The Golden Ocean (27 page)

‘A hundred and fifty-seven miles and one third, in twenty-four hours,’ said Peter.

‘Mr Bailey?’ asked the master.

‘I have the same answer, sir,’ said that wily young man.

‘Very good. That is correct,’ said Mr Blew. ‘And that, I may tell you, is a remarkable figure for a ship that has been in tropical waters so long, and has never seen a dockyard in two years, six weeks, and one day.’

They were sitting, the navigation class and Mr Blew, under the break of the quarter-deck. They had been discussing some particularly fine points to do with the transit of Venus, and
Mr Blew had got somewhat out of his depth—a predicament from which he had saved himself by a sudden reversion to dead-reckoning.

‘And what is more, young gentlemen,’ he continued, ‘I believe that we shall log one hundred and sixty tomorrow.’ They nodded in solemn agreement, for although this seemed an outrageous figure, they had but to stand up to feel the force of the following wind, steady, warm, continuous, with never a hint of slack air. Not indeed that one among them could not gauge the exact strength of the wind by the tight curve of the sails—she was under plain sail only, for she could carry no more—and the line of the flowing sheets.

They fell into a contemplative silence. The steady sound of the pumps, the grind and splash of water, was there to remind them of the old leak up under the stem, but they paid no attention. The big following sea that sent the
Centurion
’s figure-head into the foam at regular one-minute intervals sent enough water into her to keep the pumps going watch and watch; but they were flying along with a prosperous gale, and the charms of the Orient lay all before them. Neither Mr Blew nor his class paid heed to the pumps.

‘November 4th. 22° N. 119° 17’ W. Wind strong and steady at E. It is my birthday again and we sighted Formosa for certain, which pleased the crew uncommon. No latitude at noon because of low cloud yesterday, so what we saw was Formosa and not Botel Tobago Xima. Course now WNW. This is my 3rd birthday at sea: Sean gave me another comforter, which there is not room in the berth to measure exactly. Mr Walter some excellent guavas, preserved. The berth was going to have a spread, but Ransome and I are bid to the wardroom to dine. Mem. to ask Ransome—’

‘Are you ready, cock?’ hailed Ransome, six inches away.

‘Yes, pretty well. Don’t I look it?’

‘Well, cully,’ said Ransome, having surveyed him with care, ‘I dare say it’s the best rig that can be managed. But if I was to see you at home, I’d say, “That perishing—must be
down on his luck. Because why? Because he’s been a-prigging of the clothes off a scarecrow.”’

‘Well—your eyes,’ returned Peter, ‘perhaps I am no tailor’s dummy, but who showed you how to use a double-whip saw on Tinian?’

‘Who thought of getting the timber-heads under a purchase first?’ said Ransome, very warmly; and pursuing his advantage he wheezed, ‘And who banged Joe Pride’s hand with a hammer so often every time he drove a trennel that poor Joe came to me with tears in his eyes a-begging to be put to any other work, which he could not bear the wild look in Mr Palafox’s eye every time he clapped on to a hammer any more?’

‘Who worked out a course that led through the middle of Borneo? And who had to correct it?’

‘Never mind,’ said Ransome, reddening to the ears. ‘Who thought of a tackle from the big palm-tree—’

‘Wrangle, wrangle, wrangle,’ said Keppel. ‘Anyone would think you had built the Ark between you. Shut up.’

‘Young gentlemen,’ said the steward, ‘the officers is almost all in the wardroom.’

‘Come on,’ cried Ransome, and they sped aft. This willingness on Ransome’s part, this positive eagerness to dine elsewhere, was something new and strange. But social intercourse held no terrors for Ransome now. They were scarcely seated in the overcrowded wardroom—crammed now with the
Gloucester
’s lieutenants, surgeon and purser as well as the
Tryal
’s—they were hardly in their places before Ransome, with anticipatory delight shining in his countenance, addressed the first lieutenant in the following words: ‘What reply was made to him, sir, that said, he did not use to give the wall to every coxcomb?’

‘Why, Mr Ransome,’ said the first lieutenant, poising his knife above the loin of pork and thinking tolerably hard, ‘I dare say it was “Tack, you—, or I will ram you,” or perhaps something downright impolite.’

‘Sir,’ said Ransome, swelling visibly, ‘the reply was, “But I do, sir,” and so the fellow gave him the wall.’

The wardroom found this richly humorous, and until the first remove Ransome sat in silent satisfaction, neither gnawing his nails, fixing his eyes wishfully on others’ trenchers, nor cleansing his teeth with the table-cloth: then he stunned the
Tryal
’s surgeon by asking, ‘How many bones are there in a perfect man?’

‘How many bones? Well, let me see,’ began the surgeon, looking anxiously at Mr Woodfall.

stated Ransome firmly.

‘You came out very strong at dinner, Ransome,’ said Peter, as they cooled off on deck after the wardroom’s punch.

‘Pretty strong,’ admitted Ransome complacently. ‘Did you watch Parson Walter when I axed him, “Who was the first man that publicly writ of the Antipodes?”’

‘And the one about the custom of certain Greeks.’

‘But it worn’t as good as when the Commodore invited me and Balthasar, and I brought out the piece about the King of Sweden.’

‘Ransome,’ said Peter, ‘where is that book?’

‘Hor,’ said Ransome, going red, ‘I’ll give it back by and by. It is out of the way just now. I don’t know if I could put my hand on it, exactly.’ Ransome was a wretchedly inefficient liar: not only did he look utterly shifty, but he also clasped both hands to his bosom.

‘I believe it is under your shirt,’ said Peter.

‘No, it an’t,’ cried Ransome, hurrying blindly away.

‘It is no good hiding yourself there,’ said Peter, arriving some time later in the berth, where Ransome was making a dismal attempt at hiding himself behind Keppel and the equally stunted midshipman Pollock, from the Gloucester. ‘You give it up directly, Ransome.’

‘Which I don’t know where it is,’ said Ransome, illogically and uselessly huddling himself into a smaller compass.

‘I do,’ said Keppel, in an awful voice. ‘It is abaft the glooming-pot bowse.’

‘Oh,’ said Peter, changing colour and recoiling a step. He looked hurriedly for Balthasar, and saw him, trussed up under the beam in a hammock, gagged and bound and already painted ochre from head to foot.

‘No,’ cried Peter, finding his retreat cut off and backing against the jear-capstan casing. ‘You can’t do that to me. It’s my birthday.’

‘Can’t we?’ said Bailey, with a wicked grin.

‘You and your prowlburke,’ said Preston, hissing.

‘And us combing through the manual for the plashing-strake.’

‘No,’ shrieked Peter as they closed in upon him. ‘No. I’ve got to go on deck…. ’

‘What is this shocking noise about?’ asked Mr Saumarez.

‘If you please sir,’ said Keppel, ‘we are painting Mr Palafox blue.’

‘What a stupid blunder,’ cried the first lieutenant. ‘Don’t you know that green is the proper emblem? Come, come; mix yellow with your blue and you will have green—the only correct colour. When will you begin to realise that you
must
think before you act?’

The dawn came up pale and grey: the
Centurion
had been lying-to all night, for they were in soundings, and it was almost certain that the dull blur seen on the larboard beam some time ago was the Asian continent.

Peter, with a good deal of green lingering about his person and a vile temper in his heart, was peering into the fog, from time to time making petulant and ineffectual motions towards fanning it away.

‘It
is
,’ he said, as a low, dim shape wafted by, and the cackling increased.

‘It can’t be,’ said Bailey. ‘It’s birds.’

‘It is,’ repeated Peter, and hurrying to the officer of the watch he saluted and said, ‘Report a number of small-craft under the bows, sir.’

‘How many, Mr Palafox?’

‘Oh, perhaps a thousand, sir,’ answered Peter carelessly.

‘Mr Palafox,’ said Mr Brett with a frown.

‘Beg pardon, sir,’ said Peter.

Yet as the mist lifted it showed that a thousand was many too few. There were four, five, even six thousand sampans abroad on the sea, and every minute of the growing day revealed more. The quiet grey water was covered with them, all round the ship as far as the eye could reach, and with unwearying industry their crews fished over the side, all talking at once in a high, small, incessant gabble that filled the entirety of the air.

They fished, looking neither to the right nor the left. They took no notice of the
Centurion
whatever, and the wondering crew had the weird impression that this was a dream in which they themselves were no more than floating shadows.

Hails, many times repeated, wreathed smiles from the quarter-deck, the cry of a pilot in all the many languages that the
Centurion
could muster, silver coins displayed, gold, all left the myriad fishermen unmoved. They neither heard nor saw: they fished.

‘Lower away the cutter,’ ordered the Commodore. And when the cutter returned, ‘What have you learned, Mr Palafox?’ he asked.

‘Nothing, sir,’ replied Peter. ‘The craft only answered “Bah” in Chinese.’

‘What is the Chinese for Bah, Mr Palafox?’

‘Bah, sir, begging your pardon.’

‘Hm,’ said the Commodore, looking at him hard before he turned away. ‘Sampan ahoy,’ he hailed, ‘Pilot-o?’

Peter looked quickly at Keppel: he detected a tremor, but no sound emerged.

‘Pilot-ee?’ continued the Commodore. ‘Macao? Savvy?’

‘The irritating creatures,’ muttered Mr Walter, hanging over the rail in a quiet fume. ‘I should like to bang their heads together.’

‘Ram one of the—, and take up her people: that will make ’em attend,’ said Peter to no one in particular, and
rather more loudly than he had intended.

Peter had already been struck by lightning: but that was a tame affair in comparison with the sudden blast of the Commodore’s displeasure. And when he was half-way up to the mast-head he was desired to come down again to hear some reflections upon loquacity—undesirable in midshipmen; his manners—susceptible of improvement; his status in the ship—remarkably low; oaths in general—abhorrent to the Commodore; oaths by the young in particular—disgusting, unmanly, ill-bred. And all this delivered within a few yards of Peter’s messmates, who could not hear a word officially and who stood with glazed expressions staring out to sea, but who would have been a good deal more than human if they had not treasured up some of the more forcible expressions for subsequent use.

It was a thoroughly exasperating day. They sailed slowly through a horde of utterly indifferent Chinese: from his height Peter saw innumerable efforts made from the quarterdeck to enlist even the faintest show of interest, and all in vain. Gradually the quarter-deck grew hoarser and more vexed: more and more of Peter’s colleagues joined him.

‘Here, cully,’ whispered Ransome, as yet unscathed. ‘I brought you a bite of pork to pass the time.’

‘Thankee, cock,’ said Peter, his ill-temper dissipating all at once. ‘I was clemmed with hunger. Is that Keppel at the mizzen?’

‘Yes. I fed him just now. He laughed when Mr Dennis dropped his glass.’

‘And Bailey and Preston at the main?’

‘Yes. Mr S. said they looked pleased with theirselves.’

‘Little Pollock on the jib-boom?’

‘Giggled, I believe.’

‘It’s a hard life, Ransome.’

‘A very hard life, cock.’

‘Will we ever get a pilot, do you think?’

‘Commodore swears he’ll sail through the damned channel with the boats sounding every inch.’

‘Swears, does he?’

‘Something chronic.’

‘I hope we get a pilot, Ransome. Shore-leave, eh?’

‘Hor, hor, cully. Shore-leave, hor, and don’t we wish we may get it?’

And so the day passed, and the next, and the day after. Always the interminable dream-like procession of dumb, deaf, impassive Chinese faces, the ship lying-to all night, creeping along by day, and the crew frantic with impatience and frustration.

They passed Pedro Blanco and the charted reefs: they passed reefs uncharted, and hovered on the edge of shoaling water. They were actually reaving the channel with the cutter sounding ahead before they elicited the faintest interest in an Oriental face. But this face was keenly interested: together with its owner it came racing over the sea, ran up the side with seamanlike rapidity, saluted the quarter-deck, and was instantly divined to be that long-awaited sight, the visage of a China pilot. The bargain was struck at once: the pilot took up his post and conned the ship with strange squeaking cries and effective gestures, and regarded, with veiled triumph, the disappointment of his rivals, who now came in profusion, carrying certificates (many ribald, some serious) from Portuguese, Dutch and English master-mariners, but all too late.

Nearer and nearer came the shore. An outward-bound Dutchman had already passed them in Macao road, dipping his ensign as he went.

‘I thought it would be yellow,’ said Sean, staring at the land.

‘Not this,’ said Peter, reassuring him; ‘this is Macao, which is Portuguese,
That
is China, on the other side.’

‘Macao,’ said the pilot. ‘Very jolly. Very nice. Very, very nice. Oh yes.’

‘Show a leg,’ said Bailey, hurrying from his lurking-place. ‘He’s just coming on deck.’

‘Shore-leave?’ said Mr Saumarez, gazing about. ‘Why, confound your impertinence, we have not even laid a hand to the anchors yet. Quartermaster, get that party for’ard at once. Mr
Keppel, stand by at the cathead. Look alive, slow-bellies. Are those men asleep? Mr Palafox, take your hands out of your pockets this minute. Shore-leave, forsooth …’