‘AND NOW WE need the house to order! I said, this house to order!’ The straining voice was at least a mess away and Joe turned in his hammock to see what was happening. A tired-looking man in a long brown coat was pacing the aisle, shouting through a rolled-up newspaper in the hope it would provide some means of amplification. ‘House to order! Please, gentlemen, bring this house to order!’
Above Joe, Roche’s head appeared over the edge of his bed. ‘This house is playin’ backgammon, scratchin’ them bugs away, drinkin’ ale an’ sleepin’. It does not want to come to order.’
The men of the Eagle had been scattered around the two floors of Seven, Joe and Will eventually finding berths with some privateers from Maine, most of whom had passed out.
‘But he’s the President,’ said Joe. ‘I think we’re supposed to take notice.’
‘President?’ Roche’s inverted face had appeared again. Even upside down, he looked baffled. ‘What kinda nonsense is this?’
‘We vote, Will,’ said Joe. ‘That’s how they do it here. We vote on who’ll be President for the week, who’ll be the judges, who’ll be the committeemen …’
‘And who, pray, is our President, then?’ said Roche, peering at the increasingly irate man in the coat. ‘He’s no Madison, and that’s the truth.’
Across the aisle, a voice from under a tarpaulin. ‘His name is Rose, and I wouldn’t trouble yourselves with anythin’ he tells you.’
Joe and Roche exchanged a surprised glance.
‘So why is he President?’ asked Joe.
‘’Cos he wanted to be,’ came the reply. ‘But mark my words, he’s an imbecile.’ The top of the tarp flipped down. ‘Joseph Toker Johnson. How d’you do?’
Joe just got sight of a pile of ginger hair before the tarp flipped up again. He was about to introduce himself when ‘President’ Rose returned, now armed with a frying pan. ‘And here come the ship’s bells!’ said Joe.
This time, the ‘House to order!’ was accompanied by a vigorous, clanging assault on one of the metal stanchions.
It worked. Everywhere, the buzz and jaw died, the games halted, the sleepers awoke. Looking rather startled, ‘President’ Rose jumped into the silence, speaking fast.
‘Men, we need a tub inspector, a master-at-arms, a sailor-lawyer and three committeemen for next week. Do I have any names to take forward?’
Close to two hundred voices all bellowed their suggestions at once, and the hapless Rose scribbled what names he could pick up out of the babble.
Roche’s face again. ‘Did I jus’ hear Uncle Sam and Dolley Madison’s names bein’ called out? ’Cos if the President’s wife is in charge of the beatin’s, I might just sign up for a few stripes myself!’
Joe addressed the man under the tarp. ‘Mr Johnson, do the committeemen decide the punishments here? Or is it the British?’
The tarp was pulled away and Toker Johnson swung himself over the side of his hammock. He pulled a tall, slightly conical hat over his red, unkempt hair and folded his arms tightly across his chest. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Joe.
‘We don’t need them British to tell us how to run our lives. We punish them that needs punishin’, no matter if he’s one of ours. There’s an order of things. Sailors in Two last month had to give a thief fifty stripes, but he fell after fifteen. So he was handed to the British, who put him in the cachot. That’s the way of it. And one of the cooks here – man by the name of Wilston – he was caught skimming coppers. Them cooks are always at it, but this rogue was caught doin’ it. Eighteen lashes tomorrow after turn-out.’
Joe was about to argue with Toker Johnson when a judicious cough from the hammock above alerted him to his imminent folly. He slumped back, his eyes closed. The sea was his life and sailors his family, but their brutality always angered him.
Once Toker Johnson had disappeared again beneath the tarpaulin, Joe whispered through the hemp.
‘So we hate the British for their brutality, then, just to make sure they know how superior we are, we’re even more brutal? Can that be right?’
Roche’s upside-down head appeared above him again. ‘Joe Hill. Have you learned nothing? We don’t hate the British ’cos they’re brutal – we kind of admire ’em for that. Didn’t you read how we behaved in York? No, we hate the British ’cos they’re British. And they all have faces you want to punch. Those two things together. And that’s quite enough.’