ALEXANDER KENT: Richard Bolitho – Midshipman

Mr Verling was tall and thin, with an expression so dour that he could have been a judge about to pass sentence of death rather than offering welcome to some new officers. He had a protruding, beaked nose which thrust from beneath his cocked hat as if to seek out some new crime in his ship, and his eyes, as they wandered along the swaying line of midshipmen, were devoid of pity or warmth. He said, 'I am the senior in this ship.' Even his tone was clipped, with all the compassion honed out of it. 'Whilst on board you will attend to your various duties at all times. You will become so involved with your training and preparation for examination as lieutenants that you will eventually put it before all else, and any sort of leisure will be seen even by you as both selfish and pointless.' He nodded to the other officer. 'Mr Hope is the fifth lieutenant and will be keeping an eye on you until you are settled in your allocated watches. Mr Turnbull, the master, will of course expect a high standard in navigational studies and the general working of the ship at sea.' His gimlet eyes fastened on the smallest figure at the end of the line, the one who had been violently sick in the longboat, and who looked as if he was about to repeat it. 'And what is jour name?" ' Eden, s-sir.' 'Age?' The word was like a knife cut. 'T-twelve, s-sir.' Hope said, 'He has a stutter, sir.' Even his earlier belligerence had faded in the presence of his superior. 'Has he indeed. I am certain the boatswain will take care of that before he reaches thirteen years, if he lasts that long! ' Verling seemed to tire of the encounter. 'Dismiss them, Mr Hope. We will weigh tomorrow if the wind stays with us. There is much to do.' He strode away without another glance. Hope said wearily, 'Mr Grenfell will take you below.' Grenfell, it turned out, was the senior midshipman. A thickset, unsmiling young man of about seventeen, he relaxed as soon as Hope had disappeared. He said, 'Follow me. Mr Hope is a fair man, but he is worried about his promotion.' Bolitho smiled. In a ship of the line promotion was always difficult, especially without a war to thin the ranks. As fifth lieutenant Hope had only one officer junior to himself in the wardroom, and unless the lieutenants above him were promoted, sent into other ships or killed he was hard put to find advancement. Dancer whispered, 'In the flagship we had a sixth lieutenant who was so desperate that he learned to play the flute merely because the admiral's wife liked it! ' They fell silent as they followed the senior midshipman down the first companion ladder to the deck below, and the deck below that. The deeper they went into the hull the more confined it seemed to become. They were surrounded by shadowy figures, faceless and unreal in the half-darkness, their heads bowed beneath deck beams and the carefully slung equipment for each tethered cannon. The smells too seemed to rise to meet them. Salt beef and tar, bilge and packed humanity, while all around them the massive hull creaked and groaned like a live thing, the deckhead lanterns spiralling and throwing shapes across the great timbers and seamen alike, as in part of a vast painting. The midshipmen's berth was on the orlop deck. Beneath the lower gundeck, and indeed lower than the waterline itself, it had no light other than from the hatches and the swaying lanterns. Grenfell said offhandedly, 'This is it. We share it with the senior master's mates.' He grimaced towards a white-painted screen. 'Although they choose to stay aloof from us.' Bolitho looked at his companions. Without difficulty he could imagine what they were feeling. He could recall how he had endured the first hours, how he would have given anything for a friendly word when it was most needed. He said, 'It looks fine. Better than my last ship.' The boy called Eden asked, 'Really?' Grenfell smiled. 'It's what you make it.' He swung round as a diminutive figure scrambled past the screen door. 'This is your servant. His name is Starr, but he doesn't say much. Just tell him what you need and I'll arrange it with the purser.' Starr was even younger than Eden. Probably about ten, and small for his age. He had the pinched features of a child from the slums, and his arms were so thin they were like sticks. Bolitho asked quietly, 'Where are you from?' The boy eyed him warily. ' Newcastle, sir. Me dad was a miner there. He was killed in a fall.' His voice was toneless, as if he was speaking of another world. Til damn well killjcu if you treat my shirts like this one! ' Bolitho turned as another midshipman, flushed from the wind and rain, strode beneath the low beams. With Grenfell he was obviously one of the ship's three midshipmen remaining from the last commission, and like Grenfell too, still awaiting the chance to sit an examination for lieutenant. He was in ill humour, and had the sullen good looks of one bred to authority. Grenfell said, 'Easy, Samuel. The new boys are with us." The other one seemed to realize he was surrounded with awkward looking newcomers and snapped, 'I'm Samuel Marrack. Signals midshipman and captain's messenger.' Dancer said, 'It sounds important.' Marrack stared at him. 'It is. And when you appear before our illustrious captain it is best to do it in a clean shirt! ' He lashed out at the small servant with his hat and added, 'So remember that in future, you hound! ' He threw himself on to a chest. 'Get me some wine. I'm as dry as dust.' Bolitho sat down beside Dancer and watched the others opening and shutting their chests like blind men. He had hoped to be appointed to a frigate like his brother. Free of the fleet's heavy authority, able to cover great distances in a third of the time it would take the ponderous Gorgon, and with all the possibilities of adventure he had so often dreamed of. But Gorgon was his new home, and he would have to make the best of her for as long as the Navy dictated. A ship of the line.

'All hands! All hands aloft to reef tops'Is! ' Like the insistent voice in a nightmare the order was piped and repeated along the Gorgon's decks until the ship quivered to the thud of feet as the watch below dashed to their stations to be mustered. Bolitho shook Dancer roughly by the shoulder until he almost fell from his hammock. 'Come on, Martyn! We're shortening sail again! ' He waited as Dancer dragged on his shoes and coat and then together they ran for the nearest ladder. Three, no nearly four days it had gone on like this. From the moment the seventy-four had weighed anchor and started her passage downchannel towards the Atlantic it had been an endless turmoil of re-setting sails, of dragging weary bodies up the shrouds to the vibrating yards, and all the while harried and driven by the first lieutenant's voice from the quarterdeck. Even that had been part of the nightmare, for to make his orders heard above the roar of sea and wind Verling had had to use his speaking trumpet, making his sharp voice a ceaseless goad for the gasping midshipmen. For the new hands it was always worse, of course. A midshipman had very little status in a King's ship. The common seaman had none at all. Bolitho knew that to allow any break in discipline at a moment like changing a ship's tack in a heavy wind could be disastrous, but he was sickened to see unnecessary violence used on a man who was perhaps too terrified by working high above the deck to understand what was required of him. It was no different from the last time. Not yet dawn, but there was a paler hint of grey showing itself in the low clouds, and precious little else to light a way to the shrouds. Lieutenants fretted impatiently as petty officers and master's mates checked their lists of names at the foot of each mast. The marines clumped aft to the mizzen braces, their boots skidding on wet planking, and by the quarterdeck rail the first lieutenant bobbed and pointed, waving his speaking trumpet to emphasize some point or other. Bolitho peered aft to the big double wheel. Four helmsmen were clinging to the spokes so that he guessed there was still a big swell running to test the thrust of sails and rudder. Beside them he could see old Turnbull, the sailing master, shapeless in his heavy coat, his fists like red crabs as he gestured to his quartermaster. Quite alone by the weather nettings was the captain.