Both Bell and Bevan had been tactfully silent after he had washed up and joined them for breakfast, much like executioners who had the good grace not to crack jokes at the wrong time. The girl’s send-off, all the drink, and little sleep had damned near killed him, and a cold breakfast had almost finished the job … and still gave notice of trying.
“I am in no shape to do this,” he said to Bell, who took no notice. And there was the boat from his ship, approaching fast.
“Here, you,” Bell said behind him to a waiting bargee. “Help the gemmun with his chest.”
The sense of shock was gone, also the hope of escape, and Alan’s passing interest in prize money and uniforms and little revenge faded as reality approached. Here was the end of one life and the beginning of another that felt much like penal servitude. Had he not heard or read somewhere that the Navy was like a prison, in which one had the chance to drown?
“Bell, I have money,” he said, turning to the coxswain.
“Tuppence’ll do for the bargee, sir.”
“No, I mean…” Lewrie hinted, tipping a wink.
“Best do it like a man.” Bell scowled. “Sir.”
Alan shrugged and tramped down to the boat at the foot of the stairs. One man held it to shore with a boat hook while eight more sat with their oars held aloft like lances. There was a boy by the tiller, a midshipman of perhaps fifteen.
“Hurry it up, will you?” he called. “Our first lieutenant’s watching. Well, get in the goddamned boat. We won’t bite you … yet.”
Alan stumbled across the gunwale and sat in the boat at the stern by the boy who had addressed him, while two of the oarsmen took hold of his chest and placed it in the bottom of the boat with a loud thump. Alan flipped a coin to the waiting bargee.
“Shove off, bowman,” the boy at the tiller said. “Out oars. Backwater, larboard … give us some way, starboard.”
Alan looked up at Bell, who spat in the water as he waved him a sardonic farewell. Alan sighed and turned to look at the men in the boat with him. The nearest oarsmen were both tanned a dark brown, with skin as wrinkled as a discarded pair of gloves. They also sported impressive scars which stood out like chalk marks on their arms and faces.
“Give way all,” the boy called. “Stroke, damn yer eyes, or I’ll see someone’s back laid open for shirking.”
That could cheer me up, Alan told himself; not like a hanging but possibly entertaining.
He turned to look at the tillerman of his version of Charon’s Ferry and marked him down for a brutal little git of a type he was familiar with from Harrow (and sundry other schools from which he had been expelled), a right bastard made even worse with power over fags and new boys. At least once he was aboard ship, he would have the same power, as if he had been made prefect over a whole shipload of fags. But the men in the boat didn’t look like the pink-cheeked little victims he had bullied in the past. Neither did they look like the popular illustrations of Jolly Jacks and True Blue Hearts of Oak. In fact, they resembled more last session’s dock at the Assizes, surly, uncouth and dangerous brutes, the gutter sweepings from the worst parts of the city, cutthroats and cutpurses he normally wouldn’t give way for, unless they were the pimps he knew. These men looked like the sort who would do him in for a little light entertainment. And that brought him full-circle to the dicey situation in his belly.
“God, it can’t be sick already,” the tiller boy crowed.
“Oh, hold your tongue,” Alan snapped, making sure to keep his own mouth as tightly sealed as possible.
“So that’s the way you’ll be, milord,” the boy said with a cruel laugh. “Well, you’ll sing a different tune when we’re at sea, that I promise you. I said row, you damned sluggards.”
Within minutes, they were close to Ariadne and steering for its starboard side. It seemed immense to Alan’s eyes, much like a country house on a large estate. Unfortunately, a country house that seemed to bob and roll with a life of its own. The bowman grappled them to the side with his boat hook by the mainmast chains.
“Up you go, my booby,” the boy said.
“Up there? How?” Lewrie gawped.
“Jump onto the battens, grab hold of the man-ropes, and climb to the entry port.”
Alan perceived a ladder of sorts, made of wooden strips set into the hull much like a set of shelves, with red baize-covered rope strung through the outer ends to make a most shallow sort of banister rail. This led upwards from the waterline, following the broad curve of the hull along the tumble-home to an ornate open gate cut into the ship’s side, very far overhead.
“Can’t they drop a chair or something?” Alan asked. God, I’ll be killed if I try to climb that. I’ll bet this is some kind of nautical humbug they pull on the newlies.
“You in the boat. Get a move on,” a voice shouted down through a brass speaking trumpet which appeared over the rail, then withdrew.
Alan realized there was nothing for it but to go. He got to his feet shakily as the boat rocked and rolled and bumped against the heaving ship hellish-lively, which made him swoon. He was also not a swimmer and feared the grey water. A seaman offered a hand and shoulder to steady him as he put a foot on the gunwale of the boat. He waited for the two craft to get in harmony, then leaped for the ladder. But his foot pushed the gunwale down and the ship rolled to starboard as he fought madly for a grip on the sodden man-ropes and slick battens. Clinging in terror, he was dunked chest-deep in the freezing water and screeched an obscenity, also catching a solid whack in his back from the side of the rowing boat. As the ship rolled back upright, Alan scrambled for his very life, and arrived through the entry port with his teeth chattering. There was a hearty general round of laughter at his arrival which didn’t do his composure much good, either.
“Well?” a person who appeared to be some sort of officer demanded, hands on his hips and his chin out almost in Alan’s face.
“Sorry about that. Must have misjudged my timing,” Alan said. “Is there a place I could change? It’s devilish cold.”
“You’ll doff your hat to me.” The officer was within an inch of his nose, “you’ll say sir to me, and report yourself aboard this ship properly, or I’ll shove your ignorant arse back for the fish to gawk at, you simple fucking farmer!”
Alan stared at him for a second, shocked to his core that anyone could yell at him in such a manner, and with such filthy language! Not that he was above using it himself, and prided himself on being a true Englishman when occasion demanded harsh words. But to be the recipient was much like his recent cold bath. His lips trembled as he desperately tried to remember what Captain Bevan had instructed him to say.
“M … mid … midshipman Alan Lewrie,” he finally said. “Come aboard to join, sir.” He raised and doffed the cocked hat he wore.
“You are a young one, ain’t you, now,” the officer said. “What a cod’s-head. You’ll never shit a seaman’s turd.”
“Is that required?” Alan stammered, instantly regretting it.