The night seemed long, and sleep hard to come by, for more than one man onboard Hector.
David Pearson had turned his secretary Worstead loose, and completed some papers, and the ship’s log entry himself. Now he was trying to make an entry in a rough, personal diary he’d maintained, so that when he had the chance he could remember things he wanted to “talk” to Eleanor about, in a letter or letters. He tried to write regularly, although God only knew when he’d be able to post anything. He dipped the quill in the inkwell and began another. * “My dearest Eleanor, how I miss you and look to the day when we can once again be together. It has been a strange voyage so far. Today I faced my first serious disciplinary charge, and was forced to order a man flogged.”* Pearson stopped to think. How would one of the fair sex react to something like that? This wasn’t an ordinary love letter, but still. How to explain? “I did my best to temper mercy with justice, the man could have been hung.” Pearson kept on, as if by explaining himself he could hold back tomorrow and what was to come. He thought his betrothed would understand. Eleanor had been firm minded enough to have stand up to her own father, an Admiral, to for David. Sometimes he still wondered what she’d seen in him that he didn’t know he had himself.
Mr. French lay in his own bunk, staring upwards into the dark. He was mightily relieved that the captain had conjured up a reprieve from death for Wynton, but he was haunted by the fact of laying a capital charge against someone, even though he’d had no choice. Rodney French had had duty to King and Country pounded in since he was younger than the middie Callow, but that was small comfort. He sighed deeply, depression for once overtaking his brighter nature. It might have been better if he’d known Wynton bore him no animosity, but he didn’t.
Midshipman Callow crept quietly belowdecks, wanting to see the American who’d saved his life, but not wanting to disturb him if he had managed to get some sleep. He needn’t have worried, Caleb was wide awake, and being kept company by Atkins and O’Reilly.
“Uh, Mr. Wynton,” he began, "I never did thank you proper for saving me, and I sure am sorry about that.”
“Well, Mr. Callow, seeing as how it was me who was partly responsible, spinning you around like that, it was the least I could do.” Caleb knew Atkins and O’Reilly wouldn’t repeat this private talk. “What say we call it even?”
“I don’t remember much of what happened, just being sick after” Callow went on. “They tell me you jumped in after me.”
Caleb shifted his legs, making a clinking sound. “Something like that” he replied carefully, “I’m sure you would have done the same for me.”
“You really think so?” Callow brightened a little.
“Sure, son, we all been scared too” Atkins chimed in. Normally he wouldn’t have referred to even a midshipman as “son”, but he didn’t think the boy would notice, or mind if he did.
The young middie straightened up a little. “Well, Mr. Wynton, I just wanted to tell you thanks,” and he turned on his heel and left., not hearing the soft chuckling after he had gone.
“That boy’s heart is in the right place, even if he is greener than spoiled beef,” snorted the cook. “I think he’ll stiffen up eventually. If he don’t pass out tomorrow he’ll do.”
“I’ll do my best not to scare him” said Caleb, a hard edge of sarcasm now coming into his voice. “I’ll bet I know now why the captain made me wait. Having to wait like this gets on a man’s nerves, can make him scared.”
“That ain’t entirely so” spoke Atkins. “I’ve heard tell of captains changing their minds, givin’ less strokes or something. Gives them time to think too.” Caleb was skeptical of this, but for once kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to upset the closest thing to a good friend he had on this ship.
“Now, boyo,” began O’Reilly, “afore tomorrow I have a little something here for you” and he held out a mug. Caleb took it and noted it was near half full of rum. “I even laced it with some of that honey you like, makes it smoother goin’ down, ya know.”
Caleb took a small sip. It was warm, and did taste sweeter. There was a temptation to down it in a gulp, knowing what was coming. but he hesitated. “Do they know about this abovedeck?” he asked, and a broad wink was his answer. Still, he held back, this time, from drinking. The memory of a tot of rum, in a seaside tavern in Antigua came back to him, and he handed the mug back to the cook.
“I sure do appreciate the thought, but a drink got me into this whole mess and another drink won’t get me out. I’ll stand on my own two legs tomorrow, not on a crutch.”
“Idiot!” grated O’Reilly, and Atkins embroidered on O’Reilly’s epithet with with “Stupid, young idiot.”
The next morning dawned bright and clear, with the sea almost unnaturally flat. The whole ship’s company was assembled to witness punishment. All the officers, from Pearson to Callow, were in their best uniforms, this being a somewhat “formal” occasion.
Caleb, shirtless, was hauled on deck, and stood straight as his charges and punishment were read out officially. That being finished he was bound spread-eagled against the grate on which the flogging would take place. He started to tremble, wishing now maybe he’d taken some of that rum O’Reilly had offered.
Mr. Chisman, the Master at Arms, asked Archer, the ship’s surgeon, if the man sentenced was fit to take the lashing. Archer made a cursory exam, for form’s sake, and pronounced Caleb fit.
“It’s a dream, it’s all a dream” Caleb tried to tell himself, as Hudson, a bosun, stepped forward with a red sack, out of which he took the cat, with it’s nine “tails”, like streamers, dangling from a thicker, rope-bound handle. “I’m going to wake up, this isn’t really happening…”
The shock of the first blow wrenched a gasp out of him. It was a pain like he’d never felt, hot and stinging at the same time. He clenched his teeth to ready himself but before he could the second blow fell, and his eyes watered in pain.
“Three!”
“Four!”
“Five!”
Mr. Chisman’s voice calmly counted the strokes as Hudson continued. At the count of “Twelve!” Hudson stepped back, and Caleb sagged against his bonds, thinking that perhaps he was getting a reprieve. His lower lip was bleeding just a little, where he’d bitten it trying not to yell.
But there was no reprieve of course. Mr. Chisman ordered Archer forward again, to ensure that Caleb was still capable of taking the remaining lashes. Some captains wouldn’t care, but Pearson, still learning from Merriot, was using the letter of the regulations. After the surgeon reported only heavy red welts, with one bleeding cut, Chisman gave the order to administer the remaining twelve strokes.
Another bosun would administer the second twelve strokes, and now a man named Brown stepped forward.
“Thirteen!”
“Fourteen!”
“Fifteen!”
By now Caleb’s whole back felt afire, he could feel he was cut and beginning to bleed freely from his stripes… As it had while he was in the sea with Callow, time was stretching again. Dear, God, when was this going to be over?
“Nineteen!”
“Twenty!”
“Twenty-one!”
He couldn’t help himself any longer, each blow was now wrenching a deep sob of pain from between his clenched teeth.
“Twenty-two!”
“Twenty-three!”
“TWENTY-FOUR!”
It was Pearson who gave the official command “Cut him down.” The company was dismissed, and the cat thrown overboard, not to be used again. Archer came forward a final time. Salt water was washed over Caleb’s raw, bleeding wounds, and Archer applied a salve… Helped into a loose shirt Caleb was hustled groggy, but still on his feet, belowdecks, not to a hammock but to his former pallet in the galley. This time, when O’Reilly offered him a drink he did not refuse, and finally fell, face down, into a pained sleep, as the work of the ship went on about him, unheard.