Watches were appointed then, and petty officers chosen. Matthews made no approach to Allgood, but he and Broad had decided to do so later, when he had recovered his spirits more. For without Allgood’s skill and authority, their task would be a hundredfold harder.
It was during this work that Henry Joyce voiced a thought that all considered legitimate. What of the non-mutineers, he asked? Should they not be made to act as servants? This, Matthews would not have. Each man must act the part he was trained to, he said. No able seaman was to wash out quarters, or scour pots. His service was too valuable.
‘And the snotty boy?’ roared Joyce. ‘Is he to walk the quarterdeck, damn it?’
Now, in the sick berth, Broad brought this back to mind. Bentley, who had been asleep maybe, was now awake again, lying before him pale and racked with pain. Jesse smiled a rueful smile, not unmixed with pity.
‘Your name was mentioned after the event,’ he said, quietly. ‘Yes, Mr Bentley, yours. From now on you must tend the few surviving beasts again. And clean the heads.’
Thirty
Morale remained high as the Welfare plunged towards the Horn through green and pleasant seas. The sun shone, the living accommodation and men’s clothes dried out, they made good speed. The rum ration was no worse than it had been, the amount of food allowed was actually increased, and because of the kindly weather, the work was not excessive. When men were not on watch they could do as they liked – no more holystoning the decks until they shone, no more polishing brasswork until the fingernails bled. Above all, no daily punishment. It was a great weight off the minds of the people. In fact, at Broad’s suggestion, every cat, every rattan cane, was flung over the side. Minor acts of indiscipline were infrequent; drunkenness was still the only real problem, and flogging had never solved that anyway. In general it was a sunny, pleasant time.
After a few days, Matthews and Broad called Allgood aft and tried to recruit him to their side. He sat in the cabin sipping a glass of wine, a cowed giant. Matthews had agreed that Broad should do the talking.
‘Mr Allgood,’ said Broad, at last. ‘It is time for you to come in with us. We need your help.’
The huge head turned towards him. The full lips no longer wore their sensuous smile.
‘Why? You have no problems now. She is running well, the people are in good spirits, tractable. For God’s sake, leave me be.’
‘Look, man,’ said Broad brutally, ‘you must come out of this. I know your feelings, and I share them in great part. Mutiny is an awful crime, not just in the punishment but in the act. To you it was a blasphemy, I well know. To many others too, believe me, even of the most degraded. You are not the only man on board with finer feelings than a pig.’
For a moment, something like the old light came into Allgood’s eyes. He lifted his head.
‘Some men went,’ he muttered. ‘Some men went with Swift. Risked their lives to keep within the…’
‘Within the law?’ asked Broad harshly. ‘Come you, Jack Allgood, the law never bothered that brute. And damn well you know, man, he’d have spat in your face if you had asked to go with him.’
The former boatswain gazed at the deck. ‘I feel I started it.’ His voice was very soft.
‘You did not start it, man, it was inevitable. It was inevitable from the time he sent that poor defenceless child to freeze to death.’ He paused. ‘That child you loved.’
Allgood turned startled eyes on him. Broad stared back. ‘I loved him too,’ he said. ‘And little Peter in my mess. And the blind man, Doyle. He killed them all, my friend. You know it.’
The wide, hairy face remained startled. Allgood was looking inwards, digesting the naked thrust that Broad had offered him. He shook his head.
‘I cannot join the mutiny,’ he said. ‘I am a boatswain. I hold the warrant. I cannot join these scum, it is impossible.’
‘Then do not join them. Join us. They hate you anyway, unless their memories are short. For why should anyone among the people care for you, when all is said? Were you not a vicious rogue? Were you not a man of iron, who would maim a seaman on a triviality? Ned Rogers had two broken arms off you, and one of them is quite useless now, bent like an anchor fluke.’
‘Not vicious, never!’ flashed Allgood. ‘It was discipline, discipline! The people are like cattle, they need to be firmly led. I never was a cruel man!’
Matthews laughed quietly.
‘Mr Allgood,’ he said, without a trace of irony, ‘I do fully believe it, and so does Jesse Broad. That is why we want you with us. No, let us be frank. We need you, Mr Allgood. The people need you too, if we are to survive. When things get worse again, if they do, when men like Joyce and his louts find the going hard, this ship will not pull through unless we have some iron in its soul.’
‘Think about it, please,’ said Broad. ‘In the eyes of the law you may be a mutineer, but in your eyes, in ours, you are not. You are fully justified. We all were. Let us get away, and find a place of safety, and who knows what might not happen? Think about it.’
Later on that day, Allgood sought them out and took up an appointment as third in line, and the announcement was passed around the crew. Old Grandfather Fulman, who had become Broad’s ears and eyes among the people, said it had gone down pretty well. Many men had hated Allgood in the old regime, but he was always reckoned fair, if dangerous. Most important, he was a mighty seaman, and could keep the mad dogs down. The mad dogs, Fulman reported, were not so keen. I would warn Mr Allgood, he said, to keep a weather eye on Henry and his boys, for they will kill him surely if they get the chance. Jesse doubted if the warning needed passing on.
The persuading of the boatswain gave William Bentley much food for thought. He had never before had to consider such details as whether or not the lower orders on board had feelings, or whether a man like Allgood, whom he was sure loathed him, was in his turn seen by others as an object of fear or hatred. Certainly it had not occurred to him that such a coarse and brutal man could be worried, almost destroyed, by the idea of having taken part in an uprising. A sense of duty in such a great beast? A sense of shame at having betrayed a sacred trust? He cast his mind back to all the times that Allgood had treated him with barely concealed insolence, including the incident of the ‘twice-dead sheep’. He had assumed, had been certain, that the boatswain had been an instigator of mutiny, had been the leader of a ring of plotters. So how did this fit in? And what was he to make of the talk of Thomas Fox? And love?
He had been feverish and ill for several days, lying in a curtained sick-cot in the captain’s cabin, and it was Broad who tended him. This circumstance also added to his confusion, for each time he saw the gentle, smiling face he summoned up a vivid picture, much against his will, of that same face dripping with his own spittle. It seared him with shame, shame that was almost a physical pain. And filled him with confusion that this man, this mutineer, this victim of his childish, vicious, arrogance, should be kind to him, should nurse him, should indeed have saved his life.
Broad made no reference to the past, but after many hours brooding, Bentley decided to bring the matter up. When Broad had mopped his face one afternoon, and given him a drink, and made his aching neck and shoulder more comfortable, he spoke.
‘Do you remember, Mr Broad,’ he said, ‘that one day in the dogwatch I spat at you?’
Jesse Broad gave half a smile.
‘Hush boy,’ he replied. ‘You will upset yourself. Settle down and try to sleep, or I will hand you over to Mr Adamson and his brandy bottle treatment.’