Brig of War, page 29
“Boat ahoy!”
“Experiment!” bellowed the coxswain close by Favian’s ear. Even before the challenge was answered, Favian heard the sound of feet drumming the deck, the calls of the officers.
“Toss oars! Careful with that line there!” The coxswain’s voice grated in Favian’s ear. The boat thudded against Experiment’s side, and Favian stood, throwing his cloak out of the way, and went up the brig’s side like a long-legged spider as Gable’s pipes wailed an official welcome.
Gable stood by the entry port, his hat raised in salute. Favian uncovered to the quarterdeck and to Gable— and then saw the bruise under Gable’s eye, and felt the pleasant dream that had been the evening evaporate beneath the onslaught of deadly reality.
“Regret to report, sir,” Gable said, speaking mush-mouthed through swollen lips, “a breach of the brig’s discipline.”
“Report to me in my cabin in five minutes,” Favian said, feeling the weight of that new golden epaulet pressing him down like some inevitable, unavoidable burden.
CHAPTER 10.
It would be the first flogging Favian had ever ordered. There was no dispute about the facts, no excuse for the parties involved. Shortly after the boat party had left for Gamlehaugen, Acting Bosun Gable had ordered Abraham Sedgwick, able seaman, to go aloft to overhaul the starboard inner main topsail buntline, which order Sedgwick had answered in a surly manner. Gable had lashed Sedgwick with his rope’s end to get him moving, whereupon Sedgwick had growled an obscenity and blacked Gable’s eye. Gable had much the worse of the ensuing fight, but Sedgwick was eventually overcome by the entire corps of petty officers.
Disrespect, foul language, striking a superior officer, refusal to obey an order, perhaps mutiny. All admitted by Sedgwick. Favian, blinking in the early morning light that was streaming through his little cabin window, closed the book of regulations, John Adams’s Rules for the Regulation of the Navy of the United Colonies of North America, established for Preserving their Rights and Defending their Liberties, and for Encouraging all those who Feel for their Country, to enter into its Service in that way which they can be most Useful, passed by Congress in 1799 and 1800, never amended. Old John Adams had based his concept of discipline on the British Articles of War, and the flogging penalty was clearly specified.
Well, time to get on with it. Sedgwick had been given the customary night in which to reflect on his crimes, and Favian would not prolong his wait. Favian groped in the halflight, found his dress coat, and shrugged into it; he took his hat and made his way out of the cabin. Hibbert was on deck, as was Alferd Bean, both in dress uniform; they knew there was going to be punishment and waited for the inevitable, knowing their presence was required.
Favian’s breath frosted white in the blue morning. Overhead there were still many stars; eastward the sky had begun to lighten, Venus hanging above the dark bulk of the mountainous land. Hibbert and Bean uncovered to him, murmuring quiet good morning’s. Favian took a breath.
“Let’s get it over with,” he said. “Then get Experiment ready for the prince royal. Hands on deck to witness punishment.”
Pipes whistled down hatchways. Experiment’s overlarge crew, crowded forward of the mainmast, was an amorphous mass of shadows; the men’s faces were obscured by dark and by hat brims, their murmuring voices were indistinct. The marines marched up in coats that matched the deep blue of the sky, and grounded arms. The sound of their fixing bayonets rattled unmistakably over the deck. In theory Favian was supposed to use these marines to keep order, firing into the crew if necessary, and unleashing the bayonets if the hands tried to protest the punishment of one of their own.
“Mr. Brook, you are not in your dress coat.” Hibbert’s voice had detected a flaw in the dim line of midshipmen on the quarterdeck. “Sedgwick has the right to be flogged with appropriate ceremony. Go below and dress properly.”
“Yes, sir,” Brook said, his teeth chattering in the morning cold. There was a long pause while Brook rummaged below for his coat, then a clump on the deck as Brook skipped back to his place with a murmured apology.
“Abraham Sedgwick, step forward,” Favian called out. He could see Hibbert breathing onto his chilled hands, and wished he could do the same.
Sedgwick was a brawny man, almost as tall as Favian, with a neck like a bull and arms like twisted cables. He was dressed neatly, in a clean shirt, white trousers, a neckerchief tied neatly around his muscled throat. It was the custom, when reporting for punishment, to dress in one’s best clothes, so as to make as favorable an impression as possible on the captain. Sedgwick uncovered. “You are charged with disrespect, foul language, refusing to obey an order, and striking a superior officer,” Favian said. “Have you anything to say to the charges?”
Favian thought his voice sounded hollow in the dawn. In awarding a flogging, he thought, the captain always acts alone. As first lieutenant he had reported breaches of discipline to Decatur, but it had always been Decatur who awarded the necessary lashes. In spite of the crowded deck, Favian felt very isolated as he awaited Sedgwick’s answer.
“No, sir.” Sedgwick’s eyes fell to the deck. Good, Favian thought. He’s not defiant. That will make it easier, flogging a man who accepts it instead of rebelling.
“Two dozen at the capstan, Abraham Sedgwick. Your liquor ration will be stopped for two weeks. Bosun, seize him up.”
Favian sensed a stirring among the hands as Sedgwick, without a word, was led away. For the crimes enumerated, the penalty was light. Old Preble would have given two dozen for refusal to obey alone. But Favian was not Preble; he would exact his own style of punishment, and he knew that in part he had given a light sentence because of his own sense of abiding guilt.
A capstan bar was inserted in the capstan, and Sedgwick’s arms spread-eagled on it, tied down with spun yarn. Lewell Sprague, Experiment’s surgeon’s mate, fastened a leather shield about Sedgwick’s lower back to protect his kidneys, and a thick leather strap was placed between his teeth to keep him biting his tongue.
“Mr. Parker,” Favian said. “Commence punishment.” Gable, as acting bosun, would normally have performed the punishment himself; but Favian had insisted on one of Gable’s mates so that the flogging would not look like he was allowing Gable revenge.
Parker came forward with the cat-o’-nine-tails he’d spent most of the night weaving. Made of knotted cord, it would be thrown overboard after the flogging. Each man so punished was awarded the dubious dignity of having his own cat, which would touch no back but his; it was a ritual developed over generations by the Royal Navy and adopted in its entirety by the United States, even to the red baize bag that held the cat before it was used. Parker took his position by the capstan and looked toward Favian for instruction. Favian nodded; get it over with. The bosun’s mate returned the nod and brought his arm back.
The lash struck with enough force to knock Sedgwick’s breath from him. “One!” The first blow would have opened cuts; the second would begin the job of tearing the cuts to ribbons. The bosun’s mate, taking his time, separated the strands of knotted cord with his fingers, then brought his arm back again. Again Sedgwick’s breath was knocked from him with an involuntary grunt. “Two.’“ That one must have hurt, and they wouldn’t get better.
As the lashes came down one by one, and Sedgwick’s back was ripped open, Favian knew that he would never have had to order the flogging, that Sedgwick would never have blacked Gable’s eye, if, sin days ago, he had ordered the helm put up and engaged the British brig.
His men were all volunteers— unlike many of the men on British warships, they had joined of their own accord, wanting to serve their country at sea. They had wanted to strike back against the foreign navy that had pressed them unscrupulously into its service, that had involved them in its wars, that had taken American ships on the high seas and was even now strangling American trade. During the weeks spent crossing the Atlantic, Favian had trained them well; they’d been given a basic competence in the handling of the brig’s armament, if not the smooth celerity resulting from months of practice. When Isaac Hull had taken the British Guerrière, most of his crew bad been at sea just a little over a month; Experiment’s men probably knew that.
They knew they could have beaten the enemy brig, and Favian had not allowed it. They were in an ugly mood, resentful of authority, and it was in an ugly mood that Abraham Sedgwick had blacked the bosun’s eye. Had Favian not promised them, within minutes after boarding Experiment for the first time, “You will not have to wait for an enemy to find us, for I will seek them out!”? Was a man, an officer and gentlemen, not to be held accountable for his promises?
“Twenty-four!” The cat-o’-nine-tails, dripping red, was returned to its baize bag. Lewell Sprague inspected Sedgwick’s back, pronounced him fit to go below, and Sedgwick’s wrists were untied. He straightened. He had not cried out during the punishment, only the involuntary exhalation when be was struck; his face now, facing the rising dawn, was that of a drugged ox, a creature whose feelings are too insensate to react to pain.
Why can’t he at least feel? Favian thought savagely, wanting to punish himself as well, feeling himself responsible for this spectacle. Why couldn’t he cry out? Sedgwick spat the leather strap from between his teeth and was led below— like a dumb animal, Favian thought, a beast. A beast who knew only that a man had made him a promise, and the promise had been broken, and so he’d struck out. Favian remembered his own insensate behavior aboard Macedonian, the coolness with which he had viewed the slaughter, and knew that he was no better than Sedgwick, a creature only.
“Dismissed,” Favian found himself saying. “Mr. Hibbert, I’ll want this deck clean. We have royalty visiting us at noon.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The sound of church bells came tolling from the town. Favian saw the hands’ faces, shadowed by the weak sun rising behind them, as he walked toward the companionway. They were sober, a little resentful, as if they, too, sensed that their captain was as much to blame for the flogging as Sedgwick. The midshipmen fell out of their line, their usual chatter silenced for once. Stanhope looked a little green, and Favian remembered his own first flogging, with mad McNeil reading the punishment and the prisoner howling for dear life as the lash came down, and he sympathized. Stanhope was learning one of many brutal lessons, and this one more brutal than most. This, too, could teach: officers were to watch the torture unmoved, must order it when necessary. It was easier, really, than the next lesson, in which the officer had to watch with proper impassivity as fellow human beings were dismembered by roundshot, cut in half by chain shot, disemboweled by canister. Stanhope was beginning to learn what the uniform meant.
As Favian returned to his cabin, he heard the officers’ voices barking out, the hands sullenly beginning their day. The pumps would be manned, the decks scrubbed down, the brightwork polished, just as on any other day. By the time the prince royal came aboard, there would be no traces of Sedgwick’s blood on the planking.
*
An hour later Hibbert knocked on Favian’s door. Favian had just finished his breakfast, and written a laconic entry into his log: “5:30, punished Able Seaman Abraham Sedgwick with two dozen lashes and two weeks’ loss of liquor ration, for striking the bosun. 6:00, washed decks.”
Hibbert entered, uncovered, accepted Favian’s offer of a chair. He seemed worried.
“I’ve received a deputation from the midshipmen’s berth,” he said. “Mr. Dudley has asked my permission to arrange for a duel between himself and Mr. Tolbert.”
“Good God!” Favian was staggered. He leaned back in his chair to give himself time to recover. “What the devil has brought this about?” he demanded.
Hibbert sighed. “I gather that while we were saying our farewells to the prince last night, Tolbert was vomiting his guts out in the drive.” Favian remembered passing the pool of vomit, and nodded. “Dudley— who, you remember, was more or less sober—” Hibbert continued, “called Tolbert a simpleton and a suckling babe who needed a nurse to carry him about on shore. Tolbert resented this and called Dudley a bastard, Mr. Dudley would probably have laughed this off, but as you may know, Jim Dudley is a bastard, and sensitive about it— his mother was a laundress in New York, his father is unknown; some uncle or other arranged his midshipman’s commission. So Dudley called Tolbert out, and Tolbert accepted.”
Favian rubbed his freshly shaven chin. Dueling on his brig. Something else he could probably have prevented by fighting that British man-of-war; the mids would have had their fill of fighting then, and wouldn’t have felt the need to prove themselves and their courage once they’d had a battle under their belts,
“And it was Mr. Dudley who made the challenge? The sober one? You’re sure?” Favian asked. Hibbert nodded. Favian steepled his fingertips and scowled. “I assume you’ve given them a lecture?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. I’ve informed them that I will not permit officers of the United States Navy to disgrace themselves in a foreign port, and so on—but they asked me to pass their request on to you. It’s within their rights, sir,” Hibbert conceded, ill at ease. No first lieutenant enjoyed having underlings appealing over his head to the captain.
“You did rightly,” Favian said, trying to fix the problem in his mind. If Favian forbade the duel, they could always assert that it was a matter of honor, not under the jurisdiction of their officers anyway, and fight their duel on the sly. And then Favian would be left to account for one or two corpses or badly wounded midshipmen. Of course he could allow the duel, and excuse himself with the dubious-sounding pretext that affairs of honor were none of his business, but that was simply asking for trouble. Or, he thought slyly, he could allow the duel, and somehow arrange things so that no one would be hurt. That possibility was tempting, but if it should be discovered that he had tampered with a matter of honor, violating the code himself, he could be ruined. Better to let them blow each other’s brains out, he thought savagely.
“Very well,” he said. “You’ll have to send them in to me, one at a time. All of them— Stanhope and Brook as well. Dudley first.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Hibbert seemed relieved to have that particular burden taken from his shoulders.
Dudley’s knock was firm and defiant; after he entered, Favian kept him standing for a long ten seconds while be raked the boy savagely with his eyes, Dudley, he remembered, had just turned seventeen a few weeks before. He was slim, with clear, intelligent brown eyes, and an expression of furious stubbornness.
“You have asked permission to fight a brother officer,” Favian said, keeping an edge in his voice. “Why?”
“I was insulted, sir.”
“Mortally insulted?”
“Yes, sir.”
“By a drunken man?”
Dudley hesitated. “I believe he knew what he was saying, sir,” he said.
“He did not speak entirely without provocation, I believe?” Favian said.
Dudley frowned. Favian could see him searching for the right phrase. “I— my comments were not made with any intention to injure,” he said. “They were not comparable to his deliberate insults.”
Favian sighed. Dudley was obviously intelligent; he clearly knew that the challenge was not reflecting well on him. But he had made it; he would stick with it. It would be easier to fight than to work through to a resolution, picking over words, through the tangle of insult and counterinsult. And Dudley probably thought Favian a coward, or something close to one— that wasn’t going to make this any easier.
“If I can persuade Mr. Tolbert to make an apology for his words, would you accept them?” Favian asked. When Dudley hesitated, Favian added, “It would not reflect well upon you to hold a man responsible for words spoken in a state of drunkenness. If he chooses to stand by the words after he has been given the opportunity for sober reflection, that is another matter entirely.”
Dudley swallowed hard. “I will accept, sir,” he said.
“Very well. I commend your attitude. It is mature and officerlike,” Favian said. In something like this it was probably necessary to lay on praise with a trowel.
“It may be, however,” Favian said, “that Mr. Tolbert will refuse to apologize until you yourself apologize for your words. As you inform me that your comments were not made with intent to insult, and were not comparable to his words, it should therefore be easy to make an adequate apology.”
There. Trapped him. I’ve made it easy for him to apologize, and damned difficult to wriggle out of it if he won’t.
Dudley grimaced, realizing he was caught. “If it will help, sir, I’ll apologize for my words,” he said, with far more grace than Favian expected.
“Very well. You may return to your duties. Tell Mr. Hibbert to send Mr. Tolbert to my cabin.”
Tolbert’s appearance wrecked whatever hope Favian had of arranging an accommodation. Short, square-jawed, just turned nineteen, pugnacious, and barely concealing his contempt for his cowardly captain, Thomas Tolbert refused outright to apologize for his words. Dudley was a bastard; Tolbert had only stated the truth, for which he had no obligation to apologize. If Dudley objected to the plain truth, it was time he was taught otherwise. If Dudley was willing to accept an apology, then it simply meant he was a coward as well as a bastard. “And that’s that, sir,” he concluded, with a defiant leer.
Favian began to sense there might be something more to this battle than an exchange of insults. Tolbert was the senior midshipman, ahead of the others both in age and years in the service. But perhaps Dudley, clearly more intelligent, had been challenging Tolbert’s supremacy; perhaps, now that they’d all been under the fire of the Cuckmere Haven battery, Tolbert’s skirmish with the Baratarian privateer did not seem quite so impressive. Tolbert might be feeling his authority slipping away, ebbing from himself to Dudley; the challenge might be the only way he had of striking back.
