by John Brunner
During the tensest part of his maneuver Drew had interrupted his recitation. Now he brought it to a premature conclusion at an appropriate stanza.
“The peril, see, is past,
All are harboured to the last,
And just as Hervé Riel hollas, ‘Anchor!’—sure as fate,
Up the English come, too late!”
He gestured for Fernand to take the wheel, and as soon as he had sat down on the bench and wiped the sweat from his face and under his collar, he leaned back with a sigh and with amazing rapidity fell fast asleep.
In the Nonpareil’s pilothouse Parbury and Woodley stormed and raged. Hogan, his face stiff as wood, held his tongue until the boat was once more in deep water, though by now a good mile behind. At which moment it turned one o’clock, so that Trumbull ascended the stairs to take his watch.
Handing over, Hogan swung to confront the two captains.
“There’s not a pilot on the river could have done better with this boat!” he roared. “She’s so light, even fully coaled, she takes a sheer from a dead mosquito dropping in the water!”
“If that’s what you think about her, I’m going to have my replacement pilots after all!” Woodley shouted back.
Parbury turned his head sharply. “But we’re going to have specialist pilots, aren’t we?” he demanded. “We agreed on Tom Tacy and Zeke Barfoot and Joe Smith!”
“And these idiots think they’re too good at their job to need assistance!” Woodley raged. “Trying to blackmail me—that’s it, blackmail me!—into forgetting the idea!”
“But we’re used to the way the Nonpareil handles!” Hogan retorted. “Nobody else is!”
“Yes,” Woodley sneered. “So well used, you just ran her into mud. Didn’t you?”
There was an electric pause. Suddenly Trumbull said, “If you don’t keep quiet, you’re short one pilot as of now. How the hell can a man think with this racket going on?”
“He’s right,” Parbury said heavily. “I guess if I’d been in Drew’s position, I’d have tried something of the same kind. If luck’s on his side now, it may not be tomorrow. And the race is far from over.”
The despondency felt by the officers of the Nonpareil naturally infected the passengers as well, especially those who stood to lose heavily if their boat was beaten. Among the first to yield to it was Gordon, whom lack of sleep and too much liquor had made morose. Having taken his usual heavy luncheon, he sat down in a wicker armchair on the main deck and shortly fell asleep, his face still set in a scowl. That suited Matthew perfectly. It gave him the chance to corner Joel and inquire whether, by any chance, the reporter had seen his book about Scottish tartans.
“Oh, my God!” Joel exclaimed. “I’m terribly sorry! Yes, I did pick it up. But then this trouble broke out with my cousins, and…”
He swallowed hard, spreading his hands apologetically. “Perhaps I left it at the bar,” he suggested after a moment. “Perhaps the tender picked it up.”
But he hadn’t.
Why, though—Matthew asked himself as he continued on his fruitless quest—should anybody want to steal such a specialized work? He made inquiries, but no one remembered having seen it. After an hour or so, he was resigned to its loss, and that of the expensive leather case he had bought to protect it.
Which quite wiped out his satisfaction at having a respite from Gordon’s irascibility.
Auberon had slept throughout the abortive challenge. When he woke in midafternoon, to find Joel in the stateroom as well as Josephine, he grew furious on hearing the news and insisted on rising. Very pale, very bright-eyed, he parried every comment Joel made about his illness, although he winced when he put any strain on his belly muscles.
In vain they tried to restrain him; he was not to be persuaded. He kept vowing vengeance on Arthur, no matter how often Joel emphasized that his reputation had been ruined by the dispatch sent to the Intelligencer.
Eventually, realizing of a sudden that he was too weak to make an issue of the matter, Auberon gave a sad smile.
“Don’t worry, Jewel,” he said. “I’m not going to have a duel with him on the foredeck. I must admit that was in my mind—and wouldn’t it have been a story for you? But I am going to make sure he doesn’t enjoy the trip!”
Turning to Josephine, he gave a half-bow.
“Ma’am, I appreciate the trouble you’ve been put to. Many thanks.”
She gave him a stern stare.
“Why aren’t you under a doctor’s care? I saw the blood you coughed up. I know what it means!”
Auberon shrugged. “Oh, your boss would ascribe it to the air in the Old World being permeated with decay, wouldn’t he? So now I’m back home, I should be getting better, right?” He made the most of the bitter joke.
Joel caught his hand. “But you will promise me—won’t you?—to consult Cherouen when we reach St. Louis.”
“I had that in mind when I met him at Mardi Gras,” Auberon said. “Having got to know him, I’m not sure I’d trust him to tend a horse, let alone a human being.”
Seizing gloves and hat, he concluded, “Now I prescribe for myself a little light refreshment. At the bar. That is, unless Arthur is there ahead of me, and his buddy Hugo, in which case I will be a good boy and content myself with being served at a table on deck.” And he marched out.
“No arguing with him, is there?” Joel muttered to Josephine. She gave a wan smile.
“No, he’s too much like—our—father.”
“Would you perhaps care for some refreshment? This trip should have been a chance for you to rest and relax, instead of which it’s turning out to be a tour of duty, and it’s partly my fault, so…”
She shook her head.
“You’re most kind. But I prefer to take care of myself, and I’m sure you must have professional obligations to attend to. Will you not have to send another report ashore at Vicksburg?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Joel said with gratitude. “But if there’s anything I can do, call on me, won’t you? Particularly if—”
“If he breaks his word to stop short of a fight with Mr. Gattry?”
“Exactly.”
A glance passed between them that conveyed perfect mutual understanding.
Then, returning along the vast length of the cabin, Joel was free to consider once more the possibility that he might leave the Nonpareil if she was still trailing, say, at Memphis, and overtake the Atchafalaya by rail.
On the other hand, a reporter had tried to get aboard the other boat at Natchez and been refused; Joel had heard him go by in the broken-down launch, sharing his troubles with the world at the top of his voice.
A decision had better be postponed.
But a little later on he noticed something odd. Josephine was sitting alone at a table in the after section of the cabin. Without noticeable appetite, she was picking at a dish of cold food left over from luncheon, forcing herself to eat as though taking some necessary medicine and sipping occasionally at a glass of champagne. She must, Joel deduced, have come aboard with plenty of money; no wonder she had refused his derisory offer.
But money could not account for the way three black waiters danced constant attendance on her, like courtiers in the presence of more-than-ordinarily intolerant royalty.
Little wheels began to turn in the back of Joel’s mind. That name Josephine…
However, the implications refused to come clear, and anyhow he had far more important matters on his plate.
“You there—Caesar!”
The voice was Roy’s. With a sinking heart Caesar turned as he made to go out on the guards for a few blessed breaths of clean air.
“Yes, sir?” he said, expecting to be called back to deal with some petty emergency.
“Well done,” Roy said, approaching to within arm’s reach. He wiped sweat from his face with his grimy shirt-sleeve.
“I beg yo’ pardon, suh?”
“I said well done! I saw you when we grounded in that bend. You got
to the reversing gear before anybody give the order, didn’t you?”
Caesar swallowed hard. “I just kind of figured that was apt to be the next signal come down from the pilot, suh.”
“And you were right. Like I say, well done. Keep it up.”
“Thank you, suh. Thank you very much!”
As Roy told Steeples and Corkran a few minutes later, when recounting what he’d done, “Niggers is like horses and dogs. One reward is worth a dozen whippings!”
Having slept a few hours despite the racket of the racing boat, but as ever unable to go back to sleep once he had wakened, Whitworth roused uneasily well ahead of the time he was supposed to return to duty.
But all watch schedules were being fouled up anyhow.
Having washed and shaved and dressed, he took up anew the book he had found lying in the cabin this morning. Thinking it must be the journal Matthew kept for Gordon, he had quietly purloined it to peruse in private. Now there seemed to be a fair chance of the Atchafalaya winning after all, he stood to lose more than he could afford, having rashly placed bets on his own boat, more to spite Drew than because he was by temperament a gambler.
Perhaps, he thought, he might gain some usable information about this shameless foreign pervert and his fancy boy—information he could translate into cash. Not that he had plans to remain much longer on the river; chance had put him in the way of a brand-new commercial discovery, with immense financial potential, of which he was carrying actual samples to show to the businessmen of St. Louis. This could well be his last-ever river trip, except as a first-class passenger.
He had been most annoyed to discover that the book was the one he had seen before in disguise, full of pictures of men in skirts, as though Gordon’s habits were somewhere in the world regarded as acceptable.
While he was asleep his annoyance had grown into anger. For a while he was inclined to open the window and hurl the book into the water.
Then a better idea struck him.
Loathsome or not, Gordon had bet even more heavily on the race than he had; moreover, if the Nonpareil lost, she would take even longer to return a dividend on the financier’s investment.
Having found and returned this book might be the key to a conversation with him, which could have all sorts of implications.
He decided to hang on to it until tomorrow morning.
In the cabin of the Atchafalaya there was a permanent party going on, chiefly at Barber’s expense. Toast after toast was drunk to the skill of Hosea Drew.
Among those who remained apart were Dorcas and Eulalie.
Within a very short while the latter’s charm had eroded Dorcas’s mask of gloom, and by the time the Nonpareil attempted to overtake, she was so impressed by the older woman’s worldly wisdom, she took her by the arm to watch the beating-off of the challenge from the deck.
“Fernand always told me this was the finest boat on the river!” Dorcas enthused. “I guess we just saw proof of it!”
“But the race is far from over,” Eulalie countered soberly. “And there are all kinds of other dangers to be faced.”
“Why, I know about them!” Dorcas exclaimed. “In fact, yesterday morning I was trying to…”
Her voice tailed away as she remembered to whom she had been talking about the subject.
“My dear?” Eulalie prompted. But she shook her head and fell silent.
“At any rate,” Eulalie resumed when she was sure the girl was going to say nothing further, “I wasn’t referring to the obvious risks, like running aground. I meant… My dear, you do love Fernand, don’t you?”
Eyes very bright, Dorcas nodded.
“I’m sure you do,” Eulalie affirmed, laying a comforting hand on hers. “As of course do I. But I’m not sure you understand the real world we live in, a world of forces as invisible and implacable as lightning, so that a careless thought, even, can tip the balance between good and bad luck, success and failure.”
Dorcas looked at her blankly.
“When I came aboard—not intending actually to make the trip, to be honest—I brought a gift for Fernand. Has he shown it to you?”
“I—I guess not.”
“Shame on him… though perhaps he was preoccupied. It’s a crucifix. Of solid silver, one of the noble metals.”
“In my family,” Dorcas said nervously, “we were forbidden the use of idols. Even photographs were disapproved by my aunts. They were very pious people.”
“Well,” Eulalie said judiciously, “it is true that the power of symbols is better left alone if you don’t understand how to harness it. You see…”
And for the next hour she led Dorcas into a bizarre and fascinating universe, where the shadow might become the reality, where the gesture might become the act, where the token might become the wished-for truth. Overwhelmed, the girl drank it all in, because this matched so much more closely the actuality of her experience than what either ministers or priests had tried to make her believe. When eventually Eulalie confided that for the greater protection of Fernand and his steamboat she proposed to conduct a small ceremony, in which Dorcas could be of help, she gulped and nodded and passively followed her to the kitchens.
The black cooks were not at all surprised on being asked for the blood, guts, comb and wattles, feet and feathers, from a rooster.
Later the maids and stewards, about their endless work of cleaning up, saw red-brown smears at inconspicuous points around the vessel. With relief—especially on the part of those who had heard the rumor that Mam’zelle Josephine was aboard the rival boat—they left the charm marks where they were.
A little farther upstream the settlements were crowded close, some large enough to be dignified with the name of town: Rodney, Bruinsburg, St. Joseph, Grand Gulf, Palmyra, New Carthage…
But even where the banks looked desolate, they were still dotted with people who must have trudged long miles and waited long hours in the baking sun. Perhaps they had heard rumors from boats obliged to deliver some petty necessity at Hard Times Landing, or to refuel at Turner’s Woodyard.
However that might be, their patience was to be well rewarded.
The Atchafalaya had just rounded Coffee Point. The Nonpareil was, as usual, making better time up the previous reach, but there was no way she could catch up before she must again slow to make the point in her turn. The whole race was going to be like this, unless there were groundings or mechanical breakdowns: the gap between them would continue to open and close concertina-fashion. At the wheel Fernand allowed his mind to wander for a moment, to delicious thoughts of Dorcas.
Abruptly his mood of optimism ended. In the doorway appeared Josh Diamond saying, “I got bad news.”
Fernand’s heart sank.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“That trick the captain played to ground the Nonpareil: it strained the rudder post. I thought I’d better tell you personal. Don’t want too many rumors flying around.”
Drew was still slumbering on the bench; they kept their voices low to avoid disturbing him.
“So how bad is it?” countered Fernand, his mind full of images of the boat’s stern, where the broad vane of the rudder hinged on the main vertical member… which also took much of the load from the fore and aft hog chains. A sidewheeler could be steered on wheels alone, but it was not something he had ever tried, nor did he want to learn the knack of it in the middle of a race.
“It ain’t fatal!” Diamond answered sharply. “Take us a while to put a couple of cramps around the post, that’s all. But make the most you can of this reach.”
“Reach? It’s no more’n a pause between bends!”
“Make the most of it anyhow. Too sharp a turn, and—” He rolled his hand over as though spilling a little pile of sand from the palm. A shout came from below. He turned to leave.
“Sounds like they got my forge set up,” he said. Fernand checked him.
“How long?”
“No longer’n I can help!”
As the door closed, Fernand reviewed his predicament and a shiver crept down his back. There was scarcely a worse point for this to happen. Not only was there a string of bends ahead; for a minute or two he had been noting the smoke of an oncoming steamer. In a short while he should be able to identify her. It was a little early to meet the Judson Clegg, but they hadn’t yet raised the Annie Hampton or the Red Swan, and she might equally well turn out to be a stranger doing a casual run in the lower-river trade.
Cautiously he chose a course which would not put too much strain on the rudder post, realizing as he did so that all by itself this would inform the pilot of the Nonpareil that his rival was in trouble.
How long before the clue was picked up and acted on?
For a little longer it seemed his fears were going to be unfounded. After all, here the river twisted like an intestine, so that a boat going up from Island 110 to 109 was running parallel to but on almost exactly the opposite heading from another making upstream from 106 to 105, the other side of the narrow point where Palmyra was precariously located. Where the channel kept doubling back on itself, and moreover where a number of steamers were scheduled to be coming down about now, was the last place a pilot would normally choose to try and overtake.
Of course, a race wasn’t normal…
He glanced sternward, and his mouth went suddenly dry. As though reading his rival’s thoughts, the other pilot—it must by now be Trumbull, Fernand calculated—was piling on the pressure. Once more great gouts of black smoke were gusting from the Nonpareil, while her band assembled and her off-duty hands cheered and stamped at her bow. The defiant silken banner slapped back and forth.
What to do? Should he wake the captain?
Of course not! A second later Fernand was ashamed of himself for even considering the idea. He was no longer a cub; he was a qualified pilot with as much experience as any of his own age.