Night Birds On Nantucket

by Joan Aiken

  She left the cabin, shutting the door behind her with a loud annoying slam.

  After more than sixteen hours of frantic, continuous work the captured whale had been all cut up and melted down; Mr Slighcarp’s watch staggered below, blind and speechless with fatigue. At last the moment arrived that Dido had been waiting for. She stretched, rose, left the quarter-deck, and went along to the try-works, which were simmering down, now, to a dull red glow. Half-a-dozen weary men were scrubbing the deck with ashes; their shadows flitted to and fro under a towering Arctic moon. From time to time they paused in their labours, dipped bits of hardtack in the still molten blubber and chewed them. The good-natured Mr Pardon was supervising the work.

  ‘Why, dearie,’ he said in surprise, ‘you shoulda been in your bunk hours agone. Cap’n Casket tells me he’s given you his stateroom for to be company for little Miss Penitence. Mr Slighcarp’s not best pleased at having to move in with me, but ’tis more fitting for you than lying here on a donkey’s breakfast. And I guess you’ll be better able than a man to look after that poor little ailing lass.’

  Dido nodded soberly. ‘Mr Pardon,’ she said.

  ‘Well, dearie?’

  ‘What’s Captain Casket’s little girl like?’

  ‘Like?’ Mr Pardon scratched his white head, puzzled. ‘Why, I guess she’s like all little gals. Sews her sampler, reads her lesson – Mrs Casket allus used to hear her lessons when she was alive, poor lady.’

  ‘But what’s she like?’ Dido persisted. ‘What kind o’ games does she like to play?’

  ‘Play? Why, I dunno as how she plays any games. But my nephew Nate here’d know better’n I do; his home’s not too far from the Casket place.’

  ‘Games?’ said Nate when appealed to. ‘Don’t reckon she ever played any. Very quiet little thing, sorta peaky. Her ma allus kept her pretty much at her stitching and so forth.’

  ‘Blimey,’ muttered Dido, ‘what a set-out. No wonder she’s such a misery. Mr Pardon, d’you reckon as how you could make me a shuttlecock for her? Out o’ whalebone or summat? I could stick it with gulls’ feathers.’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Mr Pardon said doubtfully. ‘Guess it would be simple enough. But what would Cap’n Casket think? Mrs Casket allus used to say that toys were inventions of the Devil.’

  ‘I guess he’d have to put up with it,’ Dido said. ‘He asked me if I’d try to take Dutiful Penitence outa herself. She’s pining for her ma.’

  Nate was interested in the scheme. ‘I could make a whalebone bat,’ he offered. ‘And some checkers or spillikins.’

  ‘Could you? That’d be bang-up!’

  Dido went below, well pleased with the way matters were shaping.

  The big cabin was lit up by a hanging whale-oil lamp. Dido turned the wick up to its brightest. Then she listened. No sound came from Dutiful Penitence, so Dido banged the cabin door, opened and shut some drawers several times as loudly as she could, and overturned a chair with a tremendous clatter.

  She heard a sleepy stir from beyond the panel. ‘Papa, what’s the matter?’ said a scared voice. ‘Is it a storm?’

  Dido made no answer. She climbed up on to the chart table and then, after carefully judging the distance, jumped four feet to a wall shelf, where she clung like a squirrel. From there, making use of the hanging compass, she swung to the bed, landing with a thud. Then she crawled to the bed-foot, put her knee on an open drawer, and clawed herself across to another shelf, aware, as she did so, though without showing it, that the panel had opened a crack and that she was being watched. She balanced on the shelf, gauging the distance to a chair.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked an astonished voice. ‘And what do you think you’re doing? Where is Papa?’

  ‘I told you already,’ Dido said without looking round. ‘I’m Dido Twite. Your pa’s given me his cabin.’ She steadied herself and sprang. The chair fell, and threw her to the ground. ‘Drat it,’ Dido said coldly, getting up and rubbing her knee. ‘Now I shall have to start again.’

  ‘Start what again?’

  Taking no notice of the question, Dido climbed back on to the chart table. This time she chose a different route, throwing herself like a flying-fox on to a large sea-chest, which seemed full of bottles, to judge from the loud clatter when she landed on it.

  She scowled in concentration, considering a sideways clamber across the door as against an awkward diagonal jump to the bed. She chose the former.

  ‘What are you doing?’ the voice repeated.

  Dido dragged herself up with difficulty and turned round. She was now perching like a gargoyle on a sort of dresser. ‘Why!’ she said exasperatedly. ‘What d’you think I’m doing? What does it look as if I’m doing? Making cheese? I’m getting round the room without touching the floor, o’ course. I shoulda thought any ninny coulda seen that. You must be a slow-top. Now, don’t interrupt again, you put me off.’ She knit her brows and pressed her lips together, then with a mighty spring succeeded in launching herself from the dresser to the fallen chair, which slid conveniently across to the bed.

  ‘Now I’m going to sleep,’ Dido announced. ‘Mind you don’t make a noise and wake me.’ She turned out the light. All this time she had never looked towards the open hatchway. Yawning loudly she snuggled down under the blankets. Silence fell.

  After a longish pause the voice asked:

  ‘Why didn’t you want to touch the floor?’

  Dido made no answer, but, instead, let out a slight snore.

  Very early next morning Dido, who needed little sleep after her ten-month nap, woke and scurried up on deck before any sound came from Dutiful Penitence.

  The Sarah Casket, all her barrels now filled with whale-oil, was speeding south under a clear sky. Already the icy mountains of Alaska were out of sight. Some of the men were hard at work hammering in the lids of the great hogsheads, twice the height of Dido, before these were lowered into the hold; others were scrubbing every inch of the deck and bulwarks with ashes and bits of blubber, even climbing into the rigging to wipe the shrouds. Soot and ashes flew away on the fresh breeze, and the ship by degrees began to look so tidy and clean that Dido could hardly believe it was the same in which, only the day before, whale-oil had run like greasy dark ink over the deck.

  The kindly Mr Pardon had contrived time out of his duties to make a shuttlecock. He gave it to Dido. ‘It ain’t very grand; I made a bit of a mux of it,’ he apologized. ‘But I reckoned you’d ruther have it soon than fancy. I’ll make a better one now I got the hang – I’m real pleased to do it. Young ’uns should have playthings. And Nate, he’s fixing ye a right handsome battledore but ’twon’t be finished yet a piece because Mr Slighcarp’s sent him up to scrub the crow’s nest.’

  Dido looked up and saw a tiny figure, miles up it seemed in the clear piercing air. Nate waved a scrubbing-brush cheerfully and she waved back.

  ‘This here’s a fust-rate shuttlecock,’ she told Mr Pardon. ‘Just what I wanted. Cap’n Casket’s little girl will be astonished, I reckon.’

  ‘Don’t forget your breakfast, dearie,’ Mr Pardon said as she turned to go below.

  ‘That’s a notion,’ Dido said. She added to herself: ‘I dessay Dutiful Pen has had enough o’ plum jelly to last a lifetime; let’s see what a sight o’ summat else does for her.’ She skipped along to the camboose by the wheelhouse. ‘What’s for breakfast?’ she asked briskly.

  ‘Ah! Is little chick passenger!’ The black cook gave her his beaming grin. ‘I have nice fu-fu, also nice plum-duff.’

  ‘Can I have two helps o’ plum-duff? I’ll take some down for Dutiful P. She might fancy it.’

  ‘Is picky and choosy, that one,’ the cook said, shaking his head. ‘Is not fancy my cooking.’ However, he dealt out two large portions of delicious raisin pudding, made with dripping and potash.

  ‘You like some coffee?’

  ‘Thanks, mister. Any milk?’

  ‘Not yet, honey. Goat she took and died. In some month we make Galapag
os Island. Then maybe coconut milk.’

  Dido ran down the companionway with the food and sat down at the chart table, where she began to eat one portion of plum-duff with smacking sounds of enjoyment.

  ‘Nibblish good prog,’ she remarked loudly. ‘Better’n my ma makes, anyhows.’

  When she had finished her plateful she got up, leaving the second portion untouched and well in view, took the shuttlecock out of her pocket, and began to kick it into the air. As Mr Pardon had said, it was not a very well-made one, being slightly unbalanced, and at first Dido found difficulty in keeping it up for more than two or three kicks. She persevered, however, bounding about the room until she was breathless and bruised from collisions with the furniture. She noticed that the panel had opened an inch and an eye was peering at her with silent, astonished attention.

  ‘This room ain’t big enough,’ Dido complained presently, when she was becoming more experienced with the shuttlecock and had worked her score up to twenty-three. ‘I’m a-going on deck, I am, where there’s plenty of room.’

  She departed, slamming the door behind her. Although strongly tempted to linger and look through the keyhole, she knew this would be foolish. Instead she clattered up the companion stair and went out to the quarter-deck.

  However she soon found that there was little room, even here, to practise her game, for the men were tidying out the hold, to make room for the last casks of whale-oil, and had brought all the stores up on deck: bundles of hoops and staves, great sides of salt beef, sacks of hardtack, and a whole mass of other gear lay heaped in disorder. The casks of oil in the hold were being hosed, to keep them watertight, and there was such a general hubbub of to-and-fro activity that Dido seemed to be constantly underfoot and in everybody’s way. Nate, playing on a sort of zither made of whalebone, helped the men keep time.

  They were singing:

  ‘Strong to Pleasant, Wake to Guam

  Winds are favouring, seas are calm,

  Midway down to Pokaaku

  Typhoon cuts our mainmast through.

  ‘Easter, Disappointment, Nome,

  Through the watery world we roam,

  Tristan, Fogo, Trinidad,

  Winds contrary, weather bad,

  Christmas, East, Kwajalein –

  When shall we see Brant Point again?’

  The zither gave Dido an idea. There were bundles of whalebone pieces lying about the deck, of assorted sizes and shapes. ‘I reckon they can spare me a bit,’ she said to herself. ‘I won’t bother to ask Cap’n Casket, he looks a mite cagged.’

  The captain was taking no part in the bustle; he leaned against the mainmast with his eyes fixed on the far horizon.

  Dido picked up a piece of bone about the size of a walking-stick and quietly made off with it.

  ‘Now all I want’s a tool; land’s sakes, they must have plenty on a ship this size if I could find out where they keeps ’em.’

  There was a smith’s forge by the foremast and a carpenter’s bench aft of the try-works but both these were too much under observation at present; hoping to find other stores Dido nipped down the forward hatchway into the blubber-room. This was unoccupied, now, and silent; a sort of tidemark on the wall showed where yesterday the blubber had been stacked kneedeep. At the moment the room was being used for the temporary storage of things taken from the hold; a pile of oakum and sail-canvas occupied most of the floor. Dido turned to leave, seeing nothing she could use, but then stopped, arrested by the unexpected sight of a boot protruding from under the canvas.

  It was bottle-green, elastic sided, quite unlike the brogans worn by the sailors. It looked like an English lady’s boot. Where could it have come from? Puzzled and inquisitive, Dido gave it a tug, and then jumped back with a yelp of alarm as the boot disappeared swiftly beneath the canvas. There was a foot inside it!

  Curiosity overcoming her caution, Dido approached the heap once more and pulled aside some folds of canvas. A sort of writhing motion went on in the middle of the heap, the sailcloth was displaced, and suddenly, rather as a serpent darts out of its lair, the figure of a tall, veiled lady uncoiled and shot from under the pile of stuff. She towered over the quailing Dido, who would have run for it had she not been held fast by the ear.

  ‘What do you think you are doing here?’ the lady said in a low, grating tone.

  ‘P-p-please, ma’am, I d-didn’t mean no harm!’ gulped Dido. ‘I was only looking for a c-c-corkscrew!’

  ‘A likely story! Prying and meddling where you’d no business to be! Repulsive child! You deserve to be severely punished. Now, listen here, miss!’

  ‘Y-y-yes, ma’am?’

  ‘If you so much as mention that you have seen me to anyone – anyone at all – I shall learn of it. And it will be the worse for you. You wish to return to England, do you not?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Dido whispered, very much astonished.

  ‘Then you had better keep a still tongue in your head! Otherwise your chances of ever seeing London River again are very, very small. Do you understand? Now – go!’

  Dido needed no encouragement – something in the veiled lady’s aspect had struck her with mortal terror – but she received a final warning in the form of a box on the ear, that shot her out of the doorway.

  Numb and chattering with fright she scurried up the companionway and back on deck. Luckily nobody had noticed her come out. The whole crew were trying to manhandle a spare anchor out of its usual resting-place so as to cram a few casks of oil underneath it. Frightened though she was, Dido kept her wits about her; she grabbed a handful of tools from the carpenter’s bench and then, still gasping for breath, ran down to the captain’s cabin.

  She was too discomposed to notice that the hatchway shut with a click as she entered the room, but she did observe, when a little more recovered, that the plum-duff on the second plate had been eaten. She grinned to herself and, sitting up, inspected the tools she had taken. Choosing a drill, she set to work on her whalebone rod.

  It proved a long, fiddling task, which occupied most of the day. Though aware that she was often watched, Dido pretended not to notice. She found it impossible to work all the time, for her fingers became stiff. Twice she broke off to make a tour of the room without touching the deck, each time attempting a new route. She also played several games of shuttlecock, and chalked herself out a hopscotch square on the chart table. Here she encountered a difficulty, however.

  ‘I wisht as how I had a pebble,’ she remarked aloud. ‘Or a marble, or a penny, or even a button would do. Oh well,’ heaving a deep sigh, ‘can’t play hopscotch, that’s all. Funny how I has a fancy to play hopscotch. Anyway I reckon it’s dinner-time; I’ll nip up to the camboose and see what’s cooking.’

  She took the empty plates and left the room.

  All the time she had been working and playing part of her mind was occupied with the puzzle of the mysterious veiled lady in the blubber-room. Could she be a stowaway? Dido wondered. She might have been hidden in the hold and obliged to take refuge elsewhere because of the general turnout. But where could she have come on board? What did she live on? Did none of the crew know about her presence?

  ‘Somebody must know,’ Dido said to herself as she absently accepted two bowls of porpoise chowder from the cook, ‘somebody must know, and musta told her about me. Else how did she twig I was English? I wonder who told her?’

  She returned to the cabin, ate her meal, and flung herself on the bed for a nap, burying her face in the pillow and letting out snores. For a long time there was silence; then she heard a cautious clink. She redoubled her snores, shutting her eyes so tightly that she saw red and green stars. Presently the hatch was heard to close with a gentle click. For good measure Dido lay five minutes longer, then, yawning loudly, she opened her eyes. The second chowder bowl was empty. Beside it lay a large leather button.

  ‘Well I never!’ Dido exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Fancy my not noticing that there button afore! Jist what I needed for hopscotch! Now, can I
remember the rules, I wonder?’

  Having dumped the chowder bowls on the floor she climbed on to the table. Addressing herself as if she were a slow-witted pupil she proceeded to rehearse the rules of hopscotch. She was thus occupied when the door opened unexpectedly and she met Captain Casket’s startled eyes.

  ‘Is – is thee all right, my child?’ he asked.

  ‘Now look here,’ said Dido crossly. ‘Let’s get this straight from the fust. You gives me your cabin, right, then it’s mine. See? I don’t expect no monnicking and chissicking – no interference,’ she explained impatiently as she met his questioning gaze. ‘You keep outa here. Ain’t you got the ship to look arter? You go watch for that pink whale o’ yourn. I’ll tell you if you’re wanted here.’

  She gave him such a fierce scowl that he retreated, gingerly shutting the door. ‘That’s got rid o’ him,’ Dido said with satisfaction. ‘Now maybe we can tend to business.’

  She practised hopscotch very enjoyably for an hour or so, then worked on her piece of whalebone. When this was completely hollowed out into a tube she made a mouthpiece at one end and a series of holes along it. If blown on hard enough it produced a plaintive sound, like the call of a hungry bird. After much labour Dido had several notes adjusted to her satisfaction, and was able to play ‘God Save King Jim’ and ‘Who’ll Buy My Sweet Lavender?’ This was received with awestruck and flattering silence from the watcher behind the panel.

  ‘I wisht I knowed a few more tunes,’ Dido said at length. ‘Seems as how while I’d been asleep I forgot most o’ the ones I used to know. Ah well – maybe I’ll remember some more tomorrow. I’ll jist step out for a breath o’ fresh air now, and then go to kip.’

  She went in search of Nate, and found him sprawled on the main deck, weaving a rope mat in a rather inattentive and dreamy fashion while he tried over the words of a chanty.

  ‘Oh it’s gally and roll, me boys, ripple and run,

  So hold to your hand-lance, the chase has begun,