But now, Kit, don’t you see? You laid hands on her. She was screaming. You have no witnesses that you did anything different to what Wigram did, other than you let her shout about it. Kit, I…” Griffin shook his head.

“She was distraught,” Kit protested. “That’s why she screamed. It took her a moment to understand what I was saying. I saw through the window. I couldn’t just stand there!”

“We have rules for a good reason, Kit,” Griffin murmured. “There aren’t many and they have to be easy to understand, but when we enforce them we have to mean it! There are no half measures. The most important rule on this ship is that nobody lays hands on a woman against her will. Break that rule and there has to be punishment. There has to be seen to be punishment. Do you understand what I’m saying, Kit? Your motives may have been good, but you still broke the rule and any,” Griffin slapped his free hand on the table for emphasis, “attempt to excuse you will put my control of the crew in jeopardy.”

Kit watched the captain’s hand tighten on his glass. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’m sorry, sir.”

Voices muttered outside the door, and Griffin nodded to it. “Open that,” he said and took his seat at the table. Kit leaned across to lift the latch and hopped aside as Wigram was propelled into the cabin held between O’Neill and Protheroe. They were followed by Lewis and Valliere, who moved to flank Kit, each putting a hand on his shoulder. Muddiford and Longland, two of Wigram’s special cronies, pressed forward as well.

Saunders came after them, shoving Muddiford aside. He scowled at Wigram, then drew a breath when he saw Kit. “Oh—Kit!”

Griffin placed his pistol on the table with a thud that silenced everyone. “What,” he demanded, glaring at Wigram, “did I say I’d do if ever you did anything like that again?”

“Me? I didn’t do nothing!” Wigram looked a bit pale despite his bluster. “I was just looking in the cabin and there was this panel, and I thought ‘ah, smuggling’ ’cause that’s where I’d have hid my good stuff, and I opened it and this female came out and started laying about her, and I was just backing off when he came in and grabbed her. Horny little cock.”

“What did I tell you I would do?” Griffin repeated the question, his voice and eyes cold.

“Oh now, Captain,” Wigram faltered. “There was no harm done. And—and what about him?” He nodded to Kit.

“The lady in question explained her misapprehension,” Griffin said. “She assured us—”

“Excuse me, sir,” Longland thumbed his forelock with a smirk that was far from respectful. “But we have no such assurance. We all know how far a man can trust the word of a whore. Fair’s fair. Wigram may have laid hands on her, but Penrose did too.” Longland spread his hands and smiled. “His motives may have been pure, but the result was the same.”

“Aye.” Wigram nodded. “He did what I did, no more, no less. You’re not going to do nothing to me ’less you punish him too. I tell you, sir, that the hands won’t stand for it.”

“Mr. Penrose has admitted his fault,” Griffin said. “And, as you said, the punishment for one must apply to both. Count yourself lucky, Wigram, that for Penrose’s sake I’m applying some naval discipline, rather than hanging you as you deserve.”

“You’re not flogging me,” Wigram stared at him. “You can’t. I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“Would you sooner hang?” Griffin asked.

Wigram bellowed protests—that he was the bo’sun, it was just a bit of fun, the bitch liked it, they all do. Kit listened, feeling so sick and terrified and furious all at once that he quivered with it.

Lewis’s hand tightened and loosened on his shoulder. “Easy, bachgen,” the Welshman whispered. “Don’t want ’em to think you’re scared, do you?”

While Wigram shouted Griffin had turned to speak to Saunders then nodded for them both to be taken away.

“Take them both up. We’ll do it now,” he said. “Valliere—I’m sorry to ask this but…”

“Yes, Captain,” Valliere said. “Come, Kit, the sooner the better.”

Kit had no voice to reply as Lewis guided him up on the deck. Davy Forrest was at the tiller, his eyes wide and horrified. He shouted an enquiry to Maxwell who shrugged and replied. The rest of the crew crowded round, excited or angry or avid for blood, and Kit swallowed panic as Lewis pushed him toward the shrouds.

“Get that shirt off,” Lewis advised, “or they’ll rip it. Damn, boy, you should have told me what you were at. I’d have put a bullet in Wigram’s brain. Now look what we have to do. Captain can’t be seen to play favorites, see. Right, give the shirt to me. I’ll look after it for you.”

“I didn’t think,” Kit said, wincing as his arms were drawn up, his wrists tied to the shrouds.

“I know you didn’t,” Lewis said. “You hold on tight there. Valliere’s going to do it. He’ll go as easy as he can.”

A few feet away, Wigram was cursing and kicking, but Kit fixed his eyes on the horizon. There were no gratings here and no ceremony. No rattle of drums and no naval orders. But there was a sort of reason that he could accept even though he felt the unfairness of it keenly.

“Stand still, damn you.” The steely sound in Griffin’s voice brought Kit back to attention, but he didn’t look around.

“You all know the rules,” Captain Griffin said. “You all know what I will and won’t stand from you. Foremost among the things I can’t abide is laying hands on an unwilling woman. For this crime both these men will be punished. The sentence, forty lashes, turn and turn about. Valliere, see to it if you please.”

“Damn your hide,” Wigram was snarling. “I’ll gut you. I’ll gut you and feed you to the fishes.”

Kit tensed as he felt a presence at his back and turned his head to see Valliere. Val caught his eye for a moment, then twisted Kit’s hair into a rope and pushed it forward over his shoulder. The touch was so gentle that Kit found the backbone to take a deep breath, and he tried not to let his voice shake. “Nice and tidy, please, Mr. Valliere. If I must have stripes, at least let them be symmetrical.”

Valliere snorted then took a pace back, and Kit closed his eyes.

Chapter Twelve

Kit had been twelve when he had seen his first flogging. It had been his second day aboard a naval ship, and he had had no idea what was going on. He had been excited, he recalled, at the sound of the drums and the ceremony of it all, until he had seen the blood. He couldn’t remember how many he had seen since. Behind him he heard the soft scuff of Valliere’s feet and wondered how many of the men he had watched tense and brace themselves for the first stroke had been thinking, “This is not for any particular fault that I have committed but to make a point that some things will not be tolerated. It isn’t personal. I am merely an example.”

Probably not that many.

Wigram’s cursing cut off with an anguished gasp. Kit turned his hands to grip the shrouds, determined not to make a sound, but the breath was driven from his lungs by the blow. A rope end by the feel of it. Standard hemp, maybe the serviceable inch-thick stuff they used for much of the rigging, with the strands separated. It would bruise but—the next blow staggered him—but it shouldn’t cut.

That was good because if blood was the life as it said in the Book, he didn’t want to share any of Wig—dear God in heaven—ram’s.

The shroud under his left palm was worn, the serving that held the ratline was frayed. It needed—ah—attention. Meantime the sun was warm on his chest and belly, the wind cool on his right side. Spray kicked up. A sail flapped. He heard Griffin snap an order to the helmsman.

Kit tried to remember to breathe.

Someone was counting. “Nineteen…twenty.” A flash of light against his eyelids made him open his eyes. Garnet had drawn closer. Kit blinked sweat from his eyes—please God let it be sweat, let it not be tears—and looked across to where a spyglass was being passed from hand to hand. The thought that they were able to see his face, were perhaps laughing at his reactions, made him feel sick. So he straightened his arms and lifted his head to glare at the observers on the Garnet.

“Smarts, don’t it?” Wigram’s voice was pained but gloating. “Now you know what it feels like—ah, damn you, Valliere. Yeah, do him good. I want to see his blood.”

Indeed the next stroke did wake a sharper point of pain high on Kit’s side as the rope curled around his ribs. He sucked in a breath through his nose and looked straight ahead, though the Garnet swam in and out of focus in a most peculiar way.

“Griffin looks sick,” Wigram said. “That’ll teach him to play favorites. How many poor bastards have you done this to? How many have you had flogged till their bones showed and they pissed themselves from shock?”

“Not many,” Kit replied through gritted teeth. “And never—Oh God—only for the good of the service. As now. For the good of the service.”

He held that thought in his mind, repeating it to himself as a distraction from the pain and the counting and the distant whoops of the audience on the Garnet.

Then the counting stopped, and there was a moment’s silence before he heard Griffin speak. “And there’s an end to it. Take them down.”

Wigram’s friends had rushed forward and were muttering to him and each other about injustice and how a harmless bit of fun had been taken all wrong. Wigram was breathing harshly and moaning on each breath. Kit didn’t look round to see who it was who approached him; he just looked at the sea as the knots at his wrists were untied.

“Nah, you keep them arms up for the moment, Kit lad,” Lewis said. He coaxed one around his neck, and Kit wasn’t surprised to see Protheroe holding the other by wrist and elbow. “Bracketed, by God,” he murmured, and Protheroe grinned at him. He tried to step away from the railing, but his legs gave at the knee.

“Nah, you just bide there,” Lewis said. “Just for a moment while Saunders checks the bo’sun. Davy—ah, good man.”

Kit sucked in another deep breath as he was doused in cold water and a wet rag was applied to his side. He let his head droop and watched the water running between his feet in pinkish runnels. Someone gripped his chin, raising his head.

“Still with us? Open your eyes, Kit. Good. Wigram’s prostrate.” Saunders grinned, his breath reeking of rum. “Let me see that cut… Hmm, needs a stitch. Take him below.”

Kit allowed them to guide his steps to the stairs and stumbled down them, supported by Lewis. Out of the sun it was cold. It must have been—he just couldn’t stop shivering.

“Cabin,” Saunders ordered. “Wigram is in the infirmary and—well, let’s just say that the fo’c’sle is no place for you right now, my boy.”

“Wigram was offering a fair price to anyone who’ll knife you, and Muddiford’s just the man to do it,” Davy said. He looked sick, an expression that didn’t improve when Kit tried to give him a reassuring smile.

“Don’t tell Griffin that,” Protheroe ordered. “Or it will get nasty.”

“Nastier,” Lewis corrected him. “Now you just stand there, bachgen, while we do what’s necessary.”

“It’s cold,” Kit complained and was horrified at the weakness of his voice.

“We know, lad. You hold still.”

After a couple of protests that he could manage, Kit meekly accepted the rum Saunders gave him. The glass clattered against his teeth as the fiery liquid settled in his belly but didn’t warm the chills that were shaking him.

He barely felt it as Saunders drew the edges of his single cut together with a stitch. A far greater pain was lurking, held at bay for the moment by the shivering cold.

“Not a bad job,” Saunders said. “It will heal cleanly. Now lay you down. You’re excused from duties for the rest of the day. Davy will keep you company.”

“I will recover more quickly if I move around,” Kit said. “I don’t need bed rest.”

And certainly not in that particular bed, he thought but didn’t say.

“I have instructed Davy to use cold compresses to reduce the bruising. It will make it easier for him if you are horizontal.” Saunders shrugged on his way to the door. “However, if you are determined to ignore free medical advice, remain up. It’s all the same to me.”

Shamed, Kit allowed Lewis and Protheroe to strip off his wet clothes. After ensuring that a piece of oilcloth had been draped over the cot to save the bedding from the damp, they placed him on his front and covered him with a blanket. It just added to his distress and discomfort that neither made a joke at his expense. With his head resting on his arms he couldn’t claim to be comfortable, but it was obviously more convenient for Davy, who waited until they had gone before drawing the chair up to the bedside.

“God’s teeth, Kit,” he whispered, dunking a rag in a bucket of seawater and wringing it out. “You look like a tiger, only with blue and red stripes. Pity about that cut. We got to get off this ship.”

“As soon as we can,” Kit said and drew a deep shuddering breath as Davy spread the wet cloth across his back. “But I have no idea where we are going, other than south, and I think we might be missed if we try to transfer to one of the prizes. We need a port, a big one, where we can lose ourselves. Do you speak any Spanish? I know sailors’ Spanish. Enough to negotiate passage for us, but if we’re at war again…”

“Don’t fancy being hung as a spy,” Davy said. “Or worse. You know what they’re like. Bastinado you soon as look at you.”

“Yes, well that’s something to avoid,” Kit said smiling into his arms. “Don’t fret Davy. We’ll find a way out of this, honor intact if slightly tarnished.”

“With all due respect to you, Mr. Penrose,” Davy said. “Honor be buggered. I just want to go home.”