Crossings, A Thomas Pichon Novel

by A. J. B. Johnston

  “Coming,” Thomas says.

  As he turns round to go down the narrow stairs, Thomas feels the ship lurch. Not side to side, but forward and with some speed. He looks up to the masts. Yes, a first sail is already catching the wind. And there are a dozen men, standing on a skinny line at a second mast, working to loosen the brails to free another. He supposes that once safely out to sea, all sails will be in play. He has read that with the right winds, a vessel this size can advance fifty leagues a day. Though that’s exceptional, and sailing westerly it is unlikely to continue. The more usual daily distance is half that. A chart Thomas was looking at the other day stated it was 711 leagues from La Rochelle to Louisbourg. The calculation is easy to make, if the sea allowed for averages. But it does not. There will be contrary winds and a current to go against. Still, that captain said the winds are favourable today and that’s all that counts. Every extra league the Heureux can squeeze out of the first day’s winds will shorten the trip.

  ——

  With each downward step the air becomes more foul, then fouler still. The scent of rope, wood, wind and salt, which was the smell of the world above, disappears. By the time Thomas is at the bottom of the stairs, in light that has gone increasingly dim, he is covering his nose and mouth. It’s a heavy, putrid reek that he can taste in his throat. Just as bad, the ceiling is too low for him to stand fully upright.

  “First time, is it?” his guide asks out of the darkness to the left.

  Thomas nods. Then he removes his hand from his face. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “The stink,” he explains.

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “Will I?”

  “Yeah. It’s how the nose works.”

  “And why is there no light? A lantern or two.”

  “Can’t,” the sailor says, seeming to find mirth in Thomas’s bewilderment. “Risk of fire. The eyes, like the nose, gets used to that as well.”

  Thomas takes two cautious steps to his left and peers into the slightly lifting darkness. There is a room, or maybe it’s just an open space. At most, the ceiling is five feet. Suspended from the beams are a few dozen hammocks. Thomas can see some men are asleep.

  “This is the first of our between-decks,” his guiding sailor says. “My swing is here. When it’s my time, that is.”

  “Let’s go,” Thomas says. Surely, his room in the Sainte-Barbe will be better than where the sailors have to sleep.

  ——

  Two more sets of narrow steps, the daylight getting dimmer and the air worse the farther down he and the sailor go. In one spot there is a biting smell of vinegar, which Thomas figures is someone’s attempt to cleanse away a particular stench. It passes through his mind that it might not be a bad idea to soak the entire below decks of the ship in vinegar. And then open up all the darkness and stinking spots to light and fresh air. As if … as if a real ship could have its layers lifted off the way some models can.

  As predicted by the sailor, Thomas’s eyes do adjust to the lack of light. Though it is a dark gloom, he is able to make out where he is going. His nose, however, is as it was, still twitching and recoiling from what it takes in. Thomas realizes that rotting wood is only part of why the Heureux reeks down below. There is also the smell 250 men give off when in their hammocks and which does not go away when they leave the dark. Here and there is the sharp biting smell of piss. Whether from a man or an animal he cannot say.

  Between-decks is where the living food is kept. There are cages of fowl, the birds shrieking and flapping their wings as he and the sailor go by. Thomas supposes their eggs, and later their flesh, will be consumed before the ship reaches Louisbourg. And then there are the improvised pens. He has counted more than a dozen pigs, a near equal number of sheep, a few cattle and even a horse. Poor thing, that horse, tied in all four directions by ropes. The sailor told him the droppings are cleaned up regularly. And cast overboard, Thomas supposes. Well, not often enough. He has shit of some kind on the bottom of his left shoe and he can smell it travelling with him wherever he goes.

  “’Ere you are,” says the sailor, raising his voice. “Your quarters.”

  “The Sainte-Barbe?” Thomas calls out.

  “It is.”

  Thomas stares at the man to see if this is a joke. There is such a loud, creaking, grinding sound. “What is that?” he asks, pantomiming by touching his ears.

  Thomas thinks he sees a hint of a smile. “Rudder tiller,” says the sailor. “Passes here. At the stern, we are.”

  Thomas briefly closes his eyes. His eyes, his nose and now his ears. What next will he be required to alter in this world?

  He squints to discern what his quarters for the next two months are like. There is not a square foot to spare, barely any open space at all. The walls are mostly racks filled with barrels. Gunpowder and artillery stores, he presumes. Beside where he and the sailor are stooped, unable to stand completely upright because of the low ceiling, are five trunks, stacked as three and two. He recognizes his on top of the stack of three. To the left a small area is partitioned off, no more than five feet by three. The work must have been done recently judging by the newness of the boards. The canvas hanging at its entrance must be to serve as a makeshift door. Where the artillery rack ends there are two tiers of bunks. Because of the low ceiling, the space between the bunks is barely more than the thickness of a man. At least each sleeping area appears to have a straw tick mattress that is new. Still, Thomas cannot recall the last time he was reduced to sleeping on a paillasse. He was a boy, not the secretary of an important colony. Thomas shakes his head.

  “Who is with me here?” he asks above the grinding sound.

  The sailor gestures to the bunk set-up on the right. “Couple of Récollets.”

  Thomas nods. He sees a book that looks to be the thickness of a Bible on the upper mattress, along with a brown homespun cloak hanging from a hook. Beneath the lower bunk he spies a leather box he deduces contains rosary beads, holy water, oils and crucifixes. There is also a pair of well-worn leather shoes and a pair of wooden and leather sandals.

  The sailor swings his pointing arm over to the other bunk. There are at least eight books in two neat stacks under the bed and a tricorne with what looks like gold trim hanging from a hook. “That’s a major, and—”

  “A major?” Thomas cannot believe he has heard right.

  “It is.”

  “Down here?”

  “Surlaville is the name, I think.” The sailor scratches his chin. “Somethin’ like that.”

  “Really?” It had slipped Thomas’s mind that the comte’s protégé in all things military, Michel Le Courtois de Surlaville, was coming on the Heureux as well. And like Thomas, he will apparently be travelling in the bowels of the ship, not up in the quarterdeck with his great admirer, the commandant. This is rich. For Thomas will be in the bunk above Surlaville. There is satisfaction in that.

  “And I bet it is Surlaville who has two trunks,” Thomas says.

  “I do not understand.”

  Thomas points at the trunks. “There are five, but only four of us. I doubt the religious need very much, so I figured the extra one must belong to the major.”

  “Ah, no. No, the fifth is hers.”

  “Hers?” Thomas smiles. The creaking of the rudder tiller is loud, but did the sailor just make a joke? “You said hers.”

  “He means me.”

  Thomas turns to the new voice. A woman, young and pretty, and dressed like someone of good rank, is standing within the doorway to the partitioned off area. She is holding the canvas curtain slightly ajar.

  “Oh my God,” Thomas mouths. “A woman,” he says above the grinding sound.

  “So I am.”

  And with upraised eyebrows and a cheeky grin, the woman lets the canvas curtain fall closed.

  ——

  Inside the privacy of her tin
y wood and canvas space, Marie-Louise Chassin de Thierry enjoys the moment. Why is it that men find a woman’s presence on their ships both a surprise and an annoyance? Are not women often carved in wood as the figureheads on ships this size? Marie-Louise hunches her shoulders at that.

  More seriously, are women not necessary to have a world at all? That is beyond discussing. And she knows, from observation and not her own experience, thank God, that sailors are keen for women when they arrive in port. Right after they have become stupid and courageous through drink. So it is. A real live woman aboard a ship, however, that is another thing.

  Yes, the world at sea is a man’s realm. A stinking realm, though her nose seems to have adapted somewhat over the past twenty-four hours. She no longer notices all the foul smells as she travels around the ship, not the way she did when she first came aboard. There’s good in that, she supposes. Except that her clothes will be absorbing the fetid reek that in Rochefort assaulted her nose.

  As amusing as it was to surprise this fourth man with whom she shares this dark and noisy place, Marie-Louise does not want any more than what is necessary to do with him or the rest of them. She will see them all at the Captain’s table, she has been told. And at those meals she will be cautiously pleasant, no more than that. She does not want to encourage any man to get the wrong idea. Even the priests, she knows from tales she’s heard, sometimes do the carnal act. As for the civilian who has just arrived, and the military man yesterday, she will have to be especially distant with them. Life will be hard enough for the next six to eight weeks, with the inevitable discomforts and sicknesses. She does not need either of those two thinking she would allow them to take liberties with her.

  “No,” Marie-Louise whispers firmly to the canvas curtain. She has quite enough complications in her life as it is.

  ——

  Thomas does what is necessary in the bucket in the Saint-Barbe, then washes his hands in chilled, murky water in the copper basin. Next he checks as best he can in the small mirror’s reflection that his clothes and wig are as they should be. He wants to look his best for the rendezvous he is to have up on deck at four o’clock.

  As he begins to make his way through the passageway toward the first set of stairs, Thomas’s thoughts go over what has lately been on his mind.

  He can hardly believe his luck, and by extension that of everyone else aboard. Two weeks out to sea and the winds have so far produced a most agreeable ocean upon which the ship gently rolls as it advances. He found his sea legs right away, which has meant his stomach has not been troubled. Nor has he seen anyone else get sick, though the two Récollets did look a little green the first day or two. But as far as Thomas knows, the missionaries did not bless the bucket or the sea with any heaves. So far so good and fingers crossed that the friendly ocean continues as it has been.

  The reason for the good fortune is that the ship has been favoured mostly by easterlies ever since it left La Rochelle. There is the occasional direction switch, which causes the sails to flap, but those switches have not lasted long nor come with much upset. The crew simply makes the necessary adjustments, tacking to keep the sails filled.

  According to the pilot, with whom Thomas spoke briefly two days ago, the ship at that time was 397 leagues from France. Not 400 but precisely 397. It stunned Thomas that the man could be so accurate, or pretend to be, since the only reference points are the sun, moon and stars, and the endless undulation of breaking waves. The astrolabe, of course, gives a fair reckoning of latitude. Thomas understands that. When the pilot says they are at 47 degrees 5 minutes, Thomas knows pretty well what that means. But as to how far west the Heureux had travelled, Thomas quietly questioned the precision of the pilot’s number. Was not longitude a conundrum for all mariners, and the object of an enormous reward posted decades ago by the British government?

  The pilot’s lips soured at that, but he quickly mumbled something about using a backstaff and a new quadrant and said he paid attention to the numbers coming from the rope with knots tied in it that was pulled through the ocean as they sailed along. And then he turned and strode off.

  Thomas has no idea if the man really knows what he is talking about or blustering. But he prefers to think the pilot is more or less accurate. That would mean that the Heureux is indeed more or less halfway to Isle Royale. Thomas can feel the smile spreading to his cheeks. Yes, it would be wonderful if the ship were to reach Louisbourg in something like four instead of the usual eight weeks.

  He starts to climb the second set of stairs, after waiting for two sailors coming off-duty to pass. He knows now that he shouldn’t have, but he could not help speaking up at the Captain’s table last night, based on what the pilot had told him. He wondered aloud, looking at the captain, if any King’s ship had ever completed the voyage to Louisbourg as quickly as they were on pace to do. The captain looked at him like he was a child, then visibly exhaled. He did not reply. And the comte, seated beside the captain as he is every meal, gave his bushy eyebrows a disappointed raise for all to see, followed by a sad shake of his head.

  It was only then that Thomas realized his mistake. By asking about good fortune, he might have jeopardized its continuance.

  Surlaville, seated as always on Thomas’s left, felt obliged to score a point. He leaned sideways as if he were going to whisper, but then in his usual voice said, “It can be four weeks west to east, Pichon, but never east to west. You should know that. The winds will switch around, they just do. Mark my words.”

  Thomas chose not to reply. He will have to deal regularly with Surlaville once they are both at Louisbourg. Better the major thinks Thomas is not his match. That way he may surprise his military colleague one day. When it counts.

  But, for the record, yes, he did know about prevailing winds and currents and the usual sail times in both directions. His question essentially was: How long can an exceptional situation last? For if it is good fortune to have had mostly easterlies for two weeks, why not for longer still? However, instead of saying that to major de place Surlaville, Thomas inclined the other way.

  “Tell me, Mademoiselle, is the chicken to your satisfaction?”

  “It is,” she said, with a brief glance his way.

  Thomas kept the conversation alive. “Very savoury the way the cook has used the rosemary and thyme, is it not?”

  Mademoiselle Chassin de Thierry’s mouth was full, so she could only nod.

  “Hard to believe,” he continued, to give her time, “that we are able to eat like this. Here we are, out in the middle of the Atlantic, yet we enjoy a meal as good as any on land. While—” and for the confidence he was about to share, Thomas leaned a little further and lowered his voice. “While those in whose hands we are, the lowly sailors, get only hard biscuit, much diluted wine and salt pork and beef. It is unbalanced, I think.”

  “But is that not the way of the world, Monsieur Pichon? Not only on this ship, but everywhere. The few benefit from what the many do.”

  The accuracy and economy of her words took Thomas by surprise. It must have shown on his face.

  “You think my observation apt, do you?”

  “Most apt. Tell me,” Thomas said, keeping his eyes on hers as she kept hers on his. “How does one so young as you acquire such profound insight into the true nature of this world?”

  “Ah, you aim to flatter. Please do not.”

  “I mean no harm. Truly, it is just—”

  “I read, Monsieur Pichon, I read. And when I do not read, I keep my eyes and ears open to catch what goes on.”

  “Your method serves you well, Mademoiselle, very well.”

  “You are kind. It is, after all—” said Mademoiselle breaking off a small piece of bread to absorb the flavours of the sauce on her plate. “My wits, after all, are all I have.”

  Thomas did not counter that she was being falsely modest, for she has both youth and a pretty face. She had al
ready warned him about flattery. So he simply smiled and broke off a piece of his own bread so he too would not let any of the savoury drippings on his plate go to waste.

  The climb completed, all the way up onto the deck, Thomas checks the sky and the wind. A thick mat of grey, with a light wind still coming from the east, from Europe. It seems Thomas Pichon is no jinx after all. Fortune continues to smile on him and the ship.

  Deeply he inhales through his nose, sending the old air out through the mouth. Yes, he tastes the salt in the air. So much better than the foul, trapped air everyone has to take in down below. Equally, how much better to hear the creak of wood and the pull of ropes than the constant grind of the rudder tiller in the Saint-Barbe.

  Thomas pulls out his watch. It is nearly a quarter hour past four. He expects she is already waiting for him somewhere by rail.

  ——

  “Monsieur Secretary,” she'd said, touching him lightly on the sleeve as they both came to their feet when the meal was done. All the others in the room were on their way out of the wardroom, their backs to the two of them.

  It seemed to please the man to hear her use his title.

  “Would it be possible for us to talk sometime? Quietly, I mean, Monsieur Secretary.”

  His eyes went very wide for an instant, but then he presented his more usual face. “But of course, Mademoiselle Chassin de Thierry. We could—” He gestured at the chairs from which they had just arisen. “Right here and now if you wish.”

  “No, no. Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow. I see. Of course. Well, I have two hours with the comte in the morning, going over more of Isle Royale’s documents. You understand. There is much to prepare for. That session begins each day at ten. Then we usually go over things for another hour after the midday meal. Which means I should be free by mid-afternoon.”

  “Free?” she repeated with a wry smile, which she instantly regretted, because she had no joke. She switched back to serious. “Four o’clock?”