Captain Caution

by Kenneth Roberts

  "vyings" Newton cried. "Lying? Why well, wait till you know 'eml Lyingl It was only a couple of years ago that the Duke of York was helping Mary Anne Clarke to sell any job in England to the highest bidderl The King's son and a bawdl It's no use having merit in England, not unless you have money along with it; and if you have no money, you're no better than a criminal! They pressed me into their damned navy, and I know 'em, and I'm glad I do, because it isn't Nature for people like that to win wars from people like us. ThaPs mighty small consolation to a man who's buried in the hulksl Mighty small, but better than nothing!"

  The boyish Stannage, looking petulant, came slowly and awkwardly up the companionway, dragging his enormous and reluctant brown dog; while Little White, crowding close behind with baskets, boxes and cloaks, rolled his eyes defiantly at the prisoners who watched him.

  Argandeau, beside Marvin, sighed heavily. "It is well that I understand which is the master and which is the man," he said, "because if I did not, I might think that the smaller one was brought here by the black one for our amusement."

  He watched the two gaily caparisoned figures mounting to the CAPTAIN CAUTION 403

  quarter-deck from the throng of emaciated, tattered scarecrows that packed the waist; then tapped Marvin on the arm. "In those baskets," he reminded him, "there is wine and fine food and yet more wine that they will be two hours in consuming. Two hours is no great time, so you must come now and have your dinner two rotten carrots and a biscuit palpitating with weevils."

  Marvin, climbing the ladders from the lower battery to the upper deck, mounted two hours later into a tumult so violent that the hulk seemed to shudder, as at the roaring of a storm seemed almost to be sinking in a sea of sound.

  The deck itself had become an amphitheater, and every exposed part of it, save for the quarter-deck and a square inclosure in front of the break in the poop, was massed with ragged, excited prisoners. There were prisoners clinging like ants to the two stubby signal masts; prisoners ranged in a triple tier along the high bulwarks; prisoners hanging like swarming bees against the face of the forecastle. All of them, wedged immovably in their places though they seemed to be, had freed their arms to shake a fist at the inclosure beneath the poop, so that the whole dreary hulk had the appearance of fluttering and vibrating, while from nine hundred throats there came an angry and derisive screaming.

  In the center of the inclosure, set off by ropes from the closepacked prisoners who crouched around it, strutted the towering crimson form of Little White; and from the continuous rapid movement of his grinning lips as well as from the expression of rage on the faces of the prisoners closest to him, Marvin knew he was making game of them. From time to time he turned and looked up to the baby-faced hussar captain, standing at the rail of the quarter-deck with Lieutenant Osmore, and thence to the chattering women, who now sat comfortably, wineglasses in their hands, on either side of the hulk commander and their host. There was pride and almost admiration in the smiles they gave him; and even as Marvin, preceded by Newton and followed closely by Argandeau, forced his way from the main hatch toward the ring, a woman's gaily colored silk scarf floated downward from the quarter-deck and was deftly caught by Little White caught and flaunted proudly in the faces of the howl- ing prisoners.

  At the sight of Marvin, crawling under the ropes of the ring with the small and heavily overcoated Newton, Little White ceased his posturing and stared intently at the tall American; then, catching his eye, he thrust out his lower jaw and grimaced horribly, his mouth

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  spreading outward so that he seemed to have the face of an ape. Marvin stared hard at him with a horrid fascination and shivered perceptibly, whereupon the roar with which the prisoners were greeting their champion's appearance became enfeebled with misgiving and died pathetically away.

  On the quarter-deck two marines thumped on the drums slung at their sides. Lieutenant Osmore placed his right hand between the first and second buttons of his coat, frowned portentously and raised his left hand in a gesture of command. Over the hulk there fell an uneasy silence.

  "You know the terms of this exhibition!" Osmore said in his shrill, domineering voice. "Captain Sir Rafe Stannage has kindly consented to permit his attendant ah White ah Little White to display once more that art unknown to more ah effeminate, more cruel and more cowardly peoples ah the art sprung from British hardihood and love of fair play ah the art of pugilism!" He mclined his head to Stannage, who was staring as though baffled at a leather strap in his left hand; and from the throng of prisoners there instantly rose a roar short, sharp and profoundly ironical.

  'You know the termsl" Osmore repeated. "Any fighting or opprobAous remarks among the prisoners will result in two days black hole for the offenders. The rules of the exhibition will be Broughton's rules. Each round to be considered ended on the fall of one or both contestants After each fall, each man to be brought to scratch within thirty seconds or be deemed ah beaten. No falling without the staking of an honest blow. Challenger to receive one pound for his brave attempt, and if successful ah, ha-hal if successful twenty guineas!" Osmore chuckled and cleared his throat importantly.

  "The challenger of ah White of Little White ah is" he drew a small paper from his coat and peered at it "is one Marvin, of Arundel." He scanned the paper again, frowning, and repeated the word "Arun-del."

  Stannage stepped to his side and looked over his shoulder. "Arundel? He's an Englishman?"

  Osmore frowned severely down at Marvin, who stood patiently at one side of the ring, his ear inclined to the prolonged whisperings of Newton. "Awn-dell" Osmore exclaimed, striking the paper with his hand. "This says Arun-del! There's no Arun-del in AmeAcal"

  Marvin nodded. "A-rundle, it's pronounced."

  "Never heard of the place! Where is it?" Osmore asked.

  "Where?" Marvin said, looking up at him thoughtfully. "It's no great distance from Bunker Hill and Saratoga."

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  A whisper arose from the men crouched at the ringside, a small dry titter that spread through the dense masses of prisoners as ripples spread from the dropping of a rock in a pond.

  "Silencel" Osmore screamed, stamping his foot. "Silencel" He stared balefully from one side of the crowded deck to the other, until the unseemly tittering had died away. "Save your damned Yankee impertinence for another occasion or I'll clap you below hatches, all of youl You want to see this fight, and you'll behave yourselves or not see it! I'll say this, too: It's a lesson you need, all of you you Frenchmen with your kicking and knife sticking you Spaniards and Italians with your backhanded stilettos and daggers you Yankees with your tomahawks and scalping tricksl This is to do you goodl You people need all the lessons you can get in the cool courage, the restraint, the skill and the endurance with which the noble art of boxing has filled the breast of every true-hearted Eng- lishman and made the British nation the mistress of the seasl"

  There was a patter of applause from the young women seated at the quarter-deck rail.

  Newton cleared his throat apologetically. "I'd like to ask a question, sir," he said. He stared up at Osmore from beside Marvin, as harmless as a downy chicken peering from under its mother's wing.

  "Be quick about itl" Osmore ordered.

  "We hope you'll not permit any of your Lancashire up-and-down fighting, sir," Newton urged. "We wouldn't like to see our man killed or disabled by kicking or gouging when on his back."

  Osmore narrowed his eyes at Newton; then swept them quickly over the throng of ragged men beyond. There was a small trembling among them, and a sound like the vague shadow of stifled laughter.

  Osmore's face darkened; he opened his lips as though to rebuke Newton; then seemed to cogitate. "Broughton's rulesl" he snapped at length. "You heard me say Broughton's rulesl Get your man ready! Surgeon Rockett has kindly consented to fill the difficult post of referee."

  He read again from his paper. "Corporals Quigg and Spratt will act for ah White for Little White. For M
arvin, Newton and Argandeau."

  Two red-coated marines popped into the ring beside Little White, who straightway leaped into the air, crowing like a rooster and shedding jacket, trousers, waistband and turban in a whirl of scarlet and gold. Beneath these garments he wore small clothes of the brightest green, fastened waist and knee with yellow bands. Above them his naked torso gleamed in the pale October sunlight like polished

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  brown wood wood in which knots and lumps swelled unexpectedly on shoulders, arms and back. His forehead sloped back abruptly from his broad fiat nose, rising to a peak at the top of his head a peak topped with a fuzzy semicircle of hair that had the look of a thick rope of crinkly black feathers extending over his skull and fastened to his ears on either side.

  He continued to crow and leap as Newton helped Marvin to strip off his shirt, the huge brown hands flapping like wings against the green small clothes; and even his eyes, fastened on Marvin, were black and hard as those of a giant rooster.

  Marvin, resting against the ropes between Newton and Argandeau, had the look of shrinking from his black antagonist. The pearly whiteness of his chest and arms might have been thought to be the effect of fear, and the long smooth muscles hidden beneath that gleaming skin seemed, by comparison with the knobby brown bulges of Little White, almost weak and helpless. Yet it was strange but true that whereas Little White seemed to have shrunk somewhat with the removal of his gaudy plumage, Marvin seemed to have become larger.

  Down from the quarter-deck came the ship's surgeon, his chin held high by his black stock, and a huge watch clutched in his hand. He crawled beneath the ropes, poked Marvin in the chest with a finger like a marlinespike, stared curiously into the yellowish eyes of Little White; then stooped over with some difficulty and, on the deck in the middle of the ring, chalked a square with three-foot sides.

  "Now," he said, "if you're ready, my lads?" He popped out under the ropes. His hand rose and fell; and with that Newton hustled Marvin to one side of the chalked square, while one of the marines ran with Little White to the opposite side, so that the four men hung in a knot at the centerof the ring.

  The shouting of the prisoners had fallen away to a breathless hum, and through the hum rose a hoarse voice, a voice so rough and rasping as to sound less like a voice than like the scraping of a file on the strings of some vast violin. It was the voice of Little White. "Kiss mah ban'," he growled. "Ah kill Americans wiff it."

  Newton and the marine ran back to their sides of the ring and dodged beneath the ropes.

  Little White threw himself into fighting position. His left foot and his left arm were thrust well forward; his right arm guarded his stomach and lower chest; his upper body tipped back so far that if he had raised his eyes, they would have looked straight upward into infinity. Standing so, he laughed, a deep, roaring, hyena-like laugh;

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  for it was plain to be seen, from Marvin's posture, that Marvin was as ignorant of fighting as he was afraid of Little White. He had cramped himself sideways, his left shoulder turned in front of his body. His right foot, instead of resting squarely and flatly on the ground as a supporting platform for a blow, was poised on its toe, as, indeed, was his left foot as well. Both his knees were weakly bent, as though it was in his mind to turn at any moment and run like a coward from his powerful black opponent.

  Roaring with laughter, Little White shuffled forward toward Marvin, who slipped off to one side. Roaring still, Little White shuffled after him, only to have his opponent slip off to the other side.

  Nor was Little White the only one to roar. The deck of the hulk seemed almost to erupt with angry shouts of "Fightl Fightl" while Osmore, Stannage, the six women in their glowing silks and satins, and even the drummers at each side of the quarter-deck, hung far out over the rail to shout, "Fight! Fightl"

  They moved around the ring, Little White shuffling forward and Marvin slipping off to left or right before him. Little White lashed out with a left-handed blow that cut a slit in Marvin's ear, and got from Marvin in return a veritable baby's tap a breath of a hit, that touched Little White's eye and was gone, like a vagrant butterfly. Again, with the evident intention of ending the fight before it had fairly begun, Little White sprang forward, his fists driving like battering rams for Marvin's mark that triangular-shaped patch beneath his ribs and above his belt. There was the crack of a hit, but it was the impact of a black fist against a forearm; the mark itself had moved away.

  The prisoners groaned and hissed. One of them, close to Newton's corner, aimed a jab at the elusive Marvin through the ropes. "Stand up to himl" he bellowed. "Get out o' there if you can't stand up to himl"

  Newton rapped the bellower sharply on the forearm with the edge of his hand. "Close your facet" he said. "Can't you see it's a new way of fighting?"

  The near-by prisoners howled their disgust. "Be damned to a new way of fighting" "It's a new way of running, and a rotten onel" "Make him show what he's good fort" "Make him fightl"

  Minutes passed. Blood trickled from Marvin's ear; there were red welts along his ribs from the glancing blows of Little White's knuckles; but still he slipped off to one side or to the other, and shrank away before the black man's advance.

  Anger had replaced Little White's hoarse hilarity. "Stan' stilll" he

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  growled, following Marvin's erratic twistings and turnings. "Isn't one of you Americans got bottom enough to stan' up to a fighter? Light somewheres, you dirty Yankee yeller bird, so's I can knock you halfway up to Lunnonl"

  To Little White's amazement, Marvin laughed. "You can't fightl" he told the black man. "You can't even throw a cross-buttock."

  Little White lowered his head and charged. To the prisoners, raging at Marvin's tactics, it seemed, and was indeed the case, that Marvin, at this quick movement, stood his ground instead of slipping off to right or left. As Little White's head shot past his body, Marvin's fist came up against his opponent's throat with a sound like the impact of a dead codfish against a plank. In another instant the black man's arms were around him and the first fall had gone to Little White with a cross-buttock.

  Their seconds were on them as they sprawled to the deck, hoisting them to their feet and hurrying them to the ropes for a rest of thirty seconds. Argandeau held Marvin on his knee while Newton, gabbling in his ear to make himself heard above the din of the prisoners, sponged the blood from his face and chest.

  "A thirteen-minute roundl" Newton told him excitedly. "A thirteen-minute round, and you're barely scratched! You're like a Baltimore schooner sailing rings 'round a frigate! He can't touch youl Keep it up, Danl Your way's the best way, no matter what these fools sayl Don't listen to 'eml He can't fightl He's a flipper! I told you he was a flipperl He thinks he's fighting like Molineaux, but he isn't. He's just a big black chunk of sour beefl He hits at half arm and keeps his elbows close to his body, and he'll keep doing it until he thinks he's caught youl Then he'll imitate Molineaux again and try to chop you, and you've got himl You've got him anyway! That was a beauty a beautyl Right in the whistlel Right in the apple! He thinks he's swallowed a hen's hind footl Oh, oh! He's fall He's pufEyl And he thinks it was an accident! He thinks he ran into it! Look at him gulpl Look at him watch your"

  Marvin glanced across at Little White, seated on the knee of a red-coated marine while another marine dabbled water on the back of his neck. There was, Marvin saw, a soft smoothness to the black skin above the green small clothes, instead of the solid wall of corrugated muscle that should have been there; and the soft smooth surface rose and fell hurriedly. Conscious of Marvin's scrutiny, Little White blinked his small eyes, cautiously stretched his neck; then thrust out his mouth in an apelike grimace.

  "Keep away from himl" Newton continued. "Keep out of his way

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  until he's careless! Then you got himl Then you got him goodl Remember what I told your"

  "Timer" the referee shouted.


  Little White shuffled to the chalked square, falling into a fighting position so exaggerated that he seemed on the verge of tumbling backward. Marvin came less quickly to the scratch, and in the same cautious manner that had so enraged his fellow prisoners in the previous round with his left shoulder thrust forward and his body bent as though he were torn with the simultaneous desire to advance and to run away.

  Little White's hands revolved rapidly and he pawed the deck with an enormous foot. "Stan' upl" he commanded hoarsely; then coughed and cleared his throat and coughed once more. "Stan' up, you ole tabby call"

  He lurched forward to hurl murderous blows at Marvin, who shrank before him, ducking and dodging. Again and yet again Marvin's left fist flicked out, touching Little White lightly at the corner of the eye, and so faint and ineffectual were the blows that the groans and the jeering of the prisoners changed suddenly to a burst of laughter. Even Little White laughed, though he coughed when he did so, and at the corner of his eyes a smear of blood showed bright against his brown skin.

  "yes' a moment and I gits your" he said. His voice seemed choked and strangled, and when he had spoken, he wheezed. His shullle became swifter; and as it did, there came a hesitation into Marvin's movements a momentary catch, as though he had faltered in deciding how to turn.

  Little White bellowed hoarsely; his right hand rose high above his head, and like a flail his long black arm swept down toward Marvin's neck. Instead of slipping away, Marvin moved closer. His right fist flashed upward to land upon the brown V below the ribs. The breath went out of Little White with a hoarse hoot. He tilted suddenly forward, so that his chopping blow lost its force and landed uncontrolled against Marvin's shoulder. Marvin's left fist drove once more against the negro's thick throat, partially straightening the black man, and once more his right fist whipped into the unprotected stomach that still quivered and jerked from the first unexpected blow. Little White clung to him with one arm clung and fell backward, dragging Marvin with him; and the two of them plunged to the deck and amid a turmoil of frenzied shouting such as might have come from ten thousand madmen, rather than from nine hundred half-fed prisoners.