The Weeping Ash (60 page)

Sometimes Scylla wondered if Phillimore's addiction to punishment was due to the fact that he himself for so many years must have felt unreasonably deprived of the power to mete it out; now he was making up for lost time.

She herself, mindful of Captain Capel's advice, kept well out of Phillimore's way. Although she disliked being confined to the cabin and longed to be up on deck, she curtailed the period she allowed herself in the fresh air with little Chet to an hour a day, taken at a time when the captain was at his dinner. This restriction she found easier to bear because, when she did go up on deck, there was such a likelihood of being obliged to witness some distressing punishment and hear the cries of the victims as they were beaten or ducked by the bosun's men.

“It's a damnable shame,” Cal muttered, meeting her once by chance on the quarterdeck. “Half those poor fellows haven't committed the faults they are accused of; but what can one do? If you take their part against the captain, it is mutiny and you can be hanged for it. The captain is like God aboard the ship.”

“For heaven's sake, then, do not do anything foolish, Cal,” his sister warned him urgently. “It is only for a short period, after all.”

“Just the same, it makes one's blood boil!”

Setting aside his feelings about the captain, Cal seemed to have fallen into the ship's routine easily enough and to be absorbing information about his duties with commendable speed; he was on friendly terms with the other lieutenants, Gough, Howard, MacBride, Forsyth, and Goodwillie; the sailors seemed to accept him, and the midshipmen, mostly boys between fourteen and eighteen, showed a tendency to hero-worship when it came out that Cal had traveled overland from India through Kafiristan, Afghanistan, Persia, and Turkey, had climbed mountains, shot a leopard, and resided with foreign potentates. Scylla, too, came in for some admiring and friendly smiles from the younger officers, but, remembering Captain Phillimore's admonitions and evident low opinion of her, she thought it best to be extremely circumspect in her dealings with them, going and coming to her cabin (which had been that of the first lieutenant, allocated to Mrs. Whiteforest) by the shortest possible route, and keeping strictly to the small patch of deck assigned to her use when taking the air. If Captain Phillimore chanced to come out, even though she had not taken her allotted hour, she went below immediately.

As one week followed another, however, in spite of these evasive tactics, she began to be forced to the disagreeable conclusion that Captain Phillimore was taking an undue interest in her; a great deal too much for her peace of mind. She felt his eye on her frequently. From time to time he would intercept her, as she hurried for the companionway, and ask some question, always in a loud hectoring voice, and with a tinge of malice in it.

“Your brother—
Miss Paget
—alleges that you have traveled through the pass of Lowacal and down the valley of the Kunar River in Kafiristan. Eh? Is that true? How did you find the natives in those parts? Were they friendly?”

The sarcasm and disbelief in his tone were patent, but Scylla did her best, always, to answer simply and naturally.

“The natives differed from one region to another, sir, as might be expected. Some were hostile; but most of them we found friendly enough.”

“Some of them perhaps a little
too
friendly and oncoming, hmm?” Phillimore suggested with a significant leer at little Chet. “
One
of them, perhaps, left you with that little token of his friendship?”

“I haven't the least idea what you mean, sir,” Scylla said coldly. “And now, if you please, I must go below; Mrs. Whiteforest will be needing me.”

Slowly the captain stepped aside to let her pass; he had evidently curtailed his dinner hour in order to come up on deck while she was still there; his face was flushed and his breath redolent of brandy.

As the voyage proceeded it seemed to Scylla that the captain's potations became deeper; often, after his dinner, he clambered up the companion like some gross fly and walked with a lurching and unsteady step; his loud hiccups and belches could be heard all over the quarterdeck; yet he was never completely inebriated. He seemed to have a remarkably strong head, and however far gone in liquor he appeared, the smallest emergency found him at once perfectly clearheaded and capable of dealing with it.

Off the coast of Spain the
Tintagel
encountered a French privateer.

Scylla and the baby were instantly ordered below, not just to their cabin but down to the orlop deck. “Captain's orders, I am afraid, ma'am,” said Howard, the first lieutenant, delivering them; “he says he cannot allow females to be anywhere near the operational decks while an engagement with the enemy is in progress.” Mrs. Whiteforest protested faintly; the orlop deck was a horrible place, below water level, pitch-dark and infested with rats. But protest was of no avail. Groping their way, the females went below and sat among casks and water barrels, hearing the water rush past terrifyingly close outside, and the thunder of guns overhead. Little Chet set up a frightened wail; Scylla tried to hush him by singing all the Pushtu songs she remembered.

Fortunately the engagement was of short duration. The French ship was in no way equal to tackling a man-of-war and would have fled if possible, but the
Tintagel
could outsail her and had far superior gun power, within a couple of hours the enemy ship had surrendered after being grappled and boarded. The French captain and his officers were taken prisoner, and Howard, the first lieutenant, was dispatched to take command of the captured ship. Some time after, Captain Phillimore recollected that his female passengers were still confined below decks and sent word that they might come up again.

This time it was a midshipman who brought the message; a skinny lad named Owens to whom Scylla had endeared herself by lancing a gumboil that was plaguing him and which he dared not show to the surgeon, who considered such trifling afflictions beneath his notice.

“Mr. Howard's gone to take command of the Frenchman, ma'am, so we're all to have a step up,” Owens told Scylla happily. “I'll be junior lieutenant, now, and your brother's number four. O' course it's only acting promotion; it won't be confirmed till we get to Portsmouth.”

“Well, I am happy to hear it for your sake,” said Scylla, thankfully assisting Mrs. Whiteforest to clamber up the steep ladder into daylight.

“Cap'n Phillimore ain't half making indentures, ma'am,” confided Owens. “He's as happy as a grig. He's thinking of prize money, I daresay! I say, miss, your brother is a prime gun! He was first over the side in the boarding party, and I saw him knock over a big hulking brute of a Frenchman with the butt of his pistol! He's a right top-holer.”

Returning to their cabin—which seemed unbelievably light and airy after the horrors of the orlop—Scylla could not help being amazed at how readily Cal had taken to naval life. She longed for a quiet hour to ask him his feelings about it all. Did he not wish for some time—or solitude—in which to write his poetry? She knew that he shared a cabin with Gough, who was extremely talkative. When could he even find the peace and quiet to think? And what of his epileptic attacks? Had they ceased to trouble him? She remembered that he said he was less prone to an attack during action than when at rest; perhaps the almost nonstop action in his present existence was proving beneficial. It was very strange—and frustrating—after so many years of constant unfettered communication to be so close to Cal, to see him often, active on deck, giving orders, talking to his companions, and yet be prevented from exchanging anything but the barest commonplaces.

Sounds of singing and festivity about the ship now made Mrs. Whiteforest very anxious.

“Best bolt the doors, my dear,” she said to Scylla. “I know what it is like at sea when a prize has been taken! And the crew on this ship are still a scratch lot, something new and raw, I am afraid they may become out of hand; Captain Phillimore, though such a stern disciplinarian, is, regrettably, so fond of his bottle himself that he will think little of it if they become drunk and unruly. Bolt the door, and let us keep as quiet as may be.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Although agreeing with Mrs. Whiteforest that this was the only course to pursue, Scylla was extremely hungry, for the ladies had missed their main meal, and it was a relief when, after an hour or so, a polite tap announced the arrival of Bagby, the captain's servant, who brought them their meals. Bagby, like Fishbourne, was an inveterate gossip, and now he brought disturbing news.

“I'm afraid your brother's fell foul of the capting, miss,” he said, handing Scylla the tray of boiled beef, sour cabbage, and biscuit which was their almost unvarying diet.

“Oh no, Bagby, how?” Her heart lurched with fright; her hands shook so much that she was obliged to set the tray hastily on the deck.

“Well, miss, I wasn't there for the beginning of the altercation, but it took place while they was all a-celebrating the prize at dinner in the capting's cabing. I come through the door to hand around the port wine, which the capting likes particular when there's something to celebrate, and I saw your brother was a-standing up, white as holystone, I give you my word, miss. ‘Captain Phillimore, that is an unwarrantable aspersion on my sister, sir,' he says, ‘an' I must ask if you will be good enough to retract it.' An' at that old Philbottle looks him up and down, in that sarcastic way he has, an, ‘No, my young shaver, I
don't
retract it,' he says. ‘I daresay you think you are a fine fellow after today's work, but let me tell you, one engagement does not make a sailor, an' you still have a many things to learn about the navy. And one of them is that, what the capting says goes! An' furthermore,' says he, ‘you have just been guilty of insolence to your capting. You are lucky that I am lenient enough to consider it insolence, Mr. Paget, and not mutiny. You will report to the officer of the watch, Mr. Paget, every hour, until further orders.'”

“Good God!” exclaimed Scylla. “You mean my brother must get up at every hour through the night, even when it is not his watch? How monstrous! That man is a brute!”

“Yes, miss. He is that,” said Bagby sympathetically, and he went out, shutting the door.

Scylla paced up and down the limited deck space. Now she had no appetite for her meal. Mrs. Whiteforest, perhaps fortunately, had fallen asleep. Scylla's thoughts were turbulent. Her face burned with anger and shame. She could imagine the kind of thing Captain Phillimore might have said about her, under the influence of drink and excitement. And she could imagine Cal's disgust and indignation at hearing his sister so traduced—in front of the other officers, too!

The night passed slowly. Scylla, unable to sleep, imagined Cal being obliged to rouse up every hour and report himself to the officer of the watch. What a mean, filthy trick!

When she went up on deck next day for her hour's fresh air, she—looked around for Cal but could not see him. Perhaps he was snatching a little sleep—or perhaps Captain Phillimore had devised some new penalty for him.

The captain came up while she was there although she had, as usual, chosen his dinner hour for her airing. His face was even redder than usual as, with a truculent gait, he crossed to intercept her as she started for the companionway.

“Good day to you,
Miss Paget
. I am sorry to have to inform you that your—
brothe
r
—is just now subject to ship's discipline. Young gentlemen who come to sea thinking that they know all there is to know must sometimes be obliged to learn that they do not!”

Scylla met his malicious grin with what she hoped was a look of stony impassivity.

“Would you mind letting me by, Captain Phillimore? I wish to go below.”

If he had wished her to display temper, argue, or plead her brother's case, he was going to be disappointed. He tried another shaft.

“Young ladies and their
brothers
who travel about the world together cannot always expect to be treated like royalty.”

To this Scylla made no reply at all, merely stood waiting in silence with compressed lips, until at last he reluctantly moved aside from the companion ladder enough to allow her down it. She was aware of cautiously sympathetic glances from a couple of other officers within earshot, MacBride and Forsyth; but their pity only made her feel angrier. If only Cal were not so completely at the mercy of this pig of a man, what satisfaction she would take in answering him as he deserved!

That evening, late, after Mrs. Whiteforest and the baby were both asleep, Scylla received a message. It was brought by a little mouse of a boy, Gasgoyne, the youngest midshipman, who was barely twelve years old. He was a tiny trembling creature, terrified of Captain Phillimore, who seemed to take pleasure in tormenting him; knowing that Gasgoyne was nervous of going aloft, he sent him up into the rigging twenty times a day “to harden him off” as he put it. Now Gasgoyne timorously tapped on the door and whispered:

“Please, miss, Captain Phillimore's compliments, and he says to tell you Lieutenant Paget is in the captain's cabin, answering questions as to his conduct regarding the captain, and he asks if you will p-present yourself, miss, for he wishes to have c-confirmation of something or other.” Toward the end of this statement it began to seem plain to Scylla that either the little boy had forgotten precisely what he was supposed to say or he was suffering from an extreme attack of nerves; he sounded exceedingly stammering and terrified.

Scylla herself was greatly startled by this message. Completely ignorant as to how ships' affairs were conducted, she thought it a strange time to conduct an inquiry and could not imagine what value
her
presence might have there; she was inclined to refuse, suspecting another of the captain's cruel jokes. On the other hand, if Cal was there, if Cal needed her—