The Captain listened with a face difficult to read whilst I made my case against the exploitation of his sailor-folk. My eloquence was, I need not say, marred from time to time by the fleeting apparition of Blanche across the half-opened door. When I had finished he sat for some minutes with his bearded chin sunk upon his breast. I waited respectfully, hoping that he had not fallen asleep. At last he broke silence, gave judgment.
“No piss-quick, Mr Van Cleef,” he said, “that’s an indulgence I only allow myself in port. But you’ll take a glass of schnapps with me.” It was not a question. The schnapps was good and fiery, fiery.
“Now, Mr Van Cleef,” he said, “in the ordinary way I would rebuke you for bringing into question the running of the ship, every particle of which is my responsibility and under my ceaseless surveillance. Every splinter and thread of it. Nothing escapes me.”
“Aye aye, Sir,” I replied stoutly, wondering whether his words or my sailor-like response were the more absurd.
“On the other hand,” he went on, tucking his hands behind the tails of his coat and commencing to pace both up and down the stateroom, “on the other hand you have, as an officer, an obligation, nay a duty, to bring to my attention any venalities and tergiversations on the part of your subordinates, have you not?”
“Aye aye, Sir,” I said, but his glare told me that this was, for once, the wrong thing to say. I tried “Indeed, Sir”, which seemed more palatable.
“You will therefore ascertain from the comprador,” he went on, resuming his pacing, “the exact cost price of all articles in the slop-chest. From this you will deduct ten per centum, which will be pretty well the extent to which the comprador will have lied to you.” He seemed splendidly unaware of the comprador’s presence at that very moment, refilling our schnapps glasses. “You will then add twenty per centum to the corrected cost-figure to allow for spoilage and handling and so forth. This will be the price at which the ship’s people will buy the goods. Is that clear?” Blanche’s charming form was passing and re-passing the half-opened door to the sleeping cabin; she seemed to be clad in black stockings and a petticoat of pale-green gossamer. A phrase sprang usefully to mind.
“Abundantly, Sir,” I said.
The wind remained foul and there was much to do, so we tarried another while in the bay or bight of Sandown. It rained very much as it always does near that Isle when the wind comes from the southwest. The common sailor-folk were too busy to be allowed to go ashore — indeed, they were still recovering from having been ashore before joining the ship — but we officers were told that we might take a quarter-boat to Bonchurch. Lubbock and the Second and Lord Stevenage were eager to sample the delights of the little town; I hung back, offering to look after the ship in their absence. My deeper, chivalrous reason was the thought that the Captain, too, might go ashore, leaving Blanche unprotected except for me. In the event, it was Blanche who, at the last moment, decided on a jaunt to the shore, leaving me alone with Captain Knatchbull. I strode the deck moodily, gazing at the feeble lights of land and wondering when next I would have such another opportunity to throw away. Orace found me and gave me “the Captain’s compliments and he’d esteem it a favour if you’d sup with him and play after.”
“Play after?” I asked, concealing my terror.
“Sir, yes Sir, those were his very words. He will have meant a game of chance or skill, will he not, Sir?”
“To be sure,” I said. “To be sure.”
Supper was simple but wholesome: only some ham, some pressed silverside of beef, half of a handsome game-pie, a salad of warm, vinegary slices of potatoes and watercress, a savoury morsel of toast with a strange thing upon it which looked like a cat’s turd but tasted delicious, and some of the wonderfully smelly Stilton cheese which I had learned to love. I ate well; the Captain beamed upon me.
“You play backgammon, of course?” he said. I was at a loss and mumbled that I had never heard of it but was keen to learn. When the Chinese boy brought the board in I recognised it instantly: it was the game which we call tric-trac in the Netherlands, every idle, shiftless, loafing wastrel plays it incessantly in our taverns. I was very good at it indeed, as you can imagine.
“Sir,” I said, “I now realise that I know this game a little, it was the English name which confused me.”
“Good,” he said, eying me narrowly, “I was beginning to fear that you were one of those fellows who ask to be taught a game then, having won because of the indulgence of their opponent, puts his success down to ‘beginner’s luck’ while he pockets the guineas.”
I drew myself up angrily. “Sir!” I said, for he had described the behaviour of a schnorrer, “Sir, I shall not …” He raised a hand and spoke in the friendliest fashion.
“Calm yourself, young man, I spoke provocatively to unsettle your nerves, so that you would play badly, which makes me as venal as I thought you, does it not?” I knew not what to say. “Moreover, Mr Van Cleef, pray remember that no officer may challenge the master of a ship on a point of honour — if that were permitted promotion would be too rapid and too chancy.” He laughed shrilly, as though at some memory, then collected himself. “Perhaps,” he added, soberly and, it seemed to me a little slyly, “I also made that last remark to add to your confusion, eh? Eh?”
Confused I was, and angry, but my head was clear enough to decide that it would be prudent to let the Captain win. The stakes he named were trifling, you see, and it seemed to me clear that he loved to win, since he prepared the ground so thoroughly. This art of winning games without cheating will one day be erected into a science, depend upon it. To the English, bloody war is a game but a game is bloody war.
In the event I had no need to let him win: the dice fell foul for me again and again, while for him they seemed anxious to please. Even he admitted that Lady Luck had smiled upon him and he agreed to doubling the small stakes so that my revenge might be sweetened. This next game, try as I might, I could not lose; everything fell right for me and he glared suspiciously at every clumsy move I made. I won. As a concession to my youth and poverty we had not been using the big doubling-die but now it was brought out.
From then on I fell upon evil times; try as I might I could make no headway against the cunning Captain and the malevolent dice. Every blot of mine was hit; I could re-enter not one of my stones from the bar; he blocked me, made primes again and again and, in the last game, shut me out utterly.