The Golden Ocean (22 page)

They wrangled at work and they wrangled at rest: but as December drew on, torrid, wet, full of squalls, the watches below grew somewhat quieter—they were too tired to keep awake in their hammocks, for the squadron was meeting with bad weather, storms from the north, dead, sweltering calms when the boats towed the ships and they creeping over the glassy sea only to have the cruelly hard-won miles snatched away when the next wind blew them back: contrary winds, maddening and frustrating contrary winds.

Time enough and to spare. The tenth parallel passed unwillingly under the keel at Christmas, and Cape Corrientes, that vital spot, still lay seven hundred miles to the north.

‘Christmas Day,’ wrote Peter, ‘10° 1’ N. 103° W. We are all in a great taking. She has been known to arrive by January 10th. All day in the boats again—quite fagged out now. Hardly hold pen.’

‘She’ of course meant the Acapulco galleon: that golden ship needed no name.

‘Sir,’ said Bailey, in the open doorway of Mr Walter’s cabin with Preston behind him, ‘may we come in, if you please, when you are at leisure, to be explained to about the theory of winds?’

‘You may command me at this very moment,’ said the chaplain, closing his book. ‘Sit down, Mr Bailey, I beg. Mr
Preston will find room on that trunk. Now as to winds—and I suppose that you have the trade winds in mind, like the rest of us—we read in the Learned Job Ludolphus, book three, chapter one …’

‘The Commodore’s compliments to Mr Ransome, Mr Keppel and Mr Palafox, and he would be honoured by their company at dinner,’ said the Commodore’s steward.

‘Eh?’ said Keppel, still deaf from his bang at Paita.

‘Commodore—dinner,’ bawled Ransome, whom Keppel could always understand.

‘Oh. Compliments—respectful compliments, Wright—most happy. I say, Wright, what will be for pudding?’

‘What a carnal object you are, Keppel,’ said Peter.

‘I did not,’ cried Keppel; ‘I only asked what was for pudding.’

‘That’s what I said,’ roared Peter.

‘No. That would be Wednesday,’ replied Keppel. ‘Come on, Wright, what’s for pudding?’

‘Sir, it is a sort of French muffin in rum.’

‘French muffin,’ said Ransome, relaying the words. ‘Eh?’

‘Muffin. French. In rum.’

‘Oh. Good. I tell you what, Wright, you must tell Froggy that there will be really important guests today—connoisseurs, you know—and that he had better exert all his powers. Tell him, Wright, not to be near with the pudding, whatever he does.’

‘What’s the matter, Ransome?’ asked Peter, when the steward had gone.

‘Sooner face a broadside any day of the week,’ said Ransome, more hoarsely than usual, ‘or grapple a fire-ship. You can’t drop your fork when you’re alongside of a fire-ship. He means it very kind, I am sure: but I wish he would not.’

‘Never mind it, Ransome,’ said Peter; ‘there won’t be anyone else, I dare say; and if there is, we will back you up. You will enjoy it when you get there.’

‘Last time I upset a chair,’ said Ransome nervously, ‘and one of the land-officers was stern-fast to it, with a little china cup in his hand.’

‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Mr Anson, sipping his port, ‘I admire your good breeding. I have had the pleasure of your company all through dinner, and I have not once heard the name of Acapulco.’

It was a tradition at these entertainments (which the Commodore tried to make less awful, but which nevertheless were very serious delights for the junior officers, and for poor Ransome an unmitigated torment)—it was a tradition that none of the ship’s affairs should be discussed: the theory was that they were a group meeting voluntarily in a social manner—by land, as it were, or as passengers—and although the theory of equality remained wholly theoretical for the midshipmen face to face with their Jovian commander, still they never talked shop, but either remained perfectly mute, or cudgelled out some neutral kind of remark. So these direct words from the Commodore sent a galvanic thrill through his guests: even Keppel heard plainly.

They stared at the Commodore, regardless of manners, and the Commodore smiled back at them, three intent faces, alert and waiting. He looked at them. They were brown, thin and scarred, and in spite of their civilised surroundings and their decorum they had a fierce, almost buccaneering air that was not wholly counteracted by their sober uniforms. Peter, for one, though dressed in his best—the purple and fine linen reserved for high days—had grown so that his powerful, horny hands stood five inches from their cuffs, and his tightly imprisoned arms and shoulders imposed a dangerous strain on the seams sewn in distant Gosport; his one remaining good shirt had lost a button just after the turtle was removed, and now he could breathe; while below the table the extreme tension of his breeches prevented him from ever bending his legs, and he had grave doubts about rising again. Ransome was better off, having done growing; but even his coat had been
soaked in his chest round the Horn, dried in the blazing sun of Chile, soaked again on the equator and covered with mildew; so it showed forth but a faint likeness of its once glorious form. And Keppel, though the best equipped of them all, presented a spectacle that would have made his mother turn grey, had she not been bald, and therefore obliged to wear an auburn wig of which she complained in the summer as being disagreeably warm: for he had shrunk with the scurvy and his little wizened face looked preternaturally old; like his mama, he had no hair at all, having moulted in his recovery; but he wore no wig. However, Sean’s kindness had replaced his teeth, which now shone in a fixed and criminal grin that had nothing to do with the rest of his face. He had put them in for the first time today, in honour of the occasion, and the sight had turned the Commodore pale. He had said nothing, of course, but it was observed that he sent the first dish away untouched, and when he subsequently addressed Keppel—‘Mr Keppel, may I help you to a little calipash? Or do you prefer the calipee?—Mr Keppel, you would oblige me by putting the pudding out of its misery: it would be a sad shame to send it away unfinished’—he looked not directly at that unlovely midshipman, but slightly to one side of him.

‘Acapulco,’ repeated the Commodore. ‘I will give you the toast of Acapulco. For, gentlemen, I will not disguise the fact that this is at the very heart of our expedition. This is where we can hit the Spaniard the hardest: so let us drink to Acapulco and a happy encounter.’

They might drink; but drinking, however zealously, could not command a wind. Nor could the ancient practice of whistling, nor yet the scrupulous avoidance of any unlucky act or word. There were some Indians aboard, and Negroes; and from odd recesses of the ship, arose the thin, acrid fumes of Aztec and Mayan magic fires, to mingle with the weird, half-heard beating of a Voodoo drum somewhere in the forepeak: Sean was discovered burning a candle before a portable saint, the property of one of the Catholic Irishmen—Peter, quite outraged, sent the apostate away with a flea in his ear; and remained to
offer a candle himself. Mr Walter preached with uncommon vehemence upon the text ‘I praise the Lord who directs my hands to the spoil’ to a wonderfully attentive congregation on the last Sunday in December.

Yet the precious days flew by. December had gone. Twelfth Night found the
Centurion
and her consorts wallowing in the trough of an eastern swell, with not a breath of air to fill the sails as they flapped drearily overhead; and the current was drifting them away to the south.

But even foul winds have an end, and calms; and on January 10th Peter could write. ‘It
is
the trade wind at last. It has been steady now since the middle watch. The north-easter carried us up just far enough, as Mr Blew said it would.’

And still a week later, ‘12° 50’ N. 32’ W. The blessed wind holds true. We have barely trimmed a sail all day, and this makes four in a row.’

Then, ‘January 26th. 18° 4’ N. 118° W. Wind steady at WSW. We are north of Acapulco and in her track. Just before I came below the course was altered to SE½E, which the men hearing they cheered until they were checked, for they understood that we were standing in for Acapulco now. We may yet be in time, if only we make a good landfall and the Spanish pilots are to be relied upon. It is said they are not to be trusted, but sure they will not dare to deceive the Commodore. There is time enough: but I wish I had never said so aloud. Mr W. complains to the Commodore about sorcerers and Papists.’

‘There is time enough, for sure,’ said Mr Brett to Mr Dennis.

‘Of course there is,’ replied Mr Dennis.

‘I have heard tell,’ said the bo’sun to his mates, ‘that she often does not get into port until well on in February.’

‘In such a very long voyage,’ observed the surgeon, ‘it is inevitable that there should be delays; and when we consider that the vessel is conducted by Spaniards—well, all I can say is, that I shall be very much surprised to see her before the month of March.’

‘I have it from Mr Blew, who had come directly from
talking with the older Spanish captain,’ said Mr Stapleton, ‘that they hardly ever set their to’garns’ls for months on end—forbidden by the regulations, apparently, whenever the wind is more than the lightest air.’

‘What do you mean with your “wish it was only Christmas now”?’ asked the temporary, acting, unpaid armourer, advancing upon the Able Seaman Wills with strong displeasure. ‘What do you mean by it? What does it matter if Christmas
is
passed? You ugly great swab. It’s Jonahs like you that bring bad luck. There’s plenty of time. Take that!’

‘That’s right,’ said his approving mates; ‘you scrag him, Nobby, the dismal crow.’

‘There is time, time enough still: time and to spare.’ The ship’s company told one another this with emphatic conviction as January wore away and February grew. They kept up their spirits, in spite of the utterly maddening coast, where every high land, every cape, every island was hailed by the Spanish and Indian captives as the sure sign of Acapulco—endless promises of the harbour tomorrow. They kept up their spirits; but after three disappointments the prisoners had to be kept under a double guard, or the men would have destroyed them. It was impossible to say whether the captive pilots were malignantly cunning or merely inefficient to the point of lunacy; but in either case the men wanted their blood.

The squadron was spread abroad in a wide-searching net, and not a signal passed between them without raising a wild flurry of hope aboard every ship. Throughout every minute of the day and night the keenest eyes in the world scanned the huge round of the sea: but still the days went by, and still the blue emptiness deferred their hopes.

‘February 12th. 12° 30’ N. 112° 14’ W. Light airs at W veering N. The barge is sent away again to run down the coast, with orders to discover the harbour and not to be seen—Mr Dennis and Ransome. They should be back tomorrow or the next day, if the Spanish captain is to be believed, for we raised a headland bearing ESE 12 leagues that he swore was the true landfall. I took him to the masthead to view it, by Mr Brett’s
orders: had a month’s mind to tumble him off. If we find that the galleon has got in, I shall: and Keppel will cut his throat. We find it hard to wait till tomorrow.’

But if Peter found one day’s waiting hard, he, in common with the entire squadron, found two, three and four days’ waiting harder still. Yet four days did not see the barge back again: it was a full week before their intense anxiety and suspense found relief.

At four bells in the forenoon watch the look-out reported a sail.

‘Lug-sail, sir,’ he answered the deck. ‘It might be the barge.’

‘Mr Palafox, take up your glass, if you please,’ said the Commodore; and a very few minutes later Peter hailed. ‘Deck, sir. It is the barge. She’s broke out the private signal. Now she’s making another.’

‘What is it, Mr Palafox?’ This was the Commodore’s voice in the waiting silence.

A long pause, while Peter made doubly sure. ‘It is the blue ensign reversed, sir,’ he reported in a toneless voice.

He did not hurry down. The bearer of ill news is an unwelcome figure. The blue ensign reversed meant that the galleon was already in; that she lay under the hundred guns of the castle in Acapulco harbour; and that they had lost their chance of the wealth of the East.

They had not been unprepared: the frustrating hours, stretching to days, weeks and months of irretrievable delay had gnawed into their confidence. Yet the absolute confirmation of the worst was a blow whose stunning force was proportionate to the brilliance of their golden hopes; and they took it hard—very hard.

‘What a glum, perishing berthful of swabs you are, to be sure,’ said Ransome, who, fresh from a week in an open boat, was shovelling down turtle hash with a cheerfulness that scarcely endeared him to his companions.

‘Oh, shut up, you crow,’ said Peter.

‘Stow it,’ said Bailey.

‘What did he say?’ asked Keppel, cupping his frost-bitten ear.

‘He said we were gloomy,’ bawled Preston.

‘—him, and his—blue ensign, reversed,’ said Keppel.

‘Well, strike me,’ cried Ransome, ‘this is a fine, ’micable welcome for a cove with good news, brought three hundred miles, most of it pulling—hard tack and damned little water all the way.’

‘What good news?’ asked Peter, with a sudden renewal of interest.

‘Crush me if I tell you now,’ replied Ransome, sulkily. ‘Pass the soup. And take your great thumb out of it.’

‘He hasn’t got any news,’ said Preston.

‘Oh, an’t I?’ cried Ransome, rising at once. ‘Didn’t you see them blackamoors what we took?’

‘Yes,’ said the berth, somewhat agog, but not very much.

‘Well, we took ‘em by night in Acapulco harbour.’

‘What of it?’

‘What of it? Ah, what of it?’ said Ransome. ‘Ay, what indeed?’ Once Ransome had become oracular there was nothing to be done: no threats, no kind words would affect his obstinacy then, and they all knew it. They plied him with food, and waited.

‘… so the third day we open the right harbour at last,’ he said, smiling now and replete. ‘And in the night we come paddling soft in the dark for Acapulco, which is a long town in the bottom of a bay, a good harbour as we judged. And under the loom of an island we see this canoe with the blackamoors fishing over the side. So we bears away for their light and takes ’em up, and Mr Dennis asks ’em what they know. And they tell him four things. One, the galleon is in. Two, there was a garrison on that island guarding the harbour until three days before, which they must have took us if they had still been there. Three, that the Governor withdrew the redcoats, because why? Because he reckoned that the squadron was not in these parts any more. Four, that the Governor give out by proclamation that the galleon would sail as usual on
the 14th March, and the merchants were to hold themselves ready. And I will tell you something else,’ said Ransome, looking round the half-circle of fascinated listeners with a gleam of fierce satisfaction in his kind, weather-beaten face. ‘We missed her on the way in, and that was a bitter hard stroke: but bound from Manilla to Acapulco she carries merchandise, which we would a’ had to carry home again with all the risks of spoiling and being done down by the landsmen, for the Spaniards won’t ransom a cargo, not if it rains—’