Kyril Bonfiglioli - All the Tea in China

“Well, now, young Lewis,” he said (if you are good grandchildren you will one day understand why he called me that), “I daresay you wish to look over my ship?”

“Do you think I should, Sir? I know nothing of ships,” I answered diffidently.

“Then learn, Sir, learn! Mr Mate! Pray give my compliments to the Third Officer and say that I should esteem it a courtesy if he could spare the time to wait upon me at some time during this watch.” I could hear the First Mate bellowing incomprehensibly dirty words from the quarter-deck, none of which seemed to echo the sardonic civilities of the Captain.

“My first mate,” said Captain Knatchbull almost apologetically, “is invaluable. He is, as you have seen, or will see, a mere anthropoid ape who swings himself along on his knuckles, but there is none like him for coaxing a recalcitrant watch aloft to shorten sail on a black and stormy night. His principle is that the men should be more afraid of him than of death; it seems to serve well, for the men are even less intelligent than him and are good Christians every one: they have to attest to this before signing Ship’s Articles.”

In the time that it took him to say this, the Third Mate appeared in the cabin doorway, panting for breath and tugging at a last button on his tunic.

“Ah, Mr Lord Stevenage,” said the Captain with heavy and, as it seemed to me, over-stressed civility, “pray allow me to apologise for disturbing your doubtless well-earned repose.”

The Third Mate was a young and well-enough looking fellow, perhaps five years older than me but not so well set up and at first glance seeming older still because of the lines of dissipation or illness which marked his well-bred features.

“I was not asleep, Sir,” he replied stiffly; “you will recall that I am standing both anchor watches at call until we sail.”

“So you are,” said the Captain, “so you are, to be sure. Now, let me present Mr Van Cleef, who proposes to do us the honour of sailing with us as supernumerary officer; his appointment is that of, ah, let us say, Paymaster. I know that you will be glad to share your commodious cabin with him. His servant shall sling his hammock in the disused pantry next along. Perhaps now you will favour me by showing Mr Van Cleef over and around the ship.”

The young officer opened his mouth then closed it again.

“Thankyou Mr Lord Stevenage,” said the Captain. “That will be all.”

Outside the cabin we looked at each other with entirely straight faces, silently challenging each other to display an emotion. One of us wanted to laugh, the other to curse; neither of us was sure which was which. Perhaps both for both things, I do not know now, it was long ago.

“Follow me, if you please,” he said at last. We went down the gangplank and onto the dock. I flicked an eye in the direction of Dirty Annie’s. His eye, too, flicked there momentarily but he was on duty, you understand, and British. Moreover, the Captain could have seen us through the scuttle.

“Mr Lord Stevenage,” I began.

“I say,” he said, “look, my name is Lord Peter Stevenage; it amuses the captain to address me in the droll way you have heard but I’m afraid I don’t much care about it. In front of him or the other officers you’d better call me Mister Stevenage; in private you may call me what you will.”

I looked at him. He had many pimples but in all other respects his face was frank and open, despite the marks of dissipation.

“Peter?” I said, diffidently.

“That will do very well,” he said, suddenly smiling in the most engaging way. “And what am I to call you?”

“It is some while since anyone called me Karli,” I said.

“Then Karli it shall be. Now, to our task. I have brought you onto the dock so that you may see our little ship from the outside.”

It looked an enormous ship to me but I had no experience of such things in those days. In fact it looked like a man-of-war, for there was a long line of gunports down its side.

“Yes,” he said following my gaze, “my father had her built almost like a Royal Navy corvette by old List of Wootton Creek, near Cowes, for in those days the Royal Yacht Squadron was an auxiliary fighting force. Indeed, the John Coram — although that was not her name then — fought well at Navarino in 1827. She mounted a broadside of eleven guns as well as a long brass piece amidships but now half of the ports are empty and rigged for sweeps.”

“ Sweeps? ”

“Long oars. Damn’ useful if you’re becalmed and drifting, especially if there’s a lorcha full of pirates about to swarm over you.”

“Ah, yes,” I said, my stomach jerking uneasily. “And your father …?”

“Had her built, yes. I lost her at cards. Now, you’d better pay attention, for the Captain may quiz you about her. She’s the only ship-rigged vessel in the opium trade; the rest are brigs and schooners and a couple of barquentines. She’s of 330 tons burthen but has little cargo-space: opium takes up very little room and, homeward bound, we carry nothing but a specie-room full of silver and a few chops of the new teas if we’re in Canton River at the right time.

“That is why, d’you see, the officers’ and crew’s quarters are so ah, commodious.” There was a note of bitterness in his voice.

“I am sorry,” I said, “that I have been foisted upon you.”

“Oh, damme, that’s all right. Glad of your company. D’you snore much?”

“I do not think so.”

“Oh, good. Now, pray observe the lines of the ship.” For quite five minutes he described and rhapsodised about the ship’s shape, using rare and wonderful words which at that time meant nothing whatever to me. “You see that, I’m sure?” he finished.

“Yes,” I said. “Or at least, I think I remember most of what you have said so far.” He made that engaging smile again.

“That’s the spirit. When we’re at sea I shall point out other, coarser vessels to you and you will understand when you compare them with what you are looking at now, from here.”

He paused for two or three minutes while I dutifully etched the image of the John Coram onto my mind’s eye — not a difficult task for one who had already learned to memorise some two hundred cryptic marks on Delft and porcelain.

“Now,” he went on, “notice her breadth of beam: this allows her to carry a great press of canvas — and her heavy armament, which you may be glad of when we find ourselves amongst the lorchas of Hok-keen and the Ladrones.”

“There cannot be too many guns for my taste,” I said frankly.

“Quite right; well said. The buggers must, at all costs, be kept at a distance, for once they’re aboard you may as well count yourself a dead man and clap a pistol to your temple, for they are fiends incarnate.”

I thought that he was trying, in a jocular, English way, to frighten me, so I said something brave and carefree, I forget what. He looked at me strangely, then changed the subject.

“The new owners have made a bad mistake, to my mind. This yacht — ship — was designed for spread of sail, not hoist. By that I mean that she was not built to carry sky-scrapers.”

“Sky-scrapers?”

“Yes. Extra sails on extension masts — moonsails, skysails and so forth. In my father’s day our masts seldom rose more than a few inches beyond the rigging that supported them; although, in exceptional summer-like weather, we sent up topgallant and royal masts in one.”

“Really?” I said without comprehension.

“Yes. But Captain Knatchbull has contracted the new Yankee disease of flying kites far above the royals on spars the weight of salmon rods, his nature is such that he can brook no rival, he would send us all to Davy Jones’s locker rather than let another ship eat the wind out of him, still less pass him.”