‘Sir.’
‘How’d he get like this?’
The boys, for they were not much more, looked at their feet. ‘Dunno, sir.’
‘Scotch mist, is it? As opposed to just Scotch?’
‘Dunno, sir.’
‘Dunno, sir,’ the man repeated, fixing them with a well-practised glare. ‘I bet you don’t.’
Henry Nicol, Marine, stepped back against the wall. The young dabber beside him was wringing his cap in bruised, bloodied hands. He breathed out, bracing himself against the movement of the ship. They were out of the worst of the Bight, now, but it could still catch the unwary.
‘Soames, eh?’
The younger man nodded unhappily at the master-at-arms. ‘Sir.’
‘What’s he in for, Nicol?’
‘Quarrels and disturbances, sir. And drunkenness.’
‘Not like you, Soames.’
‘No, sir.’
The older man shook his head. ‘You speaking for him, are you, Nicol?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Make sure you get some sleep afterwards. You’re on watch again tonight. You look bloody awful.’ He nodded at the younger man. ‘Soames, it’s a bad business. Use your loaf next time, not your fists.’
The master-at-arms moved slowly on to the next man – conduct to the prejudice of good order, drugs/alcohol – and Soames slumped against the wall.
‘You’re all for it,’ the master-at-arms said. ‘It’s the captain today, not the executive officer, and I can tell you he’s not in the best of moods.’
‘I’m going to get it, aren’t I?’ Soames groaned.
In normal circumstances Nicol might have disputed this, might have been reassuring, upbeat. But with one hand still resting against the letter in his trouser pocket, he had neither the energy nor the desire to make someone else feel better. He had put off opening it for days, guessing, dreading the nature of its contents. Now, seven days after they had left Sydney, he knew.
As if knowing could ever make anything any better.
‘You’ll be all right,’ he said.
Dear Henry,
I’m disappointed but not surprised I haven’t heard back from you. I want to say again how sorry I am. I never set out to hurt you. But we have had hardly a word from you in so long, and I am really very fond of Anton. And he is a good man, a kind man, who pays me a lot of heed . . .
This is not meant to be a criticism of you. I know we were awfully young when we married, and perhaps if the war had not come when it did . . . Still, as we both know, our world today is full of such if-onlys . . .
He had read the first paragraph and thought that, ironically, life was easier when his letters were still censored.
It was almost twenty minutes before they were up. They paused outside the captain’s office, then Nicol followed the younger man in and they saluted. Captain Highfield was seated behind the desk, flanked by the marine captain and a lieutenant Nicol didn’t recognise, who was writing something in a ledger. For some seconds he gave no sign that he was aware of the new occupants of the room.
Nicol nudged the younger man. ‘Cap,’ he hissed, his own black beret held in front of him. Soames removed his.
The officer beside the captain read out the charge: the boy had been scrapping with another dabber in the seamen’s mess. He had also been drinking – spirits, far in excess of the daily ‘sippers’ ration to ratings.
‘How do we plead?’ said Captain Highfield, still writing. He had tall, elegant script, somehow at odds with his short, stubby fingers.
‘Guilty, sir,’ said Soames.
Yes, I am guilty. And weak. But, to be truthful, for the last four years I might as well have been a widow for the word I have had from you. I spent three of those years lying awake week after week praying for your safety; that you might come back to us, talking to the children of you daily, even when I suspected you did not remember us. When you did come back you were like a stranger.
Finally, the captain looked up. He eyed the young man, then addressed the marine. ‘Nicol, isn’t it?’
‘Sir.’
‘What can you tell me about this young man’s character?’
Nicol cleared his throat, gathered his thoughts. ‘He’s been with us a little over a year, sir. A dabber. He’s been very steady during that time, hard-working, quiet.’ He paused. ‘A good sort.’
‘So, Soames, given this glowing character reference, what turned you into a brawling idiot?’
The boy’s head dipped. ‘Look up, man, when you’re talking to me.’
‘Sir.’ He blushed. ‘It’s my girl, sir. She . . . she was to see me off in Sydney. We’ve been stepping out some time. But she’s been . . . well, it’s one of the others in C Deck, sir.’
When Anton came, and started paying me some attention, Henry, it’s not even that he stepped into your shoes. There were no shoes for him to step into.
‘. . . and he started taunting me . . . and then the others, well, they said as how I couldn’t keep hold of a woman, and you know what it’s like in the mess, sir, well, I’d had a bellyful of it and – well – I suppose I saw red.’
‘You suppose you saw red.’
The children are very fond of him. You will always be their father, and they know that, but they will love America and have all sorts of chances there that they would never have had in a sleepy old village in Norfolk.
‘Yes, sir.’ He coughed into his hand. ‘I’m very sorry, sir.’
‘You’re very sorry,’ said the captain. ‘So, Nicol, you say he’s been a good sort up to this point?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The captain put down his pen and clasped his hands. His voice was icy. ‘You know I don’t like fighting on my ship. I especially don’t like fighting when there’s alcohol involved. Even more, I dislike discovering that there may be social events taking place on my ship without my knowledge that involve alcohol.’
‘Sir.’
‘Do you understand? I don’t like surprises, Soames.’
But here, dear, I have to tell you something hard. If there is an urgency to my letter it is because I am carrying Anton’s child, and all we are waiting for is your permission to divorce, so that we can marry and bring this baby up together.
‘You’re a disgrace.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You’re the fifth person I’ve seen in here this morning on a drink-related charge. Did you know that?’
The boy said nothing.
‘Rather surprising for a ship that supposedly contains no alcohol except your weekly allocation.’
‘Sir.’
Nicol cleared his throat.
The captain stared at the boy from under his brows. ‘I’m conscious of your previous good character, Soames, and you should consider yourself lucky you have someone of better character to speak for you.’
‘Sir.’
‘I’m going to let you off with a fine. But I want you to be clear on one thing – and you can tell your friends this, and all those waiting outside too. Little escapes me on this ship. Very little. And if you think I am not aware of the little get-togethers that are springing up at an hour when our crew and our female cargo should be separated not just by walls but by whole bloody passageways, then you are very much mistaken.’
‘I didn’t mean any harm, sir.’
I did not intend things to turn out this way. Please do not make this child grow up a bastard, Henry, I implore you. I know I have hurt you terribly, but please do not inflict whatever you feel for me on the little one.
‘You meant no harm,’ Highfield muttered, and began to write. ‘You meant no harm. None of you ever does.’
There was a brief silence in the room.
‘Two pounds. And don’t let me see you in here again.’
‘Sir.’
‘Left turn, quick march,’ called the lieutenant.
The two men saluted, and left the office.
‘Two bloody pounds,’ said Soames, as they shuffled past the queue of offenders, ramming his cap back on to his head. ‘Two bloody pounds,’ he muttered to one of his mates. ‘He’s a miserable bloody bastard, that Highfield.’
‘Bad luck.’
Soames’s pace increased with his sense of injustice. ‘I don’t know why he had to pick on me, going on and on like that. I haven’t even spoken to one of those bloody Aussie brides. Not so much as a bloody one of them. Not like bloody Tims. He has girls in that mess most nights. Jackson told me.’
‘Best stay away from the lot of them,’ said Nicol.
‘What?’ The younger man turned, perhaps sensing the barely suppressed tension in the marine’s voice. ‘You all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, removing his hand from his pocket.
Please write me or wire me when you can. I am happy to leave you the house and everything. I have kept it all in good order, the best I could. I do not want to cause you more trouble. I just want your permission to go.
Yours,
Fay
‘Yes,’ said Nicol, striding down the passageway. ‘I’m fine.’
The summary trials ended a few minutes after eleven. Captain Highfield laid down his pen and motioned to Dobson who had entered some minutes previously and the marine captain that they should sit down. A steward was sent for tea.
‘It’s not good, is it?’ he said, leaning back in his chair. ‘We’re hardly a week in and look at it.’
The marine captain said nothing. The marines were a disciplined lot and never drank on board; they tended to appear only as character witnesses, or occasionally when the natural friction between marines and seamen boiled over into blows.
‘It’s bringing tension into the ship. And alcohol. When did we last have so many drunkenness offences at sea?’
The two men shook their heads. ‘We’ll organise a locker search, captain. See if we can flush it out,’ said Dobson. Out of the window, behind them, the skies had cleared to a bright, vivid blue, the sea becalmed. It was the kind of sight that couldn’t help but fill the heart with optimism. But Highfield took no joy from it: his leg had throbbed dully all morning, a permanent, intermittent reminder of his failure.
He had avoided looking at it when he dressed this morning: its colour disturbed him. A faint purplish tinge told not of the steady creation of new, healthy tissue but of some terrible struggle taking place beneath. If Bertram, the ship’s regular surgeon, had been aboard, he could have asked him to take a look at it. He would have understood. But Bertram had failed to show at Sydney, was now the subject of a court-martial, and that damn fool Duxbury was in his place.
Dobson leant forwards, his elbows resting on his knees. ‘The women’s officers tell me they’re pretty sure there’s movement at night. The one on B Deck had to break up a situation only last night.’
‘Fighting?’
The two seated men glanced at each other, then at the captain.
‘No, sir. Er . . . physical contact between a bride and a rating.’
‘Physical contact?’
‘Yes, sir. He had hold of her round the – round the back of the bilge pump.’
Highfield had suspected this might happen, had warned his superiors of it. Yet the reality struck him like a punch. The thought that, even as he sat there, such things were going on aboard his own ship . . .
‘I knew this would happen,’ he said, and saw that the other two men seemed markedly less disturbed by it than he felt. In fact, Dobson looked as if he was trying to contain mirth. ‘We’ll have to post more marines outside the hangar area, the stokers’ and seamen’s messes.’
‘With respect, sir,’ the marine captain interjected, ‘my boys are on rotating seven-day shifts as it is, as well as all their other tasks. I can’t ask them to do more. You saw how exhausted Nicol was, and he’s not the only one.’