The Golden Ocean (10 page)

‘Well, I cannot say, I am sure,’ said Peter, but I know they make game of you if you use the lubber-hole. And as for the height, this is nothing. You should have been where I spent my watch, in the fore-to’garn crosstrees. Mr Brett mast-headed me. Shall we go up there? You get the view of the world, for seeing the headsails.’

‘You are showing away, Palafox,’ cried FitzGerald. ‘You always do. Or at least, you always have since the Commodore took notice of you. With your futtocks and crosstrees. You are a confident scrub.’

‘I am not,’ cried Peter squeaking with indignation. ‘And you asked me yourself to show you the things. You are a scrub yourself to say so, and so you are too.’

He swung himself over and shot down on deck in a fuming huff. There was a grain of truth in what FitzGerald said: Peter had played second fiddle on land, and now that they were at sea, where he was so much more at home than FitzGerald, he rather enjoyed the reversal, and he was somewhat free with his nautical terms; but it had nothing to do with his being distinguished by Mr Anson, and the manner of the accusation was unjust and wounding.

Peter went below in a rage, tripped over the cat and fell heavily on his nose.

‘What a clumsy brute that Teague is,’ said Preston.

‘You will not call me Teague,’ cried Peter, getting up and dusting himself.

‘Why not, Teague?’ asked Preston. ‘And you ought not to blunder about, Teague, disturbing your seniors’ rest. Why do you do it, Teague?’

By way of reply Peter drove his left fist into Preston’s face and followed it with a right hook that flattened that young gentleman’s ear against his skull.

‘Ow,’ said Preston, retreating, ‘I’ll pay you for that.’

‘A mill,’ cried Hope and Keppel simultaneously, swinging out of the hammocks in the dog-hole where they spent their watches below.

‘Let him get his coat off,’ said Hope.

‘Let me go,’ cried Peter, struggling madly.

‘Come, mill in decently if you must,’ said Hope, restraining him still. ‘Here, I’ll be your second.’

They stripped to their shirts while Keppel and the grinning Marine sentry cleared the ground.

‘Now, young cock,’ said Hope, ‘go in and win.’

There was never any doubt of the outcome. Preston was only fooling: Peter was in furious earnest. He battered poor Preston to a standstill in two minutes, knocked him flat, and with a murderous shriek leapt upon him and hit him sharply in the stomach.

‘Hey, wo, the man’s down,’ cried Keppel and they both tried to prise Peter off. But the notions of fair play current in England at that time had not yet penetrated to the West of Ireland, and Peter would not let go. He had Preston’s throat, and he was determinedly throttling that unfortunate youth when Clowes, a young Marine officer who had come running at the sound of a fight, added his strength to that of Keppel and Hope, and wrenched Preston away.

‘What a fellow you are,’ he exclaimed. ‘You should have retired to your corner.’

‘T’hanam an Dial,’ cried Peter, spitting in his eye, ‘come on,
the three of you. Blackguards. I’ll rip out your heart,’ he cried, banging the redcoat’s nose.

‘Cool off, Teague,’ began Keppel, but Peter was on him, and they went down in a flurry of arms and legs.

‘Lash him into a hammock,’ said Keppel, nursing his jaw while the others sat on Peter and he threshing about under their weight with tears of rage in his eyes.

‘God help us, what a fury,’ said Hope, ‘Keppel, sit on his legs.’

‘Is Mr Palafox here?’ asked Mr Walter in the doorway.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Hope. ‘I beg pardon for not getting up, but he will be the death of us if we cease to oppress him.’

‘For shame,’ cried the chaplain, seizing Hope by the collar, ‘four against one? Where’s the sport in that?’ He heaved the midshipman aside with unclerical vigour and grappled the next, but Peter, getting to his feet, called out, ‘It was only a game, sir.’

‘A game? Do you call this a game?’ said Mr Walter, pointing to Preston, still dazed and white, sitting on a locker, and to Clowes, with a scarlet handkerchief to his nose. ‘I believe you have been fighting,’ he said sternly.

‘Oh no, sir,’ mumbled Peter.

‘Come with me,’ He preceded Peter to his cabin, and there he said, ‘Peter, I charge you directly with having been fighting.’

‘Sir,’ replied Peter, his wits sharpened by the battle. ‘“An, si quis atro dente me petiverit, inultus ut flebo puer?”’

‘Ha, ha,’ laughed the chaplain, ‘very well answered, my boy. But do not let it occur again. It is not a bullying mess, I know; and you must not get yourself a fire-eater’s reputation, like your unfortunate friend. Never forget that you will in all probability be cooped up with these young men for a year or more: there must be give and take in all parts of the ship, and nowhere more than in the cockpit.’

‘I won’t be called Teague,’ said Peter, sullenly.

‘What is this?’ cried the chaplain with an ominous frown. ‘How do you come to speak so petulantly to me, sir, as to say, “I won’t be called Teague”?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir. I meant no disrespect.’

‘For the sake of a foolish name, will you sow discord? Will you show malignant, unworthy resentment?’

‘I won’t be called Teague,’ said Peter.

‘For shame,’ said the chaplain. ‘Such doggedness does you no credit. Go away. Leave the room, sir. And I do not wish to see you again until you show a far more amenable disposition in every way.’

‘The Teagues have parted brass-rags,’ said the midshipmen’s berth; and it appeared to be true. Peter and FitzGerald were barely on speaking terms, and very uncomfortable Peter found it.

‘He can be such an amiable creature,’ said Peter to himself, thinking of his companion, ‘but in some ways he is such a jackass. He has been aboard for ages now, and over a month at sea, but he knows nothing—seems to have observed nothing at all. And then he is as proud as Lucifer.’

It was an uncomfortable time altogether that followed, with baffling winds that destroyed their hopes of a quick passage to Madeira and kept both watches heavily at work, sometimes for no more gain than a league of southing in four and twenty hours of strict attention.

An uncomfortable period, with tempers getting frayed and many hands up for punishment: there were days when the mastheads were quite festooned with midshipmen, and sometimes, when he was aloft with a glass, Peter could see that it was the same with the other ships in company, for his telescope would show him disconsolate colleagues arranged, like ornaments, high above the sails of the
Gloucester
and the
Severn
.

However, the wind came fair at last, and they ran three days and nights under a press of canvas before it fell into a dead calm. Here, in the silent sea the Commodore had a chance to engage the crew in one of his favourite exercises: at the break of the quarter-deck the seamen, division by division, took their turn at blazing away at a bottle hanging from the fore yard-arm.

‘It is very well,’ said Colonel Cracherode, ‘but if I may be permitted to say so, it would not do in the Army.’

‘Why not, Colonel?’ asked the Commodore.

‘Why, sir—not that I imply the least criticism of naval methods—’ said the Colonel, meaning that he condemned them root and branch, ‘but we consider a musket too deadly a weapon to be handled as any fellow takes it into his head. Like that, for example,’ he cried, instinctively ducking as the foretopmen took up their arms.

‘Mr Palafox,’ said the Commodore.

‘Sir?’ cried Peter, turning round.

‘Do not point your musket at Colonel Cracherode. Point it at a midshipman, Mr Palafox. They can better be spared.’

‘Hor hor hor,’ went Peter’s division, like a lot of false traitors.

‘You was pointing it into his stomach over your shoulder, sir,’ whispered Hairy Amos, the ablest seaman in the division.

‘So we do it by numbers,’ said the Colonel, ‘obtaining thereby safety for ourselves, and the effect of a concentrated fire upon the enemy.’

‘Yes,’ said the Commodore, ‘I have often seen the Marines perform their exercise, with excellent results. But our intentions are different: for whereas the Army requires an annihilating volley to break up a cavalry charge, for instance, what I want is a body of sharpshooters, so that I always have plenty of hands in the tops, each one of whom can hit his mark on the enemy’s deck. Look, now,’ he cried, as a sly, long, gipsy-looking foretopman shattered the bottle, to the rapturous cheers of his mates and the watch below. Another bottle appeared, and the sly fellow hit it. A third bottle: the foretopman raised his musket, sighted it, lowered it to fan away the smoke, and then shot the bottle fair and clean, looking round with a secret leer while his mates clawed him on the back.

‘The fellow’s a poacher, I make no doubt of that,’ said the Colonel. ‘And anyway, sir, it would not do for the Army. Very wild and irregular, sir.’

‘It may not do for a soldier,’ said the Commodore, ‘but if he downs three enemies as he has downed those three bottles, it will do for a sailor, although he does not stand to attention or know his musketry drill.’

Then it was the turn of the great guns, and Mr Randall, the gunner, came into his own: the gun-ports opened, the massive twenty-four pounders on the main deck were run out, and their crews stared out under the low port-lids. At the word of command the lanyard jerked, the gun roared with a vast crash, a great orange tongue of fire and the thunderous rumble of the carriage hurtling back: the gun-deck was filled with the acrid fighting smell of powder, and Peter, hurrying along behind Mr Randall, saw the second gun go off. He was less amazed by the shattering noise, and watched the gun with particular attention: in the very instant of firing the whole gun leapt, actually left the deck; it was quite fascinating. Soon the gun-deck was darkened by the heavy cloud of smoke that lay in a swathe upon the sea: the sun pierced in shafts through the open ports, and in the shafts the smoke swirled thick. The men were stripped to the waist, for it was hot, and the heavy work of loading, swabbing, running the guns up, made them gleam.

‘Mr Palafox,’ said the first lieutenant, pausing in his walk along the gun-deck, ‘what are you doing here?’

Peter could not think of a reasonable answer.

‘Do you think this is a holiday? A raree-show? Bartholomew Fair? Go back to your station immediately. You will hear from me this evening.’

But as Peter, in guilt-stricken haste, returned to his rightful position in the ship, eight bells sounded and the watch below took over with uncommon eagerness, ousting the reluctant larboard watch at the guns and the stands of arms. The cutter was lowering away, and Peter, with a boldness that surprised himself, asked Mr Brett if he might go in her.

‘Eh?’ said the lieutenant, and turned away to give an order.

Peter wanted no more: in another moment he was in the cutter, explaining his presence to Mr Stapleton, the fifth lieutenant,
by the somewhat disingenuous remark that, ‘Mr Brett had desired him to go.’ His land-conscience pricked him faintly, but his deep-sea-conscience instantly replied that Mr Brett would certainly desire him to take every opportunity of improving himself in his profession; and he tranquilly enjoyed the sight of the
Centurion
growing smaller in the cutter’s wake. It was a long time since he had seen her as a whole—had seen her from outside, that is—and he was struck again by her towering beauty. Her royals flapped now and then in the faint movement of the air, and she still had a very little way on her; but otherwise she was in suspended animation, alive, but in a trance. He looked back at her now with a very much more knowing eye, and his glance ran up and down the rigging—no longer an unmeaning bewilderment of rope, but a well-known and fascinating combination of counteracting forces in equipoise as well as a series of aerial paths. Her open gun-ports made her look strange, however: he noticed them particularly, and turning to the lieutenant he said, ‘Sir, how do they open the gun-ports in a wind, if you please? I mean, when the wind is on the other side, laying her over?’

Mr Stapleton did not answer for a moment, because he was meditating the form of his reproof: but then he said, quite mildly, ‘They cannot. She is very deep-laden, and if we meet with the Spaniards in anything of a sea we shall have to fight with the upper tier alone. Do you know where the keel is, Mr Palafox?’

‘Oh yes, sir,’ said Peter, amused.

‘And do you know what keel-hauling is?’

‘Not exactly, sir. But Mr Saunders has promised to show me this evening. Pray, what is it, sir?’

‘It is when they bend a line to your neck and another to your heels and pass you under the ship’s keel from the starboard main-chains to the larboard main-chains. It takes a long time, and when there is a good deal of marine growth on the bottom it is very uncomfortable. It is the usual punishment for midshipmen who speak to their betters without being spoken to. ’Vast that talking there,’ he cried. ‘Silence in the
boat. Give way, you sons of—. Chattering like a floating hen-coop.’

Somewhat appalled by this intelligence, Peter looked away from the
Centurion
and sat meekly with his eyes inboard. Almost at once his gaze met that of Sean, who for some time had been trying to attract his attention by sundry nods and becks.

‘Why, Sean, my dear,’ he cried, ‘and what are you doing here, at all?’

‘Sure, they wanted a real seaman, your honour,’ began Sean, with a beaming smile. ‘Will I tell you the way—’

‘Will you be quiet, Mr Palafox?’ roared Mr Stapleton. ‘You, O’Mara, stow your gob. Cox’n, let it go.’

‘It’ was a floating target: it splashed over the side, and the lieutenant turned the boat. ‘Pull now,’ he said, ‘if you value your hides.’

‘A few moments later there was a white puff in the
Centurion
’s waist, almost instantly followed by the deep note of one of the upper-deck nine-pounders, and the high splash of the ball fifty yards beyond the target. The ball leapt from the surface and went skittering on like a gigantic game of ducks and drakes: Peter was still staring after it when the second gun banged out.

‘Straddled it,’ said Mr Stapleton with satisfaction, as the ball pitched short of the target, but in the true line. ‘That must be Mr Randall pointing the guns.’