Rites of Passage Read online

  Noble godfather, if I do you wrong, rebuke me. Once ashore and I will be sane again, I will be that wise and impartial adviser, administrator, whose foot you have set on the first rung—but did you not say “Tell all”? You said, “Let me live again in you!”

  I am but a young fellow after all.

  Well then, the problem, devil take it, was a place of assignation. To meet the lady was easy enough and indeed unavoidable. But then so was meeting everyone else! Mr Prettiman paces the quarterdeck. The Famille Pike, father, mother and little daughters, hurry up and down the afterdeck and the waist peering on this side and that lest they should be accosted, I suppose, and subjected to some indignity or impropriety. Colley comes by in the waist; and every time nowadays he not only favours me with his reverence but tops it off with a smile of such understanding and sanctity he is a kind of walking invitation to mal de mer. What could I do? I could scarcely hand the lady into the foretop! You will ask what is wrong with my hutch or her hutch. I answer “Everything!” Does Mr Colley but cry “Hem!” on the other side of the lobby he wakes Miss Granham in the hutch just aft of him. Does that windbag Mr Brocklebank but break wind—as he does every morning just after seven bells—our timbers shudder clear through my hutch and into Mr Prettiman’s just across from me. I have had to prospect farther for a place suitable to the conduct of our amours. I had thought of finding and introducing myself to the purser—but to my surprise I found that all the officers shied away from mention of him as if the man were holy, or indecent, I cannot tell which, and he never appears on deck. It is a subject I propose to get clear in my mind—when I have a mind again and this, this surely temporary madness—

  (30)

  In sheer desperation I have persuaded Mr Tommy Taylor to take me down to the gun room which, though it has only three midshipmen instead of the more usual complement, is nevertheless so roomy it is used for the warrant officers as well, because their mess—I cannot go into the politics of it all—is too far forrard and has been taken over for the better sort of emigrant. These elders, the gunner, the carpenter and the sailing master, sat in a row beyond a table and watched me in a silence that seemed more knowing than the regard of anyone else in the ship if we except the redoubtable Miss Granham. Yet I did not pay much attention to them at first because of the extraordinary object that Mr Willis revealed as he moved his bony length towards the ladder. It was, of all things, a plant, some kind of creeper, its roots buried in a pot and the stem roped to the bulkhead for a few feet. There was never a leaf; and wherever a tendril or branch was unsupported it hung straight down like a piece of seaweed—which indeed would have been more appropriate and useful. I exclaimed at the sight. Mr Taylor burst into his usual peal and pointed to Mr Willis as the not particularly proud owner. Mr Willis vanished up the ladder. I turned from the plant to Mr Taylor.

  “What the devil is that for?”

  “Ah,” said the gunner. “Gentleman Jack.”

  “Always one for a joke, Mr Deverel,” said the carpenter. “He put him up to it.”

  The sailing master smiled across at me with mysterious compassion.

  “Mr Deverel told him it was the way to get on.”

  Tommy Taylor cried with laughter—literally cried, the tears falling from him. He choked and I beat his back more severely than he liked. But unalloyed high spirits are a nuisance anywhere. He stopped laughing.

  “It’s a creeper, you see!”

  “Gentleman Jack,” said the carpenter again. “I couldn’t help laughing myself. God knows what sort of lark Mr Deverel will get up to in the badger bag.”

  “The what, sir?”

  The gunner had reached below the table and brought up a bottle.

  “You’ll take an observation through a glass, Mr Talbot.”

  “In this heat—”

  It was rum, fiery and sticky. It increased the heat in my blood and seemed to increase the oppressiveness of the air. I wished that I could shed my coat as the warrant officers had; but of course it would not do.

  “This air is confoundedly close, gentlemen. I wonder you can endure it day after day.”

  “Ah,” said the gunner. “It’s a hard life Mr Talbot, sir. Here today and gone tomorrow.”

  “Here today and gone today,” said the carpenter. “Do you mind that young fellow, Hawthorne I think, come aboard at the beginning of this commission? Boatswain gets him to tail on a rope with the others, only last man like and says, says he, ‘Don’t you go leaving go no matter what happens.’ The boat begins to take charge on the yard and drops ’cause the rest jumps clear. Young Hawthorne, who don’t know the crown of a block from its arse—he come off a farm, I shouldn’t wonder—he holds on like he’s been told.”

  The gunner nodded and drank.

  “Obeys orders.”

  It seemed the story had come to an end.

  “But what was wrong? What happened?”

  “Why, see,” said the carpenter, “the tail of the rope runs up to the block—swit!—just like that. Young Hawthorne he was on the end of it. He must have gone a mile.”

  “We never saw him again.”

  “Good God.”

  “Here today and gone today, like I said.”

  “I could tell you a story or two about guns if it comes to that,” said the gunner. “Very nasty things, guns when they misbehave, which they can do so in ten thousand different ways. So if you take up to be a gunner, Mr Talbot, you need your head.”

  Mr Gibbs the carpenter nudged the sailing master.

  “Why, even a gunner’s mate needs a head, sir,” he said. “Did you never hear the story of the gunner’s mate who lost his head? It was off Alicante I believe—”

  “Now then George!”

  “This gunner, see, was walking up and down behind his battery with his pistol in his hand. They was swopping shot with a fort, a foolish thing to do in my view. A red hot shot come through a gun port and takes off the gunner’s head clean as this gallantine the Frenchies make use of. Only see the shot was red hot and cauterizes the neck so the gunner goes on marching up and down and nobody notices nothing until they run out of orders. Laugh! They nigh on died until the first lieutenant wants to know why in the name of Christ the guns had fell silent in the after starboard maindeck battery, so they asks the gunner what to do but he had nothing with which to tell them.”

  “Really gentlemen! Oh come!”

  “Another glass, Mr Talbot.”

  “It’s getting so stuffy in here—”

  The carpenter nodded and knocked on a timber with his knuckles.

  “It’s hard to tell whether the air sweats or her wood.”

  The gunner heaved once or twice with laughter inside him like a wave that does not break.

  “We should open a winder,” he said. “You remember the gals, Mr Gibbs? ‘Couldn’t we ’ave a winder open? I’ve come over queer like.’”

  Mr Gibbs heaved like the gunner.

  “Come over queer, have you? Along here, my little dear. It’s the way for some nice fresh air.”

  “‘Oh what was that, Mr Gibbs? Was it a rat? I can’t abide rats! I’m sure it was a rat—’”

  “Just my little doggie, my dear. Here. Feel my little doggie.”

  I drank some of the fiery liquid.

  “And commerce can be obtained even in such a vessel as this? Did no one see you?”

  The sailing master smiled his beautiful smile.

  “I saw them.”

  The gunner nudged him.

  “Wake up, Shiner. You wasn’t even in the ship. We hadn’t hardly come out of ordinary.”

  “Ordinary,” said Mr Gibbs. “That’s the life that is. No nasty sea. Lying up a creek snug in a trot with your pick of the admirals’ cabins and a woman on the books to do the galley work. That’s the best berth there is in the Navy, Mr Talbot, sir. Seven years I was in her before they came aboard and tried to get her out of the mud. Then they didn’t think they’d careen her what with one thing and another so they took what weed th
ey could off her bottom with the drag rope. That’s why she’s so uncommon sluggish. It was sea water, you see. I hope this Sydney Cove or whatever they call it has berths in fresh water.”

  “If they took the weed off her,” said the gunner, “they might take the bottom with it.”

  Clearly I was no nearer my original objective. I had but one possible resource left me.

  “Does not the purser share this commodious apartment with you?”

  Again there was that strange, uneasy silence. At last Mr Gibbs broke it.

  “He has his own place up there on planks over the water casks among the cargo and dunnage.”

  “Which is?”

  “Bales and boxes,” said the gunner. “Shot, powder, slow match, fuse, grape and chain, and thirty twenty-four pounders, all of ’em tompioned, greased, plugged and bowsed down.”

  “Tubs,” said the carpenter. “Tools, adzes and axes, hammers and chisels, saws and sledges, mauls, spikes, trenails and copper sheet, plugs, harness, gyves, wrought iron rails for the governor’s new balcony, casks, barrels, tuns, firkins, pipkins, bottles and bins, seeds, samples, fodder, lamp oil, paper, linen.”

  “And a thousand other things,” said the sailing master. “Ten thousand times ten thousand.”

  “Why don’t you show the gentleman, Mr Taylor,” said the carpenter. “Take the lantern. You can make believe as you’re the captain going his rounds.”

  Mr Taylor obeyed and we went, or rather crept forrard. A voice called behind us.

  “You may even glimpse the purser.”

  It was a strange and unpleasant journey where indeed rats scurried. Mr Taylor, being accustomed, I suppose, to this kind of journey, made short work of it. Until I ordered him back he got so far ahead of me that I was left in complete, and need I say, foetid, darkness. When he did return part way it was only to reveal with his lantern our narrow and irregular path between nameless bulks and shapes that seemed piled around us and indeed over us without order or any visible reason. Once I fell, and my boots trod that same noisome sand and gravel of her bilge that Wheeler had described to me on the first day: and it was while fumbling to extract myself from between two of her vast timbers that I had my one and only glimpse of our purser—or at least I suppose it was the purser. I glimpsed him up there through a kind of spyhole between, it may be, bales or whatnot; and since he of all people does not have to stint himself for light that hole, though it was far below deck, blazed like a sunny window. I saw a vast head with small spectacles bowed over a ledger—just that and nothing more. Yet this was the creature, mention of whom could produce a silence among these men so careless of life and death!

  I scrambled out of the ballast and onto the planks over the bowsed down cannon and crawled after Mr Taylor till a quirk of our narrow passage hid the vision and we were alone with the lantern again. We reached the forepart of the ship. Mr Taylor led me up ladders, piping in his treble—“Gangway there!” You must not imagine he was ordering some mechanism to be lowered for my convenience. In Tarpaulin, a “gangway” is a space through which one may walk and he was acting as my usher, or lictor I suppose, and ensuring that the common people would not trouble me. So we rose from the depths, through decks crowded with people of all ages and sexes and smells and noises and smoke and emerged into the crowded fo’castle whence I positively fled out into the cool, sweet air of the waist! I thanked Mr Taylor for his convoy, then went to my hutch and had Wheeler take away my boots. I stripped and rubbed myself down with perhaps a pint of water and felt more or less clean. But clearly, however freely the warrant officers obtained the favours of young women in these shadowy depths, it was of no use for your humble servant. Sitting in my canvas chair and in a mood of near desperation I came close to confiding in Wheeler but retained just enough common sense to keep my wishes to myself.

  I wonder what is meant by the expression “Badger Bag”? Falconer is silent.

  (Y)

  It has come to me in a flash! One’s intelligence may march about and about a problem but the solution does not come gradually into view. One moment it is not. The next, and it is there. If you cannot alter the place all that is left to alter is the time! Therefore, when Summers announced that the people would provide us with an entertainment I brooded for a while, thinking nothing of it, then suddenly saw with a political eye that the ship was about to provide me not with a place but with an opportunity! I am happy to inform you—no, I do not think gaiety comes into it, rather a simple dignity; My lord, I have at sea emulated one of Lord Nelson’s victories! Could the merely civil part of our country achieve more? Briefly, I let it be known that such trivial affairs as the seamen’s entertainment held no attraction for me, that I had the headache and should pass the time in my cabin. I took care that Zenobia should hear me! I stood, therefore, gazing through the louvre as our passengers took their way to the afterdeck and quarterdeck, a clamorous crowd only too happy to find something out of the ordinary, and soon our lobby was empty and silent as—as it could well be. I waited, hearing the trampling of feet over my head; and soon, sure enough, Miss Zenobia came tripping down to find perhaps a shawl against the tropical night! I was out of my hutch, had her by the wrist and jerked her back in with me before she could even pretend a startled cry! But there was noise enough from other places and noise enough from the blood pounding in my ears so that I pressed my suit with positive ardour! We wrestled for a moment by the bunk, she with a nicely calculated exertion of strength that only just failed to resist me, I with mounting passion. My sword was in my hand and I boarded her! She retired in disorder to the end of the hutch where the canvas basin awaited her in its iron hoop. I attacked once more and the hoop collapsed. The bookshelf tilted. Moll Flanders lay open on the deck, Gil Blas fell on her and my aunt’s parting gift to me, Hervey’s Meditations among the Tombs (MDCCLX) II vols London covered them both. I struck them all aside and Zenobia’s tops’ls too. I called on her to yield, yet she maintained a brave if useless resistance that fired me even more. I bent for the main course. We flamed against the ruins of the canvas basin and among the trampled pages of my little library. We flamed upright. Ah—she did yield at last to my conquering arms, was overcome, rendered up all the tender spoils of war!

  However—if your lordship follows me—although it is our male privilege to debellare the superbos—the superbas, if you will—it is something of a duty I think to parcere the subjectis! In a sentence, having gained the favours of Venus I did not wish to inflict the pains of Lucina! Yet her abandonment was complete and passionate. I did not think female heat could increase—but as bad luck would have it, at that very critical moment there came from the deck above our heads the sound of a veritable explosion.

  She clutched me frantically.

  “Mr Talbot,” she gasped, “Edmund! The French! Save me!”

  Was there ever anything more mistimed and ridiculous? Like most handsome and passionate women she is a fool; and the explosion (which I at once identified) put her, if not me, in the peril from which it had been my generous intention to protect her. Well there it is. The fault was hers and she must bear the penalties of her follies as well as the pleasures. It was—and is all the same—confoundedly provoking. Moreover she is I believe too experienced a woman not to be aware of what she has done!

  “Calm yourself, my dear,” I muttered breathlessly, as my own too speedy paroxysm subsided—confound the woman​—“It is Mr Prettiman who has at last seen an albatross. He has discharged your father’s blunderbuss in its general direction. You will not be ravished by the French but by our common people if they find out what he is at.”

  (In fact I found that Mr Coleridge had been mistaken. Sailors are superstitious indeed, but careless of life in any direction. The only reason why they do not shoot seabirds is first because they are not allowed weapons and second because seabirds are not pleasant to eat.)

  Above us, there was trampling on the deck and much noise about the ship in general. I could only suppose the entertainment was
being rowdily successful, for such as like that sort of thing or have nothing better in view.

  “Now my dear,” said I, “we must get you back to the social scene. It will never do for us to appear together.”

  “Edmund!”

  This with a great deal of heaving and—glowing, as it is called. Really, she was in a quite distasteful condition!

  “Why—what is the matter?”

  “You will not desert me?”

  I paused and thought.

  “Do you suppose I can step overboard into a ship of my own?”

  “Cruel!”

  We are now, as your lordship may observe, in about act three of an inferior drama. She was to be the deserted victim and I the heartless villain.