"Will you have the lamb cold for your supper, sir?"
"Yes, fine, Bolton," Pendexter said, turning back to the papers on his desk. "And straighten this cabin up a bit, will you, it's a disgrace." Pendexter hated Bolton and Bolton's presence made him squeamish, as if there were a revolting smell in the room.
"Aye, sir. Oh, and, sir..."
Pendexter knew that Bolton had some illicit intelligence for him. He always introduced such information that way, and he always seemed to have information. That was why Pendexter kept him around.
"I have a note here, sir, that one of the men tried to bribe me to send ashore in your mail, sir. I thinks, well, I thinks you best read it, sir." Pendexter accepted the proffered note, noticing as he did that it was written on his own personal stationary.
"Glacous, my good friend," the note began.
You will find this quite extraordinary, but as a quirk of fate would have it, I have been pressed into service as a foremast hand aboard His Majesty's brig Icarus, which now lies at anchor here in Barbados. The circumstances that have led me thus I shall not here relate, and they shall make a fine story over dinner. Suffice to say that I would be most grateful if you could employ your not inconsiderable influence with the admiral to see me and my friends Ezra Rumstick and John Haliburton, who were pressed with me, released from this bondage. Do harry as I do not know when we shall sail again. I look forward to seeing you and have certain business concerns which I wish to discuss.
I remain your most Humble and
Most Obedient Servant,
Captain Isaac Biddlecomb, Esq.
Pendexter set the note down on his desk. "Captain Biddlecomb? So now he is 'Captain' Biddlecomb? Of what does he presume himself to be captain?"
"That's why I thought I best show you."
"And who is this Glacous?" 'Not inconsiderable influence with the admiral,' hr says."
"I never did like the looks of him, sir, and the big one, that Rumstick. Trouble, I says, as soon as they comes aboard."
But Pendexter was not listening to the steward. Rather he was considering these implications. Biddlecomb was just a foremast jack, a creature of the lower deck. Or was he? His speech was not lower deck, nor entirely. It was so hard to tell with these colonials.
"Come!" yelled Pendexter in response to a knock on the door, and Master Gunner Roger Hickman stepped in.
"Yes, what is it, Hickman?" Pendexter realized as he said it that he should have addressed the man as "Mr Hickman," but he was too annoyed to care. The gunner's face registered the slight.
"Well, sir, rats has got at the cartridges, sir, and we're precious low. I spoke to Mr Smeaton—"
"Oh, God damn it to hell!" shouted Pendexter as he glanced at the brass chronometer on the bulkhead. He snatched up his quadrant and pushed his way around the table. He had nearly forgotten the noon sight that would fix their position on the chart and officially begin the new day.
"I am sorry, Hick... Mr Hickman, this will have to wait. Bolton, I'll thank you to keep this... revelation quiet," he called over his shoulder as he fled the cabin.
It was a perfect afternoon, a typical winter afternoon just below 15° north latitude with the sun high overhead and the few clouds brilliant white. Pendexter slowed his pace as he stepped up to the quarterdeck and jerked his watch from his pocket. He noted with relief that it was still three minutes until local noon.
He greeted Dibdin as the master fiddled with his own quadrant and nodded to Smeaton, who paused in his target practice to return the salute. Then Pendexter turned and ran his eyes over his command.
The men were, as usual, hard at work, though today there was an atmosphere of excitement, and Pendexter noted smiles here and there among the men, who scampered apelike through the rig or hung over the side in bosun's chairs painting the hull. That was unusual, Pendexter reflected. He had come to the conclusion that this was the most sullen and uncooperative ship's company that he had ever witnessed. He imagined that it was tomorrow's landfall that had them excited. It made him feel good to see the men smile. He had not had any intention of giving the men a run ashore, but now he thought perhaps he would. The men who could be trusted to return.
Pendexter looked above his head to the main top, and the good feelings vanished. "Captain" Biddlecomb was there, with W9ilson and Mr Midshipman Appleby. Pendexter caught the stench of the slush that they were applying to the masts — old rancid beef and pork fat scraped off the surface of the water in the copper kettles in which the meat was boiled. It was a revolting smell, made worse by the warm air, which melted the slush into a runny consistency.
The men in the main top talked softly as they worked. Pendexter could see their mouths moving but could not hear the words, and suddenly he was desperately anxious to know what they were saying. He searched their actions for a sign of something conspiratorial, but rhere was nothing. Nothing that he could see.
Behind him Dibdin cleared his throat, a signal that it was time to shoot the sun. Pendexter leaned against the bulwark and brought his quadrant to his eye. This was the worst moment of his day, when he and the master took their noon sight and calculated their position on the globe. When they had each worked out a fix, Pendexter pretended to compare the results, though in fact he simply checked the master's answer, agreed with it, and plotted it on the chart, ignoring his own, which was always very different. Pendexter had never mastered the art of celestial navigation. He wondered if Dibdin had realized it, and the realization that he probably had humiliated Pendexter.
He was so engrossed in bringing the sun down to the horizon that he did not hear the frantic cry of "On deck!" — and then Pendexter was covered with a warm and liquid substance. At first he took it to be spray, until the horrible smell of the slush reached his nose.
He lowered the quadrant and looked down at the deck. At his feet lay the canvas slush bucket that had plummeted from the main top and landed beside him, spraying him with its contents. He was aware of the unnatural silence. He looked up and saw that the entire ship's company was looking at him. Some men were suppressing grins, he could tell. The rancid smell assailed his nostrils again.
He looked up to the maintop. Biddlecomb was halfway up the topmast shrouds, his bucket in his hand, and Wilson was below him. Mr Midshipman Appleby stood on the edge of the fighting top, staring back at him. His face was bright red and his mouth opened and closed like a fish, but he made no sound. Somewhere forward a man broke out in open laughter and was quickly stifled.
"Appleby! Get down here on deck this instant, God damn your eyes!" shouted Smeaton, but Wilson was already on the backstay, sliding to the deck.
Chapter 15.
Barbados
BY NOON THE FOLLOWING DAY Mr Midshipman Appleby was still walking with difficulty, eating his meals standing, and sleeping prone, so thoroughly was his bottom thrashed by Mr McDuff while the young man lay screaming over number-ten gun. And while the men had sympathy for Appleby — they liked him as they might a younger brother — they had more sympathy or themselves.
Pendexter, spluttering and stamping in rage, had ordered their rum, their chief source of pleasure in a world of toil and brutality, withheld for a week. There was no greater punishment, save for stopping their rum entirely, that Pendexter could have inflicted on the men. With the issuing of one order the Icarus was transformed from an unhappy ship to a very unhappy ship.
These thoughts occurred to Biddlecomb as he looked around the brig from his vantage point high on the foremast.