Kyril Bonfiglioli - All the Tea in China

The Yankee did not consider long, for he was an intelligent man.

“No,” he said.

I reasoned with him, pointing out that behaving in the way I had suggested would lend a colour of legality to his assuming command from an insane Captain; otherwise they were mutineers and would spend all their days in the shadow of the rope. He agreed, at the urging of his accomplices.

The departure was unpleasant; Dogg raved and cursed, the Second looked at me as though I were something unpleasant he had noticed adhering to the sole of his shoe, Peter wrung my hand and gave me a long, anguished look which seemed more to indicate compassion for me than fear for his own survival.

The mutineers, ignorant fellows, made a trifling mistake which may well have cost them their lives one day. They seized the Second Officer’s beautiful modern sextant for my use but contemptuously let the Captain take his old-fashioned quadrant or “hog-yoke” as they called it.

“’T’ain’t no use without the star-book,” said the leader knowledgeably, “and thet’s right here on the chart-table.” So it was. As soon as the boat had left I stole to our cabin and studied Peter’s little shelf of books. All his “Jane” Austens were there, also his Catullus and his Norie, but there was a gap at the end of the row where his own copy of the Ephemerides had used to stand. I was mightily comforted. A longitude and latitude, you see, and a course set by a boat’s compass are but rough guides because of the set to leeward, the drift of the current and so forth, whereas with the quadrant, the Ephemerides and Peter’s pocket-chronometer they would be able to fix their position with great accuracy each noon if the weather were clear, and at night, too. Moreover, I had seen the Second having the agreed “sight of the charts”: he had stared at them for quite two minutes — Peter had long ago casually told me that the Second’s brain was freakish, like Lord Macaulay’s: he could memorise a page of print in the time it took to pass his eyes over it. Today we would say that he had a mind like a photographer’s plate.

Their dangers were still unimaginable but now at least they could not be lost in the waste of waters. I pitied the mutineers if Dogg reached land; he was a man who would hound them to death if it took him all his life.

That he was not wholly insane was soon evident; when the boat was out of gunshot I saw the little lug-sail come down. Through the telescope I saw her begin to row as though towards us, then turn to port and to port again.

“Swinging his compass, the ole bastard,” muttered one of the Yankees. “That’s a shaggy wolf from ’way up where the river forks.” I did not understand these words but I relished them, for they were spoken in a voice tinged with apprehension.

I popped a “tabnab” into my mouth and went to reassure Blanche.

An evening or two later I was leaning on the rail at the waist of the ship, on the windward side, greedily snuffing what slight air wafted to me. There was the least shuffle of bare feet on the deck. I did not move except to put my hand upon the butt of the revolving pistol in my waistband. A shadowy form materialised beside me. It was on my left side, which gave me some reassurance, for I am right-handed. I drew back the hammer of the pistol, soundlessly, as I thought.

“Put it back to ’arf-cock, Sir,” whispered the shadowy form, “for I means you no ’arm.”

I lowered the hammer completely, then pulled it back to full-cock: I could afford to trust no one. The clicking seemed to satisfy the shadow.

“It’s only old Tom Transom,” it said. I almost put the hammer to half-cock, but at that time I would not have trusted my mother. My father, perhaps, yes.

“Mr Van Cleef, Sir,” whispered Transom, “meaning no disrespect, but are you out of your sodding mind?” There were only two answers to this; “yes” or “no”, and I could not find it in my heart to give either.

“Hrrumph,” I said Britishly.

“Shh!” he whispered.

“Sorry!” I squeaked.

“Ssshhh!” he shushed, anguishedly. I shushed. He fell silent, peering and listening until he was sure that no one was a party to our conversation. It struck me that he was almost as afraid as I was.

“Listen, Mr Van Cleef, Sir,” he whispered at last, “’aven’t you wondered why you ain’t in that boat with the other ossifers?”

To tell the truth I had not wondered much: perhaps in my vanity I had supposed that I was popular, perhaps I had thought, in a modesty more natural to me, that I was too insignificant to be awarded the dramatic casting-away. I did not answer, for I had no answer ready.

“Well, I’ll tell you. First, they needs someone to take sights of the sun with that quadrant; them Yankees can ’andle the ship everywise but that. Second, they reckon that if we’re cotched, you’ll speak up for them at the trial. Third, you was the only one stupid enough, beggin’ yer pardon, Sir, not to know that jest by staying aboard, let alone doing the navigationing, you was aiding and comforting mutiny on the high seas and you’ll be ’ung ’igher than any on us if we’re taken.”

This sank in, painfully, terrifyingly.

“I see,” I said. “What, then, can be done?”

“Dunno, Sir. ’Opes you’ll come up with an idea. Smartly, Sir.” Frantically, I clutched my wits together, tried to think as a Nelson.

“I do not see how we can attempt to re-take the ship,” I said, “for they have every arm in the ship except my revolver.”

“True enough, Sir, true.”

“How many of the crew are of your turn of mind, Transom?”

“Well, Sir, there’s a clear twenty on us served under Lord Stevenage’s pa; I reckon I could trust a dozen of them, true as steel, the others is old or daft or plain frittened.”

“Hm,” I said. A plan commenced to glimmer in my frightened brain. “Meet me here at this time tomorrow night, Transom,” I murmured. “I think something can be done but I must have a look at the charts.”

“Aye aye, Sir,” he said. This made me feel wise and responsible; no one had ever said “Aye aye Sir” to me before. It also reminded me, uncomfortably, that I was indeed an officer, however supernumerary, and an officer condoning mutiny. I had never witnessed a hanging and felt strongly that, if I should ever do so, it would be more interesting to be a spectator than the principal.

I spent a miserable night, slept a little in the morning and at noon, when it was my task to shoot the sun, my mind was a mere riot of half-digested plans. Alone in the chart-room, plotting our position and laying out a course, I took the opportunity of stuffing the chart for the coast between Knysna and Cape Town under my shirt and down my trousers. This chart I pored over agonisedly all afternoon, to some avail.

Transome and I met again in the dark.

“The day after tomorrow,” I said, “at just about this time, we should be at Longitude 20° East.”

“Arrh,” he said, “Cape Agulhas. Nasty bank there and a famous place for dirty winds.”

“Suppose I made a false reckoning at noon and laid a bad course and one of our party was quartermaster: we could run her aground, don’t you think?”

“Yerss,” he said bitterly, “that’d solve our little troubles for good, that would. Might as well jest jump over the side now an’ be done with it.”

“It’s like that, is it?”

“Exackerly like that. An’ if one or two on us got ashore alive, we’d still be mutineers, wouldn’t we?”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, I ’ad,” he said, caressing his leathery neck affectionately, as though he liked it as it was. I was chagrined that he no longer called me “Sir”; clearly, I was no Nelson in his eyes.