He stood quivering in the strong, icy blast of wind that tore at him, until a stroke from Jefferies’ rattan slashed across his back. He scrambled onto the deck, with the boatswain’s mate immediately behind him.
‘Forrard,’ said Jefferies tersely. ‘Mr Allgood wishes to see you right in the bows.’
The deck was sloping, and there were many men on it. They were sheltering, for the main part, on the high side. Most of them wore tarpaulin coats or long frocks of canvas. Their faces were muffled deep into their necks, and nearly everyone wore a hat of some sort. Thomas, who no longer even had a jacket, tried to keep his teeth from rattling as he moved slowly from one handhold to the next. Right behind him, all the time, was Jefferies, hurrying him, pushing him, starting him with the stinging cane. It struck Thomas as impossible, this movement from one part of the ship to another; but other men left their sheltered points and scurried about like goats at shouted orders. He was still filled with nausea, but his head was clearer. He managed to duck to avoid the larger lumps of solid water that broke over the bow. But by the time they were clear of the foremast he was wet through.
The chill in his stomach got much worse when he recognised one of the two figures who came towards them. It was small, a lot smaller than himself, wearing a long tarpaulin and a shiny tarpaulin hat. From under it the small clear face looked out, eyes bright. A few strands of blond hair were plastered across the bottom of the hat and the forehead. It was the midshipman who had kidnapped him.
Thomas staggered and might have fallen, but Allgood, who was beside William Bentley, put out a hand like a dinnerplate and took him by the shoulder.
‘Where are your clothes, my scrawny boy?’ he said. ‘What sort of gear do you think that is to start your life as a sailor, now?’
‘I think the big shirt suits him very well,’ said the small midshipman. ‘It leaves him plenty of room to manoeuvre.’ The boatswain glanced at him.
‘As you say, Mr Bentley, sir,’ he replied. ‘Plenty of room to move. I was just thinking though – perhaps he’ll be too cold to move a muscle soon.’
He still had hold of Thomas. Despite the weather, his enormous hand was warm. It almost struck him as being somehow friendly.
‘Then perhaps you had better see to it that he works sufficiently to keep warm, Mr Allgood,’ the midshipman said. ‘I do not have to remind you that this is intended as a punishment.’
Mr Allgood thrust his great whiskery face into Thomas’s.
‘And as such,’ he boomed, ‘shall be hot work, my fine young lamb. Right, sir,’ he said to Bentley. ‘You can leave ’un to me and get back to shelter.’
‘Thank you, boatswain,’ the boy replied icily. ‘I shall decide for myself when to return to my duties aft.’
The boatswain moved his shoulders under his coat. It could have been a shrug, or perhaps he was just keeping his balance. But he turned his back on Bentley.
‘Listen, my bright spark,’ he told Thomas. ‘We have a task for you that Captain Swift do think will fit your abilities. On board this vessel, the illustrious Welfare, it is known as being the liar. And if you recall, you did lie when you come on board of her.’
‘Please sir, I—’
‘Silence!’
Thomas looked from the bland hairy face of the dripping boatswain to the contorted face of the midshipman who had shouted. If only he knew what to make of it all. Surely this boy, this child, was not in control of the mountain of flesh and muscle who was now smiling faintly? But who had himself, in any case, been roaring only seconds before. He wanted to cry out, to tell them that he did not understand, to ask them how he was meant to respond. He kept silent. If nothing else, he had learned that much. He said not a word.
Bentley spoke. His voice was thin, irascible.
‘Captain Swift has been more than generous with you, Fox. He has decided to neither flog you, nor lock you in irons, nor try you by court martial for your attempted suicide. But for now, starting from the moment Mr Allgood thinks fit to put you to it at last, you are to be the Welfare’s liar. That is, you are to clean the heads. And I want them clean. They shall be inspected. If you fail in this duty a real punishment will quickly follow.
‘It has not gone unnoticed, youth, that you have a tendency to slackness, to malingering. If you ever have occasion to return to the sick-bay, it will be because you have been given a more proper reason. Do you understand?’
Thomas goggled. The boatswain shook him.
‘Say “Aye aye sir” to the young gentleman,’ he said.
‘Aye aye sir,’ said Thomas.
‘Good,’ said Allgood. ‘Jefferies, get about your business. And now, my lambkin liar. Let’s get to the heads.’
Because of his condition, and the condition of the weather, Thomas Fox had forgotten, if he ever knew, what the heads were. No one had used them since the Welfare hit the dirty weather, more especially since it had come round to meet her from the south and west. The bluff bows were constantly burying themselves deep into the short, steep seas, which every so often broke right over the foredeck.
Standing right in the eyes of the ship a few moments later, after he had clawed his way along with the boatswain and the midshipman, Thomas looked down beside the bowsprit completely puzzled. Below him, if he ignored the yellow cliff of the bow itself, was nothing but the rigging and gammoning of the huge, groaning spar. And a sort of small gallery. He stared.
‘Good God!’ shouted the midshipman, after a short pause. ‘Do you know what I think, Mr Allgood? I think the scoundrel does not recognise ’em at all. He does not know the heads when he sees ’em!’ It was true. All Thomas could see was a gallery, with seats. In the seats, about eighteen inches apart, were cut round holes. Through the holes the boiling sea was visible. On the side of the bow nearest him and below, cut in the bulkhead, was a stout door or hatchway. It was closed and battened.
The boatswain gave his deep, loud laugh. It was whipped away by the wind.
‘Them there,’ he said, ‘is the heads. The jakes. The privies.’ Another laugh. ‘Although there ain’t too much privy about them when all’s said, eh?’
‘And they are to be cleaned,’ said Bentley. ‘It is Captain Swift’s orders that men who defile the air with lies must clean the shit away. You, Fox, will clean the shit.’
At that moment, Allgood, whose eyes had never stopped flicking at the marching grey seas the ship was punching into, gave a grunt of warning. His ham-hand gripped Thomas suddenly and he tightened his hold on the bulwarks. The Welfare’s nose began to dive with alarming speed. Down and down she went into a trough, as if she were falling. It seemed to Thomas that she could never stop. The midshipman had lost his balance and was scrabbling for a handhold. When the ship hit the bottom, as it were, Bentley fell to his knees at the shock. Thomas looked, fascinated, as the sea, deep green when seen so close, rose in front of them like a wall. The surface of it rushed upwards, up the bow, up the stem, bursting round the gallery. For a split second, weird great gushes of water spouted through the privy holes. Then the gallery was gone and the sea rose higher.
In the roaring before it broke over the foredeck, he heard Allgood yell at him to hang on. He did, with every ounce of his strength. He was saved though, as he well knew, by the fact that the boatswain had spared a hand for him as well as holding the bulwarks.
The sea broke right over them. He thought he would drown before it cleared. He thought his arms would break as the solid water tore at his body. He would have cried out in terror, but his lungs were too busy fighting the cold salt invader that tried to fill them. Time stopped. The fingers of the boatswain bit into his shoulder and back. There was nothing except freezing water, pain, a roaring in his ears.