The Ship of Brides(40)
Author: Jojo Moyes

‘Best stay away from the lot of them,’ said Nicol.

‘What?’ The younger man turned, perhaps sensing the barely suppressed tension in the marine’s voice. ‘You all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said, removing his hand from his pocket.

Please write me or wire me when you can. I am happy to leave you the house and everything. I have kept it all in good order, the best I could. I do not want to cause you more trouble. I just want your permission to go.

Yours,

Fay

‘Yes,’ said Nicol, striding down the passageway. ‘I’m fine.’

The summary trials ended a few minutes after eleven. Captain Highfield laid down his pen and motioned to Dobson who had entered some minutes previously and the marine captain that they should sit down. A steward was sent for tea.

‘It’s not good, is it?’ he said, leaning back in his chair. ‘We’re hardly a week in and look at it.’

The marine captain said nothing. The marines were a disciplined lot and never drank on board; they tended to appear only as character witnesses, or occasionally when the natural friction between marines and seamen boiled over into blows.

‘It’s bringing tension into the ship. And alcohol. When did we last have so many drunkenness offences at sea?’

The two men shook their heads. ‘We’ll organise a locker search, captain. See if we can flush it out,’ said Dobson. Out of the window, behind them, the skies had cleared to a bright, vivid blue, the sea becalmed. It was the kind of sight that couldn’t help but fill the heart with optimism. But Highfield took no joy from it: his leg had throbbed dully all morning, a permanent, intermittent reminder of his failure.

He had avoided looking at it when he dressed this morning: its colour disturbed him. A faint purplish tinge told not of the steady creation of new, healthy tissue but of some terrible struggle taking place beneath. If Bertram, the ship’s regular surgeon, had been aboard, he could have asked him to take a look at it. He would have understood. But Bertram had failed to show at Sydney, was now the subject of a court-martial, and that damn fool Duxbury was in his place.

Dobson leant forwards, his elbows resting on his knees. ‘The women’s officers tell me they’re pretty sure there’s movement at night. The one on B Deck had to break up a situation only last night.’

‘Fighting?’

The two seated men glanced at each other, then at the captain.

‘No, sir. Er . . . physical contact between a bride and a rating.’

‘Physical contact?’

‘Yes, sir. He had hold of her round the – round the back of the bilge pump.’

Highfield had suspected this might happen, had warned his superiors of it. Yet the reality struck him like a punch. The thought that, even as he sat there, such things were going on aboard his own ship . . .

‘I knew this would happen,’ he said, and saw that the other two men seemed markedly less disturbed by it than he felt. In fact, Dobson looked as if he was trying to contain mirth. ‘We’ll have to post more marines outside the hangar area, the stokers’ and seamen’s messes.’

‘With respect, sir,’ the marine captain interjected, ‘my boys are on rotating seven-day shifts as it is, as well as all their other tasks. I can’t ask them to do more. You saw how exhausted Nicol was, and he’s not the only one.’

‘Do we really need them outside the men’s messes?’ said Dobson. ‘If we’ve got marines keeping the brides in, plus the monitors doing the chastity rounds, surely that should be adequate?’

‘Well, it’s obviously not, is it? Not if we’re already breaking up petting parties and goodness knows what else. Look, we’re only a week out of port. If we let it slip now, heaven knows where we’ll end up.’ He was besieged by images of fornicating couples in the flour store, of irate husbands and puce-faced admiralty.

‘Oh, come on, sir. I’d say it’s important to keep it in perspective.’

‘What?’

‘There are bound to be a few hiccups to begin with, especially with so many crew new together, but it’s nothing we can’t manage. In fact, after the business with Indomitable, it’s probably a good thing. It shows that the men are perking up a bit.’

Until that point, perhaps through diplomacy or even a desire not to wound their captain further, no one had talked of the sunken ship – at least, not in relation to the men’s morale. At the mention of its name Highfield’s jaw tightened. It might have been reflexive. More likely it was because of who had spoken.

As he gathered his thoughts, Dobson added silkily, ‘If you’d rather, Captain, you could leave disciplinary matters to us. It would be sad, sir, if, because of a few youthful high jinks, you couldn’t enjoy this last voyage a little.’

In Dobson’s barbed words, in his relaxed, confident manner, lay everything the men thought about Highfield now but would not say aloud. Once, Dobson would never have dared speak to him in this way. Highfield was so stunned by this barely veiled insubordination that he couldn’t speak. When the steward arrived with his tea, he had to wait for several seconds before the captain noticed his presence.

The marine captain, a more diplomatic sort, leant forward. ‘I think, sir, that much of the problem this past week may have been to do with the conditions over the Bight,’ he said. ‘I believe that both the seamen and the women may have taken advantage of the fact that so many of the monitors were absent to increase the levels of – erm – interaction. Give it a few days more and the women will be less excitable and the men will have got used to having them around the place. I suspect things will settle down.’

Highfield, now suspicious, studied the marine captain. There was a transparency in his expression visibly lacking in that of the man beside him. ‘You think we should let things be?’

‘Yes, I do, sir.’

‘I agree, sir,’ said Dobson. ‘Best not to rattle things up too much at this stage.’

Highfield ignored him. As he closed the ledger, he turned to the marine captain. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We’ll go softly for now. But I want to know everything, every footstep, that takes place below deck after ten p.m. Shake the monitors up – get them to use their eyes and ears. And if there is the slightest hint of misbehaviour – the slightest hint, mind – I want us to be down on it like a ton of bricks. I will not have anyone charge this voyage with lowering naval standards. Not under my command.’