by Eli Brown
She sang out, “Twa Corbies!” and the crew cheered. The gunship was maneuvering to seize our wind and bring its starboard guns in line for a broadside when our two stern cannon roared. The missiles knocked a hole in the gunship’s breast large enough for men to spill from it like seeds. This, then, was the purpose of the Rose’s reinforced aft and the heavy long-range cannon mounted there: to send devastation into a pursuing ship. Our foe listed and her sails cupped the waves.
We made another pass at the stationary Pendleton ship, but the second escort would not leave the Trinity’s side. “Wear about and ramming speed!” Mabbot called, and soon we were racing with our bowsprit aimed to pierce the cow-belly of the Trinity. We traded shots with the second gunship as we approached, and our fore topgallant was splintered by a lucky ball. At the last minute we veered off course, missing the Trinity by meters and putting the fat ship between us and the gunship as an impromptu shield. At our closest, three of Mabbot’s Sandwich Islanders dove into the sea between the ships, belts fastened with air bladders and waxed sacks of tools and petards.
During the ensuing calamity, we spotted the airy course of a homing pigeon, rising from the Trinity like hope made visible. It circled thrice, gaining its bearings, before setting off north. Mabbot screamed, “Apples! Apples! Apples!” I was watching the flight with tremendous envy when Mr. Apples’s rifle sounded and the distant bird tumbled to the sea.
Sailors on the deck of the Trinity fired rifles and muskets while the escort moved to flank us. Our men returned fire only enough to cover for the others, who were throwing planks and lines to board the merchant ship. The swimmers, unnoticed by the enemy or too low for her guns, converged upon the gunship’s prow as she approached. They clung to the hull with hooks and tacked their bombs below the waterline, bearing the onrushing sea like crabs bracing themselves in a heavy tide.
Meanwhile our crew had boarded the trading ship and, after a brief but valiant skirmish (Mr. Apples and the twins, working together, are a terrible force), captured the captain and two chief officers. These poor men were hung by their feet over the side of our ship, bellowing their outrage. The warship escort was therefore forced to fire very carefully indeed so as not to destroy the Trinity behind us nor the fragile bodies slung across our hull like jewelry upon a dowager.
The swimmers had made it back to the Rose and were climbing the jack ladders with war whoops when the petards they’d secured detonated—five muffled pops. The men on the deck of the warship went into a panic, climbing the masts as she capsized, then sank with terrifying speed.
This was the efficient malice of Mabbot’s mind. From my hiding place behind the rope barrel, I saw firsthand the unnatural and cruel techniques that had allowed her to wreak havoc upon the routes for so long. While her enemies plotted approaches and speeds and angles of wind, Mabbot had already picked their pockets and poisoned their tea.
It is said that even the most powerful wrestlers may be brought to their knees by the strategic twisting of a single finger. Mabbot’s enemies fell so quickly about her that they seemed eager to perish. If I hadn’t seen the devious devices she employed, I would have believed, as so many do, that the woman was a demon.
It was clear to me then why Ramsey had been forced to hire the Frenchman, for only Laroche’s mind matched hers for sinister twists. Knowing Mabbot’s motives—even beginning to believe that they might be honorable in their way—did not make watching these skirmishes any easier.
When the shooting stopped, Mabbot, to my great relief, lowered the Trinity’s longboats into the water, cut down our prisoners, and allowed the crew, officers included, to swarm into the craft. They were forced to watch from their crowded and rocking boats as we picked the Trinity clean.
This was a less festive event than the previous sacking, as Mabbot seemed eager to gather way. All loot was hurried through the hatches and into the holds to be inspected and sorted later.
In the bustle, the men brought to Mabbot the cage containing the remaining three Pendleton homing pigeons. She considered them for a moment, then handed the cage to me with a twinkle in her eye, saying, “I’ll know, won’t I, if you misuse these?” Also recovered from the ousted captain’s personal stash was a barrel of wine, a bag of almonds, an ingot of chocolate, and a pod of Brazilian vanilla beans. It seemed the man had good taste. To the sailor who had recovered these treasures, Mabbot gave half the chocolate. The wine she took for herself. The rest she gave to me.
As the crew worked, they debated what to do with the Trinity itself. The same discussion was being had in several places at once, and these were the several voices of the argument:
“’Twould be a scandalous shame not to take command of such a prize, and a good chance to rid ourselves of the saboteur, for he’d likely be among them that go.”
“But would ye like to sail with a skeleton crew of which the turncoat is such a large portion? And besides, such a fat wallowing ship ain’t good for anything but carrying tea, and I dunno any who is ready to become a trading company.”
“Could be sold at auction.”
“But ye’d as like be hanged as paid for her.”
By general consensus it seemed the massive ship would be scuttled once she had been picked clean.
Beset by curiosity, I made my way to the Trinity to look around. (Not trusting my peg, I crawled across the boarding plank, much to the delight of the rest of the crew.) I aimed to discover whether the huge vessel had a proper stove.
In fact, there was a well-provisioned galley directly adjacent to the captain’s cabin containing an elegant Treadwell stove that was, alas, too hot to touch, let alone abscond with. I was looking at it dejectedly, noting that it was almost big enough to hide a man, when I was inspired to find my way to the Trinity crew in their longboats and throw my lot in with them. This flimsy notion was quickly rent by reality; we were in the middle of the South China Sea, and those poor souls had a grim chance of making it to any shore. Besides, I had read the accounts of desperate men resorting to cannibalism in open boats. Hard to believe I wouldn’t be first choice. After all, the last time I tried to surrender myself, I lost a leg; I cherished my remaining limbs all the more for it.
The Trinity was an enormous vessel and the haul was commensurate. In addition to seemingly endless lockers of tea, bolts of silk, and barrels of pepper, the holds were packed to the ceiling with teak, cotton, and porcelain ware. I went to watch as the last of the booty was pulled into the light. I caught sight of the silver on the deck of the Rose before it was lowered into the hatches. The Trinity crew had melted it down into flat ingots for easy stacking, and what a stack it made; even from a distance it took my breath away. Several fortunes, naked and glinting in the sun. The soft skin of the ingots made me want to chew them between my teeth like a batch of caramel. How much opium had been sold for this shameless pile? What could it buy? A cathedral? An army?
This was Mabbot’s promise to the men ratified, for they had indeed regained their sacrificed treasure and then some. The Rose was fat and heavy again, but Mabbot couldn’t deny her crew their payment. The Trinity contained so much cargo, in fact, that much had to be left where it was.
There was, however, something that would not be left: our men brought from the lowest holds a parade of small dark heathens. These people, Philippine Islanders, were bound together in groups of ten, their necks clasped within long boards like communal stocks.
The heathens squinted in the light and were covered with their own filth. One woman could not reach her child, who was locked two spaces behind on the board, and yet stretched for her and moaned and wept. Even as they were led to our boat, she reached for her daughter, who was quite ill and was being fairly dragged along by the lurching of the others in a manner most unsettling.
I had seen figures from Siam and Kampuchea washing the laundry and tending to the gardens of the gentry I had served. These were the lowest servants, to whom even the other maids rarely spoke. I swear I had not known that they were thus proc
ured, and in fact would not have believed it before today. But there was no denying it. These were the “long birds” ordered by the manifests. Whereas some were sent to dig diamonds and harvest cotton, these people were being abducted to London to carry night soil and morning water. There were close to forty of them, and a sailor called across that there were a dozen or more dead in the holds.
I had seen Lord Ramsey’s signature on the manifests and could no longer pretend that he was clean of this. I felt the creaking structure of my past, riddled with holes, sink out of sight. I was again floating alone upon the empty sea without shelter or direction.
Our men led the coolies as gently as possible to our ship, with much confusion and cajoling. It was too much for me. I shinnied back to the Flying Rose and made for my berth, but Mabbot beckoned.
When I went to her, she merely stared at me. I tried to hold my tongue, but after a moment I blurted, “They may be better off in a Christian land. Who knows what dirt mounds these workers call home?”
“Workers.” Mabbot was grim.
“Trading in slaves has been outlawed these twelve years.”
“What does that say about your trading company?”
“By Christ, woman, I didn’t found the Pendleton Company! I have no stock in it. Why do you hound me so?”
“I am fond of you, Wedge, can’t you see that? I’m only taking you through your lessons.”
“I am no schoolboy.”
“Then be a man. You ask why I do what I do,” Mabbot said. “But what will you do?”
I gave her my back and hurried to my chamber. Would she have me ride the seas waving a cutlass? Drink the blood of my enemies? As I paced, my wooden peg marking the passing seconds, I saw again and again the woman reaching for her child, and it brought me back up to the deck.
As Asher and Mr. Apples set about picking the locks of the stocks with an unsettling familiarity that pointed to much experience, I knelt beside them and whispered, “What can I do?”
Mr. Apples didn’t bother to look up from his task. “Aren’t you the cook?”
As I went to the galley, I saw that the Trinity was indeed being set alight; it would be a colossal bonfire, but I didn’t pause to watch it.
I had planned to make a simple potato soup, but Kitzu too had been moved by the coolies’ emaciated frames and soon dropped at my feet a writhing net of dangerous fish: two conger eels, a banded dragonfish (whose quills, he told me, carried a potent poison), and a shuddering red octopus.
As I could not hope to know the captives’ tastes, I committed myself to one of the most comforting foods I had ever known: bouillabaisse.
When I arrived at the French monastery where I would spend my apprenticeship, I was weary, thin, and frankly terrified. Without uttering a single word of greeting, my teacher sat me down and served me bouillabaisse. This stew is made from the most humble fishes, each added one at a time to a lusty herbed broth, thickened with potatoes, and finally topped with a spicy cream. I had become a foreigner in a hostile country, despised as an Englishman and a Jesuit, my entire life carried in a small rucksack, yet this soup filled my hollow belly and told me that I was safe.
Joshua and I filleted the dragonfish wearing the smithy’s gloves to protect us from the quills. While I would have liked to have my saffron again, I found myself, for once, grateful for the ingredients on hand. Bouillabaisse is often accented with orange peel, but I realized that lemongrass made a much more substantial aroma and admirably carried the baser seasonings of dried smelt and bay leaf.
We were gathering speed again as I puttered, and I felt strangely blessed not to be on the longboats with those villains but here with these.
To make rouille is difficult enough in a proper kitchen, but without a real whisk or thickening egg yolks, I knew I had a serious challenge before me. With my steadfast cannonball mortar I powdered hardtack, adding just enough broth to produce a paste, then crushed in garlic and cayenne pepper. With a whisk made of three forks lashed together, I whipped this paste while Joshua poured in the thinnest drizzle of olive oil until we had a hearty cream.
After the cubed potatoes had begun to soften in the broth, we added the fish, one at a time, letting the embers beneath the cauldron slowly die. To keep them from becoming too tough, the octopus tentacles, sliced into coins, went in just as the soup stopped simmering.
The rouille covered the surface with a rich sheen before spreading throughout like a fog at sunrise.
As we served the stew, I heard several of the crew complain that the coolies ate better than they did.
Two of our seamen spoke Tagalog, and they were kept busy explaining to the guests their change of fortune. While they ate, I asked Mr. Apples what would become of them.
“S’hard to say,” he answered. “Villages probably burned by the Spanish, families massacred. They may take to shore the first place we anchor. Some may stay on. Some of our best men have come to us this way—Utswali, Kinsha, Blue—they were all found in chains.”
I spent the rest of the day helping dress their wounds and setting up canvas tents on the deck. It turned out that these drafty quarters were not for the slaves but for the crew. Mabbot has given the forecastle berths to the women and children for the time being and has made it known that we were going to change our course to deliver the islanders to their home. Conrad grumbled about this, about the scuttling of the Trinity, about how quickly we would run out of food with this many new mouths to feed—mostly I believe he was sour because he had heard the men praising my soup.
20
KILLING THE MESSENGER
In which I see my error
Wednesday, November 3
It has been demonstrated today that I am hopeless with knots. Even after several lessons, I am no closer to understanding their wicked convolutions. I’ve been trying to make myself more useful since our guests joined us, but, in a dramatic demonstration of my ineptitude, I managed to free all three stays (no easy feat) of a loose cannon as it was being transported. The cannon, weighing at least five hundred pounds, picked up speed and plowed through a barrel as easily as through fog, nearly crushing a man who saved himself only by climbing a mast like a monkey. The metal beast certainly would have killed someone if not for the swift and strong men who intercepted it with ropes and nets. I have been forbidden from touching a cannon again, and we’re all more comfortable for it.
The Philippine Islanders, having been pushed from their mountain homes by Spanish ranchers, were tricked into boarding the Pendleton ship by company men who offered to provide armaments and support to win their land back. They’d been kept in the hold for weeks as the ship waited for propitious winds. They’re eager to return to the island to find their lost families. Despite their ghastly treatment, and having reason to distrust any crew, they are nevertheless some of the kindest people I have ever encountered. They break their circles to make room for me to sit and, having nothing else to offer, present their soup bowls for me to eat from. They embody the finest of Christian traits while despising the church. For the latter I blame the Spanish. I tried to remedy the situation; through a translator, I related the story of Jonah. After listening politely, they returned the favor with a story about a bird that kills by devouring a sleeper’s shadow. I did my best not to be frustrated, but the rest of the afternoon was squandered on similar heathen fables.
Thursday, November 4
Bai and Feng have continued to convince me of their guilt, for I have seen them passing notes again with Asher.
With Macau so close, Mabbot is increasingly distracted and pensive. She pores over maps and takes private meetings with Braga and Mr. Apples daily, preparing for our rendezvous with the Fox. Despite many efforts, I have been unable to catch her alone. At Sunday’s meal I will strive again to warn her of the twins’ malevolence, for I have a sinking suspicion that it will be my last chance.
Friday, November 5
This morning, after Joshua cleaned and plucked the three pigeons, I hung them to age. I to
ok the time to shell some walnuts and soaked the meats in ale.
Of course I considered setting one of the pigeons free with a plea for help bound to its claw, but Mabbot is smart enough to count three birds. God knows what would happen to me if she saw one in the sky rather than upon a plate. I am fully aware that to willfully kill a Pendleton pigeon is a treason against England. But the rationalizations that assert themselves are hard to gainsay:
1. The birds would have died anyway by Mabbot’s command. Better they should come to some use.
2. I have had my moral fabric so tarred by my long and complicated association with these pirates that I cannot hope to salvage myself by petty attention to the proper use of company correspondence animals.
3. My opinion of the Pendleton Company has, I have to admit, been not a little shaken, and my loyalty with it. While I do not hope to spend my life among pirates and thieves, I cannot, on the other hand, continue to give my allegiance to the trading company, nor to the Crown that funds it, for I have seen with my own eyes their atrocities.
The proper way is lost to me; my compass spins. I therefore give my entire attention to those works that seem to me incorruptible: the application of heat, the proportion of seasoning, the arrangement of a plate. When robbed of all pretensions and aspirations, with no proper home nor any knowledge of what discord tomorrow brings, I still may have a pocketful of dignity. The Roman pomp and raiment have fallen away, and I see at last the glory of washed feet and shared bread.
Saturday, November 6
In order not to draw attention to ourselves, we set anchor within sight of Palawan Island, where the wind sends the palms swaying.
I’d seen little of the captain until we were close to the Philippines. Then she emerged to order that her personal pinnace, Deimos, carry the islanders to their destination. “Load it with as much food as it can carry, five pistols, shot, and gunpowder,” she said.