Chapter 2
“Very well, lad, let’s hear it.”
The officers were mustered aft to witness poetry.
Colin stood on one leg, decided that this was not consonant with his dignity as senior midshipman, and took a deep breath. He made his delivery in one breath per stanza.
“The net with glittering diamond shine
Of water sheathing silver bright
Or else the treasure drawn on line
Displayed to sight.
The shimmering flanks, intricate scales
In piscine splendour finely wrought,
Shines like the polished armour mail
To give us sport.
The bounteous sea with boundless deep
Is home to many a fishy kind
To swim and e’en at times to leap
Above the brine.
Oh fish! Your silver’s quickly scraped
Because you are a tasty beast
Cleaned, gutted, stuffed and then you’re baked
A splendid feast.”
“Well, it ain’t in Pip Wensum’s class, but not a bad effort, despite the number of words you stole from the psalms,” said Scully. “Will it do, Captain?”
“I think the last stanza was the one most truly from the heart,” said William. “Why a Sapphic ode?”
“Shorter, sir,” said Colin.
“A good enough reason,” said William. “Very well; carry on.” He wanted to get into his cabin so that he could indulge himself in mirth over Colin’s efforts of mixed grandiloquent phrases and simple schoolboy thought.
“I thought it was clever,” said Emma. “Though it isn’t as good as Wensum Secundus.”
“Well, I ain’t pining to go work for Walter Scott like WenSec did,” said Colin. “Still, better than having to do it in Latin; I had got as far as thinking ‘Pisces piscatore mirandum’, the fish is to be marvelled at by the fisherman, and wondering if I could get away with rhyming that with ‘bibendum’ for the wine which goes best with it which must be drunk.”
“I am sure you would have done it very well,” said Emma.
“I was going to cheat and mention ‘lorica squamatum’, armour of scales, like some Romans had,” said Colin.
“That is clever,” said Emma.
William came to run the first evolutions, for which he had given plenty of warning. He intended to work the crew as a whole first, before making them deal with casualties. He was surprised to see a number of the wives mustered with the men, some of them kitted out in white duck trousers like the sailors with a variety of tops.
“I don’t require the wives to take part in evolutions, though any who care to bear a hand with the wounded or carrying powder I am always grateful for the help,” he said.
One of the women spoke up.
“We wanted to learn, captain. We know we aren’t able to stand a watch as well as the men, but if we know how to handle the sails and the guns, if there are casualties, we can make a difference. It ain’t what ship’s wives usually do, but it ain’t unknown, and we want to learn proper-like so as to know what we’re doing.”
“Well, in that case, you are very welcome,” said William. “However, I won’t accept any woman in skirts aloft, nor in cotton skirts manning the guns. Er, womanning the guns?” he amended, and a ripple of amusement ran through the company. He added, “Aloft, apart from the chance of immodesty, the greater of my concerns is that a breeze can catch in a skirt and hurl you from aloft. Equally a skirt can more easily catch in a block, leading to anything from public nudity to a nasty injury. For the same reason, all long hair is to be plaited and pinned under a cap. And that goes for the men too!” he added. “Keep your pigtails, those who have them, at a moderate length and borrow the women’s hairpins to go aloft.”
“Cor, can yer see the fights over hairpins in the mornin’!” shouted one of the men.
William permitted himself to look amused by the interruption. A happy crew who were ready to quip and comment worked better. He went on,
“As to the guns, a spark can catch cotton, especially muslin, afire very quickly; and skirts can also make you trip, perhaps into the path of a recoil, but I will only insist on woollen skirts at ankle length for the guns in case any of you are averse to wearing trousers.”
“We ain’t averse, ducky, Sir, I mean, we just wasn’t sure how you’d take it,” said another woman who was in a skirt. “And not sure, them of us as is broad across the beam, what to wear on top.”
“Perhaps you can fashion some sort of a smock tunic?” suggested William. “In blue, to match the men’s jackets. Meantime ... well, this time stick with the gun crews.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the first spokeswoman.
“I can’t pay you, you know, it’s against regulations,” warned William.
“If we can stay with our menfolk, which not all captains allow, and help them out, that’s as good as pay,” she told him.
William nodded.
At sea the women and their children were fed, could be with their husbands, and if they shared the privations of sea life, they also shared three square meals a day, however monotonous they might be without the addition of the extra rations Amelia had bought.
He asked Walden,
“Can you put together a team of half a dozen or so who dance the best hornpipe? I’d like to get the new hands enthused by seeing how fine it can look. Then as they learn the moves, it re-iterates the moves taken from ship-board duty as well as keeping them limber. And get them all, women too, swinging belaying pins as part of it to strengthen arms.”
“Aye aye, cap’n,” said Walden. “It ain’t difficult, but not nowise as easy as a good team can make it look. We’ll soon have a crew as ‘ow we can be prahd of, you’ll see.”
“I believe it,” said William, amused and touched that Walden sought to reassure him.
The men looked smart in the uniforms William had issued them: a uniform coat, shirt and trousers for every man aboard, white trousers and white shirt for summer, navy trousers and checked turquoise and white flannel shirts for winter, with turquoise jackets to go ashore or for inspection. They might wear a waistcoat to any pattern or colour they chose, as had always been Captain Mornington’s custom, and William had bought out a chest of short ends from various haberdashers, to give them choice. The men had had great fun, gleefully rummaging, pouncing on pieces which caught their imagination, and had been surprisingly peaceful when two men wanted the same piece, dickering with each other in barter for the privilege to use it. There was plenty of dimity, nankeen and cloth de Nimes, or denim, as well as ends of more exotic cloth, mostly to outfit the children. The men had as much pleasure being allowed to choose cloth, William thought, as in having prizes for well-performed evolutions. Walden’s mother, who was looking remarkably chipper for several months without care, had put together her savings to buy sewing cotton, needles, pins, scissors, ribbons, and other haberdashery notions, and was doing well out of selling on the extras to men who liked to sew for themselves, as well as taking in sewing. She was on good terms with Kitty and Cassie, Amelia’s maids, and they sat sewing convivially together, the two maids not averse to sewing for the men for some small consideration. As Kitty pointed out, they might not know what to do with tobacco themselves, if given a plug as pay, but it could be bartered for something else.
William hoped the company would soon be as smart as it looked; but he was sure it would.
“Stand by to wear ship!” he called.
Walden sniggered.
“That reminds me of a whore I saw near the harbour; talk about wearing a ship, she had all sails set and a full suit of bunting out,” he said.
“And bursting out of it, I wager,” said William.
“Well, sir, let’s just say she had quite a bow wave,” said Walden.
It was a graphic picture, a woman whose well-developed assets almost sat atop a froth of lace at her bodice, with every frill and furbelow to her ample figure that could be imagined and some which could not.
The evolutions proceeded slower than in a ship with a well-trained crew, but every man was trying his best. There was little to pick between the teams.
“You all did well; so every man... er, and woman... gets a cup of coffee and an extra tot, which you might have in your coffee if you choose; and anyone who doesn’t drink may indicate this, and will receive credits instead which may, unlike your tot, be hoarded to exchange against things like fancier cloth, coffee, chocolate, or such like,” said William. “I know some of you trade your tots, and as we have good water, you don’t need them as much as when it’s needed to kill diseases!”
He was given a cheer.
“You won’t like me as well when we get into the swing of our evolutions,” he said. “When I start to designate some people as dead, and have used them to simulate damage. Though the good news is that they will each be wearing a red baize hat, and using up the purser’s store.”
There was laughter at this comment; red baize was usually used to make a bag for the cat-o-nine-tails, a different one made for every flogging. Red baize being sewn which was not the forerunner of a flogging was, as any sailor knew, a good use for it.
oOoOo
“Colin,” said Scully, “I noticed you’d stopped calling me ‘John’ and I wondered if I’d done anything to offend you.”
“Not at all, John,” said Colin. “I was feeling a little uncomfortable being the only midshipman to use your name... I feel very much in the middle, between midshipmen and real officers. I feel older than the other midshipmen, even those older than me.”
“Of course you do,” said Scully. “Mr. Cosgrove is pretty well grown up, but I don’t know him as well. But he hasn’t gone through as much life as you have. And friendship transcends rank. I was essentially the only one calling Mr. Price ‘Will’ when I was a midshipman; did you resent that then?”
“No, of course not; you are nearer his age.” Colin sniggered. “And at least we don’t have any midshipmen who are rank, any more,” he added.
“Oh, indeed, though I never said so,” said Scully. “You already know when we are friends and when I am the lordly first lieutenant, and I count you more of a man than many others my age and older.”
“Yes, the navy may be stuffy at times, but a messmate is a messmate.”
“The navy, being more admiral than admirable, places on display its rears and vices to frighten away the enemy,” said Scully.
“Oh, how delightful, you must write that one down to use if we ever have to dine with people,” said Colin.
“Thank you, I think I will. Makes a change to come up with an epigram rather than writing smutty verses for the men.”
They laughed; and the men near enough to hear that, smiled. When the officers got on well together, it made for a happy ship, especially if there were good terms between wardroom and gunroom.
oOoOo
William was happy.
They were well out from England now, onto the ocean wave, and the Thetis was flying over the waves like a bird. A few of the new hands had suffered from the swell, and had been given Amelia’s patent remedy, hot chocolate flavoured with peppermint, with, as she put it, peppermint to calm the stomach, and the hot chocolate too expensive to want to waste by bringing it up. William had been surprised by how well it had worked.
She also provided ginger water to drink, apparently a soother to the stomach to take the edge off drinking cold water in a hot climate, but good to help settle upset bellies at any time. The efficacy of this was attested to by one of the sailors, Ado, also from Jamaica, who boasted that Jamaican cookery could cure everything but death.
Meanwhile, William was running an evolution in which those he had designated as ‘dead’ including himself had unshipped the topmast and left it to dangle in a web of shrouds, for the crew to deal with. He knew Scully was capable so Scully was dead too, for the duration of the exercise, and so was Colin.
“Mr. Prescott,” said William, sharply, aware that the midshipman was hissing information to some of his fellows, “You are a casualty, dead, not a casualty, incapacitated; we’ll be doing that later, but in the meantime, go and be dead somewhere out of the way... no, belay that, use your acting ability to be dead somewhere inconvenient, where you fell from aloft.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said the corpse, flinging himself onto the deck.
“We could always throw unwanted bodies overboard!” suggested young Seth Porkins.
“You will not, however, treat the dead on my ship with such cavalier disdain unless they are of risk to life and limb of the crew, Mr. Porkins,” said William. “But you may move them to the scuppers.”
William took his own advice and collapsed on the steps to the quarterdeck, from where he could see and hear everything that was going on. Really, this was to find out the calibre of Nat Erskine, a man of naval family, and seemingly quite knowledgeable, but it needed to be discovered how he dealt with crises, and how he handled problems. William had decided to be kind, and leave him Hiram Gubbins as sailing master, who knew the ‘Thetis’ better than anyone, having sailed on her when she was the pirate, ‘Nancy Beth’ unaware of the perfidy of his captain until it was too late.
And Nat was doing a good job, calmly directing the men, reassuring them that there was no hurry, as the weather remained good. How he would handle it if the weather was not good, William could not guess, but at least he had looked out to see what the weather was doing. And he had been doing a good job of lowering the mast to check it for damage, and looking over the cordage for breaks or worn parts before getting the topmast stepped again with the standing rigging retained.
It was something to consider for future evolutions; to mark a piece of rope as frayed, so that new cordage had to be installed; but this was the point of starting with simple evolutions, to get the men used to handling parts of the ship in places no self-respecting masts and spars had any right to be, before designating them damaged.
William was pleased.
Once again, they had all earned their extra tot, and an omelette for tea.
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