Robber Crabs

by Joan Druett

steward remarked, Captain O’Malley was a creature of habit.

  Hector made his first foray into the hold not five minutes after the robber crabs had been spilled down into the cracks between the sacks of coconuts, which said very little for his intelligence, just as Hank had prophesied. Not another five minutes passed before a startled yowl echoed from down in the bilges, followed by a lot of whining that came rapidly closer. Then the dog popped out of the main hatch, streaming blood from his nose. The cook was very upset, muttering foully in Greek to himself as he mopped blood and fondled the dog, and the steward was very unhappy too, but the rest of the crew, Hank in particular, found it very funny.

  The cook was still muttering next morning when Wiki arrived at the galley to collect breakfast for the starboard watch, that being his job now that Hank was no longer the most junior sailor on board. Hector was lying in his usual spot by the galley door, but he looked unusually dejected. His wounded nose was stretched out on his two front paws, and he let out little whines every now and then. Not only did his inflamed nose hurt, but he was feeling the loss of his status as the trader’s ratcatcher — or so the Greek cook conveyed.

  And, as the steward told Wiki when he delivered the cabin breakfast, the captain was more bad-tempered than ever, despite having taken a double dose of his precious elixir.

  “Elixir?” said Wiki, who felt more interested in the subject now that he had heard it mentioned a second time.

  “The captain’s special elixir. It’s a tonic that Mrs. O’Malley makes up for him, and which he sets great store by,” said the steward, who was a black man from Brava, and was friendlier than the seamen, because he and Wiki could converse in his native Portuguese language. Not that they talked in Portuguese much, as the captain wouldn’t allow it, but it was a connection between them.

  “And he made sure he had a good stock, before he sailed without her?” observed Wiki, remembering what Hank had said.

  “Can’t do without his elixir, our captain. She has set it up in little bottles, see.” And the steward, after looking around to make sure they were alone in his pantry, opened a locker to reveal a medical kind of box, partitioned off neatly, and packed with vials, most of which held a pale yellow liquid.

  Wiki, after checking that they weren’t overheard or overlooked, too, opened one, and took a sniff. It was oily, with some of the remembered smell of a herb that his stepmother grew in Salem, Massachusetts, and which she called rosemary. “Are these measured doses?” he asked, putting the vial back in the box.

  “A bottle for each week,” said the steward in Portuguese, since no one else was listening. “Only he’ll run out before we fetch Port Jackson if he keeps on taking double doses, the way he did today.”

  “How long has he been taking it?” asked Wiki, but left the cabin without waiting for an answer, as there was a movement in the captain’s quarters.

  The Rinto had a fine passage to New Holland, catching the southwest monsoons for her easting, and then jogging south along the coast that William Dampier had charted, but the favorable conditions didn’t improve the captain’s temper. His appearances on deck became infrequent, and when he did arrive his face seemed more sunken and ashen than it had the time before, and his stance more painfully hunched. The dog Hector was just as badly off, his nose refusing to heal, and his demeanor just as dejected. He scarcely moved, spending the entire time lying in a heap by the galley door, while the Greek cook agonized about what to do for him.

  And the bullying was getting worse, as the Rinto seamen became increasingly badtempered and touchy, as if the stealthy scraping of robber crabs down in the hold was getting on everyone’s nerves. Wiki, who had had a tough apprenticeship himself, on a scruffy Nantucket whaler where the mates imparted their considerable seafaring skills with fists and boots, was forced to stand up for himself several times, and while he always won the sudden scuffles, it didn’t improve his position on board.

  The Greek cook and Brava Portuguese steward were still friendly enough, and Hank hadn’t made any aggressive moves since Christmas Island, but when Wiki heard talk at the scuttlebutt that the captain had decided to put into King George’s Sound, he decided to jump ship. It was quite a challenge, because it was utterly unknown territory, and this part of southwest New Holland was reputed to be barren and dry, but he thought of William Dampier, and how the pirate had been ill-advised not to jump ship at the earliest chance.

  Therefore, as the ship tacked around an island and into the Sound, he mounted the mainmast to the topgallant crosstrees, with a view of assessing the territory. And to his delight there were three ships lying at anchor in the bay — and, even better, they were American whaleships. The nearest was the Milo of New Bedford, and the ship beyond her was the Mandarin of Nantucket. It was apparent that they had been there quite a little while, because there were whaleboats on the beach, with a few tents set up around. Obviously, the captains were recruiting for fresh water, firewood, oysters, fish, and whatever else they could get.

  Then, as Wiki was frowning in the direction of all the Yankee activity, formulating his plans and shading his eyes with one hand, and hanging onto a stay with the other, a cry of horror and sorrow echoed up from forward. Startled, he scooted down to deck.

  When Wiki got to the galley, the Greek cook was crouched by Hector the dog, loudly sobbing. Tears ran down his weatherbeaten cheeks. “And I did everything for him,” he mourned to Wiki. “We give him everything we could think of, the ’Gee and me, but all he did was get worse.”

  When Wiki touched the dog, the rough coat was still warm, but Hector was unmistakably dead. Before he could utter a word of sympathy, however, Captain O’Malley interrupted by hobbling onto the afterdeck and ordering a boat’s crew on shore.

  Eight bells rang as the captain finished giving directions to the mate, which meant that the starboard watch was now on duty, and Wiki, being one of them, was one of the boat’s crew. As the boat was being lowered from its davits, the Greek begged Wiki to take Hector with him, to bury on the beach, this being considered a lot more decent than being dropped into the sea. Wiki readily agreed, and when he jumped down into the boat, the dog was under his arm. The corpse had been reverently wrapped in an old bit of canvas, and was already cold and stiff.

  As it happened, going off into the dunes with a shovel and the corpse of the dog suited Wiki nicely, as it gave him an excuse to disappear out of sight of the rest of the boat’s crew. After he had interred Hector — and had recited a quick karakia, for, after all, Hector had been human enough to make two good friends on board, which merited a prayer — he accosted one of the parties of whalemen who were dredging for oysters, with very satisfactory results.

  The captain of the Mandarin was short of several hands, and having an experienced whaleman offer to fill one of the empty spaces in his crewlist was a considerable blessing, even if that whaleman had to sneak on board the ship. A stumpy, bluffly efficient fellow, the whaling skipper made arrangements swiftly. According to his plan, Wiki would jump ship that very night, with the connivance of the Mandarin’s second mate and a boat’s crew, and be cozily ensconced in the steerage quarters of the whaleship by dawn. And, once the Rinto had sailed and was topgallant-down on the horizon, Wiki could emerge from hiding, and the captain would enter him on the books in the proper legal way, to regulate his position on board.

  Having the midnight to four in the morning watch suited Wiki, too. As usual with seamen, and particularly the idle lot on the Rinto, he was the only one awake, so it was easy to hand down his duds into the boat that had quietly rowed up alongside. But then, just as Wiki was about to jump into the thwarts, he heard a groan from the captain’s cabin.

  It was hot, and the quarter windows were open, and the sound echoed loudly over the water, a hollow, whining sort of groan that reminded Wiki of something...

  He had heard that sound of distress before, and only just recently. That twice-damned dog, he thought. For a moment he froze, poised to drop down in
to the waiting boat, and then, after biting down a great sigh, he whispered a message to the waiting oarsmen.

  The second mate of the Mandarin hissed, “What the hell?” but without stopping to argue or even listen to the startled oaths, Wiki pulled himself back up onto deck. Everything there was still as quiet as the grave. The men who were supposed to be on watch had curled up in secret corners, and were fast asleep between the folds of spare sails or in the centers of great coils of rope.

  By contrast, when Wiki sneaked down into the steerage quarters, the Portuguese steward was awake, though snug enough in his berth. Hunkered down by the bunk, Wiki hissed in the steward’s native language, “Get me the captain’s box of bottles.”

  “What?”

  “The box of medicine his wife made up for him, and which she left behind.”

  “I can’t do that!”

  “Get it for me, or I will tell him that you stole some of his precious elixir.”

  “How do you know that I did?”

  “Because I know you gave it to the cook to dose the dog.”

  The steward stuttered a moment, and then said weakly, “Why would I do a thing like that?”

  “Because you thought it would make Hector better.”

  “But the poor dog