Read Online The Launching of Roger Brook by Dennis Wheatley - Free Book Online
Authors: Dennis Wheatley
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Roger will not be returning to Sherborne next term?’ she said slowly.
The Captain gave him a hearty slap on the back. ‘Nay. His school days are over, and he’ll be posted as a midshipman on the recommissioning of one of our ships now in dock within the next month or two. Well, Roger, hast thou naught to say?’
‘Indeed, I’m very grateful, Sir—both to you and to His Majesty,’ Roger managed to stammer.
Captain Brook’s perceptions were too blunted by the wine he had consumed to note the lack of enthusiasm in Roger’s tone, and he hurried on: ‘Next week we’ll go into Portsmouth and see to the ordering of your kit. You’ll cut a brave figure in a uniform and all the gels will be castingsheep’s eyes at you.’ He converted a mild belch into a yawn. ‘But enough for now. Tis time we sought our beds. Strap me! but it’s good to be home again and see to the locking-up of one’s own home for the night.’
‘I’d best come with you, Sir,’ Roger volunteered. ‘A new door has been made to the still-room, since you went away, and ’tis concealed behind a curtain.’
Lady Marie led the way out into the spacious hall and, turning, kissed Roger good-night at the foot of the white-painted, semi-circular staircase, then father and son made the round of the ground floor, fastening the shutters, putting up chains and shooting bolts.
As Roger followed his father from room to room, his mind was in a turmoil. The wine and the shock he had sustained had now combined to bemuse his brain and make him feel that he wanted to be sick. On the news of the Captain’s return that morning he had thought that at worst he would have several months in which to wage a campaign of resistance against any renewal of the project to send him to sea. His father was both good-natured and affectionate, so by waiting for such times as he was in his most calm and responsive moods it might have been possible to argue him out of it. But the time for seizing such opportunities had now been cut from beneath Roger’s feet.
He saw himself within the next few weeks being shipped off like a victim of the press-gangs to a life of slavery in the hideous discomfort inseparable from serving in a man-o’-war. Midshipmen were then treated little better than the sailors before the mast and worked to the limit of their endurance. They took watch for watch and were sent aloft with the hands to help furl the sails, under the blistering tropic sun or in the icy, blinding rain of the worst tempests. The common seamen at least had leisure to yarn, carve models, or laze about in their off-duty hours, but not so the midshipmen, who, in the intervals of scrubbing decks, cleaning brass fitments and hauling on great tarry ropes were herded into the ship’s schoolroom to receive instruction in navigation, gunnery, trigonometry and ship’s management. Their fare was a rarely varied diet of salt pork and hard biscuits washed down with unsweetened lime juice to prevent scurvy; their quarters a single low cabin in which there were constant comings and goings, their sleep limited to three and three-quarter hours at any one time beforethey were roughly woken to roll out of their dirty blankets and scamper up the ladders for the muster of a new duty-watch on deck. They were kept on the run from morning to night and for half the night semi-frozen while acting as look-outs in the crow’s nest high above the ship. Their title of ‘Mister’ was a mockery; the officers were as far above them as the gods and it was considered that the harder the tasks they were given the better officers they would make later on. Bugle calls and the ship’s bell ruled their every hour; they had no privacy or recreations and were bullied unmercifully.
Knowing all this Roger was engulfed in a black wave of despair, yet felt that he would rather die than submit to such a fate. Blindly he followed his father’s unsteady footsteps from room to room, seeking a way out but finding none.
The Captain gave him a hearty slap on the back. ‘Nay. His school days are over, and he’ll be posted as a midshipman on the recommissioning of one of our ships now in dock within the next month or two. Well, Roger, hast thou naught to say?’
‘Indeed, I’m very grateful, Sir—both to you and to His Majesty,’ Roger managed to stammer.
Captain Brook’s perceptions were too blunted by the wine he had consumed to note the lack of enthusiasm in Roger’s tone, and he hurried on: ‘Next week we’ll go into Portsmouth and see to the ordering of your kit. You’ll cut a brave figure in a uniform and all the gels will be castingsheep’s eyes at you.’ He converted a mild belch into a yawn. ‘But enough for now. Tis time we sought our beds. Strap me! but it’s good to be home again and see to the locking-up of one’s own home for the night.’
‘I’d best come with you, Sir,’ Roger volunteered. ‘A new door has been made to the still-room, since you went away, and ’tis concealed behind a curtain.’
Lady Marie led the way out into the spacious hall and, turning, kissed Roger good-night at the foot of the white-painted, semi-circular staircase, then father and son made the round of the ground floor, fastening the shutters, putting up chains and shooting bolts.
As Roger followed his father from room to room, his mind was in a turmoil. The wine and the shock he had sustained had now combined to bemuse his brain and make him feel that he wanted to be sick. On the news of the Captain’s return that morning he had thought that at worst he would have several months in which to wage a campaign of resistance against any renewal of the project to send him to sea. His father was both good-natured and affectionate, so by waiting for such times as he was in his most calm and responsive moods it might have been possible to argue him out of it. But the time for seizing such opportunities had now been cut from beneath Roger’s feet.
He saw himself within the next few weeks being shipped off like a victim of the press-gangs to a life of slavery in the hideous discomfort inseparable from serving in a man-o’-war. Midshipmen were then treated little better than the sailors before the mast and worked to the limit of their endurance. They took watch for watch and were sent aloft with the hands to help furl the sails, under the blistering tropic sun or in the icy, blinding rain of the worst tempests. The common seamen at least had leisure to yarn, carve models, or laze about in their off-duty hours, but not so the midshipmen, who, in the intervals of scrubbing decks, cleaning brass fitments and hauling on great tarry ropes were herded into the ship’s schoolroom to receive instruction in navigation, gunnery, trigonometry and ship’s management. Their fare was a rarely varied diet of salt pork and hard biscuits washed down with unsweetened lime juice to prevent scurvy; their quarters a single low cabin in which there were constant comings and goings, their sleep limited to three and three-quarter hours at any one time beforethey were roughly woken to roll out of their dirty blankets and scamper up the ladders for the muster of a new duty-watch on deck. They were kept on the run from morning to night and for half the night semi-frozen while acting as look-outs in the crow’s nest high above the ship. Their title of ‘Mister’ was a mockery; the officers were as far above them as the gods and it was considered that the harder the tasks they were given the better officers they would make later on. Bugle calls and the ship’s bell ruled their every hour; they had no privacy or recreations and were bullied unmercifully.
Knowing all this Roger was engulfed in a black wave of despair, yet felt that he would rather die than submit to such a fate. Blindly he followed his father’s unsteady footsteps from room to room, seeking a way out but finding none.
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