The Vanishing Island (12 page)

“A
vanishing island,” said Bren, almost to himself.

“I'm sure your culture has a fable about such a place,” said the admiral. “Most do.”

“It's called Fortune,” said Bren, instinctively touching his stone necklace. Suddenly every childish desire he'd had for Fortune to be real—every wish for his mother to be there, somehow, waiting for him to find her—scratched its way to the surface. It took all the strength he had to push them back down. This was real; he had to think like a grown-up.

“But . . . wouldn't the Dutch Bicycle and Tulip Company have found this place by now? After exploring the East for a hundred and fifty years?”

Admiral Bowman laughed.

“Consider how vast the oceans are,” he said, waving a hand over the map where Mr. Tybert was charting their course. “Calculate the square miles that occupy the open sea, beyond our shipping lanes. There must be thousands and thousands of islands no man has set eye or foot upon. Erase it from a map and it's as good as waving a magic wand to make it disappear.”

“I have seen places disappear from maps,” said Bren. “Places that proved to have been invented by explorers seeking fame for discovering a new island or kingdom. But why stop mapping a place that's real?”

“I can think of any number of reasons,” said the admiral. “You've found something too good to share, for instance. We've done it ourselves. There are maps in the vaults of Amsterdam filled with secret knowledge. But in this case, the story is quite different.”

Bowman went back to his desk and sat down. Mr. Richter continued to stew himself in whisky.

“Marco Polo had the great good fortune to travel through the Middle East and China when those societies were open to the world. Then the Moslems conquered the Holy Land and Byzantium, effectively sealing off East from
West by land. China took even more drastic steps. After Kublai Khan, they completely shut themselves off from the world, from the contamination of other cultures and religions. They destroyed all evidence that there was a world beyond the Forbidden Empire.”

Bren looked from the admiral to the blank sheet of parchment.

“So you see why I am keenly interested in your mapmaking skills?”

Bren nodded, and he took the pen from the inkwell. It took him maybe half an hour to carefully duplicate the hidden image from memory. There were only three pairs of symbols, but each comprised several brush strokes, and the admiral was right—even slight differences could alter meanings greatly. Plus the rocking of the ship didn't help.

When he was done, Bren handed the parchment to Admiral Bowman, satisfied that he'd gotten it right. At least, he would have been satisfied if he'd been drawing the images for Mr. Black. But as the admiral stood there staring at it for what seemed like forever, a beetle of doubt began to creep up Bren's arm.

Finally Bowman set the drawing down and pointed to each image in turn: “The plowman, the cloud maiden, and the silver river.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That's what these three symbols mean,” said the
admiral. “If my translation is correct. But I have been studying the language for many years now.”

“So that's what they say,” said Bren. “But what do they
mean
?”

The admiral smiled. “You're a clever boy, aren't you? Are you very good at puzzles?”

Bren didn't answer right away, afraid the question was a test of sorts.

“Come with me,” said the admiral. “Mr. Richter, hold down the sofa, will you?”

To Bren's surprise, the admiral opened a hatch hidden next to his desk and invited Bren to climb down.

“My personal cabin,” he said, closing the hatch after them. “Saves me time going back and forth, and of course I can hear if someone goes into the chart room without my permission.”

The cabin was surprisingly small and bare, and like most of the spaces belowdecks, it glowed with paddy lamps—glass jars of seaweed that gave off light when kept in seawater. The admiral lit a proper lantern and pulled a locked wooden box from beneath his cot, opening it with a key that he kept around his neck. He lifted the lid and motioned for Bren to come closer.

It was filled with books! Strange and old-looking books, the kind that would have made Mr. Black's eyebrows race each other to the middle of his bald head. The admiral
pulled out one beautifully decorated volume, bound in dark green leather with silver inlay that read
Shih-Ching
.

“My finest acquisition,” said the admiral. “
The Book of Songs
. The only known record of ancient China, written before the birth of Christ. The text was buried in the tomb of the emperor who commissioned it, so that it survived beneath the earth when the Emperor Chin burned all records of the old dynasties. Go on, I know you want to look.”

Bren took the book and sat down. The book had been translated into Dutch, and though he could speak and understand Dutch better than he could read it, there was still something magical just knowing that what lay in his hands was a glimpse into the world's most secretive culture. Even for the Dutch, with all their colonies in Southeast Asia, China was little more than a vast, unknowable blank on the map.

“How did a Netherlander end up with this?”

“A lowly clerk at one of our trading stations,” said the admiral, “around the turn of the century, when the company briefly had a post on Hong Kong. He forged a friendship, quite illegally, mind you, with a Chinese woman who smuggled him books. Among them was a lacquer box, filled with strips of bamboo, upon which were written this secret history.”

Bren peered down into the open locker to see what else
was in there, but the admiral slowly closed the lid.

“The book records some of the earliest Chinese folktales, including one called ‘The Cloud Maiden and the Plowman.'”

Bren looked up. He could tell he and the admiral were thinking the same thing: it couldn't be a coincidence. “You think the tale will help us figure out the map?”

“I hope so,” said the admiral. “And I have a feeling you can help. I like to think I have an eye for talent.”

“I'll try,” said Bren.

“Good. You can study the book in the chart room. But I can't make it look as if I'm coddling you. You'll have to make yourself useful. Mr. Graham will see to that.”

Mr. Graham turned out to be Sean, the bosun, the officer in charge of crew and equipment—and the one who had helped Bren up when he first came out of the brig and fell down on the deck. He was not much older than Bren, maybe twenty or so, with a round face and a swatch of red hair on top of his head.

“You're not Dutch,” said Bren, somewhat surprised.

“My mother will be glad to know it,” said Sean, his Eirish accent pronounced. “There are a few of us aboard every company ship. Although the Netherlanders make us swear a blood oath.” He whipped out a knife the size of a dagger as he said this, and Bren's eyes nearly fell out of his
head. Sean laughed and used the knife to slice the string around a bundle of clothes. “Hope your favorite color is grey.”

He handed Bren a pair of rough grey wool trousers and a scratchy grey wool shirt. Sean wore the same shirt but black trousers, like the other officers. He also gave Bren a small foot locker, a blanket, a pillow, and a tin cup.

“Let's find you a bunk.”

The ordinary seamen, called hobs, all slept in the middle of the ship, in hammocks hung between wooden partitions. The officers had private cabins in the caboose, beneath the quarterdeck at the rear of the ship. Skilled crew like the carpenter, the cook, and the navigator all slept in the forecastle, at the front of the ship. The ship's surgeon, Mr. Leiden, lived alone on the orlop deck, because no one trusted a man with bone saws.

“On a company ship like ours, the most important part is the hold. That's why the decks are a bit narrow,” said Sean, drawing the shape of a pear with his hands. “The ship is designed to maximize storage space.” He found an empty berth and helped Bren string his hammock, then took him up one level to the storage deck. “This is where we keep supplies like extra canvas, rope, spars, and our small guns. Mr. Leiden's cabin is aft, and fore is the galley, the daily ration room, and the crew's saloon. You'll take your meals and your daily jenny there.”

“Jenny?” said Bren.

“Jenever,” said Sean. “A drink the Dutch make from juniper berries. Clear as water, but it's a tommyknocker.”

“I don't drink spirits,” said Bren.

“That will change,” said Sean. “Now get dressed and meet me on deck. Oh, and speak Dutch if you can; learn it if you can't.”

“Wait,” said Bren. “What about . . . when I need to . . .”

“Shake the potatoes dry?” said Sean, laughing. “For you, front of the ship, on the goblin deck. Where you sleep,” he explained, when he saw Bren's confusion. “That's what hob is short for—hobgoblin. On account of how crew are like a gang of dwarves living underground, doing hard labor.”

After that unwelcome comparison Bren went below to relieve himself, but when he found the privies he almost changed his mind. It was just a hole that emptied into the sea—a hole almost big enough for a spindly boy to fall through.

On deck Sean was waiting for him in the middle of the ship, his hand resting against the mainmast. “You've heard the phrase ‘learn the ropes'?” he said. “Well, here's your chance.”

Bren was excited at first. One of his favorite adventure books was about a ship's boy forced to take control of a
ship after the captain and other officers died mysteriously, with only a pig as his first mate. Bren needed to know how a ship worked inside and out if he ever hoped to duplicate Bowman's feat of rising from stowaway to admiral.

After a brief but confusing recitation of masts, sails, booms, spars, and jibs, the rest of Bren's first day in uniform was spent doing physical labor that dwarfed anything he had ever done before. He spent an hour trying to assemble and disassemble something called a block and tackle, a pulley machine for lifting cargo. Another hour or so was spent on his hands and knees, holystoning the deck. This involved using a piece of sandstone to scour the deck clean and remove splinters. It turned out that sails, which looked like bedsheets when billowing in the wind, were actually made of thick canvas and weighed several hundred pounds each. Adjusting or untangling them—to say nothing of replacing a sail entirely—required a small army of men. The first time Bren grabbed one of the ropes that worked the sails, he was almost yanked off the deck.

His greenness didn't go without notice.

“Look up there, boy,” came a Dutch voice, speaking English, as Bren was struggling with the corner of a large sail. He turned around to find a hob with dark eyes and deep scars on both sides of his face hovering over him.

“In time you'll have to learn to haul in sails a hundred feet in the air,” said the man, pointing to the top of the
towering mainmast. “And with the ship heaving and tossing on the waves, like a bucking horse. You think you can handle that? Because if you can't, those ropes won't catch you if you fall. And whether you hit the deck or the water from that high up, the result is the same.”

The man clapped his hands together so hard Bren jumped. He was too scared to speak.

“Mr. Bruun, that's enough,” said Sean, strolling up to them. “We were all Johnnies once.”

The man growled and walked off, but not without giving Bren a look that told him he'd better learn fast or the crew would eat him alive.

“Don't mind Otto,” said Sean. “Come on, I've got something a bit easier for you to do.”

“There's more?” said Bren.

“Just getting started, little brother.”

Fortunately for Bren, his next chore involved sitting down. Sean gave him a rope and a chart of all the boating knots he needed to learn. The chart showed forty-eight different knots, and Bren began to wonder if he was being hazed. These couldn't all be real, could they? Sheepshank, cleat hitch halyard, carrick bend, pile hitch, pig knuckle, goose neck, oxbow, triple axel, horcrux, four-in-hand . . . how long would
this
take?

“It's like lacing your boots,” said Mouse, startling Bren, who had never heard the boy talk. It was strange hearing a
Germanic language coming from an Eastern face. He took the rope from Bren and quickly tied and untied four or five different knots.

“I only lace my boots one way,” said Bren. He looked at the chart. “Four-in-hand, I think.”

A pair of hobs walked by. “Mouse, what are you talking to him for?” said one. “He ain't got fur nor feathers.” They walked on, laughing.

“What was that about?” said Bren.

“Nothing,” said Mouse.

The signal bell began to ring.

“First mess,” said Mouse, who stood up and gave the rope back to Bren.

Everything on a ship was done in shifts, called watches, including meals. Each man was assigned to a “mess,” and Bren could hardly wait for his turn at dinner. All of the twenty or so men in Bren's mess gathered around one long wooden table in the saloon, and what followed reminded Bren of old Mr. Pitken feeding his hounds—growling men converging on everything Cook put in front of them. Except they smelled worse than Mr. Pitken's hounds.

When Bren finally got a plate, he almost lost his appetite, despite how hungry he was. There were fatty sausages called
porknokker
, served with sauerkraut and rye bread with a lard spread called smear. Legume pottage turned out to be a flavorless mush of beans, and the thing Bren was
most looking forward to—the wheels of Gouda and Edam cheese—were gone before he could get at them.

It was only when he was three or four bites into his pottage that Bren realized it was crawling with weevils. The older hobs laughed at Bren when they saw his disgust.