Robbie Taggart

by Michael Phillips

  It was too bad he could not consider such a faith for himself, especially now when he felt weaker than at any other time in his life. But he was different, he argued with himself. Different from one like Jamie who could accept these things more easily. He told himself he required a freedom that the constraints of such a faith would smother. He was already being suffocated too much of late to welcome another potential despot, be it God or anyone else. Let Jamie have her faith. It might provide a rich focus for her life, and be desirable for many others. But for an adventurer like Robbie, taking the step of embracing it would be too great a risk.

  “I’m not pleased with the Navy,” he finally said bluntly, almost as though he expected an argument in response.

  “I wondered,” Jamie replied quietly.

  “Do you know me better than I know myself?” he sighed, running a hand through his thick black hair. “I’m doubting it’s the life for me. I should have been smart enough to see that four years ago. I don’t know why I ever accepted the commission.”

  “God has a plan for everything, Robbie. But we don’t necessarily always have to understand it at every step of the way.”

  “A plan for an infidel like me?” He laughed a short, hard laugh. “I’m afraid anything he might have had in mind for me would have been a waste of the Almighty’s time, Jamie.” He didn’t know why he was being so callous with her all of a sudden when all she wanted was to give him the understanding he had longed for. But because he could not accept the only answer she had for him, he tried to pretend he hadn’t really wanted an answer after all.

  “What else might you do with yourself then?” Jamie asked after a lengthy pause. She had been well aware of the growing resistance in him, and thus drew back so he would not erect a wall that would bar her completely from his life.

  “There’s a merchant ship—an old sea clipper.” Even as he spoke the words a familiar spark began to flicker once more in his eyes. “The captain’s a friend of mine from the old days.”

  “I can see you’re excited about the possibilities,” she smiled.

  “That’s where I belong, Jamie—on the sea! That’s what I was made for, not a stuffy naval office in London!”

  Another short pause followed.

  “But I have to get back. My commander’s expecting me,” said Robbie.

  Just then the door of the other room opened and Edward entered, closing the door softly behind him. “Well, Lt. Taggart,” he said, “little Andrew is full of tales of your afternoon together!”

  “I’m glad he enjoyed it. I was just leaving,” he added, approaching Edward and extending his hand. “Thank you for your hospitality, Graystone. You have a wonderful family. I envy you.” For a moment the two men held each other’s eyes; then Edward nodded and gave Robbie’s hand an additional firm shake.

  “Our prayers will go with you, Robbie,” he said. “You mean a great deal to my wife here, and to my son also. Therefore, I will always consider you my friend as well. Our home is always open to you. Wherever your travels take you, we will expect you to keep in touch.”

  “Thank you,” replied Robbie. “That means a great deal to me.”

  He made toward the door, but stopped. Then, as if his resolve was suddenly settled, he turned back into the room, took off his naval cap, handed it to Edward, and said, “I don’t think I’ll be needing this again. Please give it to Andrew. Perhaps it will make up for my not saying a proper goodbye to the boy.”

  He turned toward Jamie and caught her eye. She smiled and approached him with open arms. They embraced warmly, bid one another goodbye; then Robbie turned again and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

  “I will pray for you, Robbie,” Jamie murmured. She could not escape a certain heaviness in her heart. This parting was so different from all the others, for Robbie was not the same as he once was. His bravado contained less security, and a cloud of uncertainty hung over him. Part of Jamie regretted the passing of the old Robbie, for his lusty, merry nature had been a strength to her once, in her own time of uncertainty. But now the tables were turned, and she knew he looked to her for strength; but the strength she had to give he could not receive. But as she began to pray Jamie realized why Robbie seemed so burdened down now. In the old days he had not been fighting a battle with an unseen and all-powerful Adversary. God had not yet reached out His hand to draw Robbie into His fold. But now—it was so plain, Jamie wondered that she had not seen it sooner—God was calling Robbie, and the noble sailor was squirming and wrestling because he did not want to give up his independence to follow the voice of the Lord.

  But Jamie knew Robbie. He was a man of tender heart, and whatever it might take, she knew the love of the Everlasting Father would win him in the end. She realized too that the path before him would not be an easy one. The very qualities that made of him a good and honorable man would likely be the final obstacles in the way of his realizing his need for God.

  She lifted her eyes and met Edward’s gaze. She sighed, and he understood her. “He’s very troubled,” she said at length.

  “God is dealing with him,” replied Edward softly, “and for that we can be thankful.”

  “I fear it will be difficult for Robbie. He has known so little trouble in his life. The stalking of his heart by the Lord could well prove a long journey.”

  “Our prayers will be a protection for him.”

  “And God will be faithful.”

  Jamie reached up and took her husband’s hand. Who better than she knew intimately the faithfulness of God, and she comforted herself that Robbie could not be in better hands than the very hands that loved him into being.

  ———

  Robbie’s thoughts at that moment were not in the least on the God whose gentle but unseen hands were guiding his steps. Instead, as he entered his barracks, his only thought was that a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. But as free as he felt at that moment, Robbie yet knew nothing about the true freedom for which all men have been created. And though he turned his back on what he considered his present bondage, he still could not escape the most dangerous bondage of all—that is, slavery to self. His only point of reference to date was his own being. Though Jamie’s words of faith had sown seeds within him, they had not yet sprouted into personal reality: he had no concept of a personal and immediate Friend, only some vague ideas of a distant Power people called God.

  Thus, Robbie saw only surface problems, and sought only temporal solutions. His present position was unfair and unfulfilling. He was taking abuse that a man should not have to endure. The answer, so far as he could see, was simply to remove himself from the source of discomfort. Yet God’s hand still guided, and would mold his action—however selfishly motivated may have been its origins—to fulfil His divine will.

  He reached Commander Barclay’s office feeling rather too lighthearted. He rapped confidently on the door, heard the voice on the other side, stepped inside, and greeted his commanding officer with a smart salute.

  “I am reporting as instructed, sir!” he said.

  “You are out of uniform, Lieutenant!” returned Barclay, directing his sharp eyes to Robbie’s uncovered head.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You no doubt have a perfectly plausible reason for reporting to me in such a condition?”

  Robbie’s hesitation lasted only a moment. When he spoke it was with a natural boldness that had scarcely surfaced during his entire tenure in the Navy.

  “The time has come, I’m afraid, when I can no longer wear the uniform of Her Majesty’s Navy with pride.”

  This unexpected response took Barclay so completely by surprise, as did the almost cocky tone of Robbie’s voice, that he had no ready rejoinder at hand.

  “You, you—what?” he stammered, incensed at young Taggart’s audacity to speak to him thus.

  “Did you really think that your humiliating tactics could make me submit to a system where men were judged not for their virtue but their birth? You have only serve
d to weaken any respect I may have had for you, and for the Navy.”

  “You are a fool, Taggart!” said Barclay, finding his voice at last; but it was icy cold with undisguised hatred. “Don’t you know what I can do to you?”

  “You can do nothing to me, Barclay!” replied Robbie. “I have come to give you my resignation from the Royal Service.”

  “You are more of a fool than I took you for, Taggart. I must say, this comes as something of a surprise, even from you.” Barclay was struggling to maintain his composure, but his eyes betrayed the fire burning within. The young fool was threatening action that would take revenge out of his hands. And to find himself powerless was unendurable to one such as Barclay.

  “Does it?” said Robbie. “A surprise, you say? Perhaps . . . but doubtless not a disappointment. This is what you have hoped for, is it not?” he asked, his voice calming.

  “If you are bitter about your years in the service, you have only yourself to blame.”

  “Have I?” said Robbie with raised eyebrow. “Perhaps you’re right. I am to blame for putting up with such treatment as I have for so long.”

  Robbie paused momentarily. It was useless to argue further. He had said too much already. He had served honorably, and now he would leave with honor as well.

  “As you say, Commander,” he continued tersely. “I have no desire to debate with you. I will tender my official resignation tomorrow. I trust there will be no difficulty in waiving the remainder of my enlistment, knowing what a relief it will be to you to have me gone from your command?”

  Barclay hesitated. Than a cold gleam crept into his eye. “I could block your resignation, you know, Taggart. I could make you stay, and could make life positively unendurable for you.”

  “But you won’t, will you, Commander? The thought of having me gone will outweigh whatever delight you would take in crushing me still further under your thumb. I know you hate me, Commander. I could never understand why, until recently. But now I see it is because I represent a life you can never have—a life not bound to rank and privilege and station. And though you have been determined to destroy me, mine is the kind of spirit small men like you can never overpower. Though you would love to punish me further, in the end you would rather see me gone. The daily reminder of your own bondage to a system from which you cannot escape would be too great a trial for you. And when I am gone, Commander, it is I who will have been victorious, not you. For I shall be free.”

  Robbie stopped, as surprised by the eloquence of his passionate outburst as Barclay must have been.

  The commander stared at him for a few moments with a look Robbie had never before seen in his eyes.

  “I believe we can make satisfactory adjustments in your absence,” he said at length. “As you indicated, to remove an unsightly blemish from the noble officer’s stock is a greater good than for me to indulge the pleasure it would give me to see you chastened as you deserve.”

  Robbie turned without a salute, walked to the door and outside, without once looking back. As the fresh air again assaulted him, a great smile spread over his face. If his hat had still been on top of his head, he’d have tossed it into the air in delight. At last it was over!

  Tomorrow would be a day of new beginnings, a new adventure! Where his steps would lead, in his wildest thoughts he could never have imagined. It would be a beginning that would take him upon a course that even he, in all his global sophistication, could not have charted. His journey would take him toward what his God had been preparing for him since the dawn of time—a life of growth, a spirit of wisdom, and a personhood of completion and fulfillment.

  For as much as young sailor Robbie Taggart thought he was free, the true freedom of his manhood was still awaiting him. And it was toward this freedom—a freedom all men yearn for but few allow themselves to find—that his footsteps were now pointed.

  Part II

  Sea Tiger

  8

  The Tiger’s Complement

  When Robbie set foot upon the gangway of the Sea Tiger, he felt as though he was coming home. To a restless wanderer such as he, it was fitting that home should be a vessel capable of taking him anywhere, of reaching the ends of the earth, but with no port to call its own.

  As he walked slowly up the thick wooden planks, Robbie concluded that no finer home had ever been his, even beneath the brilliant Highland stars of Scotland. The Tiger’s mast towered majestically in the harbor, and added the suggestion of power to the graceful lines of her hull. At her prow was carved the figurehead of a Mandarin dressed in fiery red robes, carrying a scimitar in his right hand and gazing out on the glassy harbor with eyes that were indeed as fierce as a tiger’s. With such an imposing figurehead, she could have been a warship, but she was built to do battle with the sea and the mighty elements of nature. And no soldier had ever faced a more merciless foe.

  He stepped onto her shining teakwood deck, so absorbed in the glory of the ship that he hardly noticed that there was neither captain nor boatswain to greet him. He paused for a moment to feel the gentle movement—it was a good feeling, one he had missed. He moved slowly forward, taking in every familiar detail, pleased that he had forgotten nothing in his years away from the square-rigger.

  His eyes picked out each line of rope and sheet, and quickly followed them to the sails they controlled. The seeming maze of complicated rigging was as clear in its integrated complexity as each finger on his hand.

  Robbie gave a sigh, relieved. He had not been too long away.

  “‘She walks the waters like a thing of life, and seems to dare the elements to strife,’” came an unexpected, however melodious, voice from astern, disturbing the inner quietude that had stolen upon Robbie. He turned sharply to face the speaker, who sounded too much like an oracle to be thus found anywhere in the regions of London’s shipyards. And what he beheld appeared indeed more a poet than any kind of seaman Robbie had ever seen, though he thought he had seen every conceivable type.

  “Byron,” said the man. He was several inches shorter than Robbie and appeared ten or twelve years older, but was in fact only thirty-four. His dark eyes studied Robbie momentarily with an odd mixture of mockery and sensitivity, holding for a moment on Robbie’s face, then twitching quickly to find a temporary rest at some point over his shoulder. As Robbie drew closer he detected the unmistakable odor of whiskey about the man’s person.

  “Good morning, Mr. Byron—” Robbie began, but before he had the chance to utter another syllable he was cut short by the man’s sudden burst of laughter.

  “‘There were gentlemen and there were seamen,’” the man quoted again through his mirth, “‘in the Navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen.’ That was Macaulay,” he added.

  “I see,” said Robbie, unperturbed. “And I take it the first was from Lord Byron?”

  “Correct you are! And please forgive my laughter. I thought a gentleman such as yourself—”

  Now it was Robbie’s turn to laugh. After four years of striving unsuccessfully to fit into a gentleman’s world, how ironic it was that the first person he met in the world where he rightfully belonged should take him for a gentleman.

  “I am better acquainted with rigs and sails than poems,” said Robbie. “I am no gentleman, believe me.”

  “Then the pleasure is all the greater in meeting you,” said the quoter of rhymes, thrusting out his hand. “I myself loathe the breed . . . Elliot Drew is the name.”

  Robbie took the offered hand, which looked slender, almost effeminate, but with hard callouses upon its surface.

  A shout from the stern brought their conversation to an abrupt halt as they turned their attention toward it.

  “Hey, Vicar!” said the newcomer. “Who you gots there?” As he was speaking the man lithely swung a bulky frame down the companion ladder from the raised quarter deck and approached the two.

  “I’m not quite certain,” answered the one called Vicar. “But if he wa
nts a berth, I’d say give it to him. He looks like a good man.”

  “And what’d ye know, ye lubber!” the other replied roughly. “Ye wouldn’t know a seaman from a wet rat.”

  “Perhaps because there’s so little difference,” rejoined Drew.

  The newcomer merely grunted, then brusquely pushed the Vicar aside and approached Robbie face to face.

  “I’m Jack Digger, Bo’sun1,” said the large man, unsmiling and without the least inflection of welcome. He did not even offer one of his fleshy hands to Robbie. “If ye got business on the Sea Tiger, ’tis me ye’ll be speakin’ to.”

  This last was spoken almost like a reprimand for his interchange with Drew.

  “There was no one on deck when I came aboard.”

  “Well, what’s yer business?”

  “I’m here to see the ship’s master, Benjamin Pike.”

  Digger sized Robbie up and down with eyes that appeared as mere slits in his thick face. Robbie wondered that this cumbersome man could function on a ship in any capacity. However, he appeared fit, and the enormity of his bulk was by no means given over to fat. And his agile negotiation of the companion ladder gave indication that his size was no hindrance to him.

  “What’s yer name?” asked the bo’sun.

  “Robbie Taggart.”