The way I had phrased my remark about having been taught prudence was tentatively Freemasonic. Guardedly, he asked me another question. I breathed a sigh of relief to the Great Architect and answered, translating freely from the Dutch. He sent his wife out of the cabin and invited me to share a certain word with him. I demurely suggested he begin, as I had been taught, and we lettered-and-halved it. He did not like my Dutch version of the last letter, so I wrote it down on the corner of a scrap of paper. This satisfied him, especially when I tore off the scrap of paper on which I had written and swallowed it. This made him a little benign, although no less severe, and it soon became evident that he had made great progress in certain things and had passed under a certain architectural feature whilst I, because of my youth, had still to make my Mark. I hope I make myself clear but if I do not it is of no possible interest to you.
He drank some more of his nasty drink, patted his beard dry with a great pocket-handkerchief and gazed at me sternly and a little benignly.
“Well, now, young Lewis,” he said (if you are good grandchildren you will one day understand why he called me that), “I daresay you wish to look over my ship?”
“Do you think I should, Sir? I know nothing of ships,” I answered diffidently.
“Then learn, Sir, learn! Mr Mate! Pray give my compliments to the Third Officer and say that I should esteem it a courtesy if he could spare the time to wait upon me at some time during this watch.” I could hear the First Mate bellowing incomprehensibly dirty words from the quarter-deck, none of which seemed to echo the sardonic civilities of the Captain.
“My first mate,” said Captain Knatchbull almost apologetically, “is invaluable. He is, as you have seen, or will see, a mere anthropoid ape who swings himself along on his knuckles, but there is none like him for coaxing a recalcitrant watch aloft to shorten sail on a black and stormy night. His principle is that the men should be more afraid of him than of death; it seems to serve well, for the men are even less intelligent than him and are good Christians every one: they have to attest to this before signing Ship’s Articles.”
In the time that it took him to say this, the Third Mate appeared in the cabin doorway, panting for breath and tugging at a last button on his tunic.
“Ah, Mr Lord Stevenage,” said the Captain with heavy and, as it seemed to me, over-stressed civility, “pray allow me to apologise for disturbing your doubtless well-earned repose.”
The Third Mate was a young and well-enough looking fellow, perhaps five years older than me but not so well set up and at first glance seeming older still because of the lines of dissipation or illness which marked his well-bred features.
“I was not asleep, Sir,” he replied stiffly; “you will recall that I am standing both anchor watches at call until we sail.”
“So you are,” said the Captain, “so you are, to be sure. Now, let me present Mr Van Cleef, who proposes to do us the honour of sailing with us as supernumerary officer; his appointment is that of, ah, let us say, Paymaster. I know that you will be glad to share your commodious cabin with him. His servant shall sling his hammock in the disused pantry next along. Perhaps now you will favour me by showing Mr Van Cleef over and around the ship.”
The young officer opened his mouth then closed it again.
“Thankyou Mr Lord Stevenage,” said the Captain. “That will be all.”
Outside the cabin we looked at each other with entirely straight faces, silently challenging each other to display an emotion. One of us wanted to laugh, the other to curse; neither of us was sure which was which. Perhaps both for both things, I do not know now, it was long ago.
“Follow me, if you please,” he said at last. We went down the gangplank and onto the dock. I flicked an eye in the direction of Dirty Annie’s. His eye, too, flicked there momentarily but he was on duty, you understand, and British. Moreover, the Captain could have seen us through the scuttle.
“Mr Lord Stevenage,” I began.
“I say,” he said, “look, my name is Lord Peter Stevenage; it amuses the captain to address me in the droll way you have heard but I’m afraid I don’t much care about it. In front of him or the other officers you’d better call me Mister Stevenage; in private you may call me what you will.”
I looked at him. He had many pimples but in all other respects his face was frank and open, despite the marks of dissipation.
“Peter?” I said, diffidently.
“That will do very well,” he said, suddenly smiling in the most engaging way. “And what am I to call you?”
“It is some while since anyone called me Karli,” I said.
“Then Karli it shall be. Now, to our task. I have brought you onto the dock so that you may see our little ship from the outside.”
It looked an enormous ship to me but I had no experience of such things in those days. In fact it looked like a man-of-war, for there was a long line of gunports down its side.
“Yes,” he said following my gaze, “my father had her built almost like a Royal Navy corvette by old List of Wootton Creek, near Cowes, for in those days the Royal Yacht Squadron was an auxiliary fighting force. Indeed, the John Coram — although that was not her name then — fought well at Navarino in 1827. She mounted a broadside of eleven guns as well as a long brass piece amidships but now half of the ports are empty and rigged for sweeps.”
“Sweeps?”
“Long oars. Damn’ useful if you’re becalmed and drifting, especially if there’s a lorcha full of pirates about to swarm over you.”
“Ah, yes,” I said, my stomach jerking uneasily. “And your father …?”
“Had her built, yes. I lost her at cards. Now, you’d better pay attention, for the Captain may quiz you about her. She’s the only ship-rigged vessel in the opium trade; the rest are brigs and schooners and a couple of barquentines. She’s of 330 tons burthen but has little cargo-space: opium takes up very little room and, homeward bound, we carry nothing but a specie-room full of silver and a few chops of the new teas if we’re in Canton River at the right time.
“That is why, d’you see, the officers’ and crew’s quarters are so ah, commodious.” There was a note of bitterness in his voice.
“I am sorry,” I said, “that I have been foisted upon you.”
“Oh, damme, that’s all right. Glad of your company. D’you snore much?”
“I do not think so.”
“Oh, good. Now, pray observe the lines of the ship.” For quite five minutes he described and rhapsodised about the ship’s shape, using rare and wonderful words which at that time meant nothing whatever to me. “You see that, I’m sure?” he finished.
“Yes,” I said. “Or at least, I think I remember most of what you have said so far.” He made that engaging smile again.
“That’s the spirit. When we’re at sea I shall point out other, coarser vessels to you and you will understand when you compare them with what you are looking at now, from here.”
He paused for two or three minutes while I dutifully etched the image of the John Coram onto my mind’s eye — not a difficult task for one who had already learned to memorise some two hundred cryptic marks on Delft and porcelain.
“Now,” he went on, “notice her breadth of beam: this allows her to carry a great press of canvas — and her heavy armament, which you may be glad of when we find ourselves amongst the lorchas of Hok-keen and the Ladrones.”