Kyril Bonfiglioli - All the Tea in China

I have often tried to recall in the mind’s eye the precise expression Blanche’s face wore when I dragged the corpse off her. It was a fleeting expression, for she fainted a moment later and was not, indeed, properly herself for several days afterwards.

I have only related the adventure as I heard — and mis-heard and saw scattered parts of it. To make things clear I should explain that the men rigging the boarding-nets were already too late, their throats were silently slit as they leaned over the side. The clumsy noises and the cries of annoyance, as I had thought them, were, in reality, the death-struggles of the watch on deck. One of them, thank God, had survived long enough to fire a distress-rocket, which had been seen by the frigate, en route from Macao to Lin Tin. The watch below, and a few other survivors, had succeeded in holding the fo’c’sle by virtue of a couple of little Bulldog pistols smuggled aboard by the Yankees we had recruited at Calcutta. The Second had succumbed to a ragged scalp-wound which laid him unconscious for days but from which he recovered. Peter had defended the poop with all the blithe ferocity of a man who does not care whether he lives or dies.

“Karli,” he said that night, laying his hands on my shoulders, “you saved my life today.”

“Oh really,” I said, shuffling my feet in an embarrassed, British way, “I beg you to forget it, anyone would have done the same.”

“Yes, I suppose they would,” he said, disappointingly. “But Karli” — solemnly again — “there is one thing I cannot forget.”

I kept a modest silence.

“Yes, Karli, I cannot erase from my memory that in your shirt-box there are quite eight inches of good Italian sausage, also a crock of wonderfully smelly cheese steeped in wine. I have a bottle of the best Constantia hidden away for just such an occasion as this. Shall we eat?”

“We shall indeed,” I replied happily, “just so soon as Orace has scrubbed up the last of the blood from the cabin.”

That was our last happy night.

The next two days were full of great business. Our depleted crew toiled mightily, some sewing our dead into their “tarpaulin jackets”, some renewing the burned rigging, others rowing to and fro to the island refilling our water-casks under the supervision of the frigate’s cooper — for our own had escaped his flogging by the valiant fight he had put up against the pirates. The hewn pieces of his body were even now forming part of the long line of packages which awaited consignment to the deep.

The frigate had in attendance an aviso boat in the form of a little, country-built, sloop-like vessel; this was dispatched at first light to ask orders from our owners’ agent at Macao.

The frigate’s Captain came aboard to carry out the burial services, a long and mournful task. He also lent us a bosun and a sail-maker’s mate, together with a few old salts who could reeve and splice and a file of marines for the coarser tasks. Peter, now the only watch-keeping officer aboard (except of course the unconscious Second), had no time to eat or sleep, poor fellow, I have never seen anyone work so hard and so deftly in all my life, yet again and again he threw a laughing word over his shoulder to me or cracked a coarse jest for the labouring crew-men.

There was little I could do to help except check stores, make lists, set the specie-room to rights and write out receipts for the hundred-and-one things which we had to borrow from the frigate. It is quite amazing how much damage a few pirates can do in half an hour when they set their minds to it.

Late in the following afternoon our splendid little ship was again more or less fit for sea and the kindly frigate hastened off to its rendezvous, asking us to send off the aviso boat as soon as it returned with our orders. Every man-jack on the John Coram who could be spared was sent to his bunk or hammock; those who remained on deck, the barest anchor watch, were asleep on their feet. I could not, for very shame, repair to my bunk until Peter, my true, kindly-mocking, pox-ridden friend, could also find repose. He and I and the binnacle-post supported each other: I kept him awake and in good humour by proving to him, with many a cogent argument, that his so-called Jane Austen was clearly a German Jew called Shakespeare, going under the name of Göthe. We were both propped up, nine-tenths asleep, against the binnacle, giggling feebly, when a sleepy bellow from the mast-head announced that the little sloop was in sight. We kicked the deck-messenger from his hoggish slumber and bade him see that those few who should be on deck were awake. I bellowed wearily for Orace; good boy, he was with us in a trice and scampered below to fetch us clean neckcloths.

As we tied them, the fellow at the mast-head warned us that a boat had left the sloop and was pulling towards us. We went to the rail and, as soon as the boat was visible, Peter seized the trumpet and cried “Boat ahoy! What boat is that?”

“John Coram,” came the answer, faint but clear. This did not seem to me to be an answer but Peter understood: it seems that, in the old navy, when a boat’s coxswain named a ship, it was understood that his boat was carrying the Captain of that ship. Peter rapped out a filthy word, then a string of brusque orders. There was a bosun’s mate trilling upon a pipe and two reasonably clean seamen pretending to be “sideboys” at the entry-port just one second before an ugly, shag-haired, purple-nosed old gentleman heaved himself aboard. He looked around with a disgust he made no effort to conceal. Then he sketched out a tipping of his hat to the quarterdeck, skipped up to the poop and glared at us.

“Where is the Officer of the Watch?” he snarled. Poor, unshaven, red-eyed Peter swept the hat off his tangled curls and made a dancing-master’s bow.

“Your servant, Sir,” he said, “but whom have I the pleasure to…?”

“Jacob Dogg, Sir; Lieutenant R.N., retired. I have orders from your owners’ agent appointing me Captain into this ship.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, snapped it open and thrust it away again. Peter touched his hat.

“Welcome aboard, Sir. I am Peter, Viscount Stevenage, third officer.”

“Pray summon my other officers and present them to me, Mr Stevenage.”

“I fear that is not possible, Sir. The First Officer is in Macao Hospital, the Second is in the sick-berth, still unconscious from a wound received in the engagement with the pirates. I am the only watch-keeping officer, although there is a capable sailing-master who could serve for the time being.”

“Make it so, Mister. And this gentleman?”

“Carolus Van Cleef, supernumerary and shareholder.”

“Very well. I’ll take the larboard watch, you the starboard. You are temporary First until the Second regains his faculties, then he is promoted First, you Second and the sailing-master acting Third. Mr Van Cleef to take lessons in navigation three times a day. Now I’ll have a sight of the watch-bill, if you please.”

Peter drew out a tattered document and handed it over.

“The names crossed out are the dead,” he explained. “Those underlined are wounded — a tick beside the name indicates that the man should be fit for duty in a few days; a cross means he’s likely to survive. As you see, we could muster three strong watches before the fight: now we can scrape together two weak ones. We are desperately short of top-men. I have not yet sorted out the new watches.”

“Why not, pray?”

“I had hoped that we might have picked up a few hands at Macao, Sir.”