"Mr. Holt," he said. "For all I care Mr. Taylor can go over the wall this very moment, and take whoever with him that he likes. I've anchored bigger ships than this before I've had my breakfast. Mr. Taylor just tell the men who stay that I can smell a slacker at a cable's length, and I am all for retribution. However they are seamen all, that I can see. There will not be any trouble."
He was aware how small he was beside the general seamen, how small and slight. Once on a day he had been small and slight and vicious, he had been famous for it, and some parts of that memory haunted him. He also knew that sometimes hardness was a weapon for an officer, sometimes the only one. He had struck the sailor down while on the Press gang; it occurred to him he should be glad he had. Now he held Jem Taylor's eyes, unwavering, to drive the message home.
"Aye, sir," responded Taylor, mildly, and dropped his eyes. He was a powerful figure, although not much taller than William, and pretty equable, it seemed. Sam was satisfied as well, judging by his smile. At a sign, Jem Taylor went away.
"Now," said Sam, 'how is it with your head? It's not the way you handle men that worried me, but the way you look! Dog's breakfasts are not in it, Will! How is your spirit?"
"It will do. Sam, who is in command here, you or Gunning? Has Kaye not yet come back, or is he in his cabin with Black Bob?"
"Then where's his skiff, and where's his cox? No, they're all adrift, as usual. Your uncle's fire-breathing didn't wreak much renewal, did it? Although there is a chance he's done it by arrangement with John Gunning, and will meet us down at Woolwich. One thing you never know on Biter, Will, is this: nothing!"
"But is John Gunning ?"
"Oh, at this lark he is perfect. If his self-control was one whit as He broke off. "And, ho! He has a man to oversee him! His very own admiral of the fleet!"
Will saw his tutor, too, a strange vision of embarrassment and diffidence, approaching Gunning at the con, who signally ignored him. He was not ill dressed, looked like a gentleman and a seaman rather than a walker on dry land, but there was a scraggy, scarecrow air to him, enhanced by the oddly hanging sleeve that ended in a stump. He had been commissioned a lieutenant, William understood from some impatient sentences of Swift's, but now was on the sick and hurt, a pensioner officially unfit. Both Samuel and Will took him for his uncle's spy, so left him well alone when Swift had gone, until some move was made by him. Strange spy, though; since then he'd been entirely indifferent.
Gunning had men up on the fo'c'sle and the stern with the warps now singled up and turned to face them with a crooked smile.
"Mr. Holt, there. Mr. .. . Bentley, is it? We are set to slip and I hope you're ready. I want the head sails hoisted and backed in to larboard, foresail up and ready in its bunt. The tide and breeze shall set us out, I'll hold her stern in on its buoy until I get a slant. Five minutes, sir, till slip."
"Aye aye," said Samuel, automatically. "Will, get those kedges and their cables set. You've got Hugg and Mann, they're all right. Now, brave boys!" he shouted. "Man jib halliards, there! Behar! To me, to me!"
The men themselves, as well as William, must have been rotten with the alcohol, shot with it through and through. Like him, though, they had a method, call it experience, or work. They laid hands on the gear as necessary, sometimes to orders, more usually because they knew to pull or shove or belay was the thing required on that instant. William missed most of it, as he checked the flaking of the cables with his two men, and saw the anchors loose-lashed on the bulwarks clear to cut and slip if need arose. He heard the tramp of feet as yards shot up, the shout of 'back those heads' is from Gunning, who looked calm and keen and properly in control. He felt the Biter heel as she laid off to the breeze, watched the fore braced round and sheeted, and took time to marvel in her quiet beauty as she cut out and swung round to take the seaward flow. Ugly old tub; and full of quiet beauty. Beneath his grinding head, he felt his spirits rise.
And then last night. As he stood there, with the Biter slipping down the stream as easy as you'd wish, he remembered the shock and the excursions and his lips grimaced without him willing it. For the while now he had no duty but to stand and watch and wait for problems, so his mind rolled back the curtain, and he saw Cecily's face again, and the parlour, and the roaring girls. He had stood there like a muffin, horrified and bewildered, until a quick concerted rush of them had pushed him through another door, and he'd been in a small back lane outside the courtyard, outside Dr. Marigold's altogether, sans help or company. But he had to help, or to find out, or enquire. Cecily was there, her face a sight to weep for, and Deb had lain upstairs, stark naked, while he had stared at her; and toothless too. Despite himself, now, on the Biter, he could see her form, and the vividness of it filled him with shame anew. She had been brutalised, debauched and robbed, and still he could not bleach that picture from his mind. He felt he had loved her when he'd met her; he felt now that that, however bedlam, was still in some wise true. He had to see her, speak to her, effect a rescue or some help.
Sam had found him at the coaching entrance, called and alerted, so he said, by Mrs. Lewis, who was 'pretty mad' at all the goings-on. Sam, however, was a valued customer (he said) and had explained that his young friend was new, a country bumpkin, and probably insane with lust. William, far from appreciating this line of jolly conversation, gave a response so cold and miserable that Sam sobered quickly, and asked what was the business. Which, explained, he still had difficulty taking quite seriously as a tragedy to shake the world.
"What, Deborah as well? Lying stark and bare and naked like a babe, except she had a cloth piled on her head? Well, the things they'll do for money, these young lasses!"
"She has lost her teeth! She has sold them too, or had them dragged out by the mountebank! Good God, Sam '
"Good God, Will, it cannot just be true! We saw them only .. . when? Yesterday, the day before, Tuesday, was it? How can it have happened, they were at the Lodge! Sir A would not have let them be betrayed!"
"But they are here! I saw both of them! Well, I saw Cecily and .. . Oh Sam, for Christ's sake, we have to go inside again and talk to them!"
It was quiet in the courtyard, and it was growing cold. There were ostlers in the stable, but no other passengers. From inside there was music, laughter, shouts, but the smaller part, where the women plied for money, was silent as the grave. What should we do, asked Sam, setting out the hopelessness before them: go and demand to see poor Cecily? Be conducted back into the peeping room and start to shout? Tell Mistress Pam or Mistress Margery we need conversation with the girls? Mistress Margery was a pleasant woman, and she would understand. She'd call them drunk and pack them off, and if such sweet talk failed, would call the men who did such things.