Storm the Fortress Read online

  That is what I told myself just before I fell asleep, King Louis’s harsh snoring rumbling in my ears. And I almost believed it.

  * * *

  Mr. Bushell wakened me near midnight, crying out that a building was burning. I threw on clothing and dashed to join our fellow members of the Hand in Hand firefighting club. We rushed out of the printing office into the cold night, buckets in our hands. To my horror, the fire was at the house where Baldish lived when not aboard ship. We scrambled to help the other firefighters already at work. The fire must be put out before it spread to other buildings.

  Smoke poured from the open doorway and rolled against the windows’ glass. I worked mindlessly, willing the fire to die. Bucket after bucket passed to me. I swung each one on, sweat pouring down my face. Then I saw it. A palm against one of the panes. I will never be able to explain this, but I knew it was Baldish.

  Someone tried to hold me back. The words Fool! Stop! They are all out! held no meaning at all. I broke free, ignoring the shouts and warnings and the heat of the fire as I ran in. All I could think of was finding Baldish and dragging him out before the roof collapsed. I recall reaching him and starting to tug at his hands … and then nothing more.

  I did get him out, though. I learned that, before I came to again, others took Baldish away to the Hospital for Hurt and Sick Seamen, since his hands and face were burned. In a few more hours the house was no more than smouldering rubble. When they pulled the blackened body of a dead man from the ashes, the sight and smell of it made my stomach roil. But I swallowed hard and struggled to act bravely. Mr. Bushell and I returned to the office. We were greeted by his anxious daughter, but Miss Elizabeth knew better than to ask us for details. Our workday would begin soon enough.

  I fell back onto my bed, not bothering to undress. I have never been much for praying, but I said a prayer of thanks for Miss Elizabeth. Given her father’s fondness for drink, the press might not have run without her. I said a second prayer for the dead man. Then I prayed that I would never again see such a terrible sight as that burned, twisted corpse.

  The next evening, I visited Baldish at the hospital. Although a young man of perhaps twenty, he had surprisingly little hair. What remained after last night’s near escape was quite singed. Still, he was in good spirits, although sorry that his return to Pembroke would be delayed.

  “Who will bring the newspaper out to Mr. Cook next Monday?” he asked. “The ship’s master cannot live without his Halifax Gazette every week.”

  “I can do that,” I assured him. “It will give me a chance to see Pembroke.”

  Next Monday afternoon I walked down to the ferry wharf. A man was blowing on the conch shell he used to summon passengers for the trip over to Dartmouth. I told his crew that my destination was HMS Pembroke, and paid the fare. In I leapt, joining a group of shivering people and a hen that had puffed itself up against the cold until it filled its cage like a burst pillow. Someone in the ferry broke wind thunderously. That caused everyone except the chicken and its mistress to laugh as though this were the funniest thing they had heard all day. Perhaps it was.

  Sailors cast off the lines. They raised the sail and the ferry surged across the harbour. Icy spray splashed over the bow and us. Finally the crew eased the ferry up to the ship’s side.

  I shouted up to anyone who might care to listen. It appeared that someone did, for a wool-capped head fringed with frizzy, grey hair popped into sight. A rope ladder dropped down the ship’s side. I caught hold of it and carefully mounted its wooden steps.

  The wool-capped head belonged to an old sailor who introduced himself as Tom Pike.

  “Poor Baldish,” he said. “Lucky for him you came along though, eh? Otherwise he would’ve been cooked like a suckling pig.”

  Mr. Pike offered to show me the way to Mr. Cook, and led me across the deck and opened a door. “We must pass through the bowels of the ship to get to the captain’s cabin. Mr. Cook is working there. Mind the rats. After this hard winter we do have our share of the beasties.”

  It seemed as though he truly meant bowels. As we made our way down the stairs, the smell began to take on a life of its own. There was a mixture of unwashed sailors and dirty bilge water. The ghosts of a hundred meals of boiled salt beef haunted the shadows. I did not know whether to breathe through my mouth or through my nose. I was considering not breathing at all, when we finally left the smell behind. Tom Pike rapped at a closed door. We were told to enter.

  The cabin was a spacious and comfortable place. Mr. Cook leaned over a chart, his palms flat on the table, studying what was drawn there. He raised his eyes. I fear I babbled then. I went on about Baldish, the fire and my work at the printing house.

  Mr. Cook accepted the newspaper. “Pity about Sykes. He’s a good man, a good sailor. With luck he will heal quickly. And you are?”

  “Jenkins, sir. William Jenkins. Baldish is very fond of Pembroke, sir. I know he longs to be back on her. He often says I should volunteer.”

  “So you should, a healthy young man such as you. Make your family proud.”

  “I have no family, sir.”

  “Think of your king and country, then. If you wish to serve good King George, join us. We are short-handed in this war with the French, and things will heat up in a few weeks. Have you sailed before?”

  “A little, sir, as a passenger on Alderney when we came over from Plymouth. And a number of times with my father when he was a merchant seaman.” I hesitated, and then added, “We used to go up to Louisbourg to make deliveries of rum for Mr. Mauger.”

  “Ah, yes. Louisbourg is a magnificent town. Ours now, of course. If your father was a sailor, it’s in your blood, then. Do you read and write?”

  “Yes, sir. I also do sums. And I speak some French.”

  “There you are. French will be a most useful thing, I believe, once we have won this war. We want good men, loyal fighting men. But a man with a bit of education and a touch of ambition may go places in the navy.”

  “I have never thought of it that way, sir.”

  He looked up and smiled a bit. “This opportunity to serve is as clear as … well, the ink on your fingers.”

  Baldish had been nagging at me since Pembroke had arrived last fall. Soldiers in taverns had coaxed me to enlist. But I believe it was Mr. Cook’s words that finally moved me.

  Chapter 4

  April 27, 1759

  And so it was that I found myself again standing on the ferry wharf, a canvas seabag over my shoulder. In it were the few pieces of clothing that I owned, and Father’s spyglass. A scabby but cheerful Baldish Sykes was there. So were two of his shipmates who had also been taken to hospital.

  “You are certain, William?” asked Mrs. Walker cautiously. She, Miss Elizabeth and Mr. Bushell had accompanied me to say farewell. King Louis, though, was locked in the printing office so that he would not try to leap into the ferry. “I promised your father that I would be responsible for you,” Mrs. Walker went on. “I am not certain that giving my blessing on this matter is a wise thing.”

  “Nonsense, Mrs. Walker,” said Mr. Bushell. “It is the nature of a young man to seek adventure.”

  “He’ll get plenty of that on Pembroke,” whispered Baldish to his shipmates. “Scrubbing decks and hauling lines are the very soul of adventure.” They all snorted. At least until Mrs. Walker gave them a dark look.

  “This is for you, William,” Mr. Bushell continued, handing me a small, cloth-covered book. “It is a journal. See that you write in it daily, if possible. When you return I may publish some of your adventures in the Gazette. My readers will be hungry for an honest account of the war.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  I shook his hand and shouted, “Farewell, my friends!” Then I added, “Give my best to King Louis!”

  “William, only you would pass on good wishes to a dog,” laughed Miss Elizabeth.

  I watched them grow smaller and smaller as the ferry took us out. Act like a sailor, I told myself firmly,
giving them one last hearty wave. Then I turned my back on Halifax and my face towards Pembroke. There was my future.

  Once aboard the ship, Baldish took me to the purser, Mr. Wise. One of his jobs was to enter me into the muster book that contained all the names of the ship’s company. I scanned the well-worn ledger as he wrote. The pages told where and when each man had joined, what he was to be paid, and, if it happened, the date of his death. Landsman, he wrote beside my name, since I had little actual naval experience, despite my dozen trips on the Merry Lot. Eighteen shillings a month and food would be my pay. I was assigned to the same mess and watch as Baldish, which meant we would share meals and work together.

  “You will serve on this ship until the end of the campaign this fall, God willing. Then you will be free to return here to Halifax or go to the colonies with the other volunteers from down there,” said Mr. Wise. “And a promise of no impressment.”

  That was something. Often enough men were forced into service when a press gang would ask a poor fellow if he would like to volunteer and, when he said no, drag him onto their ship anyway.

  Baldish took me below to the gun deck where we would sleep and eat. There he showed me where to put my seabag and my shoes, since I would not be needing shoes on board. Then we hurried back up. If I worked hard and learned what needed to be learned, Baldish explained, there was the possibility of advancement to the next position on the ship, which was ordinary seaman. That would mean one shilling more a month. If I persevered and survived, I might even reach the rank of able seaman. But that would take years of training, Baldish admitted.

  “Welcome to Pembroke, William Jenkins,” said Tom. “And welcome home to you, Baldish. I see you still have a few bits of hair left on that shiny head of yours.”

  “Help Tom Pike and those others,” a passing officer snapped. “Step quickly. There are barrels to be brought aboard.”

  For the rest of that day, I could have been in another country where people spoke a language I had never before heard! It did begin to come back to me, though. Fore and aft, larboard, starboard. Cutter instead of boat, and belay instead of stop. You did not tie something down with a line. You made it fast. A sailor was a tar. It made my head spin fast enough, I have to admit. The navy had a language all its own, and if it had not been for Baldish and Tom, I would have drowned in it. Tom had appointed himself my sea daddy. He would show me the ropes, he explained, which was very important.

  I am not certain how many of the ropes I learned that day. There were miles and miles of line on Pembroke, and every inch of it had a purpose. Naturally, each rope had an odd name — hawser, brail, sheet and halyard. Some were thick and others thin, but all were made from the same coarse hemp. I pulled until my hands blistered, and then I pulled more. There was nothing to do but pull away until all the barrels brought out to us had been hauled onto the ship. Then they must be taken down below and stored somewhere out of the way.

  All of us were at work at the same time, which meant there were hundreds of men and boys doing one thing or another. To the gulls overhead we must have looked like a warren of frantic rabbits. Now and again I would bump into another sailor. Most of them laughed in understanding, but a few grumbled, calling me a landlubber.

  “It won’t be so bad when we’re at sea,” said Baldish.

  “I won’t be a landlubber then?” I asked.

  “You’ll still be a landsman,” he answered. “But unless all hands are called on deck, it will be less crowded. We’ll be part of the larboard watch, you see.”

  I began to ask him just what was a larboard watch, but then one of the officers ordered us to help take bread below. Two hundred loaves had been brought aboard.

  “Aye, sir!” shouted Baldish.

  A heavy bag of loaves in each of my hands, I followed Baldish as he wove a path amongst the men. At least no line pulling was involved. Pembroke was far larger than Merry Lot, and so had more decks. There was the main deck, which served as an upper gun deck. Below that was the lower gun deck, then the orlop deck, and finally the hold. Down we went into the ship, down and towards the stern until we reached the bread room. It was lined with tin.

  “Keeps out the rats — two-legged as well as four-legged,” Baldish told me with a wink. “Sailors do love their bread, whether it is soft bread or ship’s bread. All the rum is locked up as well, since we love it even more.”

  Trip after trip we made, until I almost wished I had a line to pull. It was not a wish I should have made, because before I could take a breath — all the bread was locked away now — I was pulling once more. There was water to bring aboard, after all, and no time to waste. Sweat ran into my eyes, but I could not let go of the line to wipe it away, so I shrugged my shoulder across my face. Finally the cask was on the deck and we had a moment’s rest.

  “Pick up my chest!” a young officer shouted at two sailors. “Pick it up and take it below, I say.”

  “We have carried your chest down and then up again,” grumbled one of the sailors carrying it.

  “Can’t make up his bloody mind,” muttered the other sailor, his look sullen.

  I swear the entire deck fell silent. All I could hear was the creaking of the ship as it strained against its anchor.

  “Marines!” shouted the officer. “Put these men in irons!”

  “Yes, sir,” a red-coated soldier answered.

  The two sailors were driven away at musket point by a group of marines. I already knew that these soldiers were assigned to each of the king’s ships to keep the peace and prevent mutinies. We watched the sailors stumble below, and then everyone seemed to give a sigh, and work began again. Finally someone blew a signal on a whistle.

  “Supper!” cheered Baldish, rubbing his hands.

  This time I would be eating the bread rather than carrying it. I thought I could hear hundreds of rumbling stomachs, but maybe it was just my own. It was making enough noise for ten.

  “This is our table,” Baldish told me once we were below. “It hangs right here between Savage Billy and Deadly Raker. Billy is our …”

  I began to ask him why the cannons had been given names, but the words did not come out. All I could do was stare at the table, or rather who was seated there. It was Blue Sam and Boston Ben.

  “Just my luck,” said Ben. “I have you to thank for this, Blue Sam. I said we should join Squirrel, but no. It had to be this tub. And now here I am, stuck with this worthless piece —”

  “Tub?” The speaker was a small old man carrying an enormous pot. He slammed it down upon the table and then sat down. “Did I hear him call our dear Pembroke a tub, Mr. Pike?” It was somewhat hard to understand him, since he had no teeth.

  “You did, Gum Well,” Tom replied. “Now, who shall have this?” he said, beginning to dish out the food.

  I would learn in time that Tom Pike was a man of great influence. He was Mr. Wise’s favourite cousin. As purser, Mr. Wise controlled the ship’s supplies. Displease the purser’s cousin, and perhaps you would not get your proper rations. I believe it was the only thing that saved me from being beaten to mush by Boston Ben just then. He must have loved his food even more than the idea of punching me.

  “I misspoke. I am filled with joy to be here,” said Ben joylessly. But it satisfied Tom, and so he began to serve out the food until all seven of us had a bowl of salt fish soup, a chunk of cheese, a large piece of bread and a tankard of beer. I sat down on one of the benches at the table that hung by lines from the ceiling. “Will Captain Simcoe have us exercise the guns this evening, do you think, Tom?” asked a little boy.

  “I expect so, Davy,” Tom answered. His food finished, he placed a pipe in his mouth, although he did not light it. “No smoking below,” he explained to me. “No smoking and no open flame. Keep it in mind, William Jenkins.”

  “I will. I do not smoke, though.”

  “A sailor who does not smoke?” laughed Mr. Well, showing his pink gums. “We shall correct that in time, or my name is not Gum Well.”


  Gum Well, Blue Sam — I supposed they were no odder names than Capitaine Rosbif, Vairon’s name for me.

  “Which gun is ours?” asked Blue Sam.

  “Savage Billy,” said Davy with pride. “I am the powder-boy.”

  “And a good fast one he is,” said Gum Well.

  My stomach full, I was beginning to relax and look forward to my bed, wherever it might be. That was when someone began to beat a drum and an officer shouted, “Clear for action!”

  Plates, spoons and bowls were gathered up. Tables and benches were stowed away.

  “Get to it, William!” snapped Baldish. “Nothing can be in the way when the guns are fired.”

  An officer named Lieutenant Robson shouted out commands. Tom gave me the task of hauling on the tackle. In went a cartridge of gunpowder and a wad of old rope and canvas. No cannonballs were used, though, since we did not want to blow everything around us to bits. The cartridge was rammed in, the cannon was run out — no small job as it was exceedingly heavy — and the cannon was fired. And I was to mind my toes if I wanted to keep all ten of them. When a fully loaded cannon was fired during actual battle, the force of the blast would cause it to roll back violently. It was one of the reasons we had to clear for action.

  Twice more we loaded and fired. Again and again the cannon roared as the gunpowder burned. Flames and foul-smelling white smoke shot out. Each blast shook the deck and shook me to my core. My eyes stung and my ears rang, but it didn’t matter. I could imagine what battle would be like as each great gun boomed out, sending a shock through me. The officers shouted orders, the men swabbed out the guns to take care of stray sparks, loaded powder, put smouldering slow match to the touch hole. There was a flash, a tremendous boom, and the cannon leapt back. It all made my blood thrill and my hearing grow faint.

  “Not bad,” said Lieutenant Robson, “but not good enough. Not quick enough. We will want to speed things up, men, if we are going to bring Québec to her knees.”

  There was an hour or so of leisure afterwards, and I used the time to write in the journal Mr. Bushell had given me. I had no pen or ink, but I did have an old brass leadholder, which I suppose made more sense. Ink could spill. I opened the journal and wrote the date at the top of the first page. April 27, 1759. What to write, though?