JEMMY DUCKS looked after the animals that were brought on board to provide milk and fresh meat. He was a lean, leathery man with ears like wings and eyes that protruded as if constantly startled. His left leg had been smashed years ago by a fall from the main mast and it dragged uselessly as he walked. But he could hop about at no mean speed when he had to, for instance, when he was chasing the hens and ducks and goats and pigs about the deck in order to catch them and make them snug for the night.
The hull of the longboat was nearly hidden by temporary wooden erections that housed the animals and inside it were the hen coops. But as Jemmy sat talking to Gav the pigs and goats were rooting busily on the deck between the poop and the foc’stle and the ducks and geese were enjoying themselves paddling in the wash about the lee scuppers.
‘I’ve got to keep a weather eye on them hogs, Gav. A very weather eye.’ Jemmy pointed to one of his bulbous eyes as he spoke. ‘After a few weeks afloat them hogs are apt to develop a taste for a live leg of mutton.’
‘They attack the sheep?’
‘Not that I blames them.’ Jemmy hastened to the defence of the pigs. ‘I defies anyone to point the finger at them hogs. Them hogs gets hungry same as anyone else.’ He scratched indignantly under the arm of his red shirt and then attacked his head making his pigtail dance up his back. ‘No, no, Gav, I defies them. Tell me, I asks, what do you do when you’re hungry? Why, I’ll tell you, I says, and I told them. You bash their brains in with one of them belaying pins. Then you gobbles them up, legs and trotters, brains and all.’ He sighed. ‘And them’s such cheerful creatures, Gav. Hogs are happy at sea.’
Gav looked doubtful. The pigs were stuttering about the small deck like drunk men in a hurry. As the ship rolled to one side, they scampered to the other, their trotters scraping and slithering. They kept getting in the way of the seamen too and one man, getting harassed beyond endurance, removed the offending animal with a mighty kick. Immediately Jemmy scrambled up angrily shaking his fist.
‘Damn your eyes! That’s old George you’re mauling aft.’ To Gav he added: ‘George is my favourite. I likes them all but George is the clever one, Gav. I teaches him tricks. I dreads the day when they’ll come and shatter George’s headrails. They says I gets too partial towards them animals, Gav. And they’re right. Many’s the time after dinner I’ve felt as though I’ve eaten an old messmate.’
‘The goats seem cleverer at balancing,’ Gav said.
‘You’re right there, Gav, and I can’t deny it. Them goats have marvellous sea-legs. And never was a beast easier pleased with his vittles. Them goats smacks their lips over anything from shavings from Chips the carpenter’s berth to old newspapers or logbooks.’
Gav looked impressed and Jemmy continued enthusiastically.
‘Great old sea-dogs them goats are. Many’s a hard gale they’ve weathered.’
‘I hope we don’t have any gales before we get to Virginia.’
‘We’re bounds to get them, Gav. Lots of them. There’s no denying it.’
‘Oh, well,’ Gav made a show of nonchalance; ‘I think I’ll take a turn about the deck and stretch my legs while I can.’ He struggled to his feet. ‘Have you seen my … my cousin, Reggie, anywhere?’
‘I’ve come athwart him, but not spoke him. He’s not a friendly young salt like yourself, Gav, and I don’t minds saying it.’
Jemmy’s bulbous eyes followed Gav as he tried to adapt his steps to the easy roll of the ship as she met the slow, steady swell. The deck was an untidy crush of women and children, pigs, goats, sheep, geese and ducks. The only part of the ship with a little free space was the high poop deck where Captain Kilfuddy was taking the air by pacing back and forth. For a minute or two Gav clung to the bulwarks and gazed admiringly up at the old man.
He was strutting to and fro with his hands clenched behind his back, his barrel belly jutting forward and his three-cornered hat squashed well down on his brow. Suddenly he stopped, peered upwards, then said to the mate:
‘Hands aloft to trim the topsails, Mr Gudgeon.’
The mate bawled down to the bosun who, in turn, shouted at the men, who leapt immediately to the rigging.
Gav watched, fascinated and overawed by their courage as they clambered up shrouds and along the yardarms until they were like flies against a swinging sky. It was amazing how different seamen were to men on land. It wasn’t only their courage and capacity for hard work. They even looked different. Some were small, some tall, some lean, some hefty but they all had a drooping posture, their corded neck muscles disguising the breadth of their tapering shoulders. Their heads sunk low and seemed to jut from their chests, bowed by years of crouching in the foc’stle. They had square hands lumpy with callouses, surmounted by small, torn, dirty nails stained with tobacco and tar. Across the steel-like bands of muscle in their forearms were rope burns from sheets ripped from their grasp by the power of storms. Their gait was a swinging lope accompanied by the heavy fleshy slap of naked feet on their natural environment, the wooden deck of a sailing ship. They were almost like throwbacks to earlier men, people adapted for this special way of life.
The captain addressed the mate again and the mate relayed the order through the bosun to the men who started pulling on ropes and singing cheerily.
‘Oh, they call me hanging Johnny,
Away, boys, away,
They says I hangs for money,
Oh, hang, boys, hang.
And first I hanged me daddy,
Away, boys, away,
And first I hanged me daddy,
Oh, hang, boys, hang.
And then I hanged me mother,
Away, boys, away,
Me sister and me brother,
Oh, hang, boys, hang …’
A sudden lump in Gav’s throat pained him so much it made his eyes water. The hanging shanty reminded him of his mother and, turning away from the poop deck, he groped along towards the bows of the ship, trying not to listen.
On the foc’stle some off-duty sailors were lighting their pipes from the wick kept there closely guarded by a sentry because fire was an ever present danger on board. ‘Chips’ the carpenter was sitting enjoying a smoke. So was Andra Doone, the cook.
‘Have you seen my cousin Reggie?’ he asked Andra, a small fat man with a patch over one eye and a twisted back that kept one of his shoulders permanently hunched high against his ear.
Gav had learned that cooks on board ship and carpenters and the man who looked after the animals were always called ‘idlers’ by the seamen and, with the exception of the carpenter, were usually men with some sort of injury or deformity.
Andra sucked deeply at his pipe. He was even more superstitious than the rest of the men and saw ominous signs in the most innocent events.
‘That’s a strange thing. He’s been seeking you. And you’ve been seeking him. And neither of you meeting. It could be a sign the ship’s going to blow off course.’
‘Where is he now?’ Gav asked, impatient to take his leave because the cook always made him feel apprehensive.
‘Well,’ Andra took another slow thoughtful suck. ‘If you don’t find him in the cuddy, I reckon he’s lost.’
As fast as he could Gav made his way back to the stern and into the low-ceilinged room where the officers and cabin passengers had their meals. In the centre of the room stood a table with a bench at either side, all secured to the floor. A window looked out of the stern of the ship and there were two berths on each of the walls at right angles to the window. These berths were usually occupied by wealthy passengers but, apart from Regina, the only passengers on this voyage were steerage ones like himself.
Regina sat like a carved statue on one of the benches. She was a slight figure in a green coat with gold buttons and fawn lace cascading at her throat and cuffs.
‘Where the hell have you been hiding yourself?’ she demanded. ‘We should stick together, you said. We’ve only got each other now, you said.’
‘I wasn’t hiding. I was just talking to Jemmy Ducks.’
A nerve pulled at Regina’s cheek, tightening her mouth.
‘What a mess you’re in. Where are your fine new clothes?’
‘In my sea-chest.’ He gazed defensively at the too big jacket his mother had once bought from a rag woman. The sleeves were so long they hid his hands and the shoulders drooped low. His hat had come from the same source and was also several sizes too large but his thick mop of curls prevented it from flopping down over his face. ‘There’s nothing wrong with these for on board ship. I want to keep my new breeches and jacket for when we arrive at Virginia.’
Before he could say any more he was startled by the chief mate, Mr Gudgeon, bursting into the cabin, grabbing him by the ear and jerking him outside.
‘You listen to me, m’lad. It’s the steerage for landlubber tramps like you. If you come near the poop, the quarterdeck or the cuddy again, I’ll throw you over the side.’ He gave Gav’s ear a twist, making him yelp with pain. ‘Are you listening, lad? Do you know what’ll happen to you if I throw you over the side? The sharks’ll have you. They’ll have you, m’lad.’
With a punch he sent Gav hurtling down to land on his face on the main deck. Trying to suppress tears of pain and humiliation, Gav picked himself up. Blood trickled from his nose and seeped into his mouth as Jemmy Ducks came limping alongside him.
‘Cheerily, shipmate. Cheerily. He’s mauled you a little fore and aft but at least he hasn’t sent you to the bilboes. If you splashes your face in the scuppers, I dare say you’ll survive.’
Gav glanced back and saw Regina standing at the door of the cuddy, her face expressionless. He felt broken-hearted and allowed himself to be led away by Jemmy without protest.
He remembered the time when Regina and he would have braved anything to protect each other from harm. He remembered how, hand in hand, they used to grope their way to and from school on dark winter mornings and nights. He remembered how she clutched him close to her as they passed the bridge over the river Clyde. She knew he was afraid of the lepers who floated across from the Gorbals hospital like ghosts in their hooded cloaks, their clappers eerily echoing. He remembered how she shielded him from the prancing horses in Trongate Street and Blind Jinky’s snarling dog in Tannery Wynd where they had once lived.
Not that he had been a coward. There wasn’t a boy in the school he hadn’t fought and beaten. Or if a crowd of boys set upon him, as they often did because of his red hair like his Highland grandfather, he went down fighting and he never cried.
‘Whig pigs!’ he used to call them. But it didn’t seem to matter any more about Whigs or Jacobites. Prince Charles and his Highland army had gone. Now he and Regina had left Glasgow too and everything, including Regina, was different. He felt at a loss. He didn’t know how to cope on his own in this new situation.
Jemmy Ducks drew him down beside the longboat.
‘We all knows Mr Gudgeon, Gav. And the quicker you knows him, the better.’ He pushed his big-eyed face closer to the child’s smaller bloodied one. ‘There’s no denying that Mr Gudgeon stows away more grog than he can steadily carry. So you heeds what I says and steer clear of him, eh?’
‘I was just trying to see my … I was just trying to see Reggie.’
‘Not that I blames you, Gav. No, no. But the poop’s the poop and the foc’stle the foc’stle. And if you goes up there again, he’ll have you, Gav. What I says is, if you don’t steer clear of him he’ll have you. Mr Gudgeon always has to have somebody.’
Remembering what the chief mate had said about throwing him to the sharks, Gav’s chest tightened with anxiety.
‘I’ll try,’ he managed shakily. ‘But I wish I could get speaking to Reggie.’
Then, as if to prove Jemmy’s point, there was a sudden fracas on the deck and Mr Gudgeon was seen striking Mr Jubb, the second mate, over and over again on the face. The latter, a slender, blond-haired man, was not retaliating but trying to retain some sort of dignity while attempting to escape. Mr Gudgeon was lurching after him from side to side of the deck with poultry and feathers flying around them.
‘If I say you were late on watch, Mr Jubb,’ he was roaring, ‘you were late on watch. I’ll have none of your bloody jaw, sir.’
Animals squawked and women screamed but Mr Jubb never uttered a sound.
‘Why doesn’t he say something or do something to defend himself?’ Gav asked Jemmy.
‘I’ll tells you why, Gav. I’ll tells you. If Mr Jubb returns them blows, he’s put in irons. Yes, it’s down in the bilboes for him.’
The Captain called over all the rabble.
‘Mr Gudgeon! Mr Gudgeon, sir! Will ye come aft? You too, Mr Jubb.’
‘The captain’s the man to sort them out. That’s when old Captain Kilfuddy’s himself. But I’ll tells you something else you oughts to know. Sometimes the captain’s not himself.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I means what I says, Gav. Sometimes the captain’s himself.’ Jemmy tapped his head significantly each time he said the word. ‘And in charge. And sometimes he’s not himself. And when he’s not himself, he’s not in charge. Now do you gets my meaning?’
Gav nodded uncertainly. Darkness was beginning to creep around and he was far from happy. Apart from missing Regina, he felt worried about how to keep out of Mr Gudgeon’s way. It had been bad enough trying to hide from enemies in Glasgow with its many closes and wynds, but the ship was tiny in comparison, a cramped dangerous place from which there was no escape. He realised the safest place for him was probably the steerage but it was a terrible thought to go down to that stinking hold to lie in the gloom with rats scuffling over him.
The night before he had wakened to the sound of a gentle rustling. Then, by the feeble light of the lantern, he’d seen a monster rat jump from one of the sea-chests and walk towards where he was huddled against the bulkhead. Too terrified to move in case it would bite, willing himself not to cry out and waken the women and younger children, he lay in agony watching it climb over his bare feet. He could feel its scratching nails on his skin. It made its way up one side of him and then, crossing where his head was pillowed, its progress was hindered by an entanglement in his hair.
Tears and sweat streamed from his face and it took all his courage to refrain from crying out. It seemed an age before the rat freed itself from his curls and walked down the other side of him and away.
Afterwards he’d sobbed himself to sleep, repeating Regina’s name over and over again as if believing that somehow the broken-hearted repetition of the word must reach her.
‘Where do you sleep?’ he asked Jemmy Ducks.
‘I sleeps with the rest of the crew in the foc’stle, Gav. What makes you ask?’
‘Can I stay with you? I don’t like it down in that steerage place. Can I sleep in the foc’stle with you, Jemmy? I won’t take up much room or be any trouble. Please?’
Jemmy scratched his head, making his pigtail jig about.
‘If you asks me, Gav, the foc’stle’s no better a place than the steerage. Not that I blames you for not liking it. I defies anyone to like it. No, no, I defies them. But the foc’stle’s no better, that’s what I says.’
‘But I’d be with you. You’re my friend, aren’t you? And friends should stick together?’
Jemmy looked taken aback. All eyes and ears, he stared at Gav. Eventually he said:
‘You’re right, Gav. And I can’t deny it. Them’s true words you spoke.’
Gav brightened.
‘I can come with you?’
‘I’ve work to do first. Them animals have to be rounded up and made snug. You’d best keep out of sight until I’m ready. Or stow yourself away in the foc’stle when Mr Gudgeon’s not looking and I’ll meets you there later.’
Gav nodded. Then, after Jemmy hopped away, it occurred to him that just in case Regina tried to get in touch, he ought to tell her that he was changing to the foc’stle. Struggling to his feet, he peered cautiously around. The moon was half-hidden by small white clouds and the sails stood out like silhouettes. The ship seemed to be in the exact centre of an empty circle of shimmering ocean. It was quiet on board except for the usual straining and groaning of wooden spars rubbing together. He hesitated, wondering if he dared go right aft where Regina’s cabin was situated. Probably it would be Mr Jubb who was on watch now and it would be all right. Still, he couldn’t be sure and he eventually decided to make straight for the foc’stle.
It turned out to be a small dark cave right up in the bows with no warmth and no light except that of the moon glistening through the square scuttle. Triangular in shape, it was full of vague huddles of men, ropes and sails. It stank frowstily of bilge water, sweat, tar and mildew, and by the feel of the slushy planks of the floor, it had never been dry for years and would never dry again. Everywhere there was water.
Gav shivered. It was very dark and cold and he wished that Jemmy would come. Dim outlines of sleeping sailors gave him scant comfort and no desire to move away from the path of grey light afforded by the scuttle. But he was tired and the ship was beginning to roll and heave about, making it difficult for him to stand. Groping to one side, he found a coil of rope and lay down on it and before long he had to cling to it as best as he was able because of the increasing movement of the ship.
Then suddenly the dark shadow of a head appeared at the scuttle and the bosun’s voice shouted.
‘All hands ahoy! Tumble up here and take in sail!’
Men fell about and struggled into clothes and rushed for the ladder and in a matter of minutes, Gav was alone. He felt frightened by the pitching of the vessel, the increasing anger of the wind and the lightning that had begun to sizzle and flash. At one point, he cried out loud as the ship lurched so far to one side he thought it would never rise again.
The men were making a terrible noise on deck too. He could hear the loud and repeated orders of the mate, the heavy tramping of feet and the creaking of blocks.
Unable to stand being on his own any longer, he scrambled up and tried to reach the ladder to the scuttle. But it took several terrifying minutes of being tossed from one side of the foc’stle to the other before he finally grabbed the ladder, clung on, then slowly edged his way upwards.