The Downeaster: Deadly Voyage

by Paul Thomas Fuhrman

“Our last name is Ernst,” the older of the brothers announced. “This is my younger brother, Richard. I’m Jeremy. Our home is here. If you look to your right, you can see our sawmill, the big one with three water runs and the biggest yard and dock on the river. Mr. Christison, Jr. was happy to sign us as apprentices for nothing. My father has shipped a lot of lumber on the Christison ships.” Jeremy stood taller than his brother and clearly expected deference from the mate.

  Henry Lennon replied, “Humility becomes yews. Does yer brother talk?”

  Richard stuttered. “I speak, sir. Jeremy does things b-b-better than I do, so I let him t-t-talk.”

  “Oh.” He looked directly at Priest. “What’s yer name? Are yews sick?”

  “I’m Nicholas Priest, sir. My father sent me here for my health. One of my father’s legal associates, Mr. Dana, told me it might be the best thing I could do. My mother is a portrait artist. My father teaches law at Harvard and maintains his own practice in contract law. My father arranged this with Mr. Christison, Jr. I know my father paid to send me here; thirty dollars was the price.”

  Lennon thought: Damn it all, bloody rich parents too! Who’s going to tell them their son’s dead and buried at sea? Old Kicking Billy would na’ ship this lad. William Jr.’s been at work. He has to make a shilling any way he can.

  “Show me yer hands, lads. Turn them over. I don’t care about yer nails; I ain’t yer ma, Priest. Need ter see da bottoms.” The mate studied each set of hands to see what they revealed about each boy.

  Smallbridge had the remains of calluses on his hands; the Ernst brothers’ hands were well callused. Priest’s hands were soft. “Why on earth are yews here?”

  “For my health, sir.”

  “Well, ain’t that something.

  “And yews, Smallbridge. Now, what’s yer story?”

  “I’ve been on schooners and brigs, sir, coasters mostly for two years now. I’ve been to sea with my father, too.” He showed the mate an anchor tattooed on his right arm.

  Smallbridge’s unaffected pride triggered an instinctive reaction in Henry Lennon. He felt like showing the boy his own anchor tattoo, but he didn’t because he was a mate.

  “Do I know yer da’?”

  “He’s master of the Natick, sir, one of the Christison ships.”

  “And yews brothers, what story have yews to tell Mr. Lennon?”

  The older boy again answered, “Since so much of our family business is with shipbuilders, Father thinks this is a good idea—to know about ships. When we return, we’ll work for Mr. Rogers’s shipyard for a year.”

  Henry knew the Ernst brothers were accustomed to hard physical work; their calluses told him that. Their personalities differed. Jeremy was the more physical of the two and carried himself as someone who got his way. The younger of the brothers was obviously sea struck. He could barely keep his eyes away from the masts and rigging, hanging on to each word the mate spoke.

  “All right, lads, follow me. I’ll tell yews about da Providence and say it only once. Get used ter that. This ship is a downeaster, a medium clipper built ter carry a large cargo—bulk cargo—around Cape Horn and grain to Europe. A downeaster’s got to earn her keep. She’s fast—fourteen knots in topgallants and royals—has good manners and Thomaston-built of oak, pitch pine, and hackmatack.” Lennon watched Nicholas Priest’s face. He was curious about the reaction the face would display. It was filled with amazement.

  The mate first showed the boys the quarterdeck. The quarterdeck was to be respected, he told them; it was captain’s country. No one had any business being there except for duty or by invitation. He saw Nicholas Priest peer into the port window of the wheelhouse to see the wheel and binnacle inside. The wheelhouse was painted white and had a sliding scuttle over the helmsman’s station behind the wheel. Lennon wondered if any of the boys standing there hoped to be a ship’s master one day, as he had when he first went to sea.

  Lennon herded the boys forward toward the crew’s deckhouse. This deckhouse was more than forty feet long and had cradles on its roof for the ship’s twenty-six-foot-long boat and twenty-four-foot whaleboat. He occasionally called this deckhouse the forecastle, confusing Priest and the Ernst brothers. Smallbridge saw the confusion and silently mouthed, “I’ll explain. Be quiet.”

  Lennon named each mast and identified the fife-rails and pin-rails, explaining the function they performed and emphasizing that each pin held a specific line. He admonished the boys to memorize each line and each pin because no mistakes could be tolerated, no excuses accepted. He pointed out the cat-heads and their function and the bowsprit and its function. Except for Smallbridge, the boys were intimidated by the masses of running rigging coiled on their pins. They next walked aft of the deckhouse but not without a warning: “You, lads, never let your feet step over that coaming. Do you understand me?”

  Then the second mate took them aft to apprentice berthing in the after cabin and explained why there were bunks on the port and starboard sides. “Pick a bunk, but don’t get too attached to it until yew’s assigned watches.”

  “Spill yer dunnage on the bunk; show me what’s in there. We’ve no slop chest on board and won’t until we reach New York.”

  Smallbridge had a sailor’s dunnage and equipped himself to go to sea. Nicholas Priest did not. His clothing appeared more costume than anything else. The clothing mimicked the naval-type uniforms of a White Star Line steamer. When asked, Priest told Lennon his mother had crossed the Atlantic on an English liner. She obviously had no idea what deep-water sailors wore, what square-rig grain-ship sailors wore to sail from the Northern Hemisphere into the Southern Hemisphere and back. The most extraordinary thing tumbling from the carpetbag was a knife. The blade was long and heavy, for cutting line, and the top and bottom of the served hilt was held in place with expertly tied Turk’s head knots. Priest explained, “Mr. Dana gave this to me. It was his own.”

  The clothing, though, wouldn’t do. The boy would suffer. The Ernst boys had rugged new dungaree work clothes and new pea jackets in their new sea chests. The brothers also had new sheath knives. Their parents cared enough to send them to sea well prepared for what would come. Lennon’s fierce eyes kept the other apprentices from laughing at Priest’s dunnage.

  “Smallbridge, take Priest ashore and make sure he has what he needs. Bring him back at least looking like a sailor. Sell them damn whistles and give him da money for new dunnage. Don’t return until he’s prepared to work and for da weather. Hop to it. Don’t stand there. There’s work here for yews lads, and I don’t see it getting done.”

  Thirteen

  La Belle

  She found me roots of relish sweet,

  And honey wild, and manna dew,

  And sure in language strange she said—

  “I love thee true.”

  She took me to her elfin grot,

  And there she wept, and sigh’d full sore,

  And there I shut her wild wild eyes

  With kisses four

  —John Keats

  Tuesday, April 30, 1872

  Bath, Maine

  Smallbridge entered the Front Street pawnshop of Moses Hirsch and said, “Mr. Hirsch, my friend’s come here to sell his belongings and get some dunnage for going to sea.”

  The sight of Nicholas Priest amazed Hirsch. He could not imagine a boy like that on the deck of a ship, but business was business. The pawnbroker called for his wife, who appeared from behind the curtains separating the shop from the Hirsch family’s living quarters. She fussed over Priest, examining him as if he were poultry for their evening dinner and calling him “bubala.” Priest blushed with embarrassment.

  Priest saw a girl nearly as old as himself wearing a calico apron peering from behind the curtain. He saw blond hair and the bluest eyes he had ever seen. She giggled and hid in the shadows behind the curtains, still watching the thin boy.

  “Spread the contents of your carpetbag out on the table, please. Let me see. Ah, the carpetbag’s good for some mone
y—you don’t need that—your suit’s good too, and I’ll buy your derby and high-topped shoes—the leather’s too flimsy for a ship. That’s a good shirt. Yes, it’s Egyptian long-strand cotton, Manchester looms. See, Sarah? You don’t need all the rest. Don’t know if I can sell it...”

  His face formed a human question mark. “But seeing you’re a good boy, how about a lot price? I can’t let you leave my shop naked, can I? How about I throw in some work clothes too? What do you say? Fair deal?”

  Priest left with the sum of thirty-five dollars, a serviceable pair of dungaree overalls, a dungaree jacket, a man’s flannel work shirt a size too large, near-new sea-boots also a size too large, and a smiling shipmate. “Hell, Priest, he did right by you. Bet he’ll sell all the junk to women, so they can cut it up and sew dresses.”

  The next stop was a chandlery. Priest liked the store. There were clothes, rope, blocks, tackle, casks of lamp oil, groceries, knives, charts, almanacs, tins of pilot biscuits, and old men sitting around a live stove telling stories of ships and dead shipmates from their pasts. It smelled of Baltic tar and pipe tobacco. When Priest left, he was wearing new tan cotton twill trousers held up with suspenders and a brown leather belt for Dana’s sheath knife. Everything appeared to be a size too large. Smallbridge also dressed him in a blue woolen shirt, a longshoreman’s hat, and a rolled black silk scarf tied around his neck with a reef knot. Smallbridge told Priest the scarf was worn loosely around the neck and everyone who saw it would know he was a sailor. Priest remembered details of the old men’s stories and smiled. All the dead men seemed to be rascals, drunks, fighters, and clever cheats, but to a man, all were lovingly remembered.

  Priest left with a navy canvas duffel bag stuffed with a pilot coat, woolen long johns, a Scotch hat, thick woolen socks, heavy wool felt slippers, and other things that absolutely baffled him. “What’s that long thing, the fid? Why do I need needles and waxed thread? What’s a donkey’s breakfast?”

  “Throw your duffel up on your shoulder, shipmate. You’ll learn in good time. You have fourteen dollars left. I’ve got seven, and my stomach says eat.”

  Smallbridge asked the clerk where two sailors could get a good meal before going to sea. The clerk recommended three places, one known for its breakfasts—johnnycakes, Rhode Island–style—and said, “Now, keep clear of the Fouled Anchor, heeyuh. That place’s no more than a saloon and is known for fights.” Smallbridge turned to Priest and winked.

  “Priest, shipmate, you’re starting to look like a sailor now, so let’s go see what victuals Bath has to offer. It’ll be months before we see fresh meat again. Mr. Mate’ll never know.”

  Priest’s new friend ignored the warning and proceeded to the Fouled Anchor while promising a bewildered Nicholas Priest a damn good meal and an even better time.

  Smallbridge took charge and ordered a beefsteak apiece and mugs of lager beer. Priest objected, “I’ve never in my life had a beer or as much meat on my plate as what you’ve pushed on me.” Smallbridge just laughed.

  “Eat your porterhouse and drink your beer, Priest. Two months from now you’ll be dreamin’ about a steak and cold beer. Besides, you look skinny; your flesh just hangs on your bones.”

  The beer tasted sour. Nicholas Priest’s new acquaintance had said the cold lager would taste like horse piss at first and become better tasting with each swallow. Priest had never thought about the taste of horse urine before. Still, he took his first sip, and then by the third swallow, the beer had become deliciously bitter and sweet all at the same time. This made ample reason for quickly finishing his glass. Smallbridge said, “Tastes like another one, don’t it?” Priest smiled in agreement. His mood was changing for the better.

  Priest found a new appetite growing. As the beer seeped its way into Priest’s mind, he began to notice the young girl who had served them their meal. The tavern maid had rich brown hair, a delightful nose just a little long, large brown eyes, and inviting, pink crowned lips. She wore a simple black skirt accented with a gray blouse with a small amount of white lace at the collar and cuffs. Priest unknowingly stared at the girl and failed to recognize her welcoming signs—a smile, movement of eyelids, a song being hummed.

  Her full lips with their lush bow and maiden’s teeth fascinated him, and he imagined himself kissing her. He tried to imagine the kiss, the taste and softness of her lips. Surely there had to be more than his mother’s cheek. Still, he knew this girl, Lilith. It was she who came into his dreams. It was she whose face was never revealed. It was her body so close yet hidden in his ignorance. He imagined the soft warmth of her olive skin on the tips of his fingers.

  Priest called for her to bring their second round of beer. He wanted her to come near him so he could see her more closely. The boy felt her belly momentarily brush against his arm as she took his money. He tried to enshrine the sensation in his memory while he watched the sway of her hips as she walked away.

  “Why do they walk like that?”

  Priest enjoyed himself, satisfying his appetite for food and, with the effect of his second beer, fueling an appetite he had known only while deep in sleep.

  Women’s faces tell a story. His imagination began inventing the young girl’s tale—poor no doubt, but still adhering to her mother’s high principles and soon to fall deeply in love with Nicholas Priest. How he would enjoy stroking the dark wisps of hair at her temples and feeling the sensation of her hands in his. He also imagined the touch of her fingers cradling his cheek and the sensation of her head resting upon his shoulder. Priest felt free to tell Smallbridge he had never before seen such beauty. Smallbridge laughed, but his smile held no hint of ridicule.

  Then several sailors came in and asked the boys for their names and their ship. Priest immediately noticed the scarves around their necks and heavy knives on their hips. The sailors knew Priest was gullible the instant they saw him. They listened to Priest’s question and answered that Captain Griffin was a hard but fair man and that he carried sail. Priest asked what carrying sail meant.

  “Well, boy, your old man will bend sail to every yard in the face of a hurricane. Expect to be aloft as much as on deck and brace ship until your legs and arms are numb from hauling. Your watches will be called so often you will forget how to sleep. But, boys, the Providence is a feeder, you’ll get a full measure of whack, and Captain Griffin pays a fair wage to good seamen. Now, you’ll not hear the captain or mates swear often, but don’t be confused. The mates will work you as hard as any bucko and on Sunday, too. These Yankees just ain’t the Christian gentlemen you knew at home.”

  One of the sailors asked Priest if he would be kind to his shipmates. Priest replied, “Of course, sir.” The boy did not realize he had unwittingly bought what appeared to be a gill of whiskey for all of the sailors as well as one for himself. Priest wondered why they watched him take his drink.

  “Up spirits, mate!”

  A Swede, one of the sailors, approached the pretty tavern maid. The two talked quietly, and the sailor discretely placed coin in her hand. She walked to the boys’ table, positioned herself on the bench next to Priest, and made sure his hips and hers pressed each other. Priest felt the warmth of her body and found the long, soft legs beneath her skirt arousing. She lightly placed her right hand on his thigh and talked gently, almost silently, in his ear, occasionally looking directly into his eyes while smiling. The apprentice saw an expression he thought women reserved for children. He recognized that she whispered French in his ear, but became so excited that her words became more song than meaning. The girl’s warm breath caressed him, and her moist tongue lapped the inside of his ear.

  The Swede smiled; heads nodded in approval. She ignored them.

  The whiskey had loosened Priest and made him happy indeed to be listening to the young woman. He became too thrilled by his good fortune to reexamine the story his imagination had made up for her and was now letting her write her own story. The story passing from her lips enthralled him. She asked Priest to follow her, sayi
ng, “I’ve something to show you. It’s wonderful. I know you’ve had nothing so good in your life.”

  Without thinking, and leaving half his whiskey on the table, he followed her into a back room. She sat Priest on a small bed, placed her finger to his lips, kissed him on his forehead, and said in English, “I’ll do everything.” Her fingers undid the buttons of his fly. She raised her skirts and then sat down on him while still holding a finger to his astonished lips.

  Priest reflexively closed his eyes in response to the sensation of entering her. She began to rock her hips forward. She kissed him on his lips. He did not know how to respond. She withdrew her lips and showed him how to kiss her, how to please her, to press, to hold, to part. All of this was accomplished without words. Their lips touched; their tongues touched. Priest’s breath came in quick gasps; his eyes closed, then opened. She smiled.

  “C’est bon?”

  She carefully slowed the rocking of her hips to prolong his pleasure and her own. The girl brought Priest’s right hand away from under her skirt to her breast. “We will speak French. You do understand? No one must know what we say. Tu m’aimes? Tu peux m’aider? Tu peux m’aider?” (Do you like me? Will you help me?)

  Priest heard her words as she spoke simple French to him—well within his ability to understand—but in his excitement, the words passed barely recognized. He had never before felt such pleasure.

  Priest moaned. The girl smiled again and kissed him with delight, pleased with what she had done. The moan carried out to the taproom, where the sailors burst into laughter. The sound of this amusement penetrated Priest’s euphoria and robbed him of the moment’s joy and his pride, made him feel shame, ignited his anger, and quenched his desire despite the pleasure she had just given him. Seeing this change, she kissed him, but he was lost to her.

  When he could arrange himself, he left the room with her by his side. She grasped Priest’s right hand and held it tightly, but the sensation of her hand was buried by the emotion overwhelming him. He now experienced yet another new feeling. He felt anger heat his face and straighten its features. He let loose her hand and unconsciously clenched his hands into fists. Had he the ability, Nicholas Priest would have enjoyed killing his mockers. The nail of the small finger of his right hand cut the soft flesh of his palm. Priest kept tightening his fist until the nail drew blood.