Kyril Bonfiglioli - All the Tea in China

I made no move, for I had decided on this as a new tactic, and I was right. She was, perhaps, piqued or perhaps she had heard about the Griqua girls in the Cape Town and thought that my lust for her had been allayed. Be that as it may, one evening as we left the rail, Blanche, inadvertently as it were or was meant to seem, brushed her splendid teats across my arm as she bade me goodnight.

Have you ever played the game where everyone holds hands and the instigator winds the handle of an electrical generating machine, in a little mahogany box, each terminal of which is held by the two people at the open end of the circle? The effect is quite formidable. One jumps. The sport has gone out of fashion, I am told, because there have been occasions when young ladies have wet themselves with the surprise and alarm of it.

The effect on me of the brief brushing of Blanche’s breasts against me was just such a shock, but without the wetting, thank God. There was, you see, not the soft, goose-feather sensation that you or I might have expected. Her teats were hard, hard, as though swollen.

“Are you well, Mr Van Cleef?” she asked, looking over her shoulder as she left me.

I mumbled something valiantly although my head was reeling.

“I’m so glad,” she said, her eyelashes flickering modestly as her large and lovely eyes rested for an instant on a territory just below my belt. “These tropic nights are replete with evil humours, are they not, and gentlemen’s clothes are so constricting. I hope you will sleep well. My husband always sleeps well but then, he is used to …these tropic nights, you understand.” I understood.

“Good night,” I said. It seemed an inadequate rejoinder but I had not been given the time to think of a better and, in any case, my mind was on lower things.

Peter was reading in the cabin. He eyed me in a friendly way.

“Are you well?” he asked.

“Uncommonly well, thankyou,” I replied evenly.

“Then why are you grinding your teeth, Karli?”

The world stood still while I decided whether to strike my mess-mate and only friend or to chew on my bile and swallow it. I made the right decision.

“It is because I am hungry, Peter,” I said.

“Karli,” he said in a grave voice.

“Yes?”

“There is something I must say to you.” I sat down.

“Yes?” I said.

“Karli, when you were out on deck communing with the, ah, spiced breezes, I made a decision.”

“Yes?” I said again.

“Yes. You see, I have been much disturbed. The long, hard, Italian sausage which has been hanging between our bunks was preying on my mind. You said, I know, that the grocer assured you that it would travel to the Indies but what do Italian warehousemen know of the Indies? In any case, we are, to speak strictly, already in the Indies. I fear for that sausage, Karli. Shall we cut it?”

He had the art, you see, of distracting a preoccupied mind.

The long, halcyon days span themselves out, each one much the same as another. It became, tacitly, an understood thing that Blanche would be at the weather rail a little before the short tropic dusk gathered and that I would be there, sometimes with Peter Stevenage, sometimes alone. We talked of many things and I found that she, too, was an admirer of “Jane Austen”, although in her sweet womanly simplicity she firmly believed him to have been a woman. But little ignorances of this kind only endeared her the more to me. All one can ask for in a woman is that she have a soft voice, a firm body and a pretty, empty head. (You will remark that I do not demand that she be complacent — every woman is unchaste if one applies oneself with zeal and patience to making her so. If you are tongue-tied and maladroit, do not attempt to practise on an ugly woman: she will know that she is but a pis-aller and there will be difficulties. Attempt, rather, a beautiful one, for she may well have a compassionate heart and her experience as a beauty will have taught her curiosity and, perhaps, a relish for carnality. You will understand all these matters when you are older, like me. By then, of course, it will be too late.)

She had, too, a passion for the poems of one Wordsworthy; a man of small talent who chose to write simple verses about idiot children, wayside weeds and large geographical features in the cold Northern parts of England. His work bore no relation to life but appealed to her charming, silly head and I indulged her in this matter. Sometimes I would recite to her, in Dutch, the English play Hamlet which I had mastered at school, but, inexplicably, she could not take it seriously. Once, when I had reached the solemn moment when the ghost says “ Omlet, Omlet, ik ben je poppa’s spook …” she stuffed her handkerchief in her mouth and ran to her cabin. She was strange, strange.

Once, too, First Mate Lubbock joined us, making many an ironic remark to me. I drew the subject round to Great Circle Navigation, which I had been conning in one of Peter’s books. It was clear that Lubbock had but little knowledge in this and he soon made off, snorting vehemently.

I taught Blanche a few phrases in Dutch — although these did not mean what I told her they meant: it was pleasant to hear her say them unwittingly but also disturbing . I remember, for instance, that she mastered perfectly a sentence which she believed meant “It is a fine night, is it not: only look at the stars!” but which, in fact, meant, “Loosen my bodice, I beg you, and cover my breasts with kisses until I swoon in your arms.” When she at last pronounced it perfectly, I kissed her on the cheek, saying that this was a Dutch schoolmaster’s praise. She believed this, too, and the cheek-kissing became a normal part of our lessons. Better still, and more encouraging, her accidental brushing of her breasts against me became more frequent and once my hand was in the way. She pretended not to notice. But the ship was full of eyes — there is no privacy on so small a vessel — and I durst not make more explicit overtures.

Our first landfall for many weeks was hailed with absurd pleasure by the lookout, greeted with cheers by the jaded crew and with admiration by those of the officers who understood how skilful must have been the Captain’s navigation. It was the island of Minicoy, the most southerly of the Laccadivhs. The Captain gave the quartermaster a correction of his course but, just then, the lookout bawled “Deck, there! Sail three points on the port quarter, tops’ls just over the horizon. Ship-rigged, looks to me Sir.”

A grim glance and a nod from the Captain and Peter was swarming up the ratlines (“the lady’s ladder” we called it on the John Coram , for the rope steps were set kindly close together) and soon we could see him in the wide-circling crows-nest, training his glass on what was invisible to us. Then we saw him almost vaulting out of the nest — scorning the lubber-hole — and slithering down the rigging like a toy monkey.

On deck, panting from his exertions (for he was not well, you recall) he reported “Not ship-rigged, Sir. A barque. Baltimore-built, I fancy. Carrying top-gallants, royals, sky-sails. Fore-reaching on us, I’m afraid, Sir.”

Usually Peter spoke, even to the Captain, in a debonair, damn-your-eyes fashion: I had never before heard him use such a timid, almost cringing, tone.

The Captain’s face went white and, through his closed teeth, he said “Cattermole.” I did not understand.

Peter said, diffidently, “Yes, Sir, from what I could see of her she might well be the Martha Washington.” I still did not understand.

“Belay that course, Quartermaster,” snarled the Captain, “steer nor-nor’east until I give you a true course. Mister, kindly wear ship.” He stumped off to the little chart-room in his sleeping-cabin. The quartermaster’s face was blank as he span the wheel, the men went uncheerily about their business of wearing ship and even Lubbock seemed to have no heart for chivvying them in his usual coarse way.