There's more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying went.
If he couldn't easily get the money for his first-class voyage, why not go direct to the source of all voyages? So it was that he found himself walking the wharfs of Manhattan, along the Hudson and the East River. It was entertaining in its own right, the long, sleek sailing ships, the clunky, smoky steamers, the stevedores shouting and grunting and sweating, the cranes swinging, the ropes and pulleys and nets, the stink of fish and the bawling of the gulls. Who would have guessed, when he was a boy rowdying in a millhouse in Vigor Church, that one day he would be here on the edge of the land, drinking in the liquorous scents and sounds and sights of the life of the sea.
Calvin wasn't one to get lost in reverie and contemplation, though. He had his eye out for the right ship, and from time to time stopped to ask a stevedore of a loading ship what the destination might be. Those as were bound for Africa or Haiti or the Orient were no use to him, but them with European destinations got a thorough looking-over. Until at last he found the right one, a bright and tall-masted English ship with a captain of some breeding who didn't seem to raise his voice at all, though all the men did his will, working hard and working smart under his eye. Everything was clean, and the cargo included trunks and parcels carefully loaded up the ramp instead of being tossed around carelesslike.
Naturally, the captain wouldn't think of talking to a boy Calvin's age, wearing Calvin's clothes. But it wasn't hard for Calvin to think of a plan to get the captain's attention.
He walked up to one of the stevedores and said, “Scuse me, sir, but there's a sharp leak a-going near the back of the boat, on the further side.”
The stevedore looked at him oddly. “I'm not a sailor.”
“Neither am I, but I think the captain'll thank them as warns him of the problem.”
“How can you see it, if it's under the water?”
“Got a knack for leaks,” said Calvin. “I'd hurry and tell him, if I were you.”
Saying it was a knack was enough for the stevedore, him being an American, even if he was a Dutchman by his accent. The captain, of course, wouldn't care diddly about knacks, being an Englishman, which under the Protectorate had a law against knacks. Not against having them, just against believing they existed or attempting to use them. But the captain was no fool, and he'd send somebody to check, knack or no knack.
Which is how it happened. The stevedore talking to his foreman; the foreman to some ship's officer; each time there was a lot of pointing at Calvin and staring at him as he nonchalantly whistled and looked down at the waterline of the ship. To Calvin's disappointment, the officer didn't go to the captain, but instead sent a sailor downstairg into the dark cellar of the ship. Calvin had to provide something for him to see, so now he sent out his doodlebug and got into the wood, right where he'd said the leak was. It was a simple thing to let the planks get just a Jittle loose and out of position under the waterline, which sent a goodly stream of water spurting into the cellar of the ship. Just for the fun of it, when he figured the sailor must be down there looking at it, Calvin opened and closed the gap, so the leak was sometimes a fine spray, sometimes a gush of water, and sometimes just a trickle. Like blood seeping from a wound with an intermittent tourniquet. Bet he never saw no leak like that before, thought Calvin.
Sure enough, in a few minutes the sailor was back, acting all agitated, and now the officer barked orders to several seamen, then went straight to the captain. This time, though, there wasn't no finger-pointing. The officer wasn't going to give Calvin none of the credit for finding the leak. That really got Calvin's goat, and for a minute he thought of sinking the boat then and there. But that wouldn't do him no good. Time enough to put that greedy ambitious officer in his place.
When the captain went below, Calvin put on a fine show for him. Instead of causing one leak to spurt and pulse, Calvin shifted the leak from one place to another– a gush here, a gush there. By now it had to be obvious that there wasn't nothing natural about that leak. There was a good deal of stirring on the deck, and a lot of sailors started rushing below. Then, to Calvin's delight, a fair number started rushing back onto the deck and onto the gangplank, heading for dryland where there wasn't no strange powers causing leaks in the boat.
Finally the captain came on deck, and this time the officer wasn't taking all the credit for himself. He pointed to the foreman, who pointed to the stevedore, and pretty soon they were all pointing at Calvin.
Now, of course, Calvin could stop fiddling with the leak. He stopped it cold. But he wasn't done. As the captain headed for the gangplank, Calvin sent his bug to seek out all the nearby rats that he could sense lurking under the wharf and among the crates and barrels and on the other ships. By the time the captain got halfway down the gangplank, a couple of dozen rats were racing up the very same bridge, heading for the ship. The captain tried in vain to shoo them back, but Calvin had filled them with courage and grim determination to reach the deck– food, food, Calvin was promising them– and they merely dodged and went on. Dozens more were streaming across the planking of the pier, and the captain was fairly dancing to avoid tripping on rats and falling on his face. On deck, sailors with mops and bowling pins were striking at the rats, trying to knock or sweep them off into the sea.
Then, as suddenly as he had launched the rats, Calvin sent them a new message: Get off this ship. Fire, fire. Leaks. Drowning. Fear.
Squealing and scurrying, all the rats that he had sent aboard came rushing back down the gangplank and all the lines and cables connecting the ship to the shore. And all the rats that had already been aboard, lurking in the cargo hold and in the dark wet cellar and in the hidden caves in the joints and beams of the ship, they also gushed up out of the hatches and portholes like water bubbling out of a new spring. The captain stopped cold to watch them leave. Finally, when all the rat traffic had disappeared into their hiding places on the wharf and the other ships, the captain turned toward Calvin and strode to him. Through it all the man had never lost his dignity– even while dancing to avoid the rats. My kind of man, thought Calvin. I must watch him to learn how gentlemen behave.
“How did you know there was a leak on my ship?” asked the captain.
“You're an Englishman,” said Calvin. “You don't believe in what I can see and do.”
“Nevertheless, I believe in what I can see, and there was nothing natural about that leak.”
“I'd say them rats might have been doing it. Good thing for you they all left your ship.”
“Rats and leaks,” said the captain. “What do you want, boy?”
“I want to be called a man, sir,” said Calvin. “Not a boy.”
“Why do you wish harm to me and my ship? Has someone of my crew done you an offense?”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” said Calvin. “I reckon you're not such a fool as to blame the one as told you you had a leak.”
“I'm also not such a fool as to think you knew of anything you didn't have the power to cause or cure at will. Were the rats your doing as well?”
I was as surprised as you were by their behavior," said Calvin. "Didn't seem natural, all them rats rushing onto a sinking ship. But then they seemed to come to their senses and leave again. Every single rat, I daresay. Now, that would be an interesting voyage, wouldn't it– to cross the ocean without any loss of your food supply to the nibbling of rats."
“What do you want from me?” asked the captain.
“I stopped to do you a favor, with no thought of benefit to my own self,” said Calvin, trying to sound like an educated Englishman and knowing from the expression on the captain's face that he was failing pathetically. “But it happens that I am in need of first-class passage to Europe.”
The captain smiled thinly. “Why in the world would you want to book passage on a leaking ship?”
“But sir,” said Calvin, “I've got a sort of knack for spotting leaks. And I can promise you that if I were aboard your ship, during
the whole voyage there'd be not a single leak, even in the stoutest storm.” Calvin had no idea whether he could keep a ship tight during all the stresses of a storm at sea, but odds were that he'd never have to find out, either.
“Correct me if I'm wrong,” said the captain, “but am I to guess that if I take you on my ship, first class, without your paying a farthing, I'll find no problem with leaks and not a rat on my ship? While if I refuse, I'll find my ship at the bottom of the harbor?”
“That would be a rare disaster,” said Calvin. “How could such a well-made ship possibly sink faster than your boys could pump?”
“I saw how the leak moved from place to place. I saw how strangely the rats behaved. I may not believe in your American knacks, but I know when I'm in the presence of unaccountable power.”
Calvin felt pride flush through his body like ale.
Suddenly he felt the barrel of a pistol just under his breastbone. He looked down to see that the captain had somehow come up with a weapon.
“What's to stop me from blowing a hole in your belly?” asked the captain.
“The likelihood of your dancing on the end of an American rope,” said Calvin. “There ain't no law against knacks here, sir, and saying that somebody was doing witchery ain't cause enough to kill him the way it is in England.”
“But it's to England you're going,” said the captain. “What's to stop me from taking you on my ship, then having you arrested the moment you step ashore?”
“Nothing,” said Calvin. “You could do that. You could even kill me in my sleep during the voyage and cast my body overboard into the sea, telling all the others that you had to dispose of the body of a plague victim as quickly as possible. You think I'm a fool, not to think of that stuff?”
“So go away and leave me and my ship alone.”
“If you killed me, what would keep the planks from pulling free of the beams of your boat? What would stop your boat from turning into scraps of lumber bobbing on the water?”
The captain eyed him curiously.
“First-class passage is ludicrous for you. The other first-class passengers would snub you at once, and no doubt they'd assume I'd brought you aboard as my catamite. It would ruin my career anyway, to permit an uncouth, unlettered ruffian like you to sail among my gentle passengers. To put it plainly, young master, you may have power over rats and planks, but you have none over rich men and women.”
“Teach me,” said Calvin.
“There aren't enough hours in the day or days in the week.”
“Teach me,” said Calvin again.
“You come here threatening me with destruction of my ship by the evil powers of Satan, and then dare to ask me to teach you to be a gentleman?”
“If you believed my powers were from the devil,” said Calvin, “then why didn't you once say a prayer to ward me off?”
The captain glared at him for a moment, then smiled, grimly but not without genuine mirth. “Touche,” he said.
“Whatever the devil that means,” said Calvin.
“It's a fencing term,” said the captain.
“I must've put up ten miles of fences in my life,” said Calvin. “Post and rail, stone, wire, and, picket, every kind, and I never heard of no tooshay.”
The captain's smile broadened. “There is something attractive in your challenge. You may have some interesting… what do you call them… knacks? But you're still a poor boy from the farm. I've taken many a peasant lad and turned him into a first-rate seaman. But I've never taken a boy who wasn't a gentleman born and turned him into something that could pass for civilized.”
“Consider me the challenge of your life.”
“Oh, believe me, I already do. I haven't altogether decided not to kill you, of course. But it seems to me that since you mean to cause me trouble anyway, why not accept the challenge and see if I can work a miracle just as inexplicable and impossible as any of the nasty pranks you've played an me this morning?”
“First class, not steerage,” Calvin insisted.
The captain shook his head. “Neither one. You'll travel as my cabin boy. Or rather, my cabin boy's boy. Rafe is a good three years younger than you, I imagine, but he knows from birth all that you are so desperate to learn. With you to help him, perhaps he'll have enough free time to teach you. And I'll oversee you both. On several conditions, though.”
Calvin didn't see as how the captain was in much of a position to set conditions, but he listened civil-like all the same.
“No matter what powers you have, survival at sea depends on instant and perfect obedience from everyone on board the ship. Obedience to me. You know nothing of the sea and I gather you don't care about learning seamanship, either. So you will do nothing that interferes with my authority. And you will obey me yourself. That means that when I say piss, you don't even look for a pot, you just whip it out and pee.”
“In front of others, I'll do a fine show of obedience, unless you command me to kill myself or some such foolishness.”
“I'm not a fool,” said the captain,
“All right, I'll do like you say.”
“And you'll keep your mouth shut until you learn– in private– to talk in some way approximating gentlemanly speech. Right now if you open your mouth you confess your low origins and you will embarrass yourself and me in front of my crew and the other officers and passengers.”
“I know how to keep my mouth shut when I need to.”
“And when you reach England, our deal is done and you leave no curse on my ship.”
“Now you've asked too much,” said Calvin. “What I need is your introduction to other high-class people. And passage to France.”
“To France! Aren't you aware that England is at war with France?”
“You have been ever since Napoleon conquered Austria and Spain. What's that to me?”
“In other words, reaching England doesn't mean I'll be rid of you.”
“That's right,” said Calvin.
“So why don't I just kill myself now and spare myself all this adventure before you send me to an early grave?”
“Because them as is my friends will prosper in this world and there ain't nothing much bad that can happen to them.”
“And all I have to do is maintain my status as your friend, is that it?”
Calvin nodded.
“But someday, isn't it going to occur to you that if the only reason I'm kind to you is out of terror that you'll destroy my ship, I'm not really your friend at all?”
Calvin smiled. “That just means you'll have to try extra hard to convince me that you really mean it.”
The officer who had first heard Calvin's message now approached the captain diffidently. “Captain Fitzroy,” he said. “The leaking seems to have stopped, sir.”
“I know,” said the captain.
“Thank you sir,” said the officer.
“Get everyone back to work, Benson,” said the captain.
“Some of the American stevedores and sailors won't get back on that ship no matter what we say, sir.”
“Pay them off and hire others,” said the captain. “That will be all, Benson.”
“Yes sir.” Benson turned around and headed back toward the gangplank.
Calvin, in the meantime, had heard the air of crisp command in Captain Fitzroy's voice and wondered how a man could learn to use his voice like a sharp hot knife, slicing through other men's will like warm butter.
“I would say you've already caused me more trouble than you're worth,” said Captain Fitzroy. “And I personally doubt that you have it in you to learn to be a gentleman, though heaven knows there are plenty that have the title who are every bit as ignorant and boorish as you. But I will accept your coercive agreement, in part because I find you fascinating as well as despicable.”
“I don't know what all them words mean, Captain Fitzroy, but I know this– Taleswapper once told us how when kings have bastards, the babies get the last name 'Fitzroy.' So no matter what I am, your
name says you're a son of a bitch.”
“In my case, the great-great-grandson of a bitch. The second Charles sowed his wild oats. My great-great-grandmother, a noted actress of semi-noble origins, entered into a liaison with him and managed to get her child recognized as royal before the parliament deprived him of his head. My family has had its ups and downs since the end of the monarchy, and there have been Lords Protector who thought that our association with the royal family made us dangerous. But we managed to survive and even, in recent years, prosper. Unfortunately, I'm the younger son of a younger son, so I had the choice of the church or the army or the sea. Until meeting you, I did not regret my choice. Do you have a name, my young extortionist?”
“Calvin,” he said.
“And are you of such a benighted family that you have but the one name to spend as your patrimony?”
“Maker,” said Calvin. “Calvin Maker.”
“How deliciously vague. Maker. A general term that can be construed in many ways while promising no particular skill. A Calvin of all trades. And master of none?”
“Master of rats,” said Calvin, smiling. “And leaks.”
“As we have seen,” said Captain Fitzroy. “I will have your name enrolled as part of the ship's company. Have your gear aboard by nightfall.”
“If you have someone follow me to kill me, your ship–”
“Will dissolve into sawdust, yes, the threat has already been made,” said Fitzroy. “Now you only have to worry about how much I actually care for my ship.”
With that, Fitzroy turned his back on Calvin and headed up the gangplank. Calvin almost made him slip and take a pratfall, just to pierce that dignity. But there was a limit, he knew, to how far he could push this man. Especially since Calvin hadn't the slightest idea how to carry out his threat to make the ship fall apart if they killed him. Either he could make the ship leak or stop leaking, but either way he had to be there and alive to do it. If Fitzroy ever realized that his worst threats were pure bluff, how long would he let Calvin live?
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