The Navigator

by Morris West

  They gave him a small, affectionate ovation and he went out with handshakes for the men and kisses for the girls, leaving behind him an aura of patriarchal benevolence. As Thorkild drove him through the city he was cheerful and complimentary:

  ‘That was a good party, Thorkild.’

  ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’

  ‘They’re an intelligent group – much brighter than we were at their age.’

  ‘I guess they have to be.’

  ‘Interesting to see how they’ll pair off.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That young girl, Jenny; is it your child she’s carrying?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if it were.’

  ‘It’s not.’

  ‘That makes you a kind man, and Mrs Gilman an understanding woman.’

  ‘It wasn’t a big thing. The girl was adrift. Martha and I are old friends.’

  ‘She’s very fond of you.’

  ‘It’s mutual.’

  ‘Going to marry her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You could do a lot worse.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I was just thinking we’ll have a real multi-racial society on board. Curious in a way.’

  ‘Why curious? Hawaii’s a melting-pot; and it functions comfortably with fewer tensions than New York.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting it wouldn’t work. I was just interested in the genetics. After all, it was you who raised the question. What did you call it…“some shape of family”? That must have been in your mind when you selected your students…Otherwise why bring a pregnant girl on board? Not that I mind. On the contrary. I’m debarred from sexual commerce. They tell me I’m likely to die in the middle of it – which would be pleasant for me but not for the woman. But I haven’t lost interest in the matter.’

  ‘You’ve been very generous,’ said Gunnar Thorkild awkwardly. ‘There’s no way I can repay you. I’d like you to know I’m deeply grateful.’

  ‘Don’t bend to me man! I’m borrowing from you too, and from those kids back there. Youth and a new horizon – something I can’t buy!… I’m jealous of you, Thorkild. Never forget that!’

  ‘Why should you be jealous?’

  ‘Because I’m a perverse old son-of-a-bitch who can’t get laid and whose time’s running out. If you give me half a chance I’ll rub your nose in the dirt.’

  ‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ said Thorkild amiably. ‘When do you want me to meet your guests?’

  ‘Oh hell! I’d forgotten to mention that. Sally Anderton can’t get here until the day before we sail. Gabe Greenaway and Mildred have dropped out. Gabe’s found a new girl apparently; and Mildred’s off to Europe to get him out of her system. So I’ve made a little deal with the U.S. Navy. They’re lending us some rather special communication equipment and a trained officer to run it…He’ll have no authority of course.’

  ‘He won’t need it. He’ll have the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, for a godfather.’

  ‘You don’t like the idea.’ Magnusson was surprised as a virgin hearing her first vulgar word.

  ‘I think it stinks,’ said Gunnar Thorkild, curtly. ‘Why not go the whole hog and call in the Marines?’

  When the last of his guests had gone, and the house was clean and silent, he stripped and bathed and locked himself in the upper room. From the drawer of his desk he took a sandalwood box in which, wrapped in cotton wool, lay a long wedge of polished obsidian. It was the most precious thing he owned, a gift from his grandfather, the blade of the stone adze with which Kaloni the Navigator had built his first canoe.

  The blade was a sacred thing. On the night before building began, the blade was put to sleep in a holy place where Tane the land-god would infuse it with his mana. In the morning it was dipped in the sea to waken it and set the mana working. Before the adze was laid to a tree Tane’s permission must be asked. When the axe grew hot with labour it was cooled in the sap of a banana plant. Thus the wood and the tool and the man and the god were all at one and the mana would pass to the boat that was built upon the land to ride upon the sea.

  Gunnar Thorkild took the blade in his hands, sat crosslegged on the floor, closed his eyes and waited for the mana to flow into him. It was a quiet thing and very simple. The stone warmed in his hand so that it seemed part of his body. The air in the soundless room wavered into the rhythm of a far-off chanting. The syllables made themselves heard, clear and comforting as nursery-rhymes to a child …

  ‘Hold my hands as I steer,

  Hold the hands that ply

  The high-rising, low sweeping paddles.

  The sky goes away,

  All the time;

  But the power comes to meet us,

  All the time.

  This is the way

  No man has taken,

  This is the sacred way

  Of all the high ancestors.

  This is the way

  Of those before

  And those who follow

  Kaloni Kienga,

  The understanding one,

  The scanner of birds and clouds,

  Who looks into the eyes of night,

  And sees the land of tomorrow.’

  When the chant died away, he sat a long time, rested and tranquil. Then he rose, kissed the stone and laid it back in the box. When he sailed, the box and the stone and all the memories that it held would sail with him. He closed the box, and put it back in the drawer and said in the old language: ‘Goodnight grandfather. I will see you soon.’ He knew that, even as he spoke them, his grandfather would hear the words and would

  3

  It was the time he loved: the long quiet swing of the middle watch, with the wind fair abeam, the vessel loping comfortably across the swell, the wake a runnel of phosphorescence, the stars so low that he could reach up and pluck them like silver fruit.

  They were reaching south-east, across the trades and the north equatorial current into the doldrums, where the winds dropped and the counter-current ran eastwards and they would churn along under motor until they picked up the south-east winds and began beating down to the Marquesas. It was the traditional route of his ancestors when they made the passage from Nuku Hiva to Hawaii, and home again, sailing northwards towards the zenith of Arcturus and south towards the rising of Sirius.

  They had sailed in a craft, miraculous in its beauty, the Va’a Hou’ua, a great double-hulled canoe whose sternposts were carved into long graceful sweeps, and whose sail was like the wing of a sea-bird. When the wind dropped, they paddled, chanting to the sea-gods to send them wind, and rain to fill the water-gourds. They carried the fruits of the land, taro and coconut and bread-fruit paste and bananas. They brought figs and fowl and little dogs which had no bark, and ate vegetables, and which could be eaten in their turn. They fished the sea with sennit lines and hooks made of clam-shell, and dried their catch by hanging it to the mast.

  Why had they travelled so far and at such perils? The answers handed down were always embroidered with legend, but the facts were fundamental: a quarrel among the clans, a shortage of food, a sudden plague which decimated a small island and left it accursed …

  From his place at the wheel, Gunnar Thorkild looked down across the canted deck where the Kauai men and their wives sat singing softly to Simon Cohen’s guitar. On the foredeck, braced against the stays like some giant figure out of a legendary past, Adam Briggs, the dark man from Alabama, kept watch for passing ships. They could relax tonight. The swell was regular, the wind was light, but steady. The Frigate Bird was sea-kindly. The cadence of the music was like the cadence of the old life, languid, monotonous, infinitely soothing.

  The voyage had begun well. Magnusson’s welcome to his motley contingent had been cordial; but he had left no doubt about his own command, or the kind of ship he ran. On every bunk there were laid three sets of uniforms, provided at his expense, white cotton T-shirts, white shorts for the men, blouses and skirts for the women. With the clothing was a formal request t
hat uniforms be worn on entering and leaving harbour and at the evening meal. There was a printed roster of watches and other sea-duties, a note about the conservation of fresh water, the care of the ship’s plumbing, the disposal of waste, and precautions against sunburn and heat exhaustion. The ship’s officers were listed as Carl Magnusson, captain; Gunnar Thorkild, mate; Peter André Lorillard, communications; Sally Anderton, medical; Martha Gilman, writer to the captain; the bosun was Charles Kamakau. The captain requested that his officers meet him each evening for drinks at seven and dinner at eight, weather and sea-duties permitting. It was old-style, and formal, but shrewd management as well. The young ones had made jokes about it at first; but after four days at sea, they had settled to the routine and were open in their praise of the old man and his methods.

  The newcomers were a curious pair. Sally Anderton was a tall, statuesque woman in her middle thirties, handsome rather than beautiful, who seemed to survey the world with good-humoured irony. In the day-time, Magnusson monopolized her; and she, for her part, was clearly the captain’s consort, a little withdrawn from the rest of the company, careful to raise no jealousies. Peter André Lorillard, Lieutenant U.S. Navy was old South, agreeable but formal, with a ready smile, a nicely calculated deference and an unshakeable faith in the civilizing mission of the Service. Martha Gilman found him attractive. Thorkild found him more than a little of a bore and was vaguely irritated by his arch secrecy about what he called ‘his boxes of tricks’.

  It was too early yet to see how the community would shape itself. Some were still queasy with motion-sickness. The languor of the sea had settled on them all; and their attention was dispersed over a huge, empty horizon where a cruising shark or a school of porpoise provided the only focus of interest. Still, there were changes. Magnusson had assumed a grandfatherly interest in the boy, Mark, and was teaching him the rudiments of helmsmanship and navigation. Franz Harsanyi, the linguist, and Cohen, the music man, had made friends with the crewmen from Kauai. Yoko Nagamuna was setting her cap at Hernan Castillo the Filipino. Adam Briggs had developed a consuming passion for the arts of seamanship and a touching solicitude for Jenny who seemed perfectly happy to spend her days peeling potatoes and slicing vegetables for the galley.

  For Thorkild himself it was the season of sea-dreaming. There was nothing to plan, nothing to decide. He had only to run the ship and sail her and open his mind and wait for his past to flow into him and his future to declare itself through the mouth of Kaloni Kienga the Navigator.

  Sally Anderton came up the companion-way carrying two cups of coffee and a plate of sandwiches. It was the first night she had appeared after midnight and Thorkild was mildly surprised at the visit. She explained it without embarrassment:

  ‘Carl’s asleep. I was restless. I thought I’d make supper for the helmsman.’

  ‘Thanks for the thought.’

  ‘Do you mind if I sit with you a while?’

  ‘Please. It’s a long watch.’

  ‘What’s the song they’re singing?’

  ‘It’s a very old one. I think it comes originally from Puka-Puka. It starts “Ke Kave ’u i toku panga…I shall sleep on a pandanus mat outside her father’s house…Thus we promise ourselves to each other, my special woman and I”…Old island custom signifying betrothal.’

  ‘That’s beautiful…Like the Bible…“I sleep but my heart watches”. Did you spread your mat too?’

  ‘No.’ Thorkild gave her a boyish self-conscious grin. ‘I played with the unmarried, which was fun, but something different.’

  She laughed then and quoted lightly:

  ‘“What was left of soul, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop …?’”

  ‘So far it hasn’t.’

  ‘Bully for you…Would you like me to take the wheel while you have your coffee? I know what to do.’

  ‘Sure…The course is one three five.’

  ‘One three five. Aye-Aye, sir!’

  As he ate and drank, he watched her and approved what he saw: the easy stance, the steady hands, not fussing with the wheel but nursing it quietly, eyes intent on the luff of the sail and the set of the waves under the bow. She was wearing a long cotton muu-muu, green and gold, and her hair was tied back with a green ribbon. She was fresh as if she had just stepped out of a bath and her perfume was like lemon flowers, faint and astringent. She was silent for a space and then apropos of nothing at all she said:

  ‘I’m worried about Carl.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I advised him against this trip; but he insisted on making it. His blood pressure’s very high. If he has another incident, on board, it could be the end of him.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s the way he wants to go.’

  ‘Perhaps…What would happen if he died at sea?’

  ‘I’d enter it in the log, you’d sign a certificate. We’d bury him overside.’

  ‘And you’d assume command?’

  ‘Right…’

  ‘That’s comforting.’

  ‘It’s the way of the sea.’

  ‘I suppose you wonder what we mean to each other, Carl and I.’

  ‘It’s none of my business.’

  ‘He thought he was in love with me once. After his third wife divorced him he asked me to marry him.’

  ‘Obviously you didn’t.’

  ‘Not so obviously. We were lovers for a while, but he’s a very dominating man, and I’m not made for the kind of possessive relationship he wanted. We parted but remained good friends. I treated him during his illness. When this trip was mooted he offered me a year’s earnings to come and hold his hand: I was due for a long vacation. It meant I could put in a good locum. So, here I am…Problem is, Carl still thinks I can put the clock back for him. I can’t. No one can.’

  ‘What about his wife?’

  ‘His wife is a cool, intelligent lady, who does everything a good wife could be expected to do, and stands to inherit ten million dollars.’

  ‘And you never married?’

  ‘Oh yes. I married a boy who graduated with me from medical school. It turned out he had a passion for football players.’

  ‘That’s tough.’

  ‘It happens. One recovers. From what I hear you have no interest in football…’

  ‘None at all, madam.’

  ‘But you sleep alone and always take the middle watch.’

  ‘The middle watch is the mate’s job. You need a good man on the bridge if the rest of the ship is to sleep quietly.’

  ‘And you’re a good man, Gunnar Thorkild?’

  ‘I’m the son of a sea-captain, the grandson of a great navigator.’

  ‘You’re very proud of that, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I am…You’re letting her head fall off. Bring her up.’

  ‘Yes, sir. One three five.’

  ‘And steady as she goes.’

  They both laughed then and the momentary tension relaxed. Thorkild reached across and snapped out the binnacle light.

  ‘Steer by the stars for a while. That’s Procyon, the little dog, half-way up the forestay. Hold on him for a while. He’s a little east of our course, but we’ll make up some leeway while you’re on him.’

  ‘You’ve told me why you take the middle watch. You haven’t told me why you sleep alone.’

  ‘I’m a guest on another man’s ship. I’m responsible for the safety and discipline of a mixed bag of people, most of them with no sea experience at all. I can’t afford to play hole-and-corner love games.’

  ‘You’re the damnedest academic I’ve ever met!’

  ‘I stopped being an academic the day I walked on board the Frigate Bird.’

  ‘I believe you. I was just wondering how Martha Gilman feels about your sea-change.’

  ‘I’ve got no claims on Martha Gilman.’

  ‘If you have you’d better press them. Our friend Lorillard is mighty interested. And she’s not blind to his douce southern charm.’

  ‘Why don’t you stick to your physic bottl
es, Doctor?’

  ‘You’ve never had to fight for a woman in your life, have you?’

  ‘No. And I’ve never wanted to.’

  ‘Oy-oy! Aren’t you the smug one Mr Thorkild.’

  ‘You’re shivering. There’s a chill in that wind. If you want to stay topside, go and put on a wrap.’

  ‘I’m not cold, I promise.’

  ‘Do as you’re told, like a good girl. We can’t have the doctor going down with the grippe…Oh, and while you’re below, how about making more coffee for Briggs and the rest of the deck-watch!’

  ‘I thought they made their own in the forepeak galley.’

  ‘They do. But they might appreciate a thought from Lady Bountiful…If you want to join the middle watch you have to pay for the privilege. On your way woman!’

  She went, with a laugh and a toss of her ribboned hair, but her perfume lingered and he wondered what kind of wounds Sally Anderton nursed in her own night watches, and whether she was content to sit holding the hand of an old pirate with the clocks set against him.

  Two days later, as they were running down into the doldrums, he had his first real quarrel with Magnusson.

  He should have been prepared for it. He had been at sea long enough to know that doldrum weather was tetchy and unpropitious. The wind, the steady cheering wind of the north-east trades, had fallen away to light and fickle airs. The groundswell was long and greasy. The decks were like oven-plates, and had to be hosed every hour to make them tolerable to the feet. The Frigate Bird was under motor, with only steadying canvas to damp the roll; and the smell of diesel wafted across the deck from her exhausts.

  Awnings were spread across the main boom, and, as he made his afternoon round, Thorkild handed out salt-tablets and issued new warnings to the unwary about the dangers of sunburn and heat exhaustion. At four in the afternoon, when the dog-watch took over, he was summoned for a conference with Magnusson and Peter André Lorillard.