The Bomb Vessel (4 page)

The oldest of the women who sat on the round, well-dressed man's knee, was the first to recover. She hove herself upright,
shrugged her shoulders in a clearly practised gesture and her bosom subsided from view.

‘Who are you gentlemen then?' The other women followed her example, there was a rustling of cotton and the shoe disappeared.

‘Lieutenants Drinkwater and Rogers, madam. And you, pray?' Drinkwater's voice was icily polite.

‘Mrs Jex,' she said, setting off giggles on either side of her, ‘just married to 'Ector Jex, here . . . my 'usband,' she added to more giggles. ‘My 'usband is purser of this ship.' There was a certain proprietory hauteur in her voice. Mr Jex remained silent behind the voluptuous bulk of his wife.

‘And these others?'

‘Mr Matchett, boatswain and Mr Mason, master's mate.'

‘And the ladies?' Drinkwater asked with ironic emphasis, eyeing their professional status.

‘Friends of mine,' replied Mrs Jex with the sharp certainty of possession.

‘I see. Mr Matchett!'

Matchett pulled himself together. ‘Sir?'

‘Where are the remainder of the standing warrant officers?'

‘H'hm. There is no gunner appointed, nor a master.'

‘How many men have we?'

‘Not including the warrant officer's mates, who number four men, we have eighteen seamen. All are over sixty years of age. That is all . . .'

‘Well, gentlemen, I shall be in command of the
Virago
. Mr Rogers will be first lieutenant. I shall return aboard tomorrow morning to take command. I shall expect you to be at your duty.' He swept them with a long stare then turned on his heel and clattered up the ladder. He heard Rogers say something behind him as he regained the cold freshness of the darkened deck.

As they made for the ladder and the waiting dockyard boat a figure appeared wearing an apron, huge arms in shirtsleeves despite the chill wind. He touched his forehead.

‘Beg pardon, sir. Willerton, carpenter. You've seen that pack of whores aft sir? Don't hold with it sir. 'Tis the wages of sin they have coming to 'em. There's nowt wrong with the ship, sir, she's as fine today as when they built her, she'll take two thirteen inch mortars and not crack a batten . . . nowt wrong with her at all . . .'

Slightly taken aback at this encounter Drinkwater thanked the man, reflecting, as he took his seat in the boat, that there were
clearly factions at work on the
Virago
with which he would become better acquainted in the days ahead.

‘You are required and directed without delay to take command of His Majesty's Bomb Tender
Virago
, which vessel you are to prepare for sea with all despatch . . .'

He read on in the biting wind, the commission flapping in his hands. When he had finished he looked at the small semi-circle of transformed warrant officers standing with their hats off. The sober blue of their coats seemed the only patches of colour against the flaked paintwork and bare timbers of the ship. They had clearly been at some pains to correct the impression their new commander had received the previous evening. They should be given some credit for that, Drinkwater thought.

‘Good morning gentlemen. I am glad to see the adventures of the night have not prevented you attending to your duty.' He looked round. Matchett's eighteen seamen, barefoot and shivering in cotton shirts and loose trousers were standing holding their holystones in one hand, their stockingette hats in the other. Drinkwater addressed them in an old formula. He tried to make it sound as though he meant it though there was a boiling anger welling up in him again.

‘Do your duty men. You have nothing to fear.' He strode aft.

The cabin had been cleared. All that remained from the previous night were the table and chairs. Rogers followed him in. Drinkwater heard him sigh.

‘There is a great deal to do, Sam.'

‘Yes,' said Rogers flatly. From an adjacent cabin the sound of a cough was hurriedly muted and the air was still heavy with a mixture of sweat and lavender water.

Drinkwater returned to the lobby and threw open the door of the adjacent cabin. It was empty of people though a sea-chest, bedding and cocked hat case showed it was occupied. He tried the door on the opposite cabin. It gave. Mrs Jex was dressing. She feigned a decorous surprise then made a small, suggestive gesture to him. Her charms were very obvious and in the silence he heard Rogers behind him swallow. He closed the door and turned on the first lieutenant.

‘Pass word for Mr Jex, Mr Rogers. Then make rounds of the ship. I want a detailed report on her condition, wants and supplied state. Come back in an hour.'

He went into the cabin and sat down. He looked round at the bare space, feeling the draughts whistling in through the unoccupied gunports. The thrill of first command was withering. The amount of work to be done was daunting. The brief hope of raising the status of
Virago
as Lord Dungarth suggested seemed, at that moment, to be utterly impossible. Then he remembered the odd encounter with Mr Willerton, that vestigial loyalty to his ship. Almost childlike in its pathetic way and yet as potent to the carpenter as the delights of the flesh had been to last night's revellers. Drinkwater took encouragement from the recollection and with the lifting of his spirits the draught around his feet seemed a little less noticeable, the cabin a little less inhospitable.

Mr Jex knocked on the cabin door and entered. ‘Ah, Mr Jex, pray sit down.'

Jex's uniform coat was smartly cut and a gold ring flashed on his finger. His hands had a puffy quality and his cheeks were marred by the high colour of the bibulous. The Jexes, it seemed, were sybaritic in their way of life. Money, Nathaniel observed, was not in short supply.

‘When I was at the Navy Board, Mr Jex, they did not tell me that you were appointed purser to this ship. Might I enquire as to how long you have held the post?'

‘One month, sir.' Mr Jex spoke for the first time. His voice had the bland tone of the utterly confident.

‘Your wife is still on board, Mr Jex . . .'

‘It is customary . . .'

‘It is customary to ask permission.'

‘But I have, sir.' Jex stared levelly at Drinkwater.

‘From whom, may I ask?'

‘My kinsman, the Commissioner of the Dockyard offered me the appointment. I served as assistant purser on the
Conquistador
, Admiral Roddam's flagship, sir, the whole of the American War.' Drinkwater suppressed a smile. Mr Jex's transparent attempt to threaten him with his kindred was set at nought by the latter revelation.

‘How interesting, Mr Jex. If I recollect aright,
Conquistador
remained guardship at the Nore for several years. Your experience in dealing with the shore must, therefore be quite considerable.' Drinkwater marked the slightest tightening of the lips. ‘I do not expect to see seamen on deck without proper clothing, Mr Jex. An officer of your experience should have attended to that.'
Jex opened his mouth to protest. ‘If you can see to the matter for me and, tomorrow morning, bring me a list of all the stores on board we may discuss your future aboard this ship.' Indignation now blazed clearly from Jex's eyes, but Drinkwater was not yet finished with him. In as pleasant a voice as he could muster he added.

‘In the meantime I shall be delighted to allow you to retain your wife on board. Perhaps she will dine with all of the officers. It will give us the opportunity to discuss the progress of commissioning the ship, and the presence of a lady is always stimulating.' Jex's eyes narrowed abruptly to slits. Drinkwater had laid no special emphasis on the word ‘lady' but there was about Mrs Jex's behaviour something suspicious.

‘That will be all, Mr Jex. And be so kind as to pass word for Mr Willerton.'

Several days passed and Drinkwater kept Jex in a state of uncertainty over his future. The men appeared in guernseys and greygoes so that it was clear Jex had some influence over the dockyard suppliers. Drinkwater was pleased by his first victory.

He listened in silence as Rogers told of the usual dockyard delays, the unkept promises, the lack of energy, the bribery, the venality. He listened while Rogers hinted tactfully that he lacked the funds to expedite matters, that there were few seamen available for such an unimportant vessel and those drafted to them were the cast-offs from elsewhere. Drinkwater was dominated by the two problems of want of cash and men. He had already spent more of his precious capital than he intended and as yet obtained little more than a smartened first lieutenant, a few documents necessary to commission his ship, only obtained by bribing the issuing clerks, and victuals enough for the cabin for a week. Apart from the imposition of further bribing dockyard officials for the common necessities needed by a man of war, he had yet to purchase proper slops for his men, just a little paint that his command might not entirely disgrace him, a quantity of powder for practice, and a few comforts for his own consumption: a dozen live pullets, a laying hen, a case or two of blackstrap. He sighed, listening again to Rogers and his catalogue of a first lieutenant's woes. As he finished Drinkwater poured him a glass of the cheap port sold in Chatham as blackstrap.

‘Press on Samuel, we do make progress.' He indicated the litter of papers on the table. Rogers nodded then, in a low voice and
leaning forward confidentially he said, ‘I, er, have found a little out about our friend Jex.'

‘Oh?'

‘More of his wife actually. It seems that after the last war Jex went off slaving. As purser he made a deal of money and accustomed himself to a fine time.' There was a touch of malice in Rogers as he sipped the wine, he was contemplating the fate of another brought low by excess. ‘I gather he invested a good bit of it unwisely and lost heavily. Now, after some time in straightened circumstances, he is attempting to recoup his finances from the perquisites of a purser's berth and marriage to his lady wife.' Rogers managed a sneer. ‘Though not precisely a trollop she did run a discreet little house off Dock Road. Quite a remunerative place, I am led to believe.'

‘And a berth in a King's ship purchases
Madame
Jex a measure of respectability. Yes, I had noticed an assumption of airs by her ladyship,' concluded Drinkwater, grinning as an idea occurred to him. Making up his mind he slapped his hand on the table. ‘Yes, I have it, it will do very nicely. Be so good as to ask Mr Jex to step this way.'

Jex arrived and was asked to sit. His air of confidence had sagged a little and was replaced by pugnacity. The purser's arms were crossed over his belly and he peered at his commander through narrowed eyes.

‘I have come to a decision regarding you and your future.' Drinkwater spoke clearly, aware of the silence from the adjoining cabin. Mrs Jex would hear with ease through the thin bulkhead.

‘Your influence with the dockyard does you credit, Mr Jex. I would be foolish not to take advantage of your skill and interest in that direction . . .' Drinkwater noted with satisfaction that Jex was relaxing. ‘I require that you do not sleep out of the ship until you have completed victualling for eighty souls for three months. Your wife may live on board with you. You will be allowed the customary eighth on your stores, but a personal profit exceeding twelve and one half per cent will not be tolerated. You will put up the usual bond with the Navy Board and receive seven pounds per month whilst on the ship's books. Until the ship is fully manned you may claim a man's pay for your wife but she shall keep the cabin clean until my servant arrives. You will ensure that the stores from the Victualling Yard are good, not old, nor in split casks. You may at your own expense purchase tobacco and slops
for the men. You will, as part of this charge, purchase one hundred new greygoes, one hundred pairs of mittens, a quantity of woollen stockings and woollen caps, together with some cured sheepskins from any source known to you. You will in short, supply the ship with warm clothes for her entire company. Do you understand?'

Jex's jaw hung. In the preceeding minutes his expression had undergone several dramatic changes but the post of purser in even the meanest of His Britannic Majesty's ships was sought after as a source of steady wealth and steadier opportunity. Drinkwater had not yet finished with the unfortunate man.

‘We have not, of course mentioned the fee customarily paid to the captain of a warship for your post. Shall we say one hundred? Come now, what do you say to my terms?'

‘Ninety.'

‘Guineas, my last offer, Mr Jex.'

Drinkwater watched the purser's face twist slowly as he calculated. He knew he could never stop the corruption in the dockyards, nor in the matter of the purser's eighth, but he might put the system to some advantage. There was a kind of rough justice in Drinkwater's plan. Mrs Jex's wealth came from the brief sexual excesses of a multitude of unfortunate seamen. It was time a little was returned in kind.

Virago
presented something of a more ordered state a day or two later. Both Matchett and Mason, despite their unprepossessing introduction a few days earlier, turned out to be diligent workers. With a third of Jex's ninety guineas Drinkwater was able to ‘acquire' a supply of paint, tar, turpentine, oakum, rosin and pitch to put the hull in good shape. He also acquired some gilt paint and had Rogers rig staging over the stern to revive the cracked acanthus leaves that roved over the transom.

While Drinkwater sat in his cloak in the cabin, the table littered with lists, orders, requisitions and indents, driving his pen and dispatching Mason daily to the dockyard or post-office on ship's business, Rogers stormed about the upper deck or terrorised the dockyard foremen with torrents of foul-mouthed invective that forced reaction from even their stone-walling tactics. Storemen and clerks who complained about his bullying abuse usually obliged Drinkwater to make apologies for him. So he developed an ingratiating politeness that disguised his contempt for these
jobbers. With a little greasing of palms he could often reverse the offended clerk's mind and thus obtain whatever the ship required.