The Persimmon Tree

by Bryce Courtenay

  Kevin did what he was told though he was instinctively wary of volunteering. But at dawn on the ninth morning out to sea he suddenly and unexpectedly appeared on deck. I’d left the cockpit after having lashed the tiller and was standing at the stern of the boat looking out to sea. The sky had cleared up somewhat during the night but the horizon was stained a deep red. My heart skipped a beat; this was an almost certain sign bad weather was on the way. To add to my misgivings there was a big underlying glassy swell with waves coming through on top.

  It was the first time since leaving Java that we could clearly see the horizon and traditionally this is the time when all navigators wait for what is paradoxically known as ‘nautical twilight’ when, if you have a sextant and tables and know how to use both, you take star sights to establish your position. We didn’t have a sextant on board and I didn’t know how to use one even if we did. To find out approximately where we were I was forced to plot my estimated position based on the course steered and the distance we’d run. I was about to do this. The log, a long length of knotted rope, was at my feet and I was preparing to throw the line overboard when the little bloke’s head poked above the hatch.

  ‘Hey, man, we got us a horizon,’ Kevin called cheerfully.

  ‘Morning. Sleep well?’ I called back.

  Kevin shook his head ruefully, stepping on board and coming up close to me. ‘I dreamed I was in this whorehouse in Bronzeville, Chicago. This pretty black mama, she’s givin’ me the house special. I only had two bucks and it’s five bucks and she says, “Nevah you mind, sailor. Put yoh money away now. Take offa yoh pants. Dis one foh Uncle Sam!”’ Kevin shook his head and gave a little laugh. ‘Goddamn! It the first time in my life I’ve gotten laid for free!’

  I grinned. ‘I guess you meet a better class of whore in your dreams! I suppose a cuppa would be out of the question?’

  He went below deck and returned a short while later with the steaming mug of sweet black tea just as I’d picked up the log again.

  ‘What you doin’?’ he asked. ‘Fishin’ for sharks?’

  ‘The log is a measuring device used to calculate speed at sea. It’s a small piece of wood, like this one, attached to a length of manila line with knots tied in it exactly twenty-four feet and four inches apart. The line’s thrown overboard with a dragging float and the number of knots pulled through your hand in fifteen seconds, 240th of an hour, is your speed through the water. I’m measuring our speed through the water.’

  ‘Hey, yeah, we learned about that when we was training in San Diego, but I didn’t take too much notice. Whaddya doin’ it for? We’re in the middle of the fuckin’ ocean and far as I can see, we ain’t goin’ nowhere, man.’

  I grinned. ‘Yeah, but we’ve got to know where nowhere is if we’re going to get somewhere.’

  ‘And you can do that with a piece of rope? You can find us Australia?’

  ‘Probably without it because it’s a bloody big target, but we don’t want to hit it just anywhere. Once I know our speed I can work out how far we’ve travelled in a day. We do this twice every day, now and at dusk.’ I pointed to his head. ‘After I do your bandage and while you’re still below deck, I do this; that’s why you haven’t seen it done before. I mark where we are approximately on the school atlas that has to serve as our chart. As a method it’s not all that precise — the atlas is probably a bit dodgy. But I guess, if the log was good enough for Captain Bligh, then it’s good enough for us.’

  ‘Who’s this Captain Blight?’

  ‘Bligh, Mutiny on the Bounty. You don’t know that story?’

  ‘Hey, I seen that movie!’ Kevin exclaimed. ‘He was a real sonofabitch! It happened here, right here?’ he asked, clearly impressed.

  ‘Yeah, well, it was on the other side of Australia but in similar conditions. He covered well over 3000 miles and all he had was a compass, a log like this and his memory of some early charts. And he was in a small open boat half the size of this one with eighteen men aboard. Essentially we’re following the old Dutch trade route in reverse.’

  ‘Dutch? Them the same white folk escaping the Japs?’

  ‘Yeah, they’ve been in Java and Sumatra and sailing these seas for over 300 years, almost before America was discovered.’

  He shook his head. ‘Goddamn! Now they gotta vamoose? Get the fuck out?’ He pointed to the knotted rope in my hand. ‘This Captain Bligh, he done the same as you, eh?’

  ‘Why sure, let me show you how it’s done. Come a little closer, mate. I’ve got over 200 feet of rope here, which should be ample. I wait until the second hand of my watch hits twelve o’clock and let the log go, then grab it exactly fifteen seconds later.’ The thin line whipped through my fingers and after fifteen seconds I grabbed it, holding it tight and using my free hand to pull the log in, meanwhile counting the knots in the rope.

  ‘Just over five knots,’ I announced. ‘We’re doing around 120 miles every twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Hey, that’s clever, man. This Captain Bligh, he invent that rope trick?’

  ‘Hell no, it happened way, way back, even before Sir Francis Drake, or the Dutch navigators.’

  ‘I ain’t never heard of him. They make a movie of this Sir Drake?’

  ‘Probably, he was the first Englishman to sail around the world.’

  ‘I ain’t seen it,’ he sniffed.

  Not long after sunrise the weather started to close down again. The wind continued from the north-west, clouds obscured the sun and by the time I handed the tiller over to Kevin the intermittent squalls had returned. In the back of my mind was the red sky at dawn, but hope springs eternal. Once you’re away from land, conditions usually don’t change a lot, and I was confident that Kevin could manage with the slight increase in the wind to around twenty knots.

  ‘Just keep her on course, she’s sailing well,’ I told him. In fact, Madam Butterfly, sailing with only a slight heel, burying her shoulder a little more as she slid into the troughs with the odd slop of spray over the bow, was revelling in the conditions. This was a time at sea I greatly loved, with the only sounds being the hiss of water down her sides, the creak of the rigging and a chuckle from her bow as she cut through the waves. If there was such a thing as a sailor’s heaven, then this was surely it.

  I recalled Joseph Conrad’s writing about youth and the sea and repeated it to myself:

  By all that is wonderful, it is the sea, I believe, the sea itself — or is it youth alone? Who can tell? But you here — you all had something out of life: money, love — whatever one gets on shore — and, tell me, wasn’t that the best time, that time when we were young at sea; young and had nothing, on the sea that gives nothing, except hard knocks — and sometimes a chance to feel your strength.

  I contemplated staying awake to enjoy the conditions, but one of the more important rules at sea, one that even Conrad would have followed for a lone sailor, is to grab every safe opportunity you can for a bit of shut-eye. Kevin knew nothing about sailing and as far as handling the cutter was concerned, I considered myself the lone sailor at sea.

  I cooked breakfast and took a bowl of the usual rice and fish out to him and a thermos of tea.

  He sniffed at the bowl. ‘No gravy?’ He’d grown to love the sweet soy sauce.

  ‘Only for dinner from now on, a special treat. The soy sauce bottle is half empty and I’m trying to make it last the voyage.’ I grinned. ‘You can have a pinch of curry.’ He had, I knew, developed a deep aversion to curry.

  ‘Nah! It sets me fuckin’ ass on fire when I take a crap. I figure that’s why them Indian fuckers wear them diapers.’

  ‘You mean fakirs?’

  ‘Yeah, them with the flute and the snake. They got two reasons to shit themself, the curry and the rattlesnake!’

  ‘It’s usually a cobra,’ I laughed.

  With Kevin’s take on the nappy-wearing Indians ringing in my e
ars, I crawled gratefully into my bunk.

  I woke with a start and glanced at my watch. It was midafternoon, the wind had lessened and I could feel Madam Butterfly was moving sluggishly. I hastened on deck to find Kevin asleep at the tiller. As I entered the cockpit he woke with a start.

  ‘Musta dozed off,’ he said guiltily.

  ‘Easy enough to do,’ I replied in a distracted voice, checking the compass.

  We were only slightly off course but a heavy swell seemed to be coming from the north-west. Moreover, the afternoon light had a strange brassy look to it and the oily appearance of the swells indicated a tropical depression, a sign that heavy weather was coming our way. I had been correct to feel a foreboding with the crimson morning sky. At this time of the year tropical cyclones can develop in the Indian Ocean and sweep along the Australian coast. We’d had nine good days’ sailing and now our luck was about to run out. A cyclone would be a disaster and my earnest hope was that its path would miss us. I was aware that just being brushed by one of these revolving storms would be an extreme danger even for a boat as well found as Madam Butterfly.

  I corrected our course. ‘Spot of bad weather on the way,’ I said, keeping my voice casual.

  ‘How bad, buddy?’ Kevin, at once anxious, asked.

  I shrugged. ‘She’ll be right. As to the weather, we’ll just have to wait and see,’ I said, still trying to sound noncommittal.

  ‘I ain’t no hero, you unnerstan’, Nick.’

  ‘You’ll be right, mate,’ I assured him, attempting to convince myself, adding, ‘just follow my instructions.’

  As the afternoon wore on, the wind started to increase and so I got rid of the jib. I pointed to the forecastle. ‘Give us a hand, Kevin,’ I shouted above the wind. ‘Gotta get the storm staysail out, it’s pretty bloody heavy.’ I knew I could probably manage it myself, but thought to get him involved. Already he was looking doleful.

  We’d completed the job when he said, ‘Hey, buddy, whaddya say I get outa yoh way… go below?’

  I didn’t want to tell him that if the blow really got up I was going to need him. ‘Hang around, stay on deck; it’s early times yet, Kevin,’ I advised. Then I changed my mind. I didn’t need him yet; best to keep him busy and take his mind off the weather. ‘On the other hand, why don’t you cook chow? We’ll eat early. Open a tin of peas and carrots and it’s dinner, so you can use the “gravy”, but not too much, eh?’ In my mind’s eye I could see the little bloke adding with a thumping great fist the sweet soy sauce that I’d decided to ration.

  ‘No carrots!’ he growled. Kevin disliked tinned carrots second only to curry.

  He arrived a little while later with the chow as well as a thermos of coffee. I didn’t tell him it might be the last time he ate for a considerable time. He’d brought my bowl of rice and fish mixed with tinned peas, flavoured with a teaspoon of curry, to the cockpit. In the interest, no doubt, of saving his precious soy sauce, the cunning bugger had left his own meal below so that he could get back and out of harm’s way. London to a brick, he’d appropriated my share by doubling up his ‘gravy’ with a generous splash.

  My meal completed, together with a cup of strong black coffee, I decided to get the staysail ready to hoist when it was needed. So I hanked it on, attached the spare halyard and secured it ready to hoist when I wanted it, then shifted my attention to the mainsail.

  The mainsail has three lines of reefing points, so I decided to reef the main before the rapidly rising wind turned it truly into a job beyond my strength. In such a case I didn’t want to have to rely on the little bloke as it can be a fairly tricky job, even without a big blow. I chose the middle line of reef points so that when I decided to rig it I had only the heavy staysail forward. With a greatly reduced mainsail area my speed immediately fell away, though I knew this wouldn’t last. Almost as I watched, the wind and sea started to rise rapidly and I changed my mind, yelling for the little bloke to help me. Together we got the staysail up.

  By nightfall the seas were roaring down on us from the north-west, their height climbing alarmingly. We were riding high and then falling, careening down into deep troughs. The tops of the waves, covered with white foam, rose above the mast. The wind was sending a deep thrum through the rigging, while, despite our reduced sail, our speed was climbing rapidly.

  There was no way I could communicate with Kevin. An experienced sailor would have been useful to have with me, but the little bloke knew nothing and had never experienced conditions such as these in a small boat. Besides, he was rapidly becoming pop-eyed with fear. I knew I might need him at some time later as the worst of the storm still lay ahead of us. I considered securing him with a lifeline, knowing that if he got swept overboard there would be nothing I could do to rescue him, but decided to send him below instead. He’d be in for a bumpy ride but would be out of the rain, and provided we didn’t sink, he’d be safe enough.

  I moved over to him and stood with my mouth close to his ear, holding his left shoulder. ‘Get down below!’ I screamed against the howling wind, pointing to the hatch and starting to move toward it myself. Kevin nodded, pushing past me in his haste to be gone, a grateful expression showing on his wet face. I watched as he scuttled across the deck and disappeared like a rat down the hatchway.

  I followed him below deck where the noise of the gale wasn’t quite as bad. I pointed to the rope locker. ‘Kevin, help me lay out the mooring lines. We’ve got to lay them out on the cabin floor, I may need them later.’

  ‘It gonna get worse, Nick?’ he asked in what wasn’t too far from the apprehensive voice he’d used as a six-year-old on the beach in Java.

  ‘You just stay down here, mate, it’s going to be okay,’ I said, trying to sound convincing. After we set out the mooring lines I went back on deck and into the cockpit to unlash the tiller. The white tops were beginning to slop over the windward gunwale and I was hugely grateful that we were taking the sea on the starboard quarter — the easiest point to weather what was almost certainly a big blow coming our way.

  The sound of the wind in the rigging rose to a higher pitch, screaming. Each time Madam Butterfly lifted up the face of a giant wave, as we reached its peak, foam, sharp as flying tacks, blew over the weather rail, stinging like buggery. Sailing boats are much better in a heavy blow than even a large ship. This is because the sails tend to steady the craft, leaning away from the wind, so that surprisingly we held our course.

  I put in the third reef, struggling with the heavy wet sail and silently blessing the sail maker who had set up a downhaul clew so I could more easily secure the outer edge of the sail. This little consideration is not mandatory and not all sail makers are so thoughtful; perhaps they are the ones who haven’t found themselves at sea in a big storm.

  As it turned out I got the sail reduced in the nick of time. Running off before the wind with less than a third of full sail, my greatest concern was that we might broach, although more and more I was coming to appreciate the design of Madam Butterfly. The gaff rigger was based on a Norwegian double-ended design, built originally for conditions in the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. With a long keel and deep forefoot she was able to keep tracking in bad weather.

  The tiller had developed a tendency to pull to port, so I rigged a line to take the strain, using two turns around the tiller to take the load off my aching arms. This is where even Kevin might have proved useful. But, while he seemed normal enough, he had frequent lapses of concentration and I was fairly certain he was still suffering from concussion and, besides, he was over-fearful of the conditions. Not a safe bet at a time when a high degree of concentration is essential.

  The moon occasionally appeared through the clouds, showing what appeared to be at least thirty-foot waves towering above us. As Madam Butterfly went over the crests I would ease the helm, pulling it back as she started to rise from the troughs. My task was simple enough: it was to prevent the huge waves f
rom starting to curl and then slam directly into us. I was attempting to angle over the crests to allow them to pass under us. But it was impossible to prevent the odd one slamming into the stern quarter, drenching me and pouring foam and water over the entire deck. The big cockpit drains were working overtime, gurgling and moaning as they sucked the water from the cockpit.

  The storm seemed to be intensifying and reaching a climax, carrying the overwhelming sense of something terrible and alive, an elemental and unstoppable force, bent on the destruction of everything in its way. Fifty-knot winds drove foam over the gigantic seas in huge white streaks like the horizontal swipe of vicious and malevolent blades. I could barely see as we plunged onwards with the full fury of what I estimated must be at least a force-ten storm on the Beaufort scale. I could only pray that the centre of the depression didn’t come any closer.

  I felt the boat was moving too fast. It was time to use the mooring lines I’d laid out with the little bloke on the cabin floor. I lashed the tiller and dived down below to find Kevin sitting with his legs drawn up against his chest, arms clasping his knees, blubbing and choking with fear, his eyes tightly shut. ‘Mary, Mother of God, save us!’ he was chanting over and over, oblivious of my presence in the dim glow from the cabin lamp. I touched him on the shoulder and he opened his eyes with a start. ‘Are we dead yet?’ he asked with a sob.