The Golden Ocean (23 page)

‘Brass cats?’ suggested Bailey.

‘Brass cats
and
dogs,’ said Ransom, ‘which we know very well, to our cost. Besides, she is the size of a first-rate, and there would not be room for half her stuff aboard us and the
Gloucester
, not with our own stores in the holds. But mark me,’ he said, bringing his fist into his hand, ‘when she is bound
for
Manilla, she carries nothing but silver and gold. That stows away. That don’t take room. We rouses the ballast over the side and puts gold in its place. Lord love your heart, there’s no better ballast nor gold.’

When the Commodore laid down their stations on the chart, the tracing looked very like a fan, an open fan with spokes. The handpiece, the conjunction of the spokes, was Acapulco, where the galleon lay, and radiating from this spot ran five lines, each fifteen leagues long. The first terminated in the
Carmelo
; the second in the
Centurion
, three leagues on
Carmelo
’s starboard beam; then, at the same interval, the
Tryal’s Prize
, the G
loucester
and the
Carmen
—a curve of ships that made the fan’s periphery. Between them the ships covered some seventy miles of sea, and with incessant vigilance they kept watch day after day, while the
Centurion
’s cutter and the
Gloucester
’s lay inshore, four leagues off by day, close in at night, to signal the first movement of the galleon.

The galleon herself was an intimately familiar shape to Peter: he, with Mr Dennis and the cutter’s crew, stared at her with the most unwinking concentration throughout the night. Spaniards, in general, are not early risers, but on the other
hand, they never seem willing to go to bed at all, and often the cutter’s crew could see the galleon plain by the lights of Acapulco for most of the hours of darkness. At other times their night-trained eyes, aided by the gleam of the stars, pierced through the warm, velvety blackness (it was always dead calm inshore by night) to make her out as she lay moored to two enormous trees, deep within the gun-ringed harbour. She was difficult to see, for the little island and the Punto del Griso shut the harbour’s mouth, and only by creeping along the north-eastern shore of Acapulco bay, well within the castle’s range, could they get more than a stern-on glimpse. Yet every night they saw her, and every night Peter, with a strong night-glass, made out all the features of her massive build: he knew her very well.

The fourteenth day of March was the day she was to sail. The Governor had proclaimed it by a drum throughout the town: and there was not a man afloat who did not trust in the Governor’s promptitude—nor was there a soul so dull that he could not reckon the difference between New Style and Old, the Julian calendar and the Gregorian, which made the Spanish March 14th fall on the English 3rd. If the expedition had done nothing else, it had at least produced a crew of ready-reckoners: men who before could barely count beyond ten, nor tell the time upon a clock, could now without a moment’s hesitation convert seven hundred and ninety-three thousand pieces of eight into guineas and then work out a hundred and seventy-third share of it.

So on the third of March, Old Style, there was a watching and an expectancy aboard the squadron and the boats that can rarely have been paralleled in the long record of naval vigils—an expectancy so great that Peter, gasping under the unrelenting sun in the little overcrowded boat, tried to slacken his own share in it. It seemed to him unlucky to hope with such positive and utter confidence. It seemed to him that somehow it must warn the Spaniards—that they must feel uneasily aware of the tension and of the concentrated, singly-focused, unremitting glare of so many eyes.

For his part he tried to throw doubt into his mind. There were the three missing Negroes to arouse suspicion in Acapulco: there was the possibility of the squadron’s topsails having been seen from the high land that floated always on their horizon, the mountains behind the town. And yet, in spite of all his caution, his heart beat so that he could hardly breathe as the pure dawn came up over Mexico on the appointed day: it beat high at noon, when the pitiless heat drove straight down on to the unheeding cutter’s crew: but it was filled with choking bitterness when at last the laggard sun dipped in a crimson blaze below the western sea.

He was armed against disappointment, but not strongly armed enough. Like nearly all his shipmates, he still had a violent belief that the galleon would sail—that delays must always occur—that the Negroes were mistaken—a thousand logical reasons, and some that were not logical at all: he felt that she
must
sail because they had all worked so hard—they had cleaned the ships’ bottoms, they had brought the squadron to the highest pitch of readiness with devoted toil, they had sacrificed some of their prizes to concentrate their force, they had worked like galley-slaves, and they had deserved the galleon. So she must come—she must.

He felt this very strongly, even after the squadron, terribly short of water, had stood off and on, rigidly in station, for still another twenty days, during which Passion Week had come and gone (that brought a fresh jet of confidence, for no Spanish ship would stir in Passion Week) and still the sea was bare. He felt it even to the last moment, when the stormy season was coming fast, and when it was clear that the squadron could not keep the sea without fresh water: in his mind, his intellect, it was plain that the galleon had been warned and would not sail; and yet when he heard the final order, ‘We will make sail, if you please, Mr Brett: the course north-east,’ he turned away from the quarter-deck with a feeling in his heart like death.

‘W
HERE’S MY JOURNAL?’ ASKED PETER.

He could get no answer, but he persisted, angrily, and at length Wilson said carelessly over his shoulder, ‘You don’t mean that book with the green cover, do you?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Oh well, I dare say that is the one we chucked out. You did chuck a book of some sort out of this young fellow’s place, did you not, Hill?’

‘Where is it?’ cried Peter.

‘Overboard, of course,’ said Wilson, ‘and that is where you will find yourself if you don’t stop your noise. Hill, your deal.’

Peter hesitated, glaring at Wilson’s wide back: then he turned and ran on deck. He went into the foretop. He had intended to go much farther aloft, but in the top he paused for breath, leaning wearily against the stock of the pattarero, and he decided to stay there.

‘The swabs,’ he exclaimed, with hot indignation, ‘the infamous swabs.’ He clenched his fist; then let it go. Only a little while back and he would not have borne it: but now he felt so utterly unlike himself—uneasy, apprehensive; as if his courage were watered. Yet still he would take it up with them when he went down, he assured himself. Nervously he looked over his shoulder at the main-staysail. ‘If that goes on pulling like that,’ he thought, ‘it will start the mast again. I am sure the crack is growing.’ This was the horrible fissure in the
Centurion
’s foremast that had been discovered and strongly fished
by the carpenters a few days after they had finally sunk the mountains of Acapulco behind them at the beginning of their western voyage for China, the whole width of the greatest ocean in the world, with a storm that had crippled the
Gloucester
to start them on their way.

He would certainly resent it openly and force an explanation: but not today, perhaps. He was feeling like a jelly-fish today.

What an odious thing to do, to throw his journal overboard. So needlessly cruel—such an unkind, hard thing to do. There had been a great deal in that journal, everything from their arrival at Chequetan for water for their great westward voyage—Chequetan, where he had finished the first volume with a lively account of Mr Walter and the electrical fish, the torpedo—right up to the burning of the
Gloucester
in latitude 12° 17’ N. and longitude 151° 30’ E.

These two, Wilson and Hill, together with Pollock, were midshipmen from the G
loucester
, and in them and the other officers of that ship Peter had caught a glimpse—more than a glimpse by now—of another kind of naval life. He had guessed, from what little he had seen aboard the other ships of the squadron, the ships that were not commanded by Mr Anson’s own lieutenants, and from the tales of the other midshipmen who, like Ransome, had served under many captains, that the
Centurion
was a happy ship and that he was unusually fortunate in starting his career aboard her: but how exceptionally happy a ship she was he had not realised until these newcomers had settled down in the berth. They were all senior to Peter, who was indeed the most junior present; and Wilson and Hill, finding Peter’s quarters more to their liking than their own, had moved in without ceremony. But it was not only that—that was a question of seniority, and there was no arguing with the prescriptive rights of the service—not only that, nor principally that: they also imported a brutal kind of horse-play. They picked on their fellow-Gloucester Pollock, a small, frightened fellow who had been their butt since St Helen’s, and they showed every intention of making
life a misery for Peter, Bailey and Preston too. They drove the hands very hard, with a delight in being unpleasant that was a revelation to Peter—an attitude that was faithfully reflected in the behaviour of the G
loucester
’s crew, who were an awkward lot of men, unwilling except in strong emergency, brutalised, accustomed to frequent floggings, and withdrawn from human contact with their officers. The midshipmen of the
Gloucester
, in this respect, showed some of the qualities of their captain and his lieutenants, exactly as the
Centurion
’s berth bore witness to Mr Anson. It was not that Wilson and Hill were downright blackguards; but they had been brought up in a tradition of hard, loud-mouthed coarseness, severity to the men, and loutish practical jokes of whose cruelty they were largely unaware, together with a wearisome striving for dominance, for being cock of the walk, that apparently never slackened.

They were good seamen, and courageous (qualities which are certainly to be found with a taste for bullying, whatever moral tales may say), but the attributes upon which they chiefly valued themselves were those which made them most disagreeable as companions and to the world in general. The
Centurion
’s berth was not, and never had been, an abode of plaster saints: they bellowed and swore at one another and at the men, but their language—their meaning, rather—was essentially different from the G
loucester
’s filthiness; and above all, the berth had hitherto been an essentially friendly place, with plenty of fooling about in it, but no domineering whatsoever.

Wilson and Hill, then, were not yet downright blackguards: for example, they had never intended to throw Peter’s journal overboard—it had flown through the open port by misadvertence—and they were ashamed, though too ill-bred to bring themselves to apologise: but they were nasty fellows to have about, very much nastier than they knew. Not blackguards yet, though if they survived and carried on in the same way, it seemed that they might very well develop into specimens of the slave-driver captain, that horrible, sometimes half-mad
figure that stained the naval record for too long, and made some ships a floating hell. If they survived—that was a proviso with a real meaning; for apart from the perpetual dangers of the sea, officers of that stamp had a way of disappearing in the night. Men will only stand so much: and the kind of men produced by that kind of discipline have been known to turn to their own wild sense of justice in the dark.

Hitherto they had steered clear of Ransome and Keppel; but from what little Pollock had to say, Bailey, Preston and young Balthaser of the
Tryal
looked upon the future with misgiving. Peter should have bitten hard at their first attempt, but he had not: he had fumbled the first and best occasion, hesitating like a hen crossing the road.

‘I don’t know what come over you, Teague,’ said Ransome, afterwards. ‘You wouldn’t have suffered a half of that hazing from us.’

‘Well, you said yourself that we ought to do the civil, and let them settle down and find their feet. You talked about guests, and so on.’

‘That’s right, cully,’ said Ransome, scratching his head. ‘I did say that.’ He was a very unquarrelsome fellow: he valued peace in the berth very highly. He had, all his life, been accustomed to the roughest brand of humour, so the newcomers’ baboonery had offended him less. He also despised the kind of senior midshipman who was always using his superiority, and, in addition, he was used to seeing each man take his own part. But, on the other hand, he now felt obscurely that these fellows were ‘swinging their weight about too much, by half’.

‘Would you like for me to shove in my oar?’ he asked doubtfully, after a long pause.

‘No, thank you,’ replied Peter crisply. ‘I can look after myself if they want any kind of trouble. But thank you all the same, Ransome.’

It was all very well to say that, reflected Peter now, sitting down in the top: but how to cope with the situation was another matter entirely. Gross, over-fed, under-bred bumpkins. If he had spoken out when he ought there would have
been no question of losing his journal: it would never have come to that point.

There had been such a lot in that private log. He had looked forward to reading it to them at home. But perhaps he could patch it together—thread that narrative back into a line. It began on the surf-bound Mexican coast, five thousand sea-miles behind them, where they burnt the
Tryal’s Prize
and the
Carmelo
and watered the ships. Then there was the anxious cruise off Acapulco again for the cutter, left there as a scout in the unlikely chance of the galleon’s weighing. The cutter with Mr Hughes of the
Tryal
, Sean, and four of the best seamen the
Centurion
could find. The waiting for the cutter and the days passing, dropping by, hope fading, the stormy season just at hand, and no cutter: Spanish prisoners sent into Acapulco to the Governor, promising the release of all the rest if the cutter’s crew (taken, perhaps) were given up. Then the sight of the cutter itself, not taken by the Spaniards but beaten off stations by currents and winds, yet capable of finding its way back after forty-three days on the hostile sea, half the time without water—an astonishing feat of seamanship that had nearly cost the crew their lives. Poor Sean: as they handed him up the side he was so thin that Peter could carry him with ease.

Then came the account of the storm: then of the strange calm and the terrible swell that had rolled
Gloucester
’s main and foretopmast by the board, only a few hours after twenty Centurions had been sent to help them send it up. No. He had it wrong. First, in June, the G
loucester
had lost her mainmast, at the same time that the
Centurion
’s foremast had been sprung: that was during those seven long weeks when they were hunting for the north-east trades. It was after they had found them at last that this western hurricane came on, dismantling the G
loucester
, who already had no more than a jury mainmast, and so hobbled along, keeping them back while the scurvy broke out again. And it was then that the flat calm came, with that unbelievable swell. It was then that the leak began, too. He could hear the pumps now, a noise that never
stopped all round the clock. They had searched and searched, but they never could find the source of the leak, and still the water poured in at the stem, deep down. Only a dry-dock would let them come at it, and there was no dry-dock for five thousand miles. Even now, running with a strong following wind, she made a desperate amount: what would she do beating up into a big hollow sea?

The G
loucester
had been in a terrible way, unmanageable in the sea, with her people—the whole ship’s company—pumping with no rest at all for twenty-four hours. And Captain Mitchel had come over to report seven feet of water in the hold, increasing every hour, her upper works shattered and appalling damage below, with much less than half her company fit to keep afloat. Peter remembered his grey face, almost inhuman with drawn-out care.

They had just managed to get the bullion out of her, after transferring the sick, but scarcely a barrel of stores.

Then they had burnt her; and her guns fired one by one: the fire reached the magazine, and she went up in a crimson flash filled with black falling timbers that splashed hissing in the sea, and there was nothing of
Gloucester
but a dark pall of smoke that followed the
Centurion
as she ploughed her single furrow across the Pacific, alone now, the only ship on the enormous sea. One ship of the whole beautiful squadron, and she undermanned, sickly and leaking, with an uncharted ocean to cross.

And there were so many other things in these four months past—the bonitos, the turtles and dolphins, the wide-winged sea-birds and the strange weed on the sea; the new faces aboard, the
Tryal
’s officers, Mr Saunders back again—Captain Saunders now—the
Gloucester
’s rigid and gloomy commander, the new hands, some with fascinating tales of the East, Paulus the Dutchman from Java, Widjoo the Malay, the cheerful black men and their songs. He would forget it all.

Suddenly he remembered the happenings of one day with extraordinary clarity: and on reflection it seemed to him that that was the day that marked the beginning—the beginning of
the time when everything had gone wrong for him.

They had picked up the trade wind, and they were running under topsails alone, for the
Gloucester
delayed them: but at least they were making a steady four knots, and had been, day after day: and he felt uncommonly cheerful. On that particular day he stepped on deck at three bells in the afternoon watch, and Mr Saumarez, turning in his steady pacing on the quarter-deck, happened to ask him what it was that he carried—an ordinary question, nothing in the disciplinary line, but prompted by normal curiosity.

‘It is a serpent, sir,’ said Peter, ‘and I am going to ask the smith to repair this hole, if you please.’

‘A serpent, is it?’ said the first lieutenant, turning the spiral tube in his hands. ‘A kind of musical instrument?’

‘No, sir,’ said Peter, in all innocence. ‘No, sir. We use it for making our whiskey.’

‘What is whiskey?’ asked Mr Saumarez. The drink was barely known in England, and not at all in the Channel Islands, the first lieutenant’s home.

‘It is a sort of Irish cordial, sir,’ said Peter.

‘I see. Very well, Mr Palafox,’ said Mr Saumarez. ‘Carry on.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Peter, taking back the serpent. Then in an evil moment he added, ‘We call it uishge beatha at home—the water of life.’

‘Eh?’ cried Mr Saumarez, when Peter had gone a few steps. ‘You do not mean aqua vitae, I trust? Not eau de vie? You are not speaking of ardent spirits, for Heaven’s sake?’

‘I don’t think it is the same thing at all, sir,’ said Peter, doubtfully. ‘But it is rather strong when it is very new.’

‘Bring the stuff to my cabin, Mr Palafox,’ said Mr Saumarez in an official voice.

‘Pah,’ he said, gasping. ‘This is raw spirit. Is this an ill-timed joke, Mr Palafox?’

‘No, sir,’ quavered Peter, aghast at the lieutenant’s angry expression. ‘It is only our morning draught.’

‘Do you mean to tell me that you have dared to brew, to
distil, this poison here in the ship?—actually aboard the
Centurion
?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And drink it daily?’

‘Yes, sir, if you please.’

The first lieutenant stared at Peter with incredulous horror for a moment, and then, in a sterner manner than Peter had ever known, settled down to a searching enquiry.