ALEXANDER KENT - TO GLORY WE STEER

Ferguson swallowed hard to bite back the rising nausea. `I can't eat it!' He peered wretchedly at the meat. `It's swill!'

Allday grinned. `You'll get used to it!'

Pochin sneered. `You make me spew! I suppose you used to take your wife up to the 'eadland and go moist-eyed at the sight of a King's ship! I'll bet you used to feel so holy, so almighty proud as the ships sailed safely past!'

Ferguson stared at the man's angry face, mesmerised by his hate.

Pochin glared across the canting deck where the other crowded` seamen had fallen silent at his outburst. `You never had a thought for the poor buggers who manned 'em, nor what they was doin'!' He turned back to Ferguson with sud,den malice. `Well, your precious woman'll be out on the 'eadland now with some other pretty boy, I shouldn't wonder.' He made an obscene gesture. `Let's 'ope she finds the time to be proud of you!'

Ferguson staggered to his feet, his eyes wide with a kind of madness. 'I'll kill you for that!'

He swung his fist, but Allday caught his wrist in mid-air. `Save it!' Allday glared at Pochin's grinning face. `His wife is sick, Pochin! Give him some rest!'

Old Ben Strachan said vaguely, `I 'ad a wife once.' He scratched his shaggy,grey head. `Blessed if I can remember 'er name now!'

Some of the men laughed, and Allday hissed fiercely, `Get a grip, Bryan! You can't beat men like Pochin. He envies you, that's all!'

Ferguson hardly heard the friendly warning in Allday's voice. Pochin's goading tone had opened the misery in his heart with renewed force, so that he could see his wife propped in her bed by the window as clearly as if he had just entered the room. That day, when the press gang had pushed him down the hillside, she would have been sitting there, waiting for his return. Now he was never going back. Would never see her again.

He staggered to his feet and threw the plate of meat down on the deck. 'I can't!' He was screaming. 'I won't!'

A horse-faced fo'c's'leman named Betts jumped to his feet as if shaken from a deep sleep. `Don't jeer at 'im, mates!' He stood swaying below one of the lanterns. `He's 'ad enough for a bit.'

Pochin groaned. `Lord save us!' He rolled his eyes in mock concern.

Betts snarled, `Jesus Christ! What do you have to suffer before you understand? This man is sick with fear for his wife, and others here have equal troubles. Yet all some of you can do is scoff at 'em!'

Allday shifted in his seat. Ferguson 's sudden despair had touched some hidden spring in the men's emotions. Weeks, and in some cases years at sea without ever putting a foot on dry land were beginning to take a cruel toll. But this was dangerous and blind. He held up his hand and said calmly, `Easy, lads. Easy.'

Betts glared down at him,- his salt-reddened eyes only half focusing on Allday's face. `How can you interfere?' His voice was slurred. `We live like animals, on food that was rotten even afore it was put in casks!' He pulled his knife from his belt and drove it into the table. `While those pigs down aft live like kings!' He peered round for support. `Well, ain't I right? That bastard Evans is as sleek as a churchyard rat on what he stole from our food!'

`Well, now. Did I hear my name mentioned?'

The berth deck froze into silence as Evans, the purser, moved into a patch of lamplight.

With his long coat buttoned to his throat and his hair pulled back severely above his narrow face he looked for all the world like a ferret on the attack. He put his head on one side. `Well, I'm waiting!'

Allday watched him narrowly. There was something evil and frightening about the little Welsh purser. All the more so because any one of the men grouped around him could have ended his life with a single blow.

Then Evans' eye fell on the meat beside the table. He

sucked his teeth and asked sadly, `And who did this, then?' No one spoke, and once more the angry roar of the sea and

wind enclosed the staggering berth deck with noise.

Ferguson looked up, his eyes bright and feverish. `I did it.' Evans leaned his narrow shoulders against the massive trunk of the foremast which ran right through both decks and said, ` "I did it, sir." '

Ferguson mumbled something and then added, `I am sorry, sir:

Allday said coldly, `It was an accident, Mr. Evans. Just an accident.'

`Food is food.' Evans' Welsh accent became more pronounced as his face became angrier. `I cannot hope to keep you men in good health if you waste such excellent meat, now can I?'

Those grouped around the table stared down at the shapeless hunk of rancid beef as it lay gleaming in a patch of

lamplight.

Evans added sharply, `Now, you, whatever your bloody name is, eat it!' -

Ferguson stared down at the meat, his mind swimming in nausea. The deck was discoloured with water and stained with droppings from the tilting table. There was vomit too, perhaps his own.

Evans said gently, `I am waiting, boyo. One more minute and I'll take you aft. A touch of the cat might teach you some appreciation!'

Ferguson dropped to his knees and picked up the meat. As he lifted it to his mouth Betts pushed forward and tore it from his hands and threw it straight at Evans. `Take it yourself, you bloody devil! Leave him alone!'

For a moment Evans showed the fear in his dark eyes. The men had crowded around him, their bodies rising and falling like a human tide with each roll of the ship. He could feel the menace, the sudden ice touch of terror.

Another voice cut through the shadows. `Stand aside!' Midshipman Farquhar had to stoop beneath the low beams, but his eyes were steady and bright as they settled on the frozen tableau around the end table. Farquhar's approach had been so stealthy and quiet that not even the men at the opposite end of the deck had noticed him. He snapped, 'I am waiting. What is going on here?'

Evans thrust the nearest men aside and threw himself to Farquhar's side. With his hand shaking in both fear and fury he pointed at Betts. `He struck me! Me, a warrant officer!'

Farquhar was expressionless. His tight lips and cold stare might have meant either amusement or anger. `Very well, Mr. Evans. Kindly lay aft for the master-at-arms.'

As the purser scurried away Farquhar looked round the circle of faces with open contempt. `You never seem to learn, do you?' He turned to Betts, who still stood staring at the meat, his chest heaving as if from tremendous exertion. `You are a fool, Betts! Now you will pay for it!'

Allday pressed his shoulders against the frigate's cold, wet timbers and closed his eyes. It was all happening just as he knew it would. He listened to Betts' uneven breathing and Ferguson 's quiet whimpers and felt sick. Pie thought suddenly of the quiet hillsides and the grey bunches of sheep. The space and the solitude.

Then Farquhar barked, `Take him away, Mr. Thain.'

The master-at-arms pushed Betts towards the hatch ladder adding softly, `Not a single flogging since we left Falmouth. I knew such gentleness was a bad mistake!'

Richard Bolitho leaned his palms on the sill of one of the big stem.-windows and stared out along the ship's frothing wake. Although the cabin itself was already in semi-darkness as the frigate followed the sun towards the horizon, the sea still looked alive, with only a hint of purple as a warning of the approaching night.

Reflected in the salt-speckled glass he could see Vibart's tall shape in the centre of the cabin, his face shadowed beneath the corkscrewing lantern, and behind him against the screen the slim figure of Midshipman Farquhar.

It took most of his self-control to keep himself immobile and calm as he considered what Farquhar had burst in to tell him. Bolitho had been going through the ship's books again trying to draw out Vibart's wooden reserve, to feel his way into the man's mind.

Like everything else during the past twenty days, it had been a hard and seemingly fruitless task. Vibart was too careful to show his hostility in the open and confined himself to short, empty answers, as if he hoarded his. knowledge of the ship and her company like a personal possession.

Then Farquhar had entered the cabin with this story of Betts' assault on the purser. It was just one more thing to distract his thoughts from what lay ahead, from the real task of working the frigate into a single fighting unit.

He made himself turn and face the two officers.

'Sentry! Pass the word for Mr. Evans!' He heard the cry passed along the passageway and then added, 'It seems to me as if this seaman was provoked.'

Vibart swayed with the ship, his eyes fixed on a point above the captain's shoulder. He said thickly, 'Betts is no recruit, sir. He knew what he was doing!'

Bolitho turned to watch the open, empty sea. If only this

had not happened just yet, he thought bitterly. A few more days and the damp, wind-buffeted ship would be in the sun, where men soon learned to forget their surroundings and started to look outboard instead of watching each other.

He listened to the hiss and gurgle of water around the rudder, the distant clank of pumps as the duty watch dealt with the inevitable seepage into the bilges. He felt tired and strained to the limit. From the moment the Phalarope had weighed anchor he had not spared himself or his efforts to maintain his hold over the ship. He had made a point of speaking to most of the new men, and of establishing contact with the regular crew. He had watched his officers, and had driven the ship to her utmost. It should have been a proud moment for him. The frigate handled well, lively and ready to respond to helm and sail like a thoroughbred.

Most of the new men had been sorted into their most suitable stations, and the sail drill had advanced beyond even his expectations. At the first suitable moment he intended to exercise the guns crews, but up to this time he had been prevented from much more than allocations of hands to the various divisions by the unceasing wind.

Now this, he fumed inwardly. No wonder the admiral had asked him to watch young Farquhar's behaviour.

There was a tap at the door and Evans stepped gingerly into the cabin, his eyes flickering like beads in the lamplight.

Bolitho gestured impatiently. `Now then, Mr. Eva.ns. Let me have the full story.'

He turned to stare at the water again as Evans launched into his account. To start with he seemed nervous, even frightened, but when Bolitho allowed him to continue without

interruption or comment his voice grew sharper and moreoutraged.

Bolitho said at length. 'The meat that Betts threw at you.

What cask did it come from?'

Evans was caught off guard. 'Number twelve, sir. I saw it stowed myself.' He added in a wheedling tone, 'I do my best, sir. They are ungrateful dogs for the most part!'

Bolitho turned and tapped the papers on his table. 'I checked the stowage myself, too, Mr. Evans. Two days ago when the hands were at drill!' He saw a flicker of alarm show itself on Evans' dark face and knew that his lie had gone home. A feeling of sudden anger swept through him like fire.

All the things he had told his officers had been for nothing.

Even the near-mutiny seemed to have made no impression on the minds of men like Evans and Farquhar.

He snapped, What cask was in the low stowage, was it not? And how many others were down there, do you think?'

Evans peered nervously around the cabin. 'Five or six, sir. They were some of the original stores which I..

Bolitho slammed his fist on the table. `You make me sick, Evans! That cask and those others you have suddenly remembered were probably stowed two years ago before you began the Brest blockade! They most likely leak, and in any case are quite rotten!'