The Distant Ocean Read online

  ‘Boat?’ muttered Evans. ‘But we are miles from land. What’s one of them doing right out here?’ The confused sailors rushed to look over the rail. Beneath them was an old mizzen top sail moored alongside the frigate. It was suspended between four floating spars and buoyed up by empty barrels to form a sort of swimming pool. Farther out they could see the ship’s launch approaching. Its crew were naked from the waist upwards and wearing exotic headdresses of some kind. In the stern sat a large figure with a trident in one hand. As the boat neared them he stood up, and the men could see that he, too, was naked above the kilt of tassels that encircled his waist. His ample torso was thickly painted in all the colours of the rainbow. Around his neck was a necklace of various seashells, while the part of his face visible above his large beard of unpicked rope hemp was completely blue.

  ‘Ahoy, yonder ship from a distant land!’ yelled the figure in the distinct bass of Hutchinson, the grizzled boatswain of the Titan. ‘Who dares to enter the realm of Mighty Neptune?’

  ‘The officers and crew of the Titan crave your permission to do so, Your Majesty,’ replied Clay from the quarterdeck.

  ‘You I shall permit to enter, gracious Pipe, for I know you to be a friend of my people,’ offered Neptune, ‘but as for your crew I must examine them first to see if they are meat for the honour. I shall come aboard to inspect them presently.’

  A few moments later the launch was alongside, and the King of the Ocean appeared at the entry port, followed by the boat crew. He adjusted his crown, hitched up his skirt of plaited rope ends, and strode through the crowd of grinning seaman with his followers in his wake. When he was settled on the throne he looked over the assembled crew, banged his trident on the dais to gain attention and sniffed at the air.

  ‘Tell me, do I smell the reek of griffins?’ he bellowed.

  ‘Here be two, your Majesty,’ called Trevan, and Evans and Sedgwick found their arms pinioned by the veteran seamen all around them.

  ‘Hoy, what’s going on?’ exclaimed the Londoner. ‘An’ what’s a bleeding griffin?’

  ‘A griffin is them as haven’t crossed the line at all,’ laughed O’Malley, as he helped to push the struggling seamen forward.

  ‘Constables, bring them before me!’ ordered Neptune, as the sailors were dragged remorselessly across the deck.

  ‘Adam, I have got something precious in my left pocket,’ yelled the coxswain. ‘A little bag!’

  ‘Easy there, lads,’ said Trevan. He came around in front of the helpless man and pulled a leather pouch from out of his jacket and held it in front of his face.

  ‘Didn’t have you marked for a smoker, Able, but your backy be safe with me,’ said the Cornishman. ‘Can’t speak for the rest of you, mind. Take him away, lads!’

  ‘On your knees, hideous creatures,’ ordered Neptune, and the two men found their legs swept from under them. ‘Better. Now let us see if a gentle wash from my hand maidens may improve matters.’ Both men found themselves being drenched with fire hoses to a point just short of drowning. Once it had been done, the King of the Ocean sniffed the air once more.

  ‘No, it won’t answer. I can still smell their slime. Anoint them with precious fragrances, frankincense, myrrh and such like.’ The men were smeared all over with a combination of the rancid pork slush normally kept for the lubrication of the ship’s rigging blocks, and wood ash from the galley.

  ‘Better,’ smiled Neptune as he regarded the two filthy sailors. ‘Place them delicately in my bath tub, and bring me some more griffins.’ The friends found themselves borne aloft by willing hands and dumped over the side for the long plunge down into the waiting sail.

  It transpired that at least a third of the crew had never crossed the equator before, and as a result it took most of the morning to process the considerable number of griffins aboard. Once the decks had been swabbed clean and the various items of paraphernalia dismantled, it was early afternoon before the Titan was able to resume her way southward. Clay declared the afternoon as make and mend, so that those who had been victims could be excused from duty to clean themselves, and the rigging was soon all aflutter with freshly washed and drying clothes. By evening Evans and Sedgwick had got the last trace of pork fat from out of their hair, and were back in clean and dry clothes once more. They took their places at the mess table for their evening meal in the middle of a lower deck alive with noisy laughter after the events of the day.

  ‘There you go, me hearties!’ said O’Malley, slapping both men on the back as they sat down either side of him. ‘Clean at last, which is more than can be said for the boatswain.’

  ‘How come?’ asked Sedgwick. ‘He was the one ordering how all that filth was to be spread about, rather than copping it his self.’ The Irishman looked conspiratorial.

  ‘Turns out that he asked Britton to see if it could get some paint from Lieutenant Blake, as he does them pictures of his with,’ he explained. ‘Which was fine till Hutchinson comes to try and fecking shift it. Seems as it don’t wash away in water, no matter how you scrub. Only grog will answer, so he’s been and used all of his ration, as well as that of his boatswain’s mates, trying to get it off, and it still ain’t all gone now!’

  ‘Serves the bleeder right,’ laughed Evans. ‘He was proper enjoying being that Neptune. He gave Able and me a right seeing to.’

  ‘Still, you’re griffins no more!’ said O’Malley. ‘Next time you find yourself crossing the fecking line, it’ll be you as will be after doing the ducking.’

  ‘Here you go, Able,’ said Trevan. ‘I nearly forgot your pouch.’ He pulled out the small bag of leather and hefted it in his hand as he passed it across. ‘What manner of backy be that? It don’t feel right at all.’

  ‘Besides, I thought as how you gave your ration to me?’ queried O’Malley. The coxswain untied the drawstring to show his friends the contents. Inside was a fistful of reddish-brown soil.

  ‘Dirt?’ asked Evans. ‘What you doing with that?’

  ‘I took some in the forest that night, when I went off to find the French ship,’ said Sedgwick. ‘May be it were just being near to my village. Daft, really, but I wanted a little part of home, not that any remains.’ He held the soil up to his nose for a moment. ‘It still smells as I remember from all them years back, but I suppose that will pass with time.’ The others looked at their friend quietly for a while.

  ‘You ain’t daft, mate,’ said Evans. ‘Now daft would be if I was to carry around a lump of Seven Dials mud on me, ‘cause let me tell you, that would still bleeding stink for years.’

  ‘There’s a fair few of the Irish lads as carry a sprig of heather from the old country, you know,’ said O’Malley. ‘Fecking lucky that Adam took your bag, mind. Would have been no more than silt, the amount of ducking you had to endure.’

  ‘Anyways, I reckon as you had it proper easy,’ offered Trevan from the far side of the table.

  ‘How do you figure that, Adam?’ said Evans. ‘We was halfway to being bleeding well drowned!’

  ‘I first crossed the line on a whaler,’ he explained. ‘We had just caught a Right Whale, so there was no end of disgusting guts and entrails for Neptune to make sport with. And I was the lone griffin on board.’

  ‘Shall we stow that yarn till after we scoffed?’ suggested Evans. ‘I’ve only just got past the reek of that bleeding slush. Besides, it be New Years Eve an’ all. Are we going to have a bit of a carouse later, then?’

  ‘Aye, that sounds grand,’ said O’Malley. ‘I’ve not played my fiddle these past few weeks. And we should be after celebrating our fecking prize! That French ship will fetch a pretty penny. She will be snapped up for a slaver for sure.’

  ‘A slaver?’ queried the coxswain. ‘How’d you figure that, then?’

  ‘Ah… well... it’s not certain like, but it is sort of what she be built for,’ explained the Irishman. ‘Chances are some Bristol merchant or Yank will put her back into service.’

  ‘Damnation!’ protested Sedgwick, tossi
ng down his spoon. ‘So taking that bloody privateer will just give the trade another ship?’

  ‘Oh come now, Able, don’t look so low,’ urged Evans. ‘We’ve had a right lark with all that Neptune stuff, we got plum duff for dinner and then a song and a hornpipe.... What’s up with Adam?’ The others turned to look at their friend. He was sitting slumped over his food. His forehead was beaded with sweat.

  ‘Are you all right there?’ asked Sedgwick, looking at his friend’s full plate. ‘You upset about the slaver, too, or don’t you fancy your meat?’

  ‘I don’t feel right at all,’ replied the Cornishman. ‘I seem to have come over all odd like, just while we been sat here yarning. It’s happened right sudden.’

  ‘You do look fecking queer,’ said O’Malley. ‘Why, you’re sweating like a virgin in a brothel.’

  ‘Am I?’ muttered Trevan. ‘That’s odd, is that. I was just wondering if some bugger had put a new wind sail in place. It feels proper cold down here all of a sudden like.’ His friends all exchanged glances.

  ‘Adam, it’s bleeding roasting,’ said the Londoner.

  ‘I think I might be after having a puke,’ he gasped.

  ‘Easy there,’ said Sedgwick, helping his friend to his feet. ‘Let’s get up to the lee rail for that, and then we had best find the sawbones. You don’t look right at all.’

  *****

  ‘Surely not more mango for pudding, Britton?’ protested Blake, as the steaming plate was placed in front of him.

  ‘Frittered in beef dripping on this occasion, sir, with a little treacle to give them unction,’ explained the steward. All around the wardroom table officers prodded at the charred brown pieces.

  ‘It is not that some fruit in our diet is unwelcome,’ continued the lieutenant. ‘But have we not had mango twice a day this last week?’

  ‘We have, sir,’ said Britton. ‘And like to continue to for a while yet. I suggest you take it up with Mr Faulkner here. Weren’t me as bought three hundredweight of the buggers.’

  ‘In fairness my hand was dealt for me,’ said the purser as he toyed with his own food. ‘Mr Armstrong had rather committed me to the transaction.’

  ‘No matter, Charles,’ said Taylor from the head of the table. ‘When the first few guineas of prize money rattle into our purses from the sale of the Passe Partout, we shall all forget how the intelligence was obtained. A glass of wine with you, sir?’

  ‘The cost of that victory may be higher than the ship having to consume an excess of fruit,’ said Macpherson. He pointed across the table at the surgeon’s empty chair. ‘How many cases of this malady does Mr Corbett battle with?’

  ‘Eighteen so far, all from the party that attacked the privateer,’ said the first lieutenant. ‘He will join us presently with a more current picture, but it would seem Mr Blake’s Bight of Benin has bitten us most savagely.’ Silence descended around the table, with those who had stayed onboard avoiding the eyes of those who had been on the boats that night. Macpherson was feeling uncomfortably hot, and wondered if this might be the start of a fever. Then he glanced down at his scarlet coat sleeve and reminded himself that he was dressed predominantly in wool, was in the tropics, and had just eaten a large meal washed down with heavy red wine. He pushed his untouched mango away and turned towards Taylor.

  ‘How soon before we reach the more temperate Cape Town and the rest of the squadron?’ he asked.

  ‘A month at least, perhaps longer, for we have several thousand miles to go yet,’ replied the first lieutenant. ‘Mr Armstrong will have taken our exact latitude at noon, so I will be in a position to give you a more precise answer when he comes off watch. But while Cape Town will be fresher than the tropics, I make no doubt, it will not be temperate. February is the height of their summer.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ muttered the marine, loosening his neck cloth a little. ‘Still, it will be good to be reunited with the other ships. The society of some of the other officers will be welcome.’

  ‘I am not sure you will be over pleased with Sir George Montague, Tom,’ said Blake. ‘He has a reputation as something of a pedant, I understand. But I am not acquainted with the other gentlemen. Do you know any of them, George?’

  ‘Not at all, I am afraid,’ said Taylor. ‘Mr Macpherson and Mr Preston are best acquainted with the commanders of the Rush and the Echo. Did you not all serve together in the Caribbean?’

  ‘Aye, that is right,’ said Macpherson. ‘As did Mr Faulkner. We served with Lieutenant Sutton, as he was then, aboard the Rush. I found him to be of a very cheerful disposition, open and quite lacking in conceit. He was a pleasure to serve with, and he is, of course, very close friends with the captain. I never served with Mr Windham, however. Charles, you are perhaps the one who knows him best?’ The purser tweaked the lace cuff of his shirt where it showed beneath the sleeve of his coat and cleared his throat.

  ‘Perhaps I do, but it is not an acquaintance I look back on with any fondness,’ he replied. ‘His people have known mine for several generations, and I knew him as a boy. He was once amiable enough in his way, but then he changed into a rather uncivil cove. He became possessed by some very strange notions from which he refuses to be shaken.’

  ‘Whatever can you mean, Charles?’ said Taylor.

  ‘His uncle, Captain Follett, was knocked overboard during a single ship action between the Agrius, which was Follett’s ship, and a French frigate back in ninety-six,’ explained Faulkner. ‘A tragedy, I make no doubt, but Windham has got it into his mind that Captain Sutton was in some way responsible. He even thinks that our captain may have been involved – they were all lieutenants on the ship at the time. It is a notion he clings to like a limpet to its rock.’

  ‘How does he mean, responsible?’ queried Blake. ‘Does he mean through neglect?’

  ‘I believe he suspects there to have been foul play,’ said the purser. ‘I only report Captain Windham’s views. Perhaps Mr Preston can help us. He was aboard the Agrius that day.’

  ‘That is correct,’ said Preston. ‘I was but a youngster then, a midshipman. I remember that the battle was going very ill for us under the direction of Captain Follett. In part it was because Mr Windham, who had command of the guns, was making a sad mess of his duty. It was only after the captain fell and Mr Clay took command that matters were set right. Perhaps the root of the difficulty is that Mr Windham resents the manner in which he and his uncle’s failings were so publicly exposed?’

  ‘This is all a very ill omen for our forthcoming operations together, I must say,’ snorted Macpherson. ‘So the commander of the Echo thinks the commander of the Rush killed his uncle with the connivance of the captain of the Titan? I fear that our squadron shall be no Band of Brothers, gentlemen. A knot of adders would seem closer to the mark!’

  At that moment the door of the wardroom opened and in walked the surgeon. His frame was even more stooped than normal, and the pale eyes that looked out from behind the small discs of his glasses were rimmed in red. The front of his linen shirt was stained with smears of dark brown.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Mr Corbett,’ said Taylor. ‘Goodness, man, you seem quite spent! Come, seat yourself. You have missed dinner, I fear, but would you care for some mango fritters?’

  ‘I thank you, but no,’ he replied. ‘But if you would oblige me with a little wine, that would be most welcome.’

  ‘Ahoy there, Britton! A glass of bishop here!’ Corbett drank deeply, and then sat back in his chair with a shake of his head.

  ‘Matters go ill with your patients, I collect Doctor?’ asked Faulkner.

  ‘They do indeed, Charles,’ he replied, peering across the wardroom table. ‘I warned the captain of the perils of exposing the crew to night airs. You cannot say that I did not. The party that attacked the Passe Partout spent much too long amid the miasmas of that putrid coast, and the result is plain to see.’

  ‘But the damned French moved their ship to a fresh location,’ said Macpherson. ‘That is why the enterpr
ise was so protracted. The captain can hardly be blamed for that.’

  ‘I am sure no one is blaming the captain, Tom,’ said Taylor, holding up a hand. He turned back to the surgeon. ‘So, how many cases do we now have?’

  ‘Still just the eighteen at present, thank the Lord, sir,’ he replied, laying a hand on the wooden top of the table. ‘Mr Butler, five marines and twelve seamen. I have established a separate fever ward at the bow end of the lower deck that is screened off from the rest of the men. There were no fresh cases again this morning, so I live in hope that the rest of the party will have escaped the contagion.’

  ‘And what do you hold to be the nature of the disease?’

  ‘Oh, that is plain enough,’ replied Corbett. ‘The languid circulation of the vital fluids, combined with intense fever, convulsions, ejection of vomit and the patient’s sallow complexion all points towards the Yellow Jack.’

  ‘Yellow Jack!’ exclaimed Blake. ‘I have heard of the devastation that can cause in the Caribbean. God have mercy on them.’

  ‘Let us hope that He does,’ said Corbett. ‘In the meantime I will continue to take an ounce of blood a day from my patients, and give them Peruvian bark whenever I feel they may be able to keep it down long enough. That, together with a few drops of laudanum, may prove efficacious.’

  ‘What prospect can you hold out for their eventual recovery?’ said Macpherson.

  ‘From Yellow Jack?’ exclaimed the surgeon. ‘Surely you jest, my dear sir! Three of them are already producing vomit corrupted with blood, which is a certain indication that death is near. If one from ten is still alive this time next week I shall be very much surprised.’

  *****

  Adam Trevan was burning hot. Sweat trickled down his face, dripping from the point of his chin and soaking his shirt as he laboured away with a long heavy oar in his hands. The sun was pitiless as it beat down on his head. He could sense that he was close to the limit of his endurance. His whole body ached and his arms shook uncontrollably. Cramp knotted painfully in his abdomen, and he knew he would be sick again soon. He leant over the side of the boat and puked up. The ball of vomit bust into a cloud of fragments as it hit the water. A number of long silver fish with yellow fins left the half eaten corpse of a black man that drifted close by to come and investigate. The body rolled in the water, and turned a portion of half-eaten face towards him. There was just enough flesh left on the skull for him to recognise that it had once been his friend Sedgwick.