cuttin' out raids meself. Sometimes it was all over with a few prayers and a few `'Oh my Gods' an' afore you knew what 'ad 'appened you was back aboard none the worse! An' other times you was shocked to be still alive!'
Ferguson nodded, unable to picture the nerve-wrenching horror of a raid in total darkness. His new duties as clerk kept him away from that sort of danger and had somehow thrown him further apart from his companions.
It was all he could do to stay clear of trouble with the first lieutenant. Vibart read every order and account at least twice, and he never failed to follow up a complaint with a threat of punishment.
Ferguson thought back to the floggings and the last one in particular. He had wanted to hide his face, yet was stricken and mesmerised by the relentless punishment so that he had watched it to the end. Kirk had died in the sickbay, but his sobbing cries still seemed to hover in the space which had once been his home.
Strachan remarked, `It's gettin' pretty rough up top. I wouldn't like to be takin' part!' He shook his grey head. `It was as black as a pig's belly when I last took a look!'
Onslow, the big seaman from the Cassius, sauntered across and stared thoughtfully at Ferguson for several seconds. In his checked shirt and tight canvas trousers he looked even taller and more formidable than usual, and his thick hair was tied to the nape of his neck with a piece of red ribbon.
He said. `You'll be staying aboard then?' He smiled. `And quite right, too.' He rested his hand on Ferguson 's thin shoulder. `You save your energy, my lad. I'll want to be knowing what is happening down aft in the cabin.'
Ferguson stared at him. `I-I don't understand?'
Onslow yawned and spread his arms. `It's always just as well to know what the officers are planning next, y'see. That's what stops men like us staying rabble. With knowledge,' he tapped his forehead meaningly, `we are equal to them, and ready!'
Lugg, a gunner's mate, ran down a ladder and squinted through the gloom. `Right, you lot! On deck and lively about it! Each man takes a cutlass and muster aft!'
Onslow eyed him calmly. `What, no pistols?'
Lugg replied coldly, `I'll pistol you if you don't learn some manners!'
There was a rasp of steel as each hurrying figure took a cutlass, and once or twice Ferguson spoke to a passing familiar face, but each time he received no answer.
Strachan wiped his hands and muttered, `Save yer breath, mate. They're thinkin' of what lies ahead. There'll be talk – enough later, I shouldn't wonder!'
John Allday hung back to the last. Then he picked up a cutlass and swung it slowly in the lamplight. Quietly he said, `Be careful of Onslow, Bryan. He is a born troublemaker. I don't trust him an inch!'
Ferguson studied his friend with surprise and something like guilt. Since his unexpected change of jobs to captain's clerk he had seemingly drifted away from Allday's quiet protection, and whenever he had returned to the berth deck it had always been Onslow or his friend Pook who had dragged him into a tight circle of chatter and speculation.
Allday saw the uncertainty on Ferguson 's face and added, `You saw the flogging, Bryan. Be warned!'
`But Onslow is on our side, surely?' Ferguson wanted to understand. `You heard him talking today. He was as sickened as the rest of us!'
`I heard him.' Allday's mouth twisted in a grim smile. `But he only talks. He is never the one who goes to the gratings!'
Old Strachan mumbled, `I seen a lad like 'im in the old Gorgon. Stirred up the men till they never knew which way ter jump. They'anged'im in the end!'
`And they'll hang all of us if he keeps up this mutinous talk!' Aliday's eyes flashed. `We are here, and we must make the best of it!'
Lugg peered down the ladder and bellowed, `Come up on deck, you idle bugger! You're the last as usual!' But there was no real anger in his voice. He was as tense and jumpy as everyone else aboard.
Ferguson called, `Good luck!' but Allday was already running on deck, his eyes momentarily blinded in the darkness which enclosed the pitching hull like a cloak.
Overhead there were few stars, and then only occasionally visible between the low scudding clouds.
Petty officers were bawling names, and slipping and cursing the seamen pushed into separate parties near the boats which were already clear of their chocks and ready to be swayed outboard.
Allday saw the white lapels of Lieutenant Derrick's coat gleaming faintly against the dark sky and eras strangely glad he was going with his boat. Midshipman Maynard seemed a likeable enough youngster, but he lacked both experience and confidence. He could see him now whispering furtively to his small friend Neale below the quarterdeck.
Herrick said sharply, 'Now listen to me, lads! I will lead in the launch. The cutter will follow close astern and then the pinnace. Mr. Parker will stay last in the jolly boat.' He had to shout above the moaning wind, and Allday glanced uneasily at the creaming water alongside and the rising spectres of blown spray. It would be a hard pull, he thought, and automatically spat on his hands.
He pricked up his ears as Parker, the master's mate, reported, `All present, Mr. Herrick. Sixty-six men all told!'
`Very good. I will inform the…: He faltered and added harshly, `I will tell Mr. Vibart!'
Allday bit his lip. There was no love lost between Herrick and the new captain, he thought.
He saw Onslow leaning negligently against a pike rack and remembered Ferguson 's uneasiness. It was odd how eager Onslow had been to see Ferguson appointed as clerk, he decided. And how convenient it had been that Mathias, Bolitho's original clerk, had died in the hold.
'Sway out the cutter!' Mr. Quintal groped his way towards the tackle. `Hoist away there!'
Allday faltered, his mind suddenly filled with one, stark picture. He had been masthead lookout the morning Mathias had fallen to his death. It was strange how he had not thought of the connection before. He had seen the clerk climbing through the small inspection hatch shortly before he had been found unconscious and dying. But there had already been someone else in the hold before that! He looked quickly at Onslow, remembering the exact moment and the fact that it had been Onslow who had reported the clerk's fall.
He felt Quintal's hard hand on his shoulder and threw his weight against the tackle with the others. All at once the sea seemed to become rougher and the Phalarope seemed to shrink by comparison.
Through his racing thoughts he heard Onslow say casually, `We'll give the buggers a taste of steel!'
But who did he mean? Allday wondered.
11. FORTUNE OF WAR
The Phalarope's heavy launch, packed as she was with additional men of the cutting-out raid, began to whip water within minutes- of leaving the security of the frigate's side.
Herrick wedged himself in one comer of the stern and peered over the heads of the straining oarsmen, his vision hampered by both darkness and a continuous stream of bursting spray. He tried to concentrate on the set plan of attack, but as time dragged by and the boat's swooping motion became more pronounced he found that half of his mind dwelt on the realisation that things were already moving against him. The wind had gained in force, and he didn't need to consult his small compass to know that it had also veered more to the east, so that what cover there might have been from the island was lost in an angry welter of tossing whitecaps and great swirling patterns of backwash from partially hidden rocks.
Every so often he looked astern and was thankful to see the cutter riding in his wake, her banks of oars slashing one moment at wave crests and then buried to the rowlocks as the boat dropped into another sickening trough.
Ryan, a,seasoned quartermaster, swung the tiller bar and yelled, 'She'm takin' it poorly, sirl The lads are all but wore out!'
Herrick nodded but did not reply. It was obvious from the slow, laboured stroke that the men were already exhausted and in no shape for carrying out any sort of attack. More and more Herrick was nagged by the thought that Vibart had dropped the boats too soon. Nevis Island was still only a darker patch in the night's angry backcloth, and there was no sign at all of the chosen landmarks.
He felt a surge of anger when he remembered Vibart's brusqueness when he had last seen him. All he had
