Thomas had at that very moment been trying to massage the shaking rib-cage of a ewe. The heart beneath his hand was rattling, and he was filled with dread. She could not live the day, she could not. Doyle was on the other side of the animal, trying to warm her with his body.
‘Well, well,’ said Butterbum, in a voice of deep satisfaction,
‘Captain Swift will be delighted at this state of affairs, I am sure. How many have died?’
He consulted his ledger. Thomas spoke in a whisper. ‘None, sir. All are present.’
‘Hah. Is that so? Well, indeed you surprise me. Let me count ’em.’ As he moved into the pen to count, Thomas drew to one side. He kept his arm tightly around the dying ewe. Under his hand her heart shook and rattled. His mind was filled with one prayer. That she should live. Please God, let her but live until Butterbum went away.
For the moment that would be enough.
The purser swiftly checked the sheep. He was disappointed. All were there, no doubt of it.
‘They look sick,’ he said, abruptly. ‘I think they are dying. Definitely on their last legs. What do you say?’
Thomas closed his eyes to get the words out. ‘No, sir. Cold, sir. But very hardy.’
‘Hmm,’ Butterbum sighed.
‘Ah well, the captain wants one killed. See to it boy, see to it. Though God knows, he’ll not be pleased with you when I tell him how desperate thin they’ve grown.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Not been eating their rations, have you? You and your purblind friend there!’
Under Thomas Fox’s hand the rattling heart slowly ran down. It twitched once or twice, then caught a beat, steady, but fainter still. As the purser waddled away, he shuddered with released tension.
‘Butcher,’ he mumbled. ‘Padraig, I have to get to the butcher, before this poor ewe dies. I cannot take you. Wait, friend, and tend the others. Warm them Padraig, warm them!’
The dying sheep was not heavy, but the motion of the ship made it difficult to move fast. He cradled it as best he could as he headed to the galley, where he hoped to find the pressed man, rated able, who kept his hand in at his real trade, of a butcher. He was not there. The old crippled cook was not inclined to say where he might be, despite Thomas’s obvious desperation, so at last, following directions from half a dozen hands, he climbed onto the foredeck. The butcher had been seen wandering about with two cleavers in his hand, himself seeking the carpenter’s mate to sharpen them.
On deck, the half-naked sheep began to shiver violently in the wind. Thomas felt the chill too, but it was the least of his worries. He scanned the damp, pitching deck anxiously. There! He could see the butcher with the carpenter’s mate, walking forward from the mainmast. As Thomas hurried towards them, the great bulk of the boatswain came from behind one of the ship’s boats. He was muffled in an all-enveloping surcoat, his beard flying wildly out from above the collar. He gave a booming laugh.
‘Haha, my bucko!’ he roared. ‘Caught you at the game, have I? Sheep-stealing’s your lay!’
Thomas tried not to stop, but the boatswain planted himself in front of him. The sheep hung down from his arms, shaking convulsively.
‘Hello, what’s this then?’ cried Mr Allgood. He was in high good humour, enjoying the joke and the bracing weather. A few hands watched incuriously from nearby. ‘The butcher, sir,’ Thomas muttered. ‘I must see the butcher this instant. The captain requires—’
‘This instant!’ echoed the boatswain. He laughed again. ‘By hell, Thomas, we are the bold one now indeed, since we beat the shrimpish boy! To tell the boatswain your business is urgent! Do you not consider that a shade forward? Has it not occurred to you I might trice you to a grating and strip your back to the bone? “This instant”!’
The butcher and the carpenter’s mate had approached.
Thomas turned his stricken face to them, and saw, over the butcher’s shoulders, that Butterbum was also in the offing. The fat purser, an interrogative sneer on his face, was waddling from the quarterdeck. Beside him was the midshipman of the watch. William Bentley.
‘Oh please,’ whispered Thomas, in desperation. ‘Oh please, Mr Allgood, sir!’
Under his hand the sheep’s heart raced anew. Its whole body shook for a few seconds. The heart slowed down.
Slower and slower, slower and slower. It faltered, picked up, faltered again. Then stopped. He squeezed the emaciated rib-cage. Nothing. The heart had stopped.
Bentley approached the group on the foredeck with distaste and a certain nervousness. The purser nauseated him, but he had made a specific complaint, and as if by magic the person involved, along with one of the sheep mentioned, had appeared before him. It was obvious that something peculiar was going on; he had a duty to investigate. There was another reason, which he did not put into words. He had not approached or spoken to the shepherd boy since the fight. With both of them on the deck, it was essential that he should speak to the scum. Otherwise the people, in their oafish ignorance, would take it for a sign that he was uncomfortable, even afraid.
At that moment, the boatswain’s booming laugh rolled to him on the wind, followed by a jumble of words. William did not catch them all, but he picked out ‘Butcher it’, and ‘Dead as mutton’, and ‘Killed again’. Butterbum almost grabbed his sleeve in his excitement.
‘Did you hear, sir?’ he said. ‘Did you hear! The sheep is dead! I told you so!’
Then the great, hairy face of the boatswain turned itself on to William’s. They looked at each other across the cold, sloping deck. For several seconds Allgood stared at him.
Then he turned back to the small group.
William quickened his pace, and the purser positively skipped.
The knot of men in front of them had closed up tightly, and moved to the lee rail. There was a sudden scream, half human, half animal.
And then, as William broke into a run, the water in the scuppers suddenly turned bright red. A split second, and a gush of sea burst over the rail as the lee bow plunged. The stain spread, pinkened, then ran out through the drain ports.
‘Ahoy!’ he shouted. ‘Mr Allgood! What are you about, man!’
Once more the boatswain turned to face William. There was a wide, insolent smile on his full red lips. He held the carcass of the sheep easily in his huge hand, half-naked and sodden, like a drowned child. Its head was hanging by a fold of skin and gristle.
‘Teaching the butcher his business, Mr Bentley,’ he said mildly.
‘And testing the edge that has been put upon his cleavers.’
William stared around the faces. The butcher and the carpenter’s mate looked high into the rigging, their expressions blank. The boy was up to his old trick of studying the deck, his shoulders shaking slightly. A black wave of anger swept through the midshipman.
‘You,’ he snarled. ‘You, boy. Look at me, damn you, or I’ll have you flogged. That sheep was dead already, was it not? Dead!’
Thomas did not move. The boatswain made a gesture of surprise.
‘Dead when we cut its throat, Mr Bentley?’ he said, milder still.
‘Do you think I would give such trash-meat to the owner? And did you not hear it scream, sir?’
William opened his mouth and gripped his fists together. He drew a shuddering breath. The boatswain smiled a small smile, an encouraging, wickedly insolent smile.
‘Bless your heart, sir, of course it wasn’t dead. I cut its little throat myself, sir, sweet as you like.’
‘Check the other sheep, sir, check the others,’ hissed Butterbum. ‘They are all in the same state, sir, on death’s door. Trust me, sir, they…’