Master of My Dreams (18 page)

Chapter 15

“I tell ye, this is turnin’ out to be the
voyage from
hell,
” Skunk spat, kicking viciously at a neatly
coiled line and sending it snaking across the deck. “First he has
us cleanin’ the decks, then he has us practicing sail drills, then
he takes our Delight from us—Christ, I’d as soon stayed in bloody
England!”

It had been more than three long, miserable
weeks since HMS
Bold Marauder
had shown her heels to
Spithead—and things weren’t getting any better. Although the marine
who guarded the cabin where the two girls now stayed was easily
coerced
—by a very manipulative Delight—into admitting
“visitors” while Deirdre was absent, the rebellious spirit with
which the ship had left England was sadly lacking. Sail drills had
everyone’s backs and arms aching. Gun practice had them all
exhausted and half deaf. Strict observation of quarterdeck rules
and Navy protocol had everyone wishing he’d taken duty on another
ship. Only Delight maintained her bright and bubbly spirit, and she
alone kept the men smiling when they found nothing to smile
about.

The Irish girl, however, was another matter.
She spent her time standing at the stern rail with her canvas bag
clenched in one hand, her sad face turned toward an Ireland that
was now nearly three thousand miles away.

And the aloof and unapproachable Lord and
Master spent
his
time watching her.

Neither spoke to the other, both went out of
their way to avoid each other, and the tension between them escaped
nobody’s notice.

Now the men, just finishing their morning
task of scrubbing the decks, watched their captain with mutinous
eyes. As usual, they were full of complaints—but that was the
extent of it, for none dared to cross him. His unorthodox
punishments, beginning that awful day he had forced Teach to clean
all the objects in the weapons chest, were doled out swiftly and
mercilessly. Hibbert, having been caught once too often in his
filthy uniform, had been forced to soap and scrub the uniform of
every officer on the frigate. Skunk, caught swearing in front of
the ladies, had been made to stand before his shipmates for an
entire hour and read from the Lord and Master’s big leather Bible.
Worse, all punishments were carried out to the slow beat of the
marine drummer’s drum, with the entire crew and officers assembled
to watch. Such humiliation was enough to make even the most
recalcitrant of
Bold Marauder's
men think twice about
raising the Lord and Master’s ire.

But it did nothing to make them like him.

“Aye, Skunk, it just ain’t fair,” Teach
grumbled, scratching at the chin he kept clean and well shaven—not
to please his commanding officer but Delight, who happened to
prefer smooth faces. He turned toward his shipmates, his huge,
burly arms outstretched in a silent plea. “Why the hell did
we
have to end up with the stuffy prig, anyhow? Ain’t he a
ship-o’-the-line captain? What’s he doing on a mere frigate?”

“Dunno, Teach, but I don’t believe all that
rot about him being a decorated hero for one bloody minute,” Wenham
muttered, staring up at the set of the topsails and sullenly
tugging at his ear with the stubs of his missing fingers. He risked
a glance at the bosun, for Rico Hendricks was usually within
earshot. “Probably made one too many embarrassing mistakes
somewhere and the Admiralty thought they could squirrel him away on
Bold Marauder
—at
our
expense!”

“Decorated hero, my arse! Besides, whoever
heard of a naval captain who wears a
wig
aboard ship!”

“Maybe he’s got a big bald spot he’s tryin’
to cover up!”

“Maybe ’e’s afraid wot little brains ’e
has’ll leak out if ’e don’t keep a top on ’em!”

“Maybe he thinks he looks right handsome in
it and is trying to impress the girl!”

“Ha, he’s doin’ a fine job of
that
,
ain’t ’e!”

They howled with glee, remembering the
now-faded bruise that the wig couldn’t quite conceal. Every man on
the ship had heard about the latest falling-out between the Irish
girl and the Lord and Master, but only Delight knew what it was
about, and
she,
as Deirdre’s cabin-mate and friend, wasn’t
telling.

“Hero or not. I’ll bet my last shilling he
ain’t never seen action in his life! Prob’ly
bought
all
those fancy medals!”

“Here, now, Skunk, ye be mindin’ your
tongue,” Ian chided, frowning. “Ye canna put doon the mon when
ye’ve never seen battle yerself!”

“None of us have, Ian, but
we
ain’t
the ones wearin’ the rank of a post captain or carryin’ a fancy
dress sword, an’ we ain’t the ones with medals of valor affixed to
our best coat! I
still
bet he bought ’em off someone, or
stole ’em off some corpse. Why, I’ll bet when this here ship gets
into a battle—not that I think she ever will—our fearless leader’ll
go running below with his tail between his legs!”

“Aye, and leave
us
to do the
fighting!” Rhodes spat, detaching himself from his place by the
pinrail. “Why, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find his Lordship
hiding down in his cabin, fussing with his wig and taking tea!”

Hibbert, who’d been watching with a gleam in
his eye, swaggered out from Wenham’s shadow, his lips curved with
mischief. “Aye, taking
tea,
” he sniffed, striking an
exaggeratedly dandified pose, flaring his nostrils, and making a
big show over smoothing his rumpled uniform.

The crew roared with laughter.

“Aah, ye show ’em, laddie!”

To windward, far off over the leaping wave
crests that rolled endlessly toward the frigate’s bows, tiny
splotches of white hung suspended from the clouds that lay piled on
the horizon.

But no one saw them, nor heard the distant
echo of gunfire—not even the lookout, who, at the moment, was lying
flat on his back on the maintop, with a boyishly disguised Delight
straddling his belly and putting his mind on other things.

“Keep it up, Hibbert!” Skunk roared, slapping
his thigh. “’Sdeath, we could do with some amusement to brighten
these decks!”

Laughing, Hibbert primped his ill-kempt queue
and pranced across the deck in a exaggerated caricature of his
commanding officer. Pinching his nostrils shut to affect an
exaggerated nasal drawl that sounded nothing like the clipped,
educated tone of their captain, he sniffed, “Mr. MacDuff, I daresay
we’re in for a
devilish
blow . . . would you please put a
reef in the forecourse?”

A burst of raucous laughter went up from his
mates, and several threw wary glances forward, where Ian had gone
off to use the head. Their first lieutenant was no fun anymore,
refusing to join his shipmates in making jokes about the Lord and
Master.

Grinning, Hibbert pushed his hat back,
primped and preened some more, and then, clasping his hands behind
his back, strode slowly across the deck. He sank his chin into his
neckcloth and drew his brows close in a threatening scowl. “Oh,
and, Mr. Skunk, please see to it that the deck is scrubbed and
clean before I come topside!”

Skunk threw back his grimy head, roaring with
laughter. “Ye’ve got it, boy! Ye look just like the blasted blue
blood!”

“Aye, just like ’im!”

“More, Hibbert, more!”

On the horizon, the triangles of white began
to take on distinct shapes as they detached themselves from the
cloud mass.

The midshipman grabbed a boarding pike from
the rack at the mainmast, and leaned his weight on it in imitation
of the captain with his sword. His eyes half lidded, Hibbert
stiffened his back and drawled, “Oh, and, Mr. Teach, please remove
that
growth
from your face. This is a fighting ship, not a
barbershop!”

“Not
fighting
ship,” Skunk cried, “A
king’s
ship! If yer gonna do it, do it right!”

Hibbert struck a pose. “This is a
king’s
ship!”

“Ha, ha, ha!”

Someone coughed.

But Hibbert, lost in the game, never saw the
object of his ridicule standing behind him, silently watching him
and cradling three tiny puppies in the broad shelter of his arm.
Primping his hair, the youth swaggered to the wheel and stared
haughtily down at the compass. “I
daresay,
Mr. Wenham, the
forecourse is not in proper trim for this wind. Pray, do see to the
matter!”

“Er, Hibbert—”

“Mr. Rhodes, please do not interrupt your
commanding officer,” Hibbert said, with an imperious wave of his
hand. He turned to face the second lieutenant. “You
know
how
it grieves—”

He broke off abruptly and dropped the pike on
his toe. The Lord and Master was standing a mere ten feet away,
coldly watching him.

“Are you quite finished,
Mr
. Hibbert?”
The frosty gray eyes, hard with anger, raked the boy’s face. “Pray,
remind me to purchase tickets next time you decide to stage such an
amusing performance.”

Hibbert paled, gulped, and stared down at his
shoes. “Aye.”

“Aye,
sir.
And get your damned hide
below and change out of that miserable excuse for a uniform and
into something presentable!”

Hibbert fled, nearly colliding with the
returning Ian MacDuff in his haste to escape.

“Hey, watch it, ye imperious wee upstart!”
Ian roared, raising his fist. But the midshipman was gone.

Christian strode to the rail that separated
the quarterdeck from the waist of the ship. His cold gaze swept the
sea of smirking faces beneath him, noting the exchanged glances,
the quickly muffled guffaws, the twitching lips. He let the silence
build, knowing that their attention was on him and him alone. Then
he cleared his throat and, cradling the three puppies to his chest,
stared down at them.

“It is a pity,” he said, his tone emotionless
and cold, “that here we are, only a few days out from Boston, and
you, as a company, are no closer to doing your Navy proud than you
were when we left England. I had truly hoped to make a favorable
impression upon the admiral there, but I’m afraid that I shall be
ashamed, not proud, to bring this vessel into that harbor and
present her to my superior.”

Skunk and Rhodes exchanged smirks.

“You think that having me as your commanding
officer is the worst thing you could have imagined, don’t you?”

Skunk opened his mouth to reply in the
positive, but a quick jab in the ribs from Rhodes silenced him.

The action was not wasted on the captain.
“Why must you comply to discipline and tradition? you ask. What
reason is there for saluting the quarterdeck, for touching your hat
to your commanding or superior officers, for manning the side when
your captain leaves the ship?” Christian’s hand tightened around
the rail. “Do you think me so pompous that I ask your compliance
for
my
sake? Do you think me so arrogant and conceited that
I demand it for
myself
?”

They stared at him, uncomprehending. No one
spoke. Above, wind sighed softly in the shrouds and made the great
sails taut and hard against the blue, blue sky.

“Death at sea can come swiftly, in any form,
at any time. A sudden squall. A battle. A mistake in interpreting a
chart, a position, an enemy’s strength. At such times, when chaos
may reign, there is one thing, and one thing alone, that will keep
a ship together, and
that
is called
discipline
.”

He stared hard at them, letting them absorb
his words. “Our Navy is the most powerful sea power in the world,
with possibly only the French to challenge it. That strength does
not arise out of the independence of each vessel, but out of unity
amongst them all, and the men who serve them. That strength is
rooted in discipline and strict allegiance to tradition—they are
the cement that holds our Navy together, not something to be
sneered at, scoffed at, ridiculed. Now, if everyone decided not to
respect their seniors, and they, in turn, did not respect the flag
that flies above their heads, where, then, would this Navy be?
Indeed, where would
England
be?”

Nobody was smirking anymore. A few men looked
down at their feet, visibly ashamed.

“I do not chastise you for your impertinence
and disrespect to
me;
I chastise you for your impertinence
and disrespect for that flag—the flag of
Britain.
Your
blatant disrespect of me is not an insult to
me
—it is an
insult to your
country
.”

More men stared down at their toes, their
faces reddening with shame. Even Deirdre had turned away from the
rail to listen.

Christian gazed up at the pennant that
streamed proudly from
Bold Marauder’
s jack. “When you salute
me, or your flag, or the quarterdeck, you are partaking of a
ceremony that is far older than you are, and one which shall
persevere long after you are gone. Since you are representatives of
your king and country, your conduct as seamen is representative of
England. By seeking to anger
me,
you disgrace not only your
country, but your ship and the men you may someday fight
beside.

‘Tradition, ceremony, discipline, and
obedience are the essential glue that holds together a fighting
ship. A fighting ship is the essence of a fleet; a fleet, the pride
and guardian of a nation. Remove one chink in the armor, one link
in the chain, and it is weakened. Do
you
want to be
remembered by those you love and protect back home as being that
weak link?”

No one moved.

“
Do
you?”

They stared at him, while high above, the
pennant undulated with majestic grace in the wind.

“I have nothing more to say.” Turning his
back on them, the Lord and Master touched his hat to those proud
colors above his head, and, passing his gaping officers, his
strangely silent crew, went below.