by Joan Druett
“Indeed, I have,” the commander agreed, his face flushed with gratification. “And I will accomplish a great deal more, including an assault on the last great unknown continent—despite the difficulties they put in my way!”
Wiki concealed a grimace, because he shouldn’t have been hearing this. Officially, no one save Captain Wilkes himself knew where the expedition would steer, though every sailor who dipped his mug into the scuttlebutt of fresh water by the foremast—the place where seamen traditionally gossiped—was perfectly aware that one of the goals of the exploring expedition was the formal discovery of the Antarctic continent.
He said in a neutral voice, “That would be wonderful, sir.”
“You’re right! It should be an American discovery, by right of history! And yet the French could easily get there first.”
“The French?” Wiki echoed blankly. It was the first he had heard of it.
“Aye, the goddamned French! Dumont D’Urville sailed as long ago as September last year—with a well-equipped expedition of two corvettes, assembled in less than six months while our own project was dying of inertia! And, by God, if they do get there before me, who will be blamed? Me! I’ll be the laugh of Washington! But if by some miracle this expedition does beat the Frenchmen to the official discovery of the continent, the glory will go to the navy and the nabobs, not to the person who truly deserves it! Did you know that the men are constantly restless?” Wilkes demanded with an abrupt change of subject. “That there was a mutiny on the Peacock before we even dropped down the river? That the word of that got back to the administration—and we had to quash it by sending a letter ashore saying that it had been nothing more than a little improper language?”
Wiki shook his head, completely at a loss to know how to respond, and the expedition commander wildly exclaimed, “They expect us to keep tight discipline, and yet they refused to give Captain Hudson—the second-in-command of the expedition!—a rank befitting his station. He is still officially a lieutenant! And they have been equally neglectful of me, goddamn it! Yet I command an expedition of seven ships that will circumnavigate the globe—will discover unknown territory, will fly the Stars and Stripes in a multitude of foreign ports! It’s unbearably insulting! How can they expect me to maintain order when they offer me so little respect themselves?”
Wiki said with complete sincerity, “It’s a damned shame, sir.”
“Indeed it is—indeed! Rank is of prime importance and the whole fleet knows it! They laugh at me—laugh!—and defy me at every turn. But, by God, I’ll exert discipline—I know how to be a martinet, I assure you! I know how to punish the witless virgins!”
Wiki could hear Wilkes’s heavy breathing, but to his huge relief the rant had come to an end. Silence fell, while Captain Wilkes’s restless gaze flickered about the big room, settling on jars of dead fish and seaweed and then moving on. Finally, he said, “I have taken the command of the brig Swallow away from Lieutenant Forsythe, and restored it to Passed Midshipman Rochester.”
Though that was what Wiki had guessed already, he was still very glad to hear it. However, he checked, “May I ask which ship is carrying me to the island, sir?”
“The Swallow.” Captain Wilkes added, “Lieutenant Forsythe will be going with you.”
This came as such a shock that Wiki involuntarily exclaimed, “Surely not as Captain Rochester’s second-in-command!”
It was a terrible prospect. Not only was there bad blood between Forsythe and Rochester, but it would lead to a most peculiar social situation: George Rochester would outrank Forsythe only when both were on board the brig. Away from the Swallow, George would be a mere passed midshipman, and Lieutenant Forsythe would be the senior officer.
“Certainly not,” said Captain Wilkes tartly. “Lieutenant Forsythe will have a command of his own.”
Wiki blinked in surprise. “A second craft is going with us, sir?”
“Aye. I’m giving him the Peacock’s big cutter.”
Wiki thought of the boats he had seen stacked on chocks on the waist deck of the Peacock, nesting one inside the other. There had been three, he remembered—the launch at the bottom, and then the two cutters, one bigger than the other.
He asked, “How big is she?”
“The big cutter?” Captain Wilkes’s tone became practical and seamanlike—at long last he seemed in control of himself. “Just a touch under thirty feet, and very fast even when beating upwind—two masts, dipping lug foresail, standing lug mainsail. I have ordered her to be decked over forward as far as the foremast, with two berths underneath, and fitted with a tarpaulin to haul over the main boom when she is at anchor. The carpenters are working on her now. She’ll carry two swivel guns, and have a crew of six, with two officers.” Then he added, “Captain Rochester will be in control of the mission while the brig is at sea, but once you are at the island Lieutenant Forsythe will be in charge, and you will follow his instructions. His orders are to get you on shore and support you with force, if necessary.”
It was a dreadful plan, Wiki thought with a wince; it would take all Rochester’s diplomatic skills to avoid a power struggle even before they got to the island. With foreboding, he asked, “Who will be Lieutenant Forsythe’s second-in-command, sir?”
“Passed Midshipman Kingman.”
This was no easier to digest. Zachary Kingman was Lieutenant Forsythe’s special drinking crony; they were almost always seen together on sprees in port. Thin to the point of emaciation, and with a constant loosely stupid death’s-head grin, Kingman was older than most passed midshipmen because he had wasted so much time at the gaming tables, and he was a troublemaker still. However, both he and Forsythe were handy with their weapons, Wiki silently admitted; they were men who never hesitated to charge into danger, and might be exactly what the situation demanded.
But who, then, was going to be George’s second-in-command on the brig? Over the past three weeks Lawrence J. Smith had been the first officer of the Swallow—and loathed cordially by all, Forsythe included. Carefully, because the pompous, much detested Lieutenant Smith was a particular crony of Captain Wilkes’s, Wiki said, “Will Lieutenant Smith be Captain Rochester’s second-in-command, sir?”
Captain Wilkes said stiffly, “I have other plans for the good lieutenant, and have assigned Midshipman Keith to the position of Captain Rochester’s first officer.”
Wiki was stunned. Midshipman Keith might be wonderfully enthusiastic about ships, the sea, and the exploring expedition, but he was only seventeen years old, for God’s sake! Then a thought occurred to him—Constant Keith, like Forsythe and Rochester and Wiki himself, had been deeply involved in the recent murders; he, with all of them, had witnessed Captain Wilkes’s hysterical outburst when the identity of the killer had been revealed. Had Wilkes seized on Hudson’s pirate story as a chance to send them out of his sight while he got over the memory of his public embarrassment?
It was impossible to ask, so Wiki said neutrally, “Is the island on the charts, sir?”
“Of course.” Wilkes rose and walked to a table where a chart was already spread out. The island was a flyspeck a hundred miles from the Brazilian coast, in waters that were wickedly shoal. These were the seas where Captain David Porter of the Essex had hunted British shipping back in 1813, Wiki remembered. It had been good hunting ground—because it was indeed overlooking the route for Rio. Suddenly, checking out the island for pirates didn’t seem quite so bizarre.
Small as it was, the island had a name. Captain Wilkes said helpfully, “It says Shark Island.” On the chart, though, the name was printed in Portuguese—Ilha Tubarão.
Two
When Wiki arrived back at the Swallow George Rochester was already on board, and Lieutenant Smith was sulkily following his duds down into the boat that would deliver him to his new berth on the Vincennes. The atmosphere about the brig was festive; men wearing broad grins were lined up at the rail to watch him go.
Nodding as the boatswain cheerfully saluted him ba
ck aboard, Wiki mused that it was a testament to just how bad Captain Wilkes’s judgment had been when he’d replaced Rochester with Forsythe, and then made Lawrence J. Smith the brig’s first officer. Forsythe had the worst failing possible in a captain, that of being inconsistent: careless of discipline one moment, he was tyrannical the next. Lieutenant Smith had proved too self-important to moderate his superior’s wildly swinging moods, and too conceited to compensate by developing rapport with the men. He was also unbearably irritating. Altogether, it was little wonder that the sailors of the Swallow were exceeding glad to see him go.
George Rochester couldn’t hide his pleasure at the way things had turned out, either. As he led the way down the companion and through the saloon to the captain’s cabin, he was grinning from ear to ear. It wasn’t much of a room, being just big enough to hold the chart table, a chair, and the settee, plus a sleeping berth with lockers underneath, but he surveyed the little realm with proprietary pride. The gold epaulette that had been restored to his right shoulder positively glowed in the reflection of his radiant delight.
Then, however, he threw himself into the chart table chair, dangled his legs over one of the arms, put on a long face, and demanded of Wiki, “Where the devil are we going to put them all?”
Wiki went to the settee and settled into his favorite thinking position, slumped forward with his elbows planted on his spread thighs and his hands relaxed between them. His mind was mostly turning over the interview with Captain Wilkes, so he said vaguely, “Who?”
“Forsythe and Kingman, that’s who,” George retorted. “Concentrate, old man—because we have a problem. While they will be in the cutter much of the passage, they will have to berth on the brig at nights. We can put the cutter’s six men into the fo’c’sle, but we can hardly do that to their officers!”
Apart from the captain’s cabin, there were only two staterooms on the Swallow, one for the first mate, and the other for the brig’s civilian scientific, who was Wiki himself. The rest of the space in the after accommodations was taken up with the saloon, which was mostly filled with a big table built about the foot of the main mast, and the pantry, where the steward worked.
Wiki guessed resignedly, “You want me to give up my room?”
“Well, if the carpenter built a second bunk in your room above the one that’s there, both Forsythe and Kingman could take it over.”
“That’s a point,” Wiki allowed.
“You wouldn’t mind moving?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Wiki pointed out.
He had lived in the forecastle of the Swallow for the first weeks of voyage, so that another scientific could take over his stateroom. There had been a bit of a problem at first: Knowing that Wiki was the captain’s particular comrade, the sailors had strongly suspected that he was the captain’s spy. After a few days of keeping a low profile he had been accepted, however, and on the whole had liked it there—because he didn’t like sleeping alone. At home in the Bay of Islands his mother’s people slept in a single sleeping whare, so that throughout his childhood the nights had been punctuated with snores, people turning restlessly on their sleeping mats, and the low voices of the wakeful. Indeed, one of the most foreign aspects of life in New England had been having a bedroom to himself.
So he said quite placidly, “Into the fo’c’sle I go”—but George immediately exclaimed, “I wasn’t thinking of that!”
“So what, pray, did you have in mind?”
To Wiki’s surprise, Rochester’s expression became remarkably furtive. Stroking his fluffy fair side whiskers in meditative style, his friend admitted, “I thought perhaps you would share the first mate’s cabin with Midshipman Keith.”
Wiki burst into a roar of laughter. “So I can coach him in the duties of a first officer?”
“I was actually hoping you would carry out the duties yourself—without young Keith guessing it, of course.”
“You have to be joking,” Wiki said dryly. “I’m with the expedition as a civilian, remember.”
“There’s no better seaman on the ocean than you.”
“Fiddlesticks.” Wiki might be a consummate seaman on whaleships and in whaleboats, but the ways of the navy were still largely a mystery. When George had originally suggested that he should sign up with the U.S. Navy to come on the exploring expedition, Wiki had flatly refused, which was why the job of civilian linguister had been suggested.
“And you’ve been an officer on whalers,” Rochester persuaded.
“Whaling captains don’t care if a man is brown, black, white, or brindle, just so long as he has sharp eyes and wields an unerring lance,” Wiki pointed out rather acidly. He’d seen Fayal Portuguese, black men from the Cape Verde Islands, and Gayhead Indians from Massachusetts walking the quarterdecks of whalers, but everyone knew that the sky would fall before a man of color—a half-caste Polynesian being a very good example—would be awarded rank in the navy.
“It would be for the good of the brig.”
“Nonsense. Midshipman Keith has the makings of a good officer.”
“Not the way I remember it,” George said moodily. When George had been in charge of one of the cannon on the Vincennes, during his demotion there, Keith had proved a useful fount of knowledge about how the iron beast worked; but otherwise his closest acquaintance with the young man had been at a feast in Captain Wilkes’s wardroom where he had shared the bottom of the table with Keith and another noisy young midshipman.
“He cracks terrible jokes,” he complained. “And has a rotten weak head for Madeira.”
Wiki’s own experience had been somewhat the same. He had first met Constant Keith and his fellow mids as their specially invited guest in the midshipmen’s mess, which was also where Keith and his crony, a plump lad by the name of Dicken, berthed. He remembered the room vividly, and thought that the young man was going to get quite a shock when he first clapped eyes on his new accommodations—and that he surely had a lot to learn.
He shrugged, and nodded. “If he asks me questions about seamanship, I’ll answer them. But,” he warned, “I can’t promise any more than that.”
* * *
On the Vincennes, Midshipman Keith was in a state of abject grief. His friend, Jack Dicken, had tears running down his red cheeks, too, and kept on sobbing, “But ’tis a signal honor,” to which Keith replied, “I know, I know.” Every time he looked about the luxurious berth he was leaving behind, though, more tears would fall.
The two of them had set up this room together, spending a great deal of money—not that that had been a huge sacrifice, as both hailed from rich families. Now Constant Keith, like all his friends, considered the room both beautiful and in the very best of taste; as he had written home to his family, it was the admiration of all. The bulkheads were hung with crimson-striped drapes, and decorated with a large mirror on one wall and an even larger display of weapons on another. A Brussels carpet covered the floor, and the porcelain bowl of the washstand was sprinkled with designs of green clover. Silver candelabra perched on tables, and Chinese urns full of painted feather flowers stood about in corners. The two divans where Keith and Dicken slept were upholstered in blue damask.
Still worse, Keith had invested six hundred dollars in a private store of wine and food—only staples like flour being provided by the ship—and all of this would have to be left behind, too. He was just seventeen and naturally hungry, and his spirit quailed at the thought of what the rations were apt to be like on the Swallow.
“But ’tis such an honor,” Dicken repeated. “You should be fit to bust with joy.”
“And I am, I am!” Keith cried. When Captain Wilkes had sent for him he had shuffled along reluctantly, with memories of past sins lining up in his guilty mind, and he had fully expected to be reprimanded, or even punished. Too, he’d been stricken with the nasty notion that Captain Wilkes had somehow deduced that the midshipmen didn’t hero-worship him any more, not the way they had at the beginning. Where they had once re
vered their commodore unquestioningly, considering him a genius of the stature of Captain Cook, they now felt uneasy about many of his decisions, especially his ominous habit of changing the officers of the various ships on a whim. Not only did it make a chap wonder who he’d be taking orders from next, but it overturned the comfortable arrangements of the squadron.
Accordingly, it had taken Keith an embarrassingly long time to realize that he was being promoted to the station of first officer on the brig Swallow—and on such a wonderful exciting mission, too! He must have seemed sadly addleheaded, he feared. But then—probably just in time to prevent Captain Wilkes from arbitrarily changing his mind—his heart had leaped with understanding, and he had exclaimed out loud with joy. Captain Wilkes had even smiled briefly as he had dismissed him, and for a moment Keith had regarded him with something like his old admiration and awe.
“Captain Rochester will be your commanding officer,” Dicken said enviously. George Rochester was the unquestioned hero of the midshipmen’s mess—not only was he the paragon who had topped the class in the last set of examinations, but, because he had been given the command of one of the expedition’s ships, he was living proof that mere midshipmen could aspire to wonderful things. All the junior midshipmen had mourned when George Rochester had been abruptly demoted, and all of them were exceeding glad to hear that he’d been restored to the quarterdeck of the Swallow.
Then Dicken lowered his voice. “One of your shipmates will be Wiki Coffin.”
The two young men gazed at each other. Mr. Coffin had been a guest at one of the midshipmen’s weekly feasts, and though he had turned out to be courtly, civilized, and interesting, they still considered themselves extremely daring to have invited him.
“They say he’s a chief at home,” Keith said uncertainly, and then went on more strongly, “And he is only half a savage. His father is a respectable Salem shipmaster.” Though it was not really respectable to father a son out of wedlock in a far-off, barbaric land, and then take the lad home to New England to meet his Yankee folks—folks who included Captain William Coffin’s legal, childless wife, who, according to gossip, hadn’t known about the child until he appeared at her kitchen door. “They say Captain Coffin has made a fortune out of trading with the Orient,” he added as a kind of excuse.
