Under Enemy Colors (12 page)

T
he south-west gale freshened throughout the night, veering to west-sou’west, which ended all progress on their desired course. At first light, Hart ordered the ship into the shelter of Torbay, where the captain remained below, still laid low by the stone that would not pass. All through the squalling night, the surgeon had been in and out of Hart’s cabin, plying him with physic that appeared to do little but mollify the pain.

Through the doctor, Hayden requested an audience with the captain upon a matter of some urgency. After being left standing for three quarters of an hour outside the captain’s cabin before an increasingly embarrassed marine sentry, he was admitted into the sick-room.

Despite the greyness of the day, the cabin was darkened by curtains and a tarp covering the skylight on deck. Hart lay in his cot, barely swaying in the calm. His face appeared swollen, eyes narrow and glazed.

Griffiths stood to one side and favoured Hayden with a slight nod.

“What is it, Mr Hayden, that is so urgent?” the captain snapped, his voice a rasping whisper.

“I felt it my duty to inform you, Captain Hart, that yesterday, when we took the ship from anchor, there was a moment when I feared the men would refuse to obey the officers’ orders. It appeared that a significant faction of the crew had some half-formed plan to refuse to sail.”

“Is that so?” Hart pressed a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes in apparent pain. “Well, I am not greatly surprised. No doubt, in my absence, and without experienced officers to govern them, the crew formed many strange notions. I must tell you, I am amazed, sir, that you would come in here to inform me of events that do nothing but reflect badly upon you. Let me assure you, Lieutenant, that had I been on the deck, the men would have gone about their business with a will. Do not disturb me with such trivialities again. I am ill and do not wish to be plagued by confessions of your incompetence. Now leave me in peace, sir.”

With barely a glance at the doctor, Hayden swept out of the cabin in such a fury that the sentry stepped back from him in no small alarm. Unwilling to meet his messmates in such a rage, Hayden climbed up into the air, where he paced across the quarterdeck before the taffrail, trying to master his anger. He had almost certainly saved Hart from being relieved of his command.
And this was the thanks he received!

A fine, misting drizzle formed a glistening haze upon his coat, and chilled his face and neck. His temper, however, was not so easily cooled. An hour he paced until a deluge forced him below, where he secluded himself in his cabin and tried to smother his feelings in a forced reading of
Don Quixote
.

The anchorage at Torbay was crowded with an Atlantic-bound convoy forming, along with its escort of three frigates and two brigs. There was also a seventy-four-gun ship at anchor, having sought refuge to repair some damage to her bowsprit and jib-boom. The
Themis
had found a berth among the crowd, and settled down to await a fair wind, or at least the cessation of the present gale.

Hayden sat writing at the tiny table in his cabin. Even on the berth-deck, the howl of wind in the rigging could not be ignored, and now and then a blast of wind would strike the ship on either bow and she would sheer ponderously to one side or the other before regaining her proper attitude, head to wind.

Hayden examined two lists that had been delivered to him: the first, the sick-and-disabled list for the night of Penrith’s murder, delivered to him by the doctor; the second, an enumeration of the crew. He began by writing names of men who were not ill on the night of Penrith’s murder. With a crew of two hundred six, this took a little time, but finally he had a list of men who had escaped illness on the night in question. This list he compared with the men who had appeared to be considering refusing to sail, though this was a rather uncertain roll.

After some time spent in contemplation, he decided there was no clear correlation between these lists that he could see. Stuckey, he noted, had not been ill the night of the murder, but nor had someone as noble of nature as Giles—the foremast giant. Smithers had been well, as had Smyth, Price, Starr…

“Mr Hayden, sir?”

Wickham stood in the doorway to his cabin, a number of books in hand. Were it not for the uniform, he would have looked like nothing so much as a cherubic schoolboy, curly flaxen hair and all.

“Mr Wickham.”

“If I am not interrupting, sir. There is a matter upon which I would ask your counsel.”

“As long as it isn’t marriage, Wickham. I know nothing of women—who, despite men’s observations about ships’ feminine qualities, I have found to be rather unlike ships.”

Wickham did not smile but looked instead rather troubled. “No, sir, it is about these…” From beneath one of the books he took two worn pamphlets, and looking around quickly at the empty gunroom, passed them to Hayden.

To his surprise, the lieutenant found himself holding copies of
Common Sense
and
The Rights of Man
, penned by Thomas Paine.

“I found these among some books that Mr Aldrich returned to me.” The boy bit his lip. “I was not sure what to do with them, sir.”

Hayden gazed at the stained paper, and took a long, deep breath. Would there be no end of this? Holding up
Common Sense
, he asked, “Do you know what this is?”

“A pamphlet, sir, that criticizes the King and the English form of government.”

“Aye, it is that and more. This little tract was read by almost every literate person in America when it was published. It inflamed a great deal of resentment toward the crown.”

Wickham nodded. “I think Mr Aldrich gave them to me by accident, sir.”

“I dare say, you are an unlikely convert to revolutionary ideals. You read them…all the way through?”

Wickham nodded again. “Do you think Mr Barthe is right, Mr Hayden? That there are radicals among the crew, who are mutinous?”

“I don’t know, Wickham. You witnessed what happened so recently in Plymouth. The captain is of the opinion that it was the result of the ship being left in command of incompetent officers. But mutiny…” He glanced down at the pamphlet in his hand. “It takes a great deal of disaffection to drive a crew along that road, for more often than not it ends badly for the seamen involved. I don’t think a little pamphlet will lead a crew to mutiny.”

“It led a colony to revolt, sir.”

“Perhaps it helped that particular cause, but the Americans had a better chance of success—most mutinies end with the perpetrators hanging from the yard.”

Wickham considered this. He had the rather emotionless affect of a child when he deliberated—it was impossible to tell what he was thinking or feeling from his too-innocent countenance. “Then we should let the matter be, Mr Hayden? Say nothing?”

Having recently gone to the captain to report the insubordination in Plymouth, he was reticent to take him these pamphlets. Hart was likely to berate him as anything else. He glanced at the midshipman, wondering why the boy had brought this matter to him.

Perhaps Wickham had not forgotten what befell McBride—he’d been the only one to speak up on the man’s behalf—and was afraid of such a thing occurring again. Hayden, however, had responsibilities. It was not the first lieutenant’s place to keep secrets from his captain, nor was it within his authority to be dealing with possible sedition. At the same time, he was afraid of what Hart might do. After all, Aldrich was the best of the able seamen—diligent in the performance of his duties. Hardly the stuff of a mutineer.

“I will speak with Aldrich,” Hayden heard himself say. “It is only a pair of pamphlets, after all, even if the author has been charged with seditious libel.”

Wickham nodded and gave him a tight-lipped smile that revealed some relief: the matter was out of his hands and he hadn’t had to report it to the captain.

“Can we keep this between ourselves, Mr Wickham?”

“I shall never repeat a word of it, sir.” But the boy still stood in the door, and Hayden had a sudden fear of what he might reveal next. “It is strange, is it not, Mr Hayden, that a few words should be perceived as such a threat to the King? That a little pamphlet such as that could stir up such a fever for revolution?”

“I am of the opinion that ideas are born that fit their age, and this is the age of republican ideas—liberty and the rights of men. We have only to look across the Channel to see what ideas can do.”

“Though helped along by a great incompetence of governance,” Wickham said thoughtfully. “I don’t believe there can be revolution where there is a just government, Mr Hayden.” He waved a hand at the pamphlet. “That is but a seed, sir. It must land on fertile ground to grow, don’t you think?”

Hayden was reluctant to admit anything of his beliefs to this young nobleman whom he did not really know. “Many would agree, Lord Arthur. Many would agree.”

“Have you been to America, sir?” the midshipman asked.

“I have. My mother lives there, in Boston.”

“She’s American, then—your mother?”

“She married an American…some years ago.”

“Then your mother is English?”

“French, actually.”

“Is that why you speak it so well?”

Hayden nodded.

“I speak it a little, as well,” Wickham said in French. “I had a French nursemaid when I was a boy.”

“Commendable accent, Wickham. Very commendable.”

“Thank you, sir. You’ve been to France?”

“Many times.”

“Then why have they turned so murderous, sir? Mr Aldrich says it is a thousand years of pent up resentment.”

Hayden felt a sudden oppression settle over him. It was a question that often haunted him late at night. “With all due respect to Aldrich, it is more complex than that. Have you ever witnessed a mob in motion, Wickham?”

The boy shook his head. “I have not, sir.”

“It is not a sight you soon forget.” Hayden drew in a long breath. “Mobs are lawless by nature, almost by definition. It is impossible to know who the mob might turn against, for its mood is both violent and volatile. Fear is what drives the people, I have come to believe. Once you are swept up in the pack you are in danger. To prove that you belong, a person must win the approval of the others—at any cost—and to accomplish this one must stand out, be seen performing some act more violent than the last. If one man breaks a shop window, someone else must steal the goods, another sets the building afire. And thus it escalates, each actor claiming his place in the mob. The shop owner and his family are dragged into the street. Someone kicks the owner, another strikes him with a club. Bodies are disfigured, men and women murdered. It escalates from acts that are lawless to atrocities, even abominations—drinking your victims’ blood, eating their organs. Nothing is taboo.”

“I read about what was done to the prisoners…in Paris,” Wickham whispered, his face terribly serious. He hesitated, went to speak, stopped, and then finally asked hoarsely: “Do you think the hands feel such resentment toward us, Mr Hayden?”

“Perhaps some do, at least aboard this ship. I have found that the foremast Jacks respect officers who are fair, though not lax, in the performance of their duties. A tyrant might be feared but he will never be respected. But you have nothing to fear, Mr Wickham. You are well thought of by the crew, it is quite clear.”

“Why thank you, sir, but I know I have much to learn.”

“As do we all, Mr Wickham. The sea is a harsh schoolmaster and we will never learn all that we must know. But you have made a very credible start.”

Wickham tried to smile. “Good night to you, then, sir.”

“And you, Wickham.”

The little midshipman went out the door to the gunroom as one of the servant boys stole in. Hayden slipped the pamphlets under his crew list.

“Well, well,” he muttered. Young Wickham was proving to be a more interesting charge than he had expected. Having spent his quota of years in the midshipmen’s berth, Hayden had, more often than not, found his companions to be a heedless lot and not much concerned with scholarly pursuits. But these midshipmen, in company with Third Lieutenant Archer, had formed a debating club, and read and debated every book they could acquire. And most, if not all, of these books Wickham lent to Aldrich. A strange alliance: a foremast Jack and the son of a nobleman. Hayden thought it said much for both man and boy.

He noted that Wickham had timed his visit well—there was no one in the gunroom, only Archer, asleep in his cabin. He was no fool, young Wickham, and a good judge of character, too, it seemed—or so Hayden flattered himself. But could he live up to the boy’s obvious esteem? In truth, Wickham had put him in an awkward situation. His duty was to tell Hart about the pamphlets, but he knew now what that would lead to. He would have to deal with Aldrich himself, though he was uncertain what his course of action should be.

The lieutenant called for Perseverance and sent him to search out Aldrich. The able seaman appeared a few moments later, pressing a knuckle to his brow. It occurred to Hayden, and not for the first time, that Aldrich had the best mannerisms of a gentleman, though dressed in a seaman’s slops. He was modest in character, assured but never boastful. The men before the mast esteemed him greatly, for he was the best seaman aboard and was always helpful to those finding their way. What struck Hayden most was the keen look of intelligence in the man’s eye, as he observed all that happened around him. The high, smooth forehead, indicative of intelligence, was crowned by lank, yellow hair.