Deluded Your Sailors (15 page)

How came I to this? Sit down, then, Lieutenant, and look at me, eye to eye, sir, for you'll notice I cannot stand. I wonder I speak to you at all. Bound, now, I see naught left to lose. Here's adieu to all sorrow and care, hey?

The pox had ruint his face, aye, but his voice echoing out that barrel chest would persuade Lucifer he hadn't fallen. Blinded with it, too, and in bad pain. But still looked after me, in his fashion. He walked right delicately for a big man. Captain George Walters, master of
Bonaventure Walters
, and full owner, too. The man answered only to himself. Think on it. Bearing up under all the fuckery, gall and torment of being at sea not for your captain, not for the sake of the crew, but for your own self. Once the fuss of me being aboard calmed down, he told me stories, but the only ones he knew fell out of his own life. He'd been a navy man once, he told me, pressed near the docks, sea-legs giving him away. When he argued, a midshipman not half his height whacked him on the head. Good blow to the head can be quite useful.

His face had gone all lumpy with flesh and skin, though ‘lumpy' hardly be the best word, all of a cause that lumps hardly live. These did. They grew and they twitched, and sometimes I'd be awake – he'd slung me a wooden hammock in his quarters, a hanging crib, to keep me safe – I'd be awake, slush lamp burning away, watching him sleep. The lumps suffered little fits of their own, independent of the rest of him. The fits often woke him up. He'd got this truly spectacular lump just left of his nose, and the bloat of it ate up that side of his face. His right eye bulged right out his head, droopy like an old pap. I figured that eye would slip free of its socket any minute. And if that eye deserted, I'd have asked to peek in the hole.

Likely just another lump waiting in there.

Decline, right? Man and ship. Easy enough to deny, and he helped the denial along with the proper good pay. He could do that, writing up all profits and losses in his own ink. He liked to please the devils he knew, because he feared what new men would steal from him. Old hands, the lot of them working
Bonaventure Walters
.

It got rainy the night I came on board
Bon Wally
. Galls me still. That raggedy-eared dog-fucker, Ned Coltman. Soon as he could, he crammed me and his ditty bag deep into his big sea chest, and locked it. I nearly smothered in there, sucking at canvas and wood. I could trust Coltman, aye, trust him to choke and bugger me. Captain Walters caught him at it early on, out to sea, and warned Coltman he'd ruin me as surely as he'd ruin a dog by beating it too much.

Walters, I loved the way he talked, even just the sound of his voice. I did. I loved him, the way a drowning man loves a floating plank. No, Lieutenant, tis important, and if you wish to learn a single half-fact about that lost God damned gold and how you and me came to be sitting here, then you will listen. Tis you who did beg me to tell, you'll recall.

Atthey told me about the night I came on board, Captain Walters yarring like it would cure him.

‘Stow the salt pork with the purser, no stow the purser, Atthey get that canvas rolled. Sail boy? God, Gabriel and Saint Peter, not this voyage, we only go to Christiania, for to lay in lumber and tin. Tennant, bring me the manifest before – Clinch, when – Jesus, stop stumbling, or I'll cuff ya up to London, the stink –Morris. Morris! Grimes, Tennant wants to discuss the victuals with you. Pass the word for Morris. Devil-sent carpenter, he'll ruin me missed nail by missed nail. For want of a nail – Morris, I tell you again, repair the damned rung. Body will kill himself climbing down that demented companionway. For the love of God, Gabriel and Saint Peter, men, I know tis dark, but which of ye let the whores on board? Get! Coltman, come aboard at last, have ya? God forbid we attempt to sail without the charms of Ned Coltman. Stow that ditty bag below and haul arse back up on deck before I find a reason to slice off your other ear and make you a present of a matched set. Aye, Rattlebags, what now? Finch the coffee-merchant desires a word with me? Now? Tell that rotten begone peddler to – has he? Devil take him. Atthey, I've not got one fraction of a moment for your worry. Finch, Japheth Finch, coffee-merchant, merchant of coffee. At your service. A delight to see you again, good as fire at night, especially when neither of us owes the other. Norway, I'm bound, Christiania, bit of tin, bit of lumber, got the buyers all queued up and wound round the corner. No, not one coffee bean in sight. Short-shipped ten pounds? Sweet profit there. A merchant of your standing? Now what man would be so foolish as to try and cheat the likes of Japheth Finch? Aye, Coltman with part the ear gone, he ships with me, calls me captain. Look now, what me men get at ashore be their own concern, not mine, not yours. A linkboy led you past an alley – Finch, set me straight. Since when be buggery a moral quake for you? That whore, Jane Wilkes, will not – aye, Jane does be very sweet, and pretty, finest mouth of many, and I hear she'll flog if that be your taste, but then you never did join the navy. Be that as – I imply naught, Finch. I state outright. Oh, bugger the linkboy. Dozens more like him spawned daily. Sneaking glymjacks be not worth the blood they tax off their mothers comin into the world. No doubt he took a fright, if twas his first time, maybe cried and then cherished a new rubbing-knot in his heart because he suddenly enjoys the ancient risk of his profession. My men's shore leave has precisely what to do with coffee? Outraged at me wilful blindness? Ten pounds short-shipped, I'd be outraged, too. Ah, Morris, my cherished carpenter, come join this happy parley with Finch. I be aware we got no coffee on board. I be just explaining to Finch the waste, the almost tragic and heart-rending waste, tragic if not so common, of men left unemployed – Atthey, fix not your pissburnt eyes on me, or I'll see you sewed up in your own sailcloth still alive! Finch, do you not agree? Why take on new men when the old work twice as hard in fear of an empty belly and solitude in the cold? Other commanders must go a-beggin to take out a bummary on their vessels, bitter mortgages, never paid for mounting interest. Aye, other masters must go a-beggin, sir, while I might sheathe my ship's pretty bum in gold. But lead must suffice when tis all the market can bear. One day I shall quit this toil and freely spend my age in comfort. Tis just south of destiny. So might you. Comfort of jingling coins. Will that conclude our business tonight, Japheth Finch, coffee-merchant and merchant of coffee? Mistaken, aye, no doubt, light being tricky and shadows being deep. Do keep hold of your health – tangled in the what, now? Rattlebags, help Finch remove himself from the course lines. And why do they lie slack and not made up? Get them neat round the belaying pins. Every time Finch comes on board… aye, my best to your missus, too. And Jane. Godspeed, God be with you, good riddance. Bloodless poxwalker, mind crumbled, gone to arsenic. Coltman! For peace and pity's sake, stop buggering boys in the street. Boatswain. Boatswain! What name did his mother steal for him? Boatswain, see to the lines. Rattlebags, make us ready. I want us taking departure within the hour, free of trouble, full and by. The boatswain, his name slipping me like that?'

Christopher Atthey found me and later on loaned me his name. No man on board called
him
‘Kit.' Besides, we already carried a ‘Ki,' Ezekiah Rattlebags. Tis just as well Atthey remained Atthey so I might be Kit. I figured out pretty quick I needed to throw ‘Ann' overboard.

Named or not, I nearly did go overboard myself, as Atthey told it. ‘Secrets crack like the wood of a ship surrounding them,' he said. All of a cause that Coltman glowed smug longer than usual after shore, Atthey set to looking. Coltman's sea-chest being tucked well beyond the reach of a slush lamp, Atthey missed it twice, even on his determined walkthroughs.

I loved Christopher Atthey, too, but I did not recognize that for a long time. Atthey wanted to watch over me, but I got afraid. Because Pike got killed all of a cause of watching over me. So I strangled my good feelings. Pike said my mother strangled her other infants, she being a whore and babies being a nuisance, but not me. Never me. I got no memory of her.

Secrets, then. Atthey and Rattlebags sought out any happy secret Coltman might have tucked away for later that could only harden into trouble. Another walkthrough, dodging hammocks and sleeping shipmates – sleeping good as death at sea, deaf to all but bells. They respected Atthey on
Bonaventure Walters
. He'd sailed with Walters ten years, and with other masters many years before that, and he lost no strength to his white hairs. He'd stop fights, jump right in, if one of his sharp looks didn't work first. Years of receiving strange confidences on night watches – Atthey decided he knew men nearly as well as God Himself. And he knew that ship.

I must tell you his prayer: God grant me a full belly and dull voyage.

Atthey heard me sucking air at the sea-chest hinge and mollyrigged open the lock. I'd not got much struggle left in me when Atthey moved that lid. Blue at the lips, he told me, fists clenched right up to my face, rest of me curled up tight as a burnt corpse. Ever seen such a thing? A man burnt to death looks like he's fighting, or ducking a blow.

I remember sucking fresh air, dragging it into myself. Thought I'd drown. My broken finger pained hard and my arse and jaws ached for days. But once I got the air in, I fought in Atthey's arms, even when I saw his two whole ears. He set me down at the companionway, and I climbed it like a monkey. On deck then, overcast and dull, I had to shut my eyes, even that dim light too much. My hips and knees bent and swayed, right easy, like some dance revealed itself in my blood. A man said ‘Jesus' like Pike did just before he died. Someone else, not Coltman, said ‘What in hell be that pretty thing at here?' Another one called my mouth very sweet. I smelled the pitch still on my fingers, and I got my eyes open. We stood stern. Coltman and another man stood fore, backs to us. Two masts, square-rigged, bowsprit pointing well above the horizon and then smacking down off the waves. Men keeping right still as they tried to decide if they saw me or not.

Atthey spoke then, his voice rough, like he'd drunk broken glass. He stuttered, too, had a hard time with it, agonies on C, K, G and W, though he usually spoke fluent to me. I will not mimic him. He asked which of them saw me dragged aboard, and his disgust scared me all of a cause I thought he aimed it at me. I stepped away from him, but I could hardly decide where to stand, all these lines and pins and men not a pace away, and the wind cutting right through me. I shook.

Atthey cut the meat even smaller. ‘Out with it. Which of ye knew the secret boy?'

Coltman, they all muttered, only Coltman'd be so dirty. Discussion, too, of night and fog and the captain's fierce hurry to leave.

Rattlebags, officer of the watch, emerged up the companionway. Hair like frayed rope, he had, though some of it curled. Dark blue eyes, too, not the least touch cold. This Rattlebags looked at me, and I looked at him, and then he looked to Atthey, who scowled so great I feared him more. Rattlebags did be the first mate, but Atthey gave the order.

‘Captain must be told. At once. And you be the man to do it.'

Rattlebags cursed.

Years later Con Pilgrim told me how Moses likely stammered and needed his Aaron to speak for him. At first I couldn't see how this Aaron would know what Moses needed to say. I expect if Pilgrim did sit with us now, and I fell mute, he could speak to you my mind.

Ever see a butcher's yard? The guts out back, all the waste and blood and sawdust? A particular worm thrives there. It leaps, sir, being six to eight inches, leaps and dives into the newer muck, eats its fill, leaps again. My heart be that butcher's yard.

Truly, you'd not refuse me a drink? Look at me.

I thank you for your assistance, Mr Kelly.

Some of them talking of me, some of them talking of anything else, those brave men of
Bonaventure Walters
carried on with their duties whilst I, under the escort of Rattlebags, travelled below to see the captain.

Compact little thing,
Bon Wally
. Collier, first, so all square-bummed, which cramped up the captain's cabin, though it did be still all luxury compared to the men's quarters. Rattlebags had to rap the door pretty hard and then beg the captain's pardon at least a dozen times. And my first glimpse of that poxy bloat-king nearly set in stone my belief that monsters sailed the seas. His first glimpse of me likely sparked the thought that linkboys were vermin that walked upright and plagued men. Given that linkboys be poorly thought of, and given that I stood totally uninvited and most unwanted in his private quarters, he should have demanded I disappear. I dare say he wished to.

Instead, he rubbed his forehead and his jaw, nerve pain shooting up and down his face, and sighed. ‘Rattlebags, what in the name of God, Gabriel and Saint Peter have ya got there?'

‘A boy, sir,' said the loyal Rattlebags.

‘And how are we supposed to feed a boy? Do you know what the purser will be after saying to me, the whining about tallies and totals I got to put up with now? For the whole blessed voyage?'

‘Aye, sir,' said careful Rattlebags.

‘Do you think Finch's pawky fuss meant something?'

‘I wouldn't know, sir, for the noise he made,' said honest Rattlebags.

‘How did he get aboard? Hey? Answer me that, Rattlebags.'

I answered him. ‘In a ditty-bag, sir.'

Neither of them knew what to say to that. After a moment's thought, they both ordered me to speak up. Then they both ordered me be silent. Finally, Captain Walters buttoned his greatcoat – warmest thing I ever saw, all the proper wool and the big collar, worth a fortune – and ordered us back on deck, he to follow. We ganged along, Walters slipping on the companionway and cursing the carpenter, until we stood once more in open air and dull daylight. Coltman by now stood stiff and innocent as the mast.

Captain Walters skipped formalities and beginnings and just bawled it out. ‘Did not one of ye hear the noise? See that ditty-bag squirm?'