Kyril Bonfiglioli - All the Tea in China

Sure enough, as soon as we were in the open sea, we found a small but favourable wind — a false foretaste of the north-east monsoon — and the watch on deck was kept busy for much of the night setting more and more sail to it and sending light spars aloft until we were pretty well “a-taunto”.

Peter and I, too, were kept busy for a good while with the first of our ducks, served with the Chinese cabbage and a spiced sauce of oranges.

While Orace cleared away the dishes I picked my teeth and eyed the child in a benign but critical way.

“Orace,” I said.

“Sir?”

“You are a good enough boy.”

“Sir, thankyou Sir.”

“Your hands are always clean, despite the hazards of ship-board life. Your face, too, is spotless and I do not doubt that your ears and neck would bear the closest inspection.”

“Sir, thankyou; I do my best to be a clean boy, as you have bid.”

“Why then,” I asked judicially-for I was in the sententious phase of drunkenness — “why then is your shirt stained? You know how delicate a digestion I own and you are clever enough to understand the dyspeptic effect of a stained shirt upon such a digestion. Explain this negligence!”

To my astonishment the child burst into tears. I started to say something but Peter gave me a glance of such startling authority that the words froze in my open mouth.

“Karli,” he said evenly, “the boy’s shirt is clean. The stains are blood. Look at his face.” He crooked a finger and Orace bent his tearful face into the circle of lamplight. His nose was swollen and the nostrils crusted with blood. There was a little blood, too, at one corner of the mouth and an eye was puffed and discoloured. I was at a loss for words.

“Who struck you, boy?” asked Peter kindly. Orace, fighting back tears, answered manfully, standing to attention. It seemed that he had fallen out of his hammock. This was a plausible excuse and I was prepared to let the matter rest, but Peter told him to turn around. In his gentle, almost womanly way, he pulled the boy’s shirt-tail out of his breeches and raised it to the arm-pits. Orace’s ribs were black and blue. I rose, outraged, and was about to shout furiously but Peter quietened me with a gesture. He did not ask the boy who had brutalised him; he only asked whether it was any of the men before the mast.

“Oh, no , Sir!” cried the boy.

“Very well, run along. Ask the cook for some salve for your hurts. Your master will protect you from now on, you may depend upon him.”

When the door had closed behind the boy Peter rested his chin upon his hands. His countenance was dark and bitter. I think that I was gaping foolishly.

“Lubbock,” said Peter, as though it were a dirty word.

“Lubbock?”

“Oh, God, Karli; who else? He had set his heart, if you can call it that, on a certain lady, who now, for reasons I care to know nothing about, no longer welcomes his admiration.” I looked at him sharply but he avoided my eye. “Then,” he went on, “he will have tried to sodomise your boy, part lust, part spite. He will not have succeeded, for Orace is a good boy.” Again I looked at him narrowly, again he preferred to fix his gaze on the bulkhead. “So he will now make the child’s life a hell until, in a very short time, he will go over the side. I am not exaggerating, Karli, you may take me at my word. I have seen this sort of thing before. Too often.”

I gazed at him dully, filled with guilt and trepidation.

“What, then, should I do, Peter?”

“A man doesn’t tell another how to look after his servants,” he said, a little stiffly. Then, seeing my face fall, he added in a kindlier voice, “You might try altering your rather regular sleeping habits. Lubbock has the second watch, from four until eight tomorrow morning. Your boy will be up at first light — say half-past six. Why not take the air on deck at, say, half past seven? Now I must turn in. Goodnight, Karli. You will know what to do in the event: you are a better man than you believe.”

“Goodnight,” I said.

My new silk nightshirt afforded me no sense of luxury that night, nor did sleep come readily.

Sure enough, I rose at the unheard-of hour that Peter had suggested. It was not cold. For some obscure reason I washed myself all over in cold water as though I were an Englishman. This had a tonic effect. I sauntered on deck. There was no one to be seen on the quarterdeck except the steersman, whose glazed eyes jerked from the compass-card to the leech of the sail and back to the compass-card. Two men were at the pump, watering down the deck; two more were dragging the “bear” — a large, weighted scrubbing-mat — to and fro in a drowsy fashion. The rest of the watch was clustered just abaft the fo’c’sle; they seemed to be staring up at something unpleasant. I followed their gaze. High up in the main-mast shrouds a tiny figure was picking its way even higher, clinging desperately at each hand-hold. Leaning against the halyard rail was Lubbock, a dirty smirk on his lips and the “starter” swinging like a fat serpent from his hand.

Peter was right: I knew what to do. Cupping my hands I shouted up to the boy, “Come down at once, Orace, and get about your chores.” I had ignored Lubbock. From behind me he drawled, “I sent him aloft, Mr Van Cleef.” I ignored him still. Orace was hesitating. “Come down at once!” I shouted, “you have no business there. Come down; no one shall hurt you.”

The nasal drawl behind me was now menacing.

“I said I sent him aloft, mister. The little bastard was insolent to me.” I rounded on him.

“If you have any complaints to make about my servant you may make them to me. You will not punish him, nor shall you ill-treat him. He has his duties; no doubt you, too, have yours.”

The man stared at me, quite at a loss for the moment, as a fox might be if a rabbit cuffed him across the muzzle. His mouth opened and shut. Orace jumped the last few feet of the ratlines and scuttled between us. As he passed, the Mate’s starter snaked out between the boy’s legs, curling cruelly up at his groin. He squealed with pain and scrambled on all fours to the safety of the galley where the Doctor stood, arms folded, his face a mask. Lubbock stalked aft. My feet seemed nailed to the deck. I turned my head to the little group at the fo’c’sle: they were all looking at me curiously, not unkindly. Strangely, it came to me with great certainty that they were all recalling that I was a Jew. They knew just how Peter Stevenage would behave in such a case but they could not guess how a Jew would comport himself. This helped me. I strode after Lubbock.

“Mr Lubbock!” I called clearly. He did not falter in his progress aft. I called again, louder; still he did not pause. By now he was at the break of the poop, I was just abaft the mizzen mast. I stopped, put my hands on my hips and roared “LUBBOCK!” in a voice such as I did not know I could command.

This time he stopped in his tracks, slowly turned, crouching dangerously. He waited. The moment span itself out for half an eternity. I could hear my heart knocking at my ribs.

“Lubbock,” I cried in a ringing voice, “you are a cowardly bastard!”

His face split open into an alligator-grin as he sidled to the rail, his hand outstretched for a belaying-pin.

I have already described that fight and how I won it. Afterwards I went to my cabin and lay down; as soon as my heart slowed a little I fell fast asleep, for I was not in the habit of rising early. When I awoke, towards noon, Peter was sitting on his bunk gazing at me morosely.

“Well,” I asked, grinning idiotically I suppose, “did I do the right thing?” I expected praise, admiration, but all he said was that I was a bloody nuisance for now there were but two watch-keeping officers besides the Captain, which would be burdensome to all aft.