Robbie Taggart

by Michael Phillips

  In the meantime, Robbie’s eyes could not perceive the destiny to which he was being called. But even as he sat wrestling with his own anxieties, out on the streets of the city was waiting an innocent victim of the world’s poverty. Unknown either to Robbie Taggart or to the little Indian maiden, she had been sent from on High, to pierce the first blow through the masculine armor of Robbie Taggart. Thus would begin the process of the breaking of that tough exterior shell into fragments—fragments of a former self to place on the altar of sacrifice, out of which a tender and more purer manhood could emerge.

  After sitting in Jenkin’s chair in silence for some time, Robbie suddenly lurched to his feet. He had to have air, even if it stank with poverty and mid-day heat.

  “Where ye goin’, mate?” said Pike.

  “Out. I’ll see you back at the Tiger.”

  “Hey, we got our cargo to pick up.”

  “You’ve got plenty of men here to help you.”

  “I want you with me, Robbie.”

  “I’m going back to the ship.”

  “Robbie . . . Robbie!” called Pike after him.

  But the skipper’s first mate was gone.

  21

  An Angel Unaware

  Loneliness was not a sensation Robbie Taggart had often felt. And today it felt all the more peculiar to him in the midst of scores of people pressing at his elbows.

  The open-air market swarmed with shoppers, and the heat continued to beat relentlessly on the city, even though it was late afternoon. It resembled so many of the markets Robbie had seen in the Far East over the years. Fruits and vegetables, half of them already past the point of no return, and various other fried meats, fish, and assorted foodstuffs, were heaped unappetizingly upon broken-down, dirty tables, drawing more attention from flies than the passers-by, who looked too poor to afford even the most pitiful of the offerings. Even more pathetic to him were the women squatting by their homemade pottery or ceramics or dry goods—finely handcrafted handkerchiefs or shawls or porcelain figures or cups or bowls—selling them for a pittance. Robbie could imagine them having worked weeks or months on their meager assortment, but they would be happy if they earned enough from the items for a bag of rice. The poverty was so close, so real, so overpowering in a place like this. And yet no matter how much a single man might try, what could he really do to stem its tide?

  The women he passed held out their things to him, beseeching him in any number of Indian dialects. But he didn’t have to understand their language to know what they were saying. He was a wealthy Englishman. Big English, the fellow an hour ago had called him. Surely it would not hurt him to part with a small portion of his silver. In return he would possess some fine item of local distinction, and with it the heartwarming satisfaction of having helped stave off starvation for another day.

  Robbie walked on. This was not the moment for him to begin a one-man crusade against the squalor of Calcutta’s slums. Even if he were wealthy, he’d not long remain so if he bought every trinket or scrap of leatherwork or statue in sight. Pike had accused him of being soft, but that could only go so far. There was a fine line between softness and foolishness.

  It did not take much walking for Robbie to realize that if he had come outside to relieve his morbid mood, it had been a bad idea. There was nothing here to lift a man’s spirits. If anything, these miserable surroundings made him even more aware of his inner struggles. Seeing these creatures in the marketplace pulled him in two opposite directions—from pity to loathing. But pity in a place like this was a dead-end street. Better to toss a coin in the cup and hurry on, unfeeling, as he had with the legless beggar, than to allow tenderness to arise, and thus consume him. A man could not be swayed by sentimental sympathies; he had to be strong.

  Suddenly he found himself bending over a woman’s wares. He had not planned to do so, but he picked up an embroidered handkerchief, then tossed her a coin—three times what she was asking, but not a fourth of what the needlework would have been worth in Piccadilly Circus in the heart of London. Then he scowled at himself for the impulsive act, stuffed the silly thing in his pocket, and hurried on. What he’d ever do with it he couldn’t guess—give it to some pretty girl, no doubt. Maybe he would send it to Jamie, or his mother.

  Who was he kidding? It didn’t matter what he did with it. That wasn’t why he had bought it—the whole thing was nothing but stupid sentimentality.

  All at once Robbie smiled. He was growing just as complex and bewildering as Pike and the Vicar!

  The smile quickly faded, however, the moment he saw the child.

  Leaning against a building, dressed in a soiled and faded Indian sarong, she was probably seven or eight; though she was poor and dirty and probably hungry, her countenance did not bear the listlessness he had seen in so many starving children. Her large dark eyes held an awareness that spoke of intelligence and courage, while mingled with sufficient sadness to cause the tall, broad-shouldered British sailor to stop cold in his tracks the moment his eyes met hers.

  “What do you want?” Robbie asked, though he knew she could probably speak no English anyway.

  She said nothing. Her eyes appraised his slowly, eyes that might well have been beautiful had they not been surrounded by such a scrawny, impoverished frame. She gazed up at him with a kind of mournful awe, as if he represented some wonder, some being from afar, one that could never be part of her world.

  Feeling awkward as the object of the child’s gaze, reproaching himself for not going on his way, Robbie continued to stand as one transfixed. But he could not rush on, perhaps because he knew those eyes would continue to follow him no matter how far away he got. Not knowing what else to do, he jammed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a coin. Perhaps that would break the strange bond which had reached out to him unawares, and now held him, as one powerless, in its grip. But as he held out the money, the child shrank back, as if she would force her way backward through the wall that supported her.

  Well, she is no beggar, thought Robbie. But I should have known that from her first look.

  “What do you want?” he asked again, more harshly this time, though he did not feel harshness in his heart toward her. “Why are you staring at me?”

  Immediately he regretted his tone. In that city of hundreds of thousands, she stood there . . . alone. Was she not—in a distant sort of way—a bit like him? His mind flew back to another day, seemingly so long ago, when he had met another waif and rescued her from a Highland blizzard. Jamie MacLeod had also been desperately alone, orphaned, in need of a friend. Robbie had not feared the look of her searching eyes. He had opened his heart to her, had taken her under his wing—not spoken harshly or tried to dispose of her quickly with a handful of money.

  What is happening to me? he thought heavily. Have I fallen to this, that I am intimidated by a helpless little child?

  He stooped down to one knee. “Are you lost?” he asked more gently.

  Still there was no reply.

  “What is your name?”

  A smile slowly crept to her lips. But still she spoke no words.

  “My name is Robbie Taggart,” he said. Then he remembered his purchase. He reached once more into his pocket, but this time he took out the handkerchief from the market. He held it out to her.

  She cast her lovely, sad eyes down at the fine cloth Robbie held, drawn especially by its lace and embroidered flowers. She raised her eyes back to Robbie’s face.

  He smiled. “Take it. I want you to have it.”

  Tentatively she reached out a tiny brown hand to lay hold of the handkerchief. Even at her young age she grasped the difference between begging and accepting a gift from a friend.

  “Oh, there you are, Mira!” said a voice behind Robbie, jolting him out of the trance into which he had fallen.

  Robbie turned quickly and saw that the speaker was a woman of about fifty. Though dressed in a sarong, she was fair-skinned, and by her flawless English he surmised she was British.

  �
��We thought we’d lost you, dear,” she said with the gentle admonishment of one who is more joyful than angry.

  Then the lady looked at Robbie. “I hope she hasn’t troubled you, sir.”

  “No! No, she hasn’t. Not at all,” replied Robbie rising. She had in truth troubled him very deeply. But not in the way the woman meant.

  The child—called Mira—held out the handkerchief for the woman to see, glancing at the same time toward Robbie.

  “That was very kind of you, sir.”

  “It was nothing,” Robbie answered. “I’ll not even miss the coin I spent to purchase it.”

  “That is the way of life here, is it not?” said the woman thoughtfully. “Even our poverty would be riches to some of these people. And though you hardly felt the cost of the little thing, it shall have interminable meaning to her. May God bless you, through your simple act of charity, with great riches.”

  “I don’t care about being rich,” said Robbie.

  “I am not speaking of money, or worldly wealth, but of the riches of the spirit. I will pray Him to give you the riches of the Lord’s kingdom. I can tell you are a man of God.”

  “I’m only a sailor,” said Robbie, embarrassed by the woman’s words.

  Her face broke into a smile, for indeed it was her whole countenance and not merely her lips that participated in the action. “Even a sailor can be used of God,” she said.

  “I just happened to be passing by,” he replied. Then in an attempt to steer the conversation in a new line, asked, “Why doesn’t she say anything?”

  “She is mute. We believe she has been so since birth, though she only came to us a month ago. We found her in the streets, alone—orphaned or abandoned. Who knows how long she had been roaming about?”

  “She looks intelligent, perceptive.”

  “She may not be able to speak, but she can still think,” answered the woman. “She may well be smarter than you or I.”

  “No doubt,” Robbie smiled.

  “Would you like to come visit our mission? We would be honored,” said the woman.

  “Oh, no . . . thank you. But I really must be on my way.”

  “It’s not far from here. The children would so love to see a real sailor.”

  “I really have to get back to my ship.”

  Robbie shied away from the invitation not entirely because he did not want to go. A certain aspect of his nature—the old, happy-go-lucky Robbie Taggart—was curious. That Robbie would have gone in a second, and would have made every child happy by his own boyish enthusiasm and zest for life. But at this particular moment, a new Robbie Taggart was struggling desperately against a new host of unknown fears. Thus the greater part of him was afraid of what such an encounter might do to his already shaky sensibilities. He could easily tell—from the aspect of the unusual child named Mira, and from the woman who was her guardian and who radiated an aura of utter peace and a countenance of genuine humanity and warmth—that this mission she spoke of would likely be no ordinary slum kitchen.

  He had left himself unguarded long enough; he was not ready to open up to any more of the unknown.

  Robbie bid the woman good-afternoon, then paused, and stooped down again alongside the child, taking her hand in his.

  “Goodbye, Mira,” he said, so unprepared for the alarming development that his voice had grown husky with emotion.

  She looked down at her tiny hand grasped by such a huge manly one, then smiled up at him, while tears spilled from her, making tracks down her cheeks through the grime on her skin.

  Why she should react thus, he could not tell. Had she understood his words? Did she perhaps realize instinctively that, though they had perhaps briefly become friends in a way that transcended all barriers, they would never see one another again?

  Or were they simply tears of joy from the gift, and the small respite from her poverty that their meeting had given her?

  In any case, whatever feelings beat inside her own heart, the fact was that Robbie Taggart had been deeply stung. And though he could not know it yet, and though its visible result would not surface for some time, the blow would prove to be lethal to his former self.

  With a jerky, hurried motion, Robbie stood, then turned and strode quickly away, hoping he had been quick enough to hide the moisture filling his own troubled, sea-blue eyes.

  22

  The Call of the Highlands

  Pike managed to get his dubious cargo to the ship without Robbie, though when Robbie arrived back, after another hour or two of wandering, and pitched in to help with the loading, the skipper was uncharacteristically silent.

  The Sea Tiger then made good passage down through the Indian Ocean and through the Sunda Straits. They put in at Anjer for orders, which remained unchanged, and to take on some additional cargo—this time perfectly ethical goods. A throng of Malays swarmed aboard, and, dressed as they were in their bright native costume, combined with a bizarre assortment of western garb, the place for an hour or so resembled more a carnival than a ship. When the loading was done, the men bought various trinkets from the natives, and flirted with scantily dressed women along dockside, and were not altogether pleased with having to set sail early the following morning without shore leave. Several grumbled and talked about jumping, but nothing came of it.

  It was mid-May when they sailed into the China seas, met by the southeast monsoon. With winds often contrary, they made slow passage through the South China Sea, which in itself was hazardous enough. Dotted with treacherous reefs and many islands with confusing channels, it was often the most difficult stretch of an ocean voyage to the East.

  But Pike had been this way many times in his fifty years at sea, and was perhaps as good as any pilot. He often boasted, “I can make me way through here blindfolded!” Yet since leaving Calcutta he had resumed his habit of remaining below, and Robbie suspected he usually had a bottle for company.

  Robbie was almost glad Pike had been keeping to himself. Since Calcutta it had been difficult to face him. It was as though his eyes had been opened, and now he perceived in all its stark reality the chilling bitterness in the man. Whether it had been there all along and he was only now noticing it, or if the skipper had been overtaken by some new mood swing, Robbie couldn’t tell. But whatever the case, Robbie sensed that Pike’s sour disposition was aimed directly at him. There were still occasionally friendly moments, but they were so exaggerated as to be obviously hollow. Had they always been thus? Had Robbie only imagined a friendship that was not really there?

  When Robbie had all but decided his imagination was making more of the problems with Pike than really existed, another argument flared up that only cemented its reality more firmly in Robbie’s mind.

  A few days beyond the Karimata Straits south of Borneo, Robbie was supervising cleanup after a minor leak had been discovered and pitched in the forward cargo hold. Several crates had had to be moved to avoid water damage, and Robbie had his shoulder squarely against one when Pike burst through the hatch. He saw the activity about the unmarked crates that had been the object of the midnight delivery before their departure from England.

  “What’s going on here?” he bellowed.

  Robbie looked up, brushing a sleeve across his sweaty brow. “We just ran down a small leak,” Robbie replied, panting with the weight of the crate.

  “Why wasn’t I notified?”

  Robbie shoved the crate into place, straightened up his sore back and faced Pike. The skipper looked a wreck, worse than Robbie had yet seen him. His hair was tangled and matted with perspiration, his eyes a sick mixture of yellow and red, and his clothing had been neither washed nor changed for days. A surge of pity rushed through Robbie at the sight of the wasted, one-legged man.

  “You were—” Robbie began gently, “—that is, I didn’t think it was necessary to disturb you. Your cargo from Calcutta is safe and dry in the rear. I checked it earlier. And there was nothing here but these crates. I didn’t think you’d—”

  “I b
et you didn’t!” Pike growled, seething. He poked his crutch at the crate Robbie had been trying to shift to a better position. “What’re ye doin’ with that?” he spat.

  The question hardly seemed necessary, with the floor wet from the leak. “We’ve got to shift things around as best we can to prevent water damage,” said Robbie.

  Even as they spoke two of the other men were approaching with a like crate hoisted on their shoulders. Anxious to finish and have done with the job in the stifling hold as soon as possible, they were hurrying more than was advisable, and lost their balance as they tried to place their load on top of the other crate. They stumbled forward, the crate slipping from their grasp.

  Robbie jumped immediately to their assistance, while Pike struggled to get out of the way, but even Robbie could not prevent the crate from crashing to the deck. The wooden box split open and the contents spilled out onto the floor.

  Robbie gasped. Three carbine rifles slid from the opening in the box. After a moment he pulled his eyes away from the weapons to meet Pike’s gaze.

  “Ye done yer work here!” Pike shouted to the other men. “Get back up on deck!” He waved his crutch to emphasize his order, which was obeyed without question.

  Robbie did not budge.

  “These aren’t on the manifest,” he said calmly. Still his strong sense of loyalty would not let him think the worst.

  “Don’t you start moralizin’ with me!” warned Pike, pushing past Robbie and attempting to shove the guns back into their carton with his crutch. “You think anyone makes money these days haulin’ sheet iron and cloth!”

  “Is money that important to you, Pike?” asked Robbie. “You’re jeopardizing the whole crew by dealing in this contraband. Or am I the only one in the dark about this?”

  “No one’s in jeopardy! Ain’t nothin’ dangerous about it!”