English passengers (18 page)

Three days’ sailing and we were off the Isle of Wight, with no sight of our good friend Captain Clarke of Her Majesty’s coast guard cutter
Dolphin,
nor any oceangoing bloodhounds sniffing for Maldon furniture. The wind was blowing nicely and at this rate it wouldn’t be long before we were past the Scillies and safely out of range of Englishness, excepting, that was, the Englishness we had aboard. Curious it was to walk on the quarterdeck, knowing it would soon be lurching about under some strange tropical skies, the like of which none of us had seen, nor much wanted to neither. My worry was Ealisad. Hadn’t I promised I’d be back within the month, with jink enough to spoil her better than Queen Victoria? It’d be weeks before I could so much as send a letter and tell her I’d be the odd year late. I’d not be easily forgiven for that. Not that there was much to be done about it, mind, so I tried not to think on it, keeping myself busy with the ship. There was enough to do, besides, as I needed
to be sure we really were ready to go playing Captain Cook. Fortunately the
Sincerity
was in a good state, having been nearly murdered to death with repairs in Peel, so she had new yards and canvas, and spares enough for a hurricane or two. Why, for that matter she even had a spare hull to help her float. Thanks to our fussing vicar we had fresh water and eatables to last, and proper documents, too. It was only when we were well out to sea, in fact, and I started wondering about laying down a course for the rest of the voyage, that I remembered the one little item that we were lacking.

Charts.

I blamed the Reverend. The silly scriss had fussed us all across London buying every kind of store, so why hadn’t he thought to moan me into a mapmaker’s shop and finished the job? It was pure neglectfulness. Trouble it meant, no denying. A ship’s captain needs charts like a lawyer needs sin, as to go sailing about the globe without is dropping right back to Chris Columbus himself who mistook America for India. Even the chief mate, Brew, who was smooth enough to smile his way through his own funeral, fretted at that one.

‘‘We’ll just have to put in somewhere,’’ he said, all frowns. ‘‘Portsmouth isn’t far.’’

It was never so easy, though. Portsmouth was customs men, and would also be a stroll around the town for our three passengers, which meant newspapers for them to stare at.

‘‘Let’s put a sight on the chart locker,’’ I told him. ‘‘You never know, we might be lucky.’’

I’d never given any serious study to this spot before, just piling my own charts of the Irish Sea, English Channel and such on top of what was left there, and now I took a more careful look I found it was a proper mess, looking as if it hadn’t been cleared out for half a dozen captains. First was a thick layer of pencil drawings, all of the same ill-tempered-looking cat, which I guessed was the leavings of a heavy dose of sea boredom. Next was worse, being a pile of rhyming verse, all concerned with passionate Spaniards named Alphonse and Esmeralda, who were forever stabbing at one another and dancing in the moonlight. After that were pages of scribbled figures, together with a long, crabby document
blaming pennies lost on some long-forgotten chief mate. Finally, under this, I found a few charts.

One of these caught my eye straight off, being nothing other than a handy little portrait of the Cape Colony, where we now hoped to find ourselves in a couple of months, and might even sell a few certain casks of something to whatever Africans were loafing about there. The map was hardly recent, still marking the place as Dutch—which Brew said took us back to Napoleon himself—nor was it especially pretty, looking as if its owner had used it as a plate for his dinner once or twice, but for all that a chart was a chart.

We were less lucky with the West Indies, which was a mighty shame seeing as they were our first halt. We had to go across the Atlantic to catch the breezes southwards to the Cape, and it was part of our agreement with the Englishmen—an agreement which I’d hardly troubled myself with at the time, seeing as I thought we were only going to Essex— that we were to call in at Jamaica. All that I could discover that even pictured the island was a map of the whole world, and this was a Merca-tor besides, which meant Norway was as long as my hand while whole of the Caribbean hardly covered two penny pieces.

‘‘We ’ll hardly find our way into Kingston harbour with that,’’ said Brew, screwing up his face.

I had a little thought. ‘‘Perhaps we don’t need to.’’

J
ULY
–A
UGUST
1857

T
HREE DAYS
into our journey Captain Kewley and his chief mate, Brew, suddenly strode into the cabin without so much as knocking at the door. Hardly had I begun to register my displeasure at this invasion of my privacy, when the Captain began trying to persuade me that we should not, as planned, drop anchor at Jamaica.

‘‘It’s just that I remembered the chase you were in to get to Tasmania, you see, Vicar, while the fact is we never need to go there. We’ve got supplies enough to carry us to Africa nicely.’’

While I regard myself as a man ever open to suggestions, I confess that this particular proposal held little appeal. In the first place I felt that an agreement, once entered upon, should be properly adhered to by both parties, if only as a matter of principle, while it had been amply clear that we were to stop at Kingston. There was, in truth also another consideration. Ever since the
Sincerity
had reached open waters and so encountered the full motion of the seas, the pleasing prospect of our first landfall had been greatly—even ceaselessly—in my thoughts. The possibility of this now becoming even further removed, and of my remaining aboard ship continuously for two months or more, was therefore far from welcome.

‘‘I believe we should keep to our original course,’’ I told the Captain firmly.

‘‘It’s to your own advantage,’’ Kewley insisted.

Assistance came to me from an unexpected quarter. Potter’s head loomed down from his bunk bed. ‘‘But we must call in at Jamaica,’’ he declared simply. ‘‘Besides, I cannot believe it would add so greatly to our journey, seeing as we have to go near.’’

I must confess I had found the behaviour of the expedition surgeon far from helpful—a matter which I will recount more fully later—and yet his words at this moment were welcome enough. Kewley tried to threaten us with sea technicalities, but when I warned him that I might be forced to reconsider the charter fee that we had agreed, his face, which normally displayed a kind of beaming slyness, quite scowled. ‘‘I’ll see what I can do,’’ he promised sourly, and with this he and Brew marched away, grumbling to one another in that infuriating language of theirs.

I am never one, I must insist, to indulge in self-pity—I have, indeed, observed that this quality can be as much the undoing of a man as drink, leading him into ever greater aimlessness and despond—and yet I confess the days after we departed from the river Blackwater had hardly been my happiest. The start of my difficulties was, I believe, the dinner we were served the evening we set sail, which was excessively fatty, while matters were not helped when, on retiring that night, I found the cabin became filled with a most noxious smell, much like some terrible gaseous pond, and which, I was later told, was caused by water in the bilges
becoming disturbed by the movement of the ship. It was true that the
Sincerity
was rolling and pitching ever more wildly. Within the hour the wind seemed to be blowing little less than a full gale, and, feeling suddenly unwell, I found myself journeying up to the deck, shivering stoically by the rail in my nightshirt and overcoat.

Sadly this proved only the first of many such visits. The weather seemed obstinately resolved to grow worse rather than better, and by morning waves were crashing against the bow so hard that the whole vessel reverberated with their force, and that a man more lacking in courage than myself might almost have feared that the ship would capsize altogether, or simply fragment into so many splinters. Rather to my surprise my two colleagues appeared unaffected by the fatty dinner, and would both greedily march off to the dining cabin on every occasion. Despite my discomfort I was most happy for them, naturally, though I did take exception to the way Dr. Potter would insist on loudly describing the meals he had just consumed, even though it must have been evident that I was feeling still delicate.

Apart from sickness, the other matter that was much in my thoughts was sleep, or rather my own lack of this essential sustenance. I do believe that, with the exception of a field of battle, there is hardly a place on earth more poorly suited to the gaining of rest than a sailing ship. Every night, just as I was falling into much-needed dreaming, there would be some shout in Manx and all at once the ceiling of the cabin would shudder with the stamping of heavy boots, so loud that it sounded as if the crew were revenging themselves upon some tiny scampering creatures. Next they would then set to work upon some operation of the ship, such as bringing round the sails to obtain a change of direction, which could occur numerous times in one single night. Timbers would creak, ropes and blocks would squeal, officers would bellow, boots would thump and the crew themselves would begin singing at the top of their voices, seeming unable to tug at any rope without wailing some unspeakable shanty song.

I tried my best to induce the Manxmen to show a little consideration but it was to no avail. When I struck upon the ceiling of the cabin with a stick they pretended not to hear. When I asked Captain Kewley, in a most friendly manner, if his crew could not engage more quietly in their
nocturnal operations, he was nothing less than uncivil. Nor did the behaviour of my two fellow passengers, I regret to say, help matters. While I am never someone to judge others with undue harshness, and it is my greatest delight to find goodness in my fellow men, I confess I found my patience increasingly strained. Though Renshaw had a tiny cabin of his own, the wooden partition that divided this from ours was of such poor construction that there were large gaps between the timbers, and one could hear his every movement, while frequently during the night I would be disturbed by the sound of his fidgeting with his person in some curious, twitching way, quite as if he had some ailment. Dr. Potter was more distracting still, and would insist on keeping a light burning late into the night so he could scribble notes in his notebook with that infuri-atingly scratching quill. ‘‘I’ll just be another moment, Vicar,’’ was his ever repeated cry when I requested, with all the gentleness I could muster, that he cease.

I did my best to regard the man charitably, despite his many provocations. When he insisted on draping his clothes, that he had just washed, around the edge of his bunk, so they dripped seawater directly onto my own cot, leaving large damp places, I told myself this was not the result of some lawless nature, but only of his having been brought up without the advantage of fine manners. I even thought to help him improve himself, drawing up a few simple rules with regard to domestic matters, which I then placed in written form on the wall just above his own berth, so he might observe them with convenience. One might have supposed he would welcome such a kindness, but no, he instead showed a maddening forgetfulness as to my little suggestions—a forgetfulness so pronounced that I could not help but doubt its sincerity—while he would insist on referring to them as ‘‘the parson’s laws,’’ in a tone of voice that was little less than offensive.

Some men might have answered such behaviour with anger, but I preferred to seek solace through faith. These were days of much praying, and I found myself often moved to seek guidance from Him with regard to my two colleagues—often in their own presence—perhaps dwelling upon some little trait of character of theirs that might, I believed, with His help, find improvement. Thus I would pray that Potter would find in his heart greater kindliness and consideration towards his fellow men,
and that Renshaw would sleep soundly without disturbing any with his restlessness. I did have hopes that these humble efforts might help them both to find a greater understanding of themselves, and that, with time, they might even join me in these little ministrations. To my regret, however, they seemed wholly to ignore my endeavours, quite as if they had not heard me at all.

My humble efforts did not go entirely unheard, however. It seemed beyond mere chance that, as I prayed, I found my own life aboard the ship growing slowly less burdensome. Little by little my sickness began to pass until finally the great day came when I made my way to the dining cabin, with its many delightful, if cheap, prints of the royal family (a man could find no keener monarchist than Captain Kewley), where I dined for the very first time since leaving Essex. The lurching of the vessel, likewise, became less strange to me, until I was able to walk from place to place quite without suddenly clutching for support, and even the nightly din of work upon the deck grew less irksome, until it was hardly more distracting to my sleep than so much birdsong. Before long the prospect of the many miles and months of voyaging ahead seemed of little account, as I became accustomed to living upon this vessel, viewing it hardly as a machine of travel, but rather as my home.

By then our steady progress southwestwards had begun to bring noticeable changes, which resembled the alterations of the seasons, but strangely intermixed, as if May and September were occurring at one and the same time. While the sun grew stronger—care soon had to be taken if one did not wish to suffer a pinkened nose—the hours of daylight steadily shrank. Time itself seemed fluid, indeed, in this strange liquid world. Every midday a curious ritual was performed, when the Captain and his two mates—the smooth fellow Brew and the small, angry one, Kinvig—would stand side by side, pointing their sextants southwards. Finally, when each had lowered his device, Captain Kewley would call out, ‘‘Noon it is,’’ and at once the bell would ring out eight times, hourly sandglasses would be set, and the new ship’s day would begin. Without fail the hands of my watch would require adjustment by a minute or two to match this new noon.