Kyril Bonfiglioli
All the Tea in China
For Rubincrantz and Rosenstern — two princes with a Hamlet
“Cui dono lepidum novum libellum Arido modo pumice expolitum?”
I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hug before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.
A Bloody Foretaste
I had been frightened many times since I started my sea-voyage but always by the rage of winds and waters, dangers I could not properly comprehend and which I could do nothing about. Moreover, the Captain and the ship’s company clearly could comprehend and partly govern them, so even when I was most terrified I had some comfort and knew that I was not alone.
This, now, was different. I was very much alone. Never before had I seen, glaring from the eyes of another man, the clear intention to kill me and the certain knowledge that he could. There is no lonelier terror.
The belaying-pin — fourteen inches of greenheart — whirred past my ear and ripped through the mizzen course with a noise like a pistol-shot. Lubbock moved along the rail, his eyes fastened on me, his hand feeling for another pin.
The Captain’s voice rasped from the poop: “Fined one shilling for damage to sails, Mister Mate, and eightpence for wantonly losing one belaying-pin overboard.”
Utterly taken aback, Lubbock stared over my head at the quarter-deck. For my part, I kept my eyes on Lubbock. The end of my life was very close: I could not afford to lose one halfpennyworth of advantage.
The Mate’s jaw was open; his eyes glared dully at the Captain.
“Aye aye, Sir,” he said thickly, “I’ll pay presently but first I’m about to kill this little Dutchie yid, by the Holy I am!”
“You’ll do no such thing, Mister,” snapped the Captain. “Mr Van Cleef, whatever his race, is a supernumerary officer: if you do him a mischief I swear you shall stand trial for murder.”
“But he called me a cowardly bastard!”
“He will apologise, will you not, Mr Van Cleef? You spoke in haste, I dare say?”
I knew that if I stood down now I would lose all standing and be unable to protect my young friend.
“No Sir, I shall not apologise,” I said, “for he is no other than what I called him.”
“Then Mr Lubbock has a remedy open to him. A gentlemanly one.” There was a sneer in his voice.
“Stand there then,” bawled Lubbock, “while I fetch a pair of barkers — I’ll see daylight through your guts in three minutes!”
“No, damme, you shan’t,” cried the Captain. “I’ll have no pistol-popping in this bucket, it’s too killing and too chancy. Mr Lord Stevenage, take the key, serve out two cutlasses and see that they be of a length.”
Peter Stevenage walked unhappily to the main-mast and unlocked the chain which ran through the guards of the glittering skirt of cutlasses and boarding-pikes at its base.
This was “all to the gravy” for me, an unexpected hope. I had been Dux of my school at single-sticks and, although Lubbock was big and strong, his arms were short: I had the reach, the speed and the skill. He would, I felt sure, rely on smashing through my guard and I knew how to deal with that sort of play.
“Canvas frocks and hats!” ordered the Captain, and these stout garments, commonly used for tarring or going aloft in the very wildest weather, were brought. My frock proved to be stiff with tar — another small point to me. I worked the right shoulder free as I felt the edge of my cutlass. It was keen.
“Mind now,” the Captain shouted again, “it’s first blood only; no hacking after. The instant claret is tapped you’ll lay your arms on the deck!” Ostentatiously he drew out a little Bulldog pistol and cocked it.
“Ready? Begin!” he cried.
I fumbled my sword as though I had never handled anything of the sort and the Mate, grinning like a shark, rushed in with a great smash at my head, which I met with the high St George’s guard. The force of his blow made my very shoulder tingle and despite my parry his blade dented the crown of my canvas hat. I looked as stupid as I could and as frightened as, indeed, I was. His next attack was a slow, clumsy molinello, commencing with a feint at my side under the sword-arm, another at my head which carried no conviction at all and finishing with a slice at my breast. I performed a salto in dietro — the elegant leap backwards — at the latest possible moment and he missed by a foot; then I pretended to stumble and, as he rushed in to destroy me, dropped into the long Italian lunge, knuckles on the deck. He ran straight into it and, instantly, the front of his frock was a terrifying mess of blood.
“Swords down!” roared the Captain — needlessly, because Lubbock’s had clattered to the deck and mine had been wrenched out of my hand by his collapsing body.
“Fined ten shillings, Mr Van Cleef,” yelled the Captain, “for fouling the decks! Bosun, get that mess swabbed up; the watch is idling! Doctor, is the First Mate alive?”
The cook strode up and peeled off the blood-drenched frock and shirt. A great, slippery flap of flesh fell free. My blade had passed outside his ribs, sawing off a pound or two of muscle and fat. The “doctor” looked up.
“Yazzuh, he alive. He good as new two, three weeks.”
“Weeks?” shrieked the Captain.
“Yazzuh. ’Less it foosters up, then maybe ten weeks, or maybe die.”
The Captain breathed hard for a full minute.
“Fined two guineas, Mr Van Cleef. Interfering with the working of the ship.”
“Aye aye, Sir,” I said.
As they carried Lubbock below to the cook’s kindly needle and thread, the rest of the watch was already swabbing and holy-stoning his blood from the snow-white deck. It seemed to me that they were, for once, smiling as they worked.
I have told you, my heirs-expectant, this ugly little episode to whet your appetites, for I know how you love to dwell on scenes of carnage; I have seen you snatch at the newspaper for reports of the latest slaughters between Boers and British and I recall how, even as children, you doted on the frightfulnesses of Grimm’s so-called fairy-tales, tales which it shocked me to hear your mother reading to you.
Before I regale you more, however, with blood-curdling accounts of peril upon the high sea, I must write the first part of my tale, which is how a young and headstrong Dutch Jew — yes, me, the grandfather you profess to love so well and whose health you watch so narrowly — ran away from his native land and had adventures in the great city of London; adventures quite as thrilling and, to the sensible mind, far more instructive. I speak, of course, about a time some sixty years ago, when our portly, disapproving little Victoria was a beautiful young girl, not yet married to her half-bred German prig; a time when London was gay and wicked — before the man Albert laid his cold, dead hand upon English manners and taste.
If you cannot profit from this relation of my early adventures in London, then you are all unfit to traffic in the porcelains, the tapestries and the paintings for which our House is famous — our House which you may or may not inherit on my death. I am sure I make myself clear …
