“You Bristol men, ye’re wanted,” said Stephen Donovan. “In steerage with Mr. White and Mr. Balmain.”
Strictly speaking, thought Richard, who had learned a lot about pumps during the time he had spent with the absconding Mr. Thomas Latimer, Alexander’s pumps should have been down a deck to reduce the height of the column of bilge water they had to lift, but she was a slaver and her owners did not like low holes in the hull; the truth was that no one had ever worried much about the bilges between dry-dockings for careening.
There were two cisterns in the marines’ steerage compartment, one larboard and one starboard, each equipped with an ordinary suction pump owning an up-and-down handle. A pipe led from each cistern and emptied through a valve into the sea. The starboard pump had been dismantled; the larboard one refused to budge.
“Down we go,” said Surgeon White, face ashen. “How does a man exist in this place? Your men, Lieutenant Johnstone, are to be commended for their forbearance.”
Richard and Will Connelly took up the hatch and reeled. The hold below was in utter darkness, but the sound of liquid slopping around the water tuns was audible to the rest, hanging back.
“I need some lamps,” said White, tying a handkerchief over his face. “One of us is going to have to go down there.”
“Sir,” said Richard courteously, “I would not put a flame in there. The air itself would burn.”
“But I must see!”
“There is no need, sir, truly. We can all hear what is going on. The bilges have overflowed into the hold. That means they are completely fouled. Neither pump is working and may never have worked—the last time we were in here we cleared the bilges by bucket. We have had this problem since Gallion’s Reach.”
“What is your name?” asked White through his mask.
“Richard Morgan, sir, late of Bristol.” He grinned. “We men of Bristol are used to fugs, so they always put us on bilge duty. Though cleaning them by bucket will not remedy anything. They have to be pumped, and pumped every day. But not with suction pumps like these. They take a week to evacuate a ton of water, even when they are working properly.”
“Is the carpenter capable of fixing them, Mr. Johnstone?”
Johnstone shrugged. “Ask Morgan, sir. He seems to know. I confess I know nothing about pumps.”
“Is the carpenter capable of fixing them, Morgan?”
“Nay, sir. There are so many solids in the bilge that pipes and cylinders of this size will block at every lift. What this ship needs are chain pumps.”
“What does a chain pump do that these cannot?” White asked.
“Cope with what is down there, sir. It is a simple wooden box of much larger internal size than these cylinders. The lifting is done by means of a flat brass chain strung over wooden sprockets at the top and a wooden drum at the bottom. Wooden shelves are linked to the chain so that on the way down they flop flat, then unfold on the way up and exert suction. A good chips can build everything except the chain—it is so simple a device that two men turning its sprocketed drum can lift a ton of water in a minute.”
“Then Alexander must be fitted with chain pumps. Is there any of the chain aboard?”
“I doubt that, sir, but Sirius has just undergone a refitting, so she is bound to have chain pumps. I imagine she will have chain to spare. If she does not, some of the other ships might.”
White turned to Balmain, Johnstone and Shairp. “Very well, I am off to Sirius to report this to the Governor. In the meantime the hold and bilges will have to be baled out. Every marine and convict who is not sick will take his turn, I will not have these Bristol men forced to do it all,” he said to Johnstone. He turned then to glare at Balmain. “Why, Mr. Balmain, did ye not report the situation a great deal earlier, if it has been going on for over seven months? The captain of this vessel is a slug, he could not move out of his own way if the mizzen fell on his roundhouse. As surgeon, it is your clear duty to preserve the health of every man on board, including convicts. Ye have not done that, and so I will tell the Governor, rest assured.”
William Balmain stood flying a scarlet flag in each cheek, his handsome countenance rigid with shock and anger. A Scotchman, he was six years younger than the Irishman White and they had not taken to each other upon meeting. To be dressed down in front of two marines and four convicts was disgraceful—that was the kind of thing Major Ross did to feckless subordinates. Now was not the time to have it out with White, but Balmain promised himself that after the fleet reached Botany Bay he would have satisfaction. His large eyes passed from one convict face to another in search of mirth or derision, but found none. He knew this lot for the oddest of reasons: they were never sick.
At which moment Major Robert Ross arrived at the bottom of the steps, curiosity stirred because Shairp had been gallivanting all over the ocean again. One sniff was sufficient to acquaint him with the problem; Balmain withdrew stiffly to his cabin to sulk and plot revenge while White explained what was going on.
“Ah yes,” said Ross, staring at Richard intently. “Ye’re the clean head man, I remember ye well. So ye’re an expert on pumps and the like, are ye, Morgan?”
“I know enough to be sure Alexander is in sore need of chain pumps, sir.”
“I agree. Mr. White, I will convey ye to Sirius and then on to Charlotte. Mr. Johnstone and Mr. Shairp, get everybody onto baling out the bilges. And cut two holes in the hull lower than the ports so the men can tip the stuff straight into the sea.”
Lieutenant Philip Gidley King, arriving with Major Ross and Surgeon-General White the next day, took one look at the larboard pump Richard had removed and dismantled, and gave vent to a noise of derisive disgust. “That thing could not suck semen out of a satyr’s prick! This ship is to be fitted out with chain pumps. Where is the carpenter?”
English meticulousness combined with Celtic enthusiasm worked wonders. Royal Navy and therefore senior in rank to a marine lieutenant, King remained on board long enough to be sure that Chips understood exactly what he was to do—and was capable of doing it—then left to report to the Commodore that in future Alexander ought to be a far healthier ship.
But the poison was in her timbers, so Alexander never was a truly healthy ship. The gaseous effluvia which had lain everywhere below gradually dissipated, however. Living inside her became more bearable. And was Esmeralda Sinclair pleased that his bilge problem had been solved at no cost to Walton & Co.? Definitely not. Who the hell, he demanded from his poop perch (Trimmings had inspected and reported), had cut two fucken holes in his ship?
The fleet crossed the Equator during the night between the 15th and 16th of July. On the following day the ships ran into their first roaring gale since leaving Portsmouth; the hatches were battened down and the convicts plunged into utter darkness. To those like Richard who spent all their time on deck it was a nightmare alleviated only by the fact that the worst of the stench had gone. The sea was running off the larboard bow, so Alexander was pitching more than rolling, an extraordinary sensation alternating between crushing pressure and weightlessness as she reared into the air and slammed with a noise like a huge explosion back into the sea. At right angles to the motion, they rolled from the bulkhead to the partition. Seasickness, deemed a thing of the past, erupted again; Ike suffered terribly.
Too terribly. As the fleet emerged from the storm with its rain butts filled sufficiently to permit ordinary water rations again, it became clear to everyone, even the desolate Joey Long, that Isaac Rogers was not going to live.
He asked to see Richard, who crouched opposite Joey, cradling Ike’s head and shoulders on his lap.
