The Golden Ocean (6 page)

‘A quadrant, perhaps?’

‘Never the ghost of a quadrant, sir. We were sure—indeed my mother was positive—that the service provided these things …’

‘My poor boy, my poor boy,’ said the chaplain, shaking his head sadly. ‘What a great way off you do live, to be sure. Six shirts for a voyage that may last two or three years? Oh dear me, dear me. Do you know where we are bound?’

‘Yes, sir. We are bound for the Great South Sea, there to cruise upon the Spaniards, and confound ’em unawares.’

‘You know that? Good heavens above! It is supposed to be a secret. Who told you?’

‘Oh,’ said Peter vaguely, for his mind was too much taken up with the dreadful news to be much concerned with the question, ‘oh, everybody said so, at home. Michael Noonan the excise man, Patrick Lynch the sow-gelder—everyone.’

‘Even in that remote waste,’ said the chaplain to himself. ‘That is how State secrets are kept in this degenerate age. I must tell the Commodore. How long have the Spaniards been aware of the plan, I wonder?’ He paused. ‘However, we must get back to the matter in hand. So you have no sea-chest, Peter, I collect?’

‘No sea-chest, sir,’ said Peter again, looking so wan that even in this dim light the chaplain could make out his distress. They remained silent for some moments, Peter’s heart dying within him—so near to his goal, the ship actually stirring under his feet at this minute, and then to be turned back—and Mr Walter’s mind busily turning over the meagre resources of a lean, lean purse and an overloaded credit.

‘Peter,’ he said, ‘you must know that unhappily I am not a rich man, and that my own provision for this great voyage has quite exhausted what wealth I had. I cannot tell what to do, upon my word. To equip you very modestly might cost as much as twenty pound …’

‘Oh sir,’ said Peter faintly. In Ballynasaggart twenty pounds kept the whole family for twelve months of the year.

‘Twenty pound … Tell me, did your friends not give you somewhat to bear your charges—something for contingencies unforeseen in Ballynasaggart?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Peter. ‘My father gave me a purse of gold. Six broad pieces, sir, no less.’

‘Why then,’ cried Mr Walter, flinging out his hands in relief and knocking down a pile of books, ‘why then, there you are! O what a relief to my mind this is! It is not enough, to be sure, but with some pinching and contriving and with the advice of my good friend the purser—a most experienced sea-provider—we may rig you out creditably enough to pass muster. So your good father gave you a fine round plump purse, bless him.’

‘He did, sir,’ said Peter, and he hesitated for a moment before adding, ‘But it was all lost at the races.’

‘Lost at the races?’ said Mr Walter, in a wondering, dubious voice.

‘Yes, sir. I grieve to say that at the races it was lost.’

‘Lost at the races!’ cried the chaplain, now flushed with anger. ‘Do you presume to tell me that it was lost at the races? Profligate boy!’ he cried, striking the table an ominous blow.

‘Oh sir, by your leave …’ began Peter.

‘No, sir, not a word: no, no,’ cried the angry chaplain. ‘The brisk intemperance of youth may excuse much; but not this. You know the value of a gold piece to a clergyman with a living like your father’s as well as I do: you know, or you should know, the self-denial and privation needed to put by a single half-guinea. To squander his substance in this manner is an example of heartlessness such as I have rarely encountered. I am disappointed in you, sir; I am profoundly displeased
with your conduct; and I wish you good day.’ Mr Walter was a man of high principle, opposed to violence, and he had meant the interview to end with these words. But his unprincipled right hand (much given to generous indignation) rose of its own volition, and swinging forward in a pure arc it struck Peter’s left ear, knocking his head against the gun so briskly that the metal rang again; and Peter fell off his stool, quite amazed.

It took him some moments to collect his wits. In the meantime the chaplain picked him up, straightened his sprawling limbs and put him back on his stool; and Peter heard the words, ‘Dear me, dear me … never should have done it … poor boy … temptation, no doubt … there, now … why, he looks but palely …’

‘By your leave, sir,’ cried Peter suddenly, ‘it was not the betting. Oh sir, it was not the betting, but a cutpurse, a rapparee, an unlucky black thief of a pickpocket that did be stealing it in the crowd. Will I tell you the way it was, sir?’

‘Do, my poor boy, do: for I fear I have done you an injustice,’ said the chaplain, dusting Peter’s face with his handkerchief. And Peter told him the way it was, in very great detail, right through Connaught and the greater part of Munster, through the chops of the Channel and to the very deck of the
Centurion
herself, that noble ship, ending with the heartfelt words, ‘but never did I truly miss the purse until this moment, sir.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said the chaplain heavily, sadly. ‘So you were robbed, and I have beaten you for being robbed. You must forgive me, Peter. But what is to be done? What are we to do? I am at a stand. I protest,’ he said again, after a pause, ‘that I am quite at a stand.’

At this moment there was a great rumbling groan, and the port opened upwards and outwards, letting in a blinding light and a blast of fresh sea air.

‘Mind the ink-well!’ cried the chaplain, as he and Peter darted about after the flying papers, ‘and for the love of Heaven cling to my sermon.’

‘Beg pardon, sir,’ said a bearded face, upside down in the opening. ‘We’ve just opened the port, like.’

In time everything was picked up, sorted, squared and made fast under heavy books. They sat, gasping and dazzled, gazing at one another through narrowed eyes; and all that Peter could see in Mr Walter’s face was doubt and anxiety. ‘I might,’ said the chaplain at last, ‘I might give you a letter to Mr Shovell. He hopes he may be given the command of a cutter, a hired cutter, for service in the Channel … but I don’t know, I’m sure.’

He went on musing aloud in this way for some time, and Peter’s gaze wandered to the brilliant sea-scape on the far side of the square gunport: he saw boats passing to and fro between the guardships and the squadron, and for a brief moment the whole of the foreground was filled with the bulk of an eight-and-twenty-gun frigate running before the wind, with studding-sails aloft and alow on either side. The brown faces on her quarterdeck were turned towards the
Centurion
and he could see them laughing as they looked up. She vanished, and his mind returned to Mr Walter’s discourse: he found that the chaplain was explaining the various categories of ‘young gentlemen’, the King’s Letter Boys, the volunteers, and those who appeared on the ship’s books as captain’s, lieutenant’s and even boatswain’s servants, but who in fact walked the quarterdeck like the other midshipmen; yet he was aware that Mr Walter was not really talking to any purpose. And as time went on he also became aware that Mr Walter was staring at him in a very curious way—staring with a fixed, unwavering gaze at his throat, sometimes half closing his eyes and sometimes leaning his head to one side. In the brilliant light that now filled the cabin there could be no possible doubt of his unwavering stare, nor of its direction. The explanation continued, somewhat at haphazard: the gaze grew even more intense. Peter began to feel uneasy, and at length he put his hand to his cravat to see whether it was undone, or whether perhaps it had dipped into the ink.

‘Peter Palafox,’ said the chaplain, ‘pray reach me that
buckle.’ And when he had it in his hand he leant back until he was in the sun, holding it to his eye in a very knowing and professional manner. ‘So there you were wandering about Ireland,’ he said, after a long considering pause and countless inspections of the buckle in different lights, ‘wandering about like an Egyptian, I say, with an emerald pinned to your throat. A handsome emerald, though a little flawed, of course, and scratched: but a fine generous colour. At one time,’ he went on, still peering deep into the stone, ‘I taught English to a Dutch jewel-merchant. I loved to see his baubles, and perhaps he taught me more than I taught him. I must not call myself a phoenix—oh, no—but I can tell a true stone when I see one. Look, this is what we call the garden of an emerald—beautiful, is it not? Now if it were not for this unlucky hole bored at the edge—Indian work, for sure—it might fetch two or three hundred guineas. But even so, I am very much out if it is not worth a year of your father’s living at the very least. How did you come by it?’

Peter, his heart’s blood flowing again and a delightful tide of joy surging in his stomach, told him; and the tale was interrupted by the meaningless chuckles of happiness in its purest state.

The chaplain said, ‘Your good old lady was right, I am sure. It must have come from some ship of the Spanish Armada—many were wrecked on your shores, as I understand. What a curious reflection, that it should have come from a galleon to fit you out to serve against that same contumelious nation. If you choose, I will turn this stone into a sea-chest, and a reasonable purse besides; for otherwise the merchants might be tempted to take advantage of your youth and inexperience; and we must never expose others to temptation, in case they should fall. But now I believe we must eat a piece of cake and drink a glass of Madeira, to welcome you aboard, and to repose our minds after their anxiety.’

Back in the midshipmen’s berth, with his mind duly reposed, Peter found it empty except for a very large cat and a very
small boy. FitzGerald had gone. The hatch was now open, and the very small boy sat on a locker, looking up it and singing, in a remarkably high-pitched soprano,

over and over again. Peter stood, contemplating the pink-cheeked singer and wondering first where FitzGerald was and secondly how this child could have got aboard; and presently the song came to an end.

‘Tell me, my boy,’ said Peter kindly, ‘have you seen …’

‘Who the—do you think you are?’ asked the child, with an unflinching stare.

‘You should not use such words,’ said Peter, quite shocked.

‘And you should not use such an infernally impertinent form of address to your seniors,’ piped the very small boy. ‘I suppose you are one of the new horrors that the Admiralty in its wisdom has inflicted upon us. What the—do you mean by addressing me as your boy? Eh? Damn your impertinence,’ and growing pinker with wrath the child went on. ‘Five years seniority, and to be called “my boy” by something that has crept up out of the bilge when the cat was asleep. Rot me, by—, I’ve a month’s mind to have you keel-hauled.’

‘I am sorry,’ said Peter, much taken aback. ‘I was not aware.’

‘In future you will address me as Mr Keppel,’ said the child severely, and returned to his song.

Peter, to preserve his countenance, stroked the cat, a shabby animal, black where it had any hair, and dull blue where it was bald. The cat suffered this for a minute, lashing its tail; then with a low growl it seized his hand and bit it, like a dog.

Peter recoiled and bumped into a large, yellow-haired, florid, thick man, whose ordinarily good-humoured face was clouded with discontent.

‘Nah then, cully,’ said he, in a hoarse whisper, seeing Peter
and the cat so closely joined; ‘don’t you tease that cat.’

‘It’s the cat won’t let go, so it won’t,’ cried Peter, waving it in the air.

‘Don’t you go a-teasing no animals here, for I won’t have it. And that’s flat,’ said the newcomer, detaching the cat with a powerful heave. ‘Poor Puss,’ he said, sitting down on a locker to comfort it. ‘Pretty Agamemnon.’

‘I was stroking it,’ said Peter.

‘You don’t want to go around a-teasing of animals,’ was the only reply. ‘Puss. Poor old Ag. Pretty Ag.’

‘Ransome,’ said Keppel, ‘did you have any luck?’

‘No,’ said Ransome. ‘I took the gig’s crew to a wedding at Fareham, thinking to snap up a few as they came out of the church. But the women set on us in the churchyard—knocked us about something cruel—while the men all got out of the vestry. Who’s this been stowing all this stuff on my locker?’ He looked crossly at FitzGerald’s portmanteau, and after a moment he pushed it off with his foot.

‘That is my portmanteau, sir,’ said FitzGerald, who unfortunately appeared just as it fell, ‘and I will thank you to pick it up.’

‘Nah then, cully,’ said Ransome, still in the same hoarse whisper, ‘keep your hair on.’

‘Another Teague, so help me,’ said Keppel; ‘the wretched island must have sunk at last.’

‘You are an offensive boy,’ said FitzGerald, ‘but I imagine you do not know it. If that fellow is your servant, tell him to pick up my portmanteau.’

‘How can you be such a blackguard?’ cried Keppel, with real indignation.

‘If you mean to check me with coming in through the hawsehole,’ said Ransome, growing suddenly very red, ‘I’ll learn you good manners.’

‘I do not understand your jargon,’ said FitzGerald, ‘but if you want a threshing, sure I’ll help you to one.’

‘That’s right,’ said Ransome, peeling off his coat.

They had equal courage: it was weight and skill that decided
the matter. FitzGerald weighed ten stone to Ransome’s fourteen; Ransome had great skill in boxing; FitzGerald had none, and in ten seconds he was flat on his back with the blood running fast from his nose. He gasped, took a deep breath and sprang to his feet. He kept upright for much longer this time, and hit Ransome one or two good blows before he went down. Peter propped him up against his knee and wiped his face. ‘You can’t go on,’ he whispered; ‘the fellow is twice your size.’

‘Can’t I?’ said FitzGerald. ‘Let me go.’

He got up, and with a ferocious rush he shot under Ransome’s guard, smashing in one right-handed hook that jarred Ransome’s head on his shoulders. Then he was down again; but with scarcely a pause he leapt up, hitting madly: for a second the blows followed fast, hard bare-fist blows like the sound of a mallet on wood. One of FitzGerald’s got home, and Ransome with an instinctive reaction hit him really hard. The uppercut did not travel six inches, but it lifted FitzGerald a foot, with his chin in the air, and he fell as if he had been dropped from a steeple. He fell oddly crumpled, and he did not move.