An Eye of the Fleet (11 page)

‘. . . total abstinence to which end I do earnestly implore you to bend and address your best endeavours . . .'

The arrival of the women brought all hands on deck. Men craned over the hammock nettings, leaned from gunports and ascended the lower rigging to leer at the wherries bobbing alongside.

The hands gave no thought to the fact that what was to follow was no substitute for proper shore leave, something they could not have for fear they might desert. The immediate preoccupation was a debauch.

Women and gin were aboard.

Whilst Wheeler and his marines made a token effort to maintain order the usage of the service permitted all classes of women to board and all offences of drunkenness and fornication to be ignored. It was inevitable therefore that the greater part of the women were whores and that the mess-deck deteriorated instantly into an inferno of desperate debauchery. The women were of various ages: tired, painted and blowsy doxies in worn and soiled dresses whose vernacular was as explicit as ‘Jolly Jacks', and younger molls, their youth blown on the winds of experience, their eyes dull with the
desperate business of survival.

Some few were bona fide wives. The older among them used to their sisters in trade, the two or three younger astonished and shocked at the dim squalor of the gun deck. Where, perhaps, a poor counting house clerk had been pressed into the service his wife, possessing some slender claim to gentility, found her husband living in the vilest conditions. Such women instantly became a butt for the others to vent their coarse wit upon, which was a double tragedy since their husbands had probably just managed to live down their genteel origins. Legitimate wives were quickly recognised by their demeanour at the entry port, for they waved chits and passes at the marine sentries.

These genuine spouses looked earnestly for their husbands and avoided the leering and grasping propositions of others. For several such wives their journey ended in battle royal. Not expecting their spouses, men were engaged in coupling with whores. One enormous creature, the churched wife of a yeoman of sheets, found her man thus occupied between two twelve pounders. She belaboured his heaving buttocks with the tattered remnants of a parasol. A stream of filthy invective poured from her and she was quickly surrounded by a mass of cheering seamen and harlots who egged the trio on. The wife ceased her beating and took a long pull at a gin bottle someone held out to her. In the interval her husband finished his business and, to a cheer, the girl wriggled out from beneath him, hastily covering herself. She held out her hand for money but changed her mind when she saw the expression in the wife's eyes. She dodged under the barrel of the adjacent cannon as the offended lady screeched at her, ‘Try and take the money that's mine ye painted trollop, why, ye don't know y're business well enough to axe fur it fust!'

At this remark the yeoman caught his wife's arm and slapped her across the mouth with ‘And how in hell's name ud youm be knowin' that, my Polly?'

The crowd melted away for this was now a domestic matter and not the common property of the gun deck.

All day the ebb and flow of liaisons took place. What little money the men had soon found its way into the pockets of the women. Mr Copping, the purser, in the manner of his race, set up a desk at which the eager men could sign a docket relinquishing a portion of their pay or prize money for an
advance of cash. Many thus exceeded the dictates of prudence, the favours of a woman being a most urgent requirement. Thus were pursers a hated breed, though rarely a poor one.

Meteor
rowed a dismal guard around
Cyclops
. Occasionally a bottle or a woman's drawers would be thrown out of an open gunport to an accompaniment of cheers and shrieks. The cutter's crew visibly smouldered and at one point she ran in and hailed the quarterdeck. The master's mate in charge of the boat was livid.

‘Sir,' he yelled at Lieutenant Keene, ‘Y're men show no respect. There are three of them baring their arses at me from y're gun ports . . .'

Appleby joined the chuckling lieutenant who disdained to reply.

‘Sure you did not bare yours at Mahon, mister?' enquired the surgeon.

There was no reply. ‘That found its mark, eh lieutenant?' said Appleby as the man looked sulkily away.

‘If the ship offends ye, sirrah, row guard round the rest of the fleet. Ye'll get little pickings from this lot!'

The master's mate spat overside and snarled at his boat's crew ‘Give way you damned lubbers.'

During the forenoon the wife of the man Sharples made her appearance at the entry port. She was very young and, though few knew it, had made the journey from Chatham purely on the chance of seeing her husband. The journey had taken a week and her expectant condition had made of it a nightmare.

But Sharples had seen her board and embraced her at the entry port amid the sentimental cheers of his messmates. No one had seen the sour look on the face of Mr Midshipman Morris who happened to be passing at the time. No one, that is, except Tregembo who, by another coincidence, was in search of Morris.

As Sharples and his wife, clasped together, stepped over the prostrate, active bodies, oblivious of the parodies of love enactèd all about them, Tregembo stepped up to Morris and touched his forelock.

‘Beg pardon, Mr Morris,' said Tregembo with exaggerated politeness, ‘Lieutenant Keene's orders and will ye take the launch over to flag for orders.'

Morris snarled at Tregembo then a gleam of viciousness showed in his eyes. Calling a bosun's mate known for ‘starting' he strode forward. As he went he called men's names. They were the least desirable of
Cyclops
's company. A few, otherwise engaged, told him to go to the devil, one or two he let off, the rest he left to the bosun's mate.

At the forward end of the gun deck Morris ran his quarry to earth. Sharples and his wife lay on the deck. Her head was pillowed on his hammock and her face wore a look of unbelieving horror. Her man, father of her unborn child whose image she had cherished, lay sobbing in her arms. The whole foul story of Morris had poured out of him for there was no way he could be a man to her until he had unburdened himself. Sharples was unaware of the presence of Morris until the author of his misfortune had been standing over the pair for a whole minute.

‘Sharples!' called Morris in a voice which cut through the unhappy man's monologue. ‘You are required for duty.'

The girl knew instinctively the identity of the intruder and struggled to her knees, ‘No! No!' she protested.

Morris grinned. ‘Are you questioning my orders?'

The girl faced Morris, biting her lip.

‘I can report you for obstructing an officer in the execution of his duty. The punishment is a flogging . . . your husband is already guilty of disobeying orders in having a hammock out of the nettings . . .' He spat the words in her face. This threat to his wife revived Sharples who pulled his wife gently aside.

‘W-what orders, Mr Morris?'

‘Man the launch.'

The topman hesitated. He was not in the boat's crew. ‘Aye, aye;' then turning to his wife he whispered ‘I'll be back.'

The girl collapsed sobbing on the deck and one of the older women, to whom midshipmen were small fry, put an arm around her. A stream of filth followed Morris down the deck.

The launch was absent three hours. After a while the girl, disgusted with the scenes on the gun deck, sought fresh air and light on deck. Finding her way to the forward companionway she groped her way to the starboard side where she made a little bright patch against the coils of black hemp belayed and hung upon the pinrail.

Staring out over the bright waters of Spithead she touched
the life quickening within her. Her heart was full to bursting with her misery. The horrors of her week-long journey rose again before her at a time when she had thought to be burying them in happiness. Shame for her man and for herself, shame for the unborn child and for the depths of degradation to which one human could subject another welled up within her. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

Her eyes stared out unseeing at the ships lying to the tide. She was a small, broken piece of the price Britain paid for its naval puissance.

It was some time before old Blackmore noticed the lonely figure forward. He had relieved Keene of the deck and soon sent Drinkwater to turn the woman below again. Blackmore, trained in the merchant service, retained his civilian prejudice for refusing women leave to come on board. He sighed. In the merchant service a master gave his crew shore leave. If they wished to visit a brothel that was their affair, but they could be relied upon to return to their ship. The navy's fear of desertion prevented any liberty and resulted in the drunken orgy at present in progress between decks. If the old sailing master could do nothing to alter the crazy logic of Admiralty he was damned if he would have the upper deck marred by the presence of a whore.

Drinkwater approached the girl. In her preoccupation she did not hear him. He coughed and she turned, only to blench at his uniform. She drew back against the coils of hemp imagining Morris's threat of a flogging about to be carried out.

‘Excuse me ma'am,' began Drinkwater, unsure of himself. The woman was obviously distressed. ‘The Master's compliments and would you please to go below . . .'

She looked at him uncomprehending.

‘Please ma'am,' the midshipman pleaded, ‘None of you, er, ladies are permitted above decks.' She began to perceive his meaning and his embarrassment. Her courage rallied. Here was one she could answer back.

‘D'you think I'm one of them 'arlots?' she asked indignantly. Drinkwater stepped back and the girl gained more spirit from his discomfiture.

‘I'm a proper wife,
Mrs
Sharples to the likes o'you, and I journeyed a week to see my 'usband Tom . . .' she hesitated and Drinkwater tried to placate her.

‘Then, please ma'am, will ye go to Sharples and bide with him.'

She rose in scorn. ‘Aye willingly, Mister Officer, if ye'll return him to me but he's out there . . . ,' she waved over the side, ‘off in a boat, an' me with child and a week on the road only to find 'im beat and, and . . .' here she could not bring herself to say more and her courage failed her. She stepped forward and fainted into the arms of a confused Drinkwater. Then in an intuitive flash he realised she knew of her husband's humiliation.

He called aft for Appleby and the surgeon puffed up along the gangway. A glance took in the lady's condition and her nervous state. Appleby chafed her wrists and sent Drinkwater off for sal volatile from his chest. A few minutes later the girl recovered consciousness. Blackmore had come up and demanded an explanation. Having made an enquiry on passing through the gun deck en route to the surgeon's chest, Drinkwater was able to tell the master that Sharples had gone off in the launch with Morris. ‘But the man's not in the launch crew.'

‘I know, Mr Blackmore,' replied Drinkwater.

‘Did Morris single him out?'

‘It appears so, sir.' Drinkwater shrugged and bit his lip.

‘D'ye have any idea why?' asked Blackmore, shrewdly noticing the midshipman's face shadowed by doubtful knowledge. Drinkwater hesitated. It was more eloquent than words.

‘Come on now, young shaver, if ye know, let's have it out.'

The midshipman swallowed hard. He looked at the distressed girl, golden curls fell about a comely face and she looked like a damsel in distress. Drinkwater burnt his boats.

‘Morris has been buggering her husband,' he said in a low voice.

‘And Sharples?' enquired Blackmore.

‘He was forced, sir . . .'

Blackmore gave Drinkwater another hard look. He did not have to ask more. Long experience had taught him what had occurred. Morris would have bullied Drinkwater, may even have offered him physical violence or worse. The old man was filled with a loathing for this navy that ran on brutality.

‘Let the lady get some air,' said Blackmore abruptly and
turned aft for the quarterdeck.

When the launch returned Sharples was reunited with his wife. He had endured three hours of abuse and ridicule from Morris and his boat's crew.

Having delivered the Admiral's orders Morris made his way to the cockpit.

Drinkwater had also been relieved and going below he met Tregembo. The Cornishman was grinning. He held in his hand two ash sticks, each three feet long, with a guard of rattan work obviously untwisted from one of the blacksmith's withy chisels. ‘Here, zur,' said Tregembo. Drinkwater took the sticks.

Drinkwater looked at Tregembo. He had better let the man know what had happened on the upper deck before it became known below.

‘The Master knows Morris has been buggering Sharples, Tregembo. You'd better watch Threddle . . .'

A cloud crossed the Cornishman's face and then he brightened again. The midshipman was not such a disappointment after all.

‘Ye'll thrash him easy, zur. Good luck . . .' Drinkwater continued below. He had uttered words that could hang a man, words that he would never have dared to utter at home. And now he felt ice cold, apprehensive but determined . . .

In the cockpit Morris and the other midshipmen were eating, mugs of ale at their places. The messman produced a plate for Drinkwater. He waved it aside, went to his place and, standing, cleared his throat.

‘H'hmm.' Nobody took any notice. The blood pounded in his throat and adrenalin poured into his blood stream. But still he was cool. ‘Mr Morris!' he shouted. He had their attention now.

‘Mr Morris. This morning you threatened me and struck me . . .' A master's mate put his head in through the canvas door. The tableau was lit by two lanterns even at two p.m. here in the orlop. The air crackled with tension. Two master's mates were now looking on.

Morris rose slowly to his feet. Drinkwater did not see the apprehension turning to fear in his eyes. He was too busy remaining cool.