ALEXANDER KENT - TO GLORY WE STEER Страница 6

Below the sealed hatches the air was thick with smells. That of bilge water mixing with sweat and the sour odour of seasickness, and the whole area was filled with sound as the ship fought her own battle with the Atlantic. The steady crash of waves followed by the jubilant surge of water along the deck above, the continuous groaning of timbers and the humming of taut stays, all defied the men to sleep and relax even for a moment.

John Allday sat astride one of the long, scrubbed benches and gnawed carefully at a tough piece of salt beef. Between his strong teeth it felt like leather, but he made himself eat it, and closed his mind to the rancid cask from which it had come. The deep cut on his cheek where Brock's cane had found its mark had healed in an ugly scar, and as his jaws moved steadily on the meat he could feel the skin tightening painfully where blown salt and cold winds had drawn the edges together like crude stitching.

Across the table, and watching him with an unwinking stare, sat Pochin, a giant seaman with shoulders like a cliff. He said at last, `You've settled in right enough, mate.' He smiled bleakly. `All that squit when you was pressed came to nothin'!'

Allday threw a meat bone on to his tin plate and wiped his fingers on a piece of hemp. He regarded the other man with his steady, calm eyes for several seconds and then replied, `I can wait.'

Pochin glared through the gloom, his head cocked to listen to some of the men retching. ` Lot of bloody women!' -He looked back at Allday. `I was forgettin', you are an old hand at this:

Allday shrugged and looked down at his palms. `You never get rid of the tar, do you?' He leaned back against the timbers and sighed. `My last ship was the Resolution, seventy-four. I was a foretopman.' He allowed his eyes to close. `A good enough ship. We paid off just a few months before the American Revolution, and I was clean away before the press could lay a finger on me!'

An old, grey-haired man with washed-out blue eyes• said huskily, `Was you really a shepherd like you told 'em?'

Allday nodded. `That, and other things. I had to stay out in the open. To keep away from the towns. I would choke to death under a roof!' He gave a small smile. `Just an occasional run into Falmouth was enough for me. Just enough for a woman, and a glass or two!'

The old seaman, Strachan, pursed his lips and rocked against the table as the ship heeled steeply and sent the plates skittering across the deck. `It sounds like a fair life, mate.' He seemed neither wistful nor envious. It was just a statement. Old Ben Strachan had been in the Navy for forty years, since he had first trod deck as a powder-monkey. Life ashore was a mystery to him, and in his regimented world appeared even more dangerous than the privations afloat.

Allday looked round as a hunched figure rose over the table's edge and threw himself across his arms amongst the litter of food. Bryan Ferguson had been in a continuous torment of seasickness and fear from the very moment Vibart's figure had appeared on that coast road. In Falmouth he had been a clerk working at a local boatyard. Physically he was not a strong man, and now in the swinging lantern's feeble light his face looked as gray as death itself.

His thin body was bruised in many places, both from falling against unfamiliar shipboard objects and not least from the angry canes of the bosun's mates and petty officers as the latter sought to drive the new men into the mysteries of seamanship and sail drill.

Day after day it had continued. Harried and chased -from one part of the ship to the next with neither let-up nor mercy. Quivering with terror Ferguson had dragged his way up the swooping shrouds and out along the yards, until he could see the creaming water leaping below him as if to claw at his very feet. The first time he had clung sobbing to the mast, incapable of either moving out along the yard or even down towards the safety of the deck.

Josling, a bosun's mate, had screamed up at him, `Move out, you bugger, or I'll have the hide off you!'

At that particular moment Ferguson 's tortured mind had almost broken. With each eager thrust of the frigate's stem, and with every passing hour, Ferguson 's home fell further and further astern. And with it went his wife, sinking into the wave-tossed distance like a memory.

Over and over again he had pictured her pale, anxious face as he had last seen her. When the Phalarope had been sighted heading for Falmouth Bay most of the young townsmen had headed for the hills. Ferguson 's wife had been ill for three years, and he had seen her get more frail and delicate, and on that day she had been more than unwell and he had begged to stay with her. But gravely she had insisted.

`You go with the others, Bryan. I'll be all right. And I'm not wanting the press to find you here!'

The nightmare became worse when he considered that if he had stayed with her he would still be safe and able to protect and help her.

Allday saidd quietly, `Here, take some food.' He pushed a plate of dark meat across the boards. `You've not eaten for days, man.'

Ferguson dragged his head from his forearms and stared glassily at the relaxed looking seaman. Unbeknown to Allday, Ferguson had almost jumped from the swaying mainyard rather than face another hour of torture. But Allday had rown inboard along the yard, his feet splayed and balanced, one hand held out towards the gasping Ferguson. `Here, mate! Just follow me an' don't look down.' There had been a quiet force in his. tone, like that of a man who expected to be obeyed. He had added harshly, `Don't give that bugger Josling a chance to beat you. The bastard enjoys making you jump!'

He stared now at the man's dark features, at the scar on his cheek, and at his calm, level eyes. Allday had been accepted immediately by the frigate's seamen, whereas the other newly pressed men were still kept at arm's length, as if on trial, until their merits or shortcomings could be properly measured. Perhaps it was because Allday was already hardened to a life at sea. Or maybe it came from the fact he never showed his bitterness at being pressed, or boasted about his life ashore like some of the others.

Ferguson swallowed hard to bite back the rising nausea. `I can't eat it!' He peered wretchedly at the meat. `It's swill!'

Allday grinned. `You'll get used to it!'

Pochin sneered. `You make me spew! I suppose you used to take your wife up to the 'eadland and go moist-eyed at the sight of a King's ship! I'll bet you used to feel so holy, so almighty proud as the ships sailed safely past!'

Ferguson stared at the man's angry face, mesmerised by his hate.

Pochin glared across the canting deck where the other crowded` seamen had fallen silent at his outburst. `You never had a thought for the poor buggers who manned 'em, nor what they was doin'!' He turned back to Ferguson with sud,den malice. `Well, your precious woman'll be out on the 'eadland now with some other pretty boy, I shouldn't wonder.' He made an obscene gesture. `Let's 'ope she finds the time to be proud of you!'

Ferguson staggered to his feet, his eyes wide with a kind of madness. 'I'll kill you for that!'

He swung his fist, but Allday caught his wrist in mid-air. `Save it!' Allday glared at Pochin's grinning face. `His wife is sick, Pochin! Give him some rest!'

Old Ben Strachan said vaguely, `I 'ad a wife once.' He scratched his shaggy,grey head. `Blessed if I can remember 'er name now!'

Some of the men laughed, and Allday hissed fiercely, `Get a grip, Bryan! You can't beat men like Pochin. He envies you, that's all!'

Ferguson hardly heard the friendly warning in Allday's voice. Pochin's goading tone had opened the misery in his heart with renewed force, so that he could see his wife propped in her bed by the window as clearly as if he had just entered the room. That day, when the press gang had pushed him down the hillside, she would have been sitting there, waiting for his return. Now he was never going back. Would never see her again.

He staggered to his feet and threw the plate of meat down on the deck. 'I can't!' He was screaming. 'I won't!'

A horse-faced fo'c's'leman named Betts jumped to his feet as if shaken from a deep sleep. `Don't jeer at 'im, mates!' He stood swaying below one of the lanterns. `He's 'ad enough for a bit.'

Pochin groaned. `Lord save us!' He rolled his eyes in mock concern.

Betts snarled, `Jesus Christ! What do you have to suffer before you understand? This man is sick with fear for his wife, and others here have equal troubles. Yet all some of you can do is scoff at 'em!'

Allday shifted in his seat. Ferguson 's sudden despair had touched some hidden spring in the men's emotions. Weeks, and in some cases years at sea without ever putting a foot on dry land were beginning to take a cruel toll. But this was dangerous and blind. He held up his hand and said calmly, `Easy, lads. Easy.'

Betts glared down at him,- his salt-reddened eyes only half focusing on Allday's face. `How can you interfere?' His voice was slurred. `We live like animals, on food that was rotten even afore it was put in casks!' He pulled his knife from his belt and drove it into the table. `While those pigs down aft live like kings!' He peered round for support. `Well, ain't I right? That bastard Evans is as sleek as a churchyard rat on what he stole from our food!'

`Well, now. Did I hear my name mentioned?'

The berth deck froze into silence as Evans, the purser, moved into a patch of lamplight.

With his long coat buttoned to his throat and his hair pulled back severely above his narrow face he looked for all the world like a ferret on the attack. He put his head on one side. `Well, I'm waiting!'

Allday watched him narrowly. There was something evil and frightening about the little Welsh purser. All the more so because any one of the men grouped around him could have ended his life with a single blow.

Then Evans' eye fell on the meat beside the table. He

sucked his teeth and asked sadly, `And who did this, then?' No one spoke, and once more the angry roar of the sea and

wind enclosed the staggering berth deck with noise.

Ferguson looked up, his eyes bright and feverish. `I did it.' Evans leaned his narrow shoulders against the massive trunk of the foremast which ran right through both decks and said, ` "I did it, sir." '

Ferguson mumbled something and then added, `I am sorry, sir:

Allday said coldly, `It was an accident, Mr. Evans. Just an accident.'

`Food is food.' Evans' Welsh accent became more pronounced as his face became angrier. `I cannot hope to keep you men in good health if you waste such excellent meat, now can I?'

Those grouped around the table stared down at the shapeless hunk of rancid beef as it lay gleaming in a patch of

lamplight.

Evans added sharply, `Now, you, whatever your bloody name is, eat it!' -

Ferguson stared down at the meat, his mind swimming in nausea. The deck was discoloured with water and stained with droppings from the tilting table. There was vomit too, perhaps his own.

Evans said gently, `I am waiting, boyo. One more minute and I'll take you aft. A touch of the cat might teach you some appreciation!'

Ferguson dropped to his knees and picked up the meat. As he lifted it to his mouth Betts pushed forward and tore it from his hands and threw it straight at Evans. `Take it yourself, you bloody devil! Leave him alone!'

For a moment Evans showed the fear in his dark eyes. The men had crowded around him, their bodies rising and falling like a human tide with each roll of the ship. He could feel the menace, the sudden ice touch of terror.

Another voice cut through the shadows. `Stand aside!' Midshipman Farquhar had to stoop beneath the low beams, but his eyes were steady and bright as they settled on the frozen tableau around the end table. Farquhar's approach had been so stealthy and quiet that not even the men at the opposite end of the deck had noticed him. He snapped, 'I am waiting. What is going on here?'

Evans thrust the nearest men aside and threw himself to Farquhar's side. With his hand shaking in both fear and fury he pointed at Betts. `He struck me! Me, a warrant officer!'

Farquhar was expressionless. His tight lips and cold stare might have meant either amusement or anger. `Very well, Mr. Evans. Kindly lay aft for the master-at-arms.'

As the purser scurried away Farquhar looked round the circle of faces with open contempt. `You never seem to learn, do you?' He turned to Betts, who still stood staring at the meat, his chest heaving as if from tremendous exertion. `You are a fool, Betts! Now you will pay for it!'

Allday pressed his shoulders against the frigate's cold, wet timbers and closed his eyes. It was all happening just as he knew it would. He listened to Betts' uneven breathing and Ferguson 's quiet whimpers and felt sick. Pie thought suddenly of the quiet hillsides and the grey bunches of sheep. The space and the solitude.

Then Farquhar barked, `Take him away, Mr. Thain.'

The master-at-arms pushed Betts towards the hatch ladder adding softly, `Not a single flogging since we left Falmouth. I knew such gentleness was a bad mistake!'

Richard Bolitho leaned his palms on the sill of one of the big stem.-windows and stared out along the ship's frothing wake. Although the cabin itself was already in semi-darkness as the frigate followed the sun towards the horizon, the sea still looked alive, with only a hint of purple as a warning of the approaching night.

Reflected in the salt-speckled glass he could see Vibart's tall shape in the centre of the cabin, his face shadowed beneath the corkscrewing lantern, and behind him against the screen the slim figure of Midshipman Farquhar.

It took most of his self-control to keep himself immobile and calm as he considered what Farquhar had burst in to tell him. Bolitho had been going through the ship's books again trying to draw out Vibart's wooden reserve, to feel his way into the man's mind.

Like everything else during the past twenty days, it had been a hard and seemingly fruitless task. Vibart was too careful to show his hostility in the open and confined himself to short, empty answers, as if he hoarded his. knowledge of the ship and her company like a personal possession.

Then Farquhar had entered the cabin with this story of Betts' assault on the purser. It was just one more thing to distract his thoughts from what lay ahead, from the real task of working the frigate into a single fighting unit.

He made himself turn and face the two officers.

'Sentry! Pass the word for Mr. Evans!' He heard the cry passed along the passageway and then added, 'It seems to me as if this seaman was provoked.'

Vibart swayed with the ship, his eyes fixed on a point above the captain's shoulder. He said thickly, 'Betts is no recruit, sir. He knew what he was doing!'

Bolitho turned to watch the open, empty sea. If only this

had not happened just yet, he thought bitterly. A few more days and the damp, wind-buffeted ship would be in the sun, where men soon learned to forget their surroundings and started to look outboard instead of watching each other.

He listened to the hiss and gurgle of water around the rudder, the distant clank of pumps as the duty watch dealt with the inevitable seepage into the bilges. He felt tired and strained to the limit. From the moment the Phalarope had weighed anchor he had not spared himself or his efforts to maintain his hold over the ship. He had made a point of speaking to most of the new men, and of establishing contact with the regular crew. He had watched his officers, and had driven the ship to her utmost. It should have been a proud moment for him. The frigate handled well, lively and ready to respond to helm and sail like a thoroughbred.