All the Tea in China

by Kyril Bonfiglioli

  Behind and above me on the poop there was a stamping and shuffling and Peter’s voice, cracked with desperation, screaming “Dogs! Dogs!” Now my cowardice had quite crept away and in a moment I was on the poop, where Peter stood astride the body of the Second Mate, his back to the binnacle, a Chinese sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, daring them to come on.

  “Hold quite still for a second, Peter!” I shouted, and fired past his ear at a gigantic pirate who had stolen up behind him. The man fell, but Peter’s assailants now turned to me – only to be dazzled by the blinding light of a dozen flare-rockets which turned the night into noon-tide. A speaking-trumpet blared from the sea: “All white men, flat on your faces on the word ‘three’. One, two …” I stared at the loom of a great ship which was almost aboard us – on her deck was a double rank of scarlet-coated men, those in front kneeling, the others standing. I flung myself to the deck. “… THREE” blared the loud-hailer and a withering blast of musketry swept the decks clear of pirates.

  “Boarders away!” came the stentorian bellow and, with a mighty cheer, a host of sturdy, cutlass-armed bluejackets jumped over the side of their ship and landed thunderously onto the pirate lorcha which was grappled to our side. In another instant they were swarming into our John Coram, our own men were joining them from the fo’c’sle and the pirates were being hunted down like rats. I seized a midshipman, perhaps fifteen years old, his eyes wild, his dirk bloody.

  “Down there!” I yelled into his ear, pointing at the door I had bolted. “A dozen of the swine!” Then I rushed to the Captain’s cabin.

  As I burst in I stumbled over a hard, round object – the Captain’s head. This stumble saved my life, for a pistol banged and the ball whirred over my head. Lying on the ground, I shot the man who had tried to kill me, then the man who was squatting, dazed or drugged, in a corner of the room, all passion spent. The man on the bed, hunkered between Blanche’s out-spread thighs, was wearing the Captain’s stove-pipe hat; he was oblivious of all around him as he pumped and pounded at her belly. It was necessary to walk beside him and clap the pistol to his temple so as to shoot him without danger to Blanche. His rapt convulsions did not falter until his brains were splashed onto the bulkhead.

  I have often tried to recall in the mind’s eye the precise expression Blanche’s face wore when I dragged the corpse off her. It was a fleeting expression, for she fainted a moment later and was not, indeed, properly herself for several days afterwards.

  I have only related the adventure as I heard – and mis-heard and saw scattered parts of it. To make things clear I should explain that the men rigging the boarding-nets were already too late, their throats were silently slit as they leaned over the side. The clumsy noises and the cries of annoyance, as I had thought them, were, in reality, the death-struggles of the watch on deck. One of them, thank God, had survived long enough to fire a distress-rocket, which had been seen by the frigate, en route from Macao to Lin Tin. The watch below, and a few other survivors, had succeeded in holding the fo’c’sle by virtue of a couple of little Bulldog pistols smuggled aboard by the Yankees we had recruited at Calcutta. The Second had succumbed to a ragged scalp-wound which laid him unconscious for days but from which he recovered. Peter had defended the poop with all the blithe ferocity of a man who does not care whether he lives or dies.

  “Karli,” he said that night, laying his hands on my shoulders, “you saved my life today.”

  “Oh really,” I said, shuffling my feet in an embarrassed, British way, “I beg you to forget it, anyone would have done the same.”

  “Yes, I suppose they would,” he said, disappointingly. “But Karli” – solemnly again – “there is one thing I cannot forget.”

  I kept a modest silence.

  “Yes, Karli, I cannot erase from my memory that in your shirt-box there are quite eight inches of good Italian sausage, also a crock of wonderfully smelly cheese steeped in wine. I have a bottle of the best Constantia hidden away for just such an occasion as this. Shall we eat?”

  “We shall indeed,” I replied happily, “just so soon as Orace has scrubbed up the last of the blood from the cabin.”

  That was our last happy night.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next two days were full of great business. Our depleted crew toiled mightily, some sewing our dead into their “tarpaulin jackets”, some renewing the burned rigging, others rowing to and fro to the island refilling our water-casks under the supervision of the frigate’s cooper – for our own had escaped his flogging by the valiant fight he had put up against the pirates. The hewn pieces of his body were even now forming part of the long line of packages which awaited consignment to the deep.

  The frigate had in attendance an aviso boat in the form of a little, country-built, sloop-like vessel; this was dispatched at first light to ask orders from our owners’ agent at Macao.

  The frigate’s Captain came aboard to carry out the burial services, a long and mournful task. He also lent us a bosun and a sail-maker’s mate, together with a few old salts who could reeve and splice and a file of marines for the coarser tasks. Peter, now the only watch-keeping officer aboard (except of course the unconscious Second), had no time to eat or sleep, poor fellow, I have never seen anyone work so hard and so deftly in all my life, yet again and again he threw a laughing word over his shoulder to me or cracked a coarse jest for the labouring crew-men.

  There was little I could do to help except check stores, make lists, set the specie-room to rights and write out receipts for the hundred-and-one things which we had to borrow from the frigate. It is quite amazing how much damage a few pirates can do in half an hour when they set their minds to it.

  Late in the following afternoon our splendid little ship was again more or less fit for sea and the kindly frigate hastened off to its rendezvous, asking us to send off the aviso boat as soon as it returned with our orders. Every man-jack on the John Coram who could be spared was sent to his bunk or hammock; those who remained on deck, the barest anchor watch, were asleep on their feet. I could not, for very shame, repair to my bunk until Peter, my true, kindly-mocking, pox-ridden friend, could also find repose. He and I and the binnacle-post supported each other: I kept him awake and in good humour by proving to him, with many a cogent argument, that his so-called Jane Austen was clearly a German Jew called Shakespeare, going under the name of Göthe. We were both propped up, nine-tenths asleep, against the binnacle, giggling feebly, when a sleepy bellow from the mast-head announced that the little sloop was in sight. We kicked the deck-messenger from his hoggish slumber and bade him see that those few who should be on deck were awake. I bellowed wearily for Orace; good boy, he was with us in a trice and scampered below to fetch us clean neck-cloths.

  As we tied them, the fellow at the mast-head warned us that a boat had left the sloop and was pulling towards us. We went to the rail and, as soon as the boat was visible, Peter seized the trumpet and cried “Boat ahoy! What boat is that?”

  “John Coram,” came the answer, faint but clear. This did not seem to me to be an answer but Peter understood: it seems that, in the old navy, when a boat’s coxswain named a ship, it was understood that his boat was carrying the Captain of that ship. Peter rapped out a filthy word, then a string of brusque orders. There was a bosun’s mate trilling upon a pipe and two reasonably clean seamen pretending to be “sideboys” at the entry-port just one second before an ugly, shag-haired, purple-nosed old gentleman heaved himself aboard. He looked around with a disgust he made no effort to conceal. Then he sketched out a tipping of his hat to the quarterdeck, skipped up to the poop and glared at us.

  “Where is the Officer of the Watch?” he snarled. Poor, unshaven, red-eyed Peter swept the hat off his tangled curls and made a dancing-master’s bow.

  “Your servant, Sir,” he said, “but whom have I the pleasure to… ?”

  “Jacob Dogg, Sir; Lieutenant R.N., retired. I have orders from your owners’ agent appointing me Captain into this ship.” H
e pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, snapped it open and thrust it away again. Peter touched his hat.

  “Welcome aboard, Sir. I am Peter, Viscount Stevenage, third officer.”

  “Pray summon my other officers and present them to me, Mr Stevenage.”

  “I fear that is not possible, Sir. The First Officer is in Macao Hospital, the Second is in the sick-berth, still unconscious from a wound received in the engagement with the pirates. I am the only watch-keeping officer, although there is a capable sailing-master who could serve for the time being.”

  “Make it so, Mister. And this gentleman?”

  “Carolus Van Cleef, supernumerary and shareholder.”

  “Very well. I’ll take the larboard watch, you the starboard. You are temporary First until the Second regains his faculties, then he is promoted First, you Second and the sailing-master acting Third. Mr Van Cleef to take lessons in navigation three times a day. Now I’ll have a sight of the watch-bill, if you please.”

  Peter drew out a tattered document and handed it over.

  “The names crossed out are the dead,” he explained. “Those underlined are wounded – a tick beside the name indicates that the man should be fit for duty in a few days; a cross means he’s likely to survive. As you see, we could muster three strong watches before the fight: now we can scrape together two weak ones. We are desperately short of top-men. I have not yet sorted out the new watches.”

  “Why not, pray?”

  “I had hoped that we might have picked up a few hands at Macao, Sir.”

  “My orders are to make all speed to London with the teas. Positively no recruiting. The men we have must work harder. They will have had an easy time up until now.”

  Peter opened his mouth, then shut it again.

  “Now, Mister,” growled the Captain, “how soon will the ship be ready to sail?”

  “She is ready to sail, Sir. As soon as the men are rested, that is.”

  “Ready? Ready? Have you seen the state of the decks? Do you suppose I’m going to put to sea in a floating jakes, a stinking abattoir? Why are they not clean? Why are the men not at work?”

  “Sir,” said Peter flatly, wearily, “the frigate’s Captain advised me to make the ship seaworthy first. We have completed with stores and water, sewn-up and buried our dead, repaired and renewed all burned and damaged rigging and done a hundred other necessary things. The decks, I was advised, could be properly cleansed when we were at sea, under plain sail.”

  “Advised,” sneered Captain Dogg. “Ah, advised, Mr Stevenage, eh? You are one of those fellows, are you, always ready with someone to blame? I’ve met your sort before. I asked you, why are the men not at work on those abominable DECKS?”

  Peter drew himself up and spoke in a languid and lordly voice I had not heard him use before.

  “Sir, not a soul in this vessel has had a wink of sleep since fighting a bloody battle two nights ago. It is too dark to scrub decks, even if the men could be aroused from their exhaustion. I sent them to rest an hour ago. I gave these orders while in temporary command of this ship. So soon as you care to read me your orders I shall relinquish command to you and make an entry in the Ship’s Log to that effect. From that moment I shall of course accept your reprimands for any errors of judgment I may make – after that moment.”

  Captain Dogg’s nasty old face wreathed itself into a sly and malignant smile.

  “A sea-lawyer, too, Mr Stevenage? Well, well, we shall have much to learn from each other in the next few months, shall we not?” He fished out his Orders again, gabbled them out and touched the brim of his hat. Peter touched the brim of his and, taking the log from the deck-messenger, solemnly inscribed the fact that Jacob Dogg R.N. (Ret’d) had assumed command of the John Coram at – he fished out his watch – such and such a time. When he had done, the new Captain, still smiling nastily, took the log from him and said that he, too, wished to pen a few remarks on coming aboard. Peter sauntered to the rail as he did so, as though he had not a care in the world.

  “Now then, Mister,” rapped the Captain as he closed the book, “If you’ve finished your promenade perhaps you’ll be good enough to have someone shew me my quarters.”

  “Well, Sir, our late Captain’s widow is still in the Great Cabin, prostrated with grief and shock and, ah, molestation.”

  “The First Officer’s quarters are empty, are they not? Good. See that the bereaved lady is removed there at once, with all gentleness and solicitude – and speed. Her personal possessions, too, of course. The late Captain’s stores, particularly in the way of wines and ardent spirits, to remain in the Cabin. Mr Van Cleef and the Comprador to be strictly accountable.”

  “Aye aye, Sir,” said Peter with no expression in his voice.

  “All hands – all hands – to be mustered at first light, yes, write that on the watch-slate, Mister; they will have the decks snow-white in one hour precisely, all falls flemished and coiled – you know what is expected. See to it. At the end of that hour we shall set sail.”

  “Aye aye, Sir. I formally request, Sir, that you enter in the Log that in my considered opinion, as an officer who has known this ship for several years, it is imprudent to put to sea without at least one more watch-keeping officer and ten more seamen, six of whom should be able top-men.”

  “It is your right to request that, Mister, as you know, and I shall do it. It is my right, and my duty, to make an entry at the same time stating that Lord Stevenage, from the moment I joined this ship, has put every obstacle in my path while I endeavoured to make this ship fit for sea.”

  Peter bowed.

  “I shall be happy to initial that entry, Sir, and to record the time at which it was made – some four minutes after you assumed command.”

  He and Captain Dogg smiled politely at each other, like two Bengal tigers over a dead Hindoo. It seemed plain to me that our homeward voyage was not to be a cheery one.

  Part Five

  THE LONG WAY HOME

  Chapter Sixteen

  Uncheery, indeed, the voyage proved. No one could deny that Dogg was a gifted captain; by dint of merciless driving he contrived to work the ship efficiently. He divided our two weak watches into three pitifully weak ones, one of which was always on call: this meant that for much of the time two-thirds of the men were at work but, when the sailing was plain, two-thirds of them could be snatching some sleep. The men went about their tasks like sleep-walkers but did not, at first, properly comprehend the arithmetic of the thing. In any case, they were more pre-occupied with the question of whether Dogg’s morose inhumanity when sober was worse than his merry savagery when drunk. On the whole, the men preferred him drunk, for he would then sometimes order double shares of grog to be served out at unexpected times.

  Peter, of course, even after the Second recovered enough to be able to stand his watches, was overworked and persecuted in a thousand ways, great and petty, but all perfectly legal by the letter of the law of the sea. I, too, was hounded and mocked but there was comparatively little that Dogg could do to me until I was qualified to stand watches – and I was shrewd enough to take care that my mastery of navigation grew slowly, although, in fact, I found it a simple enough science for anyone with a head for figures and had already, on the outward voyage, picked up the elements from Peter.

  Captain Dogg was unlovely to behold: his shaggy head seemed to exude a dirty dust and he was afflicted with the disease called “Devil in the Beard” which made his jaws as hideously colourful as his strawberry nose. There was no doubt but that he was a wonderfully able Master Mariner but this won not even grudging admiration from the men. One came across little knots of them, muttering – falling silent whenever an officer or a warrant-rating drew near. In each of these knots, it seemed to me, there was always one of our Calcutta Yankees; our men dropped their eyes sheepishly at these times but the Yankee would stare at one boldly with a sort of a sneering smile. I caught glimpses of a little book passing from hand to hand.

  Each day, a
s we ploughed through the island passages towards the Indian Ocean, I grew more uneasy. Strangely, whenever I tried to sympathise with Peter about some new imposition upon him or some fresh drunken outrage on the Captain’s part, he silenced me curtly, reminding me that Dogg was our commanding officer. This made it harder for me: to worry without a friend to confide in is a lonely business and wearing, wearing. What it was like for Peter I cannot say, perhaps I cannot even guess, even now.

  Sheer loneliness – for Peter was at this time too tired when off duty to exchange even the lightest pleasantries – drove me to seek the company of the Doctor but he, too, seemed to become more glum and taciturn each day, although I cannot pretend that the flow and quality of his eatables abated. The change in his nature may well have been due in part to the new Captain’s base approach to the matter of eating. Long service in the Royal Navy had given him a morbid appetite for kinds of food which you or I would spread upon the rose-garden as a mulch. The demands he made upon the Doctor for weevily biscuits, smelly salt pork and the kind of nasty duff called “dog’s vomit” and his scorn for “made dishes” and what he called “kickshaws” must sorely have tried the patience of my negro friend. But this cannot have been the whole of the story. No, the Doctor was, so to say, the ship’s moral barometer and one could almost see the mercury slithering lower and lower in his Torricellian tube.