Patrick O'Brian - The Ionian mission

'Three cheers for the red, white and blue,' said Mr Martin, his spirits raised high by the spectacle of so many glorious men-of-war assembled under the brilliant morning sky: no less than eight towering three-deckers and four more ships of the line besides the smaller vessels. Exactly-squared yards, fresh paint and shining brass concealed the fact that many of them were fast wearing out under the perpetual stress of weather, that some indeed were already beyond their useful lives; and though a sailor would have noticed fished masts and twice-laid stuff in the rigging, a landsman's eye saw no more than a hint of their true state in the patched sails and wind-frayed pennants. 'And the Union Jack on the Admiral's ship signifies the supreme command, no doubt?'

'I believe not, sir,' said Stephen. 'I am told that it is rather an indication of a court-martial having to be held in the forenoon. Perhaps you would like to attend? Anyone may listen to the proceedings, and it might give you a more comprehensive view of the Royal Navy.'

'It would be deeply interesting, I am sure,' said Martin, more soberly.

'Captain Aubrey is good enough to take me in his boat: it is preparing now, as you see, a capacious vehicle. I am sure that he would make room for you; and you would not find the flagship very difficult to get into. It is what we call a three-decker, and has a convenient door in the middle, termed an entry-port. I will ask him, if you wish, when he appears.'

'That would be very kind, if you are sure I should not be importunate.' Martin broke off, and nodding towards the place not far from the hen-coops where some sheep and a lugubrious bloodhound were being aired, he said, 'That child with the bull-calf, I see him every morning when I am up early enough - pray, is it another naval custom?'

'I am afraid it is, in a way. The puny young gentleman is Mr Calamy. He longs to grow huge and powerful, gigantically strong, and some wicked older members of the midshipmen's berth have told him that if he carries the calf on his shoulders a certain distance every day, his frame will insensibly become accustomed to the brute's gradually increasing weight, so that by the time it is a full-grown bull he himself will be a second Milo of Crotona. It was a bishop's son that first set him on, I regret to say. See, he falls again - how eagerly he takes up his burden - they cheer him, the Judas-band - it is a shame to abuse the poor lad so - the calf has kicked him - he masters the calf - he staggers on. And I am sorry to say the officers encourage it: even the Captain encourages it. And here is the Captain, ready to the moment.'

Captain Aubrey was not in fact quite ready. Rats had got at his best cocked hat in the night - they were very troublesome and enterprising in the Worcester, but a few months of blockade would deal with that, since the foremast hands and the midshipmen would eat them -and Killick was busy on the gold lace. Automatically he glanced aloft, taking in the state of the sky, the trim of the sails and the rigging, then fore and aft: his eye caught the little group on the larboard gangway, he smiled and called out in his strong cheerful voice, 'Clap on, Mr Calamy. Never say die. Perseverance does it.' The hat appeared; Jack clapped it on and in reply to Stephen's request said, 'Certainly, certainly. Smith, give Mr Martin a hand down the side. Come, Doctor.'

The barge shoved off, one of many converging upon the flagship for the court-martial; the captains gathered and Jack greeted several old acquaintances, some of them men he cordially liked. But he hated these occasions, and when the court assembled, when the Captain of the Fleet had taken his seat as president, with the deputy judge-advocate and the members around him, and when the clerk had delivered to each a list of the cases to be tried, his face grew dark. There was the usual string of crimes too serious for a captain to deal with on his own, since most of them carried the death-penalty - desertion, real or attempted, striking superiors, murder, sodomy, theft on an ambitious scale - perhaps inevitable when some ten thousand men were brought together in these circumstances, many of them against their will. But there was also a series of accusations made by officers against officers: one member of a wardroom against another, captains against lieutenants or masters for neglect of duty, disobedience or disrespect, lieutenants against captains for oppression and tyranny or language scandalous and unbecoming to the character of an officer or drunkenness or all three. He hated these cases, the evidence of bad blood and rancour in a service where decent relations were essential to efficiency, to say nothing of happiness among the people. He knew very well that men on a long blockade, almost entirely cut off from contact with home and the outside world, apparently forgotten, badly supplied, badly fed, keeping the sea in all weathers, were likely to grow sour, and that small offences rankling could grow to monstrous proportions; but even so he was distressed to see the length of this second section of the list. All the trouble came from three ships, the Thunderer, Harte's flagship, the Superb, and the Defender; their officers must have been at loggerheads with one another and with their captains for months and months. 'At least,' he reflected, 'we shall not have time to get through more than a few of them, and then, what with exchanging and cooling down, most of the smaller charges will be withdrawn.'

Upon the whole he was right, a court-martial at sea being an exceptional affair, quite unsuited to the usual leisurely procedure in port; but even so they dealt with many more cases than he had expected, the judge-advocate - here the Admiral's secretary, Mr Allen, being a keen-witted, energetic, methodical, quick-thinking man of business.

They ran through the earlier, more routine cases with remarkable speed: and the sentences to death or to being flogged round the fleet with two, three and even four hundred lashes (which amounted to much the same thing, on occasion) plunged Jack's heart in gloom. Then, it appearing that the clerk accused of comforting the King's enemies, a most unusual case and no doubt the reason for this most unusual sitting, had killed himself, the court proceeded to some of these nasty wardroom quarrels. In a way Jack was relieved: he knew nothing of the clerk's case, but it might well have proved as monstrous as the one he had heard in Bombay, when a surgeon, an able, respected, but free-thinking man, was hanged for saying that he approved certain aspects of the revolution in France; and he wished to hear no more of the ghastly solemnity with which the judge-advocate told a wretched-culprit that he was to be put to death - the more so since he knew that the Commander-in-Chief, a man as hard to others as he was to himself, would probably confirm every sentence.

The disgruntled officers followed one another in a most disagreeable public washing of very dirty linen. Fellowes, the captain of the Thunderer, appeared no less than three times, either as accused or accuser, a big, angry-looking man with a red face and black hair; Charlton of the Superb and Marriot of the Defender twice each. The court dealt with these cases tenderly: often, when the proceedings were resumed after the members' deliberation, the judge-advocate would say 'The court having maturely and deliberately considered the evidence finds these charges partly proved: the sentence of this court is that you be reproved for petulance and admonished to be more circumspect and not to offend in a like manner for the future; and you are accordingly hereby reproved and so admonished.' But one young man was dismissed his ship and one, who had been provoked into giving Fellowes a very rash answer, was broke - dismissed the service.

They were both from the Thunderer, and the conclusive evidence, the interpretation of the lieutenant's attitude and unwise gesture, came from Harte, who spoke with evident ill-will. They turned to yet another case, a plain drunken murder on the lower deck this time, and as Jack listened sadly to the familiar evidence he saw Martin watching with a tense, shocked expression on his white face. 'If he wanted to see the dirty side of the Navy, he could not have come to a better place,' he reflected, as a seaman bearing witness rambled on: 'Which I heard the deceased abusing of the prisoner in a most dreadful manner; he first called him a Dutch galliot-built bugger, damned him, and asked how he came to be in the ship, or who brought him into her; then he damned the person whoever did bring him. I could not afterwards make out what the deceased said, as he was in a horrid passion, but Joseph Bates, yeoman of the sheets, bade him kiss his arse - he was no seaman..."