Garnet’s hand. It surprised him into a smile that was quenched immediately as the doors to the captain’s cabin opened and a severe, dark-haired man came out.
I released Garnet’s hand with a speed that must have seemed suspicious, but I think the man’s mouth was compressed so much it could not tighten further. It dragged down at the sides as though fitted with an invisible bit.
“Captain Edwards?” I said. His hard gaze passed over my face like the beam of a searchlight, and moved on. He turned his back, cutting me dead. Rage consumed me—a lifetime’s rage, composed of all those moments as a tar I had been treated like this, like something inhuman. All those moments, struggling up the long ladder of my career, thwarted at every point by men like him. I burned with fury, and he strolled about the quarterdeck as though he was taking the air.
“Cheated by every servant, mistrusted by every commander, betrayed by every lover,” Garnet whispered. “If he’s ever had any at all.”
I do not wish to speak ill of my service, and indeed I have found many great and gallant men in the Navy. Men cheerful in the face of adversity, generous and even playful in everyday life, magnanimous in victory, and undaunted in defeat. But I have also known too much of this—the petty tyranny, the grinding, unrelenting disrespect. The moment Captain Edwards turned his back on me was, I think, the moment I fell out of love with my career.
It is too late now to cut a long story short, but I will endeavour not to protract it for very much longer. On Edwards’ fifth turn about the deck, the powder monkey returned, bringing with him, up the companionway, a rusty-aproned surgeon and, leaning on his arm, a man I knew. Ned Compton, coxswain’s mate in the Yarmouth , now holding in his bursten belly with a cut-down pair of lady’s stays. “Oh, aye, I know Mr Thompson, sir. Lieutenant in the Yarmouth , he was. Did hear he’d made captain of the Banshee . Congratulations to you, sir.”
“Thank you, Ned. It’s good to see you again.”
He chuckled. “Aye, main glad you must be right now.”
Things became a little more comfortable after that. They let us out. We were given hammocks to sling in the wardroom, and a change of clothes from the slop chest. Either by way of apology, or as a scheme to investigate us further, Edwards invited us to one of the most painful dinner parties I have ever attended, scrutinising my table manners, peppering us with suggestions of what we should have done to prevent the disaster to our fleet. “Also, I wonder,” he said, “what you found to occupy yourselves with, all that time alone on so blasted an isle.”
We made him some noncommittal answer but the thought lodged in my mind. As we plunged back into human society, played cards in the wardroom, stood watches for fellows who were grateful to take a few hours’ extra rest, the thought of what I had lost began to grow on me like a canker.
I became acutely aware of the space that separated me from Garnet. Hours spent either in solitude or in the company of other men seemed grey and barren. Yet my hours with him were a torment of constant awareness and yearning. Without him in the hammock beside me, hot and restless and fidgeting in his dreams like a big dog, I could not sleep. My heart seemed to beat in a cavern within my chest, its tiny flickering unable to fill the dark. A constant squirm of anguish lodged there like a worm in the flesh.
We breakfasted together and sat next to one another at the wardroom, and yet it felt to me as though he were dead and I was not being allowed to mourn.
Pandora worked her way slowly through the islands of this little-known part of the world. The mutineers sweltered in their cage by day and shivered through the exposed nights. I found myself drawn to them, and would spend much of my free time standing by the ship’s rail as near to the cage as I could come. I knew I deserved to share their fate, and in sharing their
I released Garnet’s hand with a speed that must have seemed suspicious, but I think the man’s mouth was compressed so much it could not tighten further. It dragged down at the sides as though fitted with an invisible bit.
“Captain Edwards?” I said. His hard gaze passed over my face like the beam of a searchlight, and moved on. He turned his back, cutting me dead. Rage consumed me—a lifetime’s rage, composed of all those moments as a tar I had been treated like this, like something inhuman. All those moments, struggling up the long ladder of my career, thwarted at every point by men like him. I burned with fury, and he strolled about the quarterdeck as though he was taking the air.
“Cheated by every servant, mistrusted by every commander, betrayed by every lover,” Garnet whispered. “If he’s ever had any at all.”
I do not wish to speak ill of my service, and indeed I have found many great and gallant men in the Navy. Men cheerful in the face of adversity, generous and even playful in everyday life, magnanimous in victory, and undaunted in defeat. But I have also known too much of this—the petty tyranny, the grinding, unrelenting disrespect. The moment Captain Edwards turned his back on me was, I think, the moment I fell out of love with my career.
It is too late now to cut a long story short, but I will endeavour not to protract it for very much longer. On Edwards’ fifth turn about the deck, the powder monkey returned, bringing with him, up the companionway, a rusty-aproned surgeon and, leaning on his arm, a man I knew. Ned Compton, coxswain’s mate in the Yarmouth , now holding in his bursten belly with a cut-down pair of lady’s stays. “Oh, aye, I know Mr Thompson, sir. Lieutenant in the Yarmouth , he was. Did hear he’d made captain of the Banshee . Congratulations to you, sir.”
“Thank you, Ned. It’s good to see you again.”
He chuckled. “Aye, main glad you must be right now.”
Things became a little more comfortable after that. They let us out. We were given hammocks to sling in the wardroom, and a change of clothes from the slop chest. Either by way of apology, or as a scheme to investigate us further, Edwards invited us to one of the most painful dinner parties I have ever attended, scrutinising my table manners, peppering us with suggestions of what we should have done to prevent the disaster to our fleet. “Also, I wonder,” he said, “what you found to occupy yourselves with, all that time alone on so blasted an isle.”
We made him some noncommittal answer but the thought lodged in my mind. As we plunged back into human society, played cards in the wardroom, stood watches for fellows who were grateful to take a few hours’ extra rest, the thought of what I had lost began to grow on me like a canker.
I became acutely aware of the space that separated me from Garnet. Hours spent either in solitude or in the company of other men seemed grey and barren. Yet my hours with him were a torment of constant awareness and yearning. Without him in the hammock beside me, hot and restless and fidgeting in his dreams like a big dog, I could not sleep. My heart seemed to beat in a cavern within my chest, its tiny flickering unable to fill the dark. A constant squirm of anguish lodged there like a worm in the flesh.
We breakfasted together and sat next to one another at the wardroom, and yet it felt to me as though he were dead and I was not being allowed to mourn.
Pandora worked her way slowly through the islands of this little-known part of the world. The mutineers sweltered in their cage by day and shivered through the exposed nights. I found myself drawn to them, and would spend much of my free time standing by the ship’s rail as near to the cage as I could come. I knew I deserved to share their fate, and in sharing their
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