Sacred Hunger (18 page)

He started away from this as from some appalling temptation, hastily closing and stowing away his journal and taking out, as antidote to such poisonous abasement, Harvey’s treatise and the pages of his translation.

After some minutes the plain and closely argued Latin text succeeded in putting other thoughts from his mind. It had fascinated him and struck him as paradoxical from the start that this treatise, destined to change beliefs held since Galen’s time and assert a new path for the blood, should still be couched in the strict form of scholastic disputation unchanged since the Middle Ages.

He had got as far as chapter eight, in which the author explains his reasons for the forming of his famous hypothesis. To restore himself he looked at the beginning of the third paragraph, one of the most profoundly influential in the history of medicine, and marvelled once again at the miraculous tentativeness of it, almost casual, like a man working from dream to truth: Coepi egomet mecum cogitare… I began to bethink myself whether it might not have a kind of movement as it were in a circle …

He was interrupted by the appearance at his door of McGann, a small, tight-faced Scot, one of the men who had been deloused and hosed down on the captain’s orders soon after sailing. The working rig he had been issued with was too big: his canvas smock hung round him and he wore the baggy breeches rolled up to his knees.

“Beggin” your pardon, Doctor,” he said, removing his woollen bonnet to show a cropped head, ‘I hae been pissin” pins an’ needles again, an’ “tis unco” painful.”

‘I have told you why it is,” Paris said. “And you knew it well enough before.” Nevertheless, he was glad in a way to see the man there. His medical duties had so far been less than onerous. He had seen to the lacerations on Wilson’s back; he had pulled a tooth for a man called Bryce, which had been broken in some shore fight and subsequently rotted; he had dressed a burn for Morgan, the cook, and given a course of mercury to McGann for his gonorrhoea. It was not much, in more than two weeks at sea. “You are past the worst of it,” he said. “You have no venereal chancres. Your general health is not impaired.”

McGann glanced up at this. His eyes were watery grey beneath sandy brows and they possessed a kind of spurious alertness. The nature of his disease gave him no apparent disturbance. It was no more then an item in the sum of difficulties and small stratagems that his life represented. “Tis unco’ painful,” he said again.

‘no doubt it is,” Paris said. “They talk about the pains of love, don’t they? But it will pass.”

McGann made no immediate move to withdraw, but remained where he was, cap in hand, eyes lowered, as if waiting for some gift of words that he could carry away with him. Or possibly something more tangible, Paris thought. He had grown more sensitive to faces of late and he had seen in McGann’s a sort of ultimate reduction to the necessities of survival. Everything possible in the way of misfortune and abuse had been endured by the small-featured, freckled face before him, with its pursed-up mouth and spurious shrewdness of expression. McGann’s life seemed entirely a matter of improvisation, of seeking advantage, however small, from every occasion.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” the surgeon said. “You are quite fit for duty. All you are now suffering from is a slight inflammatory discharge of mucus from the membrane of the urethra.”

McGann seemed impressed by this, though he kept his eyes respectfully lowered.

“Jimminy-jig,” he said. “I’ve got a” that too, have I? Where is it situated?”’

Billy Blair, hoisting out the punt to try the current along with Sullivan and the taciturn Wilson, felt the change too, some essence of scent dissipated by distance. He raised his blunt nose and sniffed at invisible shores. ‘We are gettin” south,” he said. ‘Soon be up wi” the Canaries. I can smell them bleddy pine trees an’ spices. Blair has the keenest nose of anyone. I can smell them African wimmin already.

I can smell the palm oil in their cunt-thatches.”

It was said, as much as anything, as an attempt to deflect Sullivan from the grievance of his forcible ablution. After a fortnight at sea any mention of cunt was likely to cause a diversion. However, on this occasion it failed to do so. ‘no,” the fiddler continued, “look at it howiver you like, to take a man an” strip him an’ throw water over him an’ burn his clothes an’ give him clothes he niver asked for an’ wouldn’t be seen dead in an’ cut his hair close enough to draw blood an’ all against his consent, mind you -“

Sullivan paused to take breath, gazing at Billy over the bows of the punt. His long bony face, dark eyebrows and bemused green eyes were more evident for the shearing away of his hair. “

“Tis a blow struck against the liberty of the subject,” he said, “an” it bears on ivery man aboard of this ship.”

‘It doesna” bear on every man aboard o’ the ship,” Billy retorted. ‘Every man aboard o” the ship is not full o’ bleddy fleas. I an’t for one. How about you, shipmate?”’

This was to Wilson, who pondered for some moments darkly, then gave it as his opinion that there was many a worse thing than fleas.

‘Well, ‘course there is,” Billy said impatiently, “there is crab-lice, there is rats, there is bleddy lockjaw, but that is not the point I am seekin” to make. That coat was rotted, it was fallin’ off him, it’s no use him denyin’ it.”

‘That coat could have been mended,” Sullivan said. “That coat only needed a lovin” woman’s hand. An’ another thing, that coat had six brass buttons on it, good as new. Where are thim brass buttons now? I am goin’ to ask Haines one of these days about thim buttons. I am waitin’ for the right moment. An’ they have took it out of me pay, they have took another three shillin’ off me for this linsey-woolsey stuff I niver asked for.”

‘Well,” Billy said, “they have took less fra you than fra me.”

“They are takin” two months wages off the both of us to pay back what they spent to get us,”

Sullivan said.

‘Aye, but I am signed for an able seaman an” you are signed for an ordinary seaman an’ the difference between us is four shillin’ a month. So the bastids are takin’ eight shillin’ more from me.”

‘That’s another thing that is woundin” to the spirit,”

Sullivan said. ‘Why should you be worth four shillin” a month more than me? We are both men, aren’t we? An’ I am gifted for the music.”

‘Curse me,” Billy said, striking at the gunwale of the boat with the flat of his hand. “I have seen some cuddies in my time, Sullivan, but I never saw anyone the like o’ you for gettin’ hold o’ things the wrong bleddy way. You should be glad to be losin’ eight shillin’ less than me.”

‘We are both losin” the same,” Sullivan said. ‘They are takin” the same off the both of us.”

‘now just a bleddy minute.” Billy’s tone was irate but his face was beginning to wear a baffled look. “God-amighty,” he said, “if they are takin” eight shillin’ more from me than they are from you, how the pox can they be takin’ the same from both of us?”’

‘That eight shillin”,” Sullivan said patiently, ‘t is just a idea in your head, Billy. That is the different value them miscreants have set on us. But we are both goin” to work two months for nothin’ an’ risk our lives among them heathen blacks…”

Sullivan appeared at this point to lose the track of what he was saying. He was gazing forward to where two or three men, Libby among them, were sitting up against the windlass, working on some cable; in anticipation of long anchorage off the Windward Coast, Thurso had ordered the cables to be rounded so as to protect them from chafing in the hawse.

‘Come on then,” Billy said irritably, “finish what you are sayin”, man, give over dreamin’.”

‘I have finished,” Sullivan said. “At the end of two months we have got nothin”, so they have took the same from the both of us. How do you think he knew?”’

‘Who?”’

“That miscreated mortal down there, Libby. I just remembered somethin” he said to me about gettin’ a new suit. He knew they were goin’ to take me clothes off me.”

“I an’t surprised,” Billy said after a moment. “He is Haines’s catch-fart.”

“They knew each other from before,” Wilson said.

“They have been together on a Guineaman before.” The morose and saturnine cast of his face brightened with a sudden radiant intention of violence. “Haines,” he said. “Son of a whore. He picked the wrong cull this time. After this voyage he’ll never walk straight again. I have swore it.”

Unaware that he was under discussion, Libby was enjoying a joke of his own, of the kind he liked best, bringing present ridicule and future misfortune for the victim. He and a man named Tapley and the boy Charlie had been set to binding a length of the ship’s cable upwards from the anchor ring to protect it from chafing. Each had taken up a section and was winding old rope-strands firmly and closely about it.

Calley, sent forward to join them, had come upon a length of hawser lying there waiting to be spliced. In his eagerness to do his work well and correctly he did not notice the two-inch difference in circumference and set to work at once, head lowered in utmost concentration.

Charlie seemed about to point out the mistake but Libby stopped him with a quick gesture. Tapley he merely winked at. He waited until Calley was well into the work, then he said, “Gettin” on well, ain’t he?”’ and grinned at Tapley and the boy, both of whom he knew, with the bully’s infallible instinct, to be afraid of him. ‘They will make a sailor of yer yet, Dan’Like”

Calley smiled without looking up. His mouth hung open a little and his blunt pink tongue protruded slightly in the unremitting attention he was giving his task. A dribble of saliva had escaped its soft crease of containment at the corner of his mouth and made a silver thread like a snail’s track on his chin. There was a bright shine of snot on the short slope of his upper lip. Everything exuded by Calley had a magical shine and purity about it, the beads of his sweat were like small pearls. Without saying a word to anyone he had been filling with the pride of achievement. He tied the strands round and round as he had seen the others do, in his big, calloused hands, keeping the tarred threads of the yarn tight and close together, making sure not to cross them or leave any gaps, the thick hemp rope lying warm and heavy across his thighs.

“Yer’Il not only be the best man aboard at jerkin” off,” Libby said, ‘yer’ll be the best at servin” a cable. Have yer seen him?”’ he said to Charlie. ‘Every night he goes out to the heads an” jerks hisself off, reggler as clockwork.

Yer too busy doin’ it yerself to take notice, ain’t yer? I’m talkin’ to yer.”

The boy turned his sun-freckled, undernourished face towards Libby. ‘allyes,” he said, “that’s right.”

“Too busy juicin” yerself, ain’t yer?”’

‘That’s right.”

Libby stared at him for some moments. The frozen lids of his blind eye hung a little open, showing an ambivalent gleam. “Pity to waste it,” he said.

“Waste what?”’ Deakin had approached soundlessly on bare feet. “Give us a bit of cable,” he said, making to get between Calley and Tapley. “Haines sent me to give a hand.

What the jig do you think you are doing there?”’ he said to Calley.

“Dan’l is servin” cable an’ he is doin’ well, we are proud of him.” Libby gave his droll wink, the dead eye briefly doing duty for the living one. ‘now don’t you go spoilin” his concentration, that wouldn’t be right.”

Deakin said quietly, ‘Dan’l, look up a minute, will you? Don’t you see, you are working on a loose piece of hawser, not on the anchor cable.

You are wasting your time and if someone comes and catches you at it you will get in trouble. Who told you to bind it there?”’

“One o” them.” Calley pointed at the others. ‘They said do it here.”

“Stab me if we told the half-wit anythin” at all,” Libby said. ‘Why are you interferin”?”’

‘allyou will have to unpick it,” Deakin said. “Then you come further down here and I’ll show you how to do the worming on the cable and then the binding.”

“I don’t want to unpick it,” Calley said. “I done it right.”

‘allyou have done it right as far as the work goes, but you have done it on the wrong rope. That piece doesn’t need chafing gear on it.”

Calley looked down at the rope in his lap then up at the grinning Libby. Some sort of suspicion was beginning to dawn in his eyes.

“You should have told him,” Deakin said to Tapley and Charlie. He did not look at Libby. “Men on a ship should stick together. Don’t make any difference what kind of ship she is.”

“We have got a preacher here,” Libby said. His mood was turning ugly. The joke had misfired and he felt his authority was being undermined. “You don’t stick,” he said. “You run.”

Deakin looked at him without expression. Someone had talked, then. “Do you think I would run from you?”’ he said. “You are big, but your bollocks hang by a string, same as anyone else’s.”

“You shit-sack,” Libby said. “I will spill you out.”

At this threat to his befriender, something mad looked out of Calley’s eyes. ‘no, you won’t,” he said. With astounding speed and agility, before Libby had so much as registered the threat, he had come from a sitting position on to his haunches, had his left hand planted on the deck to take his weight and his right clenched and drawn back.

Leaning sharply forward, Deakin was in time to catch at his shoulder. “They will flog you if you start a fight here,” he said. He kept his grip, feeling after some moments the muscles of Calley’s arm relax. “He is not worth getting a flogging for,” he said more quietly.

Calley, in the red mist of rage, felt the hand on his shoulder and knew the touch. This was Deakin, who had spoken words of comfort to him and touched him in the darkness of the hulk. “Deakin is not a shit-sack,” he said.

Feelings of loneliness and distress had accompanied Calley since the first day out. Barton had proved a false friend, giving him nothing but abuse and kicks once he was on board. The vision of Africa and the hot lewd women had faded now; it was lame Kate from the taphouse that he mostly thought of at night when he crept to some deserted corner of the deck and rubbed himself for comfort in the dark and whimpered with brief pleasure. Now he smiled as he glanced up, and the traces of his rage shone with pristine glory on the smooth skin below his eyes. “Deakin is my friend,” he said.