Most Secret (27 page)

“I am in search of a French gentleman, a Captain Souter …”

The man with rings in his ears faced round, rose up, and kicked his chair aside.

“C’est moi!” he proclaimed in a mighty voice. He smiled ingratiatingly, took a step backwards, and struck his chest with a gesture like Othello stabbing himself.

“Cest moi!” he repeated. “Félix Alexandre Charlemagne Souter, veree mooch at your command!”

Over Kinsmere towered this fat giant, with a cheerfulness of expression which all his villainous looks could not dim or contradict. His broad nose flared up into a couple of furry eyebrows. His black beard spread in cascade; the ends of a black moustache blew out and floated whenever he spoke. An old scar on his left temple had drawn up one eye with an Oriental kind of twist; he shut the other eye in a conspirator’s wink. Despite their dirt and disorder, his gold-laced purple coat and fringed red breeches made vivid colour in the taproom. He wore a cutlass slung from a baldric; his gold-laced hat lay on the table. The brass rings danced in his ears as he chuckled and bowed; so did the greasy bits of ribbon with which locks of his long hair were tied.

“Good!” said Félix Alexandre Charlemagne Souter, in very tolerable English. “You are from London,
hein
? You bring with you de ring and also de small pack-ette,
hein
? But old Félix must not be deceive. Produce dese!”

“Here,” said Kinsmere, “is the ring—”

“No, no, no, no! De ot’er. I tell you why,” explained Captain Souter, tapping his nose impressively. “Last night a man comes to me wit’ de ring, jus’ like yours. But he does not ask for me by name. And old Félix is not one fool, you bet. I am suspicious. I watch. I look. Ha, ha, ha.” Crouching and shading his eyes with his hand, Captain Souter leered about the taproom. Then he whirled back. “I say to thees man, ‘My friend, you show me de ring. It is good. But ’ow else am I goin’ to know you?’ Show me also de small pack-ette. I t’ink deep. I am one philosopher. Old Félix wish only to see de seals; den he know.’ And thees man refuse!”

“He did, did he? Who was the man?”

“Ah! That I don’ know. And I do not ask. Me, I am one philosopher.
You
show me de seals, young man, and I am satisfy.”

“Here? In public? When there are people,” says Kinsmere, “with such a taste for casual assassination that—”

Félix stared at him.

“Eh? What is it you t’ink, young man? You t’ink anyone will dare to try de dirty work wit’ me, Félix on de spot all dees time? Oh, goddam!” he cried, appealing to the ceiling. “Young man, you are not acquaint wit’ me. You know what I do to anyone who try dat?”

With a gesture which seemed to fill the room, he yanked the cutlass out of its scabbard. He lunged with the point; he cut viciously at the air, endangering a fish-oil lamp hung from the rafters; and then stood back in a mighty pose as though about to have his portrait painted.

“Voilà!” he said haughtily.

By this time Kinsmere had recovered not only his good spirits but his sense of the ridiculous. After summoning the landlord and calling for something to eat, he took the leather pouch from under his shirt and gave Captain Souter a glimpse of what was inside the oilskin packet.

“Good! All is good!” beamed Félix, sheathing the cutlass. “And that is arrange now. I told you I am not one fool, yes? Now you come wit’ me; we go to de private room; you ’ave your breakfas’; we wait for Mr. Garlick. Is de mate of my beautiful ship. At dis moment he is round up de crew. Ha, ha, ha!” Félix said proudly. “I have one damn fine crew, I tell you. One minute dey be all blind drunk, lying out on de quay; rows and rows of dem, all in a line …”

Felix looked dreamy. His gesture suggested a vista of recumbent seamen, paralyzed with intoxication, stretching away into the distance like the Great Wall of China.

“… but one bucket of water on each—one bucket—
plosh!
Dey be up de ratlines like monkeys, ha ha. Nobody slip on de footropes. No ’and will shake at all. Old Félix know! You come wit’ me, now, and I tell you why I mus’ take good care no ’arm befall you at any time.”

Clapping on the gold-laced hat, Captain Souter led him out into a passage and back to a gloomy little room with a sanded floor, a fire, and a pair of depressed-looking candles stuck into bottles. They sat down at the table, where the landlord brought Kinsmere a platter of fried fish and a tankard of small beer.

While my grandfather ate, old Félix assumed a look of great profundity.

“Monsieur,” he said, “I tell you. De secret of de ’appy life, la vie heureuse, it lie in two t’ings. You are young, and I tell you. In de beautiful cabine of my ship I have one book. He is a great book. I find him years ago in a prison where dey put me, and almost I am hang. At first I do not understand him, but now I keep him by me always.
De Consolation of Philosophy,
by a Roman called Bocthius. Now tell me, young man: do you know ships?”

“Well! I am a landlubber, I suppose, though years ago
I
was used to make a nuisance of myself on St. Augustine’s Wharf at Bristol. If I am not overknowledgeable in the matter of ships, at least I like them.”

“You like ships? Ha! When you see my
Thunderer
—ha!” boomed Félix, indicating rapture. “Is solid. Is Dutch-built. Not de best in de world, maybe, but nearly so and who care? Consider! Two-decker. One t’ousand four hundred tonnage. Forty gun she mount—”

“Now burn everything,” exclaimed Kinsmere, “but do you tell me we cross the Straits in a man-o’-war?”

“No, no, no! Is privately owned; is armed merchantman. But could be a warship, yes; and will be a warship, I say, when I ’ave
finish
wit’ her! I do all I am commanded, I take care of you, and dat ship is mine. Alors, I am one philosopher; I do it. Through philosophy I achieve my ambition. I own my own ship; I sail on de Account …”

“On the account?”

“On de Account! What you call—piracy. Hein?” Félix looked triumphant. “I get letters of marque, maybe. Maybe not. Ha, ha, ha. Already there is one damn fine crew. My
Thunderer,
she is ready. I make for de Caribbean, I t’ink. And now I tell you de ot’er t’ing which is needed for de ’appy life. Dat is politeness, always politeness! It will give me a good name when I am on de Account. In de islands dey will say, ‘Ah, old Félix! He sink de ship. He take de women. He tie us to de mast for de crew to t’row bottles at, maybe. But old Félix, goddam, he is
al-ways
polite.’ Ha!”

A harsh voice said:

“Crew’s abaard.”

In the doorway, one hand on the doorpost, stood a lean, muscular, sandy-haired man with a sullen eye and a knotted lash swung by its thong from his wrist. Wrinkles struggled across his face from the intensity of summoning up speech. He spat, and snapped the whip.

“A zay, crew’s abaard,” he repeated, in the speech of Somerset. “Yon’s
’im?
” he inquired, jerking the lash towards Kinsmere.

With great ceremony Captain Souter presented Mr. Joseph Garlick, the mate of the
Thunderer.
Mr. Joseph Garlick spat again and led them out of the tavern, while Félix made soothing speeches.

A chill pallor of dawn had come up over the Straits. Salt air lay heavily on Kinsmere’s eyelids; the wound in his shoulder, almost forgotten until now, began to pull and smart. What he minded most was the return of his drowsiness. Once he was aboard ship, he hoped, he might snatch an hour or two’s sleep. But the enemy had made no sign so far. Where were the enemy, and what would they do?

The wharf swam in mist and half-light Loud rose a screaming of gulls amid crowded masts; the gulls tumbled as though shot, and then flapped up with a wooden rattle of wings. At a jetty facing south Félix made philosophic remarks as he bowed Kinsmere into a waiting longboat. Oars dipped; the longboat shot out through a poisonous atmosphere, cleaving through sewage of the dim hulls roundabout.

The
Thunderer
lay well out beyond, heaving at anchor. My grandfather watched her grow out of the mist, and approved. She was strong if not graceful, with square lines from beakhead to sterncastle. Square-rigged and three-masted, she carried mainsail, topsail, and topgallant of sturdy breadth; the clumsy spritsail of her time, and the lateen sail aft. All canvas was white or red. Along her brown-painted hull ran two tiers of guns: the upper on the main deck, the lower at open gun ports well below. Brass bow chasers looked out from the forecastlehead; stern chasers were mounted on the quarter-deck aft. If it came to exchanging sea blows with anything except a heavy line-of-battle ship, the
Thunderer
could both give blows and receive them.

A clear breeze sprang up, sweeping at the mist and then dispersing it; long shafts of sunlight struck through. They touched the gilt of the beakhead, they ran across canvas and shrouds. As the longboat hove to under the lee side, a pipe sounded in the waist; there was a sudden patter of activity, and a Jacob’s-ladder came snaking down.

Kinsmere looked round with a good deal of curiosity as he climbed up. Even apart from Félix’s determination to sail on the Account, he had fallen into strange company. She was a Dutch-built ship with an English name, and she flew English colours; but her crew appeared to be of all mixed nationalities and grades, alike only in looking knavish or unkempt. One spidery Frenchman sat on a sea chest, binding up his skewered wrist and cursing somebody named Ysobel. Another man (what country?) was being sick in the scuppers to leeward, interrupting this process only to gurgle out prayers in one of the more spectacular Latin tongues. Half a dozen others lay in the waist. Kinsmere had never seen filthier decks, and she smelt no better than the quayside.

But Félix was at his elbow, overpowering in geniality. Félix led him up aft; then down a steep companionway into a dark passage to what he called his
belle cabine.

It was the master’s cabin in the sterncastle, spacious enough for that day. A line of arched and many-paned windows, several lights open, faced aft out of wood much carved and painted, and made a kind of eyrie high above the rudder.

A brass lanthorn hung from the roof. Curtains and upholstery, once a bright scarlet sewn with gilt thread, masked bulkheads alive with black beetles and rats. Into the chart rack were thrust a mariner’s cross-staff, a telescope, and another dented hat of gold lace. On a table near the windows, set out in massive silver plate greasy from the remains of last night’s meal, lay a copy of Boethius’s
The Consolation of Philosophy
in English, with an orange holding open its pages.

“Is magnificent, eh?” demanded Captain Souter, looking round with pride. “You t’ink so, yes? You agree? It is not finer, I bet, in de Duke of York’s flagship at Portsmouth. And so, my friend,” a great bow, “Félix Alexandre Charlemagne Souter make you welcome aboard de
Thunderer
! You sit down and be comfortable, yes? Now I mus’ go on deck. But soon I come down again; we drink de wine and t’row de dice like de good men we are. Until den, until den, until den!”

Out he went, with a last proud glance. Kinsmere, throwing aside his hat, drew up a heavy chair to the table, sat down with his right side towards the windows, and propped his feet against the table’s edge. It was warm in the cabin, not altogether unpleasant. The
Thunderer
rolled with a gentle motion, timbers creaking and cracking. Somebody shouted hoarsely on the quarter-deck. A patter of feet went up and down; a confused, dreamy hum which became a premonitory tremble …

With deadened brain he tried to think, but his head nodded forward in a doze. It seemed to him that Dolly was here, and King Charles, and Bygones Abraham …

Then he remembered no more.

It was the breeze which woke him fully: a clean salt wind, blowing cool through the cabin. That, or the movement of the ship. He could feel the strain and pull of her, the poised drive as though belling canvas would carry her out of the water. She lifted, rolled slightly, and then pitched, with a boiling hiss round her rudder. Above creaking timbers he could hear the deep thrum of the canvas, the blocks a-creak, the shrouds as vibrant as fiddle strings.

Running before a fair breeze, the
Thunderer
was crowding sail. Again she lifted on the shoulder of a swell, held poised, and dipped like a dancing master. Again the wake frothed and boiled; green reflections trembled on the windows, and spray glittered against the sun.

“Naow,”
said a voice from the other side of the table, and shocked him alert.

He was looking across greasy silver plate all a-rattle and motion, across the open pages of
The Consolation of Philosophy,
at a man standing there and watching him.

“Naow, m’ son,” continued Joseph Garlick, the mate, “A’ll ’ave ut letter thee’m got in th’ pouch. Quick with ’e!”

Mr. Garlick leaned on the table, and steadily advanced the pistol in his other hand.

K
INSMERE’S FIRST THOUGHT, HE
always said afterwards, was of how refreshed he felt. Though he could have been asleep only a short time, yet he felt alert, rested, and not even particularly astonished at that pistol aimed towards the middle of his forehead.

His next realization, a bad one, was of his own pistols: lost to him, far away in the saddle holsters of the horse he had left at the Easy Mariners. Then came a thought which might provide balance. Automatically, before dozing off, he had thrust his right hand inside his jerkin close to where the leather pouch lay underneath the shirt. Even now his fingers were touching the haft of the dagger he had slung beneath his left arm.

He shifted his boots slightly in their cramped position on the edge of the table. He pretended to stare and gape like one bewildered. The heavy silver dishes rattled; his chair slid a little.

“Eh?” he grunted. “God alive, my backbone! What did you say?”

Joseph Garlick repeated the order, with a kind of urgent but casual contempt. The red hangings, tattered and begrimed and wine-stained, tilted behind his head with the ship’s motion. His sullen eye did not waver, and his freckled left hand was outspread on the table.

“Quick with ’e!” he said. “And don’t think to make a fight, m’son; the’m caught. No trick to put a bullet in ’e; and then ’tes done.
They’ll
kill ’e if I don’t.”