by Wilbur Smith
‘Yes, Father. That is what I want.’
Hal sighed and the anger left him. ‘Well, then, I pray for your sake that you have made the right decision. Your fate is now out of my hands.’ He pushed the parchment of indenture across the desk. ‘Sign it. I will bear witness.’
Afterwards Hal sanded the wet ink of the signatures carefully then blew off the excess and handed the document to Mr Beatty. He turned back to Guy. ‘I will explain your position to the ship’s officers, and to your brothers. I have no doubt what they will think of you.’
In the darkness the brothers discussed Guy’s decision in exhaustive detail, squatting up in the bows with Aboli and Big Daniel.
‘But how can Guy leave us like this? We swore that we’d always stick together, didn’t we, Tom?’ Dorian was distraught.
Tom avoided the direct question. ‘Guy gets seasick. He could never be a real sailor,’ he said. ‘And he’s afraid of the sea and of going aloft.’ Somehow Tom could not bring himself to feel his younger brother’s distress at this turn of events.
Dorian seemed to sense this and looked instead to the two older men for comfort. ‘He should have stayed with us, don’t you agree, Aboli?’
‘There are many roads through the jungle,’ Aboli rumbled. ‘If we all took the same one it would become very crowded.’
‘But Guy!’ Dorian was almost in tears. ‘He should never have deserted us.’ He turned back to Tom. ‘You won’t ever desert me, will you, Tom?’
‘Of course I won’t,’ Tom said gruffly.
‘Promise?’ A single tear ran down Dorian’s cheek now, sparkling in the starlight.
‘You must not cry,’ Tom admonished him.
‘I’m not crying. It’s just that the wind makes my eyes water.’ He dashed away the tear. ‘Promise me, Tom.’
‘I promise you.’
‘No, not like that. Swear me a dreadful oath,’ Dorian insisted.
With a long-suffering sigh, Tom drew the dirk from the sheath on his belt. He held up the narrow blade, which glinted in the moonlight. ‘As God, Aboli and Big Daniel are my witness.’ He pricked the point of the dagger into the ball of his thumb and they all watched the blood well up, black as tar, in the silvery light. He slipped the dagger back into its sheath, and with his free hand he drew Dorian’s face close to his own. While he stared solemnly into the child’s eyes, Tom inscribed with his thumb a bloody cross on Dorian’s forehead. ‘I swear you a dreadful oath that I will never leave you, Dorian,’ he intoned with gravity. ‘Now stop crying.’
With Guy’s defection the watch-bill was altered so that Tom took over his twin’s shipboard duties, adding them to his own. Now Ned Tyler and Big Daniel could concentrate the lessons in navigation, gunnery and sail-management on two students instead of three. Tom’s routine had been heavy before, but now it seemed to have no limits.
Guy’s duties now, though, were light and pleasant. After the daily lessons with Master Walsh, when Tom and Dorian had to hurry topsides to begin their stints, he spent a few hours writing letters and reports for Mr Beatty, or studying the Company’s publications, including ‘Instructions to Recruits in the Service of the Honourable English East India Company’, after which he was free to read to Mrs Beatty, or to play cards with her daughters. None of this endeared him to his older brother, who sometimes, from the rigging, watched him strolling and laughing with the ladies on the quarterdeck, which was out of bounds to all but the ship’s officers and the passengers.
The Seraph crossed the equator amid the usual jollification when all those who were making the crossing for the first time underwent initiation and paid allegiance to Neptune, god of the oceans. Aboli, in an improbable costume of oddments from the slop chest and a beard of unravelled rope, made an impressive Neptune.
Now the doldrums had swung to the northwards of the line, and as the two ships gradually shook free of their grip, they found themselves entering the belt of the southern trades. The character of the ocean changed: there was a sparkle to the ocean, which seemed alive after the sluggish, sullen waters of the doldrums. The air was fresh and invigorating, the sky dappled with mares’ tails of wind-driven cirrus cloud. In sympathy, the mood of the crew became light and almost gay.
Hal shaped their course south-westerly, so that they could run on a broad reach, away from the continent of Africa, more than halfway across the Atlantic towards the coast of South America, but they traded the angle on the wind for distance run.
Every ten days Tom went down with Ned and the gunnery mates to check the contents of the magazine. It was part of his instruction in the art of gunnery to understand the character and the temperamental nature of the black powder. He had to know its composition, of sulphur, charcoal and saltpetre, how these ingredients could be safely blended and stored, how to prevent a buildup of heat and damp, which could cake the grains and cause uneven or faulty ignition in the guns. At each visit, Ned always impressed on him the danger of naked flame or spark in the magazine, which could set off an explosion and blow the ship out of the water.
Before going into battle the kegs were opened and the powder carefully weighed out into silk bags that contained the exact charge for a gun. This was rammed home down the muzzle as a cartridge and on top was placed a wad of cloth and then the shot. The bags were carried up to the gundecks by the powder monkeys or boys. Even when the ship was not expecting action, several silk bags were filled and laid out in the ready racks, in case of an emergency. Unfortunately the thin silk made the contents susceptible to damp and caking, so the bags had to be checked and repacked regularly.
When Ned and Tom worked in the magazine there was seldom any skylarking or light banter. The light from the single mesh-screened lantern was dim, and there was a cathedral hush. As the silk bags were passed up to him, Tom packed them carefully into the racks. They were firm and smooth to the touch. That would make a comfortable bunk, he thought. Suddenly he had a vision of Caroline stretched out on the silk bags – naked. He gave a low moan.
‘What is it, Master Tom?’ Ned looked up at him quizzically.
‘Nothing. I was just thinking.’
‘Leave the daydreaming to your twin. He’s good at it,’ Ned advised laconically. ‘And you get on with the job. That’s what you’re good at.’
Tom went on packing in the bags, but now he was thinking furiously. The magazine was the only part of the ship that was deserted for ten days at a time, where a person could be alone, without fear of intrusion. It was just the place he had been trying so hard to find, so obvious that he had overlooked it. He glanced down at the keys that hung from Ned’s belt. There were half a dozen in the bunch: those for the magazine, the arms-lockers, the galley stores and the slop chest – as well as the magazine.
When they had finished, Tom was at Ned’s side when he secured the heavy oak door. He made a mental note of the key that turned the massive lock: it was quite distinctly shaped from the others on the bunch, with five tangs in the shape of a crown. He tried to think of a way to get his hands on the bunch, even for a few minutes, so that he could slip the one he wanted off the ring. But it was wasted effort: generations of seamen before him had contemplated the similar problem of how to get the key to the store where the spirits were kept.
That night he was lying on his pallet when the next idea occurred to him, so suddenly that he sat bolt upright: there must be more than one set of keys on board. If there were, he knew where they must be: in his father’s cabin. In the sea-chest under his bunk, or in one of the drawers of the desk, he thought. For the rest of that night he had little sleep. Even in his privileged position of the master’s eldest son aboard, he certainly could not make free with his father’s quarters, and Hal’s movements about the ship were unpredictable. There was never any time when his cabin was certain to be deserted. If he was not there, his steward was probably fussing with the bedclothes, or with Hal’s wardrobe. He discounted the idea of making an attempt after his father had retired to his bunk. Tom knew that he was a light
sleeper – he had found that out the hard way. His father was not an easy man to bamboozle.
Over the next week, Tom considered, and discarded, a few other wildly impractical plans, such as climbing down the outside of the hull and entering through the stern gallery. He knew he would have to take a calculated risk, and wait until his father ordered a major change of sail. Then both watches would be on deck, and his father would be fully engrossed above. Tom would conjure up some excuse to leave his post and hurry below.
The days went by swiftly, with the trades steady from the south-east and Seraph still set on the port tack. No change of sail was called for and there was no opportunity for Tom to put his plan into action.
Then the opportunity came to him in such a fortuitous manner that Tom felt an almost superstitious unease. He was squatting with the other men of his watch under the break of the forecastle, enjoying a rare few minutes of rest, when his father looked up from the compass binnacle and beckoned to him. Tom scrambled to his feet and ran to his father’s side. ‘Run down to my cabin, there’s a good lad,’ Hal told him. ‘Look in the top drawer of my desk. You’ll find my black notebook there. Bring it to me.’
‘Aye, sir.’ For a moment Tom felt quite giddy, then raced for the head of the companionway.
‘Tom, not so fast.’ His father’s voice made him pause, his heart skipping. It had been too easy. ‘If its not in the top drawer, it may be in one of the others.’
‘Yes, Father.’ Tom shot down the stairs.
The black notebook lay in the top drawer, exactly where his father had said it would be. Quickly Tom tried the other drawers, dreading to find them locked, but they slid open readily enough, and he searched them quickly. As he pulled open the last, he heard a heavy metal object clank and slide with the movement. Again his heart jumped.
The duplicate keys were tucked under a copy of the almanac and navigational tables. He lifted them out gingerly, and recognized the crown shape of the magazine key. He glanced up at the closed cabin door, and listened for footsteps before committing himself. Then he unscrewed the ring, slipped the key from it, thrust it into his pocket, closed the hasp of the ring, laid the depleted bunch back in the drawer and covered it with the almanac.
As he ran back on deck the key seemed as heavy in his pocket as a round shot. He had to find a hiding-place for it. The chances were that his father would not discover the theft, not unless the original was lost or mislaid. That was highly unlikely but, still, it was dangerous to carry his prize on his person.
That night he woke as usual when the ship’s bell sounded the beginning of the middle watch at midnight. He waited for another hour then rose silently from his pallet. Beside him Guy sat up. ‘Where are you going?’ he whispered.
Tom’s heart sank. ‘To the head,’ he whispered back. ‘Go to sleep.’ In future he must make some changes to their sleeping arrangements. Guy sank back on his straw pallet, and Tom slipped away in the direction of the bows, but as soon as he was out of Guy’s sight he turned back quickly and slipped down the companionway to the lower deck.
In this wind and on this point of sailing the ship was never silent. Her timbers creaked and groaned, one of the seams popped regularly, loud as a pistol shot, and the waters rushed and whispered, thumped against the hull.
There was no light in the lower deck, but Tom moved with confidence, only once running into one of the bulkheads. Any noise he made was covered by the other shipboard sounds.
A single lantern was hanging from the deck at the bottom of the stern companionway. It cast a glimmering of light down the central passage. There was a sliver of light under the door to his father’s cabin. He slipped past it and paused briefly outside the tiny cabin in which the three girls slept. He heard nothing, and went on.
The powder magazine was on the next deck down, right beside where the heel of the mainmast was stepped on the keelson. Tom crept down the last set of wooden stairs into the utter darkness of the lowest deck, and carefully to the door of the magazine. He knelt beside it and, by touch alone, fitted his key into the lock. The mechanism was stiff – he had to exert considerable effort before it yielded – and the door opened to his nudge. He stood in the dark opening and inhaled the sharp odour of black powder. Although he felt a sense of accomplishment, he knew there were still many obstacles before him. Quietly he pulled the door closed and locked it. He groped for and found the crack above the lintel, where he hid the key and the tinderbox he had brought with him. Then he retraced his steps through the vessel until he reached his pallet on the gundeck and crawled onto it. Beside him Guy moved restlessly. He was still awake, but neither spoke again, and soon they both drifted back to sleep.
So far all had worked in Tom’s favour. So much so that the next day he had a queasy feeling that his luck must change. There had been little indication from Caroline that his plans might go any further than the point they had now reached. His courage was evaporating. He brooded on the risks he had taken, and those he must still take. More than once he determined to return the magazine key to his father’s desk drawer, and abandon the whole desperate idea, but then he would sneak a glance at Caroline when she was absorbed in her lessons. The curve of her cheek, the pink lips pouting in concentration, a soft forearm below the puffed sleeves of her dress now lightly gilded by the tropical sun, and sparsely decorated with fine, peach-fluff hairs.
I have to be alone with her, even for a minute. It’s worth any risk, he decided, but still he hesitated, unable to screw his courage to the act. He teetered on the brink, until she gave him the push that sent him over the edge.
At the end of the day’s lessons, Caroline flounced out of the cabin ahead of Tom. But as she stepped onto the companionway, Master Walsh called out to her, ‘Ah, Mistress Caroline, will you be able to attend the music practice this evening?’
Caroline turned back to answer him. Her movement was so unexpected that Tom could not avoid bumping into her. At the collision she almost lost her balance, but caught hold of his arm to steady herself, and he put the other round her waist. At that moment they were out of sight of Walsh and the two boys in the cabin behind them.
Caroline made no effort to pull away from him. Instead, she swayed towards him and pressed her lower body against his, a deliberate gyrating movement, looking up into his face with a sly, knowing expression as she did so. In that instant, the world changed for Tom. The contact was fleeting. Then she stepped round him and spoke to Master Walsh through the cabin door. ‘Yes, of course. The weather is so fair we could meet on deck, don’t you think?’
‘What a splendid idea,’ Walsh agreed, with alacrity. ‘Shall we say at six o’clock, then?’ Walsh still used the landlubber’s calculation of time.
Ned Tyler stood beside Tom at the ship’s wheel. Tom was trying to hold the Seraph’s heading at south-west by south, on her unswerving run across the ocean.
‘Meet her!’ Ned grunted, as Tom let her pay off a point. With every sail set to the royals and filled with twenty-five knots of wind, it was like trying to hold a runaway stallion.
‘Look at your wake,’ Ned told him sternly. Obediently Tom glanced back over the stern. ‘Like a pair of snakes on honeymoon,’ Ned said, which they both knew was unfair: a cable’s length behind there was a barely discernible kink in the creaming wake, but Tom was allowed no leeway by his tutors. For the next ten minutes the Seraph cut a rapier-straight furrow through the blue waves.
‘Very well, Master Thomas.’ Ned nodded. ‘Now, from the top of the main mast, if you please.’
‘Royals, topgallants . . .’ Tom called the names of the sails, without hesitation or mistake, and without allowing the ship’s head to wander.
Then the trio of musicians came up from the stern quarters. Guy was carrying Caroline’s songbook and his cittern. Walsh, with his flute sticking out of his back pocket, was carrying her stool in one hand and holding his wig on with the other. The group took up their usual place at the lee rail, protected from the main force of the wind.
>
Tom tried to keep his attention on the con of the ship, respond to Ned’s inquisition and watch for the moment that Caroline opened her songbook and found the note he had placed between the pages.
‘Mizen mast sails, if you please, from the top,’ said Ned.
‘Mizen topsail,’ Tom replied, then hesitated. Caroline was ready to sing, and Walsh passed her the songbook.
‘Go on,’ Ned encouraged him.
‘Mizen staysail,’ said Tom, and paused again. Caroline opened the book, and frowned.
She was reading something between the pages. He thought he saw her pale, but then she glanced up involuntarily and looked straight at him across the full length of the open deck.
‘Mizen course,’ said Tom, and looked back at her. Again she gave him that sly, enigmatic look, and tossed her head so that her curls danced in the wind. From between the pages of her songbook she picked up the scrap of rice-paper, on which he had so laboriously penned his message, crumpled it into a ball between her fingers and tossed it disdainfully over the side. The wind caught it and carried it far out before dropping it into the water, where it disappeared among the pearling white caps. It was so clearly another rejection that Tom felt his world totter.
‘Hold your luff!’ said Ned sharply, and Tom started guiltily as he saw that he had let the Seraph sag down to leeward.
Even though he knew now that it was fruitless, Tom lay on his pallet through all the long first watch, awaiting the hour of midnight, and debating with himself as to whether there was any reason to take the risk and keep true to the assignation he had proposed. Her rejection had seemed categoric, and yet he knew with certainty that she had enjoyed that disturbing moment of intimacy in his father’s cabin as much as he had. And that fleeting contact outside Walsh’s quarters had confirmed beyond doubt that she was not averse to another adventure.