Son of Fortune (22 page)

“We are not having a party!” Aiden, enraged, ran after him. Christopher started to climb up the ladder, but Aiden grabbed his leg.

“Let go of me!” Christopher kicked free and scrambled up the ladder. Aiden tore up behind him and tackled him, so they both fell. They rolled and wrestled across the deck.

“Stop it!” Christopher cried. “Are you crazy?”

Aiden did feel crazy, but he stopped himself. He knew too well how to fight, and how easily he could hurt his friend if he did. He took a deep breath and slowly got to his feet. Every sailor was on deck, staring.

“Get up.” He held out a hand to Christopher. Christopher took it, staggered to his feet, then punched Aiden in the face. Aiden fell back and stumbled over a hatch.

“Ow!” Christopher crouched and rubbed his hand. Aiden felt a warm drip of blood fall on his chest. He wiped his nose. A landslide of fury rocked through him and he lunged at Christopher. But before he could get to him, strong hands grabbed his arm and spun him back.

“Stop it, the both of you!” Fish said angrily. “I'll have no fighting on my ship, even from the masters.” He held Aiden's arms behind him. “All hands aft!” Fish shouted at the sailors. The sailors ducked their heads and retreated to the back of the ship, some thankful to escape the confrontation, some eager to see more of a fight.

“We cannot stay here.” Aiden dropped his voice. “We cannot be part of this!”

“I would throw you overboard right now except I know you probably want that exactly!” Christopher shouted. “And if we didn't have a contract that would be awful to sort out if you were dead.”

“I will sign any papers to make it easy for you,” Aiden said bitterly.

“Stop it, the both of you, now!” Fish turned Aiden loose but stood between the two of them.

“You stupid hypocrite!” Christopher's blue eyes turned dark with anger. “You are crumbling now because one man died whose face you saw today. But don't you realize that everything we have—every nice and comfortable thing that you have lapped up like a little milk dog in my father's house for the past six months—has come from some horrid labor! Every orange and plum, every carpet and book. What do your nice boots really cost? Or the sugar in your coffee? Do you lie in your comfortable bed on your soft sheets night after night fretting for the slaves picking cotton and the little children who work in the mills?”

“Take your sugar and your sheets. I don't need any of it!” Aiden shouted. “We cannot be part of this! We cannot make our fortune from slavery!”

“The coolies have signed for this!”

“No one would sign for this!” Aiden lunged again, but Fish pulled him back.

“Stop it, the both of you!”

“I would not have signed for this!” Aiden said bitterly.

“You said yourself how the guano is needed!” Christopher said. “People are starving all over the world! They can't eat grass.”

“My parents ate grass! So don't you dare tell me about starving! But to save all my family, I would not have signed for this!”

“Enough!” Fish said. “We are here. And nothing here will change. We can leave tomorrow, with an empty hold, and nothing here will change. You can write to the president or the pope or any god you like, and nothing here will change. You can have a bloody fistfight or a goddamn duel if you like—but not aboard my ship!”

A heavy silence dropped over the ship. They could hear the faint sounds of an accordion drifting across the water. The lowering sun painted the island a lovely copper color. In the cloud of yellow dust, Aiden knew that the tiny ant figures were still working with their picks and wheelbarrows to meet their daily quota. Five tons per man. The accordion music grew louder as the launch with the band came nearer. Besides the accordionist, there were two men playing brass horns with little enthusiasm. Men on other ships applauded as they passed. Any entertainment, no matter how lame, was welcome in this place.

“You aren't the only ones upset.” Fish lowered his voice. “Our men have heard about the rock. It is cruel to everyone.”

“Of course.” Aiden's face burned with embarrassment. “I apologize.”

“Permission to board!” A shout rang out from the German launch. The horn players lowered their instruments, but the accordion player kept playing all the while. He had a vacant, glazed expression and did not seem to care or even notice where they were. Aiden had pictured a jolly little man in lederhosen like the illustration from the
Atlas
of
the
World,
but this fellow was a lean giant, with huge, knobby elbows that poked out like albatross wings, and giraffe legs that spread the width of the launch. His head was a cornerstone, his jaw an anvil, but his eyes were tiny black stones. Though his face was expressionless, his fingers flew over the instrument like small, happy birds, spinning a bright tune.

“Oh God, it's worse than I feared,” Christopher said quietly. He smoothed his hair, brushed off his jacket and poised himself like a general awaiting the charge, for there were already two launches approaching with party guests.

“Are you finished?” Fish glared from one to the other.

“Yes,” Christopher said. “Excuse me, I must speak to the cook and the steward.” He nodded to Fish and walked off without another word.

“The steward?” Fish could not help laughing. The steward was actually Sven the Baby, who had the duties of steward only because he was the most junior of the crew.

“Go clean yourself up,” Fish said to Aiden. “What have you been doing—rolling in the guano?”

“Yes,” Aiden said. “Actually I have. I can't stay for a party. I will go fishing. I'll take the small rowboat by myself.”

“You can't take a boat alone,” Fish said with a sigh. “It is a ship rule for everyone. You know that.”

“I won't go far.”

“It's dangerous. The wind comes up, the sea becomes choppy, a sea lion jumping for a fish knocks your boat over. I will ask for a volunteer.”

“No.” A smear of blood was crusting on his lip, and Aiden wiped it roughly away. “The men should have their leave. They might enjoy the music. I promise I will stay in the anchorage. I won't go beyond where the farthest ships are anchored.”

Fish rubbed his hand across his forehead. “You will still not escape this infernal music.”

“I know.”

“Promise you will return before dark comes.”

“I will,” Aiden said.

“And promise you are not going mad from this place—” Fish said quietly. “As I've learned too often happens.”

“I promise,” Aiden said. “But if a man were mad—well, he wouldn't be likely to tell you so, would he?”

“I suppose not.”

“Perhaps a man not going mad here would be more horrible.”

Fish nodded. “Go on, then.”

A gunshot cracked in the distance. A flare went up and streaked across the sky. Cheers erupted from every ship. The
Diana,
a ship out of Liverpool, was leaving the anchorage, starting her homeward journey. She was heavy in the water, her great hull loaded full with guano. Aiden and Fish watched as she unfurled her topsails and picked up speed.

“What a terrible machine we are,” Fish said softly. “With our ships and desires.”

iden honored his promise to come back before dark, but he still hung off in the little rowboat once he knew Fish had seen him. He waited until the last of the visitors were rowed away before he climbed aboard. The smell of the party lingered. Perfumes, powders, hair oil, tobacco and the unique smell of sweaty linen, like burned toast and sour milk. The crew was gathered on the aft deck, enjoying an after-party ration of pisco. Christopher was sitting in a canvas chair in the bow, his feet propped up on the capstan, his eyes closed. His tie was undone and his shirt collar open. A lantern cast flickering shadows across his face. Aiden sat down in a chair beside him. Christopher opened his eyes and looked at him, then picked up the lantern and held it closer to Aiden's face.

“My God!” he said with unseemly delight. “Have I given you a black eye?”

“It wasn't a fair punch,” Aiden said.

“Of course it wasn't fair! I'm not stupid—I've seen you fight. I wouldn't last ten seconds with fair. Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Well, it ought to. My knuckles are still aching.”

Aiden's face did in fact hurt quite more than he thought it should, but he would never admit that.

“How was the party?”

“Horribly dull.” Christopher leaned back in his chair. “Exactly as I expected. The people were dull, and the pretty girl was dullest of all. And whoever invented that god-awful oompah music ought to be shot.”

“If you knew it would be horrible, why did you have it?”

Christopher sighed and spoke with exaggerated slowness, as if explaining things to a dull child. “Because Captain Heifer-weasel is well placed here. He plays chess every day with Koster and lets him win. Because the accordion player is his wife's idiot nephew. He loves to play his accordion. He plays dawn to dusk, and they love to have one evening on the ship free from his playing. It is simple as that. Heifer-weasel is a man with influence. And now we have done him a favor.”

“Ah,” Aiden said. “So, basically, you're flanking?”

“Yes, I suppose.” Christopher laughed.

A fish splashed in the water nearby. Soft murmurs of conversation drifted back from the sailors. Twinkling lanterns from all the ships draped a blanket of tiny stars over the water. It could almost be a normal evening in a normal world.

“I am sorry I hit you,” Christopher said quietly.

“I know.”

“Why did your parents eat grass?”

It was a very unexpected question. “It was the famine,” Aiden said. “In Ireland, when all the potatoes went bad. Have you not heard of that?”

“No.”

“How do you go to your fancy school and not know that?”

“It's the past.”

“Rome is the past and you know about Rome.”

“They have ruins,” Christopher said.

“Well, I am a ruin,” Aiden said. He looked over toward the island. It was so still and silent now. “It is true, what I said—that I would not have signed on for this place. Not in the worst starving, not to save my own family. But I confess, I would have killed any friend, or any man's child, for a bag of this magic dust. I would have swung the lash myself, as hard as any overseer, to make them dig it out. I would have chained any one of them to the rock. I would have chained you. I would have chained Elizabeth or any one of the ducklings.”

“You wouldn't.”

“I don't know that.”

“You oughtn't go off brooding alone in rowboats,” Christopher said. “Contemplation always muddles up the mind.”

They sat silently for a few minutes, then Christopher spoke again, his voice tired, resigned.

“We couldn't have expected this.”

“We should have asked—”

“Asked what? Asked who? Asked the mad captain— ‘Please, sir, what haunts your soul? Is it a thousand coolies worked to death on an island of bird shit and chained to a rock if they try to escape?' It was a poker game! It was a chance.”

“And now it's just business.”

“Damn right,” Christopher said. “For painters and poets don't really feed anyone, do they? You want to feed the world? Well, this is how it works!”