Even stranger was Swift’s next announcement.
‘To start it all off with a fizz, brave boys, I’ve just one more thing to say. Every one of you, man and boy, will get a double go of grog today. Now, how is that, eh?’
His last words were drowned in a tumult of delight. Layers of hatred, weeks of anger and misery, dissolved before Broad’s eyes. The men around him had gone wild.
He found himself looking into the calm, implacable face of Matthews. Again they gestured their bewilderment. Swift played his people like a fiddle. And cared less for them…
By the time dinner was out, the first details of the events were all round the ship. Bentley, who had thrilled to the brilliance of his uncle’s tactics, was put in charge of organization, and rose to the challenge superbly. He drew up lists of those who wanted to wrestle, those who wanted free fist-fights, those who wanted to punch across the sea chest. His uncle had insisted over a glass of wine after his speech that fighting should be the main part of the sports. There was violence in the air, he said, and he would have it out. He would have it out under strict control. The men could beat each other bloody, and even win prizes for it, but it would be under control, and once out would soon evaporate. Dancing there would be too, and races. Running races on the decks, cannon leaping, and rigging races. Nothing too strenuous, nothing that smacked of work. Dancing in the intervals, to the piper, the whistler and anyone else who could be found to play.
Old Fulman’s mess, like all the others, was full of the announcement. Peter was so excited he could hardly eat. He reckoned to take many a prize in the rigging, because although he was not so strong as the men he was as nimble as a monkey. They talked merrily, full of rum and water, not really noticing the crushing, airless heat any more.
‘What will you enter for, Jesse?’ Fulman said in one of the pauses while Peter stuffed his mouth with rotting beef and biscuit.
‘Nothing, I doubt. Events were never of much interest to me. And I certainly do not fancy being beaten by Henry or his ilk just to provide Mr Swift with some pleasure.’
‘Coward! Coward!’ shrieked Peter. ‘Why Jesse, if I was not so busy with running, I would enter for a milling with the big booby myself!’
They all laughed at the thought of Peter slugging it out with that giant. Allgood the boatswain was the only man on board who could have given him a contest.
‘What is this sea chest fighting, though?’ asked Broad. ‘It is not something I have heard of.’
‘Oh, it is marvellous sport!’ said Peter. ‘Very bloody in the extreme, Jesse!’
‘The rules are simple,’ said Grandfather Fulman. ‘You sit astride a sea chest, one at each end, and punch each other’s heads. It is a game for strong men only.’
‘And brave ones,’ said Peter. ‘Or fools,’ said old Samuel. ‘Who wins?’
‘Again simple,’ Fulman went on. ‘The man who stays seated when the other is lying in a pool of gore on the deck. An extremely bloody game, as little Peter told you.’
Later they carried on the conversation on the foredeck, mingling with the other off-duty messes. Many men were tipsy, a few very drunk, but there was an air of jollity, almost of happiness. The fights would come later; and this time there would be prizes!
When he had finished sorting out the details, with the help of the other midshipmen, Bentley went forward to see about the music. A hush fell over the lounging men as he walked among them, but it was a good-natured one. He picked his way across the deck to where Fulman and his friends sat by the fore-bitts. They stood up as he approached.
‘Be easy, men,’ he said heartily. He could feel the tension in the air. A dampness broke out on his brow. The man he had spat at looked levelly at him, face closed. The two greybeards employed the old sailor’s trick of looking at the sea, the sails, anything but his face. Bentley felt his eyes drawn to the empty sockets of the Irishman.
‘Be easy, men,’ he repeated. ‘You may sit if you please.’ Nobody moved.
‘Well, then,’ said Bentley. ‘You, Irishman, we will require your services a good deal. Between each race, between each set of matches, there will be dancing. Shake your head if you understand.’
Padraig Doyle shook his thin grey head briefly. William wetted his lips.
‘And you, boy,’ he said to Thomas. ‘Where is your whistle?’ Thomas Fox was standing beside the dark musician, his head bowed. He started when the midshipman addressed him. He did not reply. There was silence all around them.
‘Go below to your berth and get your whistle-pipe. I require you to play it.’
The tension was becoming greater. William willed the shepherd boy to look at him. Nothing happened.
Suddenly Peter produced the whistle from inside his shirt. He blushed crimson.
‘Please your honour,’ he mumbled, ‘Tommy give him to me. I think as he don’t want him no more.’
‘Do you play, boy?’
‘No sir, your honour. But he don’t want it, so I took him.’
‘Then give him back,’ said William coldly. ‘Take up your whistle-pipe, Fox, and play. I command you.’
For a long moment, Thomas did not move. Peter held out the pipe, William felt sweat trickle down his neck into his shirt, the surrounding seamen watched. Then Thomas reached out a hand, took the pipe, and began to raise his head. He raised it until his eyes were level with Bentley’s chin. His face was white and tense, the muscles in his neck and cheeks fluttering. He made a great effort to raise his eyes to the midshipman’s, but they stuck at his chin. William’s own mouth was dry.
Slowly Thomas raised the pipe in front of him. He brought his left hand up to meet his right. He tried once more to raise his eyes to Bentley’s. Failed. Then snapped the whistle in two and dropped the pieces on the deck.
There was a noise like a sigh all round William Bentley.
He looked aft at the quarterdeck. His uncle was gazing at the scene, had watched it all. He returned his eyes to Fox, who was staring full at the deck again, his arms limply at his sides.
William felt a peculiar mixture of things. Cold rage, cold but blazing, and hot humiliation. He knew his face was red, knew what an incredible fool he must look. He felt awful hatred for Thomas Fox, mixed with a weird elation. An elation at the opportunity he had been given to get his own back. The punishment came to him in an instant, and he enunciated it clearly, although he could not hide a tremor in his voice.
‘I will beat you for that,’ he said. ‘I will beat you till you scream.’
There was another odd sigh from the men on the foredeck.
‘But it will be all fair and above board,’ he added. ‘It will be at the sea chest. Ours will be the first milling, Fox, and I will beat you till you scream. I will beat you for an insolent animal, sir. And I will beat you till you scream.’
He was white now, and trembling violently. There was dead silence as he left the foredeck to the seamen.
Twenty-One
Not even the bubbling Peter spoke until Bentley had disappeared. At first it looked as though he would return to the quarterdeck, perhaps even talk to the captain. But at the after hatchway he swung to his left, and clattered below.
There was an abrupt babble among the seamen, loud and incoherent. They clustered about Thomas offering congratulations and encouragement. Thomas did not respond in any way, but Peter swelled with pride and strutted like a cockerel.
‘Good man, Thomas!’ was the general cry. ‘Good man to face that snotty boy; you made him such a fool he’ll never hold up his head again.’
Peter piped shrilly: ‘He is a miserable cur, but we have brought him down. My brave messmate! Did you see how he broke the whistle-pipe? I had him in my shirt and would have learned to play him soon enough!’