Beneath the aurora nd-12 Page 10

  'I'm sure, sir,' said Jameson, the third lieutenant, in his thick Scotch burr. "Twas an infernal night; ha'e ye ever known its like afore, sir?'

  'Well, yes,' Drinkwater said, and told briefly of the typhoon and the storm off Helgoland before turning to the surgeon. 'You have not been long at sea, I understand, Mr Kennedy, how did you cope with the motion?'

  'Somewhat miserably I fear, sir. When the physician is indisposed, there is little hope for the sick.'

  'You are better now?'

  'As a matter of fact, sir, I'm ravenous.'

  The remark coincided with Frampton's arrival with the meat. The delicious smell of succulent roast pork filled the cabin, killing the conversation as all swung in happy anticipation to the table. The joint, the fresh vegetables, potatoes, gravy and apple sauce suggested a meal ashore, rather than one aboard a man-of-war upon an urgent cruise.

  'Please take your seats, gentlemen.'

  The rumble of talk resumed, joining the scraping of chairs as the officers sat and flicked their napkins into their laps. Then they fell silent, leaving only Walsh to remark to Fisher, 'You had better ask the captain, young fella.'

  'What had you better ask me, Mr Fisher?'

  'Why, sir, where we are going?'

  Surprise at the youthful indiscretion was clear on all their faces, though it amused Drinkwater. 'What makes you think we are going anywhere particular, Mr Fisher?'

  Midshipman Fisher was flushing with the realization that he was the cynosure of all eyes. 'Well, s ... s ... sir,' he stammered, 'Is... supposed we might be, sir.'

  'Go on, sir,' said Drinkwater, breaking the expectation by beginning to carve.

  'Well, sir, we were quietly at anchor with Captain Pardoe away in Parliament and then, sir, here you are and off we go!'

  He was in his stride by the end of it and the officers laughed indulgently as Frampton went round filling their glasses.

  'Well, Mr Fisher has a point, gentlemen,' Drinkwater said as he finished passing the platters of sliced meat down the table. 'We are engaged on a particular service, as some of you may know. As to what it is, it is difficult at this juncture to be absolutely certain, so shall we say we are engaged on a reconnaissance?' He handed a plate to Huke and looked at Fisher. 'Well now, Mr Fisher, do you know the course?'

  'North-east, sir?'

  'And what do you suppose lies to the nor' east of Leith Road, eh?'

  'Norway, sir?'

  'Indeed, Mr Fisher, Norway. In the next few days we shall take a look into a fiord or two and see what we can find...'

  'In the way of an enemy, sir?' asked Fisher, pot-valiant.

  'Possibly, Mr Fisher. Mr Walsh, do see that Mr Fisher has enough potatoes.'

  'Oh, yes sir, of course.'

  'Tae stop his gob,' Jameson muttered.

  The general babble recommenced with indulgent grins bestowed on the blushing midshipman. After the pork, a duff appeared and when the cloth had been drawn and the loyal toast drunk, Walsh lit a cheroot and hogged the decanter.

  'A fair wind, if you please, Walsh,' prompted Huke, and the evening passed into a pleasant blur.

  When it was over Drinkwater invited Huke to take a turn on deck to clear their heads. It was not quite dark. Thin tendrils of high cloud partially veiled some of the stars, but a dull red glow hung in the northern sky.

  'It looks like a misplaced sunset,' Huke remarked, puzzled.

  'Aurora borealis,' Drinkwater said, and they paused to stare at it for a moment. The crimson glow seemed to pulse gently, increasing in brilliance, then dying again, like coals that are almost extinguished. 'It can take on the most incredible forms,' Drinkwater remarked, and they began walking again.

  Andromeda ghosted through the water, for the wind had gone down with the sun.

  'I wish to God we knew the whereabouts of the Kestrel'

  'Yes. Perhaps he'll head back to Leith, the wind's been fair.'

  'Sir?' A figure loomed in the darkness. It was not Mosse, the officer of the watch.

  'Is that you, Mr Kennedy?'

  'Yes, sir. I'm afraid I've some rather bad news.'

  'Then keep your voice down, man,' hissed Huke.

  'We've a case of typhus aboard,' Kennedy whispered.

  CHAPTER 7

  Utsira

  October 1813

  At dawn next morning the frigate was stirred to life by the marine drummer beating the ship's company to quarters. It was a grey morning, with a translucent veil of high altitude cloud spread across the sky, robbing them of the stellar observations Drinkwater and Birkbeck had hoped to secure. The horizon had not yet hardened before the stars, like distant lamps, had faded. Extinguished, Drinkwater mused to himself as he came on deck and took stock, by overly frugal angels.

  The ship's company knew nothing of this disappointment. The watch on deck cast about in confusion at the sudden appearance of the captain, marine officer and first lieutenant and the rattle of the drummer's snare, for there was no obvious enemy in the offing. The watches below tumbled up, chivvied by thundering hearts and starters, and equally confused for, as they ran to their actions stations, the mystified petty officers knew only that the men were to be stopped from clearing for action and casting off the guns' breechings. Instead, they were to fall in in their messes, and the transmission of this unorthodox procedure caused further confusion. This took a few extra moments and in turn provided an adequate time-lapse to breed rumour.

  There were two of these speculations forming and they spread by muttered word of mouth faster than a spark along a quick-match. How these incomplete utterances sped round the ship, how one utterly defeated the other so that, by the time the divisional officers each sent their midshipmen aft to report their men mustered, the victorious buzz had convinced thirteen score of men, is a mystery understood only by those who have experienced it.

  One theory was that their proximity to the enemy coast was such that standing to in the light of dawn was a precautionary measure. It gained ground among the more experienced, but it swiftly withered when the second overwhelmed it. They had been called to account, it was asserted, for the cutting adrift of the cannon. The absence of punishment at the time had been commented upon. Neither Huke's reputation nor Drinkwater's lack of it seemed to square with inaction on the part of authority, and therefore this postponed corporate muster seemed a logical consequence. Nor did anything that happened in the next few extraordinary moments persuade the ship's company of His Britannic Majesty's frigate Andromeda that they were wrong.

  Flanked by Huke and Walsh, Drinkwater stalked the groups of men, taking a sinister interest in several, moving close to them so that the more perceptive and less terrified said afterwards that the captain had 'sniffed them like a dog at a bitch's arse'.

  This indelicacy was not so very far from the truth and some of those subject to this personal attention were sent sheepishly aft to a waiting Kennedy, watched by the others. From time to time a muttering rose with a mutinous undertone of protest which either Huke or the divisional officer swiftly silenced. When Drinkwater's curious, shifty inspection was complete he returned to the quarterdeck.

  'Very well, Mr Huke. The duty watch is to rig the washdeck pumps and the Hales's ventilators. The gunner's party is to prepare powder for burning 'tween decks. The carpenter is to take three hundredweight of sand to the galley and the cook is to have it heated. The purser is to issue one bar of soap to every mess. The watch below is to turn up and be hosed down. After every man has been washed, he is to shift his linen and put on clean clothes. If a single man has on an item he is wearing now, I shall cover him with my cloak and flog him!'

  Drinkwater gave his bizarre orders in a loud voice, and those mustered below in the gun deck who failed to hear him soon learned of his intentions. Nor was a single man under the impression that a shred of solicitude attached to Drinkwater's offer of his 'cloak'. All knew the term a euphemism for the ration of lashes permitted a post-captain under the Thirty-Sixth Article of War which he might giv
e without reference to any higher authority. By the time Drinkwater had finished, every man jack knew that what the watch below had to endure, the duty watch would also submit to, that the ship would be scrubbed from orlop to main deck, that the ports would be opened, that a mechanically induced draught via Dr Stephen Hales's patent ventilator would join the natural air flowing reluctantly through the ship, and that hot sand and burning gunpowder would dry and purify the air between decks.

  In the ensuing period the deck of the Andromeda assumed the grotesque appearance of a bacchanalia. Had an enemy chanced upon them at that time, it was afterwards remarked, they would have caught the Andromeda's company with more than their defences down. The spurting jets of water plashed upon the naked limbs and bodies of each mess in turn, and the initial misery and humiliation of those first chosen gave way to a whooping glee as group succeeded group and the naked increased and soon outnumbered the clothed.

  As each division underwent this strange, humiliating metamorphosis, their officers came aft, grinning at the men's discomfiture, grouping on the quarterdeck to be driven, as their own reserved participation in this spree, to comments of impropriety.

  'My word,' rattled a red-faced Walsh, 'young Hughes is rigged like a donkey!'

  An acutely embarrassed Midshipman Fisher stared wide-eyed at a small, deformed and excessively hairy man who giggled insanely and was commonly thought to be mad.

  'And look at Taylor ...'

  'Good God, what a scar...'

  Having been stripped and drenched, the ship's fiddler was set upon a forecastle carronade breech to strike up a lively jig, which prompted the most excitable to dance and skylark with even more vigour than the cold sea-water.

  When the greater proportion of the watch below cavorted in damp nudity, Drinkwater sprang a second and greater surprise upon the ship.

  'Frampton!' he called, and the steward, stark naked, his hands held in front of his chill-shrivelled genitals, approached the officers. Drinkwater turned to the crescent of watching officers.

  'Well, gentlemen, rank has its obligations as well as its privileges. I do not know whether it was Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius who claimed the essence of command to be example, but if this performance is to be of any benefit, then we must take part...'

  Drinkwater stared round at the officers on whom the light of comprehension broke somewhat slowly. He began to take off his coat and held it out to the dripping and shivering Frampton who reluctantly relinquished his protective stance. Several of the officers began to move away, while the midshipmen continued to stare goggle-eyed at their commander. Drinkwater removed his neck linen, stock and shirt, kicked off his shoes and, putting his right foot on a quarterdeck carronade truck, rolled down a stocking.

  'Not here, surely, sir?' queried an incredulous Walsh.

  'Why not, Mr Walsh, here is as good a place as any, for we must not only take part, but be seen to take part.' Drinkwater unbuttoned his breeches.

  'What is the point, sir?'

  'The point, Walsh,' offered Kennedy, fast following the Captain's example, 'is prophylaxis, the prevention of disease.'

  'What disease?'

  'Don't bandy it about, Walsh, but ship fever, camp fever, low, slow, putrid and petechial fever, call it what you will, but do not lay yourself open to its infection...'

  Walsh was open-mouthed, but the surgeon's words were drowned as the ship's company realized that the captain was naked and that, incredulously, the other officers were following suit, slowly at first but then faster as they were egged on by whoops of rankly insubordinate derision. Drinkwater gasped as an eager party of men turned a hose upon him, the men at the levers of the portable pumps jerking up and down, one wet with tears at the hilarity of the scene and the joy of deluging his captain with icy water.

  Within moments even the sluggards were under the pumps and the tide had turned, the entire waist was filled with pink flesh and cascades of water. Buckets were cast overboard and retrieved with lanyards, their contents emptied indiscriminately.

  Chaos, it seemed, reigned for a quarter of an hour, until Drinkwater, still naked, leapt up on the rail and roared for silence. Those occupants of the wardroom who afterwards deplored the anarchy were swiftly silenced by others who argued that the immediacy of the response to Drinkwater's summons to order proved them wrong.

  'Very well, my lads, we are all more or less alike, I see ...' A laugh greeted this joke, and Drinkwater, while he awaited their attention, remembered inconsequentially how, long before aboard Patrician, he had discovered a woman dressed and thought of for months as a man. The laughter and mutual chaffing subsided.

  'Now do you pay attention. It's a change of clothing for every man jack of you, d'you hear? Then the ship is to be stummed before we break our fast. After that, you are all to wash every stitch you have just removed. It looks like a drying day and you will scrub hammocks by watches. If you clear the ship by noon, we'll exercise the guns...'

  This news raised a cheer which, half-hearted at first, soon grew in modulation, a madcap disorganized noise accompanied by grins and laughter and multiple shiverings.

  'Very well, then,' Drinkwater continued after the noise had died away, 'the watches below have twenty minutes to get into fresh clothes. Then they are to relieve the watch on deck. If I see a naked man half an hour from now, he'll be in the bilboes. Pipe down the watch below!'

  Drinkwater jumped down from the rail. He was shuddering from the chill and covered with goose-pimples. 'Come, gentlemen, what do you want to make of yourselves, a spectacle?'

  The ship had not quite been abandoned to these cavortings, but the calm had made easier this odd business of sanitation. As the officers tumbled below to the partial privacy of the wardroom and shut the door on the berth deck beyond, they reacted according to age and temperament. The paunchy Walsh was outraged, amusingly speechless and spluttering with florid indignation. The others, even the sober Huke, were constrained to laugh, Jameson continuing to leap about, flicking a towel with aggravating accuracy at Walsh's wobbling buttocks.

  'Damn you, Jameson! Don't do that, you confounded fool!'

  'Come, come, Walsh, don't be an old prude, you enjoyed the bathe, don't deny it!'

  The elegant Mosse had been resolutely opposed to undressing, until he realized his pride would take a bigger dent if he refused. The second lieutenant was as elegant without his uniform as when fully attired. It was, he later claimed, untrue to say clothes made the man, but that beauty only needed to be skin deep to make an impression.

  In this he was disturbingly right for one member of the officers' mess. A man-of-war lodged many types but all, whether extrovert or introvert, were eventually compelled to surrender in large measure any sense of individual privilege; a mess — whether forward or aft — rubbed along together on consensus, and disagreements were usually things of small moment.

  But Andromeda's wardroom sheltered a misfit in Mr Templeton. As long as Templeton could haunt the captain's cabin, nursing his own secrets, he was content. But when he was compelled to associate with these bears, he felt awkward, conspicuous and a figure of ridicule. While being with them, he was not of them.

  Much of this self-perception was in his own imagination, but the events of the early morning had shocked him deeply, not just as a matter of spectacle, but as a powerful and unlooked for spur to a hidden, barely acknowledged lust, which distracted him from all his other preoccupations.

  Templeton had never acknowledged the proclivity that now overwhelmed him. He had spent his drab, pretentious life of genteel servitude largely occupying his mind. His social life, such as it was, had revolved around that of his ageing mother and her coterie of friends. He had vaguely supposed he would at an appropriate time and when one or other of the matrons had decided the matter for him, take one or other of their plain daughters to wife. To this end, and to satisfy his ambitions, he had sought to improve his place at the Admiralty. Meddling in its intrigues and hoping to advance from lowly copying clerk, he had
aspired to and achieved the post of a cipher clerk, a confidential servant of the state, whose opinion was sought first by Lord Dungarth and now by Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater.

  In some ways this filled him with a heavy conceit, partially satisfying inner hungers, but from time to time he was moved to acknowledge another stirring, aware that there was about this an air of disgrace. This in turn was sublimated by classical considerations and not held to resemble, in even a distant way, the disgusting soliciting, importuning, love-struck moonings and filthy couplings of his fellow clerks with the doxies who inhabited the purlieus of Whitehall.

  The morning's events had, however, brought him perilously close to a terrible exposure, for he had been physically moved by the experience, almost conspicuously aroused. He had consequently suffered the acute fear of discovery together with the agony of frustrated desire caused by the mass propinquity. Nor had it helped to see the odd individual, from an indisputably lower order of society, in a state of abandoned tumescence. That their fellows dismissed them laughingly made his own situation all the more shameful, for where this condition had occurred to him naturally, he had always banished it by occupying his mind with the diversion of a book, or some other study.

  Now he hid in his flimsy cabin and wept, for it only added to his burden of fear.

  The score or so of men whom Drinkwater had so disreputably sniffed out received Kennedy's especial attention. A perceptive observer would have noticed these unfortunates had in common the most wretched and ragged appearance. The surgeon took their names and ensured their washing was more than a cursory drenching, subjecting them to a thorough examination, then flinging their clothes overboard. Afterwards he sent them to the purser for new slops, brushing aside their protests that they could not afford such luxuries with the assurance that they 'would soon be able to pay out of their prize-money'.