"Mainsail, haul, God damn your eyes!" shouted Pendexter. Wilson wanted to call out for the bowline to be cast off, but calling out was frowned upon in the Royal Navy and would no doubt earn him a stripe from McDuff's starter.
He turned to the waisters behind him. "Cast off the main topsail weather bowline!" he hissed, but the waisters just stared at him with looks of bewilderment.
"Cast off the buggering bowline!" he hissed again.
"God damn you!" shouted Pendexter. "That man there!" He pointed at Wilson. "Mind your business and haul or I'll know why! You have got us in irons! Get some more men on that brace!"
Before Wilson could object, he was surrounded by four more men, each reaching for a grip on the topsail brace. It was too late to save the evolution, Wilson could see that much. The brig was indeed "in irons", pointing straight into the wind with her sails all aback.
"Mainsail, haul!" Pendexter shouted again, and the waisters hauled with a will, pulling Wilson with them. By now it was pointless, of course. Even if they could brace the main topsail yard around, it would not get them out of irons. Wilson wondered where Dibdin was. The lieutenant could benefit from his advice.
The waisters flung themselves back against the resisting brace, hauling a few inches of slack. They straightened and jerked again, and this time the yard gave way and the men fell to the deck in a flailing heap. Overhead they could hear the tearing and thrashing canvas. Wilson knew that the weather leech had torn clean out of the main topsail.
"God damn it to hell!" cried Pendexter, fairly leaping off the quarterdeck and racing forward. "Why wasn't the bowline cast off?" he demanded of the deck in general. "Who is stationed at the weather bowline?"
Wilson wondered why Smeaton did not know the answer to that question, such things being responsibility of the first officer. But Pendexter was not asking Smeaton and Wilson remained silent as befitted a man-of-war's man.
"Who is responsible for this weather bowline?" Pendexter demanded again. Forward the jibs pounded in confusion, flogging in the wind. The square sails were firmly aback and the brig was wallowing in irons, slowly making sternway. Wilson was glad that they had plenty of sea room, and that the wind was not blowing hard.
"I want the man responsible or, God help me, I'll flog you all! Pendexter shouted. His voice was starting to sound unnatural.
"Wright," said a voice in the dark. Wilson recognized the voice. It was Israel Barrett.
" 'Right'? 'Right' what? What does that mean?" said Pendexter, menacing and calm.
"David Wright, maintopman, sir," Wilson said, breaking his silence.
Pendexter turned on him. "And where is this 'Wright'? Why is he not attending his duties?"
"He was left on the beach, sir. In Boston."
There was silence, save for the flogging headsails, and then Pendexter turned on his heel and marched back to the quarterdeck.
"Sheet home those headsails!" he ordered. "Mainmast, let go and haul!"
When Pendexter announced the next morning that punishment was to be meted out for the fiasco of missing stays, Wilson was not surprised. He expected an announcement of sail maneuvers. He expected to see the crew tack and wear ship, tack and wear ship, set the douse sail, strike yards and masts to the deck. He expected a day of constant, exhausting drills, where the men were run until they dropped.
That, in his experience, was the way punishment was handed out in the navy. It was disagreeable and it made for a crack crew all at the same time.
The fact that the men did not necessarily deserve punishment for the affair was irrelevant. A certain amount of injustice was to be expected by the lower deck, a certain amount, and no more. Punishment for something that was clearly the first officer's fault was nearing the edge.
But the sail drills did not materialize. Instead Pendexter turned the men over to the boatswain, assuming, apparently, that allowing McDuff to do with the men what he wished was severe enough punishment. In this Pendexter was right.
And there was nothing that McDuff loved more than to see the Icarus scrubbed, scraped, blackened, and painted. He first ordered the the decks holystoned with far more than the usual care. The operation took four hours, with all hands working, and when at last McDuff was satisfied, the men were set up with paint and tar and brick dust to polish the brass. The masts were painted again, the anchors chipped and blacked again, the standing rigging and woolding received fresh tar. This was certainly punishment, Wilson considered, though he did not see how it would help them to better put the brig about the next time.
McDuff and Longbottom were everywhere, up and down the decks and aloft, seeing everything, coming down on any perceived sloth like the wrath of God, their starters in constant motion. Pendexter had given them free rain to enforce discipline and punish as they saw fit, that much was clear to Wilson. He hoped that Pendexter would soon realize what kind of men they were and bring them under control. He reminded himself that it had taken Bleakney a week to comprehend McDuff's and Longbottom's sadistic inclinations and to reign them in again.
Wilson looked down the shank of the best bower, which he was chipping and blacking, at the young man who was assisting him. Boy, really; Wilson doubted he was above sixteen years of age. There was a nasty welt on his left hand, and dried blood on his cheek where Longbottom's starter had slashed him. He had been in the navy only five months, and he was not very bright in any case, on shipboard or otherwise. As he scraped at the anchor stock Wilson could see that he was on the verge of crying.
"You keep at it, Wilson, and no daydreaming," Longbottom spoke from the bow. Wilson turned and looked at him.
"Don't you worry about me, Edward Longbottom," Wilson said slowly.
"You just watch your gob, Bloody Wilson. You may think you're the crack foretopman here, but I know different, and so does the bosun."
Wilson stared into Longbottom's eyes, noticing for the first time how unusually far apart they were. He waited for a moment, knowing that he could unnerve Longbottom with his silence. "What is it you're saying, Longbottom?" he asked at last.
"I'm just saying that this here captain ain't like Old Lady Bleakney with his bleeding "Don't be so hard on the men!" This here captain, he appreciates me and Mr McDuff, and he told Mr McDuff that him and me, we're to keep discipline how we sees fit. So don't you be mouthing off to me, Bloody Wilson, because it don't matter now how much the foremast hands like you, or the master likes you, 'cause me and Mr McDuff are running this show, like we should be."
Wilson stared into Longbottom's reptilian eyes, considering the threats, real and implied, in his words. Pendexter did not seem overly concerned with running the ship, Smeaton even less so. There was little that Dibdin could do in that circumstance, particularly if Pendexter had given McDuff explicit orders to maintain discipline in his own way. The bosun and his mater could make the Icarus into a perfect hell ship.
Longbottom shifted uncomfortably and Wilson realized that he had been staring into his eyes this whole time. He turned without a word and continued to chip away at the anchor.
"And don't let me catch you slacking off again, there," Longbottom yelled the threat at Wilson's helper over the ring of the chipping hammers, "or you'll feel my starter again, I promise." With that he turned and walked aft.
The four men that sat at mess table six were generally a happy group. They had managed, through the naval custom of allowing men to switch messes every month, to assemble a companionable and professional clan. With Wilson as part of the mess they rarely lacked for conversation, and with Barrett there as well they rarely lacked for stories. Paul Harland, foretopman, was, after Wilson, the best seaman on board. The fourth member, David Wright, had been left ashore. Even having one-quarter of the mess gone would not, under normal circumstances, greatly reduce the lively chatter usually associated with that mess.