I, Winchester, that accounts for a lot.) ‘However, if we have some leisure on this voyage, we may repair these things, may we not, Mr Flashman?’
I mumbled something about being always eager to learn.
‘Aye,’ says he, ‘pars sanitatis velle sanari fuit,fn6 we may hope. But I imagine Seneca is yet another among the many authors with whom you are not acquainted.’ He munched on a biscuit, the pale blue eyes considering me. ‘Tell me, sir, what do you know?’
I stole a glance at the others; Kinnie had his head down over his cup, and Sullivan, the big, raw-boned Yankee, was gazing bleakly before him. Comber was looking nervous.
‘Well, sir,’ says I, ‘not very much …’ And then, like a fool, I added, toady-like: ‘Not as much as a Fellow of Oriel College, I’m sure.’
Comber’s cup clattered suddenly. Spring says, very soft: ‘I am not a Fellow, Mr Flashman. I was dismissed.’
Well, it didn’t surprise me. ‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ says I.
‘You well may be,’ says he. ‘You well may be. You may come to wish that I was in my rightful place, sir, instead of here!’ His voice was rising, and his scar going crimson. He set his cup down with a force that rattled the table. ‘Herding with the carrion of the sea, sir, instead of … of … d--n your eyes, man, look at me! You think it a matter for contempt, don’t you, that a man of my intellect should be brought to this! You think it a jest that I was flung into the gutter by jealous liars! You do! I see it in your …’
‘No, no indeed, sir!’ cries I, quaking. ‘I was expelled myself … I don’t …’
‘Hold your confounded tongue!’ he bawled. ‘You can’t do right for doing wrong, can you? No, by G-d! Well, I warn you, Mister Flashman – I’ll remind you of another text from Seneca, whom you don’t b----y well read, d--n your ignorance! Gravis ira regum semper.fn7 Mr Comber will construe it for you – he’s heard it before, and digested it! He’ll tell you that a captain is to be feared as much as a king!’ He thumped the table. ‘Mrs Spring, you’ll excuse me!’ And he burst past me, slamming the door behind him.
He left me shaking, and then we heard his voice on deck, bawling at the man at the wheel, and his feet stamping overhead. I felt the sweat starting on my forehead.
‘May I give you some more tea, Mr Sullivan?’ says Mrs Spring. ‘Mr Comber, a little more?’ She poured for them in silence. ‘Have you been to sea before, Mr Flashman?’
God knows what I said; it was too much for me, and it’s quite likely I answered nothing at all. I know we stood about a little longer, and then Sullivan said we must be about our duties, and we thanked Mrs Spring, and she inclined her head gravely, and we filed out.
Outside, Sullivan turned to me, glanced up the ladder, sighed, and rubbed his jaw. He was a youngish, hard-case sailor, this one, with a New England figurehead and a slantendicular way of looking at you. At last he says:
‘He’s mad. So’s she.’ He thought for a moment. ‘It don’t matter, though. Much. Sane or silly, drunk or dry, he’s the best d----d skipper on this coast, or any other. You follow me?’
I stood there, nodding.
‘Well and good,’ says he. ‘You’ll be in Mr Comber’s watch – just tail on to the rope and keep your eyes open. And when the skipper starts talkin’ Latin, or whatever it is, just shut up, d’ye hear?’
That was one piece of advice which I didn’t need. If I’d learned one thing about the Balliol College, it was that I had no wish to bandy scholarship with John Charity Spring – or anything else, for that matter.
By now you will have some idea of what life at sea was like when Uncle Harry was a boy. I don’t claim that it was typical – I’ve sailed on many ships since the Balliol College, and never struck one like it, thank G-d – but although it was often like cruising in an asylum, I’ll say one thing: that ship and crew were d---d good at their work, which was kidnapping niggers and selling them in the Americas.
I can say this now, looking back; I was hardly in a position to appreciate their qualities after that first day of flogging and tea parties. All I could think of then was that I was at the mercy of a dangerous maniac who was h--l bent on a dangerous criminal expedition, and I didn’t know which to be more scared of – him and his Latin lectures or the business ahead. But as usual, after a day or two I settled down, and if I didn’t enjoy the first weeks of that voyage, well, I’ve known worse.
At least I had an idea of what I was in for – or thought I had – and could hope to see the end of it. For the moment I must take care, and so I studied to do my duties well – which was easy enough – and to avoid awakening the wrath of Captain J. C. Spring. This last wasn’t too difficult, as it proved: all I had to do in his presence was listen to his interminable prosing about Thucydides and Lucan, and Seneca, whom he particularly admired, for he dearly loved to display his learning. (In fact, I heard later that he had been a considerable scholar in his youth, and would have gone far had he not assaulted some dignitary at Oxford and been kicked out. Who knows? he might have become something like Head at Rugby – which prompts the thought that Arnold would have made a handy skipper for an Ivory Coast pirate.)
At any rate, he lost no opportunity of airing his Latinity to Comber and me, usually at tea in his cabin, with the placid Mrs Spring sitting by, nodding. Sullivan was right, of course; they were both mad. You had only to see them at the divine service which Spring insisted on holding on Sundays, with the whole ship’s company drawn up, and Mrs Spring pumping away at her German accordion while we sang ‘Hark! the wild billow’, and afterwards Spring would blast up prayers to the Almighty, demanding his blessing on our voyage, and guidance in the tasks which our hands should find to do, world without end, amen. I don’t know what Wilberforce would have made of that, or my old friend John Brown, but the ship’s company took it straight-faced – mind you, they knew better than to do anything else.
They were as steady a crowd as I’ve ever seen afloat – hard men, and sober, who didn’t say much but did their work with a speed and efficiency that would have shamed an Indiaman. They were professionals, of course, and a good cut above your ordinary shellback. They respected Spring, and he them – although when one of them, a huge Dago, talked back to him, Spring smashed him senseless with his bare fists inside a minute – a man twice his size and weight. And another, who stole spirits, he flogged nearly to death, blaspheming at every stroke – yet a couple of hours later he was reading aloud to us from the Aeneid.
Mind you, if it was a tolerable life, it was damned dull, and I found my thoughts turning increasingly to Elspeth – and other women – as the days grew longer. But it was Elspeth, mostly; I found myself dreaming about her soft nakedness, and that silky golden hair spilling down over my face, and the perfume of her breath – it was rough work, I tell you, knowing there wasn’t a wench in a hundred miles, nor likely to be. And from that my thoughts would turn to Morrison, and how I might get my own back when the time came: that at least was a more profitable field of speculation.
So we ran south, and then south by east, day after day, and the weather got warmer, and I shed my coat for a red striped jersey and white duck trousers, with a big belt and a sheath knife, as like Ralph Rover as ever was, and the galley stopped serving duff and the cask-water got staler by the day, and then one morning the wind had a new smell – a heavy, rotten air that comes from centuries of mangrove growing and decaying – and that afternoon we sighted the low green bank far away to port that is the coast of Africa.
We sighted sails, too, every now and then, but never for long. The Balliol College, as Kirk told me, drew wind like no other ship on the ocean – the best fun was to stand up in her forechains as she lay over, one gunwale just above the crests, thrashing along like billy-be-damned, with mountains of canvas billowing above you – Dick Dauntless would have loved it, I’ll be bound, and I enjoyed it myself – or at night, when you could lean over and watch the green fire round her bows, and look up