From the galley we descended to the gun-deck, cable-tier and finally the hold, which was sparsely filled with cases and packages consigned to gentlemen in the East India Company’s service – much of it fowling-pieces, pistols and rifles – as well as boxes of bibles for colporteurs at the Cape and in India, crates of bottled India Pale Ale, fashionable mantle-makers’ rubbish for nabob’s ladies, china and silver-ware for their tables, hams, brandy, a few barrels of whisky (scarcely worth the carriage at 2 /6d a gallon but there are Scotch officers who positively prefer it to brandy!), whalebone splints for the stay-makers, hats from Mr Lock, boots from Mr Lobb and umbrellas from Mr Briggs. My new friend explained that the vacant spaces in the hold would be filled at the Cape, for we were to take aboard a great deal of fiery African brandy, many cases of the delicious Constantia and Stellenbosch wines, bales of ostrich feathers which, although light, take up much space for they cannot be compressed, as much ivory as the owners’ agents would have been able to purchase and, with luck, some rhinoceros horns. The Chinese, he assured me with a solemn countenance, prize these last mightily: a cup made of such a horn will turn colour the moment poison is poured into it – no mandarin dares be without one – and the powder produced during the turning of the cup is worth its exact weight in gold because of its aphrodisiac properties. (I have seen rhinoceros horns as tall as a man.)
All the time Lord Peter was pouring facts and measurements into my ears; I coiled these away into my memory like a jolly jack-tar stowing an anchor-cable. At last he said that for the moment we were at the end of our task.
“Have you any questions?”
“Well, I should like to know why the ship is named the John Coram? Who was he?”
“Sir,” piped up Orace from his respectful place at my heels, “Please Sir, I know!” We turned and stared at him; for my part I had forgotten that he was there.
“Well, boy?” said Peter, not unkindly.
“Sir, John Coram was a great merchant in the City of London and Great Coram Street where your friend Mr J. lives is named after him and amongst his other philanthropical works he founded the Foundling Hospital where I was fortunate enough to receive a good education and before that he was a master ship-builder in the American Colonies please Sir.”
The extent of the child’s knowledge was less amazing than the speed at which he rattled off his lore.
“Very well!” cried Peter, giving him a halfpenny.
“You are a good boy,” I said, patting him upon the head. He did not flinch, as he would have done a few weeks before.
“Now,” said Peter, fishing out a beautiful gold repeater from his fob, “it is my watch below and I fear I must take advantage of it, for I am standing watch and watch about and ready to swoon with fatigue.”
“Why is this?” I asked, puzzled.
“Oh, I came aboard drunk three nights ago and forgot to tip my hat to the quarter-deck. Re-living old times, d’you see; had forgotten I was no longer the owner’s son. It’s of no consequence. Now, you’d better make haste and report to the old – ah, to the Captain’s cabin; he sometimes becomes a touch querulous at about this time of day. I’ll see to it that your portion of my cabin is cleared for you by tomorrow noon: I’d count it a favour if you didn’t rouse me till then. Delighted to make your acquaintance. Sure we shall get on famously.”
With that he walked away, using a sort of wooden gait which betrayed the extreme fatigue which he had hitherto concealed. I looked at Orace.
“Poor gentleman,” he said, respectfully. I said nothing; Orace probably knew more about such states than I did in those days.
In the cabin, the Captain seemed quite a different man from the irate person he had seemed to be earlier, but I was not deceived.
“Well, Sir,” he said heavily, jovially, “what d’you think of my ship? Does she please you? Could you support the tedium of a profitable pleasure-cruise with us, d’you suppose?”
My mind started framing an English sentence which would tell him to go to the devil and perform curious acts with him, but at that very moment the inner door opened a crack and Mrs Knatchbull’s lovely face appeared, wearing an expression which delicately mingled humour, exasperation and a certain, well, a certain invitation. I was vexed to find myself answering the Captain in a civil – indeed an amiable – voice.
“I shall esteem it an honour to serve under you, Sir,” is what I heard myself saying.
“Good,” he said, “good.” He said it again once or twice, as though he approved of the word “good”. Then he pulled some papers toward him and from them rattled off at great speed some antique gibberish which I could not comprehend but which, I realised later, comprised the Ship’s Articles.
“You are, of course, a practising Christian,” he muttered, dipping a great pen into an inkpot and not meeting my eye, still less my nose. I opened my mouth. He peered up at me through the thickest of his eyebrows. The faintest rustle of silken petticoats filtered through the inner door.
“Aye aye, Sir!” I said staunchly.
“Sign here,” he said.
Chapter Seven
That last evening of my life ashore I spent in the street called Strand: curiously, this word means “shore” – was that not apt?
I ate a great quantity of turbot, some boiled mutton and a few nicely-dressed woodcocks, each set upon a toast which had been spread with the bird’s “trails”, peppered. “Trails” means guts. I also drank some wine.
Then I bade a prolonged and salty farewell to the tailor’s daughter whose name I forget and, as an especial treat, to her little sister also, for who knew when next I would find such charming and biddable girls? Then I drank some more wine, I believe. (I do not remember this wine but I recall a trifling sense of malaise the next day, which convinces me that I did drink a little something.)
That next day, malaise or no, I looked to all my small business affairs, made a bargain with my landlord about the lease, sent my stock-in-trade to Mr Jorrocks’ warehouse and my new sea-chest, replete with sensible clothes and improving books, to the John Coram at the Docks. Then I went to a shop in Jermyn Street where two genial partners called Mr Paxton and Mr Whitfield selected for me one black Bradenham ham, one pink York ditto, an incomparable Stilton cheese, three salted tongues, a monstrous Bologna sausage which they assured me would travel to the Indies and be none the worse for it after a year and a tinned box of delicate sea-bread called “Thin Captain’s Biscuits”. (They assured me that, but for a printer’s error, the name would have been “Captain’s Thin Biscuits”.) When I told them that I was a friend of John Jorrocks himself and that I would pay in coined gold, there and then, they cheerfully deducted seven and one half per centum from my score. Most of their business was with the nobility, you see.
Then, on advice, I took a cab to Number 205, Regent Street, where a Mr Beattie sold me a large revolving pistol made expressly for him by J. Lang himself. It was in a mahogany case, complete with moulds for both ball and bullet, a wad cutter, powder-measures and everything else proper to such a weapon. It was very costly, but the best that money could buy. I felt something of a fool as I walked out of the shop, my pockets lighter by so many guineas. It was to be several months before I congratulated myself upon buying so reliable a weapon.
Lord Peter Stevenage roared with laughter as he saw Orace staggering up the gangplank that afternoon; the child was so heavily burdened that I was having to push from behind to keep him upright. Had I not so recently become an English gentleman I believe I would have carried some of the parcels myself.
“You luxurious bugger!” cried Peter merrily, “is this the last of your stores? Your dunnage has been streaming aboard all day, quite altered the ship’s trim, burst me if it hasn’t! Come to the cabin, if that child can still walk, and let’s overhaul this gear of yours.”
He seemed taken aback at my choice of clothing and, since he was now free of the watch, offered to take me to a ship-chandler’s slop-shop. There were many such places within a
stonesthrow of the docks but Peter led me unerringly to one where, he said, the proprietor was too intelligent to rob one more than was reasonable. He made me buy two suits of oilskins, two pairs of sea-boots and some huge slabs of smelly, greasy wool which he said would prove, when unfolded, to be warm underclothing. I protested that my duties were to be mercantile rather than maritime and that I had no intention of scrambling up and down masts and riggings in the wind and weather-oh – why then should I need such things?
He looked at me strangely.
“Well,” he said, “you never know. It might come on to rain or something, d’you see. Now, you’d better have a couple of ‘thousand-milers’ – and one for the little bastard, too.” A “thousand-miler” turned out to be a sort of durable shirt made of black twill; so-called, Peter solemnly assured me, because it should be washed and changed after every thousand miles of the voyage, whether it was dirty or not. These shirts did not appear comfortable at all but Peter explained that I must ask the Doctor to put them in the copper for me when next he was boiling a “duff” or pudding: this would make the garment supple and kindly to the skin, because of the suet-grease in the water.
I made a few other purchases at his suggestion, such as spermaceti candles, sticks of coarse barley-sugar, a pocket compass with folding sun-dial attached and some strong soap containing the biniodide of mercury to combat an infestation called “the crabs” by sailor-folk.
Our cabin, when we had brought in this final consignment of my goods, seemed quite full – “something of a Hoorah’s nest” Peter called it – but he soon shewed Orace how and where to stow everything in ship-shape and seaman-like fashion and we were snug in next to no time. It was by no means a squalid little room – the fittings of brass and mahogany reminded me that this had once been the yacht of a Lord – and the hard mattress of my bunk was of good horsehair and not smelly. Peter’s possessions were few: a sea-chest of clothes, a brass-bound mahogany chest of arms, a shelf of books. Some of these last were by heathen authors, some by a person writing under the nom-de-plume of “Jane Austen” – I came to know his work well during the voyage, he had a wonderful insight into the female mind, wonderful.
Peter and I cracked a bottle of Lord Windermere’s Sercial before settling down for the night; it was rich and strong. He dowsed the candle early for we were to sail with the tide at first light.
Ships, in these nasty nowadays, are made of iron and propelled by coal. This may be a good thing, I cannot say. What I do know is that the ships of those days, real ships, wooden ships, were alive: they manifested their life in a thousand ways which at first irked – sometimes frightened – me, but later became a reassuring cradle-song when I had learned to single out each noise and understand its origin. The gurgle of the running tide past the ship’s strakes, the gentle schlipp-schlopping of the wavelets created by a passing vessel, the soft, grinding bump, more felt than heard, of a fender nudging the quay-side and the moan of standing rigging set vibrating by the wind – all these I had heard before, although on a smaller scale, but now there were countless other noises new to me. In particular I recall from that first night the placid straining and grunting of great timbers which had learned to live and work together, the rattle of the gangplank and boom of feet on the deck-planks which told of Johnny-tars rejoining ship at the last moment before midnight, the sudden clangour of the ship’s bell marking the watches and, once, the squalling scream of the ship’s cat locked in a death-struggle with some unhappy rat.
The smells, too, remain with me, although I have long since, and often, smelled worse. Peter’s hair-lotion was sharp and agreeable; it reminded me of the verbena plant in my mother’s window. Tar and timber and paint are good smells; so were the mingled richnesses of our cabin-stores, especially the Stilton cheese. The London River, laden with sewage, was less good and, when the ship pitched a little as another vessel passed, our bilges, disturbed, offered up a stench of graveyards. The ship’s cat had pissed somewhere within range of my nose: I resolved to take the first opportunity to boot it overside, for I do not love such creatures. Dogs, yes, within reason. Overriding all, strange to say, was the smell of horses from London town. It was to be a long time until I again sniffed that smell – and with pleasure.
I slept a little towards dawn, but uneasily because of the strangeness of these noises and smells, and it was soon awakened by Peter’s turning out, washing his face and dressing. His sense of time, like that of all good sea-faring men, was acute, he was ready for duty at the precise moment that three bells of the second watch sounded (this means half-past five in the morning) and a seaman thumped upon our door, calling out “Mister Stevenage to stir himself if you please, Sir!” Seeing that I was awake, Peter gave me a grimace of apology and a friendly wink as he left the cabin. He looked cheerful but old and ill.
There was no more attempt at sleeping for me: the ship resounded to the trampling. I huddled on some clothes and went on deck. A flat-footed but elaborate ballet was taking place, performed with what seemed random precision by the ship’s people, guided by strange words in a clarion voice from the Captain, repeated in even stranger language by the First Mate and retailed by Peter in some part and also by the Second, whose voice was shrill and agitated. I was pushed and trodden upon by many a seaman who had eyes only for his incomprehensible task; scuttling for refuge I narrowly escaped being sent up the foremast by a purple-visaged boatswain.
“Mr Van Cleef fined two shillings,” came the captain’s roar from the bridge, “for interfering with the working of the ship. Fined a further three shillings for being on deck without a neck-cloth and with his breeches unbuttoned.” I slunk aft through the throng of intent sailors. As I slunk I heard the Captain cry “Mr Lubbock! Mister, I say! Pray contain yourself with that down-East starter of yours, the men are working well enough.” I continued to slink. I did not, you understand, “know the ropes” at that time.
All this hubbub and bawling and trampling was of course quite incomprehensible to me, but it was not many weeks before I could tell what the men were about simply by cocking an ear out of my bunk, and could bandy such words as “garboard” and “halyard” with the best of them. At this particular time, all we were doing was hauling the ship out into the stream, heaving up the great anchor, singling-up and casting-off the shore lines and setting the fore-topsail, so that we could drop down-river to the Pool with accuracy and without feeing a pilot.
I, meanwhile, climbed sulkily back into my bunk and fell asleep again, only to start up, cracking my pate cruelly against the upper bunk, when a rattling shriek from the best-bower anchor chain betokened – to those who understood such things – that we were in the Pool of London and swinging round into the tideway.
Peter popped his head round the cabin door with a haggard grin and began to explain that – here he was interrupted by a bellow of “Cangcoxnlarbdquarboscrew” in Lubbock’s grating Yankee yell – the Mate was, in fact, summoning the Captain’s Coxswain and the crew of the larboard quarter-boat – Peter, I say, began to explain that the Captain and the First Officer would now be rowed around and around the ship and would study the trim of it. This was important, he said, for the phrase “on an even keel” is no mere form of words: a vessel down by the head is ill to steer and dangerous in heavy weather, while if it is down by the stern its sailing properties are impaired. A list to one side, too, however slight, can also slow the craft down and be a danger in heavy seas, especially when close-hauled. I nodded sagely.
Our John Coram, you understand, was a dainty and responsive ship, the men swore that she could almost talk and had a sweet and willing temperament, responding gaily to any little attentions but becoming unhappy if her trim was neglected. The consumption of stores, particularly water, as the voyage wore on, would call for many another of these rowings around the ship whenever we were in port or a dead calm.
Peter went on to give me astonishing figures about the weight of water a ship’s company can consume in a given period but I fear I m
ust have yawned in his face for suddenly he laughed and went back to his duties.
I must have dozed. Peter aroused me in seamanlike fashion by kicking the edge of my bunk so vigorously that I started up and again cracked my head. He brought, in his own hands, our breakfast or nuncheon. It consisted of the sounds, cheeks and other delicate tidbits of fishes, fried up with pieces of onions and potatoes and anointed with the Doctor’s famous ketchup. Peter watched me narrowly, I could tell he expected me to display the signs of sea-sickness but I disappointed him. The sea is one of the few things which has never made me sick. I ate in an almost greedy fashion, wiping up the gravy with one or two little hot rolls which the Doctor had made. Peter, who was a poor eater, watched me with admiration.
“Well, now,” he cried when I had done, “come up on deck, there’s a place called Margate on our starboard beam and you needn’t go below again until we wear ship to round the North Foreland.”
I waved sentimentally to Margate in case the little chambermaid should be watching our bonny ship go sailing by: I much hoped that she had not foolishly allowed herself to become pregnant, because I had no recollection of her name except that it began with a “d” or perhaps a “b” and was therefore unable to help her.
Peter gave me a rude awakening the next day by emptying part of his shaving-water in a friendly fashion onto my sleeping face. I cried out many an obscene word in Dutch (and some in English which certain young persons had taught me) but when I could open my eyes I saw the pleasant, dissipated face of my friend, who was tying his neck-cloth and beaming at me kindly.
“Come, Karli,” he cried, “five minutes to wash, shave, dress and be on deck. Bustle about, do!”
“Is it pirates?” I mumbled, “Mutiny?” He laughed.
“Worse than that,” he scoffed. “It’s Sunday! Five minutes to be at the break of the poop or God forgive you, for the Captain won’t.”
I could make nothing of this, nor could I ask for explanations for he had whisked out of the cabin, but I took him at his word, except that I did not shave for my beard was light – I only needed to shave twice a week. I achieved the break of the poop in the very nick of time. The ship’s people were lined up in ranks and wearing their best slops; wearing looks, also, of pious respectability such as are proper to the English when worshipping their God, who speaks English Himself and prizes such clothes and looks. The Captain intoned many a resounding phrase, commending our voyage on this, its first Sunday, to both God and Her Britannic Majesty, but it seemed to me that his voice carried a certain irony, a want of true fervour. I observed, whilst his voice boomed sonorously over my bared head, that neither the First nor the Second Mate was present. Since the ship was hove-to this seemed strange to me but I was, of course, ignorant of the ways of sailormen. The Captain, his tone even more ironic, commanded the men to sing a certain hymn, calling for a man named Evans to “fugle a note”. The man Evans, sure enough, stepped forth from the ranks, threw back his head and delivered himself of a note approximating to that of “G” with all the brio of a barnyard fowl. He then turned about and waved his arms in such a way that the men instantly began to bellow
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