by Joan Druett
“So you reckon Powell never got around to delivering it?”
“Or maybe he gave it to a servant, who never got around to mentioning it to the sheriff. The plain fact of the matter is that we won’t know what happened to that letter until we get to the Vincennes and find Powell.”
And, as if in response, there was a cry of, “Sail ho!” from the lookout in the masthead.
George Rochester, galvanized, shot up the mainmast hand over fist. Two small clouds lay on the distant horizon ahead, joined by another as the brig kept up her headlong approach. An hour later the clouds had become defined as towers of canvas. Closer still and it became apparent that the Vincennes, the Porpoise, and the Flying Fish, their topsails backed so they made no headway, were clustered about something large and enigmatic in the water. Another hour and George was able to solve the secret with his spyglass.
“It’s a famous great tree drifting about in the water, a ship-length long at the slightest reckoning,” he reported to Wiki as he passed him in the topgallant crosstrees. “What blessed jungle it comes from, I have not a notion. There are scientifics swarming all over it—taking specimens, I guess.”
“Did you see Burroughs among them?”
“Don’t know what the fellow looks like,” Rochester returned cheerfully. “Never clapped eyes on him in my life.” Then he grabbed a backstay and swung down to the deck. When he heard the double thump of George’s boots hitting the planks, Wiki followed him.
They met by the wheel, Wiki saying, “Do you reckon we could send a party on board the Porpoise to find him?” The sense of urgency that had beset him when he’d heard that Burroughs was with the expedition had diminished over the days but was now beginning to nag again.
“Not without Wilkes’s say-so—which, as you know, ain’t easy to get,” said Rochester moodily. Then he lapsed into deep thought, his head slightly tilted as he scowled at the Vincennes in the distance. “How about we show ’em how a real Yankee can do it and sail right around his ship?” he mused. When Wiki opened his mouth to remonstrate, George merely waved a hand, saying with an air of decision, “You’ll oblige me, Mr. Coffin, by taking the helm!”
Then he was off, calling for Mr. Erskine and shouting for the boatswain. Within instants, as the word flew around that their captain was going to wreak a little revenge for the tongue-lashing Captain Wilkes had delivered in the Hampton Roads, all hands were on deck.
And all the time the Swallow swept down upon the fleet. Signals were fluttering up to the main peak of the distant Vincennes. Then, as the moments ticked by, a cluster of brightly uniformed figures could be discerned on the poop deck—staring at the Swallow in attitudes of gathering consternation. The brig was dead on course for the flagship, every sail out and bellied taut with wind, the foam dashing along her hull, her sharp bow slicing through the waves and tossing them to either side, apparently utterly set on collision.
George’s grin was growing wider with every swish of the sea. He stood with his legs braced, his muscular calves stuck out at the back, one fist gripping the weather shrouds as he calculated speed and distance; Midshipman Erskine as alert as a cockerel alongside him. All hands were poised in their proper stations, seamen standing by lines and sheets, ropes neatly flaked into coils at their feet, Wiki at the wheel with the wind lashing his hair about his shoulders.
On, on the Swallow sped in full-bellied splendor, her wake a bubbling light green, her bowsprit aimed unerringly at the poop of the Vincennes. Now the group of officers standing there could be more clearly spied, staring spellbound at the brig as she tore down upon them. Moments rushed by in the creaking of rigging and the swish of water, and then—just as impact seemed inevitable—“Ready about!” George bellowed, and, “Ready about!” Midshipman Erskine yelled.
Wiki heaved down on the wheel as the seamen hauled, and around the Swallow came, her spanker boom slamming and her foresheets slapping taut. Another bawled order and she had straightened up and was sailing along the flagship’s starboard side, heading for her bow. Looking up as they sped by, Wiki could glimpse stunned faces lined along the other ship’s rail.
Then another series of hollered orders, a heave on the wheel, and the brig did a circuit of the flagship’s bow, perilously close to the long bowsprit. A haul at the braces and back along the larboard side of the Vincennes the Swallow ran, losing speed but still sending foam seething along the hull of the sloop of war. Then, with more singing out, the arcing wake of the Swallow darkened and then disappeared, as the brig braced around, very slowly, and sheered past the flagship’s stern.
It had been the most flamboyant display of seamanship imaginable, a spectacular maneuver that had been carried out with flawless precision. Bemusedly, Wiki heard the sound of cheering, and then realized that every man jack on board the brig had thrown his hat in the air with a roar of delight. The Swallow sailors were going to describe this with pride in a thousand seaport taverns; in the space of just a few moments the dubious shipboard morale had shot up to euphoric.
However, looking up again as they glided past the poop of the Vincennes, he could discern Captain Wilkes’s expression—and the commander of the expedition was not at all amused, Wiki discerned. Nor was Wilkes impressed. This, Wiki deduced, was not going to be lightly dismissed as a display of youthful high spirits.
“At last I see you, Mister Rochester!” the speaking trumpet blared. “But I also see that you have not achieved maturity in the interval! It would be better that you attend to your duties instead of indulging in fancy spectacle—and that you should rendezvous in good season, as instructed, instead of dawdling!” And on Wilkes ranted, while Rochester stood ramrod straight and wooden faced and Wiki, equally expressionless, studied the sky. “You will oblige me by getting a boat over here,” the tirade finally ended. “I wish to receive Mr. Stanton on board—and you too, Mister Rochester, with a good explanation for your tardy arrival. Let’s see if you can lower a boat with the same flourish that you sail your ship!”
Unfortunately, however, obeying the order took an hour or more because of the large amount of astronomical gear that had come with Stanton, and which had to be hastily loaded. By the time the boat finally pulled away the sun was dropping, and the shadows were growing long. The boats clustered about the floating forest giant were gathering up the scientifics and their specimens and ferrying them back to the respective ships. Wiki waited on deck, watching. Then it was dark, and Rochester had still not returned.
Seven
It was night. Wiki looked around, deliberating. The gun brig Porpoise was now the closest ship to the Swallow, lying about a half mile away; he could see her lamps spring into life one by one, flickering as they swung from their fastenings in the shrouds.
Making up his mind, he stripped to the skin, clambered over the gangway, and dived. The water was crisp with salt, but not particularly cold, streaked with phosphorescent trails left by the fish that swarmed about the drifting tree. Wiki breasted the distance methodically, lifting his head to check his destination every now and then, shaking his long hair back over his shoulders. He finally arrived at the bow of the Porpoise, clambered up until he could reach the martingale chains, and then scrambled over the bowsprit.
There was a seaman between the knightheads, leaning over curiously to see what the noises were about, and for a moment Wiki expected him to shout a warning to an officer. However, the man kept silent. As the lantern in the fore rigging flared up a little, Wiki saw that he was a Pacific Islander, a compact fellow who was bare chested, so that the fringes of dense tattoos about his waist showed above his belt, and realized with some surprise that there was another Kanaka in the fleet. Even though this man was only about half the size of the huge Samoan on the Swallow, Wiki hoped he was not in for another bout of wrestling.
However, the first words revealed that this was a Rotuman, one of the most peaceable and considerate people of the Pacific. With superb good manners he ignored Wiki’s nakedness. The ritual introduction took a long ti
me, the ceremonious exchange of genealogies being succeeded by the new politeness of Oceania—an exchange of stories of how they had come to be on board American ships. Softly chanted Wiki:
I am te kakano whakauru, a man of two tribes
My name is Maori, but I am also William Coffin Junior.
I have been educated with white men
I have sailed the sea in their ships
And I have lived in their houses on shore.
The Rotuman, predictably, had left his island on a whaler, reciting:
I have traveled faroff lands and distant seas,
I have seen the island of America
And the snows of the northwest coast.
And Wiki, with equal courtesy, replied:
Ma noa la se maoen ’ae ’e fue—
Be careful not to drift away
The southern snows are colder still
And your relatives await on Rotuma.
By the time good manners had been satisfied, the moon had risen and Wiki had dried off. It was only then that the Rotuman felt free to ask the question that must have been burning inside him—why in the name of all the spirits had Wiki arrived on board in such an eccentric manner. He listened with great interest and then remarked that a shark ’aitu must have protected Wiki during his long swim from the Swallow, the shark being the totem god of his village at home. Quelling a grimace, Wiki commenced questioning him about Astronomer Burroughs but with frustratingly little result.
Wiki’s grasp of Rotuman, a difficult language that was a blend of Polynesian and something much more alien, was serviceable; and because of his experience on American ships, the Rotuman’s English was fair. However, the name “Burroughs” meant nothing to him. Wiki did his best to explain, but got no more than a repeated shake of the head. Astronomer Burroughs was on another ship, Wiki deduced at last—or maybe not with the expedition at all, which raised new speculations about the murder of Stanton’s wife. Before he could question him further, however, a seaman strode toward them from the waist, hailing them in English.
To Wiki’s amazement, it was Jim Powell. The American sailor started violently when he recognized Wiki, demanding, “What the hell are you doing here?”
Unlike the polite Rotuman, Powell stared blatantly at Wiki’s naked physique. Feeling at a humiliating disadvantage, remembering this man’s betrayal, his patience tried to the limit, Wiki did something very rare for him—he lost his temper, and snarled, “Where the hell did you get to that night in Norfolk?”
He hardly noticed the Rotuman quickly making himself scarce. Staring aggressively at the American, he braced his shoulders and flexed muscled arms, expecting to see a lifted fist. Instead, however, Powell stepped back a pace and mumbled, “I couldn’t help it.”
“It was a matter of honor! You had agreed to stand by me!”
“Not my fault. Lieutenant Forsythe gave me a job to do—and anyways, that duel was never going to happen.”
Forsythe? It was Forsythe who had sent Powell to collect a message from Tristram Stanton? It was news to Wiki that there was any kind of connection between the two southerners. Was Forsythe Stanton’s lackey? It was beginning to sound likely.
He said contemptuously, “So he got you out of the way by ordering you to take a boat to Newport News.”
“How do you know where I went?”
“Never mind. What I want to know is what happened to that note.”
“What goddamned note?”
“The note that Astronomer Stanton wrote for you to carry to his wife.”
“There wasn’t one,” Powell said sullenly.
Wiki said with disdain, “You’re lying. You were seen stowing it in your hat.”
“Oh, that.” Powell shrugged, his eyes moving about evasively. “I lost it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“My hat fell off when I got back into the boat, and the letter landed in the mud. So I threw it away.” He looked at Wiki resentfully and said, “That happened to me once when I was sailing with Wilkes a couple of years back—he sent me off with a letter what got dropped in the mud, just an accident, mind you, and I delivered it in good faith. But when he heard about the state it was in, he had me bent over a cannon and flogged across the bum. Cruel, it was—I couldn’t sit down for weeks.”
Wiki paused, on the verge of calling him a liar yet again, but then changed his mind. Jim Powell was so obviously reliving a grudge, the story was likely to be true.
So he gave up and said instead, “Whereabouts on the Porpoise is Astronomer Burroughs living?”
“Burroughs? He ain’t—he’s on the Vin.”
Wiki’s brows flew up as he wondered what the encounter had been like when Tristram Stanton arrived on the Vincennes, expecting to take up the station of astronomer on the flagship, and found his hated cousin in his place, he mused that Wilkes might be quite taxed to settle matters between them. Without doubt, George would have quite a yarn to tell him when he got back on board the Swallow.
Then he observed to Powell, “I thought you were on the Vincennes.”
“Well, I’m not,” the other said moodily. “Men are being reassigned from ship to ship at his majesty’s whim, but he’d better not shift me to the Vin, ’cause I’ll murder him first chance, I swear it.” Then he looked around as a shout rang out from the shadows aft and hissed, “Do me a favor and get off this goddamned ship.”
Wiki hesitated, but then turned, clambered out onto the bowsprit, and dived into the sea. Then he surfaced and looked about, lifting his head above the choppy little waves. The Swallow, being less than half the size of the bigger gun brig, looked miles farther away than the Porpoise had on the outward leg; and the swim seemed much longer, too. When Wiki finally arrived alongside the Swallow, it was only thoughts of the Rotuman’s shark ’aitu that gave him the strength to clamber up the side of the brig, and even then he might not have made it if a helping hand had not been stretched down.
It was George Rochester, his long face unnaturally white in the reflection of the lantern. “Burroughs was on the Vincennes.” he said urgently, as Wiki arrived dripping on the deck. “But I got there too late!”
Wiki, cold, wet, and panting for breath, shook his head in numb confusion.
“We had to break into his stateroom,” Rochester jerkily went on. “The door was locked, and no one had a key. Then all we found was his dangling corpse—still warm, but too late! We cut him down and the surgeon did his best, but his neck had been broken—by the fall we supposed. There was a chair on the floor where he’d kicked it over.”
“Burroughs is dead?”
“Aye,” said George solemnly. “Burroughs hanged himself.”
* * *
Next morning the expedition ships were still laying aback around the great half-submerged log, and the boats with the scientifics were busily rowing back and forth. The day was beautiful, the sea smooth, and the wind light; and Captain Wilkes, it was very apparent, felt in no rush at all to get to the south. Accordingly, he was in a mood to be tolerant of the scientifics’ hankering after specimens. Wiki, in the maintop, could see men putting out lines and seines and hauling in a great mess of fish. Somewhat to his relief, they were not bringing up any sharks.
“They’d be better getting their ships underway,” remarked Rochester, joining him on the platform aloft that was still their informal meeting place, Wiki having been too weary the night before to even think of shifting out of the forecastle. “The Relief sails like a drover’s nag, just the way I told you, and detained the progress of the fleet more than somewhat before Wilkes got tired of the constant hindrance and sent her on to Rio.”
“And yet he was critical of the time we took to rendezvous?”
“He was, he was indeed,” said Rochester, and sighed very deeply. He gazed about the sparkling scene from under the speckled shade of his battered straw hat, his long face gloomy.
Wiki paused and then said reluctantly, “I would like to see the room where Burroughs hanged himself.�
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Rochester glanced at him and said, “Well, you can’t.”
“I thought you might want to pay another visit to the Vincennes?”
“Not bloody likely. But even if you went there with me, it would be no good. Tristram Stanton has taken up residence in that room.”
In the same place where Burroughs’s spirit had so recently been sundered from his body? The sparse black hairs on Wiki’s brown forearms stood on end as gooseflesh crept over his skin. It would have been difficult enough for him to study the room, even. Though his American side understood that shipboard space should not be wasted; the idea of sleeping where the lost kehua still prowled was utterly abhorrent.
After a moment he managed to comment, “The door was broken down.”
“I don’t think Stanton cares about that. He was all anxiety to get established on the ship. He scarcely waited for the corpse to be removed before shifting in.”
“Did anyone find the key?”
“The surgeon and I looked in Burroughs’s pockets after we’d given up all hope of reviving him but couldn’t find it. Someone—Stanton, I think—remarked that he’d probably tossed it out the sidelight before putting his head in the noose.”
“So you had no chance to talk to Burroughs at all?”
“I told you, I was too late! Captain Wilkes,” said George moodily, “detained me for an hour or more. He went through the brig’s logbook with a fine-tooth comb, nitpicking his way through the entries. Every blessed decision I made, he would’ve made a different one. Then, when I finally got out and along to Burroughs’s stateroom, it was to find quite a crowd there. Tristram Stanton had set to a-hollering that the door was locked and he could get no answer; that he was certain Burroughs was there inside and something was very wrong. We hammered on the door and yelled awhile, and finally Stanton put his shoulder to it.”
Remembering the astronomer’s hefty build, Wiki had no doubt that the lock had given way in short order. He observed, “You said the body was still warm.”
“Aye. That’s why we sent for the surgeon. He said that Burroughs had been dead for twenty minutes at the most.”
