by John Brunner
Then coaling was complete, the band rose to a joyous pitch of loudness and a new degree of dissonance that made Manuel wince even as he whipped the players to greater and greater volume, and at last the Nonpareil was able to swing back into midstream. Other steamers made the welkin resound with their whistles.
Up ahead, still in plain sight, was the Atchafalaya. The delay caused by the reporter had slashed the gap between the boats.
And Arthur Gattry had made no attempt to go ashore.
“How does she feel?” demanded Woodley anxiously, up in the pilothouse.
“Better” was Hogan’s succinct reply as the lines from the coal flats were shed. “Just as well. Here he comes. You know what he’s going to beg for, don’t you?”
Woodley looked blank.
“Hell’s name!” Hogan exclaimed. “What point do we pass this evening?” He would have said “afternoon” in other company; it was a regionalism.
Comprehension dawned.
“Think she can make it?” the captain said eventually, just before the door was flung open.
“If not now, then never,” Hogan muttered, and made a fly-swat gesture as yet another sailboat with a retarded blockhead at the helm threatened to cross the Nonpareil’s course.
On his way up to the pilothouse Parbury was as ever aware of the people who made way for him, unseen, unseeable, but there. He sensed them much as he had sensed obstacles hidden in the river in the old days, one being much like another, to be avoided if possible. Occasionally, however, somebody ventured to address him and was thereby singled out. This time he knew from the voice it was Whitworth, who had formerly served with Drew and might have a comment worth paying attention to.
“Slow job, that coaling, Captain! Just like to let you know I’m sorry. None of my fault! I worked the hands just as fast as I was allowed!”
“Someone ordered you to slow down?” Parbury countered, his blank gaze not turning.
Alarm colored the answer. “Of course not, sir! It’s just that I wish we’d had the advantage of Captain Drew’s system. We should have sent ahead precise orders for the coaling, and—”
“Well, if you think you can run the boat better than me and Captain Woodley,” Parbury snapped, “you’d better go buy your own, hadn’t you?”
He made to push by, raising his stick. But Whitworth said, “Sir, there’s one more thing.”
“What, damn it?”
“The handkerchief you bind your eyes with.”
“What about it?”
“Sir, I think it’s about time someone explained that it’s dyed like a harlot’s ribbons and quite unbefitting to yourself.”
For a second Parbury stood silent. Then he said in the chillest tone he could muster, “When I want your opinion about my dress, Whitworth, I will ask for it. Get about your duties, and I mean now!”
But as he made his way to the pilothouse again, that remark burned.
If it were true, then a foul trick had been played on him.
Had he maybe also played one on himself?
Immediately before departure, he had made a magniloquent speech. That was all part of an attempt to hide from himself as well as others the fact that he was suddenly frightened. He had always tried to disbelieve in omens and portents, but the dream he had had yesterday morning still haunted him, all the more because Dorcas—whose color he had never cared about because he had never seen it—had deserted him for Drew’s fancy nigger pilot, and because he had learned, for the first time, that his former Nonpareil had truly been sunk by a single man, and him also black.
Was he to be doubly doomed, despite his grand gesture in forgiving Caesar?
Yet so far this dream child of his was running admirably. Straight ahead and level pegging, he still believed she could outstrip the older boat. Since she grew more skittish as she lightened, though, it made good sense to strive for the lead while she was still heavy in coal.
It was with that thought in mind that he entered the pilothouse to a welcome that was hearty yet somehow insincere.
“How much time did we waste on that sloppy job of coaling?” he demanded, pulling out his repeater to make sure he had something to listen to instead of Woodley’s reply. The latter hawked and spat, but left speaking to the pilot, who adopted an optimistic tone.
“Not enough to signify. There’s the Atchafalaya still in plain sight.”
“I want her astern!” Parbury blasted. “When shall we overtake?”
With a trace of a sigh Hogan said, “Could be as soon as Fairchild—Island 114. More likely at Petit Gulf.”
Parbury relaxed a trifle, though his expression remained grim. “That’s where you’re surely going to try?”
Surprised more than annoyed, Woodley glanced at him. “Hell, with all the money I have riding on our win, we got to do it soon or risk being left permanently in the lurch! If only to keep Gordon out of my hair, I’d do it soon! Why ask such a pointless question? Don’t we all want to win the race?”
“I keep wondering about the witch woman,” Hogan said.
“What?”—from Parbury and Woodley simultaneously.
Looking as though he was sorry to have raised the subject, Hogan said reluctantly, “When I was last off-watch I heard that word’s gone round among the darkies that this nurse of Cherouen’s is some kind of—I don’t know—high priestess!”
“Ridiculous!” Woodley scoffed. “Chief nurse to one of the most modern and scientific doctors in the world? Doesn’t bear thinking of!”
Parbury said, “But our coaling did go awful slow. Didn’t it? And one box got dropped overside!”
“And she came aboard with that story about dynamite!” Hogan amplified.
“That wasn’t her—it was this crazy Auberon Moyne!” Woodley objected. “And they both withdrew what they’d said!”
“Fact stands,” Hogan said obstinately. “And it was on her say-so that we had to put Mrs. Gattry ashore!”
There was a moment of dead pause. The cheering of the Natchez crowds was far away; even the thrum of the planking receded, though the engines were at full pressure and full revolutions.
At long last Parbury exhaled sharply and sat down on the bench.
“Just don’t let her stop us overtaking,” he grunted. “By Island 111 at latest! Understood?”
And he retreated into the darkness of himself.
Slowness in coaling was a technical matter. What counted for most people aboard the Nonpareil was that the other boat was now not only within what appeared to be striking distance, but visibly not gaining. Although the weather was very hot, although this new load of coal proved of less than perfect quality and the chimneys were soon uttering clouds of smuts warranted to ruin clothing, although there was a plague of insects hereabout, people crowded on the foredeck and laid spur-of-the-moment bets. Delighted, Manuel kept his band blasting away louder than the engines.
Almost the only person who was less than pleased with the music was Gordon, but it was plain that until the Nonpareil was in the lead again he would not be pleased with anything. He had even been curt to Joel, who could give him publicity.
Not that the latter would have welcomed another interview with the financier. He had enough problems to keep him fully occupied, as well as far more copy than he could cope with.
Auberon’s attempt to have Arthur ostracized had collapsed when he was confined, shivering and sweating, to his bed.
Recruiting support among the other male passengers, who apart from Hugo were sporting men and gamblers, despiteful of women, let alone wives, Arthur was now swaggering around, growing ever drunker and even boasting about not leaving the boat at Natchez.
Therefore Joel had kept his promise. The dispatch he sent ashore, by prearrangement, via the foreman of the starboard coal flat, contained the most virulent denunciation of Arthur’s behavior he could contrive without naming him.
By tomorrow dawn it would have been copied by newspapers across the nation; Joel was sure of it. He had been long enou
gh in the trade to know a “good story.”
So the instant word reached Arthur—as it was bound to, since newspapers had come aboard with the coal at Natchez and no doubt the same would happen at the next stop—Joel was going to be in trouble. He had no hope of rallying support to his cause, except perhaps among the officers, who would rather there were neither quarrels nor fights on board.
But then, he didn’t want to. Louisette had chosen her husband; Joel’s dreams had blown away on the wind, and now, in his role as reporter, he was hoping to do no more than state the facts, and if one fact turned out to be disgraceful to his cousin-in-law, so be it.
He had, after all, no wish to hear that Louisette had died in childbed.
Even so, it would be politic for him to avoid Arthur, or make sure whenever they met it was in company…
Above, the band had given up for a while. But music had not come to an end. Making his way along the cabin, intending to pay one more call on Auberon before starting work on his Vicksburg report, Joel checked in mid-stride.
From the area of the main deck where off-duty hands could lounge about, a slow and sleepy chant that long ago must have been a hymn had suddenly been transformed into a driving chorus that kept time with the boat’s engines. There were footsteps passing at a run above and below; shrill cries and orders rang out, and ragged cheers.
Joel stared ahead. Yes, there was the Atchafalaya looming so close one might have picked off her passengers with a squirrel rifle!
Everything else vanished from his head as he feverishly checked his map.
Ahead lay a broad straight reach from Quitman’s past Island 114 to Coles Creek Point. And beyond the next bend…
The thump-thump of the engines quickened; the chanting of the deckhands kept in time. Frantically folding his map and uncapping his telescope, Joel rushed toward the forward end of the main deck, shouting, “We’re going to overtake! We’re going to overtake!”
To his dismay he found he was far from the first to reach the same conclusion.
On a pile of old sacks Caesar lay dreaming. He had thought himself too weary, but maybe sleeping at this unaccustomed hour had something to do with it. His dream meant that his slumber was not restful. There was a person in it who should have been Tandy but was not. With the passage of the years her face had grown dim in memory; he had long been resigned to the fact that if they met on the street they would pass without a glance.
But it disturbed him greatly when he realized, half rousing, that the face this ought-to-be-Tandy wore belonged to the nurse, Miss Var.
“Wake up there! Wake up!”
He was being prodded. Rolling over, cursing, he found one of the black firemen gazing at him apologetically.
“Leave me be!” he mumbled, renewing acquaintance with all his aches and pains: his war injury, another tooth going bad, plus the effects of his last watch in the engineroom.
“But we gon’ overtake de ‘Chuffalaya!”
Something deeper than words communicated to Caesar now. The boat’s hull was vibrating at an unprecedented pitch. He thought of the maze of pipes he had seen below.
And also of the part of the river they must now be approaching.
Yawning, he got to his feet. “On my way,” he said resignedly. “Right here is where Mas’ Parbury would have her bust her boilers rather than lose the race.”
“Bust her boilers?” the fireman echoed, looking surprised. “No way dat gon’ happen! Not wi’ Mam’zelle Josephine aboard.”
“Who?”
The word crept out between lips that felt as stiff as leather. His hand flew to his chest, but the trickenbag of course was gone…
“It sho’ly mus’ be her!” the fireman declared. “Even de w’ite folks b’lieve in her!”
“What yo’ talkin’ bout, hankachief-head?” Caesar grunted as he drew on his boots. “Think yo’ pullin’ mah coat?”
“Hey, it come straight from dishyear tender saw de cabin folks treatin’ wid her!”
Was it possible?
Caesar hesitated for a long moment, wondering whether in truth the woman he had dreamed of might be the mysterious genius to whom he owed his present good fortune.
And then—as a roar came from Steeples, wanting to know why he was taking so long—started suspecting it might not be so good after all.
With her lead shaved to the fineness of a whisker, the Atchafalaya strode past Rifle Point and swung sharp to starboard. Drew had kept the watch instead of ceding it to Fernand, in view of the risk of being overtaken. Now he laid into the outer edge of the channel, as was customary, where the current was least swift.
That, thought Fernand, might be all very well on an ordinary run, but it made for a longer course, and…
He glanced anxiously astern. The Nonpareil loomed so close, through field glasses he could identify Woodley and Gordon on the forward end of her hurricane deck, and the outline of Parbury silhouetted at the pilothouse window. Passengers and crew alike were shouting and clapping in expectation of passing into the lead.
On either bank the patches of cleared and settled ground grew fewer and farther apart as they left Natchez and Vidalia behind. Even so, there were always people watching, in small, often ragged groups, with a horse or mule nearby, or possibly a wagon. How they had heard about the race, how far they had had to come to witness it, there was no way of guessing. But there were onlookers where Fernand had never before seen a sign of life apart from birds and muskrats.
Now up toward Quitman’s, and the larboard turn that would take the boat around Island 114, Fairchild Island… and still Drew was laying her into the easy water. Meantime whoever held the helm of the Nonpareil—and by his style Fernand was prepared to bet it must be Hogan rather than Trumbull—was steering a shorter path, defying the current, calling on all the resources of higher pressure. Vast clouds of smoke rolled up like the banners of an advancing army.
Worried, Fernand glanced at Drew and was astonished to see that he looked almost happy. In the tangle of his beard his lips were moving, shaping near-inaudible words. At first Fernand imagined he might be muttering curses; then he leaned closer and realized that in fact he was reciting a poem under his breath. He caught a snatch of it.
“And they signalled to the place,
‘Help the winners of a race!
Get us guidance, give us harbour, take us quick—or quicker still,
Here’s the English can and will!’”
“What’s that, Cap’n?” Fernand demanded. “I don’t believe I know it.”
“It’s by Mr. Browning,” Drew answered as he laid the Atchafalaya into her marks for the short straight reach to Coles Creek. He sounded completely unperturbed by the nearness of the Nonpareil. “Tells how a Breton pilot led the French fleet through a narrow channel and saved it from the British. I felt it was kind of apt.”
Encouraged, he now began to declaim aloud.
“Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board;
‘Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?’ laughed they;
‘Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored…’”
He continued, word-perfect, recounting how Hervé Riel the humble fisherman took precedence of the admiral himself and, at the wheel of the ninety-two-gun Formidable, pride of the French navy, followed a passage too shallow for a ship of twenty tons to the haven of Solidor, leaving the enemy baffled.
Listening, Fernand began to understand the source of this improbable solitary man’s inner strength.
But the Nonpareil was closer than ever when they rounded Coles Creek Point and swung first southwest and then northeast opposite Waterproof Landing.
And here came Hogan’s challenge now!
Even as Drew felt for the slacker water at the outside of the bend, with the lead cut to less than a hundred yards—less, indeed, then the overall length of either of the giant steamers—even as the band on the Nonpareil struck up a rousing tune and was answered by
a defiant song from the Atchafalaya’s deckhands—even as it appeared inevitable that by cutting across the bend instead of taking the slackwater course the trailing boat was bound to seize the lead…
Drew paid back in kind and with interest the trick that had been played on him when leaving New Orleans.
Quite calmly he reached for the engineroom speaking tube and said, “Dutch! I want half astern on starboard and then half astern on larboard, and then full ahead on both again, fast as you can.”
And put the wheel over to starboard so hard the hull cried out, and passengers and crew staggered as they lost their balance, and the giant paddles came close to lifting clear of the water, and the whole colossal mass of the Atchafalaya swung halfway to broadside on and back again.
“Mary mother of God!” Fernand shouted as he saw what Drew had done, and could not prevent himself from clapping his hands.
Instead of just the wake from the leader’s wheels, the Nonpareil was now about to be struck by a miniature tidal wave. One could clearly see it advancing across the calm surface of the river; one could discern the alarm it was provoking aboard the other boat. For Drew’s timing was impeccable. Hogan had taken his vessel as close as was safe to the inside of the bend, where the channel shelved rapidly. She was less than half her own width from shoal water.
And the impact of the wave sufficed to close that gap.
Her starboard wheel met mud, and flung it up, and dragged her around until her bow was pointing almost at the bank, while the music from her band dissolved into a ragged mess of discords and her passengers screamed in terror. Hogan was quick to order stop engines, then slow astern, but his attempt to overtake had failed.
Just to make certain, Drew now steered the course the Nonpareil would have taken, so that even as he struggled to fight her free of the mud, Hogan saw the Atchafalaya’s wake come slapping and chuckling against the hull. There was never any way to overtake another boat from dead astern. Drew had served notice that so long as he held the lead, he would use any means, fair or foul, to retain it.