Read Online Victory by Susan Cooper - Free Book Online Page B

I saw no more of Lord Nelson than a small figure on the quarterdeck at inspection, with stars and decorationsgleaming on his blue coat. That first day he came aboard, war was declared on France again after a few weeks of peace, and all the men cheered. Then we sailed across the English Channel to meet Lord Collingwood’s fleet, and the Admiral left us again before we even found them. Word was that he was taking command of the fleet in the Mediterranean, and was in a hurry to get down there and fight the French. So he went aboard Captain Hardy’s frigate Amphion, smaller and faster than big old Victory, and they sailed south.
    When Captain Sutton found Lord Collingwood, we were sent south too. The wind was good but strong, and these were stormy waters, so Victory ’s decks were wildly atilt most of the time, a hard matter for those of us set often to carrying things (and harder still for the sailors sent up the rigging.) Lurching over the deck one day with two buckets of swill for the pigs, I was passing Oliver Pickin and an older midshipman, Mr. Harrington, when a furious gust of wind sent Harrington and me both tumbling on top of Pickin, with the pigswill from my buckets splashing over all three of us.
    Pickin cried out in fury, and scrambled up and began lashing at me with his cane. Harrington protested: “Oliver, for God’s sake—the boy fell, and so did we—it’s not his doing!”
    Pickin was beside himself. “Clumsy little whoreson—”
    â€œStop!” yelled Harrington, and held his arm.
    And Pickin did stop, but glared at me as I scurried away to find a mop, and I knew he would not forget.
    Nor did he. Two days later word came to the galley that the captain’s cook wanted a dozen eggs, and Mr. Carroll sent me up with them. It was a long way, the captain’s quarters being in the stern of the ship and the galley way forward. I was making my way cautiously along the deck, holding the wooden rack of eggs with both my hands, when the whistles of the bosun’s mates shrilled for the men to reduce sail. I stood frozen beside one of the great deck-top carronades as dozens of seamen came running for the rigging, and seeing my plight they tried to steer clear of me. Most of them were good fellows when sober, and knew from their own experience what a whipping I would get if I broke even one of those eggs.
    But when I dodged out again, a foot was stuck suddenly between my own, and tripped me, and the eggs and their frame went smashing down on the deck as I fell. I wailed in horror, and as I scrambled up, a hand took tight hold of my ear. “It’s the clumsy pig boy!” cried Midshipman Oliver Pickin, grinning, and I knew beyond doubt that it was his foot that had brought me down.
    I wrenched my head away. “You tripped me! You did that!”
    â€œAre you accusing me, brat?”
    â€œThose eggs were for the captain —”
    Pickin looked round, his face full of triumph and malice. “Insolence to an officer!” he cried. He grabbed at a couple of sailors who were running for the mast. “Clap hold of him, you!”
    A bosun’s mate was in full cry after the sailors, flicking at them with his cane. “Up with you, you idle scum! Aloft there!” He paused as he saw Pickin.
    â€œInsolence!” the midshipman was yelling. “Insolence! A bar in his mouth for three days! You—take this fellow’s name!”
    The bosun’s mate looked at me and at Pickin, and I knew there was nothing he could do for me: Oliver Pickin was a bullying malicious midshipman but he was an officer, and the rules of the Royal Navy were rock hard.
    And so it was that for two full days and nights I had to go about the ship with a five-inch iron bolt forced across my open mouth and tied with yarn behind my head, like a bit in the mouth of a horse. I could neither eat nor drink, and at night I could not sleep for the pain. Stephen and two or