by Maryk Lewis
they approached him he proved willing to find a tune that would suit them.
Rehearsals were a problem for everybody. Where could one go to be out of sight and hearing on a crowded ship? The cabin passengers had the privacy of their cabins, provided they could rehearse in the severely restricted space. Most others could only practice in the walkways near their bunks, overlooked by all those accommodated nearby. It had to be accepted that some people would have seen and heard the items from their hold before they were put on in the concert, but at least everything produced elsewhere on the ship would be completely new.
To give little Matilda Earnshaw a breath of fresh air in the humid conditions, her cot was taken out and hung in the rigging, leaving only David to be disturbed by any goings on in the hospital flat. He was pleased to have people there, and something to watch. After all, he would not be able to attend the concert itself.
Sarah and Jess, with their new friend and his fiddle, set themselves up in a cleared space between the cots. Sarah had to watch her head on the beams supporting the poop deck. Jess was not faced with that problem. The restriction caused them to arrange the jig differently to the way they had learned it at home, a thing all to the good, because it then was better suited to the way they would have to perform it at the concert anyway.
During the day others begged the use of the hospital flat for their rehearsals, so that David had a nice selection of entertainments to console him for missing out on the main event.
“Could I recite my poem for Mr Selkirk?” a small girl asked, and started a procession that went on for more than an hour.
The concert was given that evening with the forehatch set up as a stage. The deck on both sides and behind it became the stalls for the steerage passengers, while the roof of the deck housing became the dress circle for the officers and the cabin class. Crewmen settled themselves in the rigging, where they could also keep watch on the lanterns hung to throw light on the performers. A three-quarter moon bathed the ship with its soft glow.
After ‘God Save the Queen’ had been sung, with all standing, a small choir delivered some rousing Scottish airs, and then the Gordon sisters provided the very next item. They were scheduled early to encourage those who would come after.
To the first deep note from the violin they bowed to their audience. Then Jess leapt away to the first set, and Sarah followed in perfect time behind her. Their dancing pumps slapped down on the tight canvas of the hatch covers, beating out a staccato rhythm, tap-tap, tap-tap. Side to side, and back and forth they went, their feet flashing to the joyful squealing of the fiddle. Instead of side by side, the narrow hatch cover forced them to thread the figures with Sarah behind Jess, a configuration actually better suited to the difference in their sizes.
Round and round, and to and fro they whirled in the light of the lanterns. Slap, slap went their feet, beating out an hypnotic rhythm which had their audience spellbound.
Before them, and to either side, a sea of upturned faces, pale in the lantern light, stood out against an ocean of dark water. The moon drew glints from the wave crests, a dancing chorus, line on shifting line all the way back to the horizon.
The music built up to the concluding figure, played through it, and went on into the opening figure again. Their accompanist hadn’t stopped. He should have. That was the finish of the dance. Not for them, though. They’d picked themselves a real Irish musician, and he knew when the audience wanted more. This audience did. They loved it. The sisters could do nothing but respond, and on and on they went, hammering out the compulsive beat on the kettledrum hatch cover.
When the fiddle player finally allowed them to stop spinning and clattering at the end of their second conclusion, their hearts were beating, and their lungs were heaving, so much that the world started to go black as they dipped to salute their audience. The ship erupted with clapping, and cheering, and shrill whistling, as though passengers and crew sought to wake folk sleeping back in England.
The girls brought out their fiddle player to share the applause, all three bowing together, and then they slipped away over the side of the hatch to allow the Master of Ceremonies, Mr Rutherford, to introduce the next item.
“That was grand,” their accompanist whispered to them.
“It would be nowt without your lovely playing,” Sarah returned.
Around the back of the crowd on the deck house roof they found Gil and his children perched on a boom which had been lashed crosswise to the ship to provide extra seating. They were huddled together, with Phyllis on Gil’s knee. Laurie hopped down to let Sarah have his place, whereupon she took him on her knee. People on the other side of Gil shifted along a little to let Jess wriggle in next to him.
After a while Jess began to find it difficult to keep her balance on the beam. Some of the folk were straining to see over the heads in front. An amateur magician was producing paper flowers out of a hat, seemingly more than could ever fit into it. The beam wobbled.
Frightened of falling off, she thought Gil wouldn’t mind if she put her arm around his waist to steady herself. To her surprise, she found that Sarah’s arm was already there. Taking a quick peek over her shoulder, she saw that Gil’s other arm, almost invisible in the darkness, was around Sarah.
“Oh, oh,” she thought, wondering if anybody else had noticed.
Andy was clinging to the ratlines a little to one side of them. He had noticed all right. He gave her a knowing grin, and winked.
Twenty One
Coming off watch in the morning, Andy noticed several fish swimming in the shadow of the ship. He was trying unsuccessfully to get one to take his bait, when ripples coming to them across the waves heralded the arrival of the wind. It was the wrong wind, unfortunately, to take them the way they wanted to go, too light to head up into it, but at least any wind was better than none.
School started up again, with everybody feeling much happier.
Later the wind backed, and settled to a steady north-easter which lasted them for several days. During that time they saw their first ship since clearing the Irish coast. The barque ‘Esmeralda’, a four-masted ship out of Liverpool, came up from astern, and passed close to them.
Everybody came out and lined the gunwales to windward, the side on which the other ship was passing. Her captain had already recognised the ‘Haldia’ for an immigrant ship, and chose to pass on that side, knowing that the weight of all the ‘Haldia’s passengers would suddenly be thrown on one side of the ship, and that side must not be to leeward.
On the other ship there were only a dozen or so people who appeared to be passengers, and they gathered along the weather side of their deck housing, waving. Her crew either manned their stations, or stayed to windward. She was a much bigger ship than the ‘Haldia’, nearly half as long again, and her mountain of sail was pushing her along at a rate the smaller ship could not possibly match.
Both captains shouted to each other across the gap. They used bullhorns, so their words carried plainly. The other ship was bound for Hong Kong with a cargo of woollen goods, metal tools, and machinery. As she passed ahead of them, her captain’s good wishes mixed with the wind shadow she left in her wake. The ‘Haldia’ dipped and shivered, before surging ahead again.
Spanish fishing boats were another sighting, though far off, and there was no communication with them. Somehow, just by being there, they made the world seem less empty.
On good days they made more than two hundred miles, say three hundred and twenty kilometres. That worst day, following the storm, had taken them only about forty miles, and most of that was due to the current in the ocean.
Each day, while the wind held, was a close copy of the day before, except on Sundays. There was no school on Sundays, although the crew went about their routines almost as usual, interrupted only by the Captain’s Sunday School, and the two church services. The other exception was the crew’s make and mend. In their watch on, instead of cleaning ship, they cleaned their own quarters, and were allowed to do their washing
, or any repairs of their personal gear that might be needed. Afterwards the doctor and the first mate conducted a very thorough inspection of what they had done. Great importance was placed on keeping everything shipshape during long voyages.
Saturdays were cleaning days for the passengers. Their quarters had to be scrubbed out, bedding aired, and all their stores inspected. That too was a time when the doctor and the mate went around together poking into everything.
Apart from those things, there were issues of the ship’s newspaper every Wednesday, concerts to look forward to every five or six days, and games or competitions every afternoon.
Card games were very popular with some passengers, but not with others. To several of the Scottish immigrants cards were an invention of the Devil; tickets to Hell. They disapproved of cards at any time, but Captain Hedley would only meet their wishes to the extent of banning cards on Sundays.
Two young men were caught playing cards in their quarters on the second Sunday out, and hauled up before the captain. Had they been crew their punishment would have been dealt out by the boatswain. As passengers it fell to the constables, and with one of the miscreants coming from each watch, the natural thing would have been for each constable to deal with his own. However, the very man who had reported