A Country Life

CHAPTER 14 - REDGAR

When he explored the damage with his fingers, it was like discovering something gone off in the bottom of a beef-barrel after a six month voyage to the tropics. The right side of his face felt all wrong; puffed up and bloody. The slightest touch caused stabs of agonising pain to course through him, which in turn made him grimace, which of course made it hurt even more. If there had been any light in the cramped, airless and fetid forepeak into which the Guillemot's surviving crew had been unceremoniously pushed, it wouldn't have helped him see. His right eye was completely closed up, and his left wasn't much better. 

He gingerly explored his ribs. Pain around his left side told him that at least one was cracked, maybe two. At least he had escaped any major broken bones, and with luck, his injuries would heal quickly. Not like poor Thomas Oaks, whose misfortune was to have raised his arm to steady himself after the boat had come upright from its broach, only to have it taken off at the elbow by a cannon ball from the Orion, which, as Redgar had since discovered, was the name of the frigate that had taken them so quickly. It was Thomas's blood that had covered his face and caused Lizzy such concern when he last saw her. Lizzy. Was she alive? Had she been captured and kept hostage with other members of Guillemot's crew? Was she on the Orion, given over to her men as prize for a successful action, or dead, like Carver and the others who put up a valiant defence once the Orion's people had boarded them?

Fool. I should never have taken her with me on this voyage. Damn, damn fool.

The forepeak was so tightly packed there was no room to sit or lie down. The men were tired, hungry, anxious and upset. The mood in the dark, smelly space had been defiant at first, and when the vessel had unexpectedly grounded, they had cheered and laughed at the incompetence of their captors. But what had that been about? Since the boat had been refloated and had set off on its way again, the mood of his crew had changed, and now the men brooded, each focussed inward on their own predicament and their own fears.  

"We'em be in the Haven, then," spoke a voice from the furthest corner of the forepeak. "Be fodder for them crows, more'n likely." 

"Stow it!" exclaimed Redgar. The man might be right, and everyone was thinking it, but it didn't pay to voice these fears when there was nothing they could do about it. Silence returned, and Redgar sensed a further slipping of morale in his men, an extra layer of resignation in their being. This won't do, he thought. 

"Did anyone get a good look at the Orion?" he asked. 

"I saw it plain, when that damn light was pointed away for a few seconds, I saw it real good." 

"Who's that speaking? That you, Franks?" 

"Yessir." 

"You sound different. Are you hurt?" 

"Lost my front teeth when I face-planted the deck during round-up. I'll be alrigh'. I seen it - frigate, triple mast. I bet my remainin' teeth it were built along the same lines as the old Constitution. Looked just like old pictures I seen once back in Boston. Mus' be Yankee built. Out'a Gallows' yard I reckon. I heard rumours he was plannin' on buildin' a large three-master some years ago." 

"Nah," answered a different voice from the darkness. "Gallows never built it. We would have known for sure if something that large had been on the stocks. Anyway, I heard Gallows disappeared some time back. Rumour is he went out fishing one day, never came back."  

"I heard he died from fever over in Newport. Old Man Hullam told me last Easter," said another. 

"Old Man Hullam's full of spute, don't believe nothing he says!" replied Franks, hotly.