The Mariner

The ‘captain’s daughter’ was the cat ‘o’ nine tails, a cotton whip of nine strands that inflicted parallel wounds, the scourge of disobedient sailors throughout the British navy. As if to prove his accusations, Smith pulled up the shirts of several nearby corpses. The first attempt proved nothing, as he pulled the garment back a rotten layer of skin came apart from the friction, sliding across the corpse like greased paper. Beneath, foetid flesh turned liquid began to flow onto the floor. Smith quickly pulled the shirt back down to mop up the mess, whilst the governor looked away.

Lifted shirts on fresher corpses revealed scars so complex they appeared like weaved parchment.

“Tell me, Smith. Have you ever seen anything like this?” Philip gestured to the scene before them.

“Yes sir.”

“Really? When was that?”

“When I was a boy, sir. In church… someone showed me a picture of Hell.”

The survivors of the Neptune were quickly taken to the camp’s makeshift hospital. All were horribly wasted, their flesh tight about their bones. Most were too ill to move, whilst all were completely infested with lice, which crawled sluggishly about their scalp and groin. Convicts told tales of ritual torture, sadistic in tone, the guards taking great pleasure in the cruelties they bestowed.

The governor oversaw the unloading, giving Wandsworth time to search for any legal means to bring retribution against Donald Traill and his crew, each of whom Philip refused to meet until his assistant reported. When the summary was finally submitted, it made disappointing reading.

With the law failing to aid the dignity of the convicts, Philip instead saw to their physical condition, personally donating what little fruit he had in his personal stock to bring relief to a handful of scurvy-ridden. He grimly watched as one bit into a lemon with vigour, only to have his fragile teeth snap off on impact. The poor creature sucked deeply on a mix of his own blood and citric juice, grimacing from both relief and exquisite pain.

As the last living convict stepped foot on soil, Philip turned to Wandsworth, more composed now he was out of the suffocating dark of the Neptune’s belly. “I want that ship put to sea. Not tomorrow, not later today, but now.”

“We’ll need to bring the corpses off first, sir, and we should probably quarantine them on board until we can dig enough graves. It could take time. Days.”

“This land is already blighted with disease. We teeter on the brink of disaster. Can we afford to send able-bodied men into harm’s way any more than we have done already? Would that not be inviting the Devil himself into our midst?”

“It would certainly put the encampment under increased risk, sir,” Wandsworth agreed.

Philip shook his head, not just in sadness, but incomprehension. “They even shot at whales, did Smith tell you that?”

“No sir.” Wandsworth thought about reminding the governor that his afternoon had comprised of hastily constructing the complex legal report now forgotten in the governor’s hands, but decided against. Under the circumstances it would seem trite.

“They did. They even took pleasure in torturing whales.” The setting sun cast a red glow across the governor’s face, giving the impression he was gazing into the very Hell he was imagining. “I don’t think I trust myself to meet the master of the ship. I don’t know what I might do.”

“The Neptune has a contractual right to empty her cargo, sir.”

“I don’t care. Send her away, with Traill and his men, or without them — damn the legal ramifications! We’ll be lucky to live long enough for that. This land is rejecting us, and once the men hear about this, they’ll despair even more.”

He turned and walked towards the encampment, rejecting the sight of the Neptune. “That ship’s not fit for the living, Wandsworth, and I hope no-one in Her Majesty’s Empire ever sets eyes on her again.”

PART I ROTTEN PHILOSOPHY

“The greatest good for the greatest number is the measure of right and left.”

Jeremy Benthals

“Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock; each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, whilst dynamite is more effective.”

Mudwigg Fittenshine

“I sink, therefore I am.”

Denny Daycart

1. THE FIRST NIGHT OF OUR TALE