Boon Island: including Contemporary Accounts of the Wreck of the Nottingham Galley (25 page)

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Authors: Kenneth Roberts,Jack Bales,Richard Warner

Tags: #Survival After Airplane Accidents; Shipwrecks; Etc., #Nottingham (Galley) - Fiction, #Transportation, #Historical, #Boon Island (Me.) - Fiction, #Boon Island, #18th Century, #Survival After Airplane Accidents; Shipwrecks; Etc - Fiction, #Survival After Airplane Accidents; Shipwrecks; Etc, #Shipwrecks, #Fiction, #Literary, #Sea Stories, #Historical Fiction, #Shipwrecks - Maine - Boon Island - History - 18th Century - Fiction, #test, #Boon Island (Me.), #General, #Maine, #History

BOOK: Boon Island: including Contemporary Accounts of the Wreck of the Nottingham Galley
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Page 139
But if that sound was repeated, it was lost in all the other noises that made Greenwich, in summer, so difficult a place in which to sleep.
I pulled the curtain to one side, leaning from the window to listen. I thought I saw a blob of darkness on our front steps. When I stared at it half sideways, to see it more clearly, I decided it was nothingthere was no movement from itand then, suddenly, I heard a long-drawn, quivering inhalation, such as one might make after holding his breath until his lungs are on the verge of bursting.
I ran to the front door and drew it open.
Neal Butler fell into the hallway as if he had been leaning against the door.
I pulled him to his feet. His appearance horrified me.
"What's the matter with you? You look sick!"
I took him by the arm and turned him toward the front room. My father and Captain Dean were on their feet, staring at us, and Neal's appearance led my father to hurry to the windows, draw them down and close the shutters.
He struck a light, and helped me put Neal in a chair.
We saw it was no ordinary sickness that troubled Neal, but some sort of mental disturbance that had left him half conscious. He seemed unwilling to look at either of us. His breathing was quick and shallow, with a deep shuddering breath at unexpected intervals.
"What happened to you, Neal?" my father asked. "Speak up! We're your friends."
When Neal didn't answer, my father reached for a claret bottle and filled a glass. "Here," he said, "drink this and tell us what happened to you."
When Neal continued to stare into space, my father
 
Page 140
grasped his chin, and put the glass to his lips. Neal choked; then drew two of those long, shuddering sighs.
"He was waiting for me after the play," he said flatly.
"Who was?" my father asked.
"The one with the white face," Neal said. "The painted one."
"You mean the one we call Tintoretto?" my father asked.
Neal nodded. "He pulled at mepulled at my clothes. I tried to walk around him so to get to you and Miles."
"This manthis Tintoretto. He'd pulled at you before?" my father asked.
"I had that knife," Neal said. "That one I'd sharpened. When we were almost at your house, I ran. He ran after me. When he caught up with me, I showed him the knife. He pushed it away. Hehe laughed! That white face! That painted fish mouth! I never thought the knife would go into him so quickso smooth!"
For the first time he looked directly at me and at my father. "When he fell over against me, I was glad I did it. I had to do it. You'd have done it if you'd been me! Then I was afraid."
My father put his hand on Neal's shoulder. "Had Tintoretto ever done this before?" Neal seemed to have run out of words. My father shook him. "I asked you whether he'd ever done this to you before tonight."
Neal gulped. "No, sir. The first time I recited Mr. Cibber's epilogue I could hardly get past him in the wings. He squeezed me, and my hand smelled of perfume. I couldn't get around him."
"Listen carefully," my father said. "Do you think others saw him squeeze you, as you put it?"
Neal nodded and swallowed hard.
 
Page 141
Captain Dean got to his feet. "Let's see about this," he said. "Charles, you sit here with Neal while Miles and I go out on the street for a few minutes. Neal, you're not to move! Understand?"
Neal nodded.
Captain Dean and I went out onto the street and turned toward the river. We found Tintoretto near London Street, between our house and the park. He was huddled against a hedge, a crumpled shadow of a man.
"The man's drunk," Captain Dean said loudly. "This is no place for him! We'll put him where he can sleep it off. You take him under one arm, Miles, and I'll take him by the other. We'll walk him toward the park."
When we pulled him to his feet, his head hung slack on his shoulders, and even in the dim light his painted face had the blank look of a clown's. The handle of Neal's knife still protruded from the black silk front of his coat. His garments had an abominably musky odor.
"Take out that knife, Miles," Captain Dean whispered. "We can't leave that in him. Toss it into your yard. We'll pick it up in the morningif we can't find it tonight."
We supported Tintoretto draggingly toward the park, and it seemed to me that we did it so successfully that anyone who saw us would think we were merely doing a Christian act for a gentleman who had been oversedulous with the port.
At least, that's what I thought until two men came toward us from the direction of the park. Then I knew that Tintoretto's body was limper than any mere drunken man could be or could look.
As they drew nearer to us, Captain Dean muttered, "Better do some acting!"
 
Page 142
He took Tintoretto around the waist and hung him, doubled up, over his arm; then bent over him solicitously. I bent over too and made retching sounds.
The two men halted beside us. One said, "Want any help?" I thought I recognized the voice of Lacy Ryan, one of Penkethman's young players.
"No, indeed," Captain Dean said heartily. To Tintoretto's body he said cheerfully, "Try hard! Better out than in." Again I uttered retching sounds and made play with my handkerchief.
The two men went slowly on, laughing; and when they were dim in the darkness, we carried Tintoretto to a wooded spot and left him there.
I was sweating, and with good reason, because I had no way of knowing how much the eyes of a keen young man like Lacy Ryan might have seen.
"Well," my father said, when we told him that Tintoretto was dead with a knife wound under his ribs, and that Lacy Ryan and another man had spoken to us when we were getting rid of the body, "there's nothing like an occurrence of this nature to help a man make up his mind. And there's one sure thing about it: we've got to get Miles and Neal Butler out of here before somebody starts asking too many questions."
He looked at Captain Dean. "How long before you'll be ready to sail, John?"
"Two weeks, maybe," Captain Dean said. "Our cordage is at Gravesend, ready to go aboard, but I've done nothing about the butter and cheese. I'm only taking on a little: just enough for a quick turnover in Portsmouth or BostonPortsmouth probably."
 
Page 143
"Get 'em in Donegal," my father said promptly. "Go north-about around Scotland and Ireland: come down to the island of Aran, and just beyond it you'll see the red cliffs of Donegal. The best butter and cheese in the world come from those fields around Donegal Bay. They're the greenest fields you'll ever find. I'll tell you what to do, John: drop down to Gravesend on the early tide tomorrow morning, and pick up your butter and cheese when you get to Ireland."
When Captain Dean started to protest, my father jumped up to wag a magisterial finger before his nose. "Now listen, John! I can't have Miles mixed up in anything like this, and if Lacy Ryan recognized him, he certainly
will
be mixed up in it. So now I've told you what to do, I'll tell you what
I'll
do: I'll provide enough money to double your purchases, the profit from my part to be divided between us.
"I make this stipulation, though: Miles must go along as supercargo, and you'll make Neal your apprentice. He's a good boy, John. We can't let him start off in life with a murder charge against him-and that's what it'll look like to most London magistrates, no matter how it looks to us."
"It seems to me," Captain Dean said, "that this killing was justifiable."
"Bah!" my father cried. "Justifiable homicide: most dangerous thing in the world! What
is
justifiable homicide of a private nature? It's the defense against force of a man's person, house or goods. Ah! But how do you interpret the word 'justifiable'? Put all the judges in Britain in one room, and ask 'em to interpret a homicide you consider justifiable, and they'd argue for years! Take it to court, and
 
Page 144
Lord Itchpate, C.J., would press a bunch of flowers to his nose and mumble that we are certainly not prepared to suggest that necessity should in every case be a justification. And what, to the mind of a learned judge with his nose in a bouquet, is necessity, for God's sake? Not the same thing that it would be to Neal Butler, harried, horrified and frightened half out of his wits by the insane maulings of aa creature so frenzied that he impales himself upon a knife. No, no! I can hear Itchpate now!
" 'It is therefore our duty to declare that the prisoner's act in this case was willful murder, that the facts as stated are no legal justification of the homicide'and the honorable Court, in a hurry to down two dozen oysters and a bottle of port, would briskly proceed to pass sentence of death upon the prisoner! No, John: you do as I tell you! Get the
Nottingham
to sea with Swede and Neal and Miles aboard, and with no loss of time!"
Captain Dean nodded thoughtfully. "Why not? With Neal aboard, Swede will work twice as hard. It'll let me have decent company aft, in place of Langman. It gives me an excuse to send Langman forward with the men. Your idea's a good one, Charles. You won't make a fortune on the venture, but we ought to clear enough to take on a good load of salt codfish in America. It smells, but it's a sure seller in England or France."
"Well, now, look," my father said. "There's a lot to be done tonight." He laughed ruefully. "Doesn't it beat hell how much inconvenience and downright misery just one misguided bruteone betwattled male doxywho deserves nothing but to be officially and legally removed from this world, can cause by getting himself unofficially killed!
 
Page 145
"Anyway, go on back to the
Nottingham,
John. Go tonightnow! Take Neal with you. Stow him away in your own quarters where nobody'll see him. Keep him out of Langman's way until you're clear of the land. I hunted out Langman, hard at work at his fishmongering, and gave him a talking-to he'll never forget. I doubt that he knows which way is up, as the saying goes, but we can't take chances. He's Malice personified."
He put his hand on Neal's shoulder. "Are you hearing all this, Neal? We're doing this for your own good. Your father will agree."
Neal just stared at him.
"You go along with Captain Dean," my father said, "and try to forget everything that happened to you tonight, as well as everything we've said. Under Captain Dean you'll learn to be a marinera credit to your father and to all of us."
Captain Dean emptied his glass of claret and got to his feet.
"There's one more thing," my father said. "Swede hasn't boarded the
Nottingham
yet."
"He's signed on," Captain Dean said.
"I know," my father said, "but the hospital authorities don't know about it. I can notify 'em and make everything all legal sometime tomorrow afternoon; but we'll avoid any chance of delay by having Miles go to the hospital first thing in the morning."
To me he said, "The doors open at five o'clock. Find Swede and bring him to me. Tell him I'll arrange things with the hospital authorities after the ship has sailed. There'll be clothes for him here, and we should have him aboard the
Nottingham
by six o'clock."
 
Page 146
To Captain Dean he added, ''I'll send the money for the cheese and the butter by Miles."
I followed my father's instructions to the letter. Swede, when I told him the
Nottingham
must sail that day, and the reason why, looked almost relieved. "This is the way I've always wanted it," he said: "A way for us to be together. Ever since I signed on with Captain Dean, I've been like a fish out of water in this damned hospital, with all the political pensioners that don't know a futtock shroud from a wallpiece. If Neal killed a man, he did it for a good reason. I'd have done it for him if I couldbut he wouldn't talk about such things. They made him freeze up inside. I suppose it was my fault for giving him the knife, but I'm glad I did it all the same."
He felt his shoulder and seemed pleased. "Damp mornings like this, my shoulder used to feel sore, but since I signed on with Captain Dean, it's been all right! Yes, sir, I can pull my weight!"
My father had two seamen's bags ready for us. "Get to the quay as fast as you canand don't look so glum, Miles. Remember what I told you: a smile is the best ticket to Heaven that any man can carry."
He pushed us toward the door. "Get out of here before somebody finds that piece of carrion and comes running to me to do something about it."
He put my bag on my shoulder, kissed me lightly and coughed as if to show me he wasn't overly concerned at my departure. "Every young man ought to travel, and any kind of travel is uncomfortable; so you'll be no worse off aboard the
Nottingham
than all the other young Englishmen who run off to France and Italy every summer."

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