by John Boyne
‘Oh, I know he do, sir,’ said I, playing the braggart. ‘I know he do. Why, only the other night we were in his cabin together, the two of us, and he turned to me and “Master Turnstile,” he said, “Master Turnstile, if there’s one thing I’ve learned during my career on His Majesty’s—” ’
‘I don’t have time for your foolish narratives,’ Mr Heywood shouted – barked, more like, considering the dog he was – and I could tell that I’d got one over on him then, for he didn’t like the idea of the captain and me sharing a confidence in this way. The truth of it was that we did, though, for over the previous few weeks I had found that the captain did speak to me for minutes at a time whenever I was in his presence and talked about things that he might never have discussed with the men or the officers. I suspect it was because he didn’t consider me one of them at all, but his own man, privy to his own particular thoughts, such as a physician might be considered, and he was right, for I liked to think of myself as a loyal chap – except when I was planning my escape from King George’s clutches, that is. I did feel bad that I hadn’t been allowed to go ashore and make merry, though; I thought that a fierce cruel blow. ‘The captain desires that the ship is washed and scrubbed from clew to tack while we replenish the stores and make some repairs,’ continued Mr Heywood, giving his nethers a healthy scratch for good measure while he addressed me, the filthy pig. ‘So attend to your work immediately.’
I nodded and walked as ordered towards the two men, who in turn looked up from their work and gave each other a quick glance and a smile as I approached them. I hadn’t spent much time on deck since leaving Spithead in December and, truth to tell, some of the sailors on board gave me the trepidations. I’d known many rough types in my time – Mr Lewis’s friends were as unsavoury a group of ruffians as anyone might hope to meet in a month of Tuesdays – but the men on board looked as if they might kill you as soon as offer you the time of day. Grizzly, they were. And stinky. And always chewing their gums or pulling who-knew-what out of their wiry hair. The first of the two men who awaited me now was Matthew Quintal, a broad chap in his twenty-fifth year or thereabouts, and with muscles on him like a labouring ox, while the second, John Sumner, was a little older perhaps and not as strongly built, but clearly in his master’s shadow.
‘Good morning,’ said I, and the words were barely out of my mouth when I regretted them, for didn’t they make me sound like the nance of all time. I should have said naught and just got on with my work.
‘Why, good morning to you too,’ said Quintal, and the big broad smile on him made me feel immediately nervous. ‘Don’t tell me that our little lord of the under-decks is condescending to climb the stairs and join the working men?’
I shrugged and took a scrubbing brush from their pail and knelt down on the deck to begin the infernal scraping. ‘Don’t think I want to do it,’ said I, looking him full square in the eye then. ‘I’d much rather be lying in my bunk, counting my fingers and scratching my bollix, than up here on my hands and knees with you. But that filthy swine Mr Heywood, he insisted. So here I am.’
Quintal narrowed his eyes for a moment, surprised by my reply perhaps, but then gave a laugh and shook his head. ‘Well, it’s an honest answer,’ said he, returning to his scrubbing, which gave Sumner the nod that he might return to it too. ‘There’s not many of us wouldn’t prefer to have a little time to ourselves right now, is there?’ he added, glancing towards the shore, and I followed the direction of his eyes to discover three young mollies who were standing on the cold stone beyond, looking in the direction of the Bounty and giggling and pointing at the men who were working in the rigging. ‘My, oh my,’ said Quintal, whistling through his dentals. ‘What I wouldn’t give for ten minutes alone with one or two or three of them.’
‘You’d show them what’s what, I dare say, Matthew,’ said Sumner, and I could tell immediately who was the slave in that relationship. ‘You’d teach them a thing or two about a thing or two, what?’
‘I would that,’ said Quintal, reaching between his legs then and giving himself a squeeze about the unmentionable. ‘A month is too long for any man to be without a woman. What say you, lad?’ he asked me with a nasty smile. ‘Here,’ he cried then, ‘I don’t even know your name, do I?’
‘It’s Turnstile,’ said I. ‘John Jacob Turnstile. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.’
‘They call him Turnip,’ said the donkey Sumner with a laugh, opening his mouth and revealing a mouth containing an incomplete set of brown gnashers that I would have had no difficulty in dismantling, had I a mind to do so.
‘Who do?’ asked Quintal.
‘The officers,’ said he, trying to make a laugh of me. ‘Mr Heywood, for one.’
Quintal frowned. ‘The lad says his name’s Turnstile,’ he replied. ‘So that’s what we’ll call him,’ and I couldn’t help but smile at Sumner.
‘What goes on here?’ came a voice from above us then, and who was it only Mr Heywood, back to haunt us. ‘There’s too much chatter going on here, you men. Get back to your work or I’ll know the reason why.’
The three of us got back down to it then and said nothing for a few minutes, until the filthy scut had wandered off to play with himself, no doubt, and then Quintal – who, despite defending me against Sumner, still gave me the trepidations – shook his head and threw his brush down in the bucket, splashing me in the face with the force of it and causing me to wipe the suds from my eyes. ‘Look over there,’ said he, and I turned to see four other men – I know their names now as Skinner, Valentine, McCoy and Burkett – stepping back on to the deck of the Bounty laden with baskets of fruit, their mouths stained red from eating strawberries on the way, and one of them, Burkett, walking a little lively on account of the drink he must have taken. ‘I could have been with them, only for the captain giving me the manual work. Lucky lads!’ he added, shaking his head. ‘And that Heywood, the bollix, he’s mad on account of staying on board too. Wanted to be with his friend, didn’t he? Wanted to play with Mr Christian?’
‘Mr Christian’s on shore?’ I asked, doing my best to clear a stain of blood from the decking that showed no sign of wanting to be dislodged.
‘It was to be Mr Fryer,’ said Sumner. ‘By rights, it should have been him gone to pay his respects to the governor with the captain.’
‘Mr Fryer is below decks,’ I mentioned, for I had seen him in his cabin when Mr Heywood was escorting me from the ease of below-decks to the labours of above.
‘Aye, and not happy about it,’ said Quintal. ‘The captain announced that he was to go ashore for a few hours and invited Mr Christian to join him. “Captain,” says Mr Fryer – I was no more than six steps away from him at the time – “Captain, shouldn’t I accompany you, as ship’s master?” Well, the captain looked at him and seemed about to change his mind, but then didn’t he notice me watching – and he didn’t want to be seen to make an alteration, I imagine, so he tells Mr Fryer that he’s leaving him in charge of the ship and that Mr Christian will join him instead. Well, as you can imagine, Mr Christian was away in a hop, skip and a jump, and as he went young Mr Heywood, who’s as much in love with Mr Christian as it’s possible for a man to be with another, he saw his chance to go too but he was quickly slapped down and shown his place. That’s what’s got him so angry this morning, I warrant.’
I nodded. I couldn’t help but wonder why the captain showed so much favour towards Mr Christian; I’d observed more than one instance of such partiality below decks since our voyage had begun and it seemed to me that the master’s mate encouraged Mr Bligh in his dislike of Mr Fryer, which, to my eyes, stemmed from nothing more than a personal animosity between the two men. For my part, I had formed no great opinion of either officer, other than to notice that the latter worked hard and knew his craft and the former was the dandy of the ship and wore more pomade in his hair than I considered healthy. But Mr Christian had one other quality that confused me: he was the only man on board who never stank. Whether that
was through a surfeit of washing or a dearth of labour, I knew not.
‘Bom dia, lads!’ came a shout from the shore then and we three looked across to see the mollies waving in our direction and blowing kisses. ‘Catch these, will you?’ they called. ‘Store them somewhere warm.’
‘I’ll store them somewhere you can find them if you’ve a mind to,’ shouted Quintal, and the three of them dissolved into laughter as if this was a fine joke, which it wasn’t to my mind. ‘Oh, they make me ache in the trousers, they fair do,’ said he then in a quieter voice and Sumner laughed and I found myself growing red in the face as matters like this have never sat well with me.
‘What’s the matter with you, Turnstile?’ he asked me then, catching sight of my reddening phizzy. ‘Not afraid of the ladies, are you?’
‘Not I,’ said I, quick as you like, for reputations are everything on board a ship and I knew enough to defend mine.
‘Known a few, then, have you?’ he asked, leaning forward and sticking his tongue out at me before shaking it up and down in such a vile manner that I took a fit of the revulsions. ‘Had your way with a few of the Portsmouth whores, have you? Licked ’em up and down and in and out?’
‘I’ve known my share,’ I replied, getting on with my scrubbing and not looking him in the face lest he saw the truth of it. ‘And his share too,’ I added, nodding in Sumner’s direction, and I could see he wanted to hit me a slap when I said it but he couldn’t, on account of Quintal warming to me.
‘Have you indeed?’ said he, real quiet then, before repeating the words more quietly, and I could feel his eyes boring into me then, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of looking up, for I knew that if I did he’d see the answers written clear on my face and know full well that I had known no ladies at that time and that the business I had experienced in that department had been of no pleasure to me, no pleasure at all.
And then before any more could be said on that subject, a tidal wave came and hit us without warning out of what had appeared to be a calm sea and I blinked and gasped in surprise, spitting water through my lips, certain that I was about to be drowned, and when I reopened my eyes and looked to my left, who did I see standing there but the scut himself Mr Heywood, holding a large pail of water in his clammy hands, the contents of which he had just thrown in our direction, half drenching the three of us.
‘That’ll wash the decks down and quieten your tongues,’ said he, walking away then, and what I wouldn’t have given for the chance to chase him down and box his ears, but perhaps naval life was starting to have an effect on me, for I did nothing, just returned to my work with a sting in my temper, and felt satisfied that at least the conversation I had been having with Quintal and Sumner appeared to be forgotten then and I could keep my ignorance of the ladies and the truth of my past to myself for the time being.
13
THE STORES WERE REPLENISHED, THE ship was repaired and we were back at sea before I even knew it, but there was a right to-do just as we were about to set sail that left the captain in a dark mood for days afterwards. I was clearing away the plate and cup he’d used for his lunch – which usually consisted of only a piece of fish and a potato, as he never ate much in the middle of the day – when he looked up from writing in his log, and at first he was full of life and cheer, so pleased was he that we were setting sail again.
‘Well, Master Turnstile,’ said he to me, ‘what did you make of Santa Cruz, then?’
‘I can’t rightly say, sir,’ I replied, quick as you like. ‘On account of only seeing it from a distance and never having set foot on dry land throughout our stay. However, I must admit that it looked pretty as a picture from the deck of the Bounty.’
The captain placed his quill down on the desk for a moment and looked across at me with the hint of a smile across his lips, and he narrowed his eyes as he stared, which caused my face to take on the reddenings so bad that I looked away and started to tidy things close to hand so that he wouldn’t notice.
‘Was that sauce?’ he asked me after a moment. ‘Were you saucing me, Master Turnstile?’
‘Not I, sir,’ said I, shaking my head. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, if my words escaped me with a little more harshness than I had intended. I only meant that I find myself in the position of being unable to answer your original query on account of my having no first-hand experience of the place itself. Mr Fryer and Mr Christian and Mr Heywood, on the other hand—’
‘Are all officers in His Majesty’s navy,’ he interrupted me, a cooler tone creeping into his voice now. ‘And as such have certain rights and duties to perform during a stay in port. You’d do well to remember that if you aspire to higher office yourself. It’s what you might call the benefit of hard work and promotion.’
His words took me aback a little, for I confess that I had never considered such a notion. If I was honest with myself, which was something I always tried to be, I was rather enjoying my time as the captain’s servant – there were many and varied responsibilities associated with the position and, in truth, none were too onerous in comparison with the tasks of the ABs – and it gave me a certain standing among the crew, with whom I was beginning to mix with greater confidence and success. But aspirations towards a life as an officer? I wasn’t sure if that was something that was in the destiny of John Jacob Turnstile. After all, it had only been a couple of days since I had been considering making my escape from the ship entirely and setting off for the life of a deserter in Spain – a fine existence, I felt. Filled with adventure and romance. The truth was that when it came to a face-off of loyalty between the king’s expectations and my own selfish desires, I rather thought that old George didn’t stand a virgin’s chance in a whorehouse.
‘Yes, sir,’ said I, collecting some of his uniforms from where he had cast them aside and separating them into two piles: those I would need to launder, a thankless job, and those that could manage another tour of duty.
‘It really was a very fine place,’ he continued, returning to his log. ‘Unspoiled is how I am describing it here. I rather think that Mrs Bligh would enjoy a sojourn there; perhaps I might return with her as a private man in later life.’
I nodded. The captain spoke of his wife from time to time and wrote to her frequently in the hope that we might pass a frigate returning to England who could take our messages with her. The small pile of letters that had sat in the drawer of his desk for weeks had vanished now, left in the safe hands of the Santa Cruz authorities, no doubt, and it looked to me as if he was about to begin a new collection immediately.
‘Mrs Bligh is in London, sir?’ I asked in a respectful tone, taking care not to step over the invisible line that existed between the two of us, but he nodded his head quickly and seemed pleased to talk of her.
‘Aye, that she is,’ he said. ‘My own Betsey. A fine woman, Turnstile. It was a fortunate day in my life when she agreed to plight her troth to mine. She awaits my return along with our boy, William, and our daughters. A fine fellow, is he not?’ He turned the portrait of the boy in my direction and it was true, he seemed a likely chap, and I told him so. ‘A few years younger than you, of course,’ he added, ‘but I suspect you would make good friends if you were in his acquaintance.’
I said nothing to that on account of it being unlikely that a fellow from my society could ever be friends with a fellow from his, but the captain was behaving in such a pleasant fashion towards me that I thought it would be churlish of me to say as much. Instead I turned for one final look around the cabin to make sure that everything was in order, at which time I was surprised to notice by the small window a number of pots, which had been taken from the great cabin next door and were sitting there now on full view, filled to the brim with earth and with small seedlings starting to peep through the soil.
‘I see you are observing my garden,’ said the captain cheerfully, standing up from behind his desk and stepping across the cabin to look down at them. ‘Quite a sight they make, do they not?’
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br /> ‘Are these plants the focus of our mission, sir?’ asked I in my ignorance, and the words were barely out of my mouth when I realized how stupid they sounded, for there were many hundreds of pots empty next door still, and if this was all that was needed what a waste of time and energy the whole voyage would have been.
‘No, no,’ said he. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Turnstile. These are a few mere trifles I discovered in the hills yesterday when Mr Nelson and I went a-botanizing.’
Mr Nelson was a figure who came and went from the captain’s cabin with regularity but who, at first, had appeared to me to have no official responsibilities. I had recently learned from Mr Fryer, however, that he was the ship’s gardener and that his duties would commence properly when we had achieved the first part of our mission, of which I was still in virtual ignorance.
‘I thought to plant a few seeds,’ said the captain, fingering the damp soil in the pots carefully, ‘just to see whether they might flourish on board. In this first pot I’ve placed a bellflower, an exotic creature which produces edible berries when ripe. Are you familiar with it?’
‘No, sir,’ said I, for I knew as much about plant life as I did about the mating habits of dormice.
‘It has a beautiful flower,’ said he then, turning it ever so slightly towards the porthole. ‘Yellow as the sun. You never saw such luminescence. In this second is an orobal. Have you made any study of exotic flora at all, Turnstile?’
‘No, sir,’ said I again, looking at the tiny seedling planted there and wondering what might shoot from it.
‘You might know the orobal as ginseng,’ he replied, and I shook my head again and he looked puzzled. ‘Honestly,’ he said then with a shake of his head, sounding for all the world as if this was a matter of enormous surprise to him. ‘What do they teach you in the schools these days? The education system is in the doldrums, sir. I tell you, the very doldrums!’
