I tried to speak lightly but, in truth, I was hardly able to grasp the reality of where we were. It was the first time I’d seen the boat, the Argo, by daylight.
It might have looked large in the dark and when attached to dry land but, out in the open water, its dimensions seemed to have shrunk. Jack Wilson and I were standing on a relatively uncluttered area of deck. To our backs was the entrance to the great cabin where we’d got so disgracefully drunk last night. The cabin was part of a larger structure at the back end – or rather to the aft – of the boat. This was balanced by another structure at the front end. Overhead, the sails clattered and banged in the tearing breeze, while the three masts supporting them groaned in their housing. The boat progressed through the water, not smoothly but as if it were hammering out its path like a smith beating out a piece of iron. From the position of the sun in the sky it was still quite early in the day.
A lad passed us and I grabbed him by the elbow and demanded to know where we were. He looked about in confusion as if the question was meaningless.
‘On the river,’ he said eventually.
‘Where are we going?’
‘France.’
He shook himself free of my grip and went off about his business.
There were a couple of older sailors only a few yards away, half hanging over the side while they fiddled with some ropes attached to the largest of the sails on the centre mast. They took no notice of us, may not even have been aware that we were there, but their posture put an idea into my head, unfortunately. I rushed to the opposite side and, clutching on to the bulwark, cast the contents of my stomach on to the waters. Angled into the wind, I only narrowly avoided receiving them back in my face. I hung there, chest heaving, eyes streaming, clinging on for dear life, terrified of the racing waters down below.
When I turned back, it was to see a half-familiar face. There was a hint of pleasure on it, pleasure at my discomfort, that is. I recognized Colin Case, brother to the doctor and captain of the Argo.
‘Even the most lubberly fellows can usually hold off until the open sea,’ he said.
‘You must put in to land at once,’ I said, aware that I was not cutting a dignified figure.
‘Why?’
‘To let us off,’ said Jack Wilson. ‘We are from the King’s Men and have work to do in London.’
‘And who will pay me for the lost time? We have a favouring wind and we are running with the tide. No, we are not going to “put in” for the King’s Men or anyone else’s men.’
‘I shall speak to your brother,’ I said. ‘He has chartered this boat.’
‘Please yourself,’ said the shipmaster, jerking his thumb in the direction of the aft cabin before tugging his hat over his ears and turning his attention to the sailors still struggling with the rope.
‘Wait a moment, Nick,’ said Jack. ‘Don’t go storming in there. Think a moment. There is something very odd about where we find ourselves.’
‘How so? I’m going to give Dr Case a piece of my mind. He is responsible for . . . for luring us on board and plying us with drink until we were incapable of movement.’
‘Luring us? We had no responsibility at all for our plight, I suppose. But you are right even so, Nick. It is as if Dr Case deliberately set out to get us to accompany him back to this boat and then to cause us to stay on board after hours.’
I remembered that Case had seemed watchful yesterday evening while we were leaving the Middle Temple precincts, but I could not see how this would make him want our company. Unless . . .
My thoughts were interrupted by Jack’s tugging at my sleeve. He cast his eyes upward. We were standing in the shelter of what I later learned was called the aftercastle. There was a figure half protected by some housing at the far end who I assumed was the helmsman. But there was another figure by the railing at the near end, and he was staring at Jack and me, very intently, as if wondering what we were doing on the boat. He was dressed not like a mariner in a jerkin and slop-hose but well wrapped up in a cloak while his head was enveloped by a hood. Nevertheless, I sensed his eyes boring into us. After a moment, he turned away towards the stern of the boat.
‘Who was that?’
‘No idea,’ I said. ‘We must confront this doctor.’
Jack and I clattered down the steps and burst into the great cabin. There was no sign of Dr Case, but the door to the little inner cabin was ajar and, spurred by our anger and the sound of someone clearing his throat from within, we crowded to the door, which opened outward. The physician was half sitting, half lying on the bed, knees drawn up, a large book balanced on them. He looked up as if annoyed to be disturbed. The cabin was compact but the items in it – a bed, a stool, a chest that could double as a table – were neatly arranged. There was a casement window a couple of feet from the end of the bed. Perhaps the captain enjoyed waking up in the morning and seeing from the comfort of his bed the waters the boat had just crossed over. More than the furniture, it was the casement that gave an odd domestic note to this chamber, as though it was inside a cottage and not aboard a seagoing vessel.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Jonathan Case. ‘I am glad to see you have recovered from last night’s potations. It was impossible to make you stand up, let alone walk, indeed almost impossible to rouse you both. I thought players had harder heads. We might have, ah, deposited you on Botolph’s Wharf before we left but, considering the state you were in, I’m not sure you would have still been alive by daybreak. And even if you had been allowed to go on living, you would have been deprived of any items of value you were carrying, any items at all, in fact.’
This was all true enough. There are human rats on the wharfs as well as animal ones. But it didn’t satisfy me. I felt my anger sparking afresh, as Case delivered this meandering speech from the comfort of his bed. He was showing no ill effects from the previous evening, and the suspicion grew that he had plied us with drink while being abstemious himself.
‘So we had to take you down to the hold to sleep it off,’ he added. ‘No room in here. Yet you were better off in the hold than you would have been in the mariners’ quarters in the fo’c’s’le. Very squalid across there.’
I wondered about all those little sleeping nooks in the cabin which Case had demonstrated to us the previous evening, but there were other, more urgent protests to make.
‘Dr Case, you must tell the captain, tell your brother, to put into shore straight away so that we can disembark.’
‘Speak direct to my brother yourself,’ said the physician. ‘He is the captain, as you say. But I can imagine what his answer will be. Time and tide wait for no man . . .’
By now I felt almost murderous towards Case. Jack must have sensed this, for he put out a hand as if to restrain me.
‘Dr Case,’ said my friend, ‘I realize that we have brought this on ourselves, Nick and I, by being stupid enough to get blind drunk on board last night. But our company was sought by you, very pressingly, and we are your guests. Yet we are reluctant guests. Indeed, we have a livelihood to earn on land at this very instant—’
‘And you will be fined a shilling if you are late for rehearsals. Gentlemen, I will do what I can. We will likely have to put in for fresh water before we reach France and you may be put ashore then. Since I am partly responsible for where you find yourselves, I will write a letter to old Dick Burbage explaining the circumstances and pleading for you. I cannot say fairer than that.’
I wasn’t mollified, not at all. I did not like the idea of slinking back to London, bearing a letter which must make us look like a couple of greenhorns carried off to sea by mistake. I visualized myself tearing up the letter to ‘old Dick Burbage’ and scattering the pieces to the winds. Jack Wilson and I weren’t likely to lose our posts and nor would the King’s Men be seriously inconvenienced by our brief absence, since they were adept at filling holes. And even members of the leading company in the land are not obliged to behave well at all times; a few have found themselves in clink or disgrace for worse reasons t
han ours. Nevertheless, Jack and I would be the butt of plenty of jokes. Oddly, this was almost a more dire prospect than being ferried willy-nilly across to France. Better to pretend that we were voluntary absentees from our work.
Gravesend
In the event we never got to France. We never got further than Gravesend, which turned out to be appropriate, since one of our party was to meet his death there. The day, which had begun bright and sunny, turned foul. Black clouds massed overhead and rain swirled everywhere, obscuring the view of both banks. A vicious east wind snaked down the river. Far from going forward, we seemed at times to be going backward or not moving at all. Water was everywhere, above, around, below, and – most alarming of all – spurting freely through the decks and topsides (which I gathered was the name for the parts of the vessel that were above the waterline). At any moment I feared we might be overturned, although the sailors on the Argo seemed to regard the storm as little more than a spring shower.
Piercing through the noise of the wind and rain was the sound of the shipmaster’s whistle whenever Colin Case summoned the mariners to a particular part of the boat. He left it to a heavily bearded boatswain, whose name was Bennett, to issue most of the orders. This gentleman bellowed out instructions concerning topmasts and main courses. Every command was pushed home with the demand that the men do it yarely. It was all Greek to me – apart from the ‘yarely’, which is sailor-speak for ‘quick’ – but the men went at it like monkeys, tugging at ropes, climbing up masts, lowering the sails and cursing their heads off . . . cursing most of all.
Jack and I spent the day clinging to ropes or any fixed object on the deck, receiving our ration of oaths if we were in anyone’s way and sometimes when we weren’t. Some of the sailors not only sounded but looked threatening, carrying poles with hooks for some obscure nautical purpose. I observed that Henry Tallman, the black-garbed man, was still on the boat. We might have gone back to the great cabin, which is where Tallman and the shipmaster Colin Case spent some of their time, but neither Jack nor I had much desire to keep company with our fellow travellers, especially Dr Jonathan, whom I held responsible for our plight. Besides, the rocking of the boat stirred me up to fresh bouts of sickness – even though I could’ve sworn that not a particle of anything solid remained in my guts – and I preferred to suffer without unnecessary witnesses.
We tried taking shelter in the hold, where the wine barrels were stored and where we’d been deposited the previous night, but there was something about being shaken about in the dark that was worse than remaining out in the open. I also believed we weren’t alone down there. There were rats in the hold, scuttering and scurrying, but also a human presence. A dark shape in a corner. A mariner, perhaps, or another unfortunate individual being carried away from his homeland. I thought of the hooded figure I’d seen on the afterdeck, and I shivered from more than the cold and wet alone. Jack saw – or sensed – this individual, too, so to the deck we returned. To face the wind and the rain, a combination which reminded me of Feste’s song at the end of Twelfth Night – ‘the rain it raineth every day’ and all that – and caused me to wonder whether I’d ever again see my companions in the King’s Men, so low did I feel.
In the late afternoon we put in at Gravesend, where the river grows less wide and looks out to Tilbury on the northern side. Now I decided that, however unpleasant the bad weather, I preferred it a thousand times over to blue skies, since it had compelled us to put in at a port whereas, otherwise, we might have anchored offshore or by some desolate marshy stretch.
It took us some time and trouble to moor. The rough waters meant that we slammed into another boat as we were docking, or rather the other boat slammed into us. The jar threw Jack and me to the deck. It was a herring buss, I was told, also coming in to moor. The boat was smaller than ours, but with a great bowsprit. Canvas was stretched on hoops arching above the main deck presumably to protect the fish catch.
If I thought I’d heard enough of sailors’ curses before, I realized that it was as nothing to the torrent that swept between the Argo and the fishing boat as the men on each vessel struggled to push away from the other with staves and those vicious-looking hooked implements. Finally, we got ourselves clear of the herring buss and securely tied up to some mighty stakes that stood near the Gravesend wharf. A couple of precarious planks were stretched across the void between the bulwarks of the boat and the dock-side. Below was the turbulent river.
Speaking as if he had done us a favour, Dr Case said we would be able to return to London on the morrow. Of course, it was too late to travel now. He advised us to go by river on the so-called ‘long ferry’, since the route overland was dangerous on account of robbers, particularly in the area around Blackheath. He talked as if he had our best interests at heart. Yet I no longer trusted him, especially when he tried to press Jack Wilson to stay on board because it would be useful to have a French speaker to help him with his business in St-Malo. I recalled our laughter on the previous evening over Jack’s French aunt. Had we been tricked into remaining on the Argo solely in order that Jonathan Case might have a translator to accompany him?
We stayed on board that night and shared a supper with Case and others. He insisted we join him, as a small recompense for the trouble we had been put to. Even so, Jack and I drank very sparingly and we extracted a promise from Colin Case – despite his rough exterior, the captain seemed a more reasonable man than his brother – that they would not depart next morning without leaving us behind. He reassured us that high tide was not due until a couple of hours after sunrise.
I must describe the supper, since it has a bearing on what happened afterwards. Food and drink were brought across the precarious planks from a Gravesend ordinary, and we ate in the great cabin, sitting on the benches and resting our elbows on the table. The food and drink were served by the lad I’d stopped on deck. Looking at him more closely, I realized that he was closer to man than lad, despite his smooth and downy features. Attending at supper apart from Jack and me there were the Case brothers and Henry Tallman, the fellow with the appearance of a puritan and the shoe buckles of a man of fashion. I’d seen no sign of cousin Thomasina and assumed she’d quit the boat at London Bridge. Nor had I glimpsed again the hooded figure seen on the aftercastle and, perhaps, below deck.
The mood of the meal was argumentative from the start. Colin Case and Henry Tallman came in from enjoying a smoke on deck and, their pipes scarcely stowed away, were met with a comment from Jonathan Case that smoking was a filthy habit. Furthermore, it was a habit that had incurred the displeasure of their sovereign. Did they not know that King James was the author of an anonymous pamphlet that had recently been circulating in London, called A Counterblast to Tobacco? Tallman yawningly indicated that he was aware of it, while Colin laughed either at his brother or at the King’s opinion or both. Dr Case took even more offence and made some pompous remark about James being well within his rights to pronounce on the bad habits of his subjects as he was the ‘physician of the body politic’.
Then there was some bad-tempered discussion between the brothers over how long the weather would detain them. Jonathan wanted to proceed as soon and as fast as possible, while Colin pointed out that they were at the mercy of wind and tide.
‘I have heard that there is a sure way to raise a favourable wind,’ said Jonathan Case. ‘You must drown a cat.’
‘Then you will have to catch one in Gravesend,’ said Colin Case. ‘Lay a hand on Gog and Magog and I will lay both hands on you.’
Gog and Magog? I was baffled by this reference to the two giant figures carried in London processions until Colin made a comment on their ratting skills and I realized he was talking about the ship’s cats.
‘Well, maybe I will go catch a cat in Gravesend,’ said Dr Jonathan before adding, with a relish that caused me to shudder inwardly, ‘and drown it in a bucket.’
‘Rather than kill a cat, maybe my brother could use the influence of his magic stone to get favourable
weather,’ said Captain Case to the rest of us.
‘Oh, I have heard of this magic stone,’ said Henry Tallman. ‘It originated in the polar regions, did it not?’
It was plain that Jonathan Case was unwilling to answer. This was most likely the reason Tallman pressed him further, saying, ‘Won’t you show it to us, Dr Case? I understand it is in this very chamber.’
Jonathan glanced automatically at the cabinet and its weird detector lock before looking daggers at his brother for raising the subject. Even so, I could see that he was half tempted by the chance of showing off what he’d called ‘the sky-stone’ once more. He sighed but nevertheless reached for his keys and went across to the cabinet. Stooping, he was about to insert the key into the lock when he suddenly straightened and whirled around. The expression on his face was somewhere between fury and panic.
‘Someone has been tampering with this. The lady’s finger points at forty. Someone has opened the cabinet.’
He looked at our four faces as if one of us might have been responsible. I could vouch for Jack and me, although I didn’t know about Captain Case or Henry Tallman. While Dr Case jabbed at the keyhole with the key – failing several times on account of his angry state – I recalled that the extended arm of the dancing lady had indicated the number thirty-nine on the dial. If it was now reading forty, then the cabinet must have been opened. Unless Jonathan Case had done it himself and somehow forgotten.
By now the physician had succeeded in turning the key in the lock. He scrabbled blindly inside until his hand closed on something. He brought out the satin-swathed item he’d deposited there the previous evening. He unwrapped it and brought the contents close to his eyes. He pored over its surface. To me it looked very like the sky-stone. Case’s shoulders slumped in relief. An involuntary ‘Thank God’ escaped his lips. It was the sky-stone.
He carried the dark stone back to where we were sitting. He was reluctant to let it out of his hands but allowed Mr Tallman to hold it for a few instants. This black-clad individual weighed it in his palm before holding it up so that he could study its outline. I was still unable to decide whether it most resembled a bird or a boat. I noticed Colin Case looking curiously at it. Tallman sniffed at the sky-stone. He, too, scanned its surface.
The Sacred Stone Page 32