Ian McGuire - The North Water

Brownlee and Sumner are seated next to each other; Joseph Hannah is standing nervously on the other side of the round center table, and Cavendish is standing behind him.

“Should I stay or leave, Captain?” Cavendish asks.

Brownlee thinks for a moment, then gestures for him to sit.

“You know the habits and personalities of the crewmen better than I do,” he says. “Your presence may be useful.”

“I certainly know the personality of this little savage,” Cavendish says, cheerfully lowering himself onto the upholstered bench.

“Joseph,” Brownlee says, leaning forwards and attempting so far as possible to soften his habitually vigorous tone, “Mr. Sumner, the surgeon, tells me you have sustained an injury. Is that true?”

For a long moment, it seems as if Joseph has either not heard or not understood the question, but then, just as Brownlee is about to repeat it, he nods.

“What injury is this?” Cavendish asks skeptically. “I’ve not heard of any injury.”

“Mr. Sumner examined Joseph earlier this evening,” Brownlee explains, “and found evidence, clear evidence, that he has been ill-used by another member of the crew.”

“Ill-used?” Cavendish asks.

“Sodomized,” Brownlee says.

Cavendish raises his eyebrows but seems otherwise unalarmed. Joseph Hannah’s expression does not change at all. His already sunken eyes seem to be receding into his skull, and his breath is coming out in brief but audible pants.

“How did this occur, Joseph?” Brownlee asks him. “Who is responsible?”

Joseph’s bottom lip lolls slick and rubicund. Its sensual obviousness contrasts disconcertingly with the funereal gray of his cheeks and jaw and the dark, helpless recession of his eyes. He does not reply.

“Who is responsible?” Brownlee asks him again.

“It was an accident,” Joseph whispers in response.

Cavendish smiles at this.

“It is awful dark in that forecastle, Mr. Brownlee,” he says. “Is it not possible the boy merely slipped one night and landed on his arse in an unfortunate fashion?”

Brownlee looks across at Sumner.

“That is meant as a kind of joke, I assume,” the surgeon says.

Cavendish shrugs.

“The place is cramped and cluttered. There is barely an inch of space to move around in. It would be easy enough to trip.”

“It was not an accident,” Sumner insists. “The idea is ridiculous. Such injuries as I saw could occur in one way only.”

“Did you fall, Joseph,” Brownlee asks, “or did someone deliberately injure you?”

“I fell,” Joseph says.

“It was not an accident,” Sumner says again. “That is entirely impossible.”

“Strange, then, that the boy thinks it was,” Cavendish points out.

“Because he’s scared.”

Brownlee pushes himself back from the table, gazes at the other two men for a moment and then at the boy.

“Who are you scared of, Joseph?” he asks.

Sumner is surprised by the stupidity of the question.

“The boy is scared of everyone,” he says. “How would he not be?”

Brownlee sighs at this, shakes his head, and looks down at the rectangle of polished walnut framed by his outstretched hands.

“I am a patient sort of fellow,” he says. “But my patience surely has its limits. If you have been mistreated, Joseph, then the man who has mistreated you will be punished for it. But you must tell me the whole truth now. Do you understand?”

Joseph nods.

“Who did this to you?”

“No one.”

“We can protect you,” Sumner says quickly. “If you do not tell us who is responsible, it may happen again.”

Joseph’s chin is touching his breast, and he is staring fervently down at the floor.

“Do you have anything to say to me, Joseph?” Brownlee asks. “I will not ask you again.”

Joseph shakes his head.

“It is being in the captain’s cabin which has made him lose his tongue,” Cavendish says. “That’s all. When I found him in the forecastle, he was laughing and making merry with his friends. Any injury he may have suffered, if he has suffered any injury at all, has had no great effect on his character, I can tell you that.”

“This boy has been grievously assaulted,” Sumner says, “and the man responsible is aboard this ship.”

“If the boy will not identify his attacker, and if he insists, indeed, that he has not been attacked at all, but only suffered some kind of accident, then nothing further can be done,” Brownlee says.

“We can seek witnesses.”

Cavendish snorts at this.

“We are on a whaling ship,” he says.

“You may go now, Joseph,” Brownlee tells him. “If I wish to speak to you again I will send for you.”

The boy leaves the cabin. Cavendish yawns, stretches, and then gets to his feet and follows after.

“I will instruct the men to keep their quarters tidier in future,” he says, looking back facetiously at Sumner, “to avoid any more such accidents.”

“We will move the lad out of the forecastle,” Brownlee assures Sumner when Cavendish is gone. “He can bed down in steerage for a while. It’s a displeasing business, but if he refuses to point the finger, then the matter must be dropped now.”

“What if Cavendish himself is the culprit?” Sumner says. “That would explain the boy’s silence.”

“Cavendish has a good many faults,” Brownlee says, “but he is certainly not a sodomite.”

“He seemed amused by the situation.”

“He is a prick and a brute, but so are half the men on this bark. If you are seeking persons of gentleness and refinement, Sumner, the Greenland whaling trade is not the place to look for them.”

“I will speak to the other cabin boys,” Sumner suggests. “I will find out what they know about Cavendish and Joseph Hannah and then I will come back to you with my findings.”

“No you will not,” Brownlee answers firmly. “Unless the boy changes his tune the matter will be dropped now. We are here to kill whales, not root out sin.”

“A crime has been committed.”

Brownlee shakes his head. He is becoming irritated by the surgeon’s unwarranted persistence.

“One boy has a sore arse. That is all. It is unfortunate, I agree, but he will recover soon enough.”

“His injuries were more severe than that. The rectum was distended, there were signs…”

Brownlee stands up, making no effort now to hide his impatience.

“Whatever particular injuries he may have, it is your job, as surgeon, to treat them, Mr. Sumner,” he says. “And I trust you have the skills and necessaries to do so successfully.”

Sumner looks back at the captain — his heavy brow and fierce gray eyes, his crumpled nose and stubbled, leaden jowls — and decides, after no more than a moment’s hesitation, to accede. The boy will live after all. He is right about that.

“If I lack for anything, I will let you know,” he says.

Back in the cabin, he swallows the laudanum and lies back down on his bunk. He is weary from the effort of arguing and soured by his sense of failure. Why would the boy not help himself? What power could the culprit have over him? The questions grab and trouble Sumner, but then, after a minute or two, the opium begins to take effect, and he feels himself sliding back into a soft, warm, familiar state of carelessness. What does it matter, he thinks, if he is surrounded by savages, by moral baboons? The world will continue on as it wants to anyway, as it always has, with or without his approval. The anger and disgust he felt for Cavendish minutes before are like smudges on the far horizon now — ideas, suggestions only, nothing more important or noticeable than that. I will get to everything in its own good time, he thinks vaguely, there’s no need to rush or hurry.