Alexander Kent - Richard Bolitho: Midshipman

A Ship of the Line

ALTHOUGH only noon, the clouds which scudded busily above Portsmouth harbour made it seem closer to evening. For several days a stiff easterly wind had turned the crowded anchorage into angry criss-crossing patterns of whitecaps, and an attendant drizzle gave each buffeted ship and the stout walls of the harbour defences a glistening, metallic sheen.

On Portsmouth Point itself, solid and uncompromising, stood the Blue Posts Inn. Like inns and hostelries in every busy seaport, it had been added to and altered over the years, but still retained an appearance of a sailor's haunt. In fact, it was used more by young midshipmen than any other seafarers who came and went with the tides, and because of this it held an atmosphere all of its own. Low-beamed, noisy and not particularly clean, it had seen more than one would-be admiral pass through its scarred doors.

On this particular day in mid-October 1772, Richard Bolitho sat wedged in a corner of one of the long rooms half listening to the babble of voices around him, the clatter of plates and tankards and the hiss of rain against the small windows. The air was heavy with mixed aromas. Food and ale, tobacco and tar, and each time the street doors opened to a chorus of curses and complaints the keener tang of salt from the waiting ships.

Bolitho stretched his legs and sighed. After the long and broken coach journey from his home in Falmouth, and a large portion of rabbit pie which was one of the Blue Posts' favourite dishes for the `young gentlemen', he was feeling drowsy. He glanced curiously at the other midshipmen nearby. Some were very young. Children, no more than twelve years old at the most. He smiled, despite his normal reserve. When he had joined his first ship as midshipman he too had been twelve. Only by thinking back to that time could he appreciate how he had altered. How the Navy had changed him. He had been exactly like one of the boys along the table from him. Frightened, awed by the noise and outward hostility of a man-of-war, yet somehow determined not to show it, and always imagining that everyone else was entirely unimpressed by his surroundings.

And that had been four years ago. It was still difficult to accept. Four years in which he had matured and moulded to the ship around him. At first he had believed he would never be able to learn all that was asked and demanded of him. The bewildering complex of rigging and shrouds. The miles of cordage of every shape and length which made a ship move and obey. Sail drill and gun drill, up aloft on dizzily swaying yards in rain and sleet, or on days when it was so hot he had almost fainted and dropped to the deck far below. He had learned to understand the unwritten laws of the world between decks, the loyalties and rules which made everyday life possible in the overcrowded turbulent existence of a King's ship. He had not only survived, he had come through it better than he had thought possible. But not without some bruises and a few tears to mark his journey.

Now, on this dismal October day, he was joining his second ship, the seventy-four-gun Gorgon, which lay somewhere at anchor in the Solent.

He saw a small midshipman wolfing down a huge portion of boiled pork, and smiled grimly. He would live to regret it. It would be a long and lively pull in a boat through this wind.

He thought suddenly of his home in Cornwall, the great grey-stone house below Pendennis Castle where he and his brother and two sisters had grown up together. And where for that matter the Bolitho family had been living for generations. It had been different from what he had expected, from what he had dreamed about as he had endured storm and heat alike. For one thing, only his mother and sisters had been there to greet him. His father, who commanded a ship similar to the one he was joining, had been away in Indian waters. His older brother, Hugh, was senior midshipman in a frigate in the Mediterranean. The house had seemed quiet and very still after a ship of the line.His new appointment had been delivered on his sixteenth birthday. To proceed with all despatch to His Britannic Majesty's Ship Gorgon at Spithead, which under the command of Captain Beves Conway was re-commissioning for duty in the King's name.

His mother had tried to hide her dismay. His sisters had laughed and cried as the fancy took them.

When he had made his way to board the Falmouth coach he had seen the farm workers nod to him as he had passed. But no show of surprise. For many, many years Bolithos had left the grey house to join one ship or another. Some of them had never returned.

And now it was all beginning again for Richard Bolitho. He had vowed that there were mistakes he would never repeat, some lessons he would remember above all else. A midshipman was neither fish nor fowl. He stood between the lieutenants and the true backbone of any vessel, the warrant officers. At one end of the ship, aloof and unreachable like some sort of god, was the captain. Above, around and beyond the overcrowded midshipmen's berth were the ship's company. Seamen and marines, volunteers and pressed men alike, packed together between decks, yet at all times separated by status and experience. Harsh discipline was the rule rather than the exception, danger and death from working the ship in all weathers were too commonplace to mention.

When landsmen saw a King's ship working clear of the shore, her yards alive with sailors and freshly

set sails, when they heard the bang of gun-salutes,

the lusty voices of those at the capstan joining in a well-tried shanty, they knew nothing of that other world within the deep hull. Which was probably just as well.

`Anyone sitting here?'

Bolitho came out of his thoughts and looked up. Another midshipman, fair-haired and blue-eyed, was smiling at him.

The newcomer added, 'Martyn Dancer. I'm joining the Gorgon. The landlord pointed you out to me.'

Bolitho introduced himself and moved along the bench.

`Not your first ship.'

Dancer smiled sadly. `Almost. I was in the flagship until she went into dock. My experience amounts to three months and two days.' He saw Bolitho's expression. `I started late. My father was unwilling to let me go to sea.' He shrugged. `But I had my way in the end.'

Bolitho liked what he saw. Dancer had certainly begun his sea career late. He was about his own age, and had the quiet, cultured voice of a good family. A town family, he decided.

Dancer was saying, `I have heard that we are sailing for West Africa. But then ...'

Bolitho grinned. `It is as good a rumour as any. I heard it too. It will be better than beating back and forth with the Channel Fleet.'

Dancer grimaced. `The Seven Years War has been over for nine years. I'd have thought the French would be at us again by now, if only to get their Canadian possessions back.'

Bolitho turned as two crippled seamen approached the landlord who was watching one of his girls ladling stew into pewter pots.

No real war for nine years. It was true enough. And yet there were still other conflicts around the world which never stopped. Uprisings and piracy, colonies fighting their new masters,. they had claimed as many victims as any line of battle.

The landlord said harshly, `Be off with you! I want no beggars here!'

One of the sailors, his right arm amputated almost to the shoulder, retorted angrily, `I'm no bloody beggar! I was in the old Marlborough, seventyfour, with Rear-Admiral Rodney!'