An Eye of the Fleet by Richard Woodman Page A

from Gibraltar to Port Mahon. The brief respite in the weather was over. A Lleventades blew in their teeth as
Cyclops
and her consort
Meteor
struggled to keep the transports and storeships in order. The convoy beat to windward, tack upon weary tack. At first they kept well south avoiding the unfavourable current along the Spanish coast and the flyspeck island of Alboran but, having made sufficient easting, they held to a more northerly course until they raised the high, snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevadas and could weather Cape da Gata. With more sea room the convoy spread out and the escorts had even more trouble shepherding their charges.
    The weather worsened.
Cyclops
was a misery. Damp permeated every corner of the ship. Fungi grew in wet places. The companionways were battened down and the closed gunports leaked water so that the bilges required constant pumping. The lack of ventilation between decks filled the living spaces with a foul miasma that made men gasp as they came below. Watch relieved watch, four hours on, four off. The galley fire went out and only the daily grog ration kept the men going, that and fear of the lash. Even so tempers flared, fights occurred and men’s names were listed in the punishment book.
    Things did not improve when
Meteor
signalled that she would keep the convoy company in Port Mahon while
Cyclops
cruised offshore and waited for the ships to discharge.
Meteor
’s captain, though half the age of Hope, was the senior. He was known to have a weakness for good wine, dark-haired women and the tables. It was
Meteor
therefore that secured to a buoy in the Lazaretto Reach and
Cyclops
that stood on and off the coast, hard-reefed and half-hearted in her lookout for Spanish cruisers.
    The fourth day after they had seen the convoy safe intoMahon Humphries went overboard. No one saw it happen, he just failed to answer the muster and a search of the ship revealed nothing. When he heard the news Drinkwater was suddenly afraid. Morris shot him a malignant glance.
    On the seventh day the weather began to moderate, but the ocean with typical perversity, sent one misery to succeed the last. Towards evening the wind fell away altogether and left
Cyclops
rolling viciously in a cross sea, a swell rolling up from the south east.
    So chaos remained to plague the frigate and filled Midshipman Drinkwater’s cup of misery to overflowing. Somehow the happiness he had felt in Gibraltar seemed unreal, a false emotion with no substance. He felt his own ingenuous naivety had betrayed him. The ugliness of Morris and his perverted circle of lower deck cronies seemed to infect the ship like the dampness and the rank stink. Indeed it so associated itself in his mind with the smell of malodorous bodies in cramped, unventilated spaces that he could never afterwards sense the taint in his nostrils without the image of Morris swimming into his mind. It had a name this thing; Morris had used it with pride. The very recollection made Drinkwater sweat. He began to see signs of it everywhere though in truth there were about a dozen men in
Cyclops
’s crew of over two hundred and sixty who were homosexual. But to Drinkwater, himself in the fever of adolescence, they posed a threat that was lent substance by the continuing tyranny of Morris and the knowledge that Morris possessed henchmen in the form of the physically heavyweight Threddle and his cronies.
    Drinkwater began to live in a cocoon of fear. He wrestled unresolvedly with the possession of knowledge he longed to share.
    Free of the disturbances of bad weather at last
Cyclops
cruised a week in pleasant circumstances. Light to fresh breezes and warmer winds took March into April. The frigate smelt sweeter between decks as fresh air blew through the living spaces. Vinegar wash was applied liberally and Devaux had the waisters and landsmen painting and varnishing until the waterways gleamed crimson, the quarterdeck panelling glistened and the brasswork