An Eye of the Fleet

Drinkwater had been sent with the launch to pass the convoy orders to a dozen transports in the outer bay. These ships were bound for Port Mahon and Cyclops would be escorting them.

As he returned to Cyclops he passed Santa Teresa. The sound of O'Malley's fiddle floated over the calm water. Signs of activity were visible, the creak of tackles lifting heavy weights clearly audible as two spars rose up the newly erected masts. Drinkwater waved to Midshipman Beale as the launch swept round the frigate's stern. The yellow and red of her superimposed ensign almost brushed the oarsmen as it drooped disconsolately under the British colour. Drinkwater brought the launch alongside the mainchains of Cyclops.

Mr Blackmore languidly acknowledged his report. Drinkwater went below. He had half expected to find Morris on deck, not wishing to encounter him in the cockpit. So intense was Drinkwater's loathing of Morris that he would return to the deck rather than remain in his company below. There was something, something indefinable, about him that Nathaniel found distasteful without knowing what it was.

Between decks Cyclops was dim and almost silent. The creaking of her fabric went unnoticed by Drinkwater. A few men sat at the mess tables slung between the guns, lounging and talking. Some swung in hammocks and several watched Drinkwater with idle curiosity. Then one, a fox-faced man named Humphries, nudged his neighbour. A large topman turned round. Drinkwater scarcely noticed the malice that appeared in Threddle's eyes.

He descended to the orlop and turned aft to where, screened off with canvas, the frigate's 'young gentlemen' lived. Drinkwater was happily oblivious of the menace in the air. The foetid atmosphere of the orlop was dark; a darkness punctured by swinging lanterns suspended at intervals from the low deckhead which glowed dimly in the poor air. Drinkwater approached the canvas flap which answered the midshipmen for a door.

He was stopped in his tracks.

At first he was completely uncomprehending. Then the memory of similar, half-glimpsed, actions, and a pang of instinctive recognition in his own loins brought the realisation slamming home to him.

He felt sick.

Morris was naked from the waist down. The handsome young seaman from the main top was bent over a midshipman's chest. There was little doubt what was happening.

For a few seconds Drinkwater was rooted to the spot, helplessly watching Morris's breathless exertions. Then Drinkwater noticed the initials on the chest: 'N.D.' He turned and ran, stumbling along the orlop, desperate for the cool freshness of the upper deck.

He ran full-tilt into Threddle who hurled him back. Drinkwater staggered and, before he could recover, Threddle and Humphries were lugging him aft. Drinkwater struggled in pure terror at re-entering his dismal quarters.

Threddle threw him forward and he fell on his back. For a minute he closed his eyes then a kick in the kidneys forced them open. A fully dressed Morris stood looking down at him. Threddle and Humphries were behind the midshipman. The handsome seaman had shrunk into a corner. He was crying.

'What are we goin' to do wiv 'im, Mr Morris?' asked Humphries his eyes glittering with possibilities. Morris looked at Drinkwater his own eyes veiled. He licked his lips considering the physical possibilities himself. Perhaps he read something in Drinkwater's expression, perhaps his lusts were temporarily slaked or perhaps he feared the consequences of discovery. At last he came to his decision and bent over Nathaniel.

'If,' Morris laboured the word, 'if you mention a word of this to anyone we will kill you. It will be easy — an accident. Do you understand that? Or perhaps you'd like friend Threddle here…' the seaman shuffled forward eagerly, a hand passing to his belt, '… to show you what a buggering is?'

Drinkwater's mouth was quite dry. He swallowed with difficulty.

'I… I understand.'

'Then get on deck where you belong, lickspittle.'

Drinkwater fled. The normality of the scene on deck shocked him profoundly. As he arrived in the waist Tregembo came up and gave him an odd look, but the midshipman was too terrified to notice. 'Mr Blackmore wants you, sir,' called Tregembo as he rushed past.

Drinkwater went aft his heart thumping, doing his best to master his shaking limbs.

A week later Gibraltar was once more closely invested by the besieging Spanish. Rodney had sent the transports on to Minorca and the units of the Channel fleet back to home waters under Rear Admiral Digby. The empty transports had gone with them. His task fulfilled the Admiral sailed for the West Indies with reinforcements for that station.

It is 500 miles from Gibraltar to Port Mahon. The brief respite in the weather was over. A Lleventades blew in their teeth as Cyclops and her consort Meteor struggled to keep the transports and store-ships in order. The convoy beat to windward, tack upon weary tack. At first they kept well south avoiding the unfavourable current along the Spanish coast and the flyspeck island of Alboran but, having made sufficient easting, they held to a more northerly course until they raised the high, snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevadas and could weather Cape da Gata. With more sea room the convoy spread out and the escorts had even more trouble shepherding their charges.

The weather worsened. Cyclops was a misery. Damp permeated every corner of the ship. Fungi grew in wet places. The companion-ways were battened down and the closed gunports leaked water so that the bilges required constant pumping. The lack of ventilation between decks filled the living spaces with a foul miasma that made men gasp as they came below. Watch relieved watch, four hours on, four off. The galley fire went out and only the daily grog ration kept the men going, that and fear of the lash. Even so tempers flared, fights occurred and men's names were listed in the punishment book.

Things did not improve when Meteor signalled that she would keep the convoy company in Port Mahon while Cyclops cruised offshore and waited for the ships to discharge. Meteor's captain, though half the age of Hope, was the senior. He was known to have a weakness for good wine, dark-haired women and the tables. It was Meteor therefore that secured to a buoy in the Lazaretto Reach and Cyclops that stood on and off the coast, hard-reefed and half-hearted in her lookout for Spanish cruisers.

The fourth day after they had seen the convoy safe into Mahon Humphries went overboard. No one saw it happen, he just failed to answer the muster and a search of the ship revealed nothing. When he heard the news Drinkwater was suddenly afraid. Morris shot him a malignant glance.

On the seventh day the weather began to moderate, but the ocean with typical perversity, sent one misery to succeed the last. Towards evening the wind fell away altogether and left Cyclops rolling viciously in a cross sea, a swell rolling up from the south east.

So chaos remained to plague the frigate and filled Midshipman Drinkwater's cup of misery to overflowing. Somehow the happiness he had felt in Gibraltar seemed unreal, a false emotion with no substance. He felt his own ingenuous naivety had betrayed him. The ugliness of Morris and his perverted circle of lower deck cronies seemed to infect the ship like the dampness and the rank stink. Indeed it so associated itself in his mind with the smell of malodorous bodies in cramped, unventilated spaces that he could never afterwards sense the taint in his nostrils without the image of Morris swimming into his mind. It had a name this thing; Morris had used it with pride. The very recollection made Drinkwater sweat. He began to see signs of it everywhere though in truth there were about a dozen men in Cyclops's crew of over two hundred and sixty who were homosexual. But to Drinkwater, himself in the fever of adolescence, they posed a threat that was lent substance by the continuing tyranny of Morris and the knowledge that Morris possessed henchmen in the form of the physically heavyweight Threddle and his cronies.

Drinkwater began to live in a cocoon of fear. He wrestled unresolvedly with the possession of knowledge he longed to share.

Free of the disturbances of bad weather at last Cyclops cruised a week in pleasant circumstances. Light to fresh breezes and warmer winds took March into April. The frigate smelt sweeter between decks as fresh air blew through the living spaces. Vinegar wash was applied liberally and Devaux had the waisters and landsmen painting and varnishing until the waterways gleamed crimson, the quarterdeck panelling glistened and the brasswork sparkled in the spring sunshine.