The Unknown Shore (21 page)

‘Have you seen any of the birds or animals of these parts?’

‘Nothing much. You cannot walk about, because it is all either swamp or woods so thick you cannot get through – you would never expect it in such a cold climate. Or else it is very steep mountain, like Mount Misery over there: we had to cut steps to get to the top. But I was trying to get through the woods once when I heard a creature snuffling, and saw its traces – feet as big as a soup-plate with claws all round. I ran faster out of the wood than I went in.’

‘Oh Jack, did you never wait to see its face, even?’

‘No sir, I did not. Had I been made of brass I might have done so; but I did not. I ran away as fast as ever I could, trembling like a hare. And if it had come after me I dare say I should have run round the entire island.’

‘It is an island? Yes, you said so before. Is it far from the main?’

‘No. We thought it was all one at first – you can see the Cordillera of the Andes as plain as can be from some parts. But it turns out to be a pretty big island. The coast seems to be much broken up into islands and peninsulas here. And no wonder, when you think of the seas that come pounding in.’

‘How are we to get off it, Jack?’

‘That is the question,’ said Jack, frowning. ‘At one time I thought it clear enough – we were to lengthen the long-boat and sail north to Chiloe or Baldivia and cut out a Spanish ship there, to take us to Juan Fernandez, which is the second rendezvous. We have the long-boat on the stocks, but nothing seems to get done. Days go by, weeks go by, and nothing happens. The trouble is, Toby,’ he said, sinking his voice, ‘we are all at odds – half a dozen different factions, and I don’t know whether the captain can command them any more. There was one time when I thought they would come back to their duty, just after all the Irishmen deserted in a body – they were going to blow up the captain and the purser, by the way, with
half a barrel of powder; but Buckley, one of the quarter-gunners, persuaded them not to light the train. The men were in reasonably good heart then, or most of them, and would have obeyed orders cheerfully, but there were no orders to obey. The captain shut himself up. He felt the loss of the ship very much, I believe, and at times he seemed almost out of his mind. It was then that discipline went all astray – oh, there were dozens of causes, the quarrelling over things found and the rations, not enough to eat and too much to drink – half a pint of rum a day on an empty stomach. And then somebody spread the tale that the officers had no legal authority, once the ship was gone. But the worst of it was the different parties, the land officers, except for Mr Hamilton, not speaking to the captain, the gunner and the carpenter and their friends saying that the ship was cast away for want of attention, the bo’sun and his set of blackguards, the master – oh, it’s all a very discreditable business, Toby, and I wish we were well out of it. Cozens will horse around, though I beg him not to.’ Jack paused, and shook his head. ‘The captain is trying to take matters in hand again now by coming down very hard: he ordered a couple of men six hundred lashes each on Wednesday.’

‘Six hundred!’

Jack nodded. ‘They were caught stealing from the store tent. They would have been hanged at home; but still… He had Cozens put under arrest yesterday for a rude answer. Cozens was tipsy, of course – he had just come from the gunner’s place. Nobody has dared to disobey the captain to his face yet, but how long it will last I do not know. I believe everything would be all right if once we could get afloat again.’ Jack stopped, and reflected for some time, stroking his chin. ‘Poor devils,’ he continued, in a low voice; ‘they never asked to come – the pressed men, I mean. But I doubt if there are many who would break into open mutiny, particularly now that the worst of the lot, Mitchel and some more, have gone off to join the deserters. If only we could get the long-boat fitted out, decked and rigged, I think it would be well enough: the rules of the service seem natural at sea, but no one likes them ashore. Then if we could get to Juan Fernandez, we should be distributed among the other ships, and you and I might get into the
Centurion
at last – ha, Toby, do you remember …’

But Tobias did not remember: he was fast asleep. Jack crept silently about, spreading out his bed by the warm embers on the hearth-stone; he had no watch that night, and he intended to sleep right through until dawn – an uncommon luxury for a sailor – but for a long time he could not go off. Hunger had something to do with this, for it is difficult to sleep when your stomach is calling out for food, but a general uneasiness of mind had more; he was haunted by a presentiment of misfortune.

The town in Cheap’s Bay on Wager Island had seventeen dwellings, ranging from the gunner’s house, a big square thatched erection with room for twenty men, down to the little brutish tabernacles huddled together by the men who preferred to live alone but who had no idea of how to set about it. Jack’s lay somewhat away from the rest, away up the slope and in the shelter of the trees: it was not as trim as the carpenter’s construction, but it was not as ramshackle as Sloppy Joe’s; like all of them, it was thoroughly well lined with broadcloth, serge and even damask, from the cargo.

From the doorway of the hut Tobias surveyed the bay, the wreck out there on the inner side of the reef, and the beach. For once the day had dawned clear, frosty clear and still, and from the rise he could see the
Woger
very plain: only her poop and foc’s’le were above the water, but her shape was perfectly distinct – it was not an anonymous, battered, unrecognisable wreck, but the wreck of the
Wager
and no other. The sight of what had been his home for so long lying there abandoned was very painful: those decks, canted now to a wild degree, with gaping holes cut roughly in them, were once gleaming white and as orderly as a medicine-chest; and there, where the stump of the mainmast washed to and fro in the cold grey swell, he had lain the long night through, while the sweet trade-wind hummed in the rigging, and above the complicated patterns of ropes and sails rose the southern stars, Canopus, Antares, Achernar and, low down, the Southern Cross – long tropical nights when they sailed through a phosphorescent sea as warm as milk, across the middle Atlantic to Brazil.

This melancholy train of thought was broken by the sight of a condor: the huge bird passed straight across the sky without once moving its wings, until it was hidden by the headland that formed
the southern limit of the bay; and it was followed by another, then another, all gliding with unhurried speed straight down to some remote scene of carnage – perhaps a stranded whale: conceivably another wreck.

The bay was a deep inlet, with high land running out for a mile or so on either side: black cliffs and tumbled rock everywhere except at this end, the bottom of the bay: and everywhere inland thick trees crowded upon one another, the living pushing up among the dead. It was obviously a very wet place, for there were yellow-scummed runs of water down the cliffs, and wherever there was ground unoccupied by trees, rank, sad green things grew very tall – a monstrous giant hairy rhubarb, where there was shelter from the wind, and wild celery as high as a man. Although the day was cold there was a general smell of decay upon the air: rotting wood, rotting vegetation and huge deep banks of sea-weed rotting on the high-water mark.

‘What do you think of it?’ asked Jack. Tobias shook his head. ‘It is like the country that runs east from the Land’s End, in Cornwall,’ said Jack, ‘only worse. My grandfather took me down there when he went to see after some dirty parliamentary business at St Murrain, and I thought it was the most horrible coast in the world – could not believe that it would be repeated. That is the store tent down there in the middle, do you see? And this’ – pointing up the slope on which they stood – ‘is Mount Misery. Pretty steep. The mainland looks quite close from the top; and when you are up there you can make out a cape away to the north, about fifty miles away. It runs straight out from the mainland westwards, straight into the wind – the wind is always west here, with a little of north or south in it. So if we had not run aground here, we must have done so there, which is a great consolation. But if ever we do get away to the north, we shall have to weather that cape; and it trends away a great distance to the west. There might possibly be a channel through it, however. Do you see the long-boat? Behind the square house. Mr Cummins has sawn it in two, and it is to be lengthened twelve feet. Beyond the long-boat, where the rocks begin, used to be quite a good place for limpets and a green weed you can make soup of, but they are all gone now; and beyond that there is the cove where I found a large fish with its head crushed among the big pebbles, after a blow. A pretty sea, where even the fish cannot venture inshore. We are
protected by that line of rocks to the west, so it must be far worse in the offing. There is the purser going to the store tent, do you see? He will be serving out the rations directly – I will go down.’

The news of Tobias’ recovery had spread quickly: there were several people moving about, and many of them stared up to the hut and waved. When Jack returned he brought with him not only a mug half full of grey flour and a wizened little knob of horse, their ration, but a tallow candle and two small clams, gifts for Tobias from the carpenter and one Phipps, a bo’sun’s mate. ‘This is one of the most valuable things going,’ said Jack, holding up the candle. Tobias looked attentive, but said nothing. ‘It is tallow, you see,’ said Jack, ‘not wax. We fry seaweed in it, which is uncommon wholesome and refreshing. Unfortunately the lunatics who put the trade cargo aboard sent many more wax candles than tallow. You cannot eat wax, it appears; at least, not with any profit.’

Their breakfast consisted of the last of the dog and a little flour and water thrown on a hot shovel, so that it clung together, charred slightly, and received the name of bread; and when the feast was over Jack went down to take the yawl across to the wreck. The boats were continually employed in probing the wreck for provisions to add to the all important sea-store; all hands agreed that they must have two months’ minimum ration before they could put to sea, and for daily use they had nothing but damaged casks and what they could find along the shore. It was Jack’s turn of duty now, and he hoped, if he fished up a cask of anything edible, to be indulged with the use of the boat to go after the birds that were sometimes to be met with, or at least to bring in some shellfish from the outer rocks.

Tobias sat outside the hut, and presently Campbell and Morris came up to shake his hand and wish him joy of his recovery; they were thin – thinner than Jack – and grey and quiet, and they left soon, because the tide was ebbing, and if they did not search the rocks at low water they would find nothing. They were obliged to profit by every minute of calm low water, for unless they could add to their rations they could barely live. Cozens, who came up after they had gone, was more changed by far – shockingly changed. He had been a fleshy young man, but now his face had fallen away and it was unevenly blotched from drinking; he was dirty; he smelt; and he looked quite old. But he was surprisingly cheerful, and he had
brought Tobias a case-bottle of brandy. ‘Drink it up, mate,’ he cried, clapping him on the back; ‘there’s plenty more where it came from.’ And he gave Tobias to understand, with nods and winks, that the gunner had a keg hidden, and that he could have as much as he liked: then, speaking much more seriously, he gave Tobias a rambling, disconnected account of how the captain was invading the seamen’s privileges; how the captain and his little band of favourites, the purser, the steward and a few others, had double rations; and how he, Cozens, was resolved to stand up for the sailors’ rights, and not submit to tyranny; and how he wondered that Jack should have turned so like a preaching parson. ‘He ought to come into the square house and mess with us,’ he said. ‘We have all the best fellows in the crew – all the men with any independent spirit. Now, Sam?’

Samuel Stook, AB, had been hailing ‘The hut, ahoy,’ for some minutes. ‘I come up,’ he said, in a strong shout, ‘to see the doctor – heard he was better – brought him a crab – ha, ha – not at all.’ A friend of Mr Stook’s falling sick on the West Indies station, had recovered (a rare thing in naval experience) with no ill effects other than the loss of his hearing. Recovered invalids were therefore deaf, as like as not, and Stook roared away with the unimpaired force of his lungs; the effect, combined with Cozens’ way of thumping his back to emphasise a point, was shattering indeed, and when they proposed carrying Tobias down to the beach for a little company, he had not enough energy left to resist their kindly-meant importunity.

They set him on a barrel by the side of the sea, and as the rising tide drove the men from their perpetual hungry searching of the shore, he received a great number of visits. He learnt that all hands were discontented, that many were almost out of control and that some were armed. He also learnt that a sick medical man is not an omniscient pontiff any more: none of his former patients scrupled to suggest remedies, to advise him to take care, to eat more, to eat less, to sit out of that nasty draught; they told him of former cases in their experience not unlike his – the death of relatives and friends from high living, blows on the head, gout that settled in the vitals, and taking cold. They gave him edible seaweed (good for him: would strengthen the tubes), limpets and four splendid mussels, the last a gift from Bosman, a gigantic sailor whose wisdom teeth Tobias had extracted to the deafening roll of a drum on successive Sundays.

When it came on to rain, as it did just before the serving out of the rations at noon, they carried him into the square house, and there Cozens and the carpenter invited him (Jack being still at sea in the yawl) to eat with them. It was a big mess, a score of men who ate in common, and if it was not very well provided with victuals, at least it was rich in wine and spirits: Diego, the Portuguese stowaway, hurried down the long plank table clapping a pint pot before each man, either filled with wine or half filled with rum; and the whole place had a pleasant taverny smell.