Chapter Six #3
“Yes, sir – I understand that they often have vacancies there, due to the vagaries of the trade and the odd mishaps that can occur when you are dealing with gunpowder by the ton.”
“Quite so, Mr Fraser – the greater the need, therefore, for the nation’s good, for skilled men to work there.”
“I shall tell him in person, sir,” Fraser said, leaving with the nearest to a smile his melancholy face could bear.
The gunner was at the door in five minutes.
“Why, Mr Andrews, I had not expected to see you, sir! I would not have disturbed you from your bed of sickness.”
A welter of half-sentences – misunderstanding, taking a caulk, indigestion, slight indisposition, the East Indies, you know, sir.
They discussed the guns: twenty iron nine pounders, the shorter-barrelled broadside pieces, all new on this commission, less than three years old, straight bored, uncorroded, touch holes good for another ten years, as clean a set of great guns as any captain could hope to see.
Four carronades – nasty things, but useful in their place and in good order.
One brass nine-pounder chase gun, bought special by the captain before Mr Marston, his personal gun and left aboard when he died, none of the crew having thought to mention to the executors that the gun was his; accurate to three parts of a mile, a very pretty piece indeed.
Four two-pound swivels and six of one pound, normally shipped two to each of the tops and four to the quarterdeck railing, or set as boat guns when occasion arose.
There was a good supply of cartridge, the magazine was dry, Andrews’ mates reasonably bright and reliable – the gunner had no complaints, all in all, except for his health, and he never mentioned that.
The gunner took himself away, rubbing his belly and wincing occasionally in an attitude of noble, uncomplaining suffering. The surgeon opened him up when he dropped dead six months later, was amazed to discover an ulcer that had finally perforated.
A breath of fresh air, a tour of the main deck with Munson, listening, remembering, gaining the background he needed.
“Spanish built, sir, taken in ’83, I believe.
They uses some woods we don’t, but the bulk of their timber is natural grown, sir, bent into shape as a sapling, as it were, and then growing to the dimensions wanted over the years, strong and flexible.
Not like our ships, sir – the shipwrights fighting the charcoallers for every bit of ‘ardwood, and thankful for anything they can lay their ‘ands on and ‘aving to nail it together any old ‘ow.
We got good iron, sir, and so we got good guns, better nor they, but we pays the price, which is not being able to make a ship anywhere near as good as the Frogs or Dons, or they Venetians what produces the prettiest ‘eavy frigates you ever did see.”
This was a new concept to Frederick – most abstracts were, of course – and he had to think long on the idea before he could assimilate it, the more for coming from an agricultural county and never having seen a foundry or mill.
“Still, sir, we mustn’t complain, being on the right side of it with Spanish hull and English cannon.
We got caught on the edge of the hurricane what came through last year, late in the season and unexpected like, and the old Magpie just poked ‘er nose into the waves and rode ‘em all, quiet and peaceful like – more or less, that is – not worried at all.
Hornet, she was ten miles further out nor us but damn near never made it ‘ome – English built, she is!”
They completed stores courtesy of the delivery of some gold from Frederick’s pocket and the expectation of more – he was a famous prize-taker in the yard’s eyes, had brought a line of battle ship home from one sloop, would work even more wonders with another, was a man to be cosseted, would not be unmindful of his obligations, being a well-bred young gentleman too.
Magpie sailed very comfortably equipped indeed, much to the pleasure of the hands.
The people, suddenly fairly much uniformly dressed and far better fed, decided they liked the new man: they would have had doubts about any captain whose main claim to fame was that seven out of ten of his men had been killed in his last fight, but they concluded that it had not been his fault, would probably have been worse under another’s command.
They listened to Ablett as he described the fight with Hercule, chuckled over the forgotten sword, approved of the two Frogs cut down leading the first rush, nodded fiercely at the pistolling of the two French officers.
“Got a good head on him, ain’t he? Thinks what he’s doing of.
Me, I’d just have shot the first two buggers I saw, like, but the Captain, he picked out the two most useful.
” The Captain of the Maintop gave his measured approbation, not an aitch mislaid, conscious that he was speaking as senior of all the petty officers.
“Young the gentleman may be, but that is two boardings to his name, both desperate affairs where he has pulled irons out of fires that other people have made. Ordered into attack on a 74! Even with the two frigates working at her stern it wasn’t no sensible way of doing things, desperation, that’s what it was, and he pulled it off.
He’s good at winning – and that’s good enough for me! ”
“He’s straight with the people, too,” Ablett added. “Not like some of these bloody would-be gentlemen.”
As captain’s coxswain Ablett messed with the most senior of the crew now, and was listened to in their company.
He was the most direct link the petty officers had with the quarterdeck, and, accepting that he had a personal loyalty to the captain, whose servant and retainer he now was, they could still use him to discover what was happening and to pass the message back when things were astray on the lower deck.
Only in the saddest of ships did this network break down, and when it did disaster was inevitable.
“He took me off of an American after I was recognised as having run. It was Hermione I’d left, but he treated it as if I’d gone from Lively, so as not to let that bastard Pigott at me, all because he don’t hold with the lash when it ain’t necessary.”
“Hermione’s lost, mate. Missing on the Main.”
“Mutiny,” Ablett responded. “Any money you like! They scragged Pigott and that bloody First of ‘is and took ‘er in, having no place else to go. They been talking about it for a twelvemonth – that’s why we legged it, me and Smithy, better deserters than choosing sides in a bloody mutiny.”
“Bloody’s what it will ‘ave been, mate. Once the killing starts it don’t stop at the guilty men.
All the officers, and anybody who gets in the way or don’t like it, and anybody who’s got a grudge gets a lick in.
That first ten minutes is nasty, until they calms down and starts to think.
I was there when they caught the blokes what took York brig in ’82.
They told the tale, and bloody near heart-breaking it was, every man overboard down to the smallest of the mids! ”
“And they hanged every one?”
“All except the couple what turned Evidence for the court-martial.”
“They always do, mate.”
Mutiny in the sense of refusing orders, disobedience, indiscipline, was surprisingly common – everyone knew of examples, two of the petty officers had served in mutinous ships, and it had not hurt their careers; but mutiny in the way of the red flag, bloodshed, betrayal of the ship to the enemy, was extremely rare and provoked an outraged reaction.
If Hermione had gone in to the Spaniards, as seemed probable, then it were better for Pigott if he were dead, for he would be broken remorselessly, irrespective now of his connections and influence; as for the crew – every last man of them was walking dead, their names, descriptions, antecedents circulated and no mercy, no matter how many years passed before they were taken up.
Every neutral stopped, every prize taken on this side of the Atlantic would be scoured for Hermiones for the next couple of years and any seaman who might possibly be English, a deserter, a renegade, would be brought in on the offchance that he might be one of the mutineers.
Inevitably, deserters from other ships, long since given up for lost, would be hauled back to dance at the gratings, to curse Hermione, Pigott and all those vaguely connected with either.
Sailing orders came, half a dozen stores to Jamaica, two frigates and a troopship watching interestedly to see what sort of a fist the new man was going to make of it – he had achieved notoriety, the telescopes would be on him.
“Magpie, Permission to Proceed, hoist, sir.”
“Thank you, Gleeson. High on the tide – take her out, Mr Fraser. Course for Kingston, Mr Munson?”
Fraser was flattered, the order was a public mark of confidence in him, a compliment.
He sent Rogers forward to take his place at the anchor and brought the ship out in style, topsails set to aid the capstan, courses sheeted home a fraction earlier than Munson wished, passing the signal station on the point with a bone in her teeth and only two fathoms beneath the keel, peering interestedly at the pretty colours of the coral on the reef, very visible so close as they were.
It was all very impressive to onlookers, no doubt, and pleasing to Frederick, who had wanted to know just how much enterprise there was in his premier.
“Thank you, Mr Fraser, a job well done, a most excellent start, sir, to our many voyages together. Dismiss watch below. Station three cables windward of the convoy. Mr Gleeson, ‘Make more sail’ to the convoy. Your watch, Mr Jackman? Keep them together, kick any straggler’s arse, make such sail as is practical. ”
Frederick ostentatiously left the deck, called Fraser to his cabin. “Boy’s first watch as a lieutenant – best leave him to it – let him have the memory.”