Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“Why,” asked Ike Rogers suddenly, having spent most of this exchange gazing about, “is this place painted red?”

“ ’Twas the orlop on a second-rater,” said Mikey Dennison, the smuggler from Poole. “The thirty-two pounders lived in here and so did the surgeon’s hospital. Paint the place red and the blood ain’t visible. Sight of blood puts the gunners off terrible.”

William Stanley from Seend pulled a huge turnip watch from his waistcoat pocket and consulted it. “Grub up in an hour,” he said. “Harry the fucken purser will dole out your trenchers and mugs. Today being Friday, ’tis burgoo. No meat, apart from what’s in the bread and cheese. Hear the racket overhead?” He poked his pipe at the ceiling. “They are grubbing in London now. We get whatever is left. There be more of them than us.”

“What would happen if Mr. Hanks decided to put some Londoners in here?” asked Richard, curiosity stirred.

Little William Stanley chuckled. “He’d not dare do that! If the Irish did not cut their throats in the darkmans-that is their flash lingo for night-the North Country would. Who loves London and Londoners? Tax the whole of England drier than a bog trotter at a Methodist meeting, then spend all of it in London and Portsmouth, London being where the Parliament, the Army and the East India Company are, and Portsmouth where the Navy is.”

“Burgoo. If I remember my Mr. Sykes correctly, that means we drink aqua Thames,” said Richard, getting up with a dazzling smile. “My friends with dripstones, I think we should conduct a little ceremony. Since ye accused me of being the leader, Will, follow my lead.” He put his box on the table, unlocked it with the key he kept around his neck, and pulled a large rag out of it. Once it was draped across his cropped head he began to hum musically; Mr. Handel would have recognized the tune, but nobody on the Ceres orlop did. Bill Whiting forgot his injuries to don a rag, then Will, Neddy, Taffy, and Jimmy followed suit, though they left the music to Richard. Out came Richard’s dripstone; the hum became a long, rising and falling aaaah. He passed his hands across it, bent to touch his brow to it, then scooped it up and stalked to the pump, his five acolytes behind him in emulation. Taffy had picked up the melody and sang a high counter to Richard’s baritone, notes rather than words. By now only those in the throes of fever were not watching, transfixed; William Stanley’s eyes goggled.

Luckily the pump produced a series of trickles rather than gushes; they fell into a copper kettle somone had punched a few holes in. Mr. Campbell’s filtration system did serve to confine an occasional horrible lump or tiddler fish, but was incapable of anything else. From there the water dribbled into the scuttles, and so escaped bilgeward.

With a grand gesture Richard indicated to Jimmy Price that he was to work the pump handle, and held his dripstone to catch his three pints. The others followed, Bill Whiting bowing lavishly to Jimmy before filling his dripstone as well, while Richard’s fine voice swelled into a loud string of hallelujahs. Then off back to the table, where the six objects were set in its exact center amid many gesticulations. Richard banished his acolytes to two paces behind and spread his hands, wiggling his fingers.

“King of Kings! Lord of Lords! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” he sang. “Hosannah! O Hippocrates, receive our supplications!” After a final reverential bow, he doffed his rag, folded it with a kiss and sat down. “Hippocrates!” he yelled, so suddenly that everyone jumped.

“Christ! What was that all about?” asked Stanley.

“The rites of purification,” said Richard solemnly.

The horsey little man looked suddenly wary. “Is it a joke? Are ye gammoning me?”

“Believe me, William Stanley from Seend, what all six of us are doing is no joke. We are placating Father Thames by invoking the great god Hippocrates.”

“Is this going to happen every time ye drink water?”

“Oh, no!” cried Bill Whiting, perfectly understanding the method in Richard’s madness. He was setting them apart, endowing them with special qualities, helping to preserve them and their property. How quick he was! All this out of Jimmy’s and Lizzie’s remarks about his turning filtration into a religion. Miss Molly Sykes would get to hear of it-William Stanley from Seend was a gossip, and had all day inside Ceres. “No,” he went on earnestly, “we conduct the rites of purification only on special occasions, like entering a new place of abode. It-it alerts Hippocrates.”

“Mind you,” said Will Connelly, contributing his mite, “we use the stones every time we drink water, just not with the whole ceremony. That is for the first day of each month-and when we enter a new place of abode, of course.”

“Is it witchcraft?” asked Mikey Dennison suspiciously.

“Did ye smell brimstone and sulphur? Did the water turn to blood or soot?” Richard demanded aggressively. “Witchcraft is nonsense. We are serious.”

“Oh, oh!” Stanley exclaimed, brow clearing. “I forgot! Ye are mostly from Bristol, home to every Dissenter there is.”

“Ike,” said Richard, getting up, “a word in your ear.” They moved a few paces away, every eye still on them. “Confirm our story, and next time we perform join in the chorus. If ye back us we will all keep our things-and our money. Where d’ye hide yours?”

Rogers grinned. “In the heels of my riding boots. They look low on the outside, but inside-I am up on stilts. And yours?”

“One side of every box has a thin inside lining. Those of us with coins can keep them there. They cannot rattle because of lint wadding. Will, Neddy and Bill have a few, I have more than a few, but the other boxes are empty, so if any of us acquire more money there is space for it. Yon William Stanley from Seend can be bought, but the question is, will he tell Sykes?”

The highwayman considered this carefully, then shook his head. “I doubt it, Richard. If he sings, Miss Molly will get the lot. What we have to do is convince the jockey that we only have so much-Christ, I wish we had a regular visitor from London! If we did, we could explain our wealth that way. Ye’re right about the water-it is foul. My lads and I will have to drink small beer on burgoo days and I warrant yon William Stanley from Seend can get it for us.”

Richard clapped his hand to his head. “Jem Thistlethwaite!” he exclaimed. “I think I can arrange for that visitor, Ike. Are ye of the opinion that Stanley runs an efficient postal service?”

“I am of the opinion that he runs most things efficiently.”

When Richardand his team were led on deck the next morning they understood why evacuation from the orlop had been a gradual business; Ceres had the use of a certain number of lighters, but not nearly enough, even with men jammed in, to ferry the convicts en masse to their places of work. Luckily no place of work was farther from Ceres than 500 yards, but they were water yards. The oarsmen plied their open boats with a will simply because this was better work by far than other kinds. Convicts from Censor, they were chained to the under side of the gunwales. Why do they not simply make a run for the shore and escape? Richard wondered, learning later that in days gone by they had escaped, only to be recaptured and sometimes hung.

The chief advantage of “Campbell’s academies” (as the hulks were known to their inmates) lay in the fact that they floated; very few Englishmen could swim. That fact also kept a pressed crew on board a vessel once it sailed. Richard could not swim, nor could any of his eleven friends. Which endowed them with a horror of deep water.

His belly was empty, though he had saved half his bread and cheese to eat when dawn came; the half-pint of oatmeal gruel flavored with the bitter herbs called simples he drank as soon as it had been issued to him, gone cold by then, but surely worse twelve hours later. At least Old Mother Hubbard had realized that men performing hard labor had to be fed sufficient to keep their strength up, but less than a day on Ceres had shown him that Mr. Duncan Campbell, more isolated from his superiors than Old Mother Hubbard was, cared not a rush about quality work.