For nearly an hour the admiral had shrieked and cursed. He had called Pendexter all manner of names, questioned him on his naval experience, and even quizzed him on points of seamanship. And Pendexter could do nothing beyond nodding, answering, and saying, "Yes, sir."
At last Pendexter had decided to offer up an excuse, which made the admiral more furious still, and his excuse of being shorthanded was, as it turned out, the stupidest thing he could have said. If he was shorthanded, why had he tried such an idiot stunt? That in turn led to questions of how he had come to be shorthanded in the first place, and further recriminations about giving unreliable men a run ashore. The hour-long harangue became ultimately an hour-long review of the legion of failures that comprised Pendexter's first month of command. Laid out at his feet that way, Pendexter was forced to admit to the admiral, and worse, to himself, that it was not an auspicious start.
And there was the admiral's daughter. She was just as Smeaton had described her: young and beautiful, her hair curly and blond, and her skin glowing brown as a healthy young girl's skin will do in the tropics. She was in real life more beautiful than she had been in the amorous fantasies that Pendexter had entertained for the past week. And she had been there, smiling pertly, as the admiral stripped Pendexter of the last syllable of his dignity and stomped on the pathetic creature that was left. It was the greatest humiliation that Pendexter had ever suffered, and now he was cruelly mocked by the memory of his fantasies of impressing the admiral and winning the favors of his daughter.
"Short peak!" Pendexter heard McDuff through the skylight yelling from the bow, and then Dibdin's voice, loud and confident, yelled out, "Let fall topsails! Sheet home!"
What must Dibdin think? That old man always had a smirk just under the surface, was always ready to criticize. He would have anchored safe, but he didn't have the courage try anything with flash.
The capstan creaked again. "Anchor's aweigh!" shouted McDuff.
Dibdin would know, of course, that the admiral had humiliated him. It was the only explanation for their hasty departure. Smeaton would know as well. There were no secrets in the navy. The story of their botched anchoring would make the rounds of the fleet, be told in gaming rooms and taverns, in great cabins and lower decks. He would be the laughingstock. This tale would follow him to the grave. The realization made him feel sick to his stomach.
And then he remembered the admiral's promise to send word to Admiral Graves delineating what a fool Pendexter was. If he lost favor with his uncle, he would remain commander of a brig until he retired. Or worse. He would be sent back to a ship of the line as a fourth or fifth lieutenant, there to eke out his days in obscurity until he was an old and drunken wretch. Graves would do that too, the villain.
Below the great cabin's window the rudder pintles groaned in the gudgeons, and the Icarus heeled a trifle to larboard as she gathered way. A small pile of paper slid off the desk and landed in a heap on the deck. Pendexter stared blankly at the piles that remained. Reports on powder and shot and cordage and sailcloth and barrels and the endless purser's logs that he could not understand.
I have no purser. I have no first officer. Dibdin fights meat every turn, Pendexter reflected. McDuff, McDuff is an animal. But those bastards, dropping tallow on me and ruining my anchoring, an animal is what they deserve.
Dibdin's voice, no longer a shout, came down through the skylight. "Shall I get the topgallants on her?"
Smeaton's voice came next, with a peevish note. "I am certainly capable of setting the topgallants, Mr Dibdin!" he said, and then in his best voice of command, "Hands to the topgallant gear!"
Pendexter's eyes moved over the piles of paper on his desk and on the deck below, and he let out a low moan. He had to get things organized to prove that he ran an efficient ship. Logs to fill out, reports to write... his eyes settled on a folded note on the corner of his desk. He snatched it up and unfolded it, and as he did, a new understanding flooded over him. "Glacous, my good friend," he read again. The American. This... "Captain" Isaac Biddlecomb. And Ezra Rumstick. It was when they came aboard that the trouble had started.
It was clear to Pendexter now. Things had been fine until those two had infected the Icarus. Well, the men were fools if they were following the Americans, and they would see what divided loyalties got them. And as for this Rumstick, and this Biddlecomb, a lower-deck villain who dared call himself captain, he would turn McDuff loose on them. Pendexter flung the letter aside and sank his head in his arms, relishing the vengeance he would let ship on this disloyal company.
"Come!" shouted Pendexter as the pounding on the door brought him out of his reverie.
Appleby opened the door and peeked in. "Beg pardon, sir, but Mr Dibdin says we're clear of the harbor and what course should we steer?"
"Steer the goddamned direction we are going, tell him that!" Pendexter shouted. "Wait!" he yelled as Appleby withdrew his head. The midshipman appeared once more. "You were the one that dropped the slush on me, weren't you?"
"It was an accident, like I said then, and I was beat something awful already, sir," Appleby stammered.
"And that Biddlecomb was with you aloft, wasn't he?"
"Uh, yes, sir, but he didn't have anything to do with the slush, sir."
Pendexter was silent for a long moment. His thoughts were interrupted by Appleby's nervously shuffling feet. "All right, Appleby. Tell Dibdin to assemble the men aft."
Appleby hesitated, expecting more, but when it did not come, he turned and fled the great cabin.
Pendexter listened to the sounds of the men assembling, the bosun's calls and the shouted orders, and the stamping feet, which quickly settled into silence. He pictured them all there, waiting, wondering what was to come. He let them wait. For ten minutes, then fifteen, then twenty, he let them wait and fester with their thoughts. He wanted the men to have time to think about their crimes.
At last it was time and Pendexter stood up and marched out of the great cabin, through the gunroom, and out on deck. The sun had just set, but enough light remained for him to see the men assembled in the waist.
He stepped up to the quarterdeck, ignoring the salutes of the officers, and turned and surveyed the men. They looked back, anxious, eager to hear what Pendexter would say.
"You men," Pendexter began at last, "have disgraced this ship and its officers, and you have disgraced yourselves. Up until now I have been a strict captain, but a fair one, and I've run a crack vessel. But you men have chosen to thwart me, to be seduced by the influence of others, and to make me the laughingstock of the Royal Navy. Don't think that I do not know who among you is plotting this, is filling your heads with sea-lawyer talk, because I do. But you are all ultimately guilty of plotting against me, and you will now see who holds the legal authority aboard this brig! You will see just who your God is! There shall be no more Sunday service, and Sunday shall be a workday like all the rest. There'll be no make-and-mend day and no plum-duff pudding. And there shall be no more rations of spirits, none at all."
He waited as the murmur ran through the ship's company, let it swell and subside. He knew that he had just stripped these men of every tiny comfort that made their hard life bearable, and he wanted to savor the moment. They had ruined his life, but he would take them with him to hell.