Captain Adam

by Chidsey, Donald Barr, 1902-1981

  Peterson glared at the deck at the skipper's feet, trying to screw up courage for a rush; and behind him his friend Eb Waters waited for the signal.

  Jeth Gardner the bosun was trying to make up his mind whether to obey orders and take Seth Selden forward or to run forward himself and fetch the mate. Either way, he would leave his skipper unsupported for a spell.

  Bewitched, eh? was Adam's thought. And they had been so happy, the two of them, sitting here talking about things.

  Well, something had to happen, and happen fast. He was the skipper.

  Peterson was the one to flatten—first. Then wheel on young Rellison, who was thinking of yanking out the tiller bar but who could be caught before he made up his mind. Jeth would leap on Waters—and hold oflF John Bond.

  And of course yell bloody murder all the while, which would rouse Resolved Forbes.

  Yet if Peterson didn't go down-He took a step toward Peterson, a big man.

  "Boats abeam us! Larhoardl"

  It would not be necessary to shout for Resolved Forbes. The mate had waked of his own accord; or it could be he had been awakened by some deep instinct, some seventh sense, signaling peril. Blinking in the late afternoon sunshine which goldplated the deck, he had emerged from the forecastle—to see something none of them had yet noticed.

  From the dark low shore of Cuba, a few scant miles away, boats were putting out. They were small boats, and though some had masts, none spread a sail, for canvas would have been useless in that calm.

  There was no town in sight on that shore, no sign of habitation, and smoke did not rise anywhere. But there were many of these boats—dozens of them, scores.

  They were making for the schooner.

  Adam ordered out the sweeps. Every inch of canvas already was spread, and it was Goodwill's lightest suit of sails, but there wasn't enough wind to shiver the reefpoints.

  The sweeps alone would not move the vessel fast enough to get away from these coasters, who could swarm over it before the coming of night, or immediately thereafter. The best Adam could hope for was to get a movement that might help pick up some stray breeze and hold the schooner ahead of the coasters until after dark. Once the sun had gone down there was an excellent chance of a land breeze that would take Goodwill away from this shore.

  There were six sweeps, ash oars long and clumsy. Adam ordered the Moses over, together with a cable, assigning Peterson and Waters, stout backs, to this pull.

  The coasters got closer. They did not appear to hurry. They knew what they were doing, had done it before.

  Six sweeps, five men. Adam hollered for Maisie, who came promptly. He pointed to a sweep. She made no fuss, wasted no time.

  Though they strained mightily, the sweat rolling down them, Goodwill barely stirred. It rained; and they toiled on; and the rain went away; but they had scarcely moved.

  The coasters, the wreckers, crept closer. More and more of them kept putting out—it was a large fleet.

  Adam rested on his sweep, studying them. They were scarcely working, with their small boats, yet they would certainly overhaul Goodwill before the sun, smearing the sky with red right now, scrounched down behind Cuba. They knew these blind spots off their coast. They were sure of themselves.

  "This won't be enough," Maisie panted.

  "Aye."

  Adam thought of, and winced to think of all those dirty beastly men on his schooner, scrabbling aboard of her, swarming over her. They were vermin; and Goodwill was clean, always had been clean. Doubtless they'd burn her after stripping her of all her fittings. But it was not this thought that chilled her master. It was the thought of them polluting her, making her all sticky with their nastiness.

  He went to the gunwale. He couldn't even be sure that they were moving at all. He looked up at the canvas. Reddened, it still hung without life.

  "All right, stop it," Adam called. "Jeth, have the boat in."

  "What're you going to do?" asked the bosun.

  To Maisie, Adam said: "Go below again. I don't want them to see you."

  He pulled in her sweep and shipped it, as he had done with his own. He doubted that the coasters had seen those sweeps. The Moses, yes; but there would be nothing to indicate, from that distance, that the Moses was striving to tow.

  "It's something," pleaded Jethro Gardner.

  "Ain't enough," Adam said.

  "But we can't fight 'em!"

  "No," said Adam. "We can't fight them."

  He got out his glass and studied the coasters.

  Here were no storybook characters. They did not sport earrings, bandannas, wide-topped boots. They did not aspire to roam the seas, never dreamed of capturing any big prize. Small pickings were what they lived on. Like carrion, like garbage-grabbing buzzards, they sat and waited until their intended victim was dead or all but dead—and then they struck. Yet petty though they were, and despicable, they were pirates. If they were caught, they'd be hanged—and they knew it. These men would not leave evidence.

  They kept coming. There was no bravado among them, no show of ferocity. They acted rather like men on a picnic. They hailed one another, laughed and talked, brought their boats together in small groups, passed bottles. They did not get nearer to the schooner than about two hundred yards, and then only on the land side: they did not surround their prey.

  No terms were offered; none were asked. No flags were flown or signals made. The coasters rocked where they were, obscene men in dirty little boats, their numbers growing all the time. The land breeze would not come until after dark. They'd strike before it came. That was what they were waiting for—darkness. Then, only half seen, they would creep in close. There might be a musket or two aboard of the schooner, possibly even a pistol, and this was why they waited for the darkness, not caring to take any more risk than was necessary. They were not dashing, daring fellows who loved danger for its own sake.

  There were cutlasses among them and no doubt pistols and knives, but Adam saw no muskets. Muskets would be in the way. In most of the boats were knotted ropes, to one end of which were fastened steel hooks. These would be thrown to the deck when the boats came alongside, and then the human lice would swarm aboard.

  They must have numbered a hundred and fifty by this time, with

  more coming. The word was out, there ashore. They were closing, slowly, for the kill.

  "God in heaven, ain't you going to do anything}" Jeth Gardner cried. "They'll fire us afterward! They won't leave a plank!"

  Adam nodded, and went on staring at the coasters. The holiday spirit out there was the more notable by contrast with the hush of the schooner. Here, aboard, nothing stirred. The sails hung slack. Nobody moved. The helm was untended. An air of hopelessness—almost, as though by anticipation, an air of death—hung over Goodwill to Men.

  This was the way Adam wanted it.

  The wreckers were a shabby scurvy lot, of all ages and complexions, scum of the scum of the seas. Most were in rags. There were even some women among them. Was it because the time was coming closer that there seemed a falling-off of the carnival spirit out there? Or was it something else? The coasters did not sound as chatty as they had. The bottles were not being passed back and forth now.

  "Jeth!"

  "Aye, aye, sir!"

  "No—don't run to me! WalM I want no running—now."

  The bosun was flabbergasted. But Resolved Forbes, who was watching Adam carefully, seemed to sense what Adam was getting at.

  "Those sulphur candles. Fetch 'em out—slow! I don't want anybody to move fast! Light 'em. One forward, one here."

  Resolved Forbes said thoughtfully, when the bewildered bosun had gone: "There's one barrel of eels got left over. Spoiled by bilge. It's mighty far dowoi. Only learned about it today. They stink."

  "Lots of stink?"

  "Make a skunk run."

  "Good. Fetch it forth—and broach it."

  Dragging his feet, his shoulders slumped, arms hanging before him, he made his way to the main hatch, the one on which
in daytime the oflf-watch hands liked to loaf, where some of them slept nights, too, when the forecastle was unbearable. Peterson and Eb Waters were there.

  "Do what I say—and Til forget that desertion charge and you'll get your full pay when we get home."

  They were not impressed. Whipped men already, they gazed glumly at the coasters.

  "What makes you think we're ever going to get home?"

  "Well, I'll tell you," said Adam; and he did.

  It would be sacrilegious to use the Book itself, so he brought out his log. From that distance they wouldn't know the difference. Neither would they be able to hear what he said, so he determined not to speak

  any real prayers, though he remembered well the chapter from Second Corinthians he had recited last week when they slid Eliphalet Mellish overside:

  "And as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly ... for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

  He could remember the splash, too. Well, he would never forget it.

  He shivered. His head low, as though he lacked strength to hold it up, he bent over the log book. He stood amidships on the larboard side, in full sight of them.

  "Mumble-mumble-bumble," he practiced.

  Resolved Forbes, feet dragging, came to him. Resolved Forbes would not have made a good playactor; but at that distance it was all right.

  These two were the only ones in sight aboard the Goodwill. The sagging mainsail, the boom being inboard, blocked off the starboard side of the deck.

  "They're scared," Resolved Forbes reported, leaning droopingly against the wale, a position so unnatural to him that it all but caused Adam to giggle. "They want to know how can they be sure the stitches will give."

  "Thunderation! Some men just won't let you save their lives!" Adam thrust the log book into his mate's hand. "Here, you conduct the first services. I'll demonstrate."

  On the far side of the mainsail he found the rest of the crew. Carl Peterson and Eb Waters were stark naked. On the deck were two lengths of cut sail, seven feet by four, firmly sewed together at each end, while at each end, too, a weight was attached. The weight was conspicuous.

  "All very well for you to say it'll be easy," Peterson blubbered, "but how can we—"

  "Allright-loofe!"

  Adam stripped. He took a knife. He lay down on one of the pieces of canvas, the knife on his chest, his two hands over it.

  "Go ahead, Jeth."

  The bosun sewed the two sides together—not firmly but loosely, with large sloppy stitches it must have pained him to make.

  Adam lay still while John Bond and the boy Rellison heaved him to their shoulders.

  "Stagger more, you beefwits!" he scolded from inside the canvas.

  So they lurched and stumbled aft on the larboard side to where Resolved Forbes slouched, making out like they were going to drop Adam at any moment. They put him on a plank balanced along the top of the gunwale amidships; and he heard his mate go "Glub-glub-glubbi-blub," which was his way of putting it.

  Adam could not see anything, and when the plank teetered this way

  and that it was might scary, so that he had all he could do to keep from screaming.

  The mate stopped glub-blubbing; the plank was tilted; Adam slid off.

  That was even scarier. He could feel himself falling—a sickish coldness in the stomach, a tightness in the chest.

  He hit with a tremendous splash, on his left side, and started instantly to sink, pulled down by the weights. With his knife he slashed the sloppy stitches, and he wriggled out of the shroud.

  His right big-toe got caught in some loosened thread, and pulled him down. He leaned over, pawing it, seared by panic; but it came free, and he started up. He put his knife into his mouth and began to swim. The Goodwill was unexpectedly beamy. It seemed to him that he swam hundreds of feet, and yet whenever he'd roll his head the gray cover was still above him, the schooner's bottom.

  His ears hurt, his lungs hurt. But he made it. They were waiting for him, with a knotted line out, on the starboard side where he couldn't be seen by the coasters. On deck he started briskly to dress.

  "Well, now you know. Make it look as if you was fetching 'em out of the forecastle each time. And remember to stagger!"

  He took the log book back from Resolved Forbes and with head bent over it he could still look up through his eyebrows at the clustered boats of the pirates. Those boats were closer together, suggesting uncertainty, even fear. Now and then one would approach the schooner; but after a moment it would scurry back. The stench was truly terrible.

  The sun lay red on everything. There was still no hint of breeze.

  Swathed in canvas, sewed up, weighted, Carl Peterson was carried to the plank and placed on it.

  "Mumble-bumble-bumble-bee-bumble ... It ain't hard . . . Mumble-mumble . . . Remember, don't start slashing till you're under . . . And mind the barnacles!"

  The plank was tipped. There was a splash. Seth Selden, unseen back of the mainsail, sewing up Eb Waters, caught the spirit of the performance and though uninstructed began to wail like a man in uncontrollable grief.

  "Good," said Adam. "Mister Forbes—crawZ to the cabin hatch and tell Lady Maisie to do that, too. Top of her lungs."

  The boats of the coasters stirred restlessly.

  Eb Waters was carried out, and Adam mumble-mumbled, and Waters was dumped.

  Meanwhile Carl Peterson had surfaced on the far side, and he was being enshrouded again.

  And soon Eb Waters came up there and was hauled in.

  The Honorable Maisie proved to be a most convincing wailer, a ban-

  shee on a bad night. Just to hear her would have hahed a rampaging Hon.

  Seth Selden tempered his own wails, saving his strength, only letting out a long low one every now and then. He was busy, of course. They were all busy.

  Peterson had gone to his Maker for the third time and they were toting Eb Waters out for his third funeral when the coasters broke.

  Somebody out there screamed. Boat after boat was turned.

  The most Adam Long had hoped for was that they'd pull back a bit for a conference. He'd sought time, while he could pray for the coming of a land breeze and maybe think of something else.

  But wild panic seized them. With a flash of oars, and bending low over the thwarts, they flustered away like a flock of shot-over birds.

  An hour later, when the sun had set and a breeze had come at last, there was no sign of them.

  "You have a voice of rare quality," the skipper told his passenger that night, "but I like it better up near like this."

  "Maybe— Maybe what that man said is right."

  "Maybe it is."'

  "We keep on this way, Adam—the two of us here every day, every night—" She was trying to make it sound frivolous, as became her training, fashionable; but when he swiveled his eyes toward her he saw that she was staring mighty hard at a horizon that had nothing notably interesting about it and in fact could hardly be seen. "La, sir, it could even be that on some tropic night, under the rich rolling Caribbean moon, you could—well, sir, you could conceivably seduce me into bundling with you.

  "You bundle with me," Adam said sententiously, "and it won't be with your skirt tied down over your feet."

  She tried to laugh at this, but the sound of a sob was heard, and when she started away he was afraid he had wounded her. But she came right back.

  "No, really, maybe you'd better, Adam! Better return to Jamaica!"

  He looked at her a long time, and it all but made his heart stop, she was so beautiful. Sitting next to her, occasionally brushing her arm or being brushed by a stray fluttering lock of her hair, perhaps watching her hands in her lap, was not like this now—gazing smack into her eyes. He seemed to rock and wobble. He felt that he might explode, blow up like a bombard, or else faint dead away. It was too much. He couldn't keep it up.

  "Please, Adam!"

&n
bsp; He cleared his throat. After all, he had his position to think of.

  "I am the master of this vessel," he said, "and when I want advice I'll ask for it."

  1 /;? It tugged at him as a temptation, next morning while he

  X J lifted the Book out of his chest, to pick for a text at prayers

  something that would twit the doubting Thomases of the previous day, for they were fully through the Windward Passage now—though still in Pirate Alley—and pranced along handsomely in a sea they had all to themselves under a serene high sky in which there was not even the edge of a raincloud, though this was the season for rains.

  "When the righteous are in authority the people rejoice?" No. That'd sound as if he was overfond of himself.

  "Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves . . ." "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams . . ." No, again. He wasn't quite sure of either of these, and it would take him some time to look them up.

  Best thing to do was drop the whole matter anyway. The men were over it, no use embarrassing them. They deserved a rest, relaxation. No doubt they were a whit ashamed of the way they had acted. And Seth Selden was his eld shipboard self again, eyes twinkling, mouth twisted to slip out some elliptical sarcastic remark. There wasn't a touch of the hysteria that had moved him yesterday, and he didn't even seem to have a spiritual hangover to remind him of how he had acted.

  Seth was even unrepentent enough to put on, as he did so many mornings at prayer time, a mock air of piety. He was small-boyish about it, the old scoundrel. He simpered.

  Yet even the irreverent Seth straightened his face when he heard the verses Adam read from the Book. For he remembered them, as all the men there did: they were the same verses Adam had selected for reading when Eliphalet Mellish's body was slid overside. They were among Adam's favorites. In the midst of life, he aimed to remind the hands, we are in death.

  ". . . when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory."