The Launching of Roger Brook (7 page)

The best is yet to come, m’dear. I’ve two fine surprises for you.’

‘Oh, tell us, do,’ she leaned eagerly forward in her chair, and Roger added his urging.

‘You’d never guess,’ the Captain grinned. ‘’Tis far more than I hoped for, as I thought myself forgot after my long absence from home, and I said nothing of it to the company as it may be a month or more before it appears in the
Gazette
. But I’m to fly my flag. Their Lordships have made me a Rear-Admiral.’

‘Chris! Is it really true? Oh, how prodigious fine!’ Lady Marie jumped up and kissed him on his flushed cheek.

‘Hurrah!’ cried Roger. Three cheers for Admiral Brook! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!’

Not wishing to make a fool of himself he had gone as carefully as he could with the wine, but having been granted the status of a man, he had also not liked to appear less than
one by passing the port untouched too frequently. So he, too, had had as much as he could carry, as was evident from his flushed face and unnaturally bright eyes.

‘But you said you had two surprises for us,’ Lady Marie went on. ‘I can scarce bear the suspense to hear the other. Is it that they’ve given you a ship of ninety-eight guns to fly your flag in?’

‘Nay,’ replied the Captain. ‘’Tis something that I value more. With me I brought despatches from the Indies and the First Lord did me the honour to instruct me to lay them personally before His Majesty.’

‘What! You actually talked with the King?’ exclaimed Roger.

His father put an arm affectionately round the boy’s shoulders. ‘Aye, lad, and he was mighty civil to me; so I took the bull by the horns and went in to the attack. I asked him for a commission for you, and, praise God, he was graciously pleased to grant it to me there and then.’

The blood drained from Roger’s face. In the excitement of the last few hours he had temporarily forgotten his own anxiety, and the bomb now exploded beneath his feet with startling suddenness.

Lady Marie too, paled a little, but for a different reason. She knew that Roger was averse to the sea as a career, but thought his attitude no more than the unreasoning prejudice of a boy, that could soon be overcome; and her husband’s wishes were to her the law. Yet Roger was her only child and she was most loath to part with him at such an early age and see him in future only at long intervals.

‘So Roger will not be returning to Sherborne next term?’ she said slowly.

The Captain gave him a hearty slap on the back. ‘Nay. His school days are over, and he’ll be posted as a midshipman on the recommissioning of one of our ships now in dock within the next month or two. Well, Roger, hast thou naught to say?’

‘Indeed, I’m very grateful, Sir—both to you and to His Majesty,’ Roger managed to stammer.

Captain Brook’s perceptions were too blunted by the wine he had consumed to note the lack of enthusiasm in Roger’s tone, and he hurried on: ‘Next week we’ll go into Portsmouth and see to the ordering of your kit. You’ll cut a brave figure in a uniform and all the gels will be casting
sheep’s eyes at you.’ He converted a mild belch into a yawn. ‘But enough for now. Tis time we sought our beds. Strap me! but it’s good to be home again and see to the locking-up of one’s own home for the night.’

‘I’d best come with you, Sir,’ Roger volunteered. ‘A new door has been made to the still-room, since you went away, and ’tis concealed behind a curtain.’

Lady Marie led the way out into the spacious hall and, turning, kissed Roger good-night at the foot of the white-painted, semi-circular staircase, then father and son made the round of the ground floor, fastening the shutters, putting up chains and shooting bolts.

As Roger followed his father from room to room, his mind was in a turmoil. The wine and the shock he had sustained had now combined to bemuse his brain and make him feel that he wanted to be sick. On the news of the Captain’s return that morning he had thought that at worst he would have several months in which to wage a campaign of resistance against any renewal of the project to send him to sea. His father was both good-natured and affectionate, so by waiting for such times as he was in his most calm and responsive moods it might have been possible to argue him out of it. But the time for seizing such opportunities had now been cut from beneath Roger’s feet.

He saw himself within the next few weeks being shipped off like a victim of the press-gangs to a life of slavery in the hideous discomfort inseparable from serving in a man-o’-war. Midshipmen were then treated little better than the sailors before the mast and worked to the limit of their endurance. They took watch for watch and were sent aloft with the hands to help furl the sails, under the blistering tropic sun or in the icy, blinding rain of the worst tempests. The common seamen at least had leisure to yarn, carve models, or laze about in their off-duty hours, but not so the midshipmen, who, in the intervals of scrubbing decks, cleaning brass fitments and hauling on great tarry ropes were herded into the ship’s schoolroom to receive instruction in navigation, gunnery, trigonometry and ship’s management. Their fare was a rarely varied diet of salt pork and hard biscuits washed down with unsweetened lime juice to prevent scurvy; their quarters a single low cabin in which there were constant comings and goings, their sleep limited to three and three-quarter hours at any one time before
they were roughly woken to roll out of their dirty blankets and scamper up the ladders for the muster of a new duty-watch on deck. They were kept on the run from morning to night and for half the night semi-frozen while acting as look-outs in the crow’s nest high above the ship. Their title of ‘Mister’ was a mockery; the officers were as far above them as the gods and it was considered that the harder the tasks they were given the better officers they would make later on. Bugle calls and the ship’s bell ruled their every hour; they had no privacy or recreations and were bullied unmercifully.

Knowing all this Roger was engulfed in a black wave of despair, yet felt that he would rather die than submit to such a fate. Blindly he followed his father’s unsteady footsteps from room to room, seeking a way out but finding none. His alcohol-laden brain refused to work although it was seething with revolt. At length they reached the conservatory on the west side of the house. A dim light filtering through from the hall was enough to show the glass double-doors leading out to the orchard, but it was now pitch dark outside. Admiral Brook had walked forward to lock the door, when Roger suddenly exclaimed in a choking voice:

‘Sir, may I speak with you for a moment?’

‘Yes. What is it, Roger?’ the Admiral flung cheerfully over his shoulder.

‘This Commission, Sir, I’ve no wish for it.’

‘What’s that!’ The Admiral swung round and peered at him in the uncertain light. ‘What didst thou say? Surely I can’t have heard aright?’

Only his half-drunken state had given Roger the courage to take the plunge but, having taken it, he hurried on. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Sir, seeing you’re so set on it, but I don’t want to take up this Commission.’

‘In God’s name, why?’ gasped the Admiral in blank astonishment.

‘I—I’ve a dozen reasons, Sir,’ Roger stammered now. ‘I don’t want to go to sea. I—I…’

‘You’re drunk, boy,’ exclaimed his father, sharply. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying. Get to bed this minute.’

‘I’m not drunk, Sir,’ Roger protested. ‘At least, not so drunk as all that. I made up my mind years ago. I’d hate the life, I swear I would. I pray you don’t force me to it.’

‘So this is what an expensive schooling has done for you!’ His father was angry now. ‘Or is it lack of discipline because I’ve been so long from home? How dare you question my decisions. I know what’s best for you. Get to bed now and let’s hear no more of this.’

‘Please!’ Roger begged. ‘Please! You must remember your own days as a midshipman. You’ve often told me how they worked you until you were often almost asleep on your feet. And of the cold and the storms and the bullying.’

‘Bah! That’s nothing. You’ll soon get used to it and come to love it.’

‘I shan’t, Sir. I’ve dreaded this for years and I’ll loathe every moment of it.’

‘Hell’s bells, what schoolgirl vapourings!’ the Admiral cried in a fury. ‘Am I but come home to find that I have a coward for a son?’

‘I’m not a coward, Sir. I’ll take on any fellow of my own weight, but I don’t want to go to sea.’

‘D’you dare to stand there and defy me?’

Roger was white to the gills and feeling desperately sick again, but the gross injustice of disposing of him against his will had driven him, too, into a fury.

‘Yes, since I must,’ he cried. ‘It’s my life and I’ll not be condemned to a slavery worse than the plantations. I won’t go to sea, and you shan’t make me.’

‘God!’ roared the Admiral. ‘Such insolence as this is something I never dreamed to meet, and for it I’ll leather the hide off you.’ Suiting the action to the word he snatched up a cane from a potted plant and thrust out a hand to grab Roger by the collar.

Roger dodged the blow by stepping sideways and, in the semi-darkness, the Admiral tripped over some large flowerpots that were standing on the tiled floor. He fell among them with a clatter but was up again in a moment and made another grab at Roger with a hearty curse.

‘’Tis discipline you need, you presumptuous young fool and I’m the man to give it to you. I’ll soon show you who is master in this ship.’

Next moment he had Roger by the scruff of the neck and forcing him over brought the cane down with a resounding wallop on his buttocks.

Roger let out a yell and tensed himself for another blow, but it did not come. While the stick was still raised in midair,
the Admiral’s action was arrested by three sharp, clear knocks that came out of the night on one of the panes of the conservatory door.

For a moment they remained as inanimate as though posed in
tableau vivant
, then with a muttered curse the Admiral released his hold on Roger and, turning, strode to the door. It was still unlocked and pulling it open he stared out into the warm darkness of the summer night.

A tall, bearded figure stood there and the Admiral’s eyes, already accustomed to the gloom of the conservatory, swiftly took in the knitted stocking cap, woollen jersey, leather breeches and heavy seaboots of his belated visitor.

‘E’en’, Cap’n,’ said the man in a gruff voice. ‘Hearin’ ye was back from the wars I thought ye could do with a keg of the best.’

‘Why, Dan!’ exclaimed the Admiral, ‘I scarce knew you for the moment, but ‘twas good of you to think of me. What have you brought us, brandy or schnapps?’

The smuggler tapped with his boot the little two-gallon cask that he had set down beside him. ‘’Tis French cognac, and none better ever came out of the Charente.’

The smuggling of wines, spirits, lace and perfume from France had been rife for the past eighty years—ever since Lord Methuen had imposed such heavy discriminating duties against the French that the British people, resenting them as an unjust imposition, had resorted to openly flouting the law and become ready buyers of illegal cargoes. For sheep stealing, a man could still be hanged and the sentences inflicted on poachers were often of a barbarous ferocity, but, despite the utmost pressure of the Government, no bench of magistrates would convict a smuggler, however strong the evidence against him.

The Admiral had now got back his breath and his good humour. ‘How fares it with you, these days?’ he asked. ‘Is
the old game as beset with pitfalls as ever, or are the Excise men grown slack?’

Dan Izzard shook his massive head and the gold earrings in his ears glinted in the half-light. ‘’Twas easier while the war were on, Cap’n. Most o’ the revenue cutters were impressed for the Navy then, but now they’re freed ag’in they’re doing their darnedest to put us down.’

‘So the war was good for business, then?’

‘Aye! Wars make no difference to the likes o’ us on either side o’ the Channel. An’ all open trading being cut off put prices up. ’Tis fine pickings we’ve had these past few years, but a man has to take his life in his hands to run a cargo now the fighting’s over.’

Roger knew Dan well, but although he was now standing close behind his father he scarcely took in what they were saying. He felt ghastly and the conservatory seemed to be rolling round him as distressingly as if it were Dan’s lugger in a heavy sea.

The Admiral stooped and tilting the little cask rolled it in through the open doorway, as he said: ‘Well, thanks, Dan. Look in and see me any time you’re passing, and I’ll settle up with you.’

‘Aye, aye, Cap’n, I’ll do that. But ’twon’t be for a day or two, as ’tis overlong since I made a trip. Good-night to ’e.’

As the door closed Roger drew back, fearing a renewed assault from his father; and he had good cause to do so, as the Admiral suddenly said with cold wrath: ‘And now, Sir, I’ll deal with you!’

At that instant Roger lurched forward, grasped uncertainly at the wooden staging on which stood several rows of pots, and was violently sick.

Baffled, the Admiral stared at him. He could hardly give the boy a leathering while in such a state. After a moment he turned away to bolt the door, and muttered angrily: ‘Oh, get to bed. I’ll teach you manners in the morning.’

Stuffing his handkerchief in his mouth, Roger slunk away and stumbled up to his room.

Having been up at four and it now being two hours past his usual bedtime, neither the tempestuous scene nor his unhappy physical state kept him long awake. After rinsing out his mouth, and sponging his face with cold water he pulled off his clothes and flopped into bed. Ten minutes later he was sound asleep.

From habit he woke soon after dawn and, but for a slight heaviness in his head, felt little the worse for his violent emotions of the previous night. When he had washed, dressed and done his brown hair as was his custom, by combing it off his forehead and tying the ends with a bow at the back of his neck, he left his room and went up by a short flight of steps to the roof.

That of the newer portion of the house had two triangular eaves filling the bulk of a square, but a leaded walk ran right round them and a breast-high parapet concealed the eaves from anyone looking up from the gardens below. It was a good place to laze if one favoured solitude on a sunny day and the views from it provided a never-failing interest.