Crossings, A Thomas Pichon Novel

by A. J. B. Johnston

  “Not so interested after all?” Raymond asks with a triumphant grin. “We are not surprised. It is only a small port. And a one-time refuge for the damned Protestants, a century and a half ago. Best not to linger and walk around this place, we say.”

  “So you do,” Thomas dares to say. “And when are you not right?” The secretary believes he reveals no mockery, either on his face or in his voice. “Monsieur,” he adds.

  “Well said.” The commandant gives Thomas a decisive nod.

  The secretary leans forward, making sure he does not sigh. He begins straightening up the box of documents Raymond has been sorting through most of the day. Soldier on, Thomas says to himself. His fate, his destiny, is tied to this man. They are a kite. Well, more accurately he is the ribbon tied to the commandant’s kite, but the important thing is the climb.

  The rearranging of the documents box completed, Thomas presses his back against the seat just before the coach comes to a halt. The horses whinny as the driver scampers to the ground. Thomas watches the man hurry to pull down the step from which he and the commandant will descend.

  “This must be it,” Raymond says. “Our lodging for the night.”

  “Thank you,” Thomas says before he can call it back. Luckily, his misplaced thanks draws no comment or raised eyebrow from the comte.

  ——

  Thomas waits below, having stepped down from the coach carrying the box of documents in advance of the commandant’s descent. The dutiful secretary feels his lower teeth pressing against his upper lip. Then it’s his upper teeth biting his lower lip. What are his teeth trying to say?

  How long it is going to be before he will again be with a woman. Not tonight nor for however long the dreadful ocean crossing is going to take, which could be as much as two months. And then the place he is going to, distant Louisbourg, he knows has a pronounced shortage of women. He has read the census forms. At best it is three men for every adult female. Of course, he will not be just another man in that place. He will be the commandant’s right hand. Surely that will count. Still, the choices will be few. Thomas shudders to think he has finally climbed a few rungs, only to find he has to spend his nights alone. Life should not be an either-or.

  Inside the shadow of the coach Thomas can see Raymond adjusting his hat atop his bewigged head. He understands that the commandant wants to exit as majestically as he can, fully attired, looking like a quasi-prince. Yet does the comte not see that he is taller than the doorway? He has to stoop no matter what. It would be better to keep the hat off until he is down to at least the first step.

  Thomas glances round. What does it matter? There is no one to see what is going to happen, regardless if Raymond descends like a sultan or falls and breaks his neck. There is only Thomas and the driver of the coach standing in front of the inn. No, that’s not quite right. Across the street, under the arcade, he spies a woman and her daughter pausing to watch. Each wears the customary floppy cap, each has a basket in hand.

  The woman is tilting her head in a way Thomas for an instant thinks he recognizes. How funny it is that no matter where in the world one goes, one finds people who remind us of someone we knew somewhere else. Seeing this unknown woman across the way makes Thomas wince. But since he knows no one in La Rochelle, he will not give her a third glance. Yet he does correct his posture. Legs taut, stomach in and the box of documents high up on his chest. The commandant is right: Habits do define us. It is important to show who we are, even if the onlookers, the woman and her daughter, are nobody special in this world.

  The commandant stoops to make his exit, hat in one hand, cane in the other. Down a step, he gets to thrust the hat onto his wig then to continue his descent. Feet on the ground, Raymond says not a word and makes no eye contact. He could be the Holy Roman Emperor, if one didn’t know. For his admirers the count offers only a quick wave of his cane, not at Thomas and the driver but at the trunks and canvas-covered boxes as he strides by.

  Thomas winks at the driver, who wearily raises his eyebrows. He, the driver after all, is the one who went up top and brought everything down to the ground. It seems his tasks are not yet complete. The secretary smiles. Does the man not know how it is with those on the rungs above? It is up to the lesser ones to take care of what must be done. It would not look right for the commandant to carry any load.

  ——

  The water is astir, trembling hard.

  Which makes Thomas shake his head. Is it not foolish to ascribe human qualities – in this case apprehension about the ocean voyage about to begin – to the natural world? Nonetheless, the surface of La Rochelle’s protected inner harbour is showing tremors, it really is. Maybe all it means, he decides, is that the direction of the wind is twisting about and sometimes presses down from above. Perhaps that is what causes the harbour surface to shudder the way it does.

  There is certainly no shortage of wind. It is swirling about, from time to time anointing everyone in the barge with a bit of spray. The sweepers, those pulling on the oars, have their caps pulled well down. The only two with tricornes, Thomas and the comte de Raymond, are struggling to keep them from blowing away.

  Despite the gusts, the commandant sits rigidly erect. With one hand he clasps the blue cloak tightly round his thrust-back shoulders. With the other he presses the hat down firmly upon his wig.

  Thomas sits facing Raymond, farther toward the front, but he has enough sense to bend down to reduce the cut of the wind. It means he does not have to keep his hand on his hat every single minute. He gives the lead sweeper a glare for saying it would take only five minutes to transport them to the Heureux. It must be twice that already and they are still not past the two towers. And once they pass those landmarks, the lighter will be only at what Thomas judges to be halfway to the where the king’s ship waits, tethered to its anchors.

  Thomas wonders if it would spread the weight in the barge better if he were to move from where he is to sit instead alongside the commandant. No, the comte would not want that. He wants any bench he is on exclusively to himself. Should Thomas try and join him, Raymond would elbow him back to where he is.

  “Stiffen up.”

  Thomas lifts his eyes to meet those of the commandant. He asks with a hand tapping his chest if Raymond is speaking to him.

  “Don’t embarrass yourself.”

  So Thomas straightens up, which means a hand has to go permanently to keep his hat in place. He tries to keep resentment off his face, but it is not easy with more wind and spray stinging him. Yet, he reasons the comte could be right. First impressions are all-important. While it matters little what the sweepers might think of a doubled-over passenger, it will be different when the lighter comes close to the waiting King’s ship. For the eyes of that ship’s captain and other officers, and whatever passengers there be, Thomas Pichon, secretary of the commandant of Isle Royale, should present as upright an appearance as possible. No matter how strong the wind blows.

  ——

  It does not surprise Thomas that there is a planned sequence, a pecking order, governing how he and the comte and their possessions are to go aboard the Heureux. Of course, there has to be order and control. The comte has spent a lifetime in the army. The sequence, not surprisingly, will be from bottom to top. Up first will go the trunks and canvas-wrapped boxes. Then, penultimately, Thomas. The comte, as is fitting for the rank of his office, will be the last to go up.

  A man the size of a boy descends the rope ladder. He is dressed for a midsummer’s day with only his faded red breeches and a rolled-up grey woven shirt. He wears neither jacket nor coat. It makes Thomas shiver just to look at him. The sailor’s skin looks like leather, only with goose flesh up and down his sinewy arms. He has to be at least ten years past fifty, Thomas thinks, which is what the regulations state is the age limit for sailors in the navy. Maybe his skin and face are what a life at sea does to a man, and he’s really much younger than
he looks.

  The sailor does not say a word. By himself he is able to hoist the first trunk sufficiently to tie a rope around it in secure loops. It is as if the trunk were nothing more than a sack of bread rations the way he handles it.

  Up Thomas’s trunk goes and the sailor turns next to the trunk of the comte and then to the canvas-wrapped boxes. Thomas wants to tell the little man how impressed he is with his work, but the little fellow does not even glance his way. Then suddenly he does.

  “You first?” he asks.

  Thomas looks at the comte, just in case he might have changed his mind.

  “Of course,” says Raymond. “The commandant is saved for last.”

  The sailor steadies Thomas as he stands to begin climbing the rope ladder. Though he does not much like the sag of the rope rungs, Thomas is relieved to be out of the lighter and heading for dry land. Well, not land, but a ship that will be by far the largest vessel he has ever been on. Surely its size will make for smoother sailing than was the case with any of the small boats he has previously been in. Just the overhead webs of ropes and lines running to and from the three masts and the booms and the spars is astonishing. The cordage is of every possible thickness and length. It is as if a million giant spiders have been at work.

  Thomas hears a mélée of voices as he nears the top of the ladder. Chatter and occasionally shouts. Of course. He read yesterday that the crew of the Heureux stands at two hundred fifty, plus the half dozen passengers they are taking along. Hard to believe that a handful of officers is sufficient to rein everyone in. The magic of command, he supposes. He is not so inclined, alas. For better or worse, his inclination has always been to shy away from groups rather than to try and wield influence.

  Thomas inhales the deepening smell of the ship as he nears the ladder’s top. It is strong and it is good. A mix of oakum, canvas, tar and pitch. He can feel his nostrils flare and twitch. But then he also picks up something else. It is the stink of men who do not cover their natural smell with any flowery water. Well, Thomas will approve of that as well. Why should these men, agreed by all to be the hardiest yet most detestable species of entire mankind, care about the pretences of civil society on land? They should not. Theirs is a different world, and he and Raymond and the other passengers will be in their tough hands to get safely across the Atlantic. Let these men smell and behave any way they will.

  A hand reaches though the opening in the rail. It belongs to a young sailor with a cloth cap atop a grinning face. Thomas accepts the help. The man’s yank, though, is too hard. Thomas nearly misses his foothold on the deck. His right leg buckles but he regains his balance just in time. He gives the sailor responsible a sharp look.

  “Watch your step.” The sailor dares to widen his grin.

  Thomas wonders if there is an officer nearby to give the fellow a reprimand, but the only officers he sees are not looking his way. Dressed in their dark blue breeches and jackets, they are locked in a conversation on the other side of a coil of thick rope. It dawns on Thomas that it is only these officers who are wearing any sign of a uniform. The sailors, scurrying here and there, are dressed in all different colours and styles, as best as they can afford. Back to the clutch of officers, Thomas decides the oldest, a stern-faced man in his late thirties, must be the captain. The other two, both younger, are showing deference for his every word.

  “Here he comes!” shouts the sailor at the rail, the one who yanked Thomas a moment ago. He has dropped the grin and removed his cloth cap. “The governor!”

  “In lines,” calls out one of the officers, ending that small group’s conversation.

  A dozen sailors, those closest to the opening in the rail, scramble to form two short lines. They make a ragged combination but they do draw to attention. The rest of the sailors – at least fifty Thomas can see keeping busy on the far side of the deck and toward the bow and stern – carry on as if there was no command at all. They continue to jabber, lift, carry, pull, tie and whatever else it is they are about. The officers show no displeasure at the continual clatter they make. In fact, two of the youngest head off, as directed by the captain, to opposite ends of the ship. Only the captain and the youngest officer, no more than a lad, come to stand in front of the small honour guard. The way they hold themselves reminds Thomas of the noble hosts of a salon. The captain pulls out a mouchoir to deal with something troubling his nose.

  Thomas can feel a slight roll to the ship. Though he knows it is still at anchor, he feels a gentle sway. Would it not be wonderful if the rolling did not get any more pronounced than it is right now? The Heureux would live up to its name.

  “Gouverneur!” the sailor at the rail sings out. He adds an awkward bow then extends a hand.

  The comte ignores the proffered hand and continues the climb by his own means. Then he makes his own, unaided, stumbling passage through the opening on to the deck. Two feet firmly planted, the commandant presents the quiet smile of a kindly prince.

  “Monsieur le Capitaine,” Raymond says, saluting as he strides toward the captain of the ship. The bow is minimal, but it is the only reverence Thomas has ever seen the comte give.

  “Monsieur le Gouverneur.” The ship captain returns the salute and precisely the same bow that he has been sent.

  “Ah, it is Commandant not Governor,” Raymond corrects. “We will be the first, the first military officer Louisbourg will have. Our predecessors were merely—”

  Thomas leans forward. How will the comte get out of this? He knows Raymond was about to say “naval officers,” for it is the truth. Yet with “merely” attached it is a criticism of the very service in which the ship captain serves.

  “Good men they were,” Raymond says. “Our task will be to be better, if we can.”

  “Understood.” The captain produces a sly smile then turns away. He makes a gesture to someone out of Thomas’s sightline. At once Thomas and everyone else notice a flag running up on the small topmast overhead. Then a cannon fires somewhere off to the right. More of a pop than a blast, it must be a small calibre signal gun. Next, Thomas notes a few sailors are turning a wheel. It is generating a cranking, hoisting noise. It must be an anchor starting to come up. Thomas feels his eyes go wide. Can his voyage to the New World, his new life, be under way?

  The captain of the Heureux looks satisfied and swings back to face the comte de Raymond. The latter’s expression is that of someone very impressed.

  “Yes,” says the captain, “we are off. The wind is in our favour and the pilot says we should not waste it. So we will not. We take advantage. The midshipman here will show you to your cabin. Commandant, you are under the quarterdeck, close to me.”

  Raymond smiles and clicks his heels as he offers an inclination of his head.

  “Well then,” says the captain, dusting his hands, “I’m afraid you will have to excuse me. I must be busy about. As a commandant yourself, you understand.”

  “We do. Excellent and well done.” Raymond puts a hand on each hip. His eyes are filled with more wonder than Thomas has ever seen.

  The captain nods and strides away, toward the bow. Thomas notices that the two lines of the sailors’ temporary honour guard have already dispersed.

  The secretary steps alongside the commandant. “And me, Monseigneur? My cabin, it is also with yours? The quarterdeck, the captain said.”

  “Not now,” Raymond says over his shoulder, strutting away with the young midshipman. The young naval officer is pointing toward the stern of the ship.

  “Not now?”

  ——

  Third time lucky. Thomas finally finds a sailor who knows where his trunk has gone and where he is to be lodged. It is not, to his warm-faced embarrassment, anywhere near the raised quarterdeck in the stern, to which Raymond has retired with his trunk and all the boxes of documents.

  The gaunt-faced sailor looks like he has to hide a laugh. “No, you go below.�
�

  “Below? How far below?”

  “As deep as it goes. The Sainte-Barbe.”

  That makes Thomas squint. Saint-Barbe is the patron of engineers and artillerymen and all who work with explosives. Is it a place as well?

  “Where we keep the gunpowder,” the sailor offers.

  “A magazine?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And I am to sleep among racks and barrels.” His hands go up.

  “That,” the sailor shrugs, “or in a hanging grave. With the lot of us.”

  Hammocks. Which Thomas knows are shared. The shift determines who the hammock belongs to, for four hours, then it’s the next man’s turn.

  “Are there beds in the Sainte-Barbe?” he asks.

  Again the sailor shrugs. “Not been down that far before.”

  Thomas brings a hand to the bridge of his nose. He has nothing to say.

  “Ready then?” the sailor asks.

  “Apparently,” he mumbles back.

  ——

  It is not easy to keep up with the little man as he darts in and around the constantly moving crew. The sailors are pulling ropes and lines, and tying things down. They don’t choose to give way.

  “Watch your back!”

  Thomas ducks, but for no good reason. What he was being warned about was not something from on high but a rolled-up spare canvas sail being carried waist high by two sailors in a rush. The sailor in the lead gives Thomas a firm push. Pressed against the rail, he cranes up. All three masts, but especially the main, tower so very high. He imagines they would almost pierce the roof of the largest church he has ever been in, Notre-Dame in Paris. It would be close. And the ropes on the ship are as thick as arms and legs. The pulleys and deadeyes are as big as his head.

  “Secretary!”

  Thomas searches for where his sailor guide’s voice is coming from. He looks around.

  “No, ’ere. Down ’ere!”

  Thomas finds the gaunt face ten feet away peering up. He is apparently standing down in a narrow stairwell that goes beneath the deck.