John Gardner - The King's Indian - Stories and Tales

“Then came the butchery. One by one the bound seamen were dragged to the gangway, where the cook stood waiting with his axe, clumsily striking each victim on the head as he was forced to the rail by the other mutineers. I shouted against it, inside my gag, but my shouts went unheard, mere whispers beside the anguished bawling of the victims. When seven had gone over the side in this way, the black harpooner with the bone in his nose went silently up to the cook and said: ‘No more.’ The cook looked at him, furious but frightened, then looked at Wolff for orders. The same instant, with the same deep calm with which he’d fire at a whale, the harpooner struck the cook on the ear, his doubled fist like a blacksmith’s hammer, and the cook sank to the deck, jerking. In a minute he was dead. Four slaves, two in shackles, joined the harpooner and stood prepared to try a new mutiny, though armed only with axehandles. Wolff and Wilkins, looking startled half out of their wits, changed tactics at once. ‘Enough,’ Wolff said. ‘Throw the rest in the hold with the Captain!’ I watched, bound and gagged, while mutineers and the slaves they’d freed dragged away their captives. Jeremiah, all this while, was nowhere to be seen. I assumed they’d killed him.

“And now black Ngugi again showed his surprising humanity. As Wolff and Wilkins and their detail of mutineers came back up through the hatch, most of them expressionless, one or two smiling like mules gone crazy, the black harpooner — he’d remained above — strode toward them. He held his axe at waist level, one fist at each end. Wilkins held a musket, casual but ready. The big black spoke to him, then pointed at me. The fire was still in his eyes, but his tone seemed harmless. Wilkins and Wolff talked, too low for me to hear. The air, motionless, was full of the smell of land, though there was no land. My hands, tightly bound in icy cords, had no feeling in them. My eyes stung.

“Wolff came toward me, Wilkins a few steps behind. Wolff said, polite as a traveling preacher but without much conviction — more like a stage automaton than like a living man—‘Mr. Upchurch, you will see to the Captain’s daughter.’ Without another word, he cut away the ropes that held me to the mast. I couldn’t move, for a moment, my feet like stones. He waited. Wilkins, behind his shoulder, smiled and winked and twitched his lips. I rolled my eyes, still playing poor black (on the chance it was that that had rescued me), and, as soon as I could move, I sidled loose-jointedly to the poopdeck and into the chartroom. I found a lantern, oil, and phosphur-sticks and soon had the room a good deal lighter than I’d ever before seen it. Nothing was disturbed. The Captain’s chess game was waiting on the board.

“I will not dwell on what my lantern found in the Captain’s inward chambers. I had never before been beyond the dim parlor where I worked with Augusta — Miranda — on her lessons. Two rooms, not counting the chartroom, opened off it: the Captain’s sleeping quarters and the girl’s. The Captain’s bunkroom had been torn to shreds. The bunk had been cut to bits with axes, the locker smashed, and the Captain’s belongings scattered from bulkhead to bulkhead. On the floor beside the Captain’s berth, half-hidden under feathers from the ruined mattress, lay the painting of Flint. The staring eyes, the straight, fierce mouth below the black mustache, gave my soul a shiver. If I’d ever been mesmerized by that devil Flint, I believe I might’ve been mesmerized again. Was that why Flint kept it in Miranda’s parlor? — a device to control her? The head glowed, like those pictures of Jesus, except that the pictures in a church are more mannerly — eyeballs rolled up, apologetic, arms raised straight-at-the-elbows in prayer, as if lifting an invisible veil to shield the viewer, make no undue demands, respectful as a still-life, a bowl of pale lemons. I picked it up, not looking squarely at the picture even now. I felt a queer numbness coming over me and threw the picture down again, dropped it as you would an adder.

“In the second room, I found Miranda. She lay stiff and furious, in a dress like torn and bloodstained moonlight, her small hands clenched to fists under her chin. She was bruised and swollen. Her eyes were wide with fear.

“ ‘Miranda!’ I breathed, forgetting myself, kneeling beside her.

“Her eyes widened more. She whispered, ‘How long have you known?’

“ ‘From the beginning,’ I said. It was partly true.

“ ‘Where’s Jeremiah?’ she said.

“ ‘Vanished. No doubt murdered.’

“She closed her eyes, fleeing inward, terrified, the remorseless Miranda Flint made guilty at last. I squeezed her hand. She refused to awaken.

XXIV

“Wolff stood at the Captain’s chessboard as if thinking of completing the unfinished game. He said in his burred, stiffly upright English: ‘The Captain had no understanding of power.’ He grinned, looking over his spectacles at the pieces, two fingers sharpening the end of his mustache. Wilkins beamed, enjoying the performance, though I was doubtful how much he agreed with Wolff’s opinions. Wolff hooked his thumbs in his vest, still studying the pieces, and continued, professorial: ‘He used his power ruthlessly — there he was right — but he did not recognize that one must appear to use one’s power for the welfare of the ship. The ship, one must make one’s crew believe, is of greater value than the life of any crew member. The ship is a creature with a purpose of its own, beyond our understanding, and each of us is merely a cell in that creature. The Captain is, perhaps, the brain — so he should have told them — but even the brain is subservient. The duty of every part of the ship — this he should have made clear — is absolute submission. The ship is the Father.’ He began to speak more sternly, biting off his words. ‘The ship’s needs are our orthodoxy, and to any dissension from that orthodoxy we must respond with rigidity and no imagination. That surprises you, Mr. Upchurch, Mr. Quick-tongued Trickster. But mark my words. Given enough imagination, a man may come even to sympathize with the whale. “How grand he is!” imagination cries. “How vast, how majestic!” ’ He smiled.

“Wilkins smiled too, more heavy-lidded than usual, thanks to the Captain’s wine.

“Wolff shook his finger, immensely stern, immensely pleased with himself. ‘Whatever the cry of imagination, my friend, the whale is the enemy of the whaling ship. Aggression is the meaning of life on earth, the only freedom. Because I am clever, and more powerful than you, I am the Captain of the Jerusalem. I grind you under my thumb if I please. That makes you, you think, a mere victim? Not so! By the nature of the case, I leave you free to oppress those beneath you, as they, in turn, oppress those beneath them, and so on down to the feeblest spider who tears the wings off flies. You do not especially like this system, I can see, Mr. Upchurch — nor you, Mr. Wilkins. “Elsewhere perhaps,” you say. “Not here, not on the Jerusalem!” But I tell you: Everywhere! Be comforted; I did not make the system up. Mother Nature did. She lays down the code for all things living.

1. Distrust Reason

2. Deny Equality

3. Succeed by Lies

4. Govern by Violence

5. Oppose All Law but Biological Law

Under Wolff, my friends, the Jerusalem will have order.’ He smiled again, fiercely, showing all his square and perfect teeth, then bowed, about to leave. He lifted the black knight from the board, seemed to reconsider, then put it back where he’d found it. In fact, there was no move the knight could make. It was empty posturing, this pretense of shrewdly examining the board.