Powder Monkey (8 page)

‘Without that man I'd be lying at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, or had me bones picked clean by savages.' Having experienced starvation and near fatal thirst firsthand, Tom got annoyed when anyone moaned about their food. ‘We ate raw seabird on that little boat – beak, feet and all. After that, a ship's biscuit looks like a king's feast!'

When we weren't talking, those of us who could, read or wrote. I was grateful to my father for teaching me these skills. Word soon went round the ship that I could write, and I was often asked by sailors who could not to help them with a letter. This was a good way of staying on the right side of some of the more frightening members of the crew. These letters were sometimes very personal – a plea to an estranged wife, or words of comfort to a sister or brother who had lost a child.

I learned quickly not to take too great a pride in my skill. I thought I was being generous with my time and talents, yet some of the crew started to resent me for it. As I wrote, older boys would walk past and flick my ear. When this happened the man who I was writing a letter for would sometimes leap up and thump my assailant hard on the arm, but sometimes he would just laugh and wink at them. They never got a letter from me again.

One evening, as I peered closer to the page to write in
the dim lamplight of the mess deck, a pasty-faced boy leaned over and spat down the back of my neck. His name was Michael Trellis, and he was a powder monkey for one of the starboard gun crews. Enraged, I leaped up and thumped him hard. In an instant, a bosun's mate stepped over and hit me on the back with his rope.

‘If I catch you fighting again, Witchall, you're looking at a flogging.' Then he cuffed the other boy around the head. ‘You watch your step too, Trellis, y' snotty urchin.'

The boy gave me an evil smirk. ‘I'd have pulverised you if he'd not been around. Better not let me catch you alone in the hold.'

Silas had been sitting along from me, and saw it all. As Trellis walked past he tripped him up, and the boy fell hard on his face. Silas lifted him roughly to his feet.

‘Sorry, lad, what an unfortunate accident,' he said with unmistakable menace. ‘You are in the wars today.' It was enough to let Trellis know I had friends who would look after me, but I wondered if there was more of this to come.

A week into the voyage, as we sat around the mess table at dinnertime, Edmund Ackersley was telling us of strange noises he once heard coming from the depths of the ocean.

‘Frightful sounds they was, like a whole army o' lost
souls, wailin' in torment. We reckoned them were a warnin' to mend our sinful ways. And, by 'eck, it were! Within a week we 'ad two men fall from the riggin', and another killed by a loose gun.'

Just then, a boy sitting further down the table from us began to laugh. I did not know him, but he was a friend of Tom Nisbit. ‘Did these warnings sound like this, by any chance?' said the boy in an accent I did not recognise. And he bellowed a deep, keening moan.

‘You heard them too!' said Ackersley.

‘Them's not lost souls,' said the boy, in cocky imitation of Ackersley's Lancashire grammar. ‘Them's whales. I've seen them breaching off Newfoundland. They make that noise when they're looking for a mate.'

Ackersley didn't take to being corrected. Quick as a flash, he brought the knife he was using to cut his meat down on the boy's sleeve, pinning his arm to the table. Then he put his face right next to his. ‘Them's lost souls, Sonny Jim. Whales be buggered.'

The boy was quite cool-headed about it. ‘Whatever you say, chum. Lost souls it is.'

After we'd eaten I walked up to the forecastle with him. I discovered he was an American who was also in the afterguard larboard watch.

‘Good day to you, Sam Witchall,' he said with a smile, and shook my hand. ‘My name is Richard Buckley.'

I was surprised to find an American boy on a British man-o'-war.

‘So, what's an American doing on the
Miranda
?' I asked.

‘Oh, I'm not the only one,' he said. ‘There's three or four of us. Haven't you met Binns and Woodruff? They're on the forecastle in the starboard watch.'

I hadn't.

‘Me, I'm learning my trade,' he said. ‘Been aboard the
Miranda
for a year now. I'd like to go back to Boston one day, and an officer post in a merchantman. May even try for a commission in the United States Navy. And what of you, Sam?' he asked me. ‘What made you take to the sea?'

‘I want to do something with my life,' I told him. ‘There's not much to look forward to in the village I come from. My father wanted me to be a schoolteacher and help out in my uncle's shop.'

‘That can't be bad, surely?' said Richard. ‘Not so that you'd rather be here than there?'

‘No, but there's got to be more to life than Wroxham. Don't suppose you've heard of it?' He hadn't. ‘We had one moment of excitement every month, when me and my father and brother took our horse and cart to Norwich – it's the big city in those parts.' As I spoke, it already felt like a lifetime ago. ‘We went to buy the fancier provisions for my father's shop – tea, coffee and
spices mainly. Clip-clop for hours on end, down the rickety road to Norwich. My mother never came with us. She hasn't left the parish in her whole life.'

‘So what's so great about Norwich?' asked Richard.

‘I love Norwich,' I gushed. ‘It's so different. It bustles and buzzes and there are shops selling everything you could ever want. It stinks, though – rotten vegetables, dung, coal fires – but you can't have everything just right, can you?'

‘Sounds just like Boston, 'cept that's a seaboard port,' said Richard, and looked a little misty-eyed. ‘I used to beg my mom to take me down to the harbour, just so I could gaze at all the tall ships packed together along the quayside, and wonder what it would be like to sail off over the horizon . . .'

I thought wistfully of Norwich. Whenever I went there I realised I could not be a country boy for ever.

‘Hey, you're not listening!' Richard laughed.

‘I'm a bit like you,' I said. ‘My mother always said I was too inquisitive for my own good.'

‘She's right,' he said. ‘There's too much to see in the world!' Then he looked out to sea and grew reflective. ‘I took quite a gamble coming on this ship. Your navy's supposed to be the best in the world, and my grandpa persuaded my dad that a few years' service on a British man-o'-war would set me up for the rest of my life. He might be right, but the trick is to stay alive. Mandeville's
an ambitious son of a bitch – who knows what trouble he'll lead us into. Meanwhile, I just behave like a model seaman, especially with the ship's officers. It's all a game, isn't it? I'm damned if I'm letting those stuck-ups get to flog me. So I smile politely, do as I'm asked, and keep my nose clean.'

Despite his bad start with Edmund Ackersley, Richard often joined Ben and our crew to sit and chat on a Sunday afternoon. I was fascinated by Richard's accent, and the words he used. He said ‘clever' when he meant ‘good', ‘mad' when he meant ‘angry' and ‘closet' when he meant ‘cupboard'. But we understood each other well enough. He called the marines ‘lobsterbacks', and employed words in a way that made me smile. ‘Is there anyone else aboard the ship,' he'd say, ‘who comes from your neck of the woods?'

Two weeks into the voyage the pain of my broken tooth became a constant distraction. I could put off a visit to Dr Claybourne no longer. I was reluctant to see him as I was deeply suspicious of medical men. When I was eight I had a sickness which left me weak and dizzy. A doctor friend of the Reverend Chatham came to see me and took me for a walk to the village pond. When I was least expecting it, he pushed me into the water. I dragged myself out, covered in mud and vegetation, and ran home. He followed me back, told my mother to make
me drink a small bottle of gin, and then to rest. I forced the gin down, and my head spun so much when I laid it on my pillow that I was violently sick. The shock, explained the doctor, would do me good. After that I had a high fever for a day, but was up and about by the end of the week. I'm sure I got better despite his attentions.

Claybourne was actually more pleasant than our first meeting had suggested. He was gruff, but not without an amiable air. His Scottish accent was so broad I had difficulty understanding him.

He held his surgery every morning on the orlop deck, which was beneath the waterline at the bow of the ship. That day there were just three of us waiting to see him, and I noticed he was sitting with a weary-looking young man who was obviously learning his trade. Claybourne talked to him throughout, barely paying attention to the patients before him. In front of me was one of the main-topmen, whom I gathered was suffering from a hernia.

Claybourne had him lower his trousers, and began gingerly to feel around his groin. ‘Yes, there's quite a wee lump there, my man.'

Then he turned to his apprentice. ‘Ye offen get the topmen coming wi' hernias from their liftin' the sails,' he explained. ‘At port it's broken heeds and the pox. At sea, hernias and scurvy. Later on, ye'll ge' a fair few of them comin' down here with loose teeth and sores from
the scurvy. I give 'em more lemon juice t' top up their ration, and tha' usually does the trick. But if ye gave 'em more of the juice before they got the scurvy, then – well, they wouldnae ge' it! But the Captain won't be swayed. It's too great an expense, he says, t' ge' in more lemons than we're already issued with. Only a few of the crew seem to ge' it, he says. So why treat the lot of them? I says, “it's an easier thing to keep a crew healthy, than it is for me to cure 'em”, but it falls on deaf ears.'

He produced a sturdy wool and canvas undergarment from among his bags and boxes and spoke to the top-man. ‘Ye'll wear this, my man. It's called a truss, and it'll help support your little problem. I can recommend the smoking of tobacco to take off the tension and provide a laxative. An' if that doesnae work, ye'll have to come back an' have ye intestines filled with tepid water. That seldom fails tae produce a beneficial effect.'

The fellow scurried away with a tug of the forelock. I wondered if Claybourne had told him the last bit to discourage him from coming again.

Next up was a forecastleman complaining of vomiting and diarrhoea. He was sent on his way with a dose of blue vitriol which Claybourne quickly fished out of his medicine chest. No sooner had the patient hurried up the ladder than Claybourne turned to his assistant and said, ‘That'll kill or cure him soon enough.'

Then it was me. ‘Sit yerself down, laddie.' I opened
my mouth, and Claybourne poked around with a grubby finger and a thin needle implement that gleamed silver in the lantern light. ‘Well, that's nae guntae ge' any better,' he said with great authority. Then he turned to his assistant. ‘Mr McDowell, what shall we do next?'

The young man had obviously been studying hard. ‘Standard extraction, sir, with Clef Anglais. Then perhaps the goat's foot elevator, if the tooth cracks and leaves the root in the gum.'

Although I knew the tooth was going to have to come out, I winced at their thoughtless ruminations.

‘Aye,' said Claybourne. ‘Let's get to work. You can be mother.'

With that the doctor handed me a bottle of brandy. ‘Take a good slug, laddie. As much as ye can keep down.' I guzzled the fiery liquid and it sat burning in my stomach. I was not used to strong liquor, and felt I was going to be sick. But that passed, and was followed by a pleasant floating sensation. Then, all at once, Claybourne was standing behind me, holding my head steady in a tight lock with his left arm. ‘Open wide,' he crooned, and clamped my lower jaw open with his right hand.

McDowell quickly placed a wooden-handled implement in my mouth and started to rock it to and fro. With every motion I felt an agonising wrench in my jaw, and began to make little yelping noises. Then there was an
excruciating jolt – almost like a flash of lightning – so sharp I could almost taste it, as the tooth broke away.

‘Steady now,' said Claybourne. ‘Here, have another mouthful o' this.' I gulped down more of the brandy. McDowell began to poke around with a pincer-like instrument.

Both men assumed their previous positions. The pain was so intense I wondered if being flogged could be any worse. Amid my agonised cries, McDowell pulled something out, and my mouth filled with blood. ‘Spit in this,' said Claybourne matter of factly, holding a small enamelled iron bowl. McDowell held up his fearsome implement before me. Between its jaws was a small sliver of tooth root with a glob of flesh still attached to it.

‘Got the rascal,' he said with no small delight. ‘Just two more to go.' The next minute was probably the most painful in my life, as he gouged away at my bruised and bleeding gum. But out the roots came, and I was put to sit in the corner of the deck with the bowl.

‘Spit away, lad,' said Claybourne. ‘When that stops bleeding y' can spend a few hours in sick bay.'

McDowell helped me walk back to the ship's sick bay, a small berth walled in with panels of strong canvas. He had another ship's boy fetch my hammock, and there I stayed for the rest of the morning in the company of two other seamen. One slept and the other spent his time coughing or spitting into a white enamel mug. Ben and
Richard both paid me a brief visit, but I felt too ill to talk to them. My jaw ached terribly, my head pounded from the brandy, and I had no appetite for dinner. Then in the early afternoon, I heard a shout I had been dreading since the voyage began.

‘Sail ho!'