Robbie Taggart

by Michael Phillips

  “Digger didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  She shook her head. “You came along jist in time.”

  “It was quite a stroke of luck,” replied Robbie in a meaningful tone. “I mean, that Sammy came for me and brought me back to the cabin at just the right moment.”

  “I don’t take yer meanin’,” she said innocently, but shifting uncomfortably in the bunk.

  “Kitty, I don’t know what you hoped to achieve, but you can’t use people like that. Not only does it hurt others, but someday you’ll hurt yourself too.”

  “I don’t need no moralizin’ speech,” she rejoined, with a flicker of ire in her tone.

  “I don’t much like giving them either, so that’s as much as you’ll get from me. But I want you to know I think you’re a fine girl, Kitty. I’d hate to see you get yourself into a fix you couldn’t get out of just because of one foolish little action. Don’t spoil your chances for a good life over a man like Digger.”

  “Oh, Robbie, I’ll never have a good life, not unless I get away, get out and see the rest of the world!”

  “I wish I could help you.”

  “Convince the captain to let me stay on.”

  “That would be impossible after what just happened. Besides, you’d never be able to control Digger. He’s a mean one.”

  “You’d take care of me, I know you would!” She stood and approached him, hoping one last time to make him take notice, like Digger had. But he backed away, sadly shaking his head.

  “It wouldn’t work, Kitty,” he said, more aware than ever that it would take far more than a lecture from him to make the Tiger’s young stowaway see the error of her designs.

  “You’re my only hope, Robbie,” she pleaded, longingly looking into his eyes.

  “No, I’m not, little Kitty,” he said gently. “I think you’re the kind of young lady who will always land on her feet. And you might find your prince, too, if you have a little patience—with a little wisdom thrown in for good measure.”

  “You’re going to let them dump me off in a strange city?”

  “I have no choice. It’s not my ship. But we’ll book passage back to England for you.” Kitty slumped back onto the bunk and said nothing.

  Robbie turned to leave the cabin, saddened that he could not get through. He did not even hear the fierce kick the temperamental young waif aimed at the door once it clicked shut.

  As the winds gradually swung around from the north, the Tiger made more consistent progress, and within a week put in at Lisbon, the sailing capital of the world several centuries before. Robbie took charge of Kitty. Pike would have simply thrown her ashore and have done with it, but Robbie made arrangements for her return to England on a British vessel and paid the captain for her passage. They remained in port a day and then made ready to sail once more. Kitty’s departure would follow a day or two later.

  Resigned to her fate, Kitty had softened once more toward Robbie. He walked her down the gangway for the last time.

  “I hope you’ll consider me a friend, Kitty,” said Robbie.

  “Small good that’ll do. I’ll be stuck in England and you’ll be off to see the wide world.”

  “Sometimes friends meet up again,” he answered. “In the meantime, it’s always nice to know you have a friend out there somewhere.”

  She smiled, “Well then, good-bye, Robbie Taggart,” she said.

  “Goodbye, Kitty. I’m glad our paths crossed, even if only briefly.”

  “You won’t change your mind?” she asked half-heartedly. Even as she said the words, she knew he was not meant for her.

  Robbie laughed. “You’ll do just fine, Kitty. I know you will. I hope you do meet your prince.”

  She returned his smile with growing assurance. “And you your princess!” she called out to him as she watched Robbie make his way back onto the deck of the ship. Stowing away on this ship had been a bad idea, she thought. But something else would turn up, some other way to get out of the rut she was in—and she would find it somehow.

  She waved one last time at the Sea Tiger as the wind and receding tide carried it away, then turned expectantly toward Lisbon where she would have another day or two before her return. Hmm, she thought to herself as she walked away, I wonder if I could cash in the ticket Robbie bought for me? I might just like to stay here for a while. Her step took on a lilt as she picked up her stride. Not a bad idea at all!

  ———

  Robbie leaned against the aft rail of the Sea Tiger. Lisbon harbor was nothing but a distant blur; he could no longer see Kitty waving from the dock. He could not help wondering if he’d done the right thing. But it hadn’t been up to him anyway, he thought. If he had been captain, perhaps he would have given her a chance. But even then the voyage would not have been what she was hoping for. He had been like Kitty once—young, looking for a dream over every horizon. And over the years he had seen many of those exotic ports and the men and women who populated them. But in not one in a thousand had he found the kind of happiness Kitty was searching for. No princes, no princesses. He was still looking, and he’d been at it a lot more years than Kitty.

  He couldn’t blame Kitty for her dreams, though. For he had dreams himself. He sighed deeply. Yes, he thought, everyone had his dreams—of princes and princesses, of adventure, of travel to faraway places.

  “So there you are,” said a voice behind him. It was the Vicar. “Not pining away after our little stowaway, are you?”

  “What?” replied Robbie distractedly, caught off guard by the unexpected comment.

  “You look as if perhaps the ship might be headed in the wrong direction.”

  “You’re jesting!”

  “No regrets at leaving the girl behind?”

  Robbie laughed. “Even if I were of a mind to fall in love with a sixteen-year-old, it wouldn’t have been with her. Kitty was a bit much!”

  “A foolish notion, I’ll grant. But I dare say she was no different from most females, weaving their tangled webs of deceit.”

  “You, Elliot, are the wrong man to talk to on the subject,” said Robbie, half in jest. Then he paused, deep in thought. “I suppose my problem is that my friend Jamie has spoiled me for other women,” he began again. “I will always measure others against her, and I’m afraid they will always fall short.”

  “Well, I say you are a better man for it, if it keeps you free of such entanglements.”

  “Am I?”

  “O course! You’re a free man. Savor it, my friend!”

  “I was willing to give all that up for Jamie.”

  “A passing moment of insanity, no doubt,” rejoined the Vicar.

  “I don’t know . . . yet as much as I loved her, in the end a part of me was glad to still possess my freedom.” As he spoke Robbie gazed intently into the gray horizon. “But I sometimes wonder if there isn’t someone out there, someone whom I could love and for whom I’d have no reservations about giving up the roving life.”

  “The princess you will kiss who will turn all life into a fairy tale!”

  “Do I detect sarcasm in your voice?”

  “You want a perfect woman, Robbie; believe me, she doesn’t exist.”

  “Perhaps not. But maybe there is one who is perfect for me.”

  “Dream on, lad!”

  “Well, even if I never reach the end of my dream and find my princess, the life of a bachelor isn’t so bad, is it?”

  ———

  From Lisbon the Tiger pursued a course almost due west, swinging out between the Azores and the Canary Islands. Then they ran in ballast with a northeast tradewind for the better part of a week. Each morning and evening the set of the sails had to be tended, but for the remainder of the day it seemed the Tiger practically ran herself—but for the man at the helm. Had it not been for the early strife, it would have been the sort of beginning every seaman dreams of. And though storms and squalls would come, and tempers would no doubt flare again, as well as winds turn against them, while they lasted, suc
h fortuitous conditions were welcomed, and almost made Robbie forget about his run-ins with Digger altogether.

  16

  Calm

  Once well out into the wide expanse of the Atlantic, the Sea Tiger ran smoothly in front of favorable winds—as smoothly as possible with such a diverse crew aboard. The following weeks, past Madeira off Africa’s west coast, and south beyond the Tropic of Cancer and into the tropical regions, were without incident.

  They continued on past the equator with sunny weather and stiff breezes. Then, on their thirty-seventh day out, halfway between the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, Robbie and Pike were on deck inspecting the condition of the newly repaired foremast clew lines. Throughout the morning the wind had been gradually dying. At first no one had even noticed, though by degrees the ship’s momentum had grown slower and slower. The fair weather had nearly lulled the seasoned sailors into a false security.

  Now, however, as if by common instinct, Robbie and the skipper realized that as they stood, everything about them was deathly still. The sounds of motion had fled. The Tiger was sitting dead in the water.

  A calm is like waking death to a seaman.

  For four days the Sea Tiger’s sails banged hollowly against the masts, hanging limp and impotent. At first Robbie had been able to adjust the rigging in order to gain a slight advantage from the faint breath of air that remained. But before the first day was out even that was gone, and nothing Robbie’s skill could conjure would help. The mighty clipper may as well have been sitting in the middle of a tiny inland lake.

  Tensions quickly rose. Pike did not leave the bridge except to sleep. It was the most anyone had seen of him above deck since the voyage had begun. Grumbling and growling about his ill-fortune and the schedule he had to maintain, he paced back and forth, his crutch and wooden leg beating out an ominous rhythm on the poop deck. More than once his crutch shot out in frustrated anger, whacking whoever happened to be close by. His most likely victims were young Sammy, who didn’t know enough to stay away from the skipper in his present mood, or the coxswain who had no choice since he had to remain at the helm even though there was nothing to steer.

  Others grew similarly edgy, and petty arguments flared up all over the ship. Robbie found his position as referee almost a more vital assignment throughout the calm than whatever he had to do as mate. Jeremiah Lackey was in his glory, shuffling up and down the decks, prophesying imminent doom.

  “We’ll sit ’ere forever!” he cried in despondent and eerie tones. “Thus sayeth the Lord, ‘They shall ’ave no wind to blow at their backs.’”

  “Shut up, you old fool!” yelled Digger.

  “There’ll not be any more grain nor water in all of Egypt!” went on Lackey. “We’ll sit ’ere till our stores be gone. Thus will the doom of heaven fall upon us!”

  “The old blowhard,” muttered Drew. “Wouldn’t know a scripture if it jumped out and bit him!”

  By then Sammy was in tears, and Robbie finally had to confine Lackey to his quarters. But that could not stop the old sailor. Even ten feet away Robbie could hear him wailing morbidly, “You’ll see . . . we’ll all see . . . we’ll rot ’ere—we’re doomed, says the Lord!”

  He had considered slugging the old man to keep him quiet. Robbie liked this calm no better than anyone else. But they had to get through it as best they could.

  The air hung heavy and oppressive about them, so thick it seemed you could cut it. The sky was dim and colorless about the horizon. Even at night the stars were dull and sulfurous, like worlds about to burn themselves out. Yes, there was a tension hanging over them all. Robbie hated the doldrums too, but not because of Lackey’s portentous ramblings. A calm was bad enough in itself. But this one seemed to hold another even more terrifying element, one which added a dread to the quiet. He felt it palpably in the stagnant air: a storm was coming.

  He suggested to Pike that they haul in the Royals and topgallants, but the skipper sneered out his reply:

  “You ain’t gettin’ lily-livered on me, are you, young Taggart?” pausing only a moment in his restless pacing. “I thought ye was made o’ better stuff!”

  “No, I’m not getting soft, Pike!” retorted Robbie tersely, angered mostly that Pike’s assessment might be true—or at least looked that way. He stalked away, reproaching himself for succumbing to the miserable atmosphere and to Pike’s verbal jab.

  On the fourth day Robbie found Pike missing from his constant vigil on the bridge. He thought nothing of it throughout the morning, but shortly after lunch, when he still had made no appearance, he asked Overlie where the skipper had been. Torger merely shook his head with concern, and when he said, “He’s gone below,” it was not with his customary grin.

  Robbie swung around and headed for the stern hatch. All too common were the stories of captains both literally and figuratively going over the edge—more frequently in calms than storms. Others, unable to withstand the pressures and stresses, but without the wherewithal to jump, merely sat in their cabins and drank themselves into oblivion. Even when on deck, Pike’s presence had been of concern to Robbie. His pacing had been like that of a caged animal, his eyes wild, his emotions taut, as if waiting to break like the gathering storm Robbie felt in the air. Almost unconsciously he had been keeping his own vigilant eye on the skipper, and now wondered if he had finally cracked.

  He hurried below and met the Vicar halfway.

  “Has the skipper been this way?” he asked.

  “I’d leave the old man be if I were you,” replied Drew. “He’s in a fit. I expect he’s more than half-drunk by now.”

  Robbie closed his eyes in momentary despair. It might well be that Pike was not the most fit master, but it saddened Robbie to think that he might spoil even this small opportunity he had to prove himself a capable ship’s captain.

  “It has always puzzled me,” the Vicar was saying, “why you have so taken to that man. Of course, I might ask the same question regarding myself. I suppose you are the kind who cannot refuse a stray or degenerate.”

  Robbie shrugged, but said nothing. He didn’t even have an answer. Neither did he need Drew’s cynicism now. “The skipper is an old family friend,” he said at length. “And,” he added somewhat defensively, “he’s been decent to me.”

  “Well, you must be a minority of one in that category,” remarked Drew.

  Without commenting further, Robbie pushed past the Vicar and walked on down the corridor. He knocked at the captain’s door, and waited a long moment before there was a response.

  “What d’ ye want?” came the skipper’s voice. It was more than clear from the tone that he had been drinking.

  “It’s Robbie. Might I come in?”

  “Can’t a man get no privacy!” shouted back Pike. Then, after another long pause, added testily, “Oh, come in! What d’ I care?”

  Robbie stepped in, closing the door behind him. In the time he had been absent from the bridge, Pike had degenerated considerably—even for one whose normal appearance bordered on that of a vagrant. He sat slouched in his chair, his brass-buttoned coat hung open, and in one hand he held a nearly empty bottle of brandy and in the other a half-full glass. He glared up at Robbie, cursing out a sound that could be little distinguished from an angry snarl.

  “So!” growled the skipper, “did ye come here just t’ gawk at me, or do ye ’ave some business?”

  “I was concerned,” Robbie replied. “No one had seen you on the bridge, and even Torger—”

  “Playin’ the nursemaid are ye!”

  “No, Ben. This calm has got to everyone. I only thought maybe you—”

  “Ye thought ol’ Benjamin Pike had gone looney, eh? Well, he ain’t! He can still run this ship ’thout no help o’ yers! Calms come an’ calms go just like storms an’ fair win’s, an’ I don’t need the likes o’ a young ne’er-do-well t’ hold me hand through any of it!”

  “I know that, Ben.”

  “Oh, look at you!” Pike leaned forward and leered at
Robbie as if to take his own advice. “Ne’er a ruffle in ye, is there? Just like yer father! Yes, you could command this ship—better’n me, too; I’d wager my crutch on it!”

  With a shaky hand he emptied the brandy bottle into his glass. “Yes, you could,” he repeated, “and ye’d like that, too . . .”

  Suddenly his face twisted into such contorted hatred that Robbie gasped audibly in surprise. Never had such a look been cast upon him. “But you ain’t!” screamed Pike as he hurled the bottle toward Robbie.

  Robbie recovered from his shock in time to dodge. The bottle grazed the side of his head before crashing into pieces against the door. The next moment the door itself burst open and the Vicar entered. He rushed into the room, looking apprehensively about, as if he expected to be greeted by some sordid scenario.

  “Another nursemaid—is that what we gots?” yelled Pike defiantly.

  “Skipper, what’s gotten into you?” said Robbie, rubbing his bruised head.

  “As if ye didn’t know!”

  Robbie shook his head dismally. “I don’t understand.”

  All at once, with more speed and skill than Robbie could have imagined from a man in Pike’s condition, the skipper leaped up, knocking his chair to the floor. In the hand that a moment earlier had held the lethal bottle, he now wielded a knife.

  “Maybe this’ll put some understandin’ into that pretty fool head o’ yours!” cried Pike, waving the weapon about wildly. “Ye walk around here so high an’ mighty. It’s time ye got yersel’ mussed up a bit—brought down to the level o’ the rest o’ us commoners!”

  He leaped at Robbie, deftly upon his one leg, but Robbie deflected the blow easily, grasping the knife-bearing hand in his. Then as quickly as the attack had begun, Pike sagged back and fell away, still, however, glowering at the man he had so recently praised in order to make him his first mate.

  “Get out of here—the both of you!”

  Robbie stood where he was, dumbfounded. The Vicar grabbed his arm and, with as much force as his strength could muster, led him from the room. Outside, Robbie stopped, coming to himself, then turned back toward the captain’s quarters.