Cutthroats of the Coast

Chapter 6 - The Perils of Double Entry Book-keeping

I have never laboured so hard in my life as I did over the next several days.  Whilst The Betsy continued to make good progress South, heading into Biscay with a fine gale behind her, under clear blue skies, I was chained naked to a desk in the Captain's cabin embarked upon a task that Great Heracles would have balked at.  I ate at that desk, I slept at the same.  Hands brought me sustenance, my former messmates making sure I was fed and watered.  Morgan would reward me at the end of the day with a half pint of rum to hasten on my rest., which I would almost swoon into, so tired was I  The next morning I would awake, empty myself into the pisspot and wonder why the drink had so befuddled me.  I had never known it to so powerfully affect me before but every morning was the same.  My eyes would water at the merest light, my head would pound as if Satan himself played some infernal drum, and my arse hurt like a demon was poking it with a trident.

Morgan had tasked me to bring the The Betsy's papers in to some form of order.  Account books, logs, muster books, punishment books, letters between Morgan and the ship's owners, the Purser's accounts, the Gunner's accounts, and so on.  All had to be made square and Bristol fashion.  This was no small feat.  It seemed to me that since The Betsy's capture several years ago, no work had been done on these essential tasks.  The only document that had its own place was the ship's Letter of Marque, a vital piece of paper licensing Morgan to legally attack the King's enemies.  It was this and this alone that prevented Morgan being named a pirate, to be condemned and hanged in chains at Execution Dock.  This he kept in a small, brass-bound chest on the cabin's dining table.

Day after day I worked, my eyes straining to make out scrawled signatures and scratched words on badly ink-dotted letters and bills of payment.  The ship's accounts started to make more sense, the blanks started to be filled in.  A keg of nails here, bolts of sailcloth there, spars sold by the yard, shot by the hundredweight; all began to be recorded with a wearying monotony.  If the record existed in the Purser's books then I had to marry that up with both the bill and the record of monies paid. Each officer had recorded their purchases in differing ways that made things nigh on impossible to figure out.  For instance, the Carpenter was illiterate and had recorded his purchases with scraps of timber nailed to a board, the amounts scratched on each.  Which piece was oak? When was it bought?  By cross checking purchases against the officers' records, and against the ship's own acccounts I began to sweep away the web of confusion so that a clear window on The Betsy's finances emerged.

On this morn, the light dancing a merry hornpipe across the deckhead did little to ameliorate my sour mood.  That was when I found the first of many irregularities.  Certain bills of payment for ale, salt beef, peas and the like did not seem to add up with what were declared in the Purser's accounts.  True, the papers were a mess, there were bills on which only the amount was recorded but no mention of what had been puchased, and vice versa.  But  still, there were anomalies.  It seemed to me that Mr Mandrake had paid for more salt beef than had been declared in his own accounts.

Perhaps this might have been missed by a lesser man.  The fact that the previous clerk was a lesser man was demonstrated - to me at least -  by his stuffed and mounted head that stared down from the bulkhead.  The taxidermist had not even bothered to sew up the bullet hole in the middle of the wretch's forehead,  which I presumed Morgan had applied with his customary accuracy.  I was not about to join him, mounted to another plaque, and I believed I had the armour with which to cloak myself with.  With a shiver as I glanced at my predecessor, I resolved to ascertain the veracity of my suspicions.

"Long Dong!"  I cried, summoning my guard.  Since chaining me to the desk, Morgan had posted a sentinal outside his quarters to keep watch over me, carry away the piss-pot and accompany me around the ship if I needed to attend to anything particular.

The door to the Captain's quarters opened and a pinch-faced, scarred man nervously peered in.   "Where away, Matthew?" he asked cheerily.

"Good morn to you, Long," I answered.  "I need to go to the hold.  I must count the beef casks."

"Do as you please, Matthew, you can count all the hard tack in heaven for all I care.  It will be a blessing not to stand staring at the same piece of  wall for watch upon watch."

Long Dong unlocked my manacles and I massaged my ankles which had been rubbed red by the irons.  He passed over to me the pair of duck trousers that the guards kept outside the cabin for when I needed to travel about the ship and I quickly donned them.  After grabbing a pencil and papers, I nodded to him and made my way out of the cabin, emerging  into daylight on the quarterdeck.  

We passed quickly to the windward side, made our salutations to the officer of the watch - Mr Seeley, a peevish, ruined chorister from Hereford with a taste for the lash - and took the first companionway that we came to.  Descending quickly, we passed through the gundeck to the jeers of the off-duty watch.

"Here he comes, The Turbulent Mr West!"

"Ahoy, dearies, Morgan's Moll is taking new business!"

"Mind your step, lads, Matthew's looking peaky!"

"It's Shit Boy!  Shit Boy, Shit Boy, Shit Boy!"

"Fuck off, West.  You're stinking the place up!"

As much as the barbs were cruel, there were a few good natured winks from men who knew me.  I am not without friends where ever I go.  It's just that my presence is often not appreciated after I have partaken of all the liquor in the house.  On The Betsy that could only work to my advantage.  There was a lot of drink on a ship.

We passed down into the hold.  The  weak light that crawled down the companionway was just sufficient to illuminate the shapes of the casks stacked in tiers.  Still, we took a lantern from a bulkhead and quickly lit it.  I needed to see what was on the casks.

It was not long before I had proof of what I had suspected.  We were missing beef casks.  I estimated how much had been consumed on the voyage so far, I balanced this with what Mr Mandrake had stated he had bought and the two sums did not marry.  Not even a little bit.  By my tally, Mr Mandrake had managed to lose twenty casks of salt beef that Morgan had paid for.  To put it in a more mercantile manner, the Purser owed one hundred and sixty pounds to Morgan..

Or, the annual wages of  thirteen hands.  It could even be considered a reasonable living for a gentleman.  A quite staggering sum.  I wished I had that amount - it would have saved me from  an uncertain life at sea and regular buggery.

"To what do I owe this pleasure, West?"  a sibilant voice hissed into my ear, interrupting my mental arithmatic.  

To my shame, I remember that I yelped like a kicked dog and spun round.  It is one thing to find evidence of a man's greed, it is quite another to have the subject of your speculations creep up behind you.   Facing me, looking exactly like a smiling toad, was Mandrake.

However, once I got over the initial shock, my apprehension remained.  Long Dong was nowhere to be seen and my lantern's yellow light reflected off something that Mandrake had in his hand.  I felt a sharp pressure in my crotch and looking closer, I could see the long blade of a dagger pressed quite firmly against my cods.

It seemed that I was undone.  

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