Girl on the Orlop Deck (12 page)

‘No they ain’t,’ Peg said easily. ‘Stromboli is that. ’Tis a volcano and that’s what volcanoes do. There’s another one up Naples way. Smokes like a chimbley.’

‘Never mind Stromboli,’ Marianne said. ‘’Tis an ill omen, that’s what’s
that
is. A blamed ill omen, all afire like that. ’Tis a-showin’ us what’s like to happen when we meets the Frenchies, an’ the sooner we gets away from it the better ’twill be for us.’ The sight of it was making her shiver.

It took them quite a while to negotiate the narrow passage because it was crowded with small boats and the wind was contrary. They had to work the ship hard to make headway, but she kept an eye on the fiery mountain all the way. Oh, if only they could put into a port and she could jump ship.

And then, when they were through the channel and in clear water and she was beginning to put the horrid image from her mind, Johnny Galley came striding up to her to tell her she was wanted in the galley. She followed him, hoping it really was the galley and not the cabin, but he took the wrong direction as soon as they were down the
companionway
.

‘No, Johnny,’ she said, stopping by the nearest cannon and putting her hand on it to steady herself. ‘I en’t in the humour.’

‘’Course you’re in the humour,’ he said, looking back at her and winking. ‘I never know’d you when you wasn’t. Come on. We en’t got more’n a minute or two.’ And he went striding off towards the
wardroom
.

She followed him although she didn’t want to and she knew it was a foolish thing to do. But she was in the most peculiar mood, heavily aware of her swollen belly, full of fear, resentful, irritable, prickling with superstition, the image of the mountain filling her mind with fire.

He opened the door and shoved her into the cabin. ‘Now let’s have no more nonsense,’ he said and pushed up her jacket. Then he paused and looked at her belly. ‘My stars,’ he said, ‘you put on some weight, en’tcher? No wonder you say you en’t in the humour. I shall have ter cut your portion.’ But he was joking and his face was full of delight at the sight of her. That rounded belly was giving him the itch most pleasurable.

She was stung to a sudden and quite bitter fury. ‘Never mind put on weight,’ she said pushing his hands away. ‘I’ll have you know, that’s your weight I’m a-carryin’.’

He was unbuttoning her breeches. ‘What you on about?’ he said. ‘You en’t never a-tellin’ me ’tis my fault you’m so plump.’

‘Well, if it’s not your fault,’ she said, ‘I don’t know whose fault it is.’

The understanding of what she was telling him took several seconds.
Then his face darkened into an ugliness she hadn’t seen before. ‘Now look ’ee here,’ he said, ‘you better watch your mouth if you’re goin’ to say things like that. If you’m in the family way ’tis none of my affair. Make your mind up to it and don’t go sayin’ it is. You could have me flogged you say things like that.’

‘Don’t you care what you done to me?’ she said, appalled at his unkindness.

‘I en’t done nothin’ to ’ee,’ he said. ‘Nothin’. Understand? An’ don’t you go a-sayin’ I have, or I’ll take a marlin spike to ’ee, so I will.’

She was trembling with fear and fury. She couldn’t stay in that hot smelly cabin with him another second. She buttoned her breeches with shaking hands, struggled to open the door and ran. Her heart was still juddering with distress when she emerged on deck and she was achingly close to weeping. She could feel the tears rising in her throat and pricking her nose. She needed to hide away and cry out her grief the way she’d done as a child whenever she was beaten. But there was no privacy aboard ship, no hidden corners, no larders or cupboards, no quiet fields where there was no one to see her except the corn or the cattle. Ships were hateful places chock full of hateful people and she’d got to go on living on this one until they put into port and she could escape. ‘Please God,’ she prayed, ‘put us into port soon. I know I didn’t keep my side a’ the bargain last time but I’m on my own now an’ I got to look after myself and this baby an’ if I can’t jump ship I don’t know what’ll become of us. For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.’

They sailed east for the next two weeks and never went near a port. In fact, the frigates were kept so busy that there was no time to think and very little time to sleep and they even had to take on provisions at sea. The Admiral was fidgety with impatience, sending every available frigate to keep watch at every likely meeting place. The
Amphion
went to Tunis, where nobody had anything to report and they couldn’t go ashore even if they’d been able to enter the harbour because it was full of Musclemen and their ships; to Malta, where they stayed outside the harbour and met up with one of Admiral Ball’s frigates at sea and, to nobody’s surprise, were told that they had nothing to report. Then they went to Toulon, where nothing was happening and to Koroni, where nothing was happening, and then back to Malta for the second time, where they met up with their own fleet but didn’t sail into harbour, and finally the entire
fleet took sail to Alexandria, which lay hot and stinking in the full glare of the Mediterranean sun and couldn’t be visited. It was springtime by then and as hot as summer at that latitude and Marianne was mightily uncomfortable in her heavy jacket with the baby swelling her belly further and further with every passing day.

I
must
get off this ship, she thought, pausing in her labours to rest her back, I
must
, I just
must
, or I shall have to hide away in the hold and have the baby there, all in among the rats a-scuttling and scrabbling about and the bilge water stinking to high heaven and I don’t know what-all, and what will become of us if I has to do that I dreads for to think. Her thoughts were scuttling and scrabbling in panic. It was all very well for Peg and Moll to promise they’d help but what could they do? They were women dressed as boys and they didn’t know any more about birthing a baby than she did. If she was home in Portsmouth, she would have her mother to help her and probably old Mother Catty as well, for she helped with all the babies. But what was the good of thinking about that now? She was here, in this prison of a ship and all on her own. That was the truth of it. And she would have to go on with it all on her own with her shipmates giving her the oddest looks and Johnny Galley ignoring her and everything as bad as it could be. Oh, if only she could jump ship.

They stayed outside Alexandria until the Admiral had satisfied himself that the French were not about to attack the place and that there was no sign of them in the Eastern Mediterranean, then he sent orders that they were all to sail back to Malta. The order renewed Marianne’s hope and set her planning again. If he would just let them into the harbour, just once, even for an hour or two. That was all she needed. It lifted her spirits quite wonderfully to see the island again, its familiar stonework the colour of honey under the Spring sun and all those houses embedded in the hillside and the old fortifications solid as rocks and the dome of the cathedral shining pink. As soon as she could slip away, she went below, took her purse from her ditty bag and tied it round her thickened waist under her breeches. They were bound to take on water, if nothing else, and now she was ready. She climbed back on deck, excited and determined, prepared to obey all orders to the letter provided they were going to take her into the release of that harbour.

It was an aching disappointment to discover that, yet again, they were going to stay at sea. ‘What’s the matter with him?’ she said to Peg as the
two of them stood by the capstan awaiting orders. ‘We got a fair wind. We could be in and out in less time than it takes to shake a lamb’s tail.’

‘In, I daresay,’ Peg told her sagely, ‘but ’tis the getting out what worries our Nelson. He likes to weigh anchor the minute he hears news and if that ol’ wind was to be against him in that pertic’lar harbour, what it is at the moment what you got to allow, he couldn’t move so much as an inch, not nohow, there bein’ onny the one way out.’

‘So here we’m stuck an’ here we stay,’ Marianne grumbled, ‘what I don’t think much of.’

‘Aye,’ Peg said. ‘That’s about the size of it. Patience is a virtue at sea.’

‘I en’t got no patience,’ Marianne said. ‘I gone past that. An’ I en’t got no time neither.’

‘There’s a boat a-coming,’ Peg said, looking towards the harbour. ‘Very grand affair. Maybe ’tis news.’

They watched as the grand affair was rowed to the
Victory
and a grand looking gentleman in a cocked hat was piped aboard. Marianne was saying her prayers again. Please God let it be something what’ll take us into harbour. Just for an hour. That’s all I need. One hour. Please God, for Thine is the kingdom. But then eight bells rang and it was time to go below for dinner and they couldn’t watch any longer.

There
was
news, but it didn’t help Marianne in the slightest and it infuriated Lord Nelson. The French fleet had given him the slip once again and was back in Toulon. It was, as he told Captain Hardy, enough to try the patience of a saint. But saintly or not, he had to endure it. That afternoon he set sail for the French coast prepared to resume his long, long watch.

The weeks passed in their enervatingly familiar way. The frigates were sent on one reconnaissance after another and all to no purpose. They took on fresh supplies of water and lemons at various watering holes, none of them ports. They sailed and watched and the weeks went by. And then history suddenly repeated itself. The frigate
Phoebe
appeared, flying the message that the enemy were at sea.

‘This time,’ his gunners told one another, ‘we shall catch the beggars and see ’em off once an’ for all.’

Frigates were sent to watch all the vantage points. The
Active
reported seeing a French fleet of eleven of the line, seven frigates and two brigs heading south-south-west with all sails set. Three supply ships joined the fleet and transferred their goods at sea. The wait went on. The Admiral’s
impatience was acute, the gunners grew tetchy, and Marianne was in a fever of fear and frustration. Then news came that put Nelson in a temper.

Villeneuve’s French fleet had been joined by six Spanish ships under the command of Admiral Gravina and the now combined and
formidable
fleet, totalling at least eighteen sail of the line, had passed unhindered through the Straits of Gibraltar and were on their way to the West Indies. There was nothing for it but to gather the British fleet together and give chase, for now it was Jamaica and the sugar islands that were under threat. He wrote a farewell message to Admiral Ball to keep him informed of the turn of events.

‘
My lot is cast,’
he said,
‘and I am going to the West Indies, where, although I am late, yet chance may have given them a bad passage and may give me a good one: I must hope the best
.’ Then he sent a sloop to Barbados to forewarn them that he was coming and to request an embargo on all ships in port so as to prevent news of his approach reaching the enemy, and on the evening of 11 May he sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar and out into the Atlantic.

Marianne was quite heartened to be sailing past the rock. ‘Then we’m a-goin’ home,’ she said to Peg. ‘We must be, don’t ’ee think? An’ not afore time.’

It was a profound shock to her when they continued west instead of heading north round the coast of Spain, and a worse one when Moll told her where they were really going. ‘Is it far?’ she asked, her mouth trembling.

‘’Tis half way round the world, accordin’ to Johnny Galley,’ Moll said.

‘An how long’s that a-goin’ to take?’

‘Months,’ Moll said. ‘Accordin’ to Johnny. Even if we gets a fair wind. He’s a bad lot but he knows what’s a-goin’ on.’

‘I can’t go half way round the world,’ Marianne wailed. ‘How can I jump ship if I’m goin’ half way round the world? ’Twill be the death a’ me.’

But her friends couldn’t console her or give her any hope of a different outcome. ‘What’s to come will come,’ Moll told her. ‘An’ that’s all there is to it. We’ve all got to make up our minds to it.’

You en’t carrying, Marianne thought, looking at her friend’s
weather-browned
face and thinking how hard it was. You’d say different if you was. She put a hand on her belly and rubbed the place where she could
feel her baby squirming under the skin. You’ll be born in the hold, you poor little thing, she thought. That’s what’ll happen to ’ee. And it seemed most unfair to her. It was bad enough that she had to accept such a punishment, but she’d reneged on a solemn bargain so she had to admit she deserved it. But to punish her baby along with her was cruel beyond belief. Oh if only she hadn’t given in to Johnny Galley.

J
EM
T
EMPLEMAN ENJOYED
his passage across the Atlantic. ‘This is the life!’ he said to Tom, as the two of them stood by the ship’s rail, chewing tobacco in their customary way and watching the vast
blue-green
sea as it rolled away from them towards the distant horizon. They’d been sailing for more than a fortnight, and now they were scudding along before the famous trade winds, making good time, eating and drinking well and with very little work to do. The sun warmed them by day and the moon lit their passing by night and now and then a school of dolphins arrived to keep them company, curving sleek, blue/black and joyous from the white foam frothing at their bows. After their long, enervating battle with the winter storms of the Mediterranean they were as warm and idle as lords.

Tom was growing a beard. He scratched the irritating stubble on his chin and grinned at his friend. ‘What did I tell ’ee?’ he said. ‘I knowed we’d be a-headin’ west. We shall see some sights in the Indies, you mark my words.’

Jem grinned at him. ‘If we don’t meet up with Johnny Frenchman on the way,’ he said.

‘No fear a’ that,’ Tom said. ‘Johnny Frenchman’s on the run an’ don’t mean for to be caught.’

And long may it continue, Jem thought, although he didn’t say so for fear of being thought a coward. He just leant on the rail, chewed his baccy and looked out at the rest of the fleet as it sailed formidably all around him, letting the sight of it lift his spirits.

‘No,’ Tom went on philosophically, ‘we shan’t see Johnny Frenchman, till we’m in sight a’ land an’ he can make a bolt for it if we gets too hot for him. You mark my words, he en’t one for a fight. More of a cut an’ run man is Johnny Frenchman. We shall catch him come the finish an’
give him such a trouncing he won’t darken no doors ever again, like we done to the Danes at Copenhagen. Now that
was
a battle an’ no mistake.’

There was something about the tilt of his head that made Jem envious. He knows what he’s talking about, he thought. That’s the voice of experience. ‘You were there?’ he said.

‘I was,’ Tom said, with a modestly understated pride. ‘Wasn’t a gunner in them days, mind you, only a powder monkey, but ’twas hot work I can tell ’ee. I seen men blowed to bits afore my eyes. But we won through come the finish and came home with a deal a’ prize money. Which is what we’ll do when we’ve trounced Johnny Frenchman, you mark my words. You can buy your ol’ lady a new bonnet. Make her sweet again.’

Jem shrugged. ‘She’ll have forgot what I look like,’ he said
lugubriously
.

‘Not if you comes home with a pocketful a’ silver,’ Tom told him. ‘Makes a deal a’ difference does a pocketful a’ silver.’

It was hurting Jem to realize how completely
he’d
forgotten what
she
looked like. He could only remember her hair although he was pushing his brain hard. ‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘’Tis all over now. Too much water under the bridge.’

‘Or over the ocean,’ Tom grinned.

That made them both laugh. He’s a good mate, Jem thought. He’d stick by you, come what may. The thought was cheering and washed away his annoyance at not being able to remember Marianne’s face. But he couldn’t help wondering how she was and what she was doing. She
was
his wife when all was said and done. 

The
Amphion
was in the van, under full sail and less than half a league behind the
Victory
, and Marianne was down in the hold of the ship, looking for a dark corner where she could birth her baby if the worst came to the worst. It was a dank and fearsome place and it stunk to high heaven, for the bilge was sour after so many months at sea. The orlop deck had been bad enough because that was immediately below the gun deck and directly above the hold and the stench had risen into her nostrils through every crevice and with every movement of the ship and besides that it was painted red which made her think of blood and men being brought down there to have their arms and legs cut off. But at least in the hold it was quiet and empty and nobody was likely to die there,
and it was very dark for there were no candles alight, although there were sconces on the bulkheads. Providing she made no noise – could you birth a baby without making any noise? – she could keep hidden well enough. I’ll bring an old jacket down, she planned, and hide it in the flour sacks and then I’ll have something to wrap the poor little mite in to keep it warm. It made her feel better to be planning and she climbed back to the orlop deck pleased to have made her decision. But she was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn’t hear the footsteps coming down the companionway until the surgeon was standing before her.

‘What’s this?’ Mr Murgatroyd said, scowling at her, his eyes sharp in the half light. ‘Have you been in the hold, boy? Well let me tell ’ee, there’s no food for you to steal down there.’

Marianne tried to gather her wits and find a suitable excuse for being where she was. ‘Please, sir,’ she said, ‘I come down to find you, sir. I was wondering if you needed any more loblollies.’

‘No, I don’t,’ the surgeon said. ‘And if you’d wanted to ask you should have spoken to your lieutenant. There was no need to come lurking down here. Be off with ’ee. I don’t hold with boys lurking below decks and especially fat ones.’

She went – quickly – before he could start thinking of punishments. But she’d found her place and, bad though it was, it would do. It would have to.

The long chase continued and they made good time, which her
shipmates
said was a fine thing and would buck the Admiral up no end. The baby grew and wriggled but stayed where it was. Her belly was now so big she was teased about it at every meal and called ‘Fatty’ and ‘Pudden’ and told she ate a deal too much and, when she didn’t answer, she was pushed and slapped by her mocking messmates until her back was sore and arms were bruised. Johnny Galley served her very small portions, scowled at her if she dared to look at him and never said a word to her.

As the days passed, she worked more and more slowly and found it difficult to stand through the service of a Sunday and for most of her time she was wretched with fatigue. But she made what preparations she could. When her messmates were skylarking in the rigging, or mending their clothes, or sitting about listening to ghost stories, she found a quiet corner, sharpened her knife, cut her brother’s old shirt into two
baby-sized
pieces so that she could make a long gown. With its roughly cut edges it didn’t look particularly elegant and it was badly sewn together,
for she only had a sailor’s tough thread, but it was a gown so at least the child wouldn’t be left naked, and what was left of the shirt would make clouts to use to clean herself with when the poor little thing had been born. Finally, on a quiet forenoon watch when the ship was skimming along and nobody was looking, she crept below and hid the gown and the clouts among the flour sacks. Then there was nothing more she could do but wait.

The sea was endless, the days were endless, the weeks passed endlessly and nothing happened. Then they woke one morning to find that they were being followed by a foreign ship that looked like a merchantman.

Johnny Galley told his mess-mates it was an enemy privateer ‘what’ll report back to the Frenchies. You mark my words.’

‘Better not come within gunshot, if that’s the style of it,’ they said, ‘or we’ll give un what-for.’

But the ship stayed well out of range of their guns and, after tailing them for two days, it disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared and they were on their own again.

‘’Tis June now seemingly,’ Peg said, as they were scrubbing the decks one salty morning. ‘Or so the lieutenant was a-saying. Third a’ June accordin’ to his reckoning. We must be there soon, surely to goodness. We been sailin’ for weeks.’

Marianne was feeling out of sorts that morning. Her belly was as taut as a drum-skin, her titties were sore, her back ached, her legs ached, her head ached and, if she’d been left alone, she would have stayed in her hammock and slept the morning away, so she grunted and went on scrubbing. What was it to her that it was June? One day was as uncomfortable as all the others now. But Moll sat up on her heels and looked out across the sea. ‘We got company again,’ she said.

There were two sizeable merchantmen tacking towards them, one behind the other, British merchantmen, broad in the beam and low in the water, carrying full cargoes. By the time the three girls had finished scrubbing and emptied their buckets over the stern and stowed them neatly away, the first ship was alongside and the captain had come up to the quarter-deck ready to speak to her.

She was a day’s sail out of Georgetown, so her master said, carrying sugar, and yes, there
was
a French fleet in the Caribbean, although he couldn’t say where. The news was welcome, limited though it was, and was signalled down the line towards the
Victory
at once.

‘There you are,’ Peg said to her weary shipmate, as the parley went on, ‘we shall see land tomorrow. Think a’ that. An’ not a minute too soon, you ask me. Now you’d best make yourself ready. We shall be sent ashore for fresh water first thing, you mark my words, an’ if you’m a-goin’ to jump ship that’s when you must do it. Johnny Galley can fix for you to be in the first boat. He owes you that at least.’

Marianne looked across at the master of the merchantman in his jaunty black cap and his jaunty black jacket with its fine brass buttons winking in the sun and tried to get her mind to accept what she was being told. There was a nightmare unreality about this moment now that it had come. If she were truthful she would have to admit that she didn’t want to leave the safety of the ship, especially if it meant finding her way around a foreign land full of foreign people. What if they couldn’t speak English? What would she do then? How would she earn a living with this baby weighing her down? And where would she birth it? And what would she do when it
was
born? Where could she go when she was so far from home and there was no one to help her? Oh, she mourned, as she listened to the slap of the waves against the hull and watched the jaunty buttons shine, what’s to become of me?

But however frightened she felt, they were heading for this foreign land at speed along with the rest of the fleet and nothing she could do or say or think would stop them. She rolled out of her hammock the next morning tired to her bones and dragged up on deck like a weary old woman. The sky was a drama of blazing red and gold, the way it so often was at daybreak in this part of the world and, silhouetted on the horizon, was a long smoke-grey smudge.

‘Barbados is that,’ Moll told her as they collected their buckets, ‘accordin’ to Johnny Galley. Where the sugar comes from. Land at last, eh, my lubber?’

The smudge resolved itself into an island as they did their chores. By the time they’d been down to the gun-deck and eaten and cleared their breakfast, they’d sailed close enough to see that it was a green island, that it had a range of low hills heavy with foliage, and that everything about it was sumptuously coloured. It was ringed by long pure-white shining beaches and the inshore waters were such a dazzling green that the shadow cast by their sails was as blue as a midnight sky. Despite her
foreboding
Marianne was touched by how beautiful it was.

They had to work the ship quite hard to make progress with very little
inshore wind but Marianne watched their approach whenever she could. Soon she caught sight of a long grey wall, protectively stony against the rich colour of the sea, and not long after that she saw a group of small fishing boats heading out towards them, very scruffy looking boats with stained sails and two-man crews naked to the waist and as brown as any men she’d ever seen, with hard bold faces that made her flesh shrink with fear. A strong scent of flowers drifted to her across the water and she could see headlands to port and starboard but there was no sign of the harbour until they came about and suddenly there it was, a huge wide expanse of easy water edged with respectable looking houses, almost like Portsmouth; so like in fact that she was cheered by the sight of it and began to feel that she might find a place for herself on this foreign island after all. Then there was no time for anything except retrieving the baby’s gown and tying it round her bulky waist under her jacket and then obeying orders.

By mid afternoon the harbour was forested by English masts but there was no order to go ashore and pick up supplies. The captain was rowed off to the
Victory
and returned two bells later to talk to the bosun but still no order came. Marianne was so tense that it was giving her pains in her belly and as bells were rung and the first dog watch wore away and they were still waiting, the pains got steadily worse. By the time the order to go ashore was finally given, they were so severe it was hurting her to stand. But she struggled into the bum boat and, by breathing hard through the height of the pains, she managed to row with the rest and presently they tied up alongside a busy quay. Not Portsmouth. Oh very definitely not Portsmouth. The cobbles under her feet were the same hard mounds and the warehouses that faced her were built in the same neat-windowed style, but there all similarities ended.

For a start it was unbelievably hot. The sun pressed down on her head and shoulders as if it were a lead weight. And although she could see one or two men who looked as though they might be English in their brown jackets and their cloth hats, there were foreign people everywhere, most of them brown-skinned and talking in a sing-song English she couldn’t understand, barefoot men stripped to the waist pushing laden carts, women in cotton gowns, with their heads tied up like puddings in huge folded cloths, standing behind trestle tables offering the most peculiar looking objects – she couldn’t tell whether they were fruits or vegetables – bunches of curved green things like
scimitars, things with spiky leaves, brown lumps that looked as though they were made of wood, bark and all.

The next pain gripped her as she was wondering at them and by then the lieutenant had jumped ashore and was barking orders in his
peremptory
way, telling them all to look lively and pointing at the direction they were to take. But they were unsteady on their sea legs and it was taking them a little while to find out how to walk on dry land again, so they staggered about and joshed one another and said it was worse than bein’ tiddly and didn’t take much notice of him, which made him stamp with temper.