Tommo & Hawk (16 page)

Tommo has spent all his gambling winnings on medicines for my back and for the Maori. This is mostly sulphur ointment and cheap enough ashore, though Tommo has been made to pay almost as much money as a whaleman would receive in wages after a successful two-year voyage. It is beyond all reckoning for the cost of medicines. Captain O'Hara has extorted this payment as further punishment and I have begged Tommo not to purchase the ointment, thinking we will heal as fast without it. But he will not hear of it.

'If I spends all I has it's in the best cause,' he replies and then grins. 'The lashes came hard, the winnings was easy.'

Our ship is sailing towards New Zealand waters from our position south of the Cook Islands. Captain O'Hara seeks a new first mate, or if not a first, then a new mate with experience, who has led a whaleboat crew.

There has been a robust migration of free settlers to the New Zealand shores, though not too many decent folk are among them. Even the missionaries are more concerned with buying up the land than preaching God's word. The Europeans are largely from New South Wales, including escaped convicts and a great many ex-convict deserters from ships. It is estimated that there are three thousand of the latter scattered throughout the islands of the Pacific Ocean and half a thousand again in New Zealand. It's said that they have heard 'the wail of the wahine' and their bastard half-caste children may be seen on every island where there is a native tribe. This new generation is strong too, for they seem to be immune to the white man's diseases which now play havoc amongst the kanakas.

These new settlers have brought with them the European diseases of influenza, measles, small pox, venereal pox and consumption as well as other maladies. Measles has killed tens of thousands of islanders and as many again of the Maori. For every half-caste and white child born in New Zealand, ten Maori children have perished. This much I have learned from my reading.

It is amongst this motley crew that O'Hara hopes to find the man he needs. And so we sail to the whaling settlement of Kororareka in the Bay of Islands, a town long known as a centre of infamy and drunkenness, where at least three hundred whalemen reside.

The men are much excited about leave ashore, for they hope to encounter the 'dark, restless-eyed woman' as the Maori wahine is known amongst sailors. I cannot say that such a prospect does not excite me also, for I'm a man and so by nature weak of flesh. I have not yet taken a woman to my bed. I can only hope that the lighter, brown-skinned Maori will not see me as a nigger and despise me for the colour of my skin.

Six months have passed since we left Hobart Town and it will be good to feel land under our feet again. All the same, I would think O'Hara much better advised to sail on across the Tasman Sea to Australia, where he would more easily find a mate to suit his needs and meet our needs as well. Tommo and I intend to jump ship in Sydney or some other civilised port at the first opportunity.

We have grown weary of life at sea. Although it has provided me with a great adventure, this has been offset by a catastrophe and a brutal punishment which I did not deserve,

In truth, whaling is mostly an adventure to speak about at a later time, in the comfort of a warm parlour or in the company of men at an ale house. Mostly it is endless days of great tedium and repetition, with the hunting of the whale a rare interlude that we have encountered only once these six months.

We spent Christmas aboard the ship, a hot, sultry day with little wind. There was naught to mark it as a special day, save an hour-long sermon from the captain. Our rations were unchanged, salt beef and longlick, with not even a fish from Tommo to add to our repast, his efforts that day being unsuccessful and much curtailed by the captain's prayers.

For the Maori and islander crew, Christmas was a day as any other. But for me, it was a time of homesickness. Though Tommo and I are Jewish by birth, still Christmas was always observed in our family because of Mary, who made an occasion for yet another roast dinner. My thoughts turned time and again to our mama, home without her boys. I wondered if she had spread her white tablecloth out - probably not, she doesn't like to fuss over herself. Tommo was no comfort either that day. It being Christmas, the crew are merry enough and it is a grand opportunity for a game of cards in the fo'c'sle. Tommo does not share my sentiments, as there was no Christmas for him in the wilderness. When I came to sit with him at cards, the look he gave me made me feel more his keeper than his twin.

I am not yet fully convinced that Tommo has forsworn the demon grog. My hope is that his enforced abstinence may prove permanent and will rob him of the will to gamble, for grog and cards go hand in glove. With the one practised, the other must surely follow as night follows day.

The infamous settlement of Kororareka is just the place to test Tommo's resolve and I am ashamed to say I have great misgivings. I'm not at all sure that Tommo does not try to gull me with his claims that his need for ardent spirits has been quenched and that he will forsake gambling when we come ashore. He plays cards at every opportunity, now saying it is money for the medicine we need to cure our backs. He still wins too often for my comfort and each day I fear the men will flush him out in his use of relocation. But when I warn him he merely laughs.

'I ain't gunna relocate with these partners - they all be plough boys and dockside scum before they comes to whaling, half-wits and duffers! You insults me natural talents, Hawk, to say I relocate with them lot.'

Relocation was a favourite expression of Ikey Solomon's. In the beginning, Tommo's skill with cards came from Ikey's assiduous training. He taught us when we were small brats how to palm a card and a host of other nefarious tricks, each of which he would refer to as, 'One of life's little essentials, my dears.'

The idea of these 'little essentials' was that if a man should find himself in Timbuktu, broke and knowing nothing of the people, language or society, he could, through their use, earn himself a plate of food, a roof for the night and an ounce of shag. Ikey's 'little essentials' were a means of survival until the morning.

Ikey placed dexterity with a pack of cards as the topmost of these 'essentials' even before reading and writing. 'Every man on earth will gamble if he be given half a chance. The deck o' cards may be found from Bombay to Peking, Samarkand to Sydney, Cairo to the Cape o' Good Hope and London to New York. Like the roach, the flea and the bed bug, they are universally to be found wherever men congregate. The flats be a universal language, my dears, known to every level of society and transcending every tongue that man doth babble.

'There are rules to be learned by observation and, once mastered, to be broken. In any game o' chance, as much of the chance as possible must be removed. And success in any card game may be assured by placing a card where no card is thought to be. Relocation, my dears, that is it in a nutshell. And the most important requirement for relocation be dexterity, nerve, courage and a nimble mind.'

'Relocation? You mean cheating!' I once ventured when he talked of this.

'Cheating? Did I hear you say cheating, my dear?'

I nodded.

'Cheating be something what's done by them what's stupid and quickly found out. Cheating is in the dark, it looks over its shoulder, it pads on tender feet. It is a sneak, a dark thing. Cheating is not for the likes of you two, my precious little gentlemen. Relocation is the word, the word of princes and kings. Cheating is for beggars and vagabonds.'

'But is it not another name for cheating, then?' I asked again.

'Most certainly and decidedly not!' Ikey replied. 'Nimble minds, nimble fingers that never tremble and a look what betrays not the slightest beating of the heart go into relocation. All the skills of relocation depend on it taking place in the open, in the broadest daylight, completely kosher, cards seen by all who play with you.'

Ikey grabbed a pack of cards and shuffled it in a blur, spreading it with a great flourish across the table, with every card in its right place and right colour. One to nine, ten, Jack, King, Queen, Ace of Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, Clubs and Jokers at the very end.

'Now that ain't possible!' he crowed. 'If a man should shuffle a deck a million times, and then a million more, it ain't possible for the cards to come out in the right colour, correct sequence and nomination. It ain't possible, but you've just seen it done, my dears. Right in front o' your very eyes, shuffled and spread, fair and square! That be the noble art of relocation.'

He pushed the cards together again and, in a flash, shuffled and spread them into a fan shape once more.

'What's missing, gentlemen?'

'The ten of all suits!' Tommo shouted gleefully.

'Very good!' Ikey said, pushing the deck together again. He shuffled and spread, and there were all the tens, sitting back in their rightful place.

'Now you see it, now you don't. But you don't know you don't see it, until it turns up in a flush or a straight where it's least expected.' Ikey scooped the cards into a deck and without looking he said, 'A Jack, is it? Snap!' Down went a Jack. 'Fancy a nine of hearts and diamonds to make a much-needed pair? Snip! Snap! Or an ace to make the trump? Snap!' Tommo and I stared open-mouthed as he laid down one card after the other, not even looking at the deck in his hand. 'What a lovely coincidence, don't you think, my dears?'

Then Ikey pointed a long finger at us, his eyes rolling. 'Never an extravagance, you understand. A royal flush or four of a kind be a most dangerous boastification. They must come naturally, by means of chance and skill, but never, you understand, by relocation. Winning at the flats must not be come at with a drum-roll, but with the timpani of fingernails on a velvet pad. Modesty of purpose, my dears, that be the golden rule. The card you need when you need it and sometimes, if the pot be a small one, a restraint even with the restraint already shown.

'The great knack of winning,' he continued, 'is to look as if at any moment you might lose. Touch the forehead with the finger tips, rub a little, sniff, click your tongue - but not too much. Nothing bolsters the courage of a punter more, or deadens the brain more effectively, than a little acted clumsiness and a downcast expression.

'Cards, my precious little gentlemen, will buy you food and shelter, a good cigar and a little companionship wherever you be on this mortal coil. Learn the flats well and they will be your friends forever.' Again he rolled his eyes and spread his long fingers. 'But one more caution. Never practise relocation when it ain't necessary. Relocation is a compliment to be paid only to those who be your equals in the game you play.'

From that moment on, Tommo took to the flats like they were an extension of his fingers. Even as a brat, he always carried a deck. He'd constantly finger the cards in his pockets, calling for me to name one and then producing it blind as though by some sort of magic. His skill astounded me for my hands were clumsy and my mind elsewhere, in books.

When we were kidnapped on the mountain, Tommo had in his pockets a deck of new cards that Ikey had given him for helping at the races. He later told me that without them he could not have survived, for Ikey was right - the gambler is to be found in every man, whether nabob or wood cutter. Even the damage done to his hands didn't stop him.

Ikey had been most pleased with Tommo's talents as a little lad. There was only one other his age who could match him, he said, a boy in London by name of Sparrer Fart, also trained by Ikey in his Methodist Academy of Light Fingers.

'Sparrer Fart, if he should be here, would be too good even for you, Tommo, my dear. You must work harder to beat the Splendour of the Sparrer!'

And that, I think, is part of the trouble. Even in the wilderness, after losing all that you could call his life, Tommo took with him Ikey's challenge. Whenever it was bleak for him, which seems by all accounts to have been most of the time, he would seek the comfort of the cards. 'I'm gunna beat the Splendour of the Sparrer,' he would say to himself. This he has done. But his astonishing skill has brought with it a life that will destroy him.

Since Captain O'Hara's flogging, we have grown even closer to the Maori crew. Tommo, who is more clever than he knows, has begun to speak their language, and I to understand it. Hammerhead Jack confounds us all with the speed of his recovery and with Tommo feeding him fresh fish, he grows stronger every day. Tommo has been catching much tuna lately and Jack eats it raw, taken with a little salt and molasses which we save for him from our rations.

My back is healing well, though I never thought that I should learn to sleep on my stomach. As my wounds begin to bind, I often wake with a great itching to find a hundred cockroaches grazing upon the scabs like contented cows. At first, this disgusted me to the point of crying out. But Billy Lanney, who is an expert on matters of the lash, bade me be patient and led me to understand that these vile vermin do much good. Like the maggots in Hammerhead Jack's suppurating arm and eye, they keep the wounds clean.

We've learned that Hammerhead Jack is of the Ngati Haua tribe, though his hero is Hone Heke, leader of the Nga Puhi. Jack tells me that Hone Heke was the fiercest of warriors and also the first chief to sign the Treaty of Waitangi which recognised the sovereignty of Queen Victoria over the Land of the Long White Cloud, or Aotorea as the Maori call their country. Though Hammerhead Jack is too low-born to be a chief himself, he is most intelligent and a natural leader of men.

Hammerhead Jack has taken to walking about the deck again and the whalemen, whoever they be, kanaka, white man or nigger, have a new respect for the one-armed giant. His missing right eye makes him most formidable in appearance, so that grown men stand aside as he passes by.

If Captain O'Hara should happen along, then Hammerhead Jack will grin his big white smile, and be as pleasant as can be imagined in his greeting. But his smile does not soothe the Quaker master, who growls and scowls and sometimes, if he is close by, spits over the ship's rails. Never does he return the Maori's salutations.