The Monsoon (15 page)

“I have been having a long talk with Mr. Beatty.” He indicated him with a nod. Beatty sat at the table, stern and unsmiling. He wore his full periwig, a further indication of the seriousness of this meeting.

Hal was silent for a moment, as if what he had to say next was so distasteful that he would prefer not to have to utter the words.

“I am led to believe that you have been making plans for your future, without consulting me as the head of the family.”

“Forgive me, Father, but I do not want to be a sailor,” Guy blurted out miserably.

Hal stepped back involuntarily, as though his son had denied his faith in God.

“We have always been sailors. For two hundred years the Courtneys have put out to sea.”

“I hate it,” Guy said softly, his voice shaking.

“I hate the stink and cramped space aboard a ship. I feel sick and unhappy when I am out of sight of land.” There was another long silence, then Hal went on, “Tom and Dorian have taken to their heritage. They will surely enjoy rich adventures and profits. I had thought one day to offer you your own ship. But I see that I waste my breath.” Guy hung his head, and reiterated miserably, “I will never be happy out of sight of land.”

“Happy!” Hal had promised himself to keep his temper in check, but the scornful word burst from his lips before he could contain it.

“What has happiness to do with it? A man follows the path laid out for him. He does his duty to God and his king. He does what he must do, not what pleases him.” He felt the anger and outrage building in him.

“God’s truth, boy, what kind of world would this be if every man did what pleased him alone? Who would plough the fields and reap the harvest, if every man had the right to say, “I don’t want to do that.” In this world there is a place for every man, but every man must know his place.” He paused as he saw a stubborn look come over his son’s face. He turned to the stern window, looked out at the ocean and the tall blue sky streaked with gold by the setting sun.

He was breathing deeply, but it took him some minutes to regain his composure. When he turned back, his features were set.

“Very well!”

he said, “Perhaps I am over-indulgent, but I will not force you to it though, God knows, I have thought of doing just that. You are fortunate that Mr. Beatty has the good opinion of you that has been denied me by your selfish behaviour.” He sat down heavily in his sea-chair and drew towards him the document that lay on the tabletop.

“As you already know, Mr. Beatty has offered you a position with the Honourable East India Company as an apprentice writer. He has been generous as regards salary and conditions of employment. If you take up this offer, then your employment in the Company will commence immediately. I will release you from your duties as a member of the crew of this ship. You will instead begin as assistant to Mr. Beatty, and you will accompany him to the Company factory at Bombay. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, Father,” Guy murmured.

“Is that what you want?” Hal leaned forward and stared into his son’s eyes, hoping for some denial.

“Yes, Father. That is what I want.” Hal sighed and the anger left him.

“Well, then, I pray for your sake that you have made the right decision. Your fate is now out of my hands.” He pushed the parchment of indenture across the desk.

“Sign it. I will bear witness.”

Afterwards Hal sanded the wet ink of the signatures carefully then blew off the excess and handed the document to Mr. Beatty. He turned back to Guy.

“I will explain your position to the ship’s officers, and to your brothers. I have no doubt what they will think of you.” n the darkness the brothers discussed Guy’s decision in exhaustive detail, squatting up in the bows with Aboli and Big Daniel.

“But how can Guy leave us like this? We swore that we’d always stick together, didn’t we, Tom?” Dorian was distraught.

Tom avoided the direct question.

“Guy gets seasick.

He could never be a real sailor,” he said.

“And he’s afraid of the sea and of going aloft.” Somehow Tom could not bring himself to feel his younger brother’s distress at this turn of events.

Dorian seemed to sense this and looked instead to the two older men for comfort.

“He should have stayed with us, don’t you agree, Aboli?”

“There are many roads through the jungle,” Aboli rumbled.

“If we all took the same one it would become very crowded.”

“But Guy!”

Dorian was almost in tears.

“He should never have deserted us.”

He turned back to Tom.

“You won’t ever desert me, will you, Tom?”

“Of course I won’t,” Tom said gruffly.

“Promise?” A single tear ran down Dorian’s cheek now, sparkling in the starlight.

“You must not cry,” Tom admonished him.

“I’m not crying. it’s just that the wind makes my eyes water.”

He dashed away the tear.

“Promise me, Tom.”

“I promise you.”

“No, not like that. Swear me a dreadful oath,” Dorian insisted.

With a long-suffering sigh, Tom drew the dirk from the sheath on his belt. He held up the narrow blade, which glinted in the moonlight.

“As God, Aboli and Big Daniel are my witness.” He pricked the point of the dagger into the ball of his thumb and they all watched the blood well up, black as tar, in the silvery light. He slipped the dagger back into its sheath, and with his free hand he drew Dorian’s face close to his own. While he stared solemnly into the child’s eyes, Tom inscribed with his thumb a bloody cross on Dorian’s forehead.

“I swear you a, dreadful oath that I will never leave you, Dorian,” he intoned with gravity.

“Now stop crying.” Guy’s defection the watch-bill was altered so that Tom took over his twin’s shipboard duties, adding them to his own. Now Ned Tyler and Big Daniel could concentrate the lessons in navigation, gunnery and sail-management on two students instead of three. Tom’s routine had been heavy before, but now it seemed to have no limits.

Guy’s duties now, though, were light and pleasant.

After the daily lessons with Master Walsh, when Tom and Dorian had to hurry topsides to begin their stints, he spent a few hours writing letters and reports for Mr. Beatty, or studying the Company’s publications, including “Instructions to Recruits in the Service of the Honourable English East India Company’, after which he was free to read to Mrs. Beatty, or to play cards with her daughters. None of this endeared him to his older brother, who sometimes, from the rigging, watched him strolling and laughing with the ladies on the quarterdeck, which was out of bounds to all but the ship’s officers and the passengers.

The Seraph crossed the equator amid the usual jollification when all those who were making the crossing for the first time underwent initiation and paid allegiance to Neptune, god of the oceans. Aboli, in an improbable costume of oddments from the slop chest and a beard of unravelled rope, made an impressive Neptune.

Now the doldrums had swung to the northwards of the line, and as the two ships gradually shook free of their grip, they found themselves entering the belt of the southern, trades. The character of the ocean changed: there was a sparkle to the ocean, which seemed alive after the sluggish, sullen waters of the doldrums. The air was fresh and invigorating, the sky dappled with mares” tails of wind driven cirrus cloud. In sympathy, the mood of the crew became light and almost gay.

Hal shaped their course South-westerly, so that they could run on a broad reach, away from the continent of Africa, more than halfway across the Atlantic towards the coast of South America, but they traded the angle on the wind for distance run.

Every ten days Tom went down with Ned and the gunnery mates to check the contents of the magazine. It was part of his instruction in the art of gunnery to understand the character and the temperamental nature of the black powder. He had to know its composition, of sulphur, charcoal and saltpetre, how these ingredients could be safely blended and stored, how to prevent a buildup of heat and damp, which could cake the grains and cause uneven or faulty ignition in the guns.

At each visit, Ned always impressed on him the danger of naked flame or spark in the magazine, which could set off an explosion and blow the ship out of the water.

Before going into battle the kegs were opened and the powder carefully weighed out into silk bags that contained the exact charge for a gun. This was rammed home down the muzzle as a cartridge and on top was placed a wad of cloth and then the shot. The bags were carried up to the gun decks by the powder monkeys or boys. Even when the ship was not expecting action, several silk bags were filled and laid out in the ready racks, in case of an emergency.

Unfortunately the thin silk made the contents susceptible to damp and caking, so the bags had to be checked and repacked regularly.

When Ned and Tom worked in the magazine there was seldom any skylarking or light banter. The light from the single mesh-screened lantern was dim, and there was a cathedral hush. As the silk bags were passed up to him, Tom packed them carefully into the racks. They were firm and smooth to the touch. That would make a comfortable bunk, he thought. Suddenly he had a vision of Caroline stretched out on the silk bags, naked. He gave a low moan.

“What is it, Master Tom? Ned looked up at him quizzically.

“Nothing. I was just thinking “Leave the daydreaming to your twin. He’s good at it” Ned advised laconically.

“And you get on with the job That’s what you’re good at.” Tom went on packing in the bags, but now he was thinking furiously. The magazine was the only part of the ship that was deserted for ten days at a time, where a person could be alone, without fear of intrusion. It was just the place he had been trying so hard to find, so obvious that he had overlooked it. He glanced down at the keys that hung from Ned’s belt. There were half a dozen in the bunch: those for the magazine, the arms-lockers, the galley stores and the slop chest, as well as the magazine.

When they had finished, Tom was at Ned’s side when he secured the heavy oak door. He made a mental note of the key that turned the massive lock: it was quite distinctly shaped from the others on the bunch, with five tangs in the shape of a crown. He tried to think of a way to get his hands on the bunch, even for a few minutes, so that he could slip the one he wanted off the ring. But it was wasted effort:

generations of seamen before him had contemplated the similar problem of how to get the key to the store where the spirits, were kept.

That night he was lying on his pallet when the next idea occurred to him, so suddenly that he sat bolt upright: there must be more than one set of keys on board. If there were, he knew where they must be: in his father’s cabin. In the sea-chest under his bunk, or in one of the drawers of the desk, he thought. For the rest of that night he had little sleep. Even in his privileged position of the master’s eldest son aboard, he certainly could not make free with his father’s quarters, and Hal’s movements about the ship were unpredictable. There was never any time when his cabin was certain to be deserted. If he was not there, his steward was probably fussing with the bedclothes, or with Hal’s wardrobe. He discounted the idea of making an attempt after his father had retired to his bunk. Tom knew that he was a light sleeper, he had found that out the hard way. His father was not an easy man to bamboozle.

Over the next week, Tom considered, and discarded, a few other wildly impractical plans, such as climbing down the outside of the hull and entering through the stern gallery. He knew he would have to take a calculated risk, and wait until his father ordered a major change of sail.

Then both watches would be on deck, and his father would be fully engrossed above. Tom would conjure up some excuse to leave his post and hurry below.

The days went by swiftly, with the trades steady from the southeast and Seraph still set on the port tack. No change of sail was called for and there was no opportunity for Tom to put his plan into action.

Then the opportunity came to him in such a fortuitous all most superstitious unease. THe manner that Tom felt was squatting with the other men of his watch under the break of the forecastle, enjoying a rare few minutes of rest, when his father looked up from the compass binnacle and beckoned to him. Tom scrambled to his feet and ran to his father’s side.

“Run down to my cabin, there’s a good lad,” Hal told him.

“Look in the top drawer of my desk. You’ll find my black notebook there. Bring it to me.”

“Aye, sir.” For a moment Tom felt quite giddy, then raced for the head of the companionway.

“Tom, not so fast.” His father’s voice made him pause, his heart skipping. It had been too easy.

“If its not in the top drawer, it may be in one of the others.”

“Yes, Father.” Tom shot down the stairs.

The black notebook lay in the top drawer, exactly where his father had said it would, be. Quickly Tom tried the other drawers, dreading to find them locked, but they slid open readily enough, and he searched them quickly.

As he pulled open the last, he heard a heavy metal object clank and slide with the movement. Again his heart jumped.

The duplicate keys were tucked under a copy of the almanac and navigational tables. He lifted them out gingerly, and recognized the crown shape of the magazine key He glanced up at the closed cabin door, and listened for footsteps before committing himself. Then he unscrewed the ring, slipped the key from it, thrust it into his pocket, closed the hasp of the ring, laid the depleted bunch back in the drawer and covered it with the almanac.

As he ran back on deck the key seemed as heavy in his pocket as a round shot. He had to find a hiding-place for it. The chances were that his father would not discover the theft, not unless the original was lost or mislaid. That was highly unlikely but, still, it was dangerous to carry his prize on his person.

That night he woke as usual when the ship’s bell sounded the beginning of the middle watch at midnight.

He waited for another hour then rose silently from his pallet.