It did not matter to Broad much anymore. He thought about it for some moments. No, truly, it did not ache so badly.
‘There is a saying, Thomas Fox, used among seafarers. It is a joke of sorts and it is applicable. “Worse things happen at sea.” It is so. Think no more of my slight injuries, and I am heartily glad you are better.
‘You are better?’ he added. ‘You sound better, lad.’ The boy’s voice positively bubbled.
‘Indeed I am, Mr Jesse, I—’
‘Messmate, among seamen that would be taken as unfriendly.’
‘Well then…Jesse. I do feel better. I thought to have died, of sickness if nothing else. And I am not even sick!’ An anxious note crept into his voice. ‘We are at sea, are we not? The motion, the sounds…’
Broad soaked up the familiar sounds and motions through the front of his body and his ears and senses. They were at sea all right. With the wind dead astern, near as damn it, and carrying just about everything she would hold. His heart sank. God knows the speed they were making, but at this rate they would be clear of the Channel in a twinkling. And this foolish boy, who last night had wished to die, sounding as though it was the very thing he had always wanted! Oh Mary, Mary, he thought, and slowly filled his lungs with air to let it escape in a long sigh.
‘Aye, Thomas,’ he said. ‘We are at sea. And if I am any judge, we have a fair wind and a hard one. Does that suit you?’
There was a long silence between them – a sea silence, filled with creaking, rushing water, a constant vibrating drumming given to the wooden hull by the masts and cordage. At last Thomas spoke.
‘I cannot tell for certain, Jesse,’ he said. ‘And I am deeply ashamed for the trouble I have put you to. But… well, I have no power with words, but…’
‘At least you do not feel sick?’ suggested Broad with a laugh. Fox returned it; he sounded exhilarated.
‘Aye, I do not. I feel…I feel very well… And…and I feel as if… As if it were not so bad a thing after all. To be a shepherd lad… to live in the marsh of Portsea Island… Indeed, my cousin Silas… Oh – I feel as if… I feel…’
The words tumbled, became confused. Broad did not prompt him. He listened in the half-darkness, his own pain forgotten. He even forgot his mental pain as he contemplated the simple soul of Thomas Fox. He did not ask – he did not care to remind – the boy about his parents, his home.
He remembered the first time he had joined a lugger’s crew, much too young, against his father’s strict instructions. The heady wine of sail and sea, the joy when he first heard the strange tongue of the ‘colleagues’ off the French coast. He understood Thomas perfectly.
But he wondered when his punishment would come, and what it would be. The idea was a sombre one. Swift had made some reference to the ‘crime’ – and Swift was not a captain one could expect to let any infringement of the rules, either man’s or God’s, pass by without punishment.
He supposed that the severity of the punishment Fox would receive depended on his importance in the ship. He, Broad, had escaped lightly for reasons too obvious to dwell on.
But exactly where did the boy fit into the scheme of things?
Firstly, he was no seaman – and it was skill that Swift was short of, not landmen. Secondly, he was a boy, with a strong tang of country humbleness about him, and Swift was known as a man who had an unpredictable regard for those who would stand up to his tongue. Lastly, and the only point in Fox’s favour, were the beasts. Broad supposed he had been pressed because Swift required a husbandman. Was it then such a difficult job? He did not know. If it was, maybe the boy would benefit.
Fox spoke again, suddenly, almost gleefully.
‘And did you not know, Jesse, that there is a piper on board? Peter told me when he brought dinner. You were asleep. Is that not fine?’
‘A piper? A music-piper?’
‘Aye. Peter says he was the finest thing as they hove up the anchor. He was seated on the…on the…’
‘Capstan?’
‘Aye, he was seated on the capstan and played a right fine tune, says Peter, as they hove up and sailed away. A bagpipe, says Peter, I would guess an elbow-pipe from the way he told it. And the man is Irish.’
‘You understand music then?’ Broad was amazed at the liveliness of Fox’s voice. He sounded like a lark.
‘Oh yes,’ said Thomas. ‘I understand little enough ’tis true, friend Jesse, but I know music well. I make whistles by the score, aye and play them right prettily. Or so everyone says, and the sheep don’t seem to mind at all!’
‘Good,’ said Jesse Broad. ‘Yes, that’s good, Thomas. Music on board a ship is a pleasant thing, pleasant and delightful.’
‘Oh, do you think so?’ The boy sounded overjoyed.
‘Aye, I do. Perhaps you can talk to this piper, if he has the English tongue.’
‘Oh.’
A pause.
‘Oh?’
‘It is sad, but Peter says he has no tongue at all. Nor eyes neither. He is dark, and the poor man is mute and all.’
The conversation tailed off, and presently Fox slept, while Jesse lay and thought. Somehow the ship felt less happy now. She was biting deeper from time to time, and he felt an occasional shock through his belly as her bluff bows hit a steep sea. There were momentary pauses in the vibrating hum, that read to his seaman’s mind as if she were shaking herself like a wet dog, or spilling wind from sails she did not want. At times the deck juddered.
A ray of hope entered his head. It was the only hope, or one of only two. If the weather worsened, if a gale ran up behind them, there was at least a chance. At least a stay of execution. If the frigate hit some dirty weather, she might not clear the Channel so damned quick. She had the crew for it! A good blow, some foul South Coast autumn weather, and most of her ‘hands’ would collapse like pricked bladders. There were precious few seamen on board.
To his surprise, Broad caught himself praying. Not only for the stiff easterly to turn stiffer, to become a gale, to blow a bloody tempest, but for the wind to change altogether.
Why not a westerly for good measure? Where were they now? Off Portland Bill? Start Point? The Rame Head? A westerly blow, and run for shelter. He could do it. One day, half a day, in any port on the English coast, any bay even, and he’d get ashore, he’d run. Sudden elation swept over Broad then. Rightly or wrongly as it might turn out, Thomas Fox would not be interested in joining him, or his Maker, this time; so no burden. Thomas Fox thought he was happy! But he, Jesse Broad, knew where his heart lay. Heart, soul, all!
There was no doubt that the weather was worsening, and even if it refused to change to the west, that was something. Over the next hour the motion grew less steady, the plunging greater. She was beginning to feel it, beginning to feel more than a capful of wind. Hope stirred in Broad’s stomach.
The other thing he prayed for, and he was praying without restraint, was a French ship. He was not, perhaps, asking too much. A full gale in the Channel at the beginning of winter was indeed reasonable, and a westerly or a south-westerly more reasonable still, although the change of direction needed would require a little more effort on Heaven’s part. And as for a French ship, well why not? There was a war on, the Channel was narrow. The men-of-war, by policy, tended not to leave harbour without good reason, but one never knew, and there were privateers aplenty. To meet a gallant Frenchman and to lose a spar or two! To lose a mast and put into harbour for repair! Jesse Broad went to the extreme length of rolling onto his raw and aching back to clasp his hands piously upon his chest.