Under Enemy Colors (6 page)

“Has Hawthorne a bad reputation, then?”

“It depends upon whom you ask. Among the crew he is much admired. Mr Hawthorne has the same weakness for women that Mr Barthe had for drink; he is constitutionally unable to resist. And, happily for him, the female of our species cannot more easily resist the dashing Hawthorne. Much trouble has come of it. Hawthorne has fought two duels, with great misfortune on the other side.”

“Every ship must have at least one rake. It is good to know we have our quota…”

“Hawthorne is as far from villainy in his heart as a man can be, I am convinced, but he is no more in control of his actions regarding women than an opium-eater is where it comes to his pipe. I have seen him in great distress over his conduct and the heart-break it has caused, but it does not long check his actions. He was blessed with too pleasing a countenance, I fear, and in both manner and address he lacks nothing. He is the most agreeable man aboard, and a great favourite in the gunroom, but if there is a woman to whom you are particularly attached do not introduce her to Hawthorne. You have been given fair warning.”

“I shall heed your words, Doctor; the fairer sex show no signs of being unable to resist my charms. In truth, they manage it with very little effort, I fear.”

“In this you have many a brother, Mr Hayden.” The doctor’s mouth turned down slightly at the corners—as though he had tasted something bitter. “You will find this crew an odd collection of misfits and fumblers, I fear.”

Hayden was not quite sure what to say to that, but knew full well it reflected badly upon the captain.

“The middies seem first-rate,” Hayden observed.

“Indeed they are. Outside of the service Captain Hart has a different character, I am told, and through Mrs Hart, many an influential friend.”

“Which explains the presence of Lord Arthur Wickham…”

The doctor nodded. “But not all of the ship’s people have landed here because of incompetence. Some of us merely have no interest.”

Hayden glanced quickly at Griffiths, wondering if the doctor referred to him, but then decided the comment was not meant so. “I am sure there is many a good man aboard ship, Doctor. I shall not tar the entire crew with one brush.”

Griffiths made a small bow of acknowledgement, or perhaps of thanks. “I must see to my charges, if I may, Mr Hayden.”

“By all means, Doctor, do not let me detain you.”

Mr Landry had assigned him a servant, a boy of twelve who went by the name of Joshua. He’d served the previous lieutenant in the same capacity and seemed to know his duties tolerably well. A “writer” was also assigned to him: a young Irish boy with the unlikely name of Perseverance Gilhooly. He was known as Perse, and seemed too alert for his station in life.

As Hayden was arranging his cabin, a space about eight feet square, there came a knock at the open door.

“Ah, Mr Hawthorne,” he said. “Is there some service you require?”

The marine lieutenant slouched under the low deckhead, at his hip a heavy book resting upon the crook of one hand.

“I just wanted to report that I have stationed reliable men by the boats. No one will get ashore this night except they swim.”

There were no women aboard that night, and no doubt this was causing some men to reflect upon the relative proximity of the shore. From what the doctor had said, he might be led to suspect the marine of being one of them. “Thank you, Mr Hawthorne.”

But the man continued to hover outside the door.

“What is it you read, Mr Hawthorne, if you will permit me to ask?”

“
A Course of Experimental Agriculture
, Mr Hayden, written by Mr Arthur Young.”

“That would seem an interest greatly removed from the sea.”

“It is my hope to have a farm one day, Mr Hayden, though it causes my fellows in the gunroom no end of amusement.” He hesitated a second, colouring a little. “I published, a year ago, in the
Annals of Agriculture
, a brief treatise entitled ‘Observations on the Practice of Keeping Productive Laying Hens at Sea.’”

Hayden could not help but smile at this surprising bit of information, delivered with rather poorly concealed pride.

Barthe entered the gunroom just then, appearing behind the marine, moving a chair as he made his way past the table. “Is he telling you about the great estate he will one day own, Mr Hayden? How he will apply principles of scientific farming to make a great success of it all.”

Hawthorne did not appear the least offended but pretended to be put upon, rolling his eyes. “It is a terrible burden, Mr Hayden, the petty jealousy of the uninformed.”

“It is the price of being ahead of one’s time. My mother’s family have extensive lands in grapes, so I have witnessed scientific agriculture up close, for good and ill.”

Hawthorne gazed at Hayden closely, no doubt trying to see if it were true that he had differently coloured eyes. “Not in England, surely?”

Hayden knew the truth would come out eventually; the service was a paradise for gossips. “France, Mr Hawthorne.”

“France…” the marine echoed, clearly caught aback.

“A large nation beyond the English Channel, Mr Hawthorne,” Barthe observed as he stepped into his cabin. “Most recently they’ve had a revolution. Have you not heard?” The master’s cabin door ticked closed, obscuring a wicked smile.

Hawthorne laughed to hide his embarrassment. “You’re half-French, then, Mr Hayden?”

“That’s right, but I am an Englishman at heart. My father was a post captain in the King’s Navy.”

“It was not my intention to question your loyalties, Mr Hayden. If it seemed so I do apologize.”

“No need, Mr Hawthorne; it is me that feels an explanation is required.”

Hawthorne made a small bow of acknowledgement and continued to stand outside Hayden’s door, clearly uncertain of what to say. Or perhaps he had intended to tell Hayden something more than the title of his single piece of published wisdom.

“Is there something else, Mr Hawthorne?”

The marine opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, then smiled. “Nothing, sir.”

The marine lieutenant slipped away to his own cabin, leaving Hayden bemused, wondering. Perhaps Hawthorne would say whatever it was he had meant to when he knew Hayden better—or so the new lieutenant could hope.

He rolled into his cot some time later, but lay awake, listening to the burble and cant of water, to a small breeze whispering among the shrouds.

H
ayden woke to a distant whisper.

“Doctor? Doctor Griffiths?”
The urgency of the voice reached deep into his sleep and drew him to the surface, where he sat, twisting knuckles into eye-sockets and shaking his head.

From the other side of the gunroom he heard Griffiths, apparently none too happy with being wakened. “What is the matter?”

“It is Tawney, sir. A sentry found him in the cable-tier, bloody and not able to be roused. He appears to have been beaten, sir.”

Hayden rolled out of his cot and began pulling on clothes.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…” the doctor muttered, and Hayden heard feet strike the deck.

The first lieutenant emerged from his cabin at the same moment as Griffiths, and both set off at once for the orlop-deck, the marine who had called them scurrying before, lantern in one hand, musket in the other. They pummelled down the steps and made their way quickly forward.

They saw two shadowy figures, one bent beneath the low deckhead, a lantern clutched in his fist, the other crouched in the waist-deep darkness created by the thick rounds of anchor cable. Hayden scrambled over the hawser after the doctor, who pulled spectacles from his pocket.

A man lay crumpled on the dark planks, limp as a sleeping child, mouth slack and swollen.

“We’ve not moved him, Doctor,” one of the men said. “Left him as he was, just as you always say.”

Griffiths appeared not to hear, but felt at the man’s throat for a pulse. A long moment as the others held their breath.

“He is not done for, at least. Bring the light closer.”

The lanterns were lowered to cast their faint glow upon the sailor’s bloodied face. The flesh appeared bloated to bursting, inky-dark and crimson. Eyes were swollen shut, jaw oddly displaced.

“Who did you say he was?” Hayden asked.

“Dick Tawney, sir. Foretop-man.”

“Who would have done this to him?”

No one had anything to say in response. The doctor gently probed the skull, and then, with Hayden’s help, turned him on his side.

“It is a wonder he has not drowned in his own blood,” the doctor observed, a barely controlled anger creeping into his voice. “Jump aft, Davidson, and fetch a cot from the sick-berth, if you please.”

Tawney moaned, stirring a little. Griffiths took hold of the man’s shoulder and hip, bracing against a shift in the man’s weight, keeping him on his side. Blood dripped from his shattered nose and mouth. A moment later Davidson and the surgeon’s mate, Ariss, appeared bearing a cot. Under the doctor’s direction they shifted the deadweight of the sailor onto the sailcloth-covered frame. Tawney muttered something unintelligible, then his head lolled to one side.

Bent low beneath the beams, they raised the cot, sliding it over the coils of anchor cable, waiting while Hayden and one of the seamen scrambled over, then bearing up the weight again. Tawney’s feet began a convulsive jig.

“Is it the death rattle, Doctor?” the marine asked, clearly unnerved by what he saw.

“No. It is like to a fit—from blows to his head. With luck it will not persist.”

In the sick-berth, the cot was slung from rings set into the beams. Gently it swayed forth and back and forth. One of the patients woke to see what went on, the fevered whites of his eyes peering out from beneath a thick dressing that swaddled his skull.

“It’s all right, Hale, go back to sleep.”

“Wot ’appened to ’im?”

“Exactly,” the doctor muttered. “Let us clean his wounds, Mr Ariss. Then cut open his shirt; there is blood, here, on his rib-cage.”

Hayden stepped out of the way, watching as the surgeon and his mate went about their work with a practised, dispassionate air, fingers moving mysteriously in the smudged light. Twice Hayden was called to help restrain poor Tawney as he was taken by another convulsive fit, but then the man would fall limp again, unmoving. The doctor checked his carotid pulse each time, as the man had gone so still.

Finally satisfied that he had done everything possible, Griffiths motioned to Hayden and the two stepped outside the sick-berth. Leaning, one against the bulkhead of thin deal-board, the other against the ladder, they pitched their voices low so as not to be overheard.

“Tawney looks to be a broad-chested, well-made fellow,” Hayden said. “I should say that he was not so badly beaten by one man—unless there is a veritable giant aboard, with a cruel disposition.”

“You are right, Mr Hayden. I should guess that such a beating would take four men or more. Tawney is nine and twenty, or perhaps eight, strong as the proverbial ox. I should have said he was well thought of among the crew.”

“Did someone say he is a foretop-man?”

“I believe that is so.”

“His mates won’t be liking this, I should think.” Hayden shook his head. The top-men were commonly the strongest, most experienced seamen—the cocks of the walk among the foremast hands. “I will have you inspect the crew after breakfast. A beating like that will leave some bruised hands, maybe a broken knuckle or two.”

“If they employed their fists. By the damage I would say he was cudgelled.”

Hayden shifted his weight against the stair. “One man murdered, another beaten half to death…As I worked today, raising the sheers, I sensed among the men such ill will. I have never witnessed so unobliging a spirit, so many little things done to impede another’s efforts. It is imperative that a ship’s crew pull together, for their own safety if for no other reason…Has this fractious mood arisen since Captain Hart departed? Certainly it cannot have been so when you were at sea?”

The doctor removed his spectacles and massaged each eye in turn with the heel of a hand. “It has, perhaps, become more pronounced since the captain quit the ship and the first lieutenant the service, but it is by no means new to the
Themis
.”

Hayden waited for the doctor to say more and, when he did not, said: “I have never seen the like, Doctor. How an officer would take a ship from anchor and get under way with such a crew is a mystery to me. How do the officers tolerate it?”

The doctor shrugged. For a moment he remained silent, but then leaned closer to Hayden. “You were asking earlier about Penrith. I cannot tell you who was responsible for the man’s death, but on the night he went missing I overheard one of the hands say to some others, ‘They’ve done for Penrith,’ or words to that effect. Before the finger was found the next morning members of the crew already seemed to know it was a murder, though it was initially thought by the officers to have been misadventure.”

“Who said this, Doctor?”

“I know not. It was dark, most of the crew were too ill to stand, and we were caught in the most dreadful gale. I confess, my thoughts were elsewhere. I was frightened and not thinking clearly.”

Ariss, his mate, rounded into view at the moment. “If you please, Doctor; Tawney has taken to convulsing again.”

With a perfunctory nod, Griffiths disappeared back into his lair. For a moment Hayden stood dumbly, then climbed the stair and slipped silently into the gloom of the gunroom, where he found Barthe in the light of a single candle, alone at table, staring fixedly at a glass of wine set out before him.

Hayden was not sure what to say, or even if he should acknowledge what he saw. But the sailing master tore his gaze away from the glass and regarded Hayden, apparently unembarrassed.

“No doubt you are wondering what I am about…?” Barthe whispered hoarsely.

In truth, Hayden was not—the master was apparently drinking.

“I am testing my will.” He nodded to the full glass, the wine lead-dark in the dim light. “I must do this from time to time—face the temptation. Today I could hardly focus my thoughts for want of drink, and now I must make my penance. I know it must seem passing strange, but I have been sober these seven years and have my own way of remaining so. If I can manage this tonight, tomorrow I shall feel no want of it.”

“Do pardon my intrusion, Mr Barthe,” Hayden offered, and went immediately to his cabin, pulling the door to behind. Even as he did so, the image of Barthe appeared in the small opening, softly aglow in his night-shirt, eyes fixed upon the glass, hands laid gently on the table to either side, and on his face, a tormented resolve.