Alexander Kent: Passage to Mutiny

Bolitho had one bitter reminder, however. In the years when he had commanded Undine he had been forced into open conflict with a powerful French frigate, the Argus, commanded by Le

Chaumareys, an experienced veteran of the war and one of Admiral

Suffren’s most capable commanders. Although serving under a letter of marque for the self-styled prince, Muljadi, Le Chaumareys had remained a French officer in the best sense of the word. He had even warned Bolitho of the foolishness he would display in trying to fight his Argus, Muljadi’s pirate fleet and the dithering incompetence of governments on the other side of the world. Just two ships could decide the fate of a great area of the Indies. Bolitho’s little Undine and Le Chaumareys’ powerful forty-four.

As in Tempest, Bolitho had been blessed with a motley collection of seamen, some of whom had been gathered from prison hulks to make his complement adequate.

All he had had against the Frenchman’s experience and his equally well-trained company had been youth and a freshness of ideas. Le Chaumareys had been away from home for years. His work under another’s flag was to have been his last before returning honourably to his beloved France.

It had been Le Chaumareys’ familiarity with an established routine, his reliance on the same old methods and manoeuvres, which had cost him a victory, and his life.

Bolitho wondered how long it would take him to get too complacent, or so weary with endless patrols and chases after pirates that when a real challenge offered itself he would find himself without the steel to repel it. Or if indeed he would recognize the weakness if there was no one to tell him.

“Course nor’-west, sir. Full and bye.” Herrick wiped his forehead with his wrist. “And no fresher on this tack either!”

Bolitho took a telescope from Midshipman Swift and trained it beyond the bows. Through the taut rigging and shrouds and above the figurehead’s golden shoulder, on and on, to nothing.

“Very well. Dismiss the watch below.” He stopped Herrick as he made to hurry away. “I believe Mr Borlase wishes you to punish a seaman today?”

Herrick watched him gravely. “Aye, sir. Peterson. For insolence. He swore at a bosun’s mate.”

“I see. Then warn the man yourself, Thomas. A flogging for such a triviality will do nothing to help matters.” He looked at some seamen on the deck below and along the gangways. Almost naked, and tanned in a dozen hues, they appeared strong enough, able to control any sudden flare-up of temper which could end in flogging, or worse. “Then have a word with Mr Borlase. I’ll not have him or any officer passing over responsibility in this manner. He was in charge of the watch. He should have dispersed the trouble as soon as he saw it.”

Herrick watched him leave the deck and cursed himself for not stepping into the matter earlier. For letting Borlase get away with it, as he did so often, when you stopped to think about it. When you were tired, sun-dried and dying for a cool breeze it was often much easier to do the work yourself instead of following through the chain of command.

Which is why I’ll never rise above lieutenant.

As Herrick moved up and down the weather side of the deck he was watched for much of the time by Keen and Midshipman

Swift.

From midshipman in the Undine to Tempest’s third lieutenant. When Keen had been raised from acting rank and had passed his examination for lieutenant he had imagined that no reward could provide greater satisfaction.

While he tried to stay under the shadow of the mizzen topsail he watched Herrick and wondered, not for the first time, where the next move would come. Some lieutenants seemed to soar to post rank and higher, like comets. Others remained at the same level year after year until rejected by the Navy and thrown on the beach.

If only he had been old enough to have served with men like Bolitho and Herrick in the real way. Against the French, and the American Revolution, or anyone who faced them across the water and challenged a flag as well as a broadside.

He heard Lakey’s step beside him. “I have been thinking-”

The sailing master smiled grimly. “My old father on Tresco used to say, leave thinking to horses, Tobias. They’ve bigger heads than yours.” It seemed to amuse him. “We’ve a course to run out, Mr Keen. And no brooding or pining is going to change our captain’s intentions, not by one inch.”

Keen grinned. He liked Lakey, although their worlds were so different.

“I’ll try to contain myself.”

Below in his day cabin Bolitho sat at his desk and worked slowly through the day’s affairs. As in most forenoon watches he received a regular stream of visitors.

Bynoe, the purser, requesting a signature on his ledger of newly opened meat casks. Hard of eye, more so of heart, Bolitho suspected, the purser was better than many he had served with. His rations were fairly issued, and he did not dock a seaman’s meagre pay for some article he had not received and would not remember when the ship eventually paid off.

The surgeon came with his daily sick report. The hands kept remarkably free of hurt and illness, Bolitho was thankful to discover. But when it struck it was without warning or mercy. As with the men lost overboard, and the two left in the care of the Dutch doctors at Coupang.

While he studied each book and ledger placed before him by Cheadle, his clerk, he was conscious too of the life above and around him. They were all extensions of the ship herself. If a man died or was removed the ship lived on, gathering replacements to sustain herself.

He heard the rumble of gun trucks as one by one each cannon, from the long twelve-pounders on the main deck to the snappy six-pounders aft, were hauled inboard and examined by Jack Brass, Tempest’s gunner. It was Brass’s routine arrangement that every week he would check each weapon, and God help the gun captain whose charge failed to reach his standards.

Bolitho had been lucky with his warrant officers and more seasoned men, and was grateful for it. Even his four midshipmen, sent to him originally by parents who wished them to gain experience and advancement which was harder to get elsewhere in peacetime, were more like young lieutenants after two years’ continuous service. Swift and Pyper were seventeen, and already thinking of the time when they would be able to sit for promotion. Fitzmaurice, a pug-faced youth of sixteen, had had much of the arrogance knocked out of him. He came of a very rich family indeed, and had imagined apparently that his commission in Tempest was to be something akin to a courtesy cruise. Herrick and Lakey had taught him otherwise.

The youngest, Evelyn Romney, was fifteen. They all made a change from the usual twelveand thirteen-year-olds you found in most ships, Bolitho thought. Romney had improved the least. He was a naturally shy youth, and lacked the firmness required when dealing with men old enough to be his father. But if Fitzmaurice cursed his family for sending him packing to sea, Romney, who was less able to face up to the demands made on the “young gentlemen,” seemed desperately determined to do well. He obviously loved the Navy, and his attempts to overcome his shyness were pathetic to watch.

Bolitho heard the measured tramp of boots as the marines trooped aft from their daily drills on the forecastle and in the tops. Prideaux would not be with them. He would leave the sweat and discomfort to his sergeant. Then later he would emerge and criticize, his foxy face peering at each of his men in turn. Bolitho had never heard him offer one word of encouragement or praise, even when a marine had been promoted.

More muffled than the sounds near the quarterdeck, he heard the thump of hammers and the occasional rasp of a saw.