Killigrew and the Incorrigibles

by Jonathan Lunn

  It was just after eight in the evening, more than eighteen hours since the Lucy Ann had sailed from Norfolk Island. Wyatt, Jarrett and Mangal had retired to the forecastle with the rest of the starboard watch. Lissak, Blake and Vickers had been appointed to the larboard watch.

  ‘You’re not working for a living,’ Lissak told Blake. ‘You’re working for your life. Lucky for us half the crew are ticket-of-leave men and don’t seem to mind having half a dozen lags on board. But their feelings towards us might change if we ain’t seen to be pulling our weight.’

  ‘What will you do when we get to Californy?’

  ‘Ain’t you heard? There’s gold there.’

  ‘Go gold-mining?’ Blake grimaced. ‘Sounds too much like hard work to me. Easier to take gold after others dig it from the ground.’

  ‘Go back to prigging? After fourteen years in the colonies?’

  ‘You are not thinking of going straight?’

  ‘I’ve lived by lying and thieving all my life,’ said Lissak. ‘But when a cove gets to my age, he gets to thinking about death. Thinking about what comes after. I don’t know; maybe we should give some thought to trying to redeem ourselves…’

  Blake stared at him, aghast.

  Lissak cracked his face into a grin. ‘Only kidding. I’ll bet the Yankees’ peters aren’t nearly as difficult to crack as the ones they have in England.’

  ‘If it’s work th’art looking for, thee couldst do worse than sign on wi’ Cap’n Quested for his next voyage,’ said Noah Pilcher. An ancient Nantucketer of Quaker stock, as one of the Lucy Ann’s harpooners Pilcher acted as a petty officer on board, and he was supervising the men as they worked. ‘There’s good money to be made in whaling, if thee ships wi’ the right captain.’

  ‘And Captain Quested is the right captain, is he?’

  ‘He’s the best,’ Pilcher asserted proudly. ‘I’ve been on whaling voyages where we cruised for four years without spying a fall, and crawled back to Nantucket without enough oil in the hold to keep a lantern going for half an hour. But not with Quested. It’s as though he’s got the second sight – always seems to know where the whales are. And he can catch them too. Didst ever hear tell of Mocha Dick?’

  ‘No,’ said Lissak. ‘Who is he? A prizefighter?’

  Pilcher chuckled wheezily. ‘Aye, that he was. The biggest prizefighter there ever was, for he measured twelve fathoms from his head to his flukes. Aye, a whale he was, the biggest parmacetty I ever clapped eyes on. And the meanest: for he developed a taste for whaling boats, and the men that rode them. More than a hundred men he’s said to have dragged to a watery death. Oh, thee may look at me with disbelief in thy eyes, for I’ve heard the yarn spun in a thousand taverns and each time it became more and more farfetched. But take it from one who knows, for I was there the day Mocha Dick was slain.

  ‘For twenty years he’d been the terror of the cruising grounds off the coast of Chile; ’tis even said it was Mocha Dick that sank the Essex. The day we sighted his spout three days out of Valparaiso, we didst not know it was Mocha Dick, otherwise no doubt we wouldst have sailed on without lowering. But as soon as we drew near, when we saw the whiteness of his hump – for he was white as the surf, was Mocha Dick – we knew what we were up against. There were those of us who were for turning back to the ship and letting well alone; but the first mate ordered us on, saying that the oil from such a whale would pay for the whole cruise.

  ‘Well, the second boat caught him first and the boatsteerer threw his iron straight and true. But that only enraged Mocha Dick, for instead of being gallied like any normal whale, he turned on us at once. The first mate’s boat he crushed in his jaws – aye, and the first mate along with it – and the second mate’s boat – the one I was in – he smashed with a flick of his flukes. But Mocha Dick was not the only one with a temper on the sea that day, for when Quested – who was third mate – saw what the whale hadst done, he only ordered his boat to press on. The boatsteerer got his iron in the whale’s back, and this time he ran. Quested’s boat was off on a Nantucket sleigh ride, and we thought that was the last we’d see of any of them; but then the loggerhead broke, and Quested got caught in the line and was dragged overboard. Mocha Dick sounded, diving deep down to the bottom of the ocean, and Quested was dragged after him. For two hours the whale stayed under – for that was another thing about him: he could stay under longer than any other whale I heard tell of – and we were sure Quested was drowned. But when the whale breeched, there he was: no longer caught in the line, but pulling himself along it, hand over hand. Right on Mocha Dick’s back he climbed and when he was astride the whale’s hump, he tore out one of the score of irons embedded there from an earlier fight, and plunged it down again, seeking the whale’s heart. For three hours the battle raged, man versus leviathan, but at last we saw fire in the chimney – that’s what we say, when the whale’s spout turns crimson wi’ blood: “Fire in the chimney!” – and as Mocha Dick thrashed about in his flurry, Quested was thrown from his back. But he lived to tell the tale. Two hundred barrels of oil we got from that whale, and from that day on Mr Quested was known as the man who slew Mocha Dick.’

  ‘Gammon!’ snorted Lissak.

  Pilcher grinned. ‘Aye, perhaps I exaggerate a mite; but the yarn’s true enough in its essence. Cap’n Quested slew Mocha Dick, bullies, and that’s nothing to be sneezed at.’

  Lissak glanced across to where Quested’s slight figure paced the quarterdeck. It was almost impossible to believe he could have killed such a ferocious whale; but whaling was his craft, after all, and he must have been good at it to have risen to the rank of captain. But perhaps what was most significant of all was that an old salt like Pilcher, who had plenty of whale-kills to his own credit to hear his shipmates tell it, was prepared to believe it. Lissak had never regarded Quested dismissively – he had known enough dangerous men in his time to know another when he saw one – but now he regarded the captain in a new light.

  ‘Is that how he lost he left fam?’ Lissak asked Pilcher. ‘Fighting Mocha Dick?’

  Pilcher grinned. ‘No, that was a couple of years ago, off Tanna. We were trading with the natives for sandalwood in those days, when some of them turned nasty on us and we had to swim for the ship. While we were in the water, a shark swam right up to him and bit that hand clean off. Cap’n’s been a little bit crazy ever since that happened – though some would tell you he never was quite right in the head. But that don’t stop him from being a good cap’n. Fact is, I reckon in our trade you have to be a little bit nuts to succeed.’

  ‘What do you mean, nuts?’

  ‘Why, non compos mentis – mad as a March hare. Y’see, Cap’n Quested, he don’t reckon it was a shark that took his hand at all.’ Pilcher chuckled. ‘Fact of the matter is, he’s got this crazy notion it was a—’

  ‘On deck there!’ cried the lookout at the main-top. ‘Sail ho!’

  ‘Where away?’ demanded Mr Macy, the chief mate.

  ‘Fine off the starboard quarter!’

  ‘How far off?’

  ‘About twelve miles, sir; sailing north-west by north.’

  ‘Mr Pilcher! Tavu! Douse all lights, there!’ Quested bellowed as Macy took the telescope from the binnacle to level it over the taffrail.

  Pilcher and Tavu – another harpooner, a muscular young South Sea Islander – ordered the hands on deck to extinguish all deck lights, and then went below to see to it that no lights were left burning in the ’tween decks.

  With the deck lights extinguished, the only illumination came from the gibbous moon in the cloud-racked night sky. ‘Wonderful!’ said Cusack, emerging from the after hatch. ‘What’s to stop us from running aground in the dark?’

  ‘Deck lights are no protection against running into a reef, Mr Cusack,’ said Quested. ‘But fear ye not, there’s neither reef nor rocks within seventy miles of here, and those are on Norfolk Island; before us, nothing but clear blue water all the way from here to New Caledonia. There’s more danger
of running into another vessel, and that’s unlikely enough in these waters. What do you see, Mr Macy?’

  ‘Nothing, cap’n,’ admitted the chief mate, handing the telescope to Quested so he could see for himself. ‘She must be half tops’ls under.’

  As Quested stared through the telescope, Wyatt came up from the forecastle and joined them on the quarterdeck. ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.

  ‘The lookout thinks he’s seen another ship,’ whispered Cusack.

  Quested looked for himself, and then addressed the lookout at the maintop. ‘What do you make of her, Inácio?’

  ‘She’s a steamer, senhor. I can see her lights and sparks flying from her funnel’.

  ‘The only steamers in these waters are navy vessels,’ said Macy. ‘Ten gets you one she’s that Limey navy sloop that was anchored in Sydney Bay, out quartering the seas for us.’

  ‘Un momento,’ called Inácio, still staring through the telescope. ‘She change course, senhors – now she head north-east by east.’

  ‘Must be tacking.’

  ‘Steam vessels don’t tack, Mr Wyatt,’ said Cusack. ‘Least of all when they’re running before the wind as we are. They’re quartering the seas for us. They must have worked out which way we’d head.’

  ‘It didn’t take a genius to guess that we’d run before the wind,’ snorted Quested. ‘Don’t worry: we’ll soon lose them amongst the islands; and I have friends there who may be able to help us.’ He turned to where the steersman stood at the helm. ‘Steer six points to port, Addams. We’ll run west-nor’-west until morning, then turn north by east; we should be far to the west of where the Tisiphone is looking for us.’

  * * *

  Killigrew was back on board the ship in the Cap-sing-mun Anchorage, but this time it was Mrs Cafferty who had a gun to her head, and Ned Wyatt who held it. The convict smirked at Killigrew over her shoulder. ‘Last chance, Lieutenant. I mean what I say.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Killigrew replied, off-hand. Wyatt had only one bullet in his gun, and the lieutenant was confident that he would not waste it on his hostage.

  Except this time he knew better. He knew there was a second man creeping up behind him with a shotgun, and his words would only provoke Wyatt into pulling the trigger and killing her. Yet still he spoke the words, as if he could no longer control his own lips.

  ‘Shoot her. She means nothing to me.’

  ‘As you will…’

  The sound of the pistol shot was deafening in the confined space. The bullet smashed through Mrs Cafferty’s skull, splattering her brains all over the bulkhead, all over Killigrew.

  And he knew he had killed her.

  Wyatt fired again, and again, and again, and then the series of shots had become a banging sound: someone rapping on a door. Killigrew lay on the bunk in his cabin, fully dressed but for his pea-jacket and half-boots. His shirt was drenched with his sweat and he was shaking all over. He felt vaguely sick.

  ‘Sir?’ Private Hawthorne’s voice. ‘You asked me to wake you just before dawn.’

  ‘Thank you, Hawthorne. I’ll be on deck directly.’

  He heard the private’s footsteps crossing the wardroom back to the far door, and Killigrew reached across to the fold-down desk where he had left his fob watch. It was just coming up to half-past five.

  It was three days since the Tisiphone had sailed from Norfolk Island and they had made good time under steam, despite following a zigzag course in search of the Lucy Ann. They spotted two other vessels: both whalers, but neither was the Lucy Ann, so Robertson had contented himself with overhauling them and enquiring with his speaking trumpet if either of the masters had seen the ship they were looking for. Both men had seen three-masted whalers, but that had been off the coast of New Zealand a couple of weeks earlier, and the masters had recognised the ships in question and known none of them was the Lucy Ann.

  Killigrew stripped down to his waist, washed the sweat from his body with a face cloth and cold water, towelled himself dry and dressed before going up on deck. It was still dark, the first traces of the coming dawn little more than a hint in the eastern sky, but morning came swiftly in the tropics and Killigrew knew it would be broad daylight within an hour. The Tisiphone had reached the island three hours ago, but according to the chart the only way into the anchorage on the south side of the island was via a narrow channel through the reef, and neither Robertson nor Yelverton had any intention of attempting to navigate it before sun-up. They were not in any hurry: for the Lucy Ann to have reached New Caledonia so soon, she would have had to have averaged an unlikely five and three-quarter knots.

  The sun rose and revealed the Isle of Pines in all its glory: a plateau rising up to about eight hundred and fifty feet, surrounded by a lowland belt of lush vegetation. White, sandy beaches alternated with jagged rocks, and the araucaria trees that gave the island its name rose to over two hundred feet in places.

  Studying the shore with the telescope, Killigrew saw a small village of circular huts with conical, palm-leaf thatched roofs. Even as he watched, the men of the village – Polynesian negroes, naked but for the penis-wrappers girdled at their waists – pushed outrigger canoes into the sea and paddled out into the reef, where they at once began to fish with nets. Seeing the Tisiphone, they waved, but did not get overexcited at the sight of a ship: evidently whalers and sandalwood traders called here often enough for the arrival of the white man to have ceased to be the great event it must have been when Cook had been one of the first white men ever to visit the New Hebrides.

  ‘At last the natives seem friendly, sir.’ Killigrew handed the telescope to Robertson so he could see for himself.

  ‘Aren’t there cannibals in these islands?’ asked Robertson.

  ‘I understand the natives on this island still practise cannibalism from time to time,’ said Yelverton. ‘But the missionaries have been here unmolested for two years now, and Paddon’s trading station was set up a year before that. I think we’ll be safe.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say,’ grunted Robertson. ‘You’re not the one going ashore!’

  ‘Erromanga’s the place we’ve got to steer clear of, sir. The Martyrs’ Isle, they call it, ever since a couple of missionaries were killed and eaten there about ten years ago. They say the savages on that island are the most aggressive and warlike in the world.’

  ‘Any missions or trading stations on Erromanga these days?’

  Yelverton chuckled. ‘You must be joking, sir. I understand some of the more adventurous traders touch there for sandalwood, but they deal with those natives at their peril.’

  ‘So it’s unlikely that the Lucy Ann will touch there?’

  ‘From what I’ve heard, sir, we can be sure it’s the one island in these waters they won’t touch.’

  ‘If they’re going to give it a wide berth, then so can we.’ Robertson snapped the telescope shut and handed it to Midshipman Cavan to replace it in the binnacle. ‘Instruct Mr Muir to start the engines, Mr Cavan. Ahead slow.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Cavan descended the after hatch to the engine room.

  ‘Take her in, First.’

  Standing at the helm with the quartermaster of the port watch, Lord Hartcliffe acknowledged the order and conned the sloop towards the reef. As soon as smoke issued from the funnel and the paddle wheels began to churn the water at her sides, the native fisherman stopped what they were doing, staring and pointing in amazement and alarm.

  ‘Haven’t they seen a steamer before?’ Robertson demanded irritably.

  ‘Probably not, sir,’ said Yelverton.

  The channel through the reef was a narrow one, but the combined efforts of Hartcliffe, the quartermaster and the helmsman were enough to see them through. By the time the sun was fully over the horizon the Tisiphone had dropped anchor in the lagoon behind the reef. Ashore, there was a large village of more circular huts, and a few buildings which were clearly European in design, even if the materials were native: a small church for the mission, a hou
se for the missionaries, and the trade house, a tumbledown shack.

  ‘Prepare my gig, Mr Darrow,’ Robertson told the boatswain. ‘Perhaps you’d care to accompany me ashore, First?’ he asked Hartcliffe, before turning to Killigrew. ‘You have the anchor watch, Second. Better load the port-side thirty-two-pounder and have her run out. If the natives turn nasty, it might be as well to remind them of the power of European ships.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Robertson and Hartcliffe descended the side ladder to the gig and were rowed across the aquamarine waters of the lagoon to a white sand beach, where the men of the village already converged on the newcomers from all parts of the village. Killigrew ordered the port-side thirty-six-pounder’s crew to load it as per Robertson’s instructions, but in the event the precaution proved unnecessary: even from the Tisiphone’s bulwarks, it was clear the natives were friendly. Even as they crowded round Robertson and Hartcliffe, a man in a long, black cassock emerged from the church and strode across the sand to greet them.

  While Robertson spoke to the French Roman Catholic missionary – with Hartcliffe acting as interpreter – Killigrew allowed his attention to wander to the wide expanse of sea on the opposite side of the reef. The Lucy Ann was out there somewhere, with Cusack and the six escaped convicts on board. And perhaps – just perhaps – Mrs Cafferty was still alive and on board. Whether or not the Tisiphone caught them depended on Molineaux’s educated guess that the whaler was bound for these islands. If Quested was familiar with these waters, then there was every chance that they might run into someone at one of the other trading ports who knew the Lucy Ann, and who might be able to give them some clue as to where the whaler was likely to land: a favourite place for replenishing the casks with fresh water, or for trying-out blubber.

  Cavan’s voice broke Killigrew from his reverie. ‘Looks like they’re coming back already, sir,’ he said in some surprise.

  Killigrew looked for himself. Robertson and Hartclifife were indeed being rowed back out to the Tisiphone. They had not even had time to talk to the man who ran Paddon’s trade house – not that there was any sign of him – which could only mean that the priest had been able to provide them with some news of interest.