The scene was a formal one, that everyone knew and everyone hated. There was an air of brooding violence over all, accentuated by the heat of the day and the feeling that they were witnessing a commonplace, an oft-repeated bloody ritual. Accentuated too, by the smells; the new smell from Joyce, of shit and dirt and squalor, and the smells of unwashed bodies as the naked sun beat harshly on the mass of gathered men. The officers, lined across the quarterdeck, were almost clean. But they stank too, in their tight blue coats and high collars, they stank of sweat and armpits.
Hottest and most uncomfortable of all, on the deck abaft the officers, were the marines, in red coats, gaiters, cockaded hats. Unshaded in the violent, violent sun. A glare came off their scarlet coats and shining accoutrements.
Their faces were shining also, fixed and shining, covered in veils of sweat that flowed ceaselessly from hat to collar. Broad could almost pity them as they stood like that, in silent, unmoving agony. But each marine had a musket, each marine would shoot a sailor down. Better to save one’s pity for a beast like Henry Joyce than a marine.
As he studied the bald-fronted, pig-tailed head of the man to be flogged, there was a flash of movement among the ranks of soldiers. The movement was brief, but he could tell which one had staggered. There was a white face, a chalk-white face, among them. It was thin with agony.
At a brief sentence of command, Joyce was spun round and triced up to the grating by knees and wrists. He made no attempt to struggle. His back, like his chest, was dirty with slime, blackish with whitish runnels. Captain Swift began to speak.
‘My brave boys,’ he said, in his quiet, penetrating voice, ‘you are to witness today the punishment of the vilest rogue unhung in His Britannic Majesty’s Navy. His name is Henry Joyce and the charge against him, which myself and my officers have found proven, is a multiple one. To put it in the language of the people, for I wish to blind no man with fine-sounding words, this rogue is guilty of all that is intolerable in a British tar. He is a liar, a cheat, a coward and a bully. He has spoken mutinous filth, incited his good-hearted messmates to sedition and calumny, and resisted arrest so violently as to cause injury to the ship’s corporals in the exercise of their duty.’
Swift’s peculiar eyes ranged over the assembled men. His skin was dry, his breathing even. He did not appear to feel the heat, dressed though he was in linen and heavy-duty cloth. He started to speak again, and his words were bitter. He held Joyce up as an example of creeping evil that every man should feel with shame and fear as a silent force that could bring them all to ruin.
Thomas Fox had seen the marine stagger, too. Unlike Broad, he recognised him, although it took some little time. It was, he was sure, the ill man, the man who had been doubled up in the sick-bay when he had been confined there also. But how could it be? For many nights, since his own ‘release’, as he had lain among the mass of hammocks, he had heard the muted screams of the soldier, and had had no doubt that he was dying. Now the man was on the quarterdeck, his face a portrait of agony, a thin line of spittle oozing between his lips. Thomas was fascinated.
There was another man in the marine contingent he thought he knew, although his certainty had diminished as time had gone by. This was the one he had taken for his cousin Silas, despite the cold lack of recognition in his eyes. Although their paths had not crossed for many years, he would probably have dared to test him in the street, though on board the Welfare, he hardly dared greet his own shadow. In any case, the marines were hated by the sailors, he had learned that. In some odd way, although they ate the same food and drank the same drink, they were the enemy, as much as the warrant officers and the gentlemen aft. Indeed, they lived between the two factions, and one of their duties was to protect the high from the lowly. Their only duty, some said, for it was a hard thing to have them idling by, when seafaring men were hard-pressed at working the ship.
The nondescript, sweating face before him remained a puzzle. He turned his attention to the captain’s words.
‘Had I not been a merciful man,’ Swift was saying, ‘I could have – nay would have – had this scum kept in irons and finally court-martialled. As you know, each and everyone of you, the result could only have been his inevitable death. Believe me, I would see the life choked out of him at the yardarm with not inconsiderable pleasure. But I am, for my sins, a merciful man.’
He turned to face the boatswain.
‘Mr Allgood, please. Have your mates do their duty. I need not repeat the usual warning as to the fate of any I consider is not applying himself to the task with all his might.’
‘Aye aye sir. May I be permitted to enquire the number of strokes you require, sir?’
There was a long pause. The men were deadly silent. ‘That, Mr Allgood, depends largely upon the will of your inferiors. I require…we require,’ he amended, waving his hand to indicate the officers, ‘that this dog be rendered insensible. At least one hundred, however. At least one hundred.’
A low groan went up. The captain smiled his bitter smile.
‘Unusual crimes require unusual remedies,’ he said.
Even the lowest seaman, however, knew that such a number was quite illegal unless under due sentence of court-martial.
It was not long before the brutal rhythm became almost soporific. The whistle of the cat, the thud and cut as it hit into the broad, immensely muscular back, the grunt of effort as the mate in question jerked the thongs back, ran them through his fingers to clear the blood, then swung once more with every sinew cracking. At the end of each dozen, Mr Allgood pointed to a fresh mate with his rattan. Brows were wiped, palms rinsed in a bucket of sea water, the rhythm taken up by the new man.
William Bentley, standing not far from his uncle, found the whole affair difficult to keep in his attention. It was distasteful – although he was used to it now – the way his face and uniform kept getting flecked with particles of blood and skin. But he was hot, as hot as Hades, and he feared it would be a long operation. He also had seen the red glare of beastly hatred in Joyce’s eyes. The red glare of rum as well. It was apparent that the dogs had fed their friend until he almost overflowed. Please God he would soon pass out, from the alcohol if not the whipping.
The noise behind him, a clattering accompanied by a soft thud, came as a relief. After nearly an hour, Joyce had not yet uttered a cry, nor even closed his tiny, savage eyes in their rings of dirt. He was built like an ox, and was as stubborn. The boatswain’s mate paused in his stroke, his eyes flickering past the officers.
Captain Swift gave a cry of rage.
‘Lay it on! Lay it on there, God damn you! Keep your eyes on the task, you scum!’
The surgeon slipped away and into the marine contingent like a sparrow. William heard feet behind him. There was a quiet commotion.
Swift’s face contorted with fury. He took a step forward and turned to look aft. At a sign from Allgood, the mate continued laying it on, impassive, sweating.
‘God hang you, Mr Adamson,’ said the captain. ‘What do you think you are doing? Leave that damned malingerer alone and get back here this instant!’
William dared not look round. The sea of faces in front of him were staring at the quarterdeck. He could guess what had happened, though. The marine who had collapsed was on duty at the captain’s insistence. He had told Adamson that morning he would tolerate no more shirkers, and to William’s amazement the little man had argued back. His action had bordered on the insolent, not to say the insane, given his uncle’s low opinion of him, but he had said quite firmly that the marine was ill, not shirking, and that to send him to his post would be an act of folly. At this word Bentley had actually blushed; he expected some terrible and sudden explosion of retribution. There had been none. But in silence his uncle had glared at the surgeon, and in silence the surgeon had left. The marine was now on duty.