“I thought,” gasped Ike, “that for a moment there, Neddy, ye were going to tip him flat on his puss in the bilge water.”
“I was tempted,” said Neddy, wiping his eyes, “but he is the captain, and ’tis best not to offend the captain. Major Ross don’t care who he offends, so much is sure.” He giggled. “An elephant’s arse! Oh, it fits! Getting him up that ladder near killed us.”
“Major Ross won the engagement,” said Aaron Davis thoughtfully, “but has bared his arse to the Admiralty boots. If Captain Sinclair goes ahead and builds a roundhouse and a forecastle, the Admiralty will refuse to pay the bill and Major Ross will be in a kettle of boiling water.”
“Somehow,” said Richard, smiling, “I cannot see Major Ross’s arse bare for anybody’s boot. His spotless white breeches will stay up, mark my words. He was right. Alexander cannot hold so many people without a roundhouse and a forecastle.” He huffed. “Who wants to be on the bucket chain? If, that is, we can persuade Lieutenant Johnstone to let us have more buckets, for I will not use the prison ones on this disgusting foulness. Bristolians, we head the chain at the bilges themselves. Jimmy, go and smile at the pretty Lieutenant for more buckets.”
Captain Sinclair made his renovations, but for a great deal less than £1,000. While the convicts kept on board toiled with oil of tar and whitewash, the loading of cargo went on around them, which gave them a good idea of what was stowed where. The spare masts were lashed on deck below the boats, whereas spars, sails and rope went below; the 160-gallon water tuns, by far the heaviest objects, were put in clusters among other, lighter cargo. Cask after cask of salt beef and salt pork came aboard, sack after sack of hard bread, dried peas and the chickpeas called calavances, kegs of flour, bags of rice, and a great many parcels sewn in coarse cloth and inked with the name of the owner. There were also bales of clothing the sailors called “slops,” apparently destined for the convicts when their present clothing wore out.
Everybody knew that there were pipes of rum aboard; neither crew nor marines would stand for a dry voyage. Rum was what made the miseries of cramped quarters and poor food bearable, so rum there had to be. But it did not go into the general holds, either beneath the prison or steerage.
“He is clever, our big fat captain,” said William Dring from Hull with a grin. “Right up forward there is another hold in two decks. Top one is for firewood—they pack it everywhere around bowsprit and partnerson. Bottom deck has an iron cover and that is where rum is. Cannot be got at from prison because bow bulkhead is a foot thick and stuffed with nails, just like stern bulkhead. And cannot be got at from firewood hold without shocking racket. Rum on issue is in big cupboard on quarterdeck and captain doles it out himself. No one can steal it because of Trimmings.”
“Trimmings?” asked Richard. “Sinclair’s steward?”
“Aye, and completely Sinclair’s creature. Spies and pries.”
“He is using his own chips to do the alterations,” said Dring’s friend Joe Robinson; seamen, they had scraped acquaintance with the crew. “He took five convicts as well, all fit to hammer in nails. Got ’em off lighter and Fortunee. Forecastle is just a forecastle, but some real pretty mahogany panels have gone up roundhouse way. Captain pinched all the great cabin furniture, so Major Ross has to obtain more for quarterdeck and ain’t happy about it.”
Major Ross was never happy. His displeasure extended a great deal further than Captain Duncan Sinclair and Alexander, however. The new battle, as several marines informed the convicts (gossip was everybody’s main recreation), was to have the expedition’s rice exchanged for wheat flour. Unfortunately the contract with Mr. William Richards Junior had been drafted in the same format as for the transportation of Army personnel, which had enabled the frugal purveyor of food to convicts and marines alike to substitute rice for some of the flour. Rice was cheap, he had a warehouse full of it, and it stowed smaller because it expanded in cooking. The issue was that rice did not prevent scurvy, whereas flour did.
“I do not understand,” said Stephen Martin, one of the two quiet Bristolians sent down with Crowder and Davis. “If flour can prevent scurvy, why cannot bread? ’Tis made on flour.”
Richard tried to remember what Cousin James-the-druggist had said about such matters. “I think it is the baking,” he said. “Our bread is hard—sea biscuit. There is as much barley and rye in it as wheat, if not more. Flour is ground wheat. So the—the antiscorbutic must be in wheat. Or it might be that the flour is made into dumplings in stew or soup and does not cook long enough to ruin whatever it is prevents scurvy. Vegetables and fruit are best, but no one gets those at sea. There is a pickled cabbage called ‘sour crout’ my cousin James imports from Bremen for some of the Bristol sea captains because it is cheaper than extract of malt, which is a very good antiscorbutic. But the trouble with sour crout is that sailors loathe it and have to be flogged to eat it.”
“Is there anything ye do not know, Richard?” asked Joey Long, who deemed Richard a walking encyclopedia.
“I know hardly anything, Joey. It is my cousin James is the fount of knowledge. All I had to do was listen.”
“And ye’re very good at that,” said Bill Whiting. He stood back to survey their work, which was almost done. “There is one grand thing about all this whitewash. Even when the bars are down on the hatches, there will be a lot more light inside.” He threw an arm about Will Connelly’s shoulders. “If we sit at the table right under the after hatch, Will, we will have enough light to read.”
The entire complement of convicts were back on board shortly into April, while the erection of forecastle and roundhouse went on apace. Had the convicts only known it, Major Ross was still to write to the authorities about conditions on Alexander, preferring that the alterations be too far along to stop before he roared. Captain Sinclair had chosen to build his crew’s new quarters inboard, allowing a three-foot-wide gangway along either side for easy access to the bows, where the crew’s holes were situated. For those convicts left aboard Alexander during the hygienic measures it had been bliss; the hatches were open and they too could use the crew’s holes rather than their night buckets. The hatch forward of the foremast was now sheltered with a house (a structure a little like a dog kennel with a curved roof) to afford the cooks weatherproof access to the firewood hold; the hatch just in front of the quarterdeck which led down into the steerage compartment was also housed, whereas the two hatches above the prison were simple deck hatches, equipped with iron grilles over which a solid cover could be battened.
They will be battened down, thought Richard, whenever the seas break over the deck, and we will be absolutely blinded for however long the tempest lasts. No light, no air.
Despite fresh meat and fresh vegetables every day and despite being permitted onto the deck in small groups for air and exercise, the sickness aboard Alexander continued. Willy Wilton died, the first casualty among the West Country people, though not of the mumpish disease. He had caught cold in the perishing weather and it settled on his chest. Surgeon Balmain applied hot poultices to draw out and loosen the phlegm, but Willy died during much the same treatment a free Bristolian would have received from his doctor. Poultices were the only remedy for pneumonia. Ike Rogers grieved terribly. He was not the same man Richard had met in Gloucester Gaol; that blustering pugnaciousness was all bluff. Underneath was a man who worshiped horses and the freedom of the road.
