In the King`s Name

Morgan had materialised like a ghost and was picking up the empty glass. “Later, sir, I shall-” He did not continue.

The door was open. It was Jago, wearing his best jacket, and with his hat squeezed under his arm. He looked at Adam’s uniform and then at the old sword which was lying across the table. “Ready when you are, Cap’n.”

Adam picked up the sword. Jago was waiting to fasten it to his belt, like others before him.

“You’ll never know …”

But the shrill of calls and hurrying feet stifled the rest.

“Clear lower deck! All hands! All hands lay aft to witness punishment!”

It was now.

3 THE WITNESS

LIEUTENANT JAMES SQUIRE leaned on the quarterdeck rail to ease his stiff shoulders. Four bells, and still two more hours of the forenoon watch to complete. He glanced at young Midshipman Walker, who was sharing the watch, and wondered what would have changed in the navy by the time he’s my age.

He smiled. Probably nothing.

He saw some of the new hands clustered around the forward eighteen-pounders while the gun captains took them through the drill, loading and running out. They were on the weather side, and with Onward leaning slightly to the wind they would find the guns needed all their strength. Maddock, the gunner, never spared any one where his broadside was concerned.

Men working on or above deck had paused and were looking on, some of them perhaps remembering their fight with Nautilus, and others, like Drummond, the bosun, further back still. He had served at Trafalgar aboard the Mars, in the thick of the action.

“Stand by! Together, this time!” Maddock had just taken over, head on one side, the deafness his only weakness after too many broadsides in the past. But woe betide any one who tried to take advantage of that disability. Maddock could lip-read from one end of the gun deck to the other.

Several of the seamen working on deck were barefoot, either to save shoe leather, or to harden their soles for shrouds and ratlines. A few would regret it.

But they must all feel the difference, even the last to join at Plymouth. There was a suggestion of warmth under a clear sky, and the bite had gone from the wind. Squire’s face cracked into a wry smile. Almost.

He knew that the midshipman had moved closer. A bright lad, eager to learn and not afraid to ask questions. But it was not that. If he leaned further over the rail he would see the large grating inboard of the nearest gun, scrubbed almost white again, and dried by the wind and sun. Where a man had been seized up in the presence of all the ship’s company and flogged.

Midshipman Walker was not yet fourteen, but soon would be, the same age as Squire when he had joined his first ship. In his two years aboard Squire had witnessed two hundred floggings. His captain had believed in discipline of the most ferocious kind. He and others like him had contributed to the great fleet mutinies at the Nore and Spithead, even as England had been living in daily fear of a French invasion.

Since he had joined Onward there had been only one flogging, suspended halfway through, before the punishment of the seaman Lamont two days ago. And Lamont was lucky he would not be doing the Tyburn Jig when he reached port and higher authority.

You might become hardened to it, but you never forgot. Squire thought of Jago, the captain’s coxswain, a strong man, and a loyal one. But Squire had seen him being washed down one day, twisting his muscular body under a pump. The scars of the cat were unmistakable. Jago had received a written pardon from an admiral, and a sum of money in compensation amounting to a year’s pay, and the officer who had ordered the unjustified punishment had paid for it with a court-martial. But Jago would carry the scars to his grave. Squire had glimpsed his face as Lamont was being flogged, and wondered how he could remain so faithful to any captain after his own experience.

Midshipman Walker exclaimed suddenly, “I think he deserved it!”

Squire sighed. Out of the mouths of babes…

“Deck there!”

Every one, even the helmsman, looked up as the cry came from the foretopmast. It seemed ages since the lookouts had sighted anything, and this was certainly not land. Squire stared at the small silhouette who was signalling with his arm, but he already knew the face and the name. Always reliable. But he would need more than the naked eye.

He saw the midshipman reach for a telescope, but took it from him and shook his head. “Not this time … Bosun’s Mate! Aloft with you! You’ll feel at ease up there!”

It was Tucker. He took the telescope and held it to his eye briefly before slinging it across his shoulder. “Starboard bow,” was all he said.

Squire replied, “Aye, probably nothing, or out of sight by now. But …”

Tucker was already striding along the gangway, as he must have done countless times in his service as a foretopman. Squire watched him until he had reached the shrouds and began to climb. Keep busy, mind and body. It helped. Squire had learned that for himself.

David Tucker climbed steadily, his eyes fixed on the foretop and the hard, bellying curve of canvas. He was conscious of the men by the guns, heard Maddock’s voice as he repeated some instructions; a few faces might have turned in the direction of the figure on the ratlines, or maybe not. What did he expect? Anger? Hostility? Certainly not sympathy.

He reached the foretop and pulled himself out and over the barricade, his body hanging momentarily over the creaming water below. Don’t look down, they used to shout up at him in those early days. Now it was something he told others.

A seaman was splicing nearby, and glanced at him only briefly as he passed. As if he were a stranger.

Only two days ago, but he had relived every moment. He should have been prepared. Harry Drummond, the bosun, must have been warning him.

“You’ve got your feet firmly on the first step of the ladder, Dave. Obey orders smartly an’ without question, an’ you might go higher!” He had grinned. “Like me!”

Tucker had witnessed more than a few floggings since he had joined his first ship as a mere boy. The Articles of War were read aloud by every captain; no individual could plead ignorance of them.

But he could still feel the shock.

When the pipe had called all hands to witness punishment, Rowlatt, the master-at-arms, had pulled him aside and handed him the familiar red baize bag containing the “cat.” He could even have been smiling. “First time for everything, my lad!”

Tucker realised he had reached the crosstrees almost without noticing the dangerous part of the climb. He knew the lookout well; they had often shared this precarious perch. He came from York, and Tucker had always wanted to know how he had found his way into a King’s ship.

He said now, “I remember when the cap’n gave you his own glass when you came aloft!” He nudged Tucker’s arm. “Been a bad lad, have you?” And laughed.

Tucker trained the telescope on the rough bearing, the sun lancing from the sea, stinging and blurring his vision. He knew the sun was not to blame. And he was grateful beyond any words.

He focused the lens slowly, his body timed to the movement of the mast, which swayed as if completely separate from the hull beneath. Perhaps the lookout was mistaken, or his eyes were dazzled from hours of staring at the empty sea in its ever-changing moods. Tucker tensed and murmured, “Got you!”

But for the man from Yorkshire’s keen eyesight, they would have missed it altogether. A small vessel, possibly a schooner but now mastless and low in the water, the only sign of movement the torn remnants of her sails.

He handed the telescope to the lookout. “There she is. What’s left of her.”

“Abandoned.” The lookout passed the telescope back. “No boats on board.”