Smith had got only part of what he wanted. He was not satisfied but he said, “Yes, sir.” He left Trist looking at his watch again and chivvying the corporal of marines to “get a move on with that damn table.”
Smith strode rapidly back along the quay, past the bars and cafes on his right hand, the French destroyers tied up at the quay on the other. He was certain now that Trist was a weak and insecure man under the show, anxious about his post, cultivating appearances — and acquaintances such as the General. He would be dangerous because of that, ready to let Smith or anyone else go hang to save his own career. Dunbar was right. Smith swore savagely. He had guessed almost from the beginning that this would be a difficult appointment but it looked worse with every passing day. But fast walking worked the frustration and anger out of him and his sense of humour came to his rescue.
Wildfire and Bloody Mary! He remembered his bellowed exchange with Victoria Baines. And Galt, that gunner on the twelvepounder singing, ‘I do like to be beside the sea-side’. There were always compensations. He was grinning when he came to the Port d’Echouage and to Sparrow. But he could not waste a minute. This command was still new to him; he had a lot to learn and more to do and he hurried aboard.
Sparrow slipped and moved under the coal chutes. The railway wagons up on the staithes tipped their coal into the chutes and it roared down to crash into the bunkers in an explosion of choking, black dust. The little ship lay in a cloud of it. Smith moved about her deck in a boiler-suit he had borrowed from the Chief Engine-room Artificer, moved among the men toiling in that foul atmosphere. Mostly he watched in silence but now and again he exchanged a few words with one man or another and each time committed a name, a face and an impression of character to memory. He learned that Galt played the mouth organ.
Marshall Marmont’s pinnace came for him but before he went down into her he told Dunbar, “You’re on two hours notice for steam so you can grant shore leave to one of the watches.” He stared up the basin to where it turned. Around that bend lay the Bassin du Commerce where the French destroyers lay — and the old seaman’s quarter with its bars and cafes. The men would make a bee-line for it. He said, “Tell ’em to behave themselves.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Dunbar knew exactly who he would speak to, familiar names recalled, familiar crimes. McGraw and Galt to start with…
Smith went down into the pinnace and so out to Marshall Marmont where she swung to her anchor in the Roads. The oiler was alongside her and oiling in progress with the fat hoses snaking and looping across the gap between the ships. He moved about the monitor as he had done in Sparrow. He spoke to a pair of young stokers. “This is better than coaling.”
“Oh, aye, sir. You just connect up your hoses and away you go.”
“I’ve just been aboard Sparrow while she coaled. There was a certain amount of bad language flying about but they seemed cheerful enough.”
The two exchanged glances, grinned. One said, “Ah, well, sir. They’re a mad lot in Bloody Mary — I mean Sparrow,” he corrected hastily. “But after all, sir, you know what they say: ‘If they can’t take a joke they shouldn’t ha’ joined.’”
Smith returned the grin. “That’s right.”
He clambered around in the turret where the gunners worked in its dull-echoing steel cavern, cleaning and servicing the twin fifteen-inch guns. He poked his head in at the magazine where they were stowing ammunition. And when the liberty men were piped to go ashore for their two hours of leave he watched while they paraded in their best dress to be inspected and lectured by the officer of the watch.
He bathed and changed his clothes and ate in his cabin but this time had Garrick join him, listened to him talk of his ship and his crew and his plans. And finally Smith told Garrick something of his own plans. Garrick was startled but doubtfully agreed.
The tap came at the door and the messenger said, “Mr. Chivers’s compliments, sir.” Chivers had the watch. “Sorry to disturb you but there’s a signal from the Provost Marshall. There’s trouble ashore with the libertymen.”
Garrick said, “Blast!”
“I’ll come.” Smith picked up his cap.
They went ashore in the pinnace, running up the channel past the lighthouse and up the length of the basin of the Port d’Echouage to the fish-market quay at the head of it. Smith climbed the steps with Garrick at his shoulder and found Dunbar already on the quay, pacing back and forth like a caged tiger and glowering at the party of seamen drawn up on the quay in four ranks. There were some thirty in all, a dejected, battered group. There were blood-stained jerseys and torn collars to be seen in plenty but few caps. Smith recognised men from Sparrow and Marshall Marmont, including the two young stokers from the monitor. The group was encircled by twenty or so military police and men of the Naval Shore Patrol under a petty officer.
Dunbar called them all to attention and Smith acknowledged his salute. “What happened?”
Dunbar nodded curtly at the petty officer, who barked in a monotone: “We was called along ’cause of a fight in that there bar, sir.” He gave a sideways jerk of the head and Smith saw the glass-littered road and the shattered windows, the door hanging askew on its hinges. The petty officer went on reciting: “We found ’em smashing up each other an’ the place in the bygoing. All well-known to me, sir. The same had hats from Wildfire and Bloody Mary —”
“That will do!” Smith’s rasp cut the man short. He went on quietly, “Take your patrol away.”
Garrick looked at him sharply when he heard that tone; he knew Smith a little now. The petty officer did not. He objected, “Sir! My orders was to see them embarked and —”
He stopped as Smith’s eye turned from the bedraggled group to fall on him. Then he blinked and saluted, turned on his heel and bawled at his men, marched them away. The corporal in the rear file said from the corner of his mouth, “What did he say, then?”
The petty officer muttered, “Nothing. Not a bloody word. But better them than me. He’s got an eye as goes right through yer.”
Smith looked at this sample of his flotilla. He knew he was no good at speeches and he would not make one now. He stood still, eyes going to each one in turn and holding theirs before passing on. A squall swept up the basin, hurling rain in the men’s faces and they hunched their shoulders, bent their heads to it.
“Look up!” He did not shout but the order snapped them straight. “I have never been ashamed of any ship in which I have served and I will not start now. You’re going to sea. All of you.”
He turned to speak briefly to Dunbar and Garrick while the men cast uneasy glances at each other. If they were all going to sea then surely Marshall Marmont’s orders must have been changed, they thought. But it was not so. Instead Garrick and Dunbar had to quickly compare notes and revise watch-bills. So that when Sparrow sailed an hour later a dozen of her complement who had not gone ashore were settling in bemusedly on board the anchored Marshall Marmont, while all the party from the quay were aboard Sparrow, as look-outs, ammunition numbers on the guns, or in the engine-room where two young stokers were being initiated into the painful and rigorous art of stoking a coal-burning ship. They were learning how to balance on the stoke-hold plating that in good weather rose and fell and tilted and in bad weather bucked like a horse. How to knock open the furnace door with the slice, the long-handled rake, probe with it at the white-hot embers and drag out the clinker and ash that pulsed with heat. How to shovel fresh coal into that roaring, red maw and spread it to burn evenly. Then move to the next furnace and do it all again. And again. Cursing their way steadily through the watch, the hours spent in sweltering heat, filth, steam, the deafening, churning thump of the engines and the roar of the draught that forced the furnaces to that white heat.