Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“Mr. Donovan,” he said to the fourth mate who was by rights second mate, “when we reach Rio de Janeiro would ye do me a good turn? I would not presume to ask, save that I trust ye and can trust no one else going ashore.”

That was true. Those hours and hours of fishing together had forged a friendship as strong, Richard felt, as any between himself and his men. Stronger, even. Stephen Donovan had both weight and lightness, sensitivity and keen humor, and an uncanny instinct for divining what was going on in Richard’s mind. More a brother than William had ever been, and somehow it had ceased to matter that Donovan did not regard Richard in the light of a brother. At first the convicts, near and far, had had a fine time of it poking fun at Richard because of this odd friendship, and his absences on deck during the night had lent an interesting nuance. To all his tormentors Richard turned a blind eye and a deaf ear, too wise to react defensively, with the result that as time went on everybody settled down to accept the relationship as a simple friendship.

They were fishing on the day that Richard put his request; one of those distracting days when nothing would bite. Donovan was wearing a straw sailor’s hat and so was Richard, who had bought his from the carpenter’s mate, more addicted to rum than the sun.

Donovan made a small sound of pleasure. “I would be delighted to do ye a good turn,” he said.

“We have a little money and there are things we need-soap, malt extract, some sort of old woman’s recipe for nips and stings, oil of tar, new rags, a couple of razors and two pairs of scissors.”

“Keep your money, Richard, to buy your passage home. I will be glad to get what ye want without payment.”

Shoulders hunched into his neck, Richard shook his head. “I cannot accept gifts,” he said emphatically. “I must pay.”

One eyebrow flew up; Donovan grinned. “D’ye think I am after your body? That is hurtful.”

“No, I do not! I cannot accept gifts because I cannot give gifts. It has nothing to do with bodies, damn ye!”

Suddenly Donovan was laughing, a clear sound the sky snatched and hurled away. “Oh, my dialogue is grand! I sound like a young maiden in a lady’s magazine! Nothing is more ridiculous than a Miss Molly in the throes of unrequited love! Take the gift, ’tis meant to ease your lot, not load ye down with obligations. Did ye never notice, Richard? We are friends.”

Richard blinked quickly, smiled. “Aye, I know it very well. Thank you, Mr. Donovan, I will accept your gift.”

“Ye could give me a greater one.”

“What?”

“Call me Stephen.”

“It is not fitting. When I am a free man I will be glad to call ye Stephen. Until then I must keep my place.”

A shark cruised by, as hungry as everyone else on this fishless day. A shovel-nose, not above twelve feet long. In this ocean, a tadpole. It turned, gave them an expressionless stare, went off.

“That thing is evil,” said Richard. “A whale has a knowing twinkle in its eye, so does a porpoise. That thing looks from out of the pits of Hell.”

“Oh, ye’re a true product of Bristol! Did ye never preach?”

“No, but there are preachers in the family. Church of England ones. My father’s cousin is rector of St. James’s, and his father preached in the open air at Crew’s Hole to the Kingswood colliers.”

“A brave man. Did he live through it?”

“Aye. Cousin James was born after it.”

“Are ye never plagued by the flesh, Richard?”

“I was once, with a woman who could open the gates of paradise to any man. That was terrible. Going without is a nothing.”

Something tugged at Donovan’s line, and he whooped. “A bite! There is a fish down there!”

There was. The shark had come back and taken the bait. Also the hook, float and sinker. Donovan plucked his hat off, stamped on it and cursed.

Perhaps itwas the weather, sultry, hot, airless; or perhaps Alexander had simply given death a short holiday before the old troubles began afresh. On the 29th of June the convicts began to die again. Surgeon Balmain, who loathed going into the prison because of the smell, was suddenly obliged to spend a great deal of time there. His physics did little, nor did his emetics, nor did his purgatives.

How easily superstitions took hold! Just as the sickness started Alexander ploughed into a solid sea of brilliant cobalt blue, and the unaffected convicts, crowding on deck to see, were immediately convinced that this was the manifestation of a curse. The sea had turned to blue pebbles and everyone was going to die.

“They are nautiluses!” cried Surgeon Balmain, exasperated. “We have encountered a great shoal of nautiluses-Portuguese men o’ war! Bright blue jellyfishy creatures! They are natural, they are not evidence of divine displeasure! Christ! ” Waving his arms about, he disappeared to despair in the privacy of his cluttered cabin on the quarterdeck.

“Why do they call them Portuguese men o’ war?” asked Joey Long, yielding his place to Richard, whose turn it was to nurse Ike.

“Because Portuguese ships of the line are painted that same shade of blue,” said Richard.

“Not black with yellow trim like ours?”

“If they were painted the same as ours, Joey, how would anybody tell friend from foe? The moment there is powder smoke all about, ’tis very hard to distinguish flags and badges. Now take a turn on deck, there’s a good fellow. Ye spend too much time below.” Richard sat beside Ike, stripped off the shirt and trowsers and began to sponge him down.

“Balmain is an idiot,” Ike croaked.

“Nay, he is simply at his wits’ end. He don’t know what to do for the best.”

“Does anybody? I mean anybody at all, anywhere at all?” Ike had leached away to skin stretched over bones, a collection of sticks wrapped in parchment; his hair had fallen out, his nails had turned white, his tongue was furred, his lips cracked and swollen. Though Richard found the most horrifying talismans of his illness in his nude, shrunken genitals; they looked as if they had been tacked on like an afterthought. Oh, Ike!

“Here, open your mouth. I have to clean your teeth and tongue.” Touch gentle, Richard used a screwed-up corner of rag moistened in filtered water to do what he could to make the highwayman’s day more bearable. Sometimes, he thought as he worked, it is worse to be a big man. If Ike were the size of Jimmy Price, it would all have been over long since. But there was a sizable mountain of flesh there once, and life is tenacious. A very few give up without a protest, but most cling to whatever is left like limpets to a rock.

The smell was worsening and its source was the bilge water. Though he had been a naval surgeon for seven years and had staffed a surveying expedition to the west African coast at the time when the Parliament had still thought of using Africa as a convict dumping ground, Balmain found Alexander a task beyond his abilities. At his insistence wind sails had been installed in the suffocating corners of the prison-useless canvas funnels supposed to deliver a good draft of air through a hole bored in the deck. Captain Sinclair had protested vigorously for such a torpid man, but the surgeon would not back down. Perturbed because Alexander was now nicknamed the Death Ship, Sinclair gave way and ordered Chips to deface his deck. But very little if any fresh air came prisonward, and men continued to come down with fever.

Thin though he was, Richard was well. So too were his cot mates and the four others in Ike’s cot. Willy Dring and Joe Robinson had abandoned below deck entirely, which left three others (they had lost a man outside Portsmouth) to spread out in a space designed for six at twenty inches apiece. The cot belonging to Tommy Crowder and Aaron Davis had such a good thing going with Sergeant Knight that they lived very comfortably. Despite these good indications, Richard’s instincts told him that the new outbreak of disease was going to be a bad one.