David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Van Cleef cups his hands to his mouth and hails Hovell, a hundred yards off.

Snitker keeps talking. Smeyers says, ‘Van Cleef is human rat, he says, sir, a true… a damned coat-turn? And Fischer is a sneak, a liar, a cheat whoreson, he says, sir, with big ambition. I don’t think Mr Snitker like them, sir.’

‘But both men,’ opines Wren, ‘sound amenable to our proposal. The last thing we need are incorruptible men-of-principle types.’

Penhaligon takes his telescope from Snitker. ‘Not many of them hereabouts.’

Cutlip’s marines stop rowing. The longboat glides to a dead stop.

The boat of the three Japanese officials touches the longboat’s prow.

‘Don’t let any of them board,’ murmurs Penhaligon, to his first lieutenant.

The prows of the two boats nudge one another. Hovell salutes and bows.

The inspectors bow and salute. Via the interpreter, introductions are made.

One inspector and the interpreter now half stand, as if preparing to transfer.

Delay them, Penhaligon urges Hovell, silently, delay them…

Hovell is bent over with a coughing fit; he presents one hand in apology.

The second sampan arrives, pulling up to the longboat’s port-side.

‘A disadvantageous position,’ mutters Wren, ‘wedged in from both sides.’

Hovell recovers from his cough; he doffs his hat at van Cleef.

Van Cleef stands, and leans over the prow to take Hovell’s hand.

The spurned inspector and interpreter, meanwhile, half sit back down.

Deputy Fischer now stands, clumsily, and the boat rocks.

Hovell swings the large van Cleef over on to the longboat.

‘One in the bag, Mr Hovell,’ mutters the Captain. ‘Deftly done.’

Faintly comes the rumble of Chief van Cleef’s thunderous laughter.

Deputy Fischer takes a step towards the longboat, wobbly as a foal…

… but to Penhaligon’s dismay, the interpreter now grips the longboat’s lip.

The nearest marine calls to Major Cutlip. Cutlip grapples his way over…

‘Not yet,’ mumbles the Captain, impotently, ‘don’t let him aboard.’

Lieutenant Hovell, meanwhile, is beckoning the Deputy over.

Cutlip grips the hand of the unwanted interpreter…

Wait wait wait, the Captain wants to yell, wait for our second Dutchman!

… and Cutlip lets the interpreter go, waving his hand as if it is brutally mangled.

Now, at long last, Hovell has hold of the unsteady Deputy’s hand.

Penhaligon mumbles, ‘Land the man, Hovell, for Christ’s sake!’

The interpreter decides not to wait for further assistance, and plants one foot on the longboat’s port bulwark just as Hovell swings the Prussian Deputy over the starboard…

… and half of the marines take up their cutlasses, some flashing in sunlight.

The other marines take up their oars and push the sampans away.

The black-coated interpreter flops, like a Pierrot, into the water.

The Phoebus’s longboat lunges back towards the ship.

Chief van Cleef, realising that he is being abducted, attacks Lieutenant Hovell.

Major Cutlip intercepts and falls on top of him. The boat rocks dangerously.

Let it not capsize, dear God, prays Penhaligon, let it not capsize now…

Van Cleef is subdued and the longboat settles. The Prussian is sitting meekly.

Back at the sampans, already three lengths away, the first Japanese to act is an oarsman, who leaps into the water to save the interpreter. The grey-coated inspectors sit and stare in shock at the foreigners’ longboat, as it retreats to the Phoebus.

Penhaligon lowers his telescope. ‘The first engagement is won. Strike that Dutch rag, Mr Wren, and fly the Union Jack, topmast and prow.’

‘Yes, sir, with the greatest of pleasure.’

‘Mr Talbot, have your landsmen rinse the filth from my decks.’

The Dutchman van Cleef seizes the rope-ladder and clambers up it with an agility belying his bulk. Penhaligon glances up at the quarterdeck, where Snitker remains out of sight, for now, under his floppy-brimmed hat. Batting away proffered hands, van Cleef leaps on to the Phoebus like a Moorish boarder, glares along the line of officers, singles out Penhaligon, points a finger so wrathfully that a pair of marines take a step closer in case of attack, and declares, through his curly, close-cropped beard and tea-brown teeth, ‘Kapitein!’

‘Welcome aboard His Majesty’s Frigate Phoebus, Mr van Cleef. I am-’

The irate Chief’s molten invective needs no translation.

‘I am Captain John Penhaligon,’ he says, when van Cleef next draws breath, ‘and this is my second officer, Lieutenant Wren. First Lieutenant Hovell and Major Cutlip’ – they arrive on deck now – ‘you have already met.’

Chief van Cleef takes a step towards the Captain and spits at his feet.

An oyster of phlegm shines on his second-best Jermyn Street shoe.

‘That’s Dutch officers for you,’ declares Wren. ‘Bereft of breeding.’

Penhaligon hands his handkerchief to Malouf. ‘For the ship’s honour…’

‘Aye, sir.’ The Midshipman kneels by the Captain and wipes the shoe.

The firm pressure makes his gouty foot glow with pain. ‘Lieutenant Hovell. Inform Chief van Cleef that whilst he behaves like a gentleman, our hospitality shall be accordingly civil, but should he comport himself like an Irish navvy, then that is how he shall be treated.’

‘Taming Irish navvies,’ boasts Cutlip, as Hovell translates the warning, ‘is a labour I am fond of, sir.’

‘Let us appeal to reason in the first instance, Major.’

A high bell is being rung: Penhaligon assumes it is an alarm.

Without looking at van Cleef, he now extends his greeting to the lesser second hostage. ‘Welcome aboard His Majesty’s Frigate Phoebus, Deputy Fischer.’

Chief van Cleef forbids his deputy to speak.

Penhaligon orders Hovell to ask Fischer about this season’s Indiaman.

Chief van Cleef claps twice to earn the Captain’s attention, and issues a statement that Hovell translates as, ‘I’m afraid he said, “I hid it up my arse, you English Nancy”, sir.’

‘A man once spoke to me so in Sydney Cove,’ recalls Cutlip, ‘so I searched said hidey-hole with a bayonet and he never came cocky with an officer again.’

‘Tell our guests this, Mr Hovell,’ Penhaligon says. ‘Tell them we know a vessel sailed from Batavia, because I heard from the harbourmaster of Macao that she weighed anchor in that port on the twenty-eighth of May.’

Hearing this, van Cleef’s anger cools and Fischer looks grave. They consult with one another, and Hovell eavesdrops. ‘The Chief is saying, “Unless this is English sneakery, another ship is lost…” ’

A bird in the woods along the shore sounds very like a cuckoo.

‘Warn them, Lieutenant, that we shall be searching the bay, and that if we discover their Indiaman in any of the coves they shall both be hanged.’

Hovell translates the threat. Fischer rubs his head. Van Cleef spits. The saliva misses the Captain’s foot, but Penhaligon cannot have his authority eroded in front of the onlooking crew. ‘Major Cutlip, accommodate Chief van Cleef in the aft rope store: no lamp, no refreshments. Deputy Fischer meanwhile’ – the Prussian blinks like a frightened hen – ‘may rest awhile in my cabin. Have two of my best men watch him, and tell Chigwin to bring him a half-bottle of claret.’

Before Cutlip can carry out the order, van Cleef asks Hovell a question.

Penhaligon is curious about the Dutchman’s altered tone. ‘What was that?’

‘He wanted to know how we know his and his deputy’s names, sir.’

It shall profit us, thinks Penhaligon, to establish that they cannot bluff us.

‘Mr Talbot, pray ask our informant to come and greet his old friends.’