"Gentlemen, I give you His Majesty's ship Welfare. May God keep us and save us in the work we are about to undertake. I cannot tell you what our orders are, but you will have gathered that our mission will take us to the far-flung corners of the earth. We sail, God willing and this easterly continuing to blow, before noon tomorrow.
"As to the running of this vessel, you all know me and you all know my requirement. I want a taut ship, and I want a hard ship. I want iron discipline and I want total and immediate obedience - from the top to the bottom. My officers are gentlemen and will behave as such at all times. As to the people, they are, of course, the scum of the earth."
The task facing Captain Daniel Swift is not an enviable one. Under sealed orders for a long and arduous voyage west and south, he must forge an efficient crew from the ragged collection of the old and the weak, criminals and young boys under his command. Swift's evil reputation, coupled with the wretched conditions of wartime naval life, mean that only the most desperate will join him of their own free will. To make up the numbers, he must resort to press gangs.
It is as a result of missions led by Swift's young nephew William Bentley that the frigate Welfare gains the last two members of her company. Farmer’s boy Thomas Fox, tricked with casual illegality, and smuggler Jesse Broad, snatched while returning from a run to France, soon find themselves bereft of home and loved ones, on board a ship run by Swift with utmost cruelty, policed by fist, by rope's end, rattan cane and cat. These four become slowly locked into a complex web of fear, hatred, and horrifying tragedy.
Chapter One
Lieutenant Peter Coppiner was not a bitter man. At sixty-some years old and still lieutenant, why should he be, indeed? Not that his age was known to anyone save him, least of all the clerks at Admiralty, however hard they'd probed and searched the records over years. Indeed, Lieutenant Coppiner did not know himself exactly, now that his old mother had been dead eleven years. It was expunged, wiped clean, forgotten, totally denied. All he knew was that he was lieutenant still, and would take that signal lack of honour to his grave. He was not a bitter man: he was filled with active rage, and hatred.
The stench on board his place of work this night was something worse than usual. The weather in the Thames had been exceeding hot and still for days, and his last big intake, from off a spice ship inward from the East, had been running with the stomach fluxes and a spot of scurvy for good luck. Most of them had left his tender care by now - most of them, indeed, had eaten food grace of His Majesty then died, in sight and sound and smell of loved ones and their hearths - leaving naught but paperwork for him, and little chance of bounty for the taking of them. Paperwork and ridding of the corpses, and the vomit, shit, and smells. Lieutenant Coppiner was not a bitter man. He was murderous.
Outside his cabin - great, once called, when the receiving hulk had been a man of war - he could hear men approaching. There was a sentry of marines to guard his door, a most necessary item in his hated trade, and the lieutenant had an understanding with this soldier. If the caller was known, and his business had been stated well beforehand - he would be made to wait. If he was further known to be a man particularly hated by Lieutenant Coppiner - the delay would be acute. As the voices sounded, first mild, polite, then with a rising note of exasperation, a smile homed in upon the deep-lined face. Coppiner ran long fingers through his patch-white hair. This was one to relish.
In the passage, in the reeking gloom, the scene began to have an air of studied farce. The Navy officer, whose name was Richard Kaye, was a young, stoutish, florid man, whose colour rose from red to brick as he stoked his fury up. He was flanked by two silent, stolid seamen, one of whom, Tom Tilley, was a giant. He was stooped uncomfortably, even in the high 'tween-decks of the former 90-gunner, and he looked as if his ham-hands itched to break the soldier's neck. The other, boatswain Jem Taylor, small and tough and Irish-looking (although he had an England accent) was indifferent. His eyes dwelt on the unmoving face of a little black boy in a velvet suit, attached to the officer by a whited lanyard looped round his neck. The black boy's suit was also black, as were his large, soft eyes. As black as jet; and suffering.
"Well, you can tell Lieutenant Coppiner," roared the officer, "that I am here on business that cannot be delayed! My intentions were communicated two days ago, and the process is severe. I have the ship, I have the stores, I have instructions from the highest in the Board! Rouse him out, damn you! That is in order! I shall not be delayed!"
At his enormous table, groaning under piles and sheaves of paperwork, Coppiner allowed his smile to reassemble as a sneer. You jumped-up popinjay, he thought, has promotion rendered you more pompous yet? But no, not possible, you were ever a poltroon. You may fool their lordships, any man of interest can do that, but you surely can't fool me. I am lieutenant still, and you are post, I hear. Well then - you shall wait!
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the marine soldier. "I have my orders, sir, and I cannot take them different from another man, I beg your honour's pardon. Lieutenant Coppiner cannot be disturbed. He is awesome busy, sir."
Coppiner was getting pleasure out of this, great pleasure. Some of the soldiery were too dim to milk a situation, but not this young skinny redcoat. He would be rewarded for his pains.
"I know your officer!" the Navy captain bawled. "And you may not recognise the marks of rank I bear, but I am his superior!"
"Sir?" said the marine. "The lieutenant is my officer, beg your pardon, and his orders were quite clear. I cannot disobey, sir, rank notwithstanding. That I understand."
"Rank notwithstanding? Do you know who I am?"
This was too rich to be born. Coppiner, galvanic, uncoiled his long body and sloped across the deck to snatch the door back with a bang. Kaye goggled at him.
"Indeed I do, sir," said Coppiner. His voice was hearty. "Lieutenant Kaye, well met! Lieutenant Kaye!"
Kaye’s nut-brown eyes bulged dangerously. His face was almost black.
"I am Captain Kaye," he hissed. "I am captain, Coppiner, and very well you know it!"
"And I am a lieutenant," responded the lieutenant, calmly. "I would ask you to address me by my rank, sir, in front of commonality. And indeed, sir, by the by, I was not aware their lordships had confirmed. Are you indeed a captain? Or is it Acting Captain Kaye?"
All the "commonality" were as stony as the grave. However much they might appreciate this struggle, they knew to the last bone that they must not make commentary, by word, or look, or gesture. Even the tiny black boy's eyes were glazed expressionless. Indeed, his body had gone rigid when the shouting had begun, beneath soft velvet was a hardened knot of fear. Coppiner, a master of the slanted insult, moved it on.
"Of course," he added reasonably. "I know you are a hero now, which is why they made you up. So I am prepared to hail you prematurely, if it pleases you. Never let it be noised about that Coppiner despises heroes, eh? I must indeed congratulate you, Lieuten- oh! - Captain Kaye, sir. Come - may I shake you by the hand?"
As he extended it, and Kaye – defeated – shook, three men and a boy most visibly relaxed. Tom Tilley looked at Taylor, and their eyes agreed: Coppiner was a bastard, a right royal one. From their acting captain, there arose a smell of sweat.
"Now, sir," said Coppiner, briskly. "Forgive me for recalcitrance, but I ha' not forgot. You are come to me today, to my most humble kingdom, to top off your company. Remind me if I err, but it is the Indies, ain't it? You are filling up to go and save the planters from their fear of blacks. The natives are revolting, they do say. As to the planters... well. But you must go and hold their hands, and tuck them up in their distressful beds o' nights. That is correct, sir? Have I remembered right?"
Still sore, the tubby captain decided to let it lie. Coppiner was insolent, but then he always had been. At least it looked as if some men would be forthcoming. So often in the past, that had not been so. He shrugged.
"You have the right of it in part," he said. "We are headed for Jamaica, true, because there is maroon activity. There was a revolt on another island some time past, and the Squadron has the whole Carib to patrol, as well as looking out for Johnny Frenchman. The Jamaica planters fear they’re left too open to attack."
The old lieutenant nodded. It was like a pleasant conversation, Kaye felt. He was beginning to relax.
"Aye, I remember it," said Coppiner. "When the black men rose and terrorised the white, their masters." He fixed a steely eye on the little velvet boy. "I hope you have no such vicious schemes afoot," he told him sternly. "You would not cut your master’s throat, would you, while he lay sleeping near?" He smiled at Kaye. "Antigua, was it? Where the throats were cut?"
Coppiner's suggestiveness was subtle this time, although the boy, Black Bob, stiffened as if in fear of retribution. Strangely, perhaps, as in theory he had little English, hardly none at all, and was anyway assumed half-witted. But Kaye's nascent relaxation congealed back into hatred of this twisted man. He thought that someday he might kill him, or have him killed.
"You're well informed, sir, for a prester," he responded insultingly. "But I have little time for banter, Coppiner. I -"
“Lieutenant Coppiner. I thought we had agreed?"
Kaye's grip was getting tenuous. The soldier’s eyelid had begun a twitch. When officers fell out it was the men who suffered, everybody knew. Even Taylor, the coolest of cool men, had licked his lips.
"Lieutenant Coppiner," he gritted. "And I am -"
"Captain Kaye. Yes, for a courtesy. And I have a little sickener for you, captain, because – I have no men. I am sorry for it, but there it lies. Despite my best efforts, the coop is empty, I have none. You must grant me pardon."
There must be an explosion soon. Tilley stirred his mighty shoulders, letting out a tiny sigh. He wondered if he could get away with killing Coppiner, and thereby gain promotion. But he did not let his features even flicker.
"No men? But you had warning yesterday. Indeed, the word was put out at the Rondy near a week ago. The Office -"
"Is full of jumped-up little clerks! I am a receiver, Captain Kaye. I do not collect the men myself, do I? When you were on the Impress, did you not leave me dry sometimes, or am I wrong in memory? If I get men delivered I have men to place, if not, I don’t! I receive, sir! That is all I do; receive."
Kaye gritted out the words.
"You had men yesterday, and the day before. You knew my needs, you knew the timing of my orders. I was frank with you, Coppiner. Too frank."
"It is your memory that's at fault, not mine" said Coppiner, quite mildly. "Lieutenant Coppiner, remember?"
"Lieutenant then!" said Kaye. It came out as a splutter, half a shout. "And you had men, did you not!? I was told it at the rendezvous. You had half a dozen for me, according to the clerk! This mission is important, sir! Their lordships are behind it to the full! My vessel has been half-rebuilt, we are taken off the Impress, there is heavy work afoot! You had men for me and I need them still. Now! I need them now!"
What little light there had been in the passageway was fading fast. The reeking air was still, and, in the pauses of the argument, it was extremely silent. None of the creaks and groans of a living ship, no sounds of wind and cordage from the outer world. The sailors were sick of the bickering, Black Bob, uncomfortable, seemed prone to tears.
And the prester, who had a rhythm all his own, made a decisive move. He slammed his cabin door behind him, produced a key and locked it up, turned abruptly, and shouldered through without a by-your-leave. The others, save the soldier-guard, followed him – there was no other choice. As he passed a lantern, guttering in a recess, Coppiner picked it up. He curled a lip at Captain Kaye, neither smile nor scowl but complete impatience.
"They died," he said. "I thought I'd told you. I have a handful still, three or four left over from a different source, but I fear you will not relish them. Indeed, sir, they are almost diabolical, not fit to scrub your heads. But it’s all you're getting, because it's all I've got. I wish you joy of' ’em."
He knew his hulk, he knew each stinking passageway, each hatch and opening. The lantern threw a blur of light which left the others blundering, but Coppiner's pace was sure. He walked a hundred feet to a descender, and as he clattered down they had no choice but to follow his dying glow. Kaye stayed closest to him, being a clumsy man in most need of his guidance, and there were squeaks of pain from Bob as the lanyard round his neck was jerked and hauled on. Tilley and Taylor, seamen born, kept up with practised ease. In terms of space, to them, this sad old ruin of a ship was prodigal. But Christ, both thought – she stank.
Two decks down they reached the main holding area. By this time their eyes had grown accustomed more, and there were dim smoking lights at intervals along the sides. They revealed a vast expanse of dirty planking, clearer than a ship's deck cleared for action, not a mess bench, not a gun. It was like a courtyard, or a crypt. The only furniture was mounds of rusty chain, and ring-bolts. It was a prison, where lived the hopefuls, old and young, the scourings of the Press, before Lieutenant Coppiner sent them to the Navy ships he chose – most carefully – for them. He was proud of his ability, was Coppiner, to match such men to ships. To mismatch, rather. His pride was in mismatching. Mayhem for captains, and no blame to him. He revelled in it.
"You see," he said to Kaye, holding his lantern high. "Nobody. The bastards died like flies. There are your men, down there. The only good thing, they are just in from the Indies. That should joy them, should it not, to be shipped straight back again? Ah, 'tis a noble thing, a sailor's life!"
Kaye made no comment, although the news excited him. So Coppiner had been holding out, as he had thought. He'd said the men were diabolical, no good for him, and now they turned out to be West Indies hardened. That in itself was wonderful, given the rate of death among new Caribbean hands. He had heard it said that six out of ten might die if they were unlucky with the fever-rate prevailing. Clearly, Mr Vinegar had planned to keep them from him, and had failed.
However, he still could not see "his men". Then he caught a movement in the gloom, in a corner of the 'tween decks, at one end. The grim lieutenant gave a grunt.
"Aye, that's them. Captain Kaye, I am a fair man, as you know. I would not advise them, sir, you would be better off with rats. They strike to me as vicious, sir. Leave them here to rot awhile, I'll foist them off on some poor unsuspecter without your perspication. Away, sir, they are not fit!"
Kaye did not even grace that with a reply. Transparent oaf, he thought. Prime seamen, clearly, and inured to the malodours and the fluxes of the West. And he would try to keep them from him, would he? He strode across the decking with clear purpose.
"How many?" was all he said. "What are their names, what were their ships? They’re Englishmen, of course?"
There were three of them together, and one not far apart. The huddled three were lightly bearded, pale skinned, pale haired, and curly. As Kaye and Coppiner got nearer, followed at a short distance by the seamen and the boy on lanyard, they turned a gaze upon them that was like the odd gaze of an animal, three pairs of eyes but singular.
Although of slightly different ages, the men were virtually identical, peas from one pod, a creature with three faces but one look. Their bodies were close-touching, also; in the gloom one could not sort or separate. Three faces like sharp axes, long, angled noses, high bones underneath the eyes, pale eyes of the lightest grey, thin, hard, unforgiving lips, tight compressed.
"Not English, Scotchmen," Coppiner responded. "From Aberdeen, someone has told me. Not them, they tell me nothing, do you, boys? They’re Scotch, from Aberdeen. First fisher folk, then slavers. Ain't that so, boys? Ain't it?"
"And they are brothers?" said Kaye, a note of wonder in his voice.
Coppiner laughed, dryly, as if to call him fool for statement of the obvious. Indeed the sharp axe faces were so clearly of one mother born, the wonder was that she herself could have told them apart. Their clear eyes gazed at Kaye without apparent animosity.
"Scotchmen, eh?" he said, heartily. "Well I have been to Scotland, boys, and fine seamen you will be, I'm sure of it. You will like my ship, the Biter. The cook is from those parts, Geoff Somebody his name. Do you know him?"
Coppiner’s lined face twisted to a grin of bare-concealed derision. Tilley coughed into his hand, even Bosun Taylor smiled. He was relaxed, though, as if his captain’s comment was the soul of sense.
"Raper," Taylor murmured. Then, louder, "Geoff Raper, of Buckie, I believe. No insides, one leg. If you've ever met him you'll not have forgotten, that's for certainty." The Scotsmen's eyes did not even flicker. They were self-contained, indifferent. "She's a good ship," Taylor ended lamely. "Man could do worse than ship with us."
"They have no choice," said Coppiner, concisely. "Captain – an' you want them, they are yours. Let it be remembered for the record, though, that I've vouchsafed my opinion. They are the lowest scum. I'd only have them on my ship in irons. It is my fairest warning."
"You make a meal of it," Kaye said, dismissively. "I'll wager you I have lower scum on board my ship than these McTavishes." He paused, as if he'd just remembered something. "Christ, talking of Geoff Raper, can you speak English? Our peg leg cook cannot, hardly. It is like a bag of porridge, with a voice. Speak me some words. You, sir, what is your real name? Not McTavish, I'll be bound?"
Whichever one he had spoken to, not one of them replied. There was a silence for a moment, then strangely, Coppiner stepped in.
"Not McTavish but Lamont," he said. "Captain Kaye, my time is getting short, I must move on, and getting these grim brothers to converse is something you'll do easier with a rattan in your hand. They are Scotch and they are painful. If you want one other man I have an Irish, and he is worse. He came off the same returning fleet as them, and they were fighting when they were took. Like them he knows the waters, though. He claims he shipped out as a freeman planter, then fell down on his luck."
"A dirty Irish, eh?" said Kaye. "There'll be no truth in that shit then, the Irish are not freemen ever, are they? Not in their nature. Where is the dog?"
The man had been in sight the while, although in a dim corner, leaning on a grown-oak knee. His dark and hairy face turned on them now, and he raised a hand in mock salute. He spoke words that sounded like a greeting, but they were not English, or if so were no wise comprehensible.
"You, sir," snapped Kaye. "You are in England now, I command that you speak our language. Can you speak it? Can you?"
"Sir, I can," he said. "And I can sing in it, as well. Can you speak Irish? Now that's a question."
"Ah, Christ, an imbecile," said Kaye. He turned to Coppiner. "All right, Lieutenant Prester. Three good men, one bad and imbecile. It is a fair crack, in this day and age. Let us go aft and sign the papers. I must to the Rondy, then the Office."
The Irishman, arms wide, had started singing. His voice was deep, mellifluous, although the words could not easily be caught. The standing men, and the small black boy, caught off their guard, were listening. The voice rose powerfully, it filled the reeking gloom. The last lines throbbed with a sort of irony.
Leave old England, westward go
Sail for the Indies -
Where golden grass doth grow.
For a moment when he'd finished there was a silence. Who would speak first, Kaye or Coppiner? Who was aggrieved the most?
The man spoke, himself.
"It is a West Indies song," he said. "We sing it still." His voice was sombre. "Men go there with high hopes, and are betrayed by them. There is no golden grass. I was two years finding out, three years escaping. Now you will take me back. I curse you for it, captain. I curse you for it."
Later that night, talking to the mirror with a bottle in his hand, Lieutenant Coppiner was lavish with self-praise.
"I played him for a booby and I won," he said. He took a giant quaff of wine, sweet, heavy, red, and watched it running down his chin. He took another quaff, and laughed. "They bring me men who should be hanged," he said. "They land me with their rogues, their rats, their scum, their dregs, and tell me I must set them up on ships, which is impossible. And then I get Lieutenant Kaye - a captain, pah! - and play him like a penny violin."
One more full mouth, and self-pity began its cruel blight. He saw it in his mirrored eyes, he opened lips to speak again – but found that he could not. Oh God, they've made him post, he thought. And me they praise up to the skies, I do their filthy work for them, and I will never, ever rise. I rid of them of their awful scum, I fill their ships for them, and Captain Booby is their latest captain.
Coppiner, dead drunk as usual once he’d wet his lips, dropped the bottle and lay down beside it. It was his baby, leaking at the neck. Peter Coppiner wept tears for it, gently, because his baby made him ill so very quick, because he could drink so little any more. He could still match any man to ship, though, however terrible that man, if he could find a penny violin to play. The three Scotchmen were murderers, it was thought. They had fled from the Carib rather than be hung. Now Richard Kaye would take them back again.
"And he thinks he has a bargain," thought Coppiner. "I would that I could join him in the West to see!"
He pulled the bottle across the planking to his face, placed the neck between his lips, and sucked.
"I wish you joy of them," he mumbled, as the wine leaked down. "Great joy."
Chapter Two
In the months since he had seen her, Will Bentley's ship, the Biter, had been transformed. At first, racing towards her in the two-man wherry hired at the bridge, he did not recognise her lying at the Deptford tiers. Both topmasts were taller, and her topgallant poles seemed white and willowy. Indeed, the whole ship gleamed, with yellow paint and varnish in overwhelming evidence. Her stern was somehow higher, her sprit more raked. From a standard old ex-coal tub, she had taken on a raffish air. And all her canvas, at the yards, was new and creamy white.
"Is that the Biter, then?" he mused, aloud. The boatmen glanced at him but did not bother to reply. It's a fine Navy officer that doesn't know his own ship, they probably were thinking. And also – typical.
But Biter had been changed, completely for the better. As they swung round across the ebb and nudged up to the boats tethered at the boom, he could smell fresh linseed, cord and tallow, and discern new cleanliness. Above the waterline, at least, she could have been a new-builder. Below it, though, he noticed quite long fronds, and – obscurely – was comforted. This ship, which he had never thought to see again, still had secrets, dirty ones. As he passed his coins and climbed up the ladder like a gentleman, he wetted dry lips. Ah well, he thought: it was either this or hanging, when all's said.
The first man that he saw when on the deck was the sturdy boatswain, Taylor, who recognised him with frank surprise. But moved with characteristic speed and seamanship to catch Will's leather sea-bag that came flying across the rail from the wherry, unannounced.
"Ho, Jem," said Bentley, with a brittle bonhomie. "I thought that I had come to the wrong ship."
"Perhaps you have, sir," replied Taylor, with a smile. Then he caught himself, and added, almost formally: "Nay, sir, she is the Biter still, but a little different. It is more Navy fashion, sir. We are not pirates any longer, nor yet ruffians of the Press. Captain Kaye is a captain, he is Post. We’re to say prayers on Sundays."
Will had liked Jem Taylor in the times before, a liking that was mutual. But the slackness of Kaye's vessel had been notorious, and could never last. Both of them knew it, standing there. They were awkward.
"She is looking fine," he said. "And is Captain Kaye on board, or any other officer?"
"No, sir, it is you so far. How should I call you, sir? It was indicated... well, Captain Kaye... it's said you are Lieutenant Bentley, now?"
Bentley could feel a reddening. "And you thought" (he would have liked to say) "that I was still in jail." But he did not. He muttered gruffly: "Aye, I am Lieutenant Bentley, Acting. I have not... ah, to hell with it!"
The poop-break door was opening, so they were off the hook. A tall, heavy man was stooping out, and man dressed in London finery, a city man or merchant. Behind the silk and ruffles, Will saw to his astonishment that it was a man he knew.
"Ah yes, sir," Taylor breathed. "It is Mr Gunning. He has sold her to their lordships, sir, but he is helping Captain Kaye to work her up. As you can see, sir, he got a noble price!"
The Spithead Nymph - author's note
Heroes - the writer's rationale
