ALEXANDER KENT: Richard Bolitho – Midshipman

SOUTH-WEST and then south, day in day out, with barely a pause from backbreaking work. While the Gorgon thrust her heavy bulk clear of the English Channel and headed down towards the notorious Bay of Biscay, Bolitho and his new companions drew closer together, as if to use their combined strength against the ship and the sea. He had heard Turnbull, the master, say that the weather was as bad as he could recall for the time of year, and for someone who had seen some thirty winters in the Navy it was a statement to be taken seriously. Especially now that Bolitho had lost his temporary work in the great cabin. When Marrack had returned to duty after injuring his arm in the first storm, Bolitho had joined Dancer at the foremast whenever the call to make or shorten sail had been piped. If he found a moment to consider his progress in his new ship, which was not often, Bolitho thought more of his physical than his mental state. He was always hungry, and every muscle and bone seemed to ache from constant climbs aloft or the other demands of gun drill on the lower batteries of thirtytwo-pounders.

When the sea and wind moderated, and Gorgon headed south under almost a full set of canvas, the ship's company went to quarters to learn, exercise and sweat blood over the heavy and cumbersome tiers of guns. On the lower deck it was made doubly difficult by the lieutenant in charge. Grenfell, the senior midshipman, had already warned Bolitho about him, and as long days ran into longer weeks, while the ship pushed her beakhead between the Madeiran Islands and the coast of Morocco, all invisible even to the masthead lookouts, the name of Mr Piers Tregorren, the fourth lieutenant and the master of Gorgon's twenty-eight heaviest cannon, took on new importance. The fourth lieutenant was a massive figure, with the swarthy skin and lank hair more suitable to Spaniard or gypsy than a sea officer. The beams of the shadowy gundeck were so low that Tregorren had to duck and rise between them as he strode forward or aft to supervise the practice loading and running-out of each weapon. Big, belligerent and impatient, he was a hard man to serve. Even Dancer, who was usually so busy keeping out of trouble that he saved his strength for eating and sleeping, had noticed that Tregorren seemed to have taken a dislike to Bolitho. It was strange, Bolitho thought, for Tregorren was a fellow Cornishman, and usually that was one bond which survived even the cuts and bruises of discipline. Because of this animosity Bolitho had received three lots of extra duty, and on another occasion had been sent to the foremast crosstrees in a savage wind until ordered by the officer of the watch to descend. Harsh, unfair, it certainly was, but the punishment brought other sides of shiplife into the open. Young Eden produced a pot of honey which his mother had given him, and which he had been saving for some suitable occasion. torn Jehan, the gunner, a really unsympathetic warrant officer, who messed beyond the screen and rarely deigned to speak with lowly midshipmen, brought a large mug of brandy from his private stock to restore some life to Bolitho's frozen body. The endless, unrelenting training on sail and gun took other tolls, too. Before they had even passed Gibraltar two men were lost overboard, and another died after falling from the mainyard and breaking his back on an eighteen-pounder. He was buried at a brief, but to the new men, moving ceremony, his corpse sewn in a hammock and dropped overboard weighted with roundshot, while the Gorgon titled steeply to a brisk north-easterly. Further strains showed themselves like cracks in metal. Arguments broke out amongst the seamen, some trivial, some less so. A man turned on a boatswain's mate who had ordered him aloft for the third time in a watch to splice some worn rigging and was consequently taken aft to be awarded punishment. Bolitho had seen his first flogging at the age of twelve and a half. He had never grown used to it, but he knew what to expect. The newer and younger midshipmen did not. First came the pipe, 'All hands lay aft to witness punishment! ' Next the rigging of a grating on one of the gangways, while the marines trooped athwartships across the poop, their scarlet coats and white crossbelts very clear against the dull, overcast sky. The ship's company seemed to swell out of every hatchway and hiding place, until the decks, shrouds and even the boat tier were crammed with silently watching figures. And then the little procession wended its way to the rigged grating. Hoggett, the boatswain, and his two mates, Beedle, the unsmiling master-at-arms, Bunn, the ship's corporal, with the prisoner and Laidlaw, the surgeon, bringing up the rear. On the quarterdeck, its pale planking dappled with droplets of spume and spray, the officers and warrant officers took their places in order of seniority and importance. By the lee side the midshipmen, all twelve of them, made two short ranks on their own. The prisoner was stripped and then seized up on the grating, his muscled back pale against the scrubbed wood, his face hidden as he listened to the captain's austere voice as he read the relevant Articles of War before finishing with, 'Two dozen, Mr Hoggett.' And so, between the staccato roll of a solitary marine drummer boy, who kept his eyes fixed on the mainyard above his head throughout the flogging, the punishment was carried out. The boatswain's mate who actually used the cat-o'-nine-tails was not a brutal man by nature. But he was powerfully built and had an arm like the branch of an oak. Also, he was well aware that to show leniency would probably invite his changing places with the luckless offender. After eight strokes the seaman's back was a mass of blood. After a dozen it was barely recognizable as human. And so it went on. The roll of the drum and the immediate crack of the lash across the naked back. The youngest midshipman, Eden, fainted, and the second youngest, a pale-faced youth called Knibb, burst into tears, while the rest and not a few of the watching seamen were stiff-faced with horror. After what seemed like an age Hoggett called hoarsely, 'Two dozen, sir! ' Bolitho made himself breathe in and out very slowly as he watched the man being cut down from the grating. His back was torn as if mauled by some beast, the skin quite black from the force and weight of the lash. At no time had he cried out, and for a moment Bolitho imagined he had died under punishment.

But the surgeon looked up at the quarterdeck as he prised the leather strap from between the man's teeth and reported, 'He's fainted, sir.' Then he beckoned his assistants to carry the man below to the sick-bay. The blood was swabbed from the deck, the grating removed, and as the drummer and two other young marines with fifes struck up a lively jig the company slowly returned to normal life once again. Bolitho glanced quickly at the captain. He was expressionless, his fingers tapping a little tattoo on his sword-hilt as if in time with the jig. Dancer exclaimed fiercely, 'What a foul way to treat a man! ' The old sailing master overheard him and rumbled, 'Wait till you've seen a flogging round th' fleet, m'lad, then you will have something to puke on! ' And yet, when the hands went for their mid-meal of salt beef and iron-hard biscuits, washed down with a pint of coarse red wine, Bolitho heard no word of complaint or anger from anyone. It seemed that as in his last ship the rule of the lower deck was that if you got caught you were punished. The fault was being found out. This acceptance was even showing itself in the midshipmen's berth. The first anxiety and awe at not knowing what to do, and when to do it, had given way to a new unity, a toughness which had touched even Eden. Food and comfort were paramount, and the uncertainty of the voyage, what they were being ordered to do, took on less importance. The small compartment which nestled against the ship's curved side had become their home, the space between the white screen door and their heavy chests an area where they ate their crude meals, shared their confidences and fears and learned from one another with each succeeding day. Apart from the sighting of a few murky islands and two distant ships, Gorgon seemed to have the ocean to herself. Daily the midshipmen gathered aft for instruction in navigation under Turnbull's watchful eye. The sun and the stars took on new meaning to some of them, while to the older ones the reality of promotion to lieutenant seemed not so distant and improbable. After a particularly bad gun drill with the thirtytwo-pounders