Silver
Page 34
Throughout our long voyage together I had avoided questioning myself about my feelings for Natty—fearing, as I have said, that it would lead me to conclusions I could not easily bear, because I could not easily act on them. Now that our adventure seemed almost finished, I indulged myself a little—by wondering whether I might lose all connection with her after we had returned to London. The thought was unendurable. I had loved her from the moment I first saw her, despite the silence I had kept. The sights we shared on our journey to Treasure Island; the revulsion we had both felt when we discovered the stockade; my jealousy of Scotland; my dread when she disappeared; my astonishment and delight when she kissed me: all these things had torn my heart open, and allowed her to occupy it. This very evening her descriptions of her imprisonment had seemed particular to me, because they allowed me to suffer with her; they had drawn me even closer to her.
Did Natty feel the same? The time for such a question would come later, I told myself, if it came at all—when we were safely home. For all that, it made me very glad when I suggested we might retire and, instead of giving me one of her cold stares, or insisting she wanted the chance to reflect on things alone, she rose very willingly, and took my hand as we walked across the deck together. It was only a short distance, but a slow and zigzag journey, since we had to pick our way carefully among the sleeping forms of our friends—some folded for warmth in one another’s arms, others lying apart and straight like corpses. When I reached the head of the companionway, I felt we had traveled a long way together.
Before disappearing belowdecks to our cabin, I looked about me for the last time. The moon had appeared again, and a breeze was sliding in from seaward, very much weaker than on previous nights, but enough to stir the trees on the island: their shiver was like water running over pebbles—very easy and gentle, which I took to be a good omen. The sky, too, now seemed to be promising an easy passage when we set sail the next day. The clouds we had seen around sunset were beginning to lift—although outlined by a distinctly greenish light, such as you might find in a sea cave.
I was about to point this out to Natty, when a voice called from the crow’s nest above us, giving the beautiful old sea-cry of the watch: “Twelve of the clock and all’s well.” It was Mr. Stevenson, who had been keeping guard while we were thinking and talking. We returned him a friendly greeting and then went below, still without the least sense of foreboding.
36
Storm Coming
OUR PLAN NEXT morning was for all our passengers and some of the crew to remain on board, while the rest of us formed what we called “the silver party”: our task was to transport the treasure from the White Rock onto the Nightingale by using the jolly-boat. It was strenuous work, but we never felt it. Neither did we care when the weather took a turn for the worse. We noticed the wind blowing colder and the waves cutting up more choppily—but stuck to our labor.
When each load of treasure came on board, it was solemnly carried belowdecks to the captain’s cabin, where Mr. Tickle’s piece joined it and everything was neatly stacked. This storage involved almost half a dozen trips, so that in the end our hoard was the size of a basking shark, which in general outline it somewhat resembled, and also in color, being mostly a dull greenish gray. Although I joined several of these journeys, and was willing to take charge of the key to the captain’s cabin, as Bo’sun Kirkby wanted me to do, I cannot say I felt any pleasure in the work. The weight of every bar dragged at my spirits, no matter how often I reminded myself that wealth would make life easier for us all.
When we had finished our work at last, another party returned to the island charged with the task of collecting more fresh food and water for our journey. They went carefully and armed since, despite my continued assurances, they feared the slavers might take this last opportunity to attack them. But on their return they admitted the most frightening sound they had heard was a sort of prickly silence—which had made them feel that perhaps they were being watched, or even haunted.
I insisted once again: our enemies had chosen to live as Robinson Crusoes, and would hope for rescue by a ship that did not know their crimes as we did. Although I said this thinking their decision was perfectly reasonable (in the sense that it could easily be justified), it shocked me nonetheless. With no shelter left in the stockade, and only one another for company, and the vegetation creeping back day after day, and the continuous pounding of surf in their ears and the scalding of sun on their heads, the future of these new maroons seemed very desperate. For my own part, I should have preferred England and the gibbet.
For this reason, it did not entirely surprise me that they decided to show themselves one final time, before we left them to their solitude. This sad episode began when Bo’sun Kirkby blew his whistle and gave orders that some of our crew must begin raising our anchor, while others should climb into the rigging and set our mainsails and topsails. As was customary, the first of these operations encouraged the singing of an old stave—which was akin to the chant they had made when we left London.
Raise the anchor yarely, boys,
Haul away;
Fresh the wind and smooth the sea,
Hip hooray.
Raise the anchor quickly, boys,
Haul away;
Wives and lassies are no more,
Well-a-day.
Just as I was thinking it was strange this song should bear so little resemblance to actual circumstances (our crew being in a place notably without wives and lassies), a hideous howling rose from the trees skirting the Anchorage. Several of us, including me and Natty, ran to the stern so that we could see what might be causing such a terrible lamentation—which was really as desolate as the grief of a suffering animal.
We soon had our explanation. No sooner was the anchor hanging at the bows, and the topsails creaking overhead, than the slavers we had marooned came bursting onto the shore of the Anchorage beyond the White Rock, still screaming at the tops of their lungs. I counted all eight of those who had fled from us the previous day, their clothes already very soiled by their concealment in the jungle, and their hair flying untidily about their faces. At first I thought they must have changed their minds about the benefits of isolation, and were begging to be taken home to face justice. But I was mistaken. Thanks to the violent waving of their arms, and oaths that reached me in snatches, I soon realized they were not piteously crying for our return, but instead furiously dismissing us—to hell, if at all possible.
My shipmates found their rumpus entertaining, and replied with loud shouts of laughter and the opinion that hell might be rather closer to Treasure Island, where they remained, than it was to England, where we were bound. No doubt they felt able to reply so confidently because by now the Nightingale was turning in the current, and moving further away from the shore with every passing second. It did strike me, however, that heaven itself might agree with all of us on board, since our sails began to draw more strongly, and our speed to increase, precisely as the slavers made clear their wishes for our future. My last sight of them was all eight lifting their shirts and coattails, or lowering their tattered trousers if they wore such things, and showing us their behinds—as if they were already part monkey, and might be preparing to clamber into the trees that provided the backdrop for their performance.
I kept my place in the stern long after they had disappeared behind the bulk of Skeleton Island; although I had not expected to fall into a reverie at such a moment, I could not help reflecting that my departure from Treasure Island was very unlike anything I had expected. Instead of congratulating myself on how well I had completed the work begun by my father, or on how I had gained wisdom through suffering, or on how I had learned a lesson in love, I thought instead about the persistence of evil, and the thousand ways in which we are likely to be disappointed when we look for a better world. To contemplate this truth after witnessing such a strange spectacle made me smile, but it felt no less urgent for its association with something ridiculous.
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sp; When I had dwelled for long enough on these miserable conclusions, which was only a minute or two, I turned to thinking how remarkable it was that no decision had yet been taken about who should be called Captain of the Nightingale. Instead, we had silently agreed that every necessary end would be reached by common consent, as if our ship were a little republic. Bo’sun Kirkby continued with the duties he knew well, which included manning the wheel. Mr. Tickle gave orders about the setting of sails. And in consultation with them both, Natty and I decided which course we should take, with Mr. Stevenson high in the rigging above us, calling down information and opinion as he thought fit. Matters involving the well-being of the Negroes were resolved by what I can only call a natural process—with some of them lending a hand about the ship, and others seizing the opportunity to do what they most needed—which was to sleep, and so begin recovering their health and strength. If this way of organizing our existence sounds utopian, I cannot apologize for it.
Because I now wished I had never visited Treasure Island, I felt a strong need to watch it disappear over the horizon. Two miles offshore, I was able to catch the entire shape in a single glance: the black cliffs at the northern end, where I had walked with the captain; the ridge of high ground along the center, climbing to the blunt summit of Spyglass Hill; and the sloping shoulder to the south, which ran toward the ruins of the stockade. I thought again of how my father had said it resembled a dragon rearing onto its hind legs, and realized he must have arrived at this comparison by staring at the map. From the angle I saw it, which was at sea level in the fitful light of late afternoon, its silhouette appeared to be the jagged mouth of a cave, in which a person might shelter from the bare sky and the bare sea—and from which they might never escape. A cave that led to the underworld, in fact.
Only when this silhouette had shrunk from being such a cave, and had become a whale, then an eye, then a splinter, did it seem safe to turn my back. As I did so, believing it would be for the last time, I preferred to think the island had not simply disappeared, but had sunk down with all its stones and trees and plants and animals until it rested on the bottom of the sea, where it would soon become sand and mud.
By this time we were less than an hour from sunset and bowling along nicely, sailing into the Caribbean Sea, with the wind directly astern and our sails full. Such smooth progress had begun to make me think that organizing a ship must be very easy, and was only made to seem difficult by men who needed to add to their authority by surrounding it with mysteries. If I had known better, I would also have understood that the greenish light I had noticed twenty-four hours earlier, and now saw burning more intensely around the fringes of a few high clouds, indicated our steady progress would not continue much longer.
The first sign that all might not be well was a sudden lowering of the sky ahead and a strange contortion in the air, as if it had been snatched and twisted like a sheet. Mr. Tickle, who had climbed into the rigging to chat with Mr. Stevenson about how soon they would be drinking in London, shouted down a warning I did not hear, because our sails had suddenly begun floundering in a series of loud wallops and shudders. The instant they saw this, and without waiting for orders, several of our shipmates, including Mr. Creed and Mr. Lawson, scrambled up the rigging to help Mr. Tickle collapse most of our canvas; very soon there was only a single topsail in place. When they had done this, and scuttled down onto the deck again, Mr. Tickle came to the roundhouse, where Natty and I had already taken shelter. Here he explained what had occurred. The wind had entirely changed direction and was now blowing directly into our faces; we noticed as he said this that the temperature of the air had dropped several degrees, and was laced with threads of rain.
I forget how Mr. Tickle ended his speech exactly—his words were probably as simple as “Storm coming.” But I knew from the stoniness of his face that it would not be an ordinary kind of blow. For all this, I did not hesitate when he asked me to come forward with him, so that we could stand together in the prow of the ship, where he would show me what he had seen. I almost wished he had not. The wind was already so powerful we both had to bend double as we went along the deck, and the noise in the rigging was like the shriek of the banshee. When we reached as far as the long nine, I found something more alarming still. The whole sky ahead had been turned into a colossal slab of slate—and apparently weighed as much as slate; where it met the sea, waves were buckling into monstrous troughs and peaks, all of them flicked by the raw light of the setting sun.
“What is it, Mr. Tickle?” I said—and then, when he did not answer, shouted, in order to make myself heard above the wind: “What does it mean?”
This time he heard but ignored me, and instead glanced back to where those of our passengers who were strong enough to remain on deck, and all our shipmates, had gathered around Bo’sun Kirkby at the wheel. Every one of them was staring in astonishment. Natty too. Her face was pressed to a circular window of the roundhouse as if she had been turned into a ghost.
“I reckon that’s a hurricane,” Mr. Tickle shouted to me at last—which was only what I had already guessed. For all that, his saying the word aloud seemed to galvanize him from the trance into which he had briefly fallen. Bellowing loudly, he summoned Mr. Lawson and Mr. Creed to come forward again, which they did with great difficulty—and then the two of them swung precariously into the rigging. Seeing them hang there, with hair tousled around their faces, and clothes blustered, made me think of flies in a cobweb, when the wind shudders through it.
“Down topsail!” Mr. Tickle trumpeted, cupping his mouth with both hands, and I saw our two shipmates thrill for the order, clinging fast to the rigging as the gale fizzed around them, and the Nightingale heaved forward through the deepening waves. Just when it seemed they might be picked from their places and flung into the clouds, the sail came down with a run, and fell half overboard among the racing foam.
Mr. Tickle remained like a rock while his orders were carried out—and was still unmovable when the men beetled down onto the deck again, and stood with their heads tilted backward to admire their handiwork. Torn fragments of charcoal sky raced overhead, all soaked though and ragged. By now the wind seemed to have risen several further notches, and the banshee wail made all speech close to impossible. But this did not deter Mr. Stevenson, who clambered down from his perch at last, and landed beside us like a bedraggled bird in his tattered old sea cloak. “Too rough for me now,” he said—or rather mouthed, and left us to decipher from the movement of his lips. Then he hooked both arms though the elbows of Mr. Creed and Mr. Lawson, and the three of them waddled astern.
When he had seen them safely berthed alongside Bo’sun Kirkby, Mr. Tickle bent toward me again and laid his lips against my ear; his wet beard wagged against my skin. “This calm weather we’ve had lately,” he said, with a doggedness that seemed remarkable in view of our circumstances. “Very useful for our purposes on land, I’m sure. But very decevious. The calm before the storm.” He then straightened and grinned at me with an air of satisfaction, as if the phrase contained a profound truth that he had discovered for himself, which I suppose he had. In any event, it showed he thought our situation had changed from good to serious in a matter of minutes, and required us to do … To do what? It is still shocking for me to remember I had not the slightest idea, and must therefore have thrown him a look of very un-captain-like vacancy.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” he said, realizing how much at a loss I felt.
I put my hand on his arm, to show I wanted him to continue.
“Begging you pardon, sir, but I’m thinking retreat might be a wiser action than advance at this point.”
“Retreat where?” I asked.
“Back the way we came,” he said, speaking slowly to show that he knew he was dealing with a child.
“To Treasure Island?”
Mr. Tickle gave a grim smile. “No, not to Treasure Island, Master Jim; that will not be far enough. We need to get ourselves beyond Treasure Island.”
“Quite right,” I said, to give the impression that I had already arrived at the same conclusion myself.
“Quite right, quite right,” he repeated, making the pipe wiggle up and down between his teeth—and then, to show he forgave me my ignorance, patted me on the shoulder before running aft to speak with Bo’sun Kirkby at the wheel; his nimbleness as he did this was astonishing, since the ship was now plunging more and more wildly beneath us, and he did not seem to feel its movements at all.
I followed more slowly, making little dashes from the long-nine gun, to the mainmast, then to the second mast, clinging to each fixed thing so that I could recover some steadiness before setting off again. When I reached the roundhouse, Natty swung open the door to greet me, and I gratefully stumbled inside. As I did so, the bo’sun and Mr. Tickle began giving orders that those still on deck should get themselves stowed safely below, if they did not want to be swept overboard. I had expected everyone to obey at once, since the violence around us was now so great—but several of our passengers were very reluctant: to be shut in darkness was something they had hoped never to endure again. Only when a gigantic wave suddenly clambered over the side of the ship, saturating them all and turning the deck into a mill race, did they change their minds—several of them wailing and clasping their hands together as Mr. Creed and Mr. Lawson began to usher them out of sight.