On a Lee Shore (5 page)

The helmsman grabbed his arm. “You just hold tight to that stay, sir,” he said. “We don’t want you overboard.”

It occurred to Kit to wonder what had happened to his predecessor. Had he too objected to Gasson’s habits? Had Gasson waited until he was too tired and cold to defend himself? A push, a splash, and no questions to answer? Kit clung to the stay and tried to keep his eyes open.

That afternoon, with the wind rising but, as far as Kit could make out, the ship on a safe, true course for Plymouth, Alford approached Kit and looked him over with a critical grunt.

“You look ill,” he said. “Get to bed and I’ll send some hot food. And for God’s sake when we get to Plymouth, keep your bloody trap shut.”

“I can’t,” Kit said through chattering teeth. “I can’t do that.”

“Then be prepared to meet a counter-accusation,” Alford advised him. “And don’t look to the company for support. There’s too much prize money at stake. God knows I would help if I could, but I can do nothing for you, Kit. That bastard has me by the throat.”

Kit went below to wrestle with his conscience in the brief minutes before he fell into a feverish doze. Nightmares pursued him—Hollins’s fury, Livesy’s terror, the wind in the rigging wailing accusations. He started awake, roused by the cries of the watchmen, the thunder of feet. Head swimming, he clambered from his cot, only to be thrown to the floor as the ship heeled over with a terrible crash of timber.

He would have drowned there but for Hollins. They scrambled through the wreckage to the deck, already awash astern as the Malvern settled back from the rocks that had impaled her, each wave adding to her ruin. Rain drove down. Wind tore the surface of the sea into spume. Alford stood amidships, bottle in hand, shouting orders to abandon ship. Of the captain there was no sign.

“God save us,” one of the hands said. “No other bugger will.”

“Then we must save ourselves.” Kit raised his voice to a wheezy bellow. “Cox’n? How many men were below? Have we boats enough for the rest?”

“Most washed away, sir,” the cox’n replied. “Like the rest of us, no doubt.”

And many of them were. The next big sea took Alford, bottle still in his hand as he disappeared into the foam. They managed to get the jolly boat away before Malvern began her final slide into the deep, but then it was every man for himself.

Clinging to a grating, with the gruff old cox’n holding him on by the scruff of his neck, Kit called for names. Hollins was there and four others. The jolly boat crew tossed them a line to tow them to the shore, and so the voyage of the Malvern ended.

Nobody else survived, although Kit did not know that at the time. It was a full week before he was well enough to understand that of a crew of eighty less than twenty had survived, and he was the only officer. Or that the Malvern, well-found and well-sailed ship that she was, had driven onto the rocks off Bovisand Bay within sight of home. The fury of the admiralty broke over them with greater force than anything the storm had summoned up.

“What happened? I’ll tell you what happened,” Hollins said, still raging, and the realization that something far more sordid than nautical incompetence was going to be broadcast brought the court martial to a halt.

Further witnesses were sought who had served on the Malvern or Gasson’s other commands. Now that Gasson was dead people seemed willing to speak up, not admitting anything on their own account, of course, but damning Gasson’s eyes for his unspeakable tastes while casting bright and accusing eyes over the surviving crewmembers.

Bright and accusing eyes.

“Damn it, now I have you,” Kit murmured into the dark. Tom Probert, that was it. Kit closed his eyes, comforted by the fact that while he might have an enemy at least Kit could put a name to him.

Chapter Three

Probert’s presence, and that he was prepared to talk, made itself noticed almost immediately. The crew of the Hypatia had been politely contemptuous of Kit, and he had had to bite his tongue a few times when they kindly told him things that he knew perfectly well. Now opinion seemed to be split as to whether he had played a grand joke on them in letting them think he was a landsman, or that it had been some kind of plot to make them feel stupid.

Uttley had no doubts. The next time he took his reading and Kit stood close to observe, he flushed. “I suppose you think I’m making a real hash of things. I don’t suppose they do it this way in the Navy.”

“No, we don’t,” Kit said quietly. “But then the Navy has more recent equipment. That cross-staff could have sailed with Drake.” He grinned at Uttley. “I’m just keeping my hand in. Your readings are fine.”

“Are they?” Uttley’s face was a picture of surprise. “Vargas thinks I’m an idiot.”

“He’s the master, but you’re the captain’s nephew. If he trains you up too well, you’ll take his post.” Kit shrugged. “If you think I can help, just ask, and if I see you doing something that might get the ship in trouble I’ll say, but it’ll be just between the two of us. All right?”

Uttley nodded and applied himself to his equipment without a fumble, while Kit turned his face up to the sun, closed his eyes, and soaked up the warmth.

Captain Dorling was delighted. As far as he was concerned a passenger—a mouth to feed who did little to pay his way other than the occasional bit of laundry—had become another person upon whom he could load some responsibility. He would have had Kit standing a watch if Sir George hadn’t intervened.

“While I have no objection to Kit assisting, I’m afraid I need to be able to call on him freely.” Sir George took his wig off and scratched his head. “Like now. Kit, fetch my hat.”

Vargas just grunted at Kit, but it was with a little more respect than usual.

What else Probert had told them became apparent gradually. It was three days before he heard the ship’s cook mutter a reference to Gasson’s Fancies, and he rounded on the man at once with a demand that he speak up.

“Didn’t mean nothing by it, sir,” the man said.

“Well, don’t let me hear you say that again,” Kit insisted. “God, man, you might hurt Probert’s feelings!” Thus showing he knew the originator of the epithet and tossing the ball back into his court.

Probert met him later that day. “I wondered if you’d recall me, sir, our meeting was that brief,” the man said. His sharp, dark eyes looked Kit over like a weasel speculating on the weakness of a buck rabbit.

“It took a while, but I am glad to see you looking so prosperous. I know this isn’t the Walsingham,” he said, naming the ship Probert had been attached to at the time of the court martial, “but one takes what berth one can find in the times of peace.”

“That we do, sir,” Probert said, looking pointedly at the bucket full of damp clothing in Kit’s hand. “Best get on, sir.”

“Indeed you had. Thank you, Probert.” Kit stood his ground, as honor demanded, until Probert had stepped around him.

Later, Forrest, one of the younger hands, waved a spyglass at Kit and said, “Care to go aloft, sir? I don’t suppose a bit of height will bother you?”

“Sir George?” Kit asked.

“Oh, feel free,” Sir George said, casting a wistful eye at the rigging. “Make notes. Tell me what you see. Tell me what it feels like.”

“I will, sir,” Kit said, already half out of his shoes and stockings. He ran after the man with Sir George’s instruction not to fall off ringing in his ears.

Forrest kept an eye on Kit until he was satisfied that he was secure. They didn’t go right to the masthead but stopped on the little fighting platform. Kit was surprised to see it still in place, but he supposed that it hadn’t occurred to Dorling to have it removed.

Forrest grinned at Kit and offered him the telescope. “Want to have a look-see, sir?” he asked. “Don’t drop it or the master’ll have our hides.”

“Masters are the same everywhere,” Kit said with a chuckle as he hooked an arm around a topmast shroud and raised the telescope to his eye. They were on a main shipping lane at a good time of year, but the Atlantic was a big place. He wasn’t surprised not to see anything other than the immensity of the Atlantic under a sky flecked with racing clouds.

Unless…

“Forrest,” Kit passed him the glass. “A little south of east.”

Forrest looked—and grunted. “You got good eyes, sir. I might have thought that was a bit o’ cloud but, no, it’s a sail.”

“It’s nice to know we’re not alone,” Kit said. “Have you been with Hypatia long?”

“Since Dorling bought her,” Forrest said. “I was on the ship he had before that. Poor old thing she was, but got us there safe enough. Dorling came into some money—legacy, he said—and traded up a bit.” He grinned at Kit. “Home from home, sir? She being ex-Navy like you.”

Kit shook his head. “A hundred times better than my last ship. And that goes for the crew too.”

“Ah,” Forrest said, nodding. He passed Kit the spyglass again, and Kit looked back along their wake to the tiny fleck of mist on the horizon that could have been cloud but wasn’t.

By evening the sail had gone, and Kit joined Uttley for a game of backgammon while Dorling and Sir George watched and criticized every move. In the first game Kit had an easy victory because Uttley got flustered by the criticism of his play, but he braced up when Kit kicked him under the table. Uttley was a competent man crippled by his own uncertainties who needed a few solid successes to give him a better view of his own abilities. Kit was an indifferent backgammon player and didn’t need to give points away once Uttley began to play properly. After three games, where Kit was soundly trounced, the older men demanded they put the board away and get out the cards.

Uttley was good at whist, too.

“God be thanked we’re not playing for money,” Kit sighed after he counted up his points in the final game.

“Ship’s rule,” Dorling said. “Games of chance should be played only for love. Saves the hands falling out.”

Kit nodded agreement to Sir George’s enthusiastic endorsement of this but had his reservations. Men would bet and favors would change hands. It was probably as well that Captain Dorling stayed in ignorance of what went on before the mast.

He said as much to Uttley as they went aft again after visiting the heads.

“You mean they flout my uncle’s rules?” Uttley murmured, shocked.

“Of course they do. Probably not money, but extra rations or even watches if you don’t keep an eye on them. They need their amusements just as much as the officers do, and if you avert your eyes from those small infringements they may not be tempted into anything more serious.”

“Ah,” Uttley said. “I suppose that makes sense, though our crews are far smaller than yours were. How many naval ratings would you have on a ship this size?”

“Assuming six guns and a contingent of marines?” Kit said. “Maybe—eighty including officers.”

“And we have twelve, including officers, plus Sir George and yourself,” Uttley said. “Not even enough to man two of the guns. Besides, the powder’s damp.”

“Then why, for pity’s sake, am I sharing my cabin with a four pounder?” Kit demanded.

“A four pounder?” Uttley grinned. “I’m sure you’re right, but you’d never think it to look at Sir George.”

When Kit had finished whooping laughing he asked again. “It takes up so much room. Why not get rid of it?”

Uttley shrugged. “Without the guns the old lady yaws. I guess she was designed to carry them, and without she’s too high in the water. Uncle got them cheap.”

“Dear God,” Kit said. “First thing tomorrow we’ll see if any of the powder is salvageable, and if it is maybe we can do a gun drill. Probert was on a second rate, the Walsingham. He probably knows more about it than I do.”

Uttley raised his eyebrows. “He didn’t mention that to my uncle,” he said. “He just said he’d sailed on the Rosemary out of Southampton. Uncle knows the Rosemary’s owner.”

“I didn’t mention my naval career either,” Kit pointed out. “Let’s face it, your hands have to work a lot harder than the average naval rating. Maybe he thought you’d prefer to hear he was a merchant seaman? His work is satisfactory, isn’t it?”

“Oh yes, he’s most obliging.”

They parted shortly after, Uttley to take the watch, Kit to go below. But before he went, he took the time to look to the east along their shining wake to where a nail paring of moon was rising. The sky was lightly barred with cloud, and the air was warm to the skin. Kit plucked his shirt away from his chest and sighed with satisfaction. It was a beautiful night.

“Kit, there you are!” Sir George said when Kit entered the cabin. He was at his desk with a ledger in one hand and a pen in the other. “Can you make out this word? I think from the context it’s the name of a ship, but I’ll be damned if I can read my own writing.”

Kit peered over his shoulder. “Miracle, sir? Or—no—maybe Miranda?”

“Miranda, that was it,” Sir George said. “A real innovation and our new naval presence in St. Kitts. How does it feel to have an island named for you, dear boy?”

“Ah, but I’m no saint,” Kit said, pouring Sir George his accustomed tot of brandy.

“No sailor, of whatever rank, is,” Sir George said with a smile. “You may turn in if you wish. I’m perfectly capable of putting myself to bed.”

“I don’t doubt it, sir,” Kit said leaning back against the gun to strip off his stockings. He inspected them glumly, making plans for a mending session, and removed his shirt and breeches, intending to sleep in his drawers. “Good night, sir,” he said.

“Oh, good night, Kit,” Sir George said with a smile then turned back to his work.

Kit got into his bed, tucking one arm under his head and pulling the single blanket up to his chest. He closed his eyes, smiling to hear the quiet scratch of the pen and the hiss of the candle, distinct despite the other familiar noises of the ship, and was asleep before he knew it.

Kit woke briefly as the watch changed. He yawned, listened for a moment to the soothing sound of wind and water, then slept clear through to dawn, only to be roused by a call from the man on the helm. Kit stretched and contemplated trying to sleep some more, but the call was followed by a panicky yell from Captain Dorling.