Dewey Lambdin - The King`s Coat

Bales read out the charges against Rolston and asked him if… he had anything to say. Rolston bit1ris lip and did not have any words. Bales referred to his slim book containing the Articles of War, and read the specific passages aloud, to drum into the hands the folly of fighting or laying hands on one another, much less a senior. ’The Twenty-Third Article," Bales intoned in a loud voice. "'If any Person in the Fleet shall quarrel or fight with any other Person in the Fleet, or use reproachfuJ or provoking Speeches or Gestures, tending to make any Quarrel or Disturbance, he shall upon being convicted thereof, suffer such Punishment as the Offence shall deserve, and a Court-martial shall impose.''' Bales also made reference to the Thirty-Sixth Article, the "Captain's Cloak," headed "All Other Crimes Not Capital.. ‘.

Snapping the book shut, he ordered, "Seize him up!" Rolston was clad in shirt and breeches. The shirt was ripped off his back and a leather apron tied over his kidneys and buttocks. They pressed him against the grating and tied him spread-eagled with spun yarn. ’Give him a dozen!" Bosun's Mate Ream took off his coat and took the cat out of the bag. The lengths were not knotted, since it was not mutiny, theft or desertion, but that was cold comfort. Ream settled himself and drew back. He delivered the first stroke.

Rolston was a roy, after all, a vicious, bullying sixteen-yearold roy, not made to take a man's punishment. The lash made his whole OOdy leap against the gratings with a thud, and he gasped audibly. Regular as a slow metronome, the lashes struck home. By the end of the first dozen, Rolston's back was crisscrossed by angry weals and already turning blue and mottled yellow from the savage pounding. He was weeping silently and had bit his lip trying to be game arout it. ’Another rosun," Bales ordered at the end of the first dozen. Jesus God, I started this, Lewrie told himself sadly. They're half-killing the little shit and it's my fault. I truly do hate him but was it worth this…? The second rosun laid on his first stroke, and this time, Rolston screamed. Not a yell, not a plea for mercy, but a womanish scream of agony! The next stroke knocked the air from his lungs. His back was now streaming blood where further lashes had broken open the inflamed weals. The youngest midshipmen that Lewrie saw were either weeping openly, or staring as though the flogging had happened not a moment too soon to please them. Rolston would have been the oldest in the gun room, and would have made their little lives hell.

Lewrie looked at the lines of men, and he saw furtive gleams of pleasure. There was none of the swaying or shuffling they normally showed when they thought a punishment had found the wrong person. Perhaps it was an accident about Gibbs, but to the ship's people, the punishment fit the crime, or answered their sense of a final justice.

The punishment ended after two dozen. It was doubtful if Rolston would have survived a third, and he was so lost in agony already that one more stroke would not have affected him, or served a useful purpose.

He was cut down and hauled off to the sick-bay. The deck was washed down and the grating put back in place. The men were dismissed and chivvied off to prepare for morning gun drill and cleaning.

Rolston was officially dis-rated, deprived of gun room privilege and dressed in slop clothing like a common seaman. He was also confined in the brig as soon as the surgeon was through with him, there to languish until they docked.

"Lewrie, quit mooning," Lieutenant Kenyon snapped as he saw him lounging by the bulwarks. ’Sorry, sir. I was thinking about Rolston just now. ’

‘Don't waste your time," Kenyon told him. Lewrie gave it a long thought, then decided to come clean about his scheme to ruin his rival, but Kenyon forestalled him. ’I still do not think he caused Gibbs to fall, but the captain had enough suspicion to reprimand him. And the way he went after you was the end of him.’

’Yes, but-’

‘So you crowed about it in the mess. Believe me, I know what it's like to see a rival confounded, and Rolston was not the most popular man aboard, either. How often have I seen him having men up on charge to satisfy his petty grudges, or just to see a flogging? No, he is no loss to us. He was a brutal little monster, and would have been a real terror as an officer, God help us, as a captain. That kind, we don't need in the Navy.’

’I feel as if I precipitated the attack, sir.’

’So what?" Kenyon shrugged. "So might any of the others who had a reason to wonder what happened aloft. Let Hawkes and Blunt stew on it long enough and it might have been Rolston who came down from the rigging next, and then we'd have had to hang two good topmen for the sake of one bad midshipman.’

I doubt if he'd let me admit rape of his only sister, Alan told himself. Maybe I did do something right, after all? "You're shaping devilish-well as a midshipman, Lewrie. ’

‘Er… thank you, sir.’

’Even though you thoroughly detest the Navy, we're better off with your kind than his. And don't tell me you love the Navy like Ashburn does, 'cause I've seen you when no one was looking. I was not exactly enamored of going to sea when I was a boy, either, but there were reasons why it was necessary. I still do not love it, but I have a future in it. You'll make your way.’

’Thank you for telling me that, sir.’

’I said nothing, Mister Lewri… Now, I expect you to make sure to inspect the mess tables and report which mess has not scrubbed up properly. And check the bread barges, too. ’

‘Aye aye, sir.’

For the next couple of weeks of their passage the world seemed incredibly sweet to Alan. The weather was fresh and clean, with deep blue skies and high-piled clouds with no threat in them. From the usual disturbed grey green color, the ocean changed to a spectacular shade of blue that glittered and folded and rose again under a balmy sun, so that it was as painful to look upon as a gem under a strong light. In the steady trade winds, Ariadne shook out the reefs in her tops'ls and hoisted her t' gallants for the first time in months, even setting studding-sails on the main course yard, and except for sail drill each day, there was less cause to reef and furl. Free of convoys and sluggish merchantmen, she proved that she could fly.

With better weather and steadier footand handholds, Alan practically lived aloft in the rigging as they traded their heavy stonn sails for a lighter set, lowering tons of strained and patched flaxen sails to be aired and folded away, the new being bent onto the yards and stays.

Clearer skies also allowed better classes in navigation and the measuring of the noon sun's height with their quadrants, or the newfangled sextant that was Mr. Ellison's pride and joy. Alan found himself becoming pleasingly accurate at plotting their position.

Dry decks and a following wind also gave better footing for small arms drill-musketry firing at towed kegs, pistol practice, pike training, tomahawks or boarding axes, and Lewrie's favorite, sword work Kenyon let him borrow a slightly curved hunting sword, or hanger, and he became adept with it, for it was much lighter than a naval cutlass to handle, but was meant to be used partially in the same way, stamp and slash.

Ashburn's tutor had been Spanish, so he knew the twobladed fighting style of rapier and main gauche, while Alan knew the fighting style of the London streets; smalls word and cloak, lantern or walking stick for a mobile shield. They delighted in practicing on each other. It was good exercise, and taught raw landsmen how to survive at close quarters; though once in action it was pretty much expected that they would forget most of what they had been taught and fall back on their instincts, which were to flail away madly and batter someone to death rather than apply any science to the task.