by Rick Spilman
unfinished and Chips, dressed to go ashore, almost ready to descend the gangway.
“You useless son of a Portugee whore, where do you think you are going?” McPherson roared.
Chips turned to face him and spouted, “Ah, the devil wit' cha,” then turned on his heel and continued down the deck.
“Stop, you son of a bitch,” the captain bellowed. Chips just kept walking. “You will obey me, you worthless bastard!” In a fit of drunken rage, Captain McPherson grabbed a fire axe from the bracket on the side of the house and ran for the carpenter. He swung like a man possessed and drove the axe into the carpenter's skull. Chips fell to the deck, dead.
For an instant, the McPherson's head cleared. He let go of the axe and looked down at the dead carpenter, whose blood now stained the oak planking. For a moment, he stood there looking down, the only sound the flow of the river along the hull and his own heartbeat.
Then, he shook his head and cursed beneath his breath. "Good damn it, Chips. Look what you've made me do." What was done was done. What choice did he have, he asked himself. The carpenter cursed at him. He disobeyed a direct order. He got what he deserved. Discipline had to be maintained. Let the chips fall where they may. McPherson smiled grimly, to himself.
The captain yanked out the axe, dropped it on deck, and hoisted the body on his shoulder. He stumbled to the outboard rail where he tossed the corpse into the muddy waters of the Hooghly. The body made a loud splash but the sound was swallowed up by the noise of the other boats on the river, just as the body itself was swallowed by the dark and churning waters. One more body in the current wouldn't attract any attention. A Hindu sect considered the Hooghly to be holy and often dropped the corpses of their dead into the river. The captain wondered if the carpenter would enjoy their company.
When Chips didn't turn to at muster, the captain would mark him as a deserter and nothing more would need be said.
Captain McPherson heard something behind him. He turned warily. He was sure that he and Chips had been the only souls aboard. “Who's there?” he bellowed. Billy Abrams, a small blond boy who had shipped as an ordinary seaman, rose slightly from where he cowered behind a hatch coaming.
The captain rushed from the rail and grabbed the boy by his shirt while his other hand was clenched in a fist. “What did you see,” the captain growled.
“Nothing, sir,” Abrams sputtered. “Nothing.”
“Good. You saw nothing, because if you had seen anything, you would be the next one into the river. You hear me?”
The boy's mouth opened but nothing came out.
“You hear me?” the captain demanded, shaking the quivering sailor.
“Yes, sir,” the boy squeaked.
“Good.” Captain McPherson released his grip. “There's an axe over there that needs cleaning and putting away. And get a wash bucket, sand and a holystone. Swab and scrub that stain on the deck. I want it clean and spotless. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.” The boy stood there wide-eyed.
“Then get to it you, little cur.”
“Yes, sir.” The boy ran off into the darkness to fetch the bucket, the sand and the stone. The captain watched as he disappeared. He would deal with the boy later. Let him clean the stain first.
The cargo finally began to arrived four days later. The cargo lighters were warped alongside and the deck came alive with swinging bales of jute, bags of coffee and rice, and crates of tea. The native longshoremen handled the hoists and yards while the crew labored in the holds packing the bales, bags and crates tight, using ever square inch of space.
That the cargo arrived late wasn't Captain McPherson's fault, but he knew the owners didn't care about such trifles. He had already received two new telegrams demanding sailing dates and explanations for the delay.
If the wind was contrary and the voyage was slow, it was the captain's fault. If the wind was strong and there was damage to the rigging, it was the captain's fault. Whatever went wrong with the crew, the cargo or the ship, it was always the captain's fault. All McPherson could do was to drive the officers and the crew harder. He would do what needed to be done.
They were racing the summer monsoon now, when the sky would open and the winds would turn against them. If they wanted to make a fair passage, they needed to be down the Hooghly and across the Bay of Bengal before the worst of it hit.
Within a week, the winds started to blow, raising storms of dust that coated everything in the fine red dirt of the Ganges delta. The holds were tarped over to keep the dust out of the cargo and also to keep the cargo dry, because the dust was always followed by rain. These were not the monsoon rains, just drenching summer squalls. The rain turned the dust into red mud on the deck that swirled out the scuppers leaving rust colored streaks on the black hull. Captain McPherson stood on the quarterdeck in his oil skins cursing the sky.
When the rains eased, the crew shifted from storing cargo to scrubbing the decks and hull clean while Captain McPherson raged at both the crew and the weather, which were both now conspiring against him. At night in his cabin, to calm himself, he drank deeply from his secret store of gin, seeking solace in the clear liquid, even if in the morning, he felt that much the worse for it.
When the cargo was nearly loaded, Captain McPherson called for Billy Abrams. The boy appeared warily at the chart room door.
"Captain sir." The boy glanced at the captain then around the chartroom. "You called me, sir?"
"Yes, Billy, come in." The boy paused. He seemed to shake slightly, but stepped across the threshold.
The Captain looked down at the trembling blond boy. "I like sailors who follow orders, know when to speak and when to keep their mouths shut. You are clearly one of those sailors. " The captain paused and looked the young man in the eye.
The boy stood there, quaking, not sure what to say. "Yes, sir," he replied.
"You have sailed long enough as Ordinary. There is a ship in port, the Clan McGrath that needs an Able Seaman. Pack your kit and head over there. She's just downstream. Captain Greene's expecting you." He shoved papers at the boy, who stood there wide-eyed. "Your discharge and wages. Now get on with you."
"Ah, yes sir" the boy replied again, before backing out of the chart room and nearly running down the deck. The captain smiled to himself. No reason not to send the boy off to a better job. The boy had followed orders, unlike the damned carpenter, who only got what he deserved.
The hatches were finally loaded, the hatch beams in place, the covers set and the tarpaulins wedged tight and sealed. On the morning of their sailing, the crew stamped around the after windlass to raise the stern anchor and then around the fo'c's'le head windlass to raise the bower. They sang boisterously in time with the clanking of the windlass pawl.
“We’ll rant an’ we’ll roar, like true British sailors,
We’ll rant an’ we’ll roar across the salt seas ….”
Captain McPherson sang along, to himself, "Until we strike soundings in the channel of old England; From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues." At long, long last, they would soon be leaving the accursed port. Now, if they could only beat the monsoon.
They took a tow line from the tug Dauntless, catted the anchor and began the long tow down the mighty Hooghly. As they moved down the river, the crew cast off the topsail gaskets, loosed the bunts and clews, and hoisted and sheeted home the topsails, to be ready for the first puff of a favoring breeze.
New Lascar sailors had replaced the crew that had deserted, including, it was assumed by all, the carpenter. No one had seen him in days. All the Captain would say was, "Good riddance."
The pilot boat came alongside and the the river pilot, his assistant and a servant climbed the Jacob's ladder up to the deck of the Queen Charlotte. They had a full one hundred miles to go before reaching the Bay of Bengal, down one of the most dangerous rivers in the world. The river pilot, a ginger haired man in his forties, had an air of both gravity and calm. He arrived in fine and formal attire – a white shirt
with a starched collar, a silk tie and light summer suit. His servant held a parasol over his head to shade him from the sun.
From almost the moment they came aboard, the pilot began giving commentary on the current, the soundings taken at the bars only that week, and so on, at some length.
Captain McPherson stood by his side, watching the rushing river, its swirling coffee brown waters tugging at the buoys, trying to carry them away downstream. He didn't care what the pilot had to say for himself. He didn't have much use for pilots. Jumped up dandies, the lot. Their fees, an exorbitant if unavoidable expense. The pilot had been paid three hundred rupees and as long as he got the Queen Charlotte over the bars and through the twisting channels, he could talk and be damned. Just another pompous pilot. 'Or perhaps, Pontius Pilate?' the Captain thought, smiling at his own joke.
The pilot announced that they had entered the Garden Reach on their way down to Saugor. Here the Hooghley became a great thoroughfare with the squat inbound steamers pouring out black smoke and proud three and four masted barques and ships following the tow lines of tugs, battling the swirling brown current with a measured and majestic dignity. The ships dipped their ensigns at they passed. On the Queen Charlotte's stern, the second mate hauled on the spanker signal halyards to dip the red duster in response, at just the right moment.
Arab