loathing, and pursued their voyage at their own far brisker pace, setting topgallants and royals at last.
But the Polychrest had little time for attending to the convoy as it disappeared, for this was Thursday, and the people were to be mustered. Scarcely had she steadied on her new course before five bells in the forenoon watch struck and the drum began to beat: the crew came hurrying aft and stood in a cluster abaft the mainmast on the larboard side. They had all been aboard some time now, and they had been mustered again and again; but some were still so stupid that they had to be shoved into place by their mates. However, by this time they were all decently dressed in the purser’s blue shirts and white trousers; none showed the ghastly pallor of gaol or sea-sickness any more, and indeed the enforced cleanliness, the sea-air and the recent sun had given most the appearance of health. The food might have done something, too, for it was at least as good as that which many of them had been eating, and more plentiful.
The first part of the alphabet happened to contain most of the Polychrest’s seamen. There were some awkward brutes among them, such as that gap-toothed Bolton, but most were the right strong-faced long-armed bow-legged pigtailed sort; they called out ‘Here, sir’ to their names, touching their foreheads and walking cheerfully past their captain to the starboard gangway. They gave that part of the ship something of the air of the Sophie, an efficient, happy ship, if ever there was one, where even the waisters could hand, reef and steer. . . how fortunate he had been in his lieutenant. But Lord, how few the seamen were!
After the letter G there were hardly more than two among all the names that were called.
Poor meagre little creatures for the most part little stouter than the boys. And either surly or apprehensive or both: not a smile as they answered their names and crossed over.
There had been too much flogging, too much starting: but what else could you do in an emergency? Oldfield, Parsons, Pond, Quayle . . . sad
little objects; the last much given to informing; had been turned out of his mess twice already. And they were not the bottom of the barrel.
Eighty-seven men and boys, no more, for he was still thirty-three short of his complement.
Perhaps thirty of them knew their duty, and some were learning; indeed, most had learnt a little, and there were no longer the scenes of total incompetence that had made a nightmare of the earliest days. He knew all these faces now; some had improved almost out of recognition; some had deteriorated
– too much unfamiliar misery; dull minds unused to learning yet forced to learn a difficult trade in a driving hurry. Three categories: a top quarter of good sound able hands; then the vague middle half that might go up or might go down, according to the atmosphere of
the ship and how they were handled; and then the bottom quarter, with some hard cases among them, brutal, or stupid, or even downright wicked. As the last names were called his heart sank farther: Wright, Wilson and Young were the very bottom. Men like them were to be found aboard most men-of-war in a time of hot press, and an established ship’s company could wear a certain number without much harm. But the Polychrest’s was not an established ship’s company; and in any case the proportion was far too high.
The clerk closed the book, the first lieutenant reported the muster complete, and Jack gave them a last look before sending them to their tasks: a thoughtful look, for these were the men he might have to lead on to the deck of a French man-of-war tomorrow. How many would follow him?
‘Well, well,’ he thought, ‘one thing at a time,’ and he turned with relief to the problem in hand, to the new-rigging of the Polychrest. It would be complicated enough in all conscience, with her strange hull and the calculation of the forces acting upon it, but in comparison with the task of making a crew of man-of-war’s men out of the rag, tag, and bobtail from G to Y it was as simple and direct as kiss my hand. And here he was seconded by good officers: Mr Gray, the carpenter, knew his trade thoroughly; the bosun, though still too free with his cane, was active, willing and competent where rigging was concerned; and the master had a fine sense of a ship’s nature. In theory, Admiralty regulations forbade Jack to shift so much as his backstays, but Biscay had shifted them for him, and a good deal more besides; he had a free hand, fine calm weather, a long day before him, and he meant to make the most of it.
For form’s sake he invited Parker to join their deliberations, but the first lieutenant was more concerned with his paintwork and gold-leaf than with getting the ship to move faster through the water. He did not seem to understand what they were driving at, and presently they forgot his presence, though they listened politely to his plea for a larger crow-foot to extend a double awning – ‘In the Andromeda, Prince William always used to say that his awning gave the quarterdeck the air of a ballroom.’ As he spoke of the dimensions of the heroic euphroe that suspended this awning and the number of cloths that went into the awning itself, Jack looked at him curiously. Here was a man who had fought at the battle of the Saintes and in Howe’s great action, and yet still he thought his yard-blacking more important than sailing half a point closer to the wind. ‘I used to tell him it was no use racing one mast against the other in reefing topsails until the people at least knew how to lay aloft: I was wasting my breath. Very well, gentlemen,’ he said aloud, ‘let us make it so.
There is not a moment to lose. We could not ask for better weather, but who can tell how long it will last?’
The Polychrest, fresh from the yard, was reasonably well supplied with bosun’s and carpenter’s stores; but in any event, Jack’s intention was rather to cut down than to add.
She had always been crank and overmasted, so that she lay down in a capful of wind; and her foremast had
always been stepped too far aft, because of her original purpose in life, which made her gripe even with her mizen furled – made her do a great many other unpleasant things too.
In spite of his fervent longing, he could do nothing about the stepping without official consent and the help of a dockyard, but he could do something to improve the mast by raking it forward and by a new system of stays, jibe and staysails; and he could make her less crank by stubbing her topmasts, striking topgallants, and setting up bentincks, triangular courses that would not press her down in the water so much and that would relieve her top-hamper.
This was work he understood and loved; for once he was not in a tearing hurry, and he paced about the deck, seeing his plan take form, going from one group to the next as they prepared the spars, rigging and canvas. The carpenter and his mates were in the waist, their saws and adzes piling up heaps of chips and sawdust between the holy guns – guns that lay still today for the first time since he had hoisted his pennant; the sailmaker and his two parties spread over the forecastle and the greater part of the quarterdeck, canvas in every direction; and the bosun piled his coils of rope and his blocks in due order, checking them on his list, sweating up and down to his store-room, with no time to knock the hands about or even to curse them, except as a mechanical, unmeaning afterthought.
They worked steadily, and better than he had expected:
his three pressed tailors squatted there cross-legged, very much at home, plying needle and palm with the desperate speed they had learnt in the sweat-shop, and an out-of-work nailmaker from Birmingham showed an extraordinary skill in turning out iron rings from the armourer’s forge: ‘Crinkum-cankum, round she goes’, a twist of his tongs, a knowing triple rap with his hammer, and the glowing ring hissed into a bucket.
Eight bells in the afternoon watch, and the sun pouring down on the busy deck. ‘Shall I pipe the hands to supper, sir?’ asked Pullings.
‘No, Mr Pullings,’ said Jack. ‘We shall sway up the maintopmast first. Proper flats we should look, was a Frenchman to heave in sight,’ he observed, looking up and down the confusion. The foremast was clothed already, with a fine potential spread of canvas but little drawing, for want of stays; the jury-mizen still wore its little odd lateen, to give steerage-way; but the massive topmast was athwart the gangways, and this, together with the rest of the spars littering the deck, and all the other activities, made it almost impossible to move about – quite impossible to work the ship briskly. There was no room, although the boats were towing astern and everything that could be moved below had disappeared. She was making an easy three knots in the quartering breeze, but any emergency would find her helpless. ‘Mr Malloch, there. Is your hawser to the capstan?’