On A Lee Shore Page 17

  Kit tensed as he felt a presence at his back and turned his head to see Valliere. Val caught his eye for a moment, then twisted Kit’s hair into a rope and pushed it forward over his shoulder. The touch was so gentle that Kit found the backbone to take a deep breath, and he tried not to let his voice shake. “Nice and tidy, please, Mr. Valliere. If I must have stripes, at least let them be symmetrical.”

  Valliere snorted then took a pace back, and Kit closed his eyes.

  Chapter Twelve

  Kit had been twelve when he had seen his first flogging. It had been his second day aboard a naval ship, and he had had no idea what was going on. He had been excited, he recalled, at the sound of the drums and the ceremony of it all, until he had seen the blood. He couldn’t remember how many he had seen since. Behind him he heard the soft scuff of Valliere’s feet and wondered how many of the men he had watched tense and brace themselves for the first stroke had been thinking, “This is not for any particular fault that I have committed but to make a point that some things will not be tolerated. It isn’t personal. I am merely an example.”

  Probably not that many.

  Wigram’s cursing cut off with an anguished gasp. Kit turned his hands to grip the shrouds, determined not to make a sound, but the breath was driven from his lungs by the blow. A rope end by the feel of it. Standard hemp, maybe the serviceable inch-thick stuff they used for much of the rigging, with the strands separated. It would bruise but—the next blow staggered him—but it shouldn’t cut.

  That was good because if blood was the life as it said in the Book, he didn’t want to share any of Wig—dear God in heaven—ram’s.

  The shroud under his left palm was worn, the serving that held the ratline was frayed. It needed—ah—attention. Meantime the sun was warm on his chest and belly, the wind cool on his right side. Spray kicked up. A sail flapped. He heard Griffin snap an order to the helmsman.

  Kit tried to remember to breathe.

  Someone was counting. “Nineteen…twenty.” A flash of light against his eyelids made him open his eyes. Garnet had drawn closer. Kit blinked sweat from his eyes—please God let it be sweat, let it not be tears—and looked across to where a spyglass was being passed from hand to hand. The thought that they were able to see his face, were perhaps laughing at his reactions, made him feel sick. So he straightened his arms and lifted his head to glare at the observers on the Garnet.

  “Smarts, don’t it?” Wigram’s voice was pained but gloating. “Now you know what it feels like—ah, damn you, Valliere. Yeah, do him good. I want to see his blood.”

  Indeed the next stroke did wake a sharper point of pain high on Kit’s side as the rope curled around his ribs. He sucked in a breath through his nose and looked straight ahead, though the Garnet swam in and out of focus in a most peculiar way.

  “Griffin looks sick,” Wigram said. “That’ll teach him to play favorites. How many poor bastards have you done this to? How many have you had flogged till their bones showed and they pissed themselves from shock?”

  “Not many,” Kit replied through gritted teeth. “And never—Oh God—only for the good of the service. As now. For the good of the service.”

  He held that thought in his mind, repeating it to himself as a distraction from the pain and the counting and the distant whoops of the audience on the Garnet.

  Then the counting stopped, and there was a moment’s silence before he heard Griffin speak. “And there’s an end to it. Take them down.”

  Wigram’s friends had rushed forward and were muttering to him and each other about injustice and how a harmless bit of fun had been taken all wrong. Wigram was breathing harshly and moaning on each breath. Kit didn’t look round to see who it was who approached him; he just looked at the sea as the knots at his wrists were untied.

  “Nah, you keep them arms up for the moment, Kit lad,” Lewis said. He coaxed one around his neck, and Kit wasn’t surprised to see Protheroe holding the other by wrist and elbow. “Bracketed, by God,” he murmured, and Protheroe grinned at him. He tried to step away from the railing, but his legs gave at the knee.

  “Nah, you just bide there,” Lewis said. “Just for a moment while Saunders checks the bo’sun. Davy—ah, good man.”

  Kit sucked in another deep breath as he was doused in cold water and a wet rag was applied to his side. He let his head droop and watched the water running between his feet in pinkish runnels. Someone gripped his chin, raising his head.

  “Still with us? Open your eyes, Kit. Good. Wigram’s prostrate.” Saunders grinned, his breath reeking of rum. “Let me see that cut… Hmm, needs a stitch. Take him below.”

  Kit allowed them to guide his steps to the stairs and stumbled down them, supported by Lewis. Out of the sun it was cold. It must have been—he just couldn’t stop shivering.

  “Cabin,” Saunders ordered. “Wigram is in the infirmary and—well, let’s just say that the fo’c’sle is no place for you right now, my boy.”

  “Wigram was offering a fair price to anyone who’ll knife you, and Muddiford’s just the man to do it,” Davy said. He looked sick, an expression that didn’t improve when Kit tried to give him a reassuring smile.

  “Don’t tell Griffin that,” Protheroe ordered. “Or it will get nasty.”

  “Nastier,” Lewis corrected him. “Now you just stand there, bachgen, while we do what’s necessary.”

  “It’s cold,” Kit complained and was horrified at the weakness of his voice.

  “We know, lad. You hold still.”

  After a couple of protests that he could manage, Kit meekly accepted the rum Saunders gave him. The glass clattered against his teeth as the fiery liquid settled in his belly but didn’t warm the chills that were shaking him.

  He barely felt it as Saunders drew the edges of his single cut together with a stitch. A far greater pain was lurking, held at bay for the moment by the shivering cold.

  “Not a bad job,” Saunders said. “It will heal cleanly. Now lay you down. You’re excused from duties for the rest of the day. Davy will keep you company.”

  “I will recover more quickly if I move around,” Kit said. “I don’t need bed rest.”

  And certainly not in that particular bed, he thought but didn’t say.

  “I have instructed Davy to use cold compresses to reduce the bruising. It will make it easier for him if you are horizontal.” Saunders shrugged on his way to the door. “However, if you are determined to ignore free medical advice, remain up. It’s all the same to me.”

  Shamed, Kit allowed Lewis and Protheroe to strip off his wet clothes. After ensuring that a piece of oilcloth had been draped over the cot to save the bedding from the damp, they placed him on his front and covered him with a blanket. It just added to his distress and discomfort that neither made a joke at his expense. With his head resting on his arms he couldn’t claim to be comfortable, but it was obviously more convenient for Davy, who waited until they had gone before drawing the chair up to the bedside.

  “God’s teeth, Kit,” he whispered, dunking a rag in a bucket of seawater and wringing it out. “You look like a tiger, only with blue and red stripes. Pity about that cut. We got to get off this ship.”

  “As soon as we can,” Kit said and drew a deep shuddering breath as Davy spread the wet cloth across his back. “But I have no idea where we are going, other than south, and I think we might be missed if we try to transfer to one of the prizes. We need a port, a big one, where we can lose ourselves. Do you speak any Spanish? I know sailors’ Spanish. Enough to negotiate passage for us, but if we’re at war again…”

  “Don’t fancy being hung as a spy,” Davy said. “Or worse. You know what they’re like. Bastinado you soon as look at you.”

  “Yes, well that’s something to avoid,” Kit said smiling into his arms. “Don’t fret Davy. We’ll find a way out of this, honor intact if slightly tarnished.”

  “With all due respect to you, Mr. Penrose,” Davy said. “Honor be buggered. I just want to go home.”
>
  Davy was a gentle nurse. The wet cloths he laid across the bruises on Kit’s back were applied with care, and while they didn’t take the pain away, Kit appreciated the attention. He also appreciated that Davy had been badly scared by Kit’s situation and needed to talk about it, much though Kit might have wished he’d be quiet. “That’s why I never went for the Navy, see.” Davy sighed. “Captain Dorling sails so shorthanded it’s hard work, but he’s less likely to lose hands that way.”

  “True,” Kit said. “Give me the merchant fleet every time! In the Navy you had to worry about the French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese. Mind you, now we’re on the Africa we have to worry about everyone.”

  “The captain isn’t worried,” Davy said. “Though he does seem annoyed by the Miranda.”

  Kit shifted, uneasy at the recollection that he was in the captain’s bed, and grunted at the pain of it. “My back is beginning to stiffen up. Davy, I need to move. The captain will want his cabin back.”

  “No,” Davy said. “He told me to keep you here until he’d had a chance to talk to you. He was going to see Wigram first. Why don’t you try to sleep? It’s getting late.”

  “I’m not sleeping in here,” Kit snapped and began to push himself up. The pain that had been waiting for him to notice it roared through him, and he fell back, biting off a cry.

  At once the cabin door opened, and from the way Davy moved back toward the window, Kit knew it was Griffin who had entered.

  “Is your patient being uncooperative?” Griffin asked and continued without waiting for an answer. “Yes, I see that he is. Be still, Kit. Davy, give me that cloth, you can go now. See O’Neill. He’ll have orders for you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Davy said and left.

  “I should go too,” Kit said.

  “No. Lie down,” Griffin growled. His hand on the back of Kit’s neck, pushing him down onto the oilcloth again, made obedience a necessity. “That’s better.”

  The cloth splashed in the bucket again, and Griffin fished it out and wadded it between his hands to wring it out before spreading it across Kit’s shoulders.

  “Hurt?” Griffin asked. A stupid question in Kit’s opinion.

  “Wasn’t it meant to?” he asked. “I thought that was the whole point of it. Pain as a punishment to remind us who’s in charge?”

  Griffin snorted. “Believe me, boy, it could be so much worse. Valliere did his work well. He sends his apologies about the cut. Once the rope strands get wet they are heavier and harder to control.” Griffin removed the cloth again. “I told him to make it look fair but to go easy, and I think he did. At least none of the complaints I’ve heard are that you got off lightly. We did what we could. You’ll be up in a day or so, hurting but working, but Wigram will be groaning in his cot for a while longer. With any luck the bastard will be pissing blood for a week. Maybe that will take his mind off women. And it’ll get him off my back too.”

  Kit listened to this, frowning into the little dark cave formed by his arms as Griffin laid the damp rag across his ribs. “Pirate politics, sir?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Griffin said quietly. “I’m sorry you got caught up in it. Wigram is ambitious. He talks big and some of the men listen to him. Too many of them want prizes at all costs. I need to find them a ship, let them transfer to it, and be rid of them bag and baggage.”

  “You could have let them have that Portuguese ship,” Kit said bleakly. “The one where all the crew was killed. They could have gone then. Of course, then you’d be loosing a band of mad dogs on the Leeward Isles, and all their killings would be on your conscience.”

  “What need have I of a conscience?” Griffin said, and Kit flinched as the cloth was pulled away and plopped back in the bucket again.

  “For now, Kit, I need them. I need the whole of both crews for what I have in mind. And I need you too, healthy and cooperative, and prepared to take my orders. Once I’ve achieved my goal, then I will rid myself of Wigram and his cronies. They will last less than a month. You’ll see.”

  “And if I follow your orders and help you achieve your goal, what then?” Kit asked.

  “Then…” Griffin’s voice trailed off in a sigh, and the wet cloth touched the top of Kit’s shoulder, wadded up and dabbing gently. “Then we’ll see what happens. My first goal is to keep you alive. I’m having your things moved in here.”

  “Sir,” Kit shifted, gasping a little as he turned his head to look at Griffin. “The hands will talk. Assumptions will be made.”

  “That we are messmates? Yes, what of it?” Griffin face was drawn, his eyes overly bright. “That way you are much less likely to get a knife in the ribs. We can watch each other’s backs.” He looked at Kit’s, his lips tightening. “I hate this,” he said, his voice gruff. “I hate that I did this to you. I’m sorry, Kit.”

  He seemed sincere and genuinely distressed. “It will soon heal,” Kit said, resting his head on his wrist. “I understood the necessity before, even without what you’ve just told me. Now—well, had the positions been reversed I would probably have done the same.”

  “That hard-hearted, Kit?” Griffin asked, the cloth moving slowly. A trickle of wet tickled his side and was mopped away. “You’re all duty, aren’t you? You’d see any one of us hanged.”

  “Can you blame me after what happened on the—damn, what was the snow’s name?”

  “Sao Paulo,” Griffin murmured.

  “Yes, captain and crew murdered, ship sent to the seabed. And Vargas, on the Hypatia. After that I should be prepared to haul on the ropes myself.” Kit scowled. “But I know there were some who didn’t want it. Who would have let the Sao Paulo go on its way. And some of the men here are good men—bad pirates. You can see their hearts aren’t in it. Valliere, Maxwell, Lewis and—no, just Lewis. Protheroe seems to enjoy the chase.”

  “As well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” Griffin said. “That’s why Protheroe’s here. Sheep stealing. But the magistrate decided he was too young to hang and sent him to Jamaica. He says it took him less than a morning to decide that he preferred a sea life to cutting cane and has been on the account ever since. And Lewis, sheep were his downfall too. He helped his brother drive a flock to Haverford West, got pressed, got fever, got left on Antigua to recover if he could.”

  “He seems happy enough now,” Kit murmured.

  “Yes,” Griffin sighed. “He is. They are. I…would sooner my crew was happy than not. Kit, I want you to know that I regret—what was the name? The master of the Hypatia. I regret his death. It was not by design.”

  Kit couldn’t think of anything to say in reply to that. He wondered if “my crew” included him and Davy Forrest and how difficult Griffin was going to make it for him to leave. He wondered what steps Griffin had taken to avoid deaths on the Hypatia. He wondered—for Griffin’s hands were gentle on his back, soothing the pain, or at least taking his mind off it—how he could manage sharing the captain’s cabin. He wondered if anything would be expected from him in return for sleeping safely.

  When the silence had gone on a little too long for comfort, Kit cleared his throat. “If I stay, share the cabin, I mean, I insist on you having your own bed back.”

  Griffin grunted, the rag making another sweep just above Kit’s waist. There was no pain there—Valliere’s stripes were all across his shoulders and ribs—just the coolness of the rag and the warmth of Griffin’s fingertips.

  “There’ll be no need,” Griffin said after a moment. “When I’m sleeping you’ll be on deck and vice versa. Denny will ensure you come to no harm. From anyone, Kit.” The rag went back into the bucket with a splash, and Griffin laid one of his own linen towels over Kit’s back.

  “But, to please you, I will have your hammock brought aft again. After all, you’re an asset, Lieutenant Penrose,” he said more briskly. “One of which I intend to make full use, for my own nefarious ends. I can only assure you that you won’t be disappointed with the results.”

  There was laughter in his voice, but wh
en Kit turned to look at him, he was on his feet heading for the door, which closed behind him with a decisive click.

  Kit sighed and let his head back down onto his arms, feeling an uncomfortable mixture of relief and disappointment.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kit was comfortable in his new quarters before the pain and stiffness in his back had eased. Griffin kept his things and his person as neat as Kit could have wished, and Denny seemed to relish having somebody else to look out for. Kit soon got used to his mild grumbling as he swept the floor and aired the cabin. Kit found it amusing that he should be sitting with Denny cleaning Denny’s shoes—“A bet’s a bet, Mr. Kit!”—while Denny cleaned his and the captain’s.

  For the first few days even shoe cleaning was beyond him. The damage done to the muscles of his back made even breathing something to be done with care. Apart from trips to the heads, Kit barely left the cabin. He recalled seeing recently flogged sailors moving with the same upright stance and exaggerated caution and how he had dismissed their frailty as malingering. After all, flogging was a fine old tradition of the Navy. Now he knew how they had felt and was filled with shame. But because of that he made himself get up and move and was on deck to observe Griffin taking the readings on the second morning.

  “Glad to see you up and about,” O’Neill said and feigned slapping him on the back, roaring with laughter as Kit flinched.

  Valliere’s greeting was more cautious but warmed when Kit whispered his thanks before asking all the usual questions about their course, currents, and what the weather might have in store.

  They worked on a more extended watch system than Kit had been used to in the Navy. Griffin had suggested they split the hours of darkness evenly, he taking the first stint and handing over to Kit after midnight. Kit found no fault in this because he loved to be on deck at dawn. He was also used to snatching sleep when he could. He would take four solid hours once the sun was up and headings had been taken, which could be augmented with a nap in the afternoon to keep him going.