John Betancourt - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2006

As it happened, Wiki had originally learned to enjoy books because a drunken Yankee beachcomber — a man who, once upon a time, had been a respectable Edgartown captain — had taught him how to read. However, he kept a diplomatic silence, and at long last Isaac came out with what was on his mind.

“I want you to write my will,” he said.

“Your what?”

“My Last Will and Testament. I’m not going to have my effects auctioned off at the foremast like that,” Isaac said grimly. “And who knows what accidents might happen before we get back to the Azores?”

“We’re going back to Fayal?” exclaimed Wiki, very startled.

When they had been there three weeks previously, he had gone ashore at Fayal with the captain, to act as a witness. Hiring a new second mate and a new harpooner had been a long, drawn-out, difficult affair, because the United States consul had been so distracted. Not only were there locals in and out all the time trying to sell great baskets of onions and oranges to Captain Smith, but a visiting American merchant had stormed in to report the theft of a wallet of gold. What with all the commotion and bad temper, it had been many hours before they had been able to return to the ship. Having heard the skipper cursing Fayal so fluently, it now surprised Wiki greatly that he was entertaining the notion of revisiting the place. It was also highly unusual for anyone in the crew to know the ship’s next destination, as all captains were convinced that their crews would start plotting desertion if they knew where they were headed, and so kept it a deadly secret.

“Fayal,” confirmed Isaac Norton. “The cap’n reckons he’s had enough of cruising around here, what with all the foul luck we’ve had, and so he wants to provision for the passage around Cape Horn. But he daren’t continue the voyage without yet another replacement second mate, and another harpooner as well. We’ve lost too many of the after gang already, and he wants a harpooner in reserve.”

Wiki nodded, understanding. There had been a lot of changes in the after cabin of the Paths of Duty in the three preceding months of voyage, what with the constant attrition of captains and officers. There had most surely been a lot of death on the old Nantucket whaleship — which brought them back to the matter of the will.

This turned out to be quite a simple affair, as Isaac Norton was leaving everything he owned to Miguel Dalgardo. Wiki felt puzzled, as Dalgardo had been on board such a very short time. However, it seemed that Miguel and Isaac had been shipmates on a previous voyage. The form of the document was more taxing than the contents, as Isaac insisted that it should look too official to ever be questioned. Wiki cut a blank page from the back of his journal, and headed it up in the beautiful copperplate script that the Edgartown beachcomber had taught him, but after he had written down the name of the single beneficiary, there was still a lot of empty space, which Isaac didn’t like, perhaps because he thought someone might sneak in a few extra items after he was dead. In order to fill it up, Wiki asked him to list the items in his chest, which turned out to be just a few assorted shabby garments, a bar of soap, a spare pair of shoes, a couple of double-eagle dollars, and some tobacco. However, putting them down filled up the page the way Norton wanted.

“And of course,” the harpooner pointed out, breathing heavily as he watched from behind Wiki’s shoulder, “there’s my lay.”

“Of course,” Wiki agreed. The lay was the share of the profits of the whaling voyage that was set out according to each man’s position on board, the captain getting the biggest share, and a greenhorn like Wiki Coffin being allotted the smallest. It was impossible to tell what Isaac Norton’s share would be, the voyage being a long way from over yet but as he was a harpooner, it would be respectable, maybe even as much as four hundred dollars at the end of four years.

With the setting down of that last important item, the will was complete. Wiki made a copy in a little notebook, just to keep the record straight, then he and Isaac signed the actual will, Isaac with a cross, and Wiki with a flourish. Wiki handed it over, Isaac went off a satisfied man, and Wiki thought that was the end of it.

However, it seemed that it was impossible to keep a secret on the old Paths of Duty . Isaac Norton proudly informed Miguel that he was his sole beneficiary, and so the story got to the other harpooners, and the harpooners told their boats’ crews, and the ultimate result was that Last Wills and Testaments became all the rage on board the whaleship Paths of Duty . In view of the public demise of the second mate, Wiki supposed that it was reasonable that everyone should be feeling more mortal than usual, but as men kept on accosting him with a request to draw up their final documents, he thought it was very strange that he seemed to be the only man on board, apart from the officers, who knew how to read and write.

Then he found that he was the choice of notary public because he was the most junior member of the crew, and all his clients felt safe in the knowledge that they could gang up on him if he blabbed. If he had felt like talking there would have been some strange stories to tell, because some of the legacies were quite bizarre, with shirts being endowed to men who didn’t fit them, tobacco going to those who did not smoke or chew, and an amazing number of bequests going to the captain, who was universally disliked.

It was almost a relief when Miguel Dalgardo came along, because his choice of inheritor was the first one that was logical. Predictably, Miguel responded to the compliment paid to him by Isaac Norton by leaving him the entire contents of his sea chest. He didn’t even want to list them, even though, as he informed Wiki, those contents included his beautiful shore-going shirt, which had flowers lavishly embroidered on the collar and front. Altogether, Wiki enjoyed the job, as it gave him a chance to practice his Portuguese. He had found that he had a natural aptitude for foreign languages, and was fluent in Spanish already. Now, he was keen to get his Portuguese up to the same level, and so he and Miguel chattered together a good deal while the ship slowly forged her way to the islands, and by the time the ship got to the Azores they were conversing like brothers.

Isaac Norton’s prediction had been wrong, however — the island where they made a landfall was not Fayal, but one of the other little islands of the group, Pico. Wiki, at the lookout post in the mainmast, watched as the mountain that formed the heart of Pico rose out of the horizon and gradually filled the sky. Narrow terraced fields ruled off the sides of the steep hills all the way up to the tiny meadows, maize gardens, and groves of orange trees that were dotted about the lofty heights, where little lacy waterfalls tumbled down to the sea. It was a very pretty scene, but Wiki meditated that it looked a hard place to make a living, and that it was not surprising that so many of the sons of the Azores could be found on the decks of American whalers.

It was a perfect day with a topgallant breeze, but instead of going in, Captain Smith gave orders to haul aback, lower a boat, and then lay off and on, which meant that the crew would keep the old ship tacking back and forth to keep her more or less in the same place in the water, about the most tedious job possible at sea. However, even if Pico had boasted any kind of anchorage, which was doubtful, the captain would have been too strapped for funds to pay for one, Nantucket shipowners being notoriously stingy.

Wiki was still aloft when Captain Smith called out to him, ordering him to go with the first boat. He wondered why, but then found out that the skipper wanted him to translate. Miguel was going too, but as he was one of the locals, the captain undoubtedly reckoned he could not be trusted an inch.