Ian McGuire: The North Water

“The petroleum won’t last,” Brownlee says. “That’s just a fad. And the whales are still out there — you just need a captain with a nose for it, and a crew who can do what’s asked.”

Baxter shakes his head and leans in conspiratorially. Brownlee smells pomade, mustard, sealing wax, and cloves.

“Don’t fuck this up, Arthur,” he says. “Don’t misremember what we’re up to here. This is not a question of pride — not your pride, and not mine. And this is definitely not about the fucking fish.”

Brownlee turns away without answering. He stares across at the dreary flatness of the Lincolnshire shore. He has never liked the land, he thinks. It is too certain, too solid, too sure of itself.

“Did you get anyone to check the pumps?” Baxter asks him.

“Drax,” he answers.

“Drax is a good fellow. I didn’t cut any corners with the harpooners, did I? I trust you noticed that. I got you three of the best. Drax, Jones-the-whale, and, whatshisname, Otto. Any captain would be happy with those three.”

“They’ll do,” he admits, “they’ll all three do, but it don’t make up for Cavendish.”

“Cavendish is necessary, Arthur. Cavendish makes sense. We’ve talked about Cavendish many times already.”

“I heard muttering from the crew.”

“About Cavendish?”

Brownlee nods.

“It’s a poor move to make him first mate. They all know him as a worthless cunt.”

“Cavendish is a great turd and a whoremonger, it’s true, but he will do whatever he’s told to. And when you get to the North Water the very last thing you want is some bastard showing initiative. Anyway, you have your second mate, young Master Black, to help if you get into any difficulties on the way. He has a decent head on him.”

“What do you make of our Paddy surgeon?”

“Sumner?” Baxter shrugs, then chuckles. “Did you see what I got him for? Two pounds a month, and a shilling a ton. That’s a record, near enough. There’s something fishy there, of course there is, but I don’t believe we need concern ourselves about it. He doesn’t want any trouble from us, I’m sure of that.”

“Do you believe the dead uncle?”

“Christ, no. Do you?”

“You think he’s been cashiered then?”

“Most probably, but even if he has been, so what? What do they cashier you for over there now? Cheating at bridge? Buggering the bugle boy? I’d say he’ll do for us.”

“You know he was at Delhi on the ridge. He saw Nicholson afore he died.”

Baxter raises his eyebrows, nods, and looks impressed.

“That Nicholson was a bloody hero,” he says. “If we had a few more like Nicholson hanging the bastards, and less like that pusillanimous shit Canning giving out pardons left and right, the empire would be in safer hands.”

Brownlee nods in agreement.

“I heard he could slice a Pandy clean in two with one blow of his saber,” he says. “Nicholson, I mean. Like a cucumber.”

“Like a cucumber,” Baxter laughs. “That would be a sight to see, would it not?”

They are passing Grimsby to starboard and in front of them the fine yellow line of Spurn Point is hoving into view. Baxter checks his pocket watch.

“We’ve made quick time,” he says. “All the omens are good.”

Brownlee calls to Cavendish to signal to the steam tug. After a minute or so the tug slows and the line between the vessels slackens. They cast off the line, and Brownlee calls for the mainsails to be unfurled. The wind is fresh from the southwest and the glass is steady. Gray clouds clog the eastern horizon. Brownlee glances at Baxter, who is smiling at him.

“A final word before I leave you, Arthur,” he says, nodding downwards.

“Get that fucking rope coiled,” Brownlee calls out to Cavendish, “and hold her steady, no more sail.”

The two men go down the companionway together and enter the captain’s cabin.

“Brandy?” Brownlee asks.

“Since I paid for it,” Baxter says, “why not?”

They sit down at opposite sides of the table and drink.

“I brought the papers,” Baxter says. “I thought you might like to see them for yourself.” He pulls two sheets of parchment from his pocket, unfolds them, and pushes them across the table. Brownlee looks down for a moment. “Twelve thousand pounds divided three ways is a considerable heap of money, Arthur,” Baxter goes on. “You should keep that upmost in your mind. It’s a good deal more than you could ever hope to make from killing whales.”

Brownlee nods.

“Campbell better be there,” he says. “That’s all I’m saying. If Campbell isn’t there the moment I need him, I’ll turn this cunt around and sail her home.”

“He’ll be there,” Baxter says. “Campbell’s not as idiotic as he looks. He knows if this one goes well, he’s next in line.”

Brownlee shakes his head.

“This is what it comes to,” he says.

“It’s the money, Arthur, that’s all it is. The money does what it wants to. It doesn’t care what we prefer. Block off one passageway and it carves out a new one. I can’t control the money, I can’t tell it what to do or where to go next — I wish I fucking could but I can’t.”

“You better pray there’s enough ice up there.”

Baxter finishes off his drink and stands up to leave.

“Oh, there’s always ice,” he says, smiling lightly. “We both know that. And if there’s one man alive who has the true knack for finding it, I believe it’s you.”

They enter Lerwick harbor on the first day of April 1859. The ashen sky is threatening rain, and the low, treeless hills that surround the town are the color of damp sawdust. Two Peterhead ships, the Zembla and the Mary-Anne , are already lying safely at anchor, and the Truelove from Dundee is expected in the next day. As soon as he has breakfasted, Captain Brownlee goes into the town to visit Samuel Tait, his local shipping agent, and pick out the Shetland portion of the crew. Sumner spends the morning doling out tobacco rations and tending to Thomas Anderson, a deckhand with a painful stricture. In the afternoon he lies on his bunk and falls into a drowse while reading Homer. He is woken by a knock from Cavendish, who explains that he is gathering a small party of dedicated seamen for the purposes of testing the achievements of the local distillery.

“Currently the expeditionary party consists of me,” Cavendish says, “Drax, who I confess is a fucking heathen with a drink inside him, Black, who is a cool customer and claims only to drink ginger beer or milk, but we shall see about that, and also Jones-the-whale, who is a raging Taff, of course, and therefore a grave fucking mystery to all of us. All in all, it promises to be a most satisfactory evening, I would say.”

They are rowed ashore by Drax and Jones. Cavendish talks all the time, telling them story after story about the vicious knife fights that he has witnessed and the ugly Lerwick women he has fucked.

“By Christ, the ungodly stench of her quim,” he says. “You would not fucking believe it unless you were standing there.”

Sumner is sitting next to Black in the stern of the rowing boat. Before leaving his cabin, he consumed eight grains of laudanum (just enough, based on previous experience, to make the outing bearable, but not to make him look like a complete fucking fool) and is enjoying the sounds of the water plashing against the blades and the oars creaking in their oarlocks (he is happily ignoring Cavendish). Black inquires whether this is his first visit to Lerwick and Sumner confirms that indeed it is.

“You will find it a backwards sort of place,” Black tells him. “The land about here is poor and the Shetlanders show no interest in improvement. They’re peasants and they have the peasant virtues, I suppose, but nothing else. If you walk about the island a little and see the miserable condition of the farms and buildings, you’ll soon know what I mean.”