Run Afoul (5 page)

“They're breeding like crazy,” observed Dr. Olliver, who was watching them, too. “The sailors used to catch them, and skin and dress them, and sell them to the junior midshipmen, who grilled and ate them, which helped to keep the numbers down. Now, however, supply has exceeded demand.”

Wiki heard the click of a door and looked up, to see Captain Wilkes coming out of his cabin, which—as Dr. Olliver had indicated the day before—was sited on the starboard quarter, to the side of the drafting room. The purser was with him. They were both wearing uniform, and looked as if they were about to keep an appointment.

Before anyone could speak, another door opened, and Captain Couthouy stepped out of his stateroom, along with a reek of decay and a couple of rats, which disappeared under the credenza. Captain Wilkes swerved around and snapped, “
Mister
Couthouy, did you
not
receive my note?”

Captain Couthouy said distantly, “Note, Captain Wilkes?”

“My note concerning your smell, sir—your
stench!
You're lumbering up the ship with unpleasantness, Mr. Couthouy, and the smell is encouraging vermin—the ship is full of goddamned rats! How many times do I have to tell you
not
to bring your specimens into your room? They should not be inside at all—not here, and not below decks. Keep them out on the spar deck, sir—the spar deck! There are plenty of racks and tubs for the purpose.”

“On the open deck?” Couthouy's voice rose in affront.

“What's
wrong
with the open deck, pray?”

“It's too bloody crowded, Captain Wilkes! The scientifics don't have a decent space in which to work, not without the officer of the watch deigns to issue orders to that effect!”

“
Deigns,
Mr. Couthouy? This is the U.S. Navy, sir, not your private goddamned yacht! I would remind you of my instructions,” Captain Wilkes said frostily. “The primary object of the expedition is the promotion of commerce and navigation. The Navy Department believes, and quite rightly so, that it is more important to chart the waters than to list their animal and vegetable contents. You will collect no more than one specimen of each variety, and that as small as possible, and you will
not
bring them into your room. If you don't know where to stow them, ask the officer of the watch!”

Then, ignoring Couthouy's furiously red face, Captain Wilkes turned to the purser and said, “It's time we made our appearance in the wardroom, Mr. Waldron. Our hosts will be awaiting.”

And with that, the two officers marched off down the corridor. Wiki heard a distant stamp as the marine on sentry duty saluted, just before the ship executed a tremendous lurch to lee. Again, he caught the coffeepot and his mug, but the other mugs went tumbling to the floor with a multiple crash, echoed by many thuds from the deck outside, plus a fair amount of yelling. Dr. Olliver was calmly holding his decanter and wineglass poised in the air, while Couthouy hung on to the corner of the credenza.

Another great pitch, more yelling from outside, and a wash of water came pouring in the open afterhouse door, to gush in a wide stream down the corridor. Couthouy swore, let go his hold, and plunged back into his room, where they could hear him frantically getting dunnage off the wet floor. Jack Winter came out of the pantry as calmly and steadily as if he were walking on land, his expression as smarmy as ever, and unfolded several sets of fiddle boards—sticks which were laid on the tabletop to hold meal things in place.

The
Vincennes
wallowed unhappily. The afterhouse door swung to and slammed shut, and the commotion of taking reefs in the sails became muffled. Another nasty roll, and then at last the feel of the vessel became stiff, indicating to Wiki that the helmsmen had been replaced with more experienced hands. Then, just as he set the coffeepot carefully to one side, he realized that Grimes had joined the company.

The thin man's stoop was more pronounced than ever, so that he had to crane his neck to bring up his head as he surveyed the room, looking like a suspicious tortoise. He came slowly round the credenza, holding on as the ship pitched her head, and silently chose a chair. As he sat down, his harsh breathing was audible. Lieutenant Smith looked at him, but didn't bother to make any introductions. Instead, he sniffed loudly and luxuriously.

Jack Winter had carried the fish to the table. Because of the rough conditions, they were piled helter-skelter into a wooden mess tub, and the top two were speckled with spray, but the aroma was perfectly wonderful. Robert Festin, Wiki deduced with deep pleasure, had regained his culinary abilities at the same time he had settled in the ship. The fish—if the top two, which were all he could see, were any guide to the rest—had stayed straight while being crisply fried, so that the succulent white flesh was evenly cooked.

Wiki had to restrain himself from grabbing. Instead, remembering his manners, he passed the mess tub around. The first to help himself was Grimes, who was evidently hungry, because he took both top fish. Smith and Dr. Olliver took one each, before handing the tub back to Wiki. He could scarcely wait. When he slid his knife along the backbone, his mouth watered. Miraculously, soft bread came, too.

The delectable meat slipped easily off the bones, and Wiki piled it onto a thick slice of bread, and ate greedily with his fingers. No one about the table was talking, producing happy eating noises instead, and so he was able to concentrate. Turning the fish over, he cleaned off the other side.

Just as the mess tub was being handed round again, Couthouy stamped back into the saloon, swung a chair around, and sat down with a bad-tempered thump, judging his timing to the next weather roll of the ship. He readily helped himself to one of the fish, but didn't make any remark about it, exclaiming moodily instead, “What the devil am I doing here, if I'm not permitted to make a collection? Of
course
the aims of the expedition are scientific—to state anything different is nothing less than ignorant bloody-mindedness!”

Lieutenant Smith looked up from starting operations on his second fish. “I should have thought a shipmaster like yourself would agree most heartily with Captain Wilkes's assessment of the primary aim of the expedition—which is to make the Pacific safe for American commerce!”

Couthouy put down his fork, turned in his chair, and stared. “By charting the ocean?” he demanded.

“Not just that, but also by flying the U.S. flag in a thousand lagoons! Our job is to tame rebellious natives and make the Pacific secure for American adventurers like you, sir!”

“Goodness gracious,” said Dr. Olliver, lifting his wineglass in a sardonic salute. “So that's why we've been practicing the cannon so assiduously? Is the intention really to terrify innocent natives into abject submission to your flag?”

“Unpleasant, but necessary,” Smith declared roundly. “As a Salem shipmaster I know well could tell you, the disasters that have fallen on American adventurers have too often been the outcome of shipmasters putting their trust in savage chiefs. My friend has testified before the East India Marine Society in Salem to the grave dangers faced by American shipmasters, and he has made representations in Washington, too—he knows from personal experience what it's like to see one's crew cut out by bloodthirsty savages!”

“Good God, has he?” said Dr. Olliver, his tone even more colored with irony. “And just who is this passionate gentleman?”

“Captain William Coffin—Wiremu's natural father.”

Though Wiki had been half expecting this, he still felt a jolt in his gut. Everyone turned and stared at him, their thoughts—that he was living evidence that Captain Coffin had demonstrated quite a different kind of passion for at least one of the islanders in question—writ plain on their faces.

He watched them back with a deliberately impassive expression. It was a skill he had developed over the years—at moments like this, he remembered one of the proverbs that his
iwi
liked to quote:
I nga ra o te pai, he pai; i nga ra o te kino, he kino.
What is good, is good; what is bad, is bad. Live with it.

For a moment there was an awkward silence, punctuated by a swish and a thump as the
Vincennes
lifted and plunged. Then Couthouy turned to the assistant astronomer, saying with a deliberate change of topic, “Grimes, isn't it? Weren't you living on the
Vincennes
when we sailed from Norfolk?”

Grimes was eating stolidly, while Dr. Olliver, having demolished his second fish, watched him over the rim of his glass. Now the instrumentmaker looked up at Couthouy and nodded.

“
I
don't remember him,” the surgeon remarked to no one in particular. “And
I
was on the
Vincennes,
too.”

“But you were infamously seasick at the time,” said Couthouy, and laughed. Then he looked at Grimes again, saying, “Assistant astronomer—right? And you're an Englishman, ain't you, just like Dr. Olliver here.” Again, Grimes nodded silently, and Couthouy turned back to Dr. Olliver and said, “He lived on the gun deck.”

“Ah,” said Dr. Olliver with satisfaction, and toasted himself with a longer swallow of wine than usual. “That accounts for it. I was in the afterhouse, of course; I've always had the same room.”

“After the sudden death of his employer, Astronomer Burroughs,” Lieutenant Smith elaborated, “Mr. Grimes was moved onto the
Porpoise.
”

Again, Wiki found himself the focus of speculative stares. There had been rather a lot of sudden deaths on the expedition, most of them connected with him. Then the conchologist said abruptly, “I know your father, I think.”

Considering that Captain Couthouy and Captain Coffin were both Massachusetts shipmasters, Wiki was not amazed. He said politely, “You were in the China trade, too?”

Couthouy shook his head, but did not have a chance to reply, because yet again Lieutenant Smith chipped in. “I know Captain William Coffin very well, indeed—a most remarkable man,” he bragged. “His commercial exploits are famous! He left Salem in June 1830 to make the most profitable voyage on record, carrying tobacco for New Zealand, and flour for Sydney, which he sold at the rate of fifteen dollars a barrel—flour which had cost him four! Then he filled his holds with tortoiseshell and sugar, and sold that cargo in New York for no less than twenty thousand dollars. It's for his kind of enterprise that we want to secure the Pacific for Yankee traders!”

Wiki pushed his plate aside. In June 1830, as he remembered very well, his father had sailed away without him—he had abandoned his sixteen-year-old Maori son to the mercies of his legal Yankee wife. While that was an old memory, this was the first time that Wiki had heard that his father had sailed to New Zealand after leaving Salem. Back then, Captain Coffin had told him that he was bound to the Orient.

“Astounding,” said Couthouy to Smith, his tone so flat it was rude, and said to Grimes with a deliberate change of topic, “You've been moved back to the
Vin?
”

“Astronomer Grimes has been shifted from the
Porpoise
to assist Captain Wilkes with the apparatus for gravitation measurements at Rio,” said Lieutenant Smith, again without giving Grimes a chance to answer.

“So he's working with Wilkes? The poor bastard,” said Dr. Olliver, again to no one in particular.

Grimes said stiffly, “Checking and adjusting the equipment is an interesting assignment, and I am not to be pitied at all.”

“Nonetheless, you have my liveliest sympathies,” returned Dr. Olliver, completely unabashed. He lifted his glass in an ironic salute, and queried, “What was
your
reason for joining the Deplorable Expedition?”

“I must protest that appellation!” Lieutenant Smith exclaimed, but everyone ignored him, instead looking at Grimes, who said in precise and pedantic tones, “Astronomer Burroughs brought me on board in the capacity of his instrumentmaker and assistant.”

“And was Astronomer Burroughs a despised Englishman, too?” demanded Dr. Olliver.

Grimes said, more stiffly still, “He was American.”

“So how did he find you? Come on, man, tell me,” the fat naturalist urged, his wineglass still poised. Wiki was beginning to recognize the look of unbridled curiosity on his face; Dr. Olliver was a man, he mused, who delighted in digging up odd stories, even if he had to be unbelievably ill-mannered to get them.

“Because I was a horticulturalist who enjoyed astronomy,” Grimes replied with spirit, and then fell into a fit of coughing.

“Horticulturalist?” Couthouy echoed, looking puzzled. It was as if he had never heard the word before.

“A man who specializes in the science of gardening,” Lieutenant Smith informed him.

“But
where?
” said Couthouy to Grimes.

“On an estate near Cambridge,” said Grimes, wiping his mouth with the soiled handkerchief.

Captain Couthouy turned to Dr. Olliver. “Weren't you at Cambridge assisting Charles Darwin after he got back from the
Beagle
voyage?” The portly naturalist nodded, and Couthouy said to Grimes, “I can't imagine the connection between gardening and astronomy.”

“I was in charge of the glasshouses, you understand—glasshouses that I designed myself. I also constructed heating equipment. Sir Roger—our master, the owner of the estate—was a notable amateur astronomer, and because he noticed I was so handy in the gadget-making way, he paid for me to be taught the science of optical instruments. Then Dr. Burroughs came to Cambridge—he'd paid Mr. Darwin to make some observations on his behalf, and wanted to see the results—and while he was in town he became acquainted with Sir Roger, who was kind enough to show him some of my inventions. Dr. Burroughs was so impressed that he begged Sir Roger to allow me accompany him to America as his assistant.”