The Midshipman Prince Read Online Free PDF Page A

scene.
     
           By the tenth blow the skin had broken, and blood was running freely down to the man’s waist. By the sixteenth blow, blood was spattering in all directions with each strike of the flail. By the 24th and final blow, Walker thought he could see part of a backbone sticking out of the man’s shattered back. Walker was too stunned to speak.
     
           After completion of the flogging, the Bosun walked over to the side of the ship and threw both the cat-of-nine tails and the red bag overboard. No ‘cat’ was ever used twice.
     
           The men began quietly disbursing and Walker felt as if he were wandering in a fog. He found himself by the helm as the captain walked by. He started to say something but, for once in his life, he thought better of it. Just as the captain was turning away, they both heard a commotion behind them near the mainmast. One of the older men was grasping his chest.
     
           “I... Oh, God!” He fell to his knees and then toppled on his side.
     
           Walker rushed down the gangway ladder and pushed his way through the men who were just standing around the fallen man.
     
           “Why don’t you do something,” Walker demanded.
     
           “ Woss there ter do, sor? ‘e’s as good as dead,” replied one of them.
     
           “But he’s not dead yet, is he?” exclaimed Walker.
     
           Walker wasn’t sure he knew what to do either; but fragments of a long-ago conversation—probably while half drunk in some tavern—started to surface. It was something about...
     
           He fell to his knees and rolled the man over on his back, felt for a pulse in his neck then listened for breathing. “Damn,” he exclaimed.
     
           He shifted over a few feet and pounded the man’s chest once, hard. Then, placing his hands on each side of the old seaman’s rib cage, he started compressing it.
     
           That was it. It was something about... if a man had a heart attack, you could bring him back from the dead by pressing hard on his rib cage. No one knew why.
     
           Walker kept compressing and could feel himself getting very tired and dizzy when the man’s hand suddenly grabbed Walker’s arm. He rolled over on his side, coughed twice, and took a huge breath. In a few minutes, the man stood up and was led below.
     
           Walker started back toward the quarterdeck, but there was no need to push his way through the crowd this time. It opened before him; a pathway of hard-bitten seamen with their eyes wide and mouths hung open in wonder.
     
           He glanced up at the captain as he walked past. What was that on his face? Curiosity? Amazement? Yes, both of those , Walker thought, and perhaps even a trace of fear.
     
     
    * * *
     
           The following day Walker was summoned aft to the captain’s cabin, which was, by far, the most spacious private room on the ship. Captain Hudson was seated behind a large table. Standing to his right was John Rooney and to Rooney’s right was First Lieutenant Smith.
     
           “Have a seat, Mr. Walker,” the captain said.
     
           “You present a bit of a problem to me and I don’t like that. I have enough problems running a 220-man frigate without having additional ones dropping in on me, it seems, out of the sky. Surely you can appreciate that.”
     
           “Yes, I can,” Walker replied honestly.  
     
           “Accordingly, to simplify my life, as of this moment you are now a member of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. You have been pressed.”
     
           “Pressed?” Walker shot bolt upright in his chair. “You can’t do that. I am a citizen of the United States of America and an officer in the United States Navy.”
     
           “Really? Let’s examine those claims.
     
           “You claim to be a citizen of the United States; but Mr. Walker, there is no United States.